Dinosaur World Omnibus Page 36

  Yet that was the situation in which they found themselves, and Honeywood hated this stupid world more and more. As they broke into a clearing she cast her eyes skyward to the great orange orb spattered with swirling red gases and its single massive all-encompassing eye. They often joked the thing was their god, and yet this was the first time Honeywood was actually starting to seriously consider such a thing. After all, it could not have been more foolish than accepting the existence of gun-toting dinosaur-men.

  Evening was setting in by this time, and Honeywood knew from long experience just how quickly night could fall. They should probably start looking for somewhere to make camp, although she wanted to be on the trail of Seward again by first light. The sooner they could get out of the swamp the better. Stiggs was ahead of their party, examining Seward’s diary, his map firmly locked within his head. Garza had proved of especial use in tracking Seward’s spoor, and Honeywood found herself pleasantly surprised by her feelings towards him. At first she had expected to resent him, but he was calm, professional and knew not to let his mouth run away with him. That he was learning from her was obvious, although Honeywood didn’t mind the competition. People never fought one another in the pits, just animals, and Honeywood didn’t care to be the number one pit fighter. That she was didn’t mean that much to her, and if Garza could steal some of the limelight he was welcome to it.

  Watching him scout the area, his muscled naked torso glistening with sweat in the fading light, she wondered whether he was seeing anyone. After all, if she was finished with Seward it meant she was single again.

  But was she finished with Seward? They may have been lovers, but neither had ever really declared their love for the other. They didn’t whisper sweet nothings in the other’s ear, didn’t give the other expensive gifts, didn’t embrace at all unless it was during the act of love-making. They were more sexual partners than lovers, and just because Seward had strayed during their relationship it was no reason to fault him for it. Maybe he just assumed she had been doing the same. It wasn’t as though they were married or anything.

  It was something she could take up with Seward once she found him. A part of her wondered whether not finding him at all would actually make things a lot easier in her mind.

  “Something’s been through here recently,” Garza said, coming to join her then.

  “Hostile?”

  “No. And not a dinosaur-man either, thank God. Some form of ceratops I figure, but I’m no expert. Ran through about half an hour age and headed off in that direction.”

  Honeywood glanced to where he was waving, but it wasn’t the direction in which they had come or the direction they were going so she didn’t think much about it. Herbivores were only dangerous if they had young to protect or if they were themselves attacked first, so if one had wandered through recently it didn’t mean much to her.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  Garza shook his head.

  “Then we should set the tents and see about getting some sleep.” They had a few provisions remaining, although with two of their packs lost they had been forced into strict rationing. Honeywood had little appetite in this oppressive heat anyway, and her mind was too anxious about dinosaur-men to consider much about eating. She glanced to where Aubin was hanging back, looking at the trees nervously as though she feared pursuit. “Do me a favour, Abe,” Honeywood said softly. “Stay close to her. All this has spooked her.”

  “Ashley Honeywood taking an interest in another human being? What would Valentine say?”

  “He’d probably throw her in the pit and take bets on how long I could protect her from a megalosaurus.”

  Garza smiled tightly. “Wish you were joking. Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  Honeywood reflected once more just how wrong she had been about Garza. While she doubted he was a nice guy – no one on this world was nice – he certainly had a softer side to him. She watched as he carefully approached Aubin, although Honeywood could not hear the words. Whatever he was saying, it calmed the girl somewhat, and within the space of a minute she had smiled and even chuckled at something. Honeywood was pleased something was going right at least, although she had a sudden sobering thought that the only reason Garza was being so nice to the girl was because he was trying to get in Aubin’s pants. Aubin was certainly the youngest person in the entire colony, the only teenager in fact, and instantly did Honeywood become protective of her all over again.

  Still, it was something to be dealt with later. There was no way Garza would try anything while they were all out here together in the swamp.

  She moved over to where Stiggs was still studying the book he had taken from that Hargreaves woman. Stiggs was a good thirty metres from the others, and as she approached Honeywood had time to reflect upon him also. She still didn’t like him, and wouldn’t pretend she did, but whatever Valentine had put him among them for, he hadn’t hampered their progress in any way. Likely Valentine just wanted someone to keep an eye on things; maybe he intended to make a documentary out of their adventure and present it before Honeywood’s next pit fight.

  “We’re bedding down,” she told Stiggs as she reached him.

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  She shrugged and went to turn away, although asked instead, “Anything useful in that book? You don’t ever seem to keep your nose out of it.”

  “Useful? Not sure. Interesting though. Did you know there’s a diceratops? It’s like a triceratops, but with only two horns.”

  “That could be what wandered through here.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Garza found tracks.”

  “Oh. What did the tracks tell him?”

  “That a certatops came through.”

  “Well, obviously. I meant what else did they tell him?”

  “What else could they tell him? He said an animal ran through here about half an hour ago, what more do you need?”

  “Excuse me, did you say run?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Have you ever seen a ceratops?”

  Honeywood thought back. She had never seen one in the flesh, but everyone knew what a triceratops looked like, with its bony crest, three horns, sharp beak and big lumbering body. “So what?”

