Brappa checked his own ponderous bag of salt, shrugging it against the set of his shoulders. Braan lifted his sword, pointed to the south, and started hopping slowly between the columns. Craag and the rear guard, not carrying salt bags, waited until the columns moved away. Scouts and pickets turned to their missions, ranging far ahead and to the sides.
The salt flats were left behind. The hunters scaled the rising downs, returning to the rolling tundra. The unwieldy salt bags rode heavily, and the hunters perspired under their loads, despite the chill bite of the quartering northerly. A gray layer of clouds scudded overhead, letting fall an occasional splatting drop of rain. The young sentries steeled themselves to their loads, anticipating the cliffs of home. The experienced warriors, knowing better, blocked their minds to all things.
On the second day growlers attacked, a modest pack, fourteen animals, led by a silver she-beast. The rear guard spotted them loping over the crest of an adjacent rise and whistled the alarm. The picket moved to intercept. The columns halted but did not put down their salt bags. Salt bearers shuffled in position and sniffed nervously. Dropping and retrieving the salt bags would only tire them. Braan expected the rear guard and the pickets to turn the pack. He screamed into the wind and the columns staggered forward.
The she-beast halted before the crest of the rise and stood erect on her powerful haunches, raising her eyes above the near horizon. Hunter whistles and screams floated in the wind. The growlers dropped low and skulked over the hill, turning slightly away from the columns. A hunter picket and two of the rear guard took to the air. They wheeled together and glided smoothly over the low ridge straight for the stalking growlers. The picket confronted the scavengers first, followed in rapid succession by the two guards, swooping low, tantalizingly close. Jaws snapped, tails twitched, and guttural growls lifted into the breeze; the beasts jumped to their hind legs trying to intercept the darting hunters, but to no avail. The hunters landed beyond the pack and sucked hard to regain their wind, waiting for the growlers to pursue. The she-beast followed the flyers with cruel eyes. The pack rumbled nervously as the wily scavenger smelled the wind. She looked to the nearby hunters standing alert on a knoll of tundra and then back to the massed columns in the distance. The she-beast growled deeply and headed downhill toward the more numerous opportunity. Her pack grudgingly followed.
The rejected lures struggled into the air, screaming. Braan heard their urgent alarms, ordered the columns to halt, and moved to face the oncoming fangs. Craag' s attack cry pierced the wind as that brave warrior and the balance of the rear guard hauled themselves skyward. Braan screamed the order to drop salt bags. He deployed six warriors to the opposite side of the massed hunters, positions vacated by the defending scouts and guards. It would not do to get surprised.
Braan ordered the left column to face the charge with weapons ready. The right column would be his reserve. He dropped his own salt bag and flapped tiredly into the air. The growlers, no more than a long bowshot away, bounded down the slope at the formed hunters, their horrendous grumbling increasing in volume and intensity as they neared their kill. Craag' s hunters dived on the lead beasts, firing their arrows in a glide, a difficult and inaccurate tactic. Craag was buying time—time for the rest of the rear guard and pickets to marshal. The pack reacted to the perils of Craag' s missiles, slowing and slinking sideways. A growler fell, an arrow impaling its throat.
The she-beast barked, encouraging the pack's charge, but the delay allowed five of Craag' s warriors to form a defensive rankdirectly in the growlers' line of attack. Craag and two pickets joined the rank as Braan neared the action. The defenders spread apart in a gentle crescent, intending to enfilade the pack with deadly shortbows. The growlers, heavy viselike jaws slavering with foam, yellow eyes rimmed with crimson, closed on the hunters' defensive position. Craag screamed. Bowstrings sang, and arrows buzzed into the ranks of the charging predators. Three tumbled to the ground, dead or mortally wounded, but the charge carried through the hunters' position. Craag's warriors scattered into the sky, pivoting into the wind and crawling desperately above the maws of angry growlers.
The attack lost its weight. The she-beast limped forward with an arrow dangling from her shoulder. She stopped abruptly, snatched the arrow with her jaws, and pulled until it ripped from her hide. The pack moved past her, toward the strong smell of prey, but at a wary lope. She followed, blood running from her head, where another arrow had plowed its furrow.
Braan was ready. The columns separated, and the column closest to the attack moved in line abreast, steadily up the grade, preparing to fire an overwhelming barrage. Doomed, the dumb beasts advanced, breaking into a gallop, growling and snarling. At thirty paces Braan signaled and half the bows in the facing column—those of the novices—fired. Three growlers fell and two others staggered back, limping. Braan screamed again and the arrows of veteran warriors sang viciously through the air. Four more growlers dropped in their tracks. The few still capable of running, arrows bristling from their hides like quills, turned in rout. The hunters cheered lustily and then chanted the death song in tribute to fallen foe.
"Well done, warriors!" Braan shouted. "Retrieve thine arrows. The march continues." He watched in satisfaction as the jubilant hunters scoured the ground for their precious missiles. Craag' s guards butchered the vanquished creatures, rolling the skins tightly—trophies that would soon become grievous burdens. Braan said nothing, for he had proudly brought his first growler skin home and many others thereafter.
"Hey, it's Corporal Mac and Jocko!" O'Toole exclaimed, pointing down the shore. O'Toole shouted and waved at the returning men. They carried a pole over their shoulders from which hung considerable cargo. Buccari enviously squinted across the distance, guessing at their burden. As much as she had wanted to scout the valley, she knew she had made the correct decision. She stared proudly at the large backpacks filled with seed.
"They killed something," Jones said. O'Toole jogged down the beach and joined MacArthur and Chastain, taking one end of the bough to which a beast had been tied. "It's a little deer. Look at the antlers!" Lumpy tent bags also hung heavily from the shoulder pole.
"Welcome back!" Buccari said, offering her hand. MacArthur looked down, struck dumb and stupid by the simple gesture. He looked back at her face, smiled largely, and took her hand with a firm grip. Smiling, she pulled away from MacArthur' s lingering grasp and took Chastain' s big hand. Chastain' s grip was gentle, and his smile eclipsed MacArthur's.
"Mac, let me show Lieutenant Buccari the roots you brought her, er…the toobers!" Chastain said excitedly. The big man lumbered over and yanked off one of the tent bags.
"Corporal MacArthur, you brought me a present?" Buccari asked with affected girlishness, and everyone laughed. MacArthur looked down at his feet, color rising through his thick beard.
"Go ahead, Jocko," MacArthur said, recovering his composure. "You can show 'em to the lieutenant as easily as I can."
Chastain wasted no time. He walked over to Buccari, hulking above her, and held open the bag. Buccari gingerly reached in and pulled out a russet, fist-sized nodule. It looked like a potato. Buccari looked up smiling.
"What's it taste like?" she asked.
"We boiled'em," answered Chastain. "They taste like sweet potatoes."
"We saw bears dig them up," MacArthur said. "Most had gone to seed."
"We musta eaten fifty of them," Chastain added. "Careful! They'll make you—er, they give you the runs!" He blushed. "Specially if you eat fifty of them," Buccari said, laughing.