The Inferior

by Peadar O'Guilin

  He bit his lip.

  ‘No, listen, Stopmouth. You can’t stay a boy for ever. I had a friend when I was unmarried. Brighttooth. You know Brighttooth, don’t you?’

  Stopmouth knew her and she wasn’t Mossheart. He shook his head and guided Mossheart firmly to the stairway. He assured her before she left that he’d take Wallbreaker hunting with the others in two days’ time.

  Afterwards he paced around the roof for an hour. Then he took out some Armourback shell and set to work replacing the spear he’d left behind in Hairbeast-Ways.

  Stopmouth went to watch some of the tattooed men–some of the other tattooed men!–sparring in Centre Square. Their feet shuffled clouds of dust into the air which plastered itself to their sweaty skin. He saw Wallbreaker twirling his spear twice before tapping Roughnose–a man with seven tattoos–on the leg. As he skipped free, he caught his opponent again on the neck. Roughnose laughed and Stopmouth found himself smiling too. No one ever got near his brother. No one ever had. He had muscles faster than slingstones and a mind agile enough to use them. People said he’d finish his life with so many tattoos they’d need to put some on his tongue to find room.

  In thirty hunts, no creature had so much as scratched him. Not until the Armourbacks caught him that day in the Hairbeast district.

  The men punched shoulders after their bout. Both smiled, but Wallbreaker’s joy died on seeing Stopmouth. He approached anyway.

  ‘Come to my house, brother.’

  They walked in silence down a mossy path between buildings where Clawfolk chittered as they finished off a wounded Flyer. Normally the men would have stayed to watch. Instead, they stepped into a sturdy little house jammed between larger buildings. Wallbreaker and his wife had it all to themselves.

  ‘Mossheart’s off pounding moss with the other married women,’ said Wallbreaker.

  He didn’t offer Stopmouth any refreshment, nor did he invite him onto the roof. Instead, he kicked a few Flim hides into the far corner of the room beside a pair of Tally sticks. One of them must have been Wallbreaker’s own, where his age was marked for him every day by a faithful and loving wife. Trophies of every kind–skulls, bones, shells–stared down from the walls. Best of all was the complete head of a Bloodskin dipped in berry juice to preserve it. Wallbreaker had won all these himself, but none recently. When he turned to face Stopmouth, his eyes were hard.

  ‘Mossheart confessed.’

  ‘C-con—?’

  ‘We don’t need your charity, Stopmouth. You’re supposed to take care of Mother now.’

  ‘I c-can t-take—’

  ‘And you need to start raising a bride price so you can get a wife.’ He paused to look Stopmouth in the eye. ‘Your own wife.’

  Stopmouth felt his mouth go dry. The two brothers, who discussed everything, had never argued over Mossheart. They both wanted her, but knew there could only ever be one winner and who that winner must be. Wallbreaker had never been triumphalist about it before now, or cruel. So it took a dozen heartbeats for his words to sink in. Then Stopmouth nodded and turned to go.

  ‘Wait!’

  Stopmouth felt hands on his shoulders. He tried to shrug them off, but Wallbreaker was stronger and he pulled Stopmouth into an embrace.

  ‘I’m sorry. So sorry, brother.’ The embrace grew firmer. ‘I don’t know why I left you that day. All I could think of was their spears in my back–the thought of their beaks in my skin, tearing me apart while I lived.’ Stopmouth felt his brother shudder. ‘I fled. I didn’t see they’d chased you and…I’m sorry–I didn’t care; I–I wasn’t able to care. I just ran and didn’t stop shaking for two tenths after I got home. I’d never abandon you, Stopmouth. Never. I swear it.’

  Stopmouth felt the hug grow tighter and eventually he let his body grow limp. He knew he had his brother back and the world made sense again. When he could trust himself to speak, he said, ‘You n-need to h-hunt.’

  Wallbreaker took a deep breath. ‘We’ll discuss this next time, brother.’ He no longer seemed so keen to keep Stopmouth from leaving, but the younger brother wouldn’t be put off.

  ‘D-day after t-t-tomorrow. W-we’re g-going.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Wallbreaker.

  Stopmouth shook his head. ‘D-day after tomorrow or v-v-volunteer.’

