Page 12 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

WREN

Let’s begin, indeed. Our village — or, more appropriately, city — is not large by any standard. It started as a small fiefdom of sorts, to an ancient lord who ruled with an iron fist. The core of his land is still here, the central village, which is surrounded completely on seven of its eight sides by bone wall. The eighth part is made of the black mountain rising up and towering over those below. To either side of the walls jutting out from the mountain are sheer drops down sharp, unforgiving cliffs. We were built in a defensive position originally, on a land bridge between the lower terrain and the dead stone above. As the Fiefdom expanded through blade and blood, it pushed further into the scrub and dirt, further out from the shadow of the mountain. But inside the bleached enclosure of our ancestors is still the heart of our city.

The bone wall started long before a BoneKeeper was first born. It is all song and story now, words passed from mother to daughter, but they are all the same: The first Lord of the Fief was known as The Queen’s Sword.He was not named for his prowess on the battlefield, but his place in her bed, a mockery because the woman was seventy and he but twenty. All laughter turned to blood when she died, though, as she left him an unheard of legacy of land and wealth thatcould not be touched. Her son, the new King, chose to retire the Sword to the bequeathed land, as it was far from the central Kingdom, far enough that the Sword and his activities were of no consequence. Out of sight, out of mind seemed to be the easiest plan. From that point, the Sword was left to his own devices, much to the pity of the people he now ruled.

He was young, in his prime, and had enough money to buy an army, which is what he did. He was not satisfied with his lot or legacy, and had a long memory that burned with the echo of the laughter of his peers. And so, for a decade, he quietly built. First the village in the mountain face, his central keep carved directly into the glossy black stone, the rooms cut day and night by his now enslaved people. As they delved into the oily stone, deeper and deeper, thick veins of precious minerals and gleaming stones were discovered and cut from the rock like limbs being torn from bodies, leaving sharp and jagged lines behind. The wealth was staggering, luring the Sword further and further into the mountain’s side, tunneling like worms into rotted fruit. He redirected all able men to the mines, had them live below the surface to work at all hours. And when one would die from heat, or exhaustion, or from the Sword’s temper, he would burn them and use their charred bones to make furniture for his home.

When the villagers protested, he bought their forgiveness with heavy, foreign crops imported from the Lower Kingdom, with sweets and music, with golden fabric and glossy cattle. He would hold festivals where wine flowed freely, and bribe them with false promises. And, much to their shame, they closed their eyes to the atrocities occurring within his palace, because outside the gleaming walls of the imposing castle, the grass was still sweet, the air still fresh, and the ramparts of the village were still made of wood and stone. It was hard to feel sorrow for another when your belly and your cup were full, when your home was warm and your cupboards stocked. If a worker or two was lost, well…didn’t the miners risk their lives in the mountains?

The Sword was handsome, charismatic, charming, and bent thepeople to breaking before they even realized they were cutting their own throats for him.

After a decade, he had, if not loyalty from his people, a frenetic fealty, for in ten years of rule, his entire massive palace was fully decorated, and not a single piece inside was wood or stone. He turned from the TriGoddess, forbade her name from the mouths of his people, and set dark altars to darker, unmet Gods, searching for one willing to bargain for blood and bone. Flanked on either side by his closest confidants, he scoured every inch of the Upper Kingdom, to no avail.

And then began the push, the creeping disease that spread from the gates of the village down the mountain into the Valley below. In the story we are told, you could see the black veins of rot curling through the forest and meadows like choking vines as the Sword advanced, still searching. His army sent gifts back every month — wagon loads of pale bodies and bones delivered up the mountain to the people there.Waste not, want not, the Sword commanded, teeth sharp and gleaming, eyes bright with mania.These materials are to build and protect our home.The message was very clear, and the people frightened, so they followed orders without wavering, and the first wall of bone rose up around the inner village.

As the wall grew, the land around it drew back as if in response to the atrocities. Crops, once thick and golden, thinned to a pale dusting, barely covering the dry ground. Water, deep and pure, that had made our cliffs coasts so long ago, started dropping away, until it was almost out of reach. What little was grown or tilled was rationed in careful proportions as the people started feeling the first real biting pains of starvation. They became more dependent on the Sword, on his sporadic gifts of millet and grain, of meats and fowl. As their hunger grew, so did their fear. And their obedience.

