The tribesmen heard the calls of the Tyrant and, not looking up from the conversation, went to the lodging for the night.
«We’ll discuss everything on the way,» Vall suggested. «We need to get some good sleep now. In the morning there is a long road ahead.
What are we going to do with Salas? Taro asked.
«Let’s not do anything,» Vall replied. – Let him get enough sleep, and if he has already slept, then he will sit on patrol, and in the morning he will be on his way. Let’s get to the Great Volcano, and then let the leader and the elders decide for themselves what to do. Inga will cook something so that his eyes are in love…
– Val, Taro! All! Come here! Iris interrupted the speech of the leader.
The hunters flinched at the unexpected speech of their kinsman. And some erected weapons.
«Why are you so scared!» Arwen was outraged. – Where did you come from, put you in the litter!
– Come here quickly. You need to see it!
The tribesmen went to Iris. And the Tyrant also crawled out of the tent to find out what the staunch hunter saw there.
«Don’t you dare go outside, Salas!» I’ll be right back,» he ordered.
***
The young beater listened to the voices of his fellow tribesmen, trying to make out what the relatives were talking about and what Iris had noticed there, but in addition to the hunters’ muttering, the trill of nocturnal animals rumbled in Salas’s ears. All this rumble was mixed up at the hearing, and it was impossible to distinguish anything. Amidst the confusion of sounds, the teenager casually recognized a strange crackle. Salas pricked up his ears more, trying to catch the source of the sound, and inadvertently drew attention to the bizarre fire of blazing lanterns. The teenager remembered that he noticed this strange phenomenon of the fiery element when he woke up.
Salas threw off his skin and ospreys of odorous branches and, climbing out of a pile of bags, approached the torches. The rustle intensified, and the young man realized that it was they who made the crackling. A bizarre mode of fire, similar to a tiny whirlwind of luminous and swirling dust particles, came from the ends of the torch handles, saturated with particles of light! And these particles, under the draft of air, rose to the chimney, turning into white smoke. As if swirling, they circled, and the bewitching dusty flame, as it seemed to the youth, exuded more luminosity than was seen by the usual eye. The young man looked at the bizarre warehouse of the elements for a long time, and then carefully blew on the streams of particles of one of the lights. The luminous dust particles were alarmed. Some of them remained on the handle, while others spun randomly and, leaving their place of residence for a moment, returned back and lined up in the former whole whirlwind.
– Wow! Salas exclaimed in surprise.
The young man stretched out his hand to the torch, trying to feel the warmth of the flame, but was suddenly horrified at the sight presented. Dodging his own hand, he leaned back and flopped to the ground, and then began to crawl away until he hit his back against the bags of slaughter. There was nowhere to go, and the youth froze, holding his breath. He couldn’t believe his eyes! Realizing that this disgusting limb belongs to him, the teenager slowly and cautiously brought it closer to his gaze, and then began to rotate his brush, examining its disgusting articulation. Salas’s hand – both one and the other – was devoid of skin!
Bare bones of the phalanges of the fingers protruded from the red sinewy palm and from its back side, and their beginnings grew into plexuses of muscles, meat and blood vessels of the hand. Hand combinations were hidden under leather windings up to the elbow. Raising his arm slightly, the beater could see the bone on his elbow. And intricately woven, like a twist of liana twine, the red-blue muscles of the arm above the elbow went under the robe on the torso. All this naked horror shone under the glow of torches! A chill ran through his body and a cold sweat broke out. As soon as Salas realized that there was not a piece of human skin on him, he almost vomited.
The teenager looked at his fingers once more, and then looked at the uncovered leg muscles. A red pile of the same plexuses as on the muscles of the upper limbs, like the fresh flesh of a tenderloin from Polosun’s thigh, shone before his eyes. White bones, similar to lime bowls, which Varnus invented for lights in the camp, stuck out at the knees, and from under the flaps below the shin in sandals one could see white phalanxes with claws.
Salas rose from the ground, and it dawned on him. He touched his face hesitantly. Feeling the presence of the skin on it, the youth breathed a sigh of relief. Then he slowly reached out with his right hand to the palm of his left. Afraid to feel pain due to lack of skin, the teenager, holding his breath and narrowing his eyes, touched the bones of his fingers. Feeling nothing unusual, Salas opened his eyes and, already looking at the action, repeated the movement and was stunned again. He moved his bare hand over the bare places of the other hand, and in his eyes it seemed that his fingers were not touching bare flesh, but were touching an invisible, but tangible emptiness. The teenager, having grown bolder, squeezed the muscle above the elbow on the left limb. The combination of muscles tightened disgustingly and took on a bluish tint where the muscle touched. But even squeezing the limb, Salas could not penetrate the invisible shell, and the young beater realized at that hour that his skin was on him and it had not gone anywhere! It is his eyes that contemplate so! That the eyes of Zavrini appeared to him, which Varn taught and which all the hunters of the tribe knew, but for some reason the wrong eyes turned out to be, and Salas should not have seen human flesh. Realizing all this, the young man closed his eyelids and shook his head, trying to free his eyes, but nothing came of it. He furrowed his brows, trying to master concentration, but again nothing worked. «What to do? How to return human vision? Salas began to think.
Suddenly the canopy of the tent flew open, and an alarmed Tyrant flew into the building. He started rummaging around in his bags and pulling out lights. Gathering them in an armful, the Tyrant removed the burning torches that hung under the chimney and, again ordering Salas to remain in the tent and not stick out anywhere, jumped out.
***
Far away on the outskirts of the Bennettite field, on a sloping hill, the top of which bordered only on the starry sky, the Kindred saw the outlines of reptiles. The dark figures of the lizards were illuminated by the full moon, and the sight that appeared before the hunters was breathtaking. The long-necks humbly walked along the elevated plateau, and in front of them, judging by their excellent size and spiked back and neck, the Gigantosaurus walked majestically. The huge reptile, compared to the good-natured herbivores, was so solid even from a long distance that all the lizards behind it seemed to be its own brood. The hunters watched in amazement. Either five (it was hard to see exactly, since the black silhouettes merged with each other), or six Long-necks dutifully followed the ancient lizard.
On the eastern edge of the same hill, the outlines of the same Long Necks appeared. And with them, smaller individuals, apparently cubs. And even when the silhouette of the Gigantosaurus mingled with the outlines of palm trees, and the mighty reptile disappeared into the night against the background of other hills, the Longnecks did not stop appearing from behind the slope of the hill.
– I can’t believe my eyes! Kuhn was delighted. – Why so many of them? Gigantosaurus ahead?
The hunters stood with their mouths open.
«Yes, Kun, it’s him!» Iris replied.
«I’ve never seen a Gigantosaurus!» Rylan wondered.
«In all my moons I have lived, I have not seen so many giants as I see now,» said Taro.
«That’s what I told you about,» Vall said. – Flock!
– Where did they come from? Tris asked.
«I don’t