The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy)

by Peadar O'Guilin

  If he were rushed now, if those women had enough friends... none of his allies would get to him in time. He shivered once, but then he got control of himself again.

  "These people are weak as pups," he said.

  "Two or three of them were Wardens."

  "Maybe they were. But I can't believe it, anyway. Humans will not fight humans with so many enemies around us."

  Tarini kept looking at him, her face a mass of bruises—from human fists. And he knew better anyway. He had been to the Roof, after all. People had been fighting each other up there for a long time, even as their world died around them.

  "You're right," he admitted. "They're capable of anything." It was a whole new way of thinking for him and he wasn't sure he wanted to get used to it. "Have you actually heard them plotting?"

  She shrugged. "A lot of them don't speak my language or anything similar to it. But I know. Trust me. I should be on their side, after all. Except they're all filthy deserters."

  "Like me?"

  "Not like you, Chief." She grinned, finally coming around after her fright. They really would have killed her!

  "You still don't like the Religious much, though, do you, Tarini?"

  "Nope. But I guess I'll be living with them now, right?"

  It was his turn to smile. "Rockface says you'd make a good hunter. You're fast enough."

  "I am. Does that mean I don't have to go the fields today?"

  "No, you can start your training by keeping me safe instead. Just look fierce. The bruises are helping a lot! Come on. I need to find somebody." But already his mood was beginning to darken. He thought of the woman with the rock. And of the glares he received every day from the Seculars.

  "I'm looking for a hunter called Vishwakarma," he said. "Do you know him?"

  "He's the one who talks too much."

  "That's him. And a bit clumsy, but he's turning into a good hunter. Even back home, his spear would have drunk often, I think. If he could only learn to sit still!"

  "What about Yama? He's a sort of leader too, isn't he? I've heard him say so."

  "Hmm..." Stopmouth wasn't sure he wanted to talk about Yama. There was something about that boy...

  Nearby, a man groaned, a sound of despair. "Did you hear that?" he asked.

  It came again, uttering, this time, a single word: "Mother..." it said. "Oh, mother..." Stopmouth froze, his heart beating fast. He grabbed Tarini's arm as she tried to pass him.

  "No," he said. "Let me go first."

  He had no spear with him, so he held out a knife in front of him and stepped carefully towards the entrance of a shelter that looked as though a sneeze would tumble it.

  "Ohhh... motherrrr...."

  Diggers. It had to be Diggers. But how? How?

  A figure emerged and Stopmouth almost gutted it with his knife. He caught himself just in time. "Vishwakarma? Are... are you all right?"

  "I'm all right." Very few words indeed for a man who normally unleashed an excited stream of babble.

  "Motherrr..." the sound came from inside.

  "You didn't... you didn't kill Sanjay, did you?"

  Vishwakarma hung his head and tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. "I had to do it. You rescued Indrani, didn't you? I heard that story. I heard Rockface tell it more than once how you took her back from them."

  "They'd had her less than a day," said Stopmouth. "Her feet were still intact."

  "You said she had a belly full of grubs, didn't you? And that she threw them up later on? I thought... I thought Sanjay would do the same. But they won't come up." He squeezed more tears from his eyes. "He won't stop calling, he won't stop... He's... he's more than a friend to me. Do you understand?"

  "You are brothers?"

  "Motherrrr..."

  Vishwakarma groaned too, as though he felt the pain caused by the grubs himself; as though their cry for help were his own. "I know he has to be killed. I know it, I know it. But I can't. It should be me, his... his friend. But I can't. That face of his. I can't do it."

  "It's all right," said Stopmouth. "I would be proud to end his suffering for you."

  Sanjay's cries grew louder, so loud in fact, that it was almost enough to smother the clumsy footsteps of a great crowd approaching. Stopmouth looked up to see at least twenty Ship People emerging from between the gaps in the dwellings. The cruel women from before were there, but so too was Ekta, the Warden with powerful muscles under her dark skin. Nobody said anything. Vishwakarma continued to weep and even Sanjay quietened. Stopmouth could feel Tarini grow tense at his side.

