The Lair of Bones Read online

  So she closed her burning eyes. “I'll only let my eyes rest,” she told her-self. “I won't sleep.”

  Erin feared that she would lose her mind. The dreams that came every time she succumbed to sleep were so vivid that she felt that now her horse was galloping through a dream, and when she slept, she would awaken to some truer world.

  She dreamt. Only a vague flash of vision, an image of the great owl in its dark burrow. It had moved from its previous roost, and now huddled farther in the shadows. The gray-and-white pattern of its feathers looked like dead leaves plastered above bones.

  Erin peered into its unblinking golden eyes, and said, “Leave me alone. I don't want to speak to you.”

  “You fear me,” the owl said, its thoughts piercing her mind with more shades of emotion and insight than mere words could convey. “You need not fear me. I am not your enemy.”

  “You are madness,” Erin said, willing herself to wake. The image faded.

  The horses rounded a bend just at sunrise, and Captain Gantrell called, “Troo-oops, haw-aalt!”

  Erin opened her eyes, imagining that they were stopping to let another wagon train pass.

  Instead, near the road ahead lay a serene little pond covered in morning mist, and above it loomed a purple pavilion with gold trim: royal colors.

  King Anders himself knelt beside the pool, his shirt off, washing himself in the cool morning air. He stood tall, lean, almost haggard in appearance, with a skeletal head and only a wisp of beard.

  His Days, a historian who chronicled his life, brushed down a horse nearby, preparing to ride.

  Near the king a plump old woman dressed in grayish rags squatted on a large rock, while squirrels darted around her in play. She would crack a hazelnut between her tough fingers and then toss it in the air. The squirrels made a game of racing over her shoulders or leaping into her lap to catch the nut before it touched ground.

  Celinor nudged Erin, nodded toward the woman. “The Nut Woman, an Earth Warden from Elyan Wood.”

  In her dreamlike fog, Erin thought it to be one of the strangest scenes in her life.

  So, this is mad King Anders, she thought, looking back at the pasty old lord with his sagging breasts—the man I may have to kill.

  He didn't look frightening at all.

  The king half turned, peering up from his morning ablutions with a frown, as if worried to hear the approach of troops. Yet he spotted Celinor and the frown disintegrated, blossoming into a heartfelt smile.

  “My son,” King Anders called, his tone conveying only solemn joy. “You've come home!” He grabbed a towel that lay draped over a nearby bush and dried himself as he rushed forward. Celinor leapt from his saddle, and hugged the old man as they met.

  The hug was short-lived. Celinor pushed his father away. “What's the meaning of all these troops on the border, Father? Are you going to start a war?”

  King Anders managed to look hurt as he answered, “Start a war? My dear lad, I may finish a war, but I've never been known to start one.” Anders held his son's hands, but peered over Celinor's shoulder at Erin.

  “And who have we here?” he asked. “Erin Connal? Your picture doesn't do you justice, fair lady.”

  “Thank you,” Erin answered, surprised that he would recognize her face from a tiny picture painted on a promise locket nearly a decade past.

  King Anders smiled a genuine smile, a smile of welcome and warmth and gratitude. His gray eyes seemed to stare into Erin, through her. He left Celinor, came to gaze upon Erin more fully.

  Her horse shied away, but when he reached out and touched it, the animal immediately calmed.

  King Anders raised his left hand in the air. “I Choose you, Erin Connal,” he said. “I Choose you for the Earth. If ever you are in danger and hear my voice whisper within you, obey it, and I will lead you to safety.”

  Erin leaned back in her saddle, a grunt of surprise rising from her throat. Of all the words that he could have said, she expected these the least, for he used the very phrase that Gaborn had spoken when, as Earth King, he had Chosen her to be one of his warriors. Could it be that Anders, too, now had the ability to Choose, to select her as one of his soldiers and use the Earth Sight to recognize when she was in danger, then send her warnings?

  No, it was blasphemy.

  “By what right?” Erin asked. “By what right do you do this?”

