The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy)

by Peadar O'Guilin

  THE VOLUNTEER

  by

  Peadar Ó Guilín

  The Volunteer

  Copyright 2014 by Peadar Ó Guilín

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  www.frozenstories.com

  The cover is by Fiona Jayde -- http://fionajaydemedia.com/

  Image copyright by diversepixel/Shutterstock

  About the Author

  Peadar Ó Guilín lives in Ireland where he works for a large computer corporation. He has written fiction of every kind, from plays to comics, from novels to short-stories. He cycles in the summer and humiliates himself the rest of the year by trying to play soccer. You can find out more about him at his website, www.frozenstories.com. Or feel free to follow him on Twitter where he poses as @theinferior.

  Novels in Print:

  The Inferior (Bone World Trilogy, book 1)

  The Deserter (Bone World Trilogy, book 2)

  eBooks:

  Forever in the Memory of God and Other Stories (Three short stories)

  The Sunshine Baron and Other Stories (September 2015)

  Forthcoming Novels:

  Eat the Drink (A Post-Apocalyptic detective story) – May 2015

  For the Dreaded Nork, its claws ever sharp.

  Terror is my inspiration.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Part One: Worlds in Darkness

  Part Two: Under the Sun

  Part Three: Sunset

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE: WORLDS IN DARKNESS

  CHAPTER 1: Four Hunters

  Spearcatcher cried out once, and that was the last they saw of him. Their chests heaved as they ran. Muscles ached. The loudest sound was their own breathing and houses blurred past them in the darkness. Up ahead, the horizon glowed: fire of some sort, a haven surely, from the Diggers that pursued them. But the four survivors staggered to a halt when they saw what had caused the light. A thousand paces away, the streets of BloodWays raged with fire. Every house there was burning, so that even the stones seemed to spit sparks high into the air.

  Whistlenose had no energy for shock. The eldest by far of the hunting party, he came in last and fell to his hands and knees on the damp and gritty street. He wanted to be sick. He wanted his head to stop spinning. He wished, just once, that his constantly blocked nose would allow him enough air.

  They had been running throughout the night, driven farther and farther from the safe streets of home. Three men had died so far, disappearing one by one into the dark. But now the pursuit seemed to have stopped. Perhaps three corpses sufficed to satisfy the enemy. Or maybe... maybe they simply wanted the humans to see what had happened to BloodWays; to show off what they had achieved.

  The exhausted men stared. Many of the buildings had slumped into the earth. Of the inhabitants, they saw no sign. No guards waited to leap from the remaining towers to hunt them down; no drums thundered out in warning.

  Whistlenose rested one cheek against the chill wall of a building. His left leg ached as never before, pulsing in time with his heart. Each burst of pain told him how few days of life remained to him now, regardless of whether he made it back tonight or not. Please Ancestors, he begged. He prayed to them out of habit only, because the world was ending, everybody knew it. The world was ending and there didn't seem to be a thing the Ancestors could do about it.

  Highstepper waved his spear at the others. He had a long-limbed, awkward body and was far from the best hunter. But the Chief had put him in charge anyway. Gone were the days when men would decide such things amongst themselves. "All right, then," he said, "We'll have to go back."

  "They'll be expecting us to turn around," said Whistlenose. "They'll lie in wait."

  Highstepper nodded. "It's what I would do."

  Nobody said anything else and BloodWays continued to burn. This was supposed to have been a simple hunt. An easy one, even. Many of the creatures that lived near human territory were battling extinction as the mysterious Diggers pushed in. Sooner or later, ManWays would suffer the same attacks, but for now, the hunting was easier than Whistlenose had ever seen it. "They run onto our spears," he had told his wife, while their infant son snuffled in sleep beside them.

  "You don't sound happy about that," she had replied.

  Too true. He should have been delighted. He was old now, coming up on fourteen thousand days, as his wife knew better than anybody. Hunting could be exhilarating: overcoming the terror; fighting for your life to bring home desperately needed food. And such adoration from the Tribe on a successful return! The embrace of wives. Nobody mocked him then.

  But everything had changed for him when, so late, so unexpectedly, he had become a father. That was when Whistlenose, a man with less than a thousand days of hunting left in him, learned the true meaning of fear. What if he died before his boy was named? Such children never grew to adulthood in a hungry, desperate Tribe.

  So yes, Whistlenose ought to have been delighted with the easy kills that had been so common lately.

  "Then why aren't you happy?" Ashsweeper asked him. She was a good worker with a sweet, sweet face. Some man would take her for a second wife surely, after he was gone. And the boy too.

  "Husband?"

  In the dark, the only sounds had been the pop of the fire and the faint hiss of his breathing that had given him his name.

  "Most of them don't fight back," he said at last. "I think... I almost think they're grateful for our spears..."

  Now, in the flickering light of BloodWays’ burning buildings, Whistlenose looked around at the other three remaining hunters in the party. Highstepper, huntleader or not, still hadn't come to a decision. "We need to split up," said Whistlenose.

