Tamer- King of Dinosaurs Book 6 Read online

  My swing wasn’t perfect because I held the weapon in my left hand, and the raptor was coming at Tom from my back-left and below me, but I did manage to connect the tip of my bat on his left shoulder. It was enough to cause his jump to go a bit off course, and combined with Tom’s juke to the right, ensured that the raptor missed him.

  The troodons were waiting.

  My tiger-stripped friends were about the size of golden retrievers. They couldn’t possibly have taken on an equal number of horse sized utahraptors, but they could manage one or two if I was able to help direct them. The problem was that I couldn’t really give them any instruction. I was too busy managing Tom and defending myself from the two remaining raptors on this side.

  Scoob, Shag, Fred, Velma, and Daphne were going to have to fight on their own.

  I swung back toward the big trike’s front and saw two utahraptors moving in to come at my big friend’s face. I was about to command him to twist his horns in their direction to impale them, but then I saw the tops of two black-feathered assholes on his other side make a similar movement. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liahpa swing her axe downward, but I couldn’t really see how many raptors she was dealing with at the moment.

  I was going to have to do something stupid.

  I made Tom twist his head right to take care of the fuckers on Liahpa’s side, and then I coiled my legs under my hips and pushed myself free of the saddle. As I traveled through the air, it felt like I’d actually left my stomach back in the seat, and my vision kind of spun as I descended toward the black-feathered raptor that was closest to me. My movement had actually surprised the ferocious dinosaur, and he hesitated for a moment before he attacked the angle behind Tom’s exposed crest.

  That one moment of hesitation was all I needed.

  I swung down with the Cricket Bat of Doom in time with my fall. The weapon’s spiky obsidian teeth tore into the beast’s right shoulder, and then my legs hit the sand. I felt the muscles in my quads, calves, and ass spasm as soon as I landed, but I momentarily relaxed the grip on the handle of my weapon, and turned the fall into a front roll that put me right under the belly of the fucker I’d just smashed.

  Unfortunately, my strike hadn’t taken him down.

  It had just pissed him off.

  He screeched, twisted his neck toward me, and then snapped at my face. My legs were still numb from when I had landed, but I managed to lean back and to the left as his jaws closed just a few inches above my right shoulder. His black feathers brushed across the skin of my chest and neck, and I flipped up the Cricket Bat of Doom in an effort to fend him off.

  My weapon leapt up in my hands thanks to my terrified nervous system’s twitching, and the edge of my weapon bit up and into the raptor’s chest. It screamed again, thrashed away from me, and then moved to bite my face off.

  Then my good buddy Tom came to my rescue.

  The trike was roaring like a train and bucking like a bronco, and he managed to dig his horns under the legs of the raptor like a bulldozer. Before the utahraptor could get his teeth into me, or escape Tom’s horns, the trike heaved his head up to the sky, and the raptor was flung through the air like a flicked quarter.

  Liahpa was somehow still holding onto Tom’s crest, but as I glanced up at her, I saw that she was trying to keep her soul ring axe up over her head so that it wouldn’t accidently slam into Tom’s back. The silver-skinned woman was clutching the trike’s crest with her left hand, and I guessed that her amazing strength was the only thing keeping her on his back and the blade of her axe out of his flesh.

  But I had my own problems.

  The utahraptor that Tom had flung was trying to wiggle back on to his feet, and the other two near me had decided that Tom was too hard to go after, so they had darted back and were now swinging around to my left so that they could come at me without the big trike getting in the way. I still had no idea how many utahraptors were left on Tom’s other side, but I took a quick glance behind me as I raised the Cricket Bat of Doom in my hands and saw that Scoob and the gang were keeping the single utahraptor occupied.

  The two raptors came at me at the same time, and I stepped forward so that I could swing my toothy weapon before they could snap at me. The few training sessions with Sheela paid off, and I somehow timed my step correctly, twisted my hips at the right time, and ripped the top half of the weapon across the faces of the two raptors as they dove at me. This was my first chance at really putting some muscle into my attack, and I kind of expected the Cricket Bat of Doom to just smash into the first utahraptor.

