Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  Maybe captain’s got a bottle of something. Maybe if I call her over and talk real sweet, real sane and reasonable, maybe then they’d untie me. I won’t kill Urb. I promise. You can have him, Captain. That’s what I’ll say. And she’ll hesitate – I would – but then nod – the idiot – and cut these ropes. And hand me a bottle and I’ll finish it. Finish it and everybody’ll say, hey, it’s all right, then. She’s back to normal.

  And that’s when I’ll go for his throat. With my teeth – no, they’re loose, can’t use ’em for that. Find a knife, that’s what I have to do. Or a sword. I could trade the bottle for a sword. I did it the other way round, didn’t I? Half the bottle. I’ll drink the other half. Half a bottle, half a sword. A knife. Half a bottle for a knife. Which I’ll stick in his throat, then trade back, for the other half of the bottle – if I’m quick that should work fine. I get the knife and the whole bottle.

  But first, she should untie me. That’s only fair.

  I’m fine, as everyone can see. Peaceful, thoughtful—

  ‘Sergeant?’

  ‘What is it, Urb?’

  ‘I think you still want to kill me.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘The way you growl and gnash your teeth, I guess.’

  Not me, that’s for sure.

  Oh, that’s why my teeth still hurt so. I’ve made them even looser with all that gnashing. Gods, I used to dream stuff like this, my teeth all coming loose. The bastard punched me. No different from that man who disappeared, what was his name again?

  Flashwit levered her bulk further down in the soft bed her weight had impressed in the sand. ‘I wish,’ she said.

  Mayfly pursed her lips, then adjusted the nose she’d had broken more times than she could count. Moving it around made clicking sounds that she found, for some reason, vaguely satisfying. ‘You wish what?’

  ‘I wish I knew things, I guess.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Well, listen to Bottle there. And Gesler, and Deadsmell. They’re smart. They talk about things and all that other stuff. That’s what I wish.’

  ‘Yeah, well, all those brains are goin’ t’waste though, ain’t they?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Mayfly snorted. ‘You and me, Flashwit, we’re heavy infantry, right? We plant our feet and we make the stand, and it don’t matter what it’s for. None a that don’t matter.’

  ‘But Bottle—’

  ‘Waste, Flashwit. They’re soldiers, for Treach’s sake. Soldiers. So who needs brains to soldier? They just get in the way of soldierin’ and it’s no good things gettin’ in the way. They figure things out and that gives ’em opinions and then maybe they don’t want t’fight as much no more.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they want to fight no more ’cause of ’pinions?’

  ‘It’s simple, Flashwit. Trust me. If soldiers thought too much about what they’re doin’, they wouldn’t fight no more.’

  ‘So how come I’m so tired, anyway, only I can’t sleep?’

  ‘That’s simple, too.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Yeah, an’ it ain’t the stars neither. We’re waitin’ for the sun to come up. We all want to see that sun, because it was looking like we’d never see it no more.’

  ‘Yeah.’ A long contemplative silence, then, ‘I wish.’

  ‘Now what do you wish?’

  ‘Only, that I was smart as you, Mayfly. You’re so smart you got no ’pinions and that’s pretty smart an’ it makes me wonder if you ain’t goin’ t’waste being a heavy an’ that. A soljer.’

  ‘I ain’t smart, Flashwit. Trust me on that, an’ you know how I know?’

  ‘No, how?’

  ‘’Cause… down there… you an’ me, an’ Saltlick an’ Shortnose an’ Uru Hela an’ Hanno, us heavies. We didn’t get scared, not one of us, and that’s how I know.’

  ‘It wasn’t scary. Jus’ dark, an’ it seemed t’go on for ever an’ waitin’ for Bottle to get us through, well that got boring sometimes, you know.’

  ‘Right, and did the fire get you scared?’

  ‘Well, burnin’ hurt, didn’t it?’

  ‘Sure did.’

  ‘I didn’t like that.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘So, what do you think we’re all gonna do now?’

  ‘The Fourteenth? Don’t know, save the world, maybe.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. I’d like that.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Hey, is that the sun comin’ up?’

  ‘Well, it’s east where it’s getting brighter, so I guess, yeah, it must be.’

