The Bone Wall (8 page)

“Mag’s claim!” the crone shouts as four more Biters lope toward us, dark-haired men in leather, hefting shoulder-height spears tipped with steel points. They flank the weathered woman who leans on a knotted staff not six feet from where we stand. Whipping around, I discover another five hard-eyed men grinning at us from the opposite bank, three with skin dark as bronze, all five armed, blades gleaming in their belts and curved bows hanging on their backs.

Angel’s shaking hand clutches mine. I feel her panic, her body retracting as if she means to shrink and disappear. My own fear hovers, muscles coiled, tension amassing in the air around me, heightening my senses as I search for a way out of an impossible trap. They haven’t killed us yet, but we’ll never survive a run to the gate—the gate standing open to Heaven.

“Mag’s claim,” the crooked woman repeats and my eyes snap back to the threat at hand. “I spied them first, eh? Hear that Greeb? Hear that Rune, Doony? When the bone wall falls, Mag gets the white-haired doves.” She lurches a step forward, a dusky-skinned, grimy monster chewing on chapped lips. Her thin hair is strung with a dozen narrow gray braids, the ends woven with feathers. I smell her stink, her sweat, read the stains on her ragged clothes, see the bright hunger in her slitted eyes.

“Don’t think your magic fools me,” she barks, hanging heavily on the stick, her back painfully twisted, left hip thrust out and toe pointed awkwardly inward. “I see you doves.
Both
of you, like you was standing right in front a me. I claim you
both
.”

“Two?” a thick-necked Biter asks. “You seeing two, Mag?” He joins the bent woman, leering down a crooked nose at me, his arms strong as tree limbs and pale scars scoring the dark flesh of his chest. He points from beneath a fur cloak as black as the lank hair and matted beard hiding his face. “I see this one.”

“Just ‘cause you don’t see ‘em both don’t mean nothing. There’s two, Greeb. Two little doves just like they was looking in a mirror. I claim
both
.”

“Light-benders?” the Biter asks.

“Pah!” Mag grimaces. “Other magic. Bone wall magic. Twin doves. They’re mine, Greeb.”

“Heard you the first time,” the big man snarls, staring down at me, fingering a scar by his right eye.

“She’s gonna run, Mag, sure enough,” a green-eyed Biter says, his mouth quirking up in an eager smile, spear tip swinging lazily back and forth in warning. Not much older than me, he’s leaner than the other men, brown hair long and tangled, grit coating dull brown leathers, his arms bare and corded with muscle. “Best make her kneel for all you’re talking, Mag.”

“Rune’s panting like a Black Dog over the dove.” Mag cackles, ribbing the young Biter while the other men leer. I squeeze Angel’s trembling hand, willing her strength. The old woman’s blather makes no sense to me. I don’t know what she means by our magic or by claiming us. She snaps her fingers and points at the ground. “Rune got a good eye for runners. Do like he say, kneel.”

Angel’s knees give out, but I yank her up. “Let her go,” I demand. “I’ll kneel; I won’t fight you.”

The old woman’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Huh, well, now. She won’t fight us, she say.” Mag holds her breath, face grim and turning red, before she spits out her laughter, hanging on the staff and hooting, snorting, and hawking up gobs of yellow phlegm. “Oh my, oh my, oh my,” she gasps between howls. The other Biters grin and chuckle, baring their yellow teeth, as I seethe with humiliation and helplessness.

Her fingernails digging into my arm, Angel cringes beside me, tears staining her cheeks. “No, don’t Rimma, no,” she breathes, her voice so soft I scarcely hear. “We have to run together. They’ll cook you.”

“Cook you?” Mag’s eyes bulge out at the whisper she couldn’t possibly overhear. “Thinks we eat doves,” she shrieks, slapping her bent leg to another round of boisterous laughter, gurgling and coughing as she chokes, wincing as her back twists. The Biter, Rune, grins and spits as the others join in the ridicule.

“Time to kneel,” Mag says, narrowing one eye, beckoning to the giant behind her. “Give a hand, Glory boy, but gentle with the dove.”

“Getho.” A giant Biter shuffles toward me, flat-faced and smiling, massive hands limp at his side. I drag Angel down to the clay beside me before he reaches us.

