Out of Hard Fury

 Rosmerta leaned back into the shade of the eaves of he house next to her, and stared at the spectacle in front of her. A collection of some of the most stiff-headed blokes from her village were performing what they charitably though of as a dance. They’d lit a fire in the middle of the central area of the village, and were now jumping around it in a revolving circle. Sacrapos, the bard, was standing off to one side, blowing hard on his bagpipes, cheeks bulging, head bright red, eyes almost popping out of his head. To the wailing coming out of the thing the blokes moving around the fire alternatively threw their arms into the air, kicked ferociously back with their feet like a bucking horse, stamped down hard on the ground, and let out a loud “hey” everytime they pounded the ground. She strongly suspected the real reason for the shouts was the pain they got from hitting the hard ground with their soft feet, if the undertones of agony she thought she could ddiscern beneath the din were anything to go by. She couldn’t see their faces underneath the animal heads they were wearing above the fur capes they were draped in, but she was pretty sure there’d be a few grimaces of discomfort hiding in there.

   ‘Hey! Hey’Hey!’ the blokes chanted.

   ‘Wheeeeeiiiiiiigggghhhh!’ the pipes shrieked.

   She could hear the caterwauling of the pipes answered and echoed by the babies in the next house over, breaking out into heart-rending screams of torture. It’d be a fair guess that by tonight the milk in their mothers’ breasts would be curdled. People had been drowned in the river for less than that.

   On cue, the group of dancers slowly unwound itself from the circle of the fire, picked up spears from the fire side, and started filing out towards the edge of the village and the start of the forest, peeling back towards the mountain. As they moved away the last figure detached itself from the tail end of the group and sidled over towards her in a suspicious fashion. Rosmerta rolled her eyes.

   The dancer pulled into the shade where Rosmerta was standing, came close to her, and spoke.

   ‘Hmmmmffrrr?’

   ‘What?’ Rosmerta said.

   ‘Huh hum ... hmmmmffrr?’ it repeated, enunciating carefully this time.

   Rosmerta sighed. ‘Look, I can’t understand a word you’re saying,’ she said patiently. ‘Take that thing off your head. You’re all muffled.’

   ‘Rronngffl ...? Heurh ...’ The dancer wrangled the brown animal head off his shoulders. His face popped out from underneath it, bright red and breathing heavily, like he’d been trying to breathe underwater, which was close to the truth. He beamed at Rosmerta. ‘’s that better?’

   ‘Hmm.’ She studied his acne-riddled face, cauliflower ears and washed-out eyes. ‘Not really. Marginally.’

   The bloke’s face fell. ‘Oh.’ He looked down at the ground.

   ‘Anyway, doesn’t matter. Get on with it, give it to me, quick, I need to get going.’ She gestured towards his animal head-and-fur outfit.

   ‘All right ...’ He shrugged off the big cape, then held it close to his chest, along with the head. ‘Uh ... but first ... you remember?’ He eyed Rosmerta hopefully, with, she couldn’t help but noticing, a considerable degree of hunger and longing.

   ‘Oh, all right ... sure ...’ And with one movement she shrugged off the strap holding her dress over one shoulder, pulled it down and exposed her left breast.

   The bloke’s eyes popped almost out of his head and glazed over. He stared fixedly at the thing and forgot to breathe. A thin thread of spittle leaked out of his open mouth. In slow motion he stuck out his hand and started reaching for her tit.

   Rosmerta slapped it away. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal. You can look but you can’t touch. Now give me those things.’ She shrugged back into her shoulderstrap, hiding her breast away again. The bloke in front of her looked crestfallen. She wondered if he’d start crying. She knew for a fact this was the closest he had ever come to a mildly undressed woman in his short life so far. None of the girls in the village would go anywhere near him, and as far away as five valleys over in either direction away from their village there were no girls in any of the other tribes that wanted anything to do with him. She took pity on him and smiled. ‘There’ll be more later when I come back, all right?’ she lied. His face lit up like a full moon at midnight. ‘Really truly?’

   ‘Really truly.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘Now give me that and help me put them on.’

   He helped her put the cape around her shoulders, fastened it under her chin, and put the big animal head over her head. She could smell his armpits. Make that six valleys, she thought.

   ‘Aw wighd, fanggs.’ It actually was quite hard to talk under this thing. How did those fellas manage all that shouting and dancing? They’d be buggered before they got half an hour away from the village.

   She strode forwards, picked up a spear from near the fireside, and hurried off after the group of dancers who had disappeared into the forest.

 

They weren’t hard to catch up with, as she had anticipated. Rosmerta snuck up behind the group of blokes in furs and animal heads, and quietly joined the back of the pack. No one was saying anything, and she could hear distinct heaving and panting sounds coming from under the heads. Fancy that. These things were bloody heavy.

   The pack ambled through the forest, turned off the trail that led to the river, and started climbing up the hill slope on the other side. Without a trail now they pushed their way through the bushes, bending the branches of the undergrowth this way and that, frequently letting go off them too soon, so they’d whack the following person in the face, or, rather, the animal head.

   ‘Ow!’

   ‘Watch out, arsehole!’

   ‘Bloody hell!’

   ‘Hold that thing, you idiot!’

   Rosmerta shook her head inside of the animal head. It was hard to imagine that these blokes would be able to catch anything other than, with a bit of luck, a cold. Small wonder their village didn’t get a whole lot of meat to eat. Who would have thought.

   The climbed over a little rocky ridge and came to a clearing, a bit of open space in the middle of the forest. Bright green leaves rustled quietly as saplings stirred gently on a light breeze blowing down from the mountain. Beams of sunlight fell through gaps in the canopy, and dust particles danced up and down in it. Butterflies fluttered away off to one side. No sound disturbed the peace and quiet.

   ‘Right,’ grunted the figure who had been leading the advance, ‘This is where we saw him last. Let’s kill the bastard.’ He turned to the bloke behind him. ‘Have you got The Secret Weapon?’ He pronounced the capital letters with great care and respect. The still air folded around the words and muted them.

   ‘Yeah.’ The second bloke laid down his spear and started fumbling under his robe till he pulled free a small package, about the size of the palms of two hands held together, wrapped in cloth. ‘Here you go.’ He handed it to the leader.

   ‘Thanks mate.’ The leader held it reverently in his hand. His name was Tarcondomoto, a name which translated literally as “Penetrating-Head-of-Dick”. Rosmerta reflected on her tribe’s practice of getting people to chose their own names upon adulthood. While Penetrating Dickhead had not, according to the talk among the women in the village, penetrated anything more substantial than the spiderwebs in the corners of his parents’ house, he was certainly, by all accounts, a dickhead, so that was something at least, she thought. The naming practice left somewhat to be desired. His mates called him Tar, which, all things considered, was quite an appropriate tag for something as slimey, dirty and sticky as him.

   ‘All right fellas, come closer.’ Tarcondomoto flapped his free hand through the air.

   Eleven dark brown animal heads craned obligingly forwards, Rosmerta going along with it for the look of the thing.

   Tarcondomoto moved his free hand slowly over the package, grabbed the string that held it together between two fingers, and tugged on it with a flourish. The knot tightened and got stuck.

   ‘Ah bloody hell.’ He grabbed it again and pulled harder. The knot tightened itself inexorably. ‘Shit!’ Tarcondomoto swore. ‘Which arsehole wrapped this thing up?’ He glared at his mates.

   ‘Uh ... you did, Tar,’ offered the bloke who had been carrying the package.

   ‘Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Well, when I tied that knot it was perfectly fine! It must have been the way you carried it that buggered it up!’ He stared daggers at the other bloke.

