The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  By the time they emerged from the ravine into the woods beyond, the horses were literally on their last legs. Quickly, Aeson and Bjørn dismounted, removed all their belongings—bags, books, and swords—and gave the beasts a wide berth.

  The horses wandered in circles around the woods, pieces of their earthy, makeshift bodies dropping off them in melted chunks. They slammed against the trees, neighing pathetically, as if they were experiencing pain they couldn’t possibly feel.

  Aeson and Bjørn backed up; the horses kept trying to return to them, either for comfort or because these two men were all they had known.

  “Don’t let them touch you,” Aeson said.

  His horse plodded forward toward him. Its knees buckled and broke, sending it face-first into the ground.

  “Anguis said that while they’re dying, if they touch you, they’ll sap some of your life force.”

  “Why wouldn’t they do that earlier?” Bjørn went sideways as his horse clumsily charged toward him. It crashed into a tree, the impact liquefying its head and splitting its body like a wishbone.

  “Most things don’t think about living until they’re dying.”

  Both horses had one more go at trying to reach their masters. They made it about two feet before their bodies separated into the substances of their making. Like the threads they were, all the rocks, roots, bones, branches, crops, and animals that bound the horses together broke, and the beasts were instantly reduced to piles of stinking muck.

  “They can call them whatever they like,” Bjørn said, “but those things aren’t what the elders said they were.”

  Aeson nodded, took up his bags. He tightened the scabbard at his waist. He turned away from the steaming conjurations and set his sights on the woods they were now stranded in. They still had all the telltale signs of the Dires—dusty earth and a dearth of life—but there appeared to be some sort of drop-off ahead, right past where the trees were at their thickest.

  Bjørn had seen it first, and because he was Bjørn, he went first. Bastard sword out, fist tightly balled, he barreled through the woods, breaking on his body any branches that got in his way. Aeson trailed after him, the bags and his sword already making him short of breath. He had been training with the Bear every chance he could get, but the fact of the matter was he was still one hundred and forty pounds of skin and bone. He had a few measly muscles to show for the effort, but they were so sore all they did was slow him down.

  Reaching the thicket before the drop-off, Bjørn said, “Is that it?”

  “Is… what… it?” Aeson panted, several feet back. He stopped, bent over, and shook his head, embarrassed. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

  Bjørn doubled-back. Straightening Aeson up, he said, “You look like one of those horses.”

  Aeson laughed, wiped the sweat out from under his skull mask. “What do you think Vrana would say if she saw us like this?”

  “Probably yell at me for being an asshole. Probably make fun of you for being a wimp.” Bjørn turned toward the drop-off. “Come on. Think I saw the Dismal Sticks just over this ridge.”

  Aeson pulled himself together and pushed onward. They were at the top of a chain of hills that loomed over the shadowy valley beneath them. Carved out of the wilderness at the valley’s center sat their destination, the Dismal Sticks.

  The Dismal Sticks was a backwoods farming community that ran diagonally across the valley’s floor. The so-called “state” was divided equally into six “counties,” with each county represented by one of the six families settled there. To the northern side went the counties of Misery, Gloom, and Ache; directly across from them, separated by the large lake between them, sat Grief, Woe, and Stitch. The Dismal Sticks was the only known community thriving in the Dires. According to the records Aeson had read, they took pride in their ability to weather the suffering of their surroundings. They wanted others to know the misery, gloom, grief, and woe they felt on a day-to-day basis; they wanted others to feel the ache in their hearts, the stitch in their sides. But most importantly, and Aeson was beginning to realize why the Dires made him so uncomfortable now, these farmers wanted others to know they were better than everyone else, because they had taken torment like a tonic for so long they had developed a taste for it.

  “You pick a person?” Bjørn mumbled.

  Aeson had heard him, but not really. He was too busy watching the Corrupted move across the six farms, in and out of the corn fields. There were so many, and many of them he probably couldn’t even see because of the growing dark. Other than the odd prisoner here and there, he had never really seen a Corrupted before, and never up close. And those from the Dismal Sticks were a brutal bunch. They could try to sneak through the “counties,” but Bjørn didn’t strike him as the sneaking type. If they got caught—

  “Skull Boy.”

