'We'd best get moving,’ Sorrin reminded Bronte.

  'Where to?'

  'West, to the base of the Uplands. No Killjaw will follow us there on account of the legends.'

  'What legends are those, Father?'

  'The high country is rumoured to be haunted by spooks. Sheer nonsense, but it'll keep those fanged, superstitious rat-bags off our tails. Mythical demons are about the only thing that'll scare off a meat-eater. That or a decent whipping with a stout tail.'

  Bronte despaired. ‘I'm getting too big to go gallivanting about the deep forest. I'll just get stuck again.'

  'There are back-trails wide enough to accommodate an adult Thunderfoot. I should know. I've traipsed along enough of those walkways in my days as a hermit.'

  'And what'll we do once we get there?'

  'Grieve awhile, daughter. Then we'll think of something.'

  That sounded constructive.

  'Alright Father, lead on.'

  A chink appeared in the staunch bull's emotional shielding. He liked his daughter being reliant upon him for her safeness, and it occurred to Sorrin that he never stopped thinking of Bronte as that wide-eyed she-calf hatched so long ago on that thunderous rainy night. Better late than never for showing some fatherly conduct.

  A tumult of roars from the east shattered the developing quietude of early evening and the beastly cries drew disconcertingly nearer. Festur was making a loud comeback with some obvious help. Sorrin glanced determinedly at his offspring. ‘I'll hold them off while you make good your escape,’ he decided.

  'No.’ Bronte was adamant. ‘I'm separated from Darved, and Grandmother made me leave her side. I'll not abandon you as well.'

  'Loyalty will not keep you alive, Bronte. I'll catch up to you once I've dealt with these pests, but you must go.'

  'Father,’ demurred the willful cow.

  The snarls of the noisy hunters got dangerously louder.

  'I don't want to hear any excuses, daughter. They're getting close now. I've been a poor father to you and you have every right not to listen to me, only I implore you not to disobey me on this matter.'

  Bronte appreciated that admission had come at great personal cost to her sire. ‘I'll go,’ she conceded meekly, the defiance in her voice evaporating.

  'That pleases me no end, my girl. Head northwest by keeping Crescent Lake on your right at all times. I'll join you just as soon as I can. Stay vigilant, Bronte.'

  The forest became ominously silent as Bronte plodded away with a heavy heart. This afternoon of misery had been spent exclusively bidding her loved ones farewell, or so it seemed. That was why she refused to say goodbye to her father. Risking a backward glance, she gaped in fear. A trio of Killjaws was filtering through the hushed twilight woods. The timorous cow watched Sorrin grimly thud his way over to intercept the bloodthirsty threesome and she had the sinking feeling in the pit of her huge stomach that she was never to see him again.

  Turning away, Bronte trudged onward into a lonely and uncertain future.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gideon was dismayed.

  It was late afternoon, the alien perched on the southeastern edge of Mother Forest adjacent to the home clearing of the Killjaws, trying to make sense of the gore out on Fernwalk. He had alighted unseen in the deep woods an hour prior, disembarked from his concealed starsphere and slogged to his current observation post within an outsized magnolia shrub. From here he had an unobstructed view of the massacred Thunderfeet through gaps in the screening leaves and the grisly sight very nearly made him gag.

  'Vai, do you copy?’ he radioed to his ship in a strangled whisper.

  'Reading you loud and clear, sweetums. I'm registering an elevation in your stress level. Is something wrong?'

  'Yeah, horribly wrong. Tell me you misinterpreted the sensor readings locating the giant herbisaurs.'

  'I would if I had but I didn't, so I won't.'

  'Your levity is unwelcome today. Just repeat the scan.'

  'My, aren't we cranky. Scanning again.’ After the briefest pause, Vai confirmed, ‘Sensor readout accuracy is unchanged. You directed me to find Bronte's herd. I did just that and set you down within easy walking distance of their coordinates, as instructed. Aren't they where they should be?'

  'Oh, they're here alright—you just didn't inform me they were dead.'

  There was crackling static on Vai's end of the communicator link. ‘Oops, my error,’ she finally said in a sheepish tone.

