A Good Cast of the Bones

Death In Harmony: Part Twelve of Twenty-Nine

Death In Harmony is the fifth in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the twelfth chapter.

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This is a fantasy series—not quite grimdark, but dark nevertheless—with complicated and believable characters doing their best to survive in a world simply indifferent to their existence.

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A Good Cast of the Bones

The present: somewhere north of The Pit

The stair went down, down, down into the mist. Some steps were more solid than others, carved into the limestone cliff itself, in places others were repaired, newer treads carefully added where the old had worn away. This had been a route down into the valley for a long span of time. Even the replacement stones showed signs of years and years of wear.

In other parts, the stairs were covered in a considerable build-up of debris, and Flin carefully picked her way over branches, piles of rocks, and even a still-whole fallen tree, a thrumming bees’ nest hanging in the branches. She slowly crawled over the trunk, making it lurch and roll in an alarming fashion. Fortunately, the day was not yet warm enough for the majority of the bees to want to leave their shelter, although their humming grew angry and she swiftly clambered over to the other side and continued her descent.

She glanced upward, checking to see if anyone followed, then she was slipping, feet falling out from under her as the step gave way, tilting, skidding, sliding down.

Before she even had chance to scream, Flin came to an abrupt halt, scrambling to find her footing, to cling to something solid; her haversack strap had caught on a gnarled old bush growing from the rockface, arresting her fall, and undoubtedly saving her life.

Catching her breath and trying to slow her pounding heart, she realised this was the third piece of luck connected with the bag. It was said these things came in threes, and she could not help but wonder if that was all her luck used up. She said a quick prayer to whichever God truly governed chance—she knew of at least six different names for him, or her, or them—and then continued descending, determined to put as much distance between herself and the pursuit, as quickly as possible.

As she approached the circular valley base, the layer of mist burnt off and Flin began to pick out the ruins of buildings, piles of masonry here, sudden and surprisingly tall walls there. Everything had long ago been reclaimed by nature, but tantalising glimpses suggested there had once been a large settlement in the valley.

A little further down and Flin noticed the city walls. They stretched away to both sides, perfectly matching the cliff wall, less than a stone’s throw from the rockface. It made little sense. Why build a wall, when the cliffs were surely defence enough? Again, she thought of the cookies her mother had baked when she was young.

‘Or perhaps someone dug a deep hole, all around where they wanted to build the city, then hollowed it out beneath? Or there was a giant sinkhole?’

An answer came not from the baby, who remained fast asleep, but from the baying of a hound above, distant calls drifting down to her.

They had found her trail and now knew she had descended.

Flin knew in some ways she was lucky. She always had been, it was just sometimes hard to see the luck at the time. When she had fled the village she had feared arrows, or stones from slings, but it was clear the men were concerned about harming her child. Now, they could easily drop rocks on her and she was glad that they maintained at least some scruples, if only to remove the baby, take him away.

‘No one is taking you. Not again.’

She carried on, as fast as she dared. There was no way back up the stair now, she would have to hope they moved away, perhaps afraid of the way down, or pray she found another way out of the valley.

As she approached them, the trees below began to reveal their immensity, as did some of the still-standing buildings. She knew better than to ask herself who would have built a city in the middle of nowhere; she had seen similar places, long abandoned, in areas where there was no logical reason for a settlement. She knew that time changed all: rivers diverted, roads and trade routes disappeared, sea retreated or rose. In short, cities died.

The sun had risen above the treeline, the light descending the vast cliff opposite her current position, a line of shadow dropping almost fast enough to see. In the low-angled rays, the stone did not look as smooth as she had originally thought, pocked with pits and scarred with fractures, caves here and there, dark cracks stretching out from them—eyes, surrounded by laughter lines. As she continued downward, Flin passed several small caves, some shallow, little more than scoops out of the rock, others disappearing into deep velvet blackness. Any one of these might provide her with an escape route, a place to hide or, more likely, simply reward her with a different location to die.

Shouts came from above and a loose stone fell in front of her, bouncing off the low stone edging and vanishing into the air below. Her pursuers had decided to descend.

‘Shit.’

She had hoped they would have spent more time arguing over their best course of action and she sped up, skipping down the steps faster, with less care, slipping here, grasping the crumbling parapet there. There was no more time for caution.