“Huh, well, well, a wise choice after all that.” Mag waves the huge Biter off. “No need, son. You see her kneeling. Well done.”

“Getho.” The Biter nods with a smile and ambles back to his spot beyond Rune.

“Good boy, him,” she says to me, as if we’re old friends. “Too damn bad he didn’t come with more wits.”

“What happened to you?” Angel asks as she glances up at the contorted woman. “What happened to him?” I stare at Angel, stunned by her interest and the concern furrowing her brow, the gentleness in her voice.

Mag’s lips pinch and she squints one eye, looking down her nose at Angel as her mind hums. “The broken world happened, little sparrow. We’re all broke up to pieces.” Her eyes swivel to me, studying me as we exchange murderous glares.

“They’re monsters, twisted, sick Biters,” I answer my sister’s question, loud enough for all to hear.

“Now, you listen good,” Mag snarls, hanging on the staff and stabbing a gnarled finger at me. “Your bone wall is near to firing up in a blue blaze of sparks enough to burn up a midnight sky. The thunder’ll make you shit your trousers and beg that useless twat of a God for mercy. Then it’ll blink out like it never been. Your people will think they gone to the pits of Hell and right they should, cause there’s no God snapping his magic fingers and conjuring up a new one. Hear that, Doves?” She snorts and whacks my arm with her stick, the effort making her wince. “You hear that?”

“Yes,” I hiss, gripping my stinging arm. “I hear you.”

“You’re full of devil’s fire, you. A hawk in dove’s feathers, I’ll bet. But you know squat of the broken world. Don’t know how to hunt or trap, find food off the land, build a fire, fight or kill to save your pretty life. Pah! Fucking back,” Mag barks, craning her neck, bending and cracking her twisted body. “That’s what I get for giving you a lesson.”

My sweating hands clench in my lap and my tongue tastes the blowing dust. The welt on my arm throbs where she struck me, and my frown means to tell her so. The old crone knows our “bone wall” is failing, her word for our shield. She sees that inevitable day screaming toward us and she’ll be waiting. Worst of all, she’s right; I understand nothing of the broken world, nothing that will save us, nothing beyond its fondness for death.

“Are you planning to kill everyone?” Angel asks softly.

Her lips pinched in thought, Mag considers the question. “Probably not,” she replies. “You give up sweet and easy, kneel somewhere inside like a big flock of tame birds, like chickens, and I don’t see any need for much killing.”

“What about the descendants of Paradise?” I hiss, glaring at her, at the men. “You murdered them all, even the children. Why? Did you promise them mercy as well? You stabbed them with arrows, bashed in their heads with rocks, slit their throats, and burned them alive. You dragged them away to your fires as they screamed. You killed our…” The words strangle in my throat, trapped in my horror, rage, and grief. “You murdered our father.”

“Sorry to hear it, Doves. Regrets, regrets. But them was Black Dogs.” Mag wags her head, feathers swaying. “Madder than hell at those people for what they done. A sorry sight at this bone wall, I’ll admit. Shouldn’t have gone so reckless.”

“Reckless?” I snap. She raps me again on the arm, her eye narrowed in warning.

“Anyway, our pack is River Walkers,” she continues. “We got better uses for your kind than bloodying our knives. Packs need healthy blood in a broken world. Too many like me and Glory.”

Tears of pain blur my vision, yet I refuse to cry. Questions struggle to my lips, fighting to create sense of her words, but she raises a hand to me. “My fucking back is shooting iron spikes straight through my skull, little doves. You remember what I say. Kneel in a bunch when we come for you and no troubles. My thinking is you should be begging us to take you. We’ll keep you alive, more than you can do for yourselves, you hear me? Now run on back and keep that door closed tight. Black Dogs know this is our bone wall, but they’re a feral lot.”

As we climb unsteadily to our feet, Mag flicks a wrist at the big Biter, Glory, and he shambles over, squats with his back to her and lifts her up as if she’s a child begging a ride. As the Biters descend the clay bank, Rune hefts her staff and bows gallantly in farewell. “Just do as Mag say,” he warns me. “Don’t fight us or we’ll kill you for sure.” He winks and jumps into the riverbed to catch up with the rest of his pack.

