The Lair of Bones (37 page)

Aboveground and more than a thousand miles to the north, in Heredon a storm swept the land. Thick clouds, dark on the bottom but green at their peaks, rose like a wall. Lightning flashed at their crowns as a keening wind thrashed the fields.

“Inside!” Chemoise's uncle Eber shouted to the villagers of Ableton. “Everyone, hide, quickly! This is what the Earth King warned us against!”

Many a young lad would have argued and stayed gazing out the door, just to prove his bravery, but they had heard rumors of the goings-on at Castle Sylvarresta and knew that to ignore the Earth King's warning could have only one result: death.

“Get inside,” Eber urged. “Whatever it is that's coming this way, it will kill you.”

“Aye,” a dozen other men all grumbled. “It's the king's will.”

So Eber closed the door and brought down the bolt. Old Able Farmworthy surprised everyone by pulling out a leather bag full of soil from his fields and sprinkling it on the ground in front of the door, forming a rune of
protection. Afterward, he poured a libation of wine over it. He warned, “Don't anyone disturb this dust.”

The old man was no Wizard Binnesman, but he was a successful farmer whose heart was close to the land. Chemoise wanted to believe that he had some power, and perhaps everyone else did, too, for no one dared touch his rune.

The music had stopped. The feast was over.

Night had just begun, though no one was in the mood to celebrate now. Instead, the townsfolk all sat on the floor, fearing what the evening would bring.

Chemoise strained to hear outside. The wind moaned as the storm grew.

Soon the stout new door began to rattle on its hinges. “Someone's out there, wanting to get in!” a woman said. “Who could it be?”

Chemoise thought it only sounded like the wind banging, for no one called out for help on the other side. Or if they did, the rising wind was carrying their voice away.

She peered about the room. There were only sixteen families in the village. She did not know them well enough yet to tell if everyone was present. Could someone have left a child outside?

Eber began calling out names, “Cain Hawks, are you and yours all here?” Cain looked about. “Aye!”

“Dunagal Free, you and yours?”

“Here!”

And so it went.

Eber and Aunt Constance were both here with Chemoise, and grand-mother sat at the dinner table, the poor old thing painfully unaware that anything was amiss.

“We're all here,” Eber said when he finished.

“But someone is out there!” the woman argued.

“I know—” Gadamon Drinkwater suggested, “it's that old shepherd what lives in the hills.”

“No,” Eber said. “I warned him this afternoon. He takes his sheep to a cave in times of storm. He planned to stay up there with his flock.”

“It's not someone at the door,” Able Farmworthy said. “It's something.”

The wind moaned as if in pain and pounded on the door, thrashing it.
Sticks and leaves were flung against the stout wood, and it shuddered under the impact. Chemoise's hair stood on end.

She had heard how the Darkling Glory raged even after it was slain, turned into a whirlwind and raced to the east. Now it appeared that it had returned.

Distantly, a squeaking arose, as if bats circled outside. Chemoise could barely discern it under the howling of the wind, the sudden crash of thunder. With the sound came a stench, the smell of filth and hair.

“Rats!” an old woman said. “I smell rats!”

Slowly the sound swelled in volume, and the stink grew with it. Rats were coming—not just dozens or hundreds, not even thousands, but tens of thousands.

In her mind's eye, Chemoise could envision them rushing across the valley, through the dry stalks of the wheat fields, leaping into the creek and swimming over it with grim determination. Climbing atop the rock walls of the sheepfolds and racing along them as if on a road.

Until, presently, the rats were at the door. They squeaked and chittered outside, and there was a grinding noise as they began to gnaw the wooden doorposts away.

Uncle Eber shouted, “To the back of the room!”

Chemoise's stomach churned with fear. Most of the women and children raced to the back of the cellars, seeking to hide. But Chemoise looked around for a weapon, grabbed a broom, and went to the door. Some lads from town had brought swords and warhammers, just in case. But against rats they would prove to be clumsy weapons.

Dearborn Hawks took her broom. “Here,” he said, “let me have that. Get back with the others!”

“It's all right,” Chemoise argued. “I can help.”

“You've a child in you,” Dearborn said. “You can risk hurting yourself all you like, for all that I care. But we have to take care of the babe.”

