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.Blade watched, partly fascinated, partly amazed, and partly appalled.He knew he should gather up Arllona and slip away along the riverbank.However the battle came out, they could be long gone by the time it was over.The survivors, if any, would be in no shape to chase them.That was the only sensible thing to do.For once, Blade could not quite bring himself to be sensible.He had never seen such mad courage or courageous madness as this warrior was showing.He wanted to see how this fight came out, and he hoped he would see the warrior walk away the victor.There wasn't much chance of that, but if it happened he wanted to be there to see it.The beast hissed and raised its head again.Blade saw that several spears already jutted from its head and neck.The warriors or their comrades had already struck home, enough to drive the beast and draw it after them, out of the jungle to the riverbank.The beast's jaws and teeth glistened with fresh blood.The fight hadn't been one-sided.The world seemed to explode now, as the beast noticed the tiny figure trying to get its attention.Its head rose as high as a three-story building, arching up and out on a neck six feet thick and covered with scales a foot across.The head swayed back and forth, as the spearman continued his furious war dance.Then it swooped downward.A second before the head and the man came together, Blade saw what the warrior was trying to do.He was trying to draw the creature into a furious lunge, then leap aside, going in under the horns with a thrust to one eye.With just a little more skill and speed he could have done it.The warrior leaped a fraction of a second too late.One of the horns smashed him across the chest, crushing ribs and left shoulder.He sprawled backward on the grass without making a sound or letting go of his spear.He still didn't make a sound as the jaws closed on him, the teeth meeting with a clak as they tore through his body in a dozen places.He didn't let go of the spear, either.A last convulsive jerk of his right arm drove it into the beast's nose, hard enough to pierce the scales.It jutted out at an angle as the beast's head rose, the warrior still clamped tightly in its bloody jaws.The beast went on rising until its neck was fully extended.It went on rising until the front legs were clear of the ground.As it reared it swiveled on its massive hind legs.Blade saw thirty feet of armored tail swing like a club, heard bushes and trees crackling and crunching, heard Arllona scream.He realized suddenly that she was directly in the path of the swinging tail, and he hurled himself toward where he'd left her.Like the dead warrior, he was a fraction of a second too late.As it swung toward the fear-paralyzed woman, the beast's tail rose into the air.Arllona stayed where she was.Blade saw with relief that the tail should pass clear over her.But as the scaled mass rose, it smashed into still another tree.Wood gave way with a terrible crackling and splintering.The tree tottered, then toppled over squarely on top of Arllona.She had time to scream once in helpless terror.She screamed again as the tree crashed down on her, a long and completely terrible scream, screaming out her life as the falling tree crushed her into the ground.The beast's tail swept over Blade's head low enough to brush his hair.The falling tree crashed down close enough for a branch to whip painfully across his ankles.He stood alone, as the tail thudded to the earth behind him, staring at Arllona's arm sticking out from under the tree.Then there was silence, except for the hissing and crunching of the beast as it devoured the last remains of the man who had faced it alone.There was no silence in Blade's mind.There was a rage so physical that he could hear it bubbling in his ears like boiling stew.His eyes swept down the scaly length of the beast, looking and remembering.He remembered that the hunter had been going for the eyes.So there was the vulnerable spot.A spear in one eye-All the spears he could see were sticking in the creature's head and neck.Very well, he would go get one of those.Blade's massive legs churned, and he plunged forward.He sprang onto the beast's tail like an Olympic high jumper.The tail offered him a clear path up on to the broad back.He remembered that dinosaurs were slow-witted and sluggish, unable to respond quickly to a fast-moving danger.Blade moved fast.He dashed up the tail, onto a scaled back as broad as the roof of a small house.His rage made him inhumanly clear-sighted and precise in all his movements [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]