Smoke began to pour from the moss. Just as a hole in the roof of a house could draw the smoke of a hearth, so now, the vapours of the moss passed up the stairs of the building and into the Tower. Even so, a few swooning human hunters, overcome by fumes, had to be dragged away by their comrades.
"I don't understand," whispered Quickbite.
"We need a lot of flesh," said Wallbreaker. "And quickly." He would explain to the tribe tomorrow about the journey they would all have to take. "This will get it for us without much risk." Just the way he liked it.
"Yes... but won't the meat be poisoned?"
"Of course not. Women use it for smoking food all the time. As long as you don't eat the plant or consume the juices directly, all is well and the flesh keeps longer."
They waited and waited. How long before the Hairbeasts noticed there was smoke coming from fires other than their own? How good was their sense of smell? Strange not to know such a thing about humanity's oldest friends.
A boom of alarm sounded. "Down, down!" a Hairbeast shouted, loud enough to be heard.
Wallbreaker turned to his escort. "They're going to come running out of there like blood from a throat. I need you to help the younger men keep their heads. Don't close with the Hairbeasts. Slings only. Got it? Make sure to tell them. Go on. Go on!"
The three men showed none of the reluctance they may have been feeling. No fear, either. The first of the creatures flew through the door and scattered the fire. It bowled two young humans out of the way and three more of the creatures, large males whose heads barely cleared the lintel, staggered out after. One of these had a club as long as a man's leg and studded with lumps of something that glinted in the tracklights. It swung at the humans who tried to swarm it, driving them back while more creatures pushed out into the square. Several fell to their knees, vomiting just as a human would have.
Wallbreaker's stomach knotted and squirmed. The fumes hadn't weakened the Hairbeasts as much as he had hoped. Already, seven huge adults had made it into the square, many armed with clubs or rocks that swung on the end of leather ropes.
Twenty young hunters clumped about the enemy, gathering themselves into groups, ready to charge stupidly. Wallbreaker poked his head out of the window. "Use your slings, you idiots! What I told you! Use your slings!"
But already, Quickbite was arriving to steady them, with Laughlong and Mossdrinker only a pace behind. Still, only seven Hairbeasts had made it out of the tower. Had the others all fallen asleep, then? Had the plan worked well enough for that, at least? But even seven was too many. Or eight, really, since another of the creatures had already run off into the streets. It wouldn't survive alone: nobody could.
A large male charged a clump of boys. It caught one of them—Wallbreaker couldn't tell who it was—it caught him in the centre of his body, caving in the ribcage, throwing the young hunter a man-length through the air to land skidding and bleeding amongst the smoldering moss.
Seven Hairbeasts. Only seven. More than enough to make the price too high...
But already the enemy were down to six thanks to a shower of slingstones under Laughlong's shouted order. The other humans were beginning to get the idea, backing away, firing from a distance or charging the woozy Hairbeasts from behind. One young idiot, Gaptooth, kept laughing and ducking under the hapless swing of a club, bleeding the female Hairbeast with one shallow cut after another. Wallbreaker used to be like that himself. Fast and confident. Nothing could hurt him in those days.
Now, only three of the enemy remained standing. Laughlong was telling Gaptooth to get out of the way. "I'll kill it myself!" shouted the youngster. "It's already weakening. Look at it! Look!"
A smell tickled the Chief's nose. What was that?
It was all the warning Wallbreaker had. He had lost none of his reflexes and rolled immediately to the left, away from the window. Air washed his face a mere heartbeat before a massive club coming in from behind, shattered the windowsill. Splinters showered the whole right side of his body and he tumbled backwards into the shadows. It was in here with him! The Hairbeast that had run into the streets. It must have seen him shouting to his men and it had circled back.
"I will eat you while you live," it told him. "Your brothers are too far off to help."
