Because of that, we were foolishly incautious.
And I paid the highest price of all.
8
Back to Bukhult.
In every group of animals there is a pecking order, and our tribe was no exception. Bukhult was at the very bottom of our social hierarchy. Metaphorically speaking, he was the chicken with the bald-pecked head. He was the butt of most of our practical jokes, the one who ate last, mated with the least desirable females (if he got lucky at all) and was often even ridiculed by the children. Hell, I'm not sure he even got laid at the previous night's orgy-- though custom dictated we must all participate to insure the good will of our ancestors. Maybe old Grung gave him a poke out of pity. I was too blasted to remember.
I never participated in his abuse but I had little patience for him. His foolishness annoyed me. His soft body and clumsiness disgusted me. He was fat and weak, with tits like a female, and had a round, ugly face with crooked eyes and rotten teeth.
I could not fathom why he bothered to come along. He was terrible with a spear, useless with a bow. He was only good for two things, really: cooking and fetching for the other more competent warriors. I had objected to his inclusion in our war party but was out-voted by some of the other men. I suppose they wanted their jester along. He was like a dumb but loyal dog.
Eleven men set out that morning for the land of the Gray Stone People. There was Brulde and myself, my father Gan and his older cousin Kort-lenthe. There was Tavet, who was a hulking bear of a man, half-Neanderthal like the young ones Eyya had bore me. There was young Strom, beardless still but brave, and his tent mate Hyde, who sported a thick shock of kinky black hair and a big, bushy beard, unusually full for one so young. There were the three brothers Halde, Tetch and Git... and bringing up the rear: Bukhult.
Even before the sun had reached its noontime seat in the sky, Bukhult was panting like a dog and complaining of his aching feet and rumbling belly. Hyde and Strom, who were marching near him at the time, picked up their pace to put some distance between them. The fat man's incessant complaining was nerve-racking. As the two men passed me by, Hyde scowled in my direction. I could sympathize. I’d had my fill of Bukhult’s woes as well. If the fat fuck did not quit griping soon, the Foul Ones would be the least of his concerns. Strom, on the other hand, was studying the clouds. He had voted for Bukhult the previous night, thinking it a great joke.
“If I knew it was going to be so hot, I would have brought more water!” Bukhult croaked behind me, sucking from his drink bladder.
A short while later: “Oh! Hold up, fellows! I stepped on a sharp stone. Ow! Hold up!”
A few minutes after that: “Ow! Leg cramp! I can't walk! Ow!”
“I think we should use him as bait when we get to Gray Stone,” Brulde muttered, walking beside me.
“The Foul Ones wouldn’t want him,” I said.
“If they did, they would bring him back soon enough,” Brulde replied, and I chuckled in agreement.
Bukhult stumbled up the hillside at the rear of the war party, shoulders slumped, sweat dripping from his face. About halfway up, one of his feet slipped in the friable soil and he went down. Exhausted, he crawled up the rest of the hill on his hands and knees, his male tits swinging to and fro. I’d wager the crack of his ass was showing as well, and thanked my grandfathers he wasn't walking ahead of me. Nobody should have to suffer such a sight!
He only managed to set a quick pace once-- when he saw some fruit hanging from a tree.
“Oh, look!” he crowed, leaping to his feet. “Bunyuns!”
He sprinted past me and began to hop at the branches of a shrubby tree laden with overripe fruit.
Those plum-like fruit no longer exist. I think they went extinct during my long hibernation. To that I say, “Good riddance!” Even when they were ripe they were terribly sour, and they would give a man a horrendous case of the runs if they weren’t eaten in midsummer. In fact, our word for the fruit, bunyun, was very similar to our word for diarrhea, bun-yest. It was a play on words but also a warning, one that Bukhult took no heed of.
“Bukhult! Ai, don’t eat those, you fool!” my father barked, but Bukhult ignored him. He made a quick meal of the half-dozen or so wizened fruit he had already plucked down from the tree.
