The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy) (33 page)

Whistlenose was gasping for
breath. He leaned on his spear and watched the horrible sight below.
There was a dip between the smaller hill they stood on and the
greater one behind it, with rich deep soil down at the bottom.

And right there, without fear of
counterattack, a Digger swarm was planting a hundred humans in rows
every bit as neat as those back at the farm. Those who had yet to be
buried writhed in agony, their moans loud enough to be heard by the
two men.

"They're d-doing it on
p-purpose," said Stopmouth.

"Of course they are! Burying
people is what Diggers do!"

"N-no. I m-m-mean they're
planting humans deliberately close to where we live. They expect a
rescue. They w-want it. And look!" He pointed at his feet and
for a moment, Whistlenose had no idea what was supposed to be wrong
with them. But then he understood. A line of shadow lay there, right
along the top of the hill. The dip would never experience a light
stronger than that of the murky dusk down there now. The Diggers
would be able to fight there unimpeded.

A trap then. Either the humans
must abandon their people to feed the enemy, or they must attempt the
expected rescue. Either way the Diggers won.

"You're right, Stopmouth.
They're not even trying to chase us away." Whistlenose shook his
head sadly. "Come on, son. I'm sorry, but those Roof people are
lost to us now." Wallbreaker would be happy with that. He wanted
the Ship People helpless. He wanted them on their knees begging him
to save them.

But Stopmouth refused to move.
"Do they look h-human to you, Whistlenose?"

"I suppose... I don't know.
The only Roofman I know well, I want to kill. Aagam, he's called.
He's a real monster, that one. He doesn't think like a human should."

"There are good ones and
b-bad ones," agreed Stopmouth. "I've hated some of them
too. Most of them sometimes. And they do think differently, but
that's a good thing, isn't it? A hand isn't a f-foot, but I need them
both to hunt."

"I... I don't know,"
said Whistlenose. "We really shouldn't stay here where the
Diggers can see us."

"And listen to their p-pain!
That sounds human, doesn't it?"

Of course it did.

Stopmouth allowed himself to be
turned around, but despite Whistlenose's attempts to hurry him away
from danger at their backs, the young hunter lingered near the top of
the slope. He was deep in thought and that expression made him look
so much like his brother.

In the distance, the river
glittered. The plain glittered too where metal fragments of the Roof
had fallen the day Indrani had broken through. Beyond that, lay the
Warship and the abandoned farm that ended where the first ruined
streets began.

"Stopmouth, we can't stay
here if we want to see our wives again."

"I'm n-not sure mine
w-wouldn't be happier that way."

"We all have troubles at
home, sometimes, we—"

"Oh!"

"What? Stopmouth? What is
it?"

"She
is
c-c-clever. My wife." And with that, Stopmouth surprised
Whistlenose by breaking into a smile as handsome as any his brother
might have managed. And then, he started running—leaping down
the slope like a Hopper, saving himself from accident only with the
shaft of his spear. The older man cursed and tried to follow, but he
had lost Stopmouth by the time they got back to the streets.

Stopmouth
wasn't sure if his brother had deliberately sent Whistlenose to keep
an eye on him, but he made sure to lose the man now. He wanted to
speak to Indrani alone.

That would be hard. As the earth
slapped against the soles of his feet and ruined buildings sped past
him, he wondered at how he had managed to lose his wife's love all
over again. She glared at him all the time these days when she even
bothered to acknowledge his presence. She refused to sleep near him
or talk to him. Except in front of Flamehair, who remained as
cheerful as ever. The little thing had no idea who Wallbreaker was,
but whenever Stopmouth walked into a room where she rolled around,
she would smile and point in his direction, raising her arms until he
had no choice but to lift her up. She liked to see everything from an
adult’s viewpoint and she ordered him around by pointing from
one distraction to the next.

He lifted her now, while her
mother pretended to be unaware that anybody had entered the room at
all. They were in the Fourleggers' warehouse. The children were off
skinning Digger corpses or causing trouble. Rockface, Sodasi and the
Religious were nowhere to be seen.

Stopmouth jiggled Flamehair and
let her try to catch the shining dust motes in her pudgy fingers. But
his eyes were focused on his wife's back.

"Indrani. I need your
h-help." She failed to respond. She was pounding an unusual
black type of moss found near the river. The stuff had no use that he
could think of. "Indrani? The Diggers took more than a hundred
of the Ship People today. Wallbreaker doesn't want them back, but I
know how we could save them. Will you help?"

She paused and he could see she
was unsure. "Indrani... love... I know you can speak to some of
them, the Ship People, I mean. Wallbreaker won't give me the Talker
for this, but if you could explain my plan..."

"To Dharam?"

"Well, no. He w-won't like
it either. Find somebody else. Please."

She sighed. "So, neither of
them want the rescue to happen? All right, then. Good." Still
she would not look at him. She hadn't even spoken his name. But she
would help and that was enough for now.

***

Dharam
had been furious when he heard about the plan, but the anger and fear
among his people had been too much for him to control. And so, early
the next day, Stopmouth and the Warden, Ekta, led a full three
hundred of the Ship People, as well as the remaining one hundred
Religious hunters, over the top of the small hill to where they could
look down into the dip.

Stopmouth heard the groans even
before they had crested the rise. Then, the smell hit him, the usual
stench that told him the Diggers had moved in below: that stomach
roiling mix of excrement and vomit, concentrated here between the
hills.

He was reminded too of how
dangerous the situation was.

"This is great," said
Rockface, only increasing Stopmouth's misgivings.

"Is it? The Diggers w-want
us to d-do this." They would love for a good proportion of the
remaining humans to waste themselves foolishly.

