A Tree of Bones

by Gemma Files

  Against her will, Ixchel turned; Rook did the same, with everyone else soon following. Even as their attention shifted, meanwhile, the Enemy vanished in a thunderclap of collapsing air, only to instantly reappear as a speck perched upon the eastern wall itself — poised to peer down upon the tide of City-folk who were flooding that-a-way already, in response to Chu’s call. With a silent curse, Rook released the trigger-wand, then offered that same hand to Sal, with the other threading Ixchel’s cold fingers. A silent twist of will was all it took to send ’em hurtling over the crowd’s heads as well, touching down at Chu’s side atop the main Eastern gate.

  A quick scan gave him the Mex battalion in mid-march, trailing southward from Bewelcome, though slowed somewhat by the wreckage remaining ’round hastily abandoned Camp Pink. Here and there, what wounded they found still living were being collected, hauled back to the medical supply wagons. But those thundering drumbeat vibrations continued rolling through the ground, and all movement quickly ceased. Even at this distance, Rook could hear faint yells and oaths, saw the soldiers reel back, pointing upward — breaking and running, some of ’em, at the simple advance of whatever massive thing was slowly heaving itself over the hilltops of the eastern horizon, its mere shadow so immense it spilled ’cross the dirt like a second night.

  The hell? Rook wondered, agape. Then waited, already braced ’gainst the tidal wave to come, to find out.

  After less than half an hour’s fast march from the battleground, Geyer had called halt in the middle of one of many narrow valleys winding through the eastern hills. How he knew their route Ludlow could never tell, since all this terrain looked alike to him, but was both grateful and relieved, having taken ever more of Doctor Asbury’s weight as they marched; indeed, Ludlow was not entirely sure that the arcanologist was even conscious, at this point.

  Within minutes, the first of the Texican outriders had spotted their position, and rode to meet them. These men’s complete lack of any uniform, or consistency in gear, made Ludlow blink. A half dozen wore garb which ranged from Alamo buckskins to Mexican serapes, some going sombreroed and moccasined, others coonskin-capped and booted, while one sported a bloodstained grey Confederate officer’s shell coat. Their arms and gear seemed equally potluck, including pistols and rifles and shotguns of a dozen different makes. The scouts’ leader — a short, hawk-nosed ruffian who looked more than half-Mex, himself — introduced himself as Sergeant Juan Alvarez, then sent the fake secesh hotfoot back to the main force, before breaking out brandy and provisions to revive the weary travellers.

  They debriefed as they ate, between chews, and Alvarez listened, expressionless. Ludlow found he truly couldn’t tell if the man took their reports seriously, or was just waiting to see when they’d start to rave outright. Since Geyer had led by recounting the morning’s events with due professional flatness, Ludlow’d strained to follow suit, deliberately leaching all trace of hyperbole from his own interpolations . . . yet the tale still spoke for itself, outrageous as ever. When they finished, Alvarez’s only response was to stroke his moustache in ruminative silence.

  “All this brujeria,” he said abruptly. “None of it came with the Mexicans, ay? Just that Lady and her kin, who the earthquake loosed from Hell.” Geyer and Ludlow looked first at each other then back to him, and nodded, almost in unison. Heartened, Alvarez turned next to Asbury, whose cheeks had finally regained some colour after a few long swigs. “And you, Doctor — what’s left in your bag of tricks to help keep the maleficios off our backs, exactly, while we make for Hex City?”

  Asbury blinked. “I — very little, sir,” he admitted. “I have a Manifold, of course, to ward off active spells, and my aetheric screen for concealment, but nothing else . . . nothing functional, at any rate. Though if more were recovered from Pinkerton’s leavings, I suppose I could try to — ” Adding hastily, at the Sergeant’s scowl: “But truly, I do not believe that will be necessary. The Emperor’s stated goal is to ‘liberate his people therein enslaved.’ Any obstacle we pose to that objective is likelier, I think, to enjoy New Aztectlan’s approval, rather than the reverse.”

  “Sounds good, but men don’t always think clear in battle,” Alvarez pointed out. “And for all I know, the jefes got secret orders to do some damn fool thing like turn us toward Hex City once we whup the Mexes, or even if we don’t.”

