Kerrick had his weapon raised and fired at the charging figure, again and again. It rose into the air, screaming, then fell and crashed into the grass before them as the poison took effect. Close enough so that the beast’s bulging eye was just before Kerrick and seemed to be glaring into his. It kicked out its clawed feet in a spasm of agony, the mouth fell open and it roared fitfully. The rotten smell of its breath reached the hunters as it died.
The mastodons were screaming now with fear, rearing up and threatening to crush the travois and those nearby. Some of the hunters ran to quiet them while the rest still faced outward, weapons ready.
But the danger had passed. The herd was vanishing in the distance still pursued by the giant carnivores. Kerrick stepped forward warily towards the one they had killed. It lay unmoving now, a mound of dead flesh the size of a mastodon. A giant beast designed for slaughter, its rear legs long and muscled, its jaws filled with rows of pointed teeth.
“Can the flesh of this creature be eaten?” one of the hunters asked, turning to Kerrick.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this before. But it is a meat eater and the murgu only eat the flesh of the animals that eat grass and leaves.”
“Let us move on,” Herilak ordered. “We do the same. Leave this beast.”
The Tanu only ate the meat from carnivores when they were starving; the taste was strong and repellent and not to their liking. Now they had enough food and no desire at all to cut into this hideous creature. They went on quickly, the mastodons rolling their eyes and bellowing with fear as they passed the dead animal. Tanu and mastodon, they all wanted to be away from this place as quickly as they could.
The plain teemed with life. Dark creatures that were obviously not birds soared above them. Great forms wallowed in a shallow lake which they prudently made a large circle to avoid. Smaller murgu, half-seen, moved away from them in the high grass. Though they stayed alert, their weapons ready, they were not attacked again. The day passed in this manner without further encounters. The shadows were getting long when they stopped to water their beasts at a stream. Herilak pointed to a low hill nearby that was topped by a thick growth of trees.
“We will stop there for the night. The trees will give us protection and this water is close by.”
Kerrick looked up at the grove; it worried him. “We don’t know what might be concealed there,” he said. “Wouldn’t we be better here on the plain where we could see anything approaching?”
“We know now that this plain is alive with murgu during the day — but we don’t know what moves in the darkness in this place. The trees will be our shelter.”
“Then we must be sure that we are the only ones sheltering there. Let some of the best hunters search there now before it is too dark to see.”
They went cautiously, but the trees hid nothing of any great danger. Small murgu, tails held high, ran before them. There was a great flapping and screeching when they disturbed some birds feeding on fruit in the trees above. Other than this the grove was empty. It would be a good place to stop.
The mastodons quieted once they were freed of their burdens and were soon tearing at the green leaves. The boys brought the fire, carried in clay-lined baskets, and the tents were quickly set up. Guards were posted around the camp as darkness fell; they would be changed during the night.
“We have done all that we can do,” Herilak said. “We have survived our first day.”
“May we live through the night as well,” Kerrick said. looking about worriedly. “I hope that we did not make a mistake in coming here.”
“You bother yourself too much with things that cannot be changed. The decision was made. There was no other path to take.”
Herilak was right, Kerrick thought, I worry too much. But he has been a sammadar and sacripex before, and knows about leading others. All of this is still new to me.
He fell asleep quickly after they had eaten, and did not stir until Herilak touched his shoulder. The night was very dark, but the stars of the Hunter had gone from the western sky and the Mastodon would soon follow: dawn was close by.
“Nothing came near us during the night,” Herilak said, “though there are plenty of creatures out there. Perhaps they do not like our smell.”
The dark shapes of other hunters moved under the trees as the sentries were replaced. Kerrick stood at the top of the slope and looked down at the darker outline of the stream.
“We have seen animals watering there,” Herilak said, “but there was no way of telling what they were.”
“As long as they leave us alone it does not matter.”
They waited in silence until the sky lightened in the east with approaching dawn.
“A day and a night and we are all still alive,” Herilak said. “It is said that a trek that begins well ends well. May that be true now.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The slow march continued south that day, then the next and the next again. The hunters still took the precaution of flanking the sammads during the daylight hours and posting guards at night, but they walked with less apprehension, slept without worry. The plain was rich with animal life, but most of the creatures were murgu herbivores who stayed well clear of the sammads and their mastodons. There were predators, and many of the largest of these carnivores did attempt to attack them. The hunters killed the ones that came close and the others saw this and stayed clear. But the hunters knew that without the weapons that they had captured they would have been long since dead. With their defense the sammads could penetrate deeper and deeper into the plain.
The course they took stayed well clear of the swamps along the river and the large creatures that could be seen wallowing there. They avoided the thick forest as well, whenever they could, because when they passed through it they were forced to go in single file which made the column much harder to guard.
Despite the ever-present dangers the hunters still looked forward each morning to what the new day might bring, while each night they talked late around the fires about what they had seen that day. For them the world about them was an essential part of their lives. Normally they knew every animal in the forest, every bird in the trees; they knew their habits and how they were to be hunted.
But now they had discovered a whole new world. They had passed through a border area when the trek had begun, where they had seen some deer and other familiar beasts, as well as murgu of different kinds. Quite suddenly this had all changed and the animals they had watched and hunted all their lives were no more. Only some of the birds looked familiar, while the fish in the river were apparently no different. The rest were murgu, murgu in such variety that they could no longer be called by that single name. They were underfoot and in the grass, small lizards and snakes, while grazing the sea of grass itself were beasts of all sizes and colors. The hunters were specially watchful when they passed one of these herds because many times they were followed by packs of voracious carnivores.
Once, squatting and tearing at the rotting corpse of a large and nameless animal, they had seen carrion birds as large as the raptor that had once watched them. They were ungainly things with dark red plumage and very long tails. When the hunters passed close by they hopped about on their long legs and opened their beaks to hiss in anger. They were efficient carrion eaters for instead of bills they had jaws lined with sharp teeth.
The land was rich, the game so plentiful that it would have fallen in great numbers before their arrows had they had the time to hunt, while the weather itself became hard to believe. When they had set out on the trek the leaves were beginning to fall from the trees and they had felt the first cold grip of winter in the frosts at night. But now the seasons had been reversed and they seemed to be going back into the warm time. Even the nights were not cold, while during the day they took off their leather garments and walked with their skins exposed just as they did during the summer.