March of the dinosaurs m.., p.1
March of the Dinosaurs (Mintari Book 3), page 1
MINTARI III
March of the Dinosaurs
by
Daniel Arenson
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
AFTERWORD
NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON
KEEP IN TOUCH
CHAPTER ONE
All Horns and Rattles
Dozer was atop a cliff, gazing at the gray ocean below, when he smelled a triceratops in trouble.
Another triceratops! A female triceratops. A young, attractive female triceratops.
Dozer grunted. He was torn. His human, Joe Triplehorn, was diving under the ocean now. Dozer had vowed to wait for his friend. And yet … Dozer sniffed. The female's scent tickled his nostrils. She was in danger. He could tell from the smell. A nearly overwhelming need filled Dozer. He must protect this damsel in distress!
He snorted and pawed the earth. What should he do?
Triceratops, like most dinosaurs, communicated with pheromones. They could excrete smells that delivered complex and detailed information. Dozer overlooked an ocean, inhaling the scent of salty water and fish and algae. But his nostrils flared and twitched, sensing more. Far in the east, still a good distance away—another smell. The female triceratops. Her smell was weak compared to the rich aroma of the sea. But it stood out like a single bright star in a dark night sky.
Though Dozer did not know it, millions of years of evolution had honed his sense of smell, allowing him to detect the faintest whiff of his kind, to understand the chemical language it carried. He sniffed again, nostrils wide, picking out her delicate scent from the salty and fishy air.
Yes, another triceratops. He was certain of that. Dozer could tell many dinosaur species apart by their smell, and nothing smelled quite like a triceratops, not even other ceratopsians. A female. Certainly a female. And a female in heat too! Dozer licked his beak with a tongue the size of a fire hydrant. Young. Strong. But afraid. Yes, the scent of fear was strong.
She needed help. She needed him.
Dozer grumbled. With his powerful clawed feet, he stamped the earth. Stones cascaded down the cliff and splashed into the churning sea far below. His instincts cried to charge to this maiden's aid. And yet another part of Dozer wanted to stay. To wait for his friend. For the little human who was like a brother. For Joe Triplehorn.
Most dinosaurs had never even met a human. Mintari was a big planet. Not many humans lived here. Those who did mostly huddled in Dinovia City, their strange hive with the tall stone walls. When dinosaurs did encounter humans, it rarely ended well. Either the humans were poachers, and then dinosaurs died. Or the humans were tourists, and then dinosaurs feasted. Thankfully, those encounters were rare.
At least they had been rare. This year though … This year things were changing. Fewer tourists rattled across the countryside in their jippis, gaping, gasping, snapping photos, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. And more poachers were swarming. Poachers were even worse than tourists. They carried big sticks Joe called guns. And those guns hurt. Dozer had two bullets lodged into his bony frill. Bullet scars still adorned his flanks. He hated poachers.
But unlike most dinosaurs, Dozer did not hate or fear humanity.
Joe was a human. And Joe was a good friend. The two had been companions for many years. Dozer carried his little friend to battle. And Joe treated Dozer's wounds, fed him watermelons, washed him, pulled the stinging bugs from his scaly hide, and—most importantly—provided companionship. It wasn't just symbiosis. It was friendship.
And now Joe had gone underwater. Dozer was still not sure how. But somehow his friend, using strange human magic, had plunged into the ocean in search of ancient treasure. Why Joe had left, how he breathed underwater, exactly what he sought—this Dozer did not understand.
But he understood that his friend was down there. And that he would someday come back. Dozer had promised himself to remain on this cliff, overlooking the ocean, waiting for his friend.
Then the smell grew stronger. Ah, that intoxicating scent! A female triceratops in heat. Dozer could already imagine it. She would have long horns. A thick, powerful frill. Wide reptilian hips and rounded haunches. She needed him. She was in danger. Desperate. Her scent cried out: Help! Help!
Dozer took a step away from the cliff, following his nose.
He froze. Then he stomped back to the cliff, looked down at the ocean, and sought Joe. Where was his friend? When was he coming back?
