'I'm a gofer. I fetch things for others, like food for instance. You hungry?'

  Eating was the last thing on Gideon's foggy mind. ‘I couldn't stomach anything right now,’ he declined.

  'You had better eat,’ insisted the Fastclaw, darting behind the woody throne of the Killjaw Court and reappearing with an armful of tidbits. ‘You're my responsibility for the time being and I'll not have the master growl at me for letting you starve. Take your pick of this lot.’ He deposited his wares at Gideon's feet and stepped back expectantly.

  The Berranian reluctantly inspected the offering. The pile of items generously labelled food by the long-legged reptile comprised a rancid piece of Duckbill flesh, two freshly caught Treefur carcasses and an assortment of insects, mostly beetles. He promptly turned up his nose at the proffered morsels, saying, ‘I don't eat meat.'

  'Your loss,’ said Orn, snatching up one of the flaccid marsupials and tucking into the furred snack. ‘You're awfully strange,’ he observed between mouthfuls. ‘Bug-eyed, beakless, no tail and a dislike for flesh. Just what kind of a lizard are you?'

  Gideon ignored the enquiry as the gravity of his predicament began to dawn on him. He was looking dismayingly beyond the lithe sprinter at the smattering of bleached bones adorning the clearing floor. ‘Who exactly is your master?’ he asked in a small voice weighted with dread.

  He had his answer when the hulking spectre of the world's largest terrestrial predator hove into view at the eastern edge of the glade and approached. It took all of Gideon's intensive psychological training not to run screaming in terror from the giant killer reptile, but still he stiffened in fear when the shadow of the Killjaw monarch fell over him. Soiling himself, the inbuilt waste reclaimer of his spacesuit worked overtime to clean up the fouled Berranian.

  Rexus, peering wonderingly at the seated alien, demanded from his court dogsbody, ‘Have you fed it?'

  'It says it won't touch meat, Your Bigness. I reckon it's a plant-eater.'

  'That's a sure sign of intelligence then,’ rumbled Tank, lumbering sedately into the glade from the northern perimeter.

  'I didn't ask for your opinion, Adviser.'

  'Since when have I waited for your permission to give it,’ the Clubtail retorted imperiously.

  Rexus sighed. It was so hard to find good subservient help. ‘Orn, gather it some plant food.'

  'But Your Horridness, I haven't announced you.'

  'We can dispense with your longwinded eloquence this once.'

  The Fastclaw looked injured at being robbed of his job as court herald, but wisely took off without complaining.

  Tilting his monstrous head at Gideon, Rexus ordered the outlander to stand. When the alien had shakily come to his feet he growled, ‘Do you know who I am?'

  'The Devil incarnate?’ Gideon guessed. In spite of feeling abject terror, his arrogant offworld superiority shone through.

  'I am Rexus, King of the Killjaws, Overlord of Mother Forest and adjoining lands.'

  'I thought you didn't like superfluous name-dropping,’ remarked Tank.

  'Just stating my titles for the benefit of our guest,’ Rexus snarled defensively.

  Gideon picked up on the tyrant-king's comment. ‘I'm your guest?'

  'You enjoy the hospitality of my court.'

  The alien eyed the scattered bones again. ‘Such tasteful décor too. Am I free to leave any time I want?'

  'I'm afraid not.'

  'Then I am your captive.'

  'Nonsense. You're in protective custody to safeguard your person. The forest can be a hazardous place for the unwary visitor, so one of my subjects thought it prudent to remove you to a more secure place.'

  Recollecting his violent abduction, Gideon argued, ‘I was assaulted and brought here against my will.'

  'I'll admit Shadower was a trifle enthusiastic when relocating you,’ conceded the Killjaw king, ‘but it was for your own benefit.'

  'Why am I here?’ the Berranian asked outright.

  'I learnt a strange caller had come to the wood and opted to play host.'

  'How cordial.'

  'So who might you be?’ Rexus wanted to know from his outlandish ‘guest'.

  'You may call me Gideon.'

  'What are you?’ It was Tank's turn to question.

  Gideon thought fast. He had no wish to reveal his true identity to his obvious captors and so drew from an assumption Chappy had made upon their first meeting for a cover story. ‘I'm one of your southern cousins.'

