Tamer: King of Dinosaurs 2

“Let’s head back,” I said as I turned Bob back around so he pointed down the slope.

Trel gasped in my ear when I kicked him forward, but it sounded more like a gasp of enjoyment than one of terror.

The big parasaur made it back to the camp in only a few minutes, and I found Galmine, Kacerie, and Sheela at work tearing more sinew out. The basket we had used to collect the parts was almost full, and I felt a bit of excitement when I thought about all the cool uses we would have for the cordage.

“Did you enjoy your ride?” Galmine asked when I pulled Bob up to them and let Trel off.

“It was terrible, but I’ll improve it with a better saddle.” Trel smirked at me when I climbed down Bob’s back, and she held her hand out to me when I finally got to the ground.

“Have you seen any scavengers?” I asked them as I gestured to the bodies in the clearing.

“There have been a few on the side of the--” Kacerie started to say, but Trel cleared her throat violently.

“Poor Victor, all he can think about is working. Hey, male. I have a job for you. It is very important, and you are the only one here that can do it. Let’s go into the hut.”

“Yeah, sorry for the delay.” I smiled at the group of women and let Trel pull me toward the door. “Get as much sinew as you can! Try to clear the bodies so that they aren’t near the walls! Be careful with Bob and Ho--”

“They aren’t idiots!” Trel interrupted me. “They can figure it out. I have a more important task for you.”

“Sorry. Hard for me to let go.”

“I know,” Trel said as she gave me a fanged smile. “That is why I like you. You never quit working. I hope you know I’ve never respected or cared for another male as much as I care and respect you, Victor.”

“I know,” I whispered as we walked into the hut. “You aren’t even going to feed me to our offspring when we are done. I guess that’s a win for me.”

“Yessss,” she hissed as her mouth came up to kiss mine. I felt the fangs on her teeth, but I felt the presence of her aggressive tongue more.

The air inside the hut was warm and slightly smoky from the fire we kept burning all the time. As I kissed Trel, I felt Jinx rub the back of my legs, and I gave him the command to exit the hut and hang out with Galmine. He left with a happy squawk, but Trel didn’t seem to notice. Or at least, she didn’t stop kissing me.

“I need you,” she whispered when our mouths parted. Her fingers were at my khaki shirt buttons, and my hands were cupping her wonderful ass. Her silk boyshorts were really tight around her butt and hips, and she had to wiggle out of them when I pulled them down with my thumbs.

She got my long sleeved shirt off and then passed it over her shoulder to one of her spider legs. The black limb caught it and then carefully set it on the ground while her fingers moved to pull up my undershirt. My fingers were now tracing circles around her bare hips, and I walked them up to the tight silk tube top that covered her magnificent breasts. I had to raise my hands when she pulled my undershirt off, but then she raised hers when I pulled off her tube top.

My pants were still on, but we kissed again, and I enjoyed the sensation of her bare torso against mine. I had spent the last month gawking at her breasts and nipples through her thin dress, and the feeling of them sliding against my skin was making my head spin like one of those tea-cup style rides.

Her claw-fingers reached down to my belt and unbuckled it with an expert movement. She went to pull down my pants, but my shoes were still on, and we each let out some light laughter when I almost fell over. I soon had my boots, socks, pants, and underwear off. Then we were back in each other’s arms, and her legs were wrapped around my hips.

Then Trel-Idil-Iria and I became lovers.

My experience with Galmine had been wonderful. The gray-skinned woman was passionate, and we enjoyed each other with slow, sensual movements broken up by explorative kisses. She couldn’t move that fast, so our bouts of love-making consisted of me sliding deep into her while we rubbed against each other. It had been great, calming, and I’d felt almost like our spirits were joined when our bodies were.

Trel fucked me like she was on a mission. We started up standing, and her spider legs supported her while her human legs wrapped around me. That position gave me too much control though, and she ended up pushing me to the ground so that she could just straddle me cow-girl style. She pushed the palms of her black hands into my shoulders and then ground her hips into me with a frantic intensity.

Trel was in complete control of the situation. She bent her head down, hissed with pleasure, and worked me over like she was trying to get her forty minutes of cardio done in five.

Eventually, her hisses of pleasure turned into moans, and our bodies thrashed together as we both reached a climax. She was actually out of breath afterward, and the beautiful woman lay against my chest as she traced her pointed finger through the beard on my chin.

“Don’t move,” she whispered as she stood from me, anchored herself on her spider legs, and then flipped herself over so that she hung upside down.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I stared at her naked body.

“Ensuring all of your seed reaches my womb,” she whispered as her long obsidian hair pooled on my bare chest. “This is our first round. You will enjoy the next one even more.”

“It was great, but I’m not so sure I can go for another fifteen--”

“Nonsense, you are still hard,” Trel said as her hungry eyes turned to my naked body.

“It doesn’t quite work that way, Trel. I have to--”

“You just have to lie there and relax, Victor. Don’t over think this. You were made to inseminate me. It is our purpose to produce a wonderful brood of offspring.”

“Okay,” I said with a light laugh. I still doubted that Trel and I could make babies, but I definitely didn’t mind trying with her over, and over, and over again.

“So far, you have been more enjoyable than my previous two mates,” she whispered as she reached down to touch my penis. For half a moment, I thought her pointed fingers would accidentally rip or tear the sensitive skin there, but her hands were very smooth, and I was soon ready to fuck her again.

I lost track of time, but I kept count of how many times I filled the beautiful woman with my sperm: six. Each time after the first I didn’t think I’d be able to go another round, but Trel used either her hands, her mouth, or a combination of the two to get me rock-hard again. We tried a variety of positions, but her spider-legs made traditional missionary a little difficult. She was able to use her spider-legs to elevate herself on her back so I could penetrate her while I stood, so it was a bit like missionary. Our last round was reverse cowgirl, and I thought that there would have been no way I could have ejaculated any sperm, but she pushed the edges of her fingers into the base of my testicles and massaged something there that brought me over the edge. It was one of the most intense orgasms I’d experienced in my short life, and I had to bite my arm so that I didn’t scream. I’d somehow made more sperm, and she moaned with delight when I filled her once more.

“Goooooood,” she panted after we came down from our passion. “I am very happy with you, Victor.”

“Uhhh, thanks,” I panted as I tried to stop the ceiling of the hut from rotating around me. “You were great too. Uhhh. Amazing actually. The room is spinning.”

“Of course I am great. I’m Trel-Idil-Iria.” She stood from me, and I gasped as I slid out of her. “But we were talking about you. You were wonderful. I am very pleased.”

Trel used her spider legs to rotate herself upside down, and she walked over so that her face hung above mine. We kissed for a half a minute, and then she sighed when her lips pulled away from mine.

“It really is too bad that you have to die,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t mind doing that with you a few more times. You are much more talented than my last two mates.”

“Uhhh, what?” I asked as the ceiling stopped spinning suddenly.

“I believe you heard me,” she whispered as her hands came down to grab my shoulders. “Our babies will need to feed.”

“But wait,” I hissed as I tried to sit up. Her hands held me down though, and it suddenly seemed like she had superhuman strength. “You said you wouldn’t kill me.” I pushed the heels of my bare feet against the mat we’d laid out in the hut, but it slid away when I tried to push myself up.

It felt like each of my shoulders was supporting four hundred pounds, and I realized that Trel’s legs were giving her the leverage to keep me pinned.

“I lied.” Trel’s face pouted a bit. “You filled my womb with plenty of your seed. I am confident I’ll bear children. Don’t fight this Victor. It will just hurt more. My bite will numb you pleasantly. Just let the memories of our love making carry you into the darkness. You really were excellent.”

“No!” I tried to shout, but her left hand grabbed me by the throat and my words were cut off suddenly.

I tried to kick or lift my hips up, but her legs were too far away to each side, and her naked human body was a vertical line hanging right above me. There was nothing for me to kick, or push, or leverage against. There was only the incredible strength of her arms pinning my throat and shoulder.

Trel smiled at me, and the twin vampire fangs extended another six inches out of her mouth.

“Ahhhhcckkk!” I gasped through her grip on my throat as I tried to wiggle free.

“Shhh,” she whispered as her mouth dropped toward my throat. “Don’t fight my love. I am so proud of you. I will sing your praises to our children. They will never forget you.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t help myself. Trel was going to kill me after an afternoon of mind-blowing sex.

The crazy thing was, I almost thought it was worth it.

“Just relax, Victor.” Her wet tongue drifted across the side of my throat and trailed up to my earlobe. Her tongue slipped into my ear and I fought against a moan of pleasure. Holy shit. Trel was about to murder me, but she was still turning me on.

Fuck it. I should have known this was how I’d go out. Tricked by some beautiful woman. My life flashed before my eyes, and I felt an incredible sense of sadness that I hadn’t done more with my existence.

“Annnnndddd. Fooled you,” she whispered into my ear, and her hand released my throat.

“What?” I gasped with surprise.

“Ha! You should see the look on your face!” Trel cackled loudly and flipped herself over so that she was straddling my waist again. “Your eyes were this big!” She brought the tips of her fingers together to make giant circles and then she held them up to her own black eyes.

“Wait. What?” I sat up, and Trel’s cackle turned into a roar of laughter.

“You… Thought… I’d… Kill… You… Ha!” Her body vibrated on top of me as she laughed, and her spider legs slapped the floor of the hut.

“That was a joke?” I asked as I touched my throat.

“Uhhh yeah, cool dude!” She had her arms wrapped around her lean stomach now, and she rocked back and forth on me. Somehow, I was still hard, and her movements pushed my tip against her lower back.

“Holy shit!” I shouted. “Trel, I thought you were going to kill me!”

“I know!” she screeched. “I wish I had a vid-camera. It was hilarious.”

“Uhh, no,” I growled. “That was fucking terrible. I can’t believe you’d do that.”

“Ha!” she laughed again and shook her head to make her hair bounce.

“No, for real. My heart is just calming down now. I seriously--”

Her lips pressed against mine suddenly, and I fell back against the floor mat. She growled into my mouth as she kissed me, and my tongue fought against hers.

“You think I’d kill you, Victor Shelby?” she growled as she pulled her lips from mine. “Trel-Idil-Iria keeps her word. I told you I’d be your lover without poisoning you. I told you I was yours forever. I’m furious that you did not believe me. I should kill you for your insolence.” I gasped as her fingers closed around my throat again. But then I saw the smile on her lips.

“You are in trouble, Trel.” I hissed.

“Oh?” she asked as she relaxed her grip on my neck.

“Yep. You need a spanking.” I brought the palm of my hand up and smacked her on her ass cheek.

“Oh!” she gasped when I hit her. Then she gasped again when I smacked her other ass cheek.

“And tickles,” I growled as I moved my fingers toward her stomach.

“Victor Shelby. Don’t you dare! I am a Duchess. I do not-- Eeeekkkk!” Trel screeched when my fingers poked into her skin on the sides of her tummy, and she leapt off my torso.

“Tickle, tickle, tickle,” I laughed as I rolled to my feet and walked toward her with my fingers wiggling.

“No! No! No! I take it all back! You are a terrible male! I’m going to kill you next time!” Trel laughed as she snatched up her silk clothes and dashed out the door.

I didn’t care that I was naked. Trel had to pay for tricking me, so I sprinted out the door after her. She hadn’t made it far, so I managed to grab her around the waist as I somehow avoided her thrashing spider legs. We both went down in a pile, and she screeched out laughter as my fingers poked every part of her smooth skin.

“No! Stop! Ekkk! Victor! Stop tickling me! This isn’t funny!” She almost couldn’t talk because she was giggling so much.

“Then why are you laughing!” I asked as I moved my fingers into her armpits.

“Nooo! Stop!” she laughed as she tried to pull my hands away from her.

“Ahhheeeemmm!” a voice shouted next to us.

Trel and I both stopped our naked wrestling and looked up at Kacerie. The pink-haired woman had her arms crossed over her chest and an unhappy scowl on her face.

“Are you two done in the hut? Some of us would like to eat dinner and work with the damn clay you were so interested in getting.”

“Uhh, yeah,” I said as I looked down at Trel. We were both covered with sweat and bits of grass from where we were rolling.

“We are done for tonight,” Trel huffed, “but I intend to have him tomorrow, and every afternoon moving forward, so maybe you should--”

“We are good,” I interrupted Trel as I ran my hand down her smooth inky hair. “You can use it now.”

“Fine,” Kacerie barked, and then she stormed into the hut. A moment later my boots, socks, pants, and two shirts flew out of the door and landed near us.

“I just can’t believe her attitude,” Trel sighed. “It’s like she doesn’t even understand all the things you do for her. How ungrateful.”

“Trel,” I chuckled as I thought about how she acted toward me for the last month. “You are something else.”

“I know,” the beautiful woman sighed as she moved her mouth toward mine. “I am all sorts of amazing and wonderful. And now I’m all yours. Just don’t let it go to your head, male. You have a problem with being a bit too cocky and arrogant.”

“Me?” I laughed. “I’m arrogant and cocky?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, and then we kissed again.

Chapter 9

That night was a bit of a celebration. We’d gone from a minor setback the day before when Sheela and I almost died and lost two clay jugs; to acquiring a shit ton of sinew for cordage, a good thirty pounds of clay, and Bob.

We feasted like a king and his queens that night, and everyone but Galmine ate a freshly barbequed orange bird. My gray-skinned lover chose to eat the last of our berries, and I told her we planned on getting more the next day.

When Kacerie left the hut to use our latrine bucket, I gestured for my three friends to lean in close over the fire. Sheela and I told them about the smoke that we had observed, and our worries about other hostile tribes. Galmine had trouble believing anyone would want to attack us, but Trel immediately suspected that they might already know our presence because of the various fires we lit over the last week when we cut through trees, and she began to puzzle through ways to mask our presence better.

We brainstormed a few ideas until Kacerie came back, and then we moved the conversation away from the topic, and to a discussion about keeping watch at night. The shifts were much easier to cover with five people, and I volunteered for the second one.

Other than a group of smaller raptor-like scavengers that came to eat at the corpse buffet, and the dancing green lightning bugs, the night passed without excitement. I slept nestled between Trel and Galmine and enjoyed kisses from both of them throughout the night. I knew Galmine was all into free love, and she’d often spoken about how her society just had massive orgies every night, but I thought Trel would have been way more possessive than she was. She didn’t seem to mind Galmine kissing me, other than to demand my lips after she saw me kissing the rock woman. She just wanted to be treated as an equal, and I had no problem with that, even if I kept asking myself how in the hell I had gotten so lucky.

We had to leave Bob outside of the wall, which worried me a bunch, but I could sense both his and Hope’s general attitude, and neither seemed distressed during the night. I figured that the giant parasaur was large enough to take care of himself against any of the green raptors, or anything a bit bigger than me. He’d probably have a problem with a carnotaurus, but I could always order him to run, and I knew he’d easily be able to get away.

I woke up the next morning at the crack of dawn to find both Galmine and Trel sleeping with smiles on their faces and their hands on my chest. I did my best to wiggle out of their embrace without waking them, and then I looked over to see Kacerie sleeping with her back to us on the other side of the fire. Sheela was not inside of the hut, but I found her outside of our gate cutting more sinew. She had a second basket almost full and didn’t notice me walk up behind her.

“Good morning,” I said, and she spun around to face me.

“Good morning, Victor,” she said as she gave me her usual nod.

“Need some help?” I asked. There was a bit of movement off to my left, and I turned to see more of small dino scavengers coming to eat from the piles of bodies.

“I am almost done here,” she said. “There is more sinew to gather, but I will have to walk out to the clearing near the cave, and I am worried that the orange birds will attack.”

“Alright,” I replied as I looked to where she pointed. Ten of the turkey-sized birds occupied the ramp, but another thirty were relaxing on the grass below the cave. There used to be hundreds around, and but their corpses were now decorating the clearing.

“I have moved most of the bodies we have already processed away to the outskirts,” Sheela continued. “But I did not know if you wished me to spend more of my time moving any more.”

“I think we need to get this group right here away,” I said as I gestured to the pile of ten bodies at her feet. They were starting to smell a bit now, and I guessed the whole clearing would reek by the end of the day.

Then we would really have a problem with all sorts of scavengers.

“I will get to work on it,” she said as she reached down to finish pulling the sinew from the last bird.

“I’m also worried about that pond of blood,” I said.

“It might soak into the grass,” Sheela said with her usual shrug. “I do not know what we could do about it besides just wait.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “We’ll also need to clear a working area for the lumber. That part of the grove over there has trees a few feet wider than what we used for our current wall. Let’s clear the bodies away from there and then get to chopping.

“Should we retrieve water first?” Sheela asked.

“We’ve got a pot left after last night,” I said. “It should last us till lunch. Then Trel will have a new saddle made for Bob, and Galmine will have taught Kacerie how to make more pots. I’ll make a run then.”

“It is a plan,” Sheela said with her usual stoic nod.

“But is it a good plan?” I asked her as I grinned.

“Victor, all of your plans are excellent,” she whispered. “It is why I obey you.”

“Is something else wrong?” I asked since I noticed she wasn’t looking up at me when she spoke. It could have just been that she was working on cutting the sinew, but Sheela normally looked at me when we discussed our plans.

“You continue to ask me that,” Sheela said.

“Yeah, and you then explain to me that there is a problem. Then we talk about it and you feel better.”

“My feelings hardly matter in this case,” she said as she cut the last sinew off the bird.

“They matter to me,” I replied. “Is this about Trel and me? Or Galmine and me?”

“I have finished this task,” Sheela said as she tossed the last strap of sinew in the basket. “I will work to remove the corpses from this area and the trees that you wish to process.”

“Okay,” I said as I considered what to say next. Her tone made it apparent that she didn’t want to talk any more about it, so I really had two choices: press Sheela more, or give her some space. “I’m going to do a quick loop around the valley on Bob. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Very well,” Sheela said as she turned away from me.

I walked around the wall to where Bob was resting. The big parasaurs raised his head when I approached him, and I rubbed my hands across his snout.

“Hey buddy, did you have a good night sleep?”

He let out a soft toot, and I moved to climb up on his back. As soon as I was on top, he rose up on all fours, stretched out his body like a dog, and then let out another series of low toots. These noises were a little louder than his first greeting, and I suspected that they woke Trel, Galmine, and Kacerie up.

I turned Bob away from our wall and urged him to the edges of our clearing. He was getting more used to carrying me on his back, and the acceleration wasn’t as bumpy as it had been yesterday. I did a quick lap around the edges of the redwood grove surrounding the clearing but avoided the orange birds’ cave.

I hadn’t expected to see anything unusual in the clearing, so I rode Bob deeper into the redwoods. Dawn seemed to have the least amount of dinosaur activity, but I still startled some smaller birds, lizards, and a few large mammals that looked like a cross between a squirrel and a monkey.

I hit the hill on the north side of our clearing and checked over the valley as I rode toward the lake. The lack of a saddle meant I really couldn’t push Bob up to his max speed, but then again, going any faster would make it hard because of the wind stinging my eyes. We were someday going to have to learn how to make riding goggles, but I didn’t even know where to begin that process. Couldn’t you make glass with heated sand? How did you shape it? How did you cool it?

There was way too much to do, and here I was going for a bit of a joy ride.

Well, it wasn’t quite a joy ride. Yeah, Bob was really awesome to ride, and I felt like I was in control of a super fast tank, but I also needed to check our territory out, and I wanted to double check on the fire that Sheela and I had seen yesterday. Thoughts of a potential enemy tribe filled some of my dreams last night, and I wanted another look at the smoke.