The scent seemed to grab his nostrils like invisible talons. Help! In danger! Need help!
And Dozer now detected another scent. A sickening oily miasma. He snorted and tossed his head, slashing the air with his horns. Predators! He would recognize their foul stench anywhere. Meat eaters all stank. But what kind of predators? Dozer sniffed. He wasn't sure. He could not determine the species. But they smelled big, strong, and fearless. And hungry. Those predators were after the female triceratops.
Dozer looked down at the ocean, opened his beak, and rumbled.
Sorry, Joe. I gotta go. I'll be back soon. Stay safe, friend.
He turned and ran across the land, his enormous feet cracking stones, trampling bushes, and sending fluffy little cynodonts fleeing into holes. Triceratops were large dinosaurs, and Dozer was a particularly large triceratops. He outweighed most T-rexes. From beak to frill, his head was longer than a man was tall. His horns, a foot wide at their base, tapered to mean points that could skewer a carnotaurus. A charging triceratops was perhaps the most intimidating sight on Mintari, and Dozer knew it. As he ran, he enjoyed seeing a few raptors flee to the hills. The predators were larger than men, but Dozer could have easily stomped on them. He considered chasing them. Crushing them might be fun. But today Dozer had a more urgent task.
His nostrils flared. She was closer. She was an attractive female. Dozer could tell from her scent. Healthy. Strong. She would make a good mother. He could not resist these thoughts, these urges. Unlike Joe, Dozer did not spend much time contemplating, ruminating, debating this or that. Waste of time. Dozer preferred following his gut, what Joe might call instincts. What did thinking get humans? Nothing but trouble. Far better to follow the heart than the brain if you asked Dozer. Granted, his heart was the size of a pumpkin, his brain the size of a lemon. But that didn't bother him. So long as he had food, companionship, and the odd dinosaur to fight, he was happy.
Well, that was not the full truth. There was something more. Something he missed.
Mating.
Oh, he had mated plenty in his younger years. He had sired quite a few young trikes who were now terrorizing the wild. Today Dozer was an old bull, scarred and grumpy. He chose life with humans rather than with his own kind. Still, deep down, those instincts burned. A slow burn these days, yes, but still liable to flare when the right scent doused them. He was old but not dead yet. And he could not resist the lure of that ripe female aroma.
He charged through a copse of cycads, uprooting several of the trees, stomped up a hill, and gazed down into a valley.
And there she was.
The female triceratops.
And a fine female she was. Blue-gray scales covered her powerful body. Her white horns gleamed in the sunlight. Her frill was thick and solid, marbled with white stripes and tipped with azure hornlets. And as Dozer had suspected—nice round haunches. Perfect for laying many eggs full of healthy hatchlings. He was a scarred old bull, his grayish-brown body etched with the legacy of his many battles. He would not win any beauty contests. But this female was young, pure, and certainly beautiful.
She was also in trouble.
A pack of predators surrounded her. Big, nasty ones too. Big? An understatement. They were gargantuan. Almost as big as T-rexes. Five of them stood in the field, blood on their teeth. Like rexes, they were bipedal, scaly, short armed, and strong jawed. Those jaws were large enough to swallow men whole. Not predators to trifle with. Not even for a triceratops.
Proof of that lay on the field. Two dead trikes were bleeding onto the grass. Both were old cows, strong and scarred and long-horned. The predators had disemboweled one, nearly beheaded the other. Now they had their eyes on the third, the young blue female.
Dozer grunted, narrowed his eyes, and scrutinized his malodorous foes. Ah, now he recognized them. He had seen such beasts many years ago. He knew this species.
Mapusaurus.
At least that's what Joe called them. To trikes they were just big angry enemies.
Dozer stomped closer. All eyes turned toward him. The mapusaurs squinted, bared their teeth, and growled. The blue triceratops gazed at Dozer with hope. Claw marks bled across her flank.
Bluefrill, he decided to call her. Her name is Bluefrill.
