by David Drake
For as long as he could hear him, Hawk guided himself by the barking dog. When the noise faded in the distance, he ran along the plainly marked trail. Bright spots of blood showed on the leaves, with here and there a patch of coarse hair. Faintly, he heard the barking dog again.
He ran easily, fast enough to cover distance swiftly but not so fast that he would tire himself out. Five minutes after he was again within hearing of the dog, he came upon his quarry.
The great cave bear was backed against a tree, swaying from side to side, its front feet braced. When it saw the man it left the tree and lurched forward, growling hoarsely. Hawk stood still and fitted another dart. He could take his time now; the bear’s pace was a mere crawl. Hawk cast his dart.
Straight and true, it sailed to its mark. Still the bear tried to come forward. It had lived all its life by brute strength, and would fight as long as that life remained. The bear made one more valiant effort to crawl forward, then lay still.
Hawk remained where he was, troubled by an emotion he had never felt before. He lived in a world whose basic rule was kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, and he hunted and killed as much as he could because, if he did not, he could not continue to live. But he felt a strange sympathy for the bear, a stout and lonely creature like himself, which had given up only when there was nothing left with which to fight.
Solemnly Hawk approached the inert monster and intently studied the curving claws that were polished to ivory whiteness by almost constant digging for roots and small animals. He would keep those claws, he decided, and from now on would conduct himself as the bear had. When the time came, he too would fight with all his heart and strength.
But he had no time for further contemplation of the bear’s might; the grim business of simply staying alive was too pressing. The bear represented a great deal of value in both fur and food, and scavengers must not have it. Also, Willow was alone in the clearing and save for the fire she was defenseless. He must secure the bear and see to her safety.
He shredded tinder, adding kindling to it, struck a spark, and when the fire blazed he arranged green sticks on it. He piled them high, to arrange here a fire that would last until such time as he was able to return. While the fire burned, nothing would dare come near his prize. Then he called the dog to his side and trotted back to the cave.
Willow, who had built her own fire into a roaring blaze, waited expectantly beside it.
“The bear is dead,” Hawk told her. “It lies in the forest, well-guarded by fire.”
He went eagerly to the cave, the real prize for which he had dared challenge a great cave bear. Hesitantly he entered, and when the dog would have backed out Hawk pulled him roughly to his side and made him stay there. At the same time, he fought a growing desire to escape from the place himself. He had been born under a tree, and except for scattered occasions when his tribe had taken shelter in caves or under ledges, he had lived his whole life in the open. The cave made him nervous because he was confined. Still, the real purpose for which he had wanted it remained foremost in his thoughts.
Dimly illumined by the little daylight that filtered through the opening, the cave was roughly circular in shape and about thirty feet in diameter. Spear-shaped stalactites depended from the roof, but there was no evidence of dampness or water. To one side was the bed of leaves and sticks where the bear had slept.
Willow came in behind him. At first hesitantly, then eagerly, she explored the cave. Already she could foresee some of its possibilities as a home. More interested in its offer of safety, Hawk swung to look at the entrance.
The cave’s opening was somewhat taller than a man, and just wide enough so that anyone standing in it would have plenty of freedom for action. Any enemy would have to come through the entrance, and if there were more than one, only one at a time could attack. The place could easily be defended. A man on the inside could not possibly be overwhelmed from the sides or rear. It was a snug retreat, ideal for their purposes.
While Willow remained inside to complete her examination of their new home, Hawk went out, crossed the clearing into the forest, and gathered wood. He arranged a fire in the middle of the cave’s floor, and lighted it with a burning brand from the still-smoldering fire with which he had driven the bear out.
Almost instantly they were coughing and sputtering. Instead of a cheerfully crackling blaze, the fire was nothing but a smoking pile of assorted sticks. There was no place for the smoke to go, and no draft to fan the fire. This was something Hawk had not counted on. As the cave filled with smoke, he ran out the entrance, Willow at his heels. They looked back into the cave.
“The fire will have to be built nearer the entrance,” Hawk said. “It does not like to be shut in the cave.”
Willow said nothing, but her face was thoughtful. Hawk took a deep breath, stumbled back into the cave, and knocked the fire apart. He stumbled out again, coughing smoke from his lungs. After a few moments he peered cautiously into the cave.
The smoke had lifted, and was hanging near the ceiling, most of it in a cleft that seemed to extend up into the roof. Hawk reentered the cave, gathered his scattered sticks, and moved them to a new place just inside the entrance. He lighted his fire again and stood back to await results.
They were infinitely better insofar as most of the smoke could now escape through the entrance. Some still went back into the cave and left a foggy wreath, but at least the cave could be entered without danger of choking. Hawk grimaced. From a fighting man’s viewpoint the cave was the answer to his needs, but he already knew that he was not going to like living in it.
“Stay here,” he told Willow. “I am going back to the bear.”
The dog accompanied him when he set off toward the place where he had left the bear. Once he was back in the forest Hawk felt better. He had done what he wanted to do, and assured himself of a place from which he could fight almost any number of men who dared to come against him, but he was still uncomfortably aware of the cave’s restrictions and of its sense of confinement. It was much better to be free, and in the open, than in any cave. But there remained the grim necessity of having a place he could defend; they needed the cave.
