Saurians - The day of the beast

8 - The night of a hard day

The afternoon was coming to an end, the sun had begun to descend, coloring the sky with intense orange tones, but in spite of the bright and warm colors of the sunset, a tenuous and persistent cold wind was blowing that announced a bad night for them, it was getting dark early which was quite bad because at that hour two of the six groups of explorers that had left that morning, had not yet returned to the camp and in these cases when night fell and were too far away, they had no choice but to look for some kind of natural or improvised refuge, to settle down where they could spend the night and continue their way back the next day, but in reality this situation of lost or delayed groups was to some extent normal and happened with some frequency in the hordes that were in campaign, since in very few occasions in these latitudes the exploration games were attacked by the great Saurians, by herds of hairy beasts or by humans, most of the time when a group did not arrive at camp before nightfall, it was because by carelessness or excess of enthusiasm they moved too far away from the central camp and the distance travelled was so great or complicated, realizing that they would not be able to return before nightfall so they had no choice but to sleep outside the camp, where they could find refuge, either inside caves or caves, using branches from the most leafy trees that they cut down to use them as shelter and protection, in the worst case they slept outdoors, squeezed together giving each other a little body heat among the overcrowded bodies and if during the night they were not attacked by herds of nocturnal predators, at dawn, they would get up and return early so as not to lose the trace of the horde that slowly advanced in search of land with new hunting grounds trying not to exhaust the one they left behind.

The Saurians were a kind of reptiles of medium size, agile, strong and intelligent, eminently gregarious, organized in hordes or relatively large groups, which maintained their unity over time, ie that members of a horde usually stayed together for long periods, but also had a nomadic character, since they never stayed long in a single place or region, because settling in a place permanently would end with the local hunt creating a nuisance, although temporary imbalance to the environment, additional to this, naturally each group respected the chronological right on the territory of the other neighboring hordes and this made them stay in constant movement, looking for new areas that were more prodigious of resources to consume, lands that offered them enough for their maintenance for a relatively short period, until they felt the need to migrate to another area. In a land of such abundance and animal diversity, they were not really concerned at all about the depletion of their food resources as they had an enormous world at their disposal by which to move around with the security of always finding enough game anywhere, so for the hordes, wandering from one side to the other was a natural way of life for them.

The Alfa Saurian, who served as leader of the Saurians, was uneasy and a little tense at that time, despite the fact that the other groups of explorers returned without much news or expectations, due to the fact that hunting in the area was minimal. None of the groups of explorers who had gone out to explore during the last lunar cycle had reported major incidents and the mountain they wanted to explore in search of humans was inaccessible at all the points they had checked.

In fact, as we explained before, he had no reason to be worried, that a group was delayed and arrived until the following day was almost habitual, but his concern was due to the fact that one of his offspring had left in his first exploration accompanying one of the two groups that had not yet returned to the camp, fortunately to calm his anxiety a little, that group was directed by an old and grumpy explorer in whom he trusted completely, he knew that he was astute and extremely careful, Perhaps they would have gone far away or entered the great mountain that was seen in the distance as a huge gray spot and being too late to return they would have had to sleep hidden in some cave or among the foliage of the woods, a pity that they did not carry sentinel, because they needed to move in a hurry and with agility, besides it was not in his plans to spend the night away from the horde, but the area looked desolate and it was unlikely to find great Saurians there, though the great hairy beasts were a possibility, but the old scout would know how to protect himself from the inconveniences and dangers of the night. He only hoped that there would be no humans near them, however, the group consisted of eleven experienced and strong explorers, they could hardly be defeated by a miserable herd of great monkeys, plus the herald accompanying them would have launched the human alarm and everyone in the horde would have gone out to hunt them.