The Inferior (25 page)

As night fell, Stopmouth met with about forty other hunters on top of the building at the base of the U. Here the roof was lower by half a man’s height than the roofs of the ‘arms’ to either side, and as his people arrived, he heard them jumping down: the slap of many feet on a mossless surface; the murmur of curious voices.

He was bitterly disappointed to see that Rockface hadn’t come, in spite of a big effort to get him involved. Of those who had turned up, perhaps a dozen had accompanied Yama and were so young they’d never have been allowed to hunt at home. Indrani was there too, and often as Stopmouth talked, the men’s eyes would slide in her direction, making him grit his teeth. Adding to this was the sight of Varaha sitting near her. He looked at her most often of all. She only glowered in return. It was as if something had happened between the two of them to which Stopmouth wasn’t privy. An argument perhaps. The thought should have cheered him, but did not. Varaha and Indrani were each perfect examples of their sex. A couple, Stopmouth thought, that just hadn’t realized it yet.

Indrani introduced a pair of younger women she’d brought along with her.

‘These two tell me they know how to use a sling,’ she said. ‘Their father gave exhibitions in the ancient martial arts of his ancestors.’

‘Have they ever killed with their slings?’

Indrani snorted. ‘We should take what we can get, Stopmouth, and be grateful for it.’

The two women–Sodasi and Kamala–bowed before him. They were pretty and their deference flustered him. He’d forgotten that many of these people considered him a chief. He pulled Indrani to one side and asked her if she’d heard the same thing. She seemed very agitated, perhaps as a result of her possible falling out with Varaha.

‘Well, of course you’re the chief, Stopmouth.’

‘But I’m not like Speareye—’

‘No, because he’s not here. You are. Now stop waiting for people to be quiet. Tell them to shut up.’

‘Are…are you all right, Indrani?’

‘Of course I am. Now, if you want these fools to live, you’d better give them orders, because you’re the only one who knows what needs to be done.’

She was right. The chief was supposed to be the guide, the great provider. He looked up. ‘Please,’ he began. And then, ‘Quiet!’

As Indrani had promised, they settled down. It was like magic. He looked around from face to face. Their skin shone silver under the tracklights, glistening here and there where cool drops of Roofsweat had hit them.

‘Sooner or later,’ he began, ‘a large number of beasts will come here to finish what they started.’ The men looked up at him with dark, foreign eyes. Many, such as Kubar, the ex-holy man, creased their brows. But not Yama. The boy was grinning his lopsided grin and nudging his followers.

‘Thanks to Indrani’–scowls on faces everywhere–‘we’ve made this place so dangerous for them that if they attack us in force, they’ll suffer heavy losses. The night we fled from the square—’

‘We won that night!’ said Yama. Others nodded and cheered and Stopmouth hadn’t the heart to contradict them.

‘That same night,’ he said, ‘a small group of beasts attacked this place and got rocks thrown down on their heads.’ Another cheer. ‘And we could do it again. We could hold off ten times those numbers…But it wouldn’t do us any good.’

He paused to see if they’d understood.

‘Surely,’ said Varaha, ‘if we teach them to leave us alone…’

‘Oh yes, we’ll teach them that,’ Stopmouth continued. ‘But not yet.’

Forty men and three women stared at him in puzzlement.

‘When Indrani drove the enemy away from here, she and the other defenders stayed up on the roof. They pushed rocks over the parapets and twice they had to roll them down the stairs. They made maybe five kills. If they’d come out from hiding instead, if they’d engaged in hand to hand, the beasts would have butchered them all, even Rockface. Anybody can push a rock, but not all are skilled with the spear.’

‘We only had one spear!’ said Indrani, glaring at him.

‘It’s not an insult, Indrani! You did what you had to do! As I said, you’d have been killed.’

Yama interrupted him. ‘They didn’t kill us when we charged into the alley!’

Stopmouth nodded. ‘We did well that night. But I tell you, if we’d followed them all the way back to the square, they’d be eating us even now; Skeletons and Fourleggers fighting over our guts.’

A shiver ran through the audience and Stopmouth was glad of it. ‘My point is this: after Indrani’s victory here, the enemy didn’t leave any bodies behind them. Not one! Back home, when a hunter claimed to have killed a beast, people asked to see the flesh. If he couldn’t produce it, if he’d come without it, we cursed him for a wastrel and a coward. Back home…in my old home, “a waster” is the worst thing you can call somebody, even worse than calling him a “hoarder”. Do you see? Killing is pointless if it doesn’t feed us. We need to eat. Flesh is life, and a victory that leaves us hungry is just another defeat. That’s why I say now, when the beasts come for us over the next few days–and they will come; they
will
!–we’ll leave the others to mind children and drop rocks. You and I have other business.’ He paused for breath, surprised by the rivers of sweat on his skin, amazed they were still listening. ‘We will make sure that every beast who dies here stays here. None can escape, none! Your Tribe…
our
Tribe will survive!’