  Rexus saw right through the lie. ‘No more of these disgusting pleasantries!’ he thundered. ‘I can't take being nice anymore. Tank, your ploy isn't working. Civility is not the best tool of statecraft for gleaning information—torture is.'

  The tyrant-king gave a spirited roar and advanced on the alien in mock attack. Reflex overtook Gideon and he stumbled backwards, cowering against the log, overloading his suit's congested waste management system.

  'That's more like it,’ Rexus gloated with a snarl, halting his terrifying charge less than three feet from the cringing extraterrestrial.

  'You should have given my strategy more of a chance,’ reprimanded the Clubtail.

  'Patience isn't one of my strong suits, Adviser. Take note of that, Gideon, and you may live long enough to see the destruction of this forest.'

  The offworlder's body language betrayed his profound shock at Rexus's bombshell.

  'That's right, you puny weirdo. I may not know what you are or where you hail from, but I do know why you're here. So we can dispense with all this pussyfooting around. There's a rock bigger than Redmount that'll shortly fall from the sky and crush everything around here to death. You've come to perform some kind of miracle on those you call the Chosen that'll save them from said death. Is that about the size of it?'

  Gideon was stunned at the accuracy of the Killjaw King's summation. His mission from God was crumbling about his ears. ‘What do you want from me?’ he repeated in a metallic whisper.

  'All in good time, freak. Right now you must come to grips with the unalterable reality that I decide who lives or dies in this forest. Get used to that fact and quickly. We'll chat later.’ Rexus shifted his noxious attention on to Tank. ‘I'm placing Gideon into your custody, Adviser. Since you're such an unfeeling lump, you won't form an attachment to our guest.'

  'I'm overwhelmed by your confidence in me,’ the Clubtail rumbled in deprecation. In fact he welcomed the duty. Contact with an equal, even superincumbent intelligence was going to be mightily stimulating.

  Ogg came running back holding a bouquet of hastily picked ferns well past their use by date.

  'Discard that filthy stuff,’ commanded the king. The puzzled gofer duly dropped the brownish foliage to the ground as Rexus explained, ‘I'll need our guest to be more cooperative than he has so far been. Hunger is quite a good incentive for many things.'

  'You're planning to starve him into submission?’ Tank postulated.

  'It has a certain appeal,’ maintained the monarch. He cast a cruel eye over Gideon. ‘But let's not overindulge. He is already skinnier than a Fastclaw. If he's not fed occasionally he'll waste away to a useless pile of bones—assuming he has a skeleton under his wrinkly white hide. Perhaps if he gains my favour I'll reward him with a crumb when I return. Orn, you're with me.'

  The long-suffering servant obediently fell into step behind his tyrannical chief as Rexus, his niggling gout flaring up after a night of gorging on tasty red meat, hobbled from his throne.

  Gideon slumped to the ground, propped against the log, and took stock of his dilemma. He was a prisoner of the head of the carnosaurs, a king no less. The reptilian life-forms of this backwater world were vastly underrated. His position as captive was not entirely hopeless. A simple distress call to Vai would have her calculate the best method of extricating him from this setback. Gideon's gloved fingers strayed to the control panel at his belt to switch his comlink back online and the rattle of broken circuitry grated in his ears.

  'Is something awry, aside from your detainment?’ asked the guardian Clubtail.

  'What? Ah, no,’ replied Gideon, further shaken by the drastic turnaround of his fortunes. The panel must have been damaged when Shadower apprehended him. Without it functioning he had absolutely no chance of contacting his ship to organise a rescue.

  'I'm Tank,’ the armoured herbisaur rumbled introductorily.

  Dragged back to his unreal exigency, the alien mumbled disinterestedly, ‘What's a vegetarian like you doing in this nest of reprobates?'

  'Exercising my supremacy.'

  'You've got a high opinion of yourself.'

  'I'm not an egotist like that maniac Rexus, if that's what you reckon. Just a logical thinker.'

  Gideon laughed halfheartedly at the declaration.

  'What amuses you?’ asked the Adviser.

  The Berranian could hardly explain the absurdity of the thought that had popped into his head. The bane of his life was a machine personality with loads of organic attitude, and here he was in the company of an animal captor claiming to reason with analytic rationale akin to a computerised brain. Talk about role reversals.

