The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy) (32 page)

"Why not? I rescued them,
the Tribe. My
weaklings
rescued them."

"No, Stopmouth, you didn't.
That was all my doing."

"That doesn't make any s—"

"The Ancestors work through
me, brother. To save humanity. That's the way it's always been. I
summoned you and you came. That's how my magic works. I am the Chief,
the only Chief, for that very reason."

Stopmouth growled at this
madness. "Would the Ancestors save you if I threw you into the
river? Can you swim?"

Wallbreaker lowered his head,
breathing hard, and when he looked up, the sight of tears in his eyes
astonished the younger man. "You wouldn't hurt me, Stopmouth.
After all that has happened, we still love each other."

"You tried to have me
killed! You had my Tally broken!"

"Yes. Of course I did. I
have always done what was necessary. Whereas you, poor Stopmouth, you
were never strong enough for that kind of thing. You always needed
me."

"All I need from you,
brother, is the plan."

"Oh, you need it, do you?"

"It's not for me. It's for
the Tribe."

"Not for you, you say? So, I
suppose you won't get to benefit from it, will you, Stopmouth? Living
with
my
wife and thinking to steal
my
people from me too?"

Stopmouth swallowed back his fury
as best he could. "We can argue about these things some other
time, Wallbreaker. None of it will matter if the Diggers plant us
all. The Tribe
must
live. The Tribe is all there is after we are forgotten."

"It's not true that we are
forgotten, brother, not true at all. There are always heroes. The
Traveller. Treatymaker. John Spearmaker. I was born to be one of
those."

"You're no Traveller!"

"Why not?" There was
anger in Wallbreaker's voice now too. "I've achieved far more
than he ever did. I brought an entire people to the far side of the
world." He paused, panting with the pain from his wound. "You
see, Stopmouth... that thing about the Tribe being more important
than any one of us? The thing that's been spooned into us so often it
comes out in our sweat? Well, I've learned something. Every few
generations special individuals appear, individuals that can't just
be replaced."

"Like you?"

"Why not? There would be no
Tribe without me. I am
necessary
,
and I found that out the day I was captured by the Armourbacks. I
wanted to live so badly. And not for the Tribe, but for me. For me!
Does that make me a monster?"

"Yes," said Stopmouth.

"I knew you'd say that. It's
what any hunter would have to say or be Volunteered on the spot. But
I am more than a hunter. More than marrow and flesh and a spear.
That's what I learned that day. I knew I had so much to give and ever
since, I've proved it again and again. And I will do so one more time
with this new plan of mine: the plan that will save us all in the
end."

"So, why not just tell me?"

"Oh, I will tell you,
Stopmouth. I'll do that. But I need something from you in exchange."

"You're not getting
Indrani," said Stopmouth. "Even if she was mine to give.
You'll never touch a hair on her head."

"I don't want her."
Wallbreaker spoke the words as casually as a wounded man could. "I
hear there are lots of women here now. Dark-skinned women that make
Indrani look
rancid
.
Ha! I see you clench your fist, brother! You are angry at me, but
still you will not push me into the river because you know you need
me. Good. Good. Let's put you to the test then. The Tribe is what's
important to you, yes?"

"Of course."

"Good. My foolish, sweet
brother. Listen, Stopmouth. You must never be Chief. I love you. I
couldn't hurt you. But your betrayal has been too much. I can't stand
the sight of you or the looks people give you despite what you did to
me. So, here are the rules. I won't touch Indrani, or Volunteer her
or your child. You have my word on that. I swear it on the memory of
our mother." He locked eyes with his brother. "Your family
will live."

"But..." Stopmouth took
a deep breath. "But I will not."

"You
must
not, Stopmouth. I can whistle now and those men will come here and
kill you because the Ancestors, through me, have told them to do so.
Then, they will hunt down your Indrani and anybody else here you call
a friend. Or, or, you can choose to help me in my plan. Help save the
Tribe forever. And then... then you must disappear."

"But... but I could stay out
of your sight, Wallbreaker, I could—"

"I will mourn you,
Stopmouth, you know I will. All will be forgiven when you're gone.
But first, you will help me. Help me take control and make my plan
work. Then... then you will find some way to leave and all your...
your friends will be safe. I promise it."

Kill him, a voice said in
Stopmouth's head. Kill him. His fingers gripped hard at the haft of
the knife on his belt.
Why
should I be the Volunteer? He's the monster! The coward!

"Tell me the plan," he
said at last, as numbness replaced his earlier anger. "Tell me
the plan and if it's good enough, I... I will agree to disappear. As
you asked."

Whistlenose
would never get used to the
sun
—all
the world's light concentrated into a single point that was powerful
enough to blind anyone who tried to swap stares with it. Other things
made little sense either: like the two thousand men and women who
would not hunt and who hated hunters. What contemptible cowards! They
had their own horrible food and claimed that more of it would grow
magically up out of the ground. These were the Ship People: terrified
of real humans; waving the black stones, the
guns
,
at any hunter who came too close.

Then, there were Stopmouth's
allies, who lived in the company of beasts, speaking to them with
their hands. But while Stopmouth commanded this group, a single
meeting with Wallbreaker by the
river
had convinced him to accept orders from the Chief again. "It's
w-what the Ancestors w-want," he would mumble to anybody who
asked him, although he would never meet their eyes.

The Talker too, he had handed
over...