  I was a bit wrong.

  It could have been the sharpened flint rocks at the edges of the weapon, or maybe it was my strength. I didn’t know for sure, but the weapon tore through the face of the first utahraptor just like a chainsaw through a birthday cake. The weapon kept on moving after it diced the face off the first raptor, and then it buried itself into the skull of the second beast near the end of my swing.

  The first raptor must have died instantly, since it was now missing half of its face, skull, and jaw, but the second one was kinda still alive, and it reared back away from the agony that my attack inflicted on its face. The reflexive recoil was probably a bad idea, since I managed to hold on to the haft of my weapon, and the raptor’s flinch away from me just caused the teeth on the side of the Cricket Bat of Doom to tear open the side of the raptor’s maw.

  The beast screamed, and then it rolled away from me as the one that Tom had just flung away got back on his feet and charged.

  It was hard to know exactly how much each of these utahraptors weighed. My troodons and the balaur bondocs both looked to be about the same size, but the balaurs were loaded with muscle, and probably weighed about fifty percent more.

  It was possible that the utahraptors weighed less than a horse, but as the third one bore down on me, I couldn’t help but imagine that I was trying to fight a creature that probably could have stood toe to toe with a grizzly bear.

  All it really needed to do was fall on me, and I’d be crushed under its weight.

  I got the flat side of my weapon up as the black-feathered raptor dove at me. My block actually smacked the creature’s nose as it tried to snap at me, but its face still hit my Cricket Bat of Doom like a sledgehammer. I managed to keep my weapon up, but the shock vibrated through my hands, arms, back, and asshole like a cymbal crash, and I had to take a step back and dig my left boot into the sand to keep myself from toppling over.

  A moment before the raptor did so, I guessed it was going to try to leap on me, so I dove to my left, rolled on the sand, and then spun up to my feet. The action was somewhat of a bad strategy since it meant that Tom’s left side was exposed, but my only other option was getting eaten, and then I wouldn’t be able to keep everyone organized and fighting together.

  Fortunately, the raptor spun around to face me after he landed instead of choosing to tear into Tom’s side. Unfortunately, it looked like Tom was twisting his neck around to deal with the raptors on Liahpa’s side of the battle, and I guessed that I wasn’t going to get any help from my big friend in the next few moments.

  The raptor lowered his head down close to the ground, glared at me with hate-filled eyes, and let out a long hiss that sounded like a pressure cooker hinting at an explosion.

  Then it stepped toward me as I raised my weapon up over my head.

  Time seemed to slow, and as much as I wanted to think about what Liahpa and Tom were doing, or how the troodons were fairing, I knew that I just had to focus on the fucker trying to eat me. I didn’t know exactly what would happen if I died, but I guessed that the dinos would all scatter to the four winds, and Liahpa might be left alone with the black feathered raptors.

  The raptor lunged forward, and I tensed my muscles in my aching shoulders. I didn’t actually swing the Cricket bat of Doom though, I just flinched my arms enough to make it look like I was going to swing, and the raptor twisted his face away from me. It had been a feinting movement, and if I had t
aken the bait, the utahraptor would have been able to come at me while my weapon was to the side.

  This asshole was clever, but not clever enough.

  “Come on,” I hissed as I made a small step toward him. Every fiber of muscle in my body was trembling with terror, but they were also obeying my commands out of desperation.

  The raptor snaked his neck to my right side and then rolled his head back to my left when I tensed my arm to swing. He was bleeding from his stomach and shoulder from where I’d tagged him with the teeth of my weapon, but it didn’t seem to be hampering his movements at all.

  But then my eyes met the creature’s, and I realized that he was afraid.

  It didn’t make a lot of sense, since the utahraptor could bite my head off, but the movements of his neck and the wide look in his eyes reminded me of the countless terrified animals that my parents had asked for my help with at our clinic. This guy had tried to kill me a few times now, and now he was starting to realize that he had bitten off more than he could chew. That was why he was giving me all his attention instead of attacking Tom’s exposed flank.

