Bone Trail Page 19

  Micah swallowed. Cara reached out and touched his arm.

  ‘How many do they lay?’ she asked.

  Micah turned to her, his brow furrowed. ‘Lay?’ he said.

  ‘In one batch,’ she said. ‘How many eggs?’

  Micah shrugged. ‘Five. Six.’

  Cara smiled. ‘Then, so long as we don’t take more than one a nest, they’re not even gonna notice.’

  Micah nodded, but looked unconvinced. ‘What if we get one about to hatch?’ he said. ‘You crack out a close-eye wyrmeling into a sizzling skillet, and Eli is going to object, I can promise you that.’

  Cara nodded. ‘So would I,’ she said, then smiled. ‘But it’s easy. We’ll have to take the eggs from a nest that’s got maybe three or four just. That way, we’ll know they’re fresh laid.’

  Cody chuckled softly at her logic, and Cara flushed up all over again at his appreciation of her. Micah was looking down at the ground, scuffing his boots.

  ‘Well, all right, then,’ he said. ‘You two go ahead.’ He looked up again, his face a mixture of hurt and defiance. ‘But I ain’t getting any.’

  ‘Of course you ain’t,’ said Cody lightly. ‘We’ll need you to watch the ropes.’

  ‘You . . . you got ropes?’ said Micah.

  ‘I got ropes, Micah. I got everything that I need,’ said Cody. He smiled at Cara. ‘That we need.’

  He swung his rucksack off his shoulders, set it down on the ground and loosened the drawstrings. Moving closer, Cara stooped over and watched as Cody retrieved from the bag four coils of rope – two long and two short – metal rings, two rockspikes with threading holes and a rockhammer. His fingers moved quick and efficient over the ropes as he checked them, and Cara noticed the dark hair at his wrists and on the back of his hand, and how it caught the fading light as his muscles flexed.

  ‘Down on the plains, I did my fair share of well digging,’ he explained, noting with satisfaction the look of interest in Cara’s eyes. ‘Used these lowering ropes . . . I’ll show you how.’

  He climbed to his feet and, gathering up the rockspikes and hammer and slinging the ropes over his shoulder, looked along the line of the cliff, one way, then the other. He strode over to the edge of the canyon and, taking the hammer, drove the two spikes deep into the rock, side by side.

  Cara and Micah watched him. Cara sensed Micah’s unease, but said nothing.

  ‘You attach the rope like so,’ said Cody, unravelling one of the long lengths and kneeling down to thread it through the first rockspike. ‘It’s forty yards long,’ he said. ‘Which gives us twenty yards of descent.’ Cody tied off both ends of the rope with large figure-of-eight knots and climbed to his feet. ‘You want to give it a go, Cara?’

  Micah looked at her, and Cara was gratified to note that she had his full attention now. She nodded. There were butterflies in her stomach and her scalp itched. It was a long, long way down to the bottom of the canyon, and she occupied her thoughts busying herself – ­removing her backpack from her shoulders and putting it back on at her front.

  ‘OK,’ said Cody, taking one of the short ropes, threading on a ring, and tying it securely round her waist. ‘I’ll attach the rope to you, like this . . .’

  Cara stepped forward and held her arms up, and Cody pushed the rope up through the ring. Cara flushed as his fingers inadvertently touched her thigh, her hips; pressed against her stomach. Then – perhaps not so ­inadvertently – brushed against her breasts as he looped the rope over her shoulder.

  ‘That should do you,’ he said at last, taking hold of the bottom of the rope. ‘You hold this end at all times,’ he told her, ‘with your left hand, feeding it through. These, you hold onto with your right.’ He handed her the doubled lengths of rope. ‘Release your grip a tad when you want to go down. Grip it tight when you want to stop. You got that?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Cara uncertainly.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her, and grinned lop-sided. ‘There ain’t nothing to it, you’ll see.’ He looked over at Micah. ‘You watch the spikes,’ he said, handing him the rockhammer. ‘And make sure them ropes don’t tangle. Think you can manage that?’

  Micah’s face coloured, but he bit his tongue and nodded.