  Wallbreaker stared at Stopmouth as if the thought had never occurred to him that the great Wallbreaker, future hero of the Tribe, could be asked to volunteer. Finally he nodded, but the terror in his eyes was unmistakable.

  4.

  THE BLOODSKIN RAID

  The mist of morning had just started to clear. People were gathering in Centre Square to hear talk of the strange and sinister happenings in Hairbeast-Ways. Mothers dandled children in the shade of skull-covered buildings while young men–making sure the unmarried girls could see them–jostled each other and pushed forward through the blackened sticks and bones of old fires towards the platform. More experienced hunters with families chafed at being kept away from the never-ending quest for prey. Still, they too were worried. Their task had become even harder now that a whole territory seemed closed to them.

  Chief Speareye projected an air of calm. He smiled at his people and waved them silent. But just as he opened his mouth to speak, a great whoosh filled the air. Under the Roof, two formations of Globes swept towards each other from opposite ends of the world. Fire and beams of light leaped between them and the crowd cried out in surprise and no little worry at the ferocity of the hunt. Stopmouth felt his jaw go slack–this must have happened the day he’d saved Wallbreaker from the Armourbacks. A sight such as this had distracted his enemies.

  One of the Globes suddenly spun higher and exploded. A heartbeat later the watching humans heard the sound of it and saw a huge, perfectly square section of the sky turn black. Beams of light licked out from the other Globes until more of them burst into flames and fragments hurtled down upon the world. Nobody moved until a piece of metal the size of a head landed on a boy in the middle of the crowd, and suddenly everyone was screaming and running for shelter even as the earth rocked with further impacts. More pieces rained down on the Ways, rattling against the roofs of houses, bringing wails from terrified children. A fragment the size of five men plunged into a Wetlane and sent clouds of steam over the tops of the guard towers.

  Finally one of the Globe formations fled towards a far section of the Roof. The other followed and soon the air was free of them again. Only one human had died, but it was a full tenth before any of them crept out from their shelters.

  Night fell and grids of tiny tracklights on the Roof cast the world into shadow. Fires of moss and bone flickered all over Centre Square and hissed under drops of Roofsweat. On the largest roasted the body of the boy who’d died when the Globes fought. Relatives and friends of the family sat around the other fires in sombre mood while the smell filled their eyes with tears and their mouths with saliva.

  For once Wallbreaker wasn’t talking much. He’d found a piece of metal from the battle as big as two hands. He poked at it with slivers of bone and bashed at it with rocks. Nobody else wanted the stuff, except for one of Speareye’s wives, who’d wound fragments of it into her hair to catch the firelight. Stopmouth expected others to follow her lead within days.

  Wallbreaker kept pounding at his prize until a finger-sized piece came away to reveal a dozen strands of metal hair underneath. He didn’t notice that Mossheart seemed to be losing patience with his investigations. She caught Stopmouth’s eye.

  Stopmouth nodded back. He knew what she wanted.

  ‘Wallbreaker?’

  ‘Yes, Stopmouth.’ Clunk!

  ‘R-r-remember, tomorrow w-we h-hunt?’

  Wallbreaker was still pounding at the metal and mightn’t have heard. Stopmouth opened his mouth to speak again, but just then the hunter, Roofhead, approached their fire with a shell-plate full of steaming meat. The man kept his composure as he offered the food around. Each person whispered a word of condolence before taking a
token sliver of the dead boy’s flesh. Most would be left for what remained of the family.

  Roofhead thanked them and moved on.

  Stopmouth tried again: ‘W-Wallbreaker?’

  At that moment Wallbreaker gasped. ‘Look! Mossheart, Stopmouth, look!’ He held the metal he’d been working on up to the firelight.

  ‘I don’t see anything special,’ said Mossheart.

  ‘Oh, but it is special!’ said Wallbreaker. ‘Watch this. Watch it carefully.’

  He hit the metal with a rock. A small piece came away but remained attached to the rest by a few delicate, silver hairs. Wallbreaker pushed the fragment back into its original position. ‘Look now!’ he said. They did. Stopmouth stared and stared, but saw no difference.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ said Mother, though she smiled fondly as she spoke.

  ‘Nothing?’ asked Wallbreaker. He turned the piece of metal upside down and shook it for all he was worth. ‘Where is it then? Where’s the piece I broke off?’

