The Inferior (2 page)

The Tribe’s fiercest hunters guarded the chief’s party. Wallbreaker stood with them, as did the brute, Crunchfist. Rockface waited nearby, healed of the wound that had kept him on guard duty. A crowd was gathering to witness the trade and Stopmouth tried to edge through it to the front.

The head of the Hairbeast delegation boomed something at Chief Speareye. Humans couldn’t speak Hairbeast, or any language other than their own. Every generation or so, somebody would try to learn some non-human tongue, but of all the ancestors only poor Treatymaker had ever succeeded. However, one word of Hairbeast understood by all was the coughing grunt that signified ‘flesh’.

The Hairbeasts made that sound now, one after another. Then their leader placed ten human fingerbones on the ground before Speareye.

‘Ten!’ shouted Speareye. ‘They’ll give us ten pups!’

‘Yes, and they’ll take ten of us in exchange!’ yelled a woman in the crowd.

Speareye glared in her direction. ‘Anybody who doesn’t like to eat can say so now.’ He waited, but nobody else objected.

‘Do we agree?’ shouted Speareye. ‘Do we agree to ten?’

The people muttered in assent, even the woman who’d complained. Ten was an unusually large number for the Hairbeasts to ask. Stopmouth wondered if they’d begun a war with one of the species that bordered them–the Armourbacks perhaps. Absurd rumours were flying around that Armourbacks and Hoppers had been seen hunting together. Stopmouth shook his head. Of course that couldn’t happen. Creatures would need a common language to co-operate in something as complex as a hunt.

The chief accepted the ten fingerbones, and the Hairbeast delegation turned round and left immediately. The crowd began to disperse, muttering in excitement and fear.

Stopmouth took his chance. ‘Wallbreaker!’

‘Stopmouth!’ His brother seemed uncomfortable. He kept scratching his ribs as if they itched terribly. ‘It’s good to see you. Don’t think I’ve been avoiding you–you’ll know what I mean when you’re wed yourself someday!’ He winked, but the lie hurt anyway. Besides, what Wallbreaker and Mossheart got up to was the last thing Stopmouth wanted to think about.

‘We need to talk.’

‘You’re angry at me,’ said Wallbreaker. He was still keeping the palm of his left hand over his ribs. ‘You forget to stutter when you want to kill me.’

‘I d-don’t!’

‘Look’–Wallbreaker gripped him by the arm–‘I really thought you were dead, all right?’ At last, the truth. ‘I saw them follow you into the tower and I hadn’t a scrap of strength left in me. I’d have been worse than useless to you. But I’ve big plans to make it up to you, all right?’

‘N-no n-need! I f-forgive—’

Just at that moment a careless group of people departing the gathering bumped into the brothers. They knocked Wallbreaker’s left hand away from his ribs, revealing the new tattoo that had been placed there. Only the chief could award tattoos, and only for outstanding bravery. This one showed three Armourbacks being crushed by a rock. Wallbreaker caught Stopmouth staring and folded his arms again to cover the tattoo.

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ he whispered. Quickly he turned away, and Stopmouth saw scars from Armourback spear-points dotted around his spine. He was headed for the chief’s house, where the tattooed warriors would be holding the flesh meeting. They’d never let Stopmouth in. So he wandered home, angry all over again, and set to work at more mindless rubbing of the Armourback shell. He kept working after dark, unable to sleep, with only the cook fire for company. But his hands were tired now, even if his mind was not. The shell slipped from his fingers and into the flames. He cursed and poked it out again with a stick. But his cursing changed to laughter as soon as he got back to work. He laughed so loudly he woke his mother with it. ‘What’s wrong, son?’ she asked. ‘I see you smile for the first time in days!’

‘F-fire!’ he said. He held up a piece of brown shell as large as his hand. One end of it had been worn away to a perfect point.

