The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy)

by Peadar O'Guilin

  "I didn't know what to do," Whistlenose continued, his voice hoarse. "Who would believe me when the Chief himself wanted me dead?"

  "We have no Chief now," said Laughlong from the far edge of the crowd.

  Whistlenose shook that off as though he didn't care. "You have to listen to me. You all have to listen. The Longtongues... They're... they're leaving their nests. I've been... I've been robbing their traps during the day." A dangerous business and one the creatures were usually wise to. "But today, I saw the Longtongues. Dozens of them. Maybe all that are left. They were streaming out the gates on this side of their territory."

  "When?" asked Wallbreaker. Mossheart had pulled away from him as if she too might be caught by the ghost for acknowledging it.

  "Just now. I ran all the way here when I saw it." He spun around, eliciting screams as people shoved away from him. "Don't you see? It's daytime. They're so afraid. The most powerful creatures we hunt. They're so afraid they're doing their running away by day."

  "He's not a ghost," said Wallbreaker. He surprised them all and himself by dropping right down from the window. He even managed to land all right, as though he had never been out of practice. He rolled in amongst the ashes of an old fire and strode across the Square to embrace Whistlenose. Everybody gasped, but he remained unharmed. "And you call me a coward?" he said to them, smiling hard enough to bring out the dimples they used to love him for long ago.

  Oh, he knew himself for a craven, but somehow the arrival of Indrani and Aagam, and the conversations he'd had with them, had stolen away any fear he might have of such things as spirits. After all, the tracklights really were just lights—he knew that now. Nobody made their campfires up there. Certainly not the Ancestors, and that, that thought, right then, as he embraced Whistlenose, told him what he needed to do.

  He faced the crowd, feeling a little of the old swagger return.

  "You barred me into my house," he said. "And maybe you thought you had good reason to do so, because I am not like other Chiefs."

  "You're no Chief at all," muttered Laughlong. That man would have to Volunteer. And soon.

  Wallbreaker widened his grin. "And yet, Laughlong, my predecessor Speareye sent me a vision over ten days ago. He stood there with my father and other great hunters of our Tribe. Even the Traveller was there, although he did not speak. Speareye, had come, he said, he had come to beg me not to let the Tribe die.

  "But how can I save them? I asked.

  "The flight of the Longtongues will be a sign, he told me. You must leave too, for the safe place we have found for you. Use the Hairbeasts as your food supply. We will send a Roofman to guide you where you need to go."

  "It's true," called Mossheart from the window. "I have heard him cry out in his sleep many times and always in the morning he has a new way to get us flesh. How could one man dream up so many clever schemes if not for the Ancestors whispering directly in his ears?"

  Wallbreaker felt his cheeks burning. He wanted to laugh. For all her thoughts ran bitter as the red juice of a berry, Mossheart never failed to back him up in public. She now spoke with confidence of a place where Diggers would not dare to attack; where children could grow in safety, as in the old days.

  But the reaction of the crowd was not quite the one Wallbreaker had expected. Laughlong, whom he had taken for an enemy, began to weep. Wives embraced each other. Hunters pulled their children close. Feast, it seemed, had turned to funeral.

  He saw the drummer resting her head on her instrument, breathing fast, as though she had been running for her life. She was a hard woman called Tallythief, loved by her three named children and nobody else. Except when she was drumming. Then, she became beautiful and fierce and everybody adored her. In neither state, was she a weakling, and yet here she was now weeping like so many others. And for what?

  He felt Mossheart's gaze boring into his own. Her eyes were brighter than he had seen them in some time and suddenly he realised what had changed, what his crazy, self-serving lie had accomplished; why braver men than he shivered and sobbed.

  "Finally," he shouted, "finally we have hope!" He had been hiding the preparations for the journey from them for fear they would have risen up and put a new Chief in his place, when all along, they would have loved him for it. An escape! An escape from the end of the world that everybody had felt was coming!

  "You thought we were doomed," he cried. "As if the blessed Ancestors would let us become extinct. But we are not like the other beasts that feed us so well. This is our world—" he had heard as much from Aagam, "We were here first, brought here by the same Ancestors who will deliver us now to our new home. A place of safety!

