Free Mammoth Boy by John Hart

man’s eye as he turned. Urrell saw the spear-arm freeze in mid-throw. Reaching up on tiptoe Agaratz took the spear from his grip and in a feat of strength that none could have emulated snapped the shaft like a reed. A little ‘uh’ rose from the crowd. The hunters fell back. Agaratz roused the man with a tap on the shoulder and he resumed his journey, all intentions forgotten, followed by the column of his cowed and silenced clan. As they filed past, Rakrak, interested in the scene, ears cocked, uttered a little ‘woof ’ that sent small children scuttling to their mothers’ skirts.
    Awe mixed with gratitude in Urrell’s heart, gratitude winning.
    As on that first day when they had first met, Urrell expressed his feelings by touching the crookback’s forearm, his reward the sly grin of acknowledgement of a feat that had impressed.
    However, all he said was, “Now time go for eztik.”
    “Eztik?
    “From bees”
    “Honey.”
    “Ah, honey.” He did not say where or how it was to be found.
    Urrell was to discover where and how the next day. Not since that first meeting when Agaratz had given Urrell a piece of honeycomb had honey featured in their searches and garnerings. Now Agaratz chose several quaiches and pouches from his stores, and implements hitherto unknown to Urrell.
    “Now go for honey.”
    Urrell’s experience of honey-gathering was to find a hive and raid it. His folk, when they chanced on such a treat, left nothing behind, glutting themselves on combs, honey, grubs, wax, everything, in an orgy of sweetness that no fruit, no berry, however ripe, could rival. He wondered what Agaratz would do with the hives. Would he in his careful way, as with fruit, bulbs, plants, birds’ eggs and so on, spare some, muttering low incantations that he never explained?
    They set off along the cliff line towards the river, much as they had done to gather cobnuts, but soon stopped at a place where the cliff-face changed to a yellowish, friable stone with a number of holes and cavities.
    “Bees,” said Agaratz. Indeed, high up bees swarmed in and out of holes far beyond reach. “Follow.”
    He continued a little further and turned into a cleft that split the cliff from top to bottom. The sides were smooth. On them Urrell saw engravings, the first since his bear.
    “Look bees, Agaratz.”
    A little further was the outlined head and fore quarters of a bear, looking up.
    Agaratz said: “Old time.” He took a burin from his belt pouch and ran it along the outline of the bear. “You do.” Urrell took the burin with a feeling new to him, yet as old as always, and ran the flake along the outline as he had seen Agaratz do. A sense of elation, of strength, of the ability to perform beyond the normal suffused him, like the dream he sometimes dreamt of flying, soaring with outstretched arms above everything else caught in earthbound normality. Waking was always a disappointment. This time when he ended the scrape the elation remained.
    “Now bees not sting,” said Agaratz.
    They followed the cleft, in single file, sometimes sidling to squeeze through, till at a turn a tunnel led off at waist height, round and smooth-bored, large enough for a man to wriggle up lying on his belly or back.
    “Rakrak stay.” Agaratz made the sounds of a female warning her cubs to lie still and Rakrak crouched, looking up at Agaratz then at Urrell, who repeated the command. She would wait.
    “You follow, Urrell.” He entered the tunnel head first, on his back, his bowls, bags, and tools strapped to his midriff, freeing his arms to draw himself along the tunnel. When his feet, the normal and the cloven, disappeared into the hole, Urrell lay in the same way and followed up into the darkness.
    Soon he was in total gloom, wriggling behind Agaratz whom he could hear ahead. The walls, smoothened by ancient waters, offered little purchase. He heard Agaratz say, “Now narrow,” and he came to a gullet which seemed impossible to get through.