Stone spring

62

In the heart of Pretani’s endless forest, three big old oak trees stood tall around a clearing where hazel grew thick.

A young doe stepped out of the trees’ shade, wary in the light. Me watched from his vantage above.

Clearings of this size were rare in the forest, mostly made by the grounders with their fire. Open spaces meant danger. Yet the doe was drawn to the hazels’ lush leaves.

Me could smell her, smell the musky richness of her coat and the tang of her dung. His mouth watered at the thought of the red meat that lay under that fine coat. He hefted his weapon, a bit of branch broken off to leave a sharp point.

Shadows moved in the branches of other oak trees, one, two, Old and Mother. Two more Leafy Boys. The doe would not smell them, they had left no trace of their presence on the ground, for they had come this way through the canopy, moving from tree to tree.

The doe bent a slim neck and nibbled silently at a hazel.

A single leaf crackled.

The doe looked back over her shoulder. Her soft brown coat, her stillness, made her blend into the background, as if she was nothing but a pattern of light and shade herself.

It had been Old, in his tree. Me saw Mother cast a savage glare at him. Me barely breathed. He felt his heart beat heavy and slow in his chest.

After an unmeasured time the doe relaxed, subtly, and bent her head to her meal again.

Mother clenched her fist and pumped it down.

Me let go of the branches and dropped. He saw the others fall too, like pale, heavy fruit.

Me hit the ground on a bed of dead leaves and bracken. His legs flexed, absorbing the fall. Suddenly he was dazzled, in full unshaded sunlight, but he was ready.

But Old fell clumsily, landed heavily on his right arm, and cried out. The doe whirled. Me and Mother immediately began to move in. But Old was still down. The doe saw the gap and was through in a single bound.

Me glimpsed the doe only once more, her white tail disappearing into the forest shadows. It was already over.

Mother fell on Old. She yelled as she pummelled him with her fists. Old tried to defend himself, raising his left arm, but his right was bent awkwardly, and he screamed as he fell back on it.

Me shoved Mother back. He recoiled from the deep, savage anger that burned in her eyes. Nobody got as angry as Mother. But he faced her down. She snarled at him, teeth bared.

Then she leapt, slim, naked, strong, caught the lower branches of the nearest tree, and squirmed up out of sight. Me followed, climbing easily away from the dangers of the forest floor and the clearing. He glanced back once to see Old struggling to rise, his right arm dangling, like a grounder infant newly snatched from its mother, trying to stand. Mother, still angry, led them on a relentless journey, jumping and swinging from tree to tree. Even Me had trouble keeping up. Old, he could see, with his bad arm, soon fell behind. But Me wasn’t about to lose Mother and the protection of her company, and he chased her doggedly.

As the sun rolled across the sky and the shadows lengthened, they didn’t see anybody else, no other Leafies.

Leafy Boys had no home. It wasn’t a good idea for too many of them to gather in one place at one time. They were scattered through the forest, not organised, collecting in little hunting bands that formed and split up spontaneously. There was always a rush of noisy squabbling as people formed up. This wasn’t the best group Me had ever been in. People were wary of Old because of his age, and of Mother for her savagery and anger. Now Me looked forward to finding others and going off with somebody else. That wasn’t going to happen today, however.

As the shadows lengthened, Mother slowed at last.

She stopped at a particular tree, a big fat old oak. Me knew this tree, as he knew many of the forest’s best trees. With strong branches and thick foliage it was a good place to hide, and there was a spring at the bottom where you could drink.

He and Mother clambered down. It was only the second time he’d touched the ground in many days. They lapped at the spring. Mother found some mushrooms growing from a broken root. That would fill their bellies, but on a day when they had found no meat they would go hungry tonight. Me could tell Mother was still angry, in the hard, jerky way she broke up the mushrooms.

They were already clambering back up into the branches when Old turned up, moving stiffly and cautiously. Me looked down on him as he splashed water into his mouth with his good hand, and picked at what was left of the mushrooms. Mother snarled softly and spat a bit of mushroom at him, but she did not drive him away.

The three sat in the tree’s branches, silent. The sun dropped, and its light shone through the leaves, showing their fine veins and filling the canopy with a green light that dappled on the tree bark. Me held out his hand. Tiny discs formed on his palm, where the sun’s light peeked through the leaves. In the back of his head curiosity stirred. How did the discs get there? But the light faded, and soon there were no more discs on his hand, no more shadows.

Moving slowly, the three of them piled up dead leaves at the root of a fat branch, and lay down together, wriggling, trying to get comfortable. Mother was in the middle of the three. She was the strongest and so took the safest place, shielded by the bodies of the others.

