The T. rex stood in a horizontal posture twelve feet tall, surveying the settlement. Eric heard an animal braying somewhere near the gate, the dinosaur stomped along in that direction and bent its head down. The braying stopped.
“Guys.” Eric prodded Cobb and the Professor.
“Wha—whoa!” Cobb jumped to his feet.
“Stay down.” Selva poked up from the room below. “Don’t draw attention!”
Eric watched the Tyrannosaur as it stood back up, munching on the half-eaten remains of a donkey. It swung around and walked over to look down the city’s main street. Lights shone in several windows, probably candles or fires. How many people were still awake—or asleep—unaware of what was now transpiring?
At ground level, a door opened with a creak and Eric heard two female voices talking inside, not one hundred feet from the prehistoric predator. An older woman exited the house, carrying a few loaves of bread, looked right, then left, then left again, and froze.
Tilting its head, the T. rex eyed her like a curious bird. Eric tried to lock eyes with her and shook his head, imploring “No, no, no!”
Dropping the loaves, she raised her hands to her head and uttered a blood-curdling scream. The dinosaur bellowed out a roar which rumbled the air, lowered its head, and charged.
Without thinking, Eric vaulted down the flight of mud-brick steps from the roof and seized the woman by the arm, only realizing what he was doing when he saw the Tyrannosaur barreling forward like a gargantuan bull, mouth of curving teeth open wide. He pulled her through the narrow alley between the inn and adjacent building. The beast turned faster than anything so big had a right to, lunging forward to shove its head and neck in after them, snapping with its jaws amid the cracking of bricks.
A thunderclap and cyan flash heralded a laser shot from above. Rachel stood atop the roof, firing again to scorch the dinosaur once more. It reared back, roaring in pain.
Selva grabbed her wrist, shoved the pistol up. “No! You’ll start a fire!”
In the light from the inn’s windows, Eric saw the Tyrannosaur’s hide was various shades of grey, with dark stripes down its head, neck, and upper back. Lips covered its fearsome teeth. Again it proved itself nimble, putting one foot forward to step partway up the outside stairs, so much so Selva was forced to take Rachel with her as she jumped from the roof to the dirt street below.
“Get the horses!” she pushed Rachel after Temerin and Cobb.
The Tyrannosaur gave up on trying to push through the alley and stepped back to circle round, keeping one eye locked on Selva, Eric, and the woman he’d rescued.
“Get inside, anywhere!” Eric shouted to her. Selva ducked through the window to retrieve the rest of their gear. They’d have to try luring it from the city, and hope they could regroup with Matreo and his servants later.
More shouting came from elsewhere, this time men, angry, as if confronting a foe. Eric risked a sprint back onto the roof and saw a group of what might be town guards forming a line with spears and shields. Not one carried a torch, again the risk of fire was too great. Must train to see by moonlight, Eric thought, and wondered if the Founders had tweaked the inhabitants for better night vision. The dinosaur took a wound on the snout from a spear thrust, but still advanced. The men fell back, towards a wall and lookout tower.
Rachel, Temerin, and Cobb returned amid the sound of hooves, holding the reins of the other two horses as they sat astride theirs. Remembering the fastlearner training, Eric put both hands on the saddle, one foot in a stirrup, and swung himself on. His horse was black, and appeared well-fed.
One guardsman slipped while ascending a ladder, his feet dangled inches from the T. rex’s hungry jaws. Eric, along with the rest of the expedition, began shouting and waving their hands. The dinosaur spun its bulk around and roared again.
“You sure we thought this one through?” Rachel said.
“Too late now,” replied Temerin. “Go!”
“Yah!” Eric snapped his reins and turned the horse to face the city’s other gate, jabbing his heels into its sides. They charged through and out, down the road outside. With earth-shaking footfalls, the beast followed. The horses were quick.
The Tyrannosaur was quicker.
Thundering past a collection of huts, Eric stole a glance back over his shoulder. “Must go faster!”
“Speed up!” Selva shouted.
