Disclaimer: I do not own Universal Cartoon Studios' The Land Before Time (I think they're the ones who do) or Dark Horse Comics' The Age of Reptiles. I never have, and never will.

Introduction: To answer the many requests to know more about the Deinonychus clan without forcing people to scour online stores and their local comic book shops for copies of the Age of Reptiles (Tribal Warfare) I have prepared this special prologue to better introduce our sharp tooth brothers and sisters.

In the Age of Reptiles the characters are drawn a certain way that may not be consistent with the scientific appearance of the animal, especially since the scientific opinion of the animal's appearance is always subject to change. In this story I have tried to describe how the creator of the Age of Reptiles, Ricardo Delgado, draws his characters, and not how they should scientifically appear. The deinonychus more or less resemble the Jurassic Park's Velociraptors, their color is an orange-goldish tan and various dark brown tiger stripes or other such markings, therefore imagine a JP raptor with the markings I will try to describe when you imagine these dinosaurs.

This is the second book in my Land Before Time/Tribal Warfare cross over. It contains at least one chapter dedicated to each of the major factions in the third book, The Adventure of Bone Valley. I wanted to do more with the deinonychus, but didn't want it running too long. Each of these bonus chapters will tell you more about a group of dinosaurs, for example the Great Valley dinosaurs, or the T-Rex family. They will explain more about the players in the third book, and explain a bit of why things are happening and why the dinosaurs are responding in the way they do, maybe even show you a glimpse of what's about to happen in the upcoming book 4. Because however these take place before the bone valley adventure I'm putting them up as a prequel even though Bone Valley was written first, many apologies for any confusion.

Passage One . . .
The Pack!
To an outside observer the scene would have looked like chaos. Five small deinonychus trying to take on an entire herd of plant eaters three times their size?

The smaller dinosaurs ran through the entire herd, nipping at flanks and swiping with their three clawed hands, or occasionally springing and using the deadly retractable claw on each foot to rip open a wound on one of the larger animals.

But there was a method to the madness, and soon the small tan colored dinosaurs had singled out a pair of the duck billed dinosaurs, two younger ones who had been more easily herded than the oldsters.

From out of nowhere more of the pack hunters appeared, four of them leaping into the air and landing on the two young duck bills!

Quetzal, a deinonychus with feathers going down the back of it's neck held on to the larger dinosaurs head, claws dug into the creature's flesh as deadly teeth tried to bite out the behemoth's eyes.

The entire clan had their own unique markings, but Quetzal was the only one to have a feathered neck. Quetzal also had three nasty looking pink scars on her hindquarters, a souvenir from a fight with another deinonychus.

Like the rest of the clan Quetzal was a tan base color with a yellow underbelly and dark brown stripes somewhat rounded around the edges along her back and legs , including one over each eye. The final third of the tail was completely colored as were the hands and feet.

But now, in the heat of the hunt Quetzal's hands and feet were stained with dark red blood, and her mouthful of sharp white teeth were employed to rip into the back of the hadrosaur's neck.

With a low, somewhat dimwitted moan the duck billed dinosaur fell face forward to the ground, the deinonychus on it's back leapt off before it hit the ground, but Quetzal, claws still gripping the back of it's neck and jaws still clamped on the back of it's head, rode it to the ground without so much as a flinch.

Quetzal was arguably the pack's best hunter, one of the fastest runners, and most reliable tracker, and in addition to these things, she could be utterly fearless.

A few of the deinonychus rushed for the downed prey, forgetting the live one that was struggling with two of their comrades still on it's back.

Leopard held onto his prey, foot claws planted, and hands scratching wildly to find a firm purchase! Leopard was different from the others in a way just as obvious as Quetzal's feathers, Leopard had rings and spots rather than stripes, and beyond the spots, he had almost no dark brown markings at all.

Also, rather than a sleek, angular snout like the others, Leopard had an array of pointed horns on his snout, nothing too large, but they were noticeable.

While the cause was anyone's guess, the came in handy as Leopard butted his head against the duckbilled dinosaur again and again in an attempt to make it stop thrashing about. He let out a heart stopping roar, just in case that helped the great stupid dinner tray to stop moving around and accept it's fate.

It didn't, and Leopard was in danger of being thrown off completely!

But Dark Eye leapt in at just that moment, digging his claws into the duckbills soft throat and biting a large portion of it away, all three deinonychus leapt to safety as the second duckbill tumbled to the ground.

