The Lair of Bones

by David Farland

  “Rider coming!” someone shouted from the rooftop.

  Borenson turned to see a lone rider racing from the south in the dusk, his swift gray imperial warhorse thundering over the road. The rider bent low, his robes flapping wildly in the wind of his passage.

  He raced along the road and rounded the bend. The bridge was more than halfway destroyed, but his powerful steed leapt the gulf and skidded to a halt not more than a dozen yards behind Borenson.

  “Hail, Sir?…” Marshal Chondler said.

  The rider came to a halt, and sat on his horse, peering critically at the defenses. He was an old man in gray robes, with gray hair and ruddy cheeks. A strange light was in his eyes, and Borenson felt unreasonably that he knew the man from somewhere.

  As he tried to imagine where he'd met the fellow, his mind returned to his childhood. Near his home there had been a peach orchard where he'd liked to go. He'd spent many an afternoon beneath a crooked old peach tree, its boughs so heavy with fruit that they swept the ground, and he'd imagined that he was in a deep forest filled with wolves and lions. He'd always felt a great sense of peace there, and now he felt that peace again.

  “Binnesman!” Myrrima cried. “What are you doing here?”

  The old fellow looked down on Myrrima, and Borenson finally recognized the old wizard. He had aged forty years in the past two days. “I've come to protect my charges,” he said. “Perhaps for the last time.”

  He said no more for a moment, just peered up at the defenses, studying the stonework for signs of weakness that only a wizard could see. Just ahead, blocking the causeway where the barbican had been, piles of stone bristled with sharpened reaver blades, forming odd little humped barriers. Borenson had seen drawings of them in a book. They were called hedge-hogs. They had been laid out in a staggered pattern to slow any reaver charge enough so that archers and artillerymen atop the towers could use the causeway as a killing field.

  Beyond that, two new guard towers rose north and south above the city gate.

  “The mortar is far from dry in those towers,” Binnesman muttered under his breath. “The reavers could knock them down with a thought.” He frowned with concern and began muttering a spell, sparing no thought for Borenson, High Marshal Chondler, or any other man.

  Chondler asked the wizard, “How did you come here? Why did you leave the Earth King's side?”

  Binnesman peered down at the High Marshal. “Foolishness. I came here by my own foolishness,” the wizard said at last. “I was wounded in the Underworld, and Gaborn buried me for my own protection. For long I lay beneath the Earth, healing, and pondered. As I did, the reaver horde thundered over my head. By the time I woke, Gaborn was far gone, beyond my power to reach him.

  “I suspected then that the Earth suffered me to get wounded for a pur-pose. I led Gaborn into the Underworld because I felt that he needed me. But you are all under my protection, and I knew that I was needed here, also.

  “So when I had healed enough, I took care of some urgent matters to the east, then came as fast as I could.”

  “I thank you,” Marshal Chondler said. “A wizard of your stature will be welcome indeed.”

  Binnesman peered at the castle walls. Worry etched his brow, and he shook his head. “I fear that there is little that I can do. But I will try.”

  He dismounted and looked as if he would march into the castle. But he stopped and peered hard at Myrrima, then put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Your time is at hand, woman. The enemies of the Earth are gathering, and perhaps only you can resist them. Help us.” He squeezed her shoulder, as if to comfort her, and then strode away.

  Myrrima stood for a moment, then went to the moat. She reached down and dipped an arrow into the water, sat there for a long moment drawing runes upon the water's surface, dipping each arrow from her quiver in turn.

  Borenson watched her for a long moment. He did not understand the significance of the runes that she sketched, but he dared not disturb a wizardess at her work.

  He headed toward the castle, just behind High Marshal Chondler, Sarka Kaul, and the Wizard Binnesman. As Borenson walked the length of the causeway a garlicky scent wafted up, a scent so powerful it nearly brought tears to his eyes.

  “What's this?” Binnesman asked, peering down.

  “Onions and garlic, boiled with reaver philia,” High Marshal Chondler said. “I'm hoping that this reek bothers them more than it does us.”

