Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure Read Online Free PDF Page B

heavy to carry with him. In return Chul gave him a blade shaped of a black, glassy rock that chipped into an extremely sharp instrument. That knife was the finest thing Chul had ever owned. Zan promised to give it back when he returned—if he returned.
    As he prepared to bid his son farewell, Zan’s father was dejected. He had always labored to protect his family from the terrors of their savage world, but he knew there were some things he could not do. He had been unable to save Dael, and now he was helpless to prevent his other son from doing what he felt he had to do. They had almost lost Zan to the murderous lion—and now?
    Wumna began to sob. Would not Zan-Gah delay until the weather was warmer? It was the first time she had seriously given him his title of respect. “Do not mourn for me, Mother,” Zan said gently. “Last night as I slept I heard Dael calling to me, and I know his voice will guide me. I will not come home alone.”
    â€œYou will not come home at all. That is my night dream,” she said, weeping so much that hot tears fell upon Zan’s shoulder. Chul’s wife, Aka, and the oldest of their daughters, who adored Zan, were sniffling too, and others among them joined in the chorus of sobs. Mighty Chul, his own eyes wet, grew angry. Wiping his cheeks with the back of his great fist and thumping the heel ofhis spear on the ground, he loudly called for silence. Then more softly, but sternly too: “Let there be no weeping. Zan-Gah is going to find his twin brother whom we love. One will depart and two will return. Let us send him on his way.”
    Thal embraced his son in his strong arms, pressing him against his hairy breast and muttering gruff tendernesses. As Zan gave a final farewell to his family he saw clearly what perhaps he had not seen before—that there was a great strength in living with a people that stood together in difficult times; and that he would now forego that strength, facing a dangerous and hostile world alone. He would not have his father to teach and help him, nor Chul’s great strength and protection. His mother who cared about him, loved him, would not be there when he wished for her. For a moment he actually was tempted to put down his spear, stay at home, and be a kid again; but the thoughts and events which had created that moment still urged him on.
    Zan embraced his people one by one, Chul last among the men, and finally his mother with a whispered promise to return. It would bring evil luck for any to foresee Zan’s project as less than successful, so they held back their questions and fears. As he departed they chanted an ancient song of victory, and lifting their hands to the spirits of the sky, they offered Zan-Gah to their care.

 
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3
THE
SLING
    Not far from the moist cave that once had been his home there stands to this day a barrow of rocks, worn by time, encrusted with the soil of many centuries, and overgrown with moss and rough vegetation. Under it lie the bones and spear of Zan-Gah. When he died (as everyone someday must), he was widely known and greatly honored, as the huge pile of boulders witnesses. Long after his death, when the elders of his people would recite the deeds of their ancestors—beginning with the great Ack-Ro, who first spoke to the sky-spirits some twenty generations earlier, and Sra-Elod, who learned to make fire—they would not fail to name the deeds of Zan-Gah. Ages after our Zan had passed from the earth, it was still recalled that as a boy he had slain a lioness unaided and had borne her claw marks for the rest of his life. But the greatest of all his accomplishments, the one that changed the lives of his people forever, was something else. It was his invention of the sling. “He fashioned the swift weapon from a serpent’s sting,” the sages said—andit was partly true. What the old men did not tell when they spoke the long history of their clan,