I descended the jungle so I could ford the river, then I pushed Bob back on the low slope of the hill. I was getting really used to the trails we frequented to get through the valley, but now I realized my habits might put me in danger. I’d played plenty of first-person shooting games where I’d just camped a popular spot with a sniper rifle. How soon would someone figure out that this was a path we frequently took and set up an ambush?

I pushed my fears aside and focused on the task at hand. It was good for me to be concerned about this new danger, but there wasn’t much I could do about it this instant. All I could do was make tiny adjustments to my plan and then stick to that plan the best I could. I didn’t know my enemy, but I knew there was a potential enemy out there. I was already way wiser than I was yesterday, and I was tweaking my plans a bit to account for the new danger.

I made it to the crest of the lake’s valley and stopped Bob’s run. There was still a bit of smoke outside in the distance, but it looked like most of the fire had died down. It was what I expected to find, and I let out a sigh of relief. Hopefully, whatever was going on over there kept going on so that no one bothered to come this way.

I tapped my heels on Bob’s flank and he walked closer to the crest of the hill. The hand shaped lake spread out below me, and I scanned my eyes over the beaches. There were three triceratops in the same spot I’d seen them yesterday, a smaller group of parasaurs bathing in the finger next to the three-horns, and a group of large Komodo dragon looking dinos lounging on the sand on the far side of the lake. I had never seen this later species of dino, and I opened my Eye-Q so that I could identify them. Unfortunately, they were too far away, and I didn’t really feel like riding down there to get a closer look. I’d probably have to come back for more water and clay later today anyway, so I figured I could catch them at that time.

Since my Eye-Q was open, I tabbed through my attributes.

Strength: 4

Stamina: 3

Movement: 3

Special Skill: TAME -- Level 2.

“Alright!” I whispered out loud when I saw that my Stamina had gone up to a 3. I wished the Eye-Q would have told me exactly when it happened, but I reasoned that it probably occurred when I was sleeping and recovering from the day’s activities.

I set my eyes on the Level 2 of my Tame skill. The smallest trike of the trio down below was about two or three times the bulk of Bob, and Bob was fucking huge. I didn’t know if weight or aggression had anything to do with taming the dinos, but it made a lot of sense to factor it in. I wasn’t going to try one of the triceratops until I got my skill up to a 3, so I was going to have to level it up by taming more parasaurs.

But that could wait until I came back here with Sheela again. I told the blonde woman I’d only be gone for a few minutes, so I needed to get back before she got worried.

I turned Bob away from the lake and tore down the side of the hill. As I felt his legs pump and his back sway beneath me, I wondered if I’d ever get bored with this feeling of power. I was in complete control of the beast, and he changed his speed, direction, and gait as soon as I thought that he should.

Sheela did look a bit relieved when I returned, and I realized that I’d forgotten to bring a spear with me. As soon as Trel made the saddle for Bob, I’d have to make sure I kept one or two on him at all times. Maybe we’d also keep a bow and some arrows.

Trel, Galmine, and Kacerie were standing together at the mouth of our propped up gate, and they turned toward me when I stopped Bob a few feet from our wall.

“Good morning, Victor!” Galmine called out as she raised her hand toward me.

“Good morning, ladies,” I said.

“We await your instructions,” the gray-skinned woman said happily. “I have breakfast cooking. What else should we do? More water pots with the clay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Please teach Kacerie and Trel what you are doing, and then work on converting the sinew to cordage. We are also going to need more plant cordage so either Sheela or I will have to get you more later today.”

“I can get some,” Trel said, and I actually blinked in amazement.

“You’d be okay to gather ferns?” I asked her.

“Well, I wouldn’t be ‘okay’ with it, since it is beneath my elevated position as your lover-queen of our tribe, but being queen means that I have to take upon myself jobs that my serfs cannot do by themselves.”

“But Trel, I am also Victor’s lover. Does that mean I am a queen as well?” Galmine asked.

“Hmmm,” Trel said as she studied the stone-woman. “I suppose so, but don’t let the title interfere with your duties.”

“I won’t,” Galmine said.

“Wait,” Kacerie said. “Does this mean I have to sleep with Victor if I want any sort of social standing in our tribe?”

“No,” I said at the same time as Trel said “Yes.”

“No!” I said again as the spider-woman shook her head and frowned at me. “Kacerie, I’m not expecting you to sleep with me. I just need you to help Galmine with the pots, and then I want you to help us with the cordage. You are really good at weaving, and your talents help us out a bunch.”

“It’s boring though,” the pink-haired woman said. “I don’t really think I should be doing this kind of activity. Can you take me out on one of your dinosaurs for a ride? I’ll gather ferns with you.”

“We’ll figure out the fern gathering later,” I said to the three of them. “Trel’s going to help me with something real quick and then work with you on the clay.”

“What about breakfast?” Galmine asked.

“Bring it out to me while I work,” I said as I gestured for Trel to climb up on Bob. “I don’t have time for a break.”

“Yes, Victor,” the gray-skinned woman said, and she turned back toward the hut with Kacerie.

“What do you need from me?” Trel asked after she had climbed up beside me and given me a soft kiss.

“I need you to tell me how far out to build the wall,” I said as I gestured to the clearing. “Then I’ll have Bob and Hope start digging the trench.”

“Easy enough. Send him more that way.” She pointed away from the wall, and I walked Bob a few dozen paces toward the redwoods.

“Here,” she said. “This is a hundred feet out. It will give us a circle diameter of around two hundred and seventy-five feet and we will encompass the large tree within the new walls. I’ll eventually build part of our fort up there.”

“Got it,” I replied as I ordered Bob to start digging his front hands into the soft grass. He was a much stronger digger than Hope, and he soon had a small trench made.

“Can you control both of them at the same time?” Trel asked.

“Hummm,” I said as I commanded Bob to keep digging. I thought about Hope coming out to help us, and the smaller parasaur ducked under our door and jogged toward Bob. When she reached us, I thought about her digging a trench starting from Bob’s tail and going counterclockwise to Bob’s clockwise direction. She let out a happy toot and then went to work.

“Damn,” I said. “This is going to go really quick. We’ll probably finish the trench today.”

“Does it require a lot of work for them to follow your orders?” Trel asked. “How does your ability function?”

“I just kind of imagine them doing what I want them to do, and they do it.”

“Can you do something else besides supervising them?” she asked as her mouth twisted into a slight smile.

“Depends on what you had in mind,” I asked with a chuckle.

“To ensure that I am pregnant, you should inseminate me again today.”

“I’d love to, but let’s get everyone tasked with a job. I can try to cut down some trees or gather some ferns while our dinos dig the hole, but you also need to help with the clay jugs, figure out if we can make a tub, build a saddle for Bob, and then help with the cordage.”

“Ahh, Victor,” Trel sighed. “All work and no play for you. Perhaps I should explain to you that performing your mating duties on me is a job that is not to be taken lightly?”

“I know it is important,” I said, even though I suspected there was no way Trel could get pregnant from me. “Let’s do it again tonight after we get the whole ‘survival’ stuff figured out.”

“Very well,” Trel sighed as she slid off Bob’s back. “I will perform the tasks you need me to. When shall I fit the platform building in with all these other tasks?”

“Ugh,” I said as I wiped my palm over my face. “I forgot about those. We’ll really need them if we get attacked. Damn, I wish we had ten more people right now.”

“Then we would need more huts. I actually think I should build another so that you and I can have our own private space.”

“That’s really low on the list.” I slid off Bob and then walked across the clearing with her toward the fort.

“It is high on my list,” Trel groaned. “You were wonderful yesterday. I never thought I’d say this about a male, but I want you even when I am not ovulating.”

“Uhhh, yeah,” I said as I felt my cheeks warm. “I had a really good time too. You were great.”

“Of course I was,” she scoffed. “The amazing thing was how good you were. Just let me compliment you without trying to brush it off.”

“Thanks, Trel,” I said. “I’m glad that you and I are together.”

“Me as well, you’ll be very happy when you see our children. You worry about recruiting more people for our fort building activity, but soon we will not need to worry about that.”

“Uhh, how many will you… ummm make?” I asked, even though I still didn’t believe that she would actually get pregnant.

“My last brood was forty,” she said.

“Forty?” I gasped. “Like four and then zero? Like ten times four?”

“Yes, Victor,” she said as her eyes narrowed. “Why do you seem so amazed? That is how my people give birth. My numbers are a bit above average, but that is because I am a duchess.”

“I just… uhhh… How does it work?”

“Victor,” Trel said with a sigh. “I showed you how it worked yesterday. I’ll show you again tonight, but you really need to pay attention this time.”

“Ha,” I said as I saw her grin. “You are fucking with me. What I meant is how do you have that many children at once?”

“They are born as small eggs and pushed into the corpse of my dead mate,” she said with a shrug. “How do your kind give birth?”

“Just a single birth, sometimes twins happen, but the baby is between six and ten pounds normally,” I explained.

“That sounds incredibly painful,” Trel said. “It is already difficult forcing that many small eggs out of my womb and vagina. How do the women of your world do one giant egg?”

“Okay.” I laughed and shook my head as we reached the gate. “Let’s talk about it later. I’m going to grab our axes and start cutting down trees. You are going to do everything I told you to do. Got it?”

“Yes, Victor,” Trel said, and we parted ways so I could grab our stack of axes. We had eight now, and I carried them back across the field so that I could get to work on the trees. Bob and Hope continued digging the trench while I was grabbing the axes, and I realized that I wasn’t really thinking about their job anymore. It almost seemed as if I could issue them an order and they would just do it until it was done.

I decided to test the theory by focusing on cutting down the trees for a bit. The work was a bit slow without Sheela’s swings on top of mine, but I’d gotten pretty good at lumberjacking after a month of using the stone axes, and I soon had the large tree felled.

I turned around to check on the progress of the two parasaurs and was happy to find that they had continued the trench digging. Bob was moving about twice as fast as Hope, but they were both somehow maintaining the correct distance from the walls of our fort.

“What do you think?” I asked Sheela as she jogged over to me.

“It is impressive,” she said. “Your ability grows more powerful.”

“Or I’m just learning how to use it better,” I said. “I know two things for sure.”

“Oh?” Sheela asked as her golden eyes met mine.

“Yeah, first is that this is going to go way easier than we thought, and second is that I’m going to tame a lot more of these dinosaurs to help.”

“We will need more room to house them,” Sheela said.

“We’ll figure that out,” I said. “Just look at how fast they are digging. If we could just figure out how to get them to chop down trees, we would be set.”

“Hmmm.” Sheela nodded and then glanced at the axe in my hand.

“Anyways, let’s get to cutting. I’m going to guess we need about a hundred and fifty of these. We’ll probably clear half of the younger growth by the time we are done.”

Sheela nodded, and we got back into our tree-cutting rhythm.

The morning passed quickly. Kacerie actually came out with our breakfast and the jug of water, and we spent a few minutes chatting with her while we ate. By the time lunch came around, Sheela and I had taken down our fourth tree, and our parasaurs completed digging the trench around the entire fort. I hadn’t even bothered to look on the other side when they worked, but I got the feeling they were done and then walked over to find them both nuzzling each other. They had made a perfect circle around our fort, and I felt a little amazed that my commands worked so well.

Trel finished the saddle for Bob a little after lunch, and she showed Sheela and me how to tie it around the massive lizard.

“I built this one with two seats and a back storage area,” Trel explained as she showed both of us the saddle. “I used straight wood pieces that are about four inches in diameter as the side supports. These run parallel to his back ridge and are the platforms for the seats and stirrups. They attach under his belly using this webbing, and they are tied up to his ridges using these pieces of wood as support.”

The saddle had looked complicated when she carried it in her arms, but as soon as she set it on Bob’s back, I realized that it was just like Hope’s, only with two extra support straps on the bottom, and thicker logs on the seat instead of stacks of dried leaves.

“If I had some leather, it would be more durable,” Trel said after she attached everything. “But this should work just fine.” Trel gestured to the platform behind the second seat and then showed where the cordage rope was kept coiled up. “You can tie a basket or pots down here. I’ve got a bunch of the rope threaded through the loops here. So you can carry up to eight jugs.”

“Damn,” I said. “This is great, Trel. We’ll be able to get three days of water in one run.”

“I know,” Trel said. “I’m amazing, and a genius. Don’t forget it.” She smiled as she bragged, and I laughed.

“Oh, and speaking of my genius, I also figured out how to add handles to our clay jugs. The latest batch of four is drying by the fire right now. Galmine and Kacerie are working on the next batch, but I used the last of our cordage. If either you or Sheela can go get more, I can hang out some of the sinew to dry. Or, I can do it, if you two just want to keep playing with your trees.”

“We’ll take a break from chopping,” I said. “Our axes are pretty dull, anyway. We need to make another set of those soon.”

“I’ll take them in so that Galmine and Kacerie can sharpen them after they finish with the clay,” Trel said as she gestured for us to hand all the tools to her.

“Let’s go get more ferns then,” I said to Sheela, and we both grabbed four baskets before we mounted on top of Bob and rode deeper into the redwood forest.

The job was actually a bit harder with Bob than with Hope. The male parasaur could hold more, but getting the baskets up on his high back required Sheela standing up on her tippy-toes while I reached down to snag it. We had the process figured out by the time we filled the fourth basket.

Sheela and I returned to the fort with four times the amount of ferns that we would have harvested with Hope, and it only took us ten minutes extra. The new dino was really helping us, and I felt some pride surge in my chest. I was feeling kind of like a badass when we walked back into camp, but then Kacerie stormed out of the hut and stomped toward me with rage showing in her light blue eyes.

“We need to talk,” she growled at me.

“About what?” I asked.

“Not here,” she said as she gestured to Sheela. “You said I could go out with you and gather ferns, but you went without me.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I said. “You were busy.”

“Can you take me to get water and more clay?” she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Uhhh…” I started as I stared at Sheela. I didn’t see Trel or Galmine around, and I guessed that both of my lovers were still in the hut. “I was planning on heading back to the lake anyways to get water and tame another dinosaur. I guess you can come.”

“Good,” she said as she grabbed my bicep. “Let’s go.”

“We need the water jugs and a leaf basket,” I said as I stepped toward the hut.

“I’ll get them!” Kacerie said quickly, and then she ran back toward the hut.

“Check it out,” I said to Sheela. I was suddenly suspicious of the pink-haired woman, even though I probably didn’t need to be.

Sheela nodded at me and then sprinted toward the door of the hut while I reached for one of the many spears we kept leaning against the walls. My friend reached the hut right after Kacerie did, and Sheela poked her head in for half a moment. Then she turned back to me, smiled, and raised her thumb up like I’d showed her to show that everything was okay.

“Here,” Kacerie said as she carried the basket and two jugs out of the hut. “The other four we’ve got drying aren’t ready yet.”

“That’s fine,” I said as I walked with her out of the gate. We attached everything to Bob’s back, and then we grabbed a second spear before we mounted him. A few moments later we were dashing through the clearing, and Kacerie was squeezing the air out of my stomach.

I gave her a brief tour of our little valley before I headed toward the lake. First, I showed her the fallen tree beside the river where we got our water. Then I ran up the river and showed her where we normally crossed to go to the lake area. Before I went that direction, though, I ran Bob over next to our old cave so I could climb the hill and give her a view. It was my second time up here today, but I was kind of enjoying the moments where I could oversee my little empire.

“This is our valley,” I explained when we got up to the hill. “There is jungle to the north over this hill. There is jungle and the lake to the east, that small mountain range is to our west, but the ocean is on the other side and the ocean kind of wraps around us on the south past those hills you can see there.”

“So, we are at the bottom left corner of this land mass?” Kacerie asked as she pulled her thick mane of pink hair over her shoulder. I’d never studied her hair closely, but the roots were a darker shade of pink that looked almost red, so I wondered if it was her natural color.

“Yeah bottom left is a good way to think of it,” I said. “We have the ocean to our west and south. You wanna tell me what’s bothering you now?”

“Let’s talk about it when we get to the lake,” she said as she turned to face me. “I want to see it.”

“Cool,” I said as I turned around.

“It’s actually warm out,” she commented. “I don’t know why you always think it is so cold.”

“Ahh,” I sighed. “Slang language from my world. I’m sorry. It means I either agree or think something is good.”

“I get it,” she replied, “but it doesn’t make sense as to why you would say it that way.”

I didn’t answer her. Instead, I just pushed Bob into his easy jog, and Kacerie got too busy holding on to me to bother talking anymore.

We forded the river, cut through the jungle, and then climbed the next hill that would bring us out of our valley and into the lake. I still saw the pillar of smoke in the distance, but Kacerie’s face was pressed into my back, and I descended toward the lake before she could see it. I didn’t really want to keep the information from her, but I didn’t know if I could trust her to keep her cool yet.

“We get the clay from over here,” I said as I steered Bob over toward the finger of the hand-lake. The trikes had left, but the small gang of parasaurs were still there.

“Okay,” she said as I slowed down his sprint.

“After we get it and some water, we’ll go to the other side and try to tame one of those parasaurs.” I held onto Bob’s reins with one hand and then pointed off into the distance with my other.

“Is it dangerous?” she asked.

“It should be okay, I’ve gotten two so far. I’d like to get one for everyone so we can all ride around if we need to.”

“That makes sense,” Kacerie said, “but I don’t know if I really want to control one of them.”

“You can just ride behind someone else then,” I said as we finished getting down the hill. The spot on the beach where we came out was devoid of dinos, and I made a little loop around the finger part of the lake where the clay was while I kept my eyes on the jungle.

“What’s wrong?” the pink-haired woman asked after I’d circled back around.

“Just making sure there are no predators,” I said.

“Like those green ones? How could they attack this creature we ride on? He is at least ten times their size.”

“There are bigger monsters,” I said. “They are called carnotaurus. They have horns on their head and are about the same size as Bob. He can outrun them, but if they sneak up on us, they’ll chomp him with their massive jaws. They are like bigger versions of the green raptors, only they don’t have feathers.”

“Ugh,” Kacerie said. “That is terrible. I hate this place. I wish I were home.”

“I’d send you back if I could,” I said. “We all want to go back.” I knew Sheela didn’t really want to return home, but I didn’t bother explaining that to Kacerie.

“We should focus on doing that instead of all this other stuff,” she said.

“When you say ‘all this other stuff,’ do you mean surviving? Cause that shit is pretty damn important.”

“It just seems like you aren’t even thinking about it. I need to get back. My business will die without me, and all my boyfriends will just move on to others.”

“I think we are safe to get down.” I ignored her last comment and then commanded Bob to lower himself next to the spot where the clay was. “The clay is over there. Take the basket and fill it up about halfway.”

“Ugh, I don’t want to do that,” she said as her hands came around my stomach and then ran up my back to touch my shoulders. “Look, Victor, is there anything I can do to change the situation at our camp?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The other girls are just really mean to me. They don’t treat me nice.”

“Uhh, what are you talking about?” I twisted around in the saddle so I could face her. The pink-haired woman was absolutely beautiful, but so were Galmine and Trel. A few weeks ago I probably wouldn’t have been able to talk to Kacerie without stuttering non-stop, but now her looks didn’t impress me.

“They just don’t treat me nice. Why is it so hard to understand?”

“Alright, we need to get the clay. Get off.” I pointed down the side of Bob and she slid off after I grabbed the leaf basket and set foot on the beach.

“You don’t see it since you aren’t around all the time,” she said as I set the basket down near the clay and started scooping some in.