  A dangerous smile worked on the wizard's lips. “Yes, this may be more help than all of your walls and all of your arrows.”

  Just before the curtain wall of the castle stood one last low wall, a bulwark of substantial proportions. Here, once again, the reavers’ own weapons would work against them. The wall bristled with bent reaver blades, so that they looked like a crown of wicked thorns set atop the stone. Logs and oil-soaked rags were worked into the mix.

  Three sally ports just wide enough to let a horse pass through were placed beneath the bulwark.

  Chondler led the party into the town square, where similar bulwarks ringed the square. Streets led west, north, and south beneath the bulwarks. Sally ports let men pass under. Binnesman studied the bulwarks with a critical eye, as if what he saw worried him. He suddenly raised his staff over-head and began sketching runes of strength upon the wall.

  The men on the castle walls cheered to have a wizard of Binnesman's stature blessing their fortifications.

  Marshal Chondler halted. Binnesman turned and uttered a spell over the garlic-strewn causeway. As he worked, Marshal Chondler bent in his saddle, and said, “That will be your station, Sir Borenson.” He nodded toward the sally port beneath the ramparts on the left. “You'll be fighting in a team. In our last battle, the reavers took the walls in minutes. The only thing that gave them pause was men of sound heart, banded together. When confronted by such a force, the reavers grew confused. They didn't know which adversary might strike next, or which might pose the greatest danger.

  “When the reavers charge, you'll set the bulwark here afire. It should give you ample light to see by and provide extra protection from the reavers.”

  “The dead reavers will pile up quickly,” Borenson said, “leaving us no room to fight.”

  “I've taken that into account,” Chondler agreed. “We expect that you will need to retreat, if only to give you room to fight. As you fall back, you'll defend Garlands Street. There are three more bulwarks like this up the lane. We have archers stationed atop the roofs and in the windows of every market. You must hold the reavers as the commoners fall back.”

  Garlands Street ran the length of the whole island, a distance of some two miles. Ramshackle merchant shops lined the street for the first half mile, shops that stood three or four stories tall. The buildings leaned so close together that the pitched roofs from every shop nearly joined. After that, dilapidated warehouses and smaller hovels squatted along the street's margins.

  “As a last resort,” Chondler said, “we have boats in the marina, enough to carry out a few hundred people. You'll hold the reavers there, if you can.”

  “Fair enough,” Borenson said. He'd never been down to the old under-ground marina, and didn't even know the way, but he wasn't worried. He could simply follow the fleeing warriors. Besides, he doubted that he'd live long enough to make it to the boats.

  “Good luck,” Chondler said. He eyed the south tower just above Borenson's head, not a dozen yards away. Myrrima had just come from washing her arrows. “Lady Myrrima,” he continued. “Take your steel bow up to the third story, and relieve the archer there. I suspect that you will want to guard your husband's back.”

  “Thank you,” Myrrima said.

  Binnesman finished his spell, and Sarka Kaul peered up at the wizard and Chondler. “Now,” the Days said, “let us take counsel together and see if we can figure out how to save this city.”

  As Chondler, Sarka Kaul, and Binnesman hurried up toward the duke's old Keep on the hill, Borenson watched the wizard.
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  Despite the fact that an innumerable horde of reavers marched on the city, Borenson felt a flicker of hope.

  Myrrima stood with him for a long moment, her hand wrapped about her bow. She bit her lower lip nervously and tapped her foot for a moment, but said nothing. Borenson realized that she felt shy about making public displays of affection, though she made up for it in private. Atop the walls, commoners began to sing a war song.

  “Beyond the battle lie better days,

  So let my blood be honored here.

  Raise your mug and sing my praise

  Like some sweet lark in coming years.”

  Myrrima leaned forward, wrapped one arm around his shoulders, and just held him for a long moment. She didn't say anything, and finally Borenson whispered, “I love you. I think I was destined to love you.”

  “I'll tell you what,” Myrrima said. “After this battle, you can show me how much you love me, instead of jawing about it.”

  Borenson said nothing. He was standing inside the castle where his father had died, and the ground trembled from the tread of advancing reavers.

