Will couldn’t help but grin. “What are you afraid of? You think they’re going to take offense?”
“I prefer not to dwell on the possibilities.” Turning to the subservient spinosaurs, he addressed them in their own tongue. He did not have to translate for the tyrannosaurs, whose own dialect was near enough to that of the other meat-eaters to be readily understood.
“They say that they chased a whole covey of humans down this canyon until it became too narrow for them to go any farther. The humans had four struthies with them as well as a young tyrannosaur, and these were all bound with ropes. It puzzled them, but not enough to halt their pursuit. To a carnosaur, an easy meal is not to be questioned.”
Will was satisfied. “Tell them they can go.” To emphasize his words, or perhaps to make a statement of his own, Crookeye took a ponderous step in the other carnivores’ direction and dropped his lower jaw, emitting the loudest hiss Will had ever heard. It sounded like an angry hundred-foot-long snake.
In their haste to flee, two of the spinosaurs ran into the wall behind them. Flailing frantically at each other, they scrambled to hightail it out of the canyon. Shethorn punctuated their departure with a derisive snort before she and her mate turned to study the terrain ahead.
The unseen sun was well down and night fell faster within the confines of the canyon than outside. Despite the failing light, Will could clearly see the imprints of many booted feet in the sand below, as well as those of the intruders’ captives and the agitated spinosaurs.
“Tell them to go carefully,” Will directed the Protoceratops. “We only know that these people have guns. We don’t know how many or of what caliber.”
Chaz relayed this information to their mounts. Crookeye growled a curt reply.
“They’re not impressed.”
Will considered. “I suppose that’s not surprising, since they don’t know what guns are.” Even as he discussed the situation with Chaz, they were advancing steadily up the chasm. It was already so narrow that the two tyrannosaurs had to travel in single file.
“I don’t think it would matter if they did,” the stocky translator told him. “They know that their offspring is a prisoner somewhere up ahead. No human contrivance is going to prevent them from reaching her.”
Very soon, however, they encountered an obstacle that not even an adult tyrannosaur could surmount: the same attenuated passage that had thwarted the spinosaurs. As they examined the barrier, a volley of shots rang out in the distance, threatening to drive the already frustrated adults into a frenzy.
“Easy, easy.” Wondering if he could even feel the gesture, Will leaned forward to stroke Crookeye’s snout. Whether it had any effect or not Will would never know, but the big tyrannosaur settled down. The echoes of the multiple shots faded into the distance.
Chaz translated Keelk’s comment. “She says that we must be very close now.”
“I think we are, too, though echoes in a canyon can be deceptive. Skybax riders learn that right away.”
“Is that a glow in the sky off to our right?” Chaz would have pointed, but his awkward position prevented him from doing so.
It didn’t matter. As the darkness deepened, Will saw it, too. “Somebody has a fire going. A big fire. ” I hope not a cooking fire, he thought grimly. “They’re up ahead somewhere, all right.”
Growling her frustration, Shethorn bit at the obstructing cliffside, her saberlike teeth leaving inch-wide gouges in the raw stone. But not even she could chew her way through to her daughter.
“They can’t go any farther,” Chaz declared.
“I can see that,” Will replied, deep in thought. “The question is, what do we do now?”
Having come to the same conclusion as her friends, Keelk wasn’t waiting to debate their next step. Already she was climbing carefully down the back of Shethorn’s neck, making her way to the ground. The narrowness of the chasm might have halted the tyrannosaurs’ advance, but it would not stop her, not even if she had to continue on by herself .
Bounding forward across the soft sand, she halted ten yards on and turned to hoot at her companions. One clawed foreleg beckoned repeatedly.
“Surely we can’t go on by ourselves?” Chaz was fidgeting in Shethorn’s grasp. “The closer we get, the more irrational you make these intruders sound.”
“We don’t have any choice. We gave our word.” Leaning to his left, he met Crookeye’s stare while stabbing a finger downward. “Don’t worry. We’ll get your daughter back. Somehow.” The great carnivore grunted a response. He understood nothing of the human’s words, but the young man’s tone and gesture were readily fathomed. Settling slowly into a crouch, he lowered his head and neck to allow his passenger an easy dismount.
