Of Bone and Thunder (48 page)

Knockers nodded, but he didn't look convinced. Carny decided to indulge him.

“You doubt our fearless leaders?”

Knockers's eyes widened. “No. No, it's just that they taught us in training that having the high ground was always the best.”

The shield grew quiet. Knockers was right, and that was troubling enough without looking at the ramifications of what that meant for them.

The normally son-of-a-prick flock commander came to the rescue. He turned in his saddle and addressed them. “Lads, you see those nasty little rags that have been flying with us? Well, even if every slyt in the FnC were to haul bony ass up to those mountain peaks, those sparkers would make sure they were R-and-T'd before the slyts had a chance to boil a pot of water.”

Laughter broke out as the tension evaporated. “Fucking right!”

Carny caught the flock commander's eye. The man wasn't grinning. He nodded at Carny and turned away.

Miska called to Carny, asking what
R-and-T'd
meant.

“ ‘Roasted and toasted,' ” Carny said, enjoying her obvious discomfort at the image. “You ain't seen nothing until you see a charked slyt. They curl up like a caterpillar. Skin and muscles shrink so much the bones often snap. And the smell . . .”

Miska turned her head and heaved, trying to cover her mouth. Wiz shot Carny a glare and leaned over to help her. Carny shrugged and sat back down, ignoring the eyes of the men looking at him. He'd gone too far.
Fuck her.
She wanted to know what it was really like out here. Let her go and walk through a pile of charked slyts, hear the fat crackle as they burned. Maybe then she'd drop the bullshit.

The bamboo whistle sounded.

“You heard the man,” Carny said, strapping himself back in and taking stock of his equipment. “Strap up, cinch up, and bolt up,” he said, cocking his crossbow and sliding a bolt into the firing groove. “Looks peaceful down there, but that's just the way Faery Crud likes it.”

Carduus slowed his wings, then held them out perpendicular to his body. The sudden silence was always unnerving, but Carny had grown to
appreciate the feel of the wind. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was flying by himself.

Then the angle of the rag changed, and what was a glorious sensation of flight became one of accelerating fall. Carduus hit some rolly blues as they descended below the mountain peaks. His massive body shook and bucked like a canoe in rapids. Carny looked up and down the rag making sure everyone was in place. He caught Miska's eye. She looked miserable. Her bosom was bouncing, but no one was enjoying the show now. He grinned and waved at her.

“Welcome to the Valley of Bone and Thunder!”

SHIELD LEADER LISTOWK
reached up and took his pipe out of the linen band he'd wrapped around his helm. Until the Lux he'd never smoked, but it calmed his nerves, which seemed more on edge these days. He sat on the northern wall of the castle and watched the valley as dusk gave way to night. It had been a long day in the air and he was glad to have dirt under his boots again.

He'd asked the sentries in the watchtower nearest him if slyts were in the area, but they'd laughed and told him to take all the wall he wanted.

“I have to say,” the senior sentry had said, leaning out over the parapet of his tower, “we haven't seen a slyt since we got here, and that was three weeks ago. Little bastards must have turned tail and run when they heard us coming.”

Listowk didn't bother to reveal his rank and climbed the wall with thanks. He walked along it until he found a spot just far enough away from the tower that chatting would be discouraged, but not so far that they couldn't see him. It was night, and this was slyt country.

He glanced to the right and made out the light of the small oil lamp they had in their watch post. Nodding, he turned back to the valley. The saw grass, so named for its serrated edges, stood silent watch. It covered the hill all along the north and west sides, giving way to dosha swamps when it reached the bottom. An occasional rustle in the grass was most likely a rat or some other varmint.

A heron, or maybe it was a crane, slowly flew past Listowk's vantage
point heading south. He never could remember which was which. He watched it until it vanished into the darkness.

A boy like Ahmist probably would have seen an omen in that. Listowk didn't, but all the same, he would have preferred it had headed north. He turned and looked that way. The valley narrowed as it went north, hemmed in to the east by the tall mountain the troops were already calling the Codpiece for its roughly similar outline. Listowk didn't see it, but he hadn't had anything to drink yet, either.

