See part one for explanation and disclaimers. Hallmark & James Gurney still own 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.

The skybax rider appeared from the sidetrail in a blur. Heedless of the dagger, or the fact that Payen was twice as large and fully capable of pulverizing him, Karl jumped onto the hulking outsider.

Frank heard his older son’s voice. “Karl?” What was Karl doing here? Was he actually helping David Barrett? He was supposed to be on the other side of the island. Frank couldn’t see what was going on from down in the pit—not what Payden was doing to David or what was going on with Karl now. If that Outsider hurt either of those boys…. Frank tried jumping, tried to catch a hold of the grate, but it was too high up. The walls of the pit were too smooth to allow climbing. There was no way out. Frank slammed his fist into the wall in helpless rage.

“Oh great…” David watched Karl’s feeble efforts to attack the Outsider. Karl hung on Payden’s back, but only for a few seconds. With one arm, Payden reached around and flipped the teenager over his shoulder. Grabbing Karl’s shirt, the Outsider flung the boy right into David. Both boys landed hard on the ground. Karl’s elbow accidentally connected with David’s ribs, knocking the wind out of him so effectively that it almost triggered one of David’s asthma attacks.

As David lay there, suddenly having to concentrate just to breathe, Payden lifted Karl aside and tossed him onto the grate. Borale glared at Barrett: “You disobeyed my order!”

David gasped, “Emotions---they’ll get---you killed---remember?”

Payden leaned until his face was inches from the boy’s, face tight with fury. “Not me, boy…just you three. Starting with the dino-scout.”

Moving with speed that surprised even himself, David swung his leg so that the chain wrapped itself around Payden’s neck and pulled as hard as he could. Payden hadn’t expected it either. His eyes bulged as his air was cut off and the links dug into his neck. He clawed desperately with one hand at the chain. His other hand raised the dagger. His gaze flicked towards Karl, who was still prone on the grate, and Payden raised the blade to drive it into the skybax rider’s heart…

“No!” David snatched up a rock and pitched it at the gate’s trigger. It was a direct hit—the trigger shifted its position and the grate instantly yielded to Karl’s weight. The teenager dropped into the pit and Payden’s dagger found only empty air. The gate swung shut with a clink. The outsider growled for frustration and turned back towards David.

Frank managed to half catch Karl when the boy unexpectedly plunged into the pit. He helped his son find his footing. “Karl? Are you all right?”

Karl squinted in the dim light of the pit. “Dad?!” They’d made it in time. Dad was alive! With a prayer of thanks, Karl hugged his father fiercely. “Am I all right? What about you?”

“Fine---” Frank began, until the ground shook in unison with the bellow of the T-Rex, significantly closer than it had been when it first roared.

Karl glanced at the grate above their heads. David was still chained up there with the predator approaching---and Payden had a dagger. “Dad, boost me up!” He pointed to the grate.

Payden felt the stab of his blade hit home. There was a grunt from Barrett, which was drowned out by another roar from the T-Rex. The resistance from the younger man abruptly ceased and the chain around Borale’s neck went slack. Payden gasped for air and freed himself from the links before he wiped the dirt from his face. He was rewarded with the sight of Barrett pulling Payden’s dagger from his shoulder. Blood seeped from the wound onto the dirt. Borale snatched the blade away from the younger man’s weakened grip.

“Don’t worry, Barrett---you were lucky: The wound won’t kill you before the scalie does.” With a grin of satisfaction, Payden climbed his feet. He untangled himself from David’s chain and gave the wounded man a kick that sent him rolling onto the grate.

Karl’s fingers only brushed the steel gate before David landed there, propelled by the blow from Payden. The gate swung open beneath his weight, sending Barrett and Karl both tumbling back into the pit. The gate tried to close automatically once relieved of David’s weight, but the chain still attached to David’s ankle prevented it from shutting. The fall and the abrupt stop with the chain might have snapped David’s ankle if Frank instinctively hadn’t moved to catch the tumbling form. Karl managed to land on his feet this time.

