The Bone Cave

by Sarah Remy

  “Storm coming,” it warned in the soft, silver-bell tones that so belied its appearance. “Soon.”

  Everin looked at the cloudless sky. The sun made his eyes water. His tunic and trousers stuck to his skin. His feet in his boots were soaked in sweat. He’d slept briefly before they’d attempted the tinker’s camp, and dreamed of crisp air and sheep on grassy downs.

  “Unlikely as it appears, Bail is not wrong,” Faolan said grudgingly. “There is the feel of lightning in the air. I’d prefer to keep well ahead of it, if you don’t mind.”

  “Aye, fine.” Everin threw his hands in the air. “But I’m not such a fool as to ride up that mantrap on a half-dead horse. By the Aug, I’ll walk.”

  “As you wish,” replied Faolan. “Don’t leave your half-dead horse behind.”

  So Everin walked last, leading not just the spotted gelding but the two extra horses, as well. Faolan took the lead, Bail and its companion close behind. The ponies kicked up shale as they climbed. Shards of glassy stone rolled past Everin, sometimes sliding over the open-air edge of the trail, falling away over the precipice. Everin kept away from the edge and close to the cliff, the knuckle of one hand brushing hot stone. He wasn’t like to suffer vertigo, but he much preferred steady ground under his feet.

  Lost in the careful concentration, Everin was slow to notice the change in temperature. He felt it first through his hand on the mountain; the stone no longer threatened to burn his flesh. His lungs began to labor less as the air became less steamy. The sweat dried on his face and the constriction of his boots became bearable. As with the Downs, the further they climbed up above flatland summer, the more pleasant life became.

  They stopped to rest when the sun was at midpoint in the sky. Rest meant standing all in a line and breathing. There was not enough room between rock and precipice for the sidhe to safely dismount. Faolan had shed his wrap completely and sat bareheaded in the tack. The lesser sidhe gazed out over the edge of the cliff, faces inscrutable; the scrubland was a distant ruddy rug below their feet, Mors River a faraway line of green embroidery.

  “The storm comes from the west,” Faolan said. The sky was an ugly purple in the direction of the sea. “By tonight it will be caught here against the mountains, dropping rain before it moves on into the desert.”

  “Where will we be, tonight?” Everin demanded. “Exposed against the bloody crags?”

  “There is shelter,” Faolan replied, “ahead.”

  There were notches in the cliff face, divots cut into the rock at elbow height. Everin’s fingers found them, and at first he paid them no attention, until the ball of his thumb found the marks again as he walked, over and over in a regular pattern. When he stopped to make sense of them, the gelding sighed and rubbed its face on his shoulder.

  The miniscule half circles looked fresh and deep enough that they must have been cut into the stone by blade, the tip of sword or dirk driven into the cliff and twisted. Every fifteen strides up the path Everin found another. Intrigued, he began to keep count as he walked.

  Twenty-five half-moons in, the pattern was broken.

  “Oh, bloody hells.” Everin stared stupidly at the shining squiggle carved into the cliff face. “That’s a theist sigil.”

  Faolan reined his horse. He eyed the glyph with detached interest. “Shielding magic,” he said. “I’m not the only one on this mountain wary of spies.”

  “What is the temple doing this far east?” Everin ran the edge of his thumbnail over the mark. The sigil gleamed bright. A shiver ran through his body.

  “Your people like to forget the theists first brought their false god from across these mountains.”

  “Before the red forest rooted,” Everin argued. “Before kings were kings. Before a temple had four walls and a roof.”

  “But a blink of an eye,” Faolan agreed dryly. “Your theists may be distant cousins of those first prophets, but their god is the same and their god has a quarrel with your king. Alliances are forged under more unlikely circumstance.”

  “Alliances.” While the sidhe watched, Everin unhooked the Aug’s sword and belt from the gelding’s saddle and fastened it instead around his waist. He knotted the ponies rein to rein, freeing his sword hand. “You mean treason, I think.”

  Bail showed its daggerlike teeth in a smile.

