Chapter 10

By now they were moving through the region where Lomac had spent most of his life. They were thus warned well in advance when they came either to a river or when they had to cross a trail. But Lomac found it very strange that up to now they hadn't yet met anyone from his village.

" Hunters from my village always come this far north in search of game. We should have met a few of them by now, I fear that something bad has happened to the people of my village. "

Verla tried to reassure him by saying that they hadn't seen any of her people either and she explained to him that the likelihood that a catastrophe had happened to both villages was highly improbable.

But the closer they got to where his family and clan lived, the more he became worried since they still hadn't met anyone yet. They finally reached his village on the tenth days after their escape.

The place was a complete ruin. Most of the huts - made of poles with wide leaves on racks overhead to keep the rain out - had been burned to the ground and only a few of them, here and there, remained partly intact.

When they investigated farther into the ruins of the village, they discovered a horrible spectacle. Unknown attackers had murdered women and children and many of the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition.

All indications pointed to the fact that the village had been attacked in the middle of the night since most of the people had been killed while they were still lying on their sleeping mats. Also the absence of cooking pots over the fires tended to confirm that the attack had not occurred in the daytime.

" I want to go to my village. " Said Verla. " Something bad must also have happened there since we haven't seen any trace of them. I am sure that the men of my village would have come to help Lomac's people when they were attacked. The fact that we haven't seen any trace of them probably means that whoever did this here must also have attacked my own people."

They remained in Lomac's village for the rest of the day. They piled the few dozen corpses on a heap of logs and burned the bodies. Then before nightfall they moved a few miles south of the village to spend the night away from the horror they had seen throughout the day.

Early the following morning, they began their trek toward Verla's village. When they got there, it was in the afternoon of the same day and what they discovered was a replica of what had seen in Lomac's village.

Almost all the huts had been burned down, but there were not as many bodies to be found. The few bodies that they did find were not close relatives of Verla, but still she did know them. She became very sad. She had a brother and two sisters living in the village and there were now no traces of them.

Vincent was shocked by the way both villages had been systematically destroyed. It appeared to him that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to completely obliterate the whole population. The question that came to his mind was whether it had been done to prevent the captured slaves from returning to their village if they should escape, or was it simply the result of jealous neighbours. He didn't bother to share his thoughts with anyone since both Verla and Lomac were extremely depressed by then.

The following day, they continued on their southward trek. Now that both Lomac and Verla had nowhere to go they chose to remain with Vincent and Nika in their journey south.

By Lomac's estimate, in another five or six days they were to arrive at a wide barren plain where water would be difficult if not impossible to find. He also warned the group that only a few of his people had ever tried to cross that plain since it was very dry and there were stories about all kinds of hidden dangers there.

It seemed that only one man from his village had managed to cross the dry plain and return to tell about it. Lomac had heard from that man that there were great areas of desolation in this desert-like plain as well as many dangers to be found. But once across it, there was a friendly tribe living on the other side.

They were half way to the edge of the plain when disaster struck. They were walking single file in a dense wooden area. Vincent was in front opening the way with Lomac in the rear while both women were in the middle when a great cat attacked them. They had been moving in the gloomy forest for half an hour when all of a sudden they heard a tremendous growling coming from behind them.

Vincent turned back and immediately ran toward the source of the noise. He was just in time to see Lomac with his left arm pinched in what looked like the mouth of a sabre toothed tiger.

The great cat was about five feet tall at the shoulders and was trying to carry his prey into the low foliage. Its large green eyes were full of anger while blood from Lomac's arm was oozing out of its mouth. When the cat saw Vincent and the others appear, it turned its head toward them and stopped motionless in its tracks. The great beast remained very still few a few seconds while staring at the trio, as if it was trying to decide what to do next.

It took Vincent only a second to aim his rifle and shoot. There was no way for him to miss at this short range, but at the same time he had to be careful not to hit Lomac.

The shot hit the great cat in the side of its neck and it let its prey fall to the ground. Its long teeth immediately closed again on Lomac, as if it wanted to make sure that its prey wouldn't escape while it turned its attention to Vincent. The sound of breaking bones reached Vincent's ears and he knew then that it was the end of Lomac.

The second and third shots hit the tiger somewhere in the head and through the left eye, but still it didn't fall down. Blood could be seen pouring out of its many wounds and staining its brown fur. Under such pain and anger Vincent expected the cat to make a tremendous amount of noise, but not a sound could be heard. It then occurred to Vincent that the first bullet that had gone through the neck of the great feline had probably severely damaged its throat.

In one tremendous jump it was less than five yards in front of Vincent with its blood dripping mouth wide open. Just as it prepared itself for a final leap, Vincent shot it right into its open mouth.

The bullet probably severed the spinal cord of the enraged beast, since before it had time to leap it dropped dead on the spot. At the same time its momentum had propelled it to Vincent's feet.

