Free Mammoth Boy by John Hart Page A

“Pass things.” He did as bidden, his arms half trapped by the narrow tunnel, and felt his things taken one at a time. Then Agaratz said, “Arms first.” To get his arms well above his head Urrell wriggled back to a wider part of the tunnel then squirmed his way up to the gullet. Hands took his to ease him through the gap till he squeezed out, like a child thrust from the womb, into what must have been a chamber. Agaratz held his hand to guide him in the total blackness. They felt their way round a rock-face into another low tunnel, stooping, till the total gloom lightened and as his eyes attuned Urrell saw they had squeezed into a huge, high chamber with stalactites at the far end reaching the floor in a forest of stone. Light filtered from on high through chinks and holes – those the bees used. They must have been close behind the cliff-face.
    Agaratz ignored all this, his attention fixed on the gaps and chinks near the roof of the chamber. “Up there, etzi ,” he said. “Now fetch pole.”
    They left their paraphernalia and Agaratz went to a full-size pine log, notched with footholds, lying along the cave wall, unnoticed by Urrell. It was very old yet still serviceable. Who had dragged it there, and how, Urrell was left to wonder. They pulled and rolled it into position and while Urrell steadied the butt Agaratz ‘walked’ the bole up hand over hand till it was leaning high against the wall.
    “Hold, Urrell, I climb.”
    He brought down two big honeycombs and blew off the bees still clinging to their possession, muttering something as they flew back up to the light. They rolled the log along the wall and Agaratz repeated the operation, never taking more than two combs or a quaich of liquid honey each time. The liquid honey they savoured, miracle of sweetness, in the dark, the combs Agaratz stowed in the pouches they had brought.
    “You try, Urrell.” The lad went up and found himself peering at an immense hive, the work of years, teeming with bees. As he clung to the pole, undecided what to do next, Agaratz called from below, “Take two eztic , with hand. Not sting.”
    Bees crawled all over his arm, his face, his hair as he reached in, steadying himself on his shaking perch. Very carefully he detached two combs, one at a time, dropping them into the pouch round his waist, and edged down in a cloud of bees. None stung him.
    “Only two eztic , Agaratz?”
    “Two. I tell bees. So not sting.”
    It was too dark to see Agaratz’s expression but Urrell sensed the grin at his puzzlement. Around them the air smelt sharply of honey.
    If their trip in had been hard, the return journey was one Urrell would never forget. They worked in stages, pushing their bulging pouches ahead, repeating the wriggling, squirming operation three times to ferry their booty to the entrance for Rakrak to guard. Once all was out, Urrell watched Agaratz dance to the bear, offer it honey, dab the bees with a dot of honey apiece, before they rested and ate a comb between them and gave a piece to Rakrak to gnaw.
    Once back in home cave Agaratz stowed quaiches and pouches on ledges beyond any creature’s reach.
    “Agaratz, you did this before, alone?”
    “With father. Now my people gone.”
    Whether he meant departed, leaving the cripple behind to die, or wiped out by some catastrophe, Urrell was left wondering. It would be unwelcome to ask, though he ached to know more about Agaratz’s folk. Agaratz’s hints of their powers, of skills he revealed unbidden, as to an apprentice, whet the lad’s appetite to know more, to observe everything, to forget nothing. But how to get beyond the sly smile, to enter the mage’s mind? Ah.

CHAPTER 12
    S ummer was beginning to break. Clouds drove across the skies, the air cooled, skeins of geese flew overhead, southerly. Agaratz redoubled activity and Urrell fell in with the new urgency; even Rakrak behaved less playfully.
    “Today go for gooses.” Rain drifted across the grasslands, shortening