As Me lay down, his belly to her back, her hard buttocks pushed into his groin and he felt his penis grow long. But he was hungry and would not have wished to rut, even if it had been someone other than Mother, who rutted with nobody. He turned away and relieved his hardness with a few strong tugs.

Then he closed his eyes, his back pressed against Mother’s, and tried to sleep, ignoring the hunger that gnawed at his stomach.

The Leafy Boys lived almost silently. They hunted, fought, pissed, shit, rutted, slept, and died, but they didn’t talk.

And they had no names for themselves. Me thought of himself as just that: Me, the centre of the world-forest. ‘Old’ had earned his label in Me’s head because he was a little older than the others. Few survived beyond two, three, four years after your body learned to rut; you grew too heavy, too stiff for the work of climbing, and you fell, or you were done in by the grounders. Old knew this. You could see the fear in his eyes when he woke in the morning.

As for ‘Mother’, she had once got a baby growing in her belly.

The Leafy Boys didn’t keep babies. They kept their numbers up by snatching grounder children. No Leafy girl had ever survived getting a baby in her belly – none but Mother. As the pregnancy developed she had hunted as hard as anybody else, until her belly was too big for her to move, and she had begun to starve because nobody would help her.

In the end, when the bloody water had gushed from between her legs, the others had driven her off with fists and sticks. Her clumsiness, her stink and her blood traces would make it impossible for them to hunt. Even the grounders might be able to smell her. So she had gone off alone, clambering through the canopy clumsily, her pain obvious. Me thought she would fall, and that would be that, and he would never see her again.

Some days later she came back, with her belly slack but empty. Again the others tried to drive Mother away, for she smelled strange, and had a bleakness in her eyes that scared everybody. But she had fought for her place. One had died, opposing her.

Since then Mother had hunted and fought as hard and skilfully as ever. But she would let no boy rut with her.

A few days after her return, Me, fascinated by this new, savage Mother, had followed the trail of drying blood she had left through the canopy. The little body he had found lodged in the crook of a branch had already been discovered by the birds, and it had no eyes, no tongue, and its tiny fingers had been pecked off. A kind of vine seemed to come out of its stomach, attaching it to a bloody mass. Ever since then he often thought of the child eyeless in a tree. In the silence of his head, she was for ever Mother.

In the night’s deepest dark the wind picked up. Me woke from an uneasy sleep. He heard a soft moan. It was Old, groaning for the pain of his damaged arm. Thick summer leaves rustled, and a branch creaked as it swayed, a deep, solemn sound.

A memory drifted into Me’s head. He was small and light and wrapped in furs, and he was held by a woman who smiled at him. He often fell asleep thinking of the woman’s smile, for then the cold didn’t seem so bad. He woke with a start.

The light was grey, the air still cool, and a fine dew lay on his cheek. It was not yet dawn. He felt Mother’s slim body behind him, heavy with sleep.

Yet something was wrong.

He sat up sharply. Mother stirred, resentfully waking. Old, curled up on himself, stayed unmoving, his bad arm cradled to his belly.

Me looked around, and listened to the rustle of the wind in the trees, and sniffed the air – and he smelled smoke. He looked downwind, to the north. A glow broke through the canopy, red like a sunrise. They had been unlucky. If it had been upwind they would have been wakened earlier. Already the fire was close, and the glow spread to left and right, as far as he could see.

Instantly Mother moved, abandoning the nest. She scurried along a branch and jumped to the next tree, moving south away from the approaching fire.

But Old still lay sleeping. Me hesitated for one agonising heartbeat. Then he kicked Old in the small of the back. Old, flustered and frightened, limbs flailing, winced at the pain of his damaged arm.

Then Me turned and fled, after Mother, not looking back for Old.

He barely looked ahead, beyond the next branch, the next tree. He had no need to, for the canopy went on for ever and there was always another tree to escape to. All that mattered was the next branch, the only danger losing a foothold or a grip.

Fires weren’t that uncommon. They were started by storms, by lightning strikes. In spring or early summer especially when dead ferns and bracken and leaves carpeted the undergrowth, a fire could spread quickly. But there had been no storm, he realised vaguely. And this was midsummer, not spring.

He thought he was outrunning the fire. The smell of smoke, and a faint sound of crackling and popping, receded behind him. Yet unease remained. Something was wrong.

The net was slung between two giant oaks. He barely saw it before he went flying into it, and his whole body was tangled up as if in thick ivy.

He fell from the tree and plummeted hard against the ground, landing all wrong. Winded, tangled up, he tried to stand.

Hands grabbed him and pulled him down. Huge dark shapes loomed around him. He remembered another time when he was grabbed, taken away from a smiling face, hands stealing him up into the green. Now he was pulled down to the earth.

He heard a scream. Mother.

Then a heavy foot slammed into the pit of his stomach, and he folded over the pain.