  “So what? Honeywood, ceratops are large herbivores. They’re like rhinos or elephants. When was the last time you saw an elephant run?”

  “When it was charging something?”

  “Or?”

  Honeywood’s face fell. “When it was running away.”

  “How sure is Garza that the creature came through half an hour ago? And more importantly did he find any tracks following it?”

  There had been no second set of tracks. Which meant if the creature was indeed running away from something, its pursuer had yet to appear.

  “Uh, Honeywood?”

  “What?”

  “That depression you’re standing in?”

  Honeywood looked to the ground, and slowly brought her eyes up. The ceratops tracks continued behind her, and ahead she could see their origins, where they had sprung from the trees before her. And standing silent just beyond those trees she could see a large form several metres tall, five metres in length, staring straight back at her.

  “Hell,” she muttered.

  Stiggs snapped around and emitted a shrill shriek at the sight. The marshosaurus stepped from the trees, keeping its head low, its powerful tail raised as it centred upon its prey. It stood barely ten metres from their current position, and Honeywood doubted her meagre weaponry would have any effect on such a beast. She did not take her eyes from it, did not dare blink, and did not move in the slightest.

  “Ashley!” Garza shouted. “Don’t move!”

  She doubted Garza had any greater plan than that, but then that was just as far as her own stretched. “Abe, run,” she said without shouting, although knew he would be able to hear. “Get Cassie out of here, now.”

  “There might be something we can do.”

  �
��Like what?” She tried not to shriek, did not want to alarm the dinosaur in the slightest, although her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it attempting to explode out of her breast and Garza saying stupid things to her wasn’t helping matters any. “Just get Cassie out of here.”

  “I’m coming back.”

  She wouldn’t be here when he came back, but it was the thought that counted.

  The marshosaurus took a single step towards her and Stiggs, its unblinking, coldly calculating eyes focused upon them both. It was trying to provoke a reaction, she knew. It wanted to know what they would do. There were two of them and perhaps it was hungry enough that it wanted to make sure it got both of them. It went against everything she knew about predators, who would focus on one single target and make every effort to bring that one down; but perhaps dinosaurs had a completely different way of thinking. Maybe it was what helped them to extinction in the first place.

  She could hear Stiggs shaking beside her and hissed at him not to run. Of course if he did, the beast would go after him and she would be free to make her own mistake, but it didn’t matter how much she didn’t like the man; she wasn’t about to leave him to be torn apart by this creature.

  In an instant Stiggs was running and Honeywood barely managed to force herself from giving chase. The marshosaurus seized the opportunity and snapped at him with its massive jaws and Honeywood knew there was nothing more she could do for the annoying little yes man.

  The dinosaur, however, was not giving pursuit: it had simply taken an experimental snap at him in passing. Slowly did the creature turn its cold, reptilian eyes back upon Honeywood and she realised it had indeed been waiting for one of them to run. Not to chase that one, however, but to determine which was actually petrified.

  Honeywood felt her heart all but stop within her chest.

  With a roar the monster came for her and something in Honeywood’s mind snapped. The seasoned pit fighter took over, reminded her that she had faced such creatures as this many times before. This time she wasn’t encased in a metal suit, but it would not stop her brain from deciding it wanted to fight rather than simply stand there and meekly die.

  With a primal roar of her own Honeywood charged the behemoth, and in two strides it was upon her. Dropping, throwing herself into a roll, Honeywood somehow managed to evade its lethal claws and came out behind the thing in one piece. She knew the clever thing to do would be to keep running, but her mind had all but turned to soup in her terrified haze, and instead she turned to face the monster once more, screaming at the top of her lungs, adrenalin burning, passion flaring. She was queen of the pits; she could take on the world.

  The dinosaur turned to face her, its thick tail slapping audibly across her face: the sound of a thunderclap echoing eerily through the swamp. Honeywood flew through the air, twisting several times before slamming into the ground. Lying on her face, fire coursing through her body, Honeywood’s adrenalin rush had been purged, leaving her only wondering what the hell she thought she was doing.

  The swamp was filled with the victorious howl of the marshosaurus and Honeywood fought to raise her bleeding face from the sodden mire. The creature was facing her, but gone was all of its posturing as it closed in upon her, dropping its mandible to tear her apart.

  And then it stopped as another sound engulfed the swamp. The steady repeat of miniature explosions. Honeywood’s tired mind fought to make sense of what was happening, but the dinosaur was paying only half attention to her now. It wanted to devour her, but every few moments something seemed to be biting into its flesh; perhaps a handy swarm of mosquitoes had moved in.

  She saw him then; Stiggs had returned for her, was standing twenty paces away and holding two pistols. His aim was terrible, but it wasn’t difficult to hit the side of such a monster, and he was systematically firing shots from each of the guns in alternation. It was an odd sight which her mind was refusing to register, and it took her a few more moments for her to realise he was shouting at her.

  ‘Get up’ probably.