"We can make a deal," said Wallbreaker. The sweat was pouring off him under the clumsy cloak while the rough wall seemed to burn against the scars left by the Armourback spears. He could see the creature's large, slow-blinking eyes, trying to fix him in place. "It's not too late to save your tribe," he said. "The rest are only sleeping in the tower. They—"
The change in its breathing sent him scuttling out of the path of the club. He scattered a fistful of dirt in the direction of its face and ducked under its grasping claws. If the moss smoke had made it dozy, the creature had already thrown off the effects of it. It yanked at his cloak, but he untied it, just in time, and staggered into the back room where—thank the Ancestors!—the rear doorway remained unblocked.
Wallbreaker made it out into the street. He could outrun it now. A human hunter should be able to do that easily. He would make his way towards the Wedding Tower, although the twisty layout of the streets in this part of old ManWays, would drive him away first for a turn or two and then—
—a line of fire ran down his side as the beast caught him with a lunge of its claws.
"I will... eat... you... living..."
He screeched like a child with the shock and the pain. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him. But things were not as they had once been. He hadn't properly hunted since becoming Chief. He spent much of his time now resting and thinking.
The largest share of the food from the hunts he planned always came to him and he ate his fill of it. Sometimes, it was to make the day pass more quickly. Sometimes he just wanted to show he could, in front of those lacking the proper respect. Symbols mattered more than ever when Chieftainship hung by the narrowest of threads. Meanwhile, his limbs had softened. His body had become listless, as though enemy Ancestors fed upon his spirit, slowing him down.
Wallbreaker's tormentor, a creature in its prime, pounded down the street after him, scattering moss and pebbles.
Go left! Wallbreaker thought. Go left around the next bend! A dozen paces after that would bring him to the hunters who must have finished mopping up the rest of the enemy by now. The Hairbeast was falling behind, its breathing unnaturally raspy. The corner, Wallbreaker was at the corner. Just—
That was when the creature decided to throw its club: an awkward flinging motion from arms not built for it. Maybe it had been trying to brain him, but the heavy, knobbled wood caught itself up in his legs instead. His face smacked hard down onto a patch of moss. His whole body skidded forwards while sap burned his face and stung his eyes. Only his left hand had made it past the corner.
The raspy breathing had reached him. He was weeping from the moss sap and everything appeared to float in his vision. "You turned your back on our ways," the Ancestors said. "Now we turn our backs on you."
He saw his enemy. Its fur hung bedraggled and wet in the Roofsweat of nighttime. It swayed a little, but managed to lower itself down onto its hunkers to grab his ankle.
"Living," it reminded him. It opened jaws lined with blunt teeth. Hairbeasts loved marrow best, he remembered. Looking into its mouth, he could see how they extracted it. It would crush his foot in a heartbeat. It would work its way up his leg.
He should scream for help, but he'd be dead before anybody got to him. The tears were still flowing from his face, but it wasn't the sap any more.
"I will give you anything," said Wallbreaker.
It raised his foot with deliberate slowness, and asked, its tone curious, "You would give your mate?"
"Yes!" shouted Wallbreaker, for his foot had almost reached the jaws.
"Your brother hunters?"
"Yes! Yes!"
It chose to mock him for a moment, licking his foot with a rasping tongue. All of a sudden, he voided
his bowels, the stench filling the air between them and the creature wrinkled its nose.
"My hunters hurt your people. It wasn't me. It was nothing to do with me. You can have them. You can have any of them that hurt you. Any of my hunters! I'll give you anyone! As many as you want! I'll—"
Four slingstones flew into the Hairbeast, knocking it back. One of them must have got it in the eye or in that part of the head underneath the earhole that the skull didn't cover, because it didn't get up again and the rasping sound of its damaged breathing failed to restart.
Suddenly there were men all around Wallbreaker. He managed to lift himself up onto his elbows. A mixture of older and younger hunters were looking down at him. One by one they wrinkled their noses at the smell. They had been lying in wait for the right moment to attack. They would have heard everything.
"Well," said Laughlong. "That's the last of them murdered."
"Go and butcher them," said Wallbreaker, but nobody moved. Finally, Laughlong nodded. "We can't let it go to waste," he said.
