The boy slunk through the grass, simple stone spear in hand. Red mud and ash painted across his dark skin, long black hair tied back with a braid of the tall grass native to the plains. He stalked forward through the chest-high grass, chest high to a man. Much taller than the boy himself. In a few days, it would be his Name Day, his tenth birthday and he meant to earn a strong name. Until now he had been called “Pip” or “Boy” or “Hey you” by the village.
All of the children of the village were deemed unworthy of True Names until they had survived for a decade. Once they were ten years old they were considered old enough to be claimed as full members of the tribe, still not an adult but able to fend for themselves. Unnamed children were communal entities, they could wander from home to home and learn everything from anyone. Every adult was expected to treat the children as their own, feed them, care for them, and the like. Each child was not just a child of the two parents but the entire tribe. Children earned their names by simply growing up, but the children were told that strong names, names that carried power in them were given only to those that had earned them. This boy had always been a serious one, seemingly older and wiser than any Pip had the right to be. This boy wanted a name that carried the will of the ancestors and would attract a powerful Totem.
A deep grunting sound caused the boy to slow even further, to pause as a knot of fear tightened in his chest. Rivulets of sweat had already carved away some of the war paint he had inexpertly applied. He listened closely, more grunts and a squeal of some smaller animal came from ahead of him in the grass. He drew closer, a slight breeze pushing some of the stalks of grass into his face. He knelt at the edge of the clearing. The small watering hole wasn’t much more than a broad swath of trampled mud and grass surrounding a dwindling pond of dirty water. A small pack of Savannah Boars was rolling in the mud, covering themselves in the dark brown mixture. Swarms of flies flicked around them.
There were ten of the creatures, the small young ones were about the size of a Labrador and the largest being nearly the size of a cow. They looked like any boar, barrel-chested, short-legged, and fierce tusks that jutted up from their lips. The boy’s mouth watered at the thought of the smell of their meat cooking over a spit or having been pulled up from the cooking pits in the ground. The boars were the same color as the tall stalks of grass with long vertical striping of darker colors. The boy drew a fist-sized stone from the pouch at his hip and slowly unwrapped the thong of leather from around his wrist. Dropping the stone into the cup of the sling he stood and spun the sling once, twice, release. The stone shot away, as hard and as fast as the small muscular arm could make it go. The stone struck the thick skull of one of the smaller boars with a dull crack. The boar staggered and a second stone struck another larger boar moments after. The boy let out an ululating cry as he turned and began to run. The now enraged boars turned almost as one and charged after the boy.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” Cursed the boy as he sprinted through the tall grass. He followed a trail through the grass, almost arrow straight that he had carefully cut and tramped down over the past few days. The squealing thunder of the charging Savannah Boars hot on his heels. His legs burned and his chest heaved as adrenaline coursed through his body. He had prepared for this exact moment for days. He twisted his hips and hurdled over a small line of blue river stones in the path as the boulder loomed ahead of him. He landed the hurtle and took three steps more before leaping up onto the side of the monolithic stone. He caught onto a net of ropes he had secured to the side of the stone and scrambled up it.
Glancing down at the woven grass covering the pit. Had he dug the pit deep enough? As he gripped the rope net and started to climb a piercing squeal rose over the sounds of the other pigs chasing him. “One,” he thought to himself as he gripped the net. The thundering of the other boars caught up to him as he scrambled higher. One of the adult pigs hit the edge of the pig at a full sprint, falling a half meter and losing the ability to change its momentum or slow before the angled spikes of the shallow pit dug into its belly. It screamed in pain and the other pigs veered around the stone and the now screaming pig.
The boy clambered to the top of the stone, “Two.” He quickly took three deep calming breaths, trying to steady himself. He picked up a sling stone from the pile he had staged here, quickly loading it into the sling as the boars below started to circle the stone. Their fury was palpable in the air, the deep grunting and squealing of their throaty cries caused his soul to shiver. The biggest one eyed him up on the stone and backed away as if to charge the pillar of rock. The boy smiled and shot the first stone at the largest boar, striking it harmlessly but painfully in the snout.
Further enraged the huge boar charged the pillar like a ram. The boy quickly knelt and held onto the rope netting. The boar slammed into the stone causing a few chips of stone to fall away and one of its tusks to crack. It staggered back dazed. The boy barely even felt the concussion, the stone was rooted deep in the rich soil. He loaded another stone and watched the big boar stagger, waiting for his moment. As the boar shook off its stun it glared up at the boy, who in turn released the stone. It flew straight and true. Striking the boar in the left eye. The eye burst as the boar screamed in rage and pain, the force and fury of that cry was far louder than any before. The boar took off in a run that circled and gathered speed as the boar once again tried to bash the huge stone down to gore the tiny thing atop it to death.
The boy watched this with a grin and readied his spear. The boar in the pit had stopped making its pitiful squealing, and the other members of the pack had scattered when the big one had let out its bellow of rage and pain. He looked out toward the path they had all run down, another boar had trampled a twisting line in the grass just past the line of river stone.
