Chapter 153: This is our land!

The flame danced across the sky for a few seconds, then went out. Buck lowered the flamethrower and placed it reverently at his pack leader's feet. The dinosaurs did not make a sound for several moments, then began to bellow in chorus: "Fire... Fire!" "He tame it... He is the tamer of the fire!" "Lord of fire!" "LORD OF FIRE! LORD OF FIRE!" The words of the dinosaurs seemed to turn into a religious song. Not that it was different from reality. Even though they didn't know what gods and spirits were, the dinosaurs were experiencing the same feeling humans do when facing such entities. Fire was one of the most devastating things in nature. While a tsunami or earthquake was far more destructive, nothing terrified an animal like flames. Not surprisingly, being burned alive was considered the worst death ever. The fire choked, burned, destroyed and killed all forms of life leaving nothing but charred bones. Therefore, for the dinosaurs, the fact that Sobek had tamed the fire was a representation of unparalleled power. It literally meant controlling nature's worst fury! Therefore, Sobek had become the Lord of Fire for them. Sobek roared again to restore calm. "This is just one of the many weapons I know how to create and master. There are many others. I will teach you how to use them, and you too will become as powerful as humans, indeed more! Because humans, without their technology, are worth nothing. You, on the other hand, even without technology, are indomitable warriors and ferocious beasts! You are strong!" The despondency had disappeared from the dinosaurs' eyes. Now there was only excitement. After Sobek's manifestation of power, he had become invincible in their eyes. What enemy would ever defeat him? "In the preceding weeks, I have prepared the foundation for the creation of a resistance against human invasion. Buck, under my command, has educated and trained the first of many legions of warriors, teaching them to fight all together, for this time we will fight against a common enemy, so even those of you who are mortal enemies will have to stand united. Carnopo and Al brought more and more dinosaurs into the pack and helped me manage the new arrivals. Rambo has guarded the west, keeping every human movement in check. Old Li has been of great help to me in perfecting the many plans I have for our future war. And Apache has gathered here all the flying reptiles of the continent, which will carry my call to all the dinosaurs of all the existing lands!" The dinosaurs and pterosaurs began to nod. All of them finally saw an explanation for Sobek's actions. They realized that there had always been a pattern behind it all. "For your children, and your children's children, I ask you to fight by my side! I cannot stop the human advance alone. But we, all of us put together, will become an impassable wall and drive the invaders back to their dying lands!" the spinosaurus roared. "Don't lower your head! You are not slaves! You are not insects that can be stepped on! You are warriors! Each of you fought every day for a living, challenging predators, enemies, diseases and natural disasters, and you came out victorious! So don't surrender to this enemy! I will not lie to you: terrible hardships await us, and a long and ferocious war such as the world has never seen. But if you want your children, your companions, your families to live peacefully and not in constant fear that an arrogant bald monkey will come and destroy their home and enslave them, then follow me! Let's show humans what happens when they dare to challenge a dinosaur!" The dinosaurs felt the blood boil within them. Sobek's oratory was having an extraordinary effect on their morale. If until a few minutes before they were devastated, broken inside and without any hope, now they were full of courage, willing and could not wait to take the field. Their hearts were pounding and their skin was tingling. "This world has taken billions of years to arrive to where it is now, and it wasn't humans who directed its destiny! Your ancestors, our ancestors, have reigned on this land for tens, hundreds of millions of years! ANY LIFE FORM OF THIS WORLD HAS BEEN HERE BEFORE HUMANS! We were here before! And now it seems right to you that humans believe that they can control us? That they think that they can drive us out of our homes, tear us away from our families, deprive us of our food? Is this right for you?" "NO!" was the common answer that the dinosaurs gave almost without realizing it. Sobek was captivating audiences more than everyone thought. "Your ancestors have overcome the worst adversities this world has put before them! They survived storms, hurricanes, volcanoes and floods! They were true warriors, true knights of life, and they never gave up! Your existence is proof that they have defeated death! One after another, effort after effort, they emerged victorious from their battles and guaranteed their children a future! What are you going to do now? Will you flee from the enemy, in the vain hope that there is a place where humans will not arrive? Will you shame your ancestors by taking refuge underground like rabbits while your forest is destroyed? Or will you follow me, and fight against the invader, awakening in you that strength and tenacity that your ancestors were so proud of?" "LET'S FIGHT!" the dinosaurs answered. They had already decided their fate. There was no one against it. "Then so be it! By ruling the world all these years, humans have sent us a clear message. They spit in our faces and said they can take whatever they want, and nothing and nobody can ever stop them. But we will send them our message, and we will do it very clearly!". Sobek's eyes flared up and the dinosaurs thought they saw fire dancing in them. "You, winged brothers, who have been given the opportunity to travel between the clouds and the stars! Fly, faster than the wind can carry you, and head to every corner of the continent and even beyond! Tell all the dinosaurs to come, indipendently if they are big, small, herbivorous or carnivorous! Tell them that Sobek, the enemy of humans, the Lord of Fire, the Great King of the Forest, is summoning them!" The pterosaurs croaked in chorus in approval. Their wings were already flapping, and only Sobek's piercing, commanding gaze prevented them from flying right away. "Tell them that I accept everyone in my pack, because when survival is at stake, there are no species barriers that cannot be overcome! And we are all children of the forest! We are all children of this world! We are all children of our ancestors who fought for life! Therefore, as brothers and sisters, we will fight together against the fools who believe they can challenge us so with impunity!" Even the overwhelming presence of Sobek could not keep calm now: the dinosaurs fidgeted, anxious and excited, and emitted several noises, but could not overcome the voice of their pack leader. "And therefore you will fight, with me, my brothers and sisters! And we will make humans understand that they cannot and they mustn't take what they want, not without suffering the consequences! Because this... "and he pointed to the ground with his mighty claw. "... THIS IS OUR LAND!" "TO WAR!" was Buck's overwhelming roar as Sobek finished his speech. "DEATH TO HUMANS!" Carnopo gave him support. "LET'S DEFEND OUR TERRITORY!" Al yelled. One after another, endless dinosaur voices rose, all shouting for war. Sobek roared, but not to restore calm, but to foment the fury of the dinosaurs even more. The pterosaurs took off like a swarm. There were so many of them that for an instant they obscured the light of the setting sun. The superflock scattered in all directions, while the battle song raged below them. That day would be known to posterity as the Day of Rebirth, when the dinosaurs finally chose to rebel against absolute human supremacy. It would have been the beginning of a long conflict, destined to last for years and studded with bloody events; there would have been many great events that would have marked it, but any historian would have always known that it all started from there, in that angle of forest near to the lake, where a brave spinosaurus had finally had the strength to scream "ENOUGH!" and had created the first dinosaur army in the History of the world. Over the next few days, thousands of new dinosaurs would have joined the pack. Sobek would have created several new divisions and would began to make preparations for war. Warned by the pterosaurs traveling from one part of the world to the other, all the dinosaurs of the continent would set off in the direction indicated to them. Everyone, from the great sauropods to the tiniest dromeosaurs, from the bloodiest tyrannosaurus to the most peaceful hadrosaurus, would have responded to the call of the spinosaurus who had tamed the fire and who had proclaimed war on humanity. Many of those dinosaurs would have taken months to arrive, but none of them shrank from the distance, because to guarantee a future for their lineage, any animal is willing to even overcome seas and mountains if necessary. And so it was that very soon what would be remembered as the Great War would begin, a conflict like no other the world had ever seen, which saw the birth of terrifying weapons and the fall of secular regimes, and which especially for the first once and for all it saw humans clash with other living beings for the dominance on the planet.