Only then did the other men move back towards the Wedding Tower.
CHAPTER 8: A Ghost
Wallbreaker saw all of it from the top window of the Chief's House. A group of hunters, their faces covered in grease from the moss-flavoured Hairbeast flesh, had pulled Aagam by the arms and dragged the stranger right up to Wallbreaker's front door, while the man's new wife, Ashsweeper, kicked at the soles of his feet.
"Waster!" she cried. "To think they tried to steal my real husband from me for this!"
What did she mean by the words "tried to"? Wallbreaker wondered. Whistlenose had done his duty already and that was that, surely.
Now that they had dragged him into the presence of Wallbreaker's Talker, Aagam finally understood what Ashsweeper had been saying. He replied, voice shaking with fury, "I'm your husband now, woman! The Chief said so!"
"Not any more! He's not the..." Ashsweeper stopped herself. She looked up to find Wallbreaker's eyes fixed on hers. She lowered her head again and shut up. Everybody said she was a clever one and she had proved it now by stopping her tongue just in time.
Below, the men pushed open the front door and threw Aagam inside. "We don't need Volunteers. Won't need any for two whole tens! But after that... we'll be well rid of you."
A pair of the hunters remained on guard at the door to make sure that Aagam couldn't get out again. To make sure that nobody could.
After that, with Aagam downstairs, thumping the walls in anger, the feast in Centre Square took up where it had left off. No one had hunted in two days. They didn't think they needed to. The attack on the Hairbeasts had produced twenty adults and as many pups—more than their Chief had claimed. The creatures could lie as well as humans, it seemed. Such gluttony! Nobody had seen the likes of it since the defeat of the Armourback alliance.
A great fire was blazing, carrying the smoke of cooking all over the Square. Wallbreaker had yet to taste a single morsel. He hadn't even been offered a slice off that boy who had died, as tradition demanded. No, he and his family could only look on with thundering bellies.
People sang to ancient tunes with words that no longer made sense. A nameless boy and a girl of the same age performed the male and female parts of a courting song. He was offering her father the flesh of something called a "tract-ear," but it was not enough to win her hand.
Whatever a "tract-ear" was, or indeed the "ache-ears" he also claimed to possess, they must have been long extinct. And the girl's father didn't want them anyway.
Everywhere, people lay groaning, hands on their bellies, bursting with food. Wallbreaker couldn't stop himself, couldn't resist calling down, "You're wasting it! We need it!"
They must have heard their Chief, because the children's song stuttered to a stop. But nobody looked up. And then a woman brought out a wedding drum and everybody clapped in time to her clever hands.
Was that a good sign or a bad one? Wallbreaker wondered. The insults had stopped after they had imprisoned him in his own house. There'd been an angry meeting, despite the huge quantities of flesh that had been recovered. The people were confused, he realised. His cowardice had finally been proved beyond any doubt.
In the past, they must have decided, each in his own heart, not to see him for what he was. Wallbreaker brought them flesh, after all. He always found a way to feed them and wasn't that the point of a Chief? Of any man? He nourished the bodies of the Tribe along with the spirits of the Ancestors.
And yet, how could a coward lead? Tribe was everything. Women, children, hunters... all of them; their hearts and their marrow; the flesh of their backs should be, must be, sacrificed for the survival of all. When it came down to it, a coward, no matter how useful, was somebody who would do the opposite, who would betray the Tribe for himself.
It was a thought too horrible to contemplate. And so they feasted and sang and refused to look at him.
"They'll be back," said a voice behind him. "When they get hungry again." Mossheart. She had discovered his weakness before anybody else, on the very night of their marriage.
"Must you always eat my thoughts, Mossheart?"
"I don't like the taste of them. I would prefer some of that food."
"Where is our daughter?"
"With the woman, downstairs."
"Woman? Woman! Why won't you call her by her name? Treeneck? She's my wife too."
He turned around, at last, to face her. He used to love her hair, the way it curled up around her face, a frame for glittering blue eyes. Now, it hung lank about her shoulders, as listless as the rest of her.
