The Bonehunters

He paused at one point and grinned wryly. 'Lighting a pipe's a good way of getting out of work, isn't it?'



'You said you didn't need any help.'



'With the bailing, yes.'



'What you don't understand, Cutter, is the spiritual necessity for reward, not to mention the clarity that comes to one's mind during such repasts. And in not understanding, you instead feel resentment, which sours the blood in your heart and makes you bitter. It's that bitterness that kills people, you know, it eats them up inside.'



He studied her. 'Meaning, I'm actually jealous?'



'Of course you are, but because I can empathize with you I am comfortable withholding judgement. Tell me, can you say the same for yourself?'



Barathol arrived with a pair of casks under his arms. 'Get off your ass, woman. We've got a good wind and the sooner we're on our way the better.'



She threw him a salute as she rose. 'There you go, Cutter, a man who takes charge. Watch him, listen, and learn.'



The Daru stared at her, bemused.



She read his face: But you just said…



So I did, my young lover. We are contrary creatures, us humans, but that isn't something we need be afraid of, or even much troubled by.



And if you make a list of those people who worship consistency, you'll find they're one and all tyrants or would'be tyrants. Ruling over thousands, or over a husband or a wife, or some cowering child. Never fear contradiction, Cutter, it is the very heart of diversity.



****

Chaur held on to the steering oar whilst Cutter and Barathol worked the sails. The day was bright, the wind fresh and the carrack rode the swells as if its very wood was alive. Every now and then the bow pitched down, raising spray, and Chaur would laugh, the sound childlike, a thing of pure joy.



Scillara settled down amidships, the sun on her face warm, not hot, and stretched out.



We sail a carrack named Grief, with a corpse on board. That Cutter means to deliver to its final place of rest. Heboric, did you know such loyalty could exist, there in your shadow?



Barathol moved past her at one point, and, as Chaur laughed once more, she saw an answering smile on his battered, scarified face.



Oh yes, it is indeed blessed music. So unexpected, and in its innocence, so needed…



****

The return of certain mortal traits, Onrack the Broken realized, reminded one that life was far from perfect. Not that he had held many illusions in that regard. In truth, he held no illusions at all. About anything. Even so, some time passed – in something like a state of fugue – before Onrack recognized that what he was feeling was… impatience.



The enemy would come again. These caverns would echo with screams, with the clangour of weapons, with voices raised in rage. And Onrack would stand at Trull Sengar's side, and with him witness, in helpless fury, the death of still more of Minala's children.



Of course, children was a term that no longer fit. Had they been Imass, they would have survived the ordeal of the passage into adulthood by now. They would be taking mates, leading hunting parties, and joining their voices to the night songs of the clan, when the darkness returned to remind them all that death waited, there at the end of life's path.



Lying with lovers also belonged to night, and that made sense, for it was in the midst of true darkness that the first fire of life was born, flickering awake to drive back the unchanging absence of light.



To lie with a lover was to celebrate the creation of fire. From this in the flesh to the world beyond.



Here, in the chasm, night reigned eternal, and there was no fire in the soul, no heat of lovemaking. There was only the promise of death.



And Onrack was impatient with that. There was no glory in waiting for oblivion. No, in an existence bound with true meaning and purpose, oblivion should ever arrive unexpected, unanticipated and unseen. One moment racing full tilt, the next, gone.



As a T'lan Imass of Logros, Onrack had known the terrible cost borne in wars of attrition. The spirit exhausted beyond reason, with no salvation awaiting it, only more of the same. The kin falling to the wayside, shattered and motionless, eyes fixed on some skewed vista – a scene to be watched for eternity, the minute changes measuring the centuries of indifference. Some timid creature scampering through, a plant's exuberant green pushing up from the earth after a rain, birds pecking at seeds, insects building empires…



Trull Sengar came to his side where Onrack stood guarding the chokepoint. 'Monok Ochem says the Edur's presence has… contracted, away from us. For now. As if something made my kin retreat. I feel, my friend, that we have been granted a reprieve – one that is not welcome. I don't know how much longer I can fight.'