As the ankylosaurus had said, a troop of dinosaurs arrived in the evening, when the sunlight began to set in the sky. Apparently, the dinosaurs celebrated their funeral after dark.

Humans were grouped together and made to walk the streets of the city. Unlike the previous time, however, they went slower. It seemed that the dinosaurs were in no hurry. When the group reunited with another, the mixing began immediately.

The dinosaurs didn't seem to care, so everyone scrambled to find their relatives. Some were very lucky, but most of them found nothing. However, as the various groups reunited, more and more separate families reunited.

The humans could not have known that this was all Sobek's ploy. Having been human, Sobek had foreseen the change of mood among the prisoners after the terrible defeat suffered by their army. And he knew that the best way to calm tempers and avoid any riots was to give the humans a victory. So he had ordered the dinosaurs who escorted them to continue slowly, so that the humans would be able to scramble a little. This would not have put out the flames, but it would have contained the fire.

Abe, Alexander and Ellie were also in the thick of their research. Malcolm was there somewhere and they had to find him before it was too late. Alexander constantly called his father, but his voice was lost in the noise of the crowd.

Finally, after nearly ten minutes of tiring searching, Ellie glimpsed the silhouette of a man she would have recognized among a thousand others. "Malcolm!"

It was really him. As soon as he heard her, Malcolm turned to her and an expression of joy mixed with relief appeared on her face. He pushed his way through the crowd and when he finally caught up with them he warmly hugged Ellie and Alexander with tears in his eyes. "You look fine!" he exclaimed in seventh heaven.

"You too, apparently" Ellie replied. Alexander said nothing: he just remained hugged to his father.

Malcolm warmly kissed the woman, then turned to Abe: "Thanks for keeping them safe for me"

"I have hardly done anything. They got away with it for the most part by themselves" the big man replied. "I'm happy to see you again alive"

"Me too. You are a good man, Abe"

"Hey, you, don't stand there. Get moving!"

The quartet hurried to get back on the road as soon as they heard the encouragement of a large megalosaurus. They didn't dare to stop for all the way.

Eventually, they came outside the walls. Abe noticed that not far from them there was a hole, illuminated by the setting sun. And inside there were several dead dinosaurs, with some alive rubbing on them as if they were crying. They were probably the relatives of the victims. All the other dinosaurs were gathered around the hole in a large crescent.

Abe was surprised how many dinosaurs there were. He never realized how big the pack was. But now he knew that the group he and Malcolm had met in the forest was but a tiny part of the real army. On the desert plain there were thousands, tens of thousands of creatures of all kinds, shapes, colors and sizes.

The humans were massed close to the walls and the dinosaurs who escorted them lined up to watch over them. The large herd of dinosaurs had their backs facing the sun, consequently humans had the opportunity to observe the whole scene without any impediment thanks to the unique crescent shape that the dinosaurs had formed.

There was only one exception: their boss. Everyone would have recognized the gigantic dinosaur with the sail which, unlike the others, was facing the sun and was on the opposite side from the rest of the pack.

As soon as all the humans were in their places, the dinosaurs who guarded them ordered them to be quiet. The humans continued to mingle with each other, but no one said a word or made any noise.

For a moment there was total silence. Then, a song rose.

For humans, that was an unexpected surprise. Many of them stopped in surprise and looked towards where the sound was coming from. Abe himself was astonished.

They were the sauropods! They were singing!

Sauropods had a disproportionate lung capacity thanks to their size and could vocalize different sounds thanks to the shape of their nostrils. They were literally living sounding boxes. Their song was deep and shrill, like a whale's cry, but it contained a veil of sadness and suffering. It was a strange music, where each individual seemed to sing on their own, yet the voices managed to harmonize.

