The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  Numerous heads shook throughout the crowd.

  “You would think you were being overthrown. You would think you were under attack. How come…” Atticus cleared his throat. “What makes Eldrus different? We may trade and offer services, but for as long as I can remember, that has been the extent of our relationship. They’ve gone too far, have they not?”

  Numerous heads nodded throughout the crowd.

  “You’ve seen what they’ve put in the soil. Turning our loved ones into weapons. That’s right, weapons. I have seen what happens to those bodies when Eldrus activates them. They explode, ripping apart everything in the area. Do you want that? Do you want to have to worry about your child stepping outside and being torn to pieces because he put his foot on the wrong patch of grass? Do you want to take the risk that, when you die, you’ll be dug up and desecrated and used to kill others? They say the tainted corpses will heal the land, but all I see is an attempt to control it without us knowing it.”

  The soldiers started to get antsy. Slowly, they inched forward, their weapons sheathed, but not for much longer.

  “I am not asking you or anyone else to go to war.” Atticus closed his eyes and apologized to his family. “They killed my family. They killed me.”

  He stripped off his shirt and showed the extent of his scars. The crowd leaned in, gasped in disbelief. Those standing, and those even further back, pushed in with the soldiers, to have a better look at this monologuing monstrosity.

  “I have died more than anyone ought to. I have lived many lives from Gallows to here, and all of them were cut short by Eldrus’ swords. And do you know why? Do you… do you know why they killed me and my… Do you know why they murdered my family? Because we discovered what they were putting in the ground and refused to take part in it. What do you think they will do to you when you say no? Do you think they will care if they kill you? At this point, you’re useful to them, whether you are dead or alive.”

  The crowd grew louder, more animated. People started to stand up, while others slinked off, afraid of what may come. Atticus heard doubters amongst the commotion, but even they didn’t sound convinced of themselves.

  “I am not asking you to go to war,” Atticus repeated. He was starting to get the hang of this. He kind of liked how powerful it made him feel. “I know that you have friends amongst these soldiers. They are human beings, like the rest of us. But like the rest of us, most of them will do what they are told, because they have to protect themselves as well. I do not want any killing here tonight. But they cannot stay. If they do, the wounds they have made will worsen, and they will fester, until one day, our Heartland dries up and dies out.”

  Atticus forced himself to stop talking. The words were coming too quickly, too easily, and Islaos had gotten so loud, he wasn’t sure they were hearing him anymore. People were shouting and throwing their hands into the air. Debates had broken out in the back rows.

  One down, Atticus thought. Two more to go.

  Atticus returned to the crowd. “You would not be sitting here—”

  His throat closed shut. In the wings of the audience, a woman sat. She was leaning forward, but the long, blonde hair spilling out from under her large hat made it impossible to see her face. Loose bandages hung from both her hands, and across her lap, a shepherd’s crook lay.

  “You would not—”

  Immediately, his eyes went to the opposite side of the gathering. On the edge of it, another woman stood—another blonde with long hair hanging messily in front of her face. In her left hand, a bundle of bandages, and in her right, a twisted shepherd’s crook.

  Hex came up behind him. “Is everything okay?”

  “There’s two of them,” he said, his voice gone hoarse. “There’s two shepherds now. Keep Mr. Haemo close.”

  She nodded and said, “You’re doing great. Just a little more.”

  Eyes fixed on the shepherds, Atticus continued. “You would not be here if you did not, in some ways, agree with what is being said here tonight. People are fighting across the Heartland, but we must fight together. I would and will die a thousand times over to see Eldrus thrown from—”

  A voice shouted, “And you will!”

  Something whistled through the air. Atticus felt a pressure in his chest, like a palm pushing him back. He looked down and found a massive bolt from a crossbow there, inches deep into his heart. The crowd gasped, stunned. Soldiers pushed themselves towards the front, to detain the people there.

  Atticus dropped to his knees, ripped the bolt out, and died. Like a curtain falling, the Membrane closed in around him.

