The viewpoint character becomes Red Wolf, leader of the Cloud People. Whirling blazing brands and throwing spears, Red Wolf and his men drive a young bull mammoth into a bog, where he sinks to his belly, and prevent him from escaping. With multiple wounds and a spear in one eye, the mammoth takes all night to die. Then the men suck fresh blood, cut tongue and hump fat and fend off birds. Wolves watch. The tribe arrives and butchers the bull.
The Cloud People are refugees. Red Wolf asks Answerer, the shaman, whether this is where they should settle. Wanda Tamberly, present only to study the animals, is about to become involved in human prehistory. Guion might have had an inkling.
2 comments:
This is what is known as "chain migration". Group A attacks Group B, B moves out and attacks C, and so forth.
The best known example is the Volkerwanderung at the fall of the western Roman Empire.
The Huns started the whole process by attacking the Goths, and you ended up with groups from (originally) what's now Poland settling in what's now Tunisia. (The Vandals, in that case.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I think the Huns entered history when they tried to attack and invade Han Dynasty China. Their failure motivated them to move westwards and the rest, as they say, was history!
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment