Well Ladies and gents, after and incredibly busy fall, here ya go. Enjoy!
Chapter 8:
Battle at the Cave
The massive sharptooth was only slightly smaller than the T-rex it had just passed. As it slowly walked into the large, dark chamber it passed through a beam of light from above, revealing its appearance. The sharptooth was a Carcharodontosaurus, or Carcar for short, with light tan and green skin and a very pale underside. The Carcar’s muscular legs carried the heavy T-rex like body and were in contrast with the small and skimpy arms. A series of eight green-blue stripes covered his back, streaking from side to side. But the most striking details on this Carcar were its various battle scars. The white lines of scar tissue covered its body, and he was missing nearly a foot of his tail. Altogether it was obvious this sharptooth had been through many battles in its life.
The Carcar walked toward the far side of the cavern, a couple hundred yards away from the cavern entrance guarded by the monstrous T-rex he had passed earlier. He eventually came to a stop, the tremors caused by his heavy footsteps ceasing, and looked at the pitch black corner that contained his master. Why do I still call him master, I don’t need him but he needs me he thought to himself.
“Is a plan for the hatching ready?” came a booming voice from the darkness. “Yes, it’s all drawn up and the orders have been given” the Carcar replied. “Excellent, Commander Stub” the voice replied. The Carcar desperately fought back the urge to correct the hidden sharptooth. His name wasn’t stub, it was Blacktooth, Stub was a nickname given to him after he received his tail injury. Still, his master had somehow gotten the idea in his head that Stub was the Carcar’s real name and the sharptooth knew it was best not to correct him.
“Oh, and commander, this better work, our entire campaign depends on it” the voice said with a strange inflection that told Blacktooth his master was delightfully imagining ways to punish the Carcar for any failure. “We’ll see if you Carcharodontosauruses are actually as intelligent as they claim” the voice added.
The Carcar’s were among a large number of sharptooth species to have been either exterminated or killed off to nothing more than a few surviving members. Unlike the Utahraptors though Carcars weren’t the victims of genocide, but of their own greed. Carcars are considered the planners of the sharptooth species. They are generally more intelligent and when they get organized, armies led by them are unstoppable. This lead to the near conquering of the sharptooth world when the entire Carcar species joined together, but their incredible greed made them all turned on each other. After the backstabbing was done fewer than a hundred individuals were left.
How far my kind has fallen Blacktooth thought to himself, from near masters of the world to lowly servants to a tyrant. “Do not fret my master, all will go according to plan, the new Cornu Valde will be within our control” Blacktooth said. “Good, go now, your inferiority is giving me a headache” the voice replied.
The Carcar turned and started to walk away. One day, I’ll kill you myself he thought as left his master’s chamber.
Cera pushed down on her leg, slowing adding pressure, carefully searching for the point where the pain would take over. She reached it and with a small yelp she quickly pulled her leg back up off the ground. Still, the three horn was pleased with her progress. The leg must not have been nearly as injured as everyone thought, it was healing very rapidly. Still though The Healer mandated regular breaks and prevented Cera from ever putting too much strain on the leg.
They were on one of those frequent breaks, lying beneath the shade of a large tree, its leaves protecting them from the sun beating down from above. Cera sighed as she returned to her most frequent subject of thought over the past few days of travel, her conversation with Chomper. That sharptooth is smarter then he looks she thought as she turned to look at the purple dinosaur as he picked at the tree’s bark. Suddenly Chomper plunged his hand into a hole he had just created and picked a long brown bug that seemed to have a hundred legs. The sharptooth popped his head back, opened his jaws, and threw the bug in. Cera turned her head away a second before she heard the sickening crunch. “Eww” she whispered to herself.
Littlefoot had felt like a brother to her over all these years. She had always felt much closer to him then to the rest of the gang, which was saying quite a bit considering how close she was to all of them. Still, Cera wasn’t sure she wanted to give up what she had found with Littlefoot.
“Move” The Healer suddenly called out as she got up and started walking. Cera quietly obeyed.
A winged beetle landed on a small stone on a cliffs edge, giving its wings a momentary rest. At first the flying insect thought it was alone, but when the rock it was resting on shifted the beetle quickly took off again, realizing it had landed on the head of a young long neck.
That head belonged to Littlefoot, who was lying on his belly, gazing across the deep, steep valley before him. On his left were Ali and Rhett, lying in similar positions, while Luca was on his right. On the opposite side of the valley was the destination to their long journey, the Cornu Valde’s birthing cave.
It was a cave deep within a strange mountain range. A maze of peeks, valleys, caves, tunnels and cliff-side paths made up a formidable barrier. And it was cold, the whole area constantly covered in a layer of snow. It turned out that “We should be there tonight” had actually meant “We will be at the base of the mountains tonight”. Five more days of climbing through the freezing mountains followed that until finally they had reached this point.
Now they sat in hiding, watching the cave closely. There were two paths that lead to the cave itself, one was large and spacious but the other was narrow, dangerous, and very steep. They knew sharptooth forces would be hiding around somewhere so the four of them were carefully watched, planning on what to do.
