The Bone Maker

by Sarah Beth Durst

  She wished, however, she’d been right about Eklor’s target. “Okay, change in plans. We split up. Half of us protect the innocent. Other half rouse the bone workers.” She paused for a second. “Everyone agree?”

  Zera flapped her arms at her. “Yes! For all that’s holy, yes!” The others chimed in. Yes, they had to protect the people. Yes, do it now. There was no need, or time, for debate.

  They still trust me, she thought. And I trust them. We can do this.

  Or at least we can die trying.

  Spinning away from them, Kreya shouted orders to her statue army: Fight. Protect. Defend. Destroy. And then to Stran: “Lead them to the lower tiers.”

  To Jentt: “Evacuate everyone you can.”

  To Zera: “Supply them with the talismans you think they’ll need.”

  To Amurra, Guine, and Zera’s followers: “Warn as many as you can on the upper tiers. Keep civilians away from the lower city.”

  “And you?” Zera asked.

  Grimly, Kreya eyed the third tier. Unharmed so far. “I’ll tell the bone workers I was wrong—they don’t need to save themselves.

  “They need to save everyone else.”

  Zera distributed talismans to each of them, Stran first. “Carved from a bull femur, this one will give you fifteen minutes of four times your strength. You should be able to get three uses out of it before it fails. Watch for cracks. This one, half an hour but twice your strength.” She waved another in the air before passing it to him. “And this beauty, ten times your strength but you only get a single thirty-second burst. Don’t waste it.” She gave him several more, then loaded Jentt with strength and speed talismans as well, describing each of them. “This one doesn’t look like much, but it’s carved from a peregrine falcon. Fastest bird there is. Crap durability, but you’ll love the rush.” She also handed talismans to Amurra, Marso, Guine, and her other followers, for emergency use.

  As soon as Stran finished pocketing his talismans, he saluted. “Don’t worry, Kreya. We’ll get your army where it needs to be.” He embraced his wife. “Stay safe.”

  “I won’t die again,” she promised. “You don’t die on me either.”

  Stran, Kreya noticed, didn’t promise what he couldn’t guarantee. “I love you. Stick with Kreya. Unless she does something dangerous, then you hide. Understand? You stay alive.”

  He jogged to the front of the statues.

  Jentt took Kreya’s hands in hers. She felt the calluses and the softness. His hands were as familiar as her own. “We’ll save everyone we can,” he promised. Pressing her hands to his heart, he looked as if he wanted to say more, but she already knew everything he could say. That was the lovely thing about loving someone for who they were, not who you wanted them to be.

  “Go,” she told him.

  But he didn’t go. Instead, he kissed her, and she kissed him back, memorizing every second of how it felt. She’d kissed him thousands of times, so often worrying that it would be the last. She told herself that if this was the last, she’d be grateful for all the extra stolen moments that they’d had—but she knew that was a lie. She wanted more. There would never be enough moments, and they’d already had too many goodbyes.

  “Come back alive,” she ordered him.

  “You too.”

  He jogged after Stran, joining him at the front of the army of skeletal statues. Together, they strode through the gate, and the statues marched with them, crashing through the arch. The carved marble tumbled from the gateway as the massive pillars from Lorn’s palace shoved their way through. The smaller statues skittered up and over the wall, spilling down into the fourth tier, and then scurried quickly to the third. Below, the sounds of Eklor’s army, the crash of falling stone, and the screams of the people rose to meet them.

  “My turn,” Zera said. “What are my orders? You had me give them their talismans. So I take it that means you aren’t sending me to fight the army?”

  Kreya reached out and took her hand. “Last time I was stupid. This time, how about we defeat Eklor together? Stopping Eklor won’t stop his army, but it will free the bone workers to join the fight. Come with me to the third tier and help me knock sense into the guild?”

  Grinning, Zera squeezed her hand back. “I’m in. Flight?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Amurra stepped in front of her. “I’m coming with you. Stran said to stick with you unless you went into danger.”

  “I am literally going into danger,” Kreya said.

