The Ring of Winter - James Lowder [48]
For their part, the bearers showed no fear of the sounds. They knew the roaring of the dinosaurs well. To them, the monsters were the Children of Ubtao, the most spectacular creation of the great Chultan god. Unlike many of the other gods in the Realms, Ubtao had little traffic with those who believed in him. The Tabaxi did not plead to him for boons or ask for visions of the future; they went about their lives, secure that events in the jungle unfolded as Ubtao wished.
Artus never learned how the bearers interpreted what happened next, whether they believed Ubtao had revealed his anger through his children or the dinosaurs had been acting upon instinct.
It started when the lone altispinax ceased its roaring. The silence lasted an instant, then the rolling call of other sail-backed dinosaurs came from every direction. Artus looked from right to left and scanned the trees and tangles of vines for signs of movement. Though the creatures sounded close, he couldn't see anything. Then he remembered the coloration of the altispinax on the rocks. In this overgrown part of the jungle, it would blend in with the vegetation.
"Judar," Artus said, "get the bearers to form a circle between those two large trees."
Another roar, close at hand. Artus stared hard at a cluster of frond-heavy plants. The sound seemed to come from there…
The dinosaur opened its mouth to roar again, and the flash of hundreds of daggerlike white teeth gave its location away. Gods, Artus shouted in his mind, they're close! They've probably been lurking around us since we left camp!
The altispinax turned, and its sail caught the sunlight bleeding through the canopy. The dinosaur growled, rolling its red-rimmed eyes. Artus dropped his pack, stepping slowly backward toward the bearers. He could hear the worried murmuring of the Tabaxi as they propped their packs around their position in a waist-high defensive wall. "Should we climb the trees?" Judar asked, gripping his bamboo pole with trembling hands.
Artus glanced at the closest trees. Their trunks were too fat around, their bark too smooth. The lowest branches lay hundreds of feet off the ground. The men would never be able to climb fast enough or high enough to avoid the dinosaurs.
"We're going to have to make a stand here," Artus said, stringing his bow. "Let's just hope they're not very hungry or-" he nocked a blue-fletched arrow "-that we can prove we're not an easy meal."
The red-eyed altispinax moved forward cautiously, testing the air with its wide nostrils. It casually kicked Artus's pack. The three claws on its foot tore a hole in the sturdy canvas as if it were gossamer. With two gulps the dinosaur devoured the rations Artus had carried there, along with the rest of his clothes, a spare pair of boots, his canteen, and the remains of the shredded pack itself. That meager fare gone, it looked once more at the explorer and his trapped party.
All around the makeshift fort, the bearers faced sail-backed monsters with equally ravenous looks in their eyes. These were smaller than the one that had devoured Artus's pack, but they also seemed more anxious to get at the men. The Tabaxi held their bamboo poles out like spears, prodding any altispinax that got too close. That only seemed to irritate the creatures further, especially since the sharpened points did little more than scratch the dinosaurs' tough hide.
The brute in front of Artus roared, then started forward at a jog. As he went to draw the longbow, Artus saw Judar reaching for him. More precisely, the guide seemed to be pointing at the now-useless Mulhorandi amulet hanging around his neck. The white paste that damped its magical energy shone dully in the perpetual twilight beneath the canopy. "That can't do anything for us," Artus snapped, elbowing the slight youth aside.
He fired at the dinosaur twice before it crashed