  “This is a good place to fight,” Myrrima said. “Water is all around us. Can you feel its power?”

  “No,” Borenson answered. “I can hear the small waves lapping on the rocks, and I can smell the lake in the air. But I don't feel anything.”

  “It whispers comfort to me,” Myrrima said. “Don't resist the reavers too much. Don't stand against them like a wall. They'll break you if you do. You have to yield like waves of water. Rush forward to meet their fury, and rise when you must. Flow back when you have to. Learn to dance away like perch before the pike, and then leap in again for the strike.” She had a peculiar light in her eye.

  “I'll do the best I can,” Borenson said, somewhat bemused by her advice.

  He kissed her then for a long moment. A far-seer on the wall shouted, “Reavers are charging in advance of the army! Hundreds of them!”

  “Come,” Borenson said. “Let's have a look.”

  He quickly ducked beneath the sally port on Garlands Street and climbed a wooden ladder to the castle wall. Archers and footmen guarded the wall-walk, one every three feet or so. But there were no commoners up here, no gawkers to get in the way of the fighting men, as Borenson would have expected. Chondler had wisely forbidden them.

  The air up here smelled of fresh rye bread and roast beef. The guards on the wall were eating one last hasty meal. They'd need the nourishment for the battle ahead.

  Borenson squinted to the south, but could see little in the failing light. The reavers marched down the mountainsides in a black tide, their main front hidden among the hills. Nor did he see much in the way of advance forces, only a few shadowy reavers out in the fields—black monolithic bodies racing among the corpses of dead cohorts.

  “Any sign of Lowicker's troops?” Borenson asked a stout warrior.

  “Nothing to the north yet,” he said, gripping his war hammer nervously.

  Just then a flight of fire arrows arced from the castle wall and struck piles of bracken along the road at the end of the causeway. The oil-soaked piles quickly took fire.

  By their light, Borenson could see a bit better. Reavers were indeed coming, racing across the fields like madness. They zigzagged this way and that, weaving like ants or bees, trying to catch a scent.

  Some of them raced up to the lip of the vast pit where the world worm had breached, and crawled precariously about the rim.

  They're trying to learn what they can of the previous battle, Borenson realized. They smell the words written on the ground.

  A couple of reavers raced toward the castle, to the end of the peninsula. One stepped on a caltrop hidden under the straw. It hissed in pain and raised its tail high, spraying a warning, as it pulled the caltrop from its foot.

  Its companion suddenly darted about on the straw-covered fields, plucking up the hidden caltrops and hurling them into the lake.

  “They're smarter than we give them credit for,” someone grumbled at Borenson's back.

  Neither of the scouts dared step onto the causeway. Instead, they approached the head of the fell mage, whose mouth was stuffed with garlicky philia.

  They drew near, quivering in fear at the scent, and then both scouts darted south, toward their front lines.

  Borenson doubted that they would have to go far. The castle trembled beneath his feet and the earth grumbled loudly, like approaching thunder. To his surprise, he could make out a mass, a greater darkness blurring above-ground not ten miles south. The reavers were closer than he'd imagined.

  “It won't be long now,” Myrrima said.

  Several dozen reavers had gathered just a few hundred yards south of the castle, over on the shore. During the previous battle, reavers had begun to build some sort of a strange tower there, with blue spires made of mucilage that twisted up like narwhale horns. These had all come down when the world worm surfaced.

  Now the reavers began lifting the spires, tilting them upward, so that they rose hundreds of feet in the air.

  In moments they somehow secured the base of these towers, and reavers began to climb up.

  A far-seer nearby shouted, “There's something new here, up on them towers, a kind of reaver we ain't seen before.”

  Borenson squinted, but could barely make out the dark shapes. Only three towers were up, and each of them leaned precariously, like broken narwhale horns. Half a dozen reavers clung to the tops of these towers. Borenson could discern that the reavers were somehow misshapen.

  “Describe them,” Borenson called to the far-seer.

  “They look like blade-bearers,” the fellow answered, “but thinner and longer of body. And their capes are at least twice as long as a common reaver's, with more philia.”

