11

See part one for explanation and disclaimers. I don't own 'Dinotopia', James Gurney does. Hallmark still owns the characters and I'm still not profiting from this. Hope you're enjoying this. Still recommended for teens and up for action/violence and mild language.

Le Sage watched the comedy taking place on her castle walls with disgust. On the wall, Bertram was failing miserably to impersonate David Barrett. He could put on David's overcoat and probably fool those dino-scouts if they were watching (and she knew they were), but there was nothing her inept lackey could do to force the albino pterosaur to go along with the charade. As Bertram tried to approach, the scalie roared and batted its wings and bobbed its head in a clear warning: Stay back.

"This is working well," she observed.

Beside her, hidden in the shadows of the nearby halls in case (as he suspected) the courtyard was being watched, David was thinking the same thing. He shouted to his uneasy skybax: "Freefall, you're killing me here! Would you knock it off!"

Wild-eyed, the pterosaur bugled in response. David could feel the dinosaur's distress. Bertram tried approaching again and the skybax snapped it's massive jaws. If the man had been a few feet closer, those jaws would have bitten his head right off his shoulders.

"That's it! Find someone else to feed to your scalie, Barrett!" Bertram tried retreating.

"Grow a pair, will you Bertram?" Le Sage waved him back to the pterosaur.

"Freefall!" David ordered.

The pterosaur unhappily ceased its struggle. Bertram reluctantly climbed onto his back.

"Thank you," David said to the dinosaur. Le Sage was right—if the dino-scout was fooled by this display, he wouldn't be fooled for very long. But it wouldn't take very long for him and Le Sage to sneak out through the tunnels beneath the castle. They just needed a few minutes to get across the clearing that surrounded the castle and into the cover of the nearby forest. "Okay, Freefall, do it just like we planned. I'll see you soon." He raised one hand in a gesture the trained riders used when they wanted their mounts to take off.

Freefall remained rooted to the wall. He turned his massive head to look back at his rider and keened a wail the likes of which David had never heard from his pterosaur. The distress he sensed from the dinosaur escalated to something stronger. Reluctance. Fear. It couldn't be afraid of Bertram---Freefall could buck mid-air and send Bertram plunging to his death if the henchman lifted a finger to hurt the dinosaur. Was it fear for David?

David tried to project encouragement through their bond. "Freefall, go!" He raised his hand in the proper signal again. The dinosaur hesitated, then leapt into the sky, carrying a shrieking Bertram with him. David watched until the skybax vanished into the morning sky.

Le Sage shook her head. "This isn't going to work."

The words were barely out of her mouth when a second pterosaur, with a figure in the distinct uniform of a skybax rider, screamed back the castle in hot pursuit of Freefall. David grinned at Le Sage.

"Don't say it," she advised him.

Minutes passed before the troop of outsiders emerged from the castle.

From the cliffs, Karl watched in extreme satisfaction as Barrett---the real Barrett---and Le Sage lead the pack towards the forest. "Nice try, Barrett."

They moved quickly across the clearing but without any particular effort to hide themselves. Why should they hide when the skybax rider had taken off in pursuit of 'David'? By now, fake David would have lead Pterra and Marion----who was now garbed in Karl's riding gear and doing a fine job impersonating him---halfway to Waterfall City. Karl figured turnabout was fair play. If Barrett could use a fake David to lure away his pursuers, then Scott could sure the hell send a fake Karl in pursuit.

The outsiders moved into the forest. From the cliffs above, Karl followed them, completely unnoticed.

Barrett wasn't getting away this time.