  "We have a hard journey ahead of us, and our numbers will decline every step of the way. But you must never lose hope, for other humans wait for us there. They are softer than you. Weaker than you are. Feeble as a nameless child! And that means that not one of us who gets there alive will be made to Volunteer, no matter how severe his injury.

  "We will live, my people. We will live! We will live! The Tribe continues!"

  And finally they cheered him. Those who had fallen to the ground leapt to their feet and the hugs became firmer. Tallythief screamed, but with joy and punished her drum as never before. "The Tribe Continues!" It was something said on the birth of a new child, but it seemed so appropriate now, so right that many shouted it. "We continue! The Tribe continues!"

  He released Whistlenose and said, quietly, "You have saved yourself again. For an old man, the Ancestors like you a lot."

  "I want my wife back."

  "You know, I think Aagam might be more than a little glad of that."

  "And that man needs to die."

  "Not if you want your boy to get a name."

  Whistlenose was on the point of collapse. Wallbreaker had felt it when the two had embraced. He felt exhausted himself now.

  "Look, Whistlenose. With the flesh we got from the Clawfolk and the last of the Hairbeasts, we won't need any new Volunteers for several more tens of days. We might be safe by then. All of us."

  "That man goes before any of mine," said Whistlenose. And with that, he pushed away from the Chief. Luckily, nobody seemed to notice his rudeness. The people continued to dance and to celebrate, while over in Longtongue the Diggers, presumably, were spreading their tunnels and collapsing the remaining buildings. He would have to put an end to this feast. And then, after a day's preparation... two at the most... He felt his gorge rise in sudden terror and had to cover his mouth.

  The journey. Across a wilderness with a limitless variety of creatures waiting to gnaw on his bones.

  CHAPTER 9: The New Refugees

  The forest here seemed full of magic to Whistlenose. Berries grew from the trunks of trees, bursting when ripe with tiny pops that made the younger hunters jump and look around them. But they weren't the only ones interested: glittering swarms of multi coloured insects, flashed through branches and leaves, each rushing to be the first to settle on a spattered trunk, leaving it clean behind them only to race towards the next little explosion.

  Whistlenose had seen the same phenomenon twice before. Only the Ancestors knew why the berries chose one day to burst and not another. He didn't care, it was beautiful and he only wished his family could see it for themselves.

  He motioned his pack forward. Three days travel from ManWays and in that time nobody in the Tribe had so much as seen another intelligent creature. Aagam had told the Chief they would be safe in the forest, but also that it wouldn't last forever. Sooner or later, trouble was going find them.

  "Better if we find it first," said Wallbreaker when he briefed the scouts. "You're not there to hunt," he told them. "We have enough flesh for a while yet. Any non-Digger you find should be left alone unless you think you can bring it back alive."

  "Alive?" That didn't make sense to Whistlenose.

  "Information," the Chief had replied. That was an Aagam word and it made Whistlenose angry. But the Ancestors, it seemed, spoke through the Chie
f, so he swallowed the bitter morsels of resentment and nodded.

  At least Fearsflyers had returned to him his Armourback shell spear. He had missed it while living as a "ghost."

  The scouts had struggled through heavy growth for a full tenth, maybe half a day's travel ahead of the main body of the tribe. The cry of a baby would not carry so far, Whistlenose hoped. Nor the smell of blood from an accidental cut. But who could tell? Not even the Traveller had met all the creatures the world might hold.

  The ageing hunter looked around at his men. First came skinny Chinjutter with the clumps of black hair that grew out of his nose and ears. Behind him, walked a boy who looked barely old enough for a name. But he did have one, and it was worse than even Whistlenose's—Browncrack. Whistlenose worried about him most of all. The boy had yet to properly wet his spear in the guts of a living enemy. He would be anxious: too enthusiastic and too scared all at once.