“What do they say?” I asked as I tried to keep my face impassive.

“Well, it’s mostly Trel, a bit Sheela and Galmine, but Trel is mean. She thinks she is in charge and wants me to do all the work she doesn’t want to do.”

“Like what?” I asked. “Can you give me specific examples?”

“We are making pots, and she tells me that I have to make them faster and better. Then she reminds me how amazing you are every two minutes.”

“Trel is a bit critical, but she means well.” I shrugged and scooped more clay.

“You just need to see it. You aren’t there. When I just left, she told me that I’d messed up one of the pots, and I didn’t.”

“What does Galmine say?” I asked, and I started to feel a bit like I was one of those guys on that Bachelor TV show where the house full of women were talking shit about each other so they could get a rose.

“About what?” Kacerie asked.

“Galmine said something to you when you made a jug?” I specified.

“She didn’t say anything. I was talking about Trel.”

“But you said that Galmine was also mean to you.” I scooped another hunk of clay into the basket and turned my head around to check the beach. Bob didn’t look fidgety, but I still wanted to stay alert.

“Not as mean as Trel, but still mean.”

“Can you give me an example?” I was trying really hard not to roll my eyes.

“Just the stuff she says.”

“Galmine? Are you absolutely positive that Galmine says mean stuff to you?” I stared into Kacerie’s blue eyes.

“Yes, they are all mean to me.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Look, Victor. I appreciate you saving me, I really do. You are handsome and capable. Strong and smart. I just can’t deal with the other women in the camp. They won’t leave me alone.”

“So what is the solution?” I was trying my best not to get mad at her, but I wondered if some of my anger came through, since she waved her hands and kneeled on the ground next to me.

“Nothing major! It will be easy! I just need my own hut, and maybe a pass from you for some of the work stuff. I’m just not suited to making pots or cutting animals or anything. I’m fine making cordage. I’ll just do that all day while I stay in my own hut.”

“Your own hut?” I did my best not to laugh. “You know we don’t have room for that.”

“You have Hope inside the walls, just kick her out and then build me a new hut in her spot.”

I took a deep breath and tried to think of a correct response. Part of me wanted to tell her that she could go fuck herself, but that was just going to strain our relationship more. In reality, I needed her, but not as much as she needed the three women I’d come to love and me.

“Kacerie, I have no problem building you a new hut, but we have a lot of shit to do before we get there. Once we have the new walls built, we’ll have plenty of room.”

“But that’s going to take us six weeks,” she moaned. “I need my own place now.”

“Sorry, we can’t always get what we want.” I shrugged and then put the last scoop of clay in the basket.

“That’s bullshit,” she snapped angrily. “The other women get what they want because they sleep with you.”

“Ahhh, no,” I said as I stood up with the filled basket. “No one gets what we want, or we’d all be home. Everyone is working their ass off to survive. You need to step up your contribution if you want special treatment.”

“Oh, I get it,” she said. “When you say contribution, you really mean that I need to start fucking you also.”

“No,” I growled as I walked past her. “That came out wrong. Hold on, let me put this on Bob.” I tied the basket on the parasaur’s saddle.

“You don’t need to explain, the men from your planet are the same as on mine. Here is the thing, Victor, I’m willing to do what I need to do. I just don’t want you to think that--”

“Stop,” I interrupted her as I turned around. “You’ve got me wrong. You are beautiful, but I don’t really care about having sex with you. Galmine and Trel keep me happy. I don’t really give a shit about how you think the other women are treating you, or how unfair you think everything is. You’d be dead now if it weren’t for me. Now, that doesn’t mean you owe me your life, but it does mean you need to stop whining and just work. You haven’t contributed anything useful to our group since you got here. If anything, you’ve just cost us more time because we’ve had to teach you shit instead of just doing it ourselves.”

“What?” she hissed. “I’ve done plenty in the camp that no one else has done.”

“Like?” I asked.

“Well, I put up with you and Galmine and Trel just having sex all the time. I’m working when you three are using the hut.”

“Fucking shit you are stupid,” I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face.

“Excuse me?” she gasped. “What did you just say?”

“You are stupid, and I’m sick of you. You keep talking shit about my friends. I saved your ass and then brought you into our home. Now all you do is whine when we ask you to help us and then complain when we use our room to have sex.”

“I can’t believe you are calling me stupid. If I had my Lance ready, I’d--”

“What? You’d kill me?” I laughed and shook my head. “I risked my life to save you because you had that ability. Now you threaten me with it. That sucks.”

“You are treating me like a second rate citizen. I’m very important in my community. My salon is booked three months out and--”

“I don’t care,” I sighed as I climbed up on top of Bob. I suddenly felt exhausted, and for half a moment I missed my tiny apartment, my Playstation, my Xbox, my cheap ramen noodles, and my shitty job. The sensation only lasted a few moments though, and then I focused on the shit I needed to do next. We had to survive, and I needed everyone on my team pulling at the rope as hard as they could.

“Wait, where are you going?” Kacerie asked when I spun Bob around to point toward the distant herd of parasaurs.

“I’m going to go tame one of those dinos,” I said. “Then I’m heading back to camp.”

“Okay, I need to get on.” She stepped toward Bob, but I turned my head down to look at her.

“No,” I said. “You aren’t coming.” My heart was slamming in my chest, and I felt my stomach twist when the beautiful woman’s face paled.

“What?” she gasped. “Why? I’ll die out here if you--”

“Because you just said you’d use your Lance on me.”

“No! I didn’t say that. Victor, stop joking around. You can’t leave me here.”

“I can,” I said with a shrug. “You aren’t helping us, and now I’m worried that you are going to try and kill us once your Lance powers up. Sorry, I have three people I care about, and I need to protect them and myself. Good luck to you, Kacerie.”

“I was joking! I’m not going to use it on you. Please! Don’t-- Victor! No!”

I had tapped my heels to Bob’s flanks and the large parasaur started jogging forward on his hind legs. Kacerie’s screams became more frantic when I was about fifty yards away, but I didn’t turn back to look at her.

“Fuck,” I sighed as I tried to force my clenched stomach to relax. Leaving Kacerie out here was pretty much the same as killing her, and I struggled with the decision. Her Lance ability was incredibly powerful, and the woman seemed capable of working hard, but she just didn’t want to. I wasn’t that skilled at understanding women, but the way Kacerie spoke hinted at her personality. She was trying to manipulate me against Trel, Galmine, and Sheela. I wasn’t going to put up with it.

Surviving was going to be too difficult without everyone cooperating. I had to worry about building a fort, finding food and water, protecting everyone from dinosaurs, and then whatever other tribal threat might be out there.

I couldn’t afford for Kacerie to try and poison us with her words and actions.

But damn it, we really did need a lot of help. The thought of just the four of us again felt like a step backward.

Her screams faded with the wind, and I pushed Bob a little faster so that I’d put more distance between us. The group of parasaurs was in almost the same spot I had tamed Bob, and I circled the shore of the lake so I could make my way toward them. It meant that I was almost on the other side of the small lake as the fingers, and I saw Kacerie’s pink hair flutter in the breeze as she kneeled on the distant shore. The sight was a bit heartbreaking, but it would have been more heartbreaking if she’d killed Trel, or Sheela, or Galmine, or me with her Lance.

There were only six parasaurs in this group. My Eye-Q identified one of them as male, but I really didn’t need my eye computer to do that. The male had a bright shade of red on his underbelly that was more colorful than the females. He was also a good foot or two taller at the shoulders and much bulkier. This male was actually larger than my steed, so I approached the pack carefully.

“Alright, Bob, who should we adopt?” I whispered as my eyes roamed over the pack. Most of the females crept closer to the male as we approached, and I realized this might be a bit harder riding on Bob than on Hope. The other parasaurs hadn’t seemed to care that a small female was in their midst, but the larger male was causing them some concern.

I ordered Bob to move a little closer to the group, so that I was about thirty feet from the closest female, and the guardian male let out a low throaty toot that was most definitely a warning.

“Ahh shit,” I said as I stopped Bob from moving any closer. “I think we are gonna be in trouble if we go any closer. Maybe it would be worth fighting if you were bigger than that other guy, but I think you might lose in a brawl. What do you think?”

Bob let out a toot that sounded pretty concerned, and I puzzled through our different options. It might be better to come back on Hope, and I would have to make another trip for water, but I’d just want to bring Bob for that anyway since he could carry more jugs. I could also just make a play for one of the closer females. The male might get mad and charge, but I could then try to tame him. I had only planned on bringing back one more parasaur, but two would be fine. It was just more risky, especially since I didn’t really understand how my Tame ability worked. Was there a reset on it? Could I only use it so many times a day, or week, or month? Would it not work on a male that was angry with me because I took one of his females? I thought about another man trying to take Trel, Galmine, or Sheela away from me by force, and the hypothetical scenario made my stomach clench.

Yeah, this fucker was going to get mad if I took away one of his women, but then I got an idea that struck me as all sorts of genius.

“Hey girl,” I said to one of the closest females. “Why don’t you come over here and say hi? I’m not gonna hurt you. The parasaur I was talking to had moved away from us a bit, but she got curious when I spoke and took a few steps toward us. Now she was about thirty feet away, and I made some soft cooing sounds in an effort to calm her.

“That’s okay girl, you are so beautiful. I love your black dots and brown streaks. Did you just take a bath today? Your scales look fabulous.” She stepped a bit closer with every sentence I carefully whispered, and I started to feel a bit more confidence in my plan.

“Do you like getting scratched?” I asked as I turned Bob to the side so I could reach her. “I’ll be happy to scratch your chin. Come on over here.” I wiggled my fingers and remembered Trel’s giggles.

The female stared at me for a few dozen seconds as if she was pondering my sincerity. She had light brown eyes with swirls of green in them. Her coloring was a little darker than Hope’s and she was about fifty percent larger.

I wanted to say something to coax her forward, but I held my tongue and just kept contact with her eyes. Just as I was about to whisper something to her, she crept forward with her head down a bit, and she nuzzled her massive head under my outstretched hand.

“Awww. What a good girl,” I whispered as I petted her. My Eye-Q gave me an update that she was tamed, and I felt a sigh of relief escape my lips.

She let out a happy toot as I continued to pet her, and then I scratched more up above her eyes. This girl was definitely a lover, and she actually closed her eyes when I moved my other hand around so I could pet her neck.

“I’m going to climb on your back now,” I said after I’d touched her for almost a minute. “Then you are gonna show me your man, okay?” I stood up from Bob’s saddle and imagined the female moving a bit closer to me. The distant male let out a warning toot, but I quickly scurried onto the back of the female and then commanded her to step away from Bob. She did so, and then I lay over her spine while I ordered her to move back toward her male.

The bigger male let out another toot as we approached, but this one sounded a bit less hostile than the first two he had issued. He’d actually turned away from the female I tamed, so I urged her to continue approaching. Soon we were right up against his left flank, and I reached out my hand to touch him.

“Hey, buddy. How’s it going?” I whispered as I patted his side. He was standing knee deep in the water, and I saw a fish as big as a crocodile from my world swim between his massive tree trunk legs.

The male didn’t answer, of course, but I just kept petting him. “Listen, buddy, I could really use your help. Can you come back to my camp? I’ll bring your girlfriend with us, but we also have Bob and Hope that you can play with. What do you say?”

The male let out a low toot, but it was a tenor to Bob’s baritone voice.

“Is that a yes?” I asked. “I’ll make sure you get plenty of food and water. What do you say?”

He didn’t move while I petted him, and I counted the seconds while my heart slammed in my chest. I felt a lot more confident with my taming ability after Hope, Bob, and the new female, but this guy could just shake his torso and fling me off his girl as if I was a gnat.

I’d been petting him nonstop as I spoke, but the tame message hadn’t appeared in my Eye-Q after a few minutes. I realized that my attempt hadn’t worked, so I let out a soft sigh and stopped petting his side.

“Well, I still wanted to offer, thanks for not attacking me--” The male surprised me by shifting his weight a bit so that he leaned into the female. He let out a long saxophone sounding note, and I reached my hand up to stroke his side again. My action made him huff with pleasure, and then the notice that I had tamed him flashed on my Eye-Q.

“Yessss!” I whispered as I patted him with a bit more gusto. “You aren’t going to--”

TAME: LEVEL 3 has been reached.

The words scrolled across my vision with a flashing brilliance. I didn’t feel any different from the level up, but I had to clench my jaw to keep from shouting out my joy. Would I be able to tame trikes with level 3? I couldn’t wait to find out, and I wished I’d thought about taming the two parasaurs when I had been at the lake this morning.

“Alright,” I said as I patted the male a few more times. “I need names for you two. I’ve got Bob and Hope. Maybe I need someone else in the entertainment business.” I tried to think of any married couples that sang or acted together and then let loose with a belt of laughter when I thought of one.

“You’re Sonny,” I said as I patted the male, “and you are Cher. This is awesome.” The two parasaurs let out toots that actually seemed to harmonize, and I chuckled some more.

“Alright, Cher, take me back over to Bob. His saddle makes him a bit easier to ride, so I’ll sit on him while you two follow me home.”

Cher followed my orders, and I jumped back on the saddle Trel had made. The three parasaurs sniffed each other for a few seconds to get to know each other, and then I twisted Bob back around so we could all walk out of the lake. Sonny and Cher followed me and felt unbridled excitement course through my body.

I was eventually going to have a dinosaur army.

My imagination filled with thoughts of me controlling dinosaurs like some sort of real-time strategy game. I’d be able to ride them into battle or command them from the back of a massive brontosaurus. Hell, maybe I’d get some sort of massive flying bird that I could sit upon while it hovered in the air above my minions. I’d be able to organize them into squads based on their speed, armor, and attacking style. No one would be able to conquer us because I’d control this entire planet.

My world domination thoughts came to a screeching halt when my eyes saw something moving in the jungle back near Kacerie.

The pink-haired woman was still kneeling on the shore of the lake with her face in her hands. The sight made my heart a bit heavy, and I’d planned on taking my three parasaurs out of the valley through another route, so I didn’t have to give her the cold shoulder again, but the movement in the jungle beside her made me reconsider my choice.

It looked somewhat like a raptor, but had a bit longer neck. It was hiding in the jungle and staring at Kacerie.

Part of me knew I was sentencing Kacerie to death. I didn’t want to kill the woman, but I couldn’t risk her not pulling her weight in the camp, especially after she hinted at using her Lance on me. However, that didn’t mean I wanted her to get eaten by dinosaurs right now. I still wanted to defend women.

“Let’s go!” I growled to the three parasaurs as I kicked Bob’s flank. My mount surged forward across the sand like a rocket ship, and I had to lean forward over his spine to keep the sudden gust of wind from pushing me off the saddle.

Damn, Bob was really fucking fast.

But the creature in the jungle some sixty yards from Kacerie was way closer than me, and I saw it poke its head out of the foliage. It looked kind of like a raptor, only its skull had two long humps on top and its build was leaner. It had white and cream colored feathers instead of green, but as Bob raced forward, I saw that it was actually way bigger than the deinonychus raptors we’d been fighting for the last few days. This stalking dino’s head was probably even with my shoulder, and I guessed was about the size of a small pony, instead of a large dog.

I blinked my Eye-Q and read the name that appeared: Dilophosaurus wetherilli, male.

“Shit! Faster, Bob!” I shouted as I tried to reach back for the spear on my saddle. I wasn’t much of a dinosaur expert, but like any boy, I’d seen all the Jurassic Park movies, and I remembered that the Dilophosaurus was the fucker that spit the acid.

And it looked like he was closing in on Kacerie so he could spit on her.

I was still a good three hundred yards away on the beach, but the stalking dino crept onto the sand, and it was only forty yards from Kacerie. I had no doubt that it could rush across the gap and kill her if it wanted to, but the feathered monster seemed more interested in sneaking. Then the dilo seemed to notice I was rushing toward it, and it turned to me with its head tilted.

“Kacerie!” I screamed as I got my spear out of the saddle sheath. The woman didn’t seem to hear me, or at least she didn’t look up, so I screamed again.

The dilophosaurus turned its head to Kacerie, and then it looked back to me as if it was a bewildered dog. It was the second best outcome I could have hoped for, the first being the thing just running away, and I readied my spear.

“Kacerie!” I shouted again, and the woman finally looked up toward me.

Then she glanced over at the pony-sized dinosaur sneaking up on her and let out a horrific scream.

The terrified screech seemed to snap the dilophosaurus out of its confused stupor, and it dashed toward the woman with an angry hiss. It wiggled across the ground with a movement that almost looked snake-like, but I had already planned on rushing Kacerie first, so I managed to slam Bob right into the flank of the dilo like a snow plow.

The white and cream feathered dino tumbled over with a surprised yelp, but it wiggled out of the way of Bob’s crushing feet and tried to dash around toward Kacerie.

I leaned down off the side of the saddle and shoved my spear down at him when he tried to slither around Bob. The tip of my spear punched into his upper shoulder, but the creature sunk away like a mongoose and only a small spray of blood fell upon the sand.

“Kacerie, get--” I started to tell her to get away from the dilo I was tangling with, but as I swung my head over to look at her, I saw a shape come to the surface of the lake right behind her.

It was one of the super crocs that had tried to kill me when I first got to this planet.

“Run toward me!” I screamed as the second reptile emerged from the water and sprinted toward her. Kacerie turned to see it as soon as she heard the splash, and she leapt back toward me with surprise. She was totally off balance from her head looking one direction while she ran the other, and her feet tripped over themselves as she tried to run.

Sonny read my mind and came to her rescue.

The croc was about the size of a small 80s Japanese truck, but Sonny was a big rig. The parasaur dashed forward on all fours and shoulder checked the croc some twenty feet from where Kacerie stumbled. Sonny’s attack actually caused the other dino to fly through the air and flip on his side, but I had to turn my attention away from the battle so that I could focus my spear thrusts on the dilo who was still trying to get around Bob’s legs.

This fucking asshole was persistent, cunning, and moved quicker than I would have thought possible given his size. He ducked away from every spear thrust I made, and my best attempts at pinning him down did little more than strike the sand. The issue I had really was that I was too high on Bob, so the dilo could just retreat away from the parasaur’s flank to stay out of the reach of my spear.

I made a few quick thrusts to try and predict his movements and got lucky with my third guess. The sharpened point of my spear tore across his back, but it didn’t really sink into his flesh and take out any vital organs. It still pissed him off, and he backed away a little farther than usual. This gave me an opportunity to turn around and see how Sonny was doing. The big parasaur had kicked the croc away from Kacerie, but the monster’s jaws were trying to snap around the parasaur’s legs. I would have thought that the size difference would have made that difficult, but the croc’s maw opened crazy wide, and Sonny almost didn’t get his leg out of the way.

I commanded Cher to go after the croc so I could focus on the dilo. The cream feathered snake-dino opened its jaws to caw at me, and I saw that its teeth actually looked less like a raptor’s and more like the crocodile’s behind me.

“Victor!” Kacerie screamed, but I couldn’t really turn my attention away from the fight with the dilo. He kept opening his mouth at me, and I half expected for a stream of poison to shoot out. Nothing did, though, and I wondered if the movie had been wrong about the way the dinosaurs spit acid.

“Victor!” Kacerie screamed again.

“I’m fucking busy!” I shouted as I managed to get another hit on the dilo. The thing moved really gracefully for its bulk, and it seemed to be getting a better idea of how my spear could move. I kept having to command Bob to back up, spin around, and then swing his tail in an effort to keep the thing away from Kacerie, but the beast was getting smarter.

