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hyenas dashing toward the horse carcass. Terrible anger filled him, but he obeyed the god-creature.
    His crippled paw soon throbbed with pain. Combined with his belly-rumbles, he knew growing hostility toward the god-creature. Never, since he’d become the pride leader, had he been driven from his meat. It left him baffled and enraged.
    The pride crossed the stream and headed onto the plains. The scent of two-legs, horses, and hounds lingered. Three-Paws’s belly rumbled, and the thought of hyenas feasting upon his kill made him angrily shake his head. Each time he set down his injured paw, he yearned to stop and rest. Just then, Three-Paws noticed a distant flash of light. He thought it might be a two-legs and his sun-reflected hide of bright skin. A low rumble sounded in his throat. The flash came from the same direction as the cubbing den.
    In Three-Paws’s feline brain, an odd and imprecise contest took place. The terrifying god-creature had a strange right to demand obedience from the pride. Yet Three-Paws had little intention of obeying anything other than his belly’s constant demand for meat. His crippled paw throbbed anew. Old Three-Paws stopped and tried to make the others turn north. The pride followed Yellow Fang instead, sensing from the young male that the god-creature must be obeyed. In disgust, Three-Paws followed too.
    In time, the pride came across a lone chariot track. Three-Paws sniffed it. A two-legs headed toward the cubbing den. He roared savagely and tried again to turn the pride north. Once again, the pride followed Yellow Fang.
    Eyes blazing, Three-Paws attacked the smaller male. Yellow Fang tried to submit. Three-Paws bit and clawed him. Yellow Fang finally hissed in alarm, leaped up, and trotted east, driven from the pride.
    With Three-Paws in the lead, the pride reluctantly turned north. Three-Paws wished to find the lone two-legs and slay him, and slay any who came near the cubbing den. Yet, what if the god-creature returned...? Old Three-Paws glanced nervously over his shoulder. He increased his pace in order to leave this strange and sinister territory.

Chapter Three
    The Giant

    A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall
    -- 1 Samuel 17:4

    Joash, Nestor and Eber topped a small crest and jogged down into a dry riverbed. They crunched across smooth stones and climbed the bank and into the noisy roundup camp by the lone birch tree. Chariots and cooking-wagons stood in parked clusters. Unhitched Asvarn stallions, aurochs, and half-domesticated long-horned cattle, grazed nearby. A horde of wagon masters, hunters, beaters, trumpeters, grooms, and runners milled about the camp as they chatted and did their chores.
    The chain-mailed charioteers sat near a fire where tea boiled. They sat under a leather awning, shaded from the sun. Each warrior sat erect on a mat, cross-legged, with his spear laid on his right and with his sword beside it. Herrek had wrapped his belt around his sword’s scabbard. The silver buckle was shaped like a lion’s head, the fangs acting as securing clamps.
    At the southern edge of camp steppe ponies shifted nervously. Ropes attached to their bridles secured them to stakes. Their eyes were wild. Blood welled from the rump of one brown stallion. Perhaps a sabertooth had raked him.
    Joash hurried to pick out burs from Herrek’s dogs. He took a thorn out of a paw and smeared smelly ointment on it. When the dogs were all clean, he took a leather bucket and poured water into it. The huge dogs jostled each other as they lapped liquid. Joash then went to Nestor, who was busy watering the horses. Nester gave him a sack of meat. Carrying it, Joash led the dogs from the horses before he cut and tossed them bloody chunks. When the dogs were done eating, he leashed the two leaders to stakes and told the others to stay.
    Since no warrior had brought falcons or eagles to look after, Joash helped Nestor with the horses. Not