  The storm blew in early. The wind came first, howling down the mountain and tossing shale into the air at its forefront. Everin had to shield his face with an arm as they pressed forward. The sidhe hunched on their mounts, heads bowed. Everin couldn’t hear anything beyond the scream of air past his ears. Clouds blackened the sky, threatening. Lightning arced from the swirling bowl above to the flatland below, heralded each time by a crack of angry thunder.

  The ponies on Everin’s tether shook and snorted. He didn’t blame them. If he thought he’d be heard over the wind he would have cursed Faolan for a careless bastard. He’d planned to die an old man beneath the earth, or mayhap on the battlefield, Wilhaiim’s colors on his breast, but never blasted off the edge of the world by a summer squall come too early.

  Thunder shook the mountain. Everin’s gelding screamed protest. The clouds split asunder. Rain poured from the heavens, turning the path into a rushing brook and the cliff walls into cataracts. Faolan’s horse stumbled and went down onto its knees. The aes si rolled sideways out of the saddle, fetching up between the animal and the mountain. He lay unmoving, washed all about by muddy water. Everin let go of the ponies and struggled forward. Water plucked at his ankles, threatening to send him off balance. He staggered then clapped his hands to his ears when a clap of thunder threatened to split his skull.

  The horses ahead blocked his way through. Faolan was facedown on the road, limp. The two lesser sidhe fought ponies gone wild; the storm had at last broken the poor animals’ already overstretched courage. Heedless of the precipice, they hopped in place, coming dangerously close to open air before bounding back against the mountainside again.

  “Get off!” Everin shouted, even though there was hardly room for the sidhe to do as he said. Faolan’s mount had already taken off up the mountain, disappearing into the storm. Bail’s horse threatened to rear; the sidhe clung stubbornly to the animal’s neck.

  Bail’s companion, either because it had heard Everin’s scream through the roil of the storm, or because it was the more levelheaded of the two, sprang out of the tack and sideways onto the cliff face. It clung briefly, claws flexed, before scuttling along the stone like some sort of great insect. Bail quickly tried the same, but missed the cliff face by a handspan, and fell instead under the horses.

  “Bloody, bloody hells.” It was easier in the wind to crawl than to walk, but more perilous with dancing hooves all about. Everin crouched as low as he dared, hugging the mountain as he crept sideways through the deluge. He wondered if it was possible to drown on a mountainside.

  “Yah! Out of the way! Hiyah!” He picked up a handful of mud and flung it at the nearest rump. “Git!”

  Thunder cracked, making Everin’s ears ring. The frightened horses didn’t need further urging. Unable to back down the precipitous gully, they ran away from his cries, surging ahead up the mountain, churning mud with their hooves. Lightning flashed white, limning their raised tails.

  “Skald’s balls.”

  Bail lay broken in the newly formed river, arms and legs twisted, child-sized torso crushed beneath the weight of trampling hooves. The sidhe’s face was battered beyond recognition; blood bubbled from what remained of its nose.

  Everin inched past the small corpse. The wind was easing but the rain came down with renewed energy. When he reached Faolan the aes si was propped against the cliff, kept upright by the remaining sidhe. He stared vacantly about at the storm-tossed landscape as if uncertain as to where he was.

  “I told you,” Everin grated through the splatter of rain, crawling up alongside. “No horses.”

  Faolan turned his head. His expression seemed to clear.

  “Bail?” he i
nquired.

  “Gone.” Everin glanced at the lesser sidhe as he said it. “I’m sorry.”

  Faolan blanched. The lesser sidhe blinked at Everin.

  “The horses?” Faolan asked after a moment.

  “Gone up the mountain. For all I know, over the side in their terror.”

  Faolan’s chest expanded beneath his robes as he inhaled. He gusted out a long sigh.

  “Well, then. Help me up. I’m glad you thought to keep the sword close. With Bail lost to us, I expect you may need to use it.”

  It took Everin and the sidhe both to tug Faolan upright out of the water. The aes si’s robes were soaked through. A bruise blossomed on his left temple, turning from red to purple. His lips were blue; the gem in the torque beneath the fold of his collar flickered an uncertain amber.

