The Lair of Bones

by David Farland

  Borenson glanced south and thought he spotted a man on the castle wall, beneath the dark arch of a tower.

  The man had red hair and a familiar stance, and for a moment Borenson's heart leapt in his chest, for he thought it was his father.

  But he looked again and no one was there.

  He gulped. It was his father's wraith, he felt sure. He had been smiling, as if in welcome.

  Am I to die here? Borenson wondered.

  He looked about, and began to feel panicked for the first time in his life. Always before, he had met battle with grim determination, laughing in the face of death.

  Now he wondered where his father lay. He had found the man's body a week ago, up on the green beneath Duke Paldane's palace. Carris was built on some low hills that rose out of the water. To the east, the hills were riddled with ancient caves and tunnels—tombs for the dead, warehouses meant to store food and troops in time of siege. Most likely, Dorenson's father was down in the tombs by now.

  “The reavers are massing,” a watchman shouted. “I see their fell mage! By the Seven Stones, she's big! Get ready!”

  But for long minutes there was no movement from the reavers. Someone in the streets begged, “What's going on?”

  “They came near the causeway, but after one sniff, they backed off. Now they're out near the worm hill,” the far-seer shouted. “There's a bunch of sorceresses. It looks as if they want to rebuild that rune they had out there, the Seal of Desolation.”

  Borenson peered about. Fires were springing up all along the castle walls. Young men, torchbearers, were racing along the wall-walk, bringing light to anyone who wanted it. He could hear people shouting messages all up and down the length of Carris, but the hiss of reavers, the pounding of reaver feet, drowned out their cries. Where he stood everyone waited in anticipation of the battle, but he had a sense of the city as a hive, a vast hive filled with men and women who bustled about in preparation for war.

  The Wizard Binnesman came down into the courtyard, then went rushing up Garlands Street toward the marinas.

  Moments later, Marshal Chondler came running into the town square, a torch in one hand, a reaver dart in the other. “All Runelords,” he called, “hold your positions. All lords to the east and south of me,” he called, “on my command will begin an orderly retreat to the tombs. All commoners, head for the marina immediately.”

  “What?” one lord shouted down from the wall-walk. “You would have us retreat before the battle begins?”

  In answer, Chondler ordered, “Any man who wants to live will do as I say—now!”

  Hundreds of commoners, archers and healers alike, began to race down from the towers and hurry up Garlands Street, following Binnesman.

  Borenson saw immediately what Chondler intended. Sarka Kaul had warned that Rialla Lowicker and Raj Ahten would not send their troops into battle until Carris was defeated. So Chondler hoped to feign defeat in order to lure them into coming to his aid. By sending lords to guard the tombs, and commoners to the hidden halls that led to the marinas, Chondler would be hiding most of his men underground.

  Gree whipped overhead, squeaking as if in pain, and reavers hissed like a sea.

  Chondler climbed atop the wall, looked down for several long minutes.

  In that time, Borenson saw the spy balloon hovering in the air like a giant graak. The wind was blowing it right over the city. It peeked over the castle walls. Flameweavers glowed within its gondola, as if the fire would burst from them at any moment.

  Chondler shouted to his men, “Don't let the reavers build that rune. Loose the catapults.”

  His marksman shouted, “Sir, at this range we can't hit it with anything larger than grape shot!”

  “Then use grape shot!” Chondler insisted.

  Moments later the artillerymen atop the tower cut loose, sending a hail of iron balls from the walls.

  The reavers hissed in outrage.

  The far-seers began to cry, “They're coming!”

  The thwonk of ballistas filled the air and the twang of a thousand bows arose as missiles rained down, clattering on the causeway.

  “By the Powers, they're fast!” someone swore.

  It won't be long, Borenson thought, even as screams of terror rose along the walls. He grabbed a torch and threw it onto the rampart overhead. The torch landed among the spikes and oil-soaked rags. The rampart blazed, filling the courtyard with light.