He wanted her to fight him more, as Indrani had done. He wanted her teeth to be straighter and brighter; her skin to be darker. He wanted her eyes to be black pools, swirling with passion and secret knowledge. Most of all, however, he wished he had not turned her into what she was now.
I'm sorry, he thought. I'm sorry, Mossheart.
He would never set her aside. Not just because she would tell everyone what she knew about him—the weeping in the dark, the sudden sweats—but because he could talk to her as though she were an Ancestor: in private; in full confidence that she would take his side, despite her growing dislike of him.
Aloud he said, "They will see sense eventually. But that's not the point. We must leave—"
"Must we? Why? So you can have again that black beast you tried to marry? She won't take you back. She ran away, remember?"
"She was stolen. By Stopmouth. You told me so yourself. You saw him."
"She will never willingly touch you."
"You're wrong about her. She was confused, that's all. Life in the Roof is different."
"Why? Don't they poison women up there in order to rape them? Is that what you did to the Hairbeasts? I hear their Chief was a female too."
His fist clenched of its own accord and experience made her flinch, but she didn't step back. Wallbreaker struggled to control his breathing. "It wasn't rape. I'm the Chief and her husband. And anyway, this has nothing to do with her. That flesh out there... we need it. We need all of it. For our journey. We're never going to get another supply so easily, so quickly. And what of the other preparations we should be making? We could do with more red moss. We could toss it into the tunnels of the Diggers if we had to."
She stepped closer to him, half-flinching as she approached so that he knew she was about to say something that would anger him. She never let her fear stop her, though. From anything. She felt for the pouch that Treeneck had made for him, the one that held the Talker. "This..." she said, "this is the only reason you still live."
He relaxed, having expected worse, something he hadn't already thought of himself. "Have you a suggestion, dear wife?"
"Him," she pointed downwards, so that he understood she meant Aagam on the floor below. "Didn't he tell you there were more humans? Another Tribe?"
He nodded. He hadn't told her this himself. She must have listened in on one of his conversations. He knew she often did that, but pretended not to
be aware of it. He trusted her. "Well, you don't need those dancing fools, do you, husband? You don't need the Tribe at all. You have a Talker just as poor Stopmouth did. You have your own guide. One who won't try to seduce you away from your wife."
"Wives."
She pretended not to care. "So... Go yourself. Go with a small group. Escape. It must be safer and easier for a few to get away than a blundering mass of people." There was something about her words that made him feel dizzy and sick. He couldn't quite pin down what was wrong with them at first, but he found he was shaking his head and trembling all over. Was it fear? Was it the fear again? No. He saw Mossheart smile for the first time since Indrani had stolen his heart. His first wife was still lovely, he saw now. She took his damp palm in hers.
"The Tribe will die without you," she said. "Even you care about that, don't you?"
"Yes," he breathed. "Even... even me." He felt suddenly happy, almost giddy with it. He hugged her to him, then fiercely kissed her as he had not done is so long. "Even me," he said again, louder now, laughing, because, in spite of all the food he had brought to Centre Square since becoming Chief; in spite of the lives he had saved; part of him had believed himself a monster.
Just then, the drumming stopped in the Square and people were shouting. A few screamed. The Chief and his first wife turned back to the window. Below them, a hunter limped in amongst the packed members of the Tribe, while everywhere people panicked to get out of his way. He stopped, spotting Wallbreaker, and the two locked eyes.
Whistlenose.
"Don't speak his name," Mossheart said quietly. Of course not. For Whistlenose was a ghost. The creature's skin had been worn away in patches on its chest. It carried an old-style spear that trembled in its grip—as though spirits could feel exhaustion! When it spoke, its voice too, trembled.
"I'm not dead," it said. "Ask the Clawfolk. They sent me back. Ask them!" He wiped his grimy, pleading face.
Wallbreaker opened his mouth. "That was ten days ago, it was—"
"Don't speak to it!" cried Mossheart. "By the Ancestors!"
The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy) Page 7