  When Cody had attached himself to the second set of ropes to his satisfaction, he stepped backwards to the edge of the cliff. Then, with one hand behind him, holding one end of the rope and the two clamped together in his other hand at his side, he leaned back till he was stuck out over the drop beneath him, back straight and legs bent at the knees. He looked round at Cara, saw her wide-eyed expression and grinned.

  ‘Ready?’ he said.

  ‘I think so,’ Cara said, and hoped the butterflies in her stomach would go away.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now take it nice and slow. You just step back. Hold them ropes like I showed you and do exactly what I do.’ He smiled again. ‘Move to the edge.’

  Jaws clamped grimly shut, Cara did just that. Her breathing came shallow and jerky.

  ‘Now, lean back.’

  Cara snatched at a deep breath then, as Cody had shown her, fed through the rope with her left hand and released her right hand slightly, so that the twin lengths of rope slid through. She jerked back, tightened her hand and came to halt at an angle to the rock.

  ‘Tad more,’ said Cody.

  Again, Cara did as she was told, nervous but trusting. She looked across at Cody as she eased herself backwards, and tightened her grip on the rope when the position of her body mirrored his. Overhead, manderwyrmes swooped and soared, blurs of orange and brown as they screeched their agitation.

  ‘Right, now kick off, loose the ropes, then grip them again when your feet touch back on the rock. Like this . . .’

  He straightened his braced legs and swung back into the air, dropping as he did so. Then, legs splayed and boots raised, he landed flat against the rock some way lower down.

  Cara did the same, copying his every movement. And for a moment, as she was coming down in the air, she felt weightless and free and so exhilarated she laughed out loud.

  ‘It’s like flying!’ she cried out.

  Above her, she saw Micah looking down at her. The concern on his face switched to something else at her words, and Cara had the feeling that Thrace must have crossed his mind once more; Thrace, who, on the back of her whitewyrme could truly fly, not merely jump down a cliffside at the end of a piece of rope.

  ‘And again,’ Cody called across to her.

  Little by little, feet pressed flat against the rock, Cara bounced down the rockface, jump after flying jump. As her confidence grew, each one seemed easier and more wonderful than the one before. At about ten yards down, the hatchery began, the smooth rockface becoming deep-pitted with roost-holes that the manderwyrmes had dug into the sandstone. The air filled with the sound of their indignant chitters and whooping cries.

  ‘Reckon we can gather us some eggs, Cara,’ Cody said and smiled across at her. ‘What do you think?’

  Cara looked at the claw-scratched hollows in the cliff face. ‘Reckon so,’ she said, smiling back.

  Reaching forward, she plunged her hand into the dark opening in front of her and felt around in the soft felt-like nest of grass and moss. There were three smooth ovals, warm to the touch. Her fingers closed round one and she withdrew a single pale yellow egg and slipped it inside the opened pack at her front. She reached into another opening and counted four eggs, and carefully removed one before moving on again. Beside her, Cody pulled a bundle of moss and grass roughly from a roost-hole and tipped all five eggs into his rucksack. Cara pretended not to notice and hoped that Micah, above, had not either.

  ‘You all right down there?’ Micah’s voice sounded from the lip of the canyon.

  ‘Nearly done,’ Cody called up, and smiled across at Cara.

  ‘How many you reckon?’ he aske
d.

  ‘Dozen each?’

  He nodded. ‘Should be enough.’

  Cara reached into another of the roost-holes and felt around. Instead of smooth ovals, her hand touched jagged shards of shell and scaly bodies that wriggled and squirmed beneath her fingers. With a gasp, she drew her hand back – and her feet slipped beneath her. ­Instinctively, she grasped at the rock, letting go of the rope as she did so.

  Suddenly, she was falling, tumbling backwards till she was upside down. The eggs rolled out of her pack, dropped through the air and smashed on the ground far below. The rope went taut and she snapped back, whiplashed, banging the side of her head against the rockface.

  Far above her, Micah was shouting. ‘Cara! Cara! Are you all right?’

  Cara was dangling like a hooked maggot on the end of a fisherman’s line. The blood hammered in her head as she desperately struggled to right herself.

