The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy)

by Peadar O'Guilin

  "I don't 'think,' Wallbreaker. I am Chief. Here at least." Now was not the time to discuss the situation with Dharam. "I have my own people and you have yours..."

  Wallbreaker laughed, despite the pain in his shoulder. "Are there two tribes of Bloodskins? Two tribes of Armourbacks? Of course not! Nowhere in the world do you see two Chiefs. Such a thing cannot be and you know it as well as I do. My people are the stronger. That much is already obvious. We will dominate your dark-skinned weaklings, who probably aren't even human anyway. The Tribe would never follow you."

  "Why not? I rescued them, the Tribe. My weaklings rescued them."

  "No, Stopmouth, you didn't. That was all my doing."

  "That doesn't make any s—"

  "The Ancestors work through me, brother. To save humanity. That's the way it's always been. I summoned you and you came. That's how my magic works. I am the Chief, the only Chief, for that very reason."

  Stopmouth growled at this madness. "Would the Ancestors save you if I threw you into the river? Can you swim?"

  Wallbreaker lowered his head, breathing hard, and when he looked up, the sight of tears in his eyes astonished the younger man. "You wouldn't hurt me, Stopmouth. After all that has happened, we still love each other."

  "You tried to have me killed! You had my Tally broken!"

  "Yes. Of course I did. I have always done what was necessary. Whereas you, poor Stopmouth, you were never strong enough for that kind of thing. You always needed me."

  "All I need from you, brother, is the plan."

  "Oh, you need it, do you?"

  "It's not for me. It's for the Tribe."

  "Not for you, you say? So, I suppose you won't get to benefit from it, will you, Stopmouth? Living with my wife and thinking to steal my people from me too?"

  Stopmouth swallowed back his fury as best he could. "We can argue about these things some other time, Wallbreaker. None of it will matter if the Diggers plant us all. The Tribe must live. The Tribe is all there is after we are forgotten."

  "It's not true that we are forgotten, brother, not true at all. There are always heroes. The Traveller. Treatymaker. John Spearmaker. I was born to be one of those."

  "You're no Traveller!"

  "Why not?" There was anger in Wallbreaker's voice now too. "I've achieved far more than he ever did. I brought an entire people to the far side of the world." He paused, panting with the pain from his wound. "You see, Stopmouth... that thing about the Tribe being more important than any one of us? The thing that's been spooned into us so often it comes out in our sweat? Well, I've learned something. Every few generations special individuals appear, individuals that can't just be replaced."

  "Like you?"

  "Why not? There would be no Tribe without me. I am necessary, and I found that out the day I was captured by the Armourbacks. I wanted to live so badly. And not for the Tribe, but for me. For me! Does that make me a monster?"

  "Yes," said Stopmouth.

  "I knew you'd say that. It's what any hunter would have to say or be Volunteered on the spot. But I am more than a hunter. More than marrow and flesh and a spear. That's what I learned that day. I knew I had so much to give and ever since, I've proved it again and again. And I will do so one more time with this new plan of mine: the plan that will save us all in the end."

  "So, why not just tell me?"

  "Oh, I will tell you, Stopmouth. I'll do that. But I need something from you in exchange."

  "You're not getting Indrani," said Stopmouth. "Even if she was mine to give. You'll never touch a hair on her head."

  "I don't want her." Wallbreaker spoke the words as casually as a wounded man could. "I hear there are lots of women here now. Dark-skinned women that make Indrani look rancid. Ha! I see you clench your fist, brother! You are angry at me, but still you will not push me into the river because you know you need me. Good. Good. Let's put you to the test then. The Tribe is what's important to you, yes?"

  "Of course."

  "Good. My foolish, sweet brother. Listen, Stopmouth. You must never be Chief. I love you. I couldn't hurt you. But your betrayal has been too much. I can't stand the sight of you or the looks people give you despite what you did to me. So, here are the rules. I won't touch Indrani, or Volunteer her or your child. You have my word on that. I swear it on the memory of our mother." He locked eyes with his brother. "Your family will live."

  "But..." Stopmouth took a deep breath. "But I will not."

