Battlesaurus (5 page)

“They shall not take it from us,” Jean agrees. “How can we get down there?”

“There is a track,” Fran
ç
ois says.

Willem feels that the last thing the men are looking for is a raptor's nest, but cannot explain why he feels that. He ventures closer to the edge of the cliff, dropping to his knees before peering over. It is not as high as he imagined, no taller than a house of two stories. On the other side of the falls, a narrow ledge just below the cliff edge slopes down. From there a series of jutting rocks makes for a possible but difficult climb down the face of the falls.

“It is scarcely a track,” he says.

“Perhaps we are being hasty,” Fran
ç
ois says. “Pierre said it is at the top of the falls.”

“And we have not looked on the far side of the river,” Jean says.

They backtrack from the top of the falls and cross the river where the water is at its widest, and therefore most shallow.

It is no more than ankle deep, and there are many flat rocks to stand on, but even so Willem feels the tug of the water on his boots as if the river is a living thing that wants to feed him to the hungry mouth of the waterfall just a few meters away.

Pieter begins to show extreme alarm, and a few paces farther he begins struggling and scratching to get down from Willem's shoulder.

“Draw your weapons!” Willem says.

Jean does, and Fran
ç
ois holds his ax tightly in front of him. Willem opens his satchel and lets Pieter climb inside, closing the top and letting the little saur lie still, more secure in the darkness.

Willem's pulse is racing. A heady mixture of fear and thrill, and something more: a primal desire for revenge.

“The nest is here,” he says in a voice that is not as steady as he would like it to be.

“Where?” Fran
ç
ois asks. The riverbank is rocky and flat. Jean has stepped toward the forest and is poking around in the undergrowth.

“Here,” Jean says.

Willem and Fran
ç
ois join him in a V formed by the roots of a large beech. The ground has been dug out, forming a shallow bowl, and in it, partly covered by twigs and leaves, are five large eggs.

“Look at the size of them,” Fran
ç
ois says. “How we will feast!”

The eggs are mottled brown in color and each is as long as Willem's foot.

“We must hurry,” Willem says. “If the eggs are of such a size, how big do you think the mother will be? Let's take them, and get away from this place.”

There is no argument from the cousins.

Jean has brought a sack and he carefully places three of the eggs inside it.

“Take them all,” Willem says.

“No, leave some,” Fran
ç
ois says. “Then if the mother returns she will want to stay and protect the eggs she has left, instead of chasing us.”

Willem shakes his head. “It won't matter if we take one or all of the eggs,” he says. “The mother will hunt us regardless. So take them all. Do you want more raptors roaming the forest?”

“No,” Fran
ç
ois says.

Jean packs the other eggs carefully into the sack. “For our return, we stick to the river,” he says. “Stay in the water. We do not want this saur to follow our scent back to the village.”

He stands with the now-heavy sack, and all three step out onto the rock of the riverbank.

There is a terrified, high-pitched scream from Willem's satchel and he feels Pieter thrashing around inside.

Willem turns upriver and, for the second time in his life, looks a firebird in the eye.

 

THE NEW WORLD

In 1492, a little-known Italian explorer named Cristoforo Colombo set out to discover a new trade route to Asia. His small fleet consisted of three ships: the
Pinta
, the
Santa Mar
í
a
, and the
Santa Clara
(known as the
Ni
ñ
a
). On August third they sailed, first to the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, for provisions and repairs. They left the Canary Islands on the sixth of September. Colombo was never heard from again.

Almost a year later the
Ni
ñ
a
sailed into Lisbon harbor, its sails in tatters, its crew emaciated and ashen, telling tales of meat-eating lizards as tall as houses. No one knew if they were telling the truth, or had been driven mad by the voyage.

Two more expeditions were mounted to find Colombo and this strange land that came to be called the New World, but no one ever returned.

In 1499, another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, mapped the New World. The ships of his expedition stayed a safe distance from land, content to trace the outline of the new “islands.” What the maps showed were two vast continents, hitherto unknown, that lay in the middle of what had been called the Ocean Sea. His ships came back with even wilder tales of giant saurs with heads that rose above trees.

One specific account, given in great detail by Vespucci, was that of a pack of meat-eaters, each twice the height of a man, trapping a long-necked, long-tailed “land whale” on a beach within sight of their boat. The fleet furled sails but did not set anchor in case it turned out that these creatures could swim. They watched in horrified awe as the pack killed the creature and feasted on the carcass, bellowing with pleasure at the jungle and the seas around them.

Vespucci brought back detailed drawings of what he had seen. Scientists conferred and finally said what everybody else already knew: that the geckos and lizards of the forest, and the saurs of the known world, were in some way related to the gigantic beasts of the New World.

For reasons not understood, all but a few of the creatures had died out in the known world, and then only the smallest had survived. But in the New World, the giants reigned.

Once discovered, the New World, now named the Amerigo Islands, was left alone.

Any maps showed only the outline of the coast, with the warning in Greek:

Tromeró sá
v
res. Oi deinósa
v
roi.

Here there be terrible lizards.

Here there be dinosaurs.

 

THE NEST

“Run!” Willem shouts.

“My ax will sever its neck,” Fran
ç
ois says, standing his ground.

“After my bolt pierces its heart,” Jean says.

“It will get you before you can strike,” Willem says. “We must escape, not fight.”

He takes a step backward. The others move with him, not wanting to show fear, but deep primal instincts are telling them to keep far away from this creature. Willem considers reaching into his satchel, but knows that this time his father's trick will not work. He has to get close, but this raptor will charge at them, striking before he can even begin.

“Escape where?” Fran
ç
ois asks.

Behind them the sound of the rushing water grows louder as they step closer and closer to the cliff face.

