than that of a small pocket knife, and the handle doesn’t quite fill my hand when I grasp it.
Even so, I manage to cut a sapling off at the root and strip it of twigs. I get one of the big leaves and stain it with red not-currant juice, then attach the leaf to the end of the sapling with a thin length of bark. Not something I would use to catch fish, but it will have to do for now.
I walk over to Caronerax and hold out my palm, filled with berries. “Want some? They’re good.”
“Good for killing dragons, no doubt,” he grunts. “You keep testing my patience. I should rip you apart and be done with it.”
“Suit yourself.” I pop another couple of berries into my mouth, more for show than because I need much more. The sugar in them has already perked me up and given me more energy. “I guess we’ll keep going.”
So I do, reflexively keeping a good lookout around me and up at the sky. I haven’t seen any not-dactyls in this forest, but that doesn’t have to mean they’re not here.
I speed up. If this place is really as far away from the village as Canada is from Mexico, then it doesn’t matter how fast I walk. I won’t get there for months. But I can’t think like that, because it just brings more darkness. And I sure don’t need that. I’ll assume that this different landscape is due to some quirk of the planet that I didn’t know about. After all, how far can a dragon fly in one night?
Emptying my mind of thoughts, I realize I’ll have to take one day at a time.
One hour at a time.
One breath at a time.
One step at a time. Keep going. Enjoy the cool air. Enjoy the fresh scent of the not-pines. Enjoy the springy ground. It’s only a pleasant hike in the woods. People on Earth pay good money for things like this.
I send a glance behind me. Caronerax walks with eerily silent steps, not making a sound on the crunchy forest floor. Still keeping his distance, warily eyeing me.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was afraid of me. Probably not that weird — dragons are extremely powerful beings, but for some reason I was able to injure this one. For all I know, it might be his first injury. Like, ever. It might be the first time in his life he shed ichor.
Because of me.
I would be afraid, too, in that situation.
The thought perks me up. It’s better to be feared than to be totally harmless. At least it feels better. It puts me in a better posit—
“Oh fuck.”
The dinosaur looks so much like a smooth, bare cliff that I walk alongside it for several steps before the smell gets so strong I realize I’m close to something that’s alive.
I instinctively pull back from it, gracelessly falling on my butt in the process.
A gigantic, brown head on a quarter mile long neck swings around, bulging eyes looking at me from high above. It has a whole tree in its immense mouth, munching on the crown of it like I would on a twig of parsley.
The dino is beyond huge. It’s the size of a mountain, so much so that I thought it was one, even if it’s clearly lying down.
I’ve only seen these things from a great distance, and of course I’ve heard them at night, when their thousand-foghorn mating calls resonate through the jungle from miles and miles away.
The cavemen call it a bobont, from the noise its feet make when it walks.
The head is the size of a two-family house. It comes down to take me in. One immense eye comes so close it petrifies me with its intense scrutiny from thirty feet above. It’s like being examined by some kind of primitive god.
I was on edge already, but this is something else again and I consider sitting down, just to show the thing how harmless I am. I know these dinos are probably not dangerous to me, because they only seem to graze on trees and not girls. But the sheer size terrifies me.
As I watch, the huge head snaps up and I am forgotten.
Ah. The bobont has discovered Caronerax. He has a tendency to grab everyone’s attention.
He carelessly strolls up, and I can’t help but admire his calm. That dino is the biggest on Xren, with a presence I feel acutely down my spine. And it