6

His first memory upon waking was water, spilling into the shredded metal hull of a boat, of holding his breath as water filled his cabin, of swimming through turbulent water as the ocean tried to pull him under its waves and his lungs burning for air. The boat was gone…there had been a storm; the boat had hit something. David remembered being pitched across his cabin, feet first. He remembered the agony radiating from his ankle as he'd hit the wall…

His first sensation upon waking was the dampness of his clothes and the oppressive heat of the forest…and pain, like his head had been split open. David had weakly reached up just to check that his skull was still intact. There was a thick cloth wrapped around his head and it was sticky with blood and grime. When he'd finally opened his eyes, he looked down and saw another bandage wrapped around what had turned out to be a broken ankle. The leg was killing him, but the pain in his head was the more dominant at the time.

He saw then the group of ragged faces, male and female, unshaven in the men's cases, staring down at him from their places around a miniscule campfire. A dark-haired woman was just tying off the bandage around David's ankle. Sensing his gaze, she met his eyes, scrutinized him with unsettling intensity, and finally smiled, first at him then in conspiracy at the other women of the pack, "Well, he's definitely an improvement over most of the pickings on this sinkhole. This one's mine, girls," had been Doris Le Sage's 'hello'.

Le Sage stepped back as one of the men---a tall, lanky blonde with a grotesque scar down his cheek---crossed over to where he was lying flat on his back and beamed a smile full of yellow and brown teeth down at David. "Well, well, look who back among the living. You have a nasty smack, but that happen when you try to cross the Razor Reef. Gabriel Dane is my name." Dane kneeled beside him and clapped the younger man roughly on the shoulder. The impact sent a jolt of pain through David's injured skull. "Well, safe with us now, no worries. Lucky we find you before the scalies do."

Razor Reef? Scalies? The throbbing ache in his ankle and head was doing nothing to help David make sense of Dane's cryptic remarks. "Sc---scali--?"

"You be that one's lunch if we not come along." Dane had pointed to a huge, winged creature lying in a dead heap among the trees and underbrush. It had been impaled on a spike the size of a small tree, which had swung on ropes like a pendulum from the trees.

It was David's first memory of seeing a dinosaur and of the handiwork of Dane's traps. Unfortunately, it would not be his last memories of either…

David felt déjà vu as they emerged from the forest onto the small plateau. The ground sloped down to the large rocks on the white sands of a beach. A knot of figures were gathered near the top of the slope, some were lighting torches and some were digging pits and piling wood for fires into the holes they'd made. They were the same faces that had stared down at him the day of the shipwreck, although some faces were conspicuously absent. Some---people he had considered friends during his brief time in their midst---had been lost to the scalies. David didn't want to think about them. He had nightmares to remind him of how they'd been lost. Maybe when he got home---far, far away from this place---the nightmares would stop.

"This is most important lesson---the pack come first. The slow, the sick, the injured… they get left to take their chances w' the scalies if it come down to that."

That hadn't been good news at the time, as David was hobbling on improvised crutches as fast as his injured ankle would allow. Gabriel's people didn't so much as slacken their pace in deference to their new and wounded member. David was exhausted. His head was spinning and his ankle was killing him, but the distant roars of the T-Rex and God-knew-what-else reminded him that it was extremely important that he not get separated from the pack on sprints between safe zones like the ones were making that afternoon.

Gabriel continued, amiably lecturing around a mouthful of what looked like a pear, "Not a man or woman here don' have the bollocks---so to speak---for a scrap w' the scalies. You just remember, the scalies try to cut you from our herd soon as they sniff that blood." Dane pointed to the bandages on David's head and leg. "If we run, we not slow down, and if one of us get left behind, we'll expect no less from you."

David had argued, "Leave someone to die? That's pretty cold-blooded…"

From nowhere, Payden Borale appeared. David didn't have time to react before the large man landed a brutal kick right on David's bad ankle. This was followed by Payden's elbow slamming into David's nose. The leg, radiating agony, gave out and David collapsed. He bit his lip against a scream that might have drawn predators---or worse, given Payden any sort of satisfaction.

Borale knelt beside the younger man then and grabbed him by the throat until David could barely breathe. "You got a head full o' rocks right now, so I'll remind you: Never question our orders. Not out here. We live by the scalies' laws here. You know well as any of us, there's no blood colder than scalie blood. Best get your priorities straight if you want to stay alive."