  Finally, the crowd split apart to allow two large men to come forward, carrying Dharam between them. At his back stood Dr. Narindi, nervous, but curious. Dharam gave that famous grin, the one that lifted only one side of his mouth, while his left arm hung before him on a sling.

  "I thought you would be more of a challenge, savage," he said. "Less than a month, it took to bring you down. Did you really think you could turn us into labourers? Really? We who gave everything, who risked everything, to reach the stars?"

  Stopmouth should have been afraid—fear kept a hunter alive, after all. But instead, the sight of Dharam brought only anger. "What choice do you have anyway?" he said. "Your Warship can never leave this world again. You will have to fight the Diggers. You will have to eat too, and all of that means you'll either be hunting or working no matter what you may think."

  His words made the people around him uncomfortable and more than one face turned to Dharam to see how the Commissioner would respond.

  "It's not what I think that matters, savage, it's what I know. There is another escape route from this terrible world you cannibals have made for yourselves—"

  "We did not make this world and everybody here knows that!"

  "You make it every day, savage. Through your barbarous actions. Your killings, your feastings on the flesh of others. We tried to give you a chance. To let us get on with growing our food, but no! You forced us to kill, yesterday, just to feed the beasts you invited to live right in our midst. Alien killers and human killers together. For many of us, it was the last straw."

  Stopmouth felt his face go red, but he managed to control himself, to not fly at this monster before him. "If you hate killing so much, Dharam, then I expect you will be letting us go?"

  A pause. Dharam's followers were uncertain again. "We will have a... a trial," said the Commissioner. "There will be no murder."

  "Apart from the murder of the Roof that you committed?"

  "Your Religious allies did that, Stopmouth, not me." And he spoke that monstrous lie with such assurance that even the Chief found himself believing it. Almost. But the words had strengthened Dharam's supporters, no doubt about that.

  And then, Stopmouth saw something that chilled him to his bones. A few of the men to either side of Dharam produced shiny black objects from pouches at their sides. Guns! He had seen their like in the Roof. The men carried the weapons awkwardly, but eagerness showed on their faces and they swapped excited grins.

  "Where did you get those?" he asked. "We could have used them a hundred times before today!"

  "Oh, there was plenty of cargo in the ship, known only to me, savage. We don't need you any more; we don't need you at all now. I will protect the people."

  Stopmouth tensed his muscles. It was time to leave. Tarini could skip through far denser crowds than this one and Vishwakarma would be stronger than any of them would be expecting.

  But Vishwakarma chose that moment to fall to the ground, weeping.

  "Don't worry, Vishwakarma," Dharam said, misunderstanding. "Your crimes will be forgiven and when we leave this terrible place, they will never be spoken of again. You were civilized once. But this other, this Deserter who corrupted you, who has tried to do the same to the rest of us..."

  Stopmouth reached his hand slowly towards the Talker and Dharam's grin widened. "Remember, the Talker is the only weapon the savage has now. When he commands it to brighten, don't forget to close your eyes
. You see, cannibal? I am wise to all of your tricks. I advise you now to surrender. We cannot afford mercy otherwise."

  The Chief touched Tarini's back and whispered. "Surrender if you want, but I don't think you can trust them."

  "I know I can't."

  Still whispering he told her what he meant to do. Then, suddenly, he raised the Talker and shouted, "Brighter!" But he never finished the command. Instead, he and Tarini charged forward just as everybody else was closing their eyes as tightly as possible. Many had dropped makeshift weapons to cover their faces. A gun went off with a tremendous bang. Everybody flinched, or screamed as though they had been hit.

  The Chief powered through the Ship People, knocking two of them aside. Nearby, Tarini too passed through the line of enemies using that uncanny ability of Crisis Babies to dodge through crowds as though they were made of air.

  The Warden, Ekta, had been too clever for Stopmouth. She appeared right in front of him, her face determined. "Now, stop right there, Chief—"

  That was all she had time to say before a sling stone sped past Stopmouth's ear and struck her in the side of the head. Vishwakarma! It had to be! Other cries of pain from behind Stopmouth told him the young hunter had fully recovered from his weeping fit.

  More hands were reaching for the fugitives.

