SPIRIT WALKER

Chapter 1: Night Watch (part 1 of 2)

Spirit Walker

(A Fantasy of the Far Future)

Book One of the Serpent Catch Series

By

David Farland

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Copyright © David Farland. All rights reserved.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

First Publishing: 1991 Printed in the USA

Foreword

Year: 3866

Place: Anee-a moon in a star system 1572 light-years from earth.

Author's note: This series was originally published by Bantam Books as the novels Serpent Catch and Path of the Hero, but has been revised and expanded.

At the time that I undertook writing books, I was struggling to recover from chronic fatigue syndrome, and I was also working full-time. As a manager for a computer company, I had to put in long days-often more than a dozen hours per day.

As a result, I've long felt that this story needed more work. So, in publishing it, I've decided to give it a good, strong rewrite so that it better fit my original vision.

I'll be including more notes at the end of each volume in the series.

Chapter 1: Night Watch

Tull felt teeth pierce his ankle, each tooth as sharp as flint, and heard bones crunching. Dimly he realized that it was dark, that he heard the growl of a great lizard. He kicked at the beast, struggling to rouse from his slumber.

"Yaagh," he called. Most dinosaurs in Hotland were afraid of men, and he hoped that his shout would startle whatever had seized him.

Fully awake, he realized that it was only a strong hand that held his ankle.

His good friend Ayuvah laughed at the joke. "Shitha!" Get up, Ayuvah said in the soft-nasal language of the Neanderthal, or Pwi, as they called themselves. "Tchima-zho, sepala-pi fe." I finish gladly, and take joy in my coming sleep.

Tull looked up into Ayuvah's face and blinked to clear his vision. The great moon Thor was up, a green-blue monstrosity in the sky, and though it was only a quarter full, Tull could see the young Neanderthal man well in its surface.

The warm night air around camp smelled thick with the scent of leatherwood honey. Tree frogs whistled in the darkness beyond the edge of the Neanderthals' little wooden fortress. Out across the plains, two male blue-crested hadrosaurs, with their long necks and duckbills, bellowed challenges to one another as they vied for a mate. The dinosaurs had been going at it solid for three days now in the valley below.

It must have been their calls that disturbed my sleep, Tull thought, and made me dream of predators. He felt glad that the honey harvest was almost finished. The hadrosaurs' mating challenges had drawn a tyrannosaur into the valley earlier in the day. Ayuvah had killed it with his spear, but more would follow. Soon they would hike to the ship and sail back home to Smilodon Bay.