'Balticea can't keep us apart forever,’ he mused.

  'Yes she can. At least as long as she remains herd leader.'

  Chappy deflated his nose sac in resignation. ‘And your grandmother's probably going to live for eternity out of sheer spite.'

  'Don't be silly,’ chided Bronte. ‘When I do become Matriarch I'll make sure you are welcome anytime.'

  'Have I missed something, Bron? Last I heard your fellow Thunderfeet still treat you like an outcast and freak. They'll never accept you as their leader.'

  Bronte immediately became downcast.

  Chappy could have stepped on his own tail for his insensitivity. He understood the cow's questionable standing in the herd was a sore point for her. Bronte needed mirth now. The bull dropped to all fours and, burying his flat muzzle in the pine needles carpeting the forest floor, exhaled sharply to blow a fountain of trodden vegetation skywards. Bronte could not help herself and spontaneously giggled at the ridiculous sight of the rust-coloured geyser.

  Wiping the soil from his bill with his forefeet, Chappy resumed his bipedal stance and tactfully changed subjects. ‘Have you seen much of Sorrin lately?'

  At mention of her sire Bronte again grew gloomy. Chappy gave a low honk of self-reproach. He would have to extricate his foot from his snout once more.

  'I haven't seen father in quite some time. You don't think anything has happened to him?'

  The Duckbill dismissed her fears. ‘Sorrin's a tough old stick. I'm sure he's just fine.’ There was a note of uncertainty in Chappy's reply, however. Lone bulls lived a perilous existence devoid of the security offered by herd life and often met with an untimely and gruesome end.

  Sorrin had taken Beliann's death harder than even Balticea could have foreseen. Inconsolable, he had initially rejected his cow-calf and forsaken the herd to take up a mournful hermitage, wandering the plains alone burdened with his undying grief. But the parental bond is an unbreakable tie. The absentee bull infrequently returned to the band to check on his daughter's progress, meaning Bronte found it difficult to cope having a sometime father who visited only when it suited him.

  'Enough about me,’ Bronte decided. ‘Have you mated yet, Chappy?'

  'Bronte!'

  'What? It's a perfectly normal question.'

  No matter what the time period or the race concerned, all teenagers are preoccupied with sex.

  Bronte thought she could see her friend's vivid nose sac redden further and snickered. Chappy was plainly discomfited by her frank query. ‘I'm waiting for your answer,’ she pestered him.

  The bull studied the ground beneath his feet very intently and mumbled, ‘I'm not ready for that sort of commitment yet.'

  'Phooey! You've been ready for the last three seasons.'

  She was right. Duckbills matured faster than Thunderfeet and Chappy was easily now of adult size and temperament to compete for the attentions of an eligible cow. Physically, that is. Emotionally, he was busy enjoying bachelorhood and did not relish the prospect of settling down with a lifetime mate to raise broods. Although there was that cute little cow in the western section of his herd regularly giving him the eye...

  'What of you, Bronte? Any thoughts of finding yourself a bull?’ Chappy reckoned the best form of defence was attack.

  'Thunderfeet don't work that way.'

  Chappy was perplexed. ‘I thought all herds operated the same way. Mating season comes around and all unattached bull suitors try and woo their pick of the fancy-free cows.'

  Bronte shook her head in disagreement. ‘Grandmother will choose my mate for me.'

  'You're not serious,’ the Duckbill honked incredulously.

  'That has been the Thunderfoot way for time immemorial, Chappy. Only the herd matriarch is qualified to judge which bull will best partner what cow and vice versa. She's the perfect matchmaker.'

  'The notion of arranged mating is so outdated. Does it actually work?'

  'Seems to, although I have no practical experience of it.’ Bronte sighed ruefully. ‘I doubt I ever will.'

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'Isn't it obvious? Look at me, Chappy. No bull in his right mind will want to mate with a disfigured cow, even if she happens to be the future head of his herd.'

  Chappy began to mentally ruminate ... a difficult feat for a rattlebrain Duckbill and one Bronte was sure gave her likable pal a splitting headache every time he thought hard. ‘Aren't Balticea's commands irrefutable?’ he finally expunged.

  'Only when they suit me,’ she said with a puckish rumble.

