Immemoria

Two woodland boys stood upon a riverbank. The water bit at the touch of their toes. They looked at one another, took a deep breath each, and slipped into the river. They swam across to a field on the other side, where cattle grazed on tall gold grass. The boys emerged, crawling up the muddy bank on all fours, dripping cold. At the sight of them, the cattle moaned and shook their horns. The older boy pounded the younger’s chest. This was how they would prove their mettle. After today, they would be men, and none in the tribe could say otherwise. Tonight, their skin would be painted with the ochre and red clay of heroes, and they would tell their tale around the campfire.

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A bull pushed through the herd, drawn by the distressed moans of heifers and calves. At the sight of the woodland boys, it let out a deep wail. The bull dug up clods of sod with its cloven hooves and lowered its mantel. The older boy slapped his limbs, waking them up, and squared off against the beast. When the bull charged, he ran headlong to meet it. The bovine drove nigh, sure to impale the boy. He leapt. His long legs swung over scythe-like horns and propelled him into a loose flip. When he hit the ground behind the animal, he ran, laughing. The bull raised its large head, confused. Some magic was played upon it. The younger boy whooped, waved his arms, and drew the bull’s attention. It rushed him as it had the older boy. The younger, being shorter and less muscled, was not as graceful in the air. Still, he launched himself over the bull’s head and rolled to his feet behind it, unscathed. Victory. The two boys leapt over the bull, back and forth, again and again. The bull, more frustrated with each charge, groaned and snorted. It was tiring. Soon, the boys were jumping over it as if there was no danger in it at all.

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From a farmstead nearby, a line of flint-headed spears and sickles bobbed closer over the tall stalks of grass towards the commotion. The boys, so preoccupied with their glory, did not hear their approach.  Not until the farmers broke through the herd did the woodland boys make for the river. The older boy dodged blows and fought skillfully. He yanked a spear clear from the hands of a would-be attacker and, with the words he would tell of this day already swarming his head, used it to vault over the farmers, escaping into the water. Behind him, the younger boy slipped in the muck of the riverbank. The older boy tried to turn around mid-river to help, but a current swept him away.

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The younger boy stumbled to his feet. Eyes wide. Mouth agape. Alone. He could fight the farmers, he thought. He was stronger than them. Then, something like the feeling of being bitten, punched, and stung at once struck his neck. He fell to the ground with his hands at his throat, where an arrow had shot through, the red flint head jutting out of his nape. Blood jetted out over the ground, and he twitched with his face buried in the muck. The farmers kicked and danced upon the boy’s body, his skin turning to the colorless. Tonight, they would boast over cups of barley-water how they thwarted a band of woodland thieves from raiding their herd.