  “Go!” I growled as I nodded to my left. The space there was open, and the raptor could dart away if he wanted to.

  The black-feathered dino blinked a few times, let out another hiss, and then began to step away from Tom and me. His movements were cautious though, and for a few moments I wondered if he would try to attack me again.

  “Tell all your friends to go with you,” I said as I tensed my arms again and stomped my foot. As I spoke, the utahraptor turned away from me, and he hesitantly made a few steps before he leapt over the obsidian stream that separated the sandy dunes from the rest of the beach.

  I turned back to Tom and sprinted around the trike’s tail. As I ran, I glanced to my right behind me and saw MCA smack his spiky tail into the utahraptor that the troodons had been harassing. The raptor exploded like a chicken with a firecracker shoved down its throat, and blood and black feathers sprayed everywhere.

  I made it past Tom’s tail and then glanced up to his saddle and crest. Liahpa was still sitting on his back, and the silver-skinned woman was doing her best to fend off the two utahraptors with her soul ring axe while also trying to hang onto the big trike’s crest while he bucked and twisted his horns toward his attacker. I saw a few cuts on his right flank, but I really didn’t have time to look at them. There were two trampled raptor bodies at his feet, but two more still tried to get past the arches that Liahpa made in the air with her weapon.

  The two raptors were focused on avoiding Liahpa’s blade and Tom’s horns, so they didn’t even see me charge their flank.

  I raised my Cricket Bat of Doom over my head like it was a sledge hammer and then brought the teeth of the weapon down on the back of the closest raptor after he jumped back from one of Liahpa’s swings. My weapon sank into his feathery flesh like a rotary saw through a cooked Thanksgiving turkey. His front shoulder actually separated from its socket, and the creature let out a horrified screech as it tumbled to the sand.

  The last remaining raptor spun and jumped at me without a moment’s hesitation, but Ad-Rock had already been trotting up that side. The stego was heavily loaded with green malachite rocks, but the burden didn’t seem to slow down the swing of his tail, and my buddy whipped his spikes at the raptor like he was swatting a fly.

  I wasn’t sure if the last raptor was incredibly intelligent, or just lucky, but Ad-Rock’s tail ended up missing his shoulder by what must have been a fraction of an inch, and the raptor stretched out its talons like clawed fingers and angled his legs to tear into me.

  I was left a bit flat footed from my previous swing, so the only way I thought I could dodge the attack was by throwing myself to the ground. I felt the utahraptor’s claws trace across my back just as my shoulder slammed into the bloody sand, but I didn’t think I got cut.

  I twisted onto my back in time to see the raptor land behind me. It let out a screech of disappointment when it realized it hadn’t shredded me into hamburger, but then its cry was cut short when I commanded Ad-Rock to swing his tail back around. The stego’s aim was a bit better with me being able to focus on his movements, and the spiky end of the tail connected squarely with the raptor’s chest. Or at least, that was what I guessed happened, since it sounded like someone hitting a punching bag with a spiked baseball bat, and blood sprayed through the sky.

  It probably died instantly, and I pushed off the bloody sand quickly so that I could assess our situation.

  There were bodies of utahraptors all around Tom, but most of them were halfway to pancake condition, and a quick glance confirmed my earlier suspicion that they were dead. The raptor that I had let go was sprinting up the face of the closest dune, but he paused for a moment at the crest, turned around, and stared down at me. I could sense the animal’s confusion at my team’s victory, but I guessed that it was probably happy that it was getting out of the battle alive. It let out a final squawk, and then I saw it disappear over the other side of the dune.

  “Are you injured?” I asked Liahpa as I walked over to Tom’s side. The trike was starting to calm down, and I leaned in close to look at the cuts on his flank. They didn’t look too deep, but they were dripping blood.

  “I was about to ask you the same,” the red-eyed woman said as she floated down Tom’s side. “I thought we were going to die.”

