This material is copyright, 2011, by Uther Pendragon. All rights
reserved. I specifically grant the right of downloading and keeping one
electronic copy for your personal reading so long as this notice is
included. Reposting requires previous permission. 
If you have any comments or requests, please e-mail them to me at
nogardnePrethU@gmail.com .
All persons here depicted, except public figures depicted as public
figures in the background, are figments of my imagination. Any
resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.


Seed Grain
by Uther Pendragon
nogardneprethu@gmail.com

Mf nosex viol


In the period of deep snow, the entire camp had gone hungry. Neither
hunting nor gathering had been possible. When the snow melted, the
hunters, Thorn among them, had gone out with the cries of hungry
babies echoing in their ears.

Thorn had trailed the deer herd for three days, grabbing seeds and
berries to eat as he went. The herd led him into a valley entirely strange
to him. He needed to make his kill soon, for he was burning with fever.
In the morning, he took a distant shot, and the arrow hit the doe in her
belly, but not deep enough. The herd scattered, and he pursued the
doe. It was afternoon before he found her, panting and unable to rise. 

He slit her throat with his knife. Then he gutted her, ate her liver, and
staggered off carrying her in the direction he thought would lead him
home. Sick and burdened, he made poor time. Towards evening, well
before he expected to get home, he found people. They were strangers,
though. They were unlike his people or anyone else he had ever met.

They took the doe from his back and led him to their camp. By this
time, the fever had him. He wasn't sure how much he saw was real.
Certainly, the walk through spear-grass could not have lasted at all as
long as it seemed to. He had never seen more than a few tufts together.
Here, they were standing together, and they went on and on. There
didn't seem to be any plants but those. An old man led him into a hut,
and he collapsed on the bed of grass stems.

For a time he couldn't measure, he lay there. The old man gave him
something bitter to drink, and he dropped back to sleep. A young
woman gave him some soup, and he dropped back to sleep. This went
on and on. They talked to him, but their words were strange. 

When the fever left him, but left him weak, he started to understand
them. It wasn't the language of his people, but it was only a little
strange. They pronounced the words differently, but only a few were
new. They called the spear-grass, *grain.* The young woman,
Blossom, boiled the tips to make *gruel* which was their main food. It
didn't taste as good as meat, but he grew healthier eating it. 

When he was well enough, the old man, Guardian, took him to a sweat
lodge. They went naked -- and, since the day was cold, quickly. But he
did see that the whole area around the camp was covered with the
spear-grass or *grain*. There were urns of water in the sweat lodge.
Some water they threw on the hot rocks; some water Thorn threw on
himself. When they returned, Thorn was shivering violently. He ran past
Guardian to the hut. There, it was hot. Blossom was burning his old bed
and had cleaned up his clothes. 

Later, Guardian led him to the closest of the *grain* plants. All the
*grain* from those plants had been gathered, or -- as Guardian said,
*harvested*. They cut enough of those stems for another bed. Blossom
and Guardian had each had a bed until he came along, but they only
had two furs for covering. Now, they shared one while he had the
other. Now, he took their old bed, and Guardian and Blossom shared
the fresh one. 

He was well enough to help, now. The people in the camp, or -- as
they called it -- *village* depended on the *grain*. They didn't move
camp, but stayed by the plants all year. They did little hunting and
gathered almost nothing but the *grain*. Their problem was that birds
and animals gathered the *grain* as well. So they had stations among
the grain fields where a man or, more usually, boy waited with rocks.
When a flock of birds or a deer came, he would shout, wave his hands,
and throw the rocks. Usually, it frightened the animals away. That was
something Thorn could do. After the first time, he took his bow and
two arrows with him. When he was stationed near where the *grain*
gave way to the forest, he waited while a herd of deer started to eat.
Instead of shouting at them, he took aim at a fawn. His arrow hit, and
they all ran away.

"Meat! Meat!" he shouted. When some men came running through the
*grain* plants to see him, he figured that they would frighten any bird
more than a solitary person could. He took off after the fawn. When he
found it dying, he slit its throat and brought it back to where the others
were waiting.

"Here is one who won't eat any more *grain* plants," he said. "Help
me." When he had taken out the entrails, he told some boys to spread
them through the forest along the edge of where the *grain* was
growing. "It will attract animals, but they don't eat grass. They, and this,
will keep deer away." 

He took the fawn to Blossom, and told her to divide the meat
according to her people's rules. He would be certain to get it wrong.
"The skin, though, is for you if your people's rules allow that." Then he
went back to take up his station. He needn't fear deer, but crows
would continue to be a problem.