Dark Eye's differences from the rest of the pack were less dramatic than those of his comrades but he was no less unique.

His markings, like Quetzals, were pretty standard, though the edges were sharper and less rounded he had a striped back and about a third of his tail completely colored as well as his hands and feet. A dark brown stripe came down from the back of his head, over his eyes and to his chin, but not covering the tip of his snout.

Along the back of his neck, rather than attractive feathers were spikes, short and evenly spaced apart leading down to the base of his somewhat lengthy deinonychus neck.

Dark Eye was the only member of the pack to have a white underbelly, everyone else's was a dull yellow color, but what earned Dark Eye his name was the fact that his eyes were a deep, dark shade of red, while the rest of the pack had light pink eyes.

He stood over the kill with a satisfied look painted across his fearsome face, and his comrades began to feast upon the duck billed dinosaur before it had even had a chance to finish dying.

Dark Eye surveyed the other deinonychus bouncing about wildly, excitedly trying to bite off as much as they could and swallow it before anyone noticed it was missing.

One shoved his way through the others, he was darker than the others, dark brown where the others were merely a golden tan, and almost black where the others were dark brown. It was Neckbiter, large and tough, a real brawler.

He had three scars on his hindquarters just like Quetzal's, and it had been Quetzal who had given them to him, Neckbiter's face was marked in such a manner that his snout seemed to have been dipped into a barrel of ink, and though his eyes were simply pink like almost everyone else's, they had a hateful inner fire in them that seemed somehow dark in a different way.

He growled challengingly at Dark Eye, and the other deinonychus lunged forward, snapping at the darker colored hunter, Neckbiter leapt back and promptly decided to challenge someone else over at the second carcass.

Neckbiter and Dark Eye shared the leadership of the pack. It was an unusual arrangement, but one that had served the pack well for some time, though on most occasions where Neckbiter and Dark Eye both went out on the hunt at the same time, there could be some confusion as to who was in charge, on this occasion that had been remedied as each brother took control of a different pack.

Neckbiter had led the first team, and Dark Eye had led the ambush team, and now that the kills were made the teams dissolved into each other as all present ate as much as they could as quickly as they could.

The pack had made this kill at the very edge of their territorial border, and a second clan was likely to venture over the line and try to take it if they were nearby and thought they had great enough numbers.

Confrontation between clans was rare, but also very fierce and because neither clan had any regard for the well being of the other's members, fatalities were almost to be expected of such a meeting.

One Claw stood tall and watched the trees around them for movement, listened over the sound of her clan's feasting for any sound of unfamiliar dinosaurs. One Claw's markings and just about everything about her was uniform to the other deinonychus except for the fact that she was missing two finger on one of her hands, resulting in a hand with only one claw, hence the name.

She stood up, straight as a log, and glared out across the plains.

The duck billed dinosaurs had calmed down now, and were moving away slowly and calmly. The circle of life went on for them, their comrades were dead but replaceable and as long as they were still alive nothing else seemed to matter to them.

The deinonychus however worked in a slightly different manner, when a comrade was killed the pack would withdraw, but if it was possible they would return later for revenge. Not necessarily on the behalf of their fallen friend, there was nothing that could be done for that one, rather they would take revenge as a way to discourage others from taking them lightly, or attacking them again.

But the plant eaters just kept moving, saying good-bye to their fallen friend forever and doing nothing at all to discourage the pack from taking more meals from the herd.

In the time it took to consider and reflect on these things, One Claw got wind of the other clan.

They were coming, and in greater numbers than the ten deinonychus currently enjoying their latest kills. One Claw barked out a warning to Dark Eye and Neckbiter.

Both were in agreement on what course of action they should take next, so there was no confusion for the rest of the pack. Dark Eye leapt atop one of the carcasses and glared off in the direction One Claw had indicated, and Neckbiter kept on eating.

They were going to stay, the question was what were their rivals planning to do about it?

Usually the invading pack would either walk away once they saw the killers still standing over the carcass, or they'd attack and a fight would break out.

Of course either way anyone who didn't know how to spot them would never see them until it was too late. The entire pack was on edge, but only Dark Eye and One Claw were actually looking for possible attackers.

Or so it seemed until Pytor screeched and leapt out as if he meant to attack One Claw, who turned around in surprise and leapt back out of the way just in time to avoid the invader that would have landed on her, claws extended for the kill.