Then she was suddenly level with the canopy of trees at the bottom of the stair, quicker than she thought she would descend, only to discover the last stretch of stair was simply not there. It was a deliciously cruel joke, as though someone had decided to end the steps tantalisingly close to escape, close to the ground, but not quite close enough.

Normally, she would have had no problems with risking dropping and rolling. In the past, she had fallen further, but with a baby? That was considerably more dangerous, yet she had little real choice.

Before she could overthink her decision and lose her nerve, she dropped the spear, tossing her haversack after it, moved the baby closer to her chest, lowered herself over the edge of the last step, and let go.

For a moment, she was weightless, feeling the air rush past her, then the ground leapt forward, hitting her feet hard. She bent her knees and tucked her shoulder, rolling, arms cradling the baby, tumbling over and over through the loam, to come to a halt in a thick mattress of old leaves, caught in a tangle of fallen branches.

The baby was now awake, his eyes a little wide, affronted at being awoken so swiftly and in such a strange manner, but he seemed otherwise fine. Tiny eyes studied her face with a seriousness which melted her heart, filling her with a moment of love.

Flin gingerly checked her ankles and knees, moving each joint of her body slowly, deliberately, but it seemed she had escaped any injury at all.

As she stood, testing her legs, she heard a sharp crack from high above, then screaming, the sound getting closer and closer. Before she had chance to look up, she felt a heavy vibration through the ground and another noise immediately behind her, a snapping-crunch accompanied by a sound like wet laundry slapped against a rock. Flin felt her stomach clench and her knees tremble.

Glancing upward, high, high above and silhouetted against the sky, she saw someone hanging from the edge of the stairs, legs dangling in the air as he screamed to his companions for help. She tried not to look behind her at the man who had fallen, instead walking over to retrieve her spear and haversack, keeping her head turned to oneside. The spear was undamaged, the makeshift repair to her bag still holding.

Although she was ready to disappear into the forested ruins, to use her headstart as best as she could, Flin paused. She knew it was unwise to spurn fate, especially when the Gods, or chance, or whatever governed life, had thrown her such strong dice as she had fled, each little moment giving her time, increasing her ability to escape. This was another good cast of the bones. She steeled herself and turned to the dead man.

He no longer looked much like a man, alive or dead, and Flin instead focused on the details that mattered, such as his small pack, made from a folded and rolled blanket, a woven strap holding it together, splashed with blood and wet from the morning dew. Who knew what treasures lay inside? As she gingerly moved the body, she was thrilled to find an axe—her axe. Its undamaged, masked head was caught within his clothing, the shaft snapped off, the headless end embedded in his chest. He also carried a small knife and a firelighting kit, both hung from a leather cord around his neck, which she quickly pushed into her own haversack. Perhaps her luck was turning.

Flin slung the pack over her shoulder, ignoring the blood, and tucked the axe, now two hands shorter, into its loop on her belt, securing it with another twist of thick leather: she was not going to lose it again. She prayed she would get the chance to carve a new handle.

She looked up at the stair, shielding her eyes against the brighter sky overhead, waiting until she could see her pursuers on the stair, small against the vast rockface. The men were carefully, slowly descending, and she counted six before she turned away and started running, spear in hand, baby still tight to her chest. He would need feeding again soon, and changing, but still he did not cry.

‘You are such a good boy,’ Flin said, a little breathlessly. She felt drained, wrung out, and exhausted.

She quickly reached what had once been the city walls. They still stood tall enough that she was forced to run alongside them for half a bowshot, until she found a way in.

As she turned to head through, disappear into the forest-cloaked city, she skidded to a halt, hand flung out against the stone, and only just stopped herself against the corner of the wall.

There was a creeper running across the trail at ankle height, easily missed, brushed against and tripped. It was not in a natural position.

She stepped over the trap, carefully checking for secondary triggers. From where she stood, she knew she was now invisible to the men above, hidden by the thick tree-cover. She wondered if any of them would notice the tripwire.

Without waiting to examine it further, she set off along the trail, pace slowed by necessity, her eyes constantly searching. It was still easier to follow the trail, traps or no traps, but she would be extra careful.

The woods were dense and dimly lit by the early morning light and, try as she might, she could not shake the feeling she was being watched. Just paranoia, she told herself, there was nothing there. Yet, as she ran, she remembered the many times she had told herself exactly the same thing, and the many times she had been proven wrong.

There was nothing there.

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