   Five minutes followed in which the dressed-up figures passed the package around each other and tried valiantly to open it, only resulting in tightening the knot further. Eventually Rosmerta got her hands on it, stuck it between her teeth and bit through the string. She handed it wordlessly back to Tarcondomoto.

   ‘Uh ...’ He glanced at her animal head. She stared back inscrutably. He blinked. ‘Uh ... thanks. Huh hum ... right.’ He straightened up a bit. ‘Anyway, here it is, The Secret Weapon!’ He folded back the cloth.

   Eleven dark brown animal heads craned forwards again. Eleven dark brown muzzles inhaled deeply from the scent wafting of the package. It was golden brown, and semi-liquid. It looked sticky. They looked appreciatively at each other from out of the depths of their empty eye sockets.

   ‘Get a whiff of that!’

   ‘Oh yeah!’

   ‘Beautiful!’

   ‘That is amazing!’

   ‘Too good for that bastard, I reckon.’

   ‘Nah, this will get him for sure.’

   Tarcondomoto beamed. His peers’ approval of his Cunning Plan was evident. Success would be guaranteed.

   ‘All right, now here we go ... watch out. Follow me, quietly.’ He bent down into a half crouch, lifting up his feet carefully, not making any sound. The stealthy footfall of the experienced hunter. He held the package up into the air in front of him and slowly waved it to and fro. ‘This will make it waft all around,’ he hissed out of the corner of his snout to his mates. ‘Brownie Melsagiat won’t be able to resist it.’ Behind him ten brown animal heads nodded enthusiastically. The eleventh one appeared to be rolling its eyes.

   The dead animal heads moved forward at a snail’s pace, following the hypnotic swinging of the package. They snaked erratically across the clearing.

   Rosmerta decided that enough was enough. She reached down, picked up a big rock, and lobbed it as far away as she could behind the troop of hunters. It sailed through the air and crashed down on the side of the clearing the furthest away from the group. It made a racket like a particularly heavy and clumsy climber falling out of a tree on a heap of dead branches.

...The pack of hunters spun around like lightning.

   ‘There! That’s him there! Follow me!’ thundered Tarcondomoto.

   ‘Yeah!’

   ‘Let’s get him!’

   ‘Kill the bastard!’

   ‘Raaaaaaaaggghhh!’

   All thoughts of stealth abandoned the group stormed off into the bush, brandishing their spears above their heads, elbowing each other out of the way, tripping over each other’s toes and swearing at the top of their voices. They crashed through the bush, breaking branches, ripping leaves of trees and kicking up a cloud of dust, dead leaves and terrorised mice.

   Their screams faded into the distance.

   The dust settled.

   Silence returned to the clearing.

   Dust motes resumed their dance in the sunbeams.

   ‘It’s all right, you can come out now,’ Rosmerta called out across the clearing. ‘They’re all gone.’

   Nothing happened.

   Then there was a discreet rustling on the far side of the clearing. Small branches swayed in what was not the breeze.

   Two brown ears slowly rose up from behind a bush. They were followed by two black eyes. They peered cautiously from side to side, inspecting the clearing, till they came to rest on Rosmerta. They blinked.

   Rosmerta blinked back.

   The eyes moved upwards, followed by a long muzzle with two rows of sharp-looking teeth. The jaws opened, revealing a long red tongue, and more teeth. Quite a lot of teeth, Rosmerta reflected.

   The head rose further upwards. Brown hairy shoulders followed, attached to a brown hairy chest. The head swivelled from side to side. The nose at the end of the muzzle sniffed the air and wrinkled as if in distaste.

   Two paws appeared at the end of two long hairy arms. They pushed the branches of the bush aside, and the bear stepped out from behind it. He looked at Rosmerta.

   ‘What was all that about?’ he said, bemused.

   ‘They were trying to catch you,’ she answered.

   ‘Really? Like that?’ The bear sniffed. ‘I don’t know what they were thinking.’

   ‘Tell me about it.’ Rosmerta shrugged her shoulders. ‘That’s what they’re like.’

   ‘Right.’ The bear shuffled forwards towards Rosmerta. He scratched his left armpit and sat down with a slow heavy movement. ‘Bloody hell. You reckon they’ll come back here?’

   ‘Nah.’ Rosmerta shook her head with conviction. ‘By now they’re completely lost. They won’t have a clue where they are, and they’ll never find their way back here again.’

   ‘Rightio,’ the bear said. ‘Well, that’s all right then.’

   ‘Yeah, not bad, ey,’ Rosmerta agreed. She sat down across from him and crossed her legs. She took off the heavy bear’s head she’d been wearing the whole time and put it on the ground next to her. It stank of dead skin and dried-up brain. She shook of the thick bear fur cape and rolled her shoulders back to stretch out the strain.

   The bear pointed at the head and the fur cape. ‘I thought I recognised that one. That used to be me mum.’ He frowned. ‘I recognised a couple of the other ones too. A mate, a couple of cousins; and there was definitely one there that well and truly deserved to get stuffed.’

   Rosmerta glanced at her hunting dress-up. ‘Yeah, I guess so. That’s gonna happen, ey. Sorry ‘bout that.’

   ‘Nah, don’t worry about it, you get that. Sooo ...’ the bear said, changing the subject, ‘I’m curious. Just wondering, you know. What was that yellow stuff they were waving around?’

   ‘Honey.’

   ‘Honey?’ repeated the bear. He looked confused.

   ‘That’s right.’

   ‘Why?’

   ‘They think you like it.’

   ‘Seriously?’ The bear looked at her with disbelief.

   ‘I’m telling you.’

   ‘Where did they get that idea?’

   ‘Buggered if I know.’ Rosmerta shrugged again, delicately and daintily. The bear noticed the way her skin was moving and rippling. Something stirred in his nether regions. It wasn’t his stomach. ‘They’ve even got a name for you because of it.’

   The bear stared at her. ‘They do?’

   ‘They do. They call you Melsagiat. It means Honey-Seeker,’ she added.

   ‘You are kidding me.’

   ‘I wish I was.’

   The bear shuddered expressively. Moths and small insects fell out of his fur. ‘It’s disgusting, that stuff.’

   ‘Isn’t it just.’

   ‘I tried it once,’ the bear mused. ‘It hurt my teeth something shocking and I couldn’t sleep for a week. It’s shit.’ The bear shook his head in amazement. ‘Yous people are crazy.’ He tapped his forehead with a paw. It was the size of her head.

   ‘Yes, you’re not wrong there.’ Rosmerta sighed. ‘You should hear the stuff they come out with.’

   ‘I eat fish, me,’ the bear said. ‘I catch ‘em, whack ‘em out of the water, and eat them. Good stuff, fish.’ The bear nodded for emphasis. ‘Full of healthy saturated fat, and omega-3 oils.’ He tapped his forehead with his paw again. ‘Really good for your brain, that.’

   ‘Yeah.’ Rosmerta nodded her consent. ‘My tribe don’t eat a lot of it at all. You can tell.’

   The bear turned his head sideways and looked at her appraisingly. ‘Look, uh ...’ He felt a bit tongue-tied all of a sudden. ‘Huh hum ... as it so happens, I caught a whole heap of it, fresh, not long before.’ He pointed vaguely over his shoulder. ‘It’s in my cave, over there, ready for a feed.’ The brown fur of his face turned a shade of deeper brown. ‘You wouldn’t ... uh ... happen to feel like coming over for a meal, would you?’ He looked over at her then glanced away quickly, inspecting the clouds in the sky above.