  "You must not, Stopmouth. I can whistle now and those men will come here and kill you because the Ancestors, through me, have told them to do so. Then, they will hunt down your Indrani and anybody else here you call a friend. Or, or, you can choose to help me in my plan. Help save the Tribe forever. And then... then you must disappear."

  "But... but I could stay out of your sight, Wallbreaker, I could—"

  "I will mourn you, Stopmouth, you know I will. All will be forgiven when you're gone. But first, you will help me. Help me take control and make my plan work. Then... then you will find some way to leave and all your... your friends will be safe. I promise it."

  Kill him, a voice said in Stopmouth's head. Kill him. His fingers gripped hard at the haft of the knife on his belt. Why should I be the Volunteer? He's the monster! The coward!

  "Tell me the plan," he said at last, as numbness replaced his earlier anger. "Tell me the plan and if it's good enough, I... I will agree to disappear. As you asked."

  CHAPTER 27: Humans

  Whistlenose would never get used to the sun—all the world's light concentrated into a single point that was powerful enough to blind anyone who tried to swap stares with it. Other things made little sense either: like the two thousand men and women who would not hunt and who hated hunters. What contemptible cowards! They had their own horrible food and claimed that more of it would grow magically up out of the ground. These were the Ship People: terrified of real humans; waving the black stones, the guns, at any hunter who came too close.

  Then, there were Stopmouth's allies, who lived in the company of beasts, speaking to them with their hands. But while Stopmouth commanded this group, a single meeting with Wallbreaker by the river had convinced him to accept orders from the Chief again. "It's w-what the Ancestors w-want," he would mumble to anybody who asked him, although he would never meet their eyes.

  The Talker too, he had handed over...

  In spite of this surrender, the three Tribes of humans kept to themselves until one morning four days after the rescue, when terrible cracking sounds like the noise of shattering bones were heard from the fields of the Ship People. A great plume of dust rose up into the air and Whistlenose found himself running over there along with Stopmouth, struggling to keep up with the younger man.

  They arrived in time to see dozens of dead Diggers lying twisted in the dirt. They had attacked by day, probably in an effort to catch so many people out in the open at their strange work. However, without the Talker present, it was difficult to figure out the details.

  Perfectly healthy people were screaming and running around the lips of pits. Whistlenose guessed that while the first group of Diggers had attacked in the open, a second wave must have come up from below.

  Now, a sweating, wild-eyed man jumped into one of the holes, clutching a gun. A grey-haired woman tried to follow, while others fought to restrain her. Perhaps these people were not as cowardly as Whistlenose had assumed!

  Whistlenose caught up to Stopmouth. "Those guns..." he was panting, but at least his nostrils no longer embarrassed him by squeaking with every breath. "He waved at the enemy corpses. "The Diggers paid dearly for this raid. I'd say they lost at least as many as they captured."

  "Yes. B-but they made the Ship People use up all those b-b-bullets. The... the stones that they sling out."

  "So? Stones are everywhere!"

  "Not these ones. B-bullets have to be m-made and either the Ship People d-don't know how, or it's t-too difficult away from the R-roof."

  The grey haired woman w
ho had tried to jump into the pit, pulled herself free and ran over to Stopmouth babbling and babbling at him, her face streaked with tears. She made one of the strange hunting signs that seemed to be spreading everywhere. "I will," he told her, although he couldn't have known what she was saying. "I'll g-get them back for you if I can."

  But others dragged her away again and the broken-armed leader of this group, a man called Dharam, arrived in the company of a large group of people with guns. He shouted and shouted until every gun in the area turned to point in the direction of the two hunters.

  "T-time to leave," Stopmouth muttered. "Where is my brother? I need to see him."

  Wallbreaker was working on some new weapons of his own when they arrived. He had wrapped a sling around the shaft of a spear, and now Browncrack tried to throw it while keeping hold of one end of the cord. It caught on his hand and hit the ground no more than a short jump away. A group of watching hunters laughed.

  "We'll get it right," Wallbreaker said, grinning as much as anyone. "First one to throw the length of the camp will get his pick of the Ship Brides after the Diggers are gone."

