The Bonehunters

'What's wrong?' Cuttle asked behind him.



'We're blocked.'



Silence for a moment, then, 'Your rat gone ahead? Past the block?'



'Yes. It opens out again – there's an intersection of some kind ahead, a hole coming down from above, with air pulling down from it and straight into a pit in the floor. But, Cuttle – there's a big cut stone, no way to squeeze past it. I'm sorry. We have to go back-'



'To Hood we do, move aside if you can, I want to feel this for myself.'



It was not as easy as it sounded, and it was some time before the two men managed to swap positions. Bottle listened to the sapper muttering under his breath, then cursing.



'I told you-'



'Be quiet, I'm thinking. We could try and break it loose, only the whole ceiling might come down with it. No, but maybe we can dig under, into the floor here. Give me your knife.'



'I ain't got a knife any more. Lost it down a hole.'



'Then call back for one.'



'Cuttle-'



'You ain't giving up on us, Bottle. You can't. You either take us through or we're all dead.'



'Damn you,' Bottle hissed. 'Hasn't it occurred to you that maybe there's no way through? Why should there be? Rats are small – Hood, rats can live down here. Why should there be a tunnel big enough for us, some convenient route all the way out from under this damned city?



To be honest, I'm amazed we've gotten this far. Look, we could go back, right to the temple – and dig our way out-'



'You're the one who doesn't understand, soldier. There's a mountain sitting over the hole we dropped into, a mountain that used to be the city's biggest temple. Dig out? Forget it. There's no going back, Bottle. Only forward; now get me a knife, damn you.'



****

Smiles drew out one of her throwing-knives and passed it up to the child ahead of her. Something told her that this was it – as far as they would go. Except maybe for the children. The call had come to send the urchins ahead. At the very least, then, they could go on, find a way out. All this effort – somebody had better live through it.



Not that they'd get very far, not without Bottle. That spineless bastard – imagine, depending on him. The man who could see eye to eye with rats, lizards, spiders, fungi. Matching wits, and it was a tough battle, wasn't it just.



Still, he wasn't a bad sort – he'd taken half the load that day on the march, after that bitch of a captain revealed just how psychotic she really was. That had been generous of him. Strangely generous. But men were like that, on occasion. She never used to believe that, but now she had no choice. They could surprise you.



The child behind Smiles was climbing over her, all elbows and knees and running, drippy, smearing nose. It smelled, too. Smelled bad.



Awful things, children. Needy, self-centred tyrants, the boys all teeth and fists, the girls all claws and spit. Gathering into snivelling packs and sniffing out vulnerabilities – and woe to the child not cunning enough to hide their own – the others would close in like the grubby sharks they were. Great pastime, savaging someone.



If these runts are the only ones here who survive, I will haunt them.



Every one of them, for the rest of their days. 'Look,' she snarled after an elbow in the nose, 'just get your smelly slimy hide out of my face! Go on, you little ape!'



A voice from behind her: 'Easy there. You was a child once, you know-'



'You don't know nothing about me, so shut it!'



'What, you was hatched? Hah! I believe it! Along with all the other snakes!'



'Yeah, well, whoever you are, don't even think of climbing past me.'



'And get that close? Not a chance.'



She grunted. 'Glad we're understood, then.'



If there was no way through – they'd all lose their minds. No doubt of that at all. Well, at least she had a couple knives left – anybody fool enough to come for her and they'd pay.



****

The children were squirming through – even as Cuttle dug into the floor with the knife – and then huddling on the other side. Weeping, clinging to each other, and Bottle's heart cried out for them. They would have to find courage, but for the moment, there seemed to be no hope of that.



Cuttle's grunts and gasps, then his curse as he broke the knife's point – not very promising sounds. Ahead, the rat circled the edge of the pit, whiskers twitching at the flow of warm air coming from the shaft. She could climb round to the other side, and Bottle was willing the creature to do so – yet it seemed his control was weakening, for the rat was resisting, her head tilted over the edge of the pit, claws gripping the pocked side, the air flowing up over her…