Chapter 11: Queen Of Beasts Part 2

Ethlek warriors took initiative. When their Leader and his Mentee went one way with one angel, and their mortal enemy went another way with two more, Ethlek followed the two more. They even thought to bring Trals his snatcher.

He scratched Srav's head, surveying the warriors arrayed around the fort with its Ethlek slaves. Its triceratops. Its stores of food and bronze weapons. And the enormous steaming breach in its defenses.

Trals laughed aloud when he saw the hole his weapon-woman had made in the wall of the structure, the fires she had started. Lost Megga had learned the folly and arrogance of building permanent structures on the Face of God. It seemed the same lesson would be visited upon these northern invaders as well.

"What's been happening?" he asked, Srav bobbing about his legs in anticipation.

"Leader, the battle angel arrived not long ago." Jgghav's voice sounded from the undergrowth. "She destroyed the wall before the Slavers held their hands up to her and rendered her impotent."

"And?"

Tattoos stretched around Jgghav's grimace. "And where would you lead us now? What should we do?"

"What do we always do when we see Slavers, man?" Damn Jgghav. The Sayer's humorless nephew never gave Trals a moment's peace. "Raid them and take their slaves, their beasts, and the ears from their heads as trophies. Give the call to gather the warriors here."

"What will the angels do if we attack?" Jgghav asked.

"Nothing. We must simply..." Trals pursed his lips, "surrender." The forest rustled and Trals faced his gathering audience. "See the Slavers all standing in the posture of submission? They are trying to halt the angels' departure without posing a threat and thereby opening themselves to destruction. Even old Ngarong can strategize that far."

"It seems his efforts to reason with the weapon-woman go no better than yours," snipped Vrem, squeezing water from his hair.

"Her name is Njrea, and it is true the force of her arms outstrips her wisdom. It is a common affliction among those with too much strength." Trals shifted focus from his chastened Mentee to the activity by the breach in the fort wall. "I dealt with Njrea before as a person, but I think it would be more effective at this time to treat her as a beast."

"A beast? What beast could you mean?" hissed Vrem. "An uncaponized triceratops is less destructive. Brooding edmontosaurs are not so aggressive. Ankylosaurs less fleet of foot. Only a tyrannosaur could wreak this much havoc."

"Am I not a full Ethlek warrior?" Trals turned toward the blazing battle, Vritai naked in his hand. "Have I not hunted the tyrannosaur, and have I not won?"

Trals was scarcely through the burning breach before he heard the familiar bellow of Captain Ngarong. So the wily old troodon had managed to convince his "angels" to fly him back here.

"To the Ship," he could hear Ngarong order his panicked crew. "Don't let it get to the Ship of Years!" The Captain wheeled in place and scowled up at Trals.

"Tell them to go for the metal wings on top." Trals shouted his suggestion. "It looks most vulnerable there."

Ngarong spun around. "What are you doing here?"

"Looting the place," Trals answered, sidling closer to his old enemy.

"You suborned the Andrea?" Ngarong spoke her name as if it was the label on one of his priests' miracle-machines. "How? Did you sleep with it? Did you have time?" The Slaver shook his head and squinted at Trals. "No. You are making the sign of obeisance to it, even as I am. You aren't controlling it at all."

Trals shrugged. "'Taking advantage of her presence' might be the more accurate terminology." A scream from behind them. "Ah, there she goes. One of your men drew a weapon on her. I don't suppose you're so foolish as to try to stop her from leaving."

"I can if my men damage the Ship," said Ngarong.

"Aha," Trals raised a didactic finger, "but in order to damage the Ship, your soldiers have to draw weapons, and if they draw weapons, she will destroy them. What you need," said Trals, "is a distraction." He swept past Ngarong. "Please allow me."

Trals filled his lungs with air.

***

"Njrea!"

Andrea spun and saw the caveman, Trals. His hands were up, spoofing her suit, and he was grinning at her. So were about a dozen of his loin-clothed buddies.

"Back off." Andrea aimed her p-cannon. It wouldn't fire. More scantily-clad thugs slid across the ground. They'd somehow figured out exactly how slow to move so her suit couldn't identify them as threats.

It had taken these Neanderthals what, all of an hour to find a loophole in the humanitarian bullshit? Fucking UN programmers!

Andrea lunged at Trals, but the suit resisted. It slowed her down enough for him to dance backward, blowgun still aimed at her. IDENTIFY WEAPON, she blinked.

NO WEAPON FOUND. For all the suit's programming knew, he was about to play her some ethnic music.

"Hit me," she snarled at him. "Hit me so I can kill you."

And wonder of wonders, he did.

The poison dart whizzed and her HUD came to life with warnings and trajectory graphs.

Aha. The suit had figured out those things were dangerous. Smart Actin spun Andrea out of the way as neat as a ninja at a ballet school. The goddamned peace-mode sign winked off and Andrea blinked a command: ARM P-CANNON.