  ‘Great. I bin waiting for this. I think.’

  Cuttle found sergeants Thom Tissy, Cord and Gesler gathered near the base of the slope leading up to the west road. It seemed they weren’t much interested in the rising sun. ‘You’re all looking serious,’ the sapper said.

  ‘We got a walk ahead of us,’ Gesler said, ‘that’s all.’

  ‘The Adjunct had no choice,’ Cuttle said. ‘That was a firestorm – there was no way she could have known there’d be survivors – digging under it all that way.’

  Gesler glanced at the other two sergeants, then nodded. ‘It’s all right, Cuttle. We know. We’re not contemplating murder or anything.’

  Cuttle turned to face the camp. ‘Some of the soldiers are thinking wrong on all of this.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Cord, ‘but we’ll put ’em straight on it before this day’s out.’

  ‘Good. Thing is,’ he hesitated, turning back to the sergeants, ‘I’ve been thinking on that. Who in Hood’s name is going to believe us? More like we did our own deal with the Queen of Dreams. After all, we got one of Leoman’s officers with us. And now, with the captain and Sinn going and getting themselves outlawed, well, it could be seen we’re all traitors or something.’

  ‘We made no deal with the Queen of Dreams,’ Cord said.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  All three sergeants looked at him then.

  Cuttle shrugged. ‘Bottle, he’s a strange one. Maybe he did make some deal, with somebody. Maybe the Queen of Dreams, maybe some other god.’

  ‘He’d have told us, wouldn’t he?’ Gesler asked.

  ‘Hard to say. He’s a sneaky bastard. I’m getting nervous about that damned rat biting every one of us, like it knew what it was doing and we didn’t.’

  ‘Just a wild rat,’ said Thom Tissy. ‘Ain’t nobody’s pet, so why wouldn’t it bite?’

  Gesler said, ‘Listen, Cuttle, sounds like you’re just finding new things to worry about. What’s the point of doing that? What we’ve got ahead of us right now is a long walk, and us with no armour, no weapons and virtually no clothing – the sun’s gonna bake people crisp.’

  ‘We need to find a village,’ Cord said, ‘and hope to Hood plague ain’t found it first.’

  ‘There you go, Cuttle,’ Gesler said, grinning. ‘Now you got another thing to worry about.’

  Paran began to suspect that his horse knew what was coming: nostrils flaring, tossing its head as it shied and stamped, fighting the reins all the way down the trail. The freshwater sea was choppy, silty waves in the bay rolling up to batter at sun-bleached limestone crags. Dead desert bushes poked skeletal limbs out of the muddy shallows and insects swarmed everywhere.

  ‘This is not the ancient sea,’ Ganath said as she approached the shoreline.

  ‘No,’ Paran admitted. ‘Half a year ago Raraku was a desert, and had been for thousands of years. Then, there was a… rebirth of sorts.’

  ‘It will not last. Nothing lasts.’

  He eyed the Jaghut woman for a moment. She stood looking out on the ochre waves, motionless for a dozen heartbeats, then she made her way down into the shallows. Paran dismounted and hobbled the horses, narrowly evading an attempted bite from the gelding he had been riding. He unpacked his camp kit and set about building a hearth. Plenty of driftwood about, including entire uprooted trees, and it was not long before he had a cookfire lit
.

  Finished her bathing, Ganath joined him and stood nearby, water streaming down her oddly coloured, smooth skin. ‘The spirits of the deep springs have awakened,’ she said. ‘It feels as if this place is young once again. Young, and raw. I do not understand.’

  Paran nodded. ‘Young, aye. And vulnerable.’

  ‘Yes. Why are you here?’

  ‘Ganath, it might be safer for you if you left.’

  ‘When do you begin the ritual?’

  ‘It’s already begun.’

  She glanced away. ‘You are a strange god. Riding a miserable creature that dreams of killing you. Building a fire with which to cook food. Tell me, in this new world, are all gods such as you?’

  ‘I’m not a god,’ Paran said. ‘In place of the ancient Tiles of the Holds – and I’ll grant you I’m not sure that’s what they were called – in any case, there is now the Deck of Dragons, a fatid containing the High Houses. I am the Master of that Deck—’

  ‘A Master, in the same manner as the Errant?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Master of the Holds in my time,’ she replied.

