Mists of Dawn (69 page)

The
earth
shook
beneath
the
heavy
tread
of
the
quaro
herd,
and
the
noise
was
deafening.
Excited
by their
own
running,
the
monster
mammoths
went
faster, and
faster
still.
They
covered
the
ground
at
a
surprising
rate
of
speed,
and
the
Danequa
were
hard-pressed to
keep
up
with
them.
Their
frantic
trumpeting
redoubled
in
strength,
and
Mark
shouted
with
wild exultation.

The
mammoth
herd
had
stampeded.

Across
the
great
plains,
down
the
funnel
of
death, the
great
beasts
charged,
their
yellowish-brown
wool and
long
black
hair
tossing,
their
long
trunks
extended, their
gleaming
ivory
tusks
curving
and
shaking
in
the sunlight
of
early
morning.
Closer
and
closer
to
the yawning
cliff
thundered
the
quaro,
and
with
every smashing
step
their
speed
increased.
They
were
in
a wild
run,
their
one
thought
to
escape
from
the
noise and
confusion
all
around
them.

Too
late,
the
lead
mammoth
saw
the
destruction which
awaited
him.
He
squealed
horribly
and
tried to
stop,
his
trunk
waving
frantically
in
the
air
as
he sounded
his
warning
to
his
fellows.
But
the
time
for thought
was
long
past;
the
jaws
of
the
trap
had
closed, and
there
was
no
mistake.
Driven
on
by
the
bedlam behind
them,
and
unable
to
see
what
lay
ahead,
the mammoths
rushed
down
the
rock-lined
corridor
of extinction.
Their
massed
tons
of
bulk
shoved
then-struggling
leader
off
the
brink
of
the
cliff,
and
he
fell with
a
piteous
bleat
to
the
jagged
rocks
far
below.

There
was
no
stopping
the
racing
monsters.
Over they
went,
by
ones
and
twos
and
threes,
to
fall
crushed and
broken
to
the
foot
of
the
cliff
where
the
old
warriors
waited
to
finish
them
off.
The
morning
air
was split
by
their
screams,
and
Mark
had
to
grit
his
teeth to
go
on.
Man,
the
killer,
was
killing
again—and
the innocent
animals
of
the
earth
fell
before
him.

Mark
could
have
saved
his
sympathy,
however. There
was
one
mammoth,
at
least,
who
had
ideas
of his
own
about
who
should
be
pitied.
He
was
the
last of
the
herd,
he
had
seen
his
fellows
die,
and
there was
no
mammoth
behind
him
to
push
him
over.
Excited
and
confused
as
he
was
by
the
shouting
bedlam all
around
him,
he
somehow
stopped
dead
at
the
brink of
the
cliff.
His
red
eyes
glittered
with
hot
fury,
and he
spun
around
to
face
his
tormentors.
He
was
at
bay, and
deadly
dangerous.

They
had
to
get
him
over—it
was
now
or
never. The
warrior
nearest
to
him
did
not
hesitate,
but
rushed at
the
monster,
shouting
and
waving
his
spear.
This mammoth
was
not
having
any
of
that!
He
was
smart, and
he
had
learned
his
lesson
thoroughly.
He
stood solid
as
a
rock,
unmoving,
and
his
powerful
trunk snaked
out
with
the
sudden
deadly
accuracy
of
a
whip and
coiled
itself
about
the
charging
man.
The
warrior did
not
live
long
enough
to
scream.
With
a
contemptuous
flip
of
his
trunk,
the
mammoth
tossed
his
body over
the
cliff,
there
to
fall
among
the
animals
he
had killed.