“There is another monster in the lake!” she screamed, and I turned around just as Sonny let out a trombone blast of pain. A second croc had jumped out of the water and clamped its massive jaws around his tail, and the parasaur was trying to spin and throw him free. Cher was tangling with the other croc and winning, but I could almost feel Sonny’s pain come through in his loud toot sounds.

“Damn it!” I growled as I turned around so I could focus on the dilo. I needed to get rid of this fucker so that I could deal with the crocs in the water, or I needed to get rid of the crocs in the water so I could focus on the dilo trying to get to Kacerie. My brain jumped through a few solutions while I danced with the dilo, but the fucker almost managed to get around Bob, so I knew I had to come up with a plan quickly so that I could win out on this stalemate.

I made another quick glance back to Sonny and Cher. The male parasaurs had gotten his tail free of the croc, and he was trying to push the thing back into the water. The sight gave me an idea, and I changed my orders a bit so that my newest parasaurs instead focused their attempts on pushing the crocs out of the water, onto the beach, and grouped kind of close to where the dilo was so that we could present a united battlefront.

Within a few seconds, Sonny and Cher had twisted around the crocs and began pushing them toward the shore. I could only catch glances of their battles out of the corner of my eye while I defended against the dilo, but the two large parasaurs seemed to be pretty used to fighting these things. The crocs were soon rolling around on the sand of the beach in an attempt to escape the parasaurs’ stomps, kicks, and shoulder hits.

“Good job guys!” I shouted with encouragement when it was obvious that the two crocs were trying to crawl away. Unfortunately, as soon as I turned my head away, the dilo sensed the opportunity and did something I hadn’t expected.

He clamped his teeth around my spear and yanked the weapon free of my grasp.

I tried to keep a hold of it, but the dilophosaurus must have weighed around eight hundred pounds, and he’d really put his back into the movement. I instantly moved to grab the second spear, but the fucker was hellbent on eating Kacerie, and he dashed in between Bob’s legs before the parasaur could step on him.

I threw myself off Bob’s back and fell toward the dilo with my spear pointed down, as I floated in the air for a moment, I wondered why I was risking my life again to save Kacerie, especially now that I had decided to kick her out of the camp.

Then my spear punched through the dilo’s spine below his neck, and all I could worry about was the thing trying to turn around a chomp my face off.

“Shit!” I growled as I pushed, pulled, and swung the spear around. I knew I’d hit the creature with a critical wound, but it was still refusing to believe that it was dead, and the thing kept trying to spin on me so that it could rip a tooth or claw through my flesh.

I ordered Bob to move in, and the parasaur brought his massive foot down on the tail of the speared dilo. This stopped the fucker’s attempts to lunge at me, but I left the spear in his back so that Bob could keep walking up the tail. Each step the parasaurs took shattered the dilo’s bones and spine, and the thing finally let out a death rattle after Bob’s feet almost reached my spear.

I turned to Sonny and Cher. Both of the parasaurs had pushed the crocs all the way into the jungle, so I commanded them to retreat back to me. They did so quickly, and the crocs wiggled across the sand so they could get back into the water.

Then the dinosaur fight was over, and I turned to face Kacerie. Her face was still covered with tears, but the terror was easy to see in her eyes.

“You saved me?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Look. I didn’t want you to get--”

“Please Victor!” she begged as she threw herself at my feet. “Please don’t leave me out here. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll have sex with you, or cook for you, or clean, or do whatever. I’ll be your slave. Just don’t leave me out here!” It was a bit hard to understand her words through her sobs, but I got the gist of it after she repeated it a second time.

“It’s not about you fucking me, or being my slave,” I said as looked down at her bright pink hair. “I just don’t trust you. You are going to get your Lance back and then use it on us.”

“No!” Kacerie screeched as she looked up at me. “I won’t. I get it now. You left me alone for five minutes and three dinosaurs tried to kill and eat me. There is no way I’d survive without you. Please, Victor. I want to live. I’ll work for you. I’ll do everything you, or Trel, or Galmine, or Sheela asks. You can have sex--”

“Stop talking about sex,” I interrupted her. “I get it. You don’t need to offer yourself to me. That’s not how I am.”

“I just want to live,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry I complained. You’ll never hear it from me again. I’ll do two guard shifts. I’ll cook every meal. I’ll figure out how to fit in and add to your group. Just please don’t leave me out here. Take me back. I need you.”

“Alright,” I said after I thought about it a moment. “Let’s get back on Bob.”

“Really?” she gasped as if she didn’t believe that I’d actually reconsidered.

“Yeah,” I replied as I helped her stand. “It seems like you realize what’s going to happen now if we don’t work together.”

“I do, yes! Oh, Victor!” she threw her arms around her shoulders and cried into my neck. “Thank you! Thank you!”

“That’s fine. It’s okay.” I patted her back awkwardly and then just wrapped my arms around her narrow waist in a hug. She sighed when I held her, and we stood together in silence for half a minute.

“Sorry,” she whispered when we parted. “You were right to leave me. Thank you for--”

“We aren’t going to talk about this anymore,” I interrupted her. “We are going to get back to camp, and you are going to cooperate with a smile on your face. When the others ask you what happened, you just tell them that everything is great between us. Got it?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

“Good,” I said. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“You won’t,” she said as she held her hands up in a praying position. “I will work as hard as the three of them to make you happy. Thank you again.”

“Get up on Bob,” I said as the parasaur kneeled behind me. “I need to go look at Sonny’s tail.”

“Yes, Victor,” she nodded, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and then climbed up into the saddle.

I walked over to Sonny and Cher and then checked their legs, arms, bellies, and tails for damage. Cher had a few scratches on her legs that were bleeding a bit, but it didn’t look like a major injury. The bite mark on Sonny’s tail was deep, but even though it leaked some blood on the sand, it didn’t look like it had cut into an artery or vein.

“We are going to go a bit slower on the way back,” I said to Kacerie when I climbed up onto the saddle. “I don’t want their cuts to open up anymore.”

“Whatever you want to do, I’m fine,” she said as she wrapped her arms around my stomach. “Just don’t leave me again.”

“Yeah, I won’t if you do what you said you would do.” I ordered Sonny and Cher to run a bit ahead of Bob so that I could watch their injuries, and then the three parasaurs jogged up the hill and out of the lake valley.

“I’m going to make another loop,” I said as soon as we descended back down into our valley and reached the river we normally forded.

“Okay,” Kacerie agreed, and we turned left at the river and followed it down the edge of our territory until we reached the spot where we usually got water. I crossed the river here and then ran the parasaurs around the massive fallen redwood. I intended to keep going around the river and maybe approach the orange bird cave from the other side, but the sight of the massive fallen tree had grabbed my attention, and I felt the beginnings of an idea spin around in my head.

I didn’t know what the idea was, but something about the fallen tree was making my brain overheat, so I stopped our little caravan as soon as we reached the end where the roots were exposed. Each strand of the fallen tree’s roots stretched through the air as if they were trying to grasp onto the small amount of sunlight cutting through the canopy. I knew the tree was long dead, but the shape of the roots made it look as if it was some sort of terrible Kraken that was rising up from the sea of brown dirt.

“Shiiiiit,” I gasped as I stared at the dirt.

“What’s wrong?” Kacerie asked fearfully.

“Oh damn.” I laughed as the idea fully formed in my brain. “I just figured out how to get the trees down way faster. If this works how I think it will, then we’ll finish the new fort wall in two days instead of six weeks.”

Chapter 10

“Let’s get back!” I shouted a second before I ordered the parasaur trio to run through the forest.

“What did you figure out?” Kacerie asked, but I told Bob to increase his speed, and the wind filled my ears.

We made it to the clearing half a minute later, and I saw that the crowd of scavengers had almost tripled in size. There were probably a hundred smaller dinos feasting on the corpses, and I saw a few dozen vulture looking birds circling overhead. The sight of the birds worried me a bit since it was a clear indication to anyone watching the sky that there was something dead below them. It could alert an enemy tribe we were here, but then again, dinosaurs were dying all the time, and anyone watching the skyline might not think much of it.

The gate of the fort was closed, and I called out to Sheela, Galmine, and Trel when I pulled up with the three parasaurs. They opened the gate a moment after, and I gave them a wide smile as I gestured to Sonny and Cher.

“I’ve got more friends,” I said. “The big male is named Sonny, and the female is named Cher.”

“Wow, Victor,” Galmine cooed. “You are amazing! They are so big. I love their names!”

“That big one’s tail is bleeding,” Trel said as she pointed to Sonny.

“We got into a fight with three other dinos,” I said as I commanded Bob to lay on his stomach. “These guys took care of the attackers, but check it out. I’ve got more clay, and I think I’ve got an idea that will help us knock down the trees quicker.”

“Oh?” the spider-woman said with a bit of skepticism.

“Yeah,” I said as I commanded Hope to come out of the door. “Sheela and Galmine, get on Hope so you can ride over to the forest real quick. Trel and Kacerie will ride on Bob with me.” There weren’t enough seats for three of us on the saddle, but Trel just kneeled in front of me, and we rode the four hundred yards to the forest while Cher and Sonny followed.

“I really think this is going to work,” I said once we had all gotten off the parasaurs again.

“What is your plan?” Sheela asked.

“Watch,” I said as I glanced at the closest tree that was the right size and shape for our new fort wall.

I imagined the four parasaurs digging up the roots at the foot of the tree, and the four of them trotted over to it quickly. There was a bit of confusion as to where each of them should stand, but I made a few mental clarification commands to them, and they were soon circling the tree like the spokes on a compass rose.

They started digging, and the four women and I watched in silence.

Sonny and Bob moved the quickest and took the largest chunks of dirt out. It was just like they were digging a tunnel, but the way they frantically dug made me think more of four giant dogs trying to bury a bone quickly.

“I get it,” Trel whispered after a few minutes had passed, and the parasaurs hadn’t let up with their task.

“I believe I do as well,” Sheela said.

“Well, I don’t,” Kacerie said. “What are they doing? How is this going to cut down the tree?”

“They are almost done,” I said. “Give it a few more minutes, and you’ll see.”

“Okay,” she said as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“Were you crying?” Trel asked her.

“No, I’m fine,” Kacerie answered as she glanced at me. “Everything is good. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for asking.”

“Uhhh. Yeah. Fine.” Trel turned to give me a confused look, and I just shrugged and then nodded at the tree.

“I think that’s good,” I said. “Hope is slower than the other three, but I’ll tell them to do it in that direction.”

I ordered Hope, Sonny, and Cher to come back to us, and then I instructed Bob to stand up and push his bulk against the tree. The parasaur must have weight four tons, and the tree began to tip almost as soon as he pushed his shoulder into it. The parasaurs had unearthed all the roots, and the tree didn’t stand a chance.

“Timber!” I shouted as it fell over. The women all let out gasps of delight, and I felt my chest swell with pride.

“Sheela, how long would it have taken for us to cut that down?” I asked her as a smug smile crept across my face.

“Two or three hours,” she said. Her golden eyes were opened wide and her voice sounded excited.

“Yep! Hot damn! This is great!”

“Wow! Victor! This is amazing.” Galmine threw her arms around me, and our lips met for a brief kiss. “You are such a good provider and protector. We will be able to build the fort so quickly.”

“We are going to need a lot more cord a lot quicker,” I said as I turned to Kacerie.

“I will make it,” she said. “I like making cordage. Thanks for giving me the job.”

“I will make some also.” Trel looked at Kacerie with a bit of confusion and then turned to me. “I’ll have you know that I am impressed with you, Victor. I did not think of this idea, and it will really push up our timetables.”

“It should take us only a day or two to topple all the trees we need,” I said. “But then we need to worry about cutting them the right height and getting rid of the roots. I was hoping you had an idea for that.”

“Hmm,” Trel said as she tapped on her lips with her long finger. “We used the fire to do it last time, but--”

“Kacerie, can you go gather some of those ferns over there?” I asked the pink-haired woman as I pointed to the cluster by a tree that was some sixty feet away.

“Uhh, yeah,” she said. Then she jogged over on her bare feet and began working on the branches.

“I’ll tell her about the other tribes,” I whispered to the other three women after I beckoned them to stand closer to me. “But now is not the time. We had a good talk at the lake, and she’s going to cooperate more with us, but I still need you all to keep an eye on her. Got it?” My friends nodded, and then I turned back to Trel.

“The issue with the fire is that it will create smoke that others will see,” the spider-woman continued.

“Yeah,” I said. “We don’t want that.”

“But if you and Sheela have to cut through each of these trees, you’ll become the bottleneck,” Trel continued. “So the fire would be the most efficient way, especially if you really want to get this done quickly. We will all have to focus on building cordage for the walls since the fire could do an entire batch during the day.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “Sheela, if we had the hundred and fifty-ish logs down, how long do you think it would take for us to cut through them all?”

“Victor, the issue is that you are not really saving time,” she explained. “We will still need to cut off the roots. So, it will be as if the tree is still vertical on the ground.”

“Right,” I sighed. “I get it. So, using the fire to cut through is really the only way. I just don’t want any smoke in the sky.”

I looked up at the circling vulture-like birds. Like California Condors, these beasts had dark brown or black feathers. Unlike the condors, the beasts were each about the size of a Mini-Cooper.

“Hmmm,” I said as I stared up at the birds. “What if we did it at night? They might see the glow from the fire, but we are right in the middle of the forest. They wouldn’t see the smoke if the sky was dark.”

“That is a great idea,” Trel said as she nodded at me. “I should have thought of it.” The spider woman turned to the basket on the back of Bob. “We’ll need to use the clay to ensure the fire stays on track, but if I put the edges high enough, it will eliminate some of the glow. Yes. This will work. It’s a good idea.”

“Hooray for Victor!” Galmine said as she hugged me again.

“I think we have six more hours till sunset,” I said as I checked the sun. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. I’ll control the parasaurs and have them topple over as many trees as we can while you all work on getting ferns for cordage. As soon as it gets close to twilight, Sheela and I will indent the first parts of the trunks with our axes so we can make a fire in them. Then Trel will lay out the clay before we set the fire. Tonight we’ll all work on more cordage.”

“After you inseminate me again,” Trel reminded me with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” I said as I smiled at her. “That was inferred.”

“Victor,” Galmine said. “I am happy to gather ferns, and I do enjoy being outside, but--”

“That’s too dangerous,” I interrupted her, “you need to go back inside the fort. Sheela, get the ferns that Kacerie has gathered so far and take Galmine back so she can work on cooking, pots, and cordage. Bring back all of our baskets when you return, and then you, Trel, and Kacerie can devise a process for gathering a bunch of ferns.”

“Yes, Victor,” Sheela replied, and I ordered Hope to move closer to the two women so that they could mount.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of activity. The parasaur digging team and I got a bit better at figuring out how to dig out the roots and topple the trees easier, but there was a bit of a downtime when the group walked the distance between a toppled tree and the next target. I didn’t want to push them too hard, so I gave them breaks when I saw their chests heaving with the work. The process was still a million times easier than Sheela and I chopping through everything, and after a few hours, I was actually able to gather ferns with the three women while the parasaurs happily pushed over the next five trees.

When I guessed dusk was about an hour away, I stopped the team and did a quick count of the logs. They had downed thirty-four in the time it would have taken Sheela and me to cut down three with sharp axes. This was a massive improvement in our process, and I guessed that we would be done with all the trees we needed the day after tomorrow.

Trel, Sheela, and Kacerie gathered ferns as quickly as they could. Each of them carried a basket, and Sheela would jump on Hope to shuttle the full ones back and forth between our fort. I lost track of how many trips she made, but I guessed that it had to be over forty.

When the last tree of the day was down, Trel went along each trunk and eyeballed where we needed to start chopping indents for the fire. Sheela and I went to work as soon as Trel laid out a branch to mark each bottom and top spot while Kacerie came behind us and laid out clay dams on each side of the cuts. The clay would keep the fire from burning the wrong way on the logs in addition to reducing some of the light from the flames.

By the time Sheela and I made it halfway through the logs, Trel had finished marking all of them and returned to the first one we chopped indents into. Galmine, Sheela, Trel, and I were pros at starting fires with just a simple wood drill and some tinder, and she quickly got small fires going inside of the clay dams.

By the time Sheela and I finished cutting the notches in the last log, Trel was halfway done with setting the fires, so we swung back and helped her while Kacerie continued with the clay placement. We didn’t quite have enough clay for all of the logs, but it would be easy enough to get more tomorrow.

To say I was excited with our progress would have been an understatement. My mind was reeling with the possibilities of what the future would bring us. We still needed to cut off all the branches, and we would probably need at least three more baskets of clay tomorrow, but what if I tamed four more parasaurs? We might be able to have all the logs felled in two days. Then I’d probably need eight baskets of clay total, but we’d need way more cordage to tie up all the posts. The cordage was definitely the bottleneck now, but it was going to take a lot of time to gather the ferns or dry out the sinew.

“Should we just let it burn all night?” I asked Trel as we set the fire in the last log. “I’m worried the grass could catch on fire. Then we would have a huge problem.”

“It will work just like the smaller logs,” she said with a shrug. “There is a chance that it could spread, but the clay keeps it in place, and it should burn straight down. We didn’t have to pay much attention to it when we did it a few days ago.”

“Yeah,” I said as I recalled how Trel had first shown us how to do this.

“But let’s make a trip out before we go to bed and in the middle of the night,” she said. “We can bring water just in case it looks like something is getting out of control. This stuff is pretty green, so I don’t believe the fire will spread.”

“Ahh, that reminds me. I need to get more water. Sheela, you up for a trip to the stream?”

“Yes, Victor,” she said. “The new jugs should be cooked by now, so we can take those.”

“Great,” I commanded Bob to crouch down so that Trel and I could mount him, and Sheela jumped on Hope with Kacerie. A few moments later we were back at the edge of our camp wall, and Trel was helping me tie the new clay jugs to the saddle. Six of them fit just fine, and I gestured for Sheela to get on Hope while I rode on Bob.

“I’m going to check on Galmine’s cordage progress,” Trel said. “Don’t forget about my--”

“I know,” I interrupted her. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Trel gave me a wide smile that showed off her fangs, and then she ducked under the door.

“I can ride behind you on Bob if you wish,” Sheela said. She hadn’t jumped on Hope yet, so she had to crank her head back to stare up at me. “We do not need to bring her since she has no jugs on her saddle.”

“Do we have more?” I asked. “I thought that we had two more for water and then Galmine was cooking another six.”

“I can get them,” she said as she took a step away from me.

“Sheela, wait,” I said, and she stopped in mid-stride. “I’m going to take all the parasaurs to the stream either way so they can all have a nice long drink. So the question is: do you want to ride on Bob with me?”

“Certainly,” she said quickly. “He is higher up, and his stride is gentler.”

“Ahh, okay,” I said as I gestured for her to climb up behind me. Her arms found their usual spot around my stomach, and her long blonde hair fell across my shoulders when she pressed her breasts against my back.

We had not talked this morning about our relationship, but I could feel the tension starting to grow between us, and I knew I was eventually going to have to tell her how I felt about her. I guessed she might have an attraction toward me, but I also knew that Sheela took her loveless marriage seriously.

She was an honorable woman, and I was just a guy who she happened to have gotten stuck with.