  ‘I suppose so, then.’

  ‘He was an ascendant, Ganoes Paran. Worshipped as a god by enclaves of Imass, Barghast and Trell. They kept his mouth filled with blood. He never knew thirst. Nor peace. I wonder how he fell.’

  ‘I think I’d like to know that detail myself,’ Paran said, shaken by the Jaghut’s words. ‘No-one worships me, Ganath.’

  ‘They will. You are newly ascended. Even in this world of yours, I am certain that there is no shortage of followers, of those who are desperate to believe. And they will hunt down others and make of them victims. They will cut them and fill bowls with their innocent blood, in your name, Ganoes Paran, and so beseech your intercession, your adherence to whatever cause they righteously fashion. The Errant thought to defeat them, as you might well seek to do, and so he became the god of change. He walked the path of neutrality, yet flavoured it with a pleasure taken in impermanence. The Errant’s enemy was ennui, stagnation. This is why the Forkrul Assail sought to annihilate him. And all his mortal followers.’ She paused, then added, ‘Perhaps they succeeded. The Assail were never easily diverted from their chosen course.’

  Paran said nothing. There were truths in her words that even he recognized, and they now weighed upon him, settling heavy and imponderable upon his spirit. Burdens were born from the loss of innocence. Naïveté. While the innocent yearned to lose their innocence, those who had already done so in turn envied the innocent, and knew grief in what they had lost. Between the two, no exchange of truths was possible. He sensed the completion of an internal journey, and Paran found he did not appreciate recognizing that fact, nor the place where he now found himself. It did not suit him that ignorance remained inextricably bound to innocence, and the loss of one meant the loss of the other.

  ‘I have troubled your mind, Ganoes Paran.’

  He glanced up, then shrugged. ‘You have been… timely. Much to my regret, yet still,’ he shrugged again, ‘perhaps all for the best.’

  She faced the sea again and he followed her gaze. A sudden calm upon the modest bay before them, whilst white-caps continued to chop the waters beyond. ‘What is happening?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re coming.’

  Some distant clamour, now, rising as if from a deep cavern, and the sunset seemed to have grown sickly, its very fires slave to a chaotic tumult, as if the shades of a hundred thousand sunsets and sunrises now waged celestial war. Whilst the horizons closed in, flickering with darkness, smoke and racing storms of sand and dust.

  A stirring upon the pellucid waters of the bay, silt clouds rising from beneath, and the calm was spreading outward now, south, stilling the sea’s wildness.

  Ganath stepped back. ‘What have you done?’

  Muted but growing, the scuffle and rumble, the clangour and throat-hum, the sound of marching armies, the echoing of locked shields, the tympanous beat of iron and bronze weapons upon battered rims, of wagons creaking and churning rutted roads, and now the susurration, thrumming collisions, walls of horseflesh hammering into rows of raised pikes, the animal screams filling the air, then fading, only for the collision to repeat, louder this time, closer, and there was a violent patter cutting a swath across the bay, leaving a pale, muddy red road in its wake that bled outward, edges tearing, even as it sank down into the depths. Voices, now, crying out, bellowing, piteous and enraged, a cacophony of enmeshed lives, each one seeking to separate itself, seeking to claim its own existence, unique, a thing with eyes and voice. Fraught minds clutching at memories that tore away like shredded banners, with every gush of lost blood, with every crushing failure – soldiers, dying, ever dying—

  Paran and Ganath watched, as colourless, sodden standards pierced the surface of the water, the spears lifting into the air, streaming mud – standards, banners, pikes bearing grisly, rotting trophies, rising along the entire shoreline now.

  Raraku Sea had given up its dead.

  In answer to the call of one man.

  White, like slashes of absence, bone hands gripping shafts of black wood, forearms beneath tattered leather and corroded vambraces, and then, lifting clear of the water, rotted helms and flesh-stripped faces. Human, Trell, Barghast, Imass, Jaghut. The races, and all their race-wars. Oh, could I drag every mortal historian down here, to this shore, so that they could look upon our true roll, our progression of hatred and annihilation.

