Stopmouth didn’t know whether to be more shocked by the fact that an adult had a living grandmother or by the sight of the old woman herself: bone-white hair over skin as wrinkled as a brain.
‘You’re ready for cremation already!’ the young woman said. ‘Why did I have to die for your beliefs?’
A riot ensued up on the roof as other family members pulled her down and tried to shut her up. She continued to shriek insults until the others beat her into silence.
‘We’re going now!’ said Indrani. Stopmouth allowed her to drag him as far as the next street, still with the little girl in tow and Rockface limping along behind.
‘Who are these people?’ he asked her. ‘This is madness!’
‘They’re a group that prays a lot to spirits. I’ll tell you more when we stop.’
They picked out a building and sat in the shade of its lintel. A curtain of moss helped keep the glare away and was still damp and cool with the remnants of last night’s Roofsweat. All around them, the buzz and whirr of insects soothed away the human sounds of the square. Stopmouth gave the little girl a drink of water and she curled up and went to sleep immediately. Rockface moved to sit beside her, resting one hand gently on her back. He was breathing heavily, exhausted by his wounds and the short trip they’d made to get here.
‘Who were those people?’ asked Stopmouth again.
Indrani didn’t answer at first. She looked sick and afraid, as if her worst nightmares had all come true at once. ‘There are plenty who think like them where I come from, Stopmouth. They are people who claim to love spirits more than they love themselves. Some of the fools even mean it, I suppose…We have a special word for them: religious.’ She pronounced it the way she pronounced the word ‘savage’, as if it hurt to speak it. ‘Some of them were the ones who rebelled up on the Roof–that’s when you saw the Globes start fighting. But these ones are the kind that don’t like to fight, or say they don’t. Their legends tell them that if they eat the flesh of another living creature, they must be eaten themselves one day. That’s why they don’t defend themselves.’
Stopmouth was still mystified. ‘They’re going to be eaten anyway. Every creature is eaten in the end, so they might as well start defending themselves and live a bit longer, am I right?’
‘Of course he’s right,’ said Rockface. He patted the other hunter weakly on the back as if to say: See how well I trained him?
Indrani sighed. ‘Stopmouth, I don’t know how to explain this to you, really I don’t. But it’s not this life those people are worried about. If they eat flesh, then when they’re reborn they—’
‘What do you mean, “reborn”?’ Stopmouth wondered if the Talker, unable to give the appropriate meaning, had thrown in the first word it could find.
She sighed again. ‘Just trust me on this, all right? It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand what I’m talking about, or don’t believe it. Just accept that religious people imagine they will have other lives after they die—’
‘As ancestors?’
‘No, Stopmouth. As people, or beasts or trees. Don’t look at me like that! That’s what their idiot leader meant when he said I’d never leave here. I have eaten flesh, so he thinks I’ll be reborn here and devoured here again and again until I learn not to consume others. He’s sure that if he dies without flesh passing his lips, he’ll pay off whatever crime against the spirits condemned him to be here in the first place. The next time he’s born, it will be to a kinder fate.’
This was just about the most amazing thing Stopmouth had ever heard. He had questions, lots of questions. He didn’t get to ask them.
A band of men and women more than a dozen strong found them. The boy, Yama, who’d recognized Stopmouth and Rockface when they’d fought the Skeletons two days before, smiled and stepped forward out of the group. He still carried his stick, but he looked more haggard and the scars on his cheeks were crusted with blood. The others hovered at his back, men twice his size, as if they thought Yama would protect them.
‘Great hunters’–he dropped the tree branch and bowed with his palms flat against each other and raised in front of his face–‘I’ve watched your people my whole life, although the elders told me not to. Ha ha, I bet they all wish they’d watched you now! None of the stinking cowards have eaten for days.’
‘And what have you eaten, Yama?’ asked Stopmouth.
The boy ignored the question. ‘You’re quite good,’ he said. ‘At hunting, I mean. I know I’d be good too if I had a proper spear like you do. Then I could feed myself and any wives I had.’