   ‘That’d be awesome. Show me.’ Rosmerta stood up, unfolding her long legs smoothly and fluidly, and shaking back her hair. The bear stared at her legs. It had been a long and lonely hibernation.

 

***

 

   ‘That was delicious.’ Rosmerta pointed at the remains of her meal of fresh fish, lying scattered around them in the cave.

   ‘Did you like that?’ The bear smiled with his long muzzle. His teeth flashed.

   ‘I did.’ Rosmerta turned to him. The strap of her dress slipped off her left shoulder, the one that had caused the bloke who had given her his bear outfit at the village such exquisite agony. She lifted up her hand and slid the strap off her other shoulder too. Her dress fell down.

 

***

 

Nine months later.

 

‘Eeeeuuuuurrrrgggghhhh ...!’

   ‘Push!’

   ‘Eeeeeuuuurrrgggghh ...????’

   ‘Push harder!’

   ‘Eeeeeeuuuurrr .... aaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhh!!!!’ she finally screamed.

   There was a very brief silence.

   It was broken with a finality that announced that, henceforth, silences such as these would not be enjoyed by anyone for some considerable time to come.

   ‘Wheeey wheeey wheeey wheeey!’

   Two hairy paws lifted the baby up to Rosmerta. She clutched her hands around it, shaking, and lifted it up to her left breast, the one that had in times past proven to hold such magic appeal. It was clear it still did.

   ‘Wheee—hmmm hmm’

   Rosmerta looked down. The little wrinkly face, covered in fine brown hair, was latched onto her boob with commendable dedication, a tiny curled-over little hairy hand wrapping itself around it. She looked up at the bear, and smiled. ‘He’s gorgeous!’

   The bear nodded wordlessly, his black eyes bright and shiny.

 

***

 

Four months later.

 

Rosmerta sat back and looked on. Under her watchful eye a small mound of hair ran around the cave, zig-zagging and cutting circles at random. Beneath a thick vertical cascade of dark brown hair a small pair of feet could be seen. They pitter-pattered erratically across the cave floor until they came to the far wall, where they failed to stop, and smashed into the rocky side of the mountain with a dull thud.

   The mound of hair slowly keeled over backwards and started screaming.

   ‘Muuuuum! Help me, muuuum! I’ve fallen over! Muuuuuuum!’

   Rosmerta sighed, got up and picked him up. She put him back on his feet and dusted him down.

   ‘Come here,’ she said, ‘we’ll have another go at tying up your hair.’ She grabbed a thick handful of coarse brown strands, bundled them together, and started to wind string around it. One little brown eye peaked out from underneath it and blinked into the sudden light.

 

***

 

One year later.

 

‘Sit still!’ she commanded.

   The furball came up to her chest now. Patiently she separated the wall of hair, pushing half of it that way with her elbow, and ploughing her way through the other half of it with her sharpest stone knife. Swathes of it fell onto the cave floor in thick heaps. She eyed it off absentmindedly, thinking, in one corner of her brain, that it made for fantastic bedding and pillow material. The cave was getting warmer, cosier and more comfortable with every haircut.

   Or attempt at a haircut. It seemed that no matter how much she hacked off the enormous volumes of hair that sprouted everywhere out of her child’s skin, they always regrew within a day or two. Worse, she could barely keep up with the manufacture of new knives. She glanced over to the far corner of the cave, where all her worn-out and broken knives lay abandoned, gathering dust. The pile grew alarmingly on a daily basis.

   The shagpile in front of her squirmed. ‘Is it finished yet?’

   ‘Almost. It’ll be finished a lot quicker if you don’t wiggle around so much.’

   The shagpile squealed. ‘Yes, but, dad’s waiting, we’re gonna go fishing.’

   Rosmerta looked over to the cave entrance. The bear was sitting on a rock, humming to himself, and practicing great big sweeping movements with his paws, warming up for the event.

   ‘Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere without you. Now stop moving!’

 

***

 

Five years later.

 

Rosmerta looked up at her son, standing in front of her. Drawing herself up to her full height her nose just reached his chin. Or, at least, that area where his chin would be found, presumably, if there was any way to penetrate the thick layer of hair on his face.

   ‘Right. This is it,’ she said, and she tossed the knife she just broke over into the corner. The pile had grown almost as tall as her son. It landed on the pile with a forlorn clunk. ‘I’ve had enough. This is not working.’ She wiped her hands on the side of her dress. She glared at the bear, sitting by the cave entrance. ‘It was hard enough before he started growing a full beard, but now there’s just no way through it.’

   The bear shifted uneasily. ‘Well, yes,’ he admitted. ‘It’s different for me. I don’t have a beard.’

   ‘Well, I certainly do,’ said their son in a deep, booming voice. Rosmerta looked at his beard. She had combed it with a broad-tooth wooden comb she had carved out of the root of a tree from by the river. She had split the beard hair, cleaved it, plaited it, and tied various strands of it together with a multitude of lengths of coloured string in a variety of inventive and decorative ways that looked very fetching. It currently ran down her son’s chin in a cable as thick as her arm, dropped all the way down to the floor, and snaked out several metres behind him. When he walked he wrapped it around his waist. Several times. He claimed it kept him very nice and warm on cold winter nights. She believed it.

   She looked up into his otherwise perfectly human features. ‘Well, you are half bear and half human,’ she sighed.

   ‘That’s right,’ he nodded proudly.

   ‘The only problem is,’ she continued, ‘no one can tell because we can’t see anything of you.’ She had, in her darkest moments, occasionally given herself over to wondering, since he hit puberty about six months previously, exactly what his pubic hair and his armpits looked like. She shuddered inwardly. It didn’t bear thinking about. She did not think she had intended any pun.

   Her son nodded again, and stared at the floor gloomily. Absentmindedly he looked over towards where they had had a huge fire the previous night. They’d caught an aurox and eaten quite a lot of it piecemeal. Because the slabs of meat they carved off it were so big they had really given the fire a solid stoking, and things had gotten very hot indeed. Just at that moment the sun got to the spot where its rays entered the cave directly, and he caught the twinkling of something out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head. There it was again. A flash of light where you wouldn’t expect one to be. He scratched his head, and, with some difficulty, managed to retrieve his hand on the third attempt.

   ‘Hang on a minute, there’s something there ...’

   He stood up, turned to stride over to the corner where he’d seen the light flash, and tripped over the plait of his beard.

   ‘Bloody hell ...’

   He wrapped his beard plait three times around himself and tied a firm knot in it. That should do the trick. He went over to the fireplace in the corner, and got down on his knees, lowering his head close to the ground. The fireplace was mostly made up out of broken and discarded stone knives, arranged in a big circle. It wasn’t like they didn’t have enough of them lying around. He turned his head this way and that, then picked up something shiny. He lifted it up to his eyes, examined it closely, and rubbed the index finger of his other hand over it. With a yelp he dropped it.

   ‘Ouch!’

   ‘What is it?’ said his mother, watching him. ‘Is it still hot?’

   ‘No, it’s stone cold.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve cut myself.’ He stuck his bleeding finger in his mouth and sucked on it.

   ‘Did you pick up a piece of broken knife?’ asked Rosmerta.

   Her son shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t that ...’ His voice trailed off. He looked down into the ashes of the fireplace, sweeping them around, until he found what he was looking for. ‘It was this.’ He held something small up into the air. The sunlight flashed off it. It was grey and shiny.

   ‘Give us a look.’ Rosmerta came over and took it off him. ‘Ouch!’ She dropped it, stuck her finger in her mouth and started sucking it. From the cave entrance the bear watched speculatively. His curiosity was aroused, along with other things.

