The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy)

by Peadar O'Guilin

  And with that, the Chief, and an excited, laughing boy, began placing grubs over Dharam's face. The Roofman screamed and screamed. Until he stopped.

  Whistlenose tried not to look, but he couldn't help remembering how the Diggers had played with poor Highstepper that day long ago when BloodWays had burned to the ground. He felt sick.

  Afterwards, there were plenty of grubs left over, maybe too many. "We should dig another hole," said Yama eagerly. "What if those grubs eat him right up? We can find somebody else, or maybe one of your brother's Fourleggers. I'd love to see how the grubs would take to them!"

  "This isn't right," said Whistlenose. "We... we can't do this to another human. Please. Let's dig him back up!"

  Unfortunately, the Chief agreed with Yama that the remaining grubs should not be wasted, and the two began to scoop out dirt for another hole, as though it were an everyday thing to torture somebody.

  "I know a few people we could put in here, Chief. As a lesson to the others. What about Kubar? He's popular with the Religious. Used to be one of their priests, the old hypocrite! Oh! Even better! Much better! You'll like this one! Indrani! She spat in your face and made made a fool of you. It would teach the others a lesson, right? If you're the wife of a hunter, you can't be running off with their brothers! If it were me, I'd put her in here and come down and visit her every day. How'd you like that? How do you like it?"

  "We shouldn't put anybody else in here," Whistlenose insisted. "Even one is too many."

  "Maybe we should put you in, then, old man," said Yama. "Right, Chief? You going to let him talk to you like that? Right?"

  Wallbreaker pushed the boy backwards. "What...?" was all Yama had time to say before he felt arms wrap around him from behind and a voice—Dharam's—right in his ear groaning, "Mother... Mother...".

  "Get him off me! Get— Oh, gods, no! No, what are you doing?"

  Wallbreaker dropped a grub onto the boy's scalp and watched as it slowly crawled down, questing at the eyes, and finally the nose.

  "No room here for troublemakers," the Chief said. "Or big mouths. Or people who change their loyalties too easily..." He looked at the horrified Whistlenose and shrugged. "I don't like this either. I don't enjoy it as he would have." He indicated Yama. "But I do think that after this, in our new world, there will be more... respect for me. Now. Fetch me my brother."

  Whistlenose was horrified. "You don't mean to..."

  "I'm just going to send him scouting. Fetch him, or by the Ancestors, Whistlenose, you can start digging a pit for yourself in here."

  "Are you going to show your brother... this?"

  Wallbreaker seemed to consider it. But finally, he shook his head. "Maybe not. Have him meet me on the roof."

  Whistlenose turned to leave, but Wallbreaker called him back. "And there's one more thing you can do for me, hunter. I want you to test my idea for beating the Diggers." He held something in his hand, something that twisted to get away from him.

  "Can't... can't somebody else do it?" Whistlenose hated the sound of fear in his own voice. They had come so far to be safe! And now that he and Ashsweeper and Nighttracker had finally reached the hills, Wallbreaker asked this of him? This?

  The Chief sighed and his face softened. "Do you really think I want you hurt, Whistlenose? You, of all people? Who saved my girl?"

  "I... it's just..."

  "Other than you, only my brother knows the plan, hunter. There is nobody else I can trust with this, and nobody else I know who is as lucky as you. Now, fetch Stopmouth for me. I will give you the grub later."

  "Later," Whistlenose agreed, almost sagging with relief. "Later."

  PART THREE: SUNSET

  CHAPTER 30: Sunset

  Stopmouth saw his brother for what he knew would be the last time, up on the cracked and shattered roof of HeadQuarters where the blood of past battles stained the concrete.

  The man was mostly a stranger now, or so it seemed, until he looked up, his eyes an echo of their father's from so long ago. It felt like a haunting.

  "You've done well here, brother," said Wallbreaker. "I had always meant to cut you out of my story, but I won't do that now."

  "W-what are you t-t-talking about?"

