Bone Trail

by Paul Stewart

  Garth continued stroking the greywyrme’s neck as he fixed it with a gaze. And, with its vision restricted by the blinkers, the wyrme gazed right back at him.

  The death of one of their number had left the remaining wyrmes more subdued, but still jittery. What was more, as Garth knew only too well, they were racked with hunger and thirst, and the smell of the water and sweet hay that they could not get to was driving them all to distraction.

  ‘That’s it, my beauty,’ Garth whispered to the wyrme standing before him, stroking and crooning and staring into its eyes.

  The wyrme stared back. Its neck swayed gently from side to side.

  With his free hand, Garth reached into the recesses of his heavy longcoat and took out objects from various pockets. He knelt down and laid them out at his feet. There was a small leather pouch, no larger than a man’s fist, a broad belt with a heavy metal buckle, and two ­peg-like clips that were sprung in the middle, jag-toothed at one end and with a barbed hook at the other. Reaching into a side pocket, Garth drew out a piece of pipe, curved at the top, straight at the bottom and with what looked like a small wooden spigot halfway along its length. He laid it on the ground with the other objects and smiled.

  ‘Easy now, this won’t take long,’ he crooned to the greywyrme. ‘Then I’ll get you fed and watered.’

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a small boy, a settler lad, standing at the now deserted fence, staring at him intently. Garth slipped the belt through the tags at the back of the leather pouch.

  ‘Nice and steady,’ he whispered as, still holding the wyrme’s mesmerized gaze, he reached round the bottom of the creature’s long neck. Slowly and carefully he pushed the end of the belt through the buckle, tightened it, then drew back. The pouch hung down over the greywyrme’s breast. ‘That’s the way, my beauty.’

  He patted and stroked, patted and stroked. The greywyrme swayed gently.

  ‘Now the hard bit,’ Garth told it. ‘But it’s not going to hurt. Not a great big brave wyrme like you.’

  Garth pulled a knife from his belt and tested the sharpness of the blade with his thumb. Then he leaned forward, lulling and crooning the while, and put the point of the blade to the pulsating base of the greywyrme’s throat.

  ‘Easy now, my beautiful,’ Garth whispered, and as he spoke he gripped the handle of the knife so hard the tendons knotted like rope along his forearm. Then Garth increased the pressure, pushing the blade gently but firmly into the grey scaly skin.

  For an instant, the greywyrme seemed distressed. Its eyes rolled back in its head, and it raised and lowered its neck three, four times. The skin around the blade throbbed. But Garth seemed untroubled. He just kept on stroking and patting and whispering, and the wyrme kept on staring back at him with those trusting yellow eyes.

  ‘There we are,’ Garth whispered, as a viscous liquid welled up out of the wound that was not blood. Clear and golden it was, like honey. It trickled down over the ­creature’s cracked grey skin.

  Garth pulled the blade out of the small wound and inserted the curved end of the pipe smoothly in its place. Then, holding it still, he manoeuvred the straight end of the pipe over the lip of the pouch and pushed it deep inside. The spigot jutted out some way above the top of the leather.

  ‘The clips,’ Garth murmured to himself.

  One he attached to the top, piercing the wyrme’s tough scaly skin with the birdhook and using the grip to hold the pipe in place. The other he attached lower down, so that when the wyrme was walking the pipe could not bounce out of the pouch.

  ‘And we’re almost there,’ whispered Garth. ‘Just turn the little spigot,’ he said, doing just that as he spoke, ‘and that flameoil of yours will drain out of your sac. And into mine.’ He patted the creature’s neck affectionately. ‘I get the wyrmeoil. And you don’t get to burn anyone to a crisp no more.’

  Gradually the pouch swelled to about a quarter full, then stopped. Leaving the spigot open, Garth reached up to the wyrme’s head. His fingers worried at the knot in the rope that bound its muzzle shut. Untying it, he pulled the rope away. Then he removed the blinkers.

  The wyrme caught sight of the boy at the split-rail fence, who was craning forward, his eyes wide with curiosity. It trembled violently and pawed at the ground, and its mouth opened in that yawn-like way it had. But this time there was no fire. Instead, the boy was enveloped in a rush of air that was moist and fetid, and harmless. The wyrme seemed surprised for a moment – but then it turned its neck, plunged its mouth down into the water trough in front of it and drank and drank, long and deep and noisy.

