The Volunteer (The Bone World Trilogy)

THE
VOLUNTEER

by

Peadar Ó Guilín

The Volunteer

Copyright
2014 by Peadar Ó Guilín

All
rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be
reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express
written permission of the author except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review.

www.frozenstories.com

The
cover is by Fiona Jayde --
http://fionajaydemedia.com/

Image
copyright by diversepixel/Shutterstock

Peadar
Ó Guilín lives in Ireland where he works for a large
computer corporation. He has written fiction of every kind, from
plays to comics, from novels to short-stories. He cycles in the
summer and humiliates himself the rest of the year by trying to play
soccer. You can find out more about him at his website,
www.frozenstories.com. Or feel free to follow him on Twitter where he
poses as @theinferior.

Novels
in Print:

The
Inferior
(Bone World Trilogy, book 1)

The
Deserter
(Bone World Trilogy, book 2)

eBooks:

Forever
in the Memory of God and Other Stories
(Three
short stories)

The
Sunshine Baron and Other Stories
(September 2015)

Forthcoming
Novels:

Eat
the Drink
(A Post-Apocalyptic detective story) – May 2015

For the Dreaded Nork, its claws
ever sharp.

Terror is my inspiration.

About
the Author

Part
One: Worlds in Darkness

Part
Two: Under the Sun

Part
Three: Sunset

Acknowledgements

Spearcatcher
cried out once, and that was the last they saw of him. Their chests
heaved as they ran. Muscles ached. The loudest sound was their own
breathing and houses blurred past them in the darkness. Up ahead, the
horizon glowed: fire of some sort, a haven surely, from the Diggers
that pursued them. But the four survivors staggered to a halt when
they saw what had caused the light. A thousand paces away, the
streets of BloodWays raged with fire. Every house there was burning,
so that even the stones seemed to spit sparks high into the air.

Whistlenose had no energy for
shock. The eldest by far of the hunting party, he came in last and
fell to his hands and knees on the damp and gritty street. He wanted
to be sick. He wanted his head to stop spinning. He wished, just
once, that his constantly blocked nose would allow him enough air.

They had been running throughout
the night, driven farther and farther from the safe streets of home.
Three men had died so far, disappearing one by one into the dark. But
now the pursuit seemed to have stopped. Perhaps three corpses
sufficed to satisfy the enemy. Or maybe... maybe they simply wanted
the humans to see what had happened to BloodWays; to show off what
they had achieved.

The exhausted men stared. Many of
the buildings had slumped into the earth. Of the inhabitants, they
saw no sign. No guards waited to leap from the remaining towers to
hunt them down; no drums thundered out in warning.

Whistlenose rested one cheek
against the chill wall of a building. His left leg ached as never
before, pulsing in time with his heart. Each burst of pain told him
how few days of life remained to him now, regardless of whether he
made it back tonight or not. Please Ancestors, he begged. He prayed
to them out of habit only, because the world was ending, everybody
knew it. The world was ending and there didn't seem to be a thing the
Ancestors could do about it.

Highstepper waved his spear at
the others. He had a long-limbed, awkward body and was far from the
best hunter. But the Chief had put him in charge anyway. Gone were
the days when men would decide such things amongst themselves. "All
right, then," he said, "We'll have to go back."

"They'll be expecting us to
turn around," said Whistlenose. "They'll lie in wait."

Highstepper nodded. "It's
what I would do."

Nobody said anything else and
BloodWays continued to burn. This was supposed to have been a simple
hunt. An easy one, even. Many of the creatures that lived near human
territory were battling extinction as the mysterious Diggers pushed
in. Sooner or later, ManWays would suffer the same attacks, but for
now, the hunting was easier than Whistlenose had ever seen it. "They
run onto our spears," he had told his wife, while their infant
son snuffled in sleep beside them.

"You don't sound happy about
that," she had replied.

Too true. He should have been
delighted. He was old now, coming up on fourteen thousand days, as
his wife knew better than anybody. Hunting could be exhilarating:
overcoming the terror; fighting for your life to bring home
desperately needed food. And such adoration from the Tribe on a
successful return! The embrace of wives. Nobody mocked him then.

But everything had changed for
him when, so late, so unexpectedly, he had become a father. That was
when Whistlenose, a man with less than a thousand days of hunting
left in him, learned the true meaning of fear. What if he died before
his boy was named? Such children never grew to adulthood in a hungry,
desperate Tribe.

So yes, Whistlenose ought to have
been delighted with the easy kills that had been so common lately.

"Then why aren't you happy?"
Ashsweeper asked him. She was a good worker with a sweet, sweet face.
Some man would take her for a second wife surely, after he was gone.
And the boy too.

"Husband?"

In the dark, the only sounds had
been the pop of the fire and the faint hiss of his breathing that had
given him his name.