  “Clementine! Will,” he shouted. He had to take advantage of these moments. They had to know what he was doing for them. “Clementine! Will!”

  He blinked his eyes. He was back in Islaos, now standing, but still shouting for his wife and son. The hole in his chest gave a glimpse of his wounded heart. Though it had been torn open, it still beat, and it still bled.

  “He… he… he’s alive!”

  “Look at his heart. Look at it!”

  “That bolt would’ve killed a bear!”

  Atticus touched his chest, seeped the blood into his hand, and held it high. “Eldrus bleeds us dry. Have my blood, until the Heartland’s flows again.”

  In an instant, Hex’s one hundred loyalists emerged. They filtered through the crowd and seized the soldiers who hadn’t seen them coming. Those seated in the front hadn’t been devoted to Geharra’s cause, like the soldiers might’ve thought. They were just people passing by who needed to rest their feet and wanted to see a good show.

  “Take them,” Atticus said.

  With their swords, knives, and spears, the loyalists forced the soldiers into a surrender.

  “But do not harm them!”

  The soldiers on the roofs shouted to one another. As they loaded their bows to loose arrows on the people below, loyalists came up behind them and killed them dead.

  Frantic, Atticus searched for the shepherds. Where are they? Where did they go?

  “You fucking morons! I am captain Kellin,” a soldier shouted. By the medals fixed to his breastplate, he appeared to be in charge of this suppression. “There are hundreds of us higher in the valley. You think Eldrus will let this happen?” The loyalists holding him kicked out his legs and sent him to the ground. “Let us go, and we’ll only make an example of these… deceivers who organized this mockery!”

  To his left, Gary, James, and Mr. Haemo stood. And to his right, now there was Hex, Warren, Elizabeth, and Miranda.

  “Go,” Atticus shouted. He waved goodbye to captain Kellin as the loyalists dragged him away into the maddening swell of people.

  “Beat them back!”

  The crowd, likely half of Islaos at this point, began to disperse. They tore through the streets, tackling the soldiers who were trying to flee.

  “Retake what’s yours!”

  Screams fell around him. At the top of the valley, in the light of the torches there, soldiers were being thrown off the cliffs, their bodies breaking on the boulders at the valley’s bottom.

  “Kill them all,” he shouted, spitting the words. “Kill them!” His soul salivated inside him, its black, barbed tongue becoming his own. He smelled blood in the air, and it excited him. “Kill them, and then bring their bodies to me!”

  Smiling at Mr. Haemo, he screamed, “My friends and I will see they do not go to waste!”

  CHAPTER XXI

  HROTHAS

  Islaos had gone well.

  Hrothas did not.

  Atticus and the Marrow Cabal rode into the town two months later and found another Gravedigger had beaten them there. The pale skinned impersonator with bad prosthetics stood on the steps of the town hall, shovel in hand. When he spoke to his crowd, he shouted. And when the people of Hrothas shouted back, he recoiled. Eldrus’ soldiers were in attendance as well, but they almost looked disinterested in the display.

  “What is this?” Atticus asked.

  He and the
Marrow Cabal hitched their horses to a few nearby houses. They moved down the winding avenue, towards the town hall.

  Hex’s braids started to unravel and twist, unravel and twist. Her eyes went wide and, for a moment, became so blue it was almost blinding. A vein bulged on the side of her head and inched across her skull, like a worm looking for a hole to hide in.

  James went to touch her arm. “Are you okay?”

  Warren grabbed his hand. “She’s trying to receive. Trying to see what thoughts are out there. Maybe from the heir.”

  Mr. Haemo licked his lips.

  “Can she do that?” Gary leaned away from the group. “Things are getting worse up there, guys.”

  “Sometimes.” Warren nodded and turned to Elizabeth and Miranda. “Right?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard her say she can do it,” Miranda said. She took out her sword, having seen what Gary had seen.

  “Can you hear what that son of a bitch is saying?” Atticus said.

  The crowd had morphed into a mob. If he had to guess, he’d say they were about sixty strong.

