The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy) (5 page)

"Perhaps you want to kill
her. Or to kick your brother's corpse. Or kiss it. What do I care? I,
I Aagam want to live longer. That's what matters to me. Maybe I'll
find a way back to the Roof when all the fighting up there is over.
But not if we stay here, with the Bloodskins gone already and the
Longtongues soon to follow. I need to be in that other place where
the hard rock goes deep into the ground. I want it around me until
the Diggers exhaust their food supply and die off."

"So, why didn't you land
amongst Stopmouth's tribe instead of us? No—don't bother
answering. You would have nothing to offer them, would you? Except
your flesh."

Aagam laughed. "Exciting,
isn't it? Look, I won't say I'm not wetting myself with terror at the
thought of it. Aagam is no fool. Or maybe I am a fool. But look, the
Roof gave me the odds before I left. I ran enough simulations. No
chance of survival at all if we stay here, compared to one in eight
if we leave. I'm taking the one in eight and your dirty savages will
be running that risk with me."

"All except for one,"
said Wallbreaker.

Recognizing he'd been caught,
Whistlenose stepped into the room. The Chief looked up from the hides
he squatted on. "You were well-named, hunter. It took me a while
before I realized what the sound was."

Whistlenose nodded, ashamed to
have been spying, even now when it couldn't possibly matter. "You...
you are going to give me to this... creature then."

"
Foreigner
is the word you're looking for," said Aagam. "Your language
doesn't have it, but your Tribe might be needing it soon if they get
where they're going."

"But not me."

"You should have been more
respectful to me," said Aagam. "You laid hands upon me."

"I could make up for it."

Aagam grinned. "I have never
eaten flesh, did you know that? Can you even imagine it?"

Whistlenose shook his head.

"But if I must, it would
please me that yours was the first."

"I rescued you."

"Nobody rescued me. Aagam
came here under his own strength. That will be my story from now on,
after yours has come to an end."

The Chief looked up at
Whistlenose. This was his chance to Volunteer, he knew that. A
willing victim always earned his family more respect than the one who
had to be dragged. In spite of that, Whistlenose suddenly found
himself on his knees in front of Aagam and Wallbreaker. "I will
tell the Tribe you saved me. From... from Longtongues or Diggers. I
will tell them. Anything you want. But let me live."

Aagam grinned, saying nothing. A
bead of sweat ran down Whistlenose's forehead and onto his cheeks,
like a coward's tears. He turned his head to find the Chief looking
at him too. He expected to see scorn on that handsome, youthful face,
but instead... could it be?
Understanding
?
The look disappeared too quickly for him to be sure, however, and he
swivelled back to face Aagam again.

After what seemed like a
lifetime, the dark man nodded. "That wasn't so hard, was it?
Begging is good. It shows who is the leader and who is the
servant
.
Am I right, Whistlenose?"

"Yes, Aagam."

Aagam smiled again and turned
towards the Chief. "I want him dead." And Whistlenose's
heart turned cold. The stranger continued, "Sooner or later this
old hunter will try to kill me. I know how these things work."

"That is how
you
work," Wallbreaker agreed.

"And who knows,"
continued Aagam, "what he heard while he was listening there?"

"We can trust this hunter."

"No, savage, great men can
trust no one. Your brother showed you that much."

"He was so young," said
Wallbreaker with a sigh. "I thought I would be glad to hear he
had died. After his betrayal."

"You gave him everything. He
owed you his very survival and still he wanted your woman."

"Yes." Wallbreaker
smacked the ground with his fist. "Yes!" Then, red-faced,
he turned to the kneeling hunter. "You will Volunteer for the
Tribe so that the rest of us might make it home."

Aagam laughed. "Do you even
know what that means, Chief? That thing you all say, 'So that the
rest of us might make it home'? Do you even know where 'home' is?
What
it is? It's
Earth
!
It's—"

"Shut up! Or I will kill you
myself."

"No, you won't," but
Aagam settled down.

"I'm sorry, Whistlenose. The
Tribe needs your flesh. But I, Wallbreaker, swear to you, I swear
that if you can keep your mouth shut and do the right thing, your
wife will remarry and your son will have a new father. I'll do
everything I can to make sure the boy gets an early name. The
pregnant women will confirm it if I ask them to."

Whistlenose found he was
trembling. "When must I go?"

"We have a choosing
tomorrow. We're sending some of our injured to the Clawfolk. We'll
need a lot of flesh for... for our journey. You probably heard that
much from the door. And it's a good deal for you anyway. You have to
know that. You can't hide that bad leg forever."

Whistlenose nodded. He felt
calmer now. He had the Chief's oath. "Can I spend the last night
at home?"

"Yes," Wallbreaker
replied, just as Aagam said the opposite.

"He'll talk!" the
stranger said. "To his pretty wife."

"No he won't. Not if he
wants to keep her from the pot."

"I do." Whistlenose
swallowed. "I know this man promises to save our tribe. But he
is a monster and he would see us all dead before Volunteering a
finger."

Aagam shrugged. "I am. I
would."

"Go on," said
Wallbreaker. "Go home. Your wife is excused work today."

And there was nothing more to be
said.

Clawfolk
skittered everywhere along the roads, or hung from buildings by their
fifth limb, the one that ended in a bony hook. They ran clumsily,
careening off each other and scraping moss from the walls with
impacts from their shell-covered bodies. The creatures chittered in
voices only a Talker could understand. They climbed over each other
and none of the nervous human volunteers had any doubt that they did
so in an excitement of hunger and anticipation. The creatures were
going to be getting a lot of flesh, after all: there were a good
twenty men and women here, limping along as though half-asleep
towards the end of their lives.

