The Book of Dalin (preview)

The following is a preview of The Book of Dalin, a project I began in 2005. Dinosaur civilization.

 

The Book of Dalin

(preview)

 

 

1

Dalin sat in front of the tiny stream. This was the third week he had endured without food, and in all that time he had not smelled a single living creature. Hunters sat upright, which allowed Dalin to take the weight off his feet and still be straight enough to play his flute.

His backpack was off to his left. It felt good to take it off for a while. Inside he carried his books, a water flask, and the metal restraints that had covered his teeth and claws so many years ago. Pieces of an old life, everything Dalin had ever known.

A dried-up floodplain devoid of trees surrounded him. Nothing but horizon as far as Dalin could see. The land had been like this for weeks. No trees. No plants. Endless ground punctuated by the occasional rock. Hunger was the only thing that thrived here. With nothing to distract him, Dalin could feel himself getting thinner with every step he took.

Dalin closed his eyes as he played, shutting out the land, forgetting where he was and what he had to do to survive.

Playing the flute reminded him of times when he was happy and full. Memories of lush forests when he slept through the entire night without his empty stomach keeping him awake. Memories of his owner listening to Dalin play. He missed the sound of his owner reading to him, the feel of his scales against Dalin’s as he lay curled up next to him on one of the rare nights when no one else was around. Those memories felt so distant and hazy Dalin sometimes doubted they were real. So long ago, another life, almost a dream.

His hunger and loneliness came through in his song. Slow, measured, and absent of abrupt note changes. If hunger could be heard, it would sound like this.

His only substantial meals came from eating other hunters. They were just as desperate for food as Dalin. Years ago, Dalin would only go a week or two without eating. Now he could go as long as a month.

Dalin played on, forgetting the uncertainty of where the next meal will come from, the possibility that he could easily go another six days without eating, and by the time he found something he might not be strong enough to kill it. Even when the music was depressing, it was easier to face than the future.

He drew out a long, solemn note. It filled the empty floodplain, giving it life for a single breath. Then the note faded, leaving bare, dead soil from horizon to horizon in its place.

He inhaled.

His breath caught.

Behind him...

Hunter scent.

Dalin jumped to his feet and spun around in one motion, taking the flute from his mouth and holding it at his side. He crouched halfway between defense and attack posture.

In front of him stood a female with a beautiful snout, tapering gracefully to the nose. The scales around one of her eyes were black, contrasting the brown over the rest of her body, which faded to a pale white around her underside. Her ribs showed, and her plumage had fallen out in most places. Her thin tail was to the side, held perfectly still. She looked good for a hunter on the brink of starvation. Dalin involuntarily hid his tail from view, embarrassed to let her see how thin he was. His feathers had been plucked as a hatchling, so his hunger always showed.

Every breath he took filled him with her scent. The uncertainty for the future scratched his bones. Gradually the female did not smell like a fellow hunter. She smelled like a way to stop the pain.

Dalin had just enough presence of mind to set the flute on top of his backpack. She followed his every movement, but only with her eyes. There was no comprehension in her stare.

Dalin crouched offensively. He raised his toeclaws and stretched the claws on his hands out. His calves and thighs squeezed, preparing to leap in any direction.

His opponent copied his movements, spindly muscles rippling under thin, scaly flesh draped over bone. Several fluffy feathers dropped from her arms. Soundlessly she leaped, forehands aiming for his throat, one toeclaw pointing at Dalin’s chest.

Dalin jumped to the side and leaned back on his legs, holding his tail stiff and his claws up. He opened his mouth and hissed at her. She moaned at him. Dalin croaked in reply.

She circled him slowly, holding her mouth open and posturing with her teeth and claws. Dalin made fake jabs, daring her to close in. The longer he breathed her scent the more painful moving became as his body was forced to eat the very muscles Dalin used to make a kill. They circled each other, widening and closing the gap as one made a move and the other backed off.

Dalin barked and slashed his claws at the air between them.

She dug one of her toeclaws in the dirt and backslashed. She bent at the waist and opened her mouth at Dalin, making no noise. They circled again.

Dalin continued breathing her thin scent, reeking of malnourishment and fear. Her scent flowed from his head through the rest of his body, intensifying the pain. Just lifting his thigh to take a step sent searing misery up his spine. Flexing his hands, his bones seemed ready to snap off if he moved them too quickly. The pain merged his body into a single purpose, and his mind drowned in it.

The look in her eyes changed. The same absorption of pain was happening to her as well. Her body shook from it, and it came out in her scent. The female leaped for him. Dalin leaped at her. They collided, thrashed, and pushed off each other. When they regained their footing a few paces apart, they turned and faced each other. Dalin was not injured. Blood trickled from the inside of one of the female’s thighs.

She leaned back for another strike, keeping the weight off that leg. Dalin crouched back, shaking. He breathed through his nose to get more of her scent; it kept his body unified in pain, and he didn’t feel it so long as his whole body was in agony.

