God's Junk Drawer, page 51
“How can we tell? What can we do?”
She shook her head. “The fact that the bone is fractured is a bad sign. Neanderthal skulls are very solid, but if the arrow has broken it, it most likely has entered her brain.”
“But that . . . that’s not a death sentence, right?”
“Possibly not. With a great deal of rest and care she may recover. I have seen the valley heal many injuries I believed to be fatal.”
“I don’t think we can count on the valley to help her. Not right now, anyway.” He straightened up, stared past the Klaa and above the tree line. “I’m not sure how far it is to the Castle from here. We’ll need to make a stretcher, or maybe—”
Monique put a hand up, gently pushing back. “No.”
“We need to get her to the Castle.”
“She cannot be moved. Her condition is far too fragile.”
The valley groaned again, and Noah’s panic rose with the sound. “We have to.”
Monique shook her head. “She would not survive the trip. She might not even survive being moved to a stretcher.”
The Empress and the ground around her went dim as the sky flickered above them. Not so much dim as . . . stark. Like the whole clearing had been bleached of color, like a film that also released a black-and-white version. By the time he looked up, the blue sky had reasserted itself. The wind picked up and grit peppered his face.
He straightened his legs and pointed at the sky. “What happened? Did you see?”
Pyr stared up. “The sky . . . shut off for a second.”
Parker nodded in agreement. “It just went black.”
“They’re not liking it,” Sam added, gesturing at the Klaa.
Noah crouched next to Monique. “How long to make her safe to move?”
“I could not say. A few hours at the very least.”
He looked up at the sky again. “We don’t have that much time.”
50
PARKER
Parker felt an odd sense of relief they’d figured out the valley was on a spaceship. Without that knowledge, seeing the whole sky flicker on and off like someone playing with a light switch would’ve snapped her brain. As it was, every instinct she had screamed she’d just seen something impossible.
The Klaa didn’t like it either. She didn’t know if the Empress and Breaker ruled out of fear or tradition or family loyalty, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. Not for people whose brains were wired against change.
Some of the Klaa on foot broke and ran, cutting across the open space and taking off through the trees. A few of the mounted ones too. The one perched on the stone head gave her raptor a quick snap of the reins and they dashed off into the forest.
Parker saw all of this as good since the six of them were basically facing down about two hundred angry Neanderthals. Well, four of them were, since Noah and Monique were trying to figure out if there was anything they could do for someone who’d been hit in the head with a high-speed arrow. And really only Pyr and Thate had weapons, but Thate was tied up in his standoff with Breaker, and Pyr had already used one shot from her bio-cannon thing. So Parker and Sam were left trying to look tough and determined against most of the Klaa. Granted, Sam had his new knife tucked in his belt, but he’d forgotten to draw it. Parker worried if she mentioned it and he pulled it out now, it would look bad.
Most of the Klaa looked uncertain, but a few dozen of them were seriously pissed off. Angry something was happening to their valley. Angry a lot of their tribe-mates were dragging their feet.
Angry at the people crouched around their leader.
Something crashed through the trees behind them and more raptors shrieked. Another charging dinosaur. It took Parker a moment to recognize Brunhilda as the styracosaurus thundered across the clearing, head angled to point her horn straight ahead, her massive feet pounding the ground. And right behind her armored frill, Diedrich the farmer. He reached down and tapped the dinosaur between her eyes with his bamboo swagger stick and she lumbered to a halt a few yards from Parker.
“I thought you may still need assistance,” shouted the farmer over the rumbling. “My apologies for the delay. The earthquakes have her skittish.”
“Just hold on,” Parker called to him. “We might have a truce here.”
He pointed his stick at the Empress. “Is she dead?”
“No,” shouted Noah from over by the Empress’s body. “She’s alive but we can’t move her.” He turned back to the Klaa and shouted a few more coarse syllables.
Parker ran over to them. Saw the mess of bloody linen. The worried look on Monique’s face. “Oh shit.”
“Shit,” echoed Sam from behind her.
Noah looked up at them. “I’ve told them she’s hurt and we’re trying to help her.”
