The Tower of Bones

by Frank P. Ryan

  The Forest of Harrow

  At first light Iyezzz drew a picture of the valley ahead in the mud by the side of a rank-smelling stream. At its centre was the Tower of Bones, where they were now headed. It was the day after the meeting by the Sacred Lake, and the expeditionary force, which now included Kate, had rejoined Turkeya, Mo and the others to be led out of the subterranean chambers of the Ancient City by their Garg guide. Dusk had fallen by the time they emerged so they were forced to rest, allowing time for stories to be told and friendships to be renewed. All night long the sky had flashed and glowed a lurid red, and the distant thunderous detonations had reverberated in the ground beneath them as they attempted to sleep.

  For Alan and Kate, just being able to hold one another, to kiss, and to lie in each other’s arms, was heaven – even if they had to put up with the gentle banter of their friends. On awakening, Alan had found Kate’s head still resting on his shoulder and her sleeping body still cradled in his own. He just couldn’t believe that his Kate was by his side again. Looking down into her sleeping face he was reminded of how beautiful she was, though the girlish roundness of her cheeks had been replaced by hollows of hunger. He kissed her brow, careful not to wake her, covering her over again with the blanket they had shared. But light as it was, his kiss caused her eyes to flutter and his whispered name to come from her dreaming lips – lips he couldn’t stop himself kissing with a butterfly gentleness before rising quietly to join the others.

  Squatting by Iyezzz as he sketched in the dirt by the morning campfire, Alan couldn’t help but reflect on those hollowed cheeks. It was a reminder of what she must have gone through, and it made him all the more determined that the Witch would pay for it, and soon.

  ‘How long before we reach the Tower?’

  ‘For me – half a day’s flight. For humanshhh,’ the Garg lifted his yellow eyes to gaze into Alan’s own, ‘three days, perhaps, of hard and dangerous march.’

  Alan nodded to himself. This really was a menacing place. Up to now he had thought of nothing but freeing Kate from the Witch’s clutches. But now that Kate was free, the enormity of the continuing danger loomed larger in his mind. He was also aware of Kate’s vulnerability in accompanying them in their attack on the Tower. She would be returning to the place of nightmare and torment.

  How brave you are – my Kate!

  His eyes returned to her sleeping form, and in particular to the green triangle in her brow. At that moment he deeply resented it – not because he saw it as a rival to his own power but rather because of the weight of responsibility it placed on her emaciated shoulders.

  Qwenqwo spoke to Alan. ‘Ask him to describe the actual stronghold.’

  The young Garg hissed, ‘It takes the form of an almighty skull – vast and up-reared as a Tower designed for war. If rumour be true, the skull is that of Fangorath himself, at the very place where he fell.’

  ‘How did he fall?’

  ‘In a disastrous war fought long ago, in the most distant mists of time. Older by far than the histories of the Eyrie People. Perhaps as old as the City of the Ancients. If legend is to be believed, the war was fought between titans and dragons.’

  ‘Titans and dragons?’ Alan pursed his lips in a sceptical smile.

  ‘Titans, Duvalhhh. Demigods! Born of the union of gods, or goddesses – and worldly beings.’

  ‘And Fangorath was one of these titans?’

  ‘In legend he was King of the titans.’

  ‘And Fangorath destroyed the dragons?’

  ‘Alan – don’t mock Iyezzz.’ Kate had woken and had come over to join them, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders against the morning chill. ‘This dreadful war – it isn’t just a legend. It’s true.’

  Alan wrapped his arm around Kate’s shoulders and squeezed her, but he was still shaking his head and smiling.

  ‘I told you last night that I met one – a real dragon!’

  ‘In your dreams, maybe.’

  ‘It wasn’t a dream. I resurrected it – from a fossil in the rocks. We became friends. He helped me escape from the Witch.’

  ‘I thought you were just kidding me.’

  ‘I wasn’t kidding.’

  ‘And he confirmed this – your dragon? He told you about this war – and this titan, Fangorath.’

  ‘He let me see it, in his memories – his dreams.’

  ‘If legend be true,’ the Garg continued, ‘the war between titans and dragons was the most terrible war in the history of Tír. The beings that fought were gods in themselves. The war tore the world apart.’