She launched at him. “Skreeeeaaaaaaak!”

The noise startled Dalin. It was not an attack cry, or a scream meant to distract him. This was a piercing shriek of desperation. A pathetic, pleading sound not like a hunter but a starving, abandoned hatchling begging her mother to feed her. The cry was so endearing that he wanted to let her kill him.

Dalin hesitated.

She rammed him.

He toppled and landed flat on his spine. His opponent was over him, mouth open, charging for his neck. Dalin’s hand rose, and all the strength in his shoulder drove it into her snout.

Slishhh—

His claws burrowed into her muzzle just before her teeth touched his neck. She whipped her head back, trying to yank her snout away, but Dalin shoved deeper. He pushed her to the side, trying to force her to the ground. Wherever he pushed she had to follow—the pain moved her more than Dalin’s strength. She jumped back, pulling Dalin’s shoulder out of joint, but he flexed his claws and forced her to come back to him where he forced her head to the other side of his flank and pinned it to the ground, her hind section still standing.

Dalin rolled to one knee, keeping his hand buried deep in her snout. He opened his mouth and reached for her neck under his arm, but she whipped her head back, overextending his shoulder again. Dalin heard his shoulder pop as he was dragged closer to keep her from tearing it out.

She dropped her hind legs to the ground, pointing her feet at him. She kicked both feet at once, and all six of her claws drove into his stomach.

“Saaaaaahhhhhhh!”

She flexed her killing claws up and down, dicing Dalin’s scales and burying her toes in his hide. She whipped her head back again. Dalin clenched his hand and found bone. He gripped her skull from the inside, pushed all his weight on her feet, and rolled on top of her, spearing her snout with his other hand.

She hissed as Dalin flexed his claws all around, oozy, gishing sounds coming from both sides of her muzzle as muscle parted and his claws scraped bone. She bucked, trying to throw him off. Dalin kept his feet off the ground, pushing all his weight on her legs, keeping them folded. Her killing claws stabbed his abdomen again and again. Dalin pulled his left hand out of her, wound up and—

Out the corner of his eye he noticed her hands moving toward his snout. He raised his head and torso, and both her hands struck his shoulders instead. The shock made Dalin jump, pulling her head up. His other hand tore out of her snout and ripped off a strip of her lips, exposing her teeth. She dug into his shoulders and twisted the muscle around. Dalin screamed. She sliced, dug, and twisted deeper, faster. Dalin went blind with pain. She had found his shoulder sockets and her claws were scraping, digging, prying them.

Dalin squeezed his shoulders, wound up both hands and shoved them deep into her neck, howling in agony.

She didn’t scream. Didn’t remove her hands from his shoulders. She lay with Dalin resting on her feet, his hands buried in her neck, her hands in his shoulders, her toeclaws deep in his abdomen.

Blood poured from Dalin’s shoulders and ran down his arms. Most dripped off his elbow, but some continued down his forearm and to his claws, where it mixed with her blood. Dalin’s hands were getting hot from all the blood flowing over them. Her breaths became quick and shallow.

And then, the wild in her eyes was gone. The madness of hunger died before she did, and she looked at Dalin not with hate but with sadness. She released his shoulders. Her legs gave out and Dalin fell on top of her. His nose landed in the pool of blood by her neck. The smell made Dalin’s stomach growl, and his bones shivered in hunger. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked her in the eye.

She gasped and coughed blood in Dalin’s face.

She coughed again.

And again.

And again.

The pulse in her neck faded.

Dalin lay there for a moment, and then he slowly pulled his hands from her neck. The blood flowed abundantly. He felt dizzy and rolled off of her—

—and landed on his shoulder.

“REEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

He tried moving his legs to stand up and take the pressure off it, but his abdomen stung when he tried to move, and Dalin writhed on the ground, trying to move, trying to get up but the pain folded him. He curled up and lay still next to his kill, panting through his nose as his shoulders bled and wiggled in and out of joint at will. Blood shot out from his shoulders in time with his pounding heartbeat. The blood from his other shoulder ran down his back and over his chest. In no time he was lying in a large pool.

More pain. More agony. His stomach scratched his spine and forced him to uncurl. The effort knocked Dalin’s eyes out of focus. He raised a leg and brought himself upright to one knee.

“RRRAAAAGGGH—RRRRRRHHHH!” Then he couldn’t scream anymore. The pain lodged in his throat and suffocated him.

He dropped to his hands and knees, head hanging over the ground. Blood rolled down his arms, wrapping around them and pooling under his claws. He swung his head up and looked at his kill.

food

His stomach growled. The growl spread through his muscles and strangled his heart. His head pounded.

Dalin lifted his hand. He screamed in a mix of animal and leafeater sounds and painfully moved it forward. He leaned on it, gritted his teeth, and lifted the other. He screamed again as he set it down in front of the other hand, leaned, and lifted the other. He crawled to his kill, streaking bloody handprints through the dirt, keeping the dead hunter in sight.

