Chapter 5
Village of the Amazons
Island of Theros in the Center of the Bermuda Triangle
A week went by of constant work from sunup to sundown. By the end of the seventh day, they had three quarters of the wall done. The Grak'gull had only attacked the once on that first day.
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Thinking Jake was by himself as he assembled the net near the water, the monster had burst from the tree line. By that time, however, they had a sizable stockpile of fish piled up just beside the trees and the T-Rex-sized creature stopped dead in her tracks as she smelled the meal they had set aside for her.
She paused, a mere twenty feet away from Jake, as he froze in place with one hand open-palmed behind him to stop the women in the water from rushing the lone dino. Jake was poised to shoulder his fifty cal and fire should the dinosaur decide that he would make a better meal than the fish. He could practically hear Sestia's corded muscles vibrating with the desire to attack. The monster eyed Jake then the fish; back to Jake and back to the fish.
"That's it, girl," Jake whispered, nodding, encouraging the monster to eat the fish. "It's all for you."
The Grak'gull looked at Jake once more and as he nodded, she bent and scooped up the fish in her maw. Chewing noisily, she devoured her meal. With one last look at Jake she turned and disappeared in the trees.
Jake blew out a nervous whoop of relief as the last of the monster's tail slithered out of view. "Fuck! She's too fucking quiet to be so damn big!!"
"It would seem your plan worked, my king," Tatiana said, grinning as she splashed through the water to give him a hug.
Jake turned to see Sestia red-faced and angry, her grip on her spear so tight he could hear the wood creak from the fifty feet that separated them.
"You okay, Ses?" Jake asked.
"Yes, my king," she said through gritted teeth. "Though I could have ended it here and now."
"Maybe so, babe, but at what cost?"
She looked at him with one quirked eyebrow.
"No matter how fast you are she would have gotten me and been gone long before you hit the shore in pursuit," Jake said.
Sestia sighed in defeat. "You are right, my king."
"I take no joy in it, love. All I ask is a bit more patience. We'll get her."
Sestia nodded and went back to fishing. With the amount of fish in the water it was almost as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Every couple of minutes or so each of the three women pulled up a fish as big around as Jake's thigh and about as long.
Jake resumed his work on the net, looping the paracord in knots while keeping a wary eye on the adjacent tree line as he thought about the dinosaur. Something in the back of his mind kept telling him that killing the creature was wrong. He wouldn't deny the women their revenge but doubt niggled in his brain.
By lunch, the net was completed and they began hauling in entire nets full of fish. They kept a few for themselves but the remainder went to the pile for the monster.
Satisfied the pile was adequate to keep the monster fed for a few days, they headed back to the fire pit to reignite the coals and cook their fish for lunch. After lunch, they had begun clearing the area to be used for the wall. With the strength of the women it took only a few hours to tear down and clear the unused huts surrounding their own.
While the women removed the bulk of the wood from the destroyed huts, Jake had begun removing the smaller debris that littered the ground. He wasn't going to let them do all the work, after all. It wasn't in him to sit back and watch other people work. By nightfall they had the area cleared and would be able to start digging the trenches the next day.
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Jake packed the last of the mud between the two logs in the ground. The sun was low on the horizon as he made his way back to the fire pit after making sure the women secured the last log in place with another against it. His arms were so tired he could barely move them. The women talked idly ahead of him as they walked. They didn't seem to be tired in the least despite working the day away and he envied their strength and stamina. Each woman was capable of lifting a fifteen foot log as big around as their waist and positioning it in place in the trench by themselves with little effort.
The week had done a number on Jake. He couldn't remember the last time he'd worked so hard. The women took turns with the work. One would place a log and hold it while the other two mixed the mud that Jake used to pack the logs in place.
Jake practically flopped on the log around the fire, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion, his eyes drooping. A bottle was gently pressed against his lips.
"Here, my king," Sestia said. "Drink."
"Mmm," Jake said, as he took a long pull of water from the canteen.
"I will take your watch tonight, my king," Tatiana said. "You need rest."
Jake's eyes popped open. "The hell you will. I may not have the strength or stamina you have, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to pull my fair share of the weight."
"But you are tired, my king," she protested.
"Yeah, and you need rest as well. Neither of us are going to be any good if we fall out from lack of sleep. No. I'll take my scheduled shift with Lenore tonight."
He held up a hand when she started to protest further.
"Another couple of days, at the earliest, and the wall will be finished. After that I may let you coddle me a little bit." He winked at her.
The three amazons looked at each other with confusion. "What is co-duel?" Sestia asked.
"Cod-dle," Jake said, enunciating the word for them. "It means to take care of some one in an overprotective way."
"It is not over protection when you are so much more weak than we, my king," Lenore said.
"Thanks for the emasculation," Jake grumbled.
"What is-" Tatiana started to ask.
"Never mind," Jake said, unable to keep the slight annoyance out of his tone. "It's not important. The important thing is that I need to do my part. You girls may be stronger, faster, and can go much longer than I can before needing rest, but that doesn't mean I get a free pass when it comes to dereliction of duty."
"What is-"
Jake held up a hand to stop Lenore's question. "Suffice it to say that despite you girls being, for lack of a better term, wonder women; I'll tell you about that later," he said as Tatiana was about to interrupt him, "I still need to do my part. There's not much I can do that you can't. What I can do, though, I will."
They sat silently for a moment before Tatiana spoke up. "My king. We did not mean to offend."
Jake sighed as he slid off of the log and onto the ground, resting his back against the log. "I know you didn't, Tati. I'm just tired, is all. And hungry. Is there any fish left over from lunch?"
Lenore was working on reviving the fire. She had gotten pretty good at it since learning how. "No, my king. But I will cook one shortly."
Jake's stomach grumbled. The wall, well, barricade would be a more apt description, was done on all sides except the front of their hut. They had dug the trenches around five feet deep and just wide enough for a log to fit in. After packing the base in mud and using what the women had used for rope to lash each log together at the bottom and top, Jake packed mud between the crevices of each log to give it a bit more stability. This wasn't a long-term solution; only as a means of 'out of sight, out of mind' for the Grak'gull while they planned their strategy to take down the monster.
Jake still wasn't sure about that. I mean, this was the last of an unknown species that supposedly died out in the Mesozoic Era. Or was it the Cretaceous? He couldn't remember. However, he did realize that left unchecked, the monsters would decimate the human population. No simple weapons would kill this thing, not as strong as it was. It would most likely take an anti-aircraft missile to take one down. Good thing they weren't able to procreate.
But what about the barrier? It couldn't get out, right? Supposedly Jake was stuck here for the rest of his natural born life, so if he couldn't get out neither could the monster.