Someone in the pack screamed: "Pteranodons!"

At the warning, Payden forgot his lecture. He glanced up at the dark shapes in the sky, his mouth set in a grim line. Then, he hauled David up by the scruff of his neck and all but dragged him further beneath the canopy of trees. He shoved the younger man, not at all gently, into the cover of the forest's undergrowth where Dane had crouched. Grasping bone daggers and spears, the group watched as the carnosaurs passed overhead, circled a few times, and then streaked away.

When the patrols were gone, Dane faced David again. "There just one more thing… those 'topian cities with their pretty sunstones and all them happy people spouting off 'bout livin' in harmony w' the scalies gonna sound real appealin' soon. They make you one of them. They make you think you love this island. They make you think the scalies got rights. And they never, ever gonna let you leave this island. Never. You want find a way home, you stick with us. We want to go, too. Well, 'cept Payden…" Gabriel grinned at his friend. Payden inclined his head slightly in return. "He like it here. We find a way off this island together. Until then, Better a scalie's dinner than a scalie-lover, right?"

David blinked. "Er, I guess…"

"Ha!" Gabriel clapped David's shoulder, affectionately this time. "Mates to bend an ear with, wide open space, no one tell you 'You are of the Earth, you are of the Sky', free to come and go as we please---wouldn't live any other way." He helped David to his feet. "Come on. We'll go over which plants be fit to eat again. Wouldn't want you getting chomped 'cause a case of Tuklooberry trots let a T-Rex catch you…"

Others had followed Le Sage when she'd abandoned this pack to take leadership of her own group. David had to be grateful for that, especially as he walked from the cover of the trees onto the open space of the beach. Le Sage's group was behind him, he didn't have to look back to know they were there. David wouldn't have dared wander into Dane's turf without the protection of Le Sage's pack. It was only their presence, unseen though they were, and the fact that they outnumbered Dane's group, that kept Gabriel's pack from ripping David apart as soon as his boots hit the sand. A few of them, David knew, had tried to kill him in the past three months---with poison, with poorly aimed arrows, with pathetic snare traps, and with boulders, their efforts as successful as Wyle E. Coyote trying to catch the roadrunner, fortunately for David. They might be inept assassins, but that didn't make them less dangerous. The bone daggers tucked into their shirts, boots, and belts were reminders of that.

The most dangerous member of Gabriel's pack, however, was conspicuously absent. As Gabriel's pack parted, making a path for the duo, David tried to be subtle about scanning the crowd for that particular face. "Do you see Payden?"

Walking beside him, her hand on his arm, calm and confident as always, Le Sage might have been strolling through a park instead of into the territory of her enemy. "No."

"Hmm."

The hand on his arm squeezed slightly in response. "What? I thought you were hoping he wouldn't show," she reminded him.

David frowned. "I changed my mind. If Payden's going to try to kill me, I'd rather see him coming."

And then the sea of people finally parted enough to reveal their leader.

Gabriel Dane looked exactly the same as he had those first few weeks when David was part of his pack. Instead of walking to meet Barrett and Le Sage, the pack leader was crouched beside a small campfire, casually drinking what David new what the island equivalent of moonshine from a small flask and smoking a cigarette that smelled more like native island hallucinogens than tobacco. He wore the same duster and boots, which Dane swore were made of the skin of a dino-crocodile. The fact that 'topians found the use of dinosaur skin for clothing repulsive made it all the more appealing for Dane. He bragged about every article of clothing that he'd made from dinosaur hide and had told David the stories of how he'd killed those scalies in his hunting traps that had made the hair on the off-worlder's neck stand on end. David had seen Dane in action often enough to know that those stories were not exaggerated. Surrounded by his pack, looking like a prehistoric cowboy, projecting assurance and intimidation that made everyone do his bidding, fearless in the face of scalie rampages, Dane had seemed larger than life.

