Chapter Six
‘The Great Stone’
When Tommy regained consciousness,
he was hanging upside down, but moving fast across the jungle floor..
He lifted his head and saw that he
was slung over a scaly muscular shoulder, and soon realized that the tree he ran
into had actually been a Velociraptor.
It had Tommy over it’s shoulder and was moving quickly through the
jungle. To where, Tommy didn’t know.
Tommy had to admit he had never felt
terror quite like he did at this moment.
Being the prisoner of a Velociraptor was probably not the best thing
that could happen in your life, but here he was. Jason was gone and he had no idea where he was or where he was
going.
From what little Tommy could see,
they were currently traveling down a small incline. Gradually the ground began to even out and the jungle spread out
in to a clearing. The dinosaur tossed
Tommy on the ground where he landed with a painful thud. He looked up. The Velociraptor was glaring down at him with a very unpleasant
look on its face. In a matter of
moments, Tommy was surrounded by Velociraptors. One of them stepped forward and leaned menacingly over him.
“Well, well, what do we have here?”
it said. “Aren’t you a grotesque little
thing.” Tommy did little but quiver
with terror. The dinosaur stood up and
barked an order at two of the other Velociraptors.
“Take this vile thing to the pit!”
it shouted.
The Velociraptors grabbed Tommy by
the arms, hauled him into the air, and marched off towards the other side of
the clearing. As he was being forcibly
dragged against his will, Tommy wondered what exactly ‘the pit’ was. Visions of a very deep dark hole with no
sunlight and lots of strange noises, entered his head. He shuttered at the nightmare he was now
living..
It turned out that ‘the pit’ was a
very airy bright big hole in the jungle floor.
There were however, strange noises.
The sight Tommy saw laid out before him was amazing, and what was going
on down in the pit was equally amazing.
There were many, many dinosaurs of all different kinds. Some were digging objects out of the
surrounding wall and others were placing these objects into baskets, then
carrying the baskets up a path which led up out of the pit and into the jungle. Tommy could see why Kypou thought it would
be so difficult to free any one from this place. The whole area was heavily guarded by Velociraptors.
Still holding him tight, the
Velociraptors dragged Tommy down a flight of stone steps leading down into the
pit. At the bottom Tommy got a closer
look at the activity going on. It was a
scene no human had ever witnessed until now.
As Tommy passed by the various
dinosaurs he saw a young long neck dinosaur which looked like an Apatosaurs,
pushing rocks around with it’s head.
The enslaved dinosaur looked up at Tommy. It’s small eyes were filled with deep sadness.
The Velociraptors finally stopped
behind another Velociraptor who was guarding the slaves. This dinosaur turned towards them and spoke.
“What’s this?” it snapped.
One of the other Velociraptors
replied.
“We’ve brought you another worker,”
it said then pushed Tommy forward.
The guard inspected Tommy closely.
“Kind of scrawny ain’t it,” it said
poking Tommy with a clawed finger.
Tommy was so scared he was finding
it very difficult to breath.
“But,” the dinosaur went on. “I guess it’ll do. I’ll take it to Lerix.”
With that said the other Velociraptors left.
The remaining guard grabbed Tommy
roughly by the arm then pulled him along as it strode off across the pit. Tommy struggled to keep up with the
dinosaurs long strides, at times his feet barely touching the ground.
They continued along until they
reached the far side of the pit. This
was when Tommy saw something he hadn’t noticed before. A high stone pyramid which went almost to
the top of the pit wall. Stone stairs
went up the front of the structure all the way to the top which was flat not
pointed like regular pyramids. The
guard did not stop until it had dragged Tommy all the way to the top.
Once there Tommy saw that the only
thing occupying the top of the pyramid was a stone throne. Sitting on the throne was a large and very
scary looking Velociraptor. The
dinosaur was lounging on its throne casually snacking on furry creatures much,
like the one Tommy had seen near his closet, contained in a cage beside the
throne. Once again Tommy was thrown to
the ground but he did not look up.
“What do you want?” demanded the
enthroned Velociraptor in a deep cool voice.
The guard bowed.
“Mighty Lerix,” it said. “I have brought another worker for the
mine.”
Lerix regarded Tommy with malice
interest.
“Make it stand,” he said.
The guard kicked Tommy with a clawed
foot and when he didn’t stand right away, the dinosaur hauled him to his
feet. For the first time Tommy got a
good look at the face of the Mighty Lerix.
He stumbled backwards with fright.
The guard behind Tommy caught him and pushed him forward. Lerix got up from his throne then bent down
close to Tommy’s face. Tommy did his
best to look at the dinosaur without shrinking away again.