They cheered him, rushing over with back slaps and hugs and hopeful eyes. Their words were becoming unintelligible, however. Indrani had the Talker with her and she was walking back to her orphans. Varaha too had disappeared.

20.

WELCOME TO THE TRIBE

‘G
ood throw,’ said Stopmouth. Most spears had landed close to the target, although only Varaha’s had pierced the rust-coloured skin. As always, he grinned, flexing his muscles to make his comrades laugh. Stopmouth’s mind kept going over and over a conversation he’d had with the man before. Varaha had said he wanted to take a wife, but had refused to name her. ‘This woman is a delicate matter,’ he’d said. Stopmouth couldn’t get those words out of his head.

‘Gather up your spears,’ he said.

That’s when the children started screaming. Stopmouth’s blood turned cold. Had the great attack come already and caught them unprepared? He gripped his own spear and started running for the alley that opened into Headquarters. He’d forgotten to order the men to follow, but he heard them coming on behind him. He dodged round half-built walls at the mouth of the alley and passed out of the glare into darkness, trying desperately to see what was going on.

The screams tailed off as he entered the main hall, to be replaced now by shouting. He slowed, the hunters crowding in behind him. As his eyes adjusted, he made out the figure of Yama, waving his spear dangerously in the faces of those around him while children snivelled.

‘What’s going on here?’ asked Stopmouth.

Amazingly they all stopped talking at once. He covered up his surprise by looking around. The elder Kubar was here, scowling through his beard. Other adults stood with him, including Indrani, her orphans spread out behind her. And there was something else, but the light…

His stomach flip-flopped. ‘What’s that?’

Nobody spoke. The creature was smaller than most of the surviving children. It had rust-coloured skin, Digger-like claws and a triangular head with tiny eyes on moveable stalks at the top. A Fourlegger, an infant. It couldn’t be anything else.

‘Kill that at once,’ he said, appalled.

‘What do you think I’ve been trying to do?’ cried Yama.

The children all wailed and many of the adults shook their heads. ‘Are we to murder children now too?’ said Kubar. ‘We found it clinging to its mother, who, I might add, you probably slaughtered. What harm can the creature do? The children love it. They need something like this after what they’ve been through.’

Stopmouth shook his head, wondering if he’d ever teach these people survival. For all he knew they’d been hiding the thing since the battle of the alley.

‘Do you want me as chief or not?’ he asked.

None of them said anything, but most nodded and the hunters behind him murmured their assent.

‘Then stand back,’ he said. ‘All of you. Go ahead, Yama.’ Stopmouth would content himself with watching because he knew how keen the boy was to get a kill of his own.

Yama grinned. ‘I’m going to cut you, little Fourlegger,’ he said. ‘I’ll cut you slowly.’

The small creature dodged in amongst the weeping children. ‘I’ll rip those eye-stalks right off your head…’

Stopmouth remembered his own terror lying on the raft. He remembered the white Wetlane beasts calmly discussing how they meant to kill him while the Talker translated every word. It had been an appalling experience.

‘Just…just do it, Yama, don’t talk about it.’

Yama caught up with the little Fourlegger and might have speared it. Instead, he seemed content to whack it with the shaft so that he might chase it further. He struck it again, sending it tumbling in amongst a group of orphans, his face alive with excitement. But when he’d pushed the children aside, he found it had gone.

‘Why didn’t you just kill it?’ asked Stopmouth, trying to control his fury.

‘I…’

Stopmouth felt something scratch the back of his leg. He turned to find that the Fourlegger was using his body as a shield. He picked it up, not quite sure what he meant to do with it. It wasn’t even as long as his arm. Its body felt warm on his skin and it shook as a child might when afraid.

‘You do it quickly,’ he said to Yama, ‘or I’m giving the job to somebody else. You don’t play with death because it always wins.’

‘I will,’ said Yama. ‘Quickly. It won’t get away again.’

At that moment, Stopmouth felt something warm and wet on his hands. At first he thought it was blood. Some of the adults smiled in spite of themselves. A child giggled.

‘Filthy thing,’ said Yama. ‘Give it here.’

Stopmouth hesitated. How often had he seen this? Human infants wetting themselves, soaking the adult holding them while everybody laughed? This creature…this baby should have been killed the moment they’d found it. But instead it had been playing with human children for days, sharing flesh, sharing warmth.

‘Enough,’ he said.

Yama seemed not to listen. His eyes were wide with excitement. He grabbed the Fourlegger by its slender neck and thrust with his spear.

Stopmouth pulled the beast out of the way. Then, with his free hand, he tore the boy’s weapon from him and pushed him to the ground.

‘Enough, I said!’

Yama scrambled to his knees. His eyes took in all the staring faces around him. ‘What kind of a chief are you?’ he cried. ‘You’re a joke. A joke! You can’t even make these old ones volunteer.’ He climbed to his feet and pushed his way through to the stairs, pausing once at the doorway. There were tears on his cheeks and his voice cracked as he spoke. ‘Where are the tattoos? Where are the wives?’ Then he was gone.

