muzzle.
It took another ten minutes of anxious casting about to locate the lead horse and the packs. Jonnie went back a short way to a little spring they’d passed and made camp. There he made himself a belt and a pouch, and into the latter he put tinder and a flint and some small, sharpedged stones. He put a stronger thong on the big kill-club and fastened it to the belt. He wasn’t going to be caught emptyhanded a second time in this vast prairie. No indeed.
That night he dreamed of Chrissie being strangled by pigs, Chrissie mauled by bears, Chrissie crushed to a pulp under stampeding hoofs while he stood helpless in the sky where the spirits go, unable to do a damned thing.
Battlefield Earth
Chapter 8
The “Great Village” where “thousands had lived” was obviously another one of those myths, like monsters. But he would look for it nonetheless.
By the half-light of the yellowing dawn, Jonnie was again trotting eastward.
The plain was changing. There were some features about it that didn’t seem usual, such as those mounds. Jonnie detoured from his way into the sun to look at one of them.
He stopped, leaning forward with a hand braced on Windsplitter’s shoulder, to study the place.
It was a little sort of hill, but it had a hole in the side. A rectangular hole. Otherwise the mound was all covered with dirt and grass. Some freak of nature? A window opening?
He slid off his horse and approached it. He walked around it. Then he paced it out. It was about thirty-five paces long and ten paces wide. Hah! Maybe the mound was rectangular too!
An old, splintered stump stood to one side and Jonnie appropriated a jagged piece of it.
He approached the window and, using the scrap of wood, began to push away the grass edges. It surprised him that he seemed to be digging not in earth but in loose sand.
When he got the lower part of the rectangle cleared, he could get right up to it and look into it.
The mound was hollow.
He backed up and looked at his horses and then around at the countryside. There wasn’t anything menacing there.
He bent over and started to crawl into the mound.
And the window bit him!
He straightened right up and looked at his wrist.
It was bleeding.
It wasn’t a bad cut. It was that he was cut at all that startled him.
Very carefully he looked at the window.
It had teeth!
Well, maybe they weren’t teeth. They were dull-bright and had a lot of colors in them and they stood all around the outside edges of the frame. He pulled one of them out-they were very loose. He took a bit of thong from his belt and tried it.
Wonder of wonders, the tooth readily cut the thong, far better than the best rock edge.
Hey, he thought, delighted, look what I got! And with the greatest care- for the things did bite unless you were careful- he removed the splinters, big and small, from the frame and stacked them neatly. He went to his pack and got a piece of buckskin and wrapped them up. Valuable! You could cut and skin and scrape something wonderful with these things. Some kind of rock. Or this mound was the skull of some strange beast and these were the remains of its teeth. Wonderful!
When he had them all and they were carefully stowed in his pack- except one nice bit he put in his belt pouch-he returned to the task of entering the mound.
There was nothing to bite him now and he climbed through the rectangle. There wasn’t any pit. The level of the inside seemed to be a bit higher than the outside ground.
A sudden flurry startled him half out of his wits. But it was just a bird that had a nest in here, and it left through the window with a rustle of wings. Once outside, it found a place to sit and began to scold
It took another ten minutes of anxious casting about to locate the lead horse and the packs. Jonnie went back a short way to a little spring they’d passed and made camp. There he made himself a belt and a pouch, and into the latter he put tinder and a flint and some small, sharpedged stones. He put a stronger thong on the big kill-club and fastened it to the belt. He wasn’t going to be caught emptyhanded a second time in this vast prairie. No indeed.
That night he dreamed of Chrissie being strangled by pigs, Chrissie mauled by bears, Chrissie crushed to a pulp under stampeding hoofs while he stood helpless in the sky where the spirits go, unable to do a damned thing.
Battlefield Earth
Chapter 8
The “Great Village” where “thousands had lived” was obviously another one of those myths, like monsters. But he would look for it nonetheless.
By the half-light of the yellowing dawn, Jonnie was again trotting eastward.
The plain was changing. There were some features about it that didn’t seem usual, such as those mounds. Jonnie detoured from his way into the sun to look at one of them.
He stopped, leaning forward with a hand braced on Windsplitter’s shoulder, to study the place.
It was a little sort of hill, but it had a hole in the side. A rectangular hole. Otherwise the mound was all covered with dirt and grass. Some freak of nature? A window opening?
He slid off his horse and approached it. He walked around it. Then he paced it out. It was about thirty-five paces long and ten paces wide. Hah! Maybe the mound was rectangular too!
An old, splintered stump stood to one side and Jonnie appropriated a jagged piece of it.
He approached the window and, using the scrap of wood, began to push away the grass edges. It surprised him that he seemed to be digging not in earth but in loose sand.
When he got the lower part of the rectangle cleared, he could get right up to it and look into it.
The mound was hollow.
He backed up and looked at his horses and then around at the countryside. There wasn’t anything menacing there.
He bent over and started to crawl into the mound.
And the window bit him!
He straightened right up and looked at his wrist.
It was bleeding.
It wasn’t a bad cut. It was that he was cut at all that startled him.
Very carefully he looked at the window.
It had teeth!
Well, maybe they weren’t teeth. They were dull-bright and had a lot of colors in them and they stood all around the outside edges of the frame. He pulled one of them out-they were very loose. He took a bit of thong from his belt and tried it.
Wonder of wonders, the tooth readily cut the thong, far better than the best rock edge.
Hey, he thought, delighted, look what I got! And with the greatest care- for the things did bite unless you were careful- he removed the splinters, big and small, from the frame and stacked them neatly. He went to his pack and got a piece of buckskin and wrapped them up. Valuable! You could cut and skin and scrape something wonderful with these things. Some kind of rock. Or this mound was the skull of some strange beast and these were the remains of its teeth. Wonderful!
When he had them all and they were carefully stowed in his pack- except one nice bit he put in his belt pouch-he returned to the task of entering the mound.
There was nothing to bite him now and he climbed through the rectangle. There wasn’t any pit. The level of the inside seemed to be a bit higher than the outside ground.
A sudden flurry startled him half out of his wits. But it was just a bird that had a nest in here, and it left through the window with a rustle of wings. Once outside, it found a place to sit and began to scold
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