What was the top speed of a horse? Eric had no idea, but whatever it was, their pursuer could best it. The dinosaur closed to within twenty feet, running in a horizontal stride with mouth partway open. Temerin and Rachel were falling behind, in seconds it would be upon them...
He did the only thing he could think of, and broke right.
“Eric!” he heard Rachel shout. “What are you doing?”
As he hoped, the T. rex locked onto him and faded off the road, following him into the knee-high grass of a field. “Go! I’ll catch up, go!”
He crested a small hill, the beast hot on his tail. It roared, as if he needed a reminder it was still there. He looked back again and swore. Surely a large theropod like that could not keep up such a pace for long. Maybe the Founders had gene-tweaked their dinosaurs; he doubted that roar was natural. The horse was panting now, foaming at the mouth as it pushed itself to the limit, running for its life—and his, too.
The moon had almost set, its dim light now giving way to near-total darkness. A low streambed was ahead, eroded out of the soft earth, his horse lunged into a leap and its rear legs fell short. In a blur, Eric was thrown forward against its mane, then pitched backwards as it fell into the stream, crashing into a few inches of cold water. The horse landed atop his legs, and the Tyrannosaur’s jaws came down.
Eric wound up staring straight into the beast’s eye as it bit into his horse, rending flesh and snapping bone. It thrashed, knocking Eric free and aside. He scrambled to his feet as the last forlorn whines of the steed he’d barely known sounded, then fell silent.
It was almost completely dark now, as he scrambled from the streambed he had trouble seeing his hands on the ground. He climbed out and crouched, ready to run. A great bulky shape maybe a dozen feet away was the Tyrannosaur commencing its meal. Too close—he turned and ran, then turned again after a few seconds. It did not follow.
He continued to jog, following a zig-zag path for whatever good that might do in throwing it off if it changed its mind. A tidbit of information floated through his brain, about Tyrannosaurs having an excellent sense of smell, he couldn’t recall if that was something he’d read, or if it came from the same Ancient American movie which said they couldn’t see you if you didn’t move. Because that part hadn’t been true.
Now he was out alone in the inky darkness of an alien planet, infested with killer dinosaurs and gryphon-riding hunters. He still had his pack, thankfully—it had been on his back the whole time—and fished out a flashlight, then decided against it. Maybe dinosaurs were attracted to light.
A bird-like cheeping sounded behind him, then several more times from several different creatures, the pitter-patter of their feet following as Eric moved. He risked a brief flick of his flashlight and illuminated a gaggle of compies following him like chickens given the attitude of overeager dogs. These ones sported red coloring instead of brown. In a way, Eric was thankful for their company. At least if they ran away he’d have a few seconds of warning before some new terror ran up and snarfed him down.
Agent Vela had declined to implant them with trackers, citing the possibility of still-active technology reacting to it like the hunter’s drones to Selva’s laser carbine. The Founders appeared to have been isolationists, and may have set up defenses to ensure said isolation was maintained, but Eric found himself wishing he’d argued against her more forcefully. After about the fifth or sixth time a compy jumped up to nip at his sleeve, it got annoying. He picked up the pace.
Off to the left, at the edge of his vision, a cyan bolt flashed from ground to sky—another expedition member risking attracting others to their position to alert him. It looked to be some kilometers away, uphill and through a grove of trees. A large mass before that stirred, and for one terrifying moment Eric thought it was another Tyrannosaur. As it took a few lumbering steps forward, he saw it was only a triceratops. Still, he gave it a wide berth.
His eyes were adjusting now, seeing by nothing but starlight. In all his life in the megacity sprawls of Jefferson, he’d never seen a night like this. Even amid the nagging compies and lingering knowledge there might still be a certain twelve-ton theropod out stalking him, Eric took in the sights. The Milky Way was splashed across the firmament at a sharp angle, and on the ground were shadows cast from light which had departed suns years away. In a moment of fleeting mesmerization, he tripped over a compy.
The attack was instant.