  ‘Without that flameoil of theirs, greywyrmes are just about as meek and mild as you could wish for,’ said Garth to the boy. ‘Ain’t no need to mistreat them.’

  He moved round the back of the greywyrme and removed the rope hobbles at its hindlegs to prove it. The creature never even flinched.

  ‘Go tell your folks, son. Garth Temple’s got everything under control.’

  As the boy ran off, Garth smiled his crooked smile. For the first time in weeks, the uneasy knot in the pit of his stomach relaxed. This enterprise could actually work.

  Two hundred wyrmes – each one capable of carrying four settler families, along with their belongings and ­provisions . . . Two gold pieces a head . . . Given the size of their families – and Maker knows, these settlers ­certainly held with large families, what with grandfolks and cousins and all. Could be anything up to . . . eighteen . . . twenty thousand gold pieces. And that was just one wyrmetrain to the grasslands. With the new stockade up and running, there would be many, many more . . .

  Garth whistled softly through his teeth. He and the young merchant would be rich.

  And then, of course, there was the flameoil, his own little sideline. All he had to do was fit the spigots, and then organize Tallow and his men to tap the stuff . . .

  He looked lovingly at the great greywyrme in the corral in front of him. ‘One down,’ he said. ‘Ten to go.’

  Twenty

  Nathaniel Lint opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, momentarily disorientated. It was late after-noon by the tilt of the shadows. Flies were buzzing round his face.

  He was lying on a bed, a hard bed, bathed in sweat. It was ferocious hot. He turned his head to the left. There was a wall of bare boards, a chair beside it with his ­fur-trimmed coat folded over the back. To his right, there were more bare boards. And a window. He raised his head off the pillow and looked past his booted feet at a door. It was slightly ajar, and Nathaniel suddenly remembered how it had stuck when he’d tried to close it earlier.

  Garth Temple’s words came back to him. He was to treat the place like his own home.

  But this was not Nathaniel Lint’s father’s mansion down on the plains with its hundred rooms, and this timber shack was not his elegant bedchamber. There were no wardrobes filled with silk robes, no gilt-framed mirrors, no crystal lamps; no curtains at the windows nor rugs upon the floor. And it was hot. Hotter than hell. The air was feverish and stifling. And rank . . .

  The new stockade.

  Nathaniel pulled himself up, swung his legs off the side of the bed and placed his boots square on the floor. He put his elbows on his knees, lowered his head, scratched his scalp through his matted hair. Then he climbed to his feet.

  A shelf beneath the window was set with a pitcher and a cracked bowl. Nathaniel poured some water from one to the other and splashed it over his face. It was refreshing enough, but it would take a sight more than that to wash the stink of this godawful place off him. In the meantime, he would have to content himself with scent. He pulled a small bottle from the front pocket of his buckskin waistcoat, tugged out the cork and splashed perfume over his neck, his wrists and, unbuttoning the collar of his silk shirt, down over his chest. The liquid was cold for a moment, then burned. The air became ­intoxicating sweet with the fragrance of
rose, lavender and honeysuckle, as though a magnificent bouquet of plains flowers had just appeared in the room.

  Nathaniel batted away a couple of the more ­persistent flies. His stomach grumbled, and he crossed to the door and pulled it open.

  ‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Is anybody there?’

  There was no reply. Garth’s servant – the woman who had shown him to the room – was either deaf, or had gone out. Nathaniel grunted his irritation. Then, gathering up his coat, he left the room and stepped out into the courtyard.

  He’d been right about the time of day. It was late afternoon, though the heat hadn’t abated none. The ­badlands was, in Nathaniel Lint’s humble opinion, quite the most appalling and inhospitable place he had ever ventured into and he couldn’t help asking himself why anyone in their right mind would contemplate leaving the cool rain-kissed plains and venture up into this Maker-forsaken wilderness of bare rock and blistering heat unless they absolutely had to.