  'Is that all you can say?'

  'Machines are not infallible, Commander. Especially not a unit as venerable as my circuitry is.'

  Gideon momentarily forgot the slaughter before his eyes. ‘Just how old are you, Vai?’ He knew that his starsphere had been commissioned into service well before his own induction into the exobiology branch of the Academy of Stellar Studies to serve his predecessor. He also knew that the resident cybernate personality would have been activated simultaneously. What he could not find out was the exact date and year of that launch as the relevant records had been mislaid, ironically due to a master computer error.

  'You know a girl never discloses her age, boss.'

  He promptly gave up. There was no getting around female obstinacy. Orientating on the problem at hand concerning malfunctioning components, the sole surviving Berranian griped, ‘Repairing the Linguistic Decoder cost us over a week. We can't afford to lose any more time and I need to have your sensor array online and working faultlessly.'

  'My hardware is essentially sound—a little on the worn side, but serviceable. It's the software that's responsible for these troublesome glitches, love buns. You've stepped outside prescribed mission parameters and I'm having difficulty compensating. I am afraid you'll have to bear with me through these little hiccups.'

  Gideon returned to the despairing scene beyond his bush. Thunderfoot carcasses blotted the near plains like islets rising from a sea of blood, adjoined by the odd lesser corpse of those hadrosaurs unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire of shearing teeth and raking talons. Killjaws patrolled the bays and inlets between the cadavers like prehistoric sharks, butchering the wounded and tearing hungrily into the dead. It was a hellish nightmare from which there was no waking. He hoped against all probable odds that neither of the Chosen was among the unlisted recently departed. The bouncy footfalls of an elated hunter dashed such optimism as a Dwarf Killjaw paraded by the shrub carrying Chappy's severed head in its mouth like a macabre trophy. The image of the Duckbill's blood-smeared birthmark seared through Gideon's shaded visor brighter than any glaring supernova and with the same disquieting deadliness.

  A score of aerial shapes wheeling lazily overhead in the reddening skies caught Gideon's eye. They were Lizardwings, giant living gliders having the dimensions of an ultra-light aircraft thanks to their forty-foot wingspans. He watched in wary fascination as the lead reptilian flier broke formation and began a slow, circling descent earthward. Its apparent landing field was in the very midst of an oddball gathering of dinosaurs comprising a hulking, scarred Killjaw, a skittish Fastclaw and an aloof Clubtail. Fumbling at the belted control panel of his EVA suit with his cumbersome gloves, the alien adjusted the settings on his audio receptors to increase their sensitivity, and pivoted his body to aim the maximised band at the strange party.

  'Eavesdropping is impolite,’ crackled Vai.

  'Oh, do be quiet for once!’ Gideon snapped testily. ‘How can I listen with you prattling on?’ Some days he wished his ship's wifely persona did not monitor his suit's systems so sedulously. He felt as if his mother was constantly looking over his shoulder and being just as damn critical.

  Gideon mouthed an unrepeatable cussword. The tweaked hearing devices were not working as well as he wished, so that the conversing saurians sounded like nothing more than mumbling toads. ‘Vai, I need my sound collectors magnified further. Can you boost their reception with a piggyback beam from the ship?’ Gideon's query was met with stony silence. ‘Okay, what's the matter?'

  'You told me to be quiet.'

  'And now I want your opinion.'

  'Make your mind up, dearie. Its not like I've got an on / off button I can readily press.'

  Gideon resisted the urge to inform his VAI otherwise. He secretly had at his fingertips a kill switch built into his personal controls that would deactivate a misbehaving ship's computer persona. Berranian designers sure had confidence in their creations! ‘Can you enhance the pickup of my receivers?’ he asked a second time.

  'Realigning shipboard audio sensors on your position,’ she said with frosty efficiency. ‘Any better?'

  The suited alien clutched his hands to his helmet and gritted his teeth as the unbearably noisy whirring of an insect's beating wings deafeningly assailed his ears. ‘A trifle loud,’ he shouted over the commotion in his head.

