The screams and hoots of the dying herbivores echoed weirdly off the rocky walls of the valley. Our own Juno bleated pitifully and trembled at Anya’s side.
There were no humanoids to be seen. None of Set’s troops were visible. But I knew they were there, hidden in the rocks or watching from the valley crests as we were, directing their tyrannosaurs to slaughter the migrating herds.
The battle was not entirely one-sided. Here a trio of triceratops charged a tyrant, knocked it to the ground, and gored it again and again with their long sharp horns. There a small dinosaur, covered with armor plate like an armadillo, waddled out of the dust and blood and escaped into the open country beyond the end of the valley.
But the tyrannosaurs killed and killed and killed again. Duckbills and horned triceratops and countless others were slashed apart by those ferocious claws and teeth.
Anya said, quite clinically, “The humanoids must have brought the tyrannosaurs here to wait in ambush for the migration.”
I felt anger, hot rage at the senseless slaughter taking place below us.
“Let’s find some of those humanoids,” I said, stalking off along the ridge line, my spear gripped tightly in my right hand.
Anya trotted along behind me, with Juno following her but clearly not liking the direction in which we were heading. The baby dinosaur made sounds remarkably like whining.
“Orion, what are you thinking of…?”
Grimly I replied, “One thing I’ve learned in the lives I’ve led—hurt your enemy whenever and however you can. Set wants to kill these dinosaurs? Then I’m going to do my best to stop the slaughter.”
She followed me in silence as we climbed higher along the rocky crest line, but Juno kept whimpering.
“Stay here with her,” I told Anya. “She’s terrified, and her mewling will warn the humanoids.”
“We’ll follow you from below the ridge line,” Anya said. “If she can’t see the slaughter, perhaps she’ll settle down.”
She and the duckbill scrambled down the rocky slope a hundred yards or so. I could see them paralleling my path as I made my way toward the area where I thought the humanoids would be. I hunched over so deeply that my left hand was knuckling the ground like a gorilla.
I saw one of Set’s minions within a few minutes, lying belly down on the sun-warmed rocks, watching intently the screaming, screeching battle going on below. I gave him no warning, drove my spear into his back so hard that it splintered on the rock underneath him. He made a hissing sound and thrashed for a moment like a fish. Then he went still.
I felt for a pulse and found none. Brownish red blood seeped from under him. I flattened out on the rock beside his corpse and peered down into the valley. It was difficult to make out details now because of the billows of dust wafting up, but I saw one tyrannosaur standing upright, blinking its hideous red eyes. It had stopped killing. As I watched, it bent over the gory body of a triceratops and began feeding, tearing great chunks of meat from its heavy body.
The other tyrants were still ravaging through the herbivores, still under mental control of Set’s troops. I got to my feet and moved onward.
My spear was blunted and split. Anya clambered up to me and gave me hers. I hesitated, then took it. She kept mine. She could use it as a club if she had to.
Two more humanoids were sitting in a cleft between boulders, their attention focused on the carnage below. It must take all their concentration to control the tyrannosaurs in the midst of such frenzy, I realized. They were virtually deaf and blind to the world around them.
Still I approached them cautiously, coming up from behind. I dashed the last few yards and rammed my spear straight through one of them. He shrieked like a steam whistle as he died. The other leaped to his feet and turned to meet me, but far too slowly as my senses went into hyperdrive.
I saw him turning, saw his red slitted eyes glittering, his mouth opening in what might have been anger or surprise or sudden fear. His clawed hands were empty, weaponless. With all my weight and strength I planted a kick on his chest that crushed bones. He went over backward, tumbling down the steep rocky wall and landing almost at the feet of a suddenly befuddled tyrannosaur.
The great beast, released from its mental control, snatched at its former master and tore the humanoid’s body in two with one crunch of its deadly teeth.
I squatted on my haunches and looked for the tyrant that the other humanoid had been controlling. That one, there, blinking with confusion at the mayhem surrounding it. I closed my eyes briefly. When I opened them, I was standing more than thirty feet above the blood-soaked valley floor, blinking at the dust swirling around me. Bloodlust blazed through me, overpowering the dull ache of hunger that gnawed at my innards.
I was Tyrannosaurus rex, king of the tyrant lizards, the most ferocious carnivorous animal ever to stride the earth. I gloried in the strength and power I felt surging through me.
Hooting a piercing whistling screech, I plunged into the maelstrom of violence whirling all around me. I did not seek out the weakling unarmed duckbills nor even the dangerous triceratops. I strode through the carnage toward the other tyrannosaurs, the ones still under the murderous control of Set’s humanoids.
They were killing but not eating. Rip open the throat of a duckbill and let it fall to the dust, all that rich hot blood steaming and wasting, all that meat dying without sinking your teeth into it. Kill and then go on to another to kill again.
I pushed myself through a mound of dead and dying herbivores to reach one of my fellow tyrants. It paid me no attention, snapping after a bleating, screeching duckbill desperately trying to find a path through the blood to safety.
Just as the tyrannosaur was about to bite at the duckbill’s soft neck I crunched its own spine between my mighty teeth and felt blood and bone and warm flesh in my mouth. The tyrant screeched once, then its heavy head collapsed onto the vestigial forearms against its chest, its powerful jaws closed forever.
I dropped the dead beast and charged toward another. It took no notice of me, and I ripped its throat out with a single quick bite. Now I saw two other tyrants; they had stopped their pursuit of the herbivores and turned their glittering eyes on me.
Without hesitation I ran straight at them, slashing and clawing. The three of us tumbled to the ground hard enough to make the earth shake.
Very far away I heard a tiny voice warning, “Orion, look out!”
But I was fighting the battle of my life against the two tyrannosaurs. And winning! Already one of them was staggering, half its flank ripped open and gushing rich red blood. I was bleeding, too, but I felt no pain, only the exultant joy of battle. I backed away slightly, saw my other opponent stalking toward me, jaws agape, tiny useless forearms twitching.
Behind it other tyrannosaurs were gathering, all focused on me. I backed up until my tail brushed against the rock of the valley wall.
“Orion!” I heard it again. This time a scream, more urgent, more demanding.
And then everything went black.
Somehow I realized that I had been knocked unconscious. I was in darkness, cut off from all sensory input, but this was not the disembodied utter cold of the void between spacetimes. I had not left the continuum. Someone had come up behind me while I was directing the tyrannosaur and knocked me senseless. Despite Anya’s warnings.
I had been a fool. Now I would pay the price.
Once I realized what had happened I quickly made my body recover. Shut off the pain signals from my aching head and send an enriched flow of blood to the bruise on my scalp. Open all the sensory channels. But I kept my eyes shut and did not stir. I wanted to learn what the situation was without letting anyone know I was conscious once more.