  “Not this time, Sergeant,” Geyer replied. “George Thiel knows the score, and he’s no fool. He’ll convince your Captain, just like we did you. Besides . . . strikes me if you thought we were complete lunatics, you wouldn’t have wasted time on us at all, let alone served us private stock. Am I wrong?”

  Alvarez fell to petting on his moustache again, like he thought if he only stroked it long enough, it might give him sage advice. “Captain Farris and your Mister Thiel should be catching us up soon enough,” he said, presently, “’long with the rest of the troops — and though we ain’t got time to stop, we got spare horses. Man can listen and ride at the same time, you want to argue at me further.”

  Asbury’s face fell, like Babylon. “No, please — must we go back? We are not a mile from the battlefield, even now! Mister Geyer I can understand, but Mister Ludlow and I can surely be of no further use to you, only burdening your quartermasters to no good purpose.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Doc,” Geyer said. “Risked myself plenty to get you out of Camp Pink intact — don’t you think there might’ve been some point to the exercise, beyond simple human compassion?”

  “Well, yes, certainly; I assumed as much. But . . .” Here the Professor trailed off, stared past Alvarez, blinking. “Sergeant — is that your man now, returning?”

  Ludlow traced the glance, even as Alvarez shifted to confirm Asbury’s reckoning. Yes, it was indeed Shell-coat, taking it at a gallop and waving his hat fiercely while he did, as if to drive them back, though his accompanying yells were still too distant for sense. But his horse-hooves’ thunder kept on swelling, ’til Ludlow realized the vibration he “thought” he felt welling up through his boots was no fantasy. Behind, meanwhile, yet more horses carrying unfamiliar riders flooded into the valley in a torrent, scattering cold grey dust in their wake, and surged down the narrow path at a perilous angle — like they were too shit-scared not to risk dashing ’emselves to death on the arroyo’s looming sides, veteran cavalry or no, alongside the threat of breaking their mounts’ precious legs, in the bargain.

  “Clear away!” Alvarez shouted, jumping straight up, jackrabbit-style; Geyer, Ludlow and Asbury obeyed with alacrity, scrambling out of the troops’ way in flummoxed alarm, even as one of the few clearly uniformed men — a blue-jacketed lieutenant — pulled up to shout unintelligibly in Alvarez’s ear while the rest of the Texican troop roiled past. Ludlow gaped, the beat beneath his feet increasing further, a dull volley of rhythmic hammer-blows: slow, strange, implacable. Louder, and louder, and louder —

  “Holy Christ and all His Apostles plus sweet Saint Michael, too!” screamed Geyer, pointing back over Ludlow’s shoulder, face gone white. Ludlow spun and promptly collapsed, knees instantaneously slack; Asbury blinked wetly up at the sight, eyes full of a similar horror, though leavened with an unremitting awe — a shock so intense, so monumental, it almost rang as joy.

  The shape which reared up over the furthest visible hill and plunged down on one side of the valley was a gigantic black column furred with ship’s-cable hairs and glinting with chitinous armour plates, towering what had to be close to threescore yards into the sky. It was followed seconds after by a second such pillar, equally massive, which hit ground on the defile’s other side with the same sort of hissing, hydraulic-powered crash — then another on the left, another to the right — the speed with which arrangements moved was near-incomprehensible, for their multi-jointed size. Above, a vast black ovoid shape cut off the cold grey sunlight, drowning them in freezing shadow; a fifth and sixth column touched down, even as the first two lifted and reached forward again. High above, multiple sets of eye
-spheres like obsidian boulders glittered in twin rows; mandibles the size of stalactites shone, flint-sharp and venom-sheened.

  The dusty, musky smell of the thing rolled over them in a wave, strong enough to send Ludlow jackknifed over, retching up his recent refreshments. Beneath the creature, every horse in the valley screamed and reared together, slamming into one another in panic, sending their riders falling. Ludlow curled in on himself, arms over his head; what use dignity now? Surely this was the Apocalypse, and demon-monsters walked the Earth!