  ‘The dragon, Driftwood, told me the same story. He said that his people couldn’t bear the terrible destruction, so they ended it by biting off their own wings and drowning in the oceans.’

  Alan shook his head, his arm still wrapped around Kate’s shoulders. ‘It sounds like a fairy tale – and it hardly makes any sense.’

  ‘I saw Driftwood’s scars – the stumps of his wings. I healed him so that he could become whole again. So he could fly.’

  Alan smiled again. He just couldn’t help his scepticism. ‘Hey, Kate – you’ve been through a terrible time. Dreams can seem real.’

  ‘I didn’t dream it, Alan.’

  ‘So how come the titan died? How come he’s buried here, in this valley? How come the Tower is his skull?’

  Qwenqwo interrupted Kate’s reply. ‘Mage Lord – we should listen to what Kate is telling us. It may be important in what we are facing.’

  ‘What – the Tower really is the skull of Fangorath?’

  ‘What if the titans were punished by the gods? Since it would appear that in their arrogance, they challenged the world that was itself the creation of the gods?’

  ‘The goddesses, more like,’ added Kate. ‘Granny Dew is close to the Trídédana. She sent me to the island where I resurrected the dragon.’

  Alan shook his head. ‘You mean – like, one goddess in particular? One that might well have had the power to destroy Fangorath?’

  ‘Yes – I’m talking about Mórígán! Do you recall what your grandfather, Padraig, told us? She’s the … the raven of the battlefield. And Driftwood talked about her – how the loss of the dragons’ wings had been a last desperate sacrifice to Mórígán.’

  ‘But if Mórígán destroyed Fangorath, how could the Witch resurrect him?’

  Qwenqwo answered that question: ‘A demigod is immortal. He could not die. But he could be banished.’

  ‘Banished to where?’ Kate pressed.

  ‘I think I might have an idea,’ Alan replied. ‘When the Tyrant tried to destroy me, he said I would be condemned to haunt the wastes of Dromenon. Like some kind of ghost.’ He squeezed Kate tighter, then returned his attentions to the sketches the Garg had been making in the dirt. ‘Iyezzz, can you tell us more of the dangers we will face in the approach to the Tower?’

  Iyezzz inhaled, as if astonished by what he had been hearing, then blew a sigh-like vibration through the slits in his throat. ‘It can be no accident, then, that the Witch chose the Tower as her lair, for the spirit of darkness may linger there. To get to it, you must cross a wasted land – truly a wound on the face of the world.’ The Garg’s eyes closed to slits, as if he were choosing his words carefully. ‘A river valley once lush and fertile, yet now utterly desolate, and baited with traps for the unwary.’

  They set out soon after a snatched breakfast of fish soup and rock-hard bread, with Iyezzz to the fore and the Shee mounting guard on all sides. After several hours of marching through rock and scrub their progress was blocked by a withered forest, with skeletal trees as grey as ash and barbed with thorns, some a foot long and sharp as blades. It looked impenetrable.

  They called a halt, asking Iyezzz for his advice.

  ‘You face the Forest of Harrow. Its trees are unlike any you know as such – they do not grow, nor do they bear leaves, only the thorns that you can see. Yet you must pass through it in a single march. Rest, or attempt to sleep within the forest,
and it will encircle and destroy you, for the trees can move, ensnaring the unwary, as a spider weaves.’

  The Kyra pressed him: ‘Then we have no recourse other than to hack our way through this bane of thorns?’

  ‘It is the only way for those who travel on foot. But have a care as you do so, for the prick of these thorns is poisonous.’

  Iyezzz took flight, holding his position above them; in this tangle of forest his wings would be too great an encumbrance, but from the air he could guide them through where the tangles appeared less dense. And so, yard by yard, they began to hack and slash a narrow course through branches that were as tough as bones and whose thorns were daggers that would penetrate deep and poison the flesh. They saw no evidence of life here, not even the pests of biting insects. By midday there was nobody among them who wasn’t tormented by festering scratches, so they were forced to call a temporary rest to allow the Aides to busy themselves with tending wounds and administering sips of healwell.

