The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy) (34 page)

The two species came together on
the flanks of the field.

The Diggers had come looking for
more victims. Grubs covered their bodies so that their skins seemed
to ripple with silver, even as their claws tore up the earth in their
eagerness to find new homes for their young.

The enemy did not slow at the
sight of human spears. They crashed into the Religious, dragging men
and women to the ground, fighting for access to the fresh meat.

One of the creatures impaled
itself on the tip of Stopmouth's spear and the weight of its comrades
shoved its body all the way down the shaft. He had to let go of it at
once, pulling a dagger free from his belt. Beside him, Rockface
roared and a Digger flew backwards through the air. Humans were
writhing and screaming, trying to protect their ears and noses and
mouths.

Claws swept towards Stopmouth's
face, but they were only meant as a distraction—the Diggers
didn't want anybody dead. He kept the creature from pinning him down.
He ducked, he stabbed with his knife, feeling it catch, pulling it
free, slashing it around himself in a circle.

A Digger threw itself at his
legs, but when he jumped aside, he collided with some other hunter
and both men hit the ground together and stayed there too as claws
pressed them into the mud. Stopmouth kicked with his feet until they
too were pinned. He raked at a Digger belly and tried to bite too,
when one of them came close enough. But then, he saw the grub they
were going to put into his ear or his nose and all he could do was
throw his head from side to side, screaming in rage.

It landed on his cheek, warm and
ticklish, until he threw it off, but another was there already and
more were making their way up from his chest. "I won't!" he
shouted, "I w-w-won't!" One of them had reached his left
nostril and claws were now tangled in his hair, pinning him still.

Are you happy, brother? This is
what we agreed! That I would disappear. Indrani, Indrani, I'm so
sorry!

But then, the sun came out and
blinded him.

It swept into the dip. The
Diggers on top of him let go, staggering backwards. The grubs on his
face writhed and stretched and fell away. Stopmouth felt his hand
come free and he wiped them off himself in a panic. He could see very
little with the spots in front of his eyes.

"Get up," he croaked.
"All of you get up! We don't have long."

He hoped everybody would remember
what to do now, because they certainly wouldn't understand a word he
was saying. On top of the low hill, the Ship People were reflecting
the sun's rays into the dip with polished pieces of wreckage from the
Warship. But they wouldn't have more than a few hundred heartbeats of
light before the angle of the sun, already very poor, made the task
impossible.

At least half of his hunters
writhed on the ground with grubs already inside them, causing
horrendous agony. These had to be helped away by terrified Ship
People whose courage lay trembling in their hearts as lightly as a
leaf.

He pulled out his spear from the
Digger that had taken it. The creature was properly dead, for its
grubs could not restore it to life in the reflected glare of the sun.
A great many of its comrades had died from their wounds too and they
scattered up the slopes.

"Leave it!" he shouted
to Rockface who was carving a snack for himself. "We've no
time!"

"Just taking what I'm owed,
hey? The Ancestors hate waste."

At the top of the far slope
Diggers continued to flee the light as it followed them up. It was
actually much easier to direct it up there, or so he'd been told,
than down into the dip. That was why his hunters had been forced to
engage the enemy as close to the far side of the dip as possible even
if it meant fighting uphill.

"C-come on," he told
Rockface. "We've all g-got to help with the rescue now
b-b-before the Diggers come back. And they will."

"True," said Rockface.
"They nearly had me there, you know? It was like the old days. I
feel great!" He slapped Stopmouth far too hard across the back
and then joined in with those who were digging people out of the dirt
while others carried unconscious bodies all the way up the small
hill.

Whistlenose
watched the return of Stopmouth's raiding party from the roof of
HeadQuarters. Mossheart stood quietly nearby, but the Chief, under
the full glare of the sun and with a temper to match it, paced up and
down. He kept muttering, "I told him not to save them! I forbade
it!"

But everybody was cheering the
triumphant raiders. Even the young men from Wallbreaker's Flesh
Council. They had run down to the streets and were now clapping their
hands and hanging onto Rockface's every word.

Whistlenose leaned over the wall
as far as he could, watching the line of rescuers with their moaning
victims, parading through the streets. Now and again, one of those
who had been saved, would double over and void their stomachs to
great cries of relief from all who watched. It meant the grubs had
left them for good. Another one saved—really saved, from the
Diggers.

When he straightened up again,
the Chief and his wife were arguing about something. Mossheart didn't
seem to care if Whistlenose overheard them or not.

"He
agreed
to that?" she said. "No wonder they love him more than
you."

Wallbreaker's eyes slid over
towards Whistlenose who pretended to be fixing the binding on his
spear. "Enough of that, woman. Shut up."

But Mossheart was not cowed.
"That's the difference between the two of you. I used to think
it was that you had better dimples and that Stopmouth was just a boy.
It's all anybody saw back then and look at you now! Look at him!"

"Ha! Well not for much
longer. I know my brother. He will stick to the deal we made. Now,
enough of that gristle, I said. Enough."

A huge group of weeping Ship
People arrived—men and women who hadn't gone on the raid. They
were begging forgiveness and Whistlenose had no need for a Talker to
understand that. They hugged their friends and family. They laughed
and sang, while the returning heroes grinned and preened, or
collapsed with sudden shakes as they realised the enormity of what
they had experienced.

One female voice was shouting
loud enough to be picked up by the Talker: "It was brilliant.
The mirror trick! We got all of them out. We didn't lose a single
person and we scared those Diggers senseless! That Stopmouth's a god,
I tell you. A beautiful terrible god!"

That was too much for the Chief.
He called Whistlenose away. "All right, old man. Remember the
orders I gave you. You're to take the Talker. I'll kill you myself if
you lose it. Go down there and find out where they're putting the
captives. The ones who haven't puked yet. Remember what I said to do.
It's important."

