The men's skins were brown with a tinge of bronze, and their hair long, dark, and glossy. Most of them wore nothing but sandals and leather loinguards; some were completely naked. The ones with loinguards seemed to have daggers thrust into their belts; all carried spears with wicked-looking barbed heads and tufts of feather at the butt ends. Some had their hair tied up with vividly colored headbands. More than anything else, they made Blade think of a hunting party of North American Indians before the white man came.

The dust cloud in the canyon seemed to be getting closer and thicker. Now Blade could hear an occasional bellow and the echoing rumble of many hooves. The hunters hurried out onto the open ground along the bank and divided into two parties, one on each side of the canyon mouth. Each party formed a line that reached from the base of the slope to the water's edge. All raised their spears, and those with daggers drew them. The sound of hooves swelled to a roar.

Then suddenly the canyon spewed out a solid mass of furious animal life. In the lead were a dozen shaggy animals, looking like oversized elk-except that no elk ever had a rack of antlers like these. The antlers were a deep red, at least seven feet from tip to tip, and so massive Blade wondered how the creatures ever managed to keep their heads up. He could have chinned himself on either side of such a rack! Finding themselves suddenly in the open, the elk slowed down and began to mill around, bellowing to one another.

Five of the dark-skinned hunters rode out of the canyon after the elk. The hunters were mounted on creatures that obviously must have had lizards somewhere in their family trees. Their scaly bodies weren't much larger than a Shetland pony's, but their thick legs were a good five feet long and ended in splayed, clawed feet. Their eyes swiveled like a frog's, but when they opened their mouths they displayed a fine set of teeth. The hunters rode bareback, with only ropes for bridles, and carried ten-foot lances or spiked clubs. Blade wasn't sure if these, weapons were for their prey or to control the strange-looking members of the hunting party that were bringing up the rear.