The invader was not so lucky when Pytor landed on him, Pytor's legs and arms were darkly marked, as if he were wearing long boots and gloves, he had a terrible scar across his snout, and one of his hands had been bitten away some time ago. Such an injury may have proven fatal, but Pytor was lucky to be free of infection, and was ferocious enough that having one hand had very little effect on his hunting and fighting abilities, if anything it made him even more ferocious in combat, which he demonstrated as his one hand ripped away the attacker's throat, one of his long killing claws cutting the invader's belly open and spilling his innards.

Dark Eye let out a roar to warn his pack and leapt off of the carcass in time to avoid another hunter trying to attack him. The invading deinonychus immediately prepared to spring again, and the two glared at each other for less than a moment before two of Dark Eye's pack leapt onto his attacker.

Invading deinonychus began to charge out of the long grass that Dark Eye and his ambushers had been hiding in not so long ago. The defending pack needed to react quickly, Dark Eye charged for the biggest opponent he could find, a quick glance at Quetzal told her exactly where he wanted her.

As the large female attacker came at Dark Eye, a crazed look in her pink eyes. Dark Eye lowered himself to the ground as if he were going to sleep. His attacker slowed a bit considering the possible form of surrender it's prey seemed to have adopted for the split second before Quetzal leapt out and ended it's confusion permanently.

Dark Eye was up, he saw an enemy hunter leap towards Leopard, he rushed to intervene, but out of the corner of his left eye he saw another invader charging for him. He turned to meet this attacker head on, only to be knocked to the ground from behind.

Neckbiter was moving away from him slowly, a wicked sneer on his face as he looked at the invader about to end his brother's life. As he scrambled to his feet, Dark Eye had little doubt that Neckbiter had been the one to knock him down, but what did he gain from it at a time like this?

He would have to worry about Neckbiter later, he turned an instant before the charging invader struck him, he lunged forward and sank his teeth into his opponent's shoulder, the two tumbled and rolled, claws scratching, jaws snapping.

Dark Eye was on his back, the invader came down on him quickly, jaws and claws ready to kill. Dark Eye remained perfectly still, apparently beaten until the last second when he thrust his head up and bit down on his surprised enemy's throat and ripped it away. Blood flowed freely down his face, and his enemy collapsed over him.

Dark Eye came to his feet and looked around. The other pack was withdrawing, six of them were unable to follow or generally do anything ever again, two of Dark Eye's own clan had been ripped apart by the enemy.

The numbers meant nothing to Dark Eye, he didn't really count. For him it was simply enough that many more enemies were dead than friends. But he glanced at the dead from his own clan and snarled at the invaders, the feeling seemed to be mutual throughout the entire pack.

The invaders had come with a slight numeric advantage, now Dark Eye's pack had that advantage. The invaders turned and darted off towards the forest, and Dark Eye's clan went back to their meal.

A little later four members of the other clan returned, carefully, cautiously they approached the spot where the fighting had occurred.

They made sure to keep a distance from the duckbill carcasses, and instead began to pull one of their own clan away from the battleground.

The injured dinosaur began to groan, surprising Dark Eye who'd thought it was dead. It squawked threateningly at Dark Eye and his clan and they took time out from their dinner to observe this spectacle as the four deinonychus dragged their comrade, who seemed to be quite pleased by the fact that it was going to be rescued.

Quetzal started to grin. Dark Eye, who just observed with mild interest, doubted that she was happy for their cousin.

The injured dinosaur had to realize it was doomed. But then, no one ever believes it when their time has come, and when the dying deinonychus had been pulled far enough away the superior look on it's face dissolved as it's comrades tore into it and began to eat. It did not survive very much longer after that, though it howled in agony for as long as it did.

Dark Eye looked at Quetzal, who looked at him with a satisfied expression on her face. He wondered if she'd guessed what was about to happen to the unfortunate creature. Quetzal had a great love for revenge, and with two clan members dead she'd probably been planning something dangerous already.

Maybe this would satisfy her instead. Dark Eye certainly didn't want her doing something crazy, like when she and Leopard had snuck into a tyrannosaur den to steal eggs out of revenge for Blueback's murder of Snake Eye.

But Dark Eye did not understand the other clan's motivation to attack their comrade. The rival deinonychus did not appear to be starving, and they could just as easily have left their comrade to die, there was no need for them to risk journeying back while Dark Eye and his clan were still on the kill sight, just to cannibalize their own casualties.

