The Bonehunters

Honey. Jars and jars of honey. Good for burns, I think. Good for wounds. Finding an opened jar, Corabb scooped out a handful, crawled over to the sergeant and pushed the honey into the puncture wounds.



Salved the burns, on Strings and on himself. Then he settled back.



Numbing bliss stole through him.



Oh, this honey, it's Carelbarra. The God Bringer. Oh…



****

Fist Keneb tottered into the morning light, stood, blinking, looking round at the chaotic array of tents, many of them scorched, and all the soldiers – stumbling, wandering or standing motionless, staring across the blasted landscape towards the city. Y'Ghatan, blurred by waves of rising heat, a misshapen mound melted down atop its ragged hill, fires still flickering here and there, pale orange tongues and, lower down, fierce deep red.



Ash filled the air, drifting down like snow.



It hurt to breathe. He was having trouble hearing – the roar of that firestorm still seemed to rage inside his head, as hungry as ever. How long had it been? A day? Two days? There had been healers. Witches with salves, practitioners of Denul from the army itself. A jumble of voices, chanting, whispers, some real, some imagined.



He thought of his wife. Selv was away from this accursed continent, safe in her family estate back on Quon Tali. And Kesen and Vaneb, his children. They'd survived, hadn't they? He was certain they had. A memory of that, strong enough to convince him of its truth. That assassin, Kalam, he'd had something to do with that.



Selv. They had grown apart, in the two years before the rebellion, the two years – was it two? – that they had been in Seven Cities, in the garrison settlement. The uprising had forced them both to set aside all of that, for the children, for survival itself. He suspected she did not miss him; although his children might. He suspected she would have found someone else by now, a lover, and the last thing she would want was to see him again.



Well, there could be worse things in this life. He thought back on those soldiers he'd seen with the fiercest burns – gods how they had screamed their pain.



Keneb stared at the city. And hated it with all his soul.



The dog Bent arrived to lie down beside him. A moment later Grub appeared. 'Father, do you know what will come of this? Do you?'



'Come of what, Grub?'



The boy pointed at Y'Ghatan with one bare, soot-stained arm. 'She wants us to leave. As soon as we can.' He then pointed towards the morning sun. 'It's the plague, you see, in the east. So. We're marching west. To find the ships. But I already know the answer. To find what's inside us, you got to take everything else away, you see?'



'No, Grub. I don't see.'



The Hengese lapdog, Roach, scrambled into view, sniffing the ground.



Then it began digging, as if in a frenzy. Dust engulfed it.



'Something's buried,' Grub said, watching Roach.



'I imagine there is.'



'But she won't see that.' The boy looked up at Keneb. 'Neither will you.'



Grub ran off, Bent loping at his side. The lapdog kept digging, making snuffling, snorting sounds.



Keneb frowned, trying to recall what Grub had said earlier – was it the night of the breach? Before the fated order went out? Had there been a warning hidden in the lad's words? He couldn't remember – the world before the fire seemed to have burned away to nothing in his mind. It had been a struggle to conjure up the names of his wife, his children, their faces. I don't understand. What has happened to me?



****

In the command tent, the Adjunct stood facing Nil and Nether. Fist Blistig watched from near the back wall, so exhausted he could barely stand. Tavore had placed him in charge of the healing – setting up the hospitals, organizing the Denul healers, the witches and the warlocks.



Two days and one or maybe one and a half nights – he was not sure he could count the short chaotic time before the sun rose on the night of the breach. Without his officers that first night, he would have been relieved of command before dawn. His soul had been drowning in the pit of the Abyss.



Blistig was not yet certain he had climbed back out.



Nil was speaking, his voice a monotone, dulled by too long in the sorcery he had grown to hate. '… nothing but death and heat. Those who made it out – their agony deafens me – they are driving the spirits insane. They flee, snapping their bindings. They curse us, for this vast wound upon the land, for the crimes we have committed-'



'Not our crimes,' the Adjunct cut in, turning away, her gaze finding Blistig. 'How many did we lose today, Fist?'



'Thirty-one, Adjunct, but the witches say that few will follow, now.