“Frances leaned in close as the Troodons scurried around Harold, clamping the exoskeleton onto his hulking frame.

“Don’t let them win,” she said, her black slits of pupils narrowing. “You are more powerful than any of them.” She stood back.

Two Troodons guided 15-foot mechanical arms toward Harold’s dwarfed appendages, and when the clamps bit down on the frame the controls were now within reach. Harold grabbed the one-button handlebars with each of his small arms, close to his tremendous green-and-brown chest, and gave a starter tug. The system gasped and shot steam across the hangar, and the Troodons — a quarter of Harold’s size, nimble, brilliant — sped off to control stations and to outfit the next warrior.

Harold clenched the controls and watched as his mechanical arms responded in kind, reaching, twisting, grabbing, swinging. To counterbalance the weight and the motion, he planted his enormous, muscular legs onto the hangar floor and stretched his tail — itself the length of the mech — far behind him. It swept a gale of dry earth in its wake as he turned, and nearby scientists and warriors, so busy preparing for battle, had to flit their lower eyelids to protect themselves from the debris.

As the dust settled, he slowed himself gracefully, took stock of his new mech, and let out a powerful sigh. Frances stepped close again. She was larger than him, and a deep purple hue darkened her crust of flesh. Harold had long avoided making eye contact with anyone, and especially her. But now his neck craned up and he nudged her long neck with his broken snout. He raised his head up to her level, his left eye connecting with her right. She pulled back, surprised by the gesture, and the flesh around his jaw became a cracked and scarred snarl. His nostrils sucked the oxygen from the air as he raised his head high and let out a roar that shook the stones and dust from the hangar walls and brought the legion to a standstill. The roar continued, and onlookers — those brave enough to do so — could see his mangled, toothless mouth; gums raw from years of gnawing without blades to tear.

Two fellow Rexes, smaller than Harold but with all their teeth, fell in behind him. A forward guard of thirty raptors marched ahead and 12 dactyls spread their wings from their perch, all screaming for the battle ahead. As Harold’s roar died down, so did the rest. His maw closed as he looked at Frances one last time. For the first time in as long as he could remember, she looked afraid. Good, he thought, and he raised his mech arms, lifted his tail, and charged.”

Brandon Vernon
Excerpt from The Thunder of Battle, Vol. 3

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