  Mo and Turkeya followed the beckoning Kyra to where three severely injured Shee were being treated. All three were comatose. Mo watched as Turkeya knelt by the injured warriors, examining forearms and calves that bore livid puncture wounds.

  ‘Come – see!’ The shaman pointed to the flares of inflammation around the punctures, tracing the red lines that ran from there and ascended the limbs.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘The poison has entered the deeper flesh to become blood-borne.’ His look told her what that would mean.

  ‘Can’t you do something?’

  ‘I can try.’

  Mo watched intently as Turkeya heated a very sharp knife in a torch flame and then, with a sizzling slash, lanced open a septic puncture wounds so the stinking pus spurted out. The stricken warriors moaned and writhed with pain. Then the Aides attempted to pour a sip of heal-well into their troubled mouths before packing the gaping wounds with herbal balms that would nullify the poison and soothe the hurt.

  ‘Well done, Turkeya! Can you save them – will they survive?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mo.’

  ‘But some might. And you’ve eased their pain. You’re helping people.’ Mo spoke softly, reassuringly. ‘Your coming along wasn’t a mistake. You’ve been blaming yourself ever since Kataba died. But you’re needed here.’

  The young shaman nodded, grateful for her words. ‘I was wrong to distrust the Garg. Iyezzz has proved to be a friend. And he spoke truly of this place,’ he whispered. ‘We journey through a tormented land.’

  Kate’s voice interrupted their whispering as she joined them in the tiny makeshift hospital: ‘The Witch’s doing!’

  Mo threw her arms around Kate and hugged her, so glad of the return of her friend. ‘We can’t just let her win.’

  Turkeya agreed. ‘Iyezzz warned us not to rest within the wood. But what can we do? There are so many wounded.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But we have to think of something.’

  He insisted: ‘Can’t you use your power?’

  ‘My power is intended as the power of healing – and rebirth. But up to now I’ve only ever tried turning it on the land. I have no experience of using it to heal wounds.’

  ‘Didn’t you use it to restore the dragon’s wings?’

  ‘Oh, yes – I did. Of course I’ll try. But Turkeya will have to help me. You must explain to me about wounds, and poisons, and thorn trees.’

  They soldiered on. It seemed almost miraculous that, sweating and exhausted, they managed to hack their way further until late afternoon. They had been encouraged by messages from Iyezzz, who signalled that they were halfway through the woods. But then, abruptly, they heard him cry out.

  ‘Beware! The trees are moving.’

  The Kyra halted their progress, and ordered the Shee to hack out a clearing that could be defended. The warriors made a wall of swords about Alan, Kate, Turkeya and Mo. Through his oraculum, Alan attempted to read the mind of the Garg. ‘Iyezzz – I need to see what’s happening. Let me look out through your eyes.’

  Through Iyezzz’s mind he saw a wave-like movement, such as one might see from a stone thrown into a pond. The pond was the forest of ash-pale branches and leafless crowns, but the ripples were moving in the opposite direction, arising from without and building towards a crescendo at a single focus. His heartbeat rose into his throat when he realised that the company was that focus.

  ‘What is it?’ the Kyra demanded.

  ‘The trees are coming towards us – from everywhere.’

  ‘How can this be?’

  ‘They’re tearing themselves out of the ground.’ Alan pointed to the forest immediately surrounding them, where the thorn trees were swaying, backward and forward, as if determined to rip out their roots. The swaying became more and more extreme until, with an audible tearing, one of the trees completely uprooted itself. But then the movement did not halt. The uprooted tree rolled itself into a tangled ball. And the enormous ball, covered with dagger-like thorns, began to roll determinedly towards them. Other trees were doing the same. There was a thunder of loosening roots. All about them a wall of thorn trees was advancing in a deadly embrace.

  Ainé went down on one knee, murmuring a prayer with closed eyes, and then, one by one, she pressed the blades of her warrior sisters against the pulsating Oraculum of Bree in her brow. The Shee immediately moved out to hack at the trunks of the trees that surrounded them. Sparks of green rained down from the clash of blade against the resisting trunks. But it was close to suicidal for the Shee. Branches moved, lashing back and then forward, sweeping the giant warriors off their feet and inflicting terrible wounds with their thorns. The dwarf mage, Qwenqwo, joined the Shee, slashing at trunks with his rune-glowing battleaxe, chopping back tree after tree.

