Totan sneered incredulously. “Their leader a flint-worker? That is hard to believe.”
“The man said so,” Gonch maintained stoutly; “and I believe he told the truth as to the flints. He also told lies. Because of them I killed him.”
“Good food gone to waste,” Totan growled. “You should have brought his carcass here.”
Gonch rubbed his stomach with one open hand all the time grinning like a hyena. Gone to waste? Hardly. Gonch was never guilty of such carelessness as that. He was a prince of cannibals and his body so reeked with the stench of his man-feasting that he smelled like a flesh-eating beast. For that reason men called him the Muskman.
“The stranger lied about the Mammoth Man; a giant mightier than the Hairy Elephant; one who has made the beasts his slaves; his home, a lion’s den; and yet a man who will neither hunt nor fight.”
“Coward,” sneered the hetman.
“No doubt,” Gonch agreed. “And yet he must be a flint-worker of extraordinary skill. This blade proves that; and he who made it can make more. If he made them for us, our hunting would be a very different matter. We would have all we wanted of meat and hides.”
“Aye, that’s true,” said Totan with a sigh.
“What a pity he is not here to make us the fine blades. Does he live so very far away?”
“Very, very far,” replied Gonch, gazing to the northeast. “His is a tribe of big strong men who live in a broad valley near a river winding between walls of stone. All are armed with these weapons and know how to use them.”