CHAPTER VII
FISHER KEL TATH sat in the gloom of the cave lit only by the small sputtering fire. With his fingertips, he massaged tiny circles over his temples. ‘So let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘You wrecked on the coast while you were returning home?’
Coots and Badlands, both of the Lost clan, nodded vigorously. ‘Aye,’ Badlands answered.
‘And you’ve been down here for how long? Months?’
The brothers shared guilty glances. Coots started counting on his fingers, frowned, shrugged, then scratched his ridged bald pate.
Fisher stared his disbelief. ‘Why haven’t you escaped? You could climb out, couldn’t you?’
Badlands waved a hand. ‘Oh, yeah. Might fall to our deaths any time, though.’
‘But you don’t intend to stay down here for ever, do you? Don’t you want to get home?’
Another quick guilty glance shot between the brothers. Fisher looked from one to the other. ‘What is it … what aren’t you saying? That is, if it’s any of my business.’
Coots laid more moss and dried bracken on the modest fire. He hung his big gnarled hands over his knees. ‘Well …’ he rumbled, ‘we kinda had a fight with Stalker.’
‘Stalker?’ Fisher echoed. Then he remembered. ‘Stalker Lost – head of the clan.’
Badlands was nodding. ‘Yeah. He was all for coming back. We had us a falling out over it. Back when we was captured by that crazy mage in the Galatan Sweep.’
Coots looked offended. ‘Wasn’t then. Was when we tried pirating but got chased down by that Elingarth navy convoy.’
‘Was not! Was when you shacked up with that queen o’ them troglodytes!’
‘They wasn’t troglodytes – they just had an aversion to sunlight.’
Fisher raised a hand for a pause. ‘Well, you can’t mean to stay, surely? What are you eating?’
Coots looked to the low soot-blackened stone ceiling. ‘Oh … lizards, salamanders, bats, rats, birds, eggs, mushrooms, roots, frogs, and a cliff-climbing mammal kinda like a marmot.’
‘And a mountain goat,’ Badlands added.
Coots snapped his fingers. ‘Right. Forgot about that. There’s mountain goats on these cliffs too.’
Fisher’s brows rose. ‘Ah. I see. So you’re out hunting mountain goats?’
Badlands nodded. ‘Yeah. And there’s fish in the stream below.’ Fisher glanced over to Jethiss who stood to one side, frowning his confusion. ‘But this Bonewight means to take your bones, yes?’
Coots waved that aside. ‘Not till after spring break-up. That’s when the flood coming down the valley might damage the bridge’s foundations. Least, that’s what Yrkki says.’
‘Yrkki?’
‘Yeah. Yrkki. An’ he’s not a bonewight – he’s a bonewright. He’s real particular about that.’
‘He says he knows my name,’ Jethiss said from the darkness where the glow from the fire barely touched him.
Both Coots and Badlands eyed the Andii for a time. Badlands gave a musing frown, ‘Well, if he says he does, then he probably does.’
‘I want it from him.’
Coot blew out a breath, stretched. ‘Real cagey with what he knows is Yrkki. Been hanging around here for ages. Treats us like we’re equals, though. Funny that.’
Fisher took a breath and sang, low and slow: ‘Set in stone to ward the way, spirit guardians await the day.’
Coots and Badlands blinked at Fisher, then Badlands scratched his scalp beneath his bunched hair. ‘I’ve heard that before. That one o’ yours, Fish?’
‘Not originally. I transcribed it from a much older poem.’
Coots cracked his knuckles one by one. ‘Hunh. So you’re sayin’ Yrkki’s a prisoner himself? Set here to guard the way. Set by who?’
‘By the Jaghut,’ Fisher answered. He kept the rest of his suspicions to himself.
Badlands laughed. ‘Them old stories. Ghost stories. Hobgoblins and ghoulies in the night. All them hoary old ones is all long gone.’
‘An’ who’s he supposed to be guarding against, then?’ Coots asked.
‘The Jaghut’s enemy.’
The brothers lost their smiles. ‘That’s not funny, Fish,’ Coots rumbled.
‘I thought you said they were all gone?’
Badland’s lips drew tight over his large teeth. ‘You know they ain’t.’
‘Exactly. Kellanved changed that. We need to warn the north.’