As a rule, dinosaurs did not give one another names. It was a habit Dozer had picked up from the humans. Perhaps he had gone a little domesticated. But that didn't make him soft. He was still big and tough and raring for a fight. If there was anything Dozer loved more than eating, it was fighting. With a furious howl, he charged to battle.
* * * * *
The mapusaurs turned toward him, jaws opening in furious bellows. They seemed to forget all about Bluefrill. She was smaller, she was bleeding, and she could take a back seat for now. Clearly the enraged triceratops bull was the bigger threat. The mapusaurs saw the scars across Dozer's grayish body. Scarred animals were dangerous. They had fought battles and won. Scars were a warning on Mintari: Stay away! I'm tough!
For a moment, the mapusaurs' fight-or-flight instincts kicked in. Should they escape with empty bellies? This charging behemoth was clearly dangerous. Those horns were no joke, and that beak looked powerful enough to bite off limbs. But there were only two triceratops here—Dozer and Bluefrill. And five mapusaurs. The predators were a tad smaller but not by much. And they were predators, tar it. A pack of hungry carnivores should not flee from just two herbivores! They had already killed two triceratops. Why not kill two more? They would stay. They would fight. The great question—fight or flight?—was settled.
By the time they made the decision, Dozer was only seconds away. His mighty feet shook the earth. A trike's back legs were straight like an elephant's. Its front legs were splayed out like a lizard's. This design pushed its center of gravity toward the business end—the enormous horned head. A triceratops head was a good third of its size, covered with armor and the three terrible horns that gave the dinosaur its name. As Dozer charged, he kept his head close to the ground like a cowcatcher, his horns thrusting forward. With a furious bellow, he lunged to battle.
Too late the mapusaurs realized they had made a grave mistake. Before they could flee, Dozer plowed into one, driving twelve tons of herbivorous fury into his foe. His horns plowed into the carnivore, crunching through scales, skin, muscle, and bone.
Even in his death throes, the mapusaurus tried to fight back. He closed his jaws around Dozer's bony frill. So what? That frill was as thick as a wall, made of solid bone, and covered with scaly skin. Let him bite! The mapusaurus might as well be biting a boulder.
With gushes of blood, Dozer pulled his horns out from the mapusaur's torso. Then he swung his head in a deadly uppercut. Dozer's left horn punched through his foe's jawbone, through the upper snout, and burst into the air.
The mapusaurus squealed. Dozer yanked his head back, ripping the predator's mandible clean off the head. The carnivore thumped onto the ground, dead and mutilated. The jawbone remained impaled on Dozer's horn, dangling like a bloody flag on a pole. Let it be a warning to the others!
Dozer didn't get much time to gloat. Pain flared on his tail. He bellowed and spun his head around. His skull swiveled on its ball joint, moving at dizzying speed. Looking behind him, Dozer saw a mapusaurus chomping on his tail.
He let out a hoarse cry. It hurt. He shook wildly, struggling to free himself. But the mapusaurus clung on, his powerful jaws digging deep into Dozer's tail. Blood seeped. Tar, it hurt!
A triceratops concentrated his armor on the front. The back had basic protection, namely thick, scaly skin and sharp osteoderms. That would deter a peckish raptor and other small enemies. But it wasn't enough to stop a hungry mapusaur's teeth. And the big predator had a grip on him. He wasn't letting go.
Briefly Dozer's tiny brain wondered where the other mapusaurs were. There should be three others. Why weren't they attacking him too? Well, he didn't have time to wonder about that now. He had to get this beast off his tail!
Whipping his tail and shaking his haunches wasn't working. Dozer would have to get more creative. Creativity wasn't his strong suit. Triceratops weren't smart dinosaurs. They weren't like those cunning raptors with their eerie intelligence. Not even like T-rexes who, Dozer begrudgingly admitted, could be quite clever. A good triceratops relied on brawn, not brains. But now Dozer's little brain wheeled. And he did something remarkable for a triceratops. He came up with a plan.