Supporting the boy, using one arm to try to hold him so that he wasn’t hanging quite upside down, Frank felt something sticky on David’s shoulder. “Oh God…” It had a metallic smell. Blood. Scott felt at the boy’s shoulder in the dim light until his hands hit a spot that made David grunt in pain even in his semiconscious state.

“David?” Karl rushed to join them, blanching at the blood staining his brother’s shirt beneath Frank’s fingers. “Ohmygod…dad, what--?”

“Where’s the key to this contraption?” Frank glared at the chain as if his stare would melt the links.

“Payden…aw man….” Karl felt himself start to panic, but he didn’t have that luxury. So, he did what the Corps had trained him to do in a terrifying situation and analyzed. They had to get David out of this chain and back to Waterfall City where someone could help him. They needed the key to unlock the cuff. Payden had the key. Plus, there was at least one T-Rex stomping towards the pit at the moment and the gate wouldn’t lock with the chain blocking it. If it wasn’t locked, if David was still chained, the T-Rex would pull him up like a fish on a hook, and---

He decided without hesitation. “Dad, take care of David. I’ll be right back.” Karl grabbed David’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Hang on, bro. Don’t go anywhere.”

Frank frowned. “Bro?”

“Long story.” Karl grabbed the chain and started climbing.

“What are you doing?! Karl, Get back here! There’s a T-Rex up there!” Frank yelled.

Karl rolled his eyes. “I know, I know! Just take care of David, please Dad.” Not looking back, Karl pulled open the gate and climbed out of the pit. Payden was nowhere to be seen. Karl cursed.

In the pit, Frank ripped the sleeve off of David’s coat and began folding it into a bandage. “This is going to hurt, kid. I’m sorry.” He used his free hand to put pressure on that spot, wincing in sympathy at David’s grunt of pain. “Easy, I’ve got you.”

Barrett opened his eyes just a slit and breathed something that sounded distinctly like “Dad?”

“What? ‘Dad’?” Frank puzzled. The kid had to be delirious or something, but the word still impacted him like a blow to the gut. Something about it stoked the parental instincts Frank had always felt towards the kid. It felt right somehow. But why the hell had David said it?

Karl’s face appeared at the grate just for a second. “Long, long story.” Then he was gone, racing away in pursuit of Payden Borale.

13

“Jack, get down!”

Romana reinforced her shout of warning by reaching over and pushing the boy down flat against Pterra’s large neck as a pteranodon played chicken with her mount, missing them by inches. The pterosaur feinted left and went into a dive to avoid the mid-air collision, nearly dislodging the teenager. Romana’s arm came across the boy’s shoulders to keep him from falling. Before they’d left Waterfall City, she’d made Jack don every piece of protective gear she could---helmet, goggles, back padding, gloves, and elbow and leg pads---but even with such cover, the pteranodon claws were deadly. The gear was three sizes too big for him, he had to hang on for dear life to keep from being tossed off the dinosaur’s back, and, at the moment, Jack regretted coming along for the suicidal ride into carnosaur territory.

Marion and Noree had wanted to send in the whole of the Skybax Corps to help Karl and David. Romana had argued against it and Jack had backed her up. Everything he was starting to remember about the pack told him that Payden wasn’t kidding a little bit about killing Frank if anyone besides David showed up. Under cover of night, with her expert riding skills, Romana was sure she could sneak past the outsider. An entire squad of pterosaurs would be spotted at once.

“Can we just take a sunstone with us?” Jack asked. The stones were supposed to ward off the carnosaurs.

Marion smiled. “I’m afraid the only sunstone that works without a tower was my medallion.”

“Of course.”

