Dinotopia - Dinotopia Lost

  Before Will could reply, two of the pirates grabbed him under the arms and hustled him forward. Meanwhile, others were carefully loosening the ropes that secured the tyrannosaur’s jaws. Their shipmates gripped the other restraints tightly, restricting but not eliminating the captive’s range of movement.

  Mock cheers rose from the assembled crew. “There you go, lad! Have a long chat! ”

  “Aye,” quipped another, “ask him . . . no, ask her how she’s feelin’ tonight.”

  “See if she’ll give you the next dance!” guffawed his companion.

  “I know.” O’Connor gave Will a nudge with his forearm, sending the younger man stumbling forward. “Why don’t you ask her if she’s . . . hungry?” More laughter rose from the now festive crew.

  In her crouch she was slightly shorter than him, Will noted. As he was alternately shoved and kicked forward she tracked his involuntary approach with eager eyes. They held none of the natural compassion and understanding one would find in, say, the face of a sensitive Strutbiomimus.

  “Go on, boy.” Blackstrap moved close. It was obvious he was enjoying himself hugely. “What are you waiting for? Show us how ‘intelligent’ she be. Talk to her.” Broken teeth showed in a wide, malevolent smile. “See if she’s ready for afternoon tea.”

  A jittery Will tried to divide his attention between Blackstrap and the juvenile tyrannosaur. “I... I can’t talk to her.” “What’s this?” Blackstrap threw his men an exaggerated look. “You can’t talk to her? Why, bless my soul, I thought she be as intelligent as we.”

  “It’s just that the big meat-eaters of Dinotopia all live together near here in a place called the Rainy Basin. They are intelligent, but their languages are very rough and difficult to understand. They don’t share in Dinotopian civilization. It’s a matter of tribal choice.”

  “I’ll wager a gold brick on that!” shouted one man gleefully. His shipmates roared.

  “I’m telling you,” Will went on desperately, “they’re intelligent, too! They just choose to live as their ancestors did, primitively and away from civilization.”

  “Sounds like they’d do right well as members of this crew,” Smiggens quipped.

  “Har, get on with ye.” Blackstrap gave him another shove forward. The young tyrannosaur’s jaws gaped expectantly, revealing a full complement of smaller but equally sharp versions of her parents’ teeth. “Don’t you know ’tis impolite not to ask a lady to dance?”

  “My father could explain it better,” Will insisted. “He’s a respected scientist. He was a teacher in America.”

  “A scientist, you say.” The first mate turned reflective. He badly wanted to question this young man further. If he was telling the truth and his father was truly a man of science, it suggested there were wonders indeed to be experienced in this strange new land.

  But Smiggens knew he dare not go against the wishes of the crew. Their spirits, so to speak, were running high and Blackstrap had their full support. If he tried to interfere in their fun, he knew that in their current mood they were as likely to toss him to the captive meat-eater as they were their new prisoner. Presented with such a prospect, he chose to keep silent. His curiosity was powerful, but not sufficient to induce him to embark on any uncharacteristic acts of personal bravery.

  “what is it, what’s happening?” Curse these short legs! Chaz thought anxiously.

  Knowing they could now safely outrun any pursuit, for no human could keep pace with even a young Struthiomimus over a short sprint, the escapees had ceased their flight. Driven by a desire to see what was going to happen to their human friend, they had hidden themselves behind a low, collapsing wall of gold bricks. With their superb night vision they were able to see everything that was going on, knowing at the same time that no human’s sight was sharp enough to detect them. Even at a distance, their former captors’ torches lit the tense scene more than adequately.

  “It’s hard to say. They’re all crowded together.” Hisaulk strained to isolate individual figures. “They’ve tied your friend Will’s hands behind his back and seem to be pushing him toward the young tyrannosaur.”

  “Prettykill,” muttered Chaz. “There’s no telling how she’ll react under the strain of her captivity. It must be even more stressful for a carnosaur than it was for you.”

  “What did you say?” Shremaza blinked at the Protocer-atops while the three children exchanged a glance.