  But then he did indeed have to. After all, he had a lot riding on this venture – most of the small fortune his father had settled on him. ‘Seed money’, the old man had called it, his tone gently mocking. He didn’t believe his son could make a go of it; he was simply indulging him the way he always did. But he would show Nathaniel Lint the Elder. Oh, yes, he would prove to him just what he could do . . .

  Nathaniel paused to get his bearings. The hay barn and silo were behind him. The corral was off to his left, the crowd that had gathered now dispersed. From his right, he heard the sound of loud rowdy voices, raucous laughter, the clatter of drinking mugs. A wheezy ­squeezebox . . .

  It was the tavern.

  Nathaniel vaguely remembered Garth pointing it out to him earlier. Not that he’d thought then that he might end up availing himself of its hospitality. He looked at the building uneasily. It might be new, but the door was badly splintered and two of the windows had been boarded over. He rolled his eyes.

  Was this really what he was pouring the contents of his purse into? A dusty corral. A fly-blown stockade. A rundown tavern stuck out here in the middle of the ­badlands . . .

  Then again, he told himself, at least the tavern would have something to drink, and if his luck was in, something to eat as well.

  With a resigned sigh, he crossed the dusty ground to the door at the front and pushed it half open. A pungent mix of stale liquor and staler bodies struck him like a punch to the face. He recoiled, gathered himself. Then, having set his face in an expression that he hoped ­indicated that he wasn’t someone to mess with, walked inside.

  The place was dark and fetid and far worse than Nathaniel had imagined. It was full of men. They were standing in groups, or seated solitary at low tables. He couldn’t see their faces. As his presence was noticed, the squeezebox fell silent, the conversation ceased and Nathaniel felt his legs weaken.

  ‘Mister Nathaniel, sir,’ came a voice.

  He turned and, squinting into the gloom, could just make out a face. A woman’s face. The face of Garth’s housekeeper. She clearly doubled as the tavern-maid.

  With her acknowledgement, the atmosphere seemed to relax and the conversation started up again, but lower now, more furtive. The accordion player squeezed out a few notes.

  ‘Table, sir?’ the woman asked, smoothing down her apron. ‘A drink? Something to eat?’

  ‘All of those,’ said Nathaniel, aiming for heartiness, trying to ignore the thudding of his heart. He felt out of place, conspicuous in his fine plains clothes among these hulking wealdtraders with their wyrmeskin jackets and heavy boots.

  The woman showed him to a bench close to the end of a long table. ‘Sit yourself down, sir,’ she said. ‘Mister Garth told me you was to have whatever you wanted.’

  ‘Good of him,’ said Nathaniel gruffly.

  As he waited for the woman to return, he looked around, his eyes slowly accustoming themselves to the gloom. Oil lamps were burning, he now realized, though their flames seemed to add more smoke to the tavern than light. Faces gleamed in the dull copper glow. Hard, weatherbeaten faces, as immobile and inscrutable as masks. And when he looked across towards the boarded-up window, he recognized the five kith wyrmehandlers who had arrived with the convoy of greywyrmes. Already the worse for wear with drink, they were tottering about, cussing and laughing, and Nathaniel was relieved they paid him no mind.

  From close by there came a long loud belch, and Nathaniel looked round to see a bear-like individual seated diagonally opposite him. He was wearing the clothes of an old-style trapper, with birdhooks and snarewire pinned down the lapels of his wyrmeskin halfcoat. A chunk of meat was skewered on the end of his hunting knife, which was gripped in his hand. He raised it in acknowledgment.

  ‘Better out than in,’ he mumbled, before tearing off a piece of meat with his yellow teeth. Grease dripped into his thick black beard. He sluiced the chewed meat down with a mouthful of liquor, then belched again. ‘To your good health.’

  Nathaniel smiled weakly, then looked down. He inspected his fingernails, wishing the woman would get a move on with his meal. The man skitched along the bench a foot or so closer to him, pushing his liquor tankard with him.

  ‘Ain’t seen you around here before,’ he said, his voice slurring.

  ‘I arrived this morning,’ Nathaniel replied.

  The trapper nodded thoughtfully, swallowed. He shifted along the bench a tad further, then tore off another hunk of meat.

