theyd all be dead , and soon , not just the few men and boys clinging to the gale-swept trees , nor just the womenfolk with their babes and the old , perhaps already vanished into the crumbling ground , but all and every man and beast across the world would die , killed by this horrible thing the god of death had sent their way without any more sense than that with which the god of life had moulded them out of the lifeless clay and given them breath .