  Three other men made up the numbers: Hoarseshout, Flatface and the trundling Mossdrinker. They had spread themselves out so far that with all the swarming insects, he couldn't be sure they'd see his signal in case of a problem. So he waved them back into the centre and crouched down until all were within whisper distance, but facing outwards with eyes peeled. Good men, he thought. Good men, after all. Better than he was and they likely knew it. But Wallbreaker had put him in charge.

  "You're lucky," the Chief had said. And that was that.

  "Anything?" Whistlenose asked now.

  "A smell," said Chinjutter.

  "You're sure it's not the berries? That's the sour scent we're getting."

  "No, no. This isn't sour. Smells more hairy. Like wet fur. It's been growing stronger."

  With that black growth in his nostrils, it's no wonder everything smells like wet fur! Whistlenose shoved the nasty thought away. Nerves, just nerves. "Anybody else smell it?" he asked. "I'm getting nothing."

  "I didn't notice until you mentioned it, Chin," said Mossdrinker. "But now..." He pointed vaguely in the direction they'd been travelling.

  Aagam had told them this route would be safe. He'd found a swathe of forest that ought to take them halfway to where they were going without encountering a single community of beasts. And where there were no beasts to feed on, there'd be no Diggers either. But anything might have changed in the meantime and everybody knew that.

  "Very slowly then," he said, "and listen... you heard the Chief and you know he's right... The most important thing is not to give the Tribe away. There's no walls to protect our families back there. So, anybody who gets caught... No rescues. All right? We're just here to find out what's facing us. Then we run back and report."

  "Unless we outnumber them, surely," said Mossdrinker, flexing one large fist.

  "Maybe." Whistlenose looked around the group before settling on the youngest, the untried Browncrack. "You're the fastest of us," he said. He had no idea if that was true, but the boy looked like he was about to live up to his name and they had yet to so much as see a single enemy. He needed a kill to settle his nerves, but until then, he was just going to get in the way.

  "At the first sign of trouble, even if we look like we're about to win, take a heartbeat to learn what the creatures look like. Then, I need you to run all the way back to the Chief. Can you do that? Straight back. He's to put guards out and if you do your job, they'll know what to look for."

  "I won't let you down."

  "Stay at the back then."

  The other five spread out and moved forward in a crouch. Ahead, the land dipped to form a clearing with a circle of mossy boulders around a still pool of water. The smell had grown strong enough that Whistlenose could get it now, too. Wet fur, indeed. A good way to describe it.

  He felt a faint sensation in the soles of his feet. Diggers? Maybe. It seemed more gentle than that. It seemed distant. He signalled the two flank men, Hoarseshout and Mossdrinker, to run to the far side of the dip. They did so, slipping around the boulders and falling into a crouch.

  He was raising his arm to move the rest of the team on, when Chinjutter touched his shoulder. The other man's eyes rolled in the direction of one of the boulders and Whistlenose had to stifle a gasp. The rock was twitching. Not a lot, barely at all, really. Slowly, he lowered his arm. But just then, the creature must have realised it had been spotted. The "boulder" suddenly rose up. The carpet of moss it had been wearing fell away to reveal a compact body of rubbery, glistening green flesh. It roared, deep in its chest, before springing forward with all the power and all the speed of a slingstone. It flew across ten paces to strike Chinjutter so hard that the man... snapped. There was no other way to describe it.

  Other "boulders" came alive. They sprang on coiled green tails. Hoarseshout went down. Mossdrinker was shouting, cursing the Ancestors, while Flatface stabbed and stabbed at the monster that had killed Chinjutter, looking for a vital organ.

  A flash of green. Whistlenose threw himself to one side as a beast shot past him. He rolled to his feet. It rose too, behind him now, while another, approaching on short little hops of its coiled tail, came up to face him. Like a human, it had two eyes. They hung unblinking over a wide, tube-like mouth where a tongue beat at the "cheeks" with a drum-like sound that might have been communication. It also had two arms. One of them slashed at him with a short, long-bladed spear. The other held a circle of wood that parried his two attempts to strike back.