Whistlenose did remember,
although he wasn't happy with it. Not one bit.

"I'll join you shortly,
hunter."

As Whistlenose walked away, the
Chief and his wife started back at each other with their bitter,
bitter words.

Whistlenose gathered some of the
Flesh Council together, and with their help, he made sure that any
Digger victims who had yet to recover, were made to do their throwing
up in a dark room beneath HeadQuarters.

"You can have them back
later," he told worried relatives. "When they've recovered.
I promise it. You have my word." And he kept it too. But more
importantly, about thirty men and women ejected their parasites in a
place where the strongest light was that of a torch.

Wallbreaker had come downstairs
by that time and he dismissed the younger hunters.

"How long can we keep the
grubs alive, Chief?" asked Whistlenose.

"A tenth at the most,"
said Wallbreaker. "Or so Aagam assures me. If we can believe a
word that comes out of his mouth."

Whistlenose spat at the mention
of the stranger's name, but otherwise said nothing. Instead, he
looked at the helpless little worms, questing and questing about. A
Tenth of a day was nowhere near enough time to prepare for what the
Chief had in mind. Nowhere near enough. A few of the grubs were
getting tangled with each other and he surprised himself with a burst
of laughter. "Are those... are they making love?"

Wallbreaker cursed. "You
idiot! You idiot, no! They're eating each other!" And suddenly
the two men were down on their hands and knees gingerly pulling the
precious grubs away from each other and stranding each one on a
separate rock or clump of moss where they curled into thumb-sized
balls.

From outside came another cheer,
this one large enough that the whole complex seemed to shake with it.
Wallbreaker gritted his teeth. There was no getting away from it. The
Ship People loved Stopmouth now. Just as the Real Tribe did, for had
he not rescued them too? Oh, of course, Whistlenose and everybody
else knew that the real saviours had been the Ancestors themselves.
But who could forget the sight of the young hero's first appearance
amongst the burning tallies? Like a Chief out of the stories!

"It is ridiculous,"
said Wallbreaker. "I'm the one who's going to ensure their
future! I bet he hasn't told them that!"

"I know, Chief,"
Whistlenose said quietly. "And everybody else will know too when
the Diggers are gone for good. So... what are we going to do about
keeping the grubs alive?"

"I've made arrangements,
Whistlenose, don't worry. They should already be here... Ah!"

Footsteps came down one of the
corridors leading from deep inside Head-Quarters itself. It was a
young hunter of Stopmouth's new Tribe, the one called Yama. He had a
knife to the throat of a much taller man who had been gagged and
who'd had one of his arms bound in a sling.

"Good," said
Wallbreaker. "Just in time."

"I told you which woman I
want," said Yama.

"You'll have her, hunter,
don't you worry."

"What's going on?"
asked Whistlenose.

"My brother and I have both
agreed that there should only be one Chief from now on. That makes
sense, doesn't it, Yama?"

"Yes, Chief," said the
hard boy who only reached as far as Wallbreaker's shoulder. "We
want a proper leader here. One who knows how to reward his followers.
This one," he kicked at his prisoner, "wouldn't give me
what I deserved. Worse than Stopmouth if you ask me."

"Don't worry, hunter. You'll
find that I won't be making the same mistakes."

The captive rolled over and
managed to spit out the poorly tied gag. "Savages!" he
hissed. Then, he raised his voice to a shout. "Help! The savages
have me! The savages have me!" until Wallbreaker kicked him hard
enough that it must have cracked a rib.

"They're all celebrating my
brother's victory outside, so nobody heard you." He paused,
contemplating the Roofman. "Dharam? Is that your name?" The
man was growling, as though unafraid. That was about to change. "I
hear you've lived a very, very long time, Dharam. Maybe what happens
next won't kill you either, you never know. But I can't have any
rivals for the story of the future, you understand me? Oh, Ancestors,
I know you do. Maybe
only
you do."

"I understand you too,
Chief!" said Yama. "I'll be your man all the way."

"Then help me dig a hole in
here, hunter. Knee high should be enough."

"What... what are we going
to do to him?" asked Whistlenose. But a sickening clenching of
his stomach had already told him the answer.

"We need to keep these grubs
alive a little longer," said Wallbreaker. "Come on, let's
show the Ship People they aren't the only ones who know how to... to
farm
."

And with that, the Chief, and an
excited, laughing boy, began placing grubs over Dharam's face. The
Roofman screamed and screamed. Until he stopped.

Whistlenose tried not to look,
but he couldn't help remembering how the Diggers had played with poor
Highstepper that day long ago when BloodWays had burned to the
ground. He felt sick.

Afterwards, there were plenty of
grubs left over, maybe too many. "We should dig another hole,"
said Yama eagerly. "What if those grubs eat him right up? We can
find somebody else, or maybe one of your brother's Fourleggers. I'd
love to see how the grubs would take to them!"

"This isn't right,"
said Whistlenose. "We... we can't do this to another human.
Please. Let's dig him back up!"

Unfortunately, the Chief agreed
with Yama that the remaining grubs should not be wasted, and the two
began to scoop out dirt for another hole, as though it were an
everyday thing to torture somebody.

"I know a few people we
could put in here, Chief. As a lesson to the others. What about
Kubar? He's popular with the Religious. Used to be one of their
priests, the old hypocrite! Oh! Even better! Much better! You'll like
this one! Indrani! She spat in your face and made made a fool of you.
It would teach the others a lesson, right? If you're the wife of a
hunter, you can't be running off with their brothers! If it were me,
I'd put her in here and come down and visit her every day. How'd you
like that? How do you like it?"