  ‘Stay still,’ came a voice close by, and Cara turned to see that Cody had lowered himself and was suspended in the air where she hung. His face betrayed no emotion; his words were soft and measured. ‘Take a hold of my arm,’ he said. ‘Get your feet into that roost-hole there – that’s the way. Now, push forward, and step out and down.’

  With Cody’s reassuring grip keeping her steady, Cara braced her legs, found a purchase on the cliff-face and righted herself.

  ‘Don’t think I ever dug a well quite this deep,’ said Cody, and winked at her. ‘I think it’s time we climbed back up.’

  Cara nodded miserably. ‘I dropped all my eggs.’

  ‘I know,’ said Cody, and grinned. ‘Lucky I got us a few extra.’

  Going up was harder than coming down, Cara soon learned. But by using the roost-holes as footholds, slowly but surely, and despite her body shaking, she managed to climb. And when the wyrmeholes gave out, with Cody’s arm around her, supporting her weight and taking the strain, she pulled herself up the rope, hand over hand. Micah was there at the top to help her over the edge of the cliff.

  ‘You all right?’ he said, his voice urgent and low. Cara could tell his concern was already turning to anger at her recklessness.

  She nodded, and felt gingerly at the bump on her head. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, avoiding his eyes, which were staring unblinking into her own.

  Beside them, Cody scrambled over the canyon edge onto his knees, then climbed to his feet.

  ‘You were mighty brave,’ Cody said to Cara, his eyes flashing, as if daring Micah to say different.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cara whispered back, and as she spoke tears welled up in her eyes. She had been reckless, she realized – but only because she’d been desperate for Micah to pay her some attention. And now he was angry with her.

  Cody must have sensed what she was feeling, for he reached out and took her hand in his, and held it, his green eyes deep and still and mysterious, staring into hers in the late twilight glow. Cara looked back, and would have held his gaze for longer had Micah not suggested – his voice quiet and uncertain – that they ought to be heading back.

  Thirty-Nine

  With long powerful wingbeats, Aseel rose higher into the fading light, the shimmering, rock-stored heat of the day buoying him up. On the whitewyrme’s back, Thrace tightened her grip with her legs and switched her black kinlance from one hand to the other. Far below, their movements were captured in an elongated shadow that rippled over the grasslands.

  Aseel dipped his wings and wheeled round in a broad arc. Thrace arched her back and lifted her head, relishing the feel of the wind in her face.

  She was unfettered. Free. Invincible.

  She leaned forward and wrapped her arms round Aseel’s neck. Below them, the grasslands were now giving way to peaks and ridges, the ravines between them dark and shadow-filled. It was a harsh terrain, arduous and dangerous to traverse on foot. Thrace had experienced such dangers travelling with the cragclimber . . .

  And the kithboy.

  Unbidden, and unwelcome, the memory of him returned, tangible and fully-formed.

  Thrace flinched. Beneath her fingertips, she felt Aseel tremble, his great neck seeming almost to chill to the touch. He craned his neck round and stared back at her, his barbels quivering and eyes darkening from pale yellow to a deep amber. Thrace looked back, aware that the whitewyrme had sensed this sudden change in her mood – and she, in turn, sensed Aseel’s guilt that the reason for this flight, wondrous and exhilarating as it was, was to search for the wyve that had resulted from his ­coupling with Aylsa.

  He turned away, gauged the purple-blue of the sky ahead and realigned his course. A thin trail of aromatic white smoke coiled from his nostrils and blew back over his kin. And, comforted, Thrace rested the side of her head against his scaly neck, which flexed and contracted as they flew on into the deepening dusk.

  Two or three early evening stars were just twinkling into existence in the velvet sky when the first of the highstacks came into view. They were tall and angled and black-­silhouetted against the sky, their tops red-glowed with the molten rock that swirled and bubbled in the earth beneath them. Wisps of smoke coiled up from the vents and drifted northwards, stained crimson by the remnants of the fresh-set sun.

  From time immemorial, the highstacks had been the whitewyrmes’ hatchery. The females would lay their ­fertilized wyves beside the hot glowing vents, and the males would tend them till they hatched; turning them over, warning off would-be predators. Sometimes it took no more than a couple of months for the wyves to hatch; sometimes a hundred years. Sometimes longer.

