The creature that galloped out of the grass was only frightening in its enthusiasm at finding someone else in the field. It was a dinosaur, but not like the other monsters Artus had encountered in Chult. It stood two feet tall at the shoulder, and twice that from the tip of its tail to the small horn on the end of its beaklike snout. A bony frill protected its neck, and two larger horns jutted. from its head. These horns were blunt, not yet grown into the awesome weapons they’d one day become, but Artus still jumped back when the dinosaur took another galloping step toward him.
“Quickly,” Kwalu cried. “Get away from them!”
The bellow that erupted from the jungle made Artus’s heart skip a beat. The crack and clatter of trees falling before some charging giant followed, along with a low tremor that shook the entire field. Immediately the four dinosaurs answered the call with sharp cries of greeting.
Artus turned and saw Kwalu standing, shoulders back, chin out. As the negus faced the tree line and the source of the awful, ear-splitting roar, the four little dinosaurs raced past him. “Gods,” Artus murmured. “They’re babies.”
The guardian of the four young creatures breached the tree line. It shared the basic shape and features of its young, but it was ten times as large. Its horns were fully developed—as long as Artus was tall and tapered to deadly points. Opening its beaklike snout, it roared a challenge. The teeth in that cavernous mouth were not the jagged knives of a carnivore, but the dinosaur didn’t need such weapons. If it wanted to kill the humans, it merely had to trample them beneath one of its four huge feet.
Trees crashed to the ground, shoved out of the way as the dinosaur charged. The young creatures wisely scattered out of the way, but evidently Kwalu did not share that wisdom.
“Run!” Artus shouted.
Calmly the negus lifted his broad-bladed spear and threw it with all his considerable strength. The weapon flew, lodging just below one of the monster’s eyes. The wound didn’t even slow the beast down. It rampaged forward, closing half the distance between itself and the doomed men with three steps. Kwalu didn’t retreat an inch, instead reaching for a small leather box that hung at his belt.
Artus saw then how futile it would be to run. Unless he’d started to move long before the dinosaur broke through the tree line, it could catch him in a half-dozen thunderous steps. The explorer glanced over his shoulder, hoping Sanda had possessed the sense to bolt at the first rumbling footstep. At the same time, he reached back for an arrow from his quiver. Kwalu was right in that much—better to fight until the end.
He never got to fire that arrow. The sight of Sanda, stretched out in peaceful repose before the charging dinosaur, made him fumble the shaft back into the quiver. She hadn’t moved a single step. Neither had she drawn her weapon for a final, hopeless stand. No, Sanda had lain back in the grass and fallen asleep.
Certain that bizarre sight would be his last, Artus braced himself for the crushing weight of the dinosaur’s foot. Yet the roars of the guardian and the thunder of its charge had stopped. Only the calls of the young, pleading and submissive, rang out over the clearing.
When Artus turned around again, the dinosaur stood close enough for him to reach out and touch the leathery hide of one leg. Nearby, Kwalu leaned against another thick leg, idly adjusting his grip on his shield. “It is a triceratops, I think,” the negus noted. “The young must have got separated from the herd. They usually travel in large groups.”
“What?” Artus sputtered. He looked up at the dinosaur. It had taken another step toward him, blocking out the sun with its massive frill and horns.
“Sanda has control of the beast,” Kwalu offered calmly, gesturing toward the woman with his club. “That is the power Ubtao granted her. She can possess any warmblooded creature, bend its will to hers.”
“But this is a lizard!”
“It is a dinosaur,” Kwalu replied. “A child of Ubtao. It is like a lizard, but its massive heart pumps blood as hot as yours or mine.”
The negus turned to his fellow bara. “We should move her,” he said, shooing away one of the baby triceratops that had begun to rabble at the fringe around his calf. “She cannot control this brute for long.”
Artus slung his bow over his shoulder and picked up Sanda. As he draped her limp arms over his shoulders, lifting her on his back, he stared up at the full-grown triceratops. The creature nodded and turned one huge eye toward him. As Artus watched, the black orbs filled with color—the same green as Sanda’s eyes. Shaken, he looked away.
When Artus caught up with Kwalu again, the negus was fast approaching the far end of the clearing. He seemed unaffected by the incident, unfazed by the gruesome death he had nearly met. “You knew Sanda was going to do that,” the explorer said. “Take over the triceratops, I mean.”
“No,” Kwalu answered. “I was not thinking of her bara power. I am glad she did.”
“Yeah, I’m glad too.” Artus shifted Sanda’s weight on his back. “Kwalu, if you didn’t know she was going to use her power… .”
The negus patted the small leather box at his hip. “I have a power of my own, Artus.” He let the comment stand, refusing to elaborate even after the explorer asked him directly. All he would say was, “Perhaps you will see me use it against the Batiri. They captured me unprepared to call upon Ubtao the time your friend, Theron, found me a prisoner in their camp. Never again.”
At the edge of the clearing, Sanda began to stir. “It was unfair of you to make Artus carry me by himself, Kwalu,” she murmured sleepily.
“I do not think he wanted to share the burden,” the negus noted. “He did not ask my aid, so I assumed he enjoyed the task.”
Artus had not asked for Kwalu’s help because the young man was royalty, and one simply didn’t demand that a prince stoop to manual labor, at least not in the Heartlands. That was the majority of the reason, anyway. Suddenly self-conscious, he shuffled his feet and shifted his bow from one hand to the other.
But Artus wasn’t the only one unsettled by the negus’s offhand remark. An uncharacteristic wave of embarrassment struck Sanda, and she hurried past both Artus and Kwalu, “We’d best hurry,” she mumbled. “It’ll be dark in a few hours.”
Sanda kept ahead of the others all afternoon. Only when they reached the outskirts of the goblin camp did she slow down enough for them to speak to her. By then, she had brushed aside whatever was bothering her. Though Artus was curious about her reaction, he let the subject rest until a more convenient time.
Kwalu immediately took up a position at the base of a tree. He detached the dinosaur skin from the bone frame of his shield and rolled the thick hide up into a bundle, which he used as a makeshift camp chair. The frame he folded and hid in the leaves. With his club resting across his knees and one hand on the leather box at his belt, he sat motionless, watching the camp and counting the war banners staked outside the huts and tents.
When Artus went to take up his own position, Sanda held him back. “Unless the goblins spot us and raise an alarm, don’t even think about starting a battle,” she whispered. “If a sentry gets too close, try to drag him into the bushes before fighting in the open.”
It seemed like common sense to Artus, but he nodded politely, as if the bara’s orders were full of useful revelations. Before she turned away, he said, “When Kaverin shows himself, watch where he goes. He knows we were spying on him from T’fima’s hut, so he might have moved your father from the queen’s house.”
Sanda paused and took Artus’s hand. “Just stay out of sight until the warriors get here. If they arrive before sundown, we’ll storm the main building. If not, we’ll fall back into the jungle and come up with another plan.”