  How many would seek, desperate in whatever zealotry gripped them, to hunt reasons and justifications? Causes, crimes and justices – Paran’s thoughts stuttered to a halt, as he realized that, like Ganath, he had been backing up, step by step, pushed back, in the face of revelation. Oh, these messengers would earn so much… displeasure. And vilification. And these dead, oh how they’d laugh, understanding so well the defensive tactic of all-out attack. The dead mock us, mock us all, and need say nothing…

  All those enemies of reason – yet not reason as a force, or a god, not reason in the cold, critical sense. Reason only in its purest armour, when it strides forward into the midst of those haters of tolerance, oh gods below, I am lost, lost in all of this. You cannot fight unreason, and as these dead multitudes will tell you – are telling you even now – certitude is the enemy.

  ‘These,’ Ganath whispered, ‘these dead have no blood to give you, Ganoes Paran. They will not worship. They will not follow. They will not dream of glory in your eyes. They are done with that, with all of that. What do you see, Ganoes Paran, in these staring holes that once were eyes? What do you see?’

  ‘Answers,’ he replied.

  ‘Answers?’ Her voice was harsh with rage. ‘To what?’

  Not replying, Paran forced himself forward, one step, then another.

  The first ranks stood upon the shore’s verge, foam swirling round their skeletal feet, behind them thousands upon thousands of kin. Clutching weapons of wood, bone, horn, flint, copper, bronze and iron. Arrayed in fragments of armour, fur, hide. Silent, now, motionless.

  The sky overhead was dark, lowering and yet still, as if a storm had drawn its first breath… only to hold it.

  Paran looked upon that ghastly rank facing him. He was not sure how to do this – he had not even known if his summoning would succeed. And now… there are so many. He cleared his throat, then began calling out names.

  ‘Shank! Aimless! Runter! Detoran! Bucklund, Hedge, Mulch, Toes, Trotts!’ And still more names, as he scoured his memory, his recollection, for every Bridgeburner he knew had died. At Coral, beneath Pale, in Blackdog Forest and Mott Wood, north of Genabaris and northeast of Nathilog – names he had once fixed in his mind as he researched – for Adjunct Lorn – the turgid, grim history of the Bridgeburners. He drew upon names of the deserters, although he knew not if they lived still or, if indeed dead, whether or not they had returned to the fold. The ones that had vanished in Blackdog’s great marshes, that had disappeared after the taking of Mott City.

/>   And when he was done, when he could remember no more names, he began his list again.

  Then saw one figure in the front row dissolving, melting into sludge that pooled in the shallow water, slowly seeping away. And in its place arose a man he recognized, the fire-scorched, blasted face grinning – Paran belatedly realized that the brutal smile held no amusement, only the memory of a death-grimace. That and the terrible damage left behind by a weapon.

  ‘Runter,’ Paran whispered. ‘Black Coral—’

  ‘Captain,’ cut in the dead sapper, ‘what are you doing here?’

  I wish people would stop asking me that. ‘I need your help.’

  More Bridgeburners were forming in the front ranks. Detoran. Sergeant Bucklund. Hedge, who now stepped from the water’s edge. ‘Captain. I always wondered why you were so hard to kill. Now I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Aye, you’re doomed to haunt us! Hah! Hah hah!’ Behind him, the others began laughing.

  Hundreds of thousands of ghosts, all joined in laughter, was a sound Ganoes Paran never, ever wanted to hear again. Mercifully, it was shortlived, as if all at once the army of dead forgot the reason for their amusement.

  ‘Now,’ Hedge finally said, ‘as you can see, we’re busy. Hah!’

  Paran shot out a hand. ‘No, please, don’t start again, Hedge.’

  ‘Typical. People need to be dead to develop a real sense of humour. You know, Captain, from this side the world seems a whole lot funnier. Funny in a stupid, pointless way, I’ll grant you—’

  ‘Enough of that, Hedge. You think I don’t sense the desperation here? You’re all in trouble – even worse, you need us. The living, that is, and that’s the part you don’t want to admit—’

  ‘I admitted it clear enough,’ Hedge said. ‘To Fid.’