  “The army isn’t on the third tier yet. I”—she switched pronouns when Marso stepped forward—“we can spread word to people there, while Guine and the others warn the upper tiers. Take us with you. Please.”

  Kreya only hesitated for a moment. She’d sworn to herself that she’d trust her friends from now on, honor their right to make their own choices. Here, then, was a test of that. She nodded sharply at Amurra and Marso.

  “Hope you aren’t afraid of heights,” Zera said as she gave them talismans. “Come on!”

  Running with a spurt of speed, the four of them circled Zera’s house. The grand salon, which had been supported by pillars, had collapsed, but the balcony that overlooked the valley was perfectly intact. Hand in hand, the four of them ran onto it without slowing—and off.

  “Renari!”

  Simultaneously, they activated their flight talismans. They soared over the city. From above, Eklor’s army looked like hideous rats swarming over the buildings, destroying and devouring all in their path, chewing their way through the city’s lower levels. She saw the leading edge of her statue army charging through the gates to the second tier—a marble lioness in the lead. With a silent roar, the statue leaped onto her prey, and a half dozen inhuman soldiers slammed onto the street beneath her massive stone paws. The other statues poured into the lower city behind her, joining the city guards.

  Kreya thought she glimpsed Stran and tried to see Jentt, but the spires and aqueducts blocked her view of the city below. He was somewhere in the chaos.

  Swooping low, they landed on the steps of the bone guild headquarters on the third tier. As they did, they were spotted. Citizens poured through the street to fill the steps.

  Kreya shouted to them. “You need to evacuate! The fighting is on the lower levels. Get higher!” As she scanned the crowd, she noticed something strange. They’re holding weapons, she realized. Swords for some. Kitchen knives. Metal bats. Shovels. Bars. “Wait, what are they thinking?” she asked her companions. “They can’t fight. They’re not soldiers!”

  “They are today,” Marso said.

  “This is amazing!” Amurra cried, her face glowing. “They heard the old stories! They listened!”

  Kreya opened her mouth and then shut it. She hadn’t thought hearing the old stories again would inspire this. After a moment, she said, “They could die.”

  “They know heroes sometimes die,” Amurra said. “They know there’s always a cost.”

  Hearing them, a woman holding two kitchen knives said, “You paid it for us before. This time, we pay it together!” Around her, men and women cheered, hoisting their weapons and makeshift weapons into the air.

  Zera interrupted, raising her voice. “Or, better idea: make the enemy pay instead!”

  An even louder cheer at that.

  “Fine,” Kreya said. This wasn’t the same as before. Maybe the outcome wouldn’t be either. “Help us tear down this door! We get the bone workers, show them the truth of what’s happening around them, and then together we all stop Eklor’s army!”

  Without further prompting, the third-tier citizens surged forward, throwing themselves against the great double doors to the guild headquarters, beneath the carved skull. It creaked on its hinges.

  “Harder!” Kreya called.

  She heard it the moment the hinges gave way. The great doors fell inward, and the citizen army surged inside. They flooded into the halls of the bone workers.

  At the front of the wave, Kreya ran through the hallways
until she reached the great hall. Bursting through the inner doors, she saw it in a moment: full of bone workers, from novices to masters, from all over Vos, with the council in their thronelike chairs.

  Insulated from the city, they had heard none of the battle.

  One of the masters sprang to his feet. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “The city is under attack!” Kreya cried. “Eklor’s army has come!”

  But she saw they didn’t believe her. The great hall was too far from the entrance for them to hear the sounds of battle as anything more than an indistinct cacophony. And they were still in the grip of Eklor’s talisman. It had fed on the fact that they didn’t want to believe the old danger had come again and, worse, this time had come to them. She tried to find the right words to open their eyes and ears and minds, but none of those words came.

  It was Marso who stepped forward. He climbed on top of a table carved of granite and shouted to the council, louder than the shouting citizens, “You have been shown lies! I will show you the truth!”

  Other masters began to shout at him.