What a difference a few months make.

Dane hadn't changed…except for one thing. David's gaze traveled to the sleeve that almost concealed Dane's mangled arm. The stories he'd heard about that arm hadn't been exaggerate either. It was hideous.

"Barrett!"

Dane wanted David to know he was closing in---the hunter wasn't dumb enough to shout (especially with carnosaurs in the vicinity) if he intended to sneak up on his quarry. The pack leader counted on the mere sound of displeasure in his tone to keep his pack in line---to put the fear of God into them. Until the mutiny that afternoon, that tactic had worked well. When it hadn't, a harsh word would be reinforced by swift, spectacular violence visited upon whoever defied Dane. As the one who had let the pterosaur out of the net, the one who'd saved the 'topian girl, Marion, from Dane, and the one who instigated the mutiny, David was sure the pack leader had the 'swift, spectacular violence' in mind for him. It had followed whenever David had questioned him in the past five months.

He'd have to catch David first---and David intended to be the only one doing the trapping from that day on. He knew this part of the forest well---it was Dane and Payden's hunting grounds. He'd led the pack leader this way deliberately. No longer corralled in this part of the forest by the sunstones' powers, the carnosaurs had fled, but the traps remained just as the duo had left them. Lungs burning in protest, David scrambled as fast as he could, trying to put just a little more distance between himself and Gabriel, buy just a couple more minutes. He knew the overconfident older man would not hurry…Dane would want to torment his prey before exacting his revenge. If David could just find the pits…

"Come now, son, we talk this out, you and I," Dane called. "Perhaps I forgive your lapse in judgment…"

"…and perhaps you won't," David muttered. He risked a glance over his shoulder to see if he could spot the pack leader. The distraction cost him---his foot caught a rock on the leaf and twig-blanketed trail and he fell face-first to the ground

The earth he lay on exploded in a shower of leafs and dust and David saw teeth coming right towards his face---teeth filling the jaws of one seriously ticked off T-Rex, still young and not fully grown but dangerous nevertheless. The snapping jaws missed only because David reflexively lifted his face from the ground. He had fallen face-down atop one of Dane's hunting pits. The only things that prevented the scalie trapped in the pit from devouring David were the bars that sealed the top of the pit. It was a deep pit, but it never would have held a full grown T-Rex. It had been a pit where Dane and Payden destroyed carnosaur eggs and very young T-Rex, and the knowledge made David's stomach churn.

He rolled off the grating onto the dirt, heart pounding mercilessly from fear and from oxygen-starved lungs. The T-Rex jumped at the bars a few more times before giving up. It keened unhappily as it skulked around the cage.

"This was a bad idea." David didn't blame it for being angry---Gabriel and Payden had, only an hour ago, been tormenting the creature in preparation for killing it. David's encountering---and rescuing---the pterosaur had interrupted Dane's plans and drawn him away from this pit. Now, David just needed to figure out how to let the critter out of the trap without it eating him instead of Dane.

"David!" Dane's voice was much closer now. David hadn't bought as much time as he'd hoped. He had to hide---but the disturbed leafs and dirt were going to point the pack leader in David's direction as clearly as a neon sign reading: 'Secret Hiding Place Here'. David ran for the undergrowth beside the trail…

Sure enough, Dane paused at that exact spot. He spat into the pit and the baby T-Rex took another lunge at the bars, howling its rage. Dane wasn't ruffled in the least bit. His eyes followed the path of scattered debris and dust as though following markers that pointed to the nearby underbrush. "I think you leave me breadcrumbs to follow…I teach you better than to make such a mess, boy, so you must not hide in the brush. Or maybe you know I think you not be so dumb as to leave a trail to where you hide, so you hide there to fool me. Maybe I jus' make sure…" Gabriel drew his blade and hacked relentlessly at the bushes.

