The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy) (35 page)

"We shouldn't put anybody
else in here," Whistlenose insisted. "Even one is too
many."

"Maybe we should put you in,
then, old man," said Yama. "Right, Chief? You going to let
him talk to you like that? Right?"

Wallbreaker pushed the boy
backwards. "What...?" was all Yama had time to say before
he felt arms wrap around him from behind and a voice—Dharam's—right
in his ear groaning, "Mother... Mother...".

"Get him off me! Get—
Oh, gods, no! No, what are you doing?"

Wallbreaker dropped a grub onto
the boy's scalp and watched as it slowly crawled down, questing at
the eyes, and finally the nose.

"No room here for
troublemakers," the Chief said. "Or big mouths. Or people
who change their loyalties too easily..." He looked at the
horrified Whistlenose and shrugged. "I don't like this either. I
don't enjoy it as he would have." He indicated Yama. "But I
do think that after this, in our new world, there will be more...
respect for me. Now. Fetch me my brother."

Whistlenose was horrified. "You
don't mean to..."

"I'm just going to send him
scouting. Fetch him, or by the Ancestors, Whistlenose, you can start
digging a pit for yourself in here."

"Are you going to show your
brother... this?"

Wallbreaker seemed to consider
it. But finally, he shook his head. "Maybe not. Have him meet me
on the roof."

Whistlenose turned to leave, but
Wallbreaker called him back. "And there's one more thing you can
do for me, hunter. I want you to test my idea for beating the
Diggers." He held something in his hand, something that twisted
to get away from him.

"Can't... can't somebody
else do it?" Whistlenose hated the sound of fear in his own
voice. They had come so far to be safe! And now that he and
Ashsweeper and Nighttracker had finally reached the hills,
Wallbreaker asked
this
of him?
This
?

The Chief sighed and his face
softened. "Do you really think I want you hurt, Whistlenose?
You, of all people? Who saved my girl?"

"I... it's just..."

"Other than you, only my
brother knows the plan, hunter. There is nobody else I can trust with
this, and nobody else I know who is as lucky as you. Now, fetch
Stopmouth for me. I will give you the grub later."

"Later," Whistlenose
agreed, almost sagging with relief. "Later."

Stopmouth
saw his brother for what he knew would be the last time, up on the
cracked and shattered roof of HeadQuarters where the blood of past
battles stained the concrete.

The man was mostly a stranger
now, or so it seemed, until he looked up, his eyes an echo of their
father's from so long ago. It felt like a haunting.

"You've done well here,
brother," said Wallbreaker. "I had always meant to cut you
out of my story, but I won't do that now."

"W-what are you t-t-talking
about?"

"I'm saying... I'm saying
that your betrayal of me will be forgiven. Completely. You, your
woman, your child, all forgiven, the moment you keep your promise to
me."

"You st-still... I was
hoping you would change your m-mind and let me live."

Wallbreaker rubbed his eyes and
looked away over the smashed streets to where the sun was beginning
to fade. "I hoped that too," he whispered. "I did. I
asked the Ancestors to give me the strength, but they refused me. No.
Your disobedience has made your existence here impossible." he
sighed. "A body has only one head, Stopmouth. One spine and one
heart. That heart must be me, and so you... you need you to go
scouting."

"Scouting?"

"Yes. I need you to go
scouting and to never come back. You do that and your woman can live
as she pleases. I'll even make sure your child gets a name. Wait! Let
me prove it." He raised his voice. "Whistlenose? Get up
here. Bring the others."

As many as a dozen hunters came
crowding up through the skylight. "Listen, men,"
Wallbreaker said to them. "Listen now as I make this pledge
before the Ancestors. I am setting aside my traitorous wife, Indrani.
She is set aside forever and this man, my beloved brother, is her
only husband. I am rewarding him with forgiveness for the bravery he
has shown. If Stopmouth dies, I will not give her to another or take
her back for myself. I will not volunteer her or her child. Tell
anyone you want. Tell them I said this."

The men broke out in grins at
these words, slapping Stopmouth on the back, and each other too.
Stopmouth had not realised until that moment that they liked him. For
the first time in his life, he felt respected by other hunters of his
Old Tribe, loved even; admired. Whistlenose hugged him and then, the
younger men were lining up one after another to do the same.

All that time, Wallbreaker
smiled, the muscles on his jaws clenched hard enough it seemed his
teeth would shatter.

"I thought I should say that
now," he said. "In front of my Flesh Council in case
anything should happen to my brother. I have kept a promise to him,
and he is going to keep one to me, isn't he, Stopmouth."

"Y-yes, brother... Chief."

"He's going to do some
dangerous scouting, as he knows this area better than anyone. Then,
in a day or two, we will all confront the Diggers for the last time
and we will win!"

***

Stopmouth
saw her with the baby, with Flamehair. They sat out in the open, the
child playing with rocks, full of angry protest when forbidden from
eating them. Indrani soothed the baby in her own language, whatever
that was, and it saddened him that he had never learned any of it and
probably never would. He realised now, it would have brought him
closer to his wife and not just for his benefit, but for hers too.
She never seemed to have any friends. Too proud, maybe. Too strong to
need them. Worse, every group here, from the Old Tribe, to the
Religious, to the Ship People, had reasons to hate and fear her.

In spite of all this, his heart
swelled at the sight of the two of them. The sunlight sat gently on
their shoulders and slipped over strands of black, black hair. He
wanted to rub his face in it and fall asleep.

"Come out!" Indrani
called. "Your ambush not very good today."