  He could see they didn't like the idea. All three were younger than he was and probably, until that evening, they'd thought themselves farther from the soup. They had swagger and speed over him. And reputations already better than that of poor Whistlenose whose long life had gained him no more than three tattoos. And yet, he came from a generation that didn't let a Chief, no matter how clever, do their thinking for them.

  "We can't fight these Diggers," Whistlenose said. "All night, they've driven us about like pups before the spear. If we are still alive now, it is only because they have not yet chosen to kill us." He waved back the way they'd come, through a tangle of dark streets, "They are going to catch us for sure. Some of us. But if one group holds them off, the other might make it home to tell of what happened here."

  Highstepper chewed his lower lip like a nameless child. His sweat all but stank of panic. My own too, probably. Whistlenose winced as another wave of pain pulsed out from his knee.

  "You," Highstepper said. "You."

  "Me, what?" said Whistlenose, but with a sudden chill, he knew what the younger man was thinking.

  "I saw you limping."

  "I wasn't. I don't limp. I kept up with all of you." My boy is too young! My boy!

  Leftear spoke up. "The huntleader's right." His eyes refused to settle on Whistlenose. "One of us might be enough to hold them off. The rest might make it back. BloodWays is gone. The Diggers have moved more quickly than the Chief expected. Word of this has to get out."

  Whistlenose didn't care about any of that just then: not the Diggers; not the end of the world; or the men around him. The Roof seemed to be spinning above his head and beads of sweat itched their way down his face.

  "Which of you will marry my wife?" he said.

  They knew what he was asking.

&
nbsp; "We're wasting time here," Highstepper mumbled.

  Whistlenose wanted to scream into the huntleader's cowardly face. "Who will marry her?"

  "Keep your voice down! The Chief decides such things now."

  Ah yes, the Chief. Wallbreaker. Another coward, but clever to the point that many suspected the Ancestors spoke directly into his ears, keeping the Tribe safe. Clever, yes. And practical. Ashsweeper and the boy didn't stand a chance.

  Eventually, Leftear looked up. "I will marry Ashsweeper. I will try. If he lets me."

  Whistlenose nodded, feeling a sting at the corner of his eyes. It was the only offer he was going to get. "Go," he told the others. "As quickly as you can."

  "You had many days left," said Leftear. A lie, but an honourable one.

  Highstepper signalled the entrance of an alley and the three younger hunters disappeared into it, as though it had swallowed them whole.

  Five times Whistlenose counted twenty heartbeats, giving them a chance to get away, but giving his own fears time to grow too.

  The Diggers had come out of nowhere on the far side of TongueWays. They buried their living victims waist-deep in the ground where strange yellow or white grubs consumed them from below. The victims moaned in terrible pain but would actively resist attempts to rescue them, drooling all the while. Nor could these unfortunates be easily killed, except by fire. Which might explain why BloodWays was burning now.

  He swallowed dryly. Would he have the strength to kill himself before he was caught? And shouldn't he try to stay alive anyway, in order to give the others as much time as possible? Leftear, at least. He needed Leftear to marry Ashsweeper.

  But his own time was up. "Come, you flesh wasters!" he shouted. "Let me drink that slop you call blood! Sicken me on your marrow!"

  Whistlenose felt a slight trembling in the road beneath his feet. He fought the urge to run for his life. His voice faltered as he forced the words out through his teeth. "I'll stuff your pups for my boy to play with! Your wives will be bedding for mine!"

  A crack ran up the wall beside him. These creatures loved to attack from below. The Chief said that the hard surface of the ancient streets kept the ground from opening beneath a hunter, but that if enough holes were made farther underground it could cause the collapse of buildings. It seemed to be happening now. Ancient masonry popped, sprays of rust and flakes of stone stung Whistlenose, pushing him out of the shadows and into the centre of the street.

  Now he heard the skittering sound of hard claws on stone. It came from all around him so that he turned again and again in a circle, his spear held out in front of him. In the shadows, far down in the direction of ManWays, something flowed across the street.

  The hairs on his neck prickled and he spun around again, stabbing the spear at nothing. Then, the sounds seemed to be moving away from him. It made no sense, no sense at all, but in moments, he felt himself all alone once more.

  He should shout again. He should draw their attention, but his mouth had dried up entirely and he hadn't the strength to hold tightly onto the shaft of his spear. He waited for what seemed like a thousand heartbeats, all alone with the burning buildings of BloodWays at his back.

  The skittering sound came again, this time from the direction in which his fellow hunters had fled. He tiptoed towards it, although he only wanted run away. But that was the point of being a Volunteer, wasn't it? To give yourself so that your family might live, or, as the ancient saying had it, "That the Tribe Might Make it Home"?

  He heard a shout—a human voice. No, voices! He reached the mouth of the alleyway to witness a scene worse than any nightmare. A dozen Diggers occupied an open space, their snouts round, their skins full of holes and seething with subtle movement. They weaved around Whistlenose's fallen companions. Leftear's right leg had bone poking through it from the inside. Twistedtalley might have been unconscious, while Highstepper crawled around in circles on hands and knees, shaking his head as though he had thorns lodged in it, but no hands with which to pick them out. "Mother!" he kept saying. "Mother!" It made no sense. He crawled to within a few spearlengths of Whistlenose's hiding place. One of the Diggers stopped him, its back so close that Whistlenose could have reached out and touched it. It became obvious now that the movement on its skin consisted of tiny grubs crawling over the creature's body. Now, one of these dropped from the Digger's hide to land on Highstepper's face. It was as wide as a man's thumb, but somehow it forced its way up the hunter's nose.

