Nothing was able to stop the dinosaurs.

Dreyfus had assembled the few remaining soldiers and several civilians to form a resistance, but it had been useless. The dinosaurs were too many and too powerful. The useless defense collapsed in a few minutes. Dreyfus was barely able to retreat, but he did not go far: the dinosaurs captured him shortly after.

The inhabitants of Cartago had no escape. Unlike dinosaurs, humans weren't designed to fight. Without weapons and proper training, they were helpless. They also made a lot of noise, their scent could be heard miles away, and panicked with astonishing speed, which prevented them from running away or hiding. For the dinosaurs, capturing them was as easy as drinking a glass of water.

In just an hour, a city of more than one million inhabitants was completely conquered. Humans were far superior in numbers, but they weren't warriors: from a civilian point of view, they had no choice but to bow their heads and surrender to the invaders.

Sobek entered the city as a triumphant. Everything had gone exactly according to plan.

Now he had over a million people as hostages.

**********

Malcolm hadn't been able to reach his house. They had caught him earlier.

The taking of the city had been too quick. There was no way to rescue anyone. Perhaps some inhabitants, perhaps those who lived in the districts farthest from the breach in the wall, had managed to escape into the sewers, but it was unlikely. Malcolm hoped that at least someone had made it.

Like all humans he had been clustered in one spot in the middle of the road and had been left there for a long time. Malcolm had tried to think of a way to escape, but he had soon curbed those intentions: the dinosaurs were very alert, too much for him to escape. Malcolm had seen a man, probably a desperate father like himself, who had tried to escape three times and was eventually thrown to the ground and scarred by a monolophosaurus.

Malcolm was sure that the only reason the dinosaur didn't kill the man was because he was ordered not to. From his gaze, the monolophosaurus seemed to be rather dissatisfied with having merely to hurt him.

Finally, after an hour, the dinosaurs ordered them to walk towards the central square. Thousands of humans were led through the city streets like prisoners. As they went on the roads crossed with other roads and other groups of humans and dinosaurs joined them. When they arrived at the central square, all the inhabitants of Marsala were gathered together, so much so that they did not all fit in the square and many of them remained in the adjacent streets.

Malcolm started jostling with other people, looking desperately for Ellie and his son. He was not the only one: almost all humans became chaotic and began to call children, companions, grandparents, parents, grandchildren, relatives, friends, even simple acquaintances at times. Soon the situation seemed to be about to degenerate: in their desperation, humans did not hesitate to hit each other and many risked being trampled on. But suddenly, a giant roar stopped everything.

All the humans froze in place and turned to where the roar had come from. Malcolm saw the huge spinosaurus at the head of the dinosaurs advancing through the only free road. At its enormous height of more than ten meters, it aroused terror and authority at the same time.

The creature stopped a few steps away from the huge group of humans and stared at the people with an indecipherable gaze. It was still night, but the artificial light of the city illuminated it clearly, making it clearly visible to all.

After almost a minute of waiting, the spinosaurus spoke. "Humans! My name, the one I have chosen to wear, is Sobek! I am the Great King of the Forest, the leader of the dinosaurs, the lord of fire, bringer of death and indomitable hunter!"

Listing one's titles was a method all generals used to intimidate prisoners. Sobek was no exception: even if humans did not know the story behind these epithets, his words were enough to form in their minds the image of a bloodthirsty and indomitable predatory dinosaur.

Sobek continued. "I didn't want to go that far. What happened this night and what will happen in the next few days was your choice. You just had to go away, and we wouldn't have hurt you a hair. But you have instead decided to face us!"

Most of the citizens of Cartago did not understand. None of them, of course, had been made aware of the existence of talking dinosaurs. However, in a short time many began to remember the words of the workers of the mines and wells, who had mysteriously returned and had begun to rant about having to leave, but who had been quickly silenced...

The inhabitants of Cartago were not stupid. Very soon it was clear to all of them that the government, or at least the governors of Cartago, had been aware of the danger for some time and that they hadn't told him anything!

In humans, emotions could change very quickly. Despite the situation, fear was soon replaced by anger! Citizens began shouting abusive phrases at their rulers, and some of those in the front row even tried to address Sobek directly.

"We didn't know anything!"

"They kept us in the dark!"

"It was those devils of politicians who challenged you, not us!"

But Sobek was certainly not one of those who allowed themselves to be moved by sad words. "The actions of a pack leader are the will of the whole pack. If you have chosen a bad pack leader, then you can only blame yourself" he simply replied.

Once again he proved how quickly human emotions could change: after those words the anger vanished almost completely from the minds of the citizens, replaced again by fear for their own survival and those of loved ones.

"However, I recognize that none of you were involved in the futile attack on our pack, so we will not kill you" Sobek continued. "However, as long as your bosses do not decide to come to terms with us, you will remain our welcome guests. From this moment on, you can consider yourselves hostages"

A low murmur spread through the crowd. They were obviously relieved that the dinosaurs would have not killed them, but of course nobody liked the idea of being a hostage.

"When your bosses guarantee us that they will no longer come to destroy our forest, then you will be set free. Until then, you can't leave here. We will provide you with food and water and we will not harm you, but we will constantly keep you under control and we will be very strict with punishments if anyone dares to do something stupid" Sobek raised his right paw, as if to give a command: "Divide all humans into equal groups and put them in the various squares of the city! Old Li, have these places fenced off and organize patrol groups"

"Yes, pack leader" the ankylosaurus nodded. "Did you hear the pack leader? Get moving!"

Humans were again dragged away; chaos resumed, as many tried to rejoin their families, but the dinosaurs were adamant and forced them to leave. The huge group of more than a million humans was divided into different subgroups of a few tens of thousands that were scattered in the other squares of the city. They were then fenced off as per command and several dinosaurs were placed to guard.

The dinosaurs only gave humans a blanket. Otherwise, humans would have slept in the open. Sobek certainly had no intention of making the situation hellish for the humans, as that would have sparked riots, but he didn't want to be too charitable either. Temperatures were more than enough to ward off disease, so humans could sleep under the stars and not make a fuss.

Sobek, on the other hand, settled in the central square. He knocked down the fountains and made a bed where he lay down. It looked like a dragon resting on its loot.

When the sun rose, the city of Cartago belonged to the dinosaurs. The huge creatures celebrated their victory for hours. Sobek had ordered lots of food to be brought and told his soldiers to have a good time. As an ex-human, in fact, he knew that the best way to keep the morale of the troops high was to let them have fun from time to time.

Sobek, however, was already thinking about his next move. He knew that Odaria would not stand by and watch this time: many citizens had made videos and posted them on the Internet. Odaria had her own private internet, which would have blocked information from other countries, but the nation's government would have known everything. Very soon they would have sent their army.

A new battle was on the way.

All as planned.