  “Prettykill. That’s her name.”

  Hisaulk continued to watch. “Whatever her name is, I think they are trying to feed him to her.”

  “No!” Chaz repeatedly stomped the ground with his left foreleg. “That’s barbaric!”

  “I’m not surprised.” Shremaza did her best to comfort him. “Nothing these humans do would surprise me.”

  “He has a chance.” Chaz was walking in tight circles. “A small one, but only if he thinks fast. Very fast.” He returned his attention to the male struthie, who had by far the best vantage point. “What’s happening now?”

  “Nothing yet. Oh! They have just taken the ropes off the young tyrannosaur’s head, freeing her jaws. The humans are taking care to keep well clear of them.”

  “As well they should. What’s she doing?”

  “Nothing so far. She is watching Will very carefully.”

  Chaz tilted his head back until his frill bumped up against his shoulders. “If only I had stayed with him. I should be there! I could talk to the humans.”

  “You assume they would listen to you.” Shremaza spoke gently. “I have spent time among these humans. They are utterly convinced we are dumb and stupid. If you spoke, they would think it was a trick and that Will was somehow speaking for you. They would feed you to the young tyrannosaur before you had a chance to convince them. Or eat you themselves, which I could tell from their looks they thought on occasion to do with us.”

  “Cannibals!” Chaz shook his head from side to side. “What dreadful creatures!”

  “No.” Like all her kind, Keelk was too empathic to hold a grudge. “They are just uneducated.”

  The Protoceratops was consumed with frustration. He’d never felt so helpless in his life. Sure, he and Will Denison had experienced some disagreements, but the travels and travails they had shared and endured had brought them together. He felt closer to Will than he ever had to any human, even his teachers. He’d developed considerable respect and not a little affection for the young skybax rider.

  There was nothing he could do. Only pray that Will could somehow do for himself.

  the pirates continued to laugh maniacally and offer mocking suggestions as to how Will ought to proceed. Someone suggested he turn away and offer his backside. Guimaraes laughed along with his companions, but his smile was tight.

  Those yellow eyes never left Will as he was shoved forward. Saliva dripped from the lower teeth. How long since she’d last been fed? he found himself wondering. Too long, to judge from the way she was looking at him. Those traplike jaws were now only a few feet away.

  What could he do? These half-drunk brigands wouldn’t listen to reason. Neither would a tyrannosaur, even if one could speak their language. Chaz might have tried, but he had fled to safety, and quite properly, too.

  Unable to look away, he found himself returning the feral gaze. It was almost hypnotic, the way it seemed to pierce straight through him. That’s what happens, he thought, when you find yourself looked upon not as an independent, thinking individual, but as a piece of meat.

  There was no telling what thoughts were churning in her mind. Her situation must have her feeling terribly angry and confused. Not afraid, though. He doubted there was a word for fear in the tyrannosaurian tongue. She was probably looking forward to the opportunity to take out her anger on a human—any human.

  He was almost within biting distance. Had her legs not been bound and hobbled, she undoubtedly would have pounced on him already. Even if his hands were free he doubted he could fend off those powerful jaws. Her breath, like th
at of her parents, smelled of carrion.

  Her parents. A sudden rush of excitement raced through him. He could speak tyrannosaur. Four words of it, to be exact.

  Four proper names.

  He tried to frame the sounds precisely. His throat was so tight that his first attempt made him sound like a coughing kitten. The pirates found his desperate wheezing greatly amusing and urged him to try again. Ignoring their taunts, he did better the second time, uttering a passably modulated low growl. It sounded comical to his ears, a feeble imitation of Crookeye’s prodigious rumble.

  But the effect was unmistakable.

  A startled Prettykill blinked and shut her imposing mouth, eyeing him uncertainly. Have to lower my voice somehow, he told himself as sweat poured down his face. His lungs being too small by several orders of magnitude to muster the correct tone, he nevertheless readied himself to do the best he could.

  His second growl only deepened the young tyrannosaur’s confusion. Head cocked to one side, her whole aspect suggesting intense curiosity, she waited to hear whatever he would say next.