  Highstepper's eyes widened. He screamed and gagged, rising up onto his knees, jaw working hard enough to dislocate itself. Then he simply went back to his crawling.

  Whistlenose looked up to find Leftear's eyes fixed on his.

  "Please," the man shouted. "You've got to kill us! You've got to help!"

  And all at once, the faces of every Digger turned in the direction of Whistlenose's alleyway.

  For the second time that night, he found himself running for his life. He might have a chance—humans on two legs seemed to run faster than the Diggers, above or below ground, but the creatures were masters of ambush and three times already they had appeared where the hunters had least expected. Speedywink had been taken from below when he leapt an ancient drain; Spearcatcher's legs had last been seen disappearing through a window. It was all so... playful, that was the word.

  Whistlenose stumbled over a brick, felt something scrape down his bad leg and imagined talons. But it was only a piece of old metal jutting out of the masonry. He righted himself against a moss-covered wall and ran on. Leftear's cries had been silenced and the scrabbling claws seemed to be falling farther and farther behind him. But he wasn't fooled, not any more. I'm just running where they want me to go. It was as simple as that.

  He found himself back on a street where he could see the remains of BloodWays burning and groaning in the night. Dawn could not be more than a Tenth away now, and the Diggers, for all their games, would want to bring him in before that. They were rarely seen by day and seemed sluggish then and stupid.

  He thought about running back down the road in the direction of the human streets—ManWays, as they were known. But no, no. They're expecting that. They've expected everything we've done.

  Between him and BloodWays, there lay a great open space—what the Ancestors had called a "no-man's land." Trees grew there while mosses of a thousand colours fought for the attention of poisonous insects. Even by night with only the tracklights of the great Roof for illumination, a hunter could be seen crossing this easily, unless he knew the area well and had planned out a route for himself from tree to bush to rock. Only a madman would go there otherwise, in full view of every predator.

  Whistlenose turned his face towards the no-man's land and ran for all he was worth. One more street and he would be there. Suddenly, the claws that had been so silent were rattling on every surface. He could hear them behind him, tens and tens of Diggers pouring into the road back in the direction they had expected him to go. But others, too, were skittering along in the streets parallel to his and one of these creatures, just one, slid out to block his way forward. He was still running at full tilt. Its triangular head turned towards him and its paws widened exposing a rippling chest, an unmissable target.

  So be it. His spear shivered when it struck, biting deep, passing right through the creature's body only to snap off against the roadway beyond. He didn't know where the heart was, or if it possessed such an organ, but he expected it to die, at least to die. Instead, a shudder ran over it and its two widespread arms pulled him into an embrace.

  They tumbled in the street together, round and round while the Diggers down the road clattered closer. Whistlenose felt his cheek pressed right up close against warm wiry fur, that stung, somehow, on contact. Something was crawling over his scalp, something finger-sized and warm. It tickled his ear. He remembered the grub that had shoved its way up Highstepper's nose and he screamed, shoving for all he was worth.

  The arms fell away and he staggered free on hands and
knees, but the rest of the enemies had arrived within spitting distance. He made it onto his feet and launched himself away towards BloodWays, weeping, his skin stinging.

  Under his feet, the ground oozed. Rocks gave beneath his toes; moss pods opened to cause skids. They came after him, a great wave of them, greedy for his flesh. Their four legs would have the advantage here on the uneven surface, but Whistlenose, running upright, could better see what lay ahead: a Wetlane, what the ancient tales called a "Canal," with no bridge anywhere in sight. So, he kept running, knowing he had one slim chance of escape.

  Whistlenose gritted his teeth against the pain in his leg and pulled in his last reserves of terror-fired energy.

  Everyone knew there were creatures living in the Wetlanes. Sometimes Chief Wallbreaker's schemes tricked one of the monsters into the nets for the Tribe to feed on. But once in that water, unable to swim, the hunter knew that he would be the one providing dinner.

  The reflections of the tracklights shimmered on the surface as he sprinted forwards. He didn't allow himself to think, to slow, to stop. Old Chief Speareye—from before Wallbreaker's time—had a son called Waterjumper, who had supposedly made it all the way across a Wetlane without falling in. Supposedly. But if he had, he'd been a young man, jumping in daylight, without a gammy leg.

  Whistlenose remembered Waterjumper's boasting by the fire, shortly before the Armourbacks had killed him. "The trick is... and, remember, this is my idea! Not Wallbreaker's, like he says. Mine! The trick is, you don't jump forward. You go up. High as you can and let your speed carry you to the other side all by itself."

  "I don't believe he really did it," Whistlenose had said later to a comrade. "Who saw him, anyway?"

  Whistlenose reached the edge and launched himself upwards. It seemed to take forever to cross the water. He had time to count reflections in it; to think about his miraculous son and his one remaining wife...