‘I’m thinking the Eithjar know,’ said Coots.
‘What is this you are talking of?’ Jethiss asked from the darkness.
Fisher straightened, set his hands on his knees. ‘Sorry, Jethiss. Local history. Old feuds.’ He motioned to Coots. ‘In any case, we should bring word.’
The brothers shared a measuring glance. ‘Well,’ Badlands allowed, ‘only if you talk to Stalker.’ He cut a hand through the air. ‘’Cause we swore we weren’t comin’ back.’ Coots nodded his firm agreement.
Fisher looked to the low roof and sighed. ‘Fine. You don’t have to come all the way.’
‘So – we are going?’ Jethiss asked.
‘Yes.’ Fisher stood, dusted his trousers. ‘I’m sorry he did not give you your name.’
Jethiss nodded his sour agreement. ‘Yes. Nor is he likely to, I suspect.’
Badlands pointed towards the distant cave opening. ‘We was thinking we’d climb along the trelliswork. Plenty of handholds there.’
Fisher thought of going hand over hand across that grisly construction and shuddered. What horrors might he encounter among those bones? Still, it was probably the best plan. He nodded. ‘Very good.’
‘Let us wait until night,’ Jethiss said.
Coots raised his opened hands. ‘Night, day. What difference does it make?’
‘It might make a difference to me.’
‘Fine,’ Fisher said. ‘We’ll wait.’ He motioned to Coots. ‘What do you have to eat?’
‘Got some dried bat.’
‘Never mind.’
*
It was a clear night. The stars glimmered sharp and cold; the moon had yet to rise. Coots led the way out of the cave mouth. He scrabbled along a thin ledge using hand- and footholds. Fisher followed, then came Badlands, and Jethiss last. Coots edged along the rough rock of the cliff face. The ghoulish pale latticework of the bridge neared. They were perhaps a chain down from the walkway. Below, the trellising extended far deeper into the ravine, to be swallowed by the dark. Fisher heard the crash and hissing of churning water.
Here, dried ligaments and sinew secured the bones to the rocks of the cliff. Fisher felt his stomach rebelling at the thought of having to grasp such gruesome handholds. Coots, however, swung out on to the bones without any pause or outward show of scruples or disgust.
Reluctantly, Fisher followed. He found the bones dry and rough to his grip. They actually provided very secure holds. Many were not tied at all, being merely locked together as if they’d grown, or been bent, to fit one over another like hooks or woven rope. Fisher wondered anew at the creature’s self-proclaimed title: Bonewright.
He slipped his feet into convenient pelvic curves, used ribs like ladder rungs, edged along gigantic femurs that must have come from titanic ancient ungulates such as the legendary giant elk or caribou. At times the full visceral realization came to him of what he was suspended upon and he would break into a cold sweat, shivering, as his vision darkened. But these fits would pass, or he would force them away by concentrating upon other things – the sanctuary of the far side, for example – and he would continue after a few moments.
One by one they made the opposite side of the ravine. Jethiss came last. He swung out on to the cliff-face and was helped up by Badlands. The brothers then faced one another and threw up their hands, yelling at same moment: ‘Run for it!’
Fisher stared after them as they legged it across the dirt landing. It cannot possibly be this easy, he thought to himself.
And indeed, at that moment the ground rocked beneath their feet. Thought so, Fisher managed before stumbling and being pulled from the edge by Jethiss. The dirt landing erupted beneath the brothers, sending them flying skyward amid a spray of dirt and gravel.
The Bonewright, Yrkki, heaved himself up from the ground.
Coots landed heavily amid broken rocks, but as if he were made of nothing more than a twisted knot of muscle and gristle he was up in an instant, long-knives in hand, to launch himself at the creature. Bone chips flew as he slashed at a limb. Badlands latched on to the other leg and began to pull himself up the massive bone.
Yrkki tottered and kicked. Its roars brought rocks crashing down from the surrounding cliffs. Fisher and Jethiss began working their way around it, if only to avoid being crushed beneath its enormous feet.
‘Go for its spine!’ Coots yelled.
‘You go for the damned spine!’ his brother yelled back.
Yrkki swatted at Coots. ‘Do not make me break your bones,’ he thundered.