  "I'm saying... I'm saying that your betrayal of me will be forgiven. Completely. You, your woman, your child, all forgiven, the moment you keep your promise to me."

  "You st-still... I was hoping you would change your m-mind and let me live."

  Wallbreaker rubbed his eyes and looked away over the smashed streets to where the sun was beginning to fade. "I hoped that too," he whispered. "I did. I asked the Ancestors to give me the strength, but they refused me. No. Your disobedience has made your existence here impossible." he sighed. "A body has only one head, Stopmouth. One spine and one heart. That heart must be me, and so you... you need you to go scouting."

  "Scouting?"

  "Yes. I need you to go scouting and to never come back. You do that and your woman can live as she pleases. I'll even make sure your child gets a name. Wait! Let me prove it." He raised his voice. "Whistlenose? Get up here. Bring the others."

  As many as a dozen hunters came crowding up through the skylight. "Listen, men," Wallbreaker said to them. "Listen now as I make this pledge before the Ancestors. I am setting aside my traitorous wife, Indrani. She is set aside forever and this man, my beloved brother, is her only husband. I am rewarding him with forgiveness for the bravery he has shown. If Stopmouth dies, I will not give her to another or take her back for myself. I will not volunteer her or her child. Tell anyone you want. Tell them I said this."

  The men broke out in grins at these words, slapping Stopmouth on the back, and each other too. Stopmouth had not realised until that moment that they liked him. For the first time in his life, he felt respected by other hunters of his Old Tribe, loved even; admired. Whistlenose hugged him and then, the younger men were lining up one after another to do the same.

  All that time, Wallbreaker smiled, the muscles on his jaws clenched hard enough it seemed his teeth would shatter.

  "I thought I should say that now," he said. "In front of my Flesh Council in case anything should happen to my brother. I have kept a promise to him, and he is going to keep one to me, isn't he, Stopmouth."

  "Y-yes, brother... Chief."

  "He's going to do some dangerous scouting, as he knows this area better than anyone. Then, in a day or two, we will all confront the Diggers for the last time and we will win!"

  ***

  Stopmouth saw her with the baby, with Flamehair. They sat out in the open, the child playing with rocks, full of angry protest when forbidden from eating them. Indrani soothed the baby in her own language, whatever that was, and it saddened him that he had never learned any of it and probably never would. He realised now, it would have brought him closer to his wife and not just for his benefit, but for hers too. She never seemed to have any friends. Too proud, maybe. Too strong to need them. Worse, every group here, from the Old Tribe, to the Religious, to the Ship People, had reasons to hate and fear her.

  In spite of all this, his heart swelled at the sight of the two of them. The sunlight sat gently on their shoulders and slipped over strands of black, black hair. He wanted to rub his face in it and fall asleep.

  "Come out!" Indrani called. "Your ambush not very good today."

  "I was j-just..." He found himself suddenly reluctant to approach. For days she had refused to even look at him, but now, he realised, if he wasn't careful, she might pull the secret of his promise to Wallbreaker out of him. She wouldn't allow him to keep his word, even though it might be the only thing that could hold this world together. He would be the last volunteer ever needed, but she might not see it that way.

  He sat beside the two of them and was gratified when Flamehair offered him a stone so that he too might have something to play with.

  "Thanks, little one," he murmured.

  "He will to Volunteer you," Indrani said. "And then us."

  Stopmouth
didn't need to ask who she meant. "He promised me he w-would not." And she snorted at that, angrily shrugging off the arm he had meant to comfort her with.

  "You are much very idiot, then, husband. Of him, I make fool twice and the Tribe see it. Once, I leave with his stupid brother and two, I sling him with gun. He can not to let me free. His promise is nothing and you must know this. Once before he say you can to marry me if you get Talker for him. Remember that? Do you?"

  "I r-remember."

  There was no point in trying to convince her that Wallbreaker was different now. Not always in a good way, but he too had a daughter, and nobody who had grown up in ManWays would ever do anything to compromise humanity's future.