  Welcome as grace in Hell, the sunlight fell free upon him once again as the gargantuan spider-beast moved on, too-many legs navigating the terrain’s rises and drops faultlessly, better than any four-shod steed, and far, far faster. Its booming footsteps carried it almost straight along the same path Ludlow, Geyer and Asbury had come to get here — back toward New Aztectlan, quick and sure and dreadful. And much though he knew that evil place’s inhabitants had all long since cut their teeth on horrors, Ludlow couldn’t help but hope that even they might be taken aback, when this abomination finally hove in sight.

  As Ludlow blinked after, however — wiping at his lips, then spitting one last bilious mouthful at his own feet — he finally perceived what threatened to shatter his sanity altogether. There were people clinging onto the creature’s back; perhaps a dozen. Minuscule figures, only visible for their lightness against the spider’s dark, but there.

  Treating it, Good Lord, like it was some sort of mount. An island-sized elephant, without even the regulation howdah to keep them seated.

  What sort of unholy sons of bitches . . . ?

  At which point, peering yet closer, he made out that one of them might have red hair and a purple coat — and knew.

  Geyer, whitened and dumbstruck, seemed to’ve seen it too. But Asbury simply stood there with tears rolling down his face, unable to distinguish spider from riders.

  And quoted to himself, huskily, from Job — “Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the Earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.”

  Only a second or so after Grandma was done talking, Old Woman Butte shook itself under Chess’s feet like a dreaming dog, so fierce it hurt even his semi-substantial flesh. He grabbed for Morrow’s and Yancey’s shoulders at once, too stunned to curse. Beneath the circle gathered atop the Butte, the ground turned black, empty as the Crack itself, though no one fell inside. Grandma stood unmoving, rock-paw hands still lifted to the sky; Chess looked up to see charcoal-coloured clouds corkscrewing around them, same way they had when the twister that’d been Ash Rook’s first miracle blew up.

  “We’re lifting!” Carver hollered, petrified, wide eyes casting ’round in every direction. Chess glanced east, sized up the horizon and the sun’s height with a marksman’s instinctive sense of range, and saw the bluebelly was right — whatever the old Diné bitch had conjured, it was rising straight out of the Butte, bringing them along with it. The stuff they stood on no longer felt like stone, or even dirt — gone horridly soft, almost squelchy, like some overstuffed goose down mattress soaked in tar.

  Morrow on his left hand, Yancey his right — they wrapped arms ’round him to get at each other, and damn, if he wasn’t well content to let ’em. Songbird (typically) had taken to the air at the first sign of trouble, hovering nevertheless beside Yiska, as if tethered; Sophy Love clutched wailing Master Gabriel tight, straining not to stagger, while Berta and Eulie clung close to Carver in their turn, like schoolgirls in a rainstorm.

  Higher and higher the curving black mound rose, its yielding surface hardening underfoot, cracking and splitting as it befurred itself with bristling hairs. Eight massive ropes of tarry black hex-matter shot out and downward, each bending up at the same time into a joint that rose above them. The great black blimp-bag contracted amidships, swelling into two sections like some fat saloon gal, corseted tight. Lightning flashed and flickered, painting them all with hissing, variegated lights.

  And then, with a final thunderclap, the storm clouds broke at last, washed away. The winter sunlight poured down over them; with a groan, Chess squinted ’gainst it, feeling it stab straight through his head.

  Songbird whispered something in Chink-jabber Chess couldn’t spare the mojo to translate, though its sense was clear enough — finally, here was an event so crazed as to impress even her. Missus Love had given up trying to stand, and lay curled on her side, protecting Gabriel, saucer-eyed. Eulie and Berta dared a few cautious steps away from Carver, toward the edges of this living platform, but the moment they did the young Negro soldier almost collapsed.

  He gawped ’cross at Morrow, who raised his eyebrows, as though to say: Yeah, it’s what you think it is, but what’re we gonna do about it?

  Yet Carver stammered all the same, as if the words were being dragged out of him: “Ed, this . . . this is a . . . we’re — we’re on a giant . . .”

  “A servant of Na’ashjéii Asdzáá, the Spider Who Weaves All, yes,” cut in Yiska, not quite brusquely enough to mask her own astonishment. She turned to Grandma, who had not lowered her massive stone arms, and managed a laugh. “Spinner, this working of yours will live in the songs until the end of the Age! To summon a Weaver alone, without even a living body to command — I will write your song myself! I will . . .” She trailed off, smile fading. “Spinner?”