  The words made Stopmouth angry for some reason. "You will give women out now like prizes? Without even asking their fathers?"

  A hard stare from the Chief, however, silenced him at once. Stopmouth even lowered his head in respect. "Brother..." he said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Chief. I'm upset because the Diggers have struck the Ship People at their farm. They may have carried away a hundred of them, maybe two hundred. I can't tell without the Talker. We need to raid the Diggers to get those people back. If they stay planted in the ground too long, we won't be able to wake them up at all."

  The Chief grinned. "A hundred or two hundred, you say, Stopmouth? But they hate us. Remind me again why we should risk our hunters to save them?"

  "We need them. When you finally defeat the Diggers there'll be nothing left to eat but all that... lentils and beans. Only they know how to grow food and we'll die without them."

  "Oh, we need some of them, of course, Stopmouth. But what we don't need are a people more numerous than we are. Especially a people armed with those gun things. Let them waste their weapons on the Diggers. Let them lose a few hundred and they'll be over here in no time begging us for protection. Right Aagam? That's what they'll do?"

  "Of course, Chief," said the foreigner.

  "There's one favour we will do for them, however," said Wallbreaker. "We'll tidy away those Digger corpses and have a nice feast for ourselves." Everybody cheered except Stopmouth.

  "They're strange," said the younger brother now. "And you're right that they hate us. But this is our chance to end all of that, don't you see? This is our chance to become one people, when they see us give our flesh to spare theirs."

  "They are not Tribe," said the Chief.

  "But they're human, right? Men and women are suffering," he waved an arm, "out there somewhere. If we can get to them quickly..."

  Wallbreaker shook his head. "Of course I value their knowledge and their flesh. But we'll be getting all of that anyway when they come crying to us for help. For now, I say the Tribe, the real Tribe, has suffered enough. I will not waste a single hunter on them."

  Stopmouth protested a few more times. He even shamed himself by going down on his knees. The Chief seemed to like that and laughed at him along with the young men of the Flesh Council.

  Whistlenose didn't join in. He did not like to see anybody humiliated, and when the young man stormed off, he followed along after.

  Once again, he found the Chief's brother too fast for him and he had to stop once, leaning against a building when his sore leg felt like a sharp stone had been hammered through it. The pain passed quickly, but when next he saw his quarry, Stopmouth was a tiny figure, running alone out past the ruins of the Warship. Why do you bother, boy? But Whistlenose's curiosity about the young man was stronger than the pain and he pushed on.

  Their route took them away from the river and across the now empty fields where tiny green stalks ran in rows towards the hills. Bizarrely, Stopmouth's footprints avoided the little plants, sticking awkwardly to the lowered spaces between. This might be what gave the older man a chance to catch up in the end. By that time, he had reached the exits to the tunnels the Diggers must have used on returning from their attack, and the ground had grown rocky once more.

  Stopmouth was waiting at the top of the first hill—a baby compared to the fully grown slopes that lay beyond it. The light of the sun struggled to reach this far, as the hole in the Roof above them had come to a jagged end.

  Whistlenose was gasping for breath. He leaned on his spear and watched the horrible sight below. There was a dip between the smaller hill they stood on and the greater one behind it, with rich deep soil down at the bottom.

  And right there, without fear of counterattack, a Digger swarm was planting a hundred humans in rows every bit as neat as those back at the farm. Those who had yet to be buried writhed in agony, their moans loud enough to be heard by the two men.

  "They're d-doing it on p-purpose," said Stopmouth.

  "Of course they are! Burying people is what Diggers do!"

  "N-no. I m-m-mean they're planting humans deliberately close to where we live. They expect a rescue. They w-want it. And look!" He pointed at his feet and for a moment, Whistlenose had no idea what was supposed to be wrong with them. But then he understood. A line of shadow lay there, right along the top of the hill. The dip would never experience a light stronger than that of the murky dusk down there now. The Diggers would be able to fight there unimpeded.

  A trap then. Either the humans must abandon their people to feed the enemy, or they must attempt the expected rescue. Either way the Diggers won.