  A reaver's “cape” referred to the bony head plates that extended from the sweet triangle to the crown of the head.

  “They're looking at us,” the far-seer called, “studying our defenses.”

  “Impossible,” Borenson grunted. The reavers had to be six or seven hundred yards away, and Averan had said that they couldn't see more than two hundred. Yet as he squinted south, he could clearly see that these odd scouts had topped their towers, and hung like mantises clinging to twigs. Furthermore, they seemed to peer toward the castle, all of their philia waving madly.

  He spotted movement not far away, perhaps five miles, and realized that a huge contingent of reavers was racing toward them in a dark tide.

  He had imagined that the main front of the horde was an hour away. But reaver scouts charged ahead of the common ranks. He didn't have an hour. He didn't even have fifteen minutes.

  “You'd better take your post,” he told Myrrima, as dozens of powerful Runelords issued to the castle gate, making their stand beneath the rampart.

  Borenson squeezed Myrrima's hand, and she reached into a pocket of her tunic, pulled out a red silk scarf. It was the same one that Borenson had tied to his lance when he'd fought High Marshal Skalbairn in the tournament a week ago, at Castle Sylvarresta.

  “Here,” she said, tying it about his neck. “Keep this safe for me.”

  Then she turned and raced into the tower, disappearing beneath a dark arch.

  Borenson slid down the ladder and went to his own post. He watched the castle tower, until he saw movement in the window on the third story. Myrrima reached out a pale hand and waved, but he couldn't see her face.

  Borenson had been so preoccupied with watching the reaver scouts, he had failed to notice that several men had taken their posts beneath the rampart on Garlands Street. A pair of torches were stuck in the dirt by the sally port, and by their light he spotted someone he knew, Captain Tempest of Longmot. Like Borenson, he was a stout warrior but did not have a wealth of endowments. A third man was a Knight Equitable, Sir Greenswar of Toom, who had taken enough endowments of metabolism to ensure an early grave. Two more champions beside him wore the golden surcoats of Indhopal. They introduced themselves with thick acce
nts. One was a swarthy fellow named Hamil Owatt, ninth son of the Emir to Tuulistan. The second was a tall black man from Deyazz, a warrior from the fierce Tintu tribe named Nguya Kinsagga.

  Nguya looked Borenson over, and blinked once in a sign of respect, but took the lead of the small band. “I fought reavers at this gate a week ago,” Nguya said. “They do not fear a man who backs away from them or one who stands his ground. But when you advance against them, it stops their hearts.” He studied each man, as if by staring he could bore the information into him. He raised his spear and shook it mightily.

  “Don't wear yourselves out,” Borenson suggested to those who had great endowments. “There are five of us here. If any of you start to tire, fall back and let someone else strike the killing blow.”

  Nguya nodded appreciatively, and the men took their posts.

  From the barbican, Borenson could see nothing. The ground began to rumble in earnest as the reaver horde approached. The rumble grew steadily louder, and soon gree began to whip above the courtyard, a sign that reavers were here.

  Borenson found his heart pounding, and he measured the seconds by its beat. He wished that he could go back up on the wall and take a look.

  Excited shouts rose from far-seers, and he listened to their reports. “They're almost to the city gates, but they're hanging back.”

  The thwonk, thwonk, thwonk of artillery fire rose from the rafts out on the lake as the marksmen shot at reavers near the shore. “Milord,” one far-seer cried after a few minutes. “I see Lowicker's troops cresting the hills beyond the Barren's Wall,” and seconds later, “Milord, a spy balloon is taking off to the east!”

  Only Raj Ahten's flameweavers used spy balloons, he knew. He could feel no wind down here in the town square. The castle walls rose up all about him. He peered up, and saw stars twinkling in the heavens, but smoke from the south was covering them like a gauze, and little light reached the streets below. But outside the wind had been blowing lightly to the east. The balloon would soar above the city, above the battle, and from there Raj Ahten's flameweavers would be able to watch in comfort. In an hour's time, perhaps, the balloon would drop to the east, among his troops.