Though I was keen to show off the mummified remains of Itarino, this scene is really about the velociraptors attacking him. I drafted a similar illustration for Ammonite Key, depicting the scene where the hunters and their raptors come upon Divaro, Lara and Rillu in the woods. I chose not to include that image, but I still wanted to show a pack of lunging and leaping velociraptors.

Most people know the velociraptor from Jurassic Park, and are surprised to learn that they weren’t nearly as large as imagined in the movie. I don’t know why the writers chose to use “velociraptor” instead of “deinonychus”, but I suspect it had to do with the name (as I explain elsewhere, I chose deinonychus entirely for the name), but as they have the genetic engineering to fall back on, it’s all okay, just as I use magic to explain how one of the world’s largest animals avoids being crushed to death beneath a solid iron fortress on its back.

It does appear, however, that velociraptor hunted in packs, as their remains have been found in groups. These are hunting raptors, like dogs, presumably imported from Asia, as that’s where velociraptor came from. The wild equivalent in my story is equally well-named atrociraptor, native to North America. So, when I refer to Eralo as the “raptor man”, it’s atrociraptor I’m referring to.