Mists of Dawn (75 page)

Sticking
to
cover
without
quite
knowing
why—for surely
they
had
been
spotted
long
ago
if
enemies
were indeed
about—they
wormed
their
way
up
to
a
pile of
jagged
rocks
and
looked
over.
All
was
almost
as they
had
last
seen
it
in
the
little
valley
at
the
bottom of
the
cliff.
The
huge
carcasses
of
the
dead
mammoths, chopped
and
carved
as
they
had
been
by
the
Danequa hunters,
still
lay
on
the
rocks,
their
remaining
tusks gleaming
whitely
in
the
dying
rays
from
the
sun.
The three
guards
left
behind
by
the
Danequa
were
still there
too.
But
it
was
obvious
enough
why
the
three warriors
had
not
answered
their
calls.
The
guards were
as
dead
as
the
mammoths
they
guarded.

Mark
looked
down
into
the
pit
of
death,
Ins
throat choked
with
horror.
The
hushed
silence
shrieked
in his
ears.
There
was
something
decidedly
odd
about the
scene
before
them,
something
above
and
beyond the
spectacle
of
their
three
friends
lying
dead
and cold
across
the
massive
bodies
of
the
quaro
that
they themselves
had
slain.
For
a
long
moment,
Mark
could not
quite
put
his
finger
on
what
it
was.
Then
he
saw
it.

“The
vultures,”
he
whispered
to
Tlaxcan,
pointing into
the
gray
air.
“There
are
no
vultures.”

That
was
it.
With
the
great
hulks
of
the
mammoths beginning
to
decay
after
a
day
in
the
sun,
and
with the
three
guards
dead,
the
sky
should
have
been
alive with
the
ugly
black
vultures
that
fed
on
the
dead. Moreover,
there
should
have
been
carrion-eaters
gnawing
on
the
dead
flesh—wolves,
dogs,
something.
Fang’s hackles
bristled,
and
Mark’s
own
neck
felt
a
curious, nervous
tingling.
If
there
were
no
men
around,
there; 
should
have
been
vultures.
There
were
no
vultures. Therefore—

“Run
for
it!”
hissed
Tlaxcan,
sniffing
the
air.
“The Mroxor.”

The
Mroxor,
the
half-men
.
.
.

Mark
needed
no
second
invitation.
Desperately,
he sprinted
back
the
way
they
had
come,
with
Tlaxcan by
his
side
and
Fang
racing
on
ahead.
They
still
had seen
nothing,
and
the
world
was
hushed,
waiting.
Perhaps
they
had
avoided
the
ambush
by
veering
off
from the
main
trail,
perhaps
Tlaxcan
was
wrong!

Tlaxcan
was
not
wrong.

Seeing
their
prey
racing
out
of
the
trap,
the
half-men
burst
from
cover.
A
chorus
of
blood-freezing screams
and
snarls
split
the
silence
of
the
evening, and
Mark
felt
his
heart
leap
convulsively
in
his
chest. He
would
never
forget
those
chilling
snarls,
the
snarls and
grunts
that
had
pursued
him
through
the
nightmare
of
his
first
days
in
the
Ice
Age.
The
bestial
Neanderthals
held
a
very
personal
terror
for
him,
and
it was
all
he
could
do
to
keep
himself
under
control.

The
half-men
had
been
waiting
for
them
along
the regular
trail,
and
Tlaxcan’s
unexpected
turning
had destroyed
their
neat
ambush.
They
had
been
filtering
across
to
catch
them
on
the
hill
when
Tlaxcan’s keen
nose
had
caught
wind
of
them,
and
now
they were
mostly
behind
the
two
men,
charging
along
in their
shuffling,
animal-like
run.
Mark
did
not
turn
to look,
but
he
could
tell
that
there
were
plenty
of
the hideous
Neanderthals.
Enough
to
overpower
three
of the
fighting
Danequa,
certainly,
and
from
their
snarling
shrieks
there
must
have
been
a
horde
of
them.

Mark
and
Tlaxcan
cut
back
toward
the
southeast, where
a
low
range
of
mountain
foothills
was
visible in
the
gray
light
of
evening.
Tlaxcan
seemed
to
know where
he
was
going,
and
Mark
had
no
choice
but
to follow
him
in
any
event.
They
were
running
with
the speed
and
endurance
that
only
fear
can
give
to
a
man’s feet,
but
the
half-men
were
hot
on
their
heels.
Mark remembered
all
too
well
their
clinging,
endless
pursuit.
You
could
never
outrun
a
Mroxor
for
long
in
a straight
dash,
for
they
were
absolutely
tireless.
Still, if
they
could
make
the
hills—

With
the
sudden
shock
of
a
nightmare,
two
of
the half-men
popped
up
behind
a
boulder
and
barred
their way.
They
were
almost
unbelievably
ghastly;
they were
so
horrible,
with
their
crouched,
hairy
bodies and
their
brute
mouths
and
eyes,
that
you
felt
that
if you
blinked
your
eyes
they
would
surely
be
gone. They
were
too
awful
to
be
real.

But
they
were
real,
and
they
were
definitely
not going
away.
They
gripped
their
crude
stone
axes,
eyes gleaming,
their
puffing
lips
drawn
back
from
their
wet teeth,
ready
for
the
kill.

There
was
no
time
for
anything
but
swift
action. The
Neanderthal
horde
was
right
behind
them,
and the
two
half-men
were
right
before
them.
Without even
breaking
stride,
Tlaxcan
loosed
an
arrow
which
thunked
completely
through
one
of
the
monsters, dropping
him
like
a
stone.
Mark
had
no
time
to
draw his
gun;
he
simply
ran
full
speed
at
the
other
half-man
and
ran
him
through
with
his
spear
before
he ever
knew
what
hit
him.
The
smell
of
the
Mroxor was
overpowering,
and
the
others
were
too
near
to spare
a
second.
Mark
left
the
spear
in
the
body
and raced
after
Tlaxcan
across
the
grassy
plains.
He
had 
a
terrible,
dreamlike
impression
that
the
interlude with
the
Danequa
had
been
but
an
unreal
fantasy, that
he
had
always
been
running
with
the
fearful Neanderthals
behind
him,
eternally,
forever,
for
the rest
of
his
life.