I tapped Bob’s flanks and instructed Hope, Sonny, and Cher to follow us. Sheela squeezed my stomach more when we started moving, and I wondered if I was looking too hard at our relationship. I felt as if she had an attraction to me, but did she really? We hung out all the time together, but the long looks Sheela gave me were probably just caused by a friendly comradery. She had admitted she didn’t really like riding on these dinos, so Sheela probably preferred to ride behind me so that she wouldn’t have to deal with steering Hope.

The more I thought about it, the more I started to think she didn’t really feel anything for me. This belief began to erode my resolve to talk with her, and I felt my heart hammer in my chest. I was going to tell her that I was attracted to her, and then she’d shoot me down. Did I really even need to bother? I loved Trel and Galmine. I loved Sheela as well, but if I told her I felt that way, and she didn’t feel the same emotions, it would really mess up our working relationship. There were no sexual harassment lawsuits out in Dinosaurland, but the last thing I wanted was to creep out my best friend.

We made it to the ancient fallen tree while I pondered my options, and a brief moment later we were at the side of the small river. From our perch on Bob’s back, it was easy enough to see the terrain and scout for hostile dinos. Sheela and I both glanced around for half a minute, but neither one of us saw anything, and the parasaurs didn’t seem nervous.

“Alright, let’s do this,” I said as I instructed Bob and the gang to go into the water and drink.

Sheela and I each grabbed a newly minted water jug and climbed down from Bob. Neither of us spoke while we filled them, but after we had each taken long drinks we both looked at each other. I opened my mouth to start the conversation, but she spoke first.

“What passed between you and Kacerie?” she asked.

“I explained already,” I said with a shrug. “I told her that she needed to get her shit together and work with us.”

“Her shit together?” Sheela asked with a shocked expression on her normally stoic face.

“Uhh, sorry. Slang. It means I told her to stop complaining and cooperate.”

“She seemed to be crying,” Sheela commented.

“She’ll get over it,” I said as I took another sip from the jug. The new containers were designed a bit better. They had wide bottoms, with narrow tops that flare out at the mouth. Small loop handles made them appear a bit like beer growlers crossed between those old Greek vases.

“You mean, she will overcome her challenges?” Sheela asked with a slight smile.

“Yep, you are getting my slang better.”

“I try to learn,” she said as she bent down to fill up her water jug again.

It was at the point of the day where twilight gives way to night, and I knew we only had another ten minutes before we needed to get back. Part of me wanted to use the time as an excuse not to talk to her, but I realized this would probably lead to another day of me putting off the conversation, so I took a deep breath and tried to calm my heart. My blood pumping muscle felt like it was using my ribs as a punching bag.

“Sheela,” I said, and the woman’s eyes seemed to glow in the near darkness.

“Yes?” Her voice was a whisper, and I wondered if she knew what I was about to say.

“I have feelings for you,” the words came out of my mouth quickly, and I almost wished I hadn’t said them as soon as I did.

“I know,” she replied, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.

“Uhh. You know?” I asked.

“Yes, Victor. We spoke of this many weeks ago at the lake. I see the way you look at me, and Galmine, and Trel.”

“Okay,” I said, and I immediately felt like an idiot. Why did I just say “okay?” What was wrong with me?

“We should fill up the rest of the jugs,” she said, but she didn’t take a step toward Bob. She was still staring at me, and my heart started to punch in double time. I suddenly had a hypothesis about Sheela, but I realized that if I was wrong, there would be no way I could repair our relationship.

“Are you waiting for my order?” I whispered.

“N-n-no,” she stuttered with a surprised facial expression that I couldn’t remember seeing.

“Go fill up the other jugs,” I said, and she moved past me. I didn’t know why I was that surprised by her compliance as our entire relationship up until this point had pretty much been me telling her what to do. The answers to my problems seemed so obvious, but fear of rejection was still tying my stomach up in knots.

Sheela went about the work of filling up the other jugs with her usual intense focus. I walked through the shin-deep water so that I could attach the jug to the saddle, and then I took each one she filled out of her hands so I could attach them. After a few minutes, they were all filled, but our parasaurs were still drinking.

“Let’s climb back up,” I said as I jumped back into the saddle. Sheela was in her seat instantly, but I turned around to face her before she could wrap her arms around my stomach.

“Tell me how you feel about me,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked, and I saw her bite her lip slightly.

“You know I find you incredibly attractive. You are smart, brave, honorable, and generous. You never quit, and I cherish every second we spend together. I have a feeling you already knew this, but I wanted to say it out loud so that you knew it for sure.”

“Victor,” she whispered sadly. “I am married.”

“I didn’t ask about it,” I said. “I feel like you are using that as a shield to keep me away, but you also follow my orders, so now I am ordering you to tell me what you feel for me.”

“Oh?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “You believe you can order me to tell you what is inside my heart?”

I felt my stomach somersault a few dozen times, and I tried to think of a way I could backpedal. I’d messed up, and Sheela had called my bluff. Of course, I couldn’t just demand that she tell me how she feels about me, could I?

“I just did,” I said with way more confidence than I actually felt. I almost wanted to tell her that the answer didn’t matter, or that she didn’t really have to do it, or that I’d be happy with her decision.

But the reality was that none of those were true. I wanted Sheela. I’d wanted her the second I saw her attack the giant croc that tried to eat me. Her slight Australian accent drove me crazy, her stoic mindset made me respect her, and her unbreakable will made me a stronger person. When we first met, she seemed the Yin to my Yang, but now I realized we weren’t opposites, we really just completed each other.

“I feel for you the same way you feel for me,” she whispered as she cast her eyes downward. “My admission does not help our relationship, though. My society takes marriage very seriously, and I cannot abandon my--”

“I’ll fight him,” I said. “You said you can remarry if your next husband battles your former?”

“Victor,” she said my name with a sigh. “He cannot battle you since we are on different worlds. Even if you could, he would kill you in a few seconds. Your battle prowess has amazed me, but he is nearly three feet taller than you and outweighs you by perhaps two hundred pounds.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I’d fight him to have you. I don’t want you to feel this sadness anymore. I want to love you, and I want you to be able to return my love.”

“Victor…” her voice trailed off as she finally looked up at me. Our eyes met, and we held each other’s gaze for what felt like forever.

I wanted to keep talking, I wanted to try to convince her that she needed to be with me, but I’d already made my sales pitch, and I didn’t know what else I could say to convince her that I wanted to be with her.

“Your words have given me pause,” she whispered as she looked away from me again. “I need time to sort through the conflict inside of my chest.”

“Can you help me understand the conflict?” I asked. “I can understand you feel honor-bound to your marriage, but you admitted you would not want to return home. From what you said, your husband didn’t love you, and you--”

“I misspoke the other day,” she said. “I was upset because of--”

“You can come back with me,” I interrupted her. “If we somehow find a way back, you can return to my world and be my wife.”

“You are speaking nonsense,” she said, but her lips turned upward into a ghost of a smile.

“It isn’t nonsense,” I said. “I don’t want to be without you. Not even for a day.”

“I would not fit in your world,” she said as she gestured to the thin coat of soft fur on her body. “Just as you would not fit in on my world.”

“So?” I asked. “You look close enough. You could wear clothes that cover your skin, then you would pass. Sure you might get a few strange looks, but I don’t care. I--”

“And what of Trel and Galmine?” she asked. “Would you bring them with you back to your world?”

“I love them also,” I said with a shrug. “Galmine might enjoy my world, but it is socially harsher than hers. Trel wants children, and I can’t give them to her.”

“You seem to be trying, though,” Sheela said.

“I doubt it will happen,” I said. “Different species and all that.”

“I see,” she said as she frowned. “Then you and I will not have children.”

“Do you want children?” I asked, and I realized the conversation had suddenly accelerated in a direction I hadn’t intended.

“I want love,” she whispered. “It is foolish for me to say, since most women of my world do not receive it from their husbands, but that is what my heart wants. The heart is greedy though. As soon as I have love, I will want children.”

“I can give you love,” I said. “I want to give you love. Maybe I’ve already given it to you? You just said you feel the same things for me that I feel for you.”

“And I am angry with myself,” she sighed. “Victor, you cannot defeat my husband. That is the issue. Even if he cannot be here for you to challenge, it goes against my kind’s ways to consider you as an option.”

“Uhhh, really?” I said as I felt my stomach start to knot again.

“You are five times the man he is,” Sheela reached out with her hand and touched my cheek. She held me with her golden eyes, and the air threatened to leave my body. “You are kind and generous. You are hardworking and charming. You are funny and intelligent. You have saved my life dozens of times, and you are only becoming more powerful as you learn to use your Tame ability. However, the contest for ownership of me must be accomplished in one-on-one physical combat, and you would not be able to defeat my husband. I’ve admitted my feelings for you even though I know this, and it means that I have tarnished my name.”

“But wait.” I reached up to touch her hand on my cheek. “It’s just that? The fight? Or your impression of what could happen? I’m confused. It sounds like you are saying that you can be with me as long as you think I could defeat him in combat. Is that true?” The words almost gushed out of my mouth.

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “He is a great warrior though, you will not--”

“Teach me,” I interrupted her. “You know how to fight, and you said I have some weird potential. I don’t think there is anything to that, but if you teach me to fight, you’ll know when I’ll be able to beat him.”

She stared at me for a few moments, and I forced myself to keep my mouth closed. I didn’t know what I would say if she said no, but I knew I wasn’t going to stop trying. Sheela obviously had feelings for me, but she couldn’t let go of her cultural bonds.

“I will teach you,” she whispered, and my heart skipped a beat.

“Awesome!” I gushed. “I’m looking forward to--”

“But you do not have much free time,” she interrupted me. “I should not be a priority for you. It does not make sense that you would spend your time learning how to fight from me just so you can defeat a husband who you will never battle.”

“Then you should just give up the idea and consider yourself divorced from him,” I laughed, and she surprised me by smiling a bit.

“Yes, I realize that I am somewhat foolish. I have considered this for a few weeks, but it is--”

“Wait,” I interrupted her, “back up a second. You’ve been considering this for weeks? Like… you wanted to get out of your marriage?”

“Victor,” she said as she touched my cheek again. “I knew my feelings for you, but I did not know if you felt the same way. I am conflicted, because I respect the laws and ways of my people, even though I will never return home. I suspected you felt the same way about me, but I did not think we could be together, so I did not wish to lead you on.”

“But you wanted me to ask you?” I turned around on the saddle so that I could face her more, and my hand moved to rest on her muscular thigh. A short gasp left her mouth when I touched her, and her eyes turned down to my hand, but she didn’t move to push me away.

“I am not trying to be coy with you,” she whispered. “I am not my own woman. Do you see how I am conflicted? I crave your touch, but please take your hand off my leg.”

I pulled my fingers away from her, and we looked at each other again. Her eyes actually seemed pained, and she bit her bottom lip aggressively. “We should get back.”

“Yes, Victor,” she whispered, and I turned around on the saddle so that I face forward on Bob. I was about to kick my heels against his flanks and send him running back toward the camp, but I felt Sheela’s arms circle my waist and her body press against my back. I sat there and let her hug me for a moment, and she let out a long sigh as her head rested on my shoulder.

Neither one of us spoke. I just held onto the reins while she clung to me. Part of me wanted to turn around and kiss her, but I knew it would be foolish. She was conflicted, and I wanted us to be together without the complications of her marriage weighing on her soul. Especially when I had two other women that I loved who needed my affection.

There was a flash of light across my vision, and I blinked my Eye-Q on. The entry under Women now read 3, and I motioned my eye over it and willed the menu to open. Sheela’s name now appeared beneath Trel’s, and I released a long exhale.

“I love you, Sheela,” I said as I brought my fingers up to cradle her hands on my chest. “I’ll work to be the man you need me to be.”

“I know you will,” she whispered. “Thank you, Victor.”

“Let’s go.” I kicked Bob forward and commanded my group of parasaurs to run with us back to the camp.

We had a lot of work cut out for us tonight, tomorrow, the next day, and for as long as we probably lived on Dinosaurland, but I had the love of three amazing women, and the path forward seemed illuminated with bright lights. I’d learn how to fight from Sheela, and then we could be together. The beautiful woman deserved to be happy, and I wanted to be the man who brought her that joy.

Chapter 11

“What took you both so long?” Trel asked as soon as Sheela and I returned.

“We chatted a bit while we got the water,” I said as I set one of the pots down beside the fire. Kacerie moved to reach for the jug, but then she froze and looked at me with questioning eyes. I nodded to her, and she took a long drink.

“Now that you are here, everyone else needs to leave so that we can have sex.” Trel made wave-like motions with her black fingers, and the women turned to stare at her.

“Trel, I am cooking a nice meal for everyone. Perhaps we can wait until everyone has finished eating?” Galmine smiled at the spider-woman.

“Ugh. Fine. Let’s eat. This is my last day, so I need all of his sperm. I’m sure you all understand.”

“Yes, I do,” Galmine sighed as she looked across the fire at me.

“How is the cordage looking?” I asked. They each had a small pile of processed ferns in their hands, but I didn’t see any completed ropes.

“That basket is filled with a few dozen,” Trel said as she nodded across Galmine.

“Great,” I said as Sheela brought the last water jug inside the hut. “How many baskets do you think we’ll need to complete the project?”

“Ha!” Trel shook her head. “We’ll need maybe two hundred more baskets filled.”

“Damn, that’s a lot,” I groaned.

“The logs we are using are larger,” Trel said. “The perimeter of the new wall will be some eight hundred and seventy feet. However, it will be made with roughly one hundred and fifty logs that are around six feet in diameter. Let’s say nineteen feet of cord per single wrap around, but we’ll have to do a wrap at the top and the bottom, and I do three wraps per, so each log will require some two hundred and thirty feet of cord to attach to the next log. So two hundred and thirty feet times seventy-five logs is seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty feet of cord. I’m rounding up a bit in my math since the logs are not all perfect and I’m expecting some rope to break during the building process.”

“Wow,” I said as I tried to follow her math. “That’s a shitload of cordage, and I can’t believe you just did the math that fast.”

“Victor, don’t you recall me telling you I’m a genius?” She fluttered her eyelashes at me. “I’m a genius. You are lucky to have me as your mate.”

“Yeah, I am.” I smiled at her and then took the plate of food that Galmine gave me. She used a flint dagger to cut the meat off the roasting carcass, and I wondered if that was because Kacerie said something to her about using her fingers.

“How many feet in a mile?” I asked, and I wondered if the translator technology that we all had would let Trel understand me. It seemed to work fine for feet and yards, but this was some different conversions.

“Five thousand two hundred and eighty,” she answered with a frown.

“So we need over three miles of cordage,” I groaned. “Fuck.”

“Well, we don’t need it all right now,” she said.

“We are going to have over thirty logs ready to go tomorrow, then probably eighty the day after. Then another forty-ish the day after that. We pretty much need it all right now. What about the sinew? Can we use some of that?” I pointed out of the hut to where Trel had hung the pieces of animal sinew against the walls to dry.

“No,” Trel said. “It will take them a while to dry, and it’s too valuable of a material to use on the wall. We need to save it for bows, saddles, and the support rope for my planned tree fort.”

“I just don’t see how we are going to be able to make three miles of cordage in three days,” I said.

“My original plan was for six weeks,” Trel said with a shrug. “That is only four hundred and ten feet a day, which would be challenging, but not impossible for Galmine, Kacerie, and I to do while you and Sheela cut down the trees.

“So we aren’t really saving any time now?” I asked. “If you think a person can make a hundred and forty feet a day, Sheela and I helping would only net us two hundred and eighty a day, so--”

“It would be around six-hundred and eighty-four feet a day,” she said. “So, it would take us twenty-five days instead of forty-two, but the math is a little fuzzy since it is hard to predict efficiencies or other conflicts. The dinosaurs digging out the trees is still a boon, but we aren’t going to be able to make enough cordage quick enough.”

“There has to be another way,” I said. “The hard part is getting down the trees and digging the trenches, and we’ve got that figured out. We need either a better way to make cordage, or we need a different way to join the logs together when we stack them vertically to form the wall.”

“Hmm,” Trel said as she tapped her lips with her finger. She’d taken a plate from Galmine, but hadn’t really started eating yet.

“Can we use clay to glue them together?” I asked.

“Not strong enough,” Trel said. “I need to use the cordage to hold the pieces together while I attach the next ones on the wall. It helps keep them vertical so that I can line them up in the circle and fill in the trench on either side of them. Just like we did with the smaller wall.

“But what if we don’t use any cordage?” I asked. “The logs in the wall can’t really fall inward because of the circle layout. They can’t be pulled forward because we’ll set them deep in the trench and the supporting dirt fill will make them strong.”

“I’m not sure that will work,” Trel said as she wiggled her lips.

“I made the trench around five feet deep. How long did you measure the logs?”

“Twenty feet,” Trel said, “but that is one of the issues, we need the cords wrapping them to help pull them together since the sides will be uneven. There will be gaps everywhere. Let’s say we don’t use the cordage to bind them to each other. The bases of the trees would…” Her words hung in the air and I leaned forward.

“Did you just figure it out?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said with a smirk. “So, here is the problem: the trees you are cutting are rather uniform in diameter all the way up, but the base is wider at the bottom, so I was planning on using the cordage to ensure they are tightly held together. However, I could just flip every other tree upside down, and bury it thin end down so that the two sides mesh together in a more uniformed manner.”

“I think I get it,” I said. “You are stacking triangles but flipping every other one, so they mesh and fill in the gaps.”

“Hmmmm,” Trel said, and her voice was beginning to become excited. “It creates new challenges though. I will need to pair the trees together and then match the sides so that they have a closer fit. Ugh, it’s going to be really complicated, and it will become harder the more logs I stack. Victor, I think we are better off just focusing on making the cordage.”

“We need dowels or something,” I said. “Like a way to drive a piece of wood through each log pillar so they are connected.”

“Hmmmmm,” Trel mused as she tapped her finger on her lips. “That’s a good idea, but there are more challenges to that.”

“What kind of challenges?”

“I think it will work, but let me explain the issues. We can use the fire to burn a circular hole through each log. Then we can drive log dowels through holes to connect two logs together. That will join them with enough strength, especially when they are also in the circle formation. I’d need to burn four holes in each log though. Two at the top and two at the base.”

“Why two?” I asked.

“I won’t be able to bend the smaller logs I use as dowels. I would have to drive a single piece of wood through the width of both logs, so about twelve feet. There will need to be holes to connect each log to the log on either side of it. My measurements will have to be precise, and I’ll have to monitor the fire carefully, so it doesn’t burn the hole out too much or too little. I suppose that if it burns too wide, I can fill the inside with clay. That should make the bond strong enough, but if I did a perfect job, we would just hammer in a log dowel through each hole into the next log, and it would be a snug enough fit to keep them joined.”

“It seems like it would be an even snugger fit since we wouldn’t have to worry about the profile of the rope wrap we use pushing the adjacent logs away,” I said.

“Yes. Hmmmmm.” Trel looked deep in thought. “I think this will save us some time. It won’t hit your two-day time frame, but it should be faster than twenty-five days.”

“How long do you think?” I asked.

“Tomorrow you and Sheela will need to chop all the branches off the logs while the dinosaurs dig. Then I’ll need to pair up the logs so their profiles fit, then we’ll need to drag them into the fort. We can probably fit thirty in here if we leave Hope outside.”

“What if we leave her in?” I asked.

“Maybe only ten,” Trel said with a shrug. “I’d need them inside so I could burn the holes at night.”

“You can’t just burn them outside?” Kacerie asked.