  “By every right,” King Anders said. “I am the Earth King. The Earth has called me to save a seed of mankind through the dark times to come.”

  Erin stared at King Anders, dumbfounded. His manner seemed perfectly sincere. His gray eyes looked kind, thoughtful, and benevolent. He held himself with certitude. He smiled in a manner disarmingly warm. In physical appearance, he looked nothing like Gaborn. Yet in his bearing, it was as if Gaborn had been reborn in him.

  “What do you mean, you're the Earth King?” Celinor asked.

  “It happened but yesterday, in the morning. I must confess that I had been feeling strangely for days. I'd sensed that dark times were coming, that great things were afoot, and so I retired to the woods to ponder them. The woods seemed quiet, tense. All of the squirrels were gone. I went searching for the Nut Woman—”

  At this, the Nut Woman got off her rock, and ambled over to the party, squirrels prancing madly around her feet.

  King Anders continued, “I found her in her cave, packing some dried herbs and whatnot. She told me that she had taken the squirrels to safety, and only returned to get a few things. Then, she led me deep into the woods, to a certain grotto.”

  The Nut Woman put a hand on the king's shoulder, as if begging him to let her continue the tale. “There,” she said, with a voice filled with awe, “the Earth Spirit appeared to us, and warned us that dark times are coming, darker than any this world has ever known. The Earth warned your father: ‘Be faithful! Cling to me, and my powers will attend you. Abandon me, and I shall abandon you: as 1 have abandoned the Earth King before you!' “

  Anders turned away as if the thought of a man losing his Earth Powers wounded him to the core. “Poor Gaborn, to be so cursed,” Anders lamented. “Dear boy. I fear that all the good he tried to do will turn to evil. I doubted him. But he was called of the Earth, if only for a while. Now I must carry on in his stead, and see if I can undo the great harm I've done him.”

  Erin stared at them both darkly, unsure what to do, unsure what to think. She'd been prepared to meet a madman, and dispatch him quickly. Yet a niggling worry crept into her mind: What if he really is the Earth King?

  The Mouth of the World, Averan thought, as she looked at the gaping cavern. I've flown over it a dozen times and seen the sheep cropping the grass on every hilltop near here. I'm not fifty miles from home.

  The memory of home brought an ache to her heart. The reavers had destroyed Keep Haberd a week past. Just about everyone she'd ever known had been killed.

  She leapt out of the wagon on legs that were still rubbery from sleep, and landed on the stony ground. To both sides of her lay a rut, as if this were an ancient road. But Averan knew better. She'd landed in the massive footprint of a reaver, the four-toed track of a huge female. It measured a yard in length and four feet in width. Countless other tracks sur-rounded it.

  The “road” was really a reaver trail. A week past, tens of thousands of the monsters had boiled out of the Underworld here and spilled over the countryside. They had worn a rut in the ground sixty to seventy feet wide and several feet deep. Their trail, which wound over hundreds of miles, led through dozens of devastated cities.

  Averan planted her staff in the ground, and found herself leaning on it wearily.

  “Are you ready to take your endowments?” Gaborn asked as he shouldered his armor.

  “You mean I'm going to do it here,” Averan inquired, “not in a Dedicates’ tower?”

  “We're a long way from any towers,” Gaborn said. “Iome brought a facilitator and some folk to act as Dedicates. Go find something to eat, and then we'll s
ee to your needs.”

  Averan pulled her robes tight against her face. The air up so high had an autumn chill to it, and the wind came a bit boisterous, circling this way and that, like a nervous hound. She followed Gaborn to the mouth of the cave.

  With each step they took, the singing grew louder. It reverberated from the cavern walls. “Why is everyone singing?”

  “They're celebrating,” Gaborn said. “The reaver horde has been brought to ground.”

  No wonder they sing, Averan thought. Seventy thousand reavers vanquished. There hasn't been a battle like that in ages. Still, so much wanton killing—even of reavers—left a sour taste in Averan's mouth.

  At the cave's throat at least two hundred men crowded round the bon-fire. Most were minor lords out of Mystarria and Heredon, though many were also Knights Equitable who called no man their king, and some were dark-skinned warriors who still wore the yellow colors of far-off Indhopal.