  Aeson snapped out of it, said, “Sorry,” and then: “Person?”

  “From your–” Bjørn snapped his fingers, trying to think of the word, “registry. The Children of Lacuna.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Aeson swung his bag in front of him and removed the registry. Reading from it: “Charlotte Breckin, Ichor, Grant Erickson, Erick Grantson—”

  Bjørn laughed. “The hell?”

  “Hey, it’s the country.” He shook his head, smirking. “That’s all of them; all of the Children in the Dismal Sticks. Charlotte should be in Misery, Grant in Woe, and Erick in Stitch.”

  “Hmm.” Bjørn leaned away from the ridge, clearly searching for a way down. “You’ve got your heart set on that Ichor character, don’t you?”

  “The description says Ichor has blue hair. And his name is Ichor. If anyone is going to help us, I’m guessing it’s him.” Aeson placed the registry back into the bag. Taking a deep breath, he added, “What’s the plan?”

  “This is a close-knit community out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.” Bjørn stuck the tip of his bastard sword into the soil. “So we’ll wait until the sun sets and go in and give them some night terrors.” His bared teeth glistened with spit inside his bear mask. “Sound good?”

  No, no it doesn’t, Bjørn, he thought, watching the giant man nimbly make his way down the side of the ridge. “We just need to get in and get ahold of Ichor. No one needs to die.”

  Bjørn stopped. His shoulders tensed. The falling sun framed his old musculature in a reddish, hazy glow. “You’re a Night Terror, aren’t you?” he asked, not turning to address Aeson.

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re Corrupted, aren’t they?”

  “I mean, other than the Children… yeah.”

  “Been a long time since some balancing has been brought out here.” Bjørn lifted his bastard sword and rested its blade on his right shoulder pad. “Someone most certainly needs to die.”

  The ridge must have been used by the citizens of the Dismal Sticks at some point, because the farther Aeson and Bjørn went down it, the more hints they found of past expansions. Amongst the dead leaves and wild weeds, they found signs of steps built into the sides of the hills, and bridges, too. There were shacks as well – dilapidated, of course—and shallow caves that might have been meant for mining at some point. There were even half-finished observation decks protruding from the incline, some of which had been equipped with busted Old World telescopes. Bjørn ripped one off its post; the lens dirty and fractured but manageable.

  Twenty or so feet from the valley’s floor, Bjørn stopped in front of what was clearly the unfinished foundation of someone’s house. They had built the beginnings of it into and against the hill, but hadn’t gotten much farther than a few layers of brickwork. There were three skeletons at the center of the would-be home—two adults, and one child; each of their skulls had been bashed in with what must’ve been a hammer.

  “About thirty years ago, some people from Dismal Sticks reportedly tried to move out of the valley,” Aeson said.

  Bjørn stepped over the foundation. He went to his knees and stared at the bones lying where beds could have
been. “Something from the woods stop them?”

  “Not exactly.” Aeson turned to face the Dismal Sticks. “Friends and family killed them. They were afraid if too many people left, the community would die out.”

  Bjørn’s hand hovered over the tiny skull of the dead child. “And they left all this here as a reminder for future generations, I take it?”

  Aeson shrugged. “People who are one thing and one thing only don’t know what to do when someone comes along and tells them they could have been something better. When you do that, you may as well be insulting their existence.”

  Bjørn said, “Yeah,” came to his feet, and joined Aeson in surveying the Dismal Sticks. “You start reading that book Anguis gave you?”

  The cool evening wind rolled over the hillside, teasing out goose bumps from Aeson’s flesh. “Just the inscription, which I’m pretty sure is the title.”

  Bjørn slid his sword into its sheath and crossed his arms. “What is it?”

  “The Blood of Before.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what that’s about.”