To either side of the hunters,
other people jostled for a view, Religious and Secular alike. Even
Yama, who worked for Dharam now, was here to keep an eye on them,
although Stopmouth knew the boy wouldn't be able to resist taking
part.

Nearby, Ekta was talking rapidly
to somebody in her own language. She had arranged for people who
could understand each other to coordinate everything. Right now, she
was probably ordering them to extinguish their torches, for the sun
was already on its way.

Everybody looked afraid. It
didn't stop them peering down at the rows of planted people, seeking
out the faces of friends, exclaiming in dismay when they saw one.
They had been warned to silence, but Stopmouth supposed it didn't
matter. The Diggers knew they were here anyway.

"Will they come at us from
below, do you think?" asked Rockface.

"I d-doubt it. I've never
seen them destroy one of their own fields."

But in that case, how was a trap
to be sprung? The only thing Stopmouth could think of, was that the
enemy were hiding just beyond the brow of the far hill, on the other
side of the dip. As soon as their precious grubs used the mouths of
their victims to cry for help, the mothers—if that's what they
were—would come streaming over the top of the hills. It
wouldn't leave the humans enough time to get away, not if they were
burdened with those they sought to rescue.

"All r-right," he
muttered. He tried to give the order to move, but found his muscles
unwilling to obey him.

What if his plan failed and he
died while Indrani was still angry at him? She had spoken to the Ship
People on his behalf, but her manner had remained distant.

She would forgive him anything,
he knew, after he was dead. But that wasn't how their life together
should end. No, more than anything he wanted to patch things up with
her first. To make her understand that there could be no future for
her and Flamehair without the Tribe. To tell her that her safety was
the reason he had made peace... and worse... with his terrible
brother.

With a wrench, he pulled himself
back to the present. "Move!" he told himself. "Move!"

He passed the signal along the
line. He saw a great many faces he recognised here, scattered in
amongst the strangers: Vishwakarma, his eyes so sad; Ekta, rippling
those great muscles; Tarini—surely too small for this part of
the plan. Why wouldn't she stay on the crest of the hill with Kubar,
who would be organising the work gangs?

Rockface saw the signal and
passed it along the lines. "Oh, I can't wait!" he said.
"This is going to be glorious!"

Everywhere, breathing grew
faster, faces more anxious. The Diggers would be waiting for them,
had to be! And yet, when Stopmouth flung his arms forward, every
woman and man, Religious or Secular, launched themselves over the
ridge and onto the scree on the far side. There were at least 200 of
them running down the hill, at least that many. Far too many to waste
should things go wrong, but it was too late to think about that now.

Stopmouth slid down the slope,
jumping, stumbling, running. Clouds of dust sprayed from under his
feet. A woman tumbled past him with a screech and tiny stones rained
all around. In a dozen heartbeats, he had reached the bottom, where
human bodies drooled and suffered just beyond the light of the sun.

As he came within touching
distance of them, the victims began grabbing at him and a great moan
rose up from those at the front, spreading and spreading towards the
rear. "Mother!" they cried, each in his or her own voice.
"Mother!" Although he didn't know the languages spoken, the
various words were eerily similar to the one he had used as a child.

Stopmouth stayed clear of their
arms. He had a spear with him and he poked at the ground with it for
tunnels, while others watched the ridge of the far hill anxiously.
Hunters fanned around to the edges of the crowd, ready for the attack
that must soon come. But it was the unskilled men and women who would
be doing the real work now.

In teams of four, they fended off
the arms of the victims and dug them out of the soil, one at a time.

"It's f-f-far too
s-s-slow..."

"But where are the Diggers,
hey? Where are they? You think they're coming around at us from
behind?"

"N-n-not b-by d-d-d—"

"Not by day? They'll come
from the front instead? You'd better hope so! But shouldn't we have
sent somebody up to the top of the far hill to watch for them?"

Stopmouth had thought of that, of
course, but figured the Diggers would be just out of sight and he'd
lose whoever he sent up there. But now he wished with all his heart
that he could have had some kind of warning. Oh, how he wished it!

And then, the Diggers struck.

By that time, only five or six of
the Ship People had been dug free of the earth. They lay insensible
in the semi-darkness on the slope nearest to HeadQuarters while their
rescuers worked on freeing others.

But while Stopmouth was watching
the ridge in fear that Diggers might appear at the top of it,
something far worse occurred. The whole of the far slope began to
move as what must have been a thousand Diggers or more threw off a
covering of stones and moss.

Humans used camouflage, of
course, as had other creatures they encountered over the generations.
But the Diggers had never done so before now, preferring to strike
from below ground through tunnels. I have underestimated them,
Stopmouth realised, mouth hanging open in shock.

The enemy boiled down the slopes.
Their claws scrabbled for purchase, raining stones and scree, much as
the humans had done arriving from the other direction. "Watch
out!" Stopmouth shouted pointlessly. Everybody had seen the
threat. Some stood motionless; others ran for home. Not one of the
Ship People stuck to the plan that had been agreed for the inevitable
Digger ambush.

"Don't run!" Stopmouth
cried, signing furiously with his hands for
attack
.
"Forward! Forward! We have to fight!"

Luckily for him, several dozen of
the ex-Religious had followed him into the dip, and these at least,
held their nerve. It was they who had clung on together when the
world had turned dark and Diggers had swarmed up the walls of
HeadQuarters. No cowards remained among them, for half considered
themselves already dead, while the rest now believed in their own
invulnerability.

They charged around the edges of
the field to meet the Diggers, to keep them from advancing too far
into the dip, while the Ship People ran, or milled about or started
dragging the few who had been saved back up towards safety.