Parker couldn’t stop staring at all the blood. “Is it the truth?”
“Oui,” said Monique without looking up. “But her condition is extremely delicate. There is a good chance she will not survive.”
“Okay.” Parker tried to clear her mind. “Okay, can we build a stretcher or—”
“No,” snapped Monique. “She cannot be moved.”
Sam tapped his fingers furiously. “What if we also made, like, a neck brace? Something to immobilize her for the move.”
Noah gestured at the Empress’s wounds. “We’d have to immobilize her head, too. Completely.”
Parker tried to picture it all in her mind. “This sounds like more than half an hour of work.”
“It is irrelevant,” said Monique, “because she cannot be moved. Not even slightly. It could kill her here and now.”
Another thunderclap rumbled across the valley as a massive section of cliff crumbled away, dropping boulders the size of houses. It reminded Parker of videos showing casinos or apartment complexes being demolished. Or the World Trade Center collapsing.
“What if . . .” She tried to get an idea to gel in her mind. “Is there some way we could bring the Castle to her?”
Monique glanced up for that. “What?”
“Like, if we could bring part of it closer?” asked Sam. He raised his bouncing fingers. “Enough that it can sense her again?”
Noah reached down and pushed away some furs to reveal the crude, empty sheath the Empress wore on her hip. “She’s been carrying part of the Castle around with her. Her dagger. She dropped it when the arrow hit her.”
Parker looked around them, trying to spot the crystal blade. People and dinosaurs shifted on their feet. The shadows leaped and jumped as the sky flickered. The grass shifted in the wind and there it was! About ten feet away, right by Brunhilda’s front leg, almost under the bulky dinosaur’s belly.
“Got it,” Parker yelled. She crouched, scooped up the dagger, and stretched her arm back, holding it out to Noah. He took it. Set it on the Empress. Put it in her hand.
Nothing happened.
Sam stopped tapping his fingers and clenched them into fists. “Maybe a more specific part? A bigger piece? Something in the Castaway’s chamber?”
Noah shook his head. “I’d have no idea what.”
Parker looked up at the distant cliffs. Watched a piece of rock the size of a space shuttle tumble-roll down the valley wall. “This place has adjustable dimensions, right? If the distances between things grow, is there a way to make them shrink?”
“Probably,” said Noah after a moment. “Again, though—no idea how. It’s not like the Castle has a big lifeboat control room in it.”
“Are you sure?”
The sky fritzed again. For the space of a heartbeat it was night, and the stars stretched above her. Then daytime. And then darkness and the sun. The airless view from satellite pictures and Moon landings. And then the blue sky returned.
Noah saw it too. “We don’t have time to search a six-hundred-foot tower for a room that might not ex—”
A sharp tremor shook the clearing and knocked them all to the ground. A few of the raptors went down, too, crushing their riders as they thrashed back to their feet. Even Brunhilda swayed on her squat legs, letting out a whale-like moan. The wind picked up and Parker couldn’t shake the feeling the air wasn’t moving as much as being sucked away. A tree trembled and tipped over in slow motion, soil and grass spraying out around its roots. The sounds of other trees falling echoed through the forest around them. A few of the Klaa shouted words that sounded like warnings. Or maybe swears.
Breaker got halfway to his feet and hurled himself back. Thate leaped after him but the Neanderthal rolled, ducked, lashed out with his axe-club, and quick-stepped back. Ten feet between them, and then fifteen, and then Breaker was closer to the rest of the Klaa than to the blue man. He shouted to them. Pointed his weapon at the group gathered near the fallen Empress.
“Not looking good,” Pyr called out.
An idea danced in Parker’s mind, a last puzzle piece she spun to figure out how and where it fit. The valley and the Castaway and the Empress in the Ice Castle and—
“We have to move her,” shouted Noah, interrupting her train of thought. His voice barely carried over the sounds of wind and cracking stone and shifting earth.
Monique put a hand out and yelled back. “You’ll kill her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know if you kill her there is no saving this place!”
This place.