Hopping off, Will found himself standing next to Chaz, who had been gently set down by Shethorn. Even resting flat on the sand, the tyrannosaur’s skull came up to Will’s chest. As soon as his passenger was clear, the big male straightened. Will turned to regard them both.
“Tell them that I promise we’ll do everything we can to return their daughter to them, safe and unharmed. But in order to do that we have to go on by ourselves. We all know that they can’t go any farther. If the spinosaurs couldn’t get through this pinch-point, they surely can’t.”
“I think they know that,” the Protoceratops replied.
“Well, tell them anyway.”
Chaz bristled. “Don’t tell me what to do. Nobody elected you leader of this expedition.” Ahead of them, Keelk was gesturing anxiously. “I think I’ll go ahead and tell them anyway.”
Will repressed a smile. “Good idea.” He waited while the Protoceratops translated.
As soon as the stocky quadruped had finished, a massive skull gave Will a gentle but firm nudge. “All right, all right, I’m going! Don’t be so impatient.”
“What do you expect?” Chaz told him. “He’s a tyran-nosaur. And if I were you, I wouldn’t talk back to him.”
Will considered Crookeye, who could snap him up in a single bite and have room left over for most of Chaz. “Aw, they’re all right. They just have their own code of conduct. And they’re anxious because of their daughter.”
“That’s fine with me.” The little Protoceratops edged away from Shethorn. “So long as they’re worrying about her, they won’t be thinking about food.”
Keelk raised her voice sharply and turned to trot another few yards up the canyon. Her intent was clear. If they weren’t coming, she was going to go on ahead without them.
Will raised his right palm to the tyrannosaurs in the traditional sign of greeting and farewell. “Try not to worry. We’ll be back with four daughter as soon as we can.” In the onrushing tide of night, the yellow eyes of the tyrannosaurs seemed to glow like lanterns. He turned and broke into a jog to catch up to Keelk.
Behind him, a reverberant keening filled the air. It was an eerie, haunting sound. As a youngster he’d once heard an opera chorus make a sound similar to that as it mourned the death of the story’s heroine. But no human voice could reach so low a register.
The two tyrannosaurs persisted in their melancholy wailing until they dropped from view. “What was that all about?” Will inquired as they turned a bend in the narrow cleft. No gunshots had sounded for some time now, but he felt confident of finding their source. What he and his friends would do then was beginning to be a matter of some concern.
Chaz kept up easily. His tough, splayed footpads were much better suited to running on sand than they had been to the dips and sumps of the rain forest.
“They are lamenting the fact that they can’t accompany us. They have also made the three of us honorary members of their tribe. Each of us has been given a tyrannosaurian name.” He nodded at Keelk, who continued to lead the way.
“Hers is Walkthrustone. Because of her determination.” He translated for the struthie, who responded with a surprised but pleased chirp. Lengthening his stride, Will gave her a friendly slap on her left flank.
Chaz wa
s starting to puff slightly but showed no signs of slowing down. His tone turned slightly self-important.
“I am Slayswithwords.”
Will grinned. “Very appropriate.” Beneath his feet, the footprints that had preceded them showed the way clearly even in the failing light. “What about me?”
“You?” A hint of amusement crept into the Protoceratops’s voice. “You are Hat.”
“Hat? That’s all? Just Hat?”
“What did you expect, riding about on that male’s head all this time?”
“Just Hat?” Will’s expression fell. “Keelk is Walksthru-stone, you’re Slayswithwords, and I’m just Hat?” His gaze narrowed as he regarded his companion. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me everything?”
Chittering sounds emerged from the translator’s mouth: protoceratopsian laughter. “Let me think. Hmmm . . . possibly hat isn’t the correct interpretation.”
“I thought so!” Suddenly he found himself grinning down at the chunky dinosaur. “You little ... All right, what’s my real tyrannosaurian name?”
