Chapter 2: "The Hunter's Guise"

It was afternoon by the time “Harada” left Zab. He had ended up negotiating with the girl’s uncle, the parents too grief-stricken to speak with him. The mother's sobs at the sight of the morticians’ cart had been especially gut-wrenching, even to someone as jaded as him.

Ultimately, he had agreed to sacrifice three quarters of the payment, under the condition that it be given to the family for any expenses incurred. Furthermore, it was agreed he would make an annual payment of the same amount to the family for the remainder of his life.

“And rest assured,” he had said. “One day, I swear I will repay my debt to this family tenfold. Even at the expense of my own life.”

The uncle had eyed him skeptically as he accepted. He was more mature and reasonable than that Kai boy, but no less angry.

If “Harada” could have things his way, he would have offered himself up as an indentured servant to the family on the spot. But such a decision was not an option.

Now, he headed north, towards the Dumaz Mountain pass. The cart, still loaded down with the five raptor carcasses, jostled and bounced behind.

“My lord, I know your heart is in the right place,” a voice said. “But don’t you feel you gave them too much?”

“Not at all Shawk, that boy was right. I shouldn’t have accepted any payment whatsoever.” The man sighed. “I utterly failed. This was a complete debacle. I only accepted any payment because of your incessant pestering.”

The cart stopped moving. Shawk turned to look his rider in the eye. The old pachycephalosaur had the closest thing to a scowl his kind could make on his face.

“Oh? Is it incessant pestering to make sure you’re able to feed yourself?”

“Okay Shawk, I'm sorry. You know what I-”

“Neither of us knows how long a journey we have yet to make, until you find that,” the elder dinosaur continued. “You will never reclaim anything if you starve because of constant charity.”

Harada nodded begrudgingly, sighing again. “Alright, alright.”

The dinosaur gave a snort as he turned and resumed trotting along. Then, in a softer voice, he added, “Please try to keep the bigger picture in mind, Prince Caseus. A ruler cannot afford to fall to pieces over every hatchling that falls from its nest.”

That may be true, “Harada”, or rather, Caseus, thought. But it's a great shame.

An hour later, the pair came to a mountain glade. Wildflowers and moss provided color to what would otherwise be barren rock and scree. A copse of sickly cypress trees twisted and gnarled about the edge of the glade. Overhead, the sky was beginning to turn pink, as the sun sank lower to the west.

“I suppose this is a suitable spot,” Caseus said as he surveyed the area. “Isolated, but accessible. Not a disrespectful burial spot. Any snowfall will also help preserve the bodies, should their families step forward to claim them. What do you think, Shawk?”

Shawk looked around, shrugging off the cart’s harness. He bent to smell the wildflowers, pawed at the loose rocks with his hind feet.

“It might be a tough dig, but otherwise yes, I agree,” he said.

“Well then, no sense wasting time.” Caseus pulled a shovel from the cart. “Let’s get to it.”

Most of the loose rock was easy to move, between the shovel and Shawk digging with his hind feet. Every few feet down though, there would be a boulder in the way. What would otherwise be a hindrance for one or even a team of men, however, was easily nullified by Shawk. One downward blow from his solid dome skull would shatter most obstacles.

As Caseus shoveled the last bit of earth aside, he cast a look back at the cart.

“Five more,” he breathed. “That’s five more that didn’t even seem to understand us. Not a word we said. It was as if they were-”

“Mindless animals,” Shawk finished. “I know. Every day, more and more are born into this world, not knowing about coexistence, our history. Only being hunted and shunned like beasts.”

The dinosaur gave what amounted to a weary sigh as he stepped back from the grave. “I suppose it should not be surprising those only ever treated as mindless beasts would act accordingly.”

Caseus looked out at the setting sun. He brushed strands of his dark hair aside, revealing the weary steel blue eyes they concealed.

“How many? How many of both our kind have died because of me? Because of this curse?”

“Now, my Prince, why must you do this to yourself?” Shawk trotted over. “You came as soon as you heard, you tried to commune with the raptors, that they might leave peacefully. And when that failed, you did the only option left to you.”

“And now a family is without a daughter, a little boy without his sister. Another boy without his love! And somewhere, those five have families that will miss them!” The young man was losing that well-rehearsed, emotionless face he had worn in the village. He clenched his fist, tossing the shovel aside.

“And who was it that reversed centuries of harmony? Who was it that created Venators, and divided our kind? Was it you?”

“And yet I failed to prevent it!” he lamented. “I have utterly failed in my responsibilities. And until I can put things right, all I can do is whatever charity I can.”

With that, he began walking toward the cart.

“Now, we don’t have long. Let us finish this before the sun sets.”

****

Kai watched the Venator and his Stone Head dig. The fact this man had failed and still received any compensation felt like adding insult to injury. The boy’s anger and pride would not suffer the man to live; and so he had mounted his mule and tailed him out of Zab.

As he crept through the copse of cypress trees, he would regularly reach under his cloak to feel the dagger concealed beneath.

With the glade fairly open, he could hear everything the man said. It was like he was having a conversation with the dinosaur, which only responded in grunts, snorts and the occasional squawking noise. And his rage only grew the more he heard.

He's TALKING to the damn thing?! Is he some Shaman?

If you believed the fairy tails of the old geezers, when man and Primordial Beasts had supposedly lived side-by-side, Shamans had acted as a bridge between the two species. They practiced a kind of magic that let them communicate with nature, to literally speak and converse with Primordial Beasts.

But ever since Venators had been created, and the capital's attitude towards the dinosaur population had finally caught up with reality, shamanism was no longer seen as a legitimate institution, and the state schools that once taught it had been disbanded.

So he tried to make peace with the wretched things?

“And now a family is without a daughter, a little boy without his sister,” he was saying. “Another boy without his love!”

Kai’s fingers stopped short of clasping the blade’s pommel. Was he… actually sorry? He suddenly felt at a loss, unsure how to proceed.

Now the two were unloading the corpses, the man holding them by the head, while the beast gripped their tails in its beak.

Who is this man? the boy wondered.

He took a step forward, pushing aside a cypress branch to get a better view, and was met with the harsh SNAP of a twig underfoot.

The dinosaur immediately snapped its head up, looking towards the copse. The Venator merely stood from bending over the grave, slowly and calmly.

“Are you going to keep hiding in the shadows, or are you going to finally come out and face me?”

Damn, he cursed himself. Well, there's no sense hiding anymore I suppose.

So, unsheathing the blade, he stepped into the open.