“No,” Trel said. “We have to burn those logs out there now because they are too large to bring in here, and the burns we are making are just crude lines. I’ll need to be able to inspect the fire-drills every half of an hour. Ugh. How annoying. I will need my beauty sleep to begin incubating my brood. Five days of sleepless nights will exhaust me.”

“You can teach us how to do it so we can take over,” I said. “But you think it will take five nights?”

“To burn all the holes, yes,” Trel said. “But then we will need to gather the dowels and trim them, then raise the logs in the trenches and hammer the dowels through the holes. I think it will take seven days if we work efficiently.”

“That’s way better than twenty-five,” I said.

“We will need a lot of clay, and we will need it all at night. I’d say four baskets worth will be good, but five would be safer.”

“So we’ll need to make another three of the leaf baskets tonight,” I said. “We should be able to do it if we stop making cordage.”

“We’ll still need cordage,” Trel said. “I’ll have to use some to bind the pillars together while we hammer the dowels in, but we won’t need the baskets until dusk tomorrow, and we won’t need the cordage until the next day.”

“Okay, good, I’m liking this plan. Good job, Trel.”

“It was you and I together that came up with it, Victor,” she said as her eyes bore into me. “We will create beautiful things together. Speaking of that, everyone needs to leave so you and I can copulate.”

“It is a nice night,” Galmine said as she stood from beside the fire. “I will go work on the baskets for clay outside.”

“I will go inspect the logs we are burning,” Sheela said as she stood.

“I uhhh, guess I’ll help Galmine,” Kacerie said as she also stood. The three women walked out of the hut, and I looked at Trel.

“You didn’t eat any of your dinner,” I said as I pointed at her plate.

“I am hungry for other things now, my dear Victor,” she whispered, and then she pushed her plate aside and crawled over to me on her human knees.

Our lovemaking wasn’t as intense as it was yesterday. Trel was still mostly in control, and she still rode me with urgency, but we spent a lot more time kissing, whispering pleasures to each other, and cuddling. We both climaxed when she was on top of me, and she did her usual inverted hang to ensure that all of my sperm went into her womb. It was kind of a turn on to see how much she wanted my seed, especially after almost of a month of her antagonizing me.

Our second round was doggie style, but we did it standing with her spider legs bracing against me. The position allowed me to fondle her perfect ass while we made love, and Trel really seemed to enjoy it. She let out a long growl when we both climaxed again, and I relaxed on one of our sleeping mats while she hung inverted over my mouth. We kissed for a few minutes while we came down from our euphoria, and then she lowered herself into my arms so we could bask in each other’s embrace.

“Our children will be beautiful,” Trel said. “They will be brave and intelligent. Our work will be much easier once they are born and reach maturity.”

“How long will that take?” I asked, even though I still doubted she could get pregnant.

“Five or so years,” she said. “But they will be able to do work after six months.”

“Damn, that is fast.”

“Is it? How long does it take your species to reach maturity?”

“Uhh, we have both physical and emotional maturity. Most people are physically mature at eighteen years.”

“Eighteen years?” Trel gasped. “Why so slow?”

“That’s just how it is,” I said. “I’m surprised your kind ages so fast.”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Twenty,” I said.

“Perhaps the measurement of time is different on our world,” Trel said. “I’m six years old in my own time, but our ages seem similar.”

“Could be,” I said. “Probably doesn’t matter. I doubt we’ll be going back. All I know is that I’m happy you are in my arms right now, and I’m glad we have a good plan for tomorrow. We are a good building team.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I do enjoy this. I am sorry again for being so difficult when we first met. If I’d known how much I would enjoy being your lover, I would have just--”

“It’s fine,” I said as I hugged her tighter. “We have a lot of work ahead of us. I’d love to lay here with you all night and drift off to sleep, but I think we all need to work on baskets and cordage. Let’s go get the others and get back to work.”

“Yes, Victor,” Trel said as she leaned her mouth up to kiss me. Her lips reignited my passion again, and we made love one more time before we went back to work.

Chapter 12

The next day was a whirlwind of constant work.

And that was saying a lot since Trel, Sheela, Galmine and I were used to some pretty grueling work.

We’d finished making two more clay baskets last night as well as a lot of cordage. Galmine’s task for the day was to make another basket for clay, craft more arrows, and continue with the cordage. She also had to take care of all the meal preparation. The beautiful woman informed me that she had enough bird for today, but we’d have to get more food tomorrow.

Sheela was our resident axe expert, and she went to work clearing the branches from the trees that we toppled during the last two days. She worked tirelessly with her tools, but she avoided looking at me during most of the day.

Trel spent the day organizing the trees we toppled so that they were aligned to make a tight fit. This meant I had to use Hope to push the logs around, but the other three parasaurs were the better diggers anyway, and the loss of the smaller dino didn’t really impede their progress.

Once Trel had thirty logs aligned the way she wanted, she used an axe to start on the spot where she would make the fire holes. To make sure she was setting these correctly, she asked me to make Hope spin them around a bit so that she could eyeball the sides. At first, she asked Kacerie or me to use an axe and trim some of the trunks so they would fit better, but Trel was quickly frustrated with Kacerie’s lack of axe chopping skills, so she ended up doing the task herself.

Kacerie was our floater. She helped Sheela clear the cut branches from the trunks, selected branches that might work for dowels and put those in another pile for Trel to inspect, and sharpened our axes during her downtime.

The axes ended being a bit of a problem for us. We had built them like traditional ones with the blade’s edge parallel to the handle. Trel’s new plan for the wall meant that the logs had to be shaped a lot more, and we quickly realized we needed axes with a blade mounted perpendicular to the handle. That way we could stand on top or astride the log and cut downward to shave the trunk. Trel didn’t really know the name of the design, but I recalled the name “adze” from an old boat crafting documentary I once watched on YouTube.

Building our first adze was surprisingly simple. I told Kacerie that she needed to find an arm-length branch with some sort of knot or junction at the end. We had plenty of branches lying around, but the material was still green, and I thought it wouldn’t be suitable for a handle. She still found a dried branch on the ground during her other tasks, and it had a junction like I wanted.

I used one of our axes to trim the pieces off the end and then carved a slot by the junctioning piece. A few hours later Sheela stumbled across a rock that would work for the blade, and I pounded into the slot before I wrapped it to the nub of the branch at the junction. The tool ended up resembling the number 7, or like a gardening hoe, and I tested a few chops against the bark of a tree. I was able to get some good leverage with the tool, so I gave it to Kacerie so she could shave the handle and sharpen the stone blade.

I probably had the easiest day of the group. I did chopping and gathering work when the parasaurs were busy with the tasks I commanded, but rotating the logs with Hope required most of my concentration. Bob, Sonny, and Cher ended up taking down their sixtieth tree a bit after lunch, and I switched their tasks around so that they focused on pushing the fallen trees closer to the central spot where we were working. These trees were hard to muscle around because the roots were still attached, but we’d cleared a significant part of the younger growth the two hundred yards from our processing center. I didn’t want Trel, Sheela, and Kacerie working that deep in the forest, so I made the dinos do the grunt work of bringing them closer to us.

While the three parasaurs moved the recently fallen trees, I attached the dragging harness to Hope and had her pull the logs Trel marked into the fort. The set up worked well since the smaller parasaur could fit through the door, and I had all thirty of the logs Trel marked inside of the fort by the time the sun was low in the sky.

“I just need the clay,” Trel said when I returned to our log-processing site with Hope. “All of these trees are marked, and we should be able to get them all burning tonight if you can get me the clay soon. Then we’ll be done out here and we can start on the ones inside of the fort.”

“I’m on it,” I said as I surveyed the site. Sheela and Kacerie were chopping the indents that we would use to lay the fire in, and Trel also had an axe in her hand. I kind of wanted to bring someone with me for safety, but I didn’t want to pull them away from their tasks.

“I’ll be quick,” I said. “I’ll take Bob. Sonny and Cher can stay here for defense. If you guys need to get back into the fort quickly, take Hope.” I didn’t actually know if Sonny and Cher would defend my friends, but I sent them a thought, and it seemed as if the two parasaurs went from munching on the grass and leaves to glancing around the site with an unnatural alertness.

“Got it,” Trel said. “Be careful.”

A moment later I was back at our camp and attaching the five clay baskets to his saddle. Then I gave Galmine a quick kiss, updated her on our progress, and then turned to leave.

Before I could exit, Jinx nuzzled against my leg. I reached down to pet the little guy, and he surprised me by jumping into my arms.

“Aww,” Galmine gushed. “He loves you so much. You should take him with you.”

“Hmmm, yeah. I think I will.” The cat-sized chocobo-looking dino weighed a bit under twenty pounds, so I couldn’t quite keep him on my shoulder like a parrot, but I could just carry him up onto the saddle.

I took Jinx out of the fort and then commanded him to run up and perch on the front of Bob’s back. He let out a confirmation chirp and then did as I asked.

A few moments later, my little pal and I were riding across the clearing past the piles of corpses that sat at the edge of our clearing.

The smell was all sorts of terrible.

We’d been a bit lucky all day, since the wind was blowing from the direction of the forest where we worked, but now that I moved to the edges of our domain, the scent of dead dino corpses was almost overwhelming, and I had to fight against my gag reflex. There were tons of scavengers feasting on the bodies, but the only big dinos were the vulture-like ones I’d seen yesterday. There weren’t any carcasses near our work site, so the creatures hadn’t bothered us. I just hope the smell didn’t bring something massive and dangerous to our clearing.

The sooner we had these walls up the better.

Jinx let out an angry squawk when we rode past a group of white feathered dinos that looked like forty pound versions of him, and I guessed the creatures were his distant cousins. They looked up at us when we passed, but they were too busy chomping on a rotting body to care about our passage.

Just to mix things up a bit, I took a slightly different path toward the lake. It wasn’t the shortest way, so it meant I spent a bit more time in the jungle, but I was worried that my consistent habit might be something an enemy could track, and I didn’t want to get caught off guard by someone waiting to ambush me.

Maybe I was paranoid, but the distant smoke in the jungle hadn’t been caused by a dinosaur, so I knew there were other tribes out there.

Passage through the jungle was slow, and the crowded trees felt a little claustrophobic, but I was soon cresting the hill toward the lake. The smoke in the distance was now gone, but I still spent a few moments at the edge of the slope with my head just a bit above the top so I wasn’t making much of a profile.

The trikes were back at the lake, but the spot where the parasaurs were normally at was vacant. I saw a trio of red feathered raptors on the far side of the water, but they looked as if they were smaller than the green ones that we had been fighting, and they were a good ten minute run from where I would pick up my clay. Other than those two groups of dinos, the lake was deserted, so I crested the hill quickly and pushed Bob down the other side.

“We have to do this quick,” I said to Jinx as soon as Bob got to the edge of the finger part of the lake where the clay was. I paused for a few moments before I got off and paid attention to the two dinos’ heads. Neither one of them seemed nervous about their surrounding, so I commanded Bob to kneel, and then I untied all the baskets.

Bob took a quick drink from the edge of the lake while I scooped the clay into the baskets as quickly as I could. I decided to tie each one back on the saddle as soon as I finished, instead of filling all five and then doing the job. It was a bit less efficient, but I didn’t want to leave everything behind if I had to run. I didn’t know why I felt so nervous, but it was probably because I was out here alone, and it was getting close to dusk.

By the time I filled the fourth basket with clay, I’d started to calm down a bit. Jinx was a good watchdog, and he seemed happy enough to run around the beach and attack a group of small frogs he found. I soon had the fifth basket of clay tied up on Bob’s saddle, and I called my buddy back to me so we could go back home.

“But before we go…” I said as I turned to look at the trikes. It looked like the same male and two females that I’d observed for the last three days. They were two lake-fingers over, and it would only take me a few minutes to ride over there.

My Tame ability was a level three now, and triceratops had three horns. Perhaps it was a stupid justification, but I felt confident I could tame one of the giant dinos, and I hadn’t really felt that way when I was level two.

“What do you think, Jinx? Can I do it?”

The blue bird let out a chirp that sounded a lot like “Sure, Victor. You are the fucking man. Go get some new dinos!” So I tapped my heels on Bob and steered him around the finger parts of the lake.

As I got closer to the trikes, a small sliver of doubt began to worm into my stomach.

These things were huge. Yeah, Bob, Sonny, and Cher were huge, but the smallest trike female was about three to four feet taller at the shoulder than Bob, and it was just as long. The horns looked to be almost as long as I was tall, but that could have just been me exaggerating a bit because they looked so fearsome.

The legs were thick, broad, and the front foot ended in distinct toes that looked like horse hooves. The rear legs were even bulkier than the front and more toe-hooves. Each of the hooves was just as large as my chest, and I imagined that the beast’s shits were probably bigger than me.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said as I fought against my fear. The male of the group probably outweighed Bob by five times, and I guessed it would have no problem pushing one of its horns through my mount’s chest. Parasaurs really didn’t have any weapons besides their size, and they looked like children compared to the squat and powerful triceratops.

If I fucked this up and got impaled, my friends would never know what happened to me. Maybe they would figure it out, but they would have a really hard time surviving.

I pushed the negative thoughts out of my head and focused on my task. There was one female in the water, but the male and second female were standing on the beach and munching on algae. The male was the closest to me, and there wasn’t really a way for me to get around him. I’d either have to tame him first, or I’d have to wait for him to wander away so that I could go after one of the females.

“That will probably just piss him off,” I muttered as I looked at the male. He looked like the kind of guy who would cut a fool who messed with his women, so I took a deep breath and prepared myself to go for the big score first.

“Hey big fella,” I said as I urged Bob toward the male. He was looking out over the lake, and he didn’t turn around as I approached. That could have been good, or it could be terrible since he might get scared when he finally noticed me.

“You are one handsome fella,” I said as I urged Bob a bit closer. My steed didn’t seem to think this was a good idea, but I quieted his fears by rubbing my hands on his neck.

“Your scales look really good, and your horns are all sorts of magnificent. No wonder you have two ladies, I’m honestly surprised you don’t have more babes hanging out with you.” I was some thirty feet from him now, and the creature’s size was becoming more impressive. He was practically a house with horns and an armored crest.

“I’ve got a good camp the next valley over,” I said as Bob crept closer. “You’ll like it. You can bring your two friends with you. I promise to give you plenty of food, water, and some fun stuff to do. Right now we are building a wall. We could really use your help. What do you say?”

The trike snorted and stomped his foot. I felt my chest constrict when he turned to glance at me, but then he shifted his beaked mouth back to the algae he was eating and seemed to pretend like I wasn’t there.

“Yeah, I know,” I whispered as I tapped my heels against Bob’s flank. “Being bored sucks. What do you do all day? Just eat algae? I’ve got something way more fun for you to do. You should come back with me. We’ll have a great time.”

The trike snorted, stomped, and then shook his crested head like he was a dog that was adjusting his collar. Bob wanted to stop moving forward, but I knew the trike’s movements weren’t aggressive. He was just getting used to me being there.

“That’s a good boy,” I said as I rested my hand against his scaled flank. His back seemed fifty percent wider than Bob’s, and it was going to take Trel a shitload of cordage to make a saddle.

“Let’s go, buddy. I want you on my team.”

Triceratops horridus tamed.

I almost shouted with joy, but I didn’t want to scare the two females, so I commanded the male to keep eating while I circled around on Bob. The closest trike female was a bit skittish around me and edged closer to her male, but I was confident in my ability now, and it took me only a few complimenting words to get her tamed.

“Damn, I’m on a roll,” I whispered as soon as the update message came across my Eye-Q. I wondered if there was a limit to how many dinos I could keep tamed, but I didn’t know a way to test it other than just taming every single dino I came across. But if there was a limit, could I untame dinos to get access to others? I didn’t want to waste all my slots taming the orange birds if I could only do a maximum number that never increased.

I slowly rode Bob through the water toward the last trike. This female surprised me by turning toward me. She lowered her horns a bit and let out an aggressive sound that reminded me of a truck engine firing up. It was apparent that she was about to attack, so I did the only thing I could think of doing.

“Stop,” I ordered. “You are coming with me now.”

I was a good twenty feet away from her, but the tame message still scrolled across my eye. The words kind of shocked me because I hadn’t touched her, or said any soothing words. I’d just told her in a commanding voice that she was coming with me, and the female instantly fell under my control.

Was I getting more powerful? Or was that just how my ability worked? Were all the nice words unneeded? Could I just control dinos from afar with a quick order and press of my will? I was excited to test it out, but that would have to be done tomorrow or the day after. I had to get back to camp now since we still had plenty of work to do.

“Alright guys,” I said, “Let’s head back. I gotta think of names for you three on the way. Just follow Bob’s lead and we’ll take you to your new home.”

The three trikes let out snorts of agreement, and we began our trip back toward the fort. It was obvious that the trikes couldn’t run as fast as Bob could, so I slowed his speed down to about half so they could keep up with him. As we made our way up and out of the lake valley, I glanced back over my shoulders to check on their progress. One of the times I looked, I saw the male slam into the side of a tree with his shoulder. The tree was probably four feet in diameter, so a bit smaller than the ones we were currently working on, but the tree snapped off at the base as if it was a toothpick.

Holy shit. These guys were going to make fort building so much easier.

Trel, Sheela, and Kacerie looked up from the logs when I approached our work site, and I stopped my new trikes right at the edge of the clearing.

“Well? What do you think?” I said as I gestured back over my shoulder. “The big male in the middle is named Tom. The one on his left with the red marks on her crest is named Nicole, and the one with the brown streaks on her face is named Katie.” I laughed as I said their names, but there was no way my friends would know the actors I was referencing.

“They are impressive,” Sheela said as her eyes glanced at the new dinos. “They will really help us build.”

“Victor, you know I love you,” Trel started, “but I think you might have an addiction to collecting dinosaurs.”

“Hey babe, if collecting dinosaurs is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.”

“Babe?” Trel asked with confusion.

“Uhh. It’s another word for a significant other.”

“Not a child then?” she asked.

“No, it can be used both ways, but I have all the clay we need. Let’s get to work on burning these logs. The sun is going to set soon, and we’ll have to start working on the ones inside the fort. I’m going to go take the parasaurs to the river for a drink, since they haven’t had any water today. I’ll leave the trikes here to protect you all.”

They helped me unload the baskets from Bob’s back, and I issued the protection order to Tom, Katie, and Nicole. The trikes seemed to follow my commands just like the group of parasaurs did, and I was again struck by the possibilities of what my ability could do. Would I really be able to command them like an army? Part of me was afraid to find out, since I didn’t want us to get attacked anytime soon, but a darker part of me wondered if I could command some sort of massive dinosaur army.

It was a weird thought, especially considering that I was just a dog catcher back home.

Memories of my job, parents, shitty apartment, and the party with Lacey occupied my brain on the way to the river. Since my parents had died, I hadn’t really mattered to anyone, even myself. Now my life was filled with danger, but I had two beautiful women who were my lovers, and another woman who admitted that she had feelings for me. These women needed me to protect them, and I had been given a powerful ability to control the animals on this dangerous planet. I recalled Lacey’s pool party and let out a slight laugh. I’d cared so much about what all those women there thought about me, but now I didn’t care about anything in my old life.

Just yesterday I’d talked to Sheela about coming back with me, but now I realized that I was like the beautiful cat-woman: I didn’t want to return home. I didn’t want to go back to my job, or my shitty apartment. I didn’t want to go back to being the man I was. Here I could control my own destiny. Maybe I had that power back on Earth, but it had seemed impossible to change my fate. Yeah, if I went back now, I’d push to go back to school and become a vet, and I’d ask out every single pretty girl I saw and be fine with rejection, but I didn’t want that anymore. I just wanted Trel, Galmine, and Sheela to be happy.