Dark Eye and his clan continued to watch as their rivals ate, but eventually the confusion and therefore interest in the matter wore off and they went back to eating the dead leaf eaters.

Passage Two . . .
The Nest.
The deinonychus pyramid was not a grand flat sided triangular building in the middle of the desert, but it was still quite fantastic.

Perched on the edge of a cliff and protected by a canyon which had been bridged by a log too frail for anything but a deinonychus to cross over, several great trees had twisted and mutilated, intertwined and wrapped around each other forming a twisted looking conical structure about two and a half times the size of a Tyrannosaur standing at it's full height. Several large thorns, each the size of a deinonychus' head protruded from the trunks and provided safety from any larger predators that might leap over the gap.

Inside this place was the deinonychus lair, a nesting ground, a sleeping area, and a safe place to hide it was difficult to imagine a better home.

Here young deinonychus like Ravener and Slash could grow up--assuming they were strong enough to survive that long, there were a hundred and one ways for a young dinosaur to die--and eventually become contributing members of the pack.

Ravener was almost identical to Neckbiter, his father. His colors were slightly lighter than Neckbiter's, but much darker than average. Like his father the first half of his snout seemed to have been dipped in ink, only these markings covered more of his face, stopping just before they covered his pink eyes. Most deinonychus' tails were ringed with dark brown stripes until the final third which was completely darkened, in Ravener's case the entire tail was colored very dark brown, and so were his legs right up to the thigh.

He was rough and had been known to injure his older siblings as well as his younger ones and it was all that Halla, his mother, could do to keep him from inflicting more than mere injury on his playmates.

Halla, unlike her mate, Neckbiter was actually a lighter color than the other deinonychus, and this had nothing to do with the fact that she saw much less sunlight than the other members of the pack, she was simply naturally lighter in color just as Neckbiter and Ravener was naturally darker in color.

Halla was calm, patient and very unlikely to leap before she looked. These were qualities that had made her an acceptable hunter in her time and a fine parent now.

The patience came in especially handy.

Slash had three long thin stripes going down her neck, and six going down her back. She had three stripes on her legs, and then two no her arms. From knees and elbows down she was devoid of any markings. Her tail had two rings around it instead of the usual three, then was completely dark brown from the mid point to the tip.

Of course curiosity could be a dangerous thing, but how was Slash to know this? She'd never really been in any danger that she could recall. Like most deinonychus she had no concept of her own mortality.

She was the sort of deinonychus who preferred to be left alone, she had many questions about the world around her but preferred to answer them herself rather than rely on someone else's opinion, even if that meant drawing the wrong conclusion.

Slash's mother, Nata, had far too many 'normal' offspring to tend to, to really concern herself with Slash. Nata was a less patient, less observant mother than Halla, but she was little younger and had by far less experience than Halla did with raising youngsters. Nata had already written Slash off as the walking dead, unless the child became more interested in being part of the group, and less interested in observing . . . everything, Slash would not survive very long.

Incidentally both Halla and Nata had come to realize why many dinosaurs ate their own young but neither had done so . . . yet.

Some times it was very tempting.

There was never a time when youngsters were allowed to hunt, but they could venture outside the pyramid. This had less to do with the deinonychus clan wanting it's offspring to see the world around them, and more to do with the fact that the children outnumbered the adults so there wasn't much the larger dinosaurs could do about the rowdier broods, beside make ideal threats and place half-hearted guards at the pyramid's entrances. Dinosaurs never did invent safety gates.

If the young were especially daring they could venture out across the log and into the woods on the other side, but few who ever made that trip returned, those few who did were usually dragged by the tail by some "cruel" adult who'd ruined their fun. It was common knowledge however that the greatest hunters had all gone out and made their first kills as infants.

"Common knowledge" is a term which here means "utter fiction made up by children who believe themselves immortal."

And so, determined to find adventure Ravener leapt onto the log and scurried across it to the other side.

Immediately there were new sounds, sights and smells! Compared to the old pyramid this was a fantastic new paradise, he could hear adventure calling his name and begging him to come and rip it's throat out!

He dashed off into the woods, looking at every new thing he came across and springing at whatever looked like it might taste good!

It was not long at all before he came to a lake, the sight of so much water made him realize how thirsty he was. He drank, and noticed that there were fish in the water.

Well those little wriggly things had to taste good. Why? Well . . . mostly because Ravener had decided it must be so and therefore it was so. He sprang into the water and the fish swam away quickly.