  Hex moaned and blew the air out of her lungs. Her legs quivered. She braced herself against James. “He’s not one of us.” The vein in her head stopped throbbing. “I… heard something about Eldrus hiring… impostors.”

  Atticus said, “I’m not the only Gravedigger, right?”

  Hex shook her head. “None of them are nearby, though. They’re in the field, fighting. He’s not one of us.”

  “I can make out some of what he’s saying,” Mr. Haemo said. He pulled his waxy ear further back until it started to tear away from his head. “Don’t you see they’re here to help?” the mosquito repeated, his words matching with the impostor’s lips. “We don’t need to fight back. We don’t need to… Ah, ah, oh my god—”

  A wave of people crashed into the impostor Gravedigger.

  “—Please, no, please. I’m not him. I’m not him. I’m not.” Mr. Haemo cleared his throat. “The rest is gurgles. And… wait for it.”

  A severed arm was flung high above the mob.

  “Wait for it.”

  And then a handful of intestines.

  “There we go. Now he’s dead.”

  Turning to Hex, Atticus said, “To Nyxis, then?”

  “No.” She mouthed she was okay as Elizabeth patted her back. “No, this is perfect. Just need to give them something to do with their anger.”

  The mob begun to tear through the town. Doors were kicked open and windows shattered. Small fires erupted where torches were torn down. People ran into shops and came out with armfuls of stolen goods. Proprietors tried to chase the thieves, but they were beaten down by others nearby, others who had probably once bought from them before. One would’ve expected Eldrus to intervene, but instead the soldiers stood there and let Hrothas have its temper tantrum, because after all, it was their toys they were breaking.

  “Idiots,” Warren shouted.

  “We can’t do nothing now,” Atticus said. Somewhere in the uproar, he heard the thump of a shepherd’s crook. “Let’s go before they string us up.”

  Mr. Haemo held out his hands. The skin sagged off his arms, like an old woman’s in a wind tunnel. “I got this,” he said cheerfully. The mosquito had gotten blood-drunk in Islaos. Ever since, he’d had a skip in his step.

  “No,” Hex and Elizabeth said simultaneously.

  But it was too late. The mosquito had shed his skin and taken to the sky. Mr. Haemo buzzed high above the black-eyed looters, his gangling magnificence going unseen. Thick swathes of his children phased into being from their unseen lairs. They formed clouds with their fragile bodies. In a matter of seconds, dark, whining nimbuses were roaming the sky, droning threats of an impending downpour.

  “Don’t do it,” Hex said. She shook Atticus. “Call him off!”

  “What do you want me to do? Swat him down?”

  “You employed this thing!”

  “We’re almost to Eldrus. If this is what it takes, then let it happen.”

  “Wind smells like metal,” Elizabeth said, covering her nose.

  “Geharra isn’t going to back us if we end up doing more damage than King Edgar!” She tilted her head back. “Feels like it’s going to… Oh, son of a bitch.”

  From every pulsing proboscis, blood poured in choking sheets. The red rain washed back and forth, dousing the mob in the very thing they were eager to spill. Dumbstruck, the dumbasses stood there, eyes open, mouths agape, gawping and gulping down the gory shower.

  “Your Gravedigger is here,” Mr. Haemo shouted.

  Not one for waste of the sticky stuff, he shut down the show seconds later. But it’d been enough; he had everyone’s attention, and everyone’s horror.

  The giant mosquito outstretched his gaunt, burn-black arm. “Eldrus wants you to think we’ve given up.” His million eyes got a glint to them—a sheen of triumph from their terror. “The Gravedigger reminds you the Marrow Cabal has not!”

  The mob turned slowly. Mr. Haemo’s children fell around them and sucked up what they could of the blood they’d spent.

  “I am the Gravedigger,” Atticus shouted to them. He was off-guard, put on the spot. He looked past the dripping mob, to the soldiers shuffling forward, swords drawn. “I am—”

  Thump, thump, thump, from somewhere nearby.

  “—I am here to fight alongside you.”

  “What’s… what’s going on?” a man asked. The jewelry he’d stolen hung limply from his pocket.