"I was j-just..." He
found himself suddenly reluctant to approach. For days she had
refused to even look at him, but now, he realised, if he wasn't
careful, she might pull the secret of his promise to Wallbreaker out
of him. She wouldn't allow him to keep his word, even though it might
be the only thing that could hold this world together. He would be
the last volunteer ever needed, but she might not see it that way.

He sat beside the two of them and
was gratified when Flamehair offered him a stone so that he too might
have something to play with.

"Thanks, little one,"
he murmured.

"He will to Volunteer you,"
Indrani said. "And then us."

Stopmouth didn't need to ask who
she meant. "He promised me he w-would not." And she snorted
at that, angrily shrugging off the arm he had meant to comfort her
with.

"You are much very idiot,
then, husband. Of him, I make fool twice and the Tribe see it. Once,
I leave with his stupid brother and two, I sling him with
gun
.
He can not to let me free. His promise is nothing and you must know
this. Once before he say you can to marry me if you get Talker for
him. Remember that? Do you?"

"I r-remember."

There was no point in trying to
convince her that Wallbreaker was different now. Not always in a good
way, but he too had a daughter, and nobody who had grown up in
ManWays would ever do anything to compromise humanity's future.

Wallbreaker was going to be Chief
or Commissioner or whatever the new Tribe would call the post if they
survived the Diggers and became farmers. There was no changing that
other than through murder, and Stopmouth was not capable of it. The
only chance his little family had of survival now, was if his brother
kept his promise. And he would have to keep it, surely, when he had
spoken the words in front of his Flesh Council!

"I will to kill him,"
said Indrani. "If you do not."

"No!" he tried to jump
to his feet, but she restrained him with a hand on his arm.

"Do not worry, husband. I
wait for him to save the stupid Tribe," she said. "That
much, I do for you. But for Flamehair too. You are right this once.
Let him to save us. And then, let him to die so we stay safe after."

***

Indrani
refused to bed down with Stopmouth that night and he wasn't sure he
wanted to anyway. His thoughts were swirling and confused. She had
spoken as if victory over the Diggers were certain, which of course,
it could not be. Wallbreaker's terrible plan, which she had not
heard, was full of uncertainties. The Diggers could not be
underestimated: their use of camouflage in the fight at the dip had
proved that much.

He watched the two of them sleep,
his little family, for the last time, for as long as he could stand
it. Then, his body surprised him with a yawn. He should be staying
awake, shouldn't he? Savouring these last heartbeats?

***

He
rose shivering when morning came and made his way past the walls.
Ship People paused in their work to pat him on the back or to hug him
outright.

"Thank you," he said.
"T-thanks."

He walked right out the gate
without so much as a spear or a knife. His only job today was to die
and he saw no reason to deprive the Tribe of decent weapons.

As he left the buildings behind
him, he felt more sad than he did afraid. Sad to be leaving Indrani,
to never see little Flamehair again. "My girl," he
whispered, as though she might hear him and be comforted. Only the
Ancestors were listening, he supposed; or maybe the gods of the
Religious; or the nothing of the Ship People. He would be learning
all too soon who was correct.

He made no effort to watch for
ambushes or tracks. If any Slimers still lived, they'd have made an
easy dinner of him and a much quicker end than he would have faced in
the fields of the Diggers.

"I don't have to die,"
he said to himself. "I just have to disappear. Weren't those the
exact words? I can run and run to the other side of the world. I can
find the mountain that touches the Roof..." But he didn't
believe any of that. He had brought no food, nor even a strip of
cloth to form into a sling, and there could be no life anyway without
the Tribe.

And so he walked until he found
himself at the base of the very same hill he had descended with
Rockface when first they had come to this place. They had fought a
gang of Skeletons, who'd been lying in wait to ambush a single,
terrified man. It seemed a lifetime ago.

He spun around at the sound of a
skittering pebble.

Three Fourleggers were there
waiting for him. They seemed too small at first, so that he thought
it must be a trick of the strange sunlight. But then one of them
started signing at him, far more fluently than he could ever have
managed himself. Nor could he follow it too well, but nevertheless,
and in spite of everything, he found himself laughing. "You're
the Fourlegger child!"

"Flg," it agreed and
signed the affirmative.

"You've found some friends?"
and he accompanied his words with the sign that meant
good
—a
thumb pointing upwards.

He had nothing else to say. His
stock of signs was far too limited. He shrugged. Then, he waved
goodbye and made as if to continue, but the little creature got in
his way, waving its forelimbs furiously. The only signs Stopmouth
could make out were
stop
!
and
danger
!

"I know," he said,
pushing the beast gently aside.
Thank
you
. This last sign was one that had been adopted from
the Roof People: two hands pressed together in front of the face.

Then, he made his way up the
hill.

The fourleggers had placed a line
of boulders right at the top, right where the world came to an end.
It was a warning, maybe, to go no farther. Or an offering to the
Ancestors or gods of their own.

Some sunlight made it over the
crest. He could see it caressing other hills in the distance, but
immediately below Stopmouth lay a vale of blackness so complete that
when he descended into it a hundred paces or so, he couldn't see his
own feet beneath him. The Diggers could sense him, he felt sure, the
sacrifice coming towards them.

He strained his ears. Had a
pebble fallen nearby? Did claws approach? All he could hear for sure
was the sound of his own frightened breathing; the occasional
chattering of his teeth. He had walked slowly from the settlement,
and descended towards his death even more reluctantly. He imagined
the sun must be getting stronger off behind him and regretted that he
would never see it again.