  Suddenly a reaver landed in the town square, snarling, a huge mage with a crystalline staff. A pair of ballista bolts protruded from her flank.

  Borenson froze in astonishment.

  She whirled and letflya spell as arrows rained down on her. A red cloud boiled from her staff, and poisonous vapors filled the courtyard, even as arrows pierced her sweet triangle and she shuddered to the ground.

  “Where did she come from?” Borenson wondered, and realized that she had leapt from above. He glanced up and saw three more reavers scurry over the castle wall, sending stones flying as they crashed into merlons.

  A reaver atop the wall lurched forward and swung his long blade, hitting three men at once. The force of the blow sent a spray flying toward Borenson. A pile of guts landed sloppily at his feet, while blood showered from the sky.

  “They're over the walls!” someone cried. A reaver suddenly bounded from the castle wall to the top of a merchant's shop across the street. Six-teen tons of monster hit the roof, which collapsed under the weight. Timbers shattered and rock from the walls tumbled away. Floor after floor buckled, while the men and women inside cried out in pain and horror.

  Archers fell back from the castle wallfiringtoward the monsters in terror.

  The mage's spell hit in a cloud, and Borenson heard words ring in his ears, “Crawl, thou son of man.” Immediately, dismay coursed through him, and his legs went so weak that he could hardly stand. His bowels felt loose, and his heart pounded as if it would burst.

  Along the walls, men dropped in panic. Bows fell from the hands of archers. Stout warriors collapsed in terror.

  A huge blade-bearer plunged from the castle wall, into the street behind Borenson, landing with a crash as its massive body thudded to the cobble-stones, shattering the street.

  Borenson screamed a battle cry and charged.

  37

  IN THE LAIR OF BONES

  Erden Geboren spent seven years searching for the fabled Throne of the Underworld. The fact that he never found it suggests that it may not exist.

  —excerpt from A Comparison of Reports on Reavers, Hearthmaster by Dungiles

  Averan peered down the tunnel that led to the Lair of Bones. A huge blade-bearer was rushing toward her, all the philia along its head waving in alarm at the scent of blood. It skidded to a halt as it became aware of her.

  Averan cleared her mind and sent a thought to the monster. “I'm not real. You are worm dreaming.”

  The reaver froze for an instant, confused, its huge blade in hand. Averan used that moment to strike. She leapt, waving her staff in the air as she did, forming the rune that she had seen Binnesman's wylde use so often.

  She whacked the blade-bearer on the head, striking the bony plates above its muzzle. The monster's skull imploded, sending shards of bone lancing into its brain. The creature collapsed.

  Averan scrambled past the dead reaver, toward the Lair of Bones. She imagined that no one had ever felt as lonely as she did, rushing through the ribbed tunnels. Averan was heading into the heart of the boundless warren, deeper than any human had ever been.

  Sweat streamed down her face, and the silence seemed like a leaden weight. The only sound was the echo of her footfalls, the gasp of her breath.

  If I get hurt or die down here, Averan thought, no one will ever find me.

  The tunnel wound through the warren, joining others at frequent junctures, becoming a twisted maze. Crawlways led in all directions—one to her left ran a dozen miles to underground lakes where reavers raised enormous blindfish. Another to her left dropped to a
n old hatching ground where young sorceresses studied the making of fire runes. Another tunnel plum-meted down to reaver foundries where brutish workers forged tools of steel.

  Another to her right plummeted down into a tunnel whose walls were pure blood metal, a vein of metal so rich that Raj Ahten himself could not have imagined it in his grandest dreams.

  Averan sniffed as she went, making sure that her recollections were correct. She had spent hours communing with the Waymaker, plumbing the depths of its memory. He had known the path well, and Averan now negotiated the twisted warrens with ease.

  But she had miles to go.

  She raced to a pair of howlers, huge yellow spidery creatures that were lugging stone buckets of ore down to the mines. The monsters discarded their buckets and trumpeted an eerie warning as Averan raced past.

  Even the big howlers were more afraid of Averan than she was of them.