  'You aside, the rest of the herd must completely obey her will. True?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Then a selected bull has no choice but to comply. Problem solved. Balticea will order your mate to love you.'

  Bronte was unconvinced. ‘That's hardly flattering for me. How would you like being told you had to love someone?'

  'Most unappealing. But then I'm not a Thunderfoot.'

  Bronte fumed at having her own tradition thrown back in her snout. She retorted by saying, ‘Your point is irrelative anyway.'

  'What relative?’ the Duckbill frowned.

  'No, dummy—irrelative. You know, irrelevant.'

  'I do humbly apologise for my stupidity.'

  Bronte rumbled in reproof. Chappy was not as dull-witted as he made out and was undoubtedly pulling her tail in mischief. ‘As I was saying, my herd has an acute shortage of bachelor bulls. I am destined to be a spinster matriarch.'

  'I'm sure Balticea will find a way to see you mated,’ Chappy confidently predicted. ‘That old biddy's the most single-minded reptile I know.'

  'A leader has to be,’ rationalised Bronte. ‘At least that's what grandmother preaches. That's why I can't fathom how Duckbill herding functions at all without a defined individual in charge.'

  Chappy was unable to supply a satisfactory answer other than, ‘My kind has no need for a controlling cow or bull. Duckbills generally act on an unspoken consensus. We're our own masters.’ The last he said with unabashed pride.

  Bronte found the concept of a leaderless life unnatural, yet the cultural differences between her and Chappy only enhanced their illicit friendship. The elongating afternoon shadows graphically reminded the Thunderfoot cow of Florella's emphatic instruction to return to the herd before dark. ‘I've got to go, Chap,’ she announced.

  'Another stolen moment comes to an end.'

  'You sound bitter.'

  The Duckbill gave a long, sad hoot. ‘Our time together is always so short, Bron.'

  'If grandmother misses me, we'll have no time to spend with each other at all.'

  'We won't shortly anyway. I'll be joining the annual migration soon enough.'

  'Must you go?'

  'You of all reptiles should understand custom.'

  The lengthy trek north was more than mere tradition. Duckbills and Shieldhorns alike responded to the changing seasons on an innate level. It was an irresistible calling to journey that overrode conscious thought. Instinct dictated action far more than whim in the animal kingdom.

  'If only you'd been hatched a Thunderfoot bull,’ Bronte idly wished. ‘We'd have been ideal for one another.'

  'And have legs like tree trunks? No thanks. Now be off with you before you're late getting back.'

  Bronte bade her secret friend farewell and hastened back along the forest path the way she had come. Twilight enveloped the land with its delicate air of duskiness, and the plodding cow became a humungous silhouette in a realm of deepening shadow. Nocturnal insects began their predictable chorus of chirping to welcome the onset of night, increasing Bronte's anxiety to get back to the plains before darkness fell completely. Her worrying made her incautious, and she failed to see a monstrous shade detach itself from the gloom ahead when she was set to cross the shrubby threshold leading onto Fernwalk.

  'What have I told you about walking game trails by yourself, daughter.'

  Bronte came to a startled halt. ‘Father!'

  'You know of another Thunderfoot who calls you that?'

  The cow wished so much to greet her sire in the proper manner by rubbing each other's necks, but Sorrin's typical aloofness dissuaded her from such familiarity. She therefore stood uncertainly before him. He looked haggard and far older than his years in spite of the flattering dimness.

  The bull continued to chastise his scion. ‘You haven't yet attained the size where you can easily fend of Killjaw attack, Bronte. They are ambush killers. A lone immature cow in the outlying forest presents such hunters with a tempting target.'

  'I forgot,’ she muttered.

  'You do so at your own peril.'

  Bronte resented her father's lecture. How presumptuous of him to scold her when he was not her full-time parent!

  'I see you're still associating with that duckbilled friend of yours.'

  Her resentment darkened into rage. ‘How dare you spy on me?'

  'I would hardly call it spying. It's fatherly interest.'

  'I've had no father since the night I hatched,’ she vehemently declared. Her sire's unwanted watchfulness had opened the floodgate on her emotions. Years of pent-up animosity toward him began spilling out. ‘I might as well have had no father at all.'

