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Separated from the others, Amy and Steiner
kept their hands linked. Lovers
since their discovery of one another in Larra’s first visit to the Lost
World, they were inseparable.
Dashing heedlessly through the brush in their efforts to escape the
hadrosaurs, they paid little attention to the direction taken by their
comrades. As luck would have
it, the charging dinosaurs followed hard on their heels, and so they ran
with all possible speed in a desperate effort to avoid being
trampled.
Despite all the speed they could muster the hadrosaurs continued to close
the gap between them. Not only
were the huge creatures much faster to begin with, but they had little difficulty
forcing their way through the heavy
undergrowth. Amy and Steiner
on the other hand, were constantly slowed by the thick
vegetation. It would only be
a matter of time until they were
overhauled.
Amy initiated the tactic that saved them.
When the hadrosaurs were no more than a couple of seconds behind them,
she pulled hard on Steiner’s arm, directing him at right angles to the
path they were taking. The change
in direction took them directly behind a giant
tree. They kept on moving, circling
the huge trunk until eventually they were headed back the way that they had
come. The hadrosaurs charged
right by. Unable to turn as quickly,
they milled about in confusion and then gave up the
chase. They were dangerous creatures
when their target was in sight, but were not
predators. Once they lost sight
of their quarry, they lost interest in the
pursuit.
Gasping for breath, Amy and Steiner steadied one
another. After a few minutes
they regained their strength.
“We must get back to the others,” Amy
said.
“I agree,” replied Steiner, “but where are
they? We scattered in all
directions. I guess we better
head back to where we encountered the
dinosaurs. At the very least
we might be able to have a meal.”
Together they walked back through the trampled vegetation to the spot where
they had shot the small hadrosaur.
The corpse of the dead infant was still there, although by now it
had attracted a number of unattractive looking scavengers of several
varieties. A few of them were
small dinosaurs while others were the sort of animals Amy was familiar with,
such as rats and other small vermin.
They scattered with much hissing and low growls as Amy and Steiner
returned to the corpse.
“It’s best we get a share of this and get out of here,” Amy
said. This corpse will probably
attract larger scavengers.”
“Right,” said Steiner.
“We can retreat to the roots of that fig over
there. It should provide the
same shelter as last night. When
the others return they will smell our campfire smoke and know where we
are.”
Half an hour later, they were roasting hadrosaur over the hot coals of their
campfire. Amy had done the
butchering, something she knew a little about due to the years spent growing
up on a farm in
The meat proved to be quite good.
It was a taste that neither Amy nor Steiner had encountered
before. It was somewhere between
beef and chicken. Not that it
mattered. In their famished state
Amy and Steiner would have eaten
anything.
Periodically, Amy and Steiner called out to their missing friends, just in
case they were in earshot, but upwind of their camp and unable to smell the
smoke from their fire. But each
time there was no reply. By now
darkness had closed in about them.
They kept the fire blazing as high as they could to serve as a beacon
and not just to frighten off predators.
Amy wrapped the remainder of the meat in some leaves she tore from a broad-leafed
plant.
“You sleep,” said Steiner.
“I’ll stand watch for a few hours and then wake
you.”
“Alright,” replied Amy.
She did not argue with his
decision. As long as they both
took turns one of them would be on watch all
night. It would not make any
sense for both of them to try and stay
awake. She lay down
on a heap of leaves she had gathered
and settled down for a few hours.
Steiner shook Amy gently awake. As
she opened her eyes he planted a soft kiss on her
lips. She returned the kiss and
smiled. Steiner was her first
and only love; the man who had actually betrayed his own country to save
her from the brutal aggression of the first Nazi expedition to the Lost
World. Of course, Steiner did
not see it quite that way. He
had not betrayed his country, he had simply found it impossible to serve
a regime like the Third Reich. In
any case, ever since he had rescued her the two had been
lovers. Amy felt a stirring in
her loins, but controlled the urge.
It would not do to make love while their friends were still
missing. In the morning they
would have to go and look for them.
Amy tossed another log on the fire, while Steiner took her place on the bed
of leaves. She checked her
watch. “You cheated,”
she said. “You let me sleep
longer than you should have.”
Steiner smiled as he lay his head down.
“Wake me just after dawn,” he
said.
Dawn came in only three hours. Amy
let Steiner sleep a bit longer and then wakened
him. “Light already?”
he complained.
“I’m afraid so.
I’ll cook up some more of this meat and then we can start looking
for the others.”