In spite of this surrender, the
three Tribes of humans kept to themselves until one morning four days
after the rescue, when terrible cracking sounds like the noise of
shattering bones were heard from the fields of the Ship People. A
great plume of dust rose up into the air and Whistlenose found
himself running over there along with Stopmouth, struggling to keep
up with the younger man.

They arrived in time to see
dozens of dead Diggers lying twisted in the dirt. They had attacked
by day, probably in an effort to catch so many people out in the open
at their strange work. However, without the Talker present, it was
difficult to figure out the details.

Perfectly healthy people were
screaming and running around the lips of pits. Whistlenose guessed
that while the first group of Diggers had attacked in the open, a
second wave must have come up from below.

Now, a sweating, wild-eyed man
jumped into one of the holes, clutching a gun. A grey-haired woman
tried to follow, while others fought to restrain her. Perhaps these
people were not as cowardly as Whistlenose had assumed!

Whistlenose caught up to
Stopmouth. "Those guns..." he was panting, but at least his
nostrils no longer embarrassed him by squeaking with every breath.
"He waved at the enemy corpses. "The Diggers paid dearly
for this raid. I'd say they lost at least as many as they captured."

"Yes. B-but they made the
Ship People use up all those b-b-
bullets
.
The... the stones that they sling out."

"So? Stones are everywhere!"

"Not these ones. B-bullets
have to be m-made and either the Ship People d-don't know how, or
it's t-too difficult away from the R-roof."

The grey haired woman who had
tried to jump into the pit, pulled herself free and ran over to
Stopmouth babbling and babbling at him, her face streaked with tears.
She made one of the strange hunting signs that seemed to be spreading
everywhere. "I will," he told her, although he couldn't
have known what she was saying. "I'll g-get them back for you if
I can."

But others dragged her away again
and the broken-armed leader of this group, a man called Dharam,
arrived in the company of a large group of people with guns. He
shouted and shouted until every gun in the area turned to point in
the direction of the two hunters.

"T-time to leave,"
Stopmouth muttered. "Where is my brother? I need to see him."

Wallbreaker was working on some
new weapons of his own when they arrived. He had wrapped a sling
around the shaft of a spear, and now Browncrack tried to throw it
while keeping hold of one end of the cord. It caught on his hand and
hit the ground no more than a short jump away. A group of watching
hunters laughed.

"We'll get it right,"
Wallbreaker said, grinning as much as anyone. "First one to
throw the length of the camp will get his pick of the Ship Brides
after the Diggers are gone."

The words made Stopmouth angry
for some reason. "You will give women out now like prizes?
Without even asking their fathers?"

A hard stare from the Chief,
however, silenced him at once. Stopmouth even lowered his head in
respect. "Brother..." he said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Chief. I'm upset because the Diggers have struck the Ship People at
their farm. They may have carried away a hundred of them, maybe two
hundred. I can't tell without the Talker. We need to raid the Diggers
to get those people back. If they stay planted in the ground too
long, we won't be able to wake them up at all."

The Chief grinned. "A
hundred or two hundred, you say, Stopmouth? But they hate us. Remind
me again why we should risk our hunters to save them?"

"We need them. When you
finally defeat the Diggers there'll be nothing left to eat but all
that...
lentils
and
beans
.
Only they know how to grow food and we'll die without them."

"Oh, we need
some
of them, of course, Stopmouth. But what we
don't
need are a people more numerous than we are. Especially a people
armed with those gun things. Let them waste their weapons on the
Diggers. Let them lose a few hundred and they'll be over here in no
time begging us for protection. Right Aagam? That's what they'll do?"

"Of course, Chief,"
said the foreigner.

"There's one favour we will
do for them, however," said Wallbreaker. "We'll tidy away
those Digger corpses and have a nice feast for ourselves."
Everybody cheered except Stopmouth.

"They're strange," said
the younger brother now. "And you're right that they hate us.
But this is our chance to end all of that, don't you see? This is our
chance to become one people, when they see us give our flesh to spare
theirs."

"They are not Tribe,"
said the Chief.

"But they're human, right?
Men and women are suffering," he waved an arm, "out there
somewhere. If we can get to them quickly..."

Wallbreaker shook his head. "Of
course I value their knowledge and their flesh. But we'll be getting
all of that anyway when they come crying to us for help. For now, I
say the Tribe, the
real
Tribe, has suffered enough. I will not waste a single hunter on
them."

Stopmouth protested a few more
times. He even shamed himself by going down on his knees. The Chief
seemed to like that and laughed at him along with the young men of
the Flesh Council.

Whistlenose didn't join in. He
did not like to see anybody humiliated, and when the young man
stormed off, he followed along after.

Once again, he found the Chief's
brother too fast for him and he had to stop once, leaning against a
building when his sore leg felt like a sharp stone had been hammered
through it. The pain passed quickly, but when next he saw his quarry,
Stopmouth was a tiny figure, running alone out past the ruins of the
Warship.
Why
do you bother, boy?
But Whistlenose's curiosity about
the young man was stronger than the pain and he pushed on.

Their route took them away from
the river and across the now empty fields where tiny green stalks ran
in rows towards the hills. Bizarrely, Stopmouth's footprints avoided
the little plants, sticking awkwardly to the lowered spaces between.
This might be what gave the older man a chance to catch up in the
end. By that time, he had reached the exits to the tunnels the
Diggers must have used on returning from their attack, and the ground
had grown rocky once more.

Stopmouth was waiting at the top
of the first hill—a baby compared to the fully grown slopes
that lay beyond it. The light of the sun struggled to reach this far,
as the hole in the Roof above them had come to a jagged end.