Empty World (14 page)

Guided by the boys the hunters went stealthily through the bushes. They came to a clearing and peered from behind a screen of leaves. They saw ­cattle in front of them—animals as big as the large antelope but thicker and clumsier in body. They could not run as antelope ran, Dom thought, with legs like that. When they fled, the hunters would catch them without much difficulty.

He saw the men also. There were two of them, standing near the cattle and talking together. He felt his blood stir, the hair on his neck bristling with anger.

Dom's father yelled in rage and all the hunters yelled with him. They broke shouting from the bushes and ran through the grass—the two men turned and fled but strangely the animals stayed
where they were, not scattering until the hunters were among them and clubbing them down. There were more than a score and they left three dead behind; the hunters could have killed twice as many with little extra effort.

His foot on one of the beasts, Dom's father roared to the sky his triumph. All the hunters shouted, too, praising him. He had brought them through bad lands to a place where there was water everywhere, to a place where game stood unmoving while you slaughtered it. Soon he would find them a cave where they could shelter from the rains. The enemy had fled at his first cry. This was good land; and the tribe were masters of it as once they had been masters of the grasslands.

Dom shouted with the rest, proud of the tribe and of his father who had done all these things.

They feasted in the clearing which had a stream running beside it. The women cut up the dead beasts but took only the tenderest parts of their flesh: there was far more meat here than they could eat in several days. They stripped off the hides but left the bloody carcasses in the grass. Vultures circled overhead, but dared not come down while the tribe was there.

It was late afternoon and they dozed, full-­bellied, in the sun. Dom had a dream of hunting, and his body twitched as in the dream he yelled at onrushing antelope. But the yell became real, echoing in his ears though not from his own throat. Bewildered he leaped to his feet and saw the enemy bursting out of the bushes on the far side of the clearing. His club of bone lay at his feet; quickly he picked it up and ran forward with the other hunters to take up the challenge.

The strangers outnumbered the hunters, though they were smaller and slimmer men. They carried pointed stones which they tried to use as daggers; but the great clubs of the hunters struck them down before they could come to grips. One of the men rushed at Dom while he was off guard from striking at another, but Dom saw him in time and fended the blow off with his arm. The man was fully grown and bigger than Dom, but he did not press the attack and fell back weakly.

The fight was quickly over, with the rest of the enemy fleeing as the first two had done. The hunters pursued them a little way into the bushes, but they ran well and the hunters were gorged with meat.
They went back to the clearing where the remainder of the tribe waited.

Now their joy, and their pride in themselves and their chief, were greater than ever. By overcoming this enemy they had avenged the defeat on the rocky hillside. They had said the tribe were the masters of this good new land: their victory proved it true.

Also by John Christopher

From Aladdin

THE TRIPODS SERIES

The White Mountains

The City of Gold and Lead

The Pool of Fire

When the Tripods Came

THE SWORD OF THE SPIRITS TRILOGY

The Prince in Waiting

Beyond the Burning Lands

The Sword of the Spirits

The Guardians

The Lotus Caves

A Dusk of Demons

Wild Jack

In the Beginning

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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This Aladdin paperback edition May 2015

Text copyright © 1977 by John Christopher

Cover illustration copyright © 2015 by Anton Petrov

Also available in an Aladdin hardcover edition.

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Cover designed by Karin Paprocki

Interior designed by Hilary Zarycky

The text of this book was set in Venetian 301.

Library of Congress Control Number 2015932406

ISBN 978-1-4814-2001-3 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4814-2000-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4814-2002-0 (eBook)