They ate and then headed out into the morning
forest. A thick mist cloaked
the ground, but they were able to see well enough to make their
way. The problem was that they
did not know which way to go. They
did not want to split up. That
would have been too dangerous. One
person alone in this huge forest would have very little
chance. Paired up they might
survive, especially if they could find the
others.
“I didn’t see what happened to Katie,” said Amy, “but
I think Jia Li ran this way.”
“May as well give it a try,” said
Steiner. “I’ve no better
notion.”
Before they left, Amy placed a marker pointing the way they were going, just
in case one of their missing companions showed
up. Then they marched off the
way Amy had indicated for several minutes, calling as they
went. They got no response, but
did come upon something of interest.
They came across an area where a considerable amount of vegetation
had been trampled down. Carefully
they went over the area, looking for some
clue.
“Look here,” said Steiner, holding up a brass cartridge
casing. “Someone was doing
some shooting.”
He bent down again.
“Here’s another
one.”
“Looks like Jia Li was here,” said Amy, “but what happed to
her? I don’t see any sign
of her or her rifle.”
“I looks like a large number of people were here,” replied
Steiner. “Tiny people or
maybe children. Their footprints
are all over the place.”
“Yes,” said Amy, who was the better
tracker. “And they seem
to lead that way.” She gestured
toward a faint trail in the forest.
“You think Jia Li was abducted by a party of midgets?” asked
Steiner.
Amy laughed. Even in the seriousness
of the situation Steiner’s comment seemed
funny. “Who
knows? There’s only one
way to find out. We will have
to follow them.”
They set off through the forest.
They proceeded with even more caution
now. There was no telling what
might lie ahead.
The trail did not go far. It
sloped steadily uphill and as the ground became drier the numerous tracks
petered out. It was as if the
forest had swallowed up the people who had made
them.
They stopped. “Now what
do we do?” said Steiner.
“I don’t know. Maybe
we should go back to where we were attacked by the
dinosaurs. On the other hand,
we know we were on Jia Li’s trail.
If we forge on we might just find
her.”
“Lead on,” said Steiner.
They resumed their trek, this time heading in the direction that they thought
Jia Li might have
gone. After awhile the going
got a little easier. The ground
started to slope downhill and they found a well-marked
trail.
“This looks promising,” Amy remarked.
They continued down the path, following its sinuous route through the
forest. After about half an hour
the trail turned steeply uphill again and stayed that way for quite some
time before leveling out in a large
clearing. They stopped to take
in the change in scenery. In
the center of the clearing was what appeared to be a heavily fortified
village. But it was quite different
from any African village that either Amy or Steiner had ever
seen. There was no wooden palisade
or mud-daubed huts, but instead the village was surrounded by an impressive
medieval stone wall. Except for
the African setting, it could have been right out of
“What have we here?” asked Steiner.
Amy shook her head.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she
said. “I suggest we proceed
with caution.”
At that moment they heard a sound behind
them. Standing in the trail were
a half dozen tall brown-skinned warriors, but they were not the conventional
warriors that Amy and Steiner had encountered
before. These men were clad in
jackets of bright chain mail that hung down past their
waists. On their heads were polished
iron helmets that covered most of their faces and in their hands they carried
long sharp-pointed spears.
“We must have walked right by them,” though Amy, as she readied
her rifle. The warriors standing
in front of her showed no fear as she did so, and she suddenly realized that
they were probably unfamiliar with
firearms.
“So much the worse for them if they start anything,” she
muttered.
Steiner too was ready. Any attempt
to attack them would have proved fatal for the six men facing
them. At that moment, they heard
another sound behind them. Both
Amy and Steiner turned their heads for a quick
look. Behind them another half
dozen men had stepped into the trail.
They were dressed in the same manner, but four of them carried crossbows,
all of which were trained on them.
Amy and Steiner froze. They realized
that the tables had been turned on them.
At this range it was unlikely that any of the crossbowmen would miss,
and there were too many of them to take out with a single
volley. Not daring to take a
chance that one of them might be injured or killed, both Amy and Steiner
lay down their weapons.
The warrior standing in the lead gave a command, and the men with spears
closed in on all sides. From
somewhere one of them produced a length of rope and used it to bind Amy’s
and Steiner’s wrists behind their
backs. Then, linking them together
with a length of rope about their necks, they were led off toward the stone
village.
Both adventurers were chagrined.
They had walked straight into a
trap. They had been captured
so easily. Now they faced the
unknown. Amy could not help a
little shiver of fear that ran down her
spine. The last time she had
been taken prisoner had been far from a pleasant
experience.
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