  'We have much in common,’ Tank suggested.

  'Such as?'

  'Greater brain power than any of the fools around here and I deduce a shared thirst for knowledge.'

  'And how did you reach those conclusions?'

  'Logicality. A visiting creature from above would have to be fairly brainy to glide what must be a long distance from your point of origin. The general purpose for such a trip, logically, would be an ongoing quest to study and learn. It's what I'd do.'

  Gideon was floored by the saurian's stupendous deductive powers. This made Tank potentially more dangerous than the most terrifying Killjaw. It was time to leave. The alien still had one apparatus up his sleeve, or more properly strapped onto it, that could wriggle him free of this internment. He absently rubbed his left wrist and was mortified to discover his Energy Dome gone.

  'Where's the brightly tinted lump that was on my foreleg?’ he craved the Clubtail, putting his query into simple terms for the benefit of his non-technological chaperon.

  'Shadower brought you in shortly before dawn the way you are now. Are you missing a bony plate or vestigial spike?'

  The dismayed outworlder barely managed a reply. ‘Something like that.'

  Tank's curiosity was pricked. Why should a fallen body appendage worry the tail-less two-leg so much? Gideon did not appear the sort to be hung up on looks. The Adviser shelved that odd little mystery to peruse later. Right now he had more important information to pump the alien for. ‘Let us begin,’ he said without preamble.

  'On what?'

  'Your interrogation.'

  'You've got to be joking.'

  'Come now, stranger, you didn't think I was simply going to baby-sit you without asking a few questions. Rexus was shrewd leaving you with me. He's counting that my quizzing you will be more effective than the standard Killjaw cross-examination. We're alike, after all.'

  'Don't bet on it.'

  'I advise you to cooperate. Killjaw methodology is brutish in comparison to my chatting with you.'

  'Rexus doesn't scare me,’ fibbed Gideon.

  'I take it you're not squeamish then. All that blood and screaming won't bother me in the least, but if your kind have a frail disposition...’ The heartless Clubtail left the inference of unpleasantness hanging in the morning air like a boulder teetering on a cliff ledge.

  Gideon reassessed his plight. It was indeed hopeless.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alphie stared unhappily at the bleak hills.

  'Must we really venture into that wasteland?’ he asked Orridus in a sleepy voice.

  Two tortuous nights had passed since the Treefur had embarked in the company of the Shieldhorn and Thunderfoot on the mission to treat the cow's horrendous injuries at some mystery mountain hideaway, and the threesome were waking from their daytime slumber on the threshold of the notorious Uplands.

  'It's not as bad as it appears,’ the old Shortfrill reckoned with a yawn of indifference.

  The marsupial was not as optimistic as his horned compatriot. They were placed on the timberline siding the northwestern shore of Crescent Lake in plain sight of the unappealing rocky high country, the barren slopes in the near distance washed blood-red by the setting sun.

  'If the lizard legends hold true it'll be worse,’ he morosely said, absently grooming his fur. ‘They say all who enter those hills never return.'

  'Bah! I told you before that the haunting is nothing but mumbo-jumbo wrapped up in an old cow's tale to keep the superstitious nosy out of the foothills. I'd be more concerned about our friends overhead.'

  Alphie looked up. Silhouetted against the crimson firmament a flight of aerial reptiles banked eastwards on the spiralling updrafts generated by the highlands. They winged their way across the dusky sky ahead of the gathering twilight.

  'The skies still haven't emptied of those flying devils,’ he huffed. ‘It's more than coincidence that they've been gliding over the forest every day since we took up with our giant patient.'

  Orridus glanced at the immobile and unheeding Thunderfoot standing a ways back out of sight in the cover of the dense woodland. Not all of the broadleaf trees had shed their orange crowns yet, providing a measure of foliage to hide beneath.

  'I've never heard of the big Lizardwings coming this far inland,’ the solitarian conceded. ‘They're more usually found over the openness of the plains. If forced down into the trees they'll damage their wing skins.'

  'Do you think their appearance is tied up with the cow, horn-head?'

  'You can bet your tail on it. Rexus has forged a number of unholy alliances with disreputable reptiles from the ratbag races. Those sky-loving lizards are amongst such allies. I'm betting he's got them looking specifically for Bronte here.'

