Dinosaur Summer (32 page)

Small communisaurs began removing the injured and a kind of order returned to the damaged side of the mound. A steady stream of animals clambered down the walls, claws digging in to the steep slopes as they descended tail-first. More animals appeared bearing clumps of masticated leafy matter, and some communisaur "masons" began pushing muddy balls over the edge of the hole, mixing the leaf matter in, and patting them into irregular bricks with stolid dedication.

"For the time being, we're being ignored," Anthony said, "but if we stay here much longer, the queen's minions are going to grab us again and take us below for her amusement. Only this time, I don't think she's going to be very amused. We must smell a lot like the folks who did this damage."

"Where are they?" OBie asked, grimacing as he got to his feet.

"They'd have no reason to blow a hole in this mound unless they knew we were inside and wanted to get us out," Anthony said. "They're probably looking for us or getting ready to cause more damage."

"Well," OBie said, "let's save our gracious host the queen any more grief and find them before these creatures do."

Ray helped OBie by letting him lean on one shoulder. They half climbed, half slid down the wall to the first level, then took a ramp to the base of the mound. A few communisaurs stood aside with sheep-like expressions of uncertainty as they passed. "The fight's been taken out of them," OBie commented.

"Maybe they have other things on their mind," Anthony said. "There has to be some reason--"

Another explosion shook the ground. A billow of dust and debris flew from the western side of the mound. They ran around the corner, OBie hopping beside Ray, just in time to see a corner of the mound collapse, a gaping hole opening in two levels.

"Halloa!" a voice shouted from the forest. Wetherford stepped into the clearing, and then another figure. Peter's jaw dropped in shock. Vince Shellabarger stood behind Wetherford, a bandage wrapped loosely around the crown of his head.

"We thought we could distract them while you escaped," said the Englishman, still waving. "If they hadn't turned you into infant formula, that is."

"My God, Vince!" OBie called out, and they met in the clearing, shaking hands and slapping shoulders to the strident skirling of hundreds of communisaurs. "I was sure you'd been killed."

Vince stared at them with little expression, touched the side of his head, and said, "Not yet."

"Dagger gave it his best shot," Wetherford said. "He was prying old Vincent from under the cage whenel Colonel 's soldiers brought him down with a bazooka flown in from Uruyen."

"Dagger's dead?" Peter asked. Vince turned to Peter and regarded him as if he were the only sane one in the group. The trainer's steady gaze discomfited Peter. It seemed as if Vince had died, and his ghost now stared at him. "The Indians fought the Army to save him," Vince said. "They considered it sacrilege to kill the Challenger. A lot of people died."

Communisaur diggers

"My God," OBie said.

Wetherford's grin faded. "Yes, and Mr. Shellabarger's had a nasty time of it. He insisted he come with me, however. And he it was who suggested a few sticks of dynamite would come in handy."

Shellabarger shook his head, face creased with sorrow. "I swear I did not have it in for that animal. I did not want him to die."

"Unpleasant situation back there now," Wetherford said. "They've pushed out the Indians and insisted on closing the tepui completely. Wouldn't even consider a rescue expedition.El Colonel is beside himself. The radio's working again, but the government in Caracas doesn't dare face up to the Army in the middle of an Indian uprising. Mr. Shellabarger knows his vines, however . . . We found somemamure in the forest and used bars from the cages to hammer out a grappling hook. Threw the vines across--"

Shellabarger took Peter's shoulder and seemed to derive some strength from the contact. "If you had died, boy, I would have never forgiven myself. How in hell did you get this far north?"

"Yes, well," Wetherford said, "I was about to describe our remarkable feat with the vines--"

"Billie said El Grande swallows people," Peter said.

"That's true enough," OBie said. "The inside of that mound smelled like the very bowels."

Anthony had said little until now. He seemed agitated, even angry. "Peter and Ray saw a seaplane fly over."

"We've heard it, but we haven't seen it," Wetherford said. "The Army's chartered someone from Uruyen to inspect the area, with strict instructions not to land, but it isn't a seaplane."

"We saw that one, too," Peter said. "It buzzed theStratoraptor. "

As if summoned by name, a ringingskreee cut through the forest and echoed from the mound. The communisaurs investigating the fresh hole froze, then hurriedly retreated inside. A few reluctant fork-tails stayed in place, bouncing back and forth on their husky forelimbs.