He grinned stupidly, gappy teeth discolored by its juice. “They taste fine, Elder Gan. They’re a little tart but perfectly edible! Mother fed these to me when I was a little boy.” He proffered the few he did not immediately wolf down to the rest of us. “Anyone else want some? There's plenty for everyone.”
I waved him away as I passed.
“You fool,” my father growled. “Those fruit should only be eaten in the summer. They'll give you the watery cramps! Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”
“Wha-aaaa...?” Bukhult said, blinking stupidly. “But they taste just fine...”
My father huffed in annoyance and hurried on, shaking his head.
A couple of hours later, Bukhult's complaining was focused solely on his aching tummy. “Oh-hhhh... my stomach. It hurts so bad,” he moaned, clutching his jouncing belly. It had begun to make very loud, very moist gurgling sounds. Every few minutes, he passed gas, also very loud and moist sounding. “I'm not joking, guys. I think I'm getting sick!” His porcine face was slick with sweat. More so than was usual.
“Quit complaining, you imbecile!” my father snapped. “I told you not to eat those bunyuns! They turn foul in the autumn!”
“Yah, go back to camp, you dummy!” Hyde yelled.
Tavet clumped the fat man on the back of his head as he stomped past, making the smaller man stumble and cry out.
“Owww! Tavet, that hurt!”
Less than an hour after he’d eaten the overripe bunyuns, Bukhult stopped suddenly, eyes bulging from their sockets. “Oh no!” he exclaimed. Jowls quivering, he began to wrestle with the ties of his breeches. Mewling miserably, he shoved his pants to his knees. The instant he bared his fat ass, a torrent of foamy green shit exploded from his anus.
We all froze in shocked disbelief as Bukhult strained, face red, the muscles in his neck standing out, and spurted out a second astounding geyser of bright green diarrhea. The three brothers pointed and began to laugh, and then we all broke down: snorting and whooping and slapping our knees.
“Stop laughing, guyyyyysssssss!” he wailed, feces spraying the back of his legs.
Brulde gaped, his upper lip curled back from his teeth. I'm not sure whether I was more amused or revolted. It was too close a race to call.
Feces arced from Bukhult’s posterior again, and then once more, as the younger men howled with laughter.
“It's not funny!” Bukhult warbled, the veins in his temples standing out.
He finally stood upright, legs wobbling, and turned to survey the mess he had made. When he did, I saw a rope of green mucus dangling from his behind and then I broke up, too. I couldn’t help myself. I covered my mouth to hold it in, but nothing I could have done would have held that laughter back. I laughed until my eyes watered, until I was doubled over, stomach aching, and my head spun from lack of oxygen. Bukhult turned this way and that, trying to look over his shoulder. Each time he twisted about, the mucus swung back and forth, wagging like the tail of a dog. But it never dropped off. I thought I would go insane with revulsion.
“Wipe your ass, man!” Tavet snarled. “For your ancestors' sakes!”
“Maybe you should sit on the ground and scoot like a dog!” Halde suggested.
Bukhult dashed to some bushes to find some leaves to wipe on, legs bowed, pants around his ankles. We continued to howl laughter until my father shouted for quiet, furious at our lack of seriousness.
“Your carelessness will get us all killed!” my father berated us, shaking a fist. “Do you think the Foul Ones are anything to laugh about? You will not think Bukhult so funny with a spear in your belly!”
Father’s hot glare withered our merriment. We resumed our journey, trying our best to stifle the la
st little snorts and snickers that bubbled up inside of us. It wasn't much further along, however, before something was bubbling up inside of Bukhult again, too. With a miserable squawk, Bukhult dashed off into the bushes to shit once more.
This time no one laughed or taunted him. Gan’s admonishment had scared us straight, as the modern saying goes. My father had reminded us, and rightly so, that we were on a dangerous odyssey. We were courting disaster if we continued to act so blithely. So we marched on, trusting Bukhult to catch up with us when he had finished fertilizing the shrubbery... or slink back home like the buffoon he was and leave this war campaign to the warriors.
Before we had walked too much further, however, Bukhult let loose a piercing shriek.