  Still, dozens of peasants looked as if they had followed Gaborn's troops in from nearby villages. Most of them wore lambskin jackets and knit woolen hats. Some were just curious farmers and woodsmen out to see the Earth King, but most carried heavy axes and yew longbows, as if eager to swell the ranks of Gaborn's army.

  Now that Gaborn had arrived, someone cried, “All hail the Earth King!” and wild cheers erupted.

  Averan hung back at the mouth of the cave and glanced up. The flickering light of the bonfire illuminated the smoke-gauzed ceiling where gray-green cave kelp dangled in curtains. An enormous blind-crab crept along the ceiling precariously, clinging to rocks as it fed on kelp.

  Even here at the cave's mouth, the flora and fauna of the Underworld looked strange and unearthly. Averan hesitated, for once she stepped into the cave, she feared that she would be leaving the world behind forever, and her journey down would begin.

  She glanced back at the star-filled heavens. She breathed deep of the pure mountain air, and listened to the peaceful coo of a wood dove, then stepped over the threshold of the cave. Her journey had begun.

  Nearby, a young knight sat on a stone, trying to knock a dent out of his helm. He glanced up at Averan with shining eyes. Local boys were breaking camp—pulling cooking pots from the fire, checking and rechecking their packs. A grizzled knight of Indhopal knelt on the ground with an oil-stone, honing the steel bodkins on his arrows.

  Everyone bustled about. She felt a sense of urgency, as if these folks had been waiting for Gaborn for more than just a few hours, as if they had been waiting for him for all of their lives.

  Binnesman's wylde stood conspicuously among the crowd. He had designed the creature to be a warrior for the Earth. She was one of few women in the group, and she stood holding a war staff of stout oak. She wore buckskin pants and a woolen tunic. To all appearances, she looked like a pretty young woman, but she had a disturbing complexion. Her huge pupils were so dark green they looked almost black, and her hair fell down her shoulders in avocado waves. Her skin, too, seemed to have been dyed a vigorous green, the color of young leaves.

  Averan walked over to the wylde. “Hello, Spring,” Averan said, calling her by the name she had used ever since she'd first seen the green woman fall from the sky.

  “Hello,” the wylde replied. Her language skills still were limited. On the other hand, Binnesman had only created the thing a little more than a week ago, and no babe could talk at a week of age.

  “How are you feeling today?” Averan asked, hoping to start a conversation.

  The green woman gazed at her blankly. After a moment of thought, she said, “I feel like killing something, Averan.”

  “I feel that way some days, too,” Averan said, trying to make light of the answer. But it underscored a difference between the two. Averan had first thought of the green woman as a person, someone who needed her help. But no woman had mothered Spring, and no man had fathered her; Binnesman had fashioned her from roots and stones and the blood of the Earth. Averan could never really be her friend, because the green woman only wanted one thing in life: to hunt down and kill the enemies of the Earth.

  Averan had thought that there might be two hundred warriors when she walked into the cave, but now she saw that she had underestimated the size of the band by at least half, for many men could be seen hovering about farther back into the tunnel, deeper in the shadows. The sight gave her some confidence. She would want all of the Runelords that she could find marching at her back as she led them into the Underworld.

  She felt worn to the bone. For the past week, ever since she'd fled the reaver attack on Keep Haberd, she'd been pushing herself hard.

  Averan went to the fire, where some farm boy shoved a plate in her hand. A knight carved a slab of meat from a roasting mutton and slapped it on her plate, then scooped buttered parsnips and bread pudding from a pair of iron kettles.

  It was fine food for such a rough camp, a veritable feast. The knights here were serving their best, for this might well be the last decent meal they ever had. Averan took the fare and began looking for a bare rock to sit on.

  She went to a shadowed corner of the cave, where dozens of others were eating, squatted in the sand. She hunched over her plate. Here, at her back, a few feather ferns grew. She cut a bite of mutton, then happened to glance up.