When Hawk returned with the bear’s shaggy skin, Willow was in the cave. She had carried two boulders inside, and built a platform of sticks on top of them. Standing on this platform, she was digging at the cleft in the cave’s roof with a sharpened stick. A shower of dirt and pebbles fell about her, and gathered in a growing pile at her feet.
Hawk looked at her, puzzled, but said nothing. Women were always busy, and much of what they did made little sense to him, so there was no point in questioning her. Going back to the bear, he brought an ample supply of the meat, laying it on ledges near the top of the cave. He stood doubtfully back because a heavy pall of smoke swirled there. Still, smoke shouldn’t spoil the meat and certainly it was safer inside the cave than it would be anywhere else.
Then he returned to their old camp to bring up Willow’s baskets and an additional supply of shafts for making new darts.
That night he built up the fire and slept on the grass outside the cave, the dog beside him. He liked it better there, for the wind carried most of the smoke away. Rising at intervals to replenish his fire, and to scout the winds, Hawk spent a comfortable night.
The next morning he again took up the seldom-absent problem of renewing his stock of weapons. Willow, who had refused to sleep outside the cave, was again on her platform deepening the hole she was making in the roof. She had already dug so far that she had had to use a longer stick, but there was still no explanation as to what she was doing. Hawk grunted and left the cave.
The dog at his side, he started toward the ledge of rock where he found the best flints for dart heads. As they started up the slope, the dog roamed ahead, nose to the ground.
A hare leaped out of the grass ahead of them and scooted swiftly away. The dog gave half-hearted chase, then returned when Hawk called him. The hare ran to the top of the ledge
and turned to look back. As it sat up, it was clearly silhouetted against the skyline.
Then something like the swiftly moving branch of a tree rose near the hare. It flashed toward the little animal, then disappeared. The hare leaped high, stiffened convulsively, and fell back.
It had been struck by a big, deadly grass serpent whose bite meant instant death.
GRASS SERPENT
The dog trod warily, the hackles on the back of his neck raised. He knew that when they wished to lay an ambush, the deadly grass serpents were able to conceal their odor, but the scent was very plain now. It was a musty smell, and strong, faintly reminiscent of crushed, pungent leaves. The dog started a wide circle that would bring him to a little rise from which he could see the snake but at the same time would keep him from going too near.
Hawk stooped to pick up a rock. It was a woman’s weapon, but very effective for fighting snakes. He had met such serpents before, but luckily there was not a great abundance of them. When they wanted to feed, the few that existed haunted grassy trails along which hares and other small game were apt to run. The serpents were vicious creatures, so sure of themselves and their own power that they refused to move aside for anything. Angered, they would freely attack whatever provoked them. Once they had fed, they sought sunny ledges and lay on them almost unmoving, until they were ready to feed again.
Hawk kept his eyes on the place where he had seen the serpent. He knew how they fed. After they had killed their victim, which invariably died on the spot, they opened their jaws and literally crawled around it until the meal was in their belly. But this snake seemed to have sensed the presence of an intruder, and was apparently waiting to see whether or not the trespasser would have to be routed before it fed.
The dog, having sighted the serpent, was stretching his nose forward while at the same time he remained tense, ready to leap aside should the snake slither toward him. Again, like a violently snapping limb of a tree, the serpent rose and struck. The dog jumped, but the strike would have fallen short anyway. Never lacking in good judgment, the dog knew which creatures he could approach closely and which he could not. A grass serpent was one of the latter. The dog began an excited barking.
Hawk walked forward calmly, unafraid because he now knew exactly where the serpent was. It was only when one blundered upon them unaware, as the hare had, that the serpents were dangerous. They could strike with lightning-swift speed, but when they had to move from one place to another they were almost sluggish. A man could easily avoid them if he knew where they were.
From a little rise, Hawk looked down at the serpent and the dead hare. He was mystified. The hare was a small thing, but it was hardy and not too easily killed. There were no marks on it and no blood on the grass, yet the hare had died almost in its tracks. It had given only a few convulsive leaps after the snake had struck it.
Therefore the snake had some mysterious power. Hawk did not know what it was, but it must be as strong a magic as fire, which he could now control, and the flight of birds, which his darts now possessed. His curiosity grew, and he went to step nearer.
The serpent raised its squat, ugly head, its neck bent in a graceful curve, and pounded the earth with a warning tail. When it slithered a few feet forward, Hawk stepped back.
He remembered that he had once seen a bison calf step on such a serpent, and been bitten by it. The calf had been able to take only a few stumbling steps before it, too, had died. At the time he had given the incident only a passing thought because he had been still a member of the tribe and the tribe was strong. Since he had been banished from the tribe, and entirely dependent on his own resources, he had learned that he must neglect nothing which might add to his own strength. Now he wanted to understand the snake’s secret.
He threw his stone, deliberately making a false cast so that the stone rolled beside the serpent instead of hitting it. Instantly the snake struck, and a thin liquid streaked the stone.
