It looked somewhat like a raptor, but had a bit longer neck. It was hiding in the jungle and staring at Kacerie.
Part of me knew I was sentencing Kacerie to death. I didn’t want to kill the woman, but I couldn’t risk her not pulling her weight in the camp, especially after she hinted at using her Lance on me. However, that didn’t mean I wanted her to get eaten by dinosaurs right now. I still wanted to defend women.
“Let’s go!” I growled to the three parasaurs as I kicked Bob’s flank. My mount surged forward across the sand like a rocket ship, and I had to lean forward over his spine to keep the sudden gust of wind from pushing me off the saddle.
Damn, Bob was really fucking fast.
But the creature in the jungle some sixty yards from Kacerie was way closer than me, and I saw it poke its head out of the foliage. It looked kind of like a raptor, only its skull had two long humps on top and its build was leaner. It had white and cream colored feathers instead of green, but as Bob raced forward, I saw that it was actually way bigger than the deinonychus raptors we’d been fighting for the last few days. This stalking dino’s head was probably even with my shoulder, and I guessed was about the size of a small pony, instead of a large dog.
I blinked my Eye-Q and read the name that appeared: Dilophosaurus wetherilli, male.
“Shit! Faster, Bob!” I shouted as I tried to reach back for the spear on my saddle. I wasn’t much of a dinosaur expert, but like any boy, I’d seen all the Jurassic Park movies, and I remembered that the Dilophosaurus was the fucker that spit the acid.
And it looked like he was closing in on Kacerie so he could spit on her.
I was still a good three hundred yards away on the beach, but the stalking dino crept onto the sand, and it was only forty yards from Kacerie. I had no doubt that it could rush across the gap and kill her if it wanted to, but the feathered monster seemed more interested in sneaking. Then the dilo seemed to notice I was rushing toward it, and it turned to me with its head tilted.
“Kacerie!” I screamed as I got my spear out of the saddle sheath. The woman didn’t seem to hear me, or at least she didn’t look up, so I screamed again.
The dilophosaurus turned its head to Kacerie, and then it looked back to me as if it was a bewildered dog. It was the second best outcome I could have hoped for, the first being the thing just running away, and I readied my spear.
“Kacerie!” I shouted again, and the woman finally looked up toward me.
Then she glanced over at the pony-sized dinosaur sneaking up on her and let out a horrific scream.
The terrified screech seemed to snap the dilophosaurus out of its confused stupor, and it dashed toward the woman with an angry hiss. It wiggled across the ground with a movement that almost looked snake-like, but I had already planned on rushing Kacerie first, so I managed to slam Bob right into the flank of the dilo like a snow plow.
The white and cream feathered dino tumbled over with a surprised yelp, but it wiggled out of the way of Bob’s crushing feet and tried to dash around toward Kacerie.
I leaned down off the side of the saddle and shoved my spear down at him when he tried to slither around Bob. The tip of my spear punched into his upper shoulder, but the creature sunk away like a mongoose and only a small spray of blood fell upon the sand.
“Kacerie, get--” I started to tell her to get away from the dilo I was tangling with, but as I swung my head over to look at her, I saw a shape come to the surface of the lake right behind her.
It was one of the super crocs that had tried to kill me when I first got to this planet.
“Run toward me!” I screamed as the second reptile emerged from the water and sprinted toward her. Kacerie turned to see it as soon as she heard the splash, and she leapt back toward me with surprise. She was totally off balance from her head looking one direction while she ran the other, and her feet tripped over themselves as she tried to run.
Sonny read my mind and came to her rescue.
The croc was about the size of a small 80s Japanese truck, but Sonny was a big rig. The parasaur dashed forward on all fours and shoulder checked the croc some twenty feet from where Kacerie stumbled. Sonny’s attack actually caused the other dino to fly through the air and flip on his side, but I had to turn my attention away from the battle so that I could focus my spear thrusts on the dilo who was still trying to get around Bob’s legs.
This fucking asshole was persistent, cunning, and moved quicker than I would have thought possible given his size. He ducked away from every spear thrust I made, and my best attempts at pinning him down did little more than strike the sand. The issue I had really was that I was too high on Bob, so the dilo could just retreat away from the parasaur’s flank to stay out of the reach of my spear.
I made a few quick thrusts to try and predict his movements and got lucky with my third guess. The sharpened point of my spear tore across his back, but it didn’t really sink into his flesh and take out any vital organs. It still pissed him off, and he backed away a little farther than usual. This gave me an opportunity to turn around and see how Sonny was doing. The big parasaur had kicked the croc away from Kacerie, but the monster’s jaws were trying to snap around the parasaur’s legs. I would have thought that the size difference would have made that difficult, but the croc’s maw opened crazy wide, and Sonny almost didn’t get his leg out of the way.
I commanded Cher to go after the croc so I could focus on the dilo. The cream feathered snake-dino opened its jaws to caw at me, and I saw that its teeth actually looked less like a raptor’s and more like the crocodile’s behind me.
“Victor!” Kacerie screamed, but I couldn’t really turn my attention away from the fight with the dilo. He kept opening his mouth at me, and I half expected for a stream of poison to shoot out. Nothing did, though, and I wondered if the movie had been wrong about the way the dinosaurs spit acid.
“Victor!” Kacerie screamed again.
“I’m fucking busy!” I shouted as I managed to get another hit on the dilo. The thing moved really gracefully for its bulk, and it seemed to be getting a better idea of how my spear could move. I kept having to command Bob to back up, spin around, and then swing his tail in an effort to keep the thing away from Kacerie, but the beast was getting smarter.
“There is another monster in the lake!” she screamed, and I turned around just as Sonny let out a trombone blast of pain. A second croc had jumped out of the water and clamped its massive jaws around his tail, and the parasaur was trying to spin and throw him free. Cher was tangling with the other croc and winning, but I could almost feel Sonny’s pain come through in his loud toot sounds.
“Damn it!” I growled as I turned around so I could focus on the dilo. I needed to get rid of this fucker so that I could deal with the crocs in the water, or I needed to get rid of the crocs in the water so I could focus on the dilo trying to get to Kacerie. My brain jumped through a few solutions while I danced with the dilo, but the fucker almost managed to get around Bob, so I knew I had to come up with a plan quickly so that I could win out on this stalemate.
I made another quick glance back to Sonny and Cher. The male parasaurs had gotten his tail free of the croc, and he was trying to push the thing back into the water. The sight gave me an idea, and I changed my orders a bit so that my newest parasaurs instead focused their attempts on pushing the crocs out of the water, onto the beach, and grouped kind of close to where the dilo was so that we could present a united battlefront.
Within a few seconds, Sonny and Cher had twisted around the crocs and began pushing them toward the shore. I could only catch glances of their battles out of the corner of my eye while I defended against the dilo, but the two large parasaurs seemed to be pretty used to fighting these things. The crocs were soon rolling around on the sand of the beach in an attempt to escape the parasaurs’ stomps, kicks, and shoulder hits.