‘Good boy!’ said Rockface. ‘You hear him, hey? Stopmouth?’
Another man stepped forward. He was one of the grey ones with scraggly hair sprouting strangely from the front of his face and a voice like two stones scraping together.
‘Oh, enough of this!’ said the grey man. ‘I am Kubar, one of the elders this little fool has been mocking. We need your help, savages. You murder for food and we have women here, starving people who need you two to feed them.’
Stopmouth felt his face grow hot. He was sick of being called a ‘savage’. Also he noticed that some of the group before him cast hateful glances towards Indrani. He’d heard people call her a witch earlier and didn’t like that either.
‘We need to get going,’ he said.
‘Ridiculous!’ said Kubar. ‘Have you no feeling for your fellow humans? No feeling at all? The beasts are here every day, picking us off. But at night’–he shuddered–‘at night they come in big groups. The white ones with four arms. The ones with tongues that will wrap around a child and snatch her away. The red ones that can run on four legs or two. They herd away hundreds of us at a time and butcher them in a street nearby where we can hear everything! Sometimes they just run at us with their knives and kill and kill until they grow tired. And you…you refuse to help us? There were ten thousand of us only a few days ago, and now we are a fifth of that. In a few more days we will all be dead.’
‘Isn’t that what you want?’ asked Stopmouth. ‘To be reborn?’
Kubar looked away. He was filthy, his hair matted with moss and dirt, his hands shaking with hunger or fear. ‘I do not want to die,’ the elder whispered. ‘Not like that. Last night some of us formed a circle and fought back. I don’t think we even scratched any of the beasts, but they let us be in favour of others who were weaker. We will be reborn as mossbeasts or worse for what we did.’
Stopmouth had a momentary vision of himself and Rockface leading these few back to join with Wallbreaker. However, remembering the hazards of that journey–Diggers, Longtongues and Wetlane beasts–he knew that none would make it. He wasn’t sure what his party could do to save them, especially with Rockface wounded. He looked at Indrani.
She sighed. ‘We could do far more for these people if we got to the Roof. They can’t survive here. Even if they did, sooner or later the Diggers will come and that will be that…’ She shrugged. ‘Oh well, they need your help now and I suppose you’d better give it.’
‘Of course we’ll help them!’ said Rockface.
‘Rockface, you’re injured,’ said Stopmouth, ‘and I’m not sure I’d be much good to them.’
Indrani snorted in disbelief, sending a warm glow through his body. The others looked at him imploringly. One twitchy young man even went down on his knees and held shaking arms outstretched in Stopmouth’s direction.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘We’ll do our best. Rockface?’
‘Ha! I knew it! Just like your father!’
The newcomers looked relieved, breaking out into a babble of prayers and weeping. Stopmouth had to speak up to be heard above them. ‘But are there no others who want to live?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the elder. ‘Many others.’
‘Good.’ He looked round and spotted the boy Yama. ‘You–could you…please go back to your people and tell all those who wish to fight…all those willing to eat, to come here. Bring any sticks you have. And make sure you g
et back to me before dark–that’s when most of the attacks will take place.’ The boy whooped and ran off.
Stopmouth left the weaker ones under Rockface’s protection. He took the rest of the new humans scouting. It would have been better if he could have sent them collecting sticks or bones for weapons, but he didn’t trust them on their own with so many enemies around. They didn’t trust themselves either. They milled about, their terror and exhaustion evident in every movement, each afraid to be the last in line.
‘Keep your eyes peeled! We need a few buildings we can isolate from the rest and defend.’
He found what they were looking for next to the wildly rushing river. A complex of buildings, three storeys high, formed a U shape around a blind alley. Very little moss clung to the smooth material of the walls, as if it couldn’t get a grip, or didn’t like the taste. Stopmouth looked up three storeys and couldn’t see a single crack in the facade. That would have been unusual at home, but in this area it seemed a miracle. Best of all, the flat roofs overlooked the only unblocked entrance to the complex on three sides.
‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘And look at all that rubble!’ At some time in the past a house across the street had collapsed and many of the stones had obligingly rolled over towards the small opening of the U.
He piled up some heavy rocks and began carrying them one by one up to the roof. The others, apart from the injured Rockface, followed his example, groaning under unaccustomed weight. When he saw they were getting the idea, he limited himself to supervision, hoarding his energy for the night to come. Nobody complained. These people who’d begged the savages’ protection seemed to fear him. But Indrani…they hated her. Still, when she grew exasperated at them and shouted, they leaped to obey.
‘These fools seem to think they can just lie down and leave all the work to others!’ she said to him.
‘It’s not that,’ he replied. ‘They don’t have the strength for this. They need flesh.’
‘And courage.’
And rest too, they needed rest. After half a day they’d managed a few dozen rocks and he doubted he’d get any more work out of them short of killing them.
Kubar had scraped his hands raw with the stones he carried. Splinters and fragments of stone jiggled in the strands of his beard. ‘Where’s that young idiot, Yama?’ he asked, his voice even lower with all the dust in his throat. Nobody knew. Some of them had families the boy had been supposed to collect and bring here. No more than a tenth of daylight remained. Many of them wanted to go back to the square.
‘None of you are leaving!’ said Stopmouth. ‘I’ll find Yama for you.’
‘But who will protect us here?’ asked Kubar. ‘No offence to your big companion…but he’s gone to sleep. Look at him! He couldn’t fight off a child in that condition.’
‘Indrani will be in charge,’ Stopmouth said.
‘What?’ She hadn’t expected that.
‘You can fight, Indrani. You terrified our hunters back home with your kicks, remember?’
‘I can defend myself, Stopmouth. Against humans.’
‘It’s the same thing,’ he said, although it wasn’t. But he knew she could do the job. He pressed the Armourback-shell spear into her hands. He didn’t plan on being gone long enough to need it. More importantly he wanted her to be safe. In spite of the things she’d told him the day before, the thought of harm coming to her was too much to bear. ‘Bring the people to the top of this building,’ he told her. ‘Keep quiet and drop rocks on any beasts that come into the alleyway. They’ll find easier prey and leave you alone. All right?’
He left her stuttering in protest and ran towards the square. It felt wonderful to stretch his legs, to see the buildings glide past almost in a blur. Beneath his feet the thick moss of the area hid wobbly stones and other hazards. Nothing slowed him down; it felt like nothing could.
He ran on until he heard the shouting and weeping of the crowd.
Night is approaching, he thought. They know what’s coming. He passed several half-butchered corpses on the way. Mostly old people with that strange grey hair. None of them was the boy and he didn’t stop.
The square itself heaved with panic. People on the outer edges tried to push closer to the centre. The weak finished on the outside or screamed as those with more strength walked on top of them. If Yama and the families he was supposed to bring with him were hiding in this mass, Stopmouth would never find them.
‘Yama!’ he shouted at the top of his lungs, but doubted he could be heard more than a few body-lengths away.
Stopmouth ran into a nearby building and climbed the steps three at a time. From the roof he could see right into the centre of the crowd. He didn’t find Yama but he did see the bald-headed chief of these people. The man rested against a huge, squat building which bordered the square on the river side. Young men kept the crowd at bay. Others crossed sticks in front of the entrance to the building. It looked like they had imprisoned somebody inside and Stopmouth had a good idea who it was.
He left the roof and moved into side streets and alleys, trying to find a route that would bring him to the river. He heard it, roaring constantly in the background, but this wasn’t much like the Ways he’d grown up in–the lanes here kept twisting away in strange directions, confusing him even as the Rooflight grew fainter. Finally he cut through the hallway of a house and emerged from the back window to see the river no more than twenty body-lengths distant.
Here lay the back end of the huge building that the chief’s men had been guarding. It had a few windows, but they were small and high. No way through there, he thought. He kept walking around the building until he saw a place where a house had collapsed against it, one precariously leaning wall forming a natural ladder.
