West of Eden

the remainder over the blaze.
    There was less snow on the ground this far south, but the midwinter frost was just as hard. The frozen grass of the riverbank crackled underfoot. He paused when he heard something, cupped his ear and listened closely. Yes, the distant whisper was there. The sound of surf, waves beating upon a beach. The sea.
    The grass did not crackle now as he went forward, spear ready, eyes that saw everything. Ready to face any danger.
    But the danger had long since gone. Under a gray winter sky he came upon the meadow with the bones of the mastodons resting there. A cold wind, cold as death, sighed through the high-arched ribs. The carrion scavengers had done their work, then the crows and sea birds had followed and feasted well. It was there, just beyond the mastodons, that he found the first of the Tanu skeletons. His jaw clenched hard, his eyes narrowed to slits as he realized that more and more skeletons littered the river bank. It was a slaughtering yard, a place of death.
    What had happened here? Dead, all dead, an entire sammad, that was clear from the beginning. Skeletons West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    of adults and children lay where they had dropped. But what had killed them? What enemy had fallen upon them and had butchered them? Another sammad? Impossible, for they would have taken weapons and tents, would have driven off the mastodons, not just killed them along with their owners. The tents were still there, most of them wrapped and loaded onto the travois that lay beside the mastodons'
    skeletons. This sammad had broken its summer camp, had been leaving when death had sprung upon them. Herilak searched further, and it was in among the bones of the largest skeleton that he saw a glint of metal. He lifted the bones aside with respect and took up the red-rusted form of a skymetal knife. He brushed away the rust and looked at the patterns on the metal, patterns that he knew so well. His spear fell to the frozen ground as he held the knife with both hands, thrust it up into the sky and howled with grief.
    Tears filled his eyes as he bellowed aloud his pain and anger.
    Amahast, dead. The husband of his sister, dead. Their children, the women, the tall hunters. Dead, all of them, dead. The sammad of Amahast was no more.
    Herilak shook the tears from his eyes, growling with rage as hot anger burned away the sorrow. Now he must find the killers. Bent low he traced his way backwards and forwards, searching for what he did not know. But searching carefully and closely as only a hunter can. Darkness stopped him and he lay down for the night beside the bones of Amahast and searched for Amahast's tharm among the stars. He would be there, that was certain, one of the brighter stars.
    Next morning he found that which he was searching for. At first it appeared to be just another strip of torn leather, one among many. But when he pulled away the frozen black fragments he saw that there were bones inside. Carefully, so as not to disturb them to any greater degree, he picked away at the leathery hide. Long before he was finished it was obvious what he had found, nevertheless he continued until all of the tiny bones were uncovered.
    A long, thin creature, with tiny and unusable legs. Many ribs, far too many ribs, and more bones in the spine than seemed possible.
    A marag of some kind, there was no mistake, for he had seen their kind before. It did not belong here, no murgu could live this far away from the hot south.
    South? Did that have a meaning? Herilak stood and looked west, where he had come from. No murgu there, that was impossible. He turned slowly to face the north and could see inside his head the cold ice and snow stretching away forever. The Paramutan lived there, very much like the Tanu although they spoke in a different manner. But there were very few of them, they rarely came south, and they fought against winter only, not Tanu or each other. East, out into the ocean—there was nothing there.
    But south, from the hot south, murgu could come. They could bring death and leave again. South.
    Herilak knelt in the frozen sand and studied the marag skeleton carefully, memorized all the details of it until he could have scratched its likeness in the sand and would remember forever every single bone of it.
    West of Eden - Harry Harrison
    Then he stood and ground its brittle fragments underfoot. Turned about and without once looking back started on the return trail.
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    Kerrick never