The gargantuan beast was too slow to pull up before it hit the uneven terrain of the foothills, stumbling and slamming into the rocky ground. The earth shook, and I clambered to my feet, clutching my little axe as though it might have any effect at all against that mountain of teeth and claws.
The dragon righted itself and turned back toward us. I had seen artistic constructions of massive carnivores in the museum, big impressive dinosaurs with jaws stretched wide in predatory growls. They did not come close to the reality of this beautiful, hideous beast. The dragon was a lustrous blue green, but caked in dirt and mottled in pale yellows around its face. It had wide, wet, almost bovine nostrils, and a snout lined with bumps and ridges that grew thicker and sharper as they climbed up and over its brow, continuing down its back, like an alligator. Atop its head was a pair of horns, which curved backward like a ram’s. Its scaly hide was stretched taut around its ribs.
The creature tilted its head and surveyed the three of us hungrily. Its stomach rumbled loudly, and it cringed, clenching its leathery eyelids shut. “I don’t think a pile of dry bones will be enough to satisfy that thing,” I said.
The creature’s eyes darted open, golden yellow orbs with jagged black slits for pupils. It took one purposeful step toward us, and then another. I tensed to run, panic flooding my veins. Across the hilltop, dust and fossils shifted with each thudding footstep. Among them I caught sight of another motion. In the dim light, atop the bones, a figure stood. Before I understood what I was seeing, the dig site erupted in a flash of brilliant whiteness. “Smile for the camera, handsome,” sang a familiar voice.
I blinked and the light was gone. The dragon shook its head and reeled on Nellie Fuller. She dropped the spent flash lamp and whipped the plate out of her camera, leaping aside as the dragon snapped its jaws. The camera and tripod splintered into scraps, and Nellie hit the ground in a hard roll. She was quick to recover, but the creature was quicker. In an instant it was looming over her again, those terrible teeth spreading wide.
“Peanut! No! Bad dragon!” Hudson’s voice faltered on the last syllable, but he made up for it with the loud blast of a rifle shot. The heavy round glanced off the dragon’s snout, and the creature furrowed its scaly brow.
“You named it?” Jackaby yelled.
“Told ya I was gonna,” grunted Hank, and another shot rang out.
The second round caught the dragon squarely in the center of its neck, just under its chin. Neither blow pierced the scaly hide, but they were enough to draw the creature’s attention from the reporter. Nellie scrambled across the hill and into the long trench that Lamb’s men had dug around the site. The dragon narrowed a pair of angry golden eyes on the trapper.
Hudson tossed the rifle aside and plucked up his shotgun. He shoved himself up to standing and swayed immediately. The dragon’s jaws spread wide, and the trapper let loose a barrel of buckshot into the soft pink of its throat. The creature bellowed in alarm and whipped its thick head back and forth, staggering away a few paces and pawing at its face with its wings. Hudson collapsed to his knees. The shotgun clattered to the dirt as he caught himself with his one good hand.
The dragon rose to its full height, rearing up with its wings spread wide. They shrouded half the sky in a blanket of dark emerald. The dragon’s pupils were razor slits, and its nostrils chuffed angrily. It puffed out its chest, and it began to make a guttural grunting noise.
“Fire!” Jackaby yelled. “Fire! Get down—now!”
He wrenched me off my feet, and the world spun for a moment as the two of us tumbled into Lamb’s trench. My axe bounced out of my hands, and the cold earth and smell of loose soil filled my senses for several seconds as Jackaby pressed me into the dirt. From above us came a rumbling, belching noise, and then a muffled hacking cough. Jackaby’s hold on my back lightened as he rose to peer over the edge of the deep furrow. I slid up tentatively to join him.