  “Ah-veh” exclaimed Chumash. “The boy does talk to it.”

  “Not a bit of it,” Copperhead objected. “He just knows how to imitate its call, that’s all. Like whistling at a dog.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Copperhead be right.” Though far from willing to concede any of their captive’s points, Blackstrap was impressed with the young man’s skill and courage. “’Tis not bloody talking.”

  Will was within biting range now, but the tyrannosaur no longer seemed inclined to make an appetizer of his head. Instead, she was wondering how this strange young person, who had crept into the humans’ camp to free the family of struthies, had come to know the names of her parents. The fury that had accumulated within her and that she had fully intended to vent on his hapless sacrificial form had largely subsided, to be replaced by curiosity. His pronunciation was terrible, of course, but no less remarkable for that. She watched him intently, waiting to see what he would do next.

  Touching his chin to his chest, he intoned a name that could only be his own. It was emphatically tribal. Putting as much force and care into his voice as he could muster, he then looked her straight in the eye and called her own name. The last time she’d heard that, it had been voiced by her mother.

  Sitting back on her haunches, she snarled querulously at the human, repeating first her parents’ names and then his. To this he nodded vigorously and smiled. She recognized both human gestures.

  “Damn me for a drunken manatee if they’re not talkin’,” marveled Ruskin.

  “Mind your thoughts, Mr. Ruskin.” Blackstrap’s brows beetled as he observed the snarling verbal byplay. “Growls and grunts be all it ’tis, can’t you see? A boy and his dog. ’Tis not true speech. Be that not so, Mr. Smiggens?”

  “That is my opinion also, Captain.”

  Blackstrap snorted with satisfaction.

  “But there is clearly some sort of contact,” Smiggens continued. “I wouldn’t call it language. Certainly not intelligent converse. But there’s surely something there. Something outside our experience, anyway.”

  Blackstrap waved off the implications. “I had a horse once that recognized more words than that dainty devil. But I never claimed to be able to talk to the nag.”

  “See there.” Thomas pointed at the carnosaur. “What she going to do now?”

  Throwing back her head, the young tyrannosaur initiated such a plaintive howl as to put any pack of energetic coyotes or wolves to shame. Will sympathized with her lament. Though their chanting was unsophisticated, the great carnosaurs were no less inherently euphonious than any of the other tribes save perhaps the duckbills, who were noteworthy for their mastery of the musical arts.

  It was a potent mix of outrage and loneliness. Not knowing quite how to respond, Will put his own head close to that of the howling tyrannosaur, half closed his eyes, and did his best to provide counterpoint. He’d attended many duckbill concerts, but the music of trained corythosaurs and 1am-beosaurs was like Mozart compared to the guttural baying of the youngster next to him. Yet in its own primitive fashion it was quite affecting, even moving.

  In any case he sang his level best, certain he would never again have the chance to participate in such a singular duet.

  Blackstrap was utterly unmoved by the raw emotion on display. “Here, now, boy, belay that racket! You there, Johanssen, shut him up.”

  “Aye, sir.” Turning to Will, the sailor yanked sharply on the rope that had been looped around the younger man’s waist. “You heard the captain!”

  Unable to keep his balance, Will went sprawling. What happened next was as unexpected as anything that had gone before.

  Ceasing her mournful dirge, the young tyrannosaur lunged with astonishing speed in the tall pirate’s direction. Two of the men charged with restraining her were pulled off their feet, and it was only through dint of much straining and shouting that their companions succeeded in arresting Prettykill’s charge. Her jaws slammed shut barely inches from the seaman’s face.

  For several moments all was confusion as everyone fought to secure the hawser rope around the tyrannosaur’s jaws. Only when they had once more been strapped shut did any among the assembled relax. As for Johanssen, he was entirely convinced that his heart had well and truly stopped for several seconds.

  Unable once again to offer anything in the way of resistance, Prettykill was forced to content herself with glaring furiously at her captors.