  "You're right, Stopmouth. They're not even trying to chase us away." Whistlenose shook his head sadly. "Come on, son. I'm sorry, but those Roof people are lost to us now." Wallbreaker would be happy with that. He wanted the Ship People helpless. He wanted them on their knees begging him to save them.

  But Stopmouth refused to move. "Do they look h-human to you, Whistlenose?"

  "I suppose... I don't know. The only Roofman I know well, I want to kill. Aagam, he's called. He's a real monster, that one. He doesn't think like a human should."

  "There are good ones and b-bad ones," agreed Stopmouth. "I've hated some of them too. Most of them sometimes. And they do think differently, but that's a good thing, isn't it? A hand isn't a f-foot, but I need them both to hunt."

  "I... I don't know," said Whistlenose. "We really shouldn't stay here where the Diggers can see us."

  "And listen to their p-pain! That sounds human, doesn't it?"

  Of course it did.

  Stopmouth allowed himself to be turned around, but despite Whistlenose's attempts to hurry him away from danger at their backs, the young hunter lingered near the top of the slope. He was deep in thought and that expression made him look so much like his brother.

  In the distance, the river glittered. The plain glittered too where metal fragments of the Roof had fallen the day Indrani had broken through. Beyond that, lay the Warship and the abandoned farm that ended where the first ruined streets began.

  "Stopmouth, we can't stay here if we want to see our wives again."

  "I'm n-not sure mine w-wouldn't be happier that way."

  "We all have troubles at home, sometimes, we—"

  "Oh!"

  "What? Stopmouth? What is it?"

  "She is c-c-clever. My wife." And with that, Stopmouth surprised Whistlenose by breaking into a smile as handsome as any his brother might have managed. And then, he started running—leaping down the slope like a Hopper, saving himself from accident only with the shaft of his spear. The older man cursed and tried to follow, but he had lost Stopmouth by the time they got back to the streets.

  CHAPTER 28: The Dip

  Stopmouth wasn't sure if his brother had deliberately sent Whistlenose to keep an eye on him, but he made sure to lose the man now. He wanted to speak t
o Indrani alone.

  That would be hard. As the earth slapped against the soles of his feet and ruined buildings sped past him, he wondered at how he had managed to lose his wife's love all over again. She glared at him all the time these days when she even bothered to acknowledge his presence. She refused to sleep near him or talk to him. Except in front of Flamehair, who remained as cheerful as ever. The little thing had no idea who Wallbreaker was, but whenever Stopmouth walked into a room where she rolled around, she would smile and point in his direction, raising her arms until he had no choice but to lift her up. She liked to see everything from an adult’s viewpoint and she ordered him around by pointing from one distraction to the next.

  He lifted her now, while her mother pretended to be unaware that anybody had entered the room at all. They were in the Fourleggers' warehouse. The children were off skinning Digger corpses or causing trouble. Rockface, Sodasi and the Religious were nowhere to be seen.

  Stopmouth jiggled Flamehair and let her try to catch the shining dust motes in her pudgy fingers. But his eyes were focused on his wife's back.

  "Indrani. I need your h-help." She failed to respond. She was pounding an unusual black type of moss found near the river. The stuff had no use that he could think of. "Indrani? The Diggers took more than a hundred of the Ship People today. Wallbreaker doesn't want them back, but I know how we could save them. Will you help?"

  She paused and he could see she was unsure. "Indrani... love... I know you can speak to some of them, the Ship People, I mean. Wallbreaker won't give me the Talker for this, but if you could explain my plan..."

  "To Dharam?"

  "Well, no. He w-won't like it either. Find somebody else. Please."

  She sighed. "So, neither of them want the rescue to happen? All right, then. Good." Still she would not look at him. She hadn't even spoken his name. But she would help and that was enough for now.

  ***

  Dharam had been furious when he heard about the plan, but the anger and fear among his people had been too much for him to control. And so, early the next day, Stopmouth and the Warden, Ekta, led a full three hundred of the Ship People, as well as the remaining one hundred Religious hunters, over the top of the small hill to where they could look down into the dip.