I wanted to be King of Dinosaurland.

Bob wasn’t that thirsty since he drank at the lake, but the other three parasaurs were parched, and they pushed their faces into the river for what felt like ten minutes. I decided that we needed more water breaks tomorrow, and I wondered again about building some sort of aqueduct to get water from the river to our camp so we didn’t have to make daily trips. We’d just made a bunch of water jugs to avoid this problem, but the dinos were still going to need to rehydrate every day, so I wasn’t really saving that much time.

The water problem spun around inside of my brain while we rode back to the camp. I figured there must have been a way to pump the water out of the river and get it across land. The Romans did it, so there must have been a method. We hadn’t figured out how to smelt metal yet, but I had a bunch of dinosaurs I could use for tasks, so there had to be a way I could either harness their power, or figure out some sort of pump that could push the water to us.

Trel, Sheela, and Kacerie were almost done setting the fires on the logs I’d pushed down today. I helped them finish up, and we all made it back inside of the camp walls as the sun finally set. Galmine had dinner ready for us, and we all ate in an exhausted silence. There was still more work to do though, so after we scarfed down our meal, we exited the hut and used the clay to prep the hole marks that Trel had made in the logs.

I figured it was close to midnight by the time we finished setting up all the fires, and I could tell that the women were beyond exhausted. No one complained about the work, and I felt my chest swell with pride when I thought about how much we had accomplished today, and how much more we’d get done in the next week.

“I’ll take first watch,” I said. “You can all get some rest. We’ll just do two shifts tonight. I’ll ask Galmine to take the second one.”

“Victor, you need your rest as well,” Sheela said with concern.

“Naw. I just commanded the dinosaurs all day, you all did way more chopping and hauling. I’ll be fine.”

“You still did plenty of work,” Kacerie commented, but then the pink-haired woman covered her mouth up with a yawn and shrugged. “Yeah. Sleep sounds good. I’ll see you all in the morning.”

“You’ll keep an eye on the logs?” Trel asked as she gestured to the thirty smoldering posts.

“Of course,” I said. “When Galmine comes to relieve me, I’ll show her what to look for. You did a good job teaching us how to set up the clay walls, so I’m confident we won’t have a problem.”

“Alright, Victor. Come lie next to me when you finally do rest.” The dark-haired beauty gave me a brief kiss, and then she walked into the hut.

That just left Sheela and I alone, and the cat-woman studied me for a few moments before she spoke. “You are taking too much on your shoulders.”

“We all are,” I said with a shrug. “I’d ask you to spend a few moments teaching me some fighting moves, but I saw you trying to keep your eyes open while we set the clay up.”

“You are mistaken,” she said, but her mouth upturned into a grin.

“Will you train me tomorrow?” I asked. “I want you to be mine, Sheela.”

Her golden eyes glowed in the firelight, and she bit her lower lip slightly.

“Yes, Victor,” she whispered.

“Good, now go sleep. I’m not going to go easy on you with the work tomorrow, and I don’t think you’ll go easy on my training.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, and then she walked into the hut.

I inspected the logs again, but found the clay to be holding back the small fires we had started. I added a few wood flakes to one that seemed to be burning slow, but there wasn’t much else to do but walk about the small space inside our hut. My team of dinos all slept right outside of our wall, and I realized that we might not really need to keep watch anymore. I’d used Sonny and Cher to guard my friends when I went to get clay, and then I’d used Tom, Nicole, and Katie to guard later. Would the dinosaurs be able to do the job while I slept? The idea was intriguing, so I commanded Katie to wake up. I sensed her rise from her slumber, and I gave her an order to protect our walls from any enemy dinosaurs and give out a shout if she saw something large and dangerous.

I used our ladder to climb up the interior of the wall, and I saw Katie glancing around the clearing while she lay next to Tom and Nicole. It would probably be a bad idea to keep her awake the whole night, but I could easily cycle between the dinos so that they shared the duty. My head soon filled with the vision of a massive fortress with an army of raptors running around the perimeter. It would be impossible for another tribe to attack us if I had a bunch of dinosaurs guarding our walls.

“Victor,” Galmine asked from below, and I climbed down the ladder.

“Hey, beautiful,” I said before I gave her a kiss.

“You should rest. I can watch all through the night. I was just sitting inside the hut all day making cordage. You were all working so hard.”

“Naw, I’m fine,” I said. “I have plenty of energy.”

“Oh, you do?” she asked, and her emerald eyes glowed from the firelight.

“Yeah, I do,” I whispered, and then I turned my head around toward the camp.

“There is a spot over there,” she whispered as she pointed to the far wall. “We will be closer to the fires, but I don’t mind their heat, or yours.”

“Let’s go,” I said as I took her hand and led her over to the grass.

A few moments later I was naked, and we were making deep relaxing movements against each other. Love making with Galmine pushed all my other thoughts and worries out of my brain, and any tension I held in my muscles faded away. After we orgasmed, I held her in my arms and traced her smooth skin with my fingers. My eyelids had actually grown heavy, and she told me to go back to the hut and sleep for the rest of the morning. I regretfully parted from her and then put back on my clothes before sneaking into the hut.

Trel was asleep near the door, but her arms were opened, and I was able to crawl into her embrace. My movement disturbed her sleep slightly, and she muttered my name before her arms wrapped around me. My eyes drifted closed almost instantly, but I had a few seconds to review all the bad ass shit I’d gotten done today.

Things were moving in the right direction, and we just needed to stay the course. As long as we didn’t get attacked for the next five days, we’d be good.

Sleep took me, and my consciousness faded into a pool of blackness.

But then I was startled awake by the roar of what sounded like a carnotaurus.

Chapter 13

I gasped and rolled out of Trel’s arms as the spider-woman was also waking.

“Wha?” she started to ask, but the deafening roar sounded again, and her black eyes opened wide.

Kacerie and Sheela shot to their feet, and they ran behind me as I rushed out the hut door. It was dawn outside, but the sun had just crested the mountains in the east and was spraying a fire-like light across our fort walls.

Galmine was trying to walk quickly toward us, and her green eyes told me everything I needed to know.

“Sheela! Get your arrows!” I shouted as I ran to the ladder.

A second roar sounded, slightly off-center from where the first one had, and I heard Katie give out a loud bark of alarm. This was the first one I’d heard out of her, and I guessed that it meant she had just gotten visual on our attackers.

I dashed up the ladder and prepared myself for the worst.

It was still worse than I expected.

Two carnos were at the northeast side of the clearing. They had just stepped out of the forest, and the morning sun caused their eyes to glow a malevolent red. Another pair of carnos was more to our direct east, where we had our log clearing area set up. These two were a few lengths out of the woods, and it looked as if they were trying to skirt around to the south side of our fort so that they could flank my crew of dinosaurs.

I didn’t like these odds one bit. The carnos were just a hair smaller than Tom, but that meant they were the size of Bob and larger than Hope and Cher. They were still smaller than my triceratops, but there were four of them.

Then I heard another set of roars, and I turned around to look west. Three carnos were at the edge of the trees there, and I felt terror descend from my heart and chill my stomach.

“Fuck,” I growled as my brain tried to come up with a plan. Now this was seven against seven, and I had to worry about protecting our base. The walls were high enough to keep the carnos from just stepping over, but they’d be able to lean in a bit and maybe make a half-assed chomp at us if we hid inside. It would be dangerous if we just had one attacking, but I figured we’d be able to fall back against the adjacent wall and shoot arrows at anything this size that tried to invade. Seven of them meant that they could circle the fort, and we’d have nowhere to retreat.

I needed a way to take these fuckers out before they even got to our walls, but they were coming at us from three sides, and I realized I was going to have to split my team up to engage the enemy. The trikes were my only real offense. Their horns would easily rip through the bodies of these carnos, but I worried that their horns would get stuck. If that happened, then the carno they had impaled, or the second carno in the group could get a bite on them. As soon as I lost one of my trikes, I’d be out a third of my offense, and it would be easy for the carnos to overwhelm us. The parasaurs could kind of fight, but all they had going for them was size, strength which came from that size, and speed. Hope didn’t even have the size and strength when compared to the carnos, but I knew from experience that my faithful mount could outrun one.

Then I got an idea, and my strategy fell into place around it.

I paired Hope and Nicole together and sent them toward the two carnos in the northeast. I paired Cher and Katie together and sent them charging toward the two carnos advancing from our worksite. The three big boys, Sonny, Bob, and Tom, ran around the north side of the fort and sprinted toward the three carnos approaching from that direction. My first orders were simple, and I mentally tried to push them to each of the groups as quickly as I could.

The parasaurs were to run around the carnos and distract them while the trikes kept them from advancing toward our fort.

I didn’t know how well each group would follow my instructions, so I focused my attention on Hope and Nicole first. The parasaur was galloping toward the two massive carnivores, and they actually seemed to look a bit surprised that their prey was charging. I imagined Hope darting to the side of them at the last second, and my heart jumped into my chest when the closest carno shot forward to bite her.

Hope dodged to the side as if she was a pro football player and then twisted to the left of the carno. The beast tried to jerk its massive maw around so that it could bite her again, but its teeth closed on empty air.

I still heard the snap of its jaws from almost two hundred yards away.

“Go Hope! Go!” I hissed under my breath as the parasaur kept running toward the forest, she turned right at the tree line and angled back up north toward the cave where the orange birds were.

The carnos turned around to follow her, and I almost let out a shout of joy. Their backs were to the fort and Nicole, so I knew that my strategy could work.

As long as Hope could keep up her speed.

I turned back to the east and commanded Cher to dodge out of the way of the carnos just like Hope had. The bigger parasaur female was a bit less graceful than Hope, but she still twisted her massive body away from the carnos a moment before one bit at her. Cher’s dodge took her to the left of the leftmost carno that faced me, and it tried to turn around just as the one who attacked Hope did. However, the second carno also made a lunge for Cher as she sprinted by, and the two carnos ended up slamming their heads and upper bodies together. The giant predators growled at each other, and I saw a perfect opportunity to try the second part of my plan.

While the carnos were distracted by each other and were turning to chase after Hope, Katie the triceratops charged up behind the one on the left and rammed her horns into the carno’s ass.

The massive predator let out a screech that I was sure dinos all the way by the lake could hear. It tried to turn around and bite at Katie, but the trike’s horns were buried all the way into the carno, and it couldn’t twist its body around.

The second carno had sprinted after Cher, but then stopped and turned around to look at its friend. It seemed confused as to what it should do, but then it turned back toward the trike. The carno began to jog back toward its struggling friend and my trike, so I quickly adjusted my commands. This carno wasn’t even looking at Cher. It was focusing completely on the trike, so when the female parasaur shoulder checked it, the carnotaurus went down like a skinny referee getting tackled by a two hundred and fifty-pound linebacker.

As the second carno went down, I turned my eyes quickly to the boy squad, they were still sprinting around the fort, so I glanced over to Hope. She’d outpaced both of the carnos, and Nicole was holding her ground between them and our fort. I wanted to have the red-crested trike get in there and do some damage like Katie, but I knew that Hope wasn’t big enough to pull off a play like Cher just did, so I needed to drive off the east group of carnos. Then I could send Cher and Katie to help out Hope and Nicole.

I shifted my focus back to Katie. The trike still had the first carno impaled with her horns, but she couldn’t really pull free without risking a bite. The other carno was rolling on the ground trying to squirm to its feet, so I knew I had a few seconds of freedom to mount an offensive. I commanded Cher to run back a bit, and then I told her to sprint forward and slam her shoulder into the carno that Katie impaled.

The maneuver worked way better than I had planned. The carno was occupied with its attempt to free itself from Katie’s horns, so it didn’t even notice Cher until the parasaur was right next to her. The hit knocked the carnotaurus free of the trike with a tidal wave of blood, bone, and screams. The big predator obviously had a mortal wound, and it crumbled to the ground as if it had lost muscle control in one of its legs.

The other carno had gotten to its feet, and it snarled at Cher. I commanded the parasaur to run away before the carno could snap at it, but their enemy didn’t give chase. Instead, it turned back to Katie and dipped its head down a bit so it could bite her face.

I instructed the trike to backpedal a bit, and she did so as the remaining carno stepped toward her. The predator was ignoring Cher, probably because it didn’t think the parasaur would try to knock it down again, and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to show this fucker who he was underestimating.

Cher was sprinting around the rear of the carno, and I ordered her to rush toward the asshole’s back. The parasaur picked up some frantic speed as she tore across the grassy field, but the carno’s attention was totally focused on Katie.

I commanded Katie to dart forward as if she was attacking and then quickly back away again. The carno took the bait, leaned down to snap at the trike, missed, and then let out a roar of frustration.

Then Cher slammed right into the fucker’s back and knocked him flat on his face.

The carno let out a surprised shriek, but it didn’t last long. Katie charged forward with her horns down in “fuck you, asshole” position, and they punched through the carno’s skull like a kabob stick through a tomato. The carno didn’t even let out another screech; it just started twitching death spasms.

I commanded Cher to stand on the chest of the dying carno, and then Katie yanked her horns out. As soon as they were both free, I sent them after the carnos chasing Hope and turned my attention back to the boy team of Bob, Sonny, and Tom.

The males were rushing across the clearing toward the three carnos. Bob and Sonny were running abreast of each other, and Tom was bringing up the rear. They looked like a reverse triangle galloping across the open field, but the two parasaurs were much faster than the trike, so Tom was being left behind a bit.

The three carnos to the west of the camp exhibited the same sort of confusion the other groups had. Parasaurs were supposed to be prey. They were supposed to run away, and the carnos were supposed to give chase. The big horned eating machines didn’t really know what to do when their food attacked, so they kind of bunched together as they slowed their run.

I gave Sonny and Bob the command to split so they would run around the carnos, and the predators seemed to regain their senses. The ones on the end tried to dart forward and snap at the two parasaurs, but I’d ordered them to run around with enough space, so the carnos’ chomps just closed around air.

The two predators on the sides turned to chase after the parasaurs, but the one in the center had his eyes on Tom, and he stepped toward the trike with an angry roar. I ordered Tom to fall back a few steps, but then I imagined him just keeping his horns pointed at his enemy so that the carno’s teeth couldn’t get past the trike’s armored crest. Tom was much larger than the carno, so I imagined that he’d be able to protect himself for a minute or so while I figured out how to bring Bob and Sonny back around.

The carno rushed forward and tried to bite Tom, but the trike pulled his head back and then slammed a horn into the attacking dino. I saw the tip tear into the side of the carno’s cheek, but it coiled back with a hiss that seemed to indicate it wasn’t as much hurt as annoyed.

Bob and Sonny had quickly outpaced the other two carnos, and I commanded Bob to slow his sprint dramatically while I pushed Sonny for more speed. The pair of carnos angled their run so that they were heading right for Bob. This was what I wanted, and I told the parasaur to accelerate just enough so that he stayed fifty feet ahead of them. They gave chase, and I mentally commanded Sonny to swing back around toward Tom. It was going to take about ten seconds for Sonny to come to his friend’s aid, so I turned back around to check on Hope. The smallest of my parasaurs was giving the cave filled with the orange birds a drive-by, and the creatures were filling the air with angry screeches. They shut up as soon as the carnos came close, though, and the sight would have made me laugh if I wasn’t still really fucking worried about this whole battle turning around at any moment.

Katie and Cher had arrived to stand next to Nicole, so I commanded Hope to dash toward them.

I shifted my attention back to the boy team just in time to catch Sonny slamming into the side of the carno that was harassing Tom. Just like with the other group, the carno hadn’t expected to be broadsided by a parasaur, and it tumbled to the ground like a blown over tumbleweed. The devil-horned predator snarled and thrashed on the ground trying to get up, but Tom was already circling around toward the beast’s back. The carno realized the trike was trying to angle in for an attack, and it turned to snap at Tom, but then I commanded Sonny to step in closer, and the carno got distracted by the enemy that had just knocked it over.

As soon as the carno had its attention focused on Sonny, Tom charged forward with his head leveled and punched his horns through the predator’s skull.

Now there were only two carnos left in the boys’ group and two with the girls’ group.

I spun my focus back to the females in time to see Hope run past the wall of Cher, Katie, and Nicole. Hope’s chest was heaving with heavy breaths and I commanded her to slow her run as soon as she was past the line of the other dinos I had tamed. I instructed Cher, Katie, and Nicole to charge toward the two chasing carnos, but I switched up their formation a bit differently than the males. I put both Katie and Nicole in the front so that the two female trikes could put their horns into play first, and I had Cher follow some forty feet behind them.

This pair of carnos weren’t as stupid as I thought they would be. I thought they would just charge right into the trikes’ horns and get turned into ground beef, but they knew what they were up against and skidded to a stop. My trikes were still running at full speed though, and they closed the gap before the carnos could really run away. If anything, their decision to try and escape ended up leaving their sides and backs exposed.

Nicole and Katie tore into them like needles through a pin cushion.

The carnos let out twin screams of agony, but there was nothing they could do to escape. Nicole’s left horn had probably ripped apart the spine of the carno she’d impaled, and Katie’s horns passed through the right flank of her carno and were coming out its stomach. Guts and blood spilled everywhere across the grass, and the two trikes began to shake their heads like bulls with their horns caught on the corpses of matadors. The carnos wailed again, and then their bodies tore open with an explosion of red blood.

I commanded the females to run over to the males, and I turned my attention back to the last two carnos. They were still chasing after Bob, and I commanded him to circle around so he’d lead them in a wide circle that would take them back to Tom and Sonny. My parasaur complied, and the pair of carnos followed.

“What is Bob doing?” Trel asked me, and I gasped with surprise. My lover was perched on the wall right next to me, and I hadn’t even noticed her. Sheela was also standing on the same rung of the ladder as me, and one of her arms was wrapped over my shoulder while her other clung to the wall. I hadn’t even noticed either of them, but I guessed that it was because I was so focused on the battle.

“He’s going to circle around,” I said as I returned my attention to Bob’s long gait.

“It looks like he is running away from--”

“I’ve got this,” I interrupted Trel. “Watch.”

Bob was sprinting across the edge of our clearing in a clockwise direction. It really did look like he was running away from Tom, but the male triceratops was racing toward the apex of Bob’s loop, and both Nicole and Katie were heading there as well.

“Ohhhh,” Trel whispered under her breath. “I get it.”

“Let’s see if this works,” I said as Tom joined up with his two women, Katie and Nicole, as they moved up north. The trikes were slower than the carnos and the parasaur, so I had to kind of adjust their trajectory as they sped toward the north cave.

Bob was getting too far ahead, so I slowed his speed a bit. This gave the carnosaurs an excited boost of speed, and I had to make him run a bit faster so they didn’t nab him. I needed them to be just close enough, so they tunnel visioned on Bob’s tail, but not so close that they could bite him. I just didn’t want them to notice the trikes charging at their flank.

The distance between the parasaur’s pursuers and the trikes closed, and I held my breath with anticipation.

Impact.

The two carnotaurus never saw what hit them.

Tom, Nicole, and Katie slammed into their flanks like a train with a spikey snow plow on the front. The carnos actually lifted off the ground and slammed into the wall of the ramp below the orange bird cave. One of the carnos let out a surprised scream, but the other one who bore the brunt of the nine horns seemed to flop over dead instantly. The pair was crushed against the wall like ground beef under a spiked hammer, and the trikes continued to push the carnos into the wall until I gave them the command to shake free and come back to the fort.

