Chapter IX: Longneck Rock
"This is serious, Longneck," said Threehorn. "Pterano will lead those poor creatures to their deaths!"
"Since when were you so worried about other kinds?" snorted Clubtail.
Threehorn growled, but when he noticed that the Longnecks had their tails lifted in attack position, he thought better of it and merely announced that "Laaaaaahngneck Rock" was near.
Our herd was now 95 members strong; some had died on the journey, while others had deserted with Pterano. So off we went, most of us glad to be rid of Pterano. Even Pteri felt that we were better off without him.
We thought that the sharpteeth we had killed were an entire pack, but unfortunately, we were wrong.
As we marched on, following the course of a river, we noticed that some herd members who marched in the rear were disappearing, while others marched with deep wounds. So we sent Sean Threehorn, who was a strong teenager on the verge of adulthood, to the rear of the herd to watch for sharpteeth.
The morning after this, I saw him running to the front of the herd with clawmarks down his side. Breathless, he poured out his tale to his father. Apparently, there were nine sharpteeth after us, all scrapebiters.
"Move out!" roared Threehorn to the herd. "On the double!"
I pointed out that the herd's oldest members could not move so fast, so Mr. Longneck said that once they reached Longneck Rock, they would wait there, while the older members would travel with an escort of spikefrills and clubtails at their own slow pace. (Of course old age has different meanings for different kinds. Runners are considered old when they reach 25, while for longnecks, 100 is mere middle age. Thicknoses like me usually live to 140, but I am currently 296, which not even the oldest longneck I ever knew could match.)
After two days, we lost sight of the Longnecks, Threehorn, and most of the others. My friend Shieldback was still with me, but Spikethumb had gone with the rest. Our battles with sharpteeth were many, but none as great as the one I have described earlier which led to Pterano's defection. The scrapebiters had grown more cautious. If they failed to catch someone within ten minutes, they retreated quickly. No spikefrill could catch them, and none of the old runners cared to try.
One morning we all awoke to see a sight that scared most of us out of our wits: a huge, bloody-toothed, dead sharptooth next to three dead spikefrills--and a deeply wounded clubtail!
An old skyreacher longneck with a bite in his side told us the story. I reproduce it here as exactly as I can set it down.
"I's waked up by a branch fallin' on me head, see, and I sees a real big, ugly sharptooth gettin' ready to take a bite outa me mate. So I bumps him away wit' me side, and 'e takes a big bite outa me. So I wakes up the guard quick, and dis guy 'ere with da broke horn (here he placed his foot gently on one of the dead spikefrills) charges 'im and hits 'im like thud, see, an' dat blastid sharptooth kicks him 'gainst dat boulder like slam, see, an' da poor guy gets 'is horn broke.
Den dat blastid sharptooth cuts da poor guy open with a claw like rip, an' den 'e gets hit by dose guys dere, like crunch, an' dey gets deir horns into 'im, an' 'e roars like da blazes. Den dese guys run aways, see, and gets ready to charge again, and den dat blastid sharptooth gets ready for 'em, and when dey gets close, 'e bites one hard like crunch, an' kicks dis one away, den picks 'im up in 'is mouth an' drops 'im onto dat rock, like thunk.
Den dat clubtail hits dat blastid sharptooth on da leg, an' gets flipped over and picked up too. Clubtails is tough, and dat sharptooth breaks some teeth on da armor, and da clubtail hits 'im on the head like thud, and smash, and crash. Den da sharptooth roars like a earthshake, and falls down like bam, and da clubtail gets out from between da jaws and goes back to sleep."
We all gave a hearty cheer for the clubtail and the dead spikefrills, and then amused ourselves with telling jokes about "da blastid sharptooth."
All too soon it was time to march again. Within four days we reached Longneck Rock, the landmark which told us that one-third of the journey was over. When we got there we told the others all about our journey, and they told us about theirs. It had been much less eventful than ours, although a group of twocrest swimmers had struck out on their own. However, since they had arrived, several dinosaurs had sickened and died within a matter of days. Longnecks seemed immune to the disease, but swimmers were very hard hit, and not even clubtails were safe.