Only when it reached the door to Cade’s own tomb did he leap back. It was not a moment too soon.

The great teeth snapped closed in front of him, and then the head was pushing through the crack as he fell away, worming and straining to get at him.

Eyes, bright orange and full of fury, blinked in the torchlight. The great maw opened and closed, taking small bites at the air in front of him, inching closer with every lunge.

Cade raised his gun, the weight unfamiliar in his hands. Shaking, he aimed as best he could. And pulled the trigger.

There was a click. Barely audible over the Carnotaurus’s slavering breaths.

Cade pulled the trigger again, but still, nothing.

“No,” Cade whispered, scrambling back as the beast rammed itself forward once more, crumbling the entrance’s edges as earth and rock came away under its onslaught.

The gun’s magazine had capacity for ten bullets. But it had only held one.

Cade was trapped.

“Shit,” Cade whispered in horror. “Shit. Shit!”

Excited by the noise, the beast lunged forward again, its entire upper chest breaching the cave.

Cade hurled the gun at the beast as it snapped at him. It swallowed it whole, the black pistol disappearing in its gullet as if it were an apple core.

With no other option, Cade drew his blade. In seconds, he would be trapped in a small space with a ravenous monster. He had to kill it. Now.

He whipped his sword forward, slashing at the beast’s snout. His blade cut shallow, jarring against bone and eliciting a screech of pain. The skin of the beast was crocodilian, almost like armored scales.

Cade pulled the blade free, chopping down again and again, casting blood in scarlet slashes across his face, clothing, and the cave walls.

But his efforts only renewed the beast’s own. It did not pull away, rather rammed itself toward the blade, chomping at it as if it were a stinging insect.

Cade had to back away, stumbling deeper into the cave, until just the beast’s wide hindquarters remained trapped in the cave’s narrow entrance.

He had to change tack, and drew the blade back, feeling cruel as he stabbed at its eyes. Once, twice, three times he managed to spear it there, and the creature roared in agony, jerking itself away before he could push the blade into its brain.

By now, he had chopped the Carnotaurus’s head into a bloody mess of furrows, yet he was no closer to escape. Blinded opponent or not, he had no way out. And if he didn’t move quickly, there would be another predator in the chamber beyond.

The blade would never penetrate into the brain. So Cade rammed the blade deep into the monster’s maw, up into the roof of its mouth.

The monster chomped down and screeched as this move drove the blade deeper, catching on bone, preventing it from closing its mouth.

As the blind animal yawped in pain and fury, Cade did the only thing he could do. He leaped onto the beast’s neck, using its horns to throw himself forward.