   She fished around in the ashes till she found the thing again. Then she looked closer at the fireplace. ‘Hey, guess what, there’s heaps more of these things here.’ She bent closer to the ground and started sifting the ashes through her hand. ‘Here, there’s one, two, three ... there’s stacks of them.’ She retrieved them and laid them out on the floor next to the fireplace. One was quite big, about the size of her thumbnail.

   Rosmerta stared at it. She looked at the shiny piece of hard grey stuff. She looked at her son’s beard plait, wrapped around his waist. She looked back at the grey thing again, then, swivelling her head, looked at the top of her son’s head, where thick braids of coiled hair lay piled up together like a nest of snakes getting ready for breeding season.

  ‘I wonder ...’ she muttered to herself. ‘What if ... could we ...’ She beckoned to her son. ‘Stick your head a bit closer here.’ He lowered his head obligingly. She grabbed a random strand of hair, brought the shiny thing that had cut their fingers to it, and pressed down on it.

   It sliced through it like a fish through water. It even looked the same.

   The strands of hair fell to the ground.

   She stared at it with her mouth wide open.

   From the cave entrance the bear stared at her open mouth. His eyes glazed over.

   ‘That can’t be right ... here, let me have another go.’ And she grabbed a handful of hair and yanked it closer to her.

   ‘Ow!’

   ‘Sorry ... hang on, hold still.’

   She ran the bright grey thing over the thick handful of hair in her hand. It fell, light and fluffy like dead grass stalks at the end of summer.

   ‘You are kidding me ...’ Her eyes took on a fanatical gleam. ‘Here, again!’ She grabbed another handful.

   ‘Ow! Watch it, mum!’

   She didn’t bother to reply. Feverishly she pushed the grey thing onto a clump of hair. It fell like a particularly heavy and brown rain.

   ‘Hahaaa!’ she cackled. ‘Again!’ She grabbed more hair. Woosh. Brown rain.

   ‘Again! And again!’ Woosh, woosh.

   She stopped, breathless, and stared at her son. A quarter of his head now had no hair on it. She couldn’t believe it. She took a deep breath.

   ‘All right, one more thing ... here, sit down.’ She pushed down on his shoulders. He sat down obediently, being, after all, a good boy who loved his mummy, even though he was now, at the age of five years old, six foot ten and his balls had dropped.

   She seized his face in her hands, and, trembling, very slowly and carefully, sliced the grey thing sideways. Along the skin of his face, or, rather, where she suspected the skin of his face might eventually be found.

   She stared, open-mouthed. The hair fluttered down, leaving, bare and exposed, the skin of her son’s face, something she hadn’t seen since about a week after he was born.

   The bear over by the cave entrance watched with interest, then examined his hairy arms in front of him. He wondered if? ...

   Rosmerta spun around wildly, and lifted the grey thing up in the air in front of her. ‘See this thing here? See it?’

   The bear and their son nodded hesistantly.

   ‘See this thing here?? This little grey thing???’ Her voice took on a hysterical edge. She waved the grey thing around in front of them. They both moved back a bit.

   ‘This thing is really, really sharp!’ she shrieked. ‘It cuts through his fur like you wouldn’t believe!!’ She was screaming now. The bear nodded again. He had seen it.

   She rounded on the bear. ‘You know how long I’ve been cutting his hair??’ She pointed wildly at their son. The bear and their son moved back a bit more. They were getting worried.

   ‘Five years!!!! Five years of my life!!!!! Non-stop cutting hair, and breaking knives, and making more knives, and cutting more hair!!!!!!’

   The bear stuck a long nail in one of his ears and twiddled it around. ‘Yes, you’re very good at it,’ he offered.

   ‘Very good? Hah! I’ll give you very good. This stuff is magic, this is. Magic!!’ Her voice echoed around the rock chamber. The echoes died out.

   She fell silent and deflated a bit. Her shoulders slumped. The bear and her son stared at her.

   ‘Hu hum ...’ She cleared her throat, and brushed a strand of her own hair out of her face. She stoppped, retrieved it, and with one slice of the grey thing cut it off. It fluttered to the cave floor. ‘Hah!’ she cackled. ‘See? It works on everything.’

   The bear scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Uhum ... well, that’s ... great, that is. Anyway,we were just gonna go fishing, so if you’re finished ...’ He looked meaningfully at his son, who raised his eyebrows and looked from the bear to his mother.

   ‘Fishing? Fishing???’ Her voice rose shrilly. ‘Fishing my arse. No one’s going anywhere, fishing or not. Come here,’ she ordered.

   The bear got up and reluctantly shuffled closer. She could be pretty unpredictable at times like these.

   ‘I wanna get more of this cutting stuff. Look.’ She pointed at the fireplace. Several more bits of grey stuff lay glinting unobtrusively in the ashes. ‘See? They must have come out of the stone when the fire got that hot last night.’ She held up a blackened piece of broken knife. ‘See? You can see little bits of it stuck in the stone, where they haven’t come out yet. There’s more in there!’ she said, waving the broken stone knife triumphantly in the air. The bear ducked, narrowly avoiding getting his ears taken down a notch or two.

   ‘Right, so, what do you want to do about it?’ asked the bear, infusing reason into his voice. He hoped there might still be a chance they’d get away fishing. The river was running and the fish were jumping.

   ‘We’re gonna get a fire going. The mother of all fires!’ She pointed to the stack of broken knives in the corner, almost reaching up to the ceiling, the fruits of five years of her labour. ‘Go get firewood, both of you. Stacks and stacks of firewood. Go, go!’

   The bear and his son fled.

 

Several hours later, the fireplace was reduced to a smoldering heap of burned stones. Crowing triumphantly over a considerable pile of the grey things was Rosmerta, black soot all over her face, her hair a mess, and her dress askewiff.

   “Very good, very good,’ she said, and sat back on her haunches. ‘That’s really well done.’

   Next to her her son frowned. ‘I think I’ve noticed something ...’ he began slowly. ‘When these things get really hot, when they’re glowing all red and that, they’re pretty soft. You can poke them with a stick, and they’re wobbly.’ He sniffed. ‘For a very short time anyway, before the stick burns up.’ His face brightened. ‘But we could use a rock, that doesn’t burn as quickly. And then,’ inspiration travelled across his face like a sunrise on fast-forward, ‘maybe we could, sort of, put a whole heap of these pieces between a couple of pieces of rock, and ...’ He stopped and scratched his head. He marvelled at the sensation of being able to actually touch his skin. It gave him goosebumps. ‘And theeeeen ...’ he continued slowly as thoughts fought for space to line themselves up in his head, ‘and then, maybe, we could, sort of, push them around and stick them together, and turn them into something long ... a bit like one of our knives.’ He glanced up at his mother. Rosmerta was sucking her thumb again, courtesy of another grey-thing cut. The bear swallowed and looked away. ‘That would make your life a lot easier,’ he finished.

   Rosmerta nodded and rubbed her hands. ‘It certainly would.’ She gestured to her two blokes. ‘Go get more firewood!’

   The bear and his son groaned.

 

Three weeks later.

 

The walls of the cave were covered in deep dark black soot. A non-stop column of smoke filed out through the cave entrance. The surrounding countryside was markedly devoid of any deadwood, for quite a long way around. The forest had never been so easy to get around in.