  Wallbreaker was going to be Chief or Commissioner or whatever the new Tribe would call the post if they survived the Diggers and became farmers. There was no changing that other than through murder, and Stopmouth was not capable of it. The only chance his little family had of survival now, was if his brother kept his promise. And he would have to keep it, surely, when he had spoken the words in front of his Flesh Council!

  "I will to kill him," said Indrani. "If you do not."

  "No!" he tried to jump to his feet, but she restrained him with a hand on his arm.

  "Do not worry, husband. I wait for him to save the stupid Tribe," she said. "That much, I do for you. But for Flamehair too. You are right this once. Let him to save us. And then, let him to die so we stay safe after."

  ***

  Indrani refused to bed down with Stopmouth that night and he wasn't sure he wanted to anyway. His thoughts were swirling and confused. She had spoken as if victory over the Diggers were certain, which of course, it could not be. Wallbreaker's terrible plan, which she had not heard, was full of uncertainties. The Diggers could not be underestimated: their use of camouflage in the fight at the dip had proved that much.

  He watched the two of them sleep, his little family, for the last time, for as long as he could stand it. Then, his body surprised him with a yawn. He should be staying awake, shouldn't he? Savouring these last heartbeats?

  ***

  He rose shivering when morning came and made his way past the walls. Ship People paused in their work to pat him on the back or to hug him outright.

  "Thank you," he said. "T-thanks."

  He walked right out the gate without so much as a spear or a knife. His only job today was to die and he saw no reason to deprive the Tribe of decent weapons.

  As he left the buildings behind him, he felt more sad than he did afraid. Sad to be leaving Indrani, to never see little Flamehair again. "My girl," he whispered, as though she might hear him and be comforted. Only the Ancestors were listening, he supposed; or maybe the gods of the Religious; or the nothing of the Ship People. He would be learning all too soon who was correct.

  He made no effort to watch for ambushes or tracks. If any Slimers still lived, they'd have made an easy dinner of him and a much quicker end than he would have faced in the fields of the Diggers.

  "I don't have to die," he said to himself. "I just have to disappear. Weren't those the exact words? I can run and run to the other side of the world. I can find the mountain that touches the Roof..." But he didn't believe any of that. He had brought no food, nor even a strip of cloth to form into a sling, and there could be no life anyway without the Tribe.

  And so he walked until he found himself at the base of the very same hill he had descended with Rockface when first they had come to this place. They had fought a gang of Skeletons, who'd been lying in wait to ambush a single, terrified man. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  He spun around at the sound of a skittering pebble.

  Three Fourleggers were there waiting for him. They seemed too small at first, so that he thought it must be a trick of the strange sunlight. But then one of them started signing at him, far more fluently than he could ever have managed himself. Nor could he follow it too well, but nevertheless, and in spite of everything, he found himself laughing. "You're the Fourlegger child!"

  "Flg," it agreed and signed the affirmative.

  "You've found some friends?" and he accompanied his words with the sign that meant good—a thumb pointing upwards.

  He had nothing else to say. His stock of signs was far too limited. He shrugged. Then, he waved goodbye and made as if to continue, but the little creature got in his way, waving its forelimbs furiously. The only signs Stopmouth could make out were stop! and danger!

  "I know," he said, pushing the beast gently aside. Thank you. This last sign was one that had been adopted from the Roof People: two hands pressed together in front of the face.

  Then, he made his way up the hill.

  The fourleggers had placed a line of boulders right at the top, right where the world came to an end. It was a warning, maybe, to go no farther. Or an offering to the Ancestors or gods of their own.

  Some sunlight made it over the crest. He could see it caressing other hills in the distance, but immediately below Stopmouth lay a vale of blackness so complete that when he descended into it a hundred paces or so, he couldn't see his own feet beneath him. The Diggers could sense him, he felt sure, the sacrifice coming towards them.