As his territory expanded, the Sword would leave for longer and longer periods of time, each time growing more confident in the chains he had placed on his people. Even still, his two hooded crows occasionally remained behind. Hand chosen for their ferocity and fervor, his silent Protector or fanatical Justice would stay to enforcehis will, cast his shadow over the people. Though none of the three would stay separate for long, the looming threat of an unexpected visit twisted the stomachs and spines of the beaten people.

For the Sword would send evidence of his largesse. Reminders he was thinking of the Upper Kingdom. Heavy carts came, pulled by horses dead on their feet, ribs showing through their dull, patchy coats. None of the drivers entrusted with the precious cargo could speak, their tongues cut from their mouths as caution.But the wild, wide eyes and shaking bodies told more than words could of the horrors occurring far from our cliff face. Their silence was a blessing and a curse as the pile of empty bodies grew and grew in the Sword’s absence. Desperate prayers were whispered late at night for some kind of respite, some relief, some rescue. Candles were lit, wishes written on paper and lit on fire to the wind, blessings begged for from the Maiden, the Mother, the Crone. And eventually, a small seed of rebellion was born in the beaten down people; left alone for long enough that they refused to add to the wall anymore.

When the wagons paused, the first green shoots in years pushed through loamy earth. For a moment, there was hope.

But now the story turns dim, as though it were not already coal black.

In the Upper Kingdom, the people did not know the tide of the war, and, as winter was fast approaching, did not have time to care. Even with the new crops, the cheeks of the village children were too gaunt for it to be the Harvest already, and there was the heavy taste of fear in the air.

Bread can only stretch so far.

Desperation is a door to dark, dire places.

When the Sword came back with a crown on his head and armor of gleaming white, they were a rabid mob before him. He, who had survived a brutal and bloody war uninjured to seize an unearned crown, was swarmed by a starving and desperate people. His army was able to quiet the insurrection, but not before the Sword had lost an eye and an arm. His rage knew no bounds. The men over 18 were allowed to live, but only because he knew he needed people to laborfor him. Some women were added to the walls, some kept as prizes, but all men who were not in his army were sent to the frosting fields or chained in the deepest mines to work until they fell silent. The empty homes were granted to his soldiers, as were the women left behind, given as gifts to his most faithful followers, sometimes two or three for a single Officer, and the bone wall grew.

Food was beyond scarce. There was a small crop of grain and wheat, but anything gathered was given to the army, not to the village.

And wagon after wagon of fleshwas still being delivered from the Lower Kingdom in unceasing caravans, if not daily, then weekly at least.

You must understand,we were told in whispers as children,you must understand. There was no other food. The people would have died. They would all have died.And some did, rather than make the choice to stay alive.

But others…well, the less said about the Winter that year, the better.

It changed the people. A mass hysteria, a darkness of soul, descended upon them that had not existed before. The Sword reveled in it, bathed in their despair like it was something precious. And in the bleakness, in the time of pure and utter hopelessness, something cracked in the world. Some abomination occurred, so unspeakable that even memory does not have the words for it, and a demon was woken, unseen before in history, unleashed from its pits of hidden fire, chains melted. No one knows how, or what happened, and there are no stories from this silent time. No whispers, no bone memory. For almost a decade, in any history of the world, there is nothing but silence. Not a mouth alive in our village today holds the truth of what happened during those years. There is simply before the birth of the darkness, and after, and not knowing what happened, no one knows how to fix it.

All we know is that after…after, the TriGoddess fell silent.

AN UNEXPECTED TURN

WREN

Unexpectedly, the teacher’s tale diverges from the history I know in my marrow to be true. The change is a difference without being a difference, unsaid words rather than lies, and it sits uneasily on my skin.

“When the Sword was old, older than anyone else in the two Kingdoms, when his skin was so thin it would tear if he moved too quickly, he called together his most faithful followers. The Sword was as wrinkled as a blood moth cocoon, that’s how ancient he was.” The woman drops her voice, making it spooky but teasing, and the children groan in disgust.

“Ew! Miss! Ew!”

“Well, he was. From the Southern Kingdom he called his old Protector, who had long since left his side to rule below in his stead. And from the Traders’ Kingdom he called his Justice, who had acted for the Sword there. These men — his vultures, hooded and bent with age — were almost as bad as him. A trio of evil — bloodthirsty, power hungry, and vicious. Supposed friends, or allies, they had waited and waited for the Sword to be old enough to overcome, to seize his Kingdoms and continue his terror. And finally they saw their chance. But!”

The sound of squeaking chairs tells me children are rockingforward to hear what’s coming, and I unintentionally mimic their unseen movements.

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