It was right there. Something about the Castaway. Something Noah and Sam had both said. Something else they’d all misunderstood.
A pair of trees crashed to the ground on the far side of the clearing. Brunhilda let out another mournful wail and stomped her feet.
“If we don’t risk it everything dies.” Noah leaned closer to the Empress’s body. Reached for her arm. “I’m sorry.”
The idea slammed home and Parker held out a hand. “Wait.”
“What?”
“The Castaway never left the Ice Castle.”
“They couldn’t.” He tried to wave Sam over to get the Empress’s other arm.
“So when they told you that someday you’d call this place home . . . you were in the Castle too.”
It all slammed together for Noah, too. She saw it in his eyes. “Oh my god.”
In that same moment Parker realized the tremors shaking the valley floor had picked up again. She’d thought it was Diedrich and Brunhilda, or maybe everything had kicked up another order of magnitude again. A deep cracking sound came from the forest. Tree trunks breaking. The heavy sound of impacts.
A few yards away, Thate raised a hand, pointing with one of his long knives. “We’ve got a stampede.”
51
SAM
Some of the Klaa dashed across the clearing, heading toward Sam and the group. Their faces looked scared more than aggressive. A few more glanced back through the trees. Then the screaming began and they all scattered. Tried to scatter.
A group of triceratops charged out of the woods, flattening a few smaller trees as they plowed into the clearing. Two styracosauruses, like Brunhilda, ran with them. They thundered along almost shoulder to shoulder, trampling everything in their way. A trio of Klaa warriors vanished beneath the elephant-like feet. One raptor shrieked a challenge and was battered aside, sending its Neanderthal rider soaring through the air. They went down in the stampede, lost between the massive creatures.
Two of the Klaa ran past Sam and a triceratops charged after them. He took a few frantic steps, tried to get out of its way, and realized the whole group of dinosaurs was coming right at them, a wall of horns and muscle. They were aimed just past Brunhilda, at Noah, Monique, and the Empress. Not straight at them, but the trio would be crushed in just a few—
Pyr stepped in front of Sam and everything went hot neon white as her arm-blaster hit one of the styracosaurs right above its eye. A second blast struck its bony, horn-covered frill. It let out a keening moan, the sound of a sad whale, and veered away to crash against one of the other dinosaurs, knocking them both off course and away from the group.
Pyr dropped to her knees. Took a deep, ragged breath. Her head wobbled and her organic eye looked glazed. Sam reached to steady her, but before he could she slumped back against him, so much dead weight. He lowered her to the ground near the Empress.
So many dinosaurs. Wouldn’t be surprising if most of the creatures in the valley were reacting to the imminent collapse in one way or another. The air was filled with panic and fear. Five or six of the larger ones with the feather-crested heads stampeded out of the trees, leaning forward like they were falling into their run. A trio of ankylosauruses thundered behind them, like living tanks. A dozen smaller dinosaurs raced through the chaos.
And all of them aimed across the clearing.
Noah stood up and shouted more Neanderthal words, waving his arms. Some of the random Klaa tribe members changed course. Ran toward them. Some were plowed down or battered aside by the dinosaurs. A dog-sized raptor leaped up and rode a Neanderthal’s shoulders, slashing at him until he dropped and it raced away. A lone triceratops made a big arcing charge that forced Thate to lunge out of the way, crashing face-first into the ground to avoid being gored or trampled.
A dark-haired woman dressed in loose furs that smelled of meat and blood squeezed in next to Sam, pushing him into a man who reeked of nervous sweat. Fifteen, maybe twenty of the Klaa formed a tight wall around their Empress and Pyr and Sam and Monique and Noah. They brandished spears and clubs and stone daggers and Sam remembered he had his iron knife. They formed a wedge, braced for the stampede, and then Brunhilda’s bulk filled Sam’s view.
Diedrich guided the styracosaur forward and she became a living wall between all of them and the stampede. Thate came speed-crawling under the big dinosaur’s belly, dragging himself on his arms. “We have to get to cover.”
