en told that when it came it would be from above,
sudden and savage without defense or recourse. Few had believed, or
bothered to plot the route to safety. Would not these issues be
resolved? Had not their caves been always safe and secure?

Now there was no time for belief or wonder. Within minutes none of
Otah's tribe were alive, neither women nor children. Gor-wah the Old One
remained, having failed in his exhortations; now he stood quite still,
erect and waiting, with arms outflung as the weapons came swarming, and
when that final blow fell the expression upon his mouth might have been
a grimace or might have been a smile....

Nor did the others escape, those at Far End who also huddled and waited
and would not believe. Their caves at the valley-floor were even less
secure. Whether it was blinding hate or the bitter dregs of expediency,
for Mai-ak and his remnants there was only one recourse now. It had been
deeply ingrained!

Grimly they pursued the way, automaton-like, unresponsive now to horror
or any emotive. And once again, within the hour the weapons fell.

It was swift and it was thorough.

Methodical. Merciless. Complete.

* * * * *

It will not be said here when emotive-response returned. Does one return
from a horror all-encompassing, or seek to requite the unrequited? Does
one yearn for a Way that is no more when deadening shock has wiped it
out?

The season of thaw came, and again the great cold and once more the
thaw. Both Obe the Bear and the great saber-cats were at large across
the valley, and for those few who remained the bring was not easy now.
There was more dangerous prey!

Lone clansman encountered clansman across his path, and there was
furtive slinking. Each went silently alone and returned alone to his
place of hiding. Bellies growled, but none dared use his weapon except
in secret.

Perhaps a few, some isolate few remembered that time of chaos a season
ago--but it was fleeting recall at best, as somatic responses rose to
blot it out.

It was not to be forever! One thing remained, unasked and unbeknownst,
grooved with synaptic permanence in their burgeoning brains. _This was
neither beginning nor end: for though Otah's Tribe was gone, bellies
still growled. Kurho's Tribe was no more, but the weapons yet remained._

_There could be no beginning or end--for would not new things come,
means and methods and ways of devising so long as man remained? W