The three of them rushed to Lomac as soon as the cat was down, only to discover that he was already dead. His chest was ripped open and much of his innards were scattered on the ground next to him.

They buried him under a pile of rock not far from the spot where he had died. It was then very sad to see Verla crying over his grave, while she mumbled incoherent words of farewell to her mate.

Within the last few days she had lost her family, and all of her tribe and now her mate was gone. But Vincent knew that the people of her world never gave up, even if things were really bad. He had discovered this while being held prisoner in Haski's village. All of the slaves there had accepted their fate without complaining. Nika and Verla had certainly both done so when they had been forced to submit to the lust of half of the males of the village on their last night of captivity. So far, he has never seen anyone falling into a depressed state for long. Probably the fact that they could expect to live an extremely long time had something to do with it.

Two days after the death of Lomac, they came to the edge of the dry and desolate plain. It had more the appearance of a desert than that of a plain. In the far distance, they could see the horizon where the landscape met the sky and in between the topography of the land was all the same - sand, rock and a little grass here and there.

Vincent now regretted that he hadn't questioned Lomac more about the dry plain. It would now be very useful to know where they could expect to find water and how far it was between water holes. More important still, what were these hidden dangers that Lomac had been talking about.

They had two plastic bottles - which he had brought from his world - that could hold water and also two organic bags that he later discovered were the intestines of some animals. These bags had been picked in one of the burned villages. They spent the night on the edge of the plain then in the morning, after a small breakfast, they filled the two bottles and the bags with water. Then they began their journey across the plain, always walking toward the south.

That first day, he figured they must have covered thirty miles or so. When they made camp for the night, the sun was very low in the sky and the temperature was noticeably colder. Because of the fact that small quantities of water were evaporating and leaking from the two bags, they had decided to use water from one of the water bags first and that bag was already half empty now.<

A simple calculation made Vincent realize that, provided they did not use more water than they had on that first day, they would have about five or six more days of water remaining.

Food was not one of their concerns. At the rate they were eating they still had two weeks' supply of smoked meat. Besides, he still had a few bags of biscuits and dry foodstuff that he had brought from his world. Vincent knew that they would run out of water long before they ran out of food.

That first night in the dry plain, none of them slept well. Verla was still very sad over the death of Lomac while Nika and Vincent were both exhausted from the long and hot walk. Both were also affected by Verla's condition.

The land did not change much for the next three days, but the mood of the trio did change from one of eagerness to one of hopelessness. There seemed to be no end to the dry plain and they now had barely enough water for another two days.

Except for the lack of water, it was difficult to imagine what Lomac had meant when he said that the dry plain was full of hidden dangers. So far they had seen snakes and other reptiles but nothing exceptional.

On one occasion Verla thought she saw the shadow of a large bird but she was the only one to see it. She did tell Vincent and Nika about it, but at the time she had been walking behind them and when they scanned the sky for a bird they didn't see any. Still Vincent figured that she must have seen something, since after that she did stay very close to him and Nika.

In the middle of the morning of their sixth day on the plain, they were attacked. It was the day after Verla had seen the moving shadow of a bird. They had been walking toward a low mountain range that was visible far to the southeast the previous day. It was at least another day and a half away.

As soon as they saw the mountain range, they had changed direction from going straight south and they began to walk in the direction of the first low hill. Their chances of finding water were much greater in the hills than on the flat plain. This was the main reason why they made the change.

Nika and Verla had both noticed the mountain range first since Vincent had been walking with his eyes partly closed because of the brightness of the sun. At the time he was feeling very sorry that he hadn't brought his sunglasses from his world, but of course it was too late to worry about that now. For some reason, both women didn't seem to be bothered very much by the bright sun reflecting off the white sand.

All of a sudden, something in the sky partly blocked the sun's rays thus casting a shadow on them. They were greatly surprised since there were no trees around and there was nothing higher than the small rocks lying here and there. The women's cries of surprise made Vincent open his eyes wide as he turned toward them. Both women were looking upward toward the sky.

Vincent looked up in the direction where the women were pointing. He was amazed by what he saw.

Apparently no more than a hundred feet from them, flying very gracefully, were fifteen to twenty brown and white-feathered birds. After a couple of seconds he realized that they were much farther away and much higher than he had first thought. The reason that he had judged them to be closer than they really were was due to their enormous size.

One of the birds that was much closer to them had been the one responsible for casting the shadow that they had all observed. It was enormous, Vincent figured that it must have been on the lookout for possible prey. Even as he watched them, the rest of the great birds flew closer to the one in front and thus closer to the trio on the ground. As they got nearer Vincent observed that they all had a large lump on the back of their neck. Of course by now all of the birds were aware of the three humans on the ground and they were gracefully gliding in their direction getting lower by the second. Since they were flying with the sun at their back, it was still difficult for Vincent and the women to see them clearly because of the glare of the sun.