The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy) (23 page)

Stopmouth had no idea how to
bring about peace between the two groups, and he knew in his marrow
that many would die as a result of this failure.

The human river passed along
streets of rubble and moved through Slimer territory. The almost
extinct creatures would not bother such a mass of well-guarded
people. Or at least Stopmough hoped not! His plan was to get
everybody to the hills by the time the sun passed over the hole in
the Roof. The Diggers disliked its glare even more than Rooflight,
so, with luck, his people and the Fourleggers could carry away a few
hundred of the creatures' victims while they were still dreaming in
their tunnels.

"Hunger needs flesh?"

He jumped and nearly stabbed the
Fourlegger leader. "Yes," he said, heart thundering, as he
cursed Vishwakarma and Yama. Not one of the scouts had spotted the
Fourleggers, emerging silently from the last ruined houses along the
road.

"Ancestors watch you,"
he told his allies. "Are your sisters ready?"

"Their weakness needs
flesh," the creature told him.

"You will feast tonight,"
he responded. "We all will."

The creature didn't nod, but
somehow—perhaps it was an effect of the Talker—he knew it
was content.

And then, it was a long climb up
the hills with Ship People cursing and even weeping all around him.
Most people had been hungry in the Roof as their food supplies had
slowly dwindled. But those who had come with him to the surface had
been amongst the privileged. Many had already lived five times longer
than any of Stopmouth's Ancestors—or at least those he knew of!
They were beautiful in appearance and their minds could hold ideas
that would terrify any hunter.

These few had feasted their lives
away, even as the rest of their Tribe starved, and finally, as their
home died around them, they had bent all their resources and their
considerable genius in trying to save themselves—and nobody
else. Deserters, in other words. Deserters. Like his own far-off
Ancestors who had fled the Earth. The Ship People hated him, but he
struggled every day not to return the feeling, because he needed them
if Flamehair were ever to grow up. If Indrani were to be safe.

"A great sight, hey?"
Rockface was beside him now. The sun was coming over to the gap in
the Roof and to Rockface, who had never left the surface, the new
tribe must have seemed numberless. Sodasi had come along too. The
young slinger had taken it on herself to be Rockface's protector,
although the big man didn't seem aware of the fact. She had saved his
life at least once that Stopmouth knew of. The woman had no problems
with the slope. None of the surviving Religious did, not even Kubar,
one of the oldest-looking people in the community. He chivvied his
Secular enemies along, keeping his spite to himself for once, as
yellow beams of light picked out the scales of Fourleggers formed
into a spearhead at the front.

Stopmouth called a halt at the
top of the hill. The Ship People looked exhausted, their dark skin
sheened with sweat, their eyes open a little too wide at the thought
that they were about to go into danger now, albeit very little
compared to that of their Fourlegger allies who were already
streaming on ahead.

"This is it," Stopmouth
shouted. He pointed down the hill towards the plain on the far side,
lined with rows of what looked like black dots. "Indrani says
the sun will only light up a little of the plain and only for two
tenths of a day or so. After that, nothing will keep the Diggers away
from us. So, we run down there. Everybody will take one joint of
meat, or two if they think they can handle it, and then, head
straight for home. Understood? It's easy, and nobody needs to get
hurt. If we're on our own side of these hills before nightfall, we
should all be fine."

"And what if we refuse?"
said a woman in the torn remains of a blue Warden's uniform. She
looked muscular enough to rip Stopmouth's head off, but the rivers of
sweat dripping from her was proof enough that she had never been one
of the Elite.

"You can refuse if you
like," said Stopmouth. "Just don't try coming back inside
the walls without flesh. You won't be welcome."

There. He had said it. He might
not be allowed to Volunteer anybody, but every member of a Tribe
needed to work for its survival. He had expected more anger from the
woman, but the ex-Warden surprised him.

"I am Ekta," she said.
"I am going to live." She nodded and he nodded back. Not
friends, but allies, if only for a little while.

"Traitor," said an
older man, who saw them talking, but he winced when Ekta glared at
him.

"All right," cried
Stopmouth. "Enough! Let's go! Come on, now! You don't want to be
here when darkness falls!"

And they didn't, nobody did. The
Ship People found a new lease of life, and, aided by a downward
slope, the whole tribe surged after their nonhuman allies. In no time
at all, the stench of the Digger fields rose to meet them and they
could see individual Fourleggers dodging the flailing limbs of Digger
victims to skewer the brains.

Experienced butchers followed on,
mostly women and children from amongst the Religious exiles who had
long since lost the squeamishness that had killed so many of their
friends. They didn't bother with the more difficult cuts—a
waste that made Stopmouth squirm to think of it. But the Talker,
translating the cries of "mother!" from the planted
creatures of a hundred species, quashed any misgivings he might have
had. The tribe would need to get out of here quickly.

Limbs were piled up: parts of
local creatures like Slimers, along with the milkier flesh of
Skeletons, while mounds of squirming grubs shrivelled in the sun.

Ship People wept and vomited.
They cried out in horror at what they had to do. Many had to be
prodded with spears by the sneering Religious, but in the end, every
one of them headed back up the rocky slope with an armful of bleeding
flesh.

Stopmouth took in the endless
fields of bodies, scanning for the Diggers, but finding no sign of
them yet. The light had spread over a greater area, but very soon,
the sun would complete its short journey. He could feel the Ancestors
in the air around him, warning him to make haste. The Diggers would
spill out of the night at once, and they
always
followed after those who stole from them.

A commotion came from down
amongst the fields. People seemed to be fighting with... with
Fourleggers? He was running before becoming fully aware of it, his
young legs powering him over moss-covered rocks. "Stop it!"
he called, "Stop it!"