The plan was simple: Romana and Jack would fly in with the faith stone, correct the timeline, and everyone should be safely returned to where they were when the switch took place---which eliminated the need to plan how to get out of the predator’s territory. As for finding Karl and David, Jack’s memory had already provided details of Dane’s hunting grounds. If that failed, they had Pterra. The skybax’s empathic link to its rider should lead them to Karl even if Jack’s recollection failed them. Romana’s own skybax had bellowed and sulked when she mounted Pterra instead and Jack heard her mumble something about her scalie and ‘paybacks for a week.’. He’d hesitated before climbing aboard the pterosaur. It looked so cool when Karl flew, but Jack found the overgrown lizard intimidating, especially when Pterra let out a deafening, impatient bellow.

That’s when Noree had called: “Jack Scott!” When he turned to her, the Keeper trotted over and, to his shock, pressed the Tohma Faiere into his gloved hand. Was the scal—the saurian---seriously trusting him with the freaky rock? This was Karl, David, and Frank’s lives they were quite literally putting in his hand. At his stunned expression Noree nodded, unable to smile but conveying complete trust. “You’ll need that.” Behind her, Marion also gave a nod of agreement.

“It’s your choice, Jack,” Marion clarified. “We’ll see you when this is over, one way or another.”

“Hope so,” Jack answered. Holding the meteorite by the chain, afraid to touch it and see more of the life he was going back to, he stuffed the stone into his jacket pocket. His finger brushed the leather Shō wristband in the pocket.

“Don’t you ever wonder, Dayel?”

“About you being too reckless? Absolutely.”

“No. About…what this music sounds like? About what their cities look like? About off-world?”

Jack put on the wristband for luck, and then buttoned the faith stone into the same pocket. Before he climbed onto the pterosaur, he took one last look at the band and hoped he’d at least remember how their songs sounded when he was Jack Barrett again.

Now, in the heart of carnosaur territory, Jack wavered between worry for Karl, Frank, and even David Bar—Scott---and fear that he and Romana weren’t going to survive long enough to deliver the faith stone in his pocket.

“Ro!” Jack waved to get her attention and pointed skyward. The pteranodon was coming up behind them again and fast.

“Hold on!” she ordered.

What did she think he was doing? Jack grimaced as Pterra went into a steeper dive, plunging like the world’s scariest rollercoaster ride, heading for the river below. For a moment, he thought they were going into the water, but Romana pulled up at the last minute and Pterra glided only a few feet above the river. He was going to be airsick. “Any chance you can drop me off?” he joked.

Then, in the faint moonlight, he saw something out the corner of his eye, and it definitely wasn’t a dinosaur. He would have known that face anywhere---now that he had his memory back, that is. Even worse, the figure on the riverbank had spotted the pterosaur. He saw us, he saw us, oh man, Payden saw us…

“Payden! Ro, that was Payden! Go back!” Jack gestured frantically towards the riverbank. Payden was alone. Where was Karl? Or Frank? Or David? Something was wrong, something was very wrong…

“Little busy here!” she answered. Her attention was on the pteranodon rapidly closing in on them. Doubling back, Romana urged Pterra straight for the edge of the sunstone’s reach until the carnosaur, unable to tolerate its rays any longer, finally let out a cry of rage and veered away.

*

The ground shook again with the force of the predator’s stomping, harder this time, nearly tearing David out of Frank’s grip when the chain snapped in reaction to the quaking. The T-Rex was definitely in the vicinity of the pit, Frank knew. He hoped Karl was putting distance between himself and the carnosaur, but Frank had to do something or he and David were going to end up being that reptile’s dinner. First thing, he had to get the boy out of that shackle.

“David? “ Frank shook the younger man’s good shoulder. When David didn’t respond, the older man barked in parental authority: “Wake up!”

David’s eyes opened at once.

Frank grinned. “I’m going to get this chain off, son, but you have to hold this bandage for a minute and keep your eyes open. You hear me? Can you do that?” Very slowly, the younger man nodded and lifted one hand to press against the bandage. The droop of the kid’s eyes gave Frank his doubts. He had to keep Barrett awake and alert. Frank frowned at the tattoo on David’s hand. “Tats…I’ll tell you, no kid of mine is ever getting a tat…”

Then the Shō logo gave Frank an idea: “David? Wake up.” The boy’s eyes had drifted shut already. Frank shook him awake again. “You like that Shō band? I’ll bet you the rest of my stash of Coca-Cola that you can’t name all of their songs right now. Hear me?”