The people in the *village* started treating him with more respect. He
might be doing a boy's job in scaring birds, but the village didn't eat
much meat, and these people regarded hunting as a daunting task for
several men working together. That he had slain a fawn by himself
without leaving the area impressed them greatly. Thorn wondered how
they thought he had come by the doe he had brought with him. A sick
man, however, had been carrying the doe; there was no reason for
them to be impressed by a sick man. He considered suggesting to
Guardian that he go on another hunt. Others could chase birds.

Guardian, however, had another task for him. He led him to a special
hut close to the one Guardian and Blossom lived in. This one was
smaller, built on a raised platform, and without a door. "The hunger time
is coming," Guardian said. Thorn was puzzled. Snow was off the
ground. There were few nuts or berries left, but there were many
animals. Since these men hunted little, they had game close to where
they lived.

"Inside this special hut is *seed grain*," Guardian continued. "It is
sacred, and it is important that nobody eat it before *planting time*. I
am the guardian of the *seed grain*, and I want your help to make
certain that no one takes it." Thorn didn't understand *planting time* or
*seed grain*, but he certainly understood the idea of being sacred. He
owed Guardian his life, and he was attracted to his daughter. He
promised his help.

"Good," Guardian said. "I'm getting old and sometimes I don't hear
those sneaking around. They are afraid of you, saying that you can slay
at a distance. Don't fear them. Anybody trying to tear a hole in the walls
of this hut is an enemy of the village. Do anything to him that you want." 

Thorn took to listening from his bed. When he heard a noise outside, he
left silently with his bow and several arrows. The first three times, it had
nothing to do with the sacred hut. The fourth time, a man was trying to
cut through the wall. He shot an arrow into his leg when he ran away.
The man fell down screaming. Several others came up and began
berating the man. Nobody bothered Thorn when he went forward to
pull his arrow from the man's leg. Guardian had been right; they didn't
blame him, but the thief.

For another month, Thorn lived with Guardian and Blossom. He caught
one more thief, and Guardian praised him. He asked him for Blossom. 

"You have no other women?" Thorn did not.

"You won't take her from here to your own people?" Thorn would stay.

"You should have asked Blossom first, but she has already spoken to
me. At the feast at the end of planting time, the two of you may
*marry*." That was another new word to Thorn, but clearly Blossom
would be his.

The village got to work, doing things Thorn had never seen. First, the
women went through the field of *grain* pulling off all the seeds which
were left. The men -- including Thorn -- walked behind them pulling up
the stalks. The stalks fed a fire in the middle of the village, although
everyone raided the pile of stalks for new beds. Then the men took
sticks and pushed them into the ground to make small holes. Thorn
tried to help, but he was clumsy at the task and it raised blisters at first.

"Careful," one of the men working beside him said. "If you can't use a
digging stick well, Blossom won't want you." Thorn was tempted to
reply that he was good with a bow, but the laughter at this comment
warned him. It was a sex joke. Still, when the task was almost done, he
thought that his better skills might be displayed. He and Blossom were
to be joined at the *planting-time* feast which would be soon. He
wanted to contribute some meat to that feast. He asked Blossom
whether he should go hunt, and she asked Guardian. They both
approved. He took his bow and his quiver full of arrows with him into
the forest. 

He had seen deer foraging in the *grain* not long before, but it took
him a long journey to find a herd now. He tracked it into a new day
before he had a clear shot. He wanted a buck this time, and he got a
buck. It ran away, then dragged itself away. It was struggling to reach a
stream when he found it. He slit the throat, then gutted it and left the
entrails there. It took him more than a day to carry the buck back to the
*village*. He was already picturing Blossom and her pleasure at seeing
the buck when he got to the edge of the forest. What he saw shocked
him.

The side had been torn from the sacred hut. People were carrying away
the sacred *seed grain*. They were throwing it on the ground! He
faded back into the forest long enough to ease the buck onto the
ground and take a position which sheltered him but gave him clear shots
into the field. Then, drawing the bow and aiming carefully, he shot one
after another of those carrying the *seed grain* to waste it on the
ground.

Because he had promised Guardian, and because it was *seed grain*
and it was sacred.

The end
Seed Grain
by Uther Pendragon
nogardneprethu@gmail.com
2011/02/24


For another story set in a different culture, although not this different:
/~Uther_Pendragon/story/youth.htm
"Youth House"

The index to almost all my stories:
/~Uther_Pendragon/index.htm