Will could tell from his companion’s tone that this time he was being serious. “Thinksthrufear.”
“Thinksthrufear.” Will repeated it to himself. “Maybe the carnosaurs aren’t as dumb as we think.”
“They’re not dumb.” Chaz easily surmounted a small dune face. “They just prefer a rigid form of anarchy to the rest of Dinotopian civilization. That makes them antisocial, not stupid.” He was silent for a while, during which time more of the canyon slid past beneath their feet.
“You know, Will, it is a great and rare honor we have been given. I do not know of anyone else, not even respected convoy masters, who have been granted tyrannosaurian names. I know that such a thing is possible because I have heard of it in stories, but I’ve never met anyone who was actually so honored.”
“Can you teach me, Chaz, to say my tribal name in their tongue?”
“It’s not easy. You have to use your deepest voice, and it hurts the back of the throat.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Chaz proceeded to do so, and Will repeated the consonen-tal growl until the translator assured him he had it right... or nearly so.
“You might say,” the Protoceratops said with a chuckle, “that you have the Will, but not the throat.”
Will swallowed. “You were right. Pronouncing it does hurt. I guess I’ll never be able to say it precisely, but then, I’ll never be a tyrannosaur, either.”
“Only in your dreams,” Chaz assured him.
Will glanced skyward. Considering the heavy cloud cover, they were fortunate to have as much moonlight as they did. “We can’t wait, you know. We’ll have to think of something to try right awsry, before the body of the storm hits. This would be a bad place to have to wait it out.”
“Most assuredly. This canyon could easily become a river running higher than our heads. Yours as well as mine.” He translated for Keelk, who hooted a vigorously reply.
“What did she say?” Will asked.
“She’s not worried about the weather,” Chaz informed him. “She’s not worried about anything except rescuing her family.”
“We will.” He was surprised at his self-confidence. Given what they knew about the intruders, it was quite unwarranted, but that was how he felt nonetheless.
“We’d better.” Chaz kicked sand aside with his feet. “Because I, for one, am not going to go back the way we came and tell those two tyrannosaurs that we failed.”
“Cheer up,” Will told him. “This is a worthy thing we’re doing. Ethical.”
“Maybe so, but I’d still rather be lying on a clean bed of straw in a warm barn back in Treetown.”
“What about me? Where do you think I’d rather be?”
The Protoceratops cocked an appraising eye up at his slim human friend. “You’re a strange one, Will Denison, even for a dolphinback. I’m not sure you’d rather be anywhere else than right here.”
“That’s kind of a hasty judgment, isn’t it? Don’t you think I’d rather be . . .” his voice trailed off.
There was a very good chance that the Protoceratops’’s assessment was correct.
They’d traveled for what seemed like quite a ways up the canyon when Keelk, who was determined to inspect the entrance to each and every side chasm, called to them sharply. Human, Protoceratops, and struthie gathered to examine what she’d found.
Chaz nodded appreciatively, absently clacking his horny beak. There was no mistaking the profusion of footprints. “She says they’ve turned off this way. I find myself in agreement.”
Will frowned as he straightened and peered up the sandy tributary. “I wonder why.” He glanced to his left. “This is obviously the main canyon and the most likely way through the mountains. Why would they turn off here?”
“I expect we’ll find out.” Chaz chirped fluently at the Strutbiomimns. She nodded sharply before turning and once more taking the lead.
“What did you say to her?”
“I told her that her nose was more sensitive than yours or mine and that if it grew too dark to see, we’d do better to follow her.”
Will agreed. Since the gunshots had long since ceased, they could no longer track the intruders by sound.
It was not long before they came upon the ancient wall and its missing gate. The glow of the intruders’ fire was once more clearly visible against the night sky, and they advanced with extreme caution.
“Soon now,” Will whispered to his companions. Keelk responded with a very subtle whistle.
Closing on the firelight they entered the temple complex and marveled at its beauty, which even the darkness could not mitigate. It was Keelk who spotted the guard, contracting her neck to lower her head and putting out a foreleg to restrain Will.