"It was getting itself cleaned by golden ants in an open space, an ant field," Peter added.

"That's less than a half a mile from here," Shellabarger said.

"Cleaned--byants? " Wetherford asked.

Anthony grabbed Peter's shoulder. "You didn't stick with us," he said, glaring at his son. "I was sure you were dead." "Father--" Peter began, but there was no time.

The fresh hole was suddenly mobbed by burly fork-tails, heads swinging as they scrambled from within the mound. They seemed in a mood to attack anything--and several focused their attention on the humans. Shellabarger looked back into the forest. "Let's get the hell out of here." They ran from the open space around the mound, leaping onto the clean-cut edge of forest bed. Looking behind, Peter saw two of the biggest fork-tails following, tails erect, double-fanged beaked jaws gaping. He doubted they'd be taken back to the queen for examination this time.

That was what he had heard his father saying. Not "expectation," but "examination." This thought sprang into his head for no good reason just before Shellabarger came to an abrupt halt.

"Good Christ," Shellabarger said under his breath, then grimaced and stumbled to one side as both Ray and Peter bumped into him. Peter landed on his back and Ray dropped on his knees beside him.

A thick yellow tree trunk dropped to the floor of the forest just yards away. Peter pushed himself into a crouch and stared at the trunk in disbelief.

Shellabarger, Anthony, and OBie lay on their stomachs, hands covering their heads. Peter turned in time to see the forktails stumping through the forest, barely four yards behind. One of the fork-tails spotted Peter and veered in his direction.

The tree-trunk shivered and moved again, pulling up long glistening roots. Peter saw thick scales on the trunk, black foliage higher up--

A wickedly curved beak lanced down from the canopy and split the spine of the closest fork-tail like a butcher's cleaver. Peter heard the bones crack and snap and saw the fork-tail fall, a sudden ton of dead meat.

He still could not make sense of what was happening. Another tree moved, and his eyes and brain seemed to focus at once. He looked up--and up--

What caught his eye next in the gloom beneath the canopy was a radiance of brilliant white feathers. Out of the mane of feathers poked a massive head, like the head of a griffin. The wickedly sharp beak plunged again and scissored the side of the second fork-tail. The communisaur fell with a heavywhump and skidded in the litter of the forest floor, snout plowing up a cluster of seedlings.

The fork-tail's head stopped within a foot of Peter's knee. Blood sprayed down on Peter and Ray and the animal's side rose into the air, at least three hundred pounds of meat and bone and hide. Blood fountained from the fork-tail's open thorax. It spasmed and its tail thumped furiously against a tree.

The beak plunged again and again, snatching away more meat and bone. The air filled with the snapping of bones and the leathery wet sound of tearing meat.

Ray took hold of Peter's shoulder and pulled him back. They frog-marched backward several meters, and Peter suddenly made sense of it all.

Dinoshi.The death eagle had crept up to the vicinity of the mound through the forest. Its head reached higher than the canopy when it stood upright, but now it stalked with head and tail at a level, like the venator. Its wicked dark-rimmed green eyes, as big as baseballs, blinked against the spatters of blood from its victims. It jerked back huge pieces of meat and swallowed them with only two or three knife-whispering chomps of the big serrated teeth behind its beak.

The death eagle lifted to its full height to swallow, its throat expanding alarmingly and feathers sticking out like quills. The head vanished in the canopy and then dropped a few meters. The animal spread its fan of neck feathers and stared down at Anthony and OBie and Shellabarger. The glittering eyes blinked and focused directly on Peter and Ray. Wetherford was nowhere to be seen.

The fork-tails lay dead. The forest was quiet except for the commotion on the communisaur mound.

"We're next," Ray said softly.

"Yeah," Peter said.

The death eagle swung about gracefully between the trees, its huge lean body like smoke; it hardly disturbed the forest at all as it turned, legs swiftly planting themselves beside the fork-tails. It leaned over Peter and Ray, open beak bloody, and cocked its head with a very aquiline expression, intent on these new animals.

"Be still," Peter told Ray. They froze.