  Kreya thought he’d try to read the bones. She stepped forward, unsure how to stop him—he couldn’t do it, not in this kind of chaos. He wasn’t ready for this yet. And if he tried and failed, they’d never convince the masters to listen.

  But Marso didn’t reach for his bones. Instead, he raced up to the balcony, to the thick stained glass windows. Lifting a heavy, iron candelabra, he bashed at the closest window. The ancient ruby and sapphire-colored glass cracked. He hit it again. Harder.

  Bone workers called to him to stop.

  Some ran up toward the balcony.

  But Marso didn’t stop. He hurled the candelabra at the window, and at last the glass shattered. Colored shards scattered everywhere, like rain made of jewels.

  And the sounds of battle poured through.

  He went to the next window and the next. Sunlight streamed through the cracks, along with the cries of the dying and the thunder of the unholy army. Kreya saw the change in the faces of the bone workers as the screams and cries broke through whatever hold Eklor had on them.

  “We’re under attack!” Amurra called. “From Eklor’s army!”

  The citizens echoed her.

  Now, at last, the bone workers believed them. Maybe they would never have believed Kreya and Zera, but they believed the proof Marso had provided, they believed the people of Cerre, and they believed their own ears as the sounds of battle reached through the broken windows. The bone workers surged out of the hall.

  As they flooded out into the city, Zera shouted words of encouragement, “Go! Fight the enemy! Save the people! Don’t be idiots! Go, go, go!”

  Marso and Amurra joined the surge, shouting directions, guiding them toward the battle. Kreya lost sight of them almost immediately. She sent a silent prayer after them, hoping they’d stay safe. She had to trust they’d be smart.

  Now that the bone workers were unleashed, she’d have to leave it to others to handle the army. She had another goal. She scanned the hall—where was Eklor? And Lorn?

  Plunging forward, Kreya tried to force her way through the surge. She was knocked backward. “Where’s Eklor?” she shouted. “Where is he?” She recognized a bone worker who was rushing past, and she grabbed the woman’s arm: “Briel!”

  Briel tried to yank out of her grip.

  “Stop, Briel. Tell me: where’s Eklor?”

  “Is it true? Is it his army? Why did we trust him?”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Kreya told her. She could tell the other woman didn’t believe her. There wasn’t time to explain. “But you can help now. Tell me where to find him.”

  “He’s with Grand Master Lorn,” Briel said. “They’re preparing the blood.”

  Kreya gave her a little shake. “Whose blood?” She’d thought there wasn’t going to be a spell. She’d been so certain it was a diversion. He had no bones, anyway. And the army was here, which proved her right. So why was Eklor preparing blood with Lorn? “What innocents are going to die?”

  They’d guarded the hospital. Had he sent his constructs elsewhere? Certainly his army was spilling blood now, but if Eklor already had blood, then who—

  “Our blood,” Briel said. “He said it was needed for the immortality spell. Why did I give him blood? Kreya, I don’t understand. Why is Eklor here? Why did I listen to him? He seemed so reasonable . . . And Grand Master Lorn seemed so certain . . .”

  Kreya released her arm as the horror of it sank in. I was wrong, she thought. Not about the fact that Eklor meant harm. But about how much harm he intended.

  He’d taken the bone workers’ blood. And they’d been so enthralled they’d let him.

  By the bones. “Briel, you have to—”

  Around her, bone workers began to fall. In front of Kreya, Briel crumpled to the ground. As bone makers, bone wizards, and bone readers collapsed, one after another, Kreya called to Zera. Together, they ran through the guild, to its heart.

  Please, don’t let us be too late.

  Body after body fell.

  She heard her own voice mocking her: There’s never enough time.

  “One more chance,” she whispered. “That’s all I ask.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “You first this time,” Kreya said.

  “My pleasure. Ooh, I’m using strength.” Activating a talisman, Zera slammed her fist into the grand master’s office door. The wood shattered around the hinges. “Ow. Nice.” She then kicked it open. “Grand Master Lorn, we’re back with proof! Eklor’s army is attacking the city, and bone workers are dropping dead where they stand!”

