A part of his brain knew the creatures weren’t interested in attacking him, but only in fleeing from the noise and death in the adjoining cavern. That voice of reason however was very hard to hear over the roar of the primal rage beast that Bishop had fought to control every moment of his life. The raptors’ talons had done more than tear his flesh. They had almost completely severed the part of him that was human.
Almost.
He rose to his feet with a howl and started swinging. His fists encountered only empty air. The surviving raptors had all fled out across the cavern floor. He turned, gazing up at the ledge to see if more were coming. There weren’t any more raptors, but something else was coming out of the tunnel, or more precisely, someone. The searching rebels had followed the stampede into the passage. The leader of the small band spotted him and raised his Kalashnikov.
The beast inside urged him to scale the cliff, brave a storm of lead and tear the attackers apart. The human told him to run, not out of fear, but to protect his friends. If he ran, the rebels wouldn’t be looking for the others.
He ran.
As he turned away, he glimpsed Knight and Felice, two prone figures barely visible in the recess high above. He shook his head, hoping that Knight would understand. Don’t fire at them, you’ll give away your position. Stay hidden; I’ll be fine.
A thud somewhere off to his left, and a rifle report a millisecond later. The shot went wide, missing Bishop, but if the gunman knew anything about how to use his rifle, he’d be able to correct his aim. Or he might just get off a lucky shot.
Bishop zigged left for a few steps then right, then left again. Bullets chased him across the plain, but as he increased the distance, the shots became less frequent and less accurate. A few raptors ran along with him, as if hunting him, and perhaps that was exactly what they were trying to do, but he made no attempt to discourage them. If the rebels believed that the dinosaurs had finished him off, maybe it would clear the way for the others to escape. He didn’t dare stop, not yet.
As he ran, putting one foot in front of the other in an almost mechanical rhythm, he felt the rage finally begin to subside. There was still a lot of pain. His anger had anaesthetized him to much of it, and now it was returning with a vengeance. His entire body throbbed with each step. But he didn’t stop.
The velociraptors had finally scattered, and he thought he had seen the last of them. He wasn’t overly concerned about the creatures. They were dangerous, but didn’t exhibit the hyper-intelligent pack hunter behavior that had mischaracterized their appearance in dinosaur movies. Without a mass attack, they would never be able to take him down. Right now, dinosaurs were the least of his—
“What the hell?”
There was something on the horizon, something that didn’t belong in a cave deep beneath the Earth’s surface, especially not when that cave was a time capsule sealed up for more than sixty-five million years. But there it was: a wall of some kind. As he got closer, he saw that the wall was only the beginning. Beyond it lay an entire city.
A noise like an avalanche rumbled out of the ruins. Before he could even begin to process this latest sensory input, Rook ran out of the city gates.
Rook?
Queen came out behind Rook, bumped into him and nearly fell. They saw Bishop and froze in their tracks.
Queen?
I’m hallucinating, he thought. It’s the only explanation.
Then a dinosaur the size of a city bus appeared behind them both.
Please let me be hallucinating.
The Carcharodontosaurus charged. So did Bishop.
Queen felt one of his hands close on her shoulder, then she was hurtling through the air. Rook was swept away in the opposite direction, leaving nothing between the enormous predator and the last person Queen expected to find in the underworld.
The dinosaur snapped its head forward, jaws agape, but Bishop was faster. He broke to the right, avoiding the bite, and as he slipped past, he lowered his shoulder and bulldozed into the monster’s left rear leg.
It should have been about as effective as tackling an oak tree, but Bishop’s timing was uncannily perfect. He slammed into the dinosaur’s foot just as it was rising, and his momentum swept the mighty limb back just enough to trip it up. With its head still lowered, the Carcharodontosaurus did an ungainly face-plant, which twisted into an uncontrollable sideways roll that shook the cavern floor.
“Bishop?” Rook was crouched, the spearhead gripped in his right hand. He grinned like a maniac. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to drop in without calling first? What if we’d been—”
The dinosaur’s roar cut him off, and suddenly it was back on its feet and coming around for another attack. Bishop was also poised for action. His face was drawn into a bestial snarl, and despite the fact that the monster towered above him, there wasn’t a hint of fear in his eyes.
Even Bishop could not hope to defeat such a beast, but his resolve was inspirational. Bishop wasn’t alone, after all. Queen scrambled back to her feet and began waving her arms. “Hey, asshole. Over here.”
The dinosaur paused, swiveling its gigantic head so that one of its fist-sized black eyes stared at her.
“Shit!” Rook yelled, also waving his arms to distract it. He began jumping up and down. “That was a really dumb idea, babe. No, you stupid gecko, this way! Tasty treat, right here!”
The head tilted in the other direction, and for the first time, the monster seemed to realize that it had found prey that behaved very differently than its usual fare. For just an instant, Queen wondered if they might be able to frustrate it into simply giving up.
Bishop, however, opted for the less subtle approach. He charged again.
With its side-facing eyes, the dinosaur didn’t see his approach. Not that it mattered. Bishop launched himself at its snout, gripping one of its nostril ridges in his hand, and swung himself up onto its head. The Carcharodontosaurus barely seemed to notice. With a flick of its head, it flung Bishop away. Amazingly, Bishop landed cat-like on his feet, and whirled around for another charge.
“Great plan!” Rook shouted, still waving his arms. “We’ll piss it off until it drops dead from terminal irritation.”
Bishop ignored the comment. He ran at the creature again, and once more, the dinosaur with its attention divided between the two shouting figures to either side, did not appear to notice his approach. Bishop got in close and ducked past its stubby forearms, crouching beneath it.
Rook understood immediately and flung the spearhead in Bishop’s direction. Bishop caught the stone flake out of the air, and in a single smooth motion, oriented its sharp tip upward and drove it into the monster’s exposed belly.
The dinosaur let out a deafening shriek and leaped back, thrusting down with its tail for added propulsion. Its entire ponderous mass lifted so high into the air that Queen wondered if it was going to take flight. Instead, it landed with an earth-shaking thump, several yards behind where it had been, its full attention now fixed on the annoying little creature that had just bitten it. Queen saw that Bishop’s hands were coated in fresh blood, but empty. The spearhead remained buried in the dinosaur’s soft tissue.