  "This way!" shouted Tarini, running off down the narrowest of gaps between the lean-tos. He pounded after her, ignoring the sting of weakly thrown stones and curses. All of this area was new to him. Real buildings had collapsed into the earth, leaving rubble behind them, or entire walls in some cases that fooled the eye into thinking a full house lay beyond. Much of this lay hidden by the maze of shanties. They had been built of plastic scraps and sheets of torn metal that flickered in the sun as though alive.

  The cursing continued behind him. Ahead, Tarini had come to a stop at the back of a lean-to. A dead end, it seemed. "Get out of the way!" he shouted, still running. He picked up the pace, ignoring the risk of tripping and the jagged metal edges that threatened to rip him open if he strayed too close. He smacked hard into a wall of plastic, knocking it over, so that the roof of the shelter, heavy enough to trap them if it fell, swayed dangerously. He plunged in through the darkness, choking on the fumes of poorly pounded moss, before passing through a curtain of the same material to come outside again.

  "This way!" Tarini cried, pushing past.

  More Ship People must have come from the fields. He could hear them calling one to the other, combing the narrow alleys for the fugitives.

  "Where are we going?" he asked her. "I need to get to Indrani before they do!" The Ship People regarded Indrani as a traitor of the vilest sort, and even his own followers, the Religious, still disliked her. That was mutual, of course.

  "I found them!" shouted an excited man. He and two women came rushing from the right bearing sticks. Stopmouth wasted no time in charging them, knocking them all in a terrified heap.

  "You're pretty," Tarini told the man as she passed, before calling, "This way, Chief! I know where we are now. We can get in to HeadQuarters through here." And it wouldn't be a moment too soon. A large group with Ekta at their head and another man beside her in the torn garments of a Warden were running towards them. Shots rang out, punching holes in a nearby wall.

  "Stop wasting bullets!" Ekta shouted. "We've got them trapped!"

  "Come on," said Tarini.

  Stopmouth needed no further urging. The shanty dwellings had been built right up to the walls of Head-Quarters. One whole side of the 'U' had fallen over, and stones from the barrier had been taken away to make new defences farther out. It was simplicity itself to slip in through the curtained entrance and run up towards the roof where he had left Indrani and Flamehair. This was where he had hidden the food of the Ship People, filling entire rooms, and leaving only a narrow entrance at the top of the stairs. He and Tarini might be able to block themselves in for a while. Then he could use the flashing of the Talker to signal for help from the Religious patrols. With better fighters and control of the food supply, he would soon put Dharam back in his place and then, by the Ancestors! Then there would be a Volunteering! That man... that man would feed the Tribe before he destroyed it.

  Stopmouth and Tarini had risen two flights of stairs before the first of their pursuers could be heard entering the building below. Just as well, since Tarini could barely put one foot in front of the other now. For all her courage, she would need more than rice in her belly before she ever became a proper hunter.

  The sun, almost directly above, blinded him when he came out onto the roof.

  "You led them quite a chase, Stopmouth!" Who was this? Most people called him "Chief" now, except Indrani and maybe Kubar. It took Stopmouth a moment to recognize Yama, back from patrol with his "pack." They were all there: a group of fifteen young men who used to cause trouble when all had lived in the Roof together. Now, they had found a better way to use their high spirits by serving the Tribe.

  "Guard the stairs," Stopmouth told them. "Don't let anyone up here!"

  A few moved to obey him at once, but only a few. Then, even these ones paused, looking, not to Stopmouth, but to Yama. The boy grinned.

  "You taught us all about sacrifice, didn't you, Chief? Threatened to Volunteer me when I took this wound on my leg for the Tribe. Remember that?" The leg still bore a bubbling scar from the burning spit of a Skeleton Hunter.

  Stopmouth felt suddenly dizzy at the sight of so many spear points turned towards him. "I don't know what Dharam told you," he said quietly, speaking as quickly as he could. "There is no escape from the world, you know that, right? You know you can't believe anything he says. He even blamed your people for what happened up in the Roof. Surely you remember that?"

  The young men stirred uncertainly.

  "I don't care if we can't leave," said Yama. "I like it here. I like it when my spear drinks, and it always drinks. Right, boys?" That got them grinning again, although Stopmouth knew some of them still wept in their sleep and wet themselves before a fight. They wanted to go home even if Yama did not. "But we need a new Chief around here. And real women. Proper beautiful ones who'll do anything. Right boys?"