  “Can you walk?” Everin wrapped an arm about Faolan’s shoulders when he wavered.

  “As well as anyone, in this disaster,” he responded. “Onward, if you don’t mind. It’s not much further.”

  Wind, thunder, and lightning ebbed but the rain continued without ceasing. Everin lost track of time; the violent clouds overhead obscured the sun. They slogged through muck in a perpetual twilight, broken regularly by a theist’s silver sigil carved into the mountain. Everin, heavy of heart and weary of body, caught himself wavering on the path, drawing too near the precipice only to start and gasp and retreat again to the safety of the cliff. He shivered in the rain, then laughed quietly at himself to think only a day past he’d been cursing the heat.

  “There,” Faolan said, stopping all at once. “I see torchlight.”

  Everin squinted. Sheets of rain obscured the trail but an arm’s length ahead.

  “You’ve banged your head; you’re seeing things,” he said. “There’s nothing but more mountain.”

  But the lesser sidhe hastened ahead and was quickly absorbed by the storm. Faolan stood rooted in place, waiting. Everin hovered in case the other man was likely to fall off the mountain in a swoon. The water rushing along the trail was rising from ankle to midcalf, but also now cascading off the side of the mountain. With luck, they wouldn’t yet be washed away.

  Everin smelled smoke before he saw the flame. He drew his sword from his belt even though he was more like to fall on his face in the mud than vanquish any foe. Faolan shook his head, then put a hand to his temple as if it pained him.

  “Hold,” he said, low. “They’re mine.”

  Four lesser sidhe appeared out of the storm, each carrying a lantern, two of the four clutching long spears. The lanterns smoked, fat beeswax candles barely sheltered from the rain by bronze roof and glass walls. The spears were pointed bronze on slender wooden hafts.

  “This way,” one of the four said. Everin recognized it as Bail’s companion only because he knew its colorful garb. The others wore fur around their loins. Mud clung to their hair and streaked their sunken chests. “Shelter.”

  Everin heaved a gasp of relief. Faolan swayed. Ignoring his protest, Everin sheathed his sword and picked the aes si up off the ground. Faolan was too light in his arms, all bone and sinew. Everin shook water from his face as he plunged ahead. The lesser sidhe paced him, lanterns swinging. Only as they grew near to Everin did he realize their pale skin was decorated not with mud as he’d first assumed, but with jubilant smudges of drying blood.

  Just ahead, around a curve in the path, a natural shelf grew out of the cliff. The mountain was hollowed out beneath the stone ceiling, making for a safe, protected space out of the chaotic elements. The sidhe led Everin under the shelf, out of the rain. The space was larger than he expected, but crowded. Three of their ponies huddled in a corner as far away from the opening as they could get. Two more of the lesser sidhe crouched near a small fire; they rose at once when they saw Faolan.

  “Put me down,” the aes si said, quietly furious.

  Everin did as he asked, and with less care than he might have, because in scanning his surroundings he’d caught sight of a collection of bloody corpses stacked like so much cordwood against the back wall. Faolan managed to keep his feet, leaning instead on one of the lantern-bearing sidhe. Everin left him standing at the mouth of the cave, forgotten.

  There were five men and four women, murdered but not recently, throats slit, blood dried brown on their clothes and on the ground. The men belonged to the temple; their heads were tonsured, their robes torn. The women wore feathers in their hair and sandals on their feet; they were desert tribe and had dubious place of honor at the top of the funeral pile. The dead theists beneath were mutilated, flesh stripped in long pieces from arms and legs.

  The sidhe had been feeding.

  If Everin had had more in his gut he would have vomited. As it was he had to close his eyes and count long breaths to keep from turning his sword on the inhabitants of the watching sidhe. As well punish a man for enjoying venison as kill the barrowman for eating human flesh.

  “I’m sorry,” Faolan said from behind him. “I’d meant to spare you this. But for the storm, we might have concluded our business outside the cave and you would be none wiser.”

  Everin turned. Faolan stood tall in the lantern-light, the storm raging still at his back. The lesser sidhe drew close, flame reflected in flat black irises. Everin’s skin prickled. He knew them for what they were, little more than feral children, and he’d never hated the barrowmen as the flatlanders did, but he was wise enough to fear them.