Chemoise handed him the broom, and held his eye for a moment. She went back to the far corner of the wine cellar with the other women. When she turned to look back, Dearborn was still gazing at her.

For a long while, the rats chewed, filing away at the door.

As they did, something strange happened. The ferrin in their holes
began to snuffle and whistle plaintively. They poked their heads out of their burrows and sniffed the air, whiskers twitching. Then, one by one, the pudgy creatures began to emerge, squinting in the lamplight.

Chemoise had seldom seen a ferrin in such good light. The ones who came stalking out of their lairs now were big males, the hunters. Each stood a little more than a foot tall. Each wore rags almost in mockery of human clothing. One might wear only a mouseskin belt, into which a weapon was slung, while another wore an old dishrag as if it were a cape. The ferrin ranged in color from brown to a sort of mottled gray, and were lighter on the belly than on the back. Each wielded a weapon of some kind—an eighteen-inch spear made from an old fisherman's arrow, an ax with a blade chiseled from broken glass, a dagger formed from a gold cloak pin.

Growling and snuffling they approached the door, and then stood whistling.

Rats were the ferrins' favorite prey—a delicacy as beloved by them as venison was by the men of Rofehavan. Dozens of ferrin crawled from their holes, and as their courage grew, more hunters followed, grizzled old ferrin with the hair on their snouts gone gray, young ferrin with sleek brown coats. Soon, two hundred ferrin warriors swelled into the room—more ferrin than Chemoise would ever have imagined could have been hiding in the old wine cellar.

Uncle Eber warned his men. “Step back. This is their battle. This is why the Earth King warned us to stay belowground.”

And so the humans fell back and watched in awe as the battle began. For long minutes, rats gnawed the door. The thunder raged, the wind wailed and pounded at the entrance.

Suddenly, a huge black rat lunged under the door.

Instantly, half a dozen ferrin spears rushed to impale the beast.

Then one ferrin lord growled menacingly and raised the rat victoriously into the air. Its legs kicked in vain as it struggled to break free, and it wrenched its incisors around and bit at the spear. The rat was far dirtier and more bedraggled than Chemoise had imagined it could be. It looked half-starved, as if it had been running for days. Its eyes were glazed with a yellow, crusty film. Its matted hair was full of mud and filth.

The ferrin lord swung his spear, sent the wounded rat hurtling through the air, so that it landed in the center of the hall. The poor vermin lay on
its side, wounded, and began snuffling and kicking, as if seeking escape.

Three female ferrin bolted from their holes. They grabbed the wounded rat, pulling it in all directions, ripping the small animal with their sharp little paws, so that the rat shrieked once in pain and then died.

The ferrin women dragged their kill toward their warrens, leaving only its turds to litter the floor.

No sooner was one rat gone than the warriors hurled another back to take its place—then a third and a fourth.

But what started as a slaughter soon became a grim struggle.

The rats continued to gnaw, widening their access, so that soon dozens could scurry beneath the door at a time. Ferrin warriors in the front ranks stabbed and hacked at the beasts, blocking the passage with the bodies of the dead. So the rats attacked. They began leaping through the opening, sinking sharp teeth into ferrin flesh, piercing bones and severing arteries. The ferrin grimly fought, whistling and growling curses at rats that surged into the room, attacking with the abandon and strength of madness.

Swarming past the ferrin, some rats managed to race through or leap over the beleaguered ferrin warriors.

Once through, they bolted across the room toward the villagers and charged in a rabid fashion.

The first time it happened, it was a shock. The ferrin warriors hurled a wounded rat into the back of the room from the front ranks, and through pain-clouded eyes it peered into the recesses. Recognition suddenly seemed to dawn in its glazed eyes, and the rat scrabbled and pawed toward the vil-lagers like a wounded hound seeking a boar.

No common madness drove it, Chemoise knew. It moved with a will other than its own.

As it approached, a queer sound emanated from back in its throat, a sort of quavering growl. Chemoise had never heard such a sound from a rat.

But she had heard rumors about rats, how they spread disease. A rat bite could easily become infected and ooze pus for days. The wounds could fester, and bite victims sometimes died.

Chemoise feared that these sickly creatures, which raced beneath the door and attacked with grim abandon, carried some unthinkable plague.