  Sure enough, the fragment had moulded itself back into its original position with no sign of a break. ‘I-it h-healed itself,’ said Stopmouth. ‘Just like a broken bone did sometimes, but quick and clean!’ The whole family laughed together as they hadn’t done in tens of days. They all scrabbled around for pieces of metal of their own, stopping only when Speareye’s youngest wife, Housear, stood up to perform the funeral ceremony.

  She was pregnant, of course: pregnant women carried out all the Tribe’s sacred rituals. When other women pounded moss for clothing, they were the ones to lead the time-keeping chants. When a man needed luck, a gift to a pregnant woman might persuade her to draw charcoal pictures of Armourbacks or Flims with his spear in their bellies, or, in extreme cases, she might call on one of the great ancestors to possess the hunter in his hour of need. Mossheart would be able to do the same when she started to show. She would also be one of those who confirmed the names of children old enough to have acquired them. The child’s mother would then have to keep track of its age on a new Tally stick.

  Housear cleared her throat and opened her mouth to speak. But no words emerged. Instead, her eyes widened. Everybody turned to see a large group of Hairbeasts shuffling into Centre Square. Stopmouth counted fifteen adults walking upright and as many pups on all fours. The adults carried clubs and sacks of what must have been flesh. Some of them limped or had arms in slings.

  Muttering arose among the humans. Fearful talk. Speareye stood and approached the creatures. ‘Flesh!’ he said. ‘Flesh?’

  They ignored him. He shrugged and turned back to the mourners. ‘I think, friends, the Hairbeasts are all but extinct. Why these last ones have come here, I don’t know. Surely they realize we cannot keep treaty with them now. We’ll wait until they sleep and fall upon them then.’

  ‘No,’ said Wallbreaker. Stopmouth blinked in surprise.

  ‘No?’ Speareye’s voice had turned cold. ‘Do you challenge my authority?’

  ‘I do not,’ said Wallbreaker. He stood to match height with the chief. Gone was the haunted look he’d worn since his wedding, to be replaced by another that Stopmouth knew well: obsession with a mad idea. Even the ancestors, looking down from their grid of campfires above, must have wondered what he’d come out with this time.

  ‘I will bow to whatever decision you make, Chief. I will be the first to leap when you give orders. But, please, as the most loyal member of your people, let me point out some things you might not have thought of in your haste to do the right thing for your Tribe.’

  Many in the crowd grinned and Speareye laughed out loud. ‘Don’t think I can’t see you working your spell on me, Wallbreaker! But I will hear you out.’

  ‘We all know the world is not as it should be,’ said Wallbreaker. ‘Almost every night the Roof lights up with Globes hunting one another. And now this: the terrible destruction of the Hairbeasts.’

  ‘What’s so terrible?’ shouted Rockface from nearby. ‘Peoples disappear all the time, hey? They get wiped out and a new species takes their place. Good eating, I say!’

  A murmur of approval greeted his words, but Chief Speareye neither nodded nor spoke.

  ‘This is different,’ Wallbreaker continued, ‘as you should know, Rockface, with that new tattoo of yours! The Hairbeasts are no weaklings like the Flims. The Hairbeasts have been our neighbours for a long time. They were a good match for the Armourbacks and a welcome buffer against them. Something terrible must have happened for such a strong people to fall so quickly.’

  Everywhere hunters nodded.

  ‘The Hairbeasts lost,’ he went on, ‘because the Armourbacks and the Hoppers attacked them together. They co-operated. Think about that. The Armourbacks, if they can speak at all, do so without voices–with smells maybe, or signs. The Hoppers, on the other hand, talk in squeaks.’ Stopmouth smiled to himself. This was another of his brother’s favourite topics.

  ‘But even we and the Hairbeasts, who both have voices, have never been able to understand more than one, maybe two words in each other’s language. Even after poor Treatymaker spent half his life with them! Co-operation is impossible between us.’

  Speareye laughed. ‘You’re only proving my point, young Wallbreaker. What use are these Hairbeasts if they won’t work with us?’

  Wallbreaker shook his head and lowered his voice to force the spectators to listen. ‘If the Armourbacks and the Hoppers have destroyed the Hairbeasts by working together, who do you think is next?’

  This thought had been on everybody’s mind, but few had spoken it aloud.

  ‘But why would they destroy us?’ cried Speareye. ‘There’s only so much flesh any creature can eat!’