  When the taint of the marauding kith had grown too strong, the whitewyrmes had abandoned the highstacks, trusting that wyrmekin – though shunned by the colony – would protect the wyves. And Aseel and Thrace had done just that. But later, when the kith penetrated further into the weald and the colony abandoned the wyrme galleries as well, Alsasse their leader had sent back a contingent of wyrmes to gather up the wyves, and the whitewyrme host had taken them with them.

  After the tribulations Aseel and Thrace had endured the previous year, which had taken them both away from the highstacks, they had finally returned, only to find the hatchery empty. With no wyves to protect, and fullwinter fast approaching, they had been unsure what to do. In the end, they had left the valley country and flown to the abandoned wyrme galleries to see out the winter; to decide what they should do next . . .

  ‘I went there by darkness, the night before the colony was due to depart for the west,’ Aylsa had told Aseel down in the underground nursery. ‘I thought you would be able to protect it,’ she said. ‘So that was where I laid it. At the top of a highstack, my wyve . . .’ She had hesitated. ‘Our wyve, Aseel.’

  Now, as they approached the stacks that peppered the eastern valley country like a thousand carved obelisks, searching for that single wyve, Aseel’s heart raced. With his wings shallow-beating in bursts, then held rigid and gliding, Aseel circled round highstack after highstack, his and Thrace’s eyes searching the top of each successive smoking vent.

  But there was no sign of the wyve.

  The moon rose, full and milk-silver. Aylsa had told Aseel that, as she recalled, the stack she had chosen in her haste and turmoil, was striped – though that didn’t narrow it down much.

  Then they discovered the kith.

  It was the taint that alerted Aseel to them. Rancid oil and rank sweat. The stench of death.

  There were four of them. They were hunkered down in a circle at the top of a tall lopsided stack that was banded from bottom to top with thick strata of rock, alternating light and dark. They wore thick leather overjackets and broad-brim hats that gleamed in the stark moonlight. They had removed their packs, which lay off to one side of the flat stacktop, along with ropes, ­rockspikes and harpoons, and two sidewinders. A couple of spitbolts were slung over the backs of two of the hunched kith. And as Aseel came down lower in the sky, Thrace noted the r
ed kerchiefs knotted around their necks – that, and an acrid smell of burning.

  Aseel soared back into the air on widespread wings, taking care not to cross the moon and throw shadows that would alert the men to their presence. They circled the highstack warily.

  One of the kith seemed to be in charge. With the end of a long club, he was hammering at a knee-high dome of baked clay that they had constructed over the highstack’s glowing vent. As the clay cracked, wisps of smoke coiled up into the air, and the acrid smell intensified. The kith turned the club round in his hand and started poking and prodding at the dome, chipping off shard after shard of the baked mud that had formed a carapace around a layer of charred wood and blackened straw. And as Aseel and Thrace watched, the kith cleared away the smoking embers to reveal . . .

  A wyve.

  Thrace felt Aseel’s body tense beneath her. These kith were trying to force-hatch a wyve. Aseel’s wyve.

  An overwhelming fury surged through Thrace’s body. She gripped the kinlance in one hand and raised her hood with the other. Aseel turned to her. His eyes were glowing a deep blood-red. Far below, the kith with the club leaned forward.

  ‘Easy does it,’ he said as he rolled the wyve from the ashes and began tapping it with the club.

  All at once, the wyve broke open. There came a muted cry and the wyrmeling inside flopped out onto the rock, mewling and twitching. Its head was large; dis­proportionately so in contrast to its scrawny scale-free body and twig-like legs. One wing rose, papery and angular; the other was no more than a nubbed stump. Its eyes were huge but rheumy blind. Its muzzle had not yet formed. Instead, there was a hole where a snout should be, white-spiked with irregular fangs.

  ‘Damn thing’s half-formed,’ one of the kith opined.

  ‘That’s just too bad,’ said the kith with the club, ‘since this is the only wyve we’ve found in these roosting stacks – and since none of us here has fifty years to spare to see it cooked proper . . .’