  A dozen miles she ran, meeting no reavers. In Waymaker's memory, these tunnels had always been bustling. For the first time Averan began to understand how many reavers the One True Master must have sent to attack Carris.

  She had emptied the Underworld.

  Averan was panting from thirst when she reached a side tunnel that sloped down a hundred yards and then leveled out again as it emptied into the Lair of Bones.

  Here, the ground burned hot. Even with endowments of stamina, no human could survive long.

  Averan sprinted into the chamber. The Lair of Bones was vast, part of a cavern that had existed for millennia. Dripstone hung from the roof, covered with feathery grasses and roots that slowly stirred the air. Reaver bones littered the floor—ancient skulls with gaping crystalline jaws, serrated teeth as long as Averan's arm, and huge leg bones as thick as logs. Dried claws groped the air like scythes, while everywhere lay piles of horny carapace plates so exotic that humans and other surface creatures had nothing to compare them to. The bones were as clear as crystal. Some were so old that they were as dull red as amber, others were the citrine hues of the newly dead.

  The bones climbed upon the ground to a depth of four dozen yards in places, forming small hills, and the reavers had cleared a path between them. Averan trod through a valley of bones.

  These were the vanquished foes of the One True Master, left as trophies so that other reavers might be properly humbled as they sought audience before her.

  Until Averan saw the aged skeletons, she had not truly understood how old the One True Master might be, how hoary her malevolence.

  She knew that the monster had subjugated all of the other reaver hives. But she hadn't guessed how many queens had been destroyed in the process.

  The dead numbered in the thousands.

  Averan slowed as she wound through the vale.

  There should be more reavers here, she thought, at least some of the queen's Shadow Guard.

  But the vast chamber lay silent.

  That means they must have gone to the surface, Averan thought. They'll be leading her troops.

  Still, Averan's gut warned that she wouldn't be able to reach the Chamber of the Seals without passing some guards.

  She wouldn't smell them. The reavers could hide their scents, make themselves smell like rocks and plants. Nor would she see them if they chose to hide.

  She cleared her mind, reached out with her senses, and felt him there, the Consort of Shadows.

  He was up the trail, waiting patiently. He'd suspected that someone might try to make it here.

  “It's me,” Averan whispered to the creature's mind. She timidly ambled forward. “I had to come. I have to destroy the Seals.”

  Faintly, almost as if against its will, she heard the Consort of Shadows answer. “I smelled you. I knew you were coming.”

  “Let me pass,” Averan said.

  Ahead lay a great hill of bones that rose seventy feet into the air, so that they almost scraped against the ceiling. At the very top lay the skulls of giant reavers, noses pointed outward like the petals surrounding a daisy, their open mouths gaping in every direction.

  They formed a nest. The staves of mighty sorceresses were thrust between the skulls, sticking up like a crown. This was the great throne of the One True Master, the seat of power from which she peered down upon her servants. Above the nest, enormous stalactites hung like teeth.

  “The scent of command is upon me,” the Consort of Shadows replied. “I must guard this place.”

  Some bones beneath the throne suddenly shifted, and the Consort of Shadows scrambled up, looming above Averan. In one clawed hand he held a great blade, a weapon unlike any that Averan had ever seen. The metal was cold and black, and the blade rippled in waves. She could smell runes written in scents by powerful reaver mages along the length of it. In the other claw he held a black net woven of reaver hide.

  He was huge, and Averan now recognized the scent of hundreds of runes upon him, and could see their pale blue light flickering like a low flame along the lengths of his arms and on the bony ridge of his enormous head.

  He moved with tremendous speed and grace, and Averan dared not fight him.

  “Your ancestor ate the brains of an Earth Warden,” Averan reminded him. “You know what he knew. I don't come to destroy your people but to help them.”

  The monster lunged.

  Averan raised her staff and imagined a rune on the ceiling above, a rune of stone breaking. Instantly the stone bubbled and the rune took shape.

  The roof of the chamber began to collapse. Massive stalactites sheared away under their own weight.

