Bumbling

Even billy bumblers know loneliness and the throcken that would soon come to be known as Arthur was lonely. He was on his own now, and had been for a long time as the lives of bumblers go. When he was young there had been other bumblers. And people as well.

There was a place near the forest where lot of people lived in their strange on top of the ground burrows. They never bothered the bumblers and sometimes there was food or a dish of milk left out. The bumbler didn’t know, but he kenned, and the khef of his parents and ka-tet told him that not long ago the bumblers had lived much closer to the people. Maybe even with them. It was a strange thought, but only a little. After all there was sometimes food and stones were never thrown.

The bumbler also kenned that once there had been a great deal more people. That once all of the odd on top of the ground burrows had been full of people. Some had died and some had gone away. When the bumbler was still very small and only beginning to understand these things there was a loud commotion from the people-burrows.

The curious throcken slinked through the forest and watched with their large gold-ringed eyes as the people-burrows burned. There were more people there now, but they looked like they were fighting with each other. It did not look like the fun sort of tussling that the bumbler enjoyed with his ka-tet and some of the people were making pain-barks and whimpering.

One of the people saw the throcken and shot an arrow at them. They scattered into the bushes and hid until the people were gone. The bumblers didn’t understand it in the way that people did, but none-the-less they knew that another piece of the world had moved on.

The ka-tet of bumblers continued to live in the forest, hunting and foraging. Sometimes they even still made people-noises to each other, and they all barked happily.

Three months before the bumbler would follow a band of people to the big hill by the sea at the end of the forest - before he would hide in terror and believe he was going to the clearing at the end of his path, before he would meet another human with a fuzzy face who would give him a new ka-tet – the bumbler was playing in a shaft on sunlight falling through the canopy, chasing a butterfly.

He might catch it and eat it in a little while, but for now, he liked the way the light flashed on the bright colors of its wings and he liked the smell of the grass and the warmth of the sun and he liked to spring and jump and roll. His corkscrew tail twitched back and forth and he compressed his long body, ready to launch himself in a fantastic leap. The butterfly had just slipped between his grasping paws and the bumbler decided to try very hard to catch the bug, not just try a little. But he stopped, and if his body hadn’t already been tensed to spring it would have tensed anyways.

A shadow passed over the bumbler, casting darkness and cold over him, save that the sky was cloudless blue. Striped fur bristled making the small throcken look twice as big. He stretched out his long neck, his head questing right and left. His eyes were wide but it was his nose and ears that he looked with. Even though he neither saw, heard, nor smelled anything amiss, the bumbler broke into a run, the butterfly forgotten, dashing as fast as he could towards the burrow.

Even bumblers can feel ka-shume.

Soon the cries of throcken echoed in the forest, shrill squeals of pain and terror. The young bumbler ran faster, even knowing that he was running into danger. There, below the sharp barks of fear was a lower growling. Closer to the burrow, the bumbler picked up the scent. The familiar smells of his ka-tet, both old and new, and now the fresher scent of a predator. Something big and dangerous, and something sick.

The bumbler began to bark, a staccato beat as he ran. A plea.

He leapt a fallen branch and saw the burrow that had been his home for a long time. The earth around it had been torn open, clods of soil scattered throughout the grass. The smell of blood and fear was thick in the air. Looking closer, he saw that what had looked like just one of the mounds of thrown earth was the crumpled shape of a bumbler. In the middle of the carnage stood a wolf, as dark as the day was bright. It was a mutie, with gaping holes in its head instead of ears. Its fur was tangled and had fallen out in clumps to reveal mottled skin, thick with scabs. Some disease had eaten away its face, leaving patches of glaring white bone. Its lips were gone, freezing the wolf’s face in a permanent snarl.

As the little bumbler watched, the wolf darted its pointed head into the den, fangs clicking together. It lunged again and this time it threw its head back, lifting the writhing body of a throcken. It growled and shook its head in a brisk negative. The snap of tiny bones was loud in the clearing. The bumbler looked around, searching with nose and ears for the rest of the pack, but only briefly. The animal instinctively knew that this wolf would have been driven out of his pack long ago. It was a lone wolf, mad and dying. A healthy wolf may have caught a single bumbler and vanished with its prize. This creature wasn’t interested in killing for hunger.

One of the bumblers cornered in the burrow made a dash for it. The wolf dropped the dead throcken and snapped its head forward, fangs clamping down. But as it did another bumbler, the largest of the pack, leapt out. The larger throcken hit the wolf in the face with his whole body, scratching and biting. The wolf dropped the caught bumbler and shook its great, shaggy head. Spittle and blood flew. Still the bumbler clung fiercely to the wolf. One of its searching claws found the wolf’s eye and clawed, the sharp fingers raked through the soft orb, spilling thick, yellowish fluid.

The little bumbler at the edge of the clearing hopped forward towards his wounded ka-mate. The female bumbler looked up and gave a long, quiet whine of pain. The bumbler that would come to be known as Arthur could see the ring of ragged holes where teeth had sunk in. He could see the white of bone through some of these and he could smell the death-stench.

A snarl of pain caught the little bumbler. He turned, putting himself between his wounded ka-mate and the ravening wolf and saw it shaking its head fiercely. The largest bumbler was no longer biting and scratching, but only trying to hang on. Its back legs had lost purchase and his hindquarters flopped wildly about as the wolf snarled and howled. The wolf twisted its head and managed to catch one of the bumbler’s rear legs in its jaws. The snap was smaller and more brittle than the rapid crunching of broken bones that had crippled the other bumbler. The wolf threw its head and the heavy throcken lost its grip and was thrown off.

