They were now 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 did find 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 games. We should have met a few of them by now, I fear that something bad has happened."
Verla tried to reassure him by telling him that they hadn't seen any of her people either. She explained to him that the likelihood that a catastrophe had happened to both tribes was highly improbable.
But as they traveled closer to Lomac's village he became much more nervous since they didn't meet anyone on the trail and when they finally reached it on the tenth days, they were all in for a great shock.
The village was in complete ruin. Most of the houses had been burned to the ground and only a few huts here and there remained partly intact.
When they investigated the desolated village further, 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 villagers had been attacked in the middle of the night since many of the deads were still lying on their sleeping mats. Also the fact that none of the cooking fires were in use when the attack occurred, tended to confirm this theory.
"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 yet. I am sure the men of my village would have come to help Lomac's people. The fact that we haven't seen any trace of them may mean that whatever occured here, must also have happen in my village."
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. Before nightfall they moved a few miles south of the village so as to spend the night away from the horror they had seen.
Early the following morning, they began their walk toward Verla's village. When they got there, it was in the afternoon of the following day and what they discovered was a replica of what had happen 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 each of them. She was very sad, she had a brother and two sisters living in the village and there were 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 mind was whether it had been done to prevent the captured slaves from returning back to their village, or was it simply the result of jealous neighbors. He didn't bother to share his thoughts with anyone since both Verla and Lomac were extremely depressed by now.
The following day, they continued on their southward trek. Now that both Lomac and Verla had nowhere to go they decided to remain with Vincent and Nika in their journey south.
By Lomac's estimate, in five or six days they were going to arrive to a wide plain that was mostly a desert. 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 dangers to be expected there.
It seemed that only one man from his village had managed to cross the dessert and return to tell about it. Lomac had heard from that man that there were great areas of desolation in the dessert. But once across, there was a friendly tribe living on the other side.
They were near the beginning of the dessert when disaster struck them. They
were walking in a single file in a dense wooden area, Vincent was leading the way in front while Lomac was in the rear while both women were waking between them. All of a sudden they heard a tremendous growling coming from behind them.
Vincent ran back toward the source of the noise, and he was just in time to see Lomac with his left arm pinched in the mouth of a saber tooted 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 and blood from Lomac's arm was oozing out of its mouth. When the large cat saw Vincent and the others appearing, it turned toward them and stopped motionless in its tracks. The great beast remained very still while staring at the trio as if 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 so as not to hit Lomac.
The shot hit the beast in the neck and it did let its prey fall to the ground. But its long teeth immediately closed again on Lomac, as if it wanted to make sure that his prey wouldn't escape while it turned his attention on Vincent. The sound of breaking bones reached Vincent ears and he knew then that this was the end of Lomac.
The second and third shots hit the great cat 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-stripped 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 bullet that had gone through the neck of the great cat had probably severely damage its throat.
In one tremendous jump it soon was in front of Vincent as blood dripped from its wide opened mouth. Just as it prepared itself for a final leap on Vincent, he shot it right into its mouth.
The bullet probably severed the spinal cord of the enraged cat, since before it had time to leap on Vincent it dropped dead on the spot as the cat's momentum carrying it to Vincent's feet.
As soon as the great cat was down, the three of them rushed to Lomac, but it was only to discover that he was already dead. His chest was ripped open and much of his innards were 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 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. Everyone accepted his or her fate. Nika and Verla had 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 depressive state for very 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 were standing right at the edge of the wide plain. It did resemble much more to a desert than a plain. In the far distance, they could see the horizon where the landscape melted with 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 plain. He would have like 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 intestine of some animals. These bags had been picked up in one of the burned villages.
They spent the night on the edge of the plain. 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 walked thirty miles or so. When they made camp for the evening, the sun was very low and the temperature was noticeably colder. Since small quantities of water were evaporating and leaking from the two bags, they had first used the water from one of the water bags and one bag was already half empty.
A simple calculation made him realize that provided they did not drink more water than they had on that first day, they would have enough water for about five or six days.
Food was not one of Vincent concerns; at the rate they were eating they still had two weeks supply of smoked meat. Beside he still had a few bags of biscuits and dry foodstuff that he had brought from his world. He figured that they would run out of water long before they ran out of food.
That first night in the desert 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 hot walk and both were also sad to see Verla's suffer for the lost of her mate.
The land did not change much for the next four 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 met when he said that this place was full of hidden dangers. So far they had seen only snakes and all sort of insects.
On one occasion Verla thought she saw the shadow of a large bird but she was the only one to seen it. She did tell Vincent and Nika about it but at the time she had been walking behind them and when they examined 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 the sixth day, 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 had been 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 change direction from straight south and they went in the direction of the first low hill. Their chances of finding water was much greater among the hills than on the flat plain.
Nika and Verla had both noticed the mountain range first since Vincent had been walking with his eyes partly closed since the brightness of the sun was painful for his eyes. At the time he felt very sorry that he hadn't brought his sunglasses from his world, but it was too late to worry about that now. For some reason, both women didn't seem to be bothered as much by the bright sunlight being reflecting off the white sand.
When an opaque object in the sky partly blocked the sun's rays, they were greatly surprise since there were no trees around and there was nothing higher than the small rocks lying here and there. The women cried of surprise made Vincent open his eyes wide as he turned toward them. Both women were looking upward toward the sky.