“Don’t you think the four of us don’t stand a chance against a bunch of sharpteeth?” Littlefoot whispered to Luca. “There won’t be many of them; it’s hard to get large groups up the mountains” the three horn replied without even looking back at Littlefoot. “Well how do we tell when the next eclipse is?” Littlefoot next asked, looking up at the cloud covered sky. The sun wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“That’s how” Ali suddenly said and Littlefoot adjusted his gaze to match hers. A section of cloud had suddenly cleared, a perfect circle right around the sun, and right on queue a black circle began eating away at it.
Littlefoot’s mouth simply hung open. It was almost like some unseen dinosaur had just reached down and caused all to happen on command. It was too perfect.
“Move” Luca barked as he jumped up and started running down the path that eventually meets up with the wide path leading to the cave. The others panted as they tried to keep up, ever careful not to lose their grip and topple over the edge to the deep valley beside them. As they turned onto the path leading to the cave they could see the tail end of a group of sharpteeth ahead of them, and Littlefoot felt fear creep into his body.
Just as they got close to the cave, the ground started rumbling. Luca skidded to a halt and Littlefoot slammed into him as the long neck couldn’t stop his momentum. Littlefoot arched his head around Luca to see why the three horn had stop and saw a quickly growing pile of rocks blocking their path. The long neck followed the rocks up to the source and saw a large sharptooth looking down, a wide grin on its face. It’s a trap Littlefoot suddenly thought.
“You idiots! You ruined everything!” came a voice from behind the group. Littlefoot turned to see a group of ten fully grown three horns running up to them. The front runner in the group was the one who had spoken. “Dam! You ruined it! Who are you? Is that you Luca!” the three horn said they grew closer.
“Forehorn! Behind us!” a three horn from the back called. The three horn apparently called Forehorn, which was the first three horn to speak, looked back. Littlefoot looked too, and saw ten fast bitters and two large sharpteeth bearing down on the group. “Screwed, screwed, I hope your happy we’re all screwed!” the Forehorn spat in disgusted as he took another look at Littlefoot and his friends. “Back six, form ranks!” he then called back to the other three horns apparently under his command.
The six three horns closest to the sharpteeth quickly ran to meet them, leaving a large amount of path between them and the rock wall. Moments before meeting up with the vicious predators though, they formed a line that stretched the length of the path, creating a wall of horns facing the sharpteeth. It was obvious by the level of discipline that these three horns had seen a lot of fighting in their days.
“Littlefoot look! Up there!” Ali called out. Littlefoot looked to a point further up the mountain that Ali had indicated to and saw more fast biters half running, half tumbling down the mountain side towards them. Littlefoot had just enough time count ten fast biters before one jumped straight at the long neck. Littlefoot’s instincts took over and he whipped his tail at the fast biter. He hit the dinosaur and it was knocked off balance, tumbling through the air straight towards the cliffs edge. It desperately reached out in a last ditch attempted to grab Littlefoot’s tail and pull its self up but only managed to leave a light scratch on the longneck.
Littlefoot watched as the fast bitter disappeared over the cliffs edge.
Littlefoot stared after it for a moment. I just killed it he thought to himself in disbelief. The dinosaur quickly snapped back to attention though as he saw another fast biter lunge at him out of the corner of his eye. He ducked his head and the fast biter flew right over it, landing and skidding to a halt.
The fast biter glared back up to Littlefoot and jumped at him again, this time aiming for the center of the long neck’s mass. Littlefoot again tried to whip the fast biter with his tail but missed, and the small carnivore landed on his back, clawing at him.
Littlefoot cried out in pain then slammed his body into the rock face, trying to crush the fast biter, but the creature manage to climb up on the long neck’s back and then jump off. The two circled for a moment before the fast biter yet again jumped at Littlefoot, who yet again tried to hit it with his tail. This time though he was successful, slamming the fast biter into the rock face with incredible force.
Littlefoot looked away as heard the crack of breaking bones. He then looked back to see the fast biter on the ground, alive but badly hurt. The long neck walked up to it, leaned in, and said “Run”. The fast biter happily obliged as it quickly jumped up and limped and scrabbled its way up the rock pile blocking the path, somehow managing to make it over the top.
Littlefoot looked back at the others to see the fight quickly wrapping up. All ten of the fast biters that had attacked behind the three horn line were either lying dead on the ground, or mysteriously missing. Littlefoot assumed the missing fast biters had taken a little plunge over the edge. From what Littlefoot could tell the three horn line and the other group of sharpteeth had simply stood around looking menacing the whole time as the line was still intact and all the sharpteeth that were there in the beginning were now walking away unharmed. Littlefoot sighed with relief when he saw Ali was okay. Still, the long necks legs felt like jelly as he realized he had just killed.
“Here, just follow this trail and you’ll arrive” Comis said as the sharptooth stopped and looked back at the leaf eaters following her. Ducky looked past her up the trail, which lead straight up the side of a heavily wooded mountain. “This volcano is the famous Animus Mountain” Comis added.