  That stung Sorrin, for her rebuff had the ring of truth. ‘I had my reasons,’ he countered in a measured voice.

  'I cannot imagine any reason that justifies abandoning a calf.'

  'You look so much like her,’ Sorrin whispered.

  'Who?'

  'Your mother.'

  Bronte faltered, her anger suddenly drying up. In a rare moment of veracity Sorrin opened up to his dumbfounded daughter.

  'Every season I find it harder to look upon you, Bronte. You remind me of Beliann in so many ways—looks, mannerisms, speech—including that streak of stubbornness the pair of you inherited from your grandmother. In you she certainly lives and that is both a reassurance and a curse. My dearest mate is so near yet impossibly far, and that is what's unbearably hurtful. That is what drove me to my solitude.'

  Comprehension dawned on the stunned cow. She had thought Sorrin shunned her because of her aberrant countenance. Instead, Bronte's father simply could not cope with the everyday trauma of seeing the memory of her mother alive and resplendent in their daughter. His hermitage was understandable then, if not pardonable.

  'Get out of my sight, Bronte,’ Sorrin abruptly rumbled.

  'Father?'

  'Leave me!'

  Bronte looked at her sire in the last rays of the failing light and recoiled in terror. Gone was the lucid, caring bull of a moment ago. In his place towered the abhorrent shell of Sorrin consumed by his renewed grief. His eyes were dull and callous, his snout contorted in a despicable grimace of abject misery. He had restored his impenetrable wall of selfishness that shielded him from the sorrows of the world and firmly distanced those who cared for him.

  'Go now,’ Sorrin commanded of Bronte a third time in a strangled whisper. He stepped aside and she fled past her melancholic sire, his presence as dark and brooding as the enfolding night.

  * * * *

  Dawn broke sullen and overcast. Dense cloudbanks rolled through the leaden sky, buffeted by a stiff nor'easter. A watery sun struggled to rise and break through the murky ceiling to bathe the waking land with its guaranteed, albeit pale, warmth and light. Far below the veiled disc of fire, those within and without Mother Forest stirred from their standing slumber to greet the new morn with first expectation and then despondency. Daybreak was a dismal affair and the unmistakable taint of rain wafted on the wind. It promised to be a miserably wet day.

  The Thunderfeet woke and dutifully followed their herd leader as Balticea led them across dewy Fernwalk back to the forest's edge in their daily morning ritual. The sauropods spent each night on the plains a safe distance from the wood and her ambushing carnosaurs, returning each sunrise to browse at the timberline. Feeding was the principal daytime activity for these gargantuan eaters, and from dawn till dusk they ate almost ceaselessly.

  Bronte had no appetite this day. After sneaking back to the herd unnoticed under cover of early darkness, she had spent a tormented night in dream-plagued slumber. Waking tired and irritable she now stared listlessly at the tasty greenery, reliving her tribulation in the cold, dreary light of day.

  The nightmare had been vividly real. Bronte had been plodding down a spectral avenue lined with ghostly trees, the silvered trunks strangely being the newly emergent broadleaf boles and not the age-old conifers. She was herdless and perilously vulnerable. At her back the cow sensed a vast malevolence, unseen but dangerously close on her heels. Whatever that nearing presence may have been, it was unfriendly and frightening beyond belief. Prevented by her gait from hastening along at nothing quicker than a brisk amble, Bronte nevertheless strove to outrun her mystery pursuer and failed. It was gaining fast. A shining figure all of a sudden darted from out of the unearthly grove on her right and the spectre of Chappy danced merrily before Bronte, insanely chanting, 'Fate is done. We're but one, soon to be none. Or shall we be one?' before dashing from sight on the other forested side of the pathway.

