3


They had been walking, now, for five years. Kalvar Dard still led, the
heavy rifle cradled in the crook of his left arm and a sack of bombs
slung from his shoulder, his eyes forever shifting to right and left
searching for hidden danger. The clothes in which he had jumped from the
rocket-boat were patched and ragged; his shoes had been replaced by high
laced buskins of smoke-tanned hide. He was bearded, now, and his hair
had been roughly trimmed with the edge of his dagger.

Analea still walked beside him, but her carbine was slung, and she
carried three spears with chipped flint heads; one heavy weapon, to be
thrown by hand or used for stabbing, and two light javelins to be thrown
with the aid of the hooked throwing-stick Glav had invented. Beside her
trudged a four-year old boy, hers and Dard's, and on her back, in a
fur-lined net bag, she carried their six-month-old baby.

In the rear, Glav still kept his place with the other big-game gun, and
Olva walked beside him with carbine and spears; in front of them, their
three-year-old daughter toddled. Between vanguard and rearguard, the
rest of the party walked: Varnis, carrying her baby on her back, and
Dorita, carrying a baby and leading two other children. The baby on her
back had cost the life of Kyna in childbirth; one of the others had been
left motherless when Eldra had been killed by the Hairy People.

* * * * *

That had been two years ago, in the winter when they had used one of
their two demolition-bombs to blast open a cavern in the mountains. It