   Standing proudly by the fire was Rosmerta, her dress in tatters, covered in black smears from top to toe. Next to her stood her son. He was unrecognisable. His head was covered in a layer of hair no more than a thumb thick, and his face and body were covered only in the lightest of stubble. His nose, chin and ears stuck out into the breeze. Rosmerta marvelled at him. She had no idea he looked like that. The bear sat by the cave entrance, his shoulders hunched, thinking about fishing. They’d been living on berries and roots for the last three weeks. He’d even once, in desperation, tried a mouthful of honey. He’d spat it out, it was just as disgusting as he’d remembered, and the bees had stung him viciously. He rubbed his arse, where they had gotten him the worst.

   But lying on the ground in front of Rosmerta and her son were several grey objects. Some were the standard length of a normal stone knife, but one was well and truly at least five times as long. They had really gotten stuck into that one. The bear felt like he’d torn down half the forest for it. All of the grey objects had string wrapped around the bottom part, where a hand would hold it. Without exception they glistened, glintened and gleamed, looking mighty sharp and, yes, dangerous in the light of the early morning.

   Rosmerta was over the moon. It was all her dreams come true, not to mention her feverish nightmares of never-ending hair that refused to be cut. She looked at her son with tears in her eyes.

   ‘All right, my boy, now you can make a move.’ She reached down and picked one of the newly minted knives up off the ground. ‘Here, take this.’ She handed it to him with a ceremonial flourish. ‘This will allow you to keep your hair growth down.’ She blinked the tears away and looked him straight in the eye. ‘So now you’ll be able to go out into the world among people.’ She looked at him again, and scratched her nose thoughtfully. She glanced up at the sky. The sun sat at the 10.35 am mark. She looked back at her son’s face, and at what she could only think of as a ten-thirty-five-shadow. ‘Hmm, on second thought ...’ She reached down and grabbed the super-extra long one that had taken half a forest to make. ‘Better take that one too, ey. Hmm.’ She examined her finger nails. They were black with soot. ‘You might need it.’

   ‘Anyway,’ she brightened up, ‘you’ll be able to go and meet people now. They’ll never know you’re not human. Well, hmm,’ she looked shifty, ‘not entirely, anyway.’

   ‘Aw, thanks mum.’ Her son stood clutching the two implements of mass hair destruction in both his hands. She could swear he’d grown another inch in the last three weeks.

   ‘No worries. You’re a big boy now, you need to see people and see the world.’ She pointed towards the river at the bottom of the slope leading away from their cave. You know to follow the river downstream until you get to my village, ey?’

   Her son nodded. ‘Yes, all good.’

   ‘All right. Well, you be off on your way. Good luck.’ She gave him a hug. She was looking forward to sitting down for a long, long time. And not thinking about hair. She shuddered.

 

***

 

Bear Boy wandered out of the last trees and into the beginning of the village. He had been able to smell it for a fair while now, well and truly before he caught a first glance of it. He wrinkled his nose and grimaced. He supposed this was what happened when a lot of people lived in the same place for a long time, and all shat in the same area.

   He walked past the first few houses, walls made of mud, low roofs constructed of bundles of reeds tied together and piled up on top of each other. People out the front of the houses stopped and stared when he walked past. He smiled and waved politely. Little children hid behind their mothers’ skirts. Sheep, kept in enclosures near the houses, fixed their eyes on him and chewed cud motionlessly. One farted noisily. The hubbub of voices died down. Three feral-looking black dogs covered in scars, one of them with only one mad eye, started barking furiously. They pulled their muzzle flaps back from their teeth, growled and snarled, and pelted straight at him, with the clear intention of giving him a good old ripping to pieces.

   Bear Boy smiled down at them. And bared his teeth.

   The lead dog planted its two front legs onto the ground and dropped back on its haunches, skidding forwards with the momentum of its charge, dust bilowing up from either side of it. Its ears lay flat against the side of its head and its eyes bulged out of their sockets. The other two dogs crashed into it and shoved it further forwards.

   Bear Boy smiled at them again, benevolently.

   A cloud of dust slowly cleared where they had been, their tails diappearing at world record speed behind the furthest house, accompanied by agonised whining. It slowly faded away. Silence fell over the village.

   Bear Boy straightened up and looked around him. There was a circle of people staring at him, from a certain distance. He lifted up a hand in greeting, as his mum had taught him.

   ‘Goodday everyone!’

   The circle of faces stared back wordlessly. Little kids peered from around their mothers’ skirts. Bear Boy noticed the skirts with appreciation and felt something stirring below his belly button, an unfamiliar feeling. Some of the skirts were quite short. He started feeling unaccustomedly hot. No one spoke.

   Bear Boy tried again. ‘Er ... hello?’ Remembering his mum’s instructions, he cleared his throat and raised his voice a little. ‘How are you all going?’

   Three or four faces nodded cautiously. One or two of the younger-looking women, who, he noticed, didn’t have kids hiding behind them, smiled tentatively. One of them batted her eyelids. He would have sworn her skirt had suddenly gotten shorter.

   A bloke stepped forwards. He had long hair and a thick beard down to his chest. Bear Boy reflected that his mum might have had Views about the amount of hair the fella was displaying, but none of the other people seemed concerned about it. In one hand the bloke was holding something that looked like a cow’s stomach with pieces of timber sticking out of it. It squeaked pitifully as he walked.

   The man came up to Bear Boy. ‘Goodday stranger,’ he said carefully. He looked Bear Boy up and down a bit and stuck out his hand. ‘Welcome to our village.’

   Bear Boy looked at the hand that was stuck out towards him. Time to remember his mum’s teachings. He took hold of it and squeezed it very gently, like she had insructed him. The bloke’s face went green. His features twisted and distorted. Bear Boy dropped the hand like it was red hot.

   “Uh ... sorry ‘bout that,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to.’ He made a placatory gesture with his hand.

   The other bloke waved his hand through the air, and stuck it under his armpit. He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and glared at Bear Boy.

   ‘All right, all right,’ he grunted. ‘Never mind. Anyway, hmm ...’ He regained his composure. ‘Like I said, welcome to our vil—’

   ‘Who the fuck are you?’ A loud voice came from behind the bloke with the cow’s stomach and the sore hand. Another bloke shouldered his way through the crowd, pushing people out of his way here and there. He stepped into the middle of the circle and shoved Cow Gut Man out of the road. In his right hand he held a long straight stick with a sharp stone attached to the top end.

   ‘Well, I ...’ Bear Boy started.

   ‘I SAID, who the fuck are you?’ The newcomer stuck his chin forward, almost in Bear Boy’s face. There was a lot of hair on the chin, Bear Boy noticed distractedly. He leaned back to re-establish a bit of distance.

   ‘Well, I ...’ he tried again.

   ‘What’s the matter boy, the cat got your tongue? Ey? Hehehehe.’ The bloke flashed a smirk around the crowd to see if any of the onlookers appreciated his little joke. They didn’t. He frowned.

   ‘Cat?’ Bear Boy looked around, a bit confused. He hadn’t seen any cats yet. It was a shame, they were good to eat.

   ‘Are you trying to be smart, mate?’ The other bloke’s voice rose. ‘Are you giving me lip?’

   Bear Boy reflected on this statement. He was pretty sure that he only had two lips, and that he needed them both. For eating, drinking, talking, and, it slowly dawned on him, potentially for things involving that girl with the short skirt. He couldn’t see the wisdom in giving one of them to that fella in front of him. Besides, he couldn’t help but notice, the bloke seemed to have two perfectly fine ones of his own. Nevertheless, he thought he’d better make sure, so he grabbed his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it thoughtfully.

   ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said at length, ‘I need both of them.’