  Bronte felt the overwhelming, crushing weight of her remorseless chaser pressing down on her and let out a soundless cry of despair. She slowed as her pillar-like legs felt like they were moving through quicksand. When it seemed certain the cow would be consumed by the shapeless, unnamed danger, salvation appeared ahead of her in the form of a dazzlingly ethereal brilliance. Intuiting the beckoning light to be a saviour of sorts, Bronte fought against her torpor and pushed her sluggish limbs to their physical limit. Somehow quickening her pace she raced for the formless luminosity with its magnetic air of hopefulness, but with each tortured step Bronte underwent a calamitous change. Flesh dropped from her mammoth bones in great chunks, littering the ivory boulevard in a bloody trail, and as she reached the glow of safeness she became a skeletal shadow of her former self. Bronte had come awake with a start at that fortuitous moment and panted heavily in the starlit blackness for the long remainder of the night, fearful of falling asleep again.

  The cow blinked away her remembrance and tried to make sense of her nightmarish dream. Could that surreal wood have been the heavenly Spirit Forest? Had she momentarily died and passed from this world to the afterlife? If so, how and for what purpose? Unable to fathom her frightful incubus, Bronte could not dispel the nagging feeling that she had been the recipient of a chilling premonition.

  'Feeling guilty over last night's tardiness, Bronte?'

  The teenaged cow numbly turned her bulk to come under Florella's disapproving stare.

  'You let me down badly,’ chided her aunt. ‘The lateness of your return did not go unobserved.'

  Bronte had a sinking feeling. ‘Grandmother?'

  'She demands to see you.'

  'You told her of my outing?'

  Florella sighed heavily. ‘I didn't have to. Balticea's body may be feeble now, but not her mind. She's been aware of your jaunts and as a result I am in as much strife as you, my girl.'

  'That's unfair, Aunt Flo. I pestered you to let me go into the forest by myself. I'll shoulder the blame.'

  'I wish it were that simple. But the fact of the matter is the Grand Matriarch does not condone my abetting your excursions to see Chappy.'

  'My what?'

  'Come now, Bronte. I was young once and a bit of a rebel too. What other reason would have compelled you to play hooky from the herd so often? If I was standing in your tracks I'd probably have done the same thing myself.'

  'You, Aunty Flo?’ Bronte was shocked. Her foster mother had always seemed so conservative.

  'Is that so hard to believe. Why, I remember one time penetrating the forest interior as far as the verge of the Uplands.'

  'That's forbidden territory.'

  'For good reason. It's a desolate, windswept region that was no place for a curious Thunderfoot cow. But, like you, I wished to defy the leader's edict and mayhap test her resolve as well. I received a severe scolding from the Grand Matriarch for my trouble. There isn't much that the old girl misses.’ Florella gave a mirthful chuckle. ‘Perhaps I was trying to recapture my lost youth by aiding your disobedience. I should have known Balticea would surmise the ruse in the end. The stiffness of my punishment then is probably deserved.'

  'What has grandmother done to you?'

  Florella's eyes moistened. ‘Balticea has stripped me of my mothering privileges. She has declared me unfit to parent you and will assume that role herself.'

  'She can't do that!’ protested Bronte.

  'She can and has, my dear.'

  Bronte nuzzled her aunty's quivering neck. ‘I won't let her,’ she sobbed. ‘She's such a cold-hearted bitch.'

  'That's quite enough, Bronte. The Grand Matriarch may be many things, but she is still your grandmother. I'll not tolerate any disrespect toward her. Speaking of which, you'd better hurry. Balticea is waiting for you over by the thicket ferns. Her mood will not improve if you tarry.'

  Bronte pulled back, a puzzled look on her face. ‘Why did you help me?'

  Florella smiled in that warming way of hers and replied, ‘I like Chappy and good friends should not be kept apart. Now run along.'

  The Grand Matriarch was in a foul temper and greeted her granddaughter with open hostility. Bronte had never seen the ancient cow so livid before and cringed as she ambled to within speaking distance of her.

  'Step closer, child,’ Balticea curtly said. ‘What I have to say is for your ears alone and not the business of the herd.'

  Bronte reluctantly edged nearer to her intimidating elder and hung her head low.

  'What have you to say for yourself then?’ demanded the Grand Matriarch.

  Bronte, wishing the earth would just open up and swallow her, pluckily stood her ground and that fact impressed Balticea. Finally, the guilty teen made a clean breast of her deception.

  'It is good to hear your admission to seeing that disgustingly cheerful Duckbill behind my back,’ commended Balticea, after Bronte had finished unburdening herself. ‘Truth is far better than falsehood.'