A few big boulders towered nearby, scrimshawed with ancient runes. Some silly humans who called themselves "shamans" sometimes drew runes on boulders. Dozer had seen it before. Joe's mother, a kindly human named Lifa, etched such runes. The humans believed they had magical powers. Well, Dozer would see.
He walked backward, waddling toward the boulders. The mapusaurus was still chomping on his tail, refusing to let go. Dozer gained speed. Soon he was practically running backward.
He slammed into a towering boulder, crushing the mapusaurus between the rock and his scaly haunches. The predator's bones gave a sickening series of cracks. The dinosaur whimpered and finally released Dozer. But the triceratops showed no mercy. He backed into the boulder again. And again. Each time, he slammed the poor mapusaurus against the stone. The boulder cracked. So did the mapusaur's spine.
Finally Dozer relented. He turned around to look at his crushed enemy. The mapusaurus lay on the ground, moaning. Still alive! Tough critter. Dozer stepped on his head, crushing the skull, putting the poor predator out of his misery. He looked up at the boulder. Blood covered the runes. Ha! Good magic after all. The humans were right.
His tail hurt and bled, but the joy of victory overpowered the pain. Dozer looked around, wondering where the other three mapusaurs were.
Ah. Bluefrill was keeping them busy. What a splendid dinosaur she was!
* * * * *
Three scaly, multiton predators surrounded the female triceratops. Yet Bluefrill was undeterred. She wheeled her head from side to side, thrusting her horns, holding back the enemy. Her head probably weighed a metric ton, maybe more. But mounted onto its ball joint, it swiveled from side to side at remarkable speed.
One mapusaurus took a chance. The predator lunged at Bluefrill, jaws open wide.
The blue triceratops swung her head. Her left horn clattered against the mapusaur's teeth. Several teeth flew through the air, and the carnivore stepped back, blood in his mouth. It wasn't a huge loss. Dinosaurs constantly regrew their teeth. But it must have hurt.
Two more mapusaurs attacked, one from each side.
With a frightened cry, Bluefrill swept her head toward one, fencing with her horns, keeping the terrible teeth away. But the second mapusaurus chomped down on her frill, digging his teeth through the thick layer of blue skin, maybe even piercing the bone. The carnivore began yanking the frill backward. He seemed determined to rip Bluefrill's head clean off. The blue triceratops let out an agonized cry.
Within seconds, Dozer was there.
He plowed into the mapusaurus that was biting his beloved. The dinosaur opened his mouth to cry out in pain, releasing Bluefrill. Dozer bulldozed over the predator, knocking him down, then crushing him beneath his feet. Ribs snapped. Organs burst like overripe fruit. This mapusaurus was perhaps big enough to swallow a human whole, but Dozer was even bigger, and he flattened the impudent carnivore.
That left two. Bluefrill was still battling one, fencing with her horns. The second mapusaurus had lost a few teeth but none of his aggression. With a furious, bloody howl, the predator lunged at Dozer.
Big mistake. Dozer had time to wheel around, charge to meet his foe, and drive his horns deep. One horn still had bits of jawbone attached to it. No big deal. Dozer still shoved all three of his horns into his enemy, then pulled them back with a shower of blood.
The mapusaurus fell, dead before he hit the ground.
That left only one. The single surviving mapusaurus looked around him. He saw his four friends dead. He knew he would follow.
He tried to escape. The two angry triceratops were having none of it. Dozer charged from one side, Bluefrill from the other. They slammed into the mapusaurus at the same time. Deep inside the predator's flesh, their horns touched. It was electric.
They pulled back, letting the corpse slide to the ground, and looked at each other. Dozer thought that Bluefrill had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.
She was bleeding. Dozer stepped closer and licked her wounds. She purred and licked the blood off his tail. Triceratops saliva had strong antiseptic properties. Dozer didn't know what antiseptic properties meant, but he knew that licking wounds helped them heal. He carried this ancestral knowledge in his brain stem. And he knew he cared about Bluefrill. His blood ran hot near her.