  Struggling to his feet, Will staggered over to her, no longer afraid. “It’s all right,” he assured her gently. “I’m not hurt.” Several times in succession he repeated his name and then hers, taking care to vary the inflection so that neither was more prominent than the other.

  She met his gaze once more. Gradually her breathing slowed.

  Will felt a sudden weight on his shoulders: Blackstrap’s arm. The captain might look fat, but Will decided he wouldn’t want to meet him across a wrestling mat.

  “Interesting demonstration, lad. Most enlightening. Not that I countenance your claims for the brute’s intelligence, not for a minute. Why, it just tried to eat poor Mr. Johanssen’s face. Didn’t it, Johanssen?” Still badly shaken, the seaman in question could only nod a reply. “Now, I ask you, boy, is that a sign of intelligence?”

  “How would you expect her to react after you’ve gone and made her a prisoner?” Will badly wanted to rub the itchy dirt off his face.

  Blackstrap ignored the question. “I will admit to this: you know the proper commands for controlling the beast.”

  “I can’t command her. Nobody commands a Tyrannosaurus rex.”

  “Is that what it’s called, then?” Smiggens was looking not at Will but at their other captive.

  “D’you take me for a prize fool, lad? Bark at it if you will, but no more singing. Hurts me sensitive ears, it does.” Blackstrap turned to his first mate. “’Tis bleeding right you were, Mr. Smiggens. This lad will be far more valuable to us alive than dead, though I confess some regret as to the loss of entertainment.”

  “Stop calling me ‘boy.’” Somewhat emboldened by the bound Prettykill’s new willingness to leap to his defense, Will held his ground.

  “Fair enough.” Blackstrap grinned. “What shall we call you, then?”

  “I told you. Will Denison’s my name.”

  “So be it. You’re a brave and clever lad, young Will. So harken to me when I say that ’tis my will you accompany us back to our ship. It may be that should we meet up with any more of these dinosaur beasties along the way, your barking will prove useful.” He leaned close, his blackened and broken teeth split in a humorless smile. “But be aware at all times that no matter who does the barking here, I be the master and you the dog.”

  “I still don’t understand how you managed to anchor safely. I’ve been told that any vessel that approaches Dino-topia close enough to see it is invariably caught in strong currents and wrecked on her shores.”
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  “Har, ’tis a noble word, invariable. I’ve been proving such fine words wrong all me life, young Will. All I can say is that they’ve been poor captains who’ve surveyed these shores, weak no doubt in spirit as well as in seamanship.”

  “It was a big wave,” Smiggens explained. “Carried us right over the reefs, it did. We were lucky.”

  Blackstrap scowled at his first mate but said nothing.

  “Over the reef.” Will considered. “I guess that’s possible. No, obviously it’s possible. How will you get out again? There are no channels through any of the reefs.”

  “We’ll find a way,” Blackstrap assured him. “Blast one open, if need be. We’ve plenty of powder aboard.”

  Could they do it? Will wondered. This Blackstrap was just obstinate and foolhardy enough to try such a crazy venture. A distant echo of thunder drew his attention skyward. The storm was still out there somewhere, still intensifying. Could these brigands’ vessel ride it out behind the protection of the reef? Just how violent could a six-year storm be? Would it miss Dinotopia, or were the ultimate predictions of the weathercasters going to be proved right?

  “There’s a big storm coming,” Will began.

  It was Smiggens’s turn to grunt sardonically. “Don’t tell us about big storms, lad. It was a monstrous great one which brought us to this land.”

  “That was nothing compared to what might be coming. It’s due to hit land any day now, and the area most in danger is the Northern Plains. You can’t go back there. Everyone’s already left.”

  “Now, why would they do that?” Ruskin wondered. “The land seemed fertile enough.”

  “I ... I don’t know, exactly,” Will went on. “I only know that when a big six year storm is predicted, everyone who lives on the Northern Plains is told to leave until the storm has passed.”

  Smiggens considered. “The ground we first crossed was fairly flat. I’ve seen such country along the southeast coast of India. A monsoon-season cyclone could bring some local flooding.” He smiled at Blackstrap. “Nothing the Condor can’t ride out.”