Mists of Dawn (82 page)

Nothing
happened.

Mark
opened
his
eyes.
Desperately,
he
crawled
out from
under
the
dark
mass,
feeling
something
wet
and sticky
on
his
hands.
“Tlaxcan,”
he
gasped.
“What—”

“It
is
dead,”
Tlaxcan
said
quietly,
a
deep
respect
in his
voice.
“You
have
killed
him
with
your
magic.”

Reaction
set
in
and
Mark
was
suddenly
and
thoroughly
sick.
Then
he
felt
better.
He
came
back
and looked
down
at
the
dead
monster
that
had
waited
for them
in
the
depths
of
the
earth.
Fang
was
wagging
his busy
tail
furiously
and
rubbing
against
Mark
with
a grateful
affection
that
knew
no
bounds.

“What
was
it?”
Mark
asked,
picking
up
his
fallen .45
and
returning
it
to
its
holster.

Tlaxcan
picked
up
his
torch
and
held
it
so
that
Mark could
see
the
dead
body.
Even
in
death,
the
thing
was formidable.
Its
eyes
were
gone,
vanished
in
bloody spots
where
the
.45
slugs
had
done
their
work.
An arrow
was
buried
in
its
shoulder.
It
was
over
fifteen feet
in
length
as
it
sprawled
on
the
cave
floor,
lying
in a
growing
pool
of
its
own
blood.
It
was
covered
with long,
shaggy
black
hair,
matted
with
filth.
It
had
only a
suggestion
of
a
tail,
and
its
long
snout
was
open
in
a death-grin
of
defiance,
its
yellow
fangs
gleaming
in the
torchlight.

“It
is
Groxur,”
Tlaxcan
said.
“The
Dweller
under
the earth.”

This
name,
for
all
its
colorful
suggestiveness,
did
not tell
Mark
what
he
wanted
to
know.
He
examined
the thing
as
carefully
as
he
could
in
the
flickering
light, but
he
knew
that
time
was
running
out
on
them
and they
had
to
hurry
if
they
were
to
make
it
out
of
the
cave before
their
torches
expired.
The
last
one
was
already dying,
and
Tlaxcan
lit
another.
That
left
them
with just
one
spare.

There
was
no
time
for
curiosity.
With
Tlaxcan
taking the
lead
and
setting
a
rapid
pace,
they
left
the
chamber of
death
and
proceeded
on
through
the
branching tunnel
Mark’s
thoughts
were
still
filled
with
the
sight of
the
monster
they
were
leaving
behind,
and
the
only animal
with
which
he
was
familiar
that
he
could
liken the
thing
to
was
an
enormous
bear.
That
made
sense,, he
realized,
since
the
thing
evidently
lived
mostly
on fish,
at
least
while
it
was
in
the
cave,
and
he
remembered
hearing
stories
about
the
huge
cave
bears
that had
formerly
lived
beneath
the
earth.
He
shuddered a
little,
knowing
that
never
again
would
he
see
a
bear without
visualizing
that
horror
in
the
cavern
under the
world.

On
and
on
they
went.
When
their
torch
finally
expired,
they
lit
their
last
one
and
hurried
on,
almost running
now.
Over
and
over
again,
one
thought
kept churning
through
Mark’s
brain:
he
had
only
one
bullet left
in
his
.45,
and
no
prospects
for
getting
any
more. If
he
was
ever
to
get
back
to
the
space-time
machine, he
would
have
to
do
it
soon.
The
.45
had
twice
saved his
life,
and
he
had
a
hunch
that
without
it
he
could not
expect
to
live
long
in
the
savage
dawn-world
in which
he
found
himself.
But
how
could
he
possibly return
to
the
space-time
machine?
There
was
only
one
chance
.
.
.