David watched, perched on a branch in the trees directly above Dane and the pit.

Positive that the younger man wasn't in the bushes, Dane sheathed his blade. "If I want someone to look this way…" He pointed to the shrubs. "…it be because I go…." Dane stared up into the canopy of branches, spying David easily. "…up there. Bravi, you do pay attention, son"

"Don't call me that."

Gabriel clutched his chest, looking hurt. "What I do that make you turn against me?"

"You want the whole list? Let's see---you tried to get me to kill scalies by chaining me up as bait for the carnosaurs. You used me for a punching bag for letting that skybax go. You left Paiva and Jerrald to die when we were cornered by that Pteranodon and all they did was save my life. Remember them, Dane? They were my friends," David growled.

"There are no friends in the packs. Friends are your weakness. Your weakness get you killed. I do what I do to make you strong. The strong survive. I teach you to survive. You know this. I say also the pack come first. You know this, too, eh?"

"Gabriel 'come first'," David said.

"So, you bring me here to use my own traps on me, oui?"

"That was the idea."

Dane grinned. "I always like your…irony…David." He drew his knife again. "You not trap me now. So, you come down…we see if you learn to fight better than you learn to bait."

"I'm going to say…no," David refused.

"I have time. You do not."

The roar of the rampaging carnosaurs belied Dane's words. A shadow of one dinosaur gliding high above passed over the trail. "Listen to the scalies, Dane. They'll be here soon. You don't have as much time as you think. You should let this go," David advised.

Dane shook his head. "No, this I cannot do. I be weak, no pack follow me then."

"You take things too personally…it's not healthy." David hid his nervousness, trying to form some sort of plan to get out of this mess.

Then a miracle happened. David saw it before Dane did---or rather, David felt the presence drawing nearer even before he saw the dark form appear in the sky. He didn't know what to make of the sensation as thoughts and emotions---curious, angry, protective, and definitely not human---touched his mind. He'd never imagined he'd see a day when he could tell one scalie from another, either, but this winged dinosaur with the albino hide was already proving an exception. Where 'Freefall' came from or why he came back, David didn't know, but the skybax's return gave him hope of surviving this ill-conceived plan.

The pterosaur dove at the pack leader, raking its claws across Dane's shoulders as he glided past the man. Dane screamed---and dropped the dagger. Freefall circled around for another pass. Dane ducked for cover to avoid another impact with the creature or its razor-sharp talons. Meanwhile, David dropped from the branches, a new plan half-forming in his mind as he ran up behind Dane. He reached for the grating covering the pit and the T-Rex and pulled with his last ounce of strength.

As if sensing what the human boy had in mind, Freefall swooped down at Gabriel again, but instead of making another flying pass, the pterosaur landed in front of Dane, putting itself between the pack leader and his weapon. Freefall beat his wings at the human, driving Dane back for the pit even as the bars to the cage started to slide open. A howl was the only warning as the small T-Rex propelled itself from the pit and leaped straight at its tormentor, Dane. The last thing David saw as he ran was the scalie's teeth tearing into the pack leader's arm...

Dane rose from his spot by the fire, crushing out his cigarette and capping the flask, as David and Le Sage approached. The presence of the flask bothered David almost as much as the M.I.A. Payden. Gabriel wouldn't allow himself to lose control of his faculties, even a little bit, unless he was feeling very secure. Even though the nearby sunstone would keep them safe from carnosaurs, With Le Sage's pack surrounding his own, outnumbering his own people, knowing that David had the medallion that powered Cyrus' submarine, the last thing Gabriel should have been feeling at the moment was secure. If Dane had reason to think that he had the upper hand, David for damn sure wanted to know what that reason was.

"You still alive, Barrett, because it made me very curious, your message," Gabriel was blunt. He pulled at a cord around his neck. A large, pointed tooth hung from the cord. "The scalie that take my arm leave me his tooth…"

"Yeah, uh, sorry about the arm," David said.