8

~Angel~

Back on the roof, Rimma paces, her jaw cast of iron, a pair of glinting knives shoved in her belt. We slipped her weapons down the East Spoke and up the ladder, not an easy task, but she insisted we keep them close. I sit cross-legged on a blanket, doling out our supper, thin slices of smoky ham that I roll up with greens in fresh brown bread. Wordlessly, Rimma accepts my offered meal but stays on her feet, frowning at the sky.

If only to reinforce the Biter’s point, the shield ripples with sapphire light, waves of blue arcing from south to north like the breath of a colossal beast at rest. We sit in its beautiful belly, gazing up, acutely aware that we await our eventual digestion. Somewhere up there, great wounds gape open, inviting rivers of cold air to pour down on our heads. Drafts of dusty wind blow my hair across my eyes before the holes close and the light rolls on.

“The Biters didn’t harm us,” I remind Rimma, words I’ve repeated twice already, if only because her ears seem barred to them.

“Remember Paradise,” she snaps at me again.

“I haven’t forgotten,” I murmur, and we eat in brooding silence, giving each other sour looks when she swirls by me. My blanket swaddling my shoulders, I exhale a weary groan for her benefit. “We need to discuss the Biters, even if you’re cross throughout.”

“I’m not cross,” she hisses, crossly. “I’m thinking.”

“The Biters didn’t harm us, Rimma.” I continue before she throws Paradise in my face, “They said Black Dogs killed them.”

“Black Dogs? River Walkers?” Rimma snorts.

“Descendants of God?” I snort back.

In a snit, Rimma snatches her blanket from the pipe-bench, wraps it around her shoulders and plops down beside me. “They said the descendants of Paradise did something. But who deserves such slaughter? Who would butcher children? How do we know what will happen if we all kneel and let them come for us? They’re evil, Angel. We can’t trust them.”

“Mag didn’t seem evil to me,” I press, “hard and terribly strange, but not exactly evil.” My words sound traitorous in my ears, but I feel compelled to counter Rimma’s loathing. How can we formulate a plan without an attempt at honesty?

“What did she mean by claiming us?” Rimma asks, twisting to face me, her voice challenging, eyes sparkling like blue frost beneath the rippling shield.

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

“Why didn’t that Biter see both of us? What did he mean by light-benders?

“I don’t know.”

“What was all that talk of magic,” she persists. “Our magic, bone wall magic?

“I don’t know, Rimma, I don’t know.” I close my eyes and cover my ears; she’s made her point.

“She doesn’t see a need for
much
killing, Angel. How much is acceptable?”

A sob chokes from my throat and I fold over. “Leave me a little hope, Rimma.” A naïve child’s wish, my voice a pathetic squeak.

Rimma’s barrage of questions falls silent as she rests her arm on my back, a comforting hand patting me. “Well, I don’t think they’ll cook us and eat us,” she says as a concession. “And she said they have better uses for our ‘healthy blood’ than bloodying their knives, whatever that means.”

“They aren’t healthy,” I murmur as I sit up and sniffle. “There’s something horribly wrong with them.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Rimma says, her sarcasm thick as she lies back, her blanket tight around her.

I wriggle down beside her, both of us staring up at the dance of light overhead. “They know Heaven will fall.”

“Our bone wall,” Rimma clarifies. “And she’s right, we
are
helpless. Hopelessly at their mercy, if they have any.”

“We should do as Mag says, Rimma. We should kneel, beg for peace.” I try not to let my panic hurry my words or shrill my voice. “We should tell the others, tell mother, at least, so she can inform the deacons.”

Rising to an elbow, Rimma peers down at me with a smile. “We’d have to say we talked with Biters, ignored Abrum’s threat, left the gate to Heaven open. They’ll banish us…not that it matters now.”

“But we have to warn them,” I insist. “So they’ll kneel. So they won’t panic or attempt to fight. So the Biters won’t kill us all. We can’t sit here and do nothing and just let it happen.”

“They won’t listen, Angel.” Rimma shakes her head and lies back down.

“We should tell them regardless,” I whisper. “I’ll tell them. They can banish me.”

“No, my sister.” Rimma’s sigh fills the whole rooftop. “You’re the little sparrow and I’m the hawk, remember. I’ll tell them, but you must swear an oath first.”