  "You can't... Yama! You can't!"

  Tarini's eyes opened wide. "Stopmouth!"

  He had barely time to look around. Ekta's fist was waiting for him. She knocked him hard onto his bottom, his head spinning. "Sorry, Chief," she said, with real regret. That didn't stop her hitting him again, harder this time, cursing under her breath at the knuckles she must have bruised. "Tie him up!" she said. "Tie them both up!"

  "I don't take orders from you," Yama said. The voice seemed to come from far away. Where was Indrani?

  "Tie them up, please," said Ekta. "Or I'll rip your head off."

  Stopmouth tried to resist when he felt them loosen the Talker pouch from his belt. But somebody hit him again. Not Ekta this time. He felt woozy, he felt like being sick. He heard a chorus of Ancestors cursing him for his foolishness. "Too trusting!" they cried. "You have killed your Tribe!"

  CHAPTER 21: The Talk of Children

  "That wasn't so bad, hey? A little knock on the head?"

  Stopmouth wrinkled his nose. He knew that smell, that voice.

  "They wanted to volunteer us, boy—I mean, Chief. But our lads, Kubar and them, even some of Yama's lot, wouldn't stand for it." Rockface paused. "Is he even awake yet? Am I talking to a corpse? Thin-skulled like his father."

  Another smell he knew and the hic-cough of a baby.

  "Leave him, Rockface. Not to touch." Indrani's voice. She was speaking strangely, with difficulty. Almost as if...

  Stopmouth opened his eyes and tried to sit up—too quickly. A high dark room was spinning around him with miserable looking, blurred faces. He felt his gorge rise. "Ekta hit him hard with those muscles of hers, hey? What kind of a woman is that? She'd crush her own babies if she hugged them, so she would, and smash a man's tally stick!"

  "You are idiot, Rockface. Sit, love. You must to...
to down."

  "Lie down," Stopmouth croaked. "I must l-lie down. They took the T-talker?" Of course they did. Half of the Ship People didn't even speak the same language, although they had made plans for dealing with that problem, he remembered. Still. The Talker would save them a lot of trouble.

  His vision began to clear. Light leaked through a crack in the wall of a building he didn't recognize, seeming to redden everything it touched.

  Apart from Indrani, Flamehair and Rockface, there were two others with him in the large room—Tarini, her clothing ripped, her face speckled with dried blood; and Vishwakarma, also lying down, staring at the ceiling.

  Something flashed by Stopmouth's hand. He brought it close to his face: a Fourlegger scale. They were everywhere. It explained the rusty-looking colouring of the floor and told Stopmouth exactly where he was: in exile; sheltered by allies he would never be able to speak to without the Talker. All over the room, were balls of moss and twigs. It looked like some kind of art, like the charcoal pictures of home, or the bloody swirls of the Hairbeasts.

  "I'm hungry," he said. Indrani and Rockface nodded. The big man looked suspiciously cheerful for a hunter who had been exiled from his Tribe. But it wasn't the first time for either of them, and maybe that explained it. Nevertheless, a shudder passed through Stopmouth's body.

  He felt Indrani's warm touch on his shoulder. "We still live," she said. "We still will win. We kill Dharam and we take Talker and we..." she shrugged, lacking the words, but her expression revealed everything: anger, ferocity, strength. She would not be anybody's Volunteer and she had survived far worse situations than this. The death of a world, for one thing; Wallbreaker for another.

  He managed a smile for her and the others. What a tribe they made! Six starving humans: one infant; an old man with a twisted back; a younger man with a broken heart to whom nobody could talk; a Crisis Baby—also confined to vague gestures; a nursing mother; and an Ancestor-cursed Chief.

  "I love you all," he said. Vishwakarma didn't look up and Tarini didn't understand, but he grinned at her anyway. They might survive another twenty or thirty days, even a hundred if the Diggers failed to come again. That would have to be enough. Despite what Indrani had said, he would make no attempt to win back the Talker or to persuade the Religious to fight for him. He would not endanger the main body of the Tribe by becoming the cause of a split. On the contrary: he would do everything in his power to see that it survived.