   An explosion of laughter erupted from the crowd. The girl with the short skirt laid her head back and laughed with a peculiar sound that made Bear Boy’s spine tingle. It appeared that the bloke in front of Bear Boy had heard it too. His face went bright red.

   He stuck his chin even closer to Bear Boy’s face. ‘Are you taking the piss, mate?’ he growled.

   Bear Boy frowned at that. He looked down at his nether parts. There was no piss happening down there. Besides, he was pretty sure he’d know if there was. He usually did. His mum had made sure of that.

   He shook his head slowly. ‘No, it doesn’t look like it,’ he said. He tugged his left earlobe, not sure what was expected of him. He couldn’t imagine why this other fella would be interested in his pissing activity. ‘Would you like me to?’ he offered.

   The crowd roared with laughter. The other bloke’s face went purple. A vein started pulsating on his left temple. It looked worrisome.

   ‘You!’ the fella roared. ‘You dirty foreign scumbag! I’ll fucking show you, you bastard!’ And he raised the spear in his hand, and stabbed it right at Bear Boy’s throat.

   It would have gone straight through it.

   If Bear Boy had not lifted up the Long Grey Thing and held it in the way of the spear.

   It sliced through the wooden shaft of the spear like a fish darting through water. The stone head and half of the spear tumbled to the ground. The crowd collectively gasped.

   Purple Face Bloke’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He stared at his spearhead on the ground. Looked up at Bear Boy. Looked back down at the spear head. Turned his head to look at the left-over bit of spear in his hand.

   Then he let out a scream that put the chickens off the lay for a week, and caused the little kids to flee behind their mothers’ skirts again. He lifted up the half of the spear shaft he still had in his hand, and swiped it at Bear Boy’s head, intent to smash his brains in with it.

   Bear Boy lifted up the Long Grey Thing again.

   The remainder of the spear shaft smoothly sheared in two. Half fell on the ground.

   Purple Face stopped and stared at the stump of timber he had left in hs hand, dumbfounded. His mouth fell open. He raised his eyes up to Bear Boy’s face and blinked. Halfheartedly he stabbed it towards Bear Boy again.

   The Long Grey Thing swung down.

   A piece of wood slowly tumbled to the ground. Purple Face looked in disbelief at the stump of spear shaft in his hand. It only just stuck out from between his fingers now. He looked up at Bear Boy again. His face lost all its purpleness and faded to a deathly white. His mouth hung wide open. Two flies flew in. He spat them out and sneezed.

   ‘You ... you .... you ...’ He swallowed. ‘That was my best spear!’

   ‘Sorry ‘bout that,’ said Bear Boy.

   ‘Look at it now!’ Purple Face, now White Face, uncurled his fingers. They trembled. The left-over bit of timber fell out and landed in the dust at their feet. ‘I worked on that for weeks and weeks! See what you’ve done!’ White Face looked like he was about to cry.

   ‘Yeah, it’s—’ Bear Boy got no further.

   ‘I think that will be enough of that!’ a voice shouted from behind White Face. Bear Boy looked up. Cow Gut Man had reappeared, without his cow gut contraption this time. He pushed White Face away with one hand on his chest. ‘Get out, Tarcondomoto!’ he snapped. ‘Go on. You’re a stain. Fuck off.’

   Tarcondomoto bristled. He opened up his mouth to say something, thought better of it and snapped it shut with an audible smack. He hung his head, still white as snow, turned around on his heel and stormed off. Bear Boy was put powerfully in mind of the dogs that had run away when he had first got there. The only thing missing was a tail to go between the other bloke’s legs.

   The crowd let out their collective breath and started babbling.

   ‘Did you see that?’

   ‘Unbelievable.’

   ‘What is that thing?’

   ‘Bloody hell.’

   ‘Who is this bloke?’

   ‘Mum, I need to go to the toilet.’

   Cow Gut Man turned to Bear Boy and stuck out his hand again. Then he though better of it, jerked it away and hid it behind his back.

   ‘Uh ... sorry about that, mate. Sorry that bloke came and harrassed you.’

   Bear Boy shrugged. ‘It’s all right.’

   ‘He’s a real dickhead, that bloke.’ He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘That’s his name: Tarcondomoto, it means “Dickhead”.’ He grinned. ‘Some people choose their names remarkably well.’

   Bear Boy smiled. Cow Gut Man saw his teeth and faltered a bit. ‘Uh ...’ he took a discreet step backwards. ‘Anyway, as I was saying before, welcome to our village.’ He coughed and put on a solemn face. ‘As we officially say in our language, “Good Wind To You”.’

   Bear Boy frowned. It seemed to him that these people held a peculiar fascination for bodily functions.

   ‘Yeah, welcome mate.’ Another voice, much lighter, came from the side.

   ‘That’s right, Good Wind To You.’ Two of the women with the short skirts had peeled away from the crowd and had wandered over. One of them peered up to Bear Boy from underneath a messy tangle of hair. It was hard to see her eyes. She smiled. It suddenly occurred to Bear Boy that a fascination with bodily functions might well turn out to have attractive side benefits. He smiled back at her.

   Around them the crowd was dispersing. People returned to whatever they had been doing before, satisfied with a bit of jolly entertainment of an afternoon.

   ‘So,’ Cow Gut Man turned back to Bear Boy. ‘My name is Sacrapos.’ He made to hold his hand out again, then remembered himself and hid it behind his back.

   ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Bear Boy. He figured he’d better not try to shake that bloke’s hand again. ‘My mum has told me about you.’

   ‘Your mum?’

   ‘Yeah, Rosmerta. She used to live here.’

   ‘Ah. I see,’ said Sacrapos, who didn’t. ‘Yeah, I remember her. But she’s been gone for a long time. We thought she was dead?’ He eyed Bear Boy speculatively.

   Bear Boy shook his head. ‘Nah, she’s all good. She’s alive. Lives over there somewhere.’ He flapped his hand over his shoulder in a generic north-southerly direction.

   ‘Right. No worries.’ Sacrapos nodded as if it wasn’t as clear as mud. The girls giggled. Something stirred again below Bear Boy’s bellybutton. It was pleasant.

   ‘Anyway, never mind about that ...’ Sacrapos’ voiced trailed off. ‘What I’m curious about is that thing your holding.’

   ‘What, this?’ Bear Boy lifted up the Long Grey Thing and waved it around. Sacrapos took a quick step backwards.

   ‘Uh ... maybe don’t do that, if you don’t mind. Yeah, that. Can I have a look?’

   ‘Sure.’ Bear Boy handed him the thing. Sacrapos took it gingerly in his hand, and swished it to and fro to feel the weight of it. He slowly ran a thumb over the edge.

   ‘Ouch!’ Blood welled up on his thumb. He stuck it in his mouth. ‘Blwwuddy whell.’ The girls giggled again.

   ‘Yeah, uh ... be careful, ey. It’s pretty sharp.’

   ‘Youw wnod wong dere.’ Sacrapos pulled his thumb out of his mouth. ‘Where did you get it?’

   ‘Oh,we made it.’

   ‘You made it?’

   ‘Yeah, we made it.’ Bear Boy waved his arm around mildly erratically in an explanatory gesture that exlained nothing. ‘Me, my mum and my dad.’

   ‘Right.’ Sacrapos squinted at him, ‘How did you make it?’

   ‘Aaah ... it’s a bit hard to explain. You get rocks and you make them really hot. The grey stuff comes out of the rocks.’ He shrugged, a bit embarrassed. ‘It’s hard work.’ He frowned. ‘Very hard work.’

   ‘It comes out of a rock? Out of stone?’ Sacrapos said incredulously. ‘Seriously?’