  Every man within twenty feet seemed to be watching her. Their faces showed undisguised wonder mingled with curiosity. Embarrassment warmed her cheeks.

  So, she realized. They've all been talking about me. They knew that she had tasted reaver's brain and had learned their secrets in doing so.

  She skewered the mutton with her knife, took a bite. The succulent lamb had been delicately seasoned with rosemary and basted in a honey-mint sauce.

  “Not as good as broiled reavers’ brains,” Averan mused aloud, “but it will have to do.”

  Several farmers laughed overloud at the jest, even though it wasn't very funny. At least she'd managed to break the tension. Suddenly conversations started up again. Averan began chewing in earnest when a beefy palm slapped her on the back.

  “Need some ale to wash it down?” Someone thrust a tin mug into her hands. She recognized the voice and choked out a cry of surprise. “Brand?”

  Beastmaster Brand, her old friend, stood above her, grinning hugely. He stretched his one arm wide, inviting her in to hug, and Averan leapt up and grabbed him around the neck.

  “I thought you were dead!” she cried.

  “You weren't the only one,” he laughed. “I thought I was as good as dead a few times myself.”

  The laugh sounded genuine enough, but not as carefree as it would have a week ago. Averan heard pain in it.

  She gazed at him. Brand had been her tutor. He'd taken Averan in as a child and taught her to ride graaks at the aerie in Keep Haberd. He'd taught her to read and write, so that she could deliver the duke's messages. He'd trained her in the care and feeding of graaks. For such kindness alone, she would have been eternally grateful. But he'd been more than a master. He'd been a mother and father, lord and family, and dearest friend. The relief she felt at seeing him again, the sheer joy, brought a flood of tears to her eyes.

  “Oh, Brand, how did you escape? When last I saw you… the reavers—”

  “Were charging toward the keep,” Brand said. In her mind's eye, Averan relived the moment. They'd been high above Keep Haberd, where she could look down over the castle walls and see the reavers charging. The reaver horde had charged in such vast numbers, and at such a fast pace, that he could not possibly have escaped.

  “I set you aback old Leatherneck, and sent you into the sky,” Brand said. “Then freed the last of the graaks from their tethers.

  “Afterward, I just stood on the landing, looking down over the city. The reavers came in a stampede, and the world shook beneath them. They were like a black flood, rushing down the canyon. Most of the graaks fled. But young Brightwing, she kept circling the aerie, crying out, all mournful.

  “The reavers hit the castle wall, and never even
slowed. Our ballistas, our knights…” He shook his head sadly. “The reavers just shoved the walls down and rushed through the streets. Some folks tried to run, others to hide. The reavers were taking them all.

  “With naught but one arm, I couldn't fight. So I stood there, waiting for the reavers to eat me, when all of a sudden something hits me hard from behind. The next thing I know, Brightwing is lifting me above the fray. She has my leather vest in her claws, you see.

  “Now, I'm a fat old man, and I think that she's going to carry me to my death. But Brightwing flaps viciously and lugs me over the valley as if I were some young pig that she had a notion to eat. She wings along, and it seems to me that she's dropping faster than she's flying.”

  Averan stared in wonder. “How far? How far did she take you?”

  “A mile and a half,” Brand answered. “Maybe two.”

  Averan knew that the graaks could carry more than just the weight of a child. She'd seen old Leatherneck lift a bull calf out of a field, and the calf couldn't have weighed much less than Brand. And she'd heard that mother graaks would sometimes carry their enormous chicks from one nest to another, if the nest seemed to be in danger. But graaks could never bear such weight for any great distance.

  “She must have taken you downwind from the castle.” Averan knew full well that if they'd gone upwind, even at a distance of two miles, the reavers would have smelled him.

  “Aye,” Brand said. “That she did. And I had the good sense to stay put until the horde had passed.”

  “What of the rest of the town?” Averan asked.

  Brand shook his head sadly. “Gone. A few got out on fast horses—Duke Haberd and some of his cronies—” He bit off the words he wanted to say, his voice choked with outrage at such an act of cowardice.