West of Eden

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 West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    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.
    Then one day they came to the place where the large river that