Most people got nervous on the night of a flesh meeting. They tossed in their sleep and in waking hours regretted enmities made with the tattooed hunters who could vote. Stopmouth was no different. He worried for Mother in spite of her obvious vigour. He’d heard from some of the women who’d seen her Tally stick that she wasn’t that old. But youth was never sufficient protection. All must be able to serve the Tribe, either in life or death. So, knowing he wouldn’t sleep anyway, he decided to keep working on his new spear-tips. He finally had the knack of it and made good progress.

By now, frequent handling of the blades had cut a grid of streets into his palms. He cursed as the larger piece of shell caught him again and again. However, eventually he succeeded in melting the tips onto a pair of straight shafts that Wallbreaker had given him for his first hunt. He still didn’t understand why the Armourbacks wouldn’t use their own shell for tools. But they were known for a fear of fire, so perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all.

At last Stopmouth fell asleep gazing at the finished product, overcome by the beauty of the leaf-shaped blades. All thoughts of the flesh meeting, his fears for his mother, sank with him into the darkness.

Thousands of charcoal drawings blackened the houses on Centre Square in the spaces between skulls and other trophies. And there was soot too, from the fires where people came to cook and tell the stories of the Tribe. These twelve buildings, three-storeyed and spacious, had seen John Spearmaker lift the first weapon. The sounds of the Traveller’s farewell speech had passed through their curtained doorways, soaking into the very walls that yet other Heroes had given their lives to defend. The Tribe, whose heart this place was, had come again to fill it with life. Children watched from every rooftop or squabbled for a spot on the ancient fountain at the very centre.

Chief Speareye’s wives had spread word of a Choosing. Extra guards manned the towers, but almost all the rest of the Tribe–perhaps as many as three thousand human beings–had turned up. Some people wouldn’t come, of course; would prefer to bring shame on their families by hiding. Sweat beaded many a brow, and tense speculations passed from mouth to mouth. People jostled and hugged their families close. Speareye climbed onto a platform made of hide and bones that had been set up outside his home. He swept back the patched mantle to reveal a torso of wild tattoos. Each represented an act of greatness in the story of his life. Speareye still hunted better than any of his rivals, but men whispered that his arm was slowing. They said he was grooming his son Waterjumper to take over. The boy, born a few hundred days before Stopmouth, stood awkwardly at his father’s side. He had yet to make a first kill, but his frame was filling out and already he had begun to take on the look of his father.

Nearby, tattooed hunters waited in case of need, all standing close to the platform. As Stopmouth pressed forward, he spotted Wallbreaker among them as well as the frightening Crunchfist, who was said to love Choosings and looked forward to them eagerly.

‘My people,’ cried Speareye. He recited the meaningless ritual, as every chief had before him, winning instant silence. ‘I need ten of you to come forward now so that the rest of us can make it Home. Who will act to spare the Tribe?’

‘I will.’ Stopmouth knew the speaker. Everyone had said Bonefire would volunteer this time. She no longer had a husband and her last son had disappeared during a recent hunt. Her daughter’s man had been feeding her, but with another baby on the way…People applauded and here and there muttered the formula: ‘How brave! She still had a thousand days in her!’

Bonefire stepped through the crowd and climbed onto the platform. She accepted Speareye’s kiss and the kisses of others who would miss her. Two more widows followed her into honour, along with a hunter whose broken leg had never healed properly. His young wife tried to stop him, screaming all the while. But the man limped onwards while others kept her back until she lapsed into helpless sobs.

‘We need six more, my people!’ shouted the chief. No one offered themselves. He seemed disappointed. The crowd grew restless. Some people looked around, others kept their heads down. Here and there, little groups hissed and argued. Stopmouth saw one frail woman being pulled in two directions by a family tug-of-war which ended with her staying put. Finally Speareye snapped his fingers. Hunters pushed into the crowd and grabbed several people. All were old or injured and all had been chosen at the flesh meeting the evening before.

‘I can still hunt!’ screamed one old man. It was Uncle Flimnose. Tears poured down his face, shaming the whole family. Stopmouth winced. The old man shouldn’t be crying, he should have known; Mother would have told him. The Tribe didn’t care how old a hunter was so long as his spear drank often. But the women who counted a man’s days knew by his Tally when his arms would start to weaken. It was their duty to help him leave the world with dignity and honour.