Fortunately for them, the guard’s enthusiasm was matched only by his exhaustion. He was lying back against a pile of zealously accumulated gold bricks, hands folded across his chest, rifle at his side, and snoring prodigiously. They gave him a wide berth, Will marveling at Keelk’s ability to advance in complete silence on her wide, three-toed feet.
The glow from the campfire was very bright now. Wordlessly they crept close, using a low, intricately inscribed wall for cover. Slowly raising their heads to peer over the barrier, they finally saw the men they had been following for so long.
Some sprawled indifferently on the silver boulevard, their heads resting on packs or gold bricks. Others lay where they had collapsed on the steps leading up to the portico of the main temple. Some clutched close to their bosoms piles or sacks of jewels pried from walls and pillars, their slumberous embrace as ardent as that of any lover’s.
“I don’t understand.” Chaz rested his forelegs against the sturdy wall. “Look how soundly they sleep. What’s the matter with them?” At the same time Keelk had her head back and was sniffing intently of the air.
You didn’t need a struthie’s nose to identify that odor, Will knew. “They’re drunk. Maybe not deeply—the smell’s not that strong—but they’ve had enough to hurry them to sleep. A stroke of luck for us.”
“Drunk.” Chaz considered the situation. At a festival he’d once seen a Stegosaurus who’d imbibed too much in the way of enlivening spirits. It had unintentionally but rapidly cleared an entire game field, until a pair of disapproving apatosaurs had succeeded in flanking it on either side and escorting it to a suitable resting place. Upon awakening, the stegosaur in question had been mortally abashed. The authorities were not entirely displeased, as they were able to utilize the episode as a lesson with which to instruct the youngsters in attendance, human as well as dinosaurian.
Nevertheless, the Protoceratops reflected, it was fortunate that the great majority of sauropods were teetotalers. The thought of a drunken brachiosaur lumbering uncontrollably about was more than daunting. Obviously these intruders felt differently and were more than a little fond of intoxicating spirits.
Keelk had difficulty keeping herself under control
as she gestured excitedly to their left. Four familiar shapes and one stranger squatted there, secured to malachite posts. They, too, slept soundly, though no aroma of alcohol rose from their vicinity.
Taking careful note of the intruders’ garb, the condition and variety of their weapons, and their diverse ethnic backgrounds, Will felt that his initial guess had been correct, though it awaited final confirmation.
“Pirates for sure.”
“Pirates?” Chaz glanced over at him.
“Thieves of the sea. Men, and sometimes women, who sail for plunder. They’ll attack other ships, or towns, and steal anything they can make off with.”
The Protoceratops nodded somberly, finally asking innocently, “Why?”
“Because it’s easier to take something than work for it.” “But that’s wrong.”
“Exactly. These are people who live for wrongness. They’re common criminals.” Again he surveyed the scattered sleepers. “They don’t look beat up. Their weapons and clothes are intact. I don’t think they’ve been shipwrecked. They look like they’ve managed a successful landing. Is it possible for a ship to get through the fringing reefs?”
“I was always told it wasn’t. But strange things have been known to happen at the end of every six-year storm cycle. In any case, the actions of the sea are not a specialty of mine.” The Protoceratops shuddered visibly. He was neither a good swimmer nor particularly fond of the water, though Will knew many dinosaurs who delighted in the activity.
Keelk was hooting at them soft and urgently. “Yes, I know,” Will whispered in response. Some thoughts did not require translation. “I see them. We’ll get them out of here somehow.” The sleeping pirates filled the air in front of the temple with their snoring and breaking of wind. There were a lot of them, more than he’d imagined. Every man looked healthy and in good condition. In a fight he and his friends wouldn’t have a chance. Keelk might outrun the fleetest of the brigands, for struthies were very fast. But she couldn’t outrun a bullet, he reminded himself.
“We must try to get closer,” he heard himself murmuring.
“Are you sure?” Chaz had dropped back on all fours. “I don’t like the look of these humans. I don’t like it at all.”