“We leave the eggs,” Jean says, placing the sack carefully on a small plateau of rock.

“No,” Willem says. “If we cannot escape, then at the end I will hurl the sack from the cliff rather than let them grow into adults.”

He picks up the sack and slings it over a shoulder. The thick shells jostle inside.

The firebird regards them, its head twitching from side to side.

“What is it doing?” Fran
ç
ois asks.

“I don't think it knows yet that we have stolen its eggs,” Willem says. “It is probably just deciding which one of us to attack first.”

They back away farther from the creature, which takes two quick steps then stops, one leg raised, examining its prey.

“It knows we are trapped,” Fran
ç
ois says.

“What about the track down the cliff?” Jean asks.

“We don't have time,” Willem says. “One of us maybe, but it would be on the other two before we could even start to climb.”

“Then you go,” Jean says.

“You are a brave friend and true,” Willem says. “But I cannot leave you two to be torn to pieces.”

“Fran
ç
ois and I will jump,” Jean says.

“We will what?” Fran
ç
ois asks.

“The water is deep,” Jean says. “Let Willem climb. We hold our ground. When the saur starts to attack, we run and jump.”

“We will break our necks!” Fran
ç
ois says.

“A more noble death than at the claws of the firebird,” Jean says.

“But—” Willem begins.

“Go swiftly, before it is too late.”

Willem obeys. He steps to the edge of the cliff and slides over, his feet finding the narrow ledge.

Almost immediately there comes a splashing and a rustling of feathers from above as the firebird springs forward, sensing that its prey is trying to escape. The twanging of Jean's crossbow is followed by a curse.

Then comes the sound of boots on rock, and with incoherent cries Jean and Fran
ç
ois hurtle out over his head, plummeting into the pool below, landing with great spouts of water.

Willem has no time to look and see if they are alive. Giant talons sweep through the air above his head, the terrible hooked claw just grazing the side of his head as the enraged raptor stands on the cliff face above him. Willem slides along the ledge, feeling for the next foothold, then the next. The firebird's claws rake the side of the cliff, dislodging pebbles and dust. Willem shakes them from his hair and face. Spray from the waterfall soaks him, and the rocks are slippery. He loses his grip, regains it, loses it again, and only just saves himself by frantically scratching at the cliff face. In the satchel, Pieter is terrified, screaming, clawing at the leather.

The sack bangs against the side of the cliff and Willem hears a cracking sound.

His foot slips from the ledge and he grapples desperately for a handhold as his body swings out over the precipice. If he falls now he will not land in the water but on a bed of jagged rocks. He regains his footing and lowers himself farther, the screeching of the firebird all but drowned out now by the roar of the rushing water.

Angry bellowing comes from above him and the saur scrabbles at the edge of the cliff as it tries and fails to follow him. There is no path for the flightless bird's great claws down the near-vertical slope.

Willem reaches the bottom of the cliff to see Jean dragging his cousin out of the water, blood streaming from Fran
ç
ois's head.

“Fran
ç
ois!” Willem yells.

“He lives,” Jean says. “Just a cut, I think, and a momentary stupor. I think he did this to himself, with his ax.”

Willem bends over the unconscious body. There is a sizable dent in Fran
ç
ois's forehead and Willem doesn't believe it is as simple as Jean thinks. Fran
ç
ois opens his eyes, but they are dull and unseeing.

Above them the saur screeches and bellows its rage into the vast reaches of the forest.

 

THE EGGS

They pass Willem's house on the way to Madame Gertruda's. Willem's mother meets them at the gate.

“Willem! Fran
ç
ois! What has happened?”

Jean had hoisted his cousin onto his shoulders and carried him most of the way. Only on the last stretch did Fran
ç
ois begin to stir, then to wake, and he walked into the village himself, with only his arm around Jean's shoulders for support. His precious ax lies somewhere under the water back at the waterfall, but he does not notice or care.

“We went looking for a raptor's nest in the forest,” Jean says. “It is my fault. I talked Willem into it.”

“You went
looking
for a raptor?” Willem's mother is almost breathless.

“It was a firebird,” Willem says. “We saw it. It chased us, but we escaped.”

“Not without a price,” his mother says, examining Fran
ç
ois's head. “Did the firebird do this?”

“No, he … fell in the river,” Willem says.

The truth, he feels, might be a little too much right now.

“He has a thick bone,” Jean says. “He will be all right.”

“You will take him to Madame Gertruda, immediately,” Willem's mother says.

“We go there now,” Jean says.

“You angered a firebird, you foolish children. What if it tracked you back here?” she says.

“We walked in the river to hide our scent,” Jean says.

“What is in the sack?” Willem's mother asks, noticing it hanging from Willem's shoulder.

“Eggs,” Willem says.

“You stole the raptor's eggs?”

“We will feast on them at the f
ê
te!” Willem says.

“You will feast on the eggs?”

“Look at them,” Willem says, opening the sack and showing her. Despite the risks, they had succeeded in their great adventure. Could she not see that?

“You look at them!” Her eyes steam and her face is red with anger. “Look at the color! You stupid boys!”

She takes the sack from Willem, reaches inside, brings out an egg and throws it to the ground.

“No!” Willem yells, grabbing at the sack to stop her from destroying the other eggs, after all they had been through to get them.

“Dear Father in heaven!” It is Fran
ç
ois who has spoken, his first words since the accident. He crosses himself with his free hand.

Willem follows his eyes to where the egg has smashed on the cobbles of the path. He expects to see a dense yolk and a translucent white, like a hen's egg.

Instead, the path is covered in blood and fragments of shell, and in the center of it is a creature, not yet fully formed. A long snout with buds of teeth protruding. A stump of a tail. Claws that are still like fingers. Spikes that have yet to turn into feathers.