The Tribe needed to build up its
stores and to leave the slow behind it. Of all the Volunteers, only
Whistlenose knew why.

"They kill easy here,"
said
Fearsflyers
.
He had been given the honour of leading the escorts. "Everybody
says so."

Whistlenose nodded, but
Cleanhair—whose husband he had seen captured by the Diggers
only a few days earlier—snapped at the young guard. "And
you've been slaughtered by the Clawfolk yourself, have you? You
returned to tell the tale? How nice for you."

"Well... no—I..."

"Nobody knows how they kill
here, puppy," she said. She turned away from him, had probably
forgotten the unfortunate youngster already. Cleanhair would have a
lot on her mind, even apart from her coming sacrifice. She had left
two children behind in the care of a brother.

Whistlenose tried not to think
about his own family. That joyous little boy who had wished daddy
luck on "the hunt," not realising they would never play
together again; and Ashsweeper, chin high and proud. No tears from
her, but no words either from her trembling lips. What would become
of them now when the Chief announced his great journey and its
mysterious purpose?

The escorts allowed him to join
them in guarding the other Volunteers. It distracted him for much of
the day as they walked towards ClawWays. But now as they were coming
to the entrance of a huge building with Clawfolk lined messily to
either side, their yellow-splotched shells polished and decorated
with lumps of moss, he had to hand over his spear to the younger men.

"It will serve you well,"
he said to
Fearsflyers
.
He couldn't keep the shake out of his voice. "Give it plenty to
drink."

The young man nodded
enthusiastically. "I will make you all proud of me!"

"We're dead," said
Cleanhair. "And the dead don't care."

"Of course not. I'm—I'm—"

Whistlenose interrupted him.
"Good-bye,
Fearsflyers
."
He gripped the youngster's forearm. Then, he pulled him close to
whisper, "The Chief made me a promise. An oath."

"You told me, Whistlenose. I
won't forget. I'll look in on Ashsweeper when I get home. You did the
tribe proud, escaping like that."

"I... I was rescued by..."
he was supposed to say "Aagam," but the lie stuck in his
throat. And then they had reached the entrance of the huge building.

Whistlenose had travelled this
far once before with a group of volunteers, one of whom had been his
own brother. It seemed a very long time ago.

"We have to turn back now,"
said
Fearsflyers
.

"I know... I... I just want
to say... you performed this difficult duty with great honour. You
bring pride to your Ancestors." A smile from the younger man,
and then he and the other hunters were all gone, leaving the old and
injured, the weak, the tired, behind.

By now, the heat of midday
radiated down from the Roof of the world. Whistlenose felt it as a
caress on his skin. All around the humans and the gathering Clawfolk,
tiny glittering
mossbeast
s
swarmed through the air or landed in impossibly co-ordinated
formations on the crumbling walls. The Volunteer followed them with
his eyes, marvelling at their freedom, at the flashing colours of
their shells. Everything, everything shone so intensely, so suddenly
beautiful.

Except... the Roof. He looked up
at it one last time. No Globes hung there now—nobody had seen
any for days—but it wasn't that that had drawn his attention.
Something was wrong, as if the quality of the light up there had
changed. It felt too dim for this time of day.

The Clawfolk didn't care. They
pushed in to surround the Volunteers and Whistlenose felt a gentle
pressure at his back. "All right, all right." His stomach
started churning, but he moved forward into the darkness. Cleanhair
was at his elbow and, as they moved around some shadowy corner, the
last of the light disappeared and the smell of blood grew ever more
pungent. He felt the woman grip his arm, although she said nothing. A
few of the other Volunteers spoke nervously among themselves or
muttered prayers to the Ancestors to accept their spirits. A few of
them repeated the well-known story of the Clawfolk killing quickly.
"They'll line us up and it'll be over and we'll be looking down
on our children. You'll see..."

"How strange," he said
to Cleanhair, although he couldn't see her now. They had been walking
for a few hundred heartbeats. His own voice sounded strange to him.
Instinctively he knew they had come into a vast, empty room. He
couldn't stop himself talking. "A roll of Clawfolk meat—that
was always my favourite food. And now—"

A man screamed—really
screamed—hard enough to break something inside. The skittering
of claws was suddenly everywhere and Cleanhair's grip, painful on his
arm, tightened even more. But then, the skittering became louder.
Something barrelled into Whistlenose, throwing him from his feet to
roll on ground covered in stinging brick dust and cement.

"W-Whistlenose?"
Cleanhair had been torn from his grip. "A-are you there."
But then she yelped, as though her husband had playfully poked her in
the side. It turned to a shriek, however. Something snapped in the
darkness and she was whimpering and crying and begging. And all the
while, he lay there, winded, stunned, shocked. It was supposed to be
quick! His hand found a stone. He would not attack the Clawfolk with
it—even if he could see one. They were Volunteers, after all.
Volunteers for the future of the Tribe, for Ashsweeper; for a
beautiful, nameless boy.

But his last act, he swore to the
Ancestors, would be to finish off Cleanhair, whose sobs had yet to
end. He scrambled onto all fours and reached for the source of her
whimpers. He found her head with his left hand and raised the stone,
but luckily, she had already gone to the Ancestors. "She had a
thousand days left in her," he whispered, wondering when they
would come for him, whether he would scream as much.

In a distant part of the
building, a man cried defiance. He must have run, he must be trying
to fight, attracting hungry beasts from all directions and away, it
seemed, from Whistlenose. He strained his ears.
There's
one behind me right now.
He imagined it standing
perfectly still, its hanging claw poised above his head.