An odd thing, what weapon, and perhaps.... No, it was not for spring planting. And winters used to be longer: we plant earlier--a moon earlier, now, at least. And Zoee was a grown man, and Zoon was dead. Or was it the other way around? He blinked his eyes, and strangely, it seemed that they were _both_ dead. They were playing the funeral dirge out there in the sunshine. The old one stirred uneasily. * * * * * Neju sat on the white sand before the fire place. Two of his hands plucked nervously at the sliver of wood. A group of hunters formed a semicircle around him. "The old Father is ill with sorrow," he said, after a while. "And with time." The others nodded, and again the hunters' council fell silent. The rest of the village was muted, and the women went about gathering funeral offerings for their Chieftain. Neju studied the splinter, trying to focus his thoughts on it. Finally he said, "We did not destroy the demon." "We must try again," one of the hunters said, and like a tired sigh, agreement ran from mouth to mouth. Neju flipped the splinter into the ashes and sat with eyes downcast. "The demon must be destroyed," the hunter repeated. "Or it will kill again and again." Neju stared across the fireplace at the forest beyond. His eyes clouded. On his right, a young hunter who had been with him the previous night at the wall cleared his throat nervously. "They come from the sky, but they are not Gods." He wrinkled his brow as if this were difficult to understand. "It is strange," he said. "They come like Gods, but they are not. Gods are kind." He looked appealing at Neju. Neju smiled wearily and touched the young hunter on the shoulder. "They are not Gods." "They are servants of the demon," another hunter insisted. "I was there," he said monotonously. "After they came." The others stirred uneasily. "We watched the demon," the hunter said, his voice still flat, as if (although he knew them to be true) he could not quite believe the words himself. "I was with Mela. We watched the demon go to the forest and rip out a standing tree by the roots. Then trembling, Mela stepped out to greet it with a friendship offering. And the demon turned on her and roared down on her and mashed her body lifeless under it, and the god-man who was astride the demon became so terrified that he seemed to laugh. I fled." There was silence for a moment. "The Old Gods," one hunter began, but he did not finish the sentence. The hunters shuffled. "I saw the demon kill Mela," the hunter said with finality. "We must kill the demon." The young hunter cleared his throat again. "They are not Gods, but still I should not have harmed the god-man, last night, at the wall. We do not mean them any harm." He paused. "Only the demon." The hunters nodded. "They will thank us for destroying the demon." "The god-men, themselves, have killed four of us," Neju said suddenly.