"Does it really matter?" Ray asked. His face shone ghostly pale in the forest gloom. Peter thought they both looked dead already. They had been dead ever since they walked across the bridge, just as a mouse is dead the minute a snake swallows it. It still kicks, tries to breathe, maybe it blinks and struggles against the clutching throat muscles, but it's dead, sure as hell.

The death eagle was beautiful. Its eyes and face seemed almost friendly, with that feathery sunburst focusing sound back to its flapless ears, its beady-eyed expression coldly quizzical. Its yellow legs were as big across as trees. The startling fan of feathers spread at least seven feet wide. Standing erect, weighing in at four or five tons, its black crown towered twenty-five feet above the forest floor. The body feathers seemed black as smoke in the gloom, but in the sun they would glitter like jewels, like a peacock's fan. This was swift death wrapped in glory, hypnotic, the kind of death that could enjoy a bath in honey-colored ants, a loony lovely end to everything.

All it had to do--

Dinoshidropped its head with a quick jerk and its sunburst of feathers quivered. It scrutinized Peter and Ray from just a couple of yards, feathers rustling stiffly. It was listening to their breathing, to their heartbeats, and it was very interested, but uncertain what to do next.

The death eagle switched its gaze to the three prone men before it--OBie, Peter's father, and Shellabarger. None of them moved; all kept their hands over their heads and necks, like prisoners. For Peter, time moved like cold syrup. Sweat crawled down his forehead in honey-thick rivulets and dripped from his brows. He heard nothing. Sound in the forest seemed muffled, suffocated.

Then the death eagle shifted its weight and sticks snapped beneath its huge talons.Dinoshi lifted one leg and slapped its foot down on the broken-backed fork-tail. Bones crunched beneath the avisaur's weight and blood oozed from the forktail's mouth, along with a ghastly groan.

The death eagle raised its head and swung toward the mound. The noise of the communisaurs--raucous skirling, scrabbling claws--returned to Peter's sphere of awareness and he wondered why he had not heard it earlier.

The death eagle dropped its head, its Elizabethan feather gorget dished forward to gather sound from the mound. It leveled its back and took a step away from the dead fork-tails, away from the frozen humans. Its glittering eyes seemed to see sights in another universe, one no longer occupied by Peter and his companions. The death eagle stalked silently east through the trees.Dinoshi had more familiar prey in mind, abundant, unaware prey that it had doubtless eaten often before and found tasty. They were not going to die--not yet.

Only at the last minute did it leap, crashing through the thicket into the clearing. From Peter's vantage, he could see only broken pieces of the destruction, but this was more than enough. The death eagle's cry cracked the air into painful pieces. The communisaurs tried to defend themselves, but with their fortress-home already violated by blasts of dynamite, they had little or no protection.

Through the screen of trunks and creepers and leaves, Peter sawDinoshi 's talons kick in the mud walls. Gray bodies rushed out in a flood, sacrificing themselves for the good of the hive. Blood spattered against the mound. With lightning-swift flicks of the griffin's head, bodies large and small flew about like stuffed animals on the bed of an angry child.

Wetherford sneaked up behind them. "God help me, I've wet my pants," he said to Ray and Peter. "We had best move our asses before HerrTotenadler decides we taste good after all."

Anthony got to his feet first, hugged Peter with painful strength, then helped OBie. The older man's face was dreadfully pale and his arms shook. He clutched his shoulder and grimaced at a sharp pain. "I'm all right," he said as Shellabarger got to his feet. The trainer rearranged the bandage on his head, but the cloth's slip had revealed a deep blood-caked crease in his scalp.

Ray went to OBie and once again lent his arm for support.

"The only place a big seaplane can touch down is the south-central lake," OBie said, voice shaky. Anthony nodded agreement.

"It saw us and waggled its wings," Peter said.

"How do we know it's going to touch down?" Anthony asked.

"Call it a hunch," OBie said. "A PBY doesn't come cheap, and there aren't any local planes of that type. Someone's behind it--someone who doesn't give a damn what the Army or any tinhorn dictator says." He drew himself up and squared his shoulders, but his face was still white with pain. "The lake's about eight or ten miles from here. Maybe we'll meet somebody halfway--guns, food, medicine . . ."

"We can't go back," Shellabarger said. He waved his arms decisively and commanded, "Move!" and they walked north.