Stone spring

19

The hunters were up early the next morning, before the glow of the night’s fire had been conquered by the gathering light of dawn.

Ana pushed her head out of the lean-to she shared with Arga. She could make out hunters from the snailhead camp, already waiting by the bend of the river that separated the two camps. Closer by, Shade was pressing his spear point against the ground to test the rope-and-resin attachment of the head to its wooden shaft. Gall was by the urine pit, noisily emptying his bladder over the deer skin. And Zesi was at the edge of the hearth, scooping up grey ash and rubbing it over her face and arms, the better to hide in the shadows of the forest. The snailheads had been surprised that Etxelur women hunted.

When they were ready, bearing their day packs and their weapons, the Pretani, Zesi and a handful of Etxelur folk walked up the riverbank to join the snailheads. The hunters had a soft-voiced discussion about the day’s strategy, and then they slipped into the shadows of the trees.

Ana could have gone along. She had chosen not to; a day without Gall, Shade or Zesi would be a relief. She went back to the warmth of her pallet of leaves and soft doe skin, to sleep a bit more. She heard nothing more of the hunters until the sun was past its noon height.

‘Look out!’

The single cry in the Etxelur tongue was all the warning they had.

The women from Etxelur had been burning off reeds from the marshy land around the river. A pall of smoke rose high into the air, and the smell of ash was strong. The fire flushed out hare and vole and wildfowl that the children chased with nets of woven bark, and the burning would stimulate new growth.

Meanwhile Ana was on the bank of the lagoon with Arga, collecting club rushes. These were particularly prized plants, for you could eat all of them, their stems and seeds and fat tubers, and would be useful to carry back to Etxelur. Lightning had been digging his nose into their work and running off with tubers, to scoldings from Arga.

When that shout came Lightning reacted immediately, turning to face the forest and barking madly.

And Ana heard a rumble, like thunder, coming from the forest.

Arga tugged her sleeve. ‘I can feel it in my stomach. What is it?’

Ana saw shadows in the forest. Heard branches cracking. ‘Run!’ She dropped her flint blade and basket of rushes. She grabbed Lightning by the scruff of his neck, took Arga’s hand, and ran downstream, along the eroded bank.

The animal came crashing through the trees, hooves pounding on the peaty turf, gruffly bellowing its pain. Ana dared to glance back, and she saw it emerge into the sunlight, a huge aurochs bull, thick brown hair, flashing horns, wild rolling eyes, frothing mouth. And she saw a spear dangling from its flanks. The question was, which genius had stampeded it towards the camp?

Then the animal reached the river – the lagoon, where she and Arga had been working only heartbeats before. It crashed forward and fell, landing so hard its head was twisted right around, with a crunch like breaking wood. It struggled and bellowed, but did not rise.

Now the hunters came boiling out of the trees after it, yelling, half-naked, some brandishing spears, Etxelur, Pretani, snailhead together.

‘Come on.’ The priest was beside Ana. He handed her a spear; she took it by the shaft. ‘We’ll help them finish him off.’

She glanced around quickly. The children were out of harm’s way here. ‘Keep hold of Lightning,’ she told Arga. The child nodded seriously. Then Ana ran with the priest to the lagoon. ‘You’ll have a lot of apologising to do today, Jurgi.’

‘I’m good at that.’

The hunters and those who had come running from both camps gathered around the fallen bull. The animal, trapped, squirming, was a mass of muscle and fur, tossed horns and lashing hooves, anger and pain and mud and blood and flying water. Ana could smell how its bowels had loosened in terror, and there was a harder rust stink of blood. More spears were hurled at it, or thrust into its flesh.

Then one spear went flying over the lagoon, high in the air, following a smooth arc. Ana watched it curiously, absently. It was going to miss the bull by a long way. The spear seemed to hang.

Then it fell among the snailheads.

A man went down, the heavy spear in his neck. Few saw this, in the chaos of the slaughter. But those near the man reacted and ran that way.

Ana dropped her own spear and hurried over.

It was Gut, the snailhead who had enraged Gall. The spear had got him in the throat, thrown him back and pinned him to the ground. His mouth with that studded tongue gaped wide, full of blood. He was still alive, his fingers feebly thrashing at a spear big enough to penetrate to the heart of a bull aurochs. Alive, but already lost to the world of the living.

Knuckle stood over his brother, face contorted, veins throbbing along the flanks of his long temples. ‘Where is Gall? Where is he?’