But his spring into the water would prove less than wise in just a moment.

He turned and saw a fish wriggling along the bank, making it's way back to the water.

What the lung fish was doing out of the water didn't really matter to Ravener, and he wasn't about to waste his time on useless speculation or that thing the grown ups called 'caution' he just hopped over to the fish--which was nearly as big as he was--and picked it up with both claws.

It looked delicious . . .

From behind him rose up a pair of eyes . . . watching him from the surface of the water and slowly moving closer.

Ravener took a bite out of the fish, it was disgusting. He turned around and tossed it back into the water, but as it sailed through the air a giant monster leapt out of the water, catching the fish in it's gigantic jaws of doom and biting it in half, it slammed into the ground just inches away from the infant deinonychus.

Ravener jumped back in surprise, but tried to get a good look at this strange new dinosaur, it was a phobosuchus, not that Ravener would have benefitedd very much from that information.

He didn't care what it was called, how much it looked like what would some day be known as an alligator, all that interested him was that it's ambush had been ruined and it now appeared to be dead. It was just laying there completely still, it's mouth slightly agape . . .

Ravener knew that fish was pretty terrible, good thing he only took a little bite.

Now he had the strangest urge to go closer and look inside that mouth . . .

As he got closer he noticed an insect buzz around and land on the other dinosaur's tongue, still the phobosuchus didn't budge an inch.

Even as an adult the phobosuchus would have been simply enormous compared to Ravener, so having killed it he felt quite pleased with himself, and decided there was no need for caution. He approached the thing and leaned forward to look inside it's mouth.

The insect buzzed away from the apparently dead dinosaur's tongue and landed on it's eye, which caused it's jaws to snap shut, and for it to shake it's head.

Ravener was running away at top speed before the larger dinosaur even realized that it's prey wasn't in it's jaws, and dejectedly slid back into the water.

And he would continue to run until he reached the log and leapt over it, running dangerously fast across the dangerously untrustworthy log he dashed into the pyramid, quite certain that the Phobosuchus had followed him and would be able to smash his way in he put as many fatter juicier adults as he could between himself and the entrance.

End . . .
Closing: The majority of the main Deinonychus are from Age of Reptiles: Tribal Warfare, a tale of a Deinonychus clan and a Tyrannosaurus family battling for control of a valley, it is a story that I claim no ownership over. It also has nothing to do with the Land Before Time, the AoR dinosaurs don't even talk, but I crossed them over anyway because I thought they were both such fantastic tales.

Some might think that Delgado's boys are too violent for the Land Before Time universe, but to them I suggest re-watching the first movie. I mean c'mon, Littlefoot's mom slams Sharp tooth's head into a mountain side with her tail twice, crushing a few rocks while she's at it, then gets a big chunk of flesh ripped out of her back! Because it is a children's movie, amazingly neither dinosaur bleeds as a result of any of this, but if they had it would have been very similar to Age of Reptiles. Later the kids murder Sharp tooth (I call it a murder because they planned to kill him from the start, at no point was the plan designed to merely scare him off, they knew what had to be done. Kind of harsh for a children's movie though) this is a kid's movie with attitude, I love it! (Most of the sequels are good too)

In this story I took Quetzal, Dark Eye, Leopard, One Claw and invented Neckbiter whom all meet Littlefoot long ago, back in Littlefoot's New Friends. This current story takes place years and years later, or at least long enough for Littlefoot and his friends to grow up and have families. These are the main adults, the main children are Ravener and Slash, both of whom I had to create, and for support I created a whole pack of other deinonychus, many of them, like Pyke or Blaine are just extras. Names thrown in so you don't get confused by a lot of "hey you". Some may be glorified with a speaking line but otherwise just exist as background characters and possible cannon fodder.

I hope you've enjoyed this little look into the pack . . . one problem some of my friends had with it was that the dinosaurs don't speak. Others didn't notice this and weren't bothered by it, but I'm told more could have been accomplished had Dark Eye and someone else, Leopard perhaps, simply sat down and talked to each other for ten pages.

I didn't want this to be a long fireside conversation, I wanted this to be another adventure in the lives of these poor doomed dinosaur that also takes a little time to explain some features of them. Words just didn't seem necessary, they might have simplified a few things, but there are certain things that just shouldn't be simplified. As always feel free to e-mail me any big questions, or suggestions. This chapter is subject to revision later, if it becomes too big of a problem the dinosaurs will speak in some later update.

JFalcon