“How?” said Parker. She gestured at the Empress and Pyr.
“I can carry them.”
“No, you cannot,” said Monique, jamming a finger at him.
Sam stepped around the Neanderthal woman and got himself to a place where he could see over Brunhilda’s tail. The bleating, lowing swarm of dinosaurs stormed by, changing course ever so slightly to pass on either side of her, kicking up dust as they went. Diedrich patted her side, keeping her calm and still. A small raptor bounced against her hide, tried to scrabble over her, and the German kicked it away.
Noah stepped forward, setting his hands against Brunhilda’s shoulder, and Sam could barely hear his words over the noise filling the air. Asking Diedrich about getting to the Castle. A quick exchange, a gesture at the Empress. Noah shaking his head.
At least a hundred dinosaurs must’ve stampeded by, moving fast enough Sam could only pick out random details. Big. Small. Horns. Teeth. Colorful fins. Yellow eyes. Black eyes. Armor plates.
And just like that the bulk of the stampede had passed by, leaving a few final dinosaurs desperately trying to flee the earthquakes and falling trees. Sam could see at least two dozen members of the Klaa and a few raptors that’d been crushed under the dinosaurs. Before he could stare too long, though, three crocodile-sized, yellow-brown iguanas slither-ran out of the trees, each with a massive fin like the sails of old Chinese ships. They ran low to the ground, their rough bellies battering the knee-high grass and their wide legs scattering more Neanderthals. Weaving between the fin-backed dinosaurs, a dog-sized raptor took bounding steps as it ran past them. The last finback’s long, straight tail had just passed Brunhilda when a trio of the little raptors dashed out of the trees, rushing to catch up with the other dinosaurs.
Breaker smashed one of the small dinosaurs away with his axe-club. It went down and he hit it again. And again. He bellowed at the other Klaa around him and turned to march toward the group circling the fallen Empress.
Pure dedication? Angry and murder-happy? The ever-popular why not both?
“Hey! Breaker’s coming!” Sam looked over, but nobody could hear his shouts over the echoes of the stampede and the earthquake and shit another section of cliff broke loose, like watching an iceberg cleave off a glacier. Noah was still shout-talking to Diedrich. The Neanderthal woman glanced at Sam, clearly not understanding a word he was saying. Parker was over . . .
An ultralow roar echoed across the clearing, shaking Sam’s bones harder than the quakes. Not an echo, he realized. Two roars almost overlapping each other.
Two shapes moved in the shadows of the forest, tall enough to be seen over Brunhilda’s high back. So many heads turned at the subsonic roars. So many creatures came to a nervous halt. For others, raw instinct kicked in and they scattered in terror.
Burn and Gnash came striding out of the trees. Sam saw the wedge-like, horned heads a dozen feet up in the air. The plate-sized, hawk-like eyes. The teeth. So many teeth.
They stomped in a dozen yards apart. Chasing the stampede? Part of it? Whatever role they’d started with, the two allosauruses gazed back and forth across the clearing like they’d found themselves at a buffet.
Gnash brought her foot down, pinning a Neanderthal under her toes. Her jaws opened and she tore off the man’s head and arm with a quick yank. Sam got a quick glimpse of skin and muscle stretching out and then a wash of blood.
Burn grabbed a raptor in his massive jaws. Had there been a rider on its back or not? Now they were all thrashing too much to be sure.
Breaker paused at the roars and screams, glanced back over his shoulder. He was maybe six yards from Brunhilda and the cluster of Roanoke folks and Neanderthals. Was Sam the only person who’d noticed him?
Gnash took two big loping steps forward, crushing a Neanderthal’s leg as she did. The allosaurus looked down at the shrieking man. Over at the little group of people huddled by the unmoving styracosaurus.
A few of the Klaa goaded their raptors across the shaking, shifting clearing toward Burn. The dinosaurs shrieked and hissed at each other.
Sam looked at the group. Took a few quick, nervous breaths. They were all focused on other things. Pyr unconscious. The Empress still bleeding from her head—could Gnash smell her blood? Parker. Noah. Thate.
