Thag shivered as the wind whipped through his fur. He was waiting, hidden behind the trees, for any movement across the clearing, where he was fairly certain there were a few men from Them, the neighboring tribe more often hostile than not, in a similar situation. He held his bow at the ready, white-knuckled and jumpy. The sound of smacking lips from behind made him start. A loud belch spun him around, ready for a fight.
“Phil! I almost shot you!”
“Sorry,” said Phil. “I brought all of this jerky and… we’ve been out here a really long time.” Thag started to interrupt but Phil blurted, “I got hungry! Okay?! I couldn’t help it!”
Thag massaged his temples and sighed, exasperated. He counted to garlok before speaking. He chose his words carefully and spoke slowly when he finally did. “Phil, we’re waiting for them to make one wrong move. As soon as they do, we will attack. If you’re too busy stuffing your face when the time comes, we will leave you.”
Thag disliked throwing rank around, preferring to lead by example. Unfortunately, Phil and his ilk came along from time to time.
“Yes, sir,” huffed Phil. Thag couldn’t tell if Phil was hunched over in shame or not. Poor posture was epidemic among Us, their tribe. Phil mumbled under his breath. Thag resettled himself and pretended not to notice, though he caught a few choice phrases like “that gonga’an son of a don-don”.
Then he saw it. It was brief and isolated but he knew he’d seen a rustling in the leaves across the clearing. Without hesitation, Thag yelled with all his might, “Aaaaaaahhh-gwwwaaaaa!!!!!!”
The noble Us warriors let fly one mighty volley of arrows after another. Once out of ammunition, each man took up his spear and eagerly ran towards the enemy. An earth shaking burp, fading away into the woods behind them, reassured Thag that Phil was not among the advancing ranks.
The men leapt from the shrubbery, hearts filled with the fire of battle. But before any one of them could take another step, they fell with muted screams like dominoes, backs filled with the enemy arrows of battle.
The Cro-Mag people, a.k.a. Them, feasted mightily that night. Lord Crow Mac himself led the tribe in their night of great barbeque and even better storytelling. The chief’s son, Raven Mag, told the tale of the day’s unplanned victory with great relish and many extended pauses for laughter.
“And so we were creeping up behind this deer when we see one of them waddling off to the west. He’s belching and cradling his ‘weapons’, if you can call them that, as if they were children. I had to punch Jeff because he was busting a gut by the third belch. All of a sudden, we hear this plink plink plink plink and we look over the ridge and see a whole gaggle of them hunched together.”
“These were a lot less gassy though,” Jeff interjected.
A few children scattered through the crowd laughed before Raven continued.
“So anyway, I mean… what were we supposed to do? We let the deer go and we managed to take them all out in one round!”
Thunderous applause rang through the cave until what sounded like a sabertooth cat’s roar silenced the crowd. “Yum,’ pronounced Lord Crow Mac as a smile spread across his stony face. The cave exploded in laughter.
