Trel, Sheela, and Kacerie were almost done setting the fires on the logs I’d pushed down today. I helped them finish up, and we all made it back inside of the camp walls as the sun finally set. Galmine had dinner ready for us, and we all ate in an exhausted silence. There was still more work to do though, so after we scarfed down our meal, we exited the hut and used the clay to prep the hole marks that Trel had made in the logs.
I figured it was close to midnight by the time we finished setting up all the fires, and I could tell that the women were beyond exhausted. No one complained about the work, and I felt my chest swell with pride when I thought about how much we had accomplished today, and how much more we’d get done in the next week.
“I’ll take first watch,” I said. “You can all get some rest. We’ll just do two shifts tonight. I’ll ask Galmine to take the second one.”
“Victor, you need your rest as well,” Sheela said with concern.
“Naw. I just commanded the dinosaurs all day, you all did way more chopping and hauling. I’ll be fine.”
“You still did plenty of work,” Kacerie commented, but then the pink-haired woman covered her mouth up with a yawn and shrugged. “Yeah. Sleep sounds good. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
“You’ll keep an eye on the logs?” Trel asked as she gestured to the thirty smoldering posts.
“Of course,” I said. “When Galmine comes to relieve me, I’ll show her what to look for. You did a good job teaching us how to set up the clay walls, so I’m confident we won’t have a problem.”
“Alright, Victor. Come lie next to me when you finally do rest.” The dark-haired beauty gave me a brief kiss, and then she walked into the hut.
That just left Sheela and I alone, and the cat-woman studied me for a few moments before she spoke. “You are taking too much on your shoulders.”
“We all are,” I said with a shrug. “I’d ask you to spend a few moments teaching me some fighting moves, but I saw you trying to keep your eyes open while we set the clay up.”
“You are mistaken,” she said, but her mouth upturned into a grin.
“Will you train me tomorrow?” I asked. “I want you to be mine, Sheela.”
Her golden eyes glowed in the firelight, and she bit her lower lip slightly.
“Yes, Victor,” she whispered.
“Good, now go sleep. I’m not going to go easy on you with the work tomorrow, and I don’t think you’ll go easy on my training.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, and then she walked into the hut.
I inspected the logs again, but found the clay to be holding back the small fires we had started. I added a few wood flakes to one that seemed to be burning slow, but there wasn’t much else to do but walk about the small space inside our hut. My team of dinos all slept right outside of our wall, and I realized that we might not really need to keep watch anymore. I’d used Sonny and Cher to guard my friends when I went to get clay, and then I’d used Tom, Nicole, and Katie to guard later. Would the dinosaurs be able to do the job while I slept? The idea was intriguing, so I commanded Katie to wake up. I sensed her rise from her slumber, and I gave her an order to protect our walls from any enemy dinosaurs and give out a shout if she saw something large and dangerous.
I used our ladder to climb up the interior of the wall, and I saw Katie glancing around the clearing while she lay next to Tom and Nicole. It would probably be a bad idea to keep her awake the whole night, but I could easily cycle between the dinos so that they shared the duty. My head soon filled with the vision of a massive fortress with an army of raptors running around the perimeter. It would be impossible for another tribe to attack us if I had a bunch of dinosaurs guarding our walls.
“Victor,” Galmine asked from below, and I climbed down the ladder.
“Hey, beautiful,” I said before I gave her a kiss.
“You should rest. I can watch all through the night. I was just sitting inside the hut all day making cordage. You were all working so hard.”
“Naw, I’m fine,” I said. “I have plenty of energy.”
“Oh, you do?” she asked, and her emerald eyes glowed from the firelight.
“Yeah, I do,” I whispered, and then I turned my head around toward the camp.
“There is a spot over there,” she whispered as she pointed to the far wall. “We will be closer to the fires, but I don’t mind their heat, or yours.”
“Let’s go,” I said as I took her hand and led her over to the grass.
A few moments later I was naked, and we were making deep relaxing movements against each other. Love making with Galmine pushed all my other thoughts and worries out of my brain, and any tension I held in my muscles faded away. After we orgasmed, I held her in my arms and traced her smooth skin with my fingers. My eyelids had actually grown heavy, and she told me to go back to the hut and sleep for the rest of the morning. I regretfully parted from her and then put back on my clothes before sneaking into the hut.
Trel was asleep near the door, but her arms were opened, and I was able to crawl into her embrace. My movement disturbed her sleep slightly, and she muttered my name before her arms wrapped around me. My eyes drifted closed almost instantly, but I had a few seconds to review all the bad ass shit I’d gotten done today.
Things were moving in the right direction, and we just needed to stay the course. As long as we didn’t get attacked for the next five days, we’d be good.
Sleep took me, and my consciousness faded into a pool of blackness.
But then I was startled awake by the roar of what sounded like a carnotaurus.
Chapter 13
I gasped and rolled out of Trel’s arms as the spider-woman was also waking.
“Wha?” she started to ask, but the deafening roar sounded again, and her black eyes opened wide.
Kacerie and Sheela shot to their feet, and they ran behind me as I rushed out the hut door. It was dawn outside, but the sun had just crested the mountains in the east and was spraying a fire-like light across our fort walls.
Galmine was trying to walk quickly toward us, and her green eyes told me everything I needed to know.
“Sheela! Get your arrows!” I shouted as I ran to the ladder.
A second roar sounded, slightly off-center from where the first one had, and I heard Katie give out a loud bark of alarm. This was the first one I’d heard out of her, and I guessed that it meant she had just gotten visual on our attackers.
I dashed up the ladder and prepared myself for the worst.
It was still worse than I expected.
Two carnos were at the northeast side of the clearing. They had just stepped out of the forest, and the morning sun caused their eyes to glow a malevolent red. Another pair of carnos was more to our direct east, where we had our log clearing area set up. These two were a few lengths out of the woods, and it looked as if they were trying to skirt around to the south side of our fort so that they could flank my crew of dinosaurs.
I didn’t like these odds one bit. The carnos were just a hair smaller than Tom, but that meant they were the size of Bob and larger than Hope and Cher. They were still smaller than my triceratops, but there were four of them.
Then I heard another set of roars, and I turned around to look west. Three carnos were at the edge of the trees there, and I felt terror descend from my heart and chill my stomach.
“Fuck,” I growled as my brain tried to come up with a plan. Now this was seven against seven, and I had to worry about protecting our base. The walls were high enough to keep the carnos from just stepping over, but they’d be able to lean in a bit and maybe make a half-assed chomp at us if we hid inside. It would be dangerous if we just had one attacking, but I figured we’d be able to fall back against the adjacent wall and shoot arrows at anything this size that tried to invade. Seven of them meant that they could circle the fort, and we’d have nowhere to retreat.