Lumps of concrete cracked under his feet as he climbed. Some fell away in a spray of powder and stones. Once he reached too far for a handhold and slid a full body-length, braking painfully with his bare skin while the whole structure shuddered. It was Bloodskin all over again, except this time he made it onto the roof before the wall came tumbling down.
He could hear the people in the square beyond the building. The sounds of panic were already reaching fever pitch. He knew he didn’t have much time. Tonight neighbouring beasts would aim to cripple the new arrivals, maybe even exterminate them.
He searched about frantically for a skylight. When he found one, it was so dark inside that he couldn’t see any stairs. Maybe there weren’t any.
‘Yama?’ he called. His voice echoed into the darkness, but the building was so large that even if the boy was inside, he mightn’t hear him. Stopmouth dropped a stone through the skylight. It struck something almost at once, so he lowered himself over the edge and let go.
Stairs! Thank the ancestors!
He descended them carefully while his eyes adapted to the darkness. This too reminded him of the night he broke his legs. ‘Yama? Yama?’ he called.
At the bottom he started moving in what he hoped was the direction of the guarded doorway. He reached a large open space where the last of the Rooflight trickled in from the high, small windows he’d seen earlier.
‘Yama?’
A voice called back something in gibberish. Stopmouth ran towards the source of it until he could see the guarded doorway and hear the noise of panic from the square beyond. ‘Shtop-Mou?’
Yama’s silhouette bowed, outlined in a sheen of perspiration. Around him other silhouettes waited, perhaps a hundred of them, or two hundred. Men and women both. Why had the chief placed the rebels here? Surely this was the safest place in the whole area, with the crowded square buffering it from attack?
Outside the screaming began, first at one end of the square and then the other. Yama’s people began murmuring among themselves, their fear almost palpable. Then came a scream from within the building. Gurgling and short. Another shriek nearby, and a wave of panicked bodies ran for the guarded doorway. White shapes danced through the back of the room, their skin glowing gently.
&
nbsp; Stopmouth grabbed Yama. ‘Why are we running from so few? We have to fight them!’
The urgency if not the meaning communicated itself. Yama did some shouting of his own and grabbed a few of the fleeing men. The Skeletons were getting closer. Stopmouth picked up a piece of masonry and charged in the direction of the enemy. His stomach churned with the old fear and he prayed the others would follow, knowing he was dead if they didn’t.
His rock crashed down on the glowing head of a Skeleton. He grabbed its spear as other white figures converged on him. But then the rest of the humans arrived in a ragged charge, throwing rubble. Stopmouth saw two Skeletons stagger while another went down altogether. The rest retreated, one group fending off his men while another dragged away human corpses. They all disappeared into the floor.
Back home, Stopmouth and his comrades might have pursued the enemy in an effort to save the bodies. Not here. He didn’t know how many more entrances to this place lay hidden in the darkness. They had to get out. He thought of bringing the people up onto the roof, but the stairs he’d dropped onto didn’t quite reach the skylight. He imagined the chaos of exhausted people trying to lift each other up while those at the bottom of the stairs were savaged by beasts. The panic alone would cost many lives. No, he’d bring them out through the square, where the enemy would find easier targets and where he could at least see his way.
He grabbed Yama and showed him the spear he’d captured. The boy nodded, his grin flashing in the light from the door. He called out gibberish until the others began collecting abandoned enemy weapons.
The next step would be harder. Stopmouth pressed a strip of white flesh into Yama’s hand. The boy squawked and flung the morsel away. Stopmouth grabbed him and forced his fingers to close around another piece, still warm from the corpse. Stopmouth could hear him almost whimper at the thought of what he was about to do, but slowly, without any further help from the hunter, he raised the meat to his mouth. Stopmouth heard him swallow, almost gagging. But his voice was firm when he shouted at the others–most of whom were older than him–until they lined up nervously before Stopmouth. Some got sick as soon as the flesh passed their lips. It didn’t matter, thought Stopmouth: now they would have to fight.
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