The room fell quiet. Stopmouth put the Fourlegger down carefully. ‘Welcome to the Tribe, little one,’ he said. Everybody applauded, but all he wanted was to clean his hands. Yama’s right, he kept thinking. I’m a fool.

Beast flesh turned on makeshift spits until the air filled with delicious scents. The Tribe was using the last of the food from the alley before it rotted and the whole thing had turned into a feast, with singing and jokes. Everyone was eating their fill. Laughter drifted from group to group as people worked hard to forget their awful new life and the imminent attack that would probably end it.

‘Go on!’ somebody shouted, soon joined by others. They urged a lovely girl out onto the lowest roof. She seemed shy at first. However, when she started singing, her voice was as rich as the flesh of a Hairbeast pup and her haunting words had everybody crying for their lost home.

‘This is your home now,’ Stopmouth told himself, angrily wiping his eyes. Tomorrow he would carry out his plan. The trained hunters–the best of a bad lot–would go to their hiding places and might well be stuck there for days. Most likely they’d be slaughtered. But they
had
to try.

The girl bowed to cheers and Kubar took her place. His gravelly voice told the story of some kind of spirit that could take human form. People stared in rapt attention, but even with the Talker, the new chief couldn’t really see the point of it. He was relieved when Indrani came over to sit beside him.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You’ll like the next bit.’ And he did. This Tribe had no drums to play, but people made music with their mouths and women–only women–danced. Their hands moved in intricate patterns, flexing constantly at the wrist. They twirled in place, smiles lighting them up and hiding their worries.

‘Why don’t you dance?’ Stopmouth asked Indrani.

‘I don’t know how.’

‘Just wave your hands about. It can’t be hard.’

Indrani laughed. A real laugh such as he hadn’t heard from her in the longest time. He didn’t want her to dance anyway. They sat together as they had in the days after they’d first met, their bodies so close he could feel the warmth of her skin. Oh, to put his arm around her! But he didn’t want to spoil the dream, especially now that he feared she loved somebody else.

‘Every one of those movements has a precise meaning,’ she said. ‘Believe me, neither you nor I will be dancing with this lot any time soon.’

They ate and listened to the strange music. Afterwards Indrani put her hand on his chin and turned his face towards hers.

‘Stopmouth, I came here tonight to apologize.’

‘About wh—’

She shushed him. ‘Let me say my piece before I lose my nerve, all right? What you did with the Fourlegger…’ All of a sudden she hugged him. She whispered, ‘I am an idiot, Stopmouth. Blind. Anybody can be civilized in a civilized place. But you…to overcome all that and…’ She couldn’t finish the thought. Carefully he surrounded her with his own arms, hardly daring to believe that she wouldn’t pull away.

When the fires burned low, grey-haired men and women walked from hearth to hearth visiting. They only spoke to others of the same age.

‘I think we’ll have some weddings soon,’ murmured Indrani against his shoulder. ‘Spirit-lovers are so backward they have to get their parents to set it up for them!’

Stopmouth tensed. ‘And what do your people do?’

The sound of her voice carried a smile. ‘I don’t know about the men, but we women wait for a hunter with a bulging loincloth to come and sweep us off our feet.’

Stopmouth swallowed. ‘Um, any hunter?’

He felt her shaking against him in the dark and for a moment he thought she was crying for some lost hunter of her own Tribe. But then the laughter escaped and his face burned. He was totally at a loss about what to do until he remembered the line the older hunters at home had told him to say in this situation: ‘I’ll be gentle.’

She fell over, laughing all the harder. Eventually it stopped, and when she turned to face him again, her good humour seemed to have become mixed up with other, less cheerful emotions.

‘You should pray to your ancestors, Stopmouth, that
I
will be gentle with you.’

She bent close to him and pressed her mouth to his, warmth against warmth, her lips so soft. Stopmouth heard gasps from somewhere behind him. Indrani sighed and pulled away. ‘I’m a little too…too modern for these people. Or too primitive.’

She took him by the hand away from the fire until they found an undisturbed corner at the base of the U where somebody had dumped swathes of pounded moss.

He tried to pull her to him again but Indrani resisted, confusing him.

‘I’m not my brother,’ he said.

Bizarrely it turned out to be the right thing to say. She relaxed, and together they lay down and kissed, hands roaming, bodies pressed together.

Later, much later it seemed, he rested on his back while his body cooled and drops of Roofsweat mingled with his own.

He watched the tracklights until they blurred under his drooping eyelids. Home at last, he thought. People around him again and a woman to hold. An amazing woman such as his ancestors might have loved. But something still bothered him.

‘Why me?’ he asked. ‘Why not…Why not Varaha?’

She opened her eyes. She seemed fully awake all of a sudden. ‘What has
he
got to do with anything?’

The venom in her voice was such that he knew the man was no rival to him and he dropped the subject. Soon the beautiful woman,
his
woman, relaxed into sleep.