Fisher and Jethiss had circled around the battle. Fisher drew his sword. ‘We cannot leave this to the brothers,’ he told Jethiss.
‘No indeed,’ the Andii answered. He startled Fisher by running out into the open. ‘Yrkki!’ he bellowed. ‘I demand that you give me my name!’
The creature straightened and turned round. He held a struggling brother in each hand. The giant dragon skull lowered to regard Jethiss more closely. The otherworldly deep ocean-blue flames seemed to brighten in its empty sockets ‘Your name would only make you weep,’ he boomed in his basso voice.
‘No!’ The word seemed torn from Jethiss. He thrust out his hands as if refusing to accept what he heard. Darkness flew at the Bone-wright. Ink-black folds seemed to coalesce from the surrounding night to enmesh it. It threw the brothers free to claw at them.
‘What is this?’ Yrkki bellowed. ‘Galain?’
Jethiss thrust out his hands again and the monster tottered backwards, flailing. The folds and scarves of night appeared to be yanking it back into the ravine. The naked talons of its feet slid and gouged at the dirt as it slid. ‘None shall remember your name!’ it boomed as the black folds enmeshed its skull and it fell backwards, bone legs kicking, to disappear over the cliff’s edge.
Jethiss slumped to the dirt. Fisher ran to pick him up. Badlands joined him and threw the Andii over his shoulder. ‘Run!’ the man yelled, spraying blood from a split lip. They ran. Coots came behind, weapons out, covering their retreat.
They climbed a switchback trail that led to a knife-sharp ridge of rotten rock. The far side sloped down into a high mountain valley. It was a dark night but Fisher could make out a stretch of woods below. Badlands set Jethiss down in the hollow of two large leaning halves of rock, then sat rather heavily. Fisher eased himself down next to him. Badlands felt at his mouth. ‘I think I lotht a damned toof!’
Coots came to stand over them. ‘You’re always okay ’cause you land on your head.’
‘Same as you ’cept it’th your ath!’
Coots gestured to Jethiss, who lay unconscious. ‘How’d your friend do that?’
‘I don’t think even he knows,’ Fisher answered.
Coots grunted his acceptance, then rubbed the wide bulge of his stomach. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said, peering about. ‘I’m gonna hunt something up.’ He walked off into the dark.
‘Better be thoft and thewy!’ Badlands called after him, then groaned and cupped his mouth.
Fisher tucked a roll of bedding under Jethiss’s head. ‘I’ll take watch, if you like,’ he told Badlands.
The brother waved a negative. ‘Naw. You thweep. My mouth hurths.’
Fisher nodded, edged down further into his seat against the rock, tucked his hands under his arms, and let his chin fall. After the exhausting rush of the encounter with Yrkki, sleep came quite quickly.
The delicious smell of roasting meat woke him. He sat up, blinking. Badlands and Coots were crouched at a small fire. Two skinned and gutted rabbits roasted on sticks over the flames. Jethiss sat nearby, arms draped over his crossed legs. He appeared troubled and distracted; Fisher could imagine why. What the man had accomplished was the manipulation of Elemental Night. Something open to the mages of his kind, yet he had made no mention of such a capacity. Who knows what else might lie hidden in him?
‘Found the trail of your buddies,’ Coots said, and licked fat from his fingers.
‘Thank you.’
‘Easy to follow. They only have a few days on you.’
‘Thanks.’ Fisher searched among his feelings: he found no desire to return to the raiding party. He’d much rather strike straight north. ‘I thought we were heading to the Lost Holding.’
Badlands carried a swollen purple-bruised mouth and cheek. He slurred: ‘It’s othay. You doan’ have to come.’
‘I want to. What of you, Jethiss?’
The Andii was staring at the fire. ‘It matters not to me,’ he murmured.
‘We’ll come with you, then.’
The brothers exchanged dubious looks. ‘We move pretty fast,’ Coots explained.
‘We’ll keep up.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He gestured to the rabbits. ‘Eat up and we’ll go.’
Fisher discovered that the brothers were not exaggerating. After they’d eaten and drunk from waterskins and Fisher had rubbed his teeth with a green twig, the brothers kicked dirt over the fire then took off at a run. Fisher was quite startled, but followed quickly. Jethiss came after. Soon, Fisher found that he had to increase his pace considerably in order to keep the brothers in sight.
