Chapter VII: Sharptooth

We marched through the land for three days without incident, and the herd began to lower their guard. Then one day a runner, who served as a scout, disappeared mysteriously, and the next day was followed by a bignose.

So a group of threehorns took over scouting duties, and one returned to the herd bleeding. He reported that there was a large sharptooth, not a twoclaw but a scrapebiter or, in rainbowface talk, Allosaurus, which had attacked him. Instead of fighting he had run to tell the herd.

There was no need for this, for not long after the sharptooth himself appeared. Ignoring the wounded threehorn, he suddenly drove his head downward and crunched right through a spiketail's backplates. The agonized spiketail fell to the ground, and the sharptooth quickly ended his suffering.

"Where's Pterano when we need him?" said Clubtail sarcastically.

Some of the dinosaurs began to scatter, but Threehorn called, "No! FIGHT!" and served as an example by charging straight towards the sharptooth.

This sharptooth was younger and less experienced than the one who had nearly killed Threehorn in the Farwalkers' Corridor. He did not step aside, but merely thrust his head forward and roared, confronting Threehorn with two tooth-filled jaws.

But that didn't stop Threehorn. He simply swerved to the side a little and caught the sharptooth in the leg. The sharptooth howled with pain and fury, and returned the favor with his claws.

Then I, Robert P. Thicknose, charged toward the sharptooth and hit him in the other leg. Once I had hit him I did not let up, but continued pushing, and soon the sharptooth lost his balance. I barely had time to get out of the way before the great bulk toppled onto the ground.

Clubtail stepped up and hit the sharptooth with several strong blows. The sharptooth snarled, kicked him away with a blow that would have felled a longneck, got to his feet, and was felled by a longneck. It was a longsnout, who didn't whip his tail out in the flathead fashion, but instead curled it around the sharptooth's neck and tipped him against a large boulder. In after years I met a longsnout named Doc who was a master of this tail-curling tactic.

The sharptooth rose to his feet and let out a terrifying roar. It turned out to be a call for assistance, which I found out as soon as four more of his kind appeared.

One rammed the longsnout to the ground and tore his neck open, while another engaged Threehorn and Clubtail. The first attacked me, Robert P. Thicknose, while yet another chased a spiketail family and the fifth went after Grandpa and Grandma. All seemed lost for us.

Then my friend Spikethumb snuck around to one sharptooth's back and drove his spike into the tail, opening a large scrape. It just so happened that this was the sharptooth who was attacking me, Robert P. Thicknose. Taking the opportunity I rammed him hard, knocking him down, and a skyreacher longneck killed him by the simple expedient of crushing him with his forefeet.

Threehorn and Clubtail were slowly pushing their sharptooth back, until the predator gathered courage and charged forwards, deepening Threehorn's wound with a foreclaw. Clubtail, being covered with armor, had little to fear from tooth and claw, but another kick from the sharptooth sent him tumbling.

Even the swimmers tried to help. A twocrest used his tail to slap that sharptooth's leg. The sharptooth snapped at him, only to be laid out by a flathead's tail, and Clubtail returned and pounded him to death.

The longsnout's killer, the biggest of the sharpteeth, seized Clubtail in his jaws and lifted him up, ready to dash him against a boulder. But a flathead slapped his tail against the sharptooth's face. The hunter dropped Clubtail, who fell onto the longsnout's carcass, which made a fine if gruesome cushion. Threehorn drove his horns into the sharptooth, who fell to the ground, then made sure by delivering a blow to the neck area.

The spiketail family were doing well against their sharptooth. Only the mother was even touched, while the sharptooth had scars in several places. He roared angrily before driving his head downward to try and defeat the father. The spiketail turned round and waited for just the right moment, then flicked his tail upward and opened four holes in the sharptooth's throat. The sharptooth's roars changed to wheezes, then the predator toppled down dead.

The Longnecks had two tails between them, while their sharptooth had only one pair of jaws. Time after time their tails knocked the carnivore down. Finally the sharptooth changed his tactics. While still lying on the ground, he gave Grandma a hefty kick which laid her out on the ground, then started to hack at Grandpa's neck with his upper jaw. The flathead was starting to lose ground when suddenly a spikefrill smashed into the predator's leg, wounding it. The sharptooth angrily turned on the spikefrill only to be laid out once again by the longneck's tail. Clubtail hit the sharptooth hard on the chest several times, breaking ribs and puncturing the lung.

Then Pterano appeared. He dove straight for the sharptooth and buried his beak in its neck. His followers cheered.