Behind him, the din of hundreds of soldiers, flockmen, rags, and mules ebbed and flowed. He did his best to ignore it, but every so often a voice would pierce the night and he would catch a sliver of conversation, part of a joke, the tail end of a threat. That was one of the reasons he was out here and not back there. The boys needed a night to get settled. They'd already found three distilleries set up for business by the first shields to arrive. Best thing for Listowk was to stay out of the way and let them enjoy.

Something crawled on his right arm and he swatted it with his left hand, not bothering to see what it was. Rubbing away the carcass, he reached down and placed his hand on his crossbow. He knew the weapon was still there—he felt its weight on his thighs—but he liked to feel it with his fingertips. Reassured, he went about filling his pipe, taking his time to tap the tobacco down deep into the bowl.

Knockers had taken to carving pipes out of a black-brown wood he'd found that was nearly as hard as iron. Took the poor lad a week to make one pipe, but he went at it like his life depended on it. Knockers had insisted on giving the first one to him. He'd tried to refuse, but Knockers looked like he might cry, so Listowk accepted the pipe.

Satisfied with his tamping job, Listowk put the stem of the pipe in his mouth and began patting down his aketon looking for his flint striker. He realized it had gotten so dark he could barely see the tops of his boots.
Maybe left this a little late
, he thought, but kept patting for the striker anyway.

“Found it,” he said, pulling it out of a pocket. He slipped the C-shaped steel striker over the knuckles of his right hand and took the piece of flint
in his left. Positioning the flint over the bowl of the pipe, he raised the striker and then brought it down, sending a shower of sparks into the bowl. On the fourth try the tobacco caught and began glowing a bright orange.

He drew in a few puffs and just as quickly blew them back out.
Tastes like shit.

The grass rustled again. He slowly put the striker and flint back in his pocket. Just as slowly, he gathered up his crossbow in his hands and gently eased the safety lever off. Despite the sentries' shouts that the only thing he was likely to shoot was himself, Listowk had cocked it and put a bolt in the groove.

The glow from the pipe blurred his vision, so he moved the bowl to the side using his tongue on the stem. Squinting, he searched the grass, but there was nothing to see. The entire Forest Collective could have been camped twenty feet away and he wouldn't have seen them.

He sat still, drawing the occasional puff and listening, but no more rustling sounded. Bored and feeling slightly ill, he took the pipe out of his mouth and banged it against the wall. He watched the embers fall down to the moat and extinguish in the slimy mud at the bottom.

The sound of something crashing back in the castle was quickly followed by raised voices. Listowk wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Big Hog. He tucked his pipe back in the linen band.

“Time I checked in on the lads,” he said, thumbing the safety back in place and un-notching the bolt. He swung his legs up and over the wall and around so that his back faced the saw grass. Easing his body forward, he reached out with his feet and found the wooden walkway. He jumped down, impressed that the walkway didn't sway. He had to give it to those mules; they built stuff to last.

More raised voices and the sound of running boots. Definitely time to see what they were up to.

He had just started walking toward the end near the watchtower when something hit the outside of the mud wall. He stopped and leaned over. An arrow stuck out of the mud right across from him. Were it not for the wall it would have hit him square in the balls. He froze, straining to hear or see the shooter.

He slowly turned his head away so that he used the side of his vision. Still nothing. He waited a few more flicks, then reached down and pulled the arrow out.

He ran his fingers along the shaft until he felt the fine grooves that had been cut into it with a knife. He didn't need light to see that they weren't random but mule runes. He had no love for the mules, but he'd grown to have a grudging respect for many of their ways. One was their skill at building. The other was their rune alphabet. You could convey a lot of information in a few runes.

TWO FC SCOUTS * WILL TRACK TO DAWN

Listowk rolled the arrow between his fingertips. He'd been right; the slyts were here and had Iron Fist under observation. He'd bet his left nut that they were sizing up the forts all over the valley, too.