The smallest bumbler stood its ground, his whole body shaking, his twisted tail vibrating like a spring. The wolf turned towards him, regarding him with one yellowed eye and one bloody socket. He made small, choking noises. The bark of defiance was caught in his throat and would not come out. The wolf padded closer slowly, moving in to kill. To rend and tear and leave the meat to rot in the sun.

The large bumbler stood, slowly. Its rear left leg was mostly gone, torn free except for one tough tendon dragging the severed paw. The gold rings of its eyes blazed fiercely. It crouched on three legs and sprung, but it succeeded only in tearing out a tuft of mangy fur. The wolf turned and uttered a rough bark of irritation, but turned back towards the young bumbler. It was healthy and not yet hurt at all.

Fear washed over the little bumbler like the wolf’s fetid breath. His muscles trembled but would not otherwise move. He saw himself reflected in the bloodshot orb of the wolf’s good eye and saw his death there. Then he heard a loud, clear bark. He blinked his large gold eyes and saw the large bumbler behind the wolf. The big throcken lifted his snout and barked again. The little bumbler knew he was being told to run. He didn’t want to though, his friends were dead or wounded and a part of him welcomed death rather than a life alone. The big bumbler uttered a last bark, ringing with finality.

The little bumbler turned and ran. The wolf would have caught him regardless, but the dinh of the bumblers leapt forward and sank his teeth to the gums on the beast’s hamstring. The wolf howled as tainted blood welled up around the wound. It turned and bit savagely into the bumbler, but even as bones cracked and organs burst it would not let go.

The youngest bumbler ran and ran, leaving its dead ka-mates behind.

The months after the loss of his ka-tet were terrible for the young bumbler. Without a ka-tet, without a home we wandered to the east through the old forest. He made people-noises to himself, but there was no one to share his laughter. A part of him wanted to lay down and die, but there was a small voice inside that urged him to wait. Some instinct that said not yet.

On the first day that the little throcken smelled the salt of the ocean in the air, he also heard the distant sounds of hooves. He knew the sound of horses, and he knew that they were an animal that, like billy bumblers, liked people. Lonely, he followed the sounds and watched a large group of people riding and walking. He thought it was very odd and unnatural they way the horses let the men sit on their backs, but then, they were very big.

The group was moving east towards the ocean and the bumbler thought he might go to them. But there were no laugh-barks and he could not smell much food. Still… he was alone in the forest and he wanted to hear voices, even if they weren’t his kind.

The people left no food, although the bumbler smelled a little of it cooking. He would sneak close enough to the tall stone burrow and listen to the people talking quietly. He didn’t think they were very happy either.

The night that he met the man with the fuzzy face the bumbler knew what he had been waiting for. The man was in the woods, but the little creature didn’t understand what he was doing to the trees.

The man saw him and the bumbler began to back up. It had been a long time since he had been this close to a person and never by himself. He wanted to make a people-noise, because people liked that and then came food. But the man put food on the ground anyways, and then he left.

The food was strange but delicious and even after it was gone, the bumbler took the strange but good-smelling not-quite-leaf it was on back to the little hole he had scratched into a burrow. He watched the people and he watched the furry man most of all. Of all the people on the hill, they smiled the most. He remembered that when the mouths on their funny flat faces went up, that they were happy. He pulled the corners of his own mouth up and back, showing his teeth.

When the bumbler was thinking about going closer to the people and making some friendly noises, the army came. They were like ants. One, two, three…the bumbler lost count. There were many more than three people. Maybe three threes of people. He thought that this might be closer to the number, but it was hard. He knew that there were a lot of them, and they hard strange, hard blue faces.

The next hours were a nightmare of sound and fury. The bumbler scrambled into its hole, digging deeper as strange thunder shook the ground. Running footsteps shook the hill and the tiny burrow nearly collapsed onto of the throcken. Voices shouted and the smells of blood and sweat and piss and smoke were strong. He buried his burning nostrils in the dirt and squeezed his eyes shut. In his mind the explosions and the screams of the dying mixed with the growling of wolves and the death-cries of his ka-tet.

The bumbler stayed hidden in his collapsed burrow until hunger drove him out. The battle was long over, but it had left its mark on the hill by the sea. Black smoke and the stench of burning flesh rose from a mound near the big stone burrow. Great divots had been gouged out of the earth here and there. Sticks were sticking out of the ground like a carpet of needles. Blood was everywhere.

Most of the bodies had been moved, but some few still lay where they had fallen. The little bumbler began to hop to each of these, watching them carefully for signs of life. But even though some of the faces were fuzzy, all of them were blue. The man who had given him food was not here.

This gave the small throcken some heart and he scampered down the hill. He would find the person with the fuzzy face and maybe he would set down some more food. Then the hunger would end, but more importantly, the loneliness would end.

He stopped at the bottom of the hill and sniffed the air. Which way to go? The bumbler began to move south, but then the breeze shifted, saving his life and leading to his new ka-tet. The salt-scent from the waves below the cliff slacked off and new scents came to him on from the forest. The wind from the south was foul with blood and sweat, and a hint of the blue mud from the faces of the dead people. The bumbler wrinkled his nose and moved off to the east.