  With an impish chuckle Vai lowered the volume accordingly, but an irksome ringing was left in Gideon's ears and he eyed the dragonfly buzzing his visored headpiece with a condemning stare. He irritably brushed away the tiny, hovering intruder with a gloved hand. Waiting impatiently for the after-effects to subside, his effort was rewarded as the first snippets of conversation from the distant reptiles filtered into his headphones.

  * * * *

  'May your wings lightly touch the ground, Lord Zmork.'

  The leading Lizardwing acknowledged the ritual welcome from the Killjaw king and disdainfully responded in like. ‘Might the scented winds carry meat to your nostrils, Rexus.'

  The towering land predator bristled at the irreverence of the lofty flier but held his tongue. He needed the services of Zmork and his flock more than a dispute over titular etiquette at the moment. ‘What brings you down to my domain, Zmork?’ Rexus solicited with equal informality. Two could play at that game.

  The lordly lizard aviator crawled on all fours closer to his Killjaw counterpart. While masters of the air, Lizardwings were laughably ungainly on terra firma. ‘Your handiwork, as a matter of fact,’ Zmork said in answer to the tyrant-king's query, coming straight to the point. ‘You ground-plodders have had a busy afternoon and we've come to partake of the bounty.'

  Rexus suppressed the urge to grin despite his unhappy mood. The scaled vultures were predictably playing right into his jaws. He took this unique opportunity to study closely his winged opposite.

  Lizardwings were unique in the saurian kingdom for they had truly conquered flight and Zmork was a prime example of their remarkable adaptation. His enormous leathery wing membrane, stretched between the greatly elongated fourth digit of each hand and the body and upper leg, was a superb lifting device that effortlessly carried him aloft on the overland breezes for hours on end. Weighing a paltry 200 lbs, his hollow bones were equally light but robust, enabling the flier to work his powerful flight muscles with minimum exertion to stay airborne. Zmork's massively billed head, surmounted by a short bony stabilising crest, sat perched on the end of a stiff and unbending neck of mottled scarlet. This offset the ivory colouration of his body and wings, and the yellow of his legs and toothless beak. Every body part of the winged lizard was outsized, barring his ridiculously stumpy tail. The most outstanding feature of Zmork's physiology, however, was not so much the gigantism common to many reptiles of this period, rather the layer of thickish hair covering his torso and limbs that prevented critical heat loss for the active glider.

  The king of the Killjaws gave an imperious snort. Fur was normally associated with the lowly burrowing rodents he would periodically stamp out of existence just for the hell of it. Any of reptile kind unlucky enough to wear such a coat was automatically considered freakish. Rexus emitted a growl of longtime sufferance. Why was his realm infested with so many aberrations?

  'I'm waiting for your leave to feed,’ Zmork prompted Rexus, ‘before it gets dark.'

  The regent's eyes flickered displeasure at being spoken to so. The landed flier was as haughty as he was repulsive.

  'You well know the terms of our association,’ he reminded the Lizardwing. ‘Nothing comes for free.'

  Zmork made a show of nonchalantly preening his body fur to hide his contempt. Long ago his remote ancestors had struck an informal bargain with Rexus's forebears, whereby they scouted prey for the patrolling Killjaws and were permitted a share of the kill as reward for their vassalage. It was an uneasy alliance at best that degenerated over time as the Lizardwings grew in size and ego to operate independently of their terrestrial partners. The odd occasion did crop up when the aerial carrion-feeders found themselves indebted to the Killjaw owners of a sizable carcass and an inevitable toll was exacted, usually in the form of some minor and humiliating service. It was an archaic thralldom that rankled the lead Lizardwing no end.

  'What bondage did you have in mind?’ he forced himself to ask the reigning Killjaw.

  Rexus gave a joyful snarl. Hunger was a great persuader. ‘Orn, if you please.'

  His messenger darted forward. Zmork gave the Fastclaw a cursory appraisal and stated, ‘I don't barter with minions.'

  The tyrant-king wheeled about, his precariously good manners vanishing. ‘That's fine and dandy, Zmork. Listen up then. I'll allow you and your brood to land and fill your furry little bellies in return for conducting a search for me.'

