West of Eden

in their sleep—and the arrows started again.
    This continued all night, with fresh hunters coming out to take the place of the tired ones. Kerrick and Herilak slept for a bit, then woke and ordered the hunters back to the stone barricade at the first gray light of dawn.
    They stood ready all day waiting for the attack, some guarding while others slept. The morning passed and the attack never came. By afternoon, still without a murgu attack, Herilak was beset by volunteers who wanted to scout the enemy positions. He refused them all. Nothing would be gained by losing more lives. When dusk came—still without any sign of an attack—he and Kerrick had themselves wrapped in cloth once again. They went forward carefully, weapons ready, but there were no defenders lying in wait for them this time. Still as cautiously they crept up the river bank and raised their cloth-wrapped heads above the edge, peering through the slitted fabric.
    The plain was empty.
    As swiftly as they had come the enemy had vanished, their tracks and animal droppings pointing to the horizon.
    "They are gone. We have beaten them!" Herilak roared, shaking his fists victoriously at the sky.
    "Not beaten," Kerrick said, suddenly dizzy with fatigue. He dropped cross-legged to the ground, tearing the suffocating cloth from his face and looking out at the retreating track. '"They have been defeated here, pushed back. But they are like poisonous thorns. We cut them in one place and they only grow stronger in another."
    "Then we will root out these thorns once and for all. Destroy them so that they cannot grow and return."
    Kerrick nodded solemn agreement. "That is what we must do. And I know just how it can be done. Now we will call together the sammads and the manduktos of the Sasku. The time has come to wipe the Yilanè away just as they have tried to root out and kill us.
    "We are going to take the battle to them."
    CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
    West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    The two boys, dripping with perspiration from their proximity to the flames, added sticks of dry wood to the fire whenever it died down. These blazed up brightly, bathing the cavern interior with a wavering golden light so that the animals painted there appeared to move as the flames flickered. Sanone had not arrived yet, but the other manduktos sat beneath the image of the mastodon as was their right. Kerrick, Herilak, and the sammadars were all seated on the same side of the fire as well.
    Beyond the flames were the hunters, with others from the sammads behind them. Sanone had agreed to this with great reluctance since it was the custom of the Sasku for the manduktos to make all the decisions, and he found it difficult to understand that the sammadars did not rule with the same authority.
    This compromise had finally been reached, with the leaders on one side and the sammads on the other.
    The Sasku were not sure what to make of this unusual arrangement and only a few came close and listened from the darkness, looking expectantly over the shoulders of those seated before them. They stirred with mixed emotions, pleasure and fear, as a mastodon trumpeted in the darkness. There was a thud of heavy feet, torches coming close, dark forms moving.
    Into the circle of light the mastodons came, the great cow Dooha being led by Sanone, one of the Tanu boys high on her neck, guiding her. But the Sasku were not looking at her, but at the newborn baby at her side. Sanone reached out and touched the small creature's trunk and a murmur of happiness welled up from the darkness. Only then did he join the others by the fire.
    Armun sat just behind the hunters, the baby burbling gently in its sleep, comfortable in the deerskin carrier on her back. Then Kerrick rose to speak and the talking died away. She covered her face with her hands so others would not see her smile of pride. He looked so erect and strong standing there in the firelight, his long hair bound about by a charadis cloth, his beard now fully grown. When there was silence he turned so that they all could hear him as he spoke.
    "Yesterday we killed the murgu. Today we buried them, so all here know how many of them died during the attack. We killed them in great numbers and the few that lived have now fled. They will not be coming back, not now."
    There were shouts of approval from the hunters at these words, and from the darkness the sound of rapid drumming and the clatter of the Sasku gourd rattles when he had translated his words for them.