    ‘No word of a lie.’ Bear Boy nodded solemnly. His back still hurt when he thought of it. ‘True story, ey.’ The girls looked impressed. Bear Boy realised he enjoyed that.

   ‘Right. And, so, what do you call it?’

   ‘Oh, we just call it Sharp Grey Thing.’ He showed Sacrapos the short version. ‘Here’s another one.’ Sacrapos inspected it.

   ‘Right,’ said Sacrapos, a pensive expression on his face. ‘Right.’ He looked at his cow gut contraption, lying in the dust where the edge of the circle of onlookers had been. ‘You know, I do songs, music and that. I make up stuff and tell it to people.’ He shrugged. ‘They like it. They get pretty bored at night. Not much to do around here.’ His gaze fell on the two girls by their side. His face went red. They stared back impassively. He turned back to Bear Boy.

   ‘Ahum ... anyway ... you know, that wouldn’t sound very good in a story, “Sharp Grey Thing”.’ He twisted his mouth into a wry smile. ‘It doesn’t really have a ring to it, does it?’

   ‘It doesn’t?’ Bear Boy had never considered this.

   ‘It doesn’t,’ Sacrapos confirmed. ‘It’s missing a certain “je ne sais quoi”.’

   ‘What does that mean?’

   ‘I have no idea.’

   ‘Ah.’

   ‘Can’t you call it something more interesting? For instance, name it after ... I don’t know ... the way you made it?’ His voice rose with a hopeful tone.

   ‘The way we made it?’ Bear Boy scratched his head. ‘I guess.’ He thought back to his mum’s fury at having to cut his hair all day every day. He reflected on the bloody hard work that had gone into it, and unconsciously stretched his back out a bit more. The girls gave him appreciative glances. He felt himself blush.

   ‘Well, in that case ...’ he began, thinking out loud, ‘it’s come out of hard work ... and ... fury, I guess.’ He stopped, uncertain.

   ‘Hard work and fury, hmmm,’ muttered Sacrapos. ‘Hard work and fury ... out of hard work and fury ... maybe ....’ He turned it over in his head. ‘Too long ...out of hard ... fury. Out of hard fury ... yeah.’ He brightened up. ‘Out Of Hard Fury,’ he said slowly, carefully enunciating the Capital Letters. ‘Out Of Hard Fury ... yeah, now that’s got a ring to it, doesn’t it?’ He looked hopefully around the group. The girls beamed at him. His chest swelled.

   Bear Boy shrugged, non-plussed. ‘Sure, if you want,’ he said. ‘I’m sure that would do.’

   ‘Right, right, Out of Hard Fury,’ Sacrapos rubbed his hand s together in excitement. ‘Now, we need a name for what it actually is, so we can spin shi—... make up a story around it.’

   ‘What it actually is? Well, I said that before, it’s Long Grey Thing. We also call it Sharp Grey Thing,’ Bear Boy added. ‘SHAGT, for short.’ Next to him the girls snorted. He glanced over at them, puzzled. They smiled manically at him and clenched their teeth together. He pointed to the Short Grey Thing. ‘We call that one Short Shagt ...’ A choking sound came from the girls. He indicated the Long Grey Thing. ‘... and we call that one the Long Shagt.’ The girls mouths exploded with wet fart sounds. He furrowed his brow and turned to look at them. They clapped their hands over their mouths and nodded frantically with their eyes wide open. There were tears in them. He wondered why they were sad all of a sudden. Maybe it was something he had said. He turned back to the storyteller. ‘What do you think of that?’

   Sacrapos shook his head. ‘Nah, that will never wash. We need something inspiring, something that will capture people’s imagination.’ He looked at Bear Boy. ‘Let’s think this through. Why do you call it Sharp Grey Thing?’

   ‘Well, because it’s sharp ...’

   ‘No kidding.’

   ‘... and because it’s grey ...’

   ‘Seriously.’

   ‘... and it’s a thing,’ Bear Boy finished. He sensed that somehow he was letting the storyteller down here. The girls made snorting sounds from behind their hands.

   ‘Yes, you’ve said that.’ Sacrapos rolled his eyes. ‘But what’s so special about it?’

   ‘Well, it stays sharp ..’

   ‘Aha!’

   ‘... for a really long time ...’

   ‘Now we’re talking!’

   ‘... forever, really ...’

   ‘Excellent!’

   ‘... without going dull ...’

   ‘Yes, tell me more!’

   ‘.. rapidly.’ Bear Boy grimaced. This was harder than actually making one of those things.

   ‘Very good, very good, we can work with that!’ exclaimed Sacrapos.

   ‘We can?’

   ‘We can.’

   ‘Ah.’

   ‘So,’ Sacrapos began. He rubbed his hands again. He could feel they were onto something good here. ‘So ... it’s Sharp ...’

   ‘Yes.’

   ‘Without ... without dulling ...’

   ‘Well, yes, not rapidly anyway.’

   ‘Okay, all right, start again; so, it’s Sharp ... without ... rapidly dulling?’ Sacrapos nodded to himself enthusiastically. ‘Sharp Without Rapidly Dulling ... but it needs a vowel ...’

    ‘What’s a vowel?’

   ‘Never mind. So ... how about ... Sharp With-Out Rapidly Dulling ... S-W-O-R-D ... yeah, that would work.’ Sacrapos’ head bobbed up and down to the rhythm of a beat in his head that only he could hear. ‘Yeah, S-W-O-R-D, yeah, we can certainly use that ...’

   ‘You reckon?’ Bear Boy was getting strong doubts about this. He wondered about Sacrapos’s sanity. He glanced over at the girls. They nodded encouragingly. ‘He’s always like that,’ the one with the messy hair over her eyes whispered. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She gave him a smile like a midday sun on a summer afternoon. Bear Boy felt suddenly hot again. She tapped her temple with her finger and wiggled her eyebrows meaningfully. He wondered if she had itchy skin.

   ‘Yeah, no worries mate, that’s really good, SWORD, I like it, now that has a good ring to it. People will sit up and take notice of that, and no mistake.’ Sacrapos nodded to himself, satisfied with the progress. ‘So we have a ... a ... yes, a SWORD, that you made out of stone, somehow,’ here he cast a dubious look in Bear Boy’s direction. Bear Boy shrugged. He hadn’t made it up. ‘... and its name ... its name is ... Out Of Hard Fury. Yeah mate!’ He clapped Bear Boy enthusiastically on the shoulder, then clutched his hand, shook it and sucked on it for a bit. ‘Ouch! Bloody hell.’

   ‘Right,’ Bear Boy said, not minding one way or the other. ‘Well, if it makes you happy.’

   ‘It certainly does, it certainly does!’ Now, continued Sacrapos, ‘... now we’ve got to put this into Language.’

   ‘Language?’ Bear Boy was puzzled.

   ‘Yeah, yeah, proper Language, you know, real mystical stuff, so people can go oooh and aaaah, and get all misty-eyed and wistful.’

   ‘All right, if you say so.’

   ‘So, do you know any Language?’ Sacrapos gave Bear Boy an expectant look.

   ‘Language? What, Language, with a Capital L?’

   ‘Yes, yes, exactly,’ said Sacrapos, ‘for instance ...’ he peered at Bear Boy shrewdly, ‘your ... father’s ... language?’

   The words hung in the air, hiding the unspoken question. Who was his father, and what was his background? Bear Boy thought of his father’s language. It was mostly grunts and growls, admittedly, and had a vocabulary that was rather limited, pertaining predominantly to fishing, eating, sleeping, and making strange noises with his mum. But he figured he could rope in a few words to make do, probably, for the purpose of the exercise. He cleared his throat.