"Most of them don't fight
back," he said at last. "I think... I almost think they're
grateful for our spears..."

Now, in the flickering light of
BloodWays’ burning buildings, Whistlenose looked around at the
other three remaining hunters in the party. Highstepper, huntleader
or not, still hadn't come to a decision. "We need to split up,"
said Whistlenose.

He could see they didn't like the
idea. All three were younger than he was and probably, until that
evening, they'd thought themselves farther from the soup. They had
swagger and speed over him. And reputations already better than that
of poor Whistlenose whose long life had gained him no more than three
tattoos. And yet, he came from a generation that didn't let a Chief,
no matter how clever, do their thinking for them.

"We can't fight these
Diggers," Whistlenose said. "All night, they've driven us
about like pups before the spear. If we are still alive now, it is
only because they have not yet chosen to kill us." He waved back
the way they'd come, through a tangle of dark streets, "They are
going to catch us for sure. Some of us. But if one group holds them
off, the other might make it home to tell of what happened here."

Highstepper chewed his lower lip
like a nameless child. His sweat all but stank of panic.
My
own too, probably
. Whistlenose winced as another wave
of pain pulsed out from his knee.

"You," Highstepper
said. "You."

"Me, what?" said
Whistlenose, but with a sudden chill, he knew what the younger man
was thinking.

"I saw you limping."

"I wasn't. I don't limp. I
kept up with all of you."
My
boy is too young! My boy!

Leftear spoke up. "The
huntleader's right." His eyes refused to settle on Whistlenose.
"One of us might be enough to hold them off. The rest might make
it back. BloodWays is gone. The Diggers have moved more quickly than
the Chief expected. Word of this has to get out."

Whistlenose didn't care about any
of that just then: not the Diggers; not the end of the world; or the
men around him. The Roof seemed to be spinning above his head and
beads of sweat itched their way down his face.

"Which of you will marry my
wife?" he said.

They knew what he was asking.

"We're wasting time here,"
Highstepper mumbled.

Whistlenose wanted to scream into
the huntleader's cowardly face. "Who will marry her?"

"Keep your voice down! The
Chief decides such things now."

Ah yes, the Chief. Wallbreaker.
Another coward, but clever to the point that many suspected the
Ancestors spoke directly into his ears, keeping the Tribe safe.
Clever, yes. And
practical
.
Ashsweeper and the boy didn't stand a chance.

Eventually, Leftear looked up. "I
will marry Ashsweeper. I will try. If
he
lets me."

Whistlenose nodded, feeling a
sting at the corner of his eyes. It was the only offer he was going
to get. "Go," he told the others. "As quickly as you
can."

"You had many days left,"
said Leftear. A lie, but an honourable one.

Highstepper signalled the
entrance of an alley and the three younger hunters disappeared into
it, as though it had swallowed them whole.

Five times Whistlenose counted
twenty heartbeats, giving them a chance to get away, but giving his
own fears time to grow too.

The Diggers had come out of
nowhere on the far side of TongueWays. They buried their living
victims waist-deep in the ground where strange yellow or white grubs
consumed them from below. The victims moaned in terrible pain but
would actively resist attempts to rescue them, drooling all the
while. Nor could these unfortunates be easily killed, except by fire.
Which might explain why BloodWays was burning now.

He swallowed dryly. Would he have
the strength to kill himself before he was caught? And shouldn't he
try to stay alive anyway, in order to give the others as much time as
possible? Leftear, at least. He needed Leftear to marry Ashsweeper.

But his own time was up. "Come,
you flesh wasters!" he shouted. "Let me drink that slop you
call blood! Sicken me on your marrow!"

Whistlenose felt a slight
trembling in the road beneath his feet. He fought the urge to run for
his life. His voice faltered as he forced the words out through his
teeth. "I'll stuff your pups for my boy to play with! Your wives
will be bedding for mine!"

A crack ran up the wall beside
him. These creatures loved to attack from below. The Chief said that
the hard surface of the ancient streets kept the ground from opening
beneath a hunter, but that if enough holes were made farther
underground it could cause the collapse of buildings. It seemed to be
happening now. Ancient masonry popped, sprays of rust and flakes of
stone stung Whistlenose, pushing him out of the shadows and into the
centre of the street.

Now he heard the skittering sound
of hard claws on stone. It came from all around him so that he turned
again and again in a circle, his spear held out in front of him. In
the shadows, far down in the direction of ManWays, something
flowed
across the street.

The hairs on his neck prickled
and he spun around again, stabbing the spear at nothing. Then, the
sounds seemed to be moving away from him. It made no sense, no sense
at all, but in moments, he felt himself all alone once more.

He should shout again. He should
draw their attention, but his mouth had dried up entirely and he
hadn't the strength to hold tightly onto the shaft of his spear. He
waited for what seemed like a thousand heartbeats, all alone with the
burning buildings of BloodWays at his back.