  'If that's the case, king fang-face is going to an awful lot of trouble over this one cow.'

  'That he is,’ Orridus pondered uselessly. ‘We'll move out as soon as it's dark. The sooner we're out of this wood and in the hills, the safer I'll feel.'

  'At least one of us will,’ muttered Alphie, returning his unsettled gaze to the treeless vista of the darkening Uplands.

  The Shieldhorn turned about and ambled through the shrubs and thinning trees demarcating the edge of the forest, the serenely lapping waters of the nearby lake at odds with his unrest. Apart from her shallow breathing Bronte stood perfectly motionless, not appearing to notice the oldster pull alongside. She had not uttered a single word or rumble since that bloody episode on the plain, and hardly seemed aware of her surroundings, let alone her poor and deteriorating condition. Her continuing unresponsiveness worried Orridus greatly. He looked over her wound in the fading light, as he did every evening before setting off.

  The bleeding had largely stopped but for a trickle of redness seeping from the crust of caked blood whenever the Thunderfoot moved. Bronte's injury was plainly troubling her as the already slow pace of her forced trek was beginning to noticeably fall off. She was not the only one exhibiting fatigue. Her grizzled rescuer was tiring badly. He was by no means a strapping young bull anymore. If Orridus bungled leading his newfound companions to their destination, he could soon lose the ailing cow and dangerously exhaust himself in the process.

  Alphie scooted up the Shortfrill's tail to take up his customary riding position on the dinosaur's back. When night fell he was an enviable bundle of energy. ‘How far are we now from this sanctuary of yours, thorn-nose?'

  'If we push hard, maybe a night's march, but in reality it'll be another two. It can't be helped, but Bronte is slowing us down considerably.'

  'She will make it, won't she, spiky-brow?'

  Orridus was disinclined to admit that her survival was touch and go. ‘Must you be so insulting to me, Treefur?’ he grumped.

  'I never said I'd be friendly,’ Alphie reminded his steed. Darkness rapidly swallowed up the land as the lowering sun sank behind the western hills. ‘Giddy up,’ he prompted Orridus.

  Nudging Bronte forwards, the griping Shieldhorn rumbled, ‘I swear you're getting too comfortable up there.'

  The Treefur dug his tiny claws into Orridus's thick, scaled hide. The hoary plant-eater was right. Alphie was actually starting to enjoy being an equestrian.

  The oddball procession of Thunderfoot and Shortfrill forsook Mother Forest and continued along the shrubby lakeshore. Crescent Lake was aptly named, for the largest body of freshwater in the region was shaped like a giant horseshoe. Its eastern tip emptying into the Swamp of Despair, while its opposite point curved northwest to hook up with the meandering river feeding its voluminous depths. Orridus steered Bronte along that marshy curve, treading the constricted corridor formed by the wind-rustled rushes fencing the lake on one side and the thicketed forestland hemming the travellers in on the other. Alphie maintained his guard atop the swaying Shieldhorn, watching and listening for danger while Orridus smelt the breeze for any approaching trouble. Between them, the pair's combined senses could detect any threat before it closed to a range where it presented a real problem. It was a workable, if outwardly mismatched, arrangement.

  Shortly before midnight Orridus overtook the dazed and unthinking Thunderfoot and used his lesser bulk to bring the cow to a halt. ‘We'll rest here for a spell,’ he informed Alphie, the Treefur promptly dismounting to hunt for the bugs and crawling insects that made up his diet.

  'How can you stand to eat those?’ Orridus asked, watching distastefully while the marsupial eagerly crunched down his first catch for the night, an outrageously horned beetle.

  'It beats chewing on plants,’ Alphie replied. ‘I tried snacking on some leaves a couple of seasons back when the six-legs became a little scarce. They made me throw up. I'd rather swallow lizard poop than munch on a shrub again.’ The Treefur glanced sharply at Orridus, who was lightening his load by fertilising a bunch of lakeshore ferns, and quickly added, ‘Figuratively speaking, that is.'

  'Point taken,’ the Shieldhorn said, kicking his betraying dung into the water with a soft splash to secrete his passage. “I still think eating creepy crawlies that scurry about in the dirt is disgusting.'