  The great figure still had not moved: arms upheld, its flat stone face immobile. Suddenly, Chess saw clearly all the separate pieces of bone and granite that made “Grandma” up, as if he’d never grasped before just how patchwork a construction it really was. One fell from its place, soon followed by another, with a gritty, grinding noise, coming apart by degrees. Then, with a rending crash, Grandma’s fossil-golem body collapsed, resolving into a mound of broken shards atop the titan arachnidan shell.

  “Finished,” Yiska said, to no one in particular. “As you knew you would be, after such effort. Oh, Grandmother mine: I will remember you, always. I, and all others who benefit from your sacrifice here, your re-Balancing.”

  Songbird goggled, far as her squinched eyes would let her. “We needed her!” she complained, finally.

  “But we have you,” Yiska pointed out, matter-of-fact as ever. “And Gabriel Love. And, best of all . . .”

  As one, they swivelled to look at Chess, significantly. Prompting the man himself to mutter, in turn — or perhaps just to think, not that there was all that much distinction ’tween the two these days: Great.

  Yiska knelt to rap on the spider’s carapace, hard, like she was ordering up a hansom. “Follow the Crack,” she told it. “To its end. To Hex City.”

  The magic that held up the spider-titan’s astonishing size ate the ground in mighty blurring leaps, moving so fast most of the riders had to flop down and grip the shell hairs death-tight to keep from flying off. The smeared-looking landscape shifted beneath them, wrenching at Chess’s missing guts. He looked backward once, and saw ribbons of liquid light trailing out behind them from the creature’s spinnerets, a cascade of red-gold and blue-green energies twining together as they stitched themselves into the earth. Behind the spider’s eyes, Yiska, Sophy Love’s babe and Songbird had wrapped themselves together, wove deep in their own power web, guiding this living shuttle as it knitted the world’s tapestry back together.

  A few minutes’ watching was enough; Chess closed his own eyes, and held on grimly. He felt the closing Crack in every quarter, a boxcar door pressing him on all sides at once; every inch it narrowed made the world he clung to stabler, but also thinned away the raw hexation cloud feeding what scant substance he had left. So rather than lament, he set himself to the menial, painstaking work of drawing in every shred of it he could, a weaver’s prentice sweeping scraps from the loom.

  Miles passed in minutes, slowing as they closed in on the City, and the depth of the wound being healed grew by fathoms. Before Chess knew it, they were passing what had to be the Texican troop at speed, t
hen onto the battlefield, where a hollering battalion of Mexes were just rushing the walls — the eastern gate, outside which Clo Killeen’s mortal remains kept vigil, while Ixchel Rainbow and her Enemy watched from its already cracked ramparts. It was a sight which sent Chess’s whole being humming with lightning-fed ire.

  Two more magicians stood with his Enemy and Enemy’s enemy alike, one Injun, one Chinee. The larger of whom turned now to the smaller, observing, “See — I told you it was spiders.”

  “Hmp,” was all the Chinaman — “Honourable Chu,” Chess’s hex-sense named him — had to say, in return.

  Though fire-scorched and halfway levelled, the defensive ring of black stone ceiba trees had one last trick to play, rearing back to vicious life soon as the colossal spider’s legs touched down within ’em — lashing out with razor-edge branches to trap and score the chitinous limbs, making them spill viscous, steaming liquid. The spider gave a shriek like a ruptured boiler and slowed, staggering from side to side as it kicked its way free, only to be grappled once more; trees shattered glassily under its flailing limbs, widening the path of devastation. Morrow fisted a hand in the spider’s hairs, the other gripping Yancey’s so hard he’d have feared to hurt her, if her grip hadn’t been so equally tight on his, and held on for dear life. For a moment, he saw himself rodeo-ing atop two huge broncos roped together, with laughter bubbling like vomit in his throat.

  While the careening spider spun nearly all the way about, Morrow risked a look back at the battlefield, and gulped again. Taking advantage of the path being cleared for them, the Mexes were already racing for the breach — no lack of balls, this comandante, though perhaps an egregious lack of brains. Morrow opened his mouth to shout a warning, but found Yancey already there before him.