David’s brow furrowed, hazily trying to make sense of the request in his semiconscious state. “What?”

“Shō’s songs. Start naming them. I’m serious.” Frank pulled the pocketknife from his boot and went to work on the shackle’s lock. Fortunately, Payden had deemed the off-worlder a minor threat, if any at all, and hadn’t bothered to check Scott for weapons. Frank hadn’t been hanging around the Dinotopians so long that he’d forgotten the value of keeping a pocketknife handy in case of emergencies…although in his most far-fetched imaginings he wouldn’t have thought he’d be using it to try to pry open the lock of a medieval leg cuff.

“End…of my…world,” the boy mumbled.

Frank felt the lock give a bit. “You would have to start with that one, wouldn’t you? Next?”

“’Nother Fine Mess…of Mine…Pretty Traitor…”

The lock snapped open and David started to fall. Frank nearly broke his own neck trying to prevent the boy from hitting the floor head-first. David bit his lip hard against the pain as he felt himself eased to the ground. “Easy, kid, I gotcha,” the older man promised.

At the sudden absence of the shackle and the pain of hanging upside down by one leg, David managed to lift his head long enough to stare at his foot. He was free. “How---?”

“You’re not the only one who knows how to pick a lock,” Frank smirked. The younger man tried to laugh in response, but it came out as a breath. The problem of getting David free resolved, Frank had to get that chain out of the way and lock that gate. The tremors of the T-Rex footfalls were growing stronger and more frequent. “Keep naming the songs, David, I’ll be right back, I promise.”

Listening to make sure the boy obeyed, Frank climbed the chain, grunting a bit at the exertion it took. I’m getting too old for this… He was sweating by the time he reached the grate. He laced his fingers through the steel and let go of the chain. The gate opened beneath his weight and Frank swung out of the pit and onto solid ground. Up there on the surface, Frank could hear trees and bushes rustling and breaking as the constant shaking of the ground heralded the T-Rex’s approach.

Hurriedly, leaving the chain in place so it would prop the gate open for him, Frank ran to the gate’s lock and moved it from the ‘weight-trigger’ to the ‘lock’ position just as he’d seen Payden do. He avoided a glance at the blood spilled across the dirt, sick at the thought of what it was and how it got there. Then he raced back to the gate, held the gate open with one foot while he moved the chain out of its way, and dropped into the pit. The gate snapped shut behind him and locked just seconds before the T-Rex stomped into the clearing.

David was trying to sit up, groaning as he did so. Frank moved to help. “What are--?”

The question was lost amid the roar of the carnosaur. The T-Rex’s head appeared above them. It banged at the gate with its massive nose, smelling blood and brindlebar smoke, trying to break through the bars to get to the humans in the pit. Frank could smell its breath as it bellowed and almost gagged at the stench. It was a futile effort, but Frank still instinctively put his body between David and the predator. Payden was right about one thing: If Frank had a weapon at the moment, he would have used it, if for no other reason than to protect the boy, and he wouldn’t have felt guilty about it at all.

Frank felt something soft pressed into his hand. He looked and found David passing two cloth bags to him. David nodded to the T-Rex. “Throw them.”

Asking no questions, Frank lobbed the first bag at the reptilian head. The cloth bag broke open upon impact with the bars, scattering powder. Most of it was inhaled by the T-Rex’s massive nostril. Frank threw the second bag, with the same results, and this time the carnosaur withdrew its nose from the grate. He saw it bob its head as it backed away from the pit and frantically tried to shake the powder out of its nose. Seconds passed, and eventually, the T-Rex abandoned the pit altogether and stomped deeper into the forest. Frank’s relief was short-lived: The predator was moving in the direction Karl and Payden had gone.

*

Back