FOOD!

With the scent of meat this close, the pain became so intense he became numb to it. He leaned back and pumped his legs and stood over her. He slashed her abdomen open with the killing claw on his foot, and then reached inside and gobbled her lungs, liver, heart, intestines, tasting nothing.

As his stomach filled up, so did his pride.

He won.

He deserved to live!

The entrails completely gone, Dalin took her leg in his mouth and ripped it free of the body. It felt good tear it off; made him feel stronger than he really was. He dropped the leg and stood on it with one foot, tearing meat and feathers from the bone. Four bites and five swallows later, the leg was nothing but wet bone.

The pain of starvation slowly gave way to pleasure. Pride. Joy. He was eating. He would live! He felt unstoppable. The more meat he tore from her bones, the more his body rewarded him.

Yes! More! Keep eating! You’re strong! You’re powerful! More!

Dalin peeled muscle from her arms, her back, her flanks, devoured the strings around the neck. The pleasure mounted up.

2

Dalin knelt over the river and looked at his face. His lips, jaws and throat dripped with blood. He had streaks around his eyes. His hands, chest, and shoulders were completely covered. Every scale had changed from deep maroon with green stripes around his joints to bright crimson.

It did not look unnatural. He thought he looked good like this. Strong. Powerful. A hunter.

He dipped his hands in the water. Blood gently lifted from his claws and flowed with the current, making a red spiral that vanished into the stream some ways off. He washed his claws below his reflection. He rubbed his hands together and splashed water up his forearms, a skill he had learned to master even though his hands were not good for scooping anything.

It was pure, fiery agony to move his shoulders, but he had to clean himself.

He cupped his hands together and threw water over his chest and his face. Blood streaked down his chin. He splashed again and rubbed his muzzle with his palms.

He opened his eyes. Maroon scales so dark they were nearly black stared back at him from the river. With just a few splashes of water, Dalin had changed from a killer mad with starvation to a placid, tame theropod. This face, the one staring at Dalin right now, the clean, placid muzzle, had just looked at a female of his own species as meat instead of a potential companion. Without the blood, it was hard to remember that he had just devoured a living creature to save his life.

So what if she was a fellow hunter? If there was one thing Dalin had learned since he ran from Omica five years ago, it was that there is no one out there to trust. Not the leafeaters and certainly not hunters. They were equally dangerous.

Dalin looked around at his hind section. His tail was blood-free. His back was clean. In the time he had spent eating her, his shoulders and abdomen had stopped bleeding. Dalin could barely move his arms.

Dalin stood. His abdominal muscles seared, so Dalin panted and raised himself slower. He turned, observing what remained of his rival. Now he looked at her with regret.

His owner had once told him that there was a time when hunters did not do this. In the long-ago past, if two hunters met they might join together in the hunt. A pair of hunters could bring down larger prey. His owner had said that there used to be large, unintelligent leafeaters out there walking in herds, nearly defenseless, all the food a hunter could want, and two hunters would eat enough to raise a clutch of eggs.

Today, food was so scarce that not even joining with another hunter would change that. Taking a mate did not increase the odds of survival, rather decreased the amount of food one could eat.

She was food. Nothing else.

Dalin walked to his backpack and sat down on his pubic bone. He reached for the flute, thankful it hadn’t been broken during the fight.

His shoulder slipped out of joint. Dalin clutched it with his other hand, and his shoulder popped into join again.

He felt hot liquid.

Dalin sucked air as blood bubbled out between his claws and flowed down his arm. Dalin held his shoulder tighter, remembering the medical books his owner had read to him years ago. He clenched his limb, trying to keep pressure on it, but the blood just kept flowing. His hands were not meant to hold blood in—they were designed to set it free.

Dalin dropped his hand. The blood flowed the same as when he held it. He whimpered, wishing his owner were here, wishing someone out here cared whether he lived or died.

He looked at his hand. He couldn’t see the scales on his fingers for all the blood covering them. He opened his claws to grab the flute, and the blood made a stringy web. Dalin whimpered and raised the hand to his face. He licked it clean. More blood ran down his stomach and between the folds of his genital slit.

His hand was runny and sticky after licking it clean, but it would do. He took the flute, raised his arms, and played a few slow, deep notes, hoping that keeping his shoulders up would slow the bleeding.

Dalin began by playing his favorite note pattern, letting it evolve into whatever it wanted. He was still pumped up with hormones from the kill, which made him feel powerful.

Dalin consciously pushed the feeling down. He concentrated on the music. He refused to let the pride of a kill satisfy him.

This meal only delayed his death. Every mouthful extended his future one more day. The food in his stomach was satisfying, but in another week he would return to the same state of agonizing, bone-scratching hunger.

He was happy to forget the future.