  'What'll we be looking for, Killjaw?’ Zmork's own demeanor became haughtier.

  'An errant Thunderfoot cow that escaped the party I threw for her friends. She bears a white mark on her head, so you can't miss her.'

  'She shouldn't be too hard to spot from the air,’ conceded the ruling flier. ‘I'll have my scouts start looking first thing in the morning.'

  A disapproving glower from Rexus bored down on Zmork. ‘There's enough light remaining to start searching now,’ decided the king. ‘I want that cow found immediately.'

  Zmork looked wistfully at the mountains of carrion scattered haphazardly across Fernwalk. Spreading his wings, he faced into the freshening westerly before lifting off, glaring at the Killjaw regent in return while flapping upward into the blood-red heavens to rejoin his skein.

  Rexus followed the Lizardwing Lord with hard eyes to make certain that his command was heeded. Only when the circling gliders peeled off to begin scouring the land for their quarry did he return his attention to ground matters. ‘Orn, you're certain Festur got word back that he was going after Balticea's spawn?'

  The Fastclaw, his head bobbing timidly, spoke carefully. Despite the resounding victory of the Killjaw army, his master was strangely glum. ‘The Dwarf Killjaw who told me was most adamant, Your Demandingness. He said that he'd helped the captain to bring down a bull Thunderfoot which had gotten in his way of stalking the said cow before resuming his chase of her.'

  'And he went after her alone?'

  'The captain's accomplice was very specific. He was ordered to return here while Captain Festur set off on the hunt by himself muttering something about “personal redemption".'

  Rexus nodded understandingly before issuing his mandatory command to his gofer. ‘Seek out Shadower.'

  'Again, Your Immenseness?'

  'That's right. He can give Festur backup. That, in concert with our prowling friends on the wing, should ensure Bronte is located soon and suitably dealt with.'

  Orn scooted away. Tank, silent up until now, commented dryly, ‘Just another case of overkill, Rexus. Why all this effort expended over a lone Thunderfoot?'

  'It's logical, Adviser. To win a total victory over an enemy, you must eradicate every last one of their kin. Kahla's already supper, Balticea is yesterday's news, so that just leaves Bronte. I'm merely tying up loose ends.'

  'There's more to this than simple extermination,’ the Clubtail mumbled suspiciously under his breath.

  'What's that, Tank?'

  'Nothing for your ears.'

  'Keep it that way. The only thing I want to hear from you right now is your evaluation of the battle.'

  'You won.'

  'Thanks for the update. Give me the long version and start with the Thunderfeet.'

  Tank collected his logic-run thoughts. ‘As far as I can ascertain the Thunderfoot bands lost approximately half their number. Both matriarchs were killed in the latter stages of the attack. The survivors are presently shambling north in an effort to outrun the danger.'

  Rexus made a sour face. ‘I was aiming for complete annihilation.'

  'The Killjaw army, such as it was, did not have sufficient strength, particularly when faced with two herds of the giants. You were lucky to achieve the results that you did.'

  'What of my forces—how'd they fare?'

  'Casualties are slight considering the scale of the onslaught. Predictably, the Dwarf Killjaws came off worst with a couple dead. Of your brethren, one has been killed outright with a second close to dying. Incidentally, Madcow was the one found dead. Curiously enough she has a fatal bite mark on the back of her neck. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you Rexus?'

  The kingly despot squirmed under Tank's accusatory stare and lamely said, ‘Perhaps Thunderfeet have sharpened their feeble teeth.’ He immediately hopped off that subject. ‘Who's the Killjaw near death?'

  'One Claw.'

  Rexus remembered seeing the cripple being ground underfoot by panicking Duckbills. ‘I'd better go pay him a visit.'

  'Suit yourself. All my thinking has left me hungry and I'm finished here.’ The Adviser shuffled off towards the forest shrubbery without further ado.

  Retracing his steps, Rexus came across the spot where One Claw fell while vainly trying to stop a runaway Thunderfoot. If only the king knew that the escapee had been Bronte herself. The disfigured bull lay where he had collapsed, plainly in distress. He was panting rapidly and whimpering pitiably.