Dorgo stared forlornly at his feeble spear of bone and flint. It would be poor protection against any but the smallest beastkin, much less some of the hulking brutes the warherd sometimes produced. He would need to brave the gullies, only in the deep shadows of the fissures was any water to be found in the Prowling Lands. It was a five day march to cross the flatlands, to reach the valleys where the Tsavag made their summer encampment. He might be able to endure without food, but not water. Despite the danger of reptiles and half-men, he couldn’t keep entirely to the high ground. Thirst must eventually drive him down into the darkness.
For the best part of two days, Dorgo managed to press on, chewing on the pulp from a thorn bush to deceive the clawing thirst that tormented him. Several times, the ground had shuddered around him. Twice he had nearly fallen into sink holes that yawned open at his approach. The deep fissures and gullies were almost invisible until the warrior was right on top of them, forcing Dorgo to adopt a slow, cautious pace.
When his thirst at last refused to be put off by the badly gnawed pulp, Dorgo selected a winding gully that sported a thick clump of ugly green toadstools along its edge. It seemed a likely enough prospect to conceal a small spring.
The Tsavag crept to the edge of the depression, peering down into its gloom. Before he could react, the lip of the gully broke away beneath him. Dorgo flailed his arms to catch himself, but the searing jolt of pain that shot through him as his wounded arm caught at the crumbling ground caused his entire body to grow numb. With the grace of a boulder, he crashed to the bottom of the gully, the clatter of his violent descent echoing all around him.
Dorgo was still, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom, not wishing to betray his presence by making more noise. The beastkin were almost blind, relying upon sound to stalk their prey. Dorgo was determined to see them before they heard him. At least the clammy chill that filled the gloom of the gully boded well. There had to be water nearby to imbue the air with such dankness. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Dorgo saw something sparkling in the fitful light. He had found not merely a spring, but a pool.
The hunter took a scrambling lunge towards the water, and then froze. A gruesome shape was reflected in the surface of the water. Slowly, Dorgo lifted his eyes to stare at the creature that cast its image over the water. Sprawled across a big rock, knifelike scales running across its back and sides, was a huge zhaga. The lizard regarded him coldly with an amber-hued eye, its forked tongue licking at the air. Dorgo locked his fist around the crude spear he had fashioned, bracing himself for the reptile’s attack.
The zhaga seemed wary rather than aggressive, more interested in savouring the patch of sunlight it had found than lunging for the warrior. Dorgo could see its long, thick tail, bloated with stored fat. A quick glance showed him that bones were strewn all around the pool. Clearly, the lizard had fed well off those who thought to visit its pool, perhaps well enough that it was no longer hungry?
Keeping his eyes locked on the sunning lizard, Dorgo scooped water from the pool into his mouth. It was bitter, foul with minerals, but to the hunter it was like a gift from the gods. Soon, he forgot the menace of the zhaga, his body revelling in the long-denied succour of water. It was with an effort that he finally pulled himself away from the pool, leaving it to the indolent zhaga. He had few delusions about his good fortune as he struggled out of the shadows of the gully and back onto the plain. When thirst next drove him down into the gullies, he could hardly expect to be so lucky again.
On his third day in the Prowling Lands, Dorgo found himself again driven to brave the fissures. He took greater care lowering himself into the depression this time. Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he found he was in a shallow ravine, scraggly clumps of weed poking out of its earthern walls. No pool of free-standing water greeted him this time. He only hoped he would be spared the presence of another zhaga, one without a fattened tail. The hunter walked to the nearest clutch of weeds. He knew that the vegetation was his best guide to the presence of water.
Working his spear, he began to dig at the weeds, cutting through the earth to expose the pasty roots. He smiled when he felt the moisture clinging to the weeds. Abandoning the spear, he pawed at the wall with his hands. Soon his efforts were rewarded with a thin trickle of water, the boon of some underground spring. Dorgo scooped out a patch of wall, using his hands to strain the liquid as he drank, trying to force more water than mud into his mouth.
So lost was he in his labours, that the Tsavag almost failed to hear the distant crash of some large creature moving across the plain above. The ponderous boom was repeated, the walls of the gully shaking as the thing stalked closer. Dorgo gathered his spear, ready to scurry down the gully before whatever was tramping across the plain should find him. There were tales of giants living in the Grey, stories that they did not keep to the forest like the beastkin, but roved abroad to meet their ferocious appetites. The thought chilled the warrior. Fear of the giants had kept the tribes from exterminating the beastkin long ago, for no man dared match himself against creatures that were said to be almost godlike.
Still, the hunter’s curiosity had been awakened. Moreover, he knew he should learn in which direction the hulk was travelling so that he might avoid it. Dorgo lifted his head above the rim of the gully, peering across the flatlands even as the ground shook once more. Distant, but distinct, he saw the immense creature that made the earth tremble so. The hunter laughed, springing from the trench with a strength he had not felt in days. His spear raised above his head, he yelled and shouted at the distant colossus. Slowly, the beast turned, moving towards him in long, plodding steps.
By the merest chance, Dorgo had found another of the Tsavags’ war mammoths returning from its hunt. There was no need to brave another night exposed upon the Prowling Lands. Tonight he would sleep in the mammoth-hide yurts of his tribe.
The encampment of the Tong tribe was situated across the muddy floor of a wide valley. Jagged mountains loomed over the expanse, great spires of rock like the broken teeth of a fallen god. Great mouths dotted the jumbled confusion of the mountains, constantly gurgling with hot volcanic mud that would ooze down the slopes to add to the mire of the valley.
A vast array of grasses and shrubs thrived upon the mineral-rich mud, though trees found it impossible to drive roots into the porous mush. It was not the most hospitable environment for men either and the Tsavag yurts were built on stilts of mammoth bone to keep them well-above the quagmire. The mammoths gorged upon the abundant grasses and their muscles were improved by the daily exertion of lumbering through the morass.
The only predators that menaced the valley were the black condors that nested in the mountains, but, while large enough to carry off a full-grown man in their talons, they were too small to threaten the mammoths.
The encampment was alive with smells and noises when Dorgo at last emerged from the hide-walled yurt of Unegen, the tribe’s witch doctor. The scarred old healer had tended the hunter’s arm, rubbing a pasty unguent into the wound after cutting away the stump of the ivory shard with a rune knife. Dorgo’s arm was wrapped tightly in a binding of zhaga skin soaked in mammoth urine.
The witch doctor had warned him to make prayers to Onogal to placate the pestilential god lest his injury become infected despite the healer’s precautions. He also advised making an offering to great Chen, that the Lord of Fate might oppose any ill-sending from the King of Flies.
Dorgo climbed down from the witch-doctor’s dwelling, sloshing into the muddy ground. His wound tended, he had to see another of his tribesmen before he could rest. He had been summoned to a meeting with his father, to explain to the khagan what had befallen his fellow hunters and their mammoth. A feeling of shame rose within him as he recalled the ease with which the Muhak had ambushed them, tinged with guilt as he considered the reason Lok had ordered the attack. More than that, he was afraid as he recalled the strange warrior who had butchered his way through the Muhak and cut the head from their zar’s shoulders.