Hawk shook his head, having learned nothing. He did not know how snakes killed their prey because he had never thought them worth studying; they were merely bad things to be avoided. But obviously they possessed few brains, or this one never would have been teased to strike at a stone. Hawk circled the snake, to examine it more closely.
It was longer than a man, pale green in color, with rough, overlapping scales. But there was little to be learned from examining its body. Plainly the serpent’s lethal qualities lay in its head, for it always struck with its head. Just as plainly, it inflicted death by some method other than a serious bite, for the hare had no visible wound.
He sought and found another rock, and when he threw it he did so accurately. It struck and broke the snake’s back, and the serpent thrashed its mighty body about. In its struggles it crushed grass and knocked bushes down, then turned over and over. Overhead, a vulture was already soaring.
The dog at his side, Hawk turned away. Snakes could be eaten, but belonged in that category of foods which were to be eaten only if nothing else offered. Hawk did not like the taste of the flesh, and anyway he had all the meat they could possibly use. Replenishing his supply of weapons was the important thing now.
At a frightened, throttled squawk from the vulture, he whirled about. The big scavenging bird was in the air, its ten-foot wings spread wide, the snake clutched in its talons. Even as Hawk watched, the vulture’s wings fluttered and it dropped limply to the ground. Hawk turned and trotted back.
Though the serpent was dead, its reflexes remained vital. When the vulture alighted upon it, the snake’s head had snapped back and its fangs had penetrated the bird’s breast. They were still there, entangled in the feathers. Hawk squatted and looked very closely.
The snake’s curved fangs, about an inch and a half long, protruded from its mouth and into the vulture. Hawk looked at them in bewilderment. The fangs were tiny things, no bigger than needles, and within themselves they were surely incapable of inflicting a mortal wound. There was something else here, some secret power which he had not fathomed.
When he touched the snake, its body twitched but the fangs did not loosen themselves. Venom had spilled onto the feathers, and Hawk poked at it with a dart, remembering that the stone the snake had struck had been streaked with the same fluid. It was colorless, and looked harmless, but surely it had some direct connection with the serpent’s magic power to kill. There just was no other answer.
Replacing the dart in his throwing-stick, he left the serpent and vulture still entangled and walked thoughtfully away. There were many things in this world of his that would bear the closest possible inspection. He was increasingly aware of forces and powers which were all about, but which he did not understand. He must learn their secrets, for he and Willow could continue to live only if they remained stronger and shrewder than the many things that would kill them. His thoughts remained with the serpent. It had a marvelous power, a magic ability to strike things dead almost instantly, but just what was the source of such magic and how was it used?
Hawk neared the ledge of rock he wanted, and turned to climb to it. The dog fell in behind him, and while the man selected the stones he desired, the dog rested in the sun. Hawk filled his pouch with choice pieces of flint and they started back.
A herd of deer had drifted across their trail and were feeding in one of the many open meadows. When Hawk approached, the deer stared curiously at him, and when he was as near as they thought he should get they skipped away. He glanced disinterestedly at them; there was plenty of meat in the cave and they could not possibly use any more now. But the dog gave enthusiastic chase.
As the deer raced into the forest the dog came to a sudden stop and an angry snarl rippled from him. He gave voice to his battle roar.
A puma-like beast, a short-fanged cat whose size was midway between the saber-tooth and the wild cat, had been lying on a limb of a tree. When the deer herd passed beneath, the puma dropped on one and for a few seconds had a wild, plunging ride. Then the cat’s probing teeth met through the
deer’s spine, and brought the quarry down.
It crouched on its victim, fangs bared and tail jerking angrily. The dog made a furious attack which he halted just short of the crouching cat. When the puma made a short rush at him, the dog dodged warily. He was no match for the puma, but the big cat was unwilling to leave its game and give chase. Meat abandoned, even for a moment, was frequently meat lost.
Hawk sprang into action. Game was none too plentiful as it was, and every meat-eater raiding the stock of game meant less for Hawk and Willow. A puma such as this one might well make a kill every other day, and such a toll mounted terrifically. In many areas there was little or no game solely because a preponderance of meat-eaters had cleaned it out.
The dart in his throwing-stick, Hawk stalked the crouching puma. It was a dangerous antagonist, well able to put up a good fight, but Hawk had fought bigger and more savage creatures. He had killed a saber-tooth and a great cave bear, and he felt sure of his ability to kill the puma. If he did not, he would have to share the game with it.
He came nearer and nearer. The puma, eyes fixed on Hawk, tensed its muscles for the spring that would carry it upon the man. The dog, awaiting this moment, attacked furiously and the puma wheeled to spar with him. Hawk cast his dart.
Instantly he reached for another, for just as he threw the first dart, the puma moved. Instead of piercing the throat, its intended target, the dart had merely skimmed across the big cat’s neck and sliced through the skin. It was scarcely more than a scratch, enough to infuriate the cat, and Hawk backed rapidly away. He laid the dart in his throwing-stick, and awaited another opportunity. But the puma was behaving strangely. Instead of attacking the man, it crouched where it was. At last the puma rose, stiffening all four feet and arching its back. Its tail became very stiff. It reared on its hind paws, while it lashed the air with its front ones. Then it fell to the ground, retched convulsively, and was still.