  ‘I’m sure these neighbours of ours thought so too,’ said the younger man. He pointed off towards Hairbeast-Ways. ‘I bet there’s a lot of flesh rotting over there right now.’ He paused. ‘Look, I’m not saying the Armourbacks are planning to attack us, but if they are, these Hairbeasts will surely fight for their lives the same as any living creature. Better. Those clubs break through shell quicker than any weapon we have. We need the Hairbeasts on our side. We’re a strong people: we can build up our stocks of food elsewhere. But whatever else we do, we need to keep these Hairbeasts in our streets for the day the Armourbacks come!’

  Wallbreaker sat down to a thoughtful silence. At last Chief Speareye nodded his head. ‘Your advice is good, young man. We will do as you say for now and take our food elsewhere. As one of our finest hunters, you will lead the way. Tomorrow.’

  Everybody applauded at this great honour for Wallbreaker. He was young to be leading a hunt. He beamed at them, that famous dimpled smile. Only Stopmouth of all the crowd could see the terror that lay beneath it.

  ‘He’ll get us killed,’ said Wallbreaker, shaking. ‘He’s known for it! Those stupid risks of his…’

  Stopmouth looked down to street level, where Rockface waited with five other men who would accompany them on the hunt.

  ‘He k-kept me alive in H-Hairbeast.’

  The other hunters talked among themselves and their voices, though not their words, reached the rooftop. Stopmouth didn’t need to hear them to know they were discussing Wallbreaker. The young man had gained a reputation for his spear skills and daring but had never led a hunt before. Nor was it a secret that he hadn’t left the human streets in a long time. Too long for someone with ambition.

  Wallbreaker held a piece of Globe metal tightly to his chest. His face was pale. ‘Tell the men I’m injured,’ he said.

  Evening was approaching fast; when full dark came, the party would slip into no-man’s-land towards Clawfolk territory. The bridge might be watched, so they’d push a tree over the Wetlane and make for the alleys of Flim-Ways well before dawn.

  ‘Y-you’re n-not injured.’

  Wallbreaker turned an imploring gaze on his brother. ‘You injure me then! Here, I’ll put my arm between these two blocks. You could step on it hard. Here.’ He knelt down on a bed of lichen, scattering the mossbeasts that
crawled upon it. ‘Do it!’

  Stopmouth poked his head over the parapet of the house. ‘W-we’re c-coming n-now!’ he shouted.

  He thought back to the last day of his brother’s courage. Stopmouth had been sad before the wedding, so Wallbreaker had suggested they go and spy on some beasts. It was a dangerous pass-time, frowned upon as wasteful and, above all, stupid.

  ‘Oh, we’re in no danger,’ Wallbreaker had said. ‘No creature’s ever even spotted us before. And the more we know about our neighbours the better we can hunt them, right?’

  Stopmouth needed the distraction, but he would have gone anyway. He always did.

  They found a nice little tower in Hairbeast-Ways overlooking a square where a party of Hoppers leaped past and even over each other in a complicated dance. Their fur streamed with sweat and their voices squeaked in what Stopmouth imagined to be laughter.

  ‘A game,’ whispered Wallbreaker. ‘It must be. They’re not so unlike us, after all.’

  The dance came to a halt and the grey-furred beasts flopped down in whatever position they’d finished in. All of them looked exhausted and yet again Stopmouth realized how clever his brother was, for Hoppers in a state such as this would be easy meat.

  Then one of the beasts struggled upright and raised long arms above its head. Strange that it should be first to rise: it looked even more exhausted than the others. The rest of the Hoppers turned all at once to fix it with their gaze. Then they rose, one at a time, and approached while the weak-looking one stayed put, trembling. The first Hopper to reach it locked teeth on what would have been the armpit on a human. It seemed to drink from the wound it had made. After a few heartbeats another took its place, sucking at the same gash. Others followed, most to drink, but some to hug. One even offered its own armpit to the wounded one.

  ‘Amazing,’ whispered Wallbreaker. ‘I think they use that dance to choose volunteers.’

  Wallbreaker had been so excited that day, but he was over-eager to get home in time for the ‘Purchase of the Bride’ ceremony. So eager, in fact, that he’d led his brother straight into the midst of an Armourback hunting party.