He rubbed the shaft of the arrow against the edge of his rank shield until the runes were sanded away, then put the arrow in his quiver. More boots thudded on the ground and he caught a snippet that sounded like “you fucking bastards!”

He walked to the ladder and had just begun climbing down when the sentry poked his head out. “Figured you'd call it quits soon enough. All the action is in there.”

“It does sound it,” Listowk said, looking toward the barracks.

“I'd say come back again in broad daylight, but even then there's nothing to see out there,” the sentry said, pointing toward the valley floor. “Been here three weeks, haven't seen a fucking thing.”

“I believe you,” Listowk said, resuming his climb down the ladder.

When he got to the bottom he paused. Bastard had shot it right at him.

“Good hunting, Wraith,” he said, reaching into his quill and pulling out the arrow. As he walked into the camp he snapped the arrow in two and dropped it to the ground.

WRAITH WAITED UNTIL LISTOWK
grabbed the arrow before turning and following after the two slyts who had been watching the camp. The slyts moved fast through the grass but made very little sound. Wraith had left his helm, aketon, and hewer in camp, taking only his short bow, a soft cloth quiver with thirteen arrows, and a hunting knife. Even then he was struggling to keep up with the slyts and keep quiet.

His awe at their stealth diminished when he reached the small animal trail they were using. Now he understood how they could move so fast and so silently. He stepped onto the path and crouched down. It was just a little wider than he was, and about five feet high. The slyts had woven the saw grass on either side to create walls and then carefully intertwined the tops in an arch, effectively hiding the trail from observation from above. It was simple and brilliant.

Even in the dark, Wraith could tell the path was well worn and had been used many times. As he followed the slyts down the hill he came across several paths that branched off from the main one. Small twigs had been stuck into the ground at the intersections, which he took to be markers. He was certain the paths would lead to the various fortress positions in the valley, but he'd have to confirm that later.

As Wraith approached the bottom of the hill he slowed. He knew there were dosha swamps there, which meant the slyts would be in the open. He crept the last few yards until he arrived at the end of the saw grass and the path. He looked out over the dosha swamp expecting to see at least the shadowy forms of the slyts, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Did they take another path?

Wraith eased himself back from the opening and began retracing his steps. After fifty yards and no sign of the slyts he stopped and sat down.
Resting his bow in his lap, he closed his eyes and listened. Nothing. He opened his eyes and looked at the saw grass again. The weave wasn't neat, but it was solid. He put a hand down on the path and pressed on the dirt. It was compacted. A lot of feet had passed over it.

No closer to an answer, Wraith debated his next move. He'd been confident tracking the slyts would be possible. The idea of going back now and admitting to Listowk that he'd failed grated, but flailing about in the dark was stupid.

Reluctantly, Wraith followed the path back to the wall, nursing his wounded pride. He paused at the moat, then slid down it, stepping across the sludge in the bottom and scaling the other side. He waited for a sentry to call out, but none did. Slinging his bow, he reached up to the top of the wall and pulled himself up. He waited again for a sentry to shout an alarm but to no avail.

Thoroughly frustrated, Wraith walked the wooden gangway to the end and jumped down to the ground. He started walking toward Red Shield's barrack, then paused when he heard raised voices. It wasn't that he didn't like the other soldiers, but he found being in close quarters with them for any length of time created a sense of unease inside him.

He turned away, deciding to find a little place of his own to hole up for the night. He'd still tell Listowk that he failed, but that could wait until morning. It wasn't his pride that mattered; it was his sense of who he was as a man and a hunter. These slyts had outfoxed him. Had they known he was there? He didn't think so, but he'd keep at it until he could stay on their track or they found him.

He wasn't looking where he walked and his boot caught on a twig.
Fuck, I'm getting sloppy.
He stopped and looked down. Squatting, he picked up two pieces of an arrow.

Wraith held the arrow pieces in his hands. He rolled the shaft between his fingertips and gently brushed the fletchings. He looked toward the barracks, then stood up and headed off in a different direction. Behind him, the broken arrow rested in the dirt exactly as before.