‘By the Wall—a cursed bloodhog!’ Dirk muttered, unconsciously rubbing the healed wound on his side.
Sonia wrinkled her nose in disgusted horror. No doubt, Rye thought in grim amusement, animal skeletons were not everyday sights in the polite world of the Keep. They had become all too familiar in the rest of Weld since the skimmer invasions began.
‘Out of the sky he come!’ Bones grinned, plainly delighted by their reactions. ‘A wonder, it were! Sky serpent bird, he lets ol’ bloodhog go, right up high, an’ down ol’ bloodhog come, bang into the Saltings! Never did Bones see such a thing in all his born days!’
With a stab of excitement, Rye remembered a very similar story told on one of the scraps of Sholto’s notebook. Sholto, too, had seen a gigantic bird suddenly drop its prey and fly away.
Had Sholto and Bones both witnessed the same event? Surely they had, if Bones thought it such a wonder. And that meant that Bones and Sholto had been in this area on the same day. They might even have met, as Sholto left the Saltings!
Rye longed to question the old man about it, but decided it was better to wait until they were on their way. The light was fading fast now, and Dirk was glancing uneasily at the cloudy sky.
Bones seemed quite unconcerned by the approach of night. He was nodding happily.
‘Big ol’ bloodhog!’ he crowed. ‘He be treasure for Bones an’ the Den when he all picked clean, Bones says to hisself when he sees him first. An’ today he be finished, shiny white, so Bones loads him an’ brings him out. An’ while he’s a-doing that, Bones sees you! So Bones hides sled while he waits. An’ out you comes from the Saltings, sure enough! An’ now here we all is, good as gold!’
He turned his gummy grin on Sonia and gestured proudly at the sled. ‘Climb on, lady!’ he said. ‘You be riding in fine style, as is fitting.’
‘Oh, no!’ Sonia exclaimed, backing away from the bloodhog skull in horror.
‘Sonia means that she would far rather walk with you, Bones,’ Rye put in quickly, seeing the old man’s face fall. ‘But she thanks you kindly for your offer.’
He glared at Sonia until she forced a feeble smile and nodded.
Bones looked at her admiringly. ‘A true an’ gracious lady, you,’ he said. ‘A fine lady, like in the olden tales. Walk with Bones, then, and we’ll go up-along like friends together.’
‘Is this Den place far from here?’ Dirk demanded, glancing yet again at the sky.
‘A step or two,’ grinned Bones. ‘But don’t you mind about it—sky’s a-darkening now, an’ ol’ sky serpents, they hunt in the light.’
Rye wet his lips. ‘But surely sky serpents are not the only dangers,’ he said. ‘Are there no other flying creatures to fear by night?’
‘No, no!’ Bones said in obvious surprise. ‘Night’s safe … ‘cept for bloodhogs, an’ they be few in the Scour these days. Sky serpents has got most of ‘em.’
He waited courteously until Sonia and Rye had moved to his right hand side, and Dirk, frowning in puzzlement, had taken the place on his left. Then he seized the shafts of his sled and set off along the pebbly track at a great pace, with his companions hurrying along beside him.
‘Bones,’ Rye began, raising his voice to compete with the dull roar of the sled’s runners rasping over the pebbles of the track, ‘how well do you remember the day when the bloodhog fell into the Saltings? I know it must have been a long time ago, but—’
Bones cackled. ‘A sad ol’ change it’ll be when Bones don’t bemember that far back! Why, only three days past, it were, counting this one just ended!’
Swallowing a groan of disappointment, Rye tried to return the old man’s grin. Sholto had left Weld over a year ago. He could not have been in the Saltings all that time. How could he have survived?
Clearly Dirk thought Bones was lying or simply had no idea of time.
‘Three days ago? That would mean the snails stripped a bloodhog to bare bones in two nights,’ he scoffed, jerking his head at the sled’s rattling cargo.
Bones nodded violently. ‘Yes, indeed, lords an’ lady. A man, now—a man lays down in the dark, anytime, an’ by dawning he’s a-picked clean, ready for Bones to collect. But ol’ bloodhog, he took two full nights! That’s how big he were.’
Rye’s stomach turned over. He glanced across the sled at Dirk. Dirk stared back, his eyes dark with horror.
‘So the Saltings is clearly no place to spend the night,’ Sonia muttered.
Rye jerked his head round to look at her. Sonia’s face showed nothing but pleasure at having been proved right. Either she had not heard what Bones had said about collecting human bones, or she had not thought about what it might mean.
Rye turned his eyes to the front again, forcing himself not to look at the smooth white bones of the sled—the bones that were too big for a goat, and too small for a horse, but were just right for a human being.
11 - The Mounds
Forget the sled, Rye told himself firmly. Forget what Bones collects in the Saltings. The important thing is that he visits the place often—maybe every day! He still might have seen Sholto. Concentrate on that—think only of that. And ask Bones about it, while you have the chance.
‘Bones, about the pyramids—the castles of stones—in the Saltings,’ he managed to say. ‘Did you see the man who made them? Did you speak to him?’
Bones nodded then shook his head. Sweat had already begun dripping down his hollow cheeks, making long, clean lines in the film of dust.
‘Bones sees sure enough, but that day Bones has better business than talking to wanderers doomed to die. That day, Bones be squirming in the Saltings like a twisty snake, to find where bloodhog corpus lies so to take the skin afore night come. Bones sees wanderer piling stone on stone and he thinks, by tomorrow’s dawning he’ll be a skelington, that fellow, ripe for picking. An’ maybe ol’ bloodhog too! But ol’ bloodhog, he took longer.’
Rye’s breath caught in his throat, and his stomach twisted into a hard, painful knot. He could feel Dirk’s eyes burning into him, but refused to look round.
Was it possible? Was it possible that, after all, Sholto had left the Saltings only three days ago? Perhaps. Perhaps he had set up camp in a place of safety—some part of the wasteland Rye, Dirk and Sonia had not seen.
‘You were wrong though, Bones,’ Rye said, fighting to keep his voice even. ‘That man did not die in the Saltings, did he? He reached the end, as we did. He made that pile of stones back there, where we met you.’
‘So he do!’ Bones nodded enthusiastically, pop-eyed with remembered surprise. ‘Well, there’s another wonder, Bones says to hisself, when he sees that castle rearing up by the Master’s sign next dawning. Ho, wonders be coming thick an’ fast these days, Bones says to hisself. Omens they be, for certain sure, of a even greater wonder to come. An’ so Bones tells them all, at the Den, an’ now they’ll find out ol’ Bones spoke true. ‘Cos here you be, lords an’ lady! Here you be, good as gold!’
‘Is that why you waited to talk to us?’ gasped Rye, his chest aching with the effort of talking and running at the same time. ‘Because you thought—’
‘That’s it!’ The old man glanced from side to side, greedily drinking in the sight of his companions. ‘Bones sees you and straight away Bones knows magic abides with you. Bones smells it!’
He ducked his head at Sonia and showed his gums. Her face froze.
‘Like flowers, it is,’ the old man whispered. ‘Like new grass growing. Like clear water bubbling. Like the air at dawning afore …’
For a moment his watery eyes stared blankly, as if they were seeing something other than the pebbled track, the bleak horizon. Then he blinked, and his face brightened as he looked quickly from side to side again.