  Honeywood tested her limbs, found them all in working order, and struggled to her feet. The dinosaur had forgotten her entirely now, concentrating instead upon the annoyance that was Stiggs. He backed off a couple of steps – who wouldn’t? – and Honeywood fought for some way to help him. She pulled her own pistol, but it had been bent out of shape by the striking tail, and she tossed it aside. All she had left was her hunting knife, and she couldn’t see it doing much against such a monstrosity.

  Then she saw Stiggs had dropped one of his pistols and had pulled free a grenade. That Stiggs had come so armed didn’t surprise her at all, and she watched with a calm detachment as he hurled the thing. It sailed through the air and Honeywood could not help but wonder whether it would even do any good.

  Then she realised she should have been running.

  The grenade exploded in the air, having bounced off the snout of the marshosaurus. Honeywood was already several paces away by this point, and the blast did nothing to her save psychologically propel her onwards. She turned in her run to see the dinosaur had been barely dazed by the blast, and could not help but wonder how much damage it would have done were Stiggs able to have timed it so it went off when it struck the beast.

  Stiggs himself was floundering, attempting to run, but the marshosaurus was upon him, scraping down his back with one gigantic foot and pinning him to the ground. Honeywood saw the streaks of blood the claws had made and her eyes met his and saw the pleading in them.

  She knew any decent human being would go back for him.

  Honeywood turned her back and ran. She did not see the great maw come down upon its prey, although she heard the sudden cut-off of the fearful wail. She hadn’t asked Stiggs to come back for her, and didn’t much care what kind of person it made her to leave him now. It made her a living one, and as her flight carried her into the protection of the weeping willows that was all that was going through her mind. She was alive, and on this world that was all anyone ever cared about at all.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I hate you! I hate you!”

  Honeywood was bruised, battered, bleeding and hardly in the mood to take another assault. As the young Aubin hammered her weak fists upon her, however, Honeywood did precious little to stop the attack. Finally she managed to grab hold of the girl’s wrists and held her at arm’s length.

  “There was nothing I could do to save him,” Honeywood said dryly, her voice sounding as haggard as her body looked. “I didn’t do so well against the dinosaur without a suit.”

  Aubin’s face was a mess of tears and grime, and she collapsed, weeping, to her knees. Honeywood attempted to console her, but it was half-hearted, and from where he watched the women Garza knew Honeywood hadn’t done anything to help Stiggs. Neither Garza nor Aubin had seen what had happened, of course, although it didn’t take a genius to know Honeywood hated the little guy. Garza didn’t doubt for a moment what had happened; Stiggs had fled, the dinosaur had chased him and Honeywood had quietly slipped away. They had heard a lot of pistol shots, and, since Honeywood had let slip that hers had been bent and discarded, Garza had to assume Stiggs had at least made a stand against the brute. Well good for him, at last he had done something worthwhile in his life. Garza could not help but believe that if Honeywood and Stiggs had been willing to work together they may well have both come through.

  Ah well, he thought; at least it had been Honeywood to come out alive. If they got into any more difficulty he would much rather trust her to have his back than a coward like Stiggs.

  “You always hated him,” Aubin was still wailing. “You left him to die.”

  Garza was surprised Aubin had actually figured that out already.

  “There was nothing I could have done to save him,” Honeywood repeated and Garza wondered why. Life was cheap on this world, and all of them were hardened criminals. They weren’t nice people, none of them had ever claimed to be, and no one expected anyone to come to anyone else’s res
cue.

  “Whoever’s to blame,” Garza said, stepping in, “we really should get a move on before that thing comes back.”

  Aubin fixed him with hateful eyes now as well, yet he did not regret his words. Harsh and insensitive they may have been, but this was not a forgiving world. If they didn’t get going they were all going to die.

  “Abe’s right,” Honeywood said. “We need to press on, find Garret and get out of here.”

  “I hate to mention this so insensitively,” Garza said, “but Stiggs was the one who memorised the map.”

  “Damn.”

  Aubin glowered at them both but thankfully kept silent.

  “Then we follow his spoor,” Honeywood decided.

  “We’re a little off the beaten path, Ashley,” Garza reminded her.

  “So what do you suggest we do?” she snapped.

  “Go home?”

  “You mean that? After we’ve come all this way, just to give up now?”

  “Hey, I like Seward’s burgers as much as the next guy, but dying for him isn’t gonna get my belly filled. The guy cheated on you, Ashley, what do you care what happens to him anyway?”

  She scowled at him, and Garza realised both women were doing it now. This was turning into such a great evening for him.

  “Tell you what,” Garza said, more than a little anxious to leave and growing fed up with their over-emotional attitudes, “I’ll get out of here and if either of you two fancy staying alive you can follow me if you like.” He stormed off, hardly caring in fact whether they even followed. This entire venture was turning out to be the worst mess imaginable. When Honeywood and Valentine had pitched the idea Garza had taken it to be a great opportunity to prove himself. Now Stiggs was dead, Aubin was an emotional mess, and they still hadn’t found Seward. Garza doubted the man was even still alive, otherwise they would have found some actual trace of him by now. And then of course there was that weird dinosaur-man out there and …