  There was no time for another attack. He rolled away, aware of the enemy behind him. Mossdrinker screamed. "Oh no! Oh no!" Flatface was grunting in time to the sound of a spear striking wood. The enemy were rattling their tongues, and deep in the forest, their rhythm was taken up by others. Many, many others. A swarm of them, it seemed. A dozen swarms, while the wet fur smell blanketed everything and seemed only to be getting stronger.

  A long spear-point flashed past Whistlenose's face. He didn't have time to be afraid.

  "Run, Browncrack!" he shouted. "Tell the Chief!"

  He fell back against a tree trunk, a nice thick one. Whoever was behind him now wouldn't get much chance to attack. He pushed his spear in the direction of the nearest creature's round mouth. It raised the wood to block him and must have been shocked when the Armourback shell tip passed through far enough to cut. Whistlenose had already dropped the weapon, taking his knife to the now-exposed belly. If it even was a belly! It must have hurt, however, for the monster let out a terrible shriek, its tongue a blur against swollen cheeks.

  And then, Whistlenose found himself lying on the ground, his face numb all down one side. The enemy that had been behind him, must have hopped far enough around the tree to smack him with the wood. More than just a defence then, his mind said calmly.

  You should get up, boy. But his head was ringing and none of his limbs wanted to respond. Only the old injury gave sign of life, throbbing in time to his heart.

  Beyond the far lip of the rise, he could see more of the creatures on their way. A swarm, he'd thought earlier, and he'd been right. More than a man could count, big and small.

  He could see the other men from where he lay at the edge of the dip. Hoarseshout and Mossdrinker had done well, but would do no more. Each had taken an enemy with him.

  I got one, too... Not bad for a poor hunter.

  A long-bladed spear rose towards the Roof. His enemy vibrated with triumph.

  Make it quick.

  Out of nowhere, Browncrack appeared, with an inherited Armourback shell spear of his own. It tore right through the green beast's face and out the far side.

  "I hope you can run with that limp of yours," said the boy excitedly. "They're nearly on us."

  "You were supposed to go back. I ordered..."

  Browncrack's voice had risen high enough to grate. "Well, I'll be going back now, won't I? Come on! Come on!"

  The Ancestors still loved Whistlenose, it seemed, and the swarm of creatures, for all that they could spring forward at great speed in an ambush, came on now in harmless little hops. The humans left them far behind.
<
br />   CHAPTER 10: The Silent Tribe

  Members of the Tribe knew how to stay quiet from a very young age. Mothers would gather wood with infants strapped to their breasts. They would walk from one clump of moss to another so that the juices stung their feet, but cushioned the sound of their steps too. They had signs of their own, just as the hunters did, and everybody watched and scolded everybody else's children—often with no more than a glance, lest some hungry beast hear them and swoop down from the sky or up from under their feet.

  Even so, with over a thousand people of all ages clustered together for warmth and safety, the camp could be heard from a distance of two hundred paces. Thousands of twigs cracked under feet more used to streets than forest. Babies cried out for milk; adults whispered in argument while untrained boys made eyes at grinning girls who were far too haughty to show fear or excitement.

  Whistlenose had mostly recovered his composure by the time they made it back. His ears still rang with a sound that nobody else could hear. His leg ached, of course, but he wasted no thought on that. He had run almost as fast as Browncrack.

  "It's a migration," said the Chief when they reported what they'd seen. "Just like the Longtongues, these new beasts are fleeing the Diggers behind them."

  Wallbreaker was sitting on the ruins of an ancient wall, legs dangling. He'd been piecing together shards of what might have been a skull, although Aagam called it pottery and insisted humans had made it. Every word the man spoke only made Whistlenose want to kill him all the more.

  However, Wallbreaker was still talking. He had a magical ability to explain what he himself had not been there to see. "Our scouts ran into theirs, that's all. But what will the creatures do next? We need to double the guard. Bring Laughlong here. Get everybody ready to fight and to move."

  "I killed one!" said Browncrack. "Do I get a tattoo?"

  "No," said Wallbreaker. "You should have come back like Whistlenose ordered. How many times do I have to tell you, things are different now. That's not how we win."