And then the other dinosaurs started singing too. The large herbivores bellowed and the carnivores let out their roars. Even the dinosaurs who guarded the humans joined in the song. The timbre of the music took on a darker, stronger sound, but at the same time it seemed to take on values of grandeur and nobility. While the dinosaurs sang they did not stand still: sauropods waved their whip tails, ceratopsids moved their collars, predators rose to the sky and showed their teeth, stegosaurids and ankylosaurids leaned forward and raised their tails, the pachycephalosaurids moved their domed skulls up and down, and hadrosaurids stood up on their hind legs and raised the timbre of their voices.

It was wild, strong, independent music; each dinosaur sang on its own, emitting the noises that came to mind in the moment. Such a composition should have generated a tremendous cacophony, however... even if no one was trying, the notes harmonized by themselves with each other. The various verses were terrible to listen to when taken individually or even in small groups, but put all together they formed a great melody, unlike any melody humans had ever composed, which even if made up only of animal verses clearly carried a message of deep pain. for fallen comrades.

The only ones who did not sing were the pack leader and the dinosaurs inside the pit. While the melody went on, some dinosaurs stopped and went down into the pit, as if they had decided to say goodbye to their companions at the last moment, while instead some who had remained inside came out and joined the melody, as if they wanted to take part in that choir that it was in fact a tribute to their deceased loved ones.

Abe had never heard such music, but he could not remain indifferent to it. That melody was so alien, so incomprehensible, yet he could feel it vibrating within him, clearly perceiving the message it carried. It was not the only one: many humans were struck by that song so exotic and at the same time so clear. Because the choir had a different music than any other, but it carried within itself a feeling that human beings could understand: the pain of losing a partner.

The music continued for ten minutes, then began to fade. The dinosaurs stopped singing one after the other, until the chorus was reduced to a few and sparse voices. When these too died out, the dinosaurs that were still in the pit gave a final farewell to their loved ones and then walked out of the pit.

It was only then that Sobek spoke. "My brothers and sisters, we are here today to bid our painful farewell to these valiant companions who have supported us ever since they joined this pack. They died as heroes and received a glorious death. Their courage and strength were unmatched and nothing had been able to stop them; if it hadn't been for a subterfuge, they would never have fallen..."

The spinosaurus raised his arms, as if he wanted to hug the bodies in the pit. "Brothers and sisters who can no longer hear me now, it is with the death in my heart that I say goodbye. All of us say goodbye to you with pain and suffering, and we will jealously guard your memory in our hearts until the end of our days. Nothing, not even the deadly embrace of fire, will be able to tear your memory away from us; when we perish, we will perish with it. Because a pack never forgets any of its members. Future generations will know your names, and will remember you for your valor, your courage, your determination, your sacrifice"

Sobek lowered his hands and bowed his head. "As the inviolable laws of the world will, your body remains here and will become the nourishment through which more life will arise. But your spirits now live in your children and your children's children, just as the spirits of our ancestors and ancestors before them live in all of us. May you always watch over your descendants, brave fallen ones!"

Sobek's body dropped and his head hit the ground. He was bowing. Seeing his gesture, the other dinosaurs also bowed. The entire herd of tens of thousands of individuals dropped to their knees and bowed to the bodies in the pit. "May the earth take the body, but may the spirit run free forever!" Sobek proclaimed aloud.

"May the earth take the body, but may the spirit run free forever!" the other dinosaurs imitated him. At that point everyone stopped bowing and approached the mounds of earth surrounding the pit. The dinosaurs began to push them and the earth fell over the corpses and covered them. Within minutes, the bodies had been completely buried.

Sobek gestured to the guards, who turned to the humans: "Go back to your enclosures. It's over" they said, pushing them towards the interior of the city.

The humans obeyed without making a fuss. However, they could see that many dinosaurs were not gone. Most of them were retreating, but some of them had remained crying by the pit, and some had even started singing again. Sobek himself hadn't moved, as if he wanted to be the last to leave.

From that night, many things changed. Not only were many families reunited and parents were able to hug their children again, but a new feeling began to grow in humans. Though they still feared their captors, humans began to develop another thought as well.

"Maybe these animals aren't so savage after all"