Chapter VIII: Victory

Grandpa's side was still aching from the kick the sharptooth had given him. It was a few moments before he noticed the sharptooth heading toward the out-of-action dinosaurs. Petrie's mom was bravely trying to hold it off by pecking at his eyes, but the sharptooth thought no more of her than Littlefoot would of a fly. It got ready to bite into its target, Ducky's mom.

Grandma, still lying on her side, prevented this by kicking it hard. The sharptooth fell down and was immediately pelted with hard rocks, thrown by none other than Hyp's dad. It rolled over and got up, charged towards the runner, and snapped at him, missing by inches as Hyp's dad nimbly dodged out of the way. "Don't you dare snap at me!" shouted Hyp's dad, throwing another rock which broke a few teeth. Slowly the runner lured the sharptooth away from Ducky's mom and the others.

Petrie's mom landed and watched the runner, always staying just out of reach, draw the sharptooth toward Grandpa's tail. Then she heard a voice. It said, "Mama!"

"Petrie? I told you to stay at the nest!"

"Me and Ducky so worried. Me not able to stay at nest," said Petrie. "Me so happy you not hurt! Me love you, Mama!"

Petrie's mom couldn't think of anything to say but "I love you too, Petrie."

Then the young flyer's gaze drifted to Ducky's mom, stretched out on the ground. "She not--"

"No, dear. She'll be okay."

Nearby Grandma, her terrible pain replaced by a numb sensation in her tail tip which now hung limply, rose to her feet again and started toward the sharptooth, as did Mr. Thicknose, who felt that he had made the wrong decision in leaving the battle so early. Petrie's mom stayed to attend to the swimmer and Threehorn, but Petrie set off for Ducky's nest, where he reported everything to Ducky and her siblings.

Ozzy grinned. "You know, dear brother, I've always wanted to break your skull." He brought the branch down, but Strut moved his head just enough for the branch to hit the ground instead. Then he quickly bit down on it and tried to tug it away. Once again he was grappling for the branch with Ozzy. In the course of this tug-of-war Ozzy lifted his foot from Strut's tail, whereupon Strut immediately sprang up, broke off his own branch from a nearby tree, and tried to attack Ozzy with it.

At first sight it was comical. Strut would hit Ozzy on the side, and Ozzy would return the favor, and so on and so on, but finally Ozzy lost all patience (not that he ever had any in the first place) and charged without his branch, headbutting Strut in the chest. Strut staggered back and dodged behind a tree. Then a (rare) idea came to him. Run! it told him, and he did.

Clubtail hoisted the unconscious Cera onto his back again and set off at a higher speed. The trail known only to him soon brought him out of the Sheltering Grass. His next stop would be Cera's nest, where the sharptooth was. But should he take Cera to her nest or drop her off somewhere else? The decision came quickly. He would take her to her nest.

"So, whatcha wanna do now, hatchling?" asked Hyp. He had somehow managed to shut out all worries for his dad from his mind.

Littlefoot, exhausted from their game of tag, said, "Nothing." He was thinking about his grandparents.

"Nothing?" said Hyp. "You can't be serious. That's a game for babies."

Grandpa had whipped the sharptooth hard, and Grandma was helping with her neck; Mr. Thicknose rammed its legs, and between all of this the sharptooth was falling down every two minutes, not to mention the constant shower of rocks being thrown by Hyp's dad. It decided on a plan to take care of this.

As the longnecks swung again, it ducked, so that Grandpa's tail very nearly hit Grandma's neck, and kicked Mr. Thicknose away so that he went tumbling. Then it charged back towards Petrie's mom and the two unconscious dinosaurs, only to have a heavy tail club swing toward its leg. Clubtail missed, but just barely. The sharptooth decided that fighting a clubtail was not a good idea, and ran, pelted with rocks by Hyp's dad. Petrie's mom followed it and dropped a pebble on its head as a "token of appreciation."

Not long after, Ducky's mom and Threehorn both awoke. Threehorn recovered his spirits quickly, though Ducky's mom took a while longer. They had just started to celebrate their victory when a brown and gray blur flashed into their midst.

"I'm a vegetarian struthiomimus, I swear, and my brother's going to kill me! Help!"

"Eat vegetation and help herbivores, will you?" cried Ozzy behind him. "I'll show..." He was stopped in mid-sentence as Hyp's dad grabbed his throat and knocked him out with a rock. Ducky's mom helped him escort the unconscious Ozzy to the former location of the Great Wall, where Hyp's dad (literally) kicked him out of the Valley.

In the meantime, Strut was telling his story.

"I don't believe a thing he says!" snorted Threehorn.

"You got more important things to worry about, Threehorn," snorted Clubtail behind him. He had not managed to get a word in edgewise since arrival, since everybody had been too preoccupied with the sharptooth and Strut. Clubtail had a strong dislike to Threehorn that had existed even before the drought in the Valley. "You should take better care of your children."

He revealed Cera. "She was bitten by a scaly worm. She has a week to live, unless there's some way to heal her. Count yourself lucky I even brought her here."

"What?" cried Threehorn. He rounded on Clubtail furiously. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Now, now, Mr. Threehorn," said Grandpa. "Let us ask Mr. Thicknose. He will know what to do."

Threehorn did not trust Thicknose very well after the incident with the white ground sparkles, but he knew the old dinosaur's stock of knowledge was Cera's only chance.