The hunters, led by the Umazoan chief, approached them. A small but well-muscled man, the newly appointed chief, named Hiu, looked concerned. The other chief had been killed in the last raid, resulting in his promotion, so hearing about lizard men and invasion grabbed his attention. “What?” he asked. “What happen? Liz?” His English was broken, but they understood him.
Jason turned and leveled his gaze. “Chief Hiu, we must leave. Big danger coming.” Then he rattled off the few words that he knew in Umazoan describing the lizard men, raids, and velociraptors.
Hiu listened carefully. Wary from wave after wave of lizard men attacks on the village, he appeared receptive. He responded in Umazoan.
“River?” asked Susan, struggling to comprehend everything the chief was saying. “What river?”
Hiu elaborated, gesticulating wildly.
“Take us away…to another home,” said Mary, translating. “We need to follow the river?” She undulated her hand in a serpentine motion over her other hand, palm facing up.
Hiu nodded emphatically, pleased she understood. He barked orders at the other men, who proceeded to fan out and rouse the rest of the village.
“Looks like we’re leaving,” said Susan, shrugging. “Are you sure this is the right thing to do? These people established this location for the village a long time ago.”
Hiu listened and said in broken English. “Run and live…better than…stay, die.” With that last word, he made a slashing motion with his hand across his throat. The chief before him had been proud and refused to give in to the new enemy. This one was clearly more pragmatic. The truth was, everyone was tired of the relentless attacks. Enough was enough.
The entire village mobilized. The men gathered weapons and cut down crops, loading them on drag sleds to be pulled. The women gathered clothing and tanned skins, packing them for transport while herding the children. The children carried out small tasks as directed by their mothers, anything from gathering up the animals to packing small items.
Within a couple of hours, the entire village had been packed up, leaving only the thatched huts and extinguished camp fires behind. Everyone congregated at the center of the village, where Hiu held court. As far as Mary, Jason, and Susan could tell with their limited language of Umazoan, he made some grand speech about survival against all odds, and he referenced other times in tribal history when an exodus was required. At last, he waved his right arm over his head, gesturing for the tribe to move.
Jason caught something out of the corner of his eye. Several velociraptors crept their way to the edge of the village. “Dinos!”
The tribe murmured and panicked, looking around. A few of them screamed and pointed when they saw the deadly therapods.
Jason turned to Hiu. “Move! I’ll handle this. Just leave me a few of your warriors.”
Hiu nodded and gestured towards three of the hunters, who nodded and hoisted their spears. They stepped forward, awaiting direction from Jason, who had become their lead hunter. Hiu also stepped forward, dispensing additional spears. These weapons would be thrown, as close combat with raptors was ill-advised.
“Not you,” said Jason. “We cannot lose another chief.”
“The tribe needs you,” added Mary.
Hiu huffed, jabbed the butt of his spear into the dirt, and stood resolute.
“I’ll lead the tribe away from here,” offered Susan. In her home dimension, it was her job to manage large groups.
Mary nodded. “Go. We’ll be right behind you.”
Susan barked orders in English and broken Umazoan, and the tribe moved as a unit to the far side of the plateau, where they had constructed a platform out of branches and twine and a pully mechanism to lower it to the ground below. It wasn’t designed for en masse usage, so Susan would have to coordinate it.
*
Jason looked to Hiu, who deferred to him. The Umazoa were accomplished hunters, but they acknowledged Jason’s greater expertise.
Jason nodded, accepting the mantle. He unshouldered his rifle as Mary hefted hers. He put up two fingers and then karate chopped the air in several different places, signaling they had to disperse two-by-two. It was their go-to formation whenever velociraptors entered the picture. Raptors were clever hunters, using pack tactics, flanking and ambushing. Each pair of hunters would cover opposite one hundred-and-eighty-degree fields of vision, and the entire group formed a line, establishing a barrier between the raptors and the fleeing tribe while keeping firing corridors clear. When one was reloading or preparing another spear, the other would swing around and take over, and on and on.
The velociraptors spread out. Two walked down the middle of the village, moving like ostriches, their heads swiveling around, sizing up their prey. Another two crept through the fields to the left where the crops once grew, sniffing the ground and circumventing the line of humans. Two more slipped between thatch huts on the right, appearing and vanishing, making use of the cover while making their movements difficult to track.
“They’re hunting in pairs,” said Jason. “Just like us.”
“They’re learning from us,” said Mary, watching his back.
Jason trained his rifle on the two walking through the center of the village. “The ones in the center want us to focus on them so we’re taken off-guard by the flanks.”
“I’ve got the flank covered,” said Mary, training her rifle on the glimpses of velociraptors in between the huts.
Jason looked to his left and saw Hiu hoisting his spear, focusing on the center, but his partner watched the crops carefully.
One of the velociraptors bumped into a wooden stake drilled into the