The rat came slowly, and one of the Drinkwater boys, a child of nine, leapt on the beast with both feet, crushing it with a crunching sound.

Chemoise's stomach turned. Back home at Castle Sylvarresta, there had always been plenty of ferrin to keep the town free of rats.

Their behavior wasn't natural. The storm outside wasn't natural. Thunder boomed in a menacing, unending chorus.

We killed the Darkling Glory, she realized, so now it sends this curse upon Heredon.

“Form up ranks,” Uncle Eber shouted. “Men in front, women behind. Don't let the rats get near!”

Soon more rats came rushing past the ferrin, and not all were wounded. They raced across the room as fast as terriers, jumping ten feet at a time. The young men from the village pretended to make a game of it, racing out and batting the rats with brooms, skewering them with long-handled meat forks from the dinner table, swatting them with their hands or stomping them into oblivion.

But it was no game to the rats. The nasty things, driven by some dark force, seemed impelled to strike with a suicidal zeal. They charged into the ranks of villagers, biting into the first person they reached.

Uncle Eber and some other men grabbed tables and threw them down, forming a protective barrier.

The nightmare began in earnest. Rats streamed under the door so fast that the ferrin could not fight them all. The small warriors stabbed and hacked. The only light in the room came from a pair of lanterns, so that Chemoise could not see the battle well. The ferrin became a writhing, snarling mass. Their whistles and growls, which Chemoise imagined to be battle cries, soon turned to squeals of terror and pain. She could see ferrin spears rising up, impaling rats as they leapt. Axes swinging, chopping the heads off rats.

Wounded and bloody rats crawled about the room in a daze. And still more rats came, soaking rats, black with mud. Rats with crusted yellow eyes, or eyes filmed green from the plague. Rats that oozed white saliva from their mouths, and vomited as they died.

The ferrin battled fiercely, slaughtering the vermin by the thousands. But killing a rat was no small task for a ferrin. A ferrin was only a foot tall, and a large rat nearly reached his waist. Thus, in size, a ferrin was to a rat what a man was to a boar. And even though they were small, the rats were remarkably strong and ferocious, driven by madness. A ferrin armed with a
spear or a makeshift dagger could bring one of the monsters down, but it was not easy.

So the battle raged.

Chemoise took her place with the women, and any rats that made it past the ferrin and past the men, she dealt with as best she could, kicking and slapping.

The female ferrin got weapons of their own and stood guard at the openings of their dens, where they waded into the midst of the rats. Chemoise heard a plaintive cry from one of them, saw two rats latched onto the ferrin woman, dragging her down. Chemoise raced to her, grabbed the rats and squeezed until their jaws unlocked. The rats twisted in her hand and turned their rage on her.

The battle became a jumbled nightmare. Chemoise could never say exactly how long it lasted—an hour, two at the most. But it felt like endless days.

She fought with heart racing, mouth dry with fear. She killed hundreds of rats, and was bitten once on the wrist, once on the ankle. One little monster scampered up her dress and would have taken an eye, but Dear-born Hawks swatted it away.

The number of rats swelled, until finally they surged into the room in a dark tide. Chemoise could not imagine where so many rats had come from. Certainly they did not come from local fields.

Old Uncle Eber shouted, “Everyone, stay back!” He ran to a keg of lamp oil, and hoisted it under one arm. Then he grabbed a lantern from the floor, and hurried toward the front door, shouting at the ferrin, “Make way! Make way!”

Rats leapt on him, latching onto his legs, racing up his shoulder to sink their teeth into his throat. Soon, the rats clung to him by the dozens, so that it almost looked as if he wore some macabre cloak.

Aunt Constance cried out in dismay. Uncle Eber would never make it alive through such an attack. Chemoise lurched forward to rescue him, but too late.

The ferrin scampered from his path as best they could, and then Eber hurled the useless door open.

Outside, the thunder was a snarling fiend. Lightning arced through green skies, and Eber stood for a moment, defiant, limned in its light. The wind raged this way and that, like a maddened beast. But for all its fury, the
storm brought no water. No rain fell on the fields. Only a dry wind beat the last of the summer's crops to the ground. The wine barrels that Dearborn had stacked so carefully now all lay in a jumble, cluttering the path ahead.