  “You said your parents were the last to write in it?”

  Aeson’s body jerked. “Yeah, other than Adelyn. Hey, you see—”

  “You afraid to read what they wrote?”

  He closed his eyes, pressed his hand against the skull mask; a spider there skittered across the bone and onto his knuckle.

  “You afraid you might find out why they killed themselves?”

  Aeson’s eyes snapped open. Without thinking, he shoved Bjørn as hard as he could. The Bear didn’t move but an inch.

  “I don’t know, either,” Bjørn said. “Just figured you might be getting tired of being one thing.”

  Aeson’s arms tightened, but he resisted the urge to shove the son of a bitch again. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m here, trying to save Vrana with you. Where the hell do you get off—”

  “Anguis gave you that book for a reason, Skull Boy. And it wasn’t to haul it across the continent to see how much dust you could gather on it.”

  “I have been training with you. I have been doing my best to keep up with you every step of the way. We are here, outside the fucking Dismal Sticks, and I’m pretty sure you’re going to make me fight and kill some Corrupted tonight. What’s your problem with me? Quit—” This time, Aeson did shove him again, but it was like shoving a boulder. “Quit fucking with me. I’m terrified, alright? I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off. And yeah, I’m afraid to read the book. Alright? I barely remember my parents. If I start The Blood of Before and it’s a recount of their last dark days before they killed themselves… I don’t think I can—”

  “You have to,” Bjørn said. “I’m not insulting your existence, Aeson, but you need to be more if we’re going to bring Vrana back.”

  “So just put myself through hell for the hell of it? I don’t think you realize what it was like to live for years under Caldera—”

  Bjørn, ignoring Aeson and pointing to the Dismal Sticks, said, “What’s that?”

  Aeson huffed, shook his head; he wanted to fight for the sake of fighting, even if it wasn’t a fight he wanted to have to begin with. “What, Bjørn?” he said through his teeth.

  “On the farmhouses; the icon of Penance.”

  It was getting almost too dark to see across the few mile stretch between here and the Dismal Sticks, but Bjørn was right. Taking the telescope from him, he saw painted on the roofs of Misery, Grief, and Woe were white circles inside which diamonds and crucifixes were held.

  “Yeah, so?”

  Pointing to the opposite end of the Sticks, Bjørn asked, “That’s the Disciples of the Deep’s calling card, right?”

  It was harder to see the icons on the even farther away farmhouses of Pang and Stitch, but again, Bjørn had been correct. On their roofs, the icon of the Disciples of the Deep—an eye crowned with a crescent moon, and a wreath of tentacles—had been rendered in purple, almost phosphorescent, paint.

  “I’m guessing the Sticks is a god-fearing place,” Bjørn said. “I’m guessing they didn’t feel the need to start announcing holy devotions until the Disciples moved into town. We might have come at the right time. They’ll be so busy one-upping each other’s god, they may not even notice us. Which house does Ichor belong to?”

  “That one,” Aeson said, his voice shaking as he directed the telescope to the farmhouse that sat in the middle of the Sticks, between Misery and Pang, and across from Woe.

  “What’s that one called? Gloom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t tell—” Bjørn sounded strained; he took the telescope and leaned forward, “—but I don’t see any anything painted on Gloom. What do you think that’s about?” He laughed. “The Sticks’ first atheistic family?”

  “Ichor’s a Child of Lacuna,” Aeson said, shaking his head. “And there is an icon. See it? On the front door?”

  Bjørn started to say, “No,” and then: “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Looks like it was written in blood. But I don’t recognize the symbol, Skull Boy.”

  The icon was splattered across the front door of Gloom. It was simple, crude; a stick figure with four arms and four legs, with two heads from which long, crooked lines ran. Aeson had never seen it before in his life, and he was grateful for this, because every second he spent staring at it, it felt as if nails were being driven into his eyes. And yet, despite the pain, it was almost even more painful to tear himself away from the savage imagery.

  “If I had to guess,” Aeson said, tearing his gaze away from the agonizing gateway, “I’d say that’s the Cult of the Worm.”

