The two predators on the sides turned to chase after the parasaurs, but the one in the center had his eyes on Tom, and he stepped toward the trike with an angry roar. I ordered Tom to fall back a few steps, but then I imagined him just keeping his horns pointed at his enemy so that the carno’s teeth couldn’t get past the trike’s armored crest. Tom was much larger than the carno, so I imagined that he’d be able to protect himself for a minute or so while I figured out how to bring Bob and Sonny back around.
The carno rushed forward and tried to bite Tom, but the trike pulled his head back and then slammed a horn into the attacking dino. I saw the tip tear into the side of the carno’s cheek, but it coiled back with a hiss that seemed to indicate it wasn’t as much hurt as annoyed.
Bob and Sonny had quickly outpaced the other two carnos, and I commanded Bob to slow his sprint dramatically while I pushed Sonny for more speed. The pair of carnos angled their run so that they were heading right for Bob. This was what I wanted, and I told the parasaur to accelerate just enough so that he stayed fifty feet ahead of them. They gave chase, and I mentally commanded Sonny to swing back around toward Tom. It was going to take about ten seconds for Sonny to come to his friend’s aid, so I turned back around to check on Hope. The smallest of my parasaurs was giving the cave filled with the orange birds a drive-by, and the creatures were filling the air with angry screeches. They shut up as soon as the carnos came close, though, and the sight would have made me laugh if I wasn’t still really fucking worried about this whole battle turning around at any moment.
Katie and Cher had arrived to stand next to Nicole, so I commanded Hope to dash toward them.
I shifted my attention back to the boy team just in time to catch Sonny slamming into the side of the carno that was harassing Tom. Just like with the other group, the carno hadn’t expected to be broadsided by a parasaur, and it tumbled to the ground like a blown over tumbleweed. The devil-horned predator snarled and thrashed on the ground trying to get up, but Tom was already circling around toward the beast’s back. The carno realized the trike was trying to angle in for an attack, and it turned to snap at Tom, but then I commanded Sonny to step in closer, and the carno got distracted by the enemy that had just knocked it over.
As soon as the carno had its attention focused on Sonny, Tom charged forward with his head leveled and punched his horns through the predator’s skull.
Now there were only two carnos left in the boys’ group and two with the girls’ group.
I spun my focus back to the females in time to see Hope run past the wall of Cher, Katie, and Nicole. Hope’s chest was heaving with heavy breaths and I commanded her to slow her run as soon as she was past the line of the other dinos I had tamed. I instructed Cher, Katie, and Nicole to charge toward the two chasing carnos, but I switched up their formation a bit differently than the males. I put both Katie and Nicole in the front so that the two female trikes could put their horns into play first, and I had Cher follow some forty feet behind them.
This pair of carnos weren’t as stupid as I thought they would be. I thought they would just charge right into the trikes’ horns and get turned into ground beef, but they knew what they were up against and skidded to a stop. My trikes were still running at full speed though, and they closed the gap before the carnos could really run away. If anything, their decision to try and escape ended up leaving their sides and backs exposed.
Nicole and Katie tore into them like needles through a pin cushion.
The carnos let out twin screams of agony, but there was nothing they could do to escape. Nicole’s left horn had probably ripped apart the spine of the carno she’d impaled, and Katie’s horns passed through the right flank of her carno and were coming out its stomach. Guts and blood spilled everywhere across the grass, and the two trikes began to shake their heads like bulls with their horns caught on the corpses of matadors. The carnos wailed again, and then their bodies tore open with an explosion of red blood.
I commanded the females to run over to the males, and I turned my attention back to the last two carnos. They were still chasing after Bob, and I commanded him to circle around so he’d lead them in a wide circle that would take them back to Tom and Sonny. My parasaur complied, and the pair of carnos followed.
“What is Bob doing?” Trel asked me, and I gasped with surprise. My lover was perched on the wall right next to me, and I hadn’t even noticed her. Sheela was also standing on the same rung of the ladder as me, and one of her arms was wrapped over my shoulder while her other clung to the wall. I hadn’t even noticed either of them, but I guessed that it was because I was so focused on the battle.
“He’s going to circle around,” I said as I returned my attention to Bob’s long gait.
“It looks like he is running away from--”
“I’ve got this,” I interrupted Trel. “Watch.”
Bob was sprinting across the edge of our clearing in a clockwise direction. It really did look like he was running away from Tom, but the male triceratops was racing toward the apex of Bob’s loop, and both Nicole and Katie were heading there as well.
“Ohhhh,” Trel whispered under her breath. “I get it.”
“Let’s see if this works,” I said as Tom joined up with his two women, Katie and Nicole, as they moved up north. The trikes were slower than the carnos and the parasaur, so I had to kind of adjust their trajectory as they sped toward the north cave.
Bob was getting too far ahead, so I slowed his speed a bit. This gave the carnosaurs an excited boost of speed, and I had to make him run a bit faster so they didn’t nab him. I needed them to be just close enough, so they tunnel visioned on Bob’s tail, but not so close that they could bite him. I just didn’t want them to notice the trikes charging at their flank.
The distance between the parasaur’s pursuers and the trikes closed, and I held my breath with anticipation.
Impact.
The two carnotaurus never saw what hit them.
Tom, Nicole, and Katie slammed into their flanks like a train with a spikey snow plow on the front. The carnos actually lifted off the ground and slammed into the wall of the ramp below the orange bird cave. One of the carnos let out a surprised scream, but the other one who bore the brunt of the nine horns seemed to flop over dead instantly. The pair was crushed against the wall like ground beef under a spiked hammer, and the trikes continued to push the carnos into the wall until I gave them the command to shake free and come back to the fort.
“Wow,” both Trel and Sheela said in unison as they looked at me.
“We did it,” I said as relief flooded my head, chest, and stomach. I realized I was shaking a bit and my heart was racing.
“No, Victor,” Sheela said as she shook her head. “We did nothing. It was you and your ability with these creatures that saved our lives.”
“Well, we all worked to build this wall,” I said. “And we’ll all…” my head was really spinning, and I felt Sheela’s arm tighten around my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Trel asked, and her words bounced around in my head strangely. My skull kind of felt like it was overheating, and I really wanted to sit down.
“I think so,” I replied, but I felt really nauseous, and the ground was starting to vibrate beneath me. I felt like I was car sick, and I kept waiting for the ground to stop moving.
But it didn’t, and I felt myself falling.
I heard Trel, Sheela, and Kacerie shout my name, but they sounded really far away. It was like I was sinking into a pool of warm water, but then it became like ice, and I couldn’t stop shaking.
Then everything turned to darkness.