Ahead of them there was another roar. And a group of huts seemed to come apart from quick flashes inside of them. Bits of the lodge plopped down on their backs, and one huge piece of timber embedded in the earth only a foot from Neju's body. Neju threw himself over the old Chieftain to protect him; he felt dirt and sticks and dust shower over him and the air smelled sharp and bitter and stifling. _Wham! Wham! Wham!_ The earth jarred with explosions, one after another, measured, methodical. Neju gritted his teeth and closed his eyes tightly. And the world was light and noise and flying debris. Then it was over. Neju was holding his breath. For several minutes, he did not dare lift his head; his ears rang and his head was weighted. He brushed at it, and his hand came away wet with blood. He looked up, and the air demon was gone. The lodge was no more--only a smoking crater, and, except for two huts, miraculously intact, all of the village was mashed flat as though a giant hammer had worked it over carefully. Neju bent to the Chieftain. The old one moaned. * * * * * They constructed a crude shelter for the Chieftain back of the clearing, fast in the forest, where the old one could not see the scene of destruction. All that night, almost fearfully, the villagers crouched near him. When the moon first dropped its rays across his face they all tensed, hushed, waiting, and when his breathing continued they sighed in relief (for he would live another day: a Chieftain's spirit always goes up the first moon path to the stars, or else it will not leave until the moon path comes again). The night was long and cold, and toward dawn, they drew in upon each other and the fire for warmth. When the sun was an hour high and the hasty meal was over, the young hunters surrounded Neju, looking to him for leadership since the last of the royal line lay in a coma. "You will be our leader until our Chieftain Father is well again," they told Neju, one after another. Neju sat for a long time in thought and silence. At last he said, almost sadly, "I will serve until the old Father is well again." There was a relieved sigh from the listeners. Again there was a long silence. Neju toyed with a new grass shoot, rubbing it between his fingers. He rumbled deep in his chest to break the silence. "We must move further into the forest. Wait for the god-men and the demons to go away. We cannot fight." "Perhaps they will not go away." Neju thought about this. "The Old Gods came from the sky," he said. "The Old Gods went away." He looked around him at the circle of taut, angry faces. "I do not like to give up our home ground," he said slowly. He shrugged helplessly. "With two demons, one to watch while the other sleeps, how can we steal near enough to destroy them?" He looked at the mashed grass shoot. "The earth is kind. We can live and be happy in some new place."