Dane ignored him. His glassy-eyed gaze shifted briefly to Le Sage, looking her up and down with undisguised lust. David tensed, wondering if he'd have to intervene, although it wasn't like she couldn't handle Dane on her own. Le Sage didn't bat an eye, but the corner of her mouth curled upwards in a warning that Gabriel understood even in his alcohol-induced haze. He tapped the cord again. "…There plenty of space beside it for her black heart…and something of yours, too, Barrett. Where my medallion?"

David raised an eyebrow. "Where's Payden?" he countered.

"You give me my medallion and perhaps you not see Payden," Gabriel offered. The implications of that remark made David's blood run cold. Just where was Dane's buddy…what were they up to?

"How about the medallion and help getting Cyrus' submarine off the bottom of the bay in exchange for a our lives and a ride off the island? Would that take your mind off the, er, arm?" David asked.

Gabriel stared into the younger man's eyes, anger and something unreadable in his gaze. Finally, he nodded. "For that, I would consider your debts repaid in full, yes. But you hand it over now." He held out his hand expectantly.

David ignored the gesture. "I want your word, Dane. No offense, but you have sent at least half of them---" He indicated Dane's pack. "---after me in the past month." He fixed Robere with a glare and the smarmy henchman fidgeted nervously.

Standing beside Robere, Miguel stared at the ground, "Sorry about the Chaymyn root in the salve, by the way."

David was impressed. "That was you? Nice work."

Miguel shrugged. "You're just saying that. It didn't kill you."

"No, don't be modest. I was lucky. Really, I never expected that one. Had hives for two weeks…I thought that peddler did it 'cause he found out about me and his dau---" David felt Le Sage's nails dig into his elbow. "---never mind."

"That was principle. You not kill the scalie like I tell you to. You understand, I had to kill you. No one defy me and not be punished," Dane answered.

"Since that scalie is going to pull that boat off the sea floor, it's a good thing I didn't," David pointed out.

"So it is." Dane's jaw twitched ever so slightly. "Our escape more important now. Lucky for you, the only thing that make me forget about this---" He held up his mangled arm. "---be that pretty medallion you steal. I give you my word: You help us, I not kill you."

Le Sage interjected, "What about the word of the hygienically challenged here?" She nodded to the pack.

Dane chuckled at that. "Their word as well. But you place me in a delicate position. What assurance we have that you not kill us once the boat be up? There more of you than of us. You give me your word---you both give me your word."

She grinned. "Don't worry about us trying to kill you---having principles is too much work for me."

Satisfied with that, Gabriel extended his palm again. David hesitated. Dane was still calling a truce too easily for his liking. Le Sage was here with her pack, untouchable for all practical purposes. Al was on the other side of the island, the medallion still under his guard, well beyond Dane's reach. But Dane's readiness to forgive---and Payden's absence---was rapidly turning David's apprehensiveness into outright dread. He met the pack leader's gaze, trying to read in his expression just what other trump card Dane thought he was holding. Gabriel's face was a mask. David hoped his own features were just as unreadable.

"How about we get the sub out of the bay, see what the damage is, and then we'll talk about bringing out the medallion?" David suggested.

Gabriel's hand went to his belt, and for a moment David tensed in anticipation of Dane going for his bone dagger. He could feel Le Sage tense and knew she was equally anxious beneath her calm façade. Seconds dragged by. When Gabriel took a step closer, David took a step back. But, instead of drawing a weapon, the pack leader draped a hand on his shoulder in his usual gesture of approval.

"Our boy is a man. You beat me to the sunstone---you steal it from under the nose of the scalie lovers. You use smoke like I teach you, yes? Then, you cover your tracks like I teach you. I break your neck, but I too proud of you." Dane patted him on the back. "We go to see the boat. Just me and the two of you…no advantage then. We catch up…"

"Skybaxes!"