   ‘Well ... uh ... yes, well. “Out of” would be “ex”.’ He hesitated. It sounded like the hissing of a snake with its tail trapped under a rock. The girls stared at him.

   ‘Then, “Hard” would be “calet” ...’ This time it sounded like fish jumping out of water that was gushing and swirling in rapids. Sacrapos’ eyes opened wide.

   ‘And “fury”, I guess, would be ... would be ...’ he closed his eyes and thought back to his mum, maniacally wielding her stone knives, ‘well, “fury” would be “burr”.’ It came out as a low, long, deep and threatening throaty growl that spoke of blood and shattered bone. He opened his eyes.

   The other three had taken a step backwards and were staring at him.

   He coughed, embarrassed suddenly. ‘Sorry, that’s probably no good. I’ll try to think of something el—’

   ‘No, no, not at all.’ Sacrapos swallowed hard, and waved a hand between them. ‘No, that’s great, that’s ... well ...’ He blew out air he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in. ‘That’s fantastic, that is. So,’ Sacrapos drew a deep breath. His hands were shaking. ‘So, if we put all those things together ... that would give us ...’ his lips moved soundlessly, ‘that would give us ... ex-calet-burr.’

   —a snake reared up in agony, with its tail trapped beneath a ton of rock, hissing and spitting venom—a salmon jumped high out of the water, silver scales flashing, and swam upstream—jaws and teeth snapped shut around flesh and bone, ripping them to pieces—

   The girls sighed. Sacrapos’ heart was beating a million miles per hour. His mouth was dry. He wiped sweat he didn’t know had been there off his brow.

   ‘Right ... right ... so, we have, as a name ... Excaletburr ....’ A cold shiver travelled up and down his spine. The girls drew a bit closer together. They weren’t giggling anymore. ‘And ... you made it out of rock ... and stone.’

    Silence fell. In the distance they could hear a cow lowing. The air was hot and tasted, somehow, of blood.

   There was one more question that needed to be asked. Sacrapos dreaded the answer, but it had to be done.

   “So ... ahum ... now we need one more thing ... for the story, you see ... we need ... we need to know ... ahum ... who you are.’ He lifted his eyes up to Bear Boy, a pleading expression in his eyes. He opened his mouth and Spoke The Words.

   ‘What is your name?’

   The words drifted out between them, bunched up and tensed, coiled like a predator, ready to pounce. The girls were pale now and were holding onto each other, their eyes fixed on the apparition in front of them.

   Bear Boy furrowed his brow. This was going to be the hard part. His mum had warned him about this bit. He thought of who he was. His father was a bear, his mother was a human. He was half bear, and half human.

   Half bear. Arth in the Language of his father. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

   Half human. Uir in the Language of his mother. Lightning flashed.

   Half bear, half human. Arth-uir. Half of each.

   ‘Uh ...’ he hesitated, then ploughed on. ‘Arth-uir. Arthuir.’ He nodded to hmself.

   ‘My name is Arthuir.’

   It started raining.

   Sacrapos shook his head and rolled his shoulders. The girls heaved a sigh and smiled.

   The spell dropped away.

   ‘Great! Awesome stuff, mate!’ exclaimed Sacrapos. ‘I’m telling you we’re gonna spin a fantastic yarn out of this!’ He made to clap Arthuir on the shoulder again, then changed his mind and stuffed his hand under his shirt.

   ‘All right, we need a pick-me-up after all this excitement. We’ll make a fire and get some drinks.’

 

Night fell. They sat companionably around a roaring fire. It crackled in the silence. The rain had stopped. Arthuir held a old cowhorn in his hand. It was full of a drink that tasted sour and sweet at the same time, and it made his head spin. It was interesting.

   ‘So,’ Sacrapos said, leaning towards Arthuir, ‘making those sharp things out of stone is a pretty good trick, ey?’

   ‘It’s not bad, yeah,’ admitted Arthuir, loyal to his mum.

   ‘You know, I reckon you could make a pretty good living out of that, if you set up a shop around here.’ Sacrapos waved his arm around expansively. The girl by his side ducked and narrowly avoided getting his elbow in her eye. She scowled. ‘People would love to get their hands on those sharp things,’ Sacrapos continued, blithely unaware, ‘they’re really sharp, ey.’ He looked sheepishly at the bandage around his thumb. It was red.

   ‘Pffffff.’ Arthuir let out a long breath. He thought back to all the work they had put into it, the firewood, the heat, the soot. The hammering, the noise, the smoke. ‘Nah, bugger that for a joke. It’s really hard work. I can’t be arsed doing that.’

   ‘Ah.’ Sacrapos concealed his disappointment with an effort. He had imagined being a sleeping partner in the arrangement. Sleeping, that is, in his bed, while the other bloke did all the work. What a shame.

   ‘All right ...’ He hit upon an other idea. ‘Hey, what about if you taught people how to use those things to fight? You could be really good at that!’ He thought back to the altercation between Arthuir and Tarcondomoto. ‘That would be amazing! And you could train up all the blokes in our village, and turn them into great big fighters with those sharp things; and if those bastards from six valleys over that way ever come back to give us a hard time again, like they do sometimes, you could lead our blokes in the fight against them ...’ He caught the look on Arthuir’s face and his voice dropped off. ‘... maybe?’ he added hopefully.

   Arthuir shook his head. ‘Nah, I couldn’t think of anything worse. That would be a pain in the arse, fighting all the time. It’s annoying.’

   Sacrapos sighed. He filed away the great epic songs he had imagined himself composing and performing about heroic battles fought by People Using Sharp Things, led by Arthuir ... That was never going to happen.

   ‘Well, what do you want to do, then?’ he grumbled, put out.

   Arthuir looked up at the sky. The rain clouds had gone, and the stars were out in force. The full moon shone down upon Earth benevolently if frigidly.

   He looked across to the girl sitting by the fire next to him. She smiled brightly at him from underneath the tangled mess of her hair. He still hadn’t seen her eyes. A thought formed in his mind.

   ‘I reckon ...’ he said slowly, ‘I reckon ...’

   ‘Yes?’ Two pairs of eyes and one impenetrable mess of hair looked at him expectantly.

   ‘I reckon I will use the sharp things to cut hair.’

   ‘What?’ Sacrapos was appalled. The girls perked up. Their skirts shrunk again.

   ‘Yes. I will set up a shop for cutting hair. Especially girls’ hair,’ he added. The mess of hair hung down over a wide smile full of pearly teeth.

   ‘You are kidding me.’ Dreams of bardic glory, honour, renown, monetary gain and close personal female attention fled from Sacrapos like cockroaches at sunrise.

   ‘Nah. No kidding. It’ll be great.’ And we’ll call it ...’ He turned the thought over in his mind. ‘We’ll call it ... The SALON.’ He smiled. ‘The SALON: Sit And Listen to Our Nattering. It’ll be great.’ He nudged Sacrapos. ‘You can come in and tell stories. You’ll have a captive audience.’

   Sacrapos looked glumly into his cowhorn. He figured he was going to need a lot more cowhorns full of drink before he was going to be able to turn that particular notion into an epic story of heroes and mystery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note:

Rosmerta: “Great-Provider”, Gaulish language

Sacrapos: “Evil-Eye”, Gaulish language

Tarcondomoto: “Penetrating-Dick-Head, Gaulish language

Art-: bear, Gaulish language

uir-: man, Gaulish language

Melsagiat: “Honey-Seeker”, Gaulish language