It was a woman-like wail of abject fear and we froze in our tracks at the sound of it. I had heard cries like that before—when children were frightened by a monster in the darkness, or a women was laboring to push out a baby—but rarely from a full-grown man, not unless he was mortally wounded. It was a moment before we even thought to respond, such was the horror in Bukhult’s cry.
“Aaaaiiieee!”
He had retreated behind some bushes to do his business in private. As Bukhult screamed, the bushes began to shake violently back and forth. We heard a deep, purring snarl and then Bukhult screamed again, this time despairingly.
“Bukhult!”
“Hurry! This way!”
The ten of us followed his cries into the underbrush, stepping high and bringing our spears to the ready. I was nearest to Bukhult when he dashed into the bushes so I took the lead. The three brothers were just behind me, and Hyde and Strom behind them. Father, his cousin, Tavet and Brulde brought up the rear.
“Careful!” my father called after us. “Gon, take care!”
We split into two groups, cutting around to either side of the shaking bushes. Just on the other side of the bushes was a depression in the hillside, a scar-like runnel where spring runoff had carved a shallow trough into the ridge. That’s where we found Bukhult, sprawled in the ditch in the grips of an enormous speartooth.
“Ancestors!” Halde yelled. “Look at the size of that thing!”
It could only be the rogue cat the Fat Hands had been tracking, a tawny monster with a white ruff and white and black stripes. It was old, its body crisscrossed by scars, its fur coarse and dusted with gray. Nevertheless, it was a fearsome beast, massive, muscular, with vicious, vivid green eyes and fangs as long as my hand from wrist to fingertip. Those fangs were curled around Bukhult’s head. He was lying beside the beast, head in its mouth. Its shiny black claws were hooked in his flesh.
The great cat crouched as we converged on it, ears flattening, claws sinking more deeply into its prey. The soil in the ravine was loose and crumbly and I slipped and slid toward the beast, clutching my spear in both hands, heart racing, adrenaline slamming through my veins. It hissed at us, muscles bunching beneath its fur, but it did not release its death-hold on our companion.
Bukhult was trembling spasmodically. His shirt had been shucked up to his armpits. Blood was smeared across his belly and splayed thighs. One of his hands strained toward his knife, blood dripping from his shaking fingertips, but he couldn’t reach it. His knife, like his pants, were down by his ankles.
“Bukhult!” I shouted. “Hold on, we’re coming!”
Bukhult's strange, crooked eyes rolled toward me, peering out between the beast’s ivory-colored fangs. I cannot begin to describe the look of hopelessness and horror in those eyes, only that I felt great pity for him in that instant. His eyes were the only recognizable feature in the glittering red carnage that was his face. The beast had nearly peeled his scalp from his skull, and one of its fangs had pierced the flesh of his cheek and must have been sunk halfway down his throat. I don't know how he could still be alive.
The great cat hissed as we surrounded it, howling and stabbing it with our spears. It hugged Bukhult possessively and snarled around his bleeding head. Bukhult mewled as it wrenched his body back and forth, and then there was a popping sound, like someone snapping a branch over their knee, and the fat man convulsed. The beast’s violent movements had broken his neck. I saw the life fade from his eyes.
“No!” I cried.
Bukhult's limbs flopped bonelessly as the cat twisted about. I had always harbored a fair degree of contempt for the man, but he was one of the People and a death so meaningless offended me greatly. I leaped forward, reckless in my anger, and drove my spear into the giant cat's neck. It yowled and swiped me with a paw. It was a glancing blow, but the strength of the beast was such that it sent me wheeling away down the hill. Earth and heavens flip-flopped.
“Gon!” father bellowed.
I slid to a stop several meters down the slope, on my back, my legs spread in a V shape above me. A dusty little avalanche of loose earth and stones rattled down around me.
For a moment I lay senseless, looking up at the clouds. It was as if the cat’s blow had jarred my brain loose. I could hear the cat spitting and snarling and my companions yelling and cursing but my mind could not fit the sounds into any kind of context. It was as though I were set apart from the world. For a moment, the entirety of my universe was the rushing sound of my heartbeat, four hot trails of pain running across my hip and a white puff of dandelion seed, glowing in the sunshine as it drifted through my field of vision. My ears were ringing, a sound that reminded me of crickets chirping. I groaned and tried to rise. My knife was stuck in the earth beside my hand and I pulled it free. I heard my father yell, “Die, you old bastard!” and then my brain reconnected. I came to my senses, shaking my head, and managed to sit upright.