  He strained his ears. Had a pebble fallen nearby? Did claws approach? All he could hear for sure was the sound of his own frightened breathing; the occasional chattering of his teeth. He had walked slowly from the settlement, and descended towards his death even more reluctantly. He imagined the sun must be getting stronger off behind him and regretted that he would never see it again.

  It's cold, he thought. Like in the Roof, in the parts that the virus had destroyed. He shivered, remembering all the bodies that must still lie up there.

  His plan now was to find the Diggers before he could change his mind. Then, he would fight them as hard as he could, forcing them to kill him before he could be planted. Even so, he did not pick up the pace, nor did he stop jumping at every imagined sound or turning to look back up towards safety at the top of the hill.

  Something cold and wet landed on his face. He jumped and shouted without meaning to, even as it slithered off him onto the ground, leaving a stinging track behind it. Then came another and another: heavy lumps of slime falling from the Roof to burn at his skin. In this complete blackness, the globules seemed to glow slightly, so that soon, the faintest of faint embers stirred everywhere on the hillside and all over the plain below him. The victims in the Digger fields must have felt they were under attack, for he heard them raise a great moan that thickly filled the darkness, so that even his bones hummed in awful sympathy.

  "Oh, Ancestors," he whispered. "I don't want to die. I don't."

  He had to swallow back his terror before he was able to move again, and even after that, he felt it waiting at the back of his throat, ready to spew forth.

  The pools of slime, meanwhile, seemed to be moving. That didn't bother him: he felt sure it was the same stuff he had seen in the Roof. It used to move up there too and he had even wondered if it might be intelligent.

  But then, his heart stopped altogether. The imagined scratchings had become real. Some creature—several creatures—had begun moving out there in the darkness, attracted, no doubt, by his earlier cry. It was almost as though he could feel them surrounding him: the slide of claws over moss; the scattering of sleeping insects. Why hadn't he brought his weapons? How could he force them to kill him without a credible threat?

  Down on his hunkers, he picked up a fair sized rock...

  He never got to use it. A great bruising blow struck him in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him. All of a sudden he was tumbling down over stones, leaving skin and blood on every one, only to land face down in a puddle of stinging slime. Claws clattered towards him from every direction.

  Stopmouth got his toes planted beneath him and sprang straight downhill into the utter darkness, no thought to it, only instinct. He crashed into the warm, wiry body of a Digger, ripping its flesh with bare fingers as they went down together. One less! He'd m
ake one less for the Tribe to face!

  It fought back, ignoring the pain it must have felt, struggling to pin his right arm with all its weight, while his left continued to tear at the holes in its skin.

  Another weight landed over his legs and now he screamed, enraged, horrified that in the end, it had come to this, that his brother had wasted his flesh so uselessly.

  But that had been the point, hadn't it? To remove Stopmouth from the story of the Tribe and of the world, with nobody to even know he had Volunteered.

  And still more of the enemy converged on him. Grubs crawled in his hair, catching there. He fought to grab them until finally, claws transfixed his wrist to pin him to the earth and there was no part of him that could move at all.

  He had a vision then—just like when he had lived in the Roof and the giant machine-goddess had spoken to him and had shown him anything he cared to know.

  He flew over shattered metal caverns filled with burnt, or frozen or asphyxiated corpses. Places where men and women had been crushed to a pulp, their flesh uneaten, and great parks where the grass had been consumed by the starving until the air had turned to poison and finished them off. Their numbers were beyond counting. The achievements of the dead—and there had been many—lay corrupted about them, as lifeless now as they were themselves.

  I'm sorry, Shtop-mou. I'm sorry.

  Who was sorry? The Roof Goddess? But the Roof is dead!

  Stopmouth blinked. He knew somehow that a great deal of time had passed: perhaps several tenths of a day. And he saw before him a woman of light. No! Of slime, of glowing slime with the slightest tint of blue. Like the one he had thrown a dagger at that day with Vishwakarma. It stood before him, in its barely human form, quivering all over in an effort to stay in one piece. The Diggers, like all shadows, had been driven back, but not very far. They waited patiently less than five paces from their intended victim.