Dagger-mouth woke to a frightful rumpus. Heavy feet were trampling, and a skittish herd of duck-bills cantered by.
Crash!
An explosion of grunts and cries filled the air.
Crash!
What was that sound?
Then the more important question hit Dagger-mouth: what was making that sound? And did it mean danger?
Crash!
Dagger-mouth didn’t wait to find out. Leaning forward to raise his tail, he turned away from the noise and waddled off as briskly as his heavy frame would allow.
Behind him in a clearing two tall pachycephalosaurs were challenging each other with full-on head rams that sent shuddering shock waves through the surrounding area as well as down each other’s spine.
Dagger-mouth was well out onto the open plain before he stopped. A quick glance to one side showed that his young companion had come the same way. Oh well, thought Dagger-mouth. He’d decided what to do about her: nothing at all.
The sun was well up in the sky and many dinosaurs were on the move by now. And not far in front of him was another of those migrating herds. They were triceratops again — not too many of them, from what he could tell, but enough to make a cloud of dust. Now that could come in handy!
Out here there was no place for lurking, and Dagger-mouth was starting to think like a hunter at last. He watched for a while, and a picture came to his mind of another time when he’d watched. That time he’d definitely been lurking. Safe among the plants, he’d watched as a huge tyrannosaur waited for a herd to pass by. At the end of the herd there had been a few slow ones that had fallen back a bit. Perhaps they were too old or too young — Dagger-mouth’s mind didn’t worry with details like this. But the picture was there of waiting for the last part of the herd.
At last the time and place seemed right: not even one fern to tempt him into lurking, and a plan already formed in his mind.
How could it not work this time?
The dinosaurs’ feet thundered as the herd moved on past him. Dust flew into his eyes and nostrils, but Dagger-mouth just snorted and waited.
It felt good waiting. Every muscle was tight. Every nerve was ready, every claw and tooth keen and sharp.
And the sun’s warmth on his back had charged his muscles with fresh blood and energy.
The bulk of the herd had passed by.
Dagger-mouth’s focus sharpened on the last few stragglers. One was slowish but very big — too big for a young tyrannosaur’s first charge. A group of three came next, and then, a bit behind them, came one more, smallish and stumbling as it tried desperately to keep up.
Dagger-mouth tested the ground with his feet. He opened his mouth wide in a great shark-like grimace.
Then, judging his moment and not even wishing for an instant that he could hide and lurk, he charged out towards the feeble triceratops.
Dagger-mouth kept perfect focus on his prey. His eyes were totally linked to it.
What, then, blurred his vision from one side? What was it that was cutting in towards his own path?
And what was happening to his prey, now tumbled sideways in an awkward sprawl, with extra limbs and long tail straddling it?
That young tyrannosaur!
Swifter than him, she’d beaten him in the attack.
And powered by her triumph, she turned as soon as he arrived, greeting his open-mouthed charge with a quick slash to his cheek with the claws of her tiny arm before sinking her teeth into his side.
The bite was too quick to be well placed. It drew blood without giving great injury.
Yet as Dagger-mouth limped back across the plain, he didn’t even know if he would have let her win or would have challenged her for the prey. For, as the young one had turned on him, a bigger, more cunning tyrannosaur had loped in to claim the kill for himself. And neither Dagger-mouth nor the small one was going to argue with him.