Some of those who knew Flimnose patted him in sympathy, but most looked away in disgust. Crunchfist barged through the crowd, a big smile on his face. He grabbed the wailing Flimnose by the hair and dragged him to the front.

Now there were ten ‘volunteers’ whose Tally sticks would be stored in the House of Honour.

‘Let’s pick the escort,’ cried Speareye.

It was an easy mission, though a grave one: a simple exchange of loved ones for food. Stopmouth stepped forward as his mother had asked. Four other hunters joined him: Waterjumper, son of the chief and not much older than himself; Linebrow and Burnthouse, two men of middle age and experience; and Rockface, who would lead.

The volunteers and escorts ate a meal together of dried Clawfolk flesh. Stopmouth offered to chew Uncle Flimnose’s for him but the old man refused to eat. Then, with those who could walk supporting the others, they set out for the Hairbeast district while the rest of the Tribe looked on in relieved, respectful silence.

Stopmouth spotted his mother at the edge of the crowd. He cut his thumb and carefully flicked a drop of blood towards her. She smiled. ‘Your blood has come back to me,’ she said, her face proud, ‘and so will you.’ People nearby nodded approvingly at the old ritual.

The first leg of the journey took the party to the perimeter of Man-Ways. They trudged down one of the four great streets leading from the square, past crumbling houses that leaned one against the other for support. Most were empty, their only visitors patrols and naughty children searching for ancient spearheads and scraps of rotted hides.

When the group passed the towers, guards peered down to see who’d volunteered.

And others were watching too. In many areas of the city the streets were made of water–Wetlanes, people called them. Blurred shapes waited beneath the surface, shapes that lived in a world every bit as competitive as the one above, and would pull a human under, given the chance. Beyond a metal bridge lay no-man’s-land. This was a wilderness between territories. Roads and knee-high walls slept here under blankets of thick moss, while fast-growing saplings defied human efforts to keep the area free of cover for hungry enemies.

Stopmouth’s heart beat faster. He’d come back this way less than ten days before when the Armourbacks had almost caught him. He had to work hard to control his terror, wondering if more experienced hunters ever felt the same or were just better at covering it.

Soon, red and purple branches arched overhead to block the light and a thousand tiny mossbeasts buzzed around every member of the party.

As they approached the Hairbeast district, Uncle Flimnose began to wail again and tried to hang back. Rockface frowned and shook his big head.

‘P-p-please, Uncle!’ Stopmouth whispered.

‘You just pray to the ancestors you never get old! So proud with your Armourback spear. Just you wait! I held you on my knee, I fed you and—’

‘Oh, hush!’ said Bonefire, the first volunteer. She was a tall, spindly woman and didn’t have much flesh on her. But the Hairbeasts wouldn’t mind: they prized human marrow above all other delicacies and would swap pups to get it. Sometimes they would even trade the flesh of rare and distant beasts that humans had never seen living.

‘That boy can’t be more than five thousand days old,’ Bonefire continued. ‘We had our chance. Let the young have theirs.’

The party stopped within sight of the first Hairbeast guard tower. ‘Strange,’ said Rockface. He shielded his eyes with one heavily tattooed hand. ‘I don’t see any sentinels.’

They advanced more cautiously. No Hairbeast walked in the first laneways of the district, but in the distance, great booming cries could be heard.

‘Never seen this before,’ said Linebrow, one of the other hunters. He was perhaps two thousand days older than Stopmouth. He had few tattoos, but a scar ran the length of his face, driving a wedge across the bridge of his nose. Rockface waved his spear at Stopmouth and Waterjumper, the youngest members of the party. ‘You two, move to the front! Use those sharp eyes of yours, hey? Waterjumper, if you see anything, call out. Stopmouth can’t always get his voice working.’

The streets stayed empty and the party’s nervousness grew. Everywhere, barrels lay overturned; pots of blood waited under half-finished murals. In one house they spotted a few mewling pups, without adults to look after them. The younger ones lacked fur entirely and still walked on all fours.