  The Consort of Shadows darted to the side to avoid the first of them. Averan sprang back, running as fast as she could.

  Stalactites lanced down while slabs of rock flaked from the roof. Above her the Lair of Bone was collapsing.

  Averan ran for her life, racing through the valley of bones. She dodged just as a boulder crashed in her path.

  Raining stone pummeled ancient piles of reaver bone. It thundered, and the floor shook beneath her.

  Averan sprinted toward the mouth of the chamber, fearing that the Consort of Shadows would leap on her at any moment. Rubble pounded the floor. A choking cloud of dust as black as night roiled out from the mess, filling the cave, so that the light of her opal pin was almost worthless. Averan could see no more.

  She threw herself beneath a reaver skull. Stone roared down around her and chunks of rock bounced from the path and slapped her ankles. Blinding dust rushed over her as Averan threw her hands in front of her eyes for protection. Thick dust worked its way into her ears, settled down the back of her throat, clogged her nose. There was nothing to do for it. She waited a long moment for the cave-in to finish.

  She opened her senses, reached out with her mind, and sought the Con-sort of the Shadows.

  The huge reaver lord was in pain. Rocks by the ton weighed down upon his back, slowly crushing the air from him. His right arm was pinned, and with his left he tried to dig his way out. But even with his incredible strength he did not seem to have a hope of escape. He was not a hundred yards behind her.

  I'm sorry, Averan sent the thought to him. I didn't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt anyone.

  The sound of falling stone tapered away. Only a few rocks clanked down from the ceiling and bounced as they settled among the debris.

  Averan climbed up from under the overhanging skull and tried to peer around. The dust was so thick that it blinded her, and it would hang in the air for long hours, hours that she dared not waste.

  She sprang up and picked a path over broken stones, hurrying toward the Chamber of the Seals. Tons of stone and rubble covered the Lair of Bones. Large rocks shifted each time she stepped on them, and she had to wend her way around massive boulders. Averan peered up to the great throne, but the reaver skulls were crushed beneath the tonnage. Averan squinted painfully as she fought through the dust.

  She climbed to the stones where the Consort of Shadows lay buried, worried that at any instant his massive paw might reach up and crush her.<
br />
  She peered into his mind, felt rage and frustration. He struggled to free himself, unaware of how close she might be. Gingerly, she climbed onto a large stone, fearing that the monster might sense her added weight.

  Suddenly a stone shifted beneath her, along with dozens of other rocks nearby that sank a foot as if they had dropped into a sinkhole.

  He's coming! she realized.

  She leapt thirty feet, landed on a large stone, and leapt again. Froglike, she bounded past her buried foe.

  She reached the far side of the Lair of Bones. A tunnel gaped before her, and the rubble suddenly came to an end.

  The Chamber of the Seals was just down the corridor, only three miles. Averan could run it in minutes.

  She raced into the tunnel, bypassing crawlways that led to the One True Master's personal quarters, to her egg chambers. Averan wiped her eyes, fighting back tears.

  The face of Gaborn burned in her memory, and for a moment she worried about how he fared. She was so shaken that she didn't notice the tremors at first.

  An earthquake began to build. The riblike supports on the walls swayed with the motion, and the floor beneath her began to rise and fall as if in waves. Chips of rock and dust peeled from the roof and cracked to the ground.

  The Earth is in pain, Averan thought. She could feel it, the dull sustained ache that cut through the very bones of the world, adding to her own distress.

  She rounded a corner, and a reaver blocked her way, a big lumbering matron. It became aware of Averan charging headlong, and wheeled to flee into the egg chambers. Averan could smell its distress call.

  In the pocket of her wizard robes she carried a sprig of parsley that Binnesman had given her days ago. He had told her to tie it in seven knots and throw it on her trail if anything gave chase. She had tied it in knots, but hadn't needed it until now. Suddenly, the sprig blossomed in her memory.

  She grasped its dried leaves between her fingers, dropped it to the floor, and gave a little chant.