  The mob ducked as Mr. Haemo flew past them and landed beside the Marrow Cabal.

  Another man shrieked, “What is that thing?” And then he slipped on the slick stones and fell on his ass.

  “Is this another one of Eldrus’ tricks?”

  “Holy Child, go, go! Run!”

  “This isn’t worth it. What’s going on?”

  “Move, damn it! Run!”

  People fled in every direction, leaving a trail of red footsteps by which one could follow, if one were so inclined. Mr. Haemo’s demonstration had impressed, but it had also doused the fires they needed to keep the rebellion burning here.

  Horse hooves. The clinking of chainmail. These sounds and distant orders rose unexpectedly around the mob. And then, as they grew louder and closer, a voice, raw with authority, belted, “Round them up!”

  Mounted guards mowed down the milling mob. One after the other, until there was too much chaos to count, Eldrus’ finest in shining mail split the ranks. Those too slow to flee were knocked down, and quickly picked up by the soldiers on foot. Those too fast to catch caught an arrow in the calf, and quickly learned the virtues of obedience.

  “We have to go,” Hex said. She looked about as pissed as she sounded.

  Atticus threw out his arms. “We wasted months getting here!”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re the one who just said we should leave.”

  The rest of the Marrow Cabal, Mr. Haemo included, didn’t need much convincing. They were already hopping on their horses.

  “You can’t die, Atticus,” Hex snarled. “But we can. Get on your horse and get.”

  “This rebellion is a fucking joke.”

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Atticus spun around, trying to locate the shepherd. “Eldrus is just going to kill them.” Why was he fighting her on this? He didn’t give a shit.

  “They were going to do that, anyways.” She mounted her horse. “Go, save them. Better yet, why not beat the shit out of your mosquito friend for getting up there and showing his ass?” She sighed. “Geharra will send more groups in to destabilize the town. It’ll help pull more reinforcements away from Eldrus.”

  She went to his horse and untethered it from the support beam he’d wrapped it around. Throwing the reins at Atticus, she said, “Get, Gravedigger.”

  NYXIS

  After spending twenty minutes in a town that took two months to get to, the last thing the Marrow Cabal wanted was to ride for another twenty days into a town under martial law; whi
ch was exactly what had happened in Nyxis, thanks to the events that had occurred in Hrothas.

  So a mile outside of Nyxis, in the folds of the farmland there, they abandoned their horses and made for a barn with a busted-up car sitting outside it. Slipping inside the barn, Atticus and the others found three old women, robed in red, sitting at a small table, reading one another’s palms. They were Hex’s contacts in Nyxis, ones which she had apparently been conversing with mentally since Islaos.

  “Hex, lend me your hand,” the smallest woman said. She looked over her shoulder coyly. “You won’t worm your way out of it this time.”

  Hex shook her head. “Tell you what. Get us in to Nyxis and I’ll even let you read my feet.”

  The largest woman chuckled as she said, “Can’t do nothing with them monkey toes.”

  “This him?” The skinniest of the three closed her hands into fists. “This our Gravedigger?”

  Atticus stepped forward. Tapping his machete against his leg, he said, “The one and only.”

  The skinniest shook her head. Pointing to herself, she said, “Name’s Helena. Don’t worry about the others.” She waved off the two women, who were now trying to get her attention. “Those old crones couldn’t tell you what they’re called if their lives depended on it.”

  “You look like witches,” Atticus said.

  “We are witches,” the smallest one chirped. “You and your dead friend over there—” she pointed one crooked finger at Gary, “—smell like borrowed time.”

  Helena gasped, finally taking notice of Mr. Haemo. “We want nothing to do with him!”

  The mosquito, back in his man suit, acted shocked. “You wound me, Dark Sister.”

  “Interesting, yeah?” Elizabeth nudged Miranda.

  “Can you get us into Nyxis?” Warren sounded impatient; looked it, too. “There were soldiers posted at every entrance. Liable to be more the longer we wait.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the largest witch said. She stood with the smallest witch. “Don’t move.”