“Wow,” both Trel and Sheela said in unison as they looked at me.

“We did it,” I said as relief flooded my head, chest, and stomach. I realized I was shaking a bit and my heart was racing.

“No, Victor,” Sheela said as she shook her head. “We did nothing. It was you and your ability with these creatures that saved our lives.”

“Well, we all worked to build this wall,” I said. “And we’ll all…” my head was really spinning, and I felt Sheela’s arm tighten around my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Trel asked, and her words bounced around in my head strangely. My skull kind of felt like it was overheating, and I really wanted to sit down.

“I think so,” I replied, but I felt really nauseous, and the ground was starting to vibrate beneath me. I felt like I was car sick, and I kept waiting for the ground to stop moving.

But it didn’t, and I felt myself falling.

I heard Trel, Sheela, and Kacerie shout my name, but they sounded really far away. It was like I was sinking into a pool of warm water, but then it became like ice, and I couldn’t stop shaking.

Then everything turned to darkness.

Chapter 14

I woke up to fingers stroking my face.

I moaned since the fingers felt wonderful, but the sensation was contrasted with the worst headache I’d ever felt. It was like a hangover on steroids, and it felt as if my brain was trying to break out of my skull like a baby dino being birthed from an egg.

“Owwwwwww,” I sighed as I raised my own fingers to my temple. I suspected the person rubbing my face was Galmine, and her gasp of joy confirmed my belief.

“Hurry! Victor is awake!” She shouted, and it felt like someone had just screamed inside a megaphone they had pressed against my eardrum. I groaned with agony, but this also hurt, and my cry turned into a rather unmanly sounding whimper.

It was probably the worst pain I’d ever been in. That wasn’t saying a lot since I’d never suffered from any sort of severe physical trauma, but I also couldn’t imagine a pain more severe than what I was feeling.

But I had work to do, so I needed to get my ass in gear. The fort wasn’t going to get built without my dinos doing the labor, and my dinos weren’t going to work if I wasn’t awake to direct them.

“Did you say he’s awake?” I heard Kacerie say from the direction of my feet, and I pried one of my eyes open. My cornea got a view full of bright fire, and another lance of pain speared through my brain.

“He is,” Galmine whispered. “Can you go get Trel and Sheela?”

“Yep!” Kacerie said, but I couldn’t get my eyes open in time to see her leave.

“What’s happening?” I whispered. My mouth felt like sandpaper, and my throat felt like I hadn’t drunk water in a month.

“We don’t know, but it appears you fainted after the attack,” Galmine said. “Everything is fine though! We are all safe, and your dinosaurs are relaxing outside of our gate.”

“How long have I been out?” I asked.

“Most of the day, you were still breathing, but none of us really knew how your species recovers.”

“Shit,” I said. “We’ve got stuff to do.” I tried to pry my eyes open, but the firelight was still too bright, so I could only get them open for a few seconds before I had to close them again.

“You should just relax,” Galmine said, and her fingers moved to rub my temples. It was the perfect spot, and I let out a loud moan as the pain in my skull began to release.

“He’s awake?” I heard Trel say, and I cracked open my eyes to see the dark-haired woman walk into the hut.

“Hey Trel,” I said, and I felt her clawed hands grasp my left palm.

“I was worried,” she hissed. “You shouldn’t do that to me.”

“I’m alright,” I said. “I dunno what happened. I just felt like shit all of a sudden and then I was laying with my head in Galmine’s lap.”

“You must have overextended your ability,” Sheela said as she stepped into the hut. “It was a difficult battle, yet you got through it without any of your dinosaurs becoming injured.”

“Yeah,” I said. Maybe I should have been happy, and I was, but the pain in my skull was preventing me from feeling anything but the desire to just sleep again. “What is the status of the camp?”

“The logs we pulled inside the camp last night have been burned successfully,” Trel said. “Sheela pulled them out today while you were resting, and we’ve got the next set ready to go when the sun sets.”

“How did you pull the old ones out and bring the new ones in?” I asked.

“Hope let me ride her,” Sheela said. “But she seems very tired now and is resting out with the others. I also believe they need water, but the other dinos don’t seem to be responding to me when I try to ride them.”

“It’s a good thing I’m awake then,” I said as I finally forced my eyes open. “I’ll take them all to get water. They saved our ass this morning.”

“Yeah, but it was because you told them what to do,” Trel said, and she wore a proud smile on her full lips. “I always knew you had great power. I thought so when we first met.”

I laughed a bit as I sat up. The movement made my head hurt more, and I reached for one of our jugs of water. I drank almost the whole jug, and my skull started to feel a little better. The four women all gawked at me when I drank, and I let out a short laugh when I finally lowered the jug from my lips.

“I’ll be okay,” I said. “Just feels like I drank a bottle of vodka and chased it with a kick to the head.”

“What is vod--”

“It’s an alcohol made with potatoes,” I said as I tried to stand. My head spun a bit, but Sheela was instantly by my side, and I leaned up against her shoulder so I could stand.

“Perhaps you should rest more,” she said. “You are obviously not recovered.”

“Do you guys have enough clay to burn the holes in the logs tonight?” I asked, and they all shook their heads.

“So I need to take all the dinos to get water, and we need clay. Do we need to hunt for food also?”

“No,” Sheela said. “I’ve cut some slabs off the large horned dinosaurs that attacked us this morning. We might want to tow the bodies farther away from our camp, but we have food for the next few days.”

“Alright,” I said. “That’s one thing off our plate. Let’s load up the jugs and baskets we need to fill on Bob, and then I’ll make a trip to the lake. Who wants to go with me?”

“I will,” Kacerie, Sheela, and Trel said at once.

“I don’t feel good about leaving Galmine alone,” I said.

“I will be fine, Victor,” she said. “If we close the doors, then nothing can get in to attack us.”

“We just had seven apex predators attack our fort,” I said.

“Yes,” she said with a nod, “but having an extra person, or two, or even ten wouldn’t have helped save our lives. The only thing that saved us was your taming skill.”

“Maybe I should just leave some dinos here to patrol, and then I can make a second trip for water.”

“The sooner you leave the sooner you can return,” Galmine said with her cheerleader smile. “Just hurry back. I’ll tie the gate closed after you leave.”

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s get going. Trel, I’m glad you are coming, because we need to talk about building an aqueduct either from the lake or the river.”

“Hmm, that is an interesting project. It also makes me feel as if I have become a plumber.” The spider woman sighed, and I let out a laugh.

“You aren’t a plumber, Trel. You are a problem solver, and one of our next problems is getting running water to our fort so we don’t have to leave it twice a day.”

“We’ll talk about it more when we get there,” she said, and the five of us walked out of the hut with our baskets and jugs.

The new set of logs were laid out inside of the fort, and I saw that the team had already marked the spots where we needed to burn the holes. I ensured Galmine latched the door closed behind us, and then Trel, Kacerie, Sheela, and I jumped on our dinos. Trel and I rode on Bob, and Sheela and Kacerie rode on Hope. The rest of the dinos followed behind us, and we raced over to the lake valley.

My headache was still pretty brutal, but the fresh air and pace of Bob’s run helped my brain clear a bit. We made it over to the lake without any issue, and we slowed our steeds down by the spot where we normally gathered clay. The only other group of dinosaurs was on the far side of the lake where the parasaurs usually gathered. However, these weren’t parasaurs, they were a pair of giant brontos with necks that stretched up into the sky like roller coaster rides.

We sat on our mounts for a few moments to study the thunder lizards, but the massive creatures didn’t seem to notice us, or they didn’t care, and we soon got to our clay gathering.

“I’d love to tame one of them,” I said as I glanced across the lake. I didn’t feel confident that my Tame skill was strong enough to work on one and messing up would probably mean I’d be flattened into a pancake.

“We’d need to build our walls around the perimeter of our entire clearing,” Trel said with a dry chuckle.

“Something to work toward,” I said. “Imagine riding on top of one. We wouldn’t need a tree fort, their backs are just as high, and I bet they can run as fast as the trikes.”

“They are powerful,” Sheela said as she scooped up clay into one of the baskets.

“They are scary,” Kacerie said. “Everything on this planet is dangerous.”

“You are lucky Victor saved you,” Trel scoffed. “You would have gotten--”

“I know,” the pink-haired woman interrupted. “Look, I’m really thankful to Victor, and you, and Sheela, and Galmine. I know I was a pain for the last few days, but I’m going to work to help you all survive. I was one of the best hairdressers in my city, maybe even my world, so I’m just trying to come to grips with the fact that I’m never going back home. I don’t have the skill set that you or Sheela have. I want to get better and offer something unique to you all. I want to be part of the team. Okay?”

Kacerie’s words caught Trel off guard a bit, and I saw the spider-woman’s lips pull to the side. Neither of them said anything more for a few moments, so I turned my head toward the lake to make sure nothing was sneaking up on us. It looked clear, so I grabbed a full basket from Sheela and then ordered Bob to step out of the water some so I could tie it to his saddle.

“Well, we do need grooming,” Trel finally said. “My hair is normally far more beautiful. I’ve grown used to the odor of our bodies, but we all need baths and a way to wash our clothes. It isn’t as important as a new fort, but we’ll eventually need to clean ourselves and upkeep our appearance.”

“Hmmm,” Kacerie said as she looked down at the clay she was scooping up in her hands. It covered up her forearms, and she froze for half a moment. “Huh. I think I know of something I can do.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Soap,” she replied. “I’ve never made it, but I know what goes into it. I bet I could figure it out.”

“You can make soap?” Trel’s voice seemed to quicken with excitement. “Really?”

“I think I can,” Kacerie said. “It’s just animal fat and lye. There must be two or three hundred pounds of fat on each of the giant dinosaurs that Victor killed. I’ll just need to heat it up to render it and then combine it with lye and maybe something for scent and texture.”

“But lye?” Trel asked urgently. “How do you make that?”

“It’s wood ash,” Kacerie said. “Like I said, I’ve never done it before, but I can try it. Too bad we don’t have any metal pots or pans, but I could probably heat the water enough in a thick clay pot. I think I just need to put some wood ash in water, heat it, and then take the lye off the top. Then I’ll mix it with the rendered animal fat and whatever we come up with for scent.”

“This is of interest to me,” Trel said quickly. “I will help you make it.”

“Yeah,” Kacerie said as she nodded to herself. “I think I can do it. Then we can all clean ourselves, our clothes, and our cookware. It will help keep us from getting sick.”

“Ohhh,” Trel moaned. “I can’t wait. A bath with soap and warm water sounds divine. Did I tell you that I am a duchess? I had ten servants who would wash my body and then massage the finest oils into my skin.” Trel let out a long sigh and then looked off into the distance as if she was daydreaming.

“I like the idea, Kacerie,” I said, “but we have to build the fort walls first before you start playing with it.”

“Got it,” she agreed, but her beautiful face now wore a wide grin. “Once we have soap, I’d be able to shave that beard off you, and I can cut everyone’s hair.”

“You’d be able to shave this off?” I asked as I ran my hand through my beard. I didn’t really have access to a mirror, so I didn’t know exactly how long it had gotten.

“Yes, shave his beard off,” Trel said. “He has a handsome face. I want to see it all the time.”

“These stone knives are really sharp,” Kacerie said as she reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled one of the blades out. “I could easily shave your face with it. I’ve done it with thousands of my male clients.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Kacerie, I think we are starting to figure out a role for you, and it is an important one. Sanitation is critical for survival.”

“Yeah. I think I like the idea.” The pink-haired woman smiled at me again, and her pale blue eyes glittered. We stared at each other for a few moments, and then she looked back down to the clay basket.

“Speaking of baths and showering,” I said as I grabbed another basket and tied it onto Bob’s back. “Trel, we need to get water to the camp. How do we do it?”

“Not from here,” she said as she gestured to the lake. “It’s too far away. Didn’t you say that the river where you normally get water is closer?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s still about a mile away though. The lake is like three.”

“And it’s also over a hill,” Trel said. “I’d like to see the river. I think the flowing water could help us.”

“Help us move the water a mile?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied as she tapped on her lips with her black finger. “There is no energy in this lake, it moves, but not quickly. The river should have energy that we might be able to use. I’ll need to see it again. Just so you know, I have no idea about plumbing, but I am a genius, so I’m sure I’ll figure out something.”

“I think you will,” I said as I grabbed the last basket. “Let’s get the jugs filled up and then go--” my words caught in my throat as I spotted movement on the other side of the lake. It took me half a second to realize what was going on, but as soon as I did, I let out a gasp of surprise.

“Do you see those raptors?” I asked as I nodded across the lake.

“Where?” Trel and Kacerie asked.

“They are in the trees,” Sheela hissed and the other two women gasped.

It was difficult to see them since the dinos had feathers that were black and dark red, but once I identified the movements, it was easier to pick them out of the jungle. There was a group of maybe eight of them I could see, and they appeared to be sneaking up on the two brontos.

“Why do they think they can attack those big long-necked ones?” Trel asked. “It looks like they are much smaller.”

“They are bigger than the green feathered dinos,” I whispered, and then I saw one of the raptors emerge from the trees.

My estimation of its size had been spot on. The green deinonychus raptors were about as large as Great Danes, and maybe weighed two-hundred pounds, but these new raptors were nearly as big as a horse, and even though they were all the way on the other side of the lake, it was obvious that their claws were longer than my arm.

“I still don’t see how they expect to take down the--”

“Let’s get out of the valley and get water from the river,” I interrupted Trel as I commanded my gang of dinos to exit the water. It was too far away for my Eye-Q to identify the new species of raptors, but I was getting a sinking feeling in my stomach, and my instinct was telling me I didn’t want to be anywhere close to the battle that was about to go down.

“They are so small though,” Trel said. “The big ones will just step on them.”

“Maybe, but let’s fucking go.” My voice was a growl now, maybe because of my headache, and Trel nodded before she got up in the saddle with me.

Then the raptors attacked the brontos, and I couldn’t look away.

I had first counted eight raptors hiding in the jungle, but over twenty poured out of the trees and sprinted toward the two brontos. The massive dinos were standing hip deep on the shore of the lake and didn’t seem to notice their attackers at first, but that changed as soon as the raptor in the point position reached the long tail of the smaller bronto I guessed was the female. She let out a bellow that seemed to shake the ground when the raptor latched onto her tail, and the male swung around his head to face the wave of attackers.

Half of the raptors were swimming through the water toward the long-necked dinos, but the other half were on the shore and seemed to be angling around to get on the other side. I guessed this was to keep the brontos from trying to get back on the shore easily, but I wasn’t quite sure.

“The larger one is--” Sheela started to say, but her words were interrupted by what sounded like a cannon blast going off. The male brontosaurus had flicked his massive tail around like a whip, and one of the swimming raptors evaporated into a puff of red mist.

The female emulated her mate’s movement with her tail, and the first raptor that had latched on was launched into the trees of the jungle some two hundred yards away. There were four others to take his place though, and I saw their front arm claws hook into her legs like ice climbing axes. The female tried to stomp them off, but the water was making her movements slow, and the raptors brought their foot claws into play. They raked their feet against her legs and both brontos let out frustrated screams.

The male swung his head down low across the female’s feet and knocked two of the raptors off, but a new group was now attaching to his legs, and he began to move like a bucking horse. The raptors wouldn’t come free though, and that whole side of the turquoise lake began to turn dark red with gallons of brontosaurus blood.

The female flicked her tail again, and she killed one of the raptors on the shore, it wasn’t one of the fuckers digging into her leg though, and she let out another screech of agony.

The male bronto tried to swipe his head across his mate’s legs again, but another group of raptors had swam to the spot, and two of them jumped out of the water and caught onto his face when he brought it lower. They stuck like spider-monkeys, and the male thrashed his head around violently in an attempt to dislodge them. One of the raptors flew off, but it looked like he took one of the bronto’s eyeballs out, and the larger dino’s face leaked out gallons of blood. It fell from his skull like a waterfall, and it sprayed across the lake like a sprinkler when he shook his head.

The battle was horrific, and I shook my aching head to bring myself back to what really mattered: getting the fuck out of here as soon as we could.

“Let’s go,” I said as I commanded the team of dinos to race away from our side of the lake. I doubted that these new larger raptors cared about us since the two brontos would probably feed them for a bit, but it was obvious that this pack was way more dangerous than the group of carnos I’d just killed.

These raptors were going to finish eating those brontos, and then they were going to need more to consume. Unfortunately, our camp was only three-ish miles from the lake, and we had seven rotting carnotaurus bodies near us.

We needed our new walls built yesterday.

I led our dinos into the jungle first and then pushed them up the hill. The path was a bit longer than I would have liked, but I didn’t want to risk the raptors seeing us going up the open hill. We were soon cresting the slope that led into our valley, and I directed our caravan of dinos down along the river until we reached the spot where the massive rotting tree was overturned.

“This is where we normally get water when we don’t need clay,” I explained to Trel after we had arrived.

“And our fort is that way?” she asked as she pointed into the trees.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“Does it go uphill, or downhill or…?”

“It varies,” Sheela said. “I would say that our fort is actually at a higher elevation.”

“Hmmm,” Trel said as she looked at the river, the shore, and the closest trees.

“Let’s get the jugs filled,” I said as I commanded Bob to sit on the shore.

All the other dinos had filled up on water at the lake, but I set Tom, Nicole, and Katie to guard us against anything that might come at us from the trees. I doubted the larger raptors saw us, but I wanted to be careful. There were no second chances in Dinosaurland.

Sheela, Kacerie and I filled up the water while Trel surveyed the river and shore. We had six jugs to fill, but it only took a half a minute with the three of us.

“You just take it from the river?” Trel asked, and I saw her blink her eyes to use her Eye-Q.

“Yeah,” I replied. “We try to go as deep as we can, but it’s just like the lake.”

“The lake is even worse. We are lucky that no one has gotten sick. I haven’t been paying attention to our water issue. Ugh.”

“I know,” I said. “But this is the best we can do.”

“I can make a filter. Maybe something that has three or four stages.” Trel bit her lip and nodded her head as she thought about the problem. “We can get rocks, sand, finer sand, and I’ll make a funnel with clay that will be mounted on a tripod pedestal. We can pour it into the top of the funnel and then the water will drip down into a secondary jug. Then we can take that jug of water and pour it into a system of finer sand and gravel. It should get rid of most of the pathogens and viruses.”

“When I first got here, I worried that I couldn’t drink anything without boiling it.”

“Hmmm,” Trel mused. “I don’t think we’ll have to do that. I need to play around with the clay, but I should be able to make an ultra-fine filter with the material. It can have pores so small that only water molecules can fit through. It will take a long time to filter, but I can make a tank with a lid on top of it. Then we can pour the second stage water into the vat and drink that water when it slowly drips into a final tank.

“Add this to the list after building the fort,” I sighed.

“We have been lucky so far,” Trel said with a sigh. “All it takes is an animal shitting upstream a few minutes before you gather water, and we will all become sick.”

“Good point,” I said.

“We should have some clay left over after we start the fires in the logs,” Trel continued. “I’ll play around with some funnel designs. It won’t take that much time, even if we just get the first two stages of filters working in the next few days, it will be much safer. If we want to grow our tribe, we’ll have to be able to provide clean water consistently.”

“Yeah, I agree,” I said. “And that’s also why we need the aqueduct. What do you think? Can you build one?”