  ‘Help us,’ the Kyra flashed Alan, mind-to-mind.

  Alan waded in with the Spear of Lug, his oraculum blazing with power, and runes flaring over the long spiral blade, so it cut through the advancing wall like white-hot steel. He destroyed one thorn tree, then another, but for every tree he destroyed several more tore themselves loose and curled into giant balls of malice, hurling themselves against the protective wall with poisoned daggers. Only yards from him a Shee hacked an enormous branch from a tree only to see the remaining branches explode, deluging the warrior in a rain of thorns that ripped her body to shreds.

  Many Shee were already dead. Yet their sacrifice had hacked out a ring of broken trees as a protective barrier around their company, and against this a cannonade of newly arriving trees crashed and disintegrated, showering them with splinters of wood and thorns. The thorn trees were building up, layer upon layer, in concentric rings about them, until the barrier, at its inner perimeter, was several trees high. Through the terrible destruction of trees tearing against one another, Alan heard a wailing – as if the forest were screaming in agony, maddened beyond reason.

  He probed the avalanche of violence that attacked them from every direction. Wave after wave of incoming trees crashed against the barrier, the violence of which threw huge fragments into the air, and already some of the attacks were breaking through. The despairing company huddled under the massed shields of the Shee. They gazed out onto the mania of destruction, watching it contract with deadly certainty, and expecting annihilation at any moment.

  Kate wailed: ‘Do something, Alan. Use the First Power!’

  Alan stared out at the crumbling barrier. He heard the tremendous ripping and tearing, saw the breach in the protective circle, where a lava-like flow of those enormous spiked balls was coming through. The memory of the gyre haunted him – the knowledge that if he called up the power in his oraculum it might be out of his control. The First Power might destroy them all.

  ‘Do it now – or we’re done for!’

  Rage flowed through Alan, spreading to become an incandescent lightning, erupting out of the oraculum and down through his arm into the extended spear. The lightning crackled and spread, in an instant forming a
dome of incandescence over the shield wall, then roaring outwards in an all-devouring wave, burning whole trees to ash with its touch, then sweeping through the forest until not a single tree survived its fury. Gasping for breath and with his heart still pounding in his throat, he became aware that Kate was signalling to him. She was begging him to stop. In those charged moments, when he was still emerging from the rage that had consumed him, he saw how Kate’s eyes were wide with fear.

  Wiping his sweat-soaked face down with hands blackened with ash, he hugged her fleetingly, then headed off in search of the Kyra. He found her covered with wounds, yet still alive.

  ‘Aides!’ he roared.

  Kate gazed out into the ruins of trunks and branches that extended for mile after mile. Her legs were buried up to mid calf in ashes. Alan had done that – through the awesome power of the oraculum in his brow. Now that the obscuring forest was gone she saw, however distantly, the blood-red light of the Tower of Bones, which was invading the sky from the north. And high overhead, black shapes, limned by the glow of the sky, which must be Gargs – Garg spies – who had been observing it all, and who would report back to the King.

  Her mind numbed with shock, she turned to face the two Aides, themselves injured, who came to the assistance of Shee on the ground nearby. Everywhere she looked, she saw wounds that were deep and festering with poison. She had been hurt herself, over her arms, her back and legs. She held her arms out in front of her and stared at her own cuts and slashes, which were livid and pus-filled, in places penetrating to the bone. She began to tremble.

  ‘Granny Dew!’

  Kate felt the impulse to separate herself from the company, to wade out into the sea of ash and stand alone. She discovered a small hillock standing a little higher than the wasteland of ash and whirling smoke. She recalled the words of the Momu: A goddess empowers you. Be not afraid to invoke her help.

  Holding the purse before her lips she blew on it while turning slowly in a circle, addressing the wounded land, which had known nothing but torment for thousands of years. As she rotated her body, dispersing the seeds, the green light of her oraculum pulsated with the rhythm of her heartbeat, its light falling over the charred limbs, the ashes gambolling in the rising wind. Her lips were pressed tight together, her words expressed exclusively through the oraculum. She had no idea if a blighted land would understand her attempts at comforting, but she tried anyway.