  “A lot of gods running around these days,” Bjørn said, unsheathing his sword. “Did the Night Terrors ever follow a religion?”

  “Yeah, for a while after the Trauma, I heard. They used to worship the Lord animals.”

  Bjørn ran his fingers along the bastard sword’s edge, cutting them. “And now we wear their heads.”

  “Yes we do.” Aeson paused, and then added, “I’d like to wear the Witch’s head.”

  Bjørn nodded, clamped his hand down on Aeson’s shoulder. “I think Vrana may have dibs on it. How about her guts?”

  “Those’ll do, too.”

  The plan was to wait until nightfall, but by the time they made it into the valley, they saw an opening that was too good to ignore. They had come down from the hills behind Grief, Woe, and Stitch; to reach Gloom, they would have to pass through the corn fields behind the farms and find a way around or across the lake that sat in the middle of the Dismal Sticks. But as they crept through the corn fields at the back of Stitch, several Corrupted emerged from the farmhouse with lanterns in their hands. They spread out across the property, and kept pointing to a series of smaller houses that lined the lakefront.

  “What’s going on?” Aeson asked, he and Bjørn slowly pushing through the field. “Can you make out what they’re saying?”

  Bjørn kept running his hands against the stalks, as if the sensation calmed him.

  “It looks like a lynch mob,” Aeson said, heart pounding so hard in his chest he could hear it in his ears.

  Bjørn brought out the telescope, said, “There’s seven of them; hard to tell this deep in the field,” and stowed it back in his bag. “Let’s go.”

  Aeson took a few deep, controlled breaths, and then, with Bjørn’s silent insistence, he took the lead. He waded forward, parting the dry stalks and taking them into the thinner part of the field. As he went, he noticed a cold green hue started to form like a film over the Dismal Sticks. Looking past Woe Farmhouse, he noticed that the light was lifting off the surface of the lake, as if it were being extracted from the waters by the moon above.

  It was no wonder that the Dismal Sticks thrived in the Dires; it had been built on the grounds of a luna lake. The lakes were extremely rare, so much so that they weren’t but a few tall-tales away from pure myth. Whereas Echoes were believed to be the Earth’s dreams of the past recolle
cted in real time, luna lakes were said to be distilled reveries from the Earth’s hope for a better future. Anything planted in the vicinity of a luna lake was guaranteed to prosper, and anyone who drank from it was rumored to be gifted an extended life and increased fertility.

  “This is their secret,” Aeson whispered.

  They stopped a few feet from the end of the corn field. Aside from what was blocked by the back of the three-story Woe Farmhouse, they had a pretty good view of the Sticks from here.

  “That’s how they’ve lived out here so long. You’d have to be an idiot not to prosper next to a luna lake.”

  The seven Corrupted swung their lanterns back and forth in heated debate. Three broke from the pack and headed for Stitch Farmhouse, which was about a quarter of a mile east of Woe. The other four kicked some dirt around, and then followed after.

  “There’s more coming,” Bjørn said, nodding to the west, where a group of ten was pouring out of the Grief estate.

  In a matter of minutes, the light from the lake had grown exponentially. It was now radiating outward in every direction, blanketing the Dismal Sticks in a dim, miserable wash that left all lighter tones green and all darker tones black. To Aeson, it looked somewhat like one of the day-for-night film scenes he’d seen in the movie reels stored in the Inner Sanctum. It gave to the Dires a kind of natural camouflage that might have been, in some ways, better than darkness itself.

  Apparently, Bjørn felt the same way. “This is good,” he said, admiring the way his body and the cornstalks seemed to blend into one another. “I see boats up by the shore, past the lake houses. If we could steal—”

  Half a mile west, twelve lanterns flared on the property of Grief estate. The light from the lanterns was so severe the farmers may have been carrying fragments from fallen stars. Like those from Woe, these twelve of Grief took off toward Stitch, but instead of going by foot, they went by horseback.