INITIATE CAPACITOR SAVE?

NO. Andrea's suit flexed. Smiling, she braced her legs and swung her palm up to the caveman.

His eyes widened.

"Oh," Andrea said, "so now you're scared."

***

Trals was elated.

He ducked sideways, barely avoiding an impossibly fast jab from Njrea's black-coated fist.

"Go now," he commanded Vrem and Jgghav, "bring the triceratops!"

This was how the hunt went. First the poison to enrage the beast. Next dodging back toward the mounts.

Foolish Nwa dirt-grubbers believed the Ethlek hunted tyrannosaurs for meat, and foolish Slavers believed the story. Of course that was a foul lie. Every Eethlek child knew that the flesh or egg of a tyrannosaur brought deadly bad luck to anyone who ate it. No, his people pursued tyrannosaurs to raid their kills for free meat. Ethlek never killed the Kings of the Face of God. Ethlek merely controlled them.

The first rule of tyrannosaur-hunting was stealth. The senses of the beast are sharp, but directed only forward. Trals flanked Njrea, keeping to the shadows thrown by the fires she had started. Around him, Slaver soldiers screamed and ran about like ants from a kicked hill. They attacked Andrea in ones and twos, only to be demolished. Some managed to form a maniple and advanced, pikes leveled, archers shooting from behind the wall of interlocked shields. Njrea held her arm out. Lightning flashed and thunder split the air, and the soldiers became a blackened smear.

Interesting how Andrea stood when she released her lightning-weapon. Like a man might brace his feet against the ground to swing an axe. If she traded agility for power -

A Slaver wheeled out of a pall of smoke, short sword raised. Trals danced back, annoyed. He gave a brusque whistle and Srav leapt. Feathered arms and legs up, fanned tail down, the snatcher trailed smoke in a graceful arc that ended on the soldier's chest. He tried to bring his sword up, but Srav was already inside his reach, feet hooked into his collar. She mantled, sweeping the air with feathered arms to drive herself into the face of her prey. With two quick swipes of her clawed hands, she removed that face.

Trals stepped around the flailing, screaming man. Broke into a sprint, sword out. The second phase of tyrannosaur hunting was misdirection. Vritai clanged off Njrea's armor and Trals was past her, luring the woman-weapon onward.

Trals parried a thrust of her arm, but Vritai did not knock the rock-hard limb aside. Rather, it lifted Trals off the ground, pushing him backwards. She swung at him and again his feet left the ground. Trals flew and landed nearly a triceratops-length closer to his target, the Slavers' stables. Wonderful.

"Vrem," he shouted "ready?" Ordinarily there would be Slaver guards at the stables. But of course the guards were all busy trying to break the Ship of Years. Or else standing very still watching, and praying.

"Ready."

Prayer was for the weak.

Njrea swelled in his vision. "Now!" Trals yelled, and raised Vritai to meet her attack.

***

Andrea smacked Trals into a sideways tumble that became a graceful roll and dismount.

"Damn, caveman," she laughed, "sparring with you is so much fun it's hard to remember to - "

And a fucking dinosaur charged out of the smoke.

PROXIMITY. The warning hovered over a curving bronze-capped horn longer than her leg. The horn was connected to a huge lumpy head, which whipped sideways and caught her in the gut. There was nothing the suit could do but tuck her legs as Andrea flew backward, skipped across the ground like a rock across the surface of a pond.

She let the suit bring her up and dodged another charge.

Now her back was to the wall. If she could get her p-cannon up -

The triceratops spun, impossibly agile for such a huge monster, lowered its frilled head and bore down on her again.

It was less than two meters from her. She could blast the thing with her cannon and probably cook it pretty thoroughly. But this was still a hunk of meat the size of a pickup truck. If the blowback from the close range target didn't get her, the squashing sure as hell would.

So she aimed her cannon at the ground.

***

"Yes," hissed Trals.

***

And fired. The column of energy blasted Andrea into the air. The fort, its burning wall, its frantically running soldiers, receded. Turned into a model. A diorama. She could almost hear the voice of a museum curator.

"The second dynasty of the Impossible Fucking Dinosaur Civilization was known for its keen martial spirit..."

But now she was slowing. Her stomach flopped, and Andrea was falling. Would the suit stop her from splattering her brains on the swamp? She fired the p-cannon again. Went up. Went down. Another blast. This would not work as a long-term strategy.

INITIATE CAPACITOR SAVE?

Oh, fuck. NO. She fired downward again.

WARNING, printed her HUD, POWER USE EXCEDES SPECIFICATIONS.

Another downward blast. If Andrea could angle her fire and shoot herself into a tree or something -

CAPACITOR SAVE INITIATED.

Trals stared up at her, eyes shining. He knew.

Andrea fell.