  ‘One of them settlers, eh?’ he enquired, chewing as he spoke.

  ‘No, no,’ said Nathaniel, horrified to think that anyone might mistake him, a wealthy merchant, for those abject creatures that poverty and hardship had driven from the plains. ‘I . . .’ He checked himself. It was never wise to give too much away. ‘I have business here.’

  The trapper nodded again. He pulled a filthy rag from his pocket and wiped around his mouth, which nestled somewhere beneath his overgrown black ­moustache.

  Nathaniel watched, appalled, intrigued. The man truly was hairy. Like some kind of animal. He had long matted black hair on his head, an unkempt black beard, bushy black eyebrows, and there was more thick black hair sprouting from his cuffs and collar. It would come as little surprise to him if his entire body was covered—

  ‘Business, you say?’

  ‘With Garth Temple,’ Nathaniel said, looking around to see what might be holding the woman up with his supper. ‘The proprietor of the new stockade . . .’

  ‘I know who Garth Temple is,’ the man growled, and shifted along the bench till he was sitting directly ­opposite Nathaniel.

  Despite the heat, a cold sweat broke out on the young merchant’s forehead.

  The trapper set down his knife, wiped his hand down the grease-stained front of his coat and, half climbing to his feet, leaned across and extended a great paw of a hand. He pumped the merchant’s arm up and down, and Nathaniel flinched at the trapper’s grip. It was like having his hand crushed in a vice.

  ‘Any friend of Garth Temple’s,’ he announced, then slumped back down onto the bench.

  He skewered yet another lump of meat on the end of his knife, raised it to his mouth – then hesitated. He sniffed at his fingers and his face puckered up behind his beard. He sniffed again. His dark eyes narrowed, and he fixed Nathaniel with a look that was somewhere between amusement and disgust.

  ‘You smell like a girl,’ he said. It sounded like an ­accusation.

  Nathaniel’s cheeks coloured up. ‘It’s . . . it’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Just some scent to freshen up . . .’

  But the trapper was shaking his head. He took another gulp of liquor. ‘You look like a boy but you smell like a girl.’

  Nathaniel had the feeling that some of the drinkers close by were listening. The atmosphere of the tavern seemed to shift. The trapper jutted his jaw forward.

  ‘And it ain’t right,’ he slurred. ‘A boy smelling l
ike a girl.’ He smiled meanly as he jabbed his knife at Nathaniel. ‘Are ya a girl?’

  ‘Please, I don’t want any trouble,’ Nathaniel said weakly. ‘I’m a guest of Garth Temple’s, the proprietor of—’

  His words abruptly turned to a strangulated gasp as the trapper lunged towards him and seized him by the front of his fur-trimmed coat. And as he was dragged across the table Nathaniel found himself deeply ­regretting he had ever entered this establishment.

  ‘Let me go!’ he squealed.

  But the trapper clearly had no intention of letting him go. With one rock-like fist twisting the merchant’s bunched-up fur collar, and the other, drawn back and poised to strike, he lifted him up off the floor. The oily smell of liquor swam around Nathaniel as he was drawn closer to the trapper’s smirking face.

  ‘Like I said, any friend of Garth Temple’s,’ he purred, ‘ain’t no friend of mine.’

  The fist flew forward. Nathaniel closed his eyes. The blow never landed.

  Instead, Nathaniel felt the grip on his collar abruptly yield. He dropped back to the floor and, stumbling backwards, looked up to see the trapper being yanked round, his hairy arm, fist still clenched, in the tight grasp of two powerful hands.

  Then, with a splintering crack, his assailant head-butted him. Blood erupted from the trapper’s nose. A thudding blow landed in his stomach. He grunted, doubled up. Two uppercuts jerked his head back first one way, then the other. The third sent him crashing to the floor.

  The victor watched him, breathing noisily, his hands on his hips. The dull lampglow gleamed on his shaven scalp, in his hard dark eyes. He wiped the sweat from his brow on the back of his hand, then turned to the other wyrmehands.

  ‘Get him out of here,’ he snarled.

  Taking an arm and a leg each, the four of them dragged the unconscious trapper across the floor. Nathaniel turned to his rescuer, who was reaching out a hand towards him.