  “Me too.” I set my Cricket Bat of Doom down as she set down her axe, and we threw our arms around each other. “They got the jump on--”

  I heard a honk behind me, and I pulled away from Liahpa so that I could turn to face Bruce. He was squatting on the ground some six feet from me, and he let out another sad honk.

  I held out my arms, and the pteranodon slowly frog-waddled forward on his wings and laid his head on my shoulder. He let out three short whispered honks, and I reached up to stroke the top of his head.

  “It’s okay buddy,” I whispered as I petted him. “We’re all fine.”

  “What did he say?” Liahpa asked.

  “He’s really sorry he didn’t see the raptors. He said he was looking for fish in the ocean instead of scouting ahead.”

  “You got that from the few honks he made?” Liahpa asked, and I turned a bit to see both her eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, I mean, I think that is what he said.”

  Bruce let out a short honk of confirmation, and then he moved his front arms up so that he was kind of hugging me while he rested his head on my shoulder. He was just about the same height as the utahraptors, but Bruce was made for flying, so his body was a lot lighter.

  “What about the one who got away?” Liahpa asked as she gestured toward the dunes. “Do you think he’ll follow us?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “We killed all his friends, so he might want to get revenge, or he might just find a new pack. I’m not strong enough to tame those yet, but I think I am close. He seemed to listen to me when I told him to go away.”

  I patted Bruce on the head a final time, and then we pulled away from each other. I ordered him to take to the sky again so he could scout, and he let out a grateful honk before he hopped into the air. As he flew away, I saw Grumpy begin to turn his bulk around so that he could waddle back into the ocean. I hadn’t sensed him during the fight, but we were about two hundred yards away from the tide, and the big purussaurus couldn’t really move that fast across the sand. The battle must have ended as soon as he got here, and a grumble of frustration made it clear that he was upset he didn’t have a chance to chomp anyone.

  I made a quick round and petted all my stegos and troodons. I thanked each of them for working together and promised them a nice break as soon as we got back to the fort.

  “I thought the last black-feathered one was going to kill you,” Liahpa said after I had thanked Tom for saving my life, and we had both climbed back on top of his saddle. Her fingers traced across the skin of my back, and a shiver of pleasure chased down my spine.

  �
�I wanted to help you.” I shrugged. “The whole time I fought the ones on Tom’s left, I worried about the ones attacking your side.

  “I was worrying about you,” she laughed. “We make a good team.”

  “We are a great team,” I said as I instructed my pack of dinosaurs to start moving again. “I’m glad you came with me.”

  “As I recall, you didn’t seem that excited about me joining you,” she teased.

  “Can you blame me?” I asked. “Since you came to our camp, you’ve been terrified of me. Then you insisted that you have alone time with me. I didn’t know what you wanted.”

  “I wanted this,” Liahpa whispered as her hand strayed down my pant leg and came to rest on my groin.

  “And now you’ve got it,” I chuckled as I leaned into her.

  “Yes,” she laughed. “Although I have to share with everyone.”

  “Is that a problem?” I asked as we cleared the last of the sandy dunes and began to turn toward the slope of the hill that would take us away from the ocean.

  “No,” she answered quickly. “I like everyone, even Trel. I want them to be with you because… well… It’s just that…”

  Her voice trailed off, and I waited for her to speak as we climbed the gentle slope.

  “I’ve been taught my whole life that men are monsters. You are wonderful though. You are kind, caring, dedicated, and intelligent. When you look at me, my heart skips a beat. When you touch me, I feel my muscles lose their strength. When you kiss me I forget to breathe. When you penetrate me, I’m overcome with pleasure that I can’t even begin to contemplate. When you climax, your seed seems to spread through my body like a warm tide. I’m an athlete, not a poet, so I’m having trouble really explaining what I feel, but I just know I want you all the time. It feels right.”

  “It makes sense,” I said as I held her hand in mind. “I love you, too.”

  “Is that what this is?” Liahpa asked as she bit her lip. “Love for a man? I’ve had girlfriends, and I’ve loved them, but this feels different. I feel kind of like an idiot for how much my mind wants to think about you.”