He was shocked to find
Vishwakarma and Kubar amongst those in the thick of the struggle.
Vishwakarma bled from claw marks that ran the length of his ribs. A
little deeper and he would have been finished. But his face was more
angry than afraid. Stopmouth had never seen him like this before.

"What's wrong? Stop
fighting!"

He pulled Vishwakarma away from a
Fourlegger that topped him by a head. One on one, a Fourlegger should
beat a man, especially a relatively inexperienced one like
Vishwakarma, and this creature was particularly large.

"Calm, now," Stopmouth
told them. And to the Fourlegger. "Thank you for not hurting my
people."

"Do they not hunger?"
it asked.

"What's going on here?"
Stopmouth demanded.

Vishwakarma couldn't speak, such
was his outrage. Even now, he didn't realise that he should be dead.
But Kubar found his voice easily enough. He pointed at the nearest
body—one that was calling for its Digger mother like so many
others. A human. A man Stopmouth recognized, who had been stolen when
the Diggers came over the walls of HeadQuarters. "This
alien
was going to kill Sanjay."

Sanjay continued to cry for help
between drooling and moaning. His eyes rolled in their sockets, first
one way and then another. He was sunk up as far as his own thighs.

"His feet are gone,"
Stopmouth whispered. "You can see that, can't you? If... if we
got him out and managed to carry him over the hills, he would be in
terrible pain. He'd never be able to hunt..."

"He's my friend," cried
Vishwakarma. "I knew him back... back..."

"I'm sorry..."

The Fourlegger picked that moment
to speak again. "Has your hunger no need?"

Vishwakarma roared and it was all
Stopmouth could do to hold him back. But in less than a heartbeat,
all strength left Vishwakarma and he was weeping instead. "This
one is ours to kill," Stopmouth told the Fourlegger. "Please
tell your sisters that we must go back now. Darkness is falling."

"We... we're going to kill
Sanjay?" asked Vishwakarma. "We're really going to kill
him?
Sanjay
?"

"
You
are," Stopmouth told him gently. "His friend should free
him from this pain." Poor Vishwakarma nodded.

The last of the Fourleggers were
pulling back. Ship People were scrambling up the slopes, weighed down
by delicious fresh meat. All they had to do now was get home.

"This was too easy,"
Stopmouth told Kubar.

"The Diggers are scared of
us," said the priest. "After the way you burned them when
you landed the Warship. You must have killed thousands of them."

"What are thousands to them?
They cover the whole world."

"True enough,"
responded the priest with a shiver. "Come on then, Chief. Let's
get going."

They gave Vishwakarma the privacy
he needed and turned up the hill after the others. A few hundred
Fourleggers came running on behind, adults and children all together.
They caught up with the burdened Ship People all too quickly. "Hurry
now!" Stopmouth told them. None of the Roof people carried very
much, but they were far weaker than he had feared. Darkness would
overtake them long before they reached the top.

"Shall I tell them to
abandon the flesh?" asked Kubar. "I doubt any of these have
run anywhere since they were children, and in some cases that was a
long
time ago!"

Already the moaning from below
had stopped and the stench was easing off. The Diggers would come
now, Stopmouth felt sure of it. A great wave of them surging up the
hill. His mind raced with plans that he should have come up with the
day before. He could hold a line here with the experienced hunters
and the Fourleggers. But would that be enough? And how many Diggers
would come? If they broke the line, the Tribe would be lost within
days. Even if they beat back the enemy now, the cost of such a fight
would jeopardize everything...

He felt a soft touch on his
elbow. Kubar. "Don't forget, Stopmouth, you have a Talker."

Of course! "Thank you,
Kubar." The priest had shown how its bright light could drive
the Diggers away.

"But use it sparingly,"
warned the old man. "It needs light to refill itself."

Stopmouth scanned the base of the
hills, and thought he detected the first signs of sinuous movement.
"Hurry up!" he shouted to those around him. There was no
point in trying and hide their presence from the enemy. The Diggers
knew perfectly well where the thieves were already. Stopmouth could
feel them watching him...

And yet, no attack came. Nobody
screamed as they were dragged away. Every single human and Fourlegger
made it safely back to the useless walls. Exhausted people were
getting sick again, flinging the precious meat away from them. Others
were cursing his name for the crimes he had forced on them, or
collapsing as though they had done something incredibly difficult.

Stopmouth didn't care. It was
over now. He found Indrani and the sleeping Flamehair. He hugged his
wife tightly. "Not a thing went wrong," he said. "Not
a single thing!"

The next day, he learned
otherwise.

Stopmouth
woke well after the sun came up—almost everybody did that. "The
days are too short now," they said to one another, but they
still marvelled at the chaos of sprinkled stars that came by night,
and greeted the first yellow beams of light with joy and relief as
though fearful that one day the sun might fail them. But here it came
again now, and spiral clouds of glittering
mossbeast
s
rose up to meet it. He had never seen them do that back when the Roof
shone for them.

The passing of darkness brought
children out to play at hunting, and sent groaning adults to trudge
down to the fields. They hadn't planted anything yet, or so Stopmouth
had been told. Most of what they had been doing was clearing rocks
away and releasing beasts too tiny to see into the soil so that human
food might be welcome there. He understood none of it. Instead, he
spent his time worrying about the fact that the guards—mostly
Religious—had no love for those they were supposed to be
protecting.

They were doing their jobs,
however. He saw Sodasi directing men to nearby hides and fortified
positions. These had been her own idea. "We're not hunters any
more," she had told Stopmouth, while Rockface sputtered with
outrage. "We just need to stay alive until the farm starts
feeding us."