The Losts ran pell-mell down slopes, dodged trees, jumped from fallen logs and leaned into steep slides of loose talus and broken rock, guiding themselves with a hand. Fisher struggled to follow. His breath came hard and his chest burned. But as the sun climbed overhead his legs loosened up and his breathing eased. He found his pace, and glancing back saw that so too had Jethiss, as the man followed with an easy loping gait.
He came abreast of Badlands. Or rather, Badlands fell back to him; the man ran with a hand pressed to his mouth, breathing loudly, leaning over to spit blood, cursing and wincing as he went. He fell back behind Fisher, then Jethiss as well.
Coots did not stop for any sort of mid-day rest or meal and so Fisher had no choice but to follow. The man appeared to be striking a course far more east than north. They crossed steep mountain shoulders and narrow valleys, scrambled up naked rock ridges, shuffled and half tumbled down the other sides into dense forests of conifer and slashing stiff-branched brush that exploded in sharp bursts when Coots bulled through.
By late in the day Fisher was stumbling, exhausted, hardly able to lift his burning bruised feet. He pushed through a thick copse of spruce and caught the welcome sight of Coots standing motionless on a rock outcropping that jutted from the mountain shoulder they were descending. The sun cast an amber-gold light over the valley side from where it sizzled on the western horizon.
Coots stood shading his gaze to the north. Fisher joined him, panting and gulping the biting chill air. The Lost brother shot him a sidelong glance and grunted his approval.
Fisher swallowed to wet his burning throat. ‘What is it?’
Coots gestured, inviting him to look. He stepped up, shaded his gaze. To the north, the mountain slopes graded down in falling arcs to reveal hazy foothills beyond. Past the hills, a body of water glimmered golden yellow in the sunset. Beyond the flat glittering field of water, mountains rose so far away as to be deep blue. These rearing heights climbed to snow-white peaks tinged with a hint of sapphire. The sunset washed the ice-capped heights in a glow of salmon-amber.
‘The Salt range,’ Fisher said. He did not add that the mountain range looked no different from what he remembered growing up beneath its looming bulk.
‘Aye.’ Coots pointed a blunt finger below. ‘And the Sea of Gold.’
‘Hazy,’ Fisher observed.
The man’s eyes, narrowed beneath his shelf-like hairless brows, appeared troubled. He rubbed one of his gold earrings between a thumb and forefinger. ‘Aye,’ he murmured, thinking.
Jethiss joined them. Fisher cast him a glance and was envious to see that the Andii did not even appear winded. That was just not fair.
‘We’ll camp here,’ Coots said, and he eased himself down on the rock, grunting and grumbling. He unrolled a strip of leather to reveal what was left of the roasted rabbit, and passed it round for them to pick at.
Badlands finally came staggering in. He had a hand pressed to his mouth and was keeping up a steady stream of slurred cursing as he came. He sat heavily. Fisher offered him the rabbit but the man winced at the sight of it and waved it off.
‘I’d better have a look at that,’ Coots said.
Badlands flinched away. ‘Theep y’ham hanths off, y’ox!’
‘You might get an infection,’ Fisher said.
‘Thalker can thake a look.’
‘Stalker does the cutting and bonesetting,’ Coots explained.
‘He might not make it …’
‘I’ll make it!’
Fisher shrugged. Fine. They’d see, he supposed. He turned to Jethiss. ‘How are you?’
The Andii shrugged.
Fisher wished to improve the fellow’s mood. ‘There are powers in the north. Perhaps one of them might find your name …’
The man’s head snapped up at that, his gaze suddenly sharp and fierce, as if Fisher’s words had awakened something within him. A memory, perhaps. For some vaguely troubling reason Fisher wished he hadn’t mentioned the possibility.
When night came Coots stood and peered out over the cliff’s edge. Curious, Fisher joined him again. He squinted down to the black glimmering slate-like expanse that was the Sea of Gold. A blush of lurid yellow light glowed in a halo around the sea.
‘A lot of fires,’ Coots rumbled, explaining. ‘Smoke by day, fire by night. Looks like war in the lowlands.’
‘We go round, I take it?’
The big fellow nodded. He ran a hand over the ridged and scarred armour-like pate of his skull. ‘Aye. We go round.’