  Kreya saw the room in a flash: books and papers shoved to the floor to clear the desk for row after row of silver cups, each half-full with ruby-black blood. Eklor behind the glasses. Lorn in front, crouched in a protective stance with a knife in his right hand.

  But as Zera’s words penetrated, Lorn lowered his weapon. He blinked as if waking up from a dream. “Eklor, is this true—”

  “Literally no time to deal with lengthy explanations,” Zera said. “Army. Outside. Lots of dying. And they need the grand master of the Bone Workers Guild to do his job and defend this city.” She darted in and yanked him out by his robes. As he resisted, she added, “Your son is somewhere out there, in danger.”

  That got through to him.

  Pulling Lorn out of the room, she said to Kreya, “Kick his ass.”

  Sparking a nod to Zera, Kreya pushed inside the office, kicking aside the shattered remains of the door. “Eklor, stop!”

  But Eklor was leaning over the silver cups, chanting faster and faster. He plunged his fingers into the blood of one and pulled out a knuckle bone. He slammed it against his already blood-soaked chest and continued to chant a mix of familiar and unfamiliar words, a warping of the spell that Kreya had studied and used for so long.

  “Silence him,” Kreya ordered.

  Her three rag dolls crawled out of her coat pockets. Fast, they scurried across the room and climbed his coat. One swarmed up his bloody chest and crammed itself into his mouth, cutting off the spell. He reached up and yanked the doll out, and another rag doll wrapped itself around his wrists. The third wormed itself through his fingers, forcing him to drop the knuckle bone, as the one that had been in his mouth tied itself around his ankles.

  He struggled against them but then stilled. “Master Kreya,” he greeted her, urbane as always. “Glad you could join me. A pity you were too late to participate in the spell.”

  “You’re taking their years for yourself,” Kreya said. There was no question in her mind about what was happening here: each cup held the blood of a bone worker. Stepping forward, she plucked the persuasion talisman out of one of his pockets.

  Such a little thing that had done so much harm. Opening one of the sconces, she dropped the bone into the flame. It began to burn. Whatever power remained within it would be leached away. And then she checked his other pockets, relieving him of
six more persuasion talismans and destroying them as well.

  “So thorough. I see you have at last learned not to underestimate me.” He sounded like a proud teacher, and she’d never wanted to punch someone in the throat so badly. “Grand Master Lorn never did figure it out, you know. But then he was such easy prey for my talisman that I barely had to waste any of its power on him. He wanted so badly to believe that I’d conquered death that he refused to believe that time is finite—for anyone to have more, another must have less.”

  “And this is how you survived your own death. You stole from others?”

  “I only took from those who didn’t deserve the time they were given,” Eklor said. “From those whose existence put more evil into the world than good.”

  And she thought her years alone in a tower had messed with her mind. Being alone had not been good for him. “You think you are the best judge of who adds evil to the world. You. How can you be so stunningly deluded as to believe you aren’t the villain in all this? You killed innocents. In a hospital. In their sleep! You unleashed an army on civilians who never hurt you, who only know your name through ballads and plays. You have no right to say who lives and who dies.”

  “Neither do you. And neither did Grand Master Lorn, when he issued the order to have my wife and daughter’s bodies burned. Neither did all the bone workers when they condemned my apprentice to die. Neither did the ‘good’ citizens of Cerre when they celebrated that boy’s death. He was a child!”

  A thought occurred to her. “Was he the one who resurrected you? He was nowhere near the tower when you died. He was caught miles from the battlefield—”

  “He was caught miles away after he saved me. In case of disaster, he had the blood and bones ready and stayed hidden until you’d confirmed your handiwork. When you left, he saved me, as he’d been taught. He was then supposed to escape and live a long and happy life. But the ‘innocent’ people of Cerre saw fit to make an example of him. Because they couldn’t punish me, they settled for him, a child who had done no wrong, a child who grew up without a mother and a sister.”