  “Near Beltane, Bail and its sibling Drem brought me word of two theists roaming east of the river. Priests from your walled city,” explained the aes si. “I thought nothing of it, at first. The priests travel occasionally, between the keeps, up and down the river. As I expected these men did not stay long in the scrubland: a night, mayhap two, camped in the brush. As far as Bail and Drem could see, they kept to themselves. When eventually they broke camp and made their way back to the King’s Highway, we dismissed them from our care.”

  “They came back,” said Bail’s companion. Mud dulled its colorful motley. “More, many more.”

  “Six,” said Faolan, “is not many. But Drem is right. Six is more than two, and now I had reason to be concerned. They were poking their noses near ways and means we prefer to keep hidden, and in fact came quite near one of our oldest gates. A few steps more in the wrong direction and they’d be serving the elders below.”

  “Sweet meat,” added Drem, gnashing its teeth. It looked at Everin as it did so, and he was certain he saw a glint of humor in the dark stare.

  “The priests turned up the trail to Skerrit’s Pass instead,” Faolan continued. “An unheard of, audacious attempt. I was intrigued. What is up the mountain worth the risk? Nothing, so far as I could tell. Skerrit’s Pass is but halfway into the desert, and what is the desert to loyal servants of the flatland king?”

  Everin resisted looking back over his shoulder at the dead theists.

  “Not loyal after all,” he guessed, dread washing like unexpected rain across his heart.

  “The desert has been creeping west,” Faolan agreed. “North and west into the greener lands you call Sicambri, south and west into the flatlands and Fingerlings. The Red Worm was no usual plague.”

  “The merchant and his deadly little dolls.”

  “Just so.” Water dripped from the hem of Faolan’s robes, making tiny puddles on the cave floor. He grimaced, shivering, and moved closer to the fire, spreading inhumanly jointed fingers toward the heat. “I joined Bail and its kin not so distant from the tinker’s camp. We tracked the priests up the gorge. It was not difficult. The shielding spells they set into the rock hid them from our eyes and ears but not our noses. Careless. The desert mongrels made no effort to hide themselves at all. They were loud on the shale as they came down the mountain on their fat horses, and clumsy.”

  Any sidhe might consider a field mouse running overland noisy. Everin did not doubt the trespassers had believed themselves vigilant.

  “They met here,” Faolan concluded. “I do not think it was the
first time. They made fire and shared meat and drink. They spoke long into the night, of nothing important: the weather, the shrinking river water, their god and his promises. When they banked the flames and at last went to sleep we sprang. The priests were quickly finished; they had no weapons but their tongues and without preparation their magics are nothing to ours. The wolves snapped their teeth and rattled their spears but they were six and we were nine. I thought to leave their bones here, none the wiser, but then I recalled my friend on the Downs.” He smiled a challenge. “I thought you would enjoy this small mystery, so I took the horses and rode for Stonehill as soon as darkness fell. Better to go unseen, I decided, than draw unwanted attention.”

  “The elders,” Everin guessed.

  “It’s true they would not be pleased to know I’m meddling once again in the affairs of mortals.” Faolan touched his torque briefly. “Nor would the temple want word of whatever was meant to happen here flying back to the-king-on-your-throne. Wilhaiim has a history of burning conspirators at the stake.”

  Everin frowned. “Renault will not believe it, not from the mouths of barrowmen, and certainly not from me.”

  “Do not mistake me for a neophyte,” replied the aes si. “I have your proof.”

  There were two of them, bound spine to spine, ankle and wrist, lying prone behind a flinty outcrop not far from the corpses. The man was unconscious. The woman narrowed yellow eyes at Faolan as he approached, and spat a wad of bloodied spume at his feet. Faolan sidestepped her rage. He stood just out of range, considering the captives with detached interest.

  “More efficient to also keep a priest alive,” he admitted. “But they were slow and weak and Bail’s kin took them down too quickly. Mayhap carry a tonsured head back with these two for proof.”