10: His Holy Bones Read Online Free PDF

if only Ji had provided more of it.
    As it was, when he looked up, the sky had gone dark and flickering yellow torches lit the wide courtyard. While he had deeply inscribed the largest central flagstone, Kansa and Tanash had scratched a maze of symbols around it.  
    John recognized some of the symbols. They indicated traps and locks. Some of the spirals ended in signs of death. As he looked more closely, John realized that there were more spells than he’d first thought. Delicate lines curled and coiled out from the larger ones, filling every inch of the courtyard floor like spiraling fractals.
    “Just how much blood are you going to need?” John asked.
    Ji gave John an unconcerned glance and John realized that it didn’t matter. He would give as much as she needed. Vundomu had to be protected so that Ravishan could wake up to its safety.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter One Hundred
     
    Over the next five days the Fai’daum transformed the ruins of the sixth and fifth terraces into orderly camps. Two of the foundries were working again. Ten of the godhammers had been salvaged and remounted on the southern walls. Morale among both the Fai’daum and kahlirash’im soared, but Ravishan did not wake up.
    As had become his habit at the end of the day, John went to the infirmary and sank down to his knees beside Ravishan’s cot.
    John’s hands were stained with yellow pitch and soot. They looked filthy against the white sheets and even worse against Ravishan’s pale skin. John drew back and pulled his blanket around himself. He ached and stank of fire and sweat. His hair hung in limp, greasy curls. There wasn’t enough clean water for bathing. There was barely enough to keep the infirmary and kitchens clean. The dank odor of a dead man’s blood