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The massive boar was berserk at this point, and coming at the stone like a freight train. It slammed its head into the stone again. A thunderous crack of fracturing stone echoed across the landscape. The boy felt that one this time, he looked over the edge and leaped to the ground. He felt his ankle roll and he grunted in pain as he landed. Charging forward he slammed the stone head of the spear into the side of the neck of the massive beast. It had been almost knocked out after ramming into the stone, and blood gushed out of the wound. A veritable tide of stinking hot blood splashed across the boy as he tried to back away. The fatal blow had been struck, now it was time to wait he knew.
Physically he was no match for even the youngest of the Savannah Boar, but a few smarts and some cleverness readily covered that weakness. A bubbling grunt and weakened squeal came from the beast as it tried to turn its one working eye toward the boy, having to shift its entire bulk to bring the thing that brought its pain into view. The boy skittered around, circling with the boar as the cascade of blood splashed across his feet. He was backed into the stone in a moment, and his heart pounded in his chest as he stumbled.
The boar spun around and caught the boy with the side of its head, the point of the tusk slicing up the boy’s arm and shoulder. The boy let out a pained yelp and grabbed onto the tusk and a tuft of thick coarse hair on top of the beast’s skull. Holding on and waiting was the only way the boy would survive now. The action further enraged the boar, but its life was quickly spilling onto the soil. A shudder ran through the body of the beast, throwing the boy from his precarious hold, and with a grunt, the beast collapsed to the ground. The boy stifled a whoop of joy as his blood dripped down his arm. He grimaced and dug into the pouch at his waist, he took out a knot of dark green fibers and broke off a section. He chewed the sickly bitter root into a pulp and smeared the burning paste into the wound. The mixture of medicinal herbs had a few effects. The bitter taste of chewing it numbed his senses reducing the pain. The paste stung and burned in the wound but the fibers thickened the blood and combined with it to make a natural flexible bandage.
As the adrenaline started to fall away the boy was tired but he knew he had to work quickly, scavengers would be coming very soon. Now that the sounds of the fight were over they would seek out the easy meal that always followed. He could see Colri Buzzards high in the air overhead already. He could not drag even the smallest of these back to the village but he could take the tusks and some meat. He pulled an oblong blue river stone from his pouch, the wide end fitting neatly in his palm. Using an old steel knife he cut away the jowl of the large boar. He slammed the hammer stone into the base of the unbroken tusk, again and again until it broke away in his hand. He set the heavy tusk next to the boar and then said a prayer of thanks to the boar. Grateful to the spirit of the beast for the battle and the chance to prove himself as a warrior to the hunters of the tribe. He felt a hum of power from the Blood Crystal at his neck as wisps of spirit left the body of the beast and wafted into the crystal. The boy’s eyes widened, “A spirit beast! Oh, thank you great one.” He thanked the spirit of the boar again.
He moved to the beast in the pit, a much smaller specimen but still an adult. The pit was only a bit more than a meter across and two meters long. The beast was belly down, speared on several sharpened spikes embedded in the floor of the shallow pit. The stench was fierce as its bowels had been punctured.
Again he cut away the jowl and broke off the tusk, this one only the length of his forearm. He carefully extracted himself and moved down the path he had carved toward the watering hole. Twenty-five yards down the path he found the wreckage of his first trap. This was no more than a long spear he had embedded into the ground at a steep angle, leaving a spear point jutting a few hand widths above the ground. A trip hazard from the side but a show stopper to a charging beast. The spear had caught one of the boars in the base of the chest, and embedded itself using the momentum of the charging boar against itself. He followed the path of trampled grass, and blood to find the corpse. He removed the tusk and began to cut a flank from the beast when he saw the small white worms in the meat. Disgusted he drew back and pulled another small satchel from his pouch. He carefully scattered the fine white powder across the dead animal.
Rot Worms were a problem in the savannah and spread when one animal ate the meat of an infected animal. The powdered bone and ground minerals had been mixed by one of the village shamans for this exact purpose. All among the tribe knew of the worms and their pestilence. If any animal was found to be infected it was to be destroyed. The powder mixed with the animal’s blood and began to bubble and hiss, spreading quickly across the carrion. The stench was terrible and the boy retreated quickly. The powder would clean the animal and consume all of its flesh within a few minutes. Burning the corpse was an option but a fire in the savanna this time of year was a terrible thing, uncontrollable and destructive.
He walked quickly back to the stone and climbed back to the top of it. The menhir itself was three meters across the broad flat top. Some intelligent creature had moved it here long ago, before the oral history of the tribe. Time and weather had scrubbed it clean of any meaning now. It was one of many such rocks found across the plains, not a native stone and too regular to be naturally formed. Atop the stone, the boy collected his pack and took his bearings off the sun. He climbed back down and collected his largest trophy. The tusk was an elongated curve of ivory as long as his leg. Not even close to being the largest he had seen but it was in no way small. The Spirit Boar had been alive for a very long time, seeped in the magic that covered the world, and had grown beyond that of a normal animal. Some of that magic had been what the Blood Crystal at his neck had absorbed. That alone would be enough to prove his hunt, but the tusks would be far more visible proof of his hunt.
Turning so that the Sun was behind his left shoulder he headed toward the river and home.
Behind him, the blood that had soaked the ground, and pooled around the base of the stone was drawn toward the great rock. Absorbed by it and causing ancient glyphs to glow red momentarily. The boy did not notice as he moved out across the plains.