Stone spring

68

Me was prodded awake in the usual way, by a wooden spear shaft in the small of the back.

He sat up. He had barely slept. He was stiff from lying on the dew-soaked grass with the others. The tether was tight around his neck.

Above him the branches of a big spreading oak obscured the grey light of morning. But he was under the tree and not in it, for the grounders would not let the Leafy Boys climb. And this isolated tree stood in a clearing. It was agony for any Leafy Boy to be trapped down on open ground. Even when he started to move and got the stiffness out, the dread would linger.

The grounder who had prodded him walked around, kicking or poking the other Leafies. Then he paused by the side of the tree, propped his spear up against the trunk, and opened his hide trousers. Me saw his thick piss spray in the air, bouncing off the trunk, the golden droplets oddly beautiful where they caught the light. Then the grounder walked off to where his fellows had spent the night, gathered around their fire.

The other Leafies stirred, a dozen small forms emerging from heaps of dead leaves. They were all naked, filthy, miserable, and they all had tethers tied tight around their necks, fixed to a single stake in the ground. One girl moved stiffly, and Me saw from the bruises on her thighs and small breasts that the grounders had come for her in the night. He had a vague memory of a disturbance, a rustling of leaves, a scream muffled by a hand over a mouth. He had just lain still, thankful that it was not him.

Another grounder came over with a hide sack and dumped out a pile of offal, twisting grey guts. Before the grounder had turned his back the Leafies fell on it. The offal was tough and tasteless and the stomach contents were acrid, but the Leafies fought and snarled over it like pigs, their small backsides in the air, their faces red with blood. Me used his weight and strength to shove little ones aside. He was not shy; if you didn’t fight you went hungry. Sometimes the grounders let their dogs go for the food, so you had to fight them off as well.

Me saw one small boy pushed out of the feeding group. This hungry little boy had been losing the fight for food for days, and was starting to look pale, scrawny. He pawed at his tether. The grounders wet the knot by pissing on it before tightening it, and when it dried out the rope contracted, making it impossible to pick apart even with a Leafy’s small clever fingers. If they saw the boy trying the grounders would knock out his teeth; he would live, but he’d starve.

When the food was gone, the Leafies got as far from each other as they could, and began to perform their pisses and shits. Me, squatting, was ferociously thirsty, but the grounders never brought water. The Leafies would have to find what they could for themselves in the course of the day. Some days, in fact, they were left tethered where they had been during the night and not moved at all, and Me would finish the day enraged by thirst.

But today, it seemed, was not going to be one of those days.

The grounders were already moving. One of them kicked dirt over the fire. The others lifted their hide cloaks over their shoulders, and picked up their spears, and tucked knives into their skins. They started shouting, laughing, throwing punches at each other. Me, with a shudder of dread, recognised their mood. It was going to be another day of running and fighting and killing, and the grounders were getting themselves ready.

One of the grounders came over to the Leafies. He slashed through their tethers, wrapped the ropes around his wrist, and snarled at the children until they moved.

The grounders formed up and set off across the clearing at a heavy jog. The Leafies, driven ahead, ran in the horror of the open air. If one of them stumbled the reward was a kick or a prod with a stabbing spear.

But as Me ran, as always, the cold of the night worked out of his bones and muscles, his legs pumping, the breath sliding into his lungs. Me was young and healthy. He would have enjoyed the run, if not for the sheer terror of the openness, and the uncertainty of what was to come. Before the sun was much higher in the sky they came to a landscape that was even stranger to the Leafy Boys, a place where water glimmered everywhere, in streams and ponds choked with reeds, and shallow islands rose up, and there was scarcely a scrap of forest.

The grounders charged on, making for the bits of high ground, driving the Leafies on through mud and marsh and shallow open water. Soon Me’s bare legs were soaked, and clinging mud dragged at his feet. Huge flocks of birds rose up and flapped away, cawing their disapproval, and the air was full of noise and sprayed water. All the Leafies were terrified. But when he got the chance Me scooped up water, shook out the living things that swam in it, and sucked it down his dry throat.

One boy went down in a flooded gully, gurgling in terror. Me saw it was the little boy who hadn’t been able to fight for the food. The grounder holding the tethers had to stop and drag the boy’s scrawny body out of the murk, yelling with anger and impatience. But after a few paces the boy fell again. The handler hauled him up once more and shook him.

The boy spewed water from his mouth. He reached out to the grounder, like a baby reaching for its mother.

The handler thrust the boy into the water, driving down his neck with his strong outstretched arm. One of the other grounders called over. The handler shouted back, laughing, keeping his arm in place. When he raised his arm again the boy dangled, his tongue sticking out of his mouth, his lips blue. The grounder dropped him in the water, cut the tether with a slice of his knife, and turned to run on.

Me and the others had no choice but to follow. He knew he would never think of the boy again. They approached one of the larger islands. There were grounders living here. Me could see houses, squat cones plastered with dried reeds, with smoke seeping out. A bigger fire burned in an open hearth, and there were stands where fish and eels were drying. Boats clustered, broad, flat-bottomed, some dragged up onto the dry land, some on the water where men pushed them to and fro with long poles. There were grounders everywhere, adults working in the water or loading eel on the racks or just lazing around, and children, many naked, their skinny legs muddy.

This was the target, then. The grounders and Leafies ran on without breaking stride.

A woman with a basket of fish saw them first. She just stared, for a long heartbeat. Then, yelling warnings, she dropped her basket and plunged into the water to grab one of the children.

More adults came out of the houses. Some of the men ran to a stack of weapons, like spears but with hooked points, perhaps meant for catching fish. One man, on a raft floating on the water, poled desperately to get away from the island.

All of this was too late, for the grounders were almost on them.

They let the Leafies go in first. Me scrambled up a shallow muddy beach. Children ran screaming, but Me charged through a pack of them, using his fists to slam them aside.

Soon Me and the others were in among the houses. Adults turned to face them, armed with spears and clubs. The girl who had been used during the night was close to Me, and she seemed filled with rage. She leapt at a man who was swinging a club. Me joined her, going for the man’s legs as her lithe body wrapped around his neck. The man got in one blow with his club that winded Me, but then the girl’s teeth were in his throat.

And now the grounders were on the island, roaring and laughing as they swung their weapons. Me saw one island boy armed with a spear, facing a grounder. The grounder stumbled, and the boy had a moment of advantage. But he hesitated. With a swing of the blunt end of his spear the grounder smashed the boy’s skull.

Now dogs came running through the houses, snarling and snapping, to take on the Leafies. Me got hold of a dead man’s club and swung it at the animals.

The air was filled with screams and cries, with the crunch of bone and the howling of the dogs, and the stink of blood.