“Volcano? What is that?” Petrie asked as he perched on Spike’s head. Idiots Comis thought to herself. “It’s a mountain that spews fire and lava” Comis replied, barely hiding his disgust. She looked back at the flyer who just hung his head. “Now listen, all of you, I cannot follow you beyond this point. If they see a sharptooth they kill on sight, so I have to stay down here. But each day, just before the bright circle, as you seem to call it, is about to disappear below the horizon I want the flyer to come down here and update me on what is going on. Now I warn the four of you, those three horns don’t take too kindly to other species. Good luck” Comis finished. With that the Utah raptor got up and ran off, leaving the four leaf eaters at the foot of Animus Mountain.
“What are you doing here Luca!” The three horn Littlefoot only knew as Forehorn said. Littlefoot looked at Luca to see a puzzled look on the three horn’s face.
“Wha-wha-what do you mean? I brought Littlefoot of the Great Valley” Luca stammered in response. “You brought wh- Oh…” Forehorn trailed off.
Forehorn started pacing back and forth. “Okay, I guess this is kind of my bad. Hehe, woops” Forehorn said with an awkward smile. “Which one of you is Littlefoot?” He said looking back at the three long necks looking on in confusion.
“I am” Littlefoot responded. “So you’re a real dinosaur?” the Forehorn asked quizzically. “Well… Ya” Littlefoot said, his confusion growing.
“Forehorn Kiga, permission to give post-battle report” said another three horn that had just walked up to the group. “Permission granted” the Forehorn, who Littlefoot now knew was actually called Forehorn Kiga, responded.
“Battle Group 1 and four non-soldier leaf eaters engaged two groups of hostile sharpteeth that together contained two T-Rexes and twenty D-chews. Friendly forces suffered only minor injuries while hostile forces suffered six confirmed D-chew kills and three presumed D-chew kills. All other hostiles fled the fight” the three horn finished. “Ya, thanks soldier, go get Silus” Forehorn Kiga replied, after obviously ignoring every word the other three horn had said.
“Well since I’m about to tell you some shocking and probably unwelcome news I might as well introduce myself. My official title is Forehorn Kiga, leader of Battle Group 1, but since you’re not soldiers you can just call me Kiga” the three horn said. “Uh, nice to meet you Kiga” Ali replied after a long pause by the three long necks.
Kiga turned to a new three horn that had just joined the group, obviously the Silus Kiga had asked for, and for the first time since the battle Littlefoot’s head started thinking a little clearly as he started to examine the two three horns in front of him. Kiga seemed like an unusually small three horn but every square inch of his body budged with muscle. He had the ordinary grey body and pale underside of a fully grown three horn. Silus was a very large three horn, but as he came near he didn’t make a sound, an incredible feat for such a large creature. Silus’ coloration was also unremarkable but Littlefoot’s eyes were drawn to the mangled, knotted flesh on the three horn’s neck. The mass of scar tissue sat right on the leaf eater’s throat in what Littlefoot assumed must have been horrible injury.
“Ah, Silus, we appear to have Littlefoot of the Great Valley in our presence” Kiga said, gesturing towards Littlefoot with his head. Silus’ eyes grew wide as he quickly shifted his gaze between Littlefoot and Kiga. “This is my second in command, Silus. An injury he suffered in battle a few years ago left him mute, but trust me he’s as surprised as I am to see you” Kiga said. “And why exactly is that mister!” Rhett suddenly said, putting on the fake “tough guy” attitude that Littlefoot was all too used to seeing.
“Well first off I doubt Luca has been very honest about who he is, have you Luca?” Kiga said in a taunting tone. Luca, who seemed just as confused as the long necks, looked away at this remark. “Luca here was always… well the most enthusiastic of the young three horns, he spent his entire childhood training in hopes to one day join us, the Animus Benevolentia. But this often got him in trouble; in fact he started becoming quite the pain. It was because of a blunder on his part similar to what happened today that the egg was stolen in the first place. We couldn’t bear to punish such an enthusiastic child but we couldn’t afford to have him mess anything else up. So we lied.” Kiga said.
“What do you mean you lied!” Luca suddenly burst, his face contorted in furry. “Luca, the seer is a ceremonial figure, she doesn’t actually have the ability to predict the future. In fact that whole idea is simply ridiculous” Kiga responded.
Luca’s jaw dropped, pure shock crossing his face. “We needed to be rid of you for a few months, but we couldn’t bear hurting you. So we came up with some silly name we never thought anyone would actually have and came up with a location we never thought you could find” Kiga finished. “Oh and by the way Littlefoot, your name is simply ridiculous, I mean honestly. You’re a long neck, you have a huge foot!” Kiga added with a slight chuckle.
Luca and the three long necks simply stared in shock at what was revealed at them, any humor completely lost. “Oh come on, not even a chuckle? Okay… Umm, sorry?” Kiga said with an awkward smile.
