Mists of Dawn (91 page)

Night
passed
and
the
dawn
came.
Mark
looked
down into
the
valley
before
him
and
could
not
repress
a shudder
as
the
bestial
half-men
shuffled
out
of
their dark
caves
and
prepared
to
go
about
the
day’s
activities.
He
remembered
all
too
well
the
hours
of
horror he
had
experienced
in
that
desolate
pass,
and
he
knew that
only
a
miracle
had
saved
him
from
death
at
the hands
of
the
half-men.
Had
he
come
so
far,
dared so
much,
only
to
meet
death
at
their
hands
at
last?

Cutting
clear
through
the
babbling
growls
below them,
the
voice
of
Nranquar
shouted
a
signal.
Fang barked
fiercely
and
Mark
and
Tlaxcan
leaped
to
their feet.
The
Neanderthals
were
caught
without
a
warning
of
any
sort;
the
cold
valley
air
was
filled
with
a cloud
of
whizzing
arrows
before
they
even
had
time to
arm
themselves.

The
squat
Mroxor,
their
legs
bent
and
their
powerful
bodies
covered
with
pelts
of
dirty,
matted
hair, dropped
like
flies.
Their
screams
and
the
cries
of
their women
and
children
made
the
air
hideous
with
sound. Half-men
or
not,
their
deaths
were
tragically
horrible.

Mark
took
no
part
in
the
killing,
for
the
good
and simple
reason
that
he
had
no
bow
and
arrows
and
his spear
was
of
no
use
at
long
range.
He
was
saving
his one
precious
shot
for
an
emergency,
and
the
emergency
was
not
yet.
Looking
down
from
the
heights, the
Mroxor
below
looked
like
crumpling
toys,
gruesome
miniature
monsters
falling
on
the
valley
floor.

But
the
half-men
knew
something
about
fighting themselves.
They
certainly
had
no
lack
of
courage, and
they
rallied
admirably
under
the
storm
of
arrows. There
was
no
panic-stricken
retreat,
no
hysteria.
Determined
to
make
the
best
of
things,
the
ugly
creatures dashed
into
their
caves
and
armed
themselves
with spears
and
axes
and
knives.
Then,
seeing
all
too
well that
they
could
be
driven
out
of
the
caverns
by
hunger eventually,
they
regrouped
and
shuffled
at
full
speed across
the
valley
floor,
trying
to
get
out
of
the
trap and
into
the
open
where
they
could
fight
man-to-man. It
was
not
altogether
an
admirable
plan,
but
no
men think
too
clearly
when
their
friends
are
dropping
on all
sides
of
them
under
a
rain
of
death.

The
Neanderthals
did
what
they
could,
knowing that
the
battle
was
lost
before
it
had
ever
started. They
retreated
across
the
valley
floor,
snarling
and growling
their
hate,
and
they
took
their
women
and children
with
them.
Only
the
very
young
who
were too
small
to
run
were
left
behind.
Even
in
the
dawn of
man,
war
was
not
a
pleasant
business.

The
warriors
of
the
Danequa,
sensing
victory
and remembering
the
cold
bodies
of
their
own
friends murdered
by
the
hideous
Mroxor,
swarmed
down
from the
sides
of
the
mountain,
driving
the
half-men
across the
valley
floor.
Mark
and
Tlaxcan
ran
side
by
side, with
Fang
yelping
and
barking
ahead
of
them.
The air
shook
with
sounds
and
the
shouts
of
men,
and
the Danequa
ran
unheeding
over
the
still-warm
corpses of
the
Neanderthals
they
had
slain.