Someone shouted, “Watch out!” and the big cat hissed ferociously.
I jumped to my feet and clambered toward the fray.
“Hold on,” I yelled. “I’m coming, father!”
The three brothers were jumping forward and stabbing the beast, then leaping nimbly back, one after the other, attacking with a beautiful, deadly synchronicity. The beast was bleeding from a dozen wounds. It had released Bukhult but stood over him, snarling and swiping at its foes with its claws, unwilling in its animal stupidity to give up its prey and retreat. It must have been very hungry.
“Back!” Brulde yelled as I rejoined the fray. He was not speaking to me but to the three brothers.
The brothers retreated at his command and Brulde rose up, balanced precariously on the lip of the ravine. He drew back his bowstring, let an arrow fly. The arrow hissed through the air and sank into the speartooth’s eye. The animal reared back with an ear-piercing shriek, standing on its rear legs for a moment. It pawed at the shaft protruding from its eyesocket, muzzle curled back from its great yellow fangs, and then it collapsed onto its side and slid down the hill toward me. I leapt out of the way and scrambled up to Bukhult’s lifeless body. His head lolled like a flower with a broken stem.
The brother’s loped past me, stabbing the dying beast with their knives and spears. Brulde and my father stumbled to my side.
“He has gone to join his ancestors,” I said, hand on Bukhult’s bloody cheek.
“Are you all right?” father asked, standing just behind me.
“I think so,” I said. I started to rise and clutched my hip with a hiss.
“Hold still! Let me have a look at your injury,” Brulde snapped. He set his bow to one side and carefully peeled my breeches down my thighs, exposing four parallel lacerations. They ran from my hip to my pubis. I was shocked to see how profusely I was bleeding. My leggings were soaked. I hadn’t realized until then just how bad the speartooth had wounded me. I thought it just a glancing blow, but the beast’s great claws had nearly unmanned me.
“A few more inches and I’d be calling you ‘wife’,” Brulde said.
“Looks like he got me pretty good,” I agreed.
My father smacked me upside the head. “You stupid boy! You know better than that! That cat could have killed you!” His face was white but for a flush on his brow. It ha
d horrified him when the cat struck me down. I imagine his thoughts had flown to Vooran, who had also been killed by a speartooth. Now that he knew I would live, he was furious with me.
“Sorry, father,” I said, rubbing my swelling ear. “I was careless. I won't make that mistake again.”
He crossed his arms and huffed. “See that you don't or I'll whip you so hard you'll think that speartooth gave you a love tap.” He squatted down behind Brulde then, putting his hand on my tent mate's shoulder, and examined my wounds for himself. He shot me another reproachful look, shaking his head, but I could tell that he was relieved. Despite all the bleeding, the injury was not life threatening.
“It's not as bad as it looks,” Brulde informed me, poking at the quartet of ragged slices in the fatty swell of my hip. The skin around the wound was swollen and bruised, but the bleeding was beginning to slow. “You should be okay so long as it doesn't get infected.”
“Good,” my father said. He thumped Brulde on the shoulder and rose. “See that his wound is properly dressed. I have some poultice in my rucksack, if you need it.”
“Yes, father,” Brulde said.
Gan put his hands on his hips and turned his attention to Bukhult's bloody corpse.
“We'll take care of this fool while you tend to Gon,” he said. “Even a fool deserves a proper burial.” My father's words were harsh but his tone was gentle.
Their bodies had come to rest in a peculiar position, I thought. Bukhult lay on his back, face turned toward the speartooth, one limp arm stretched out as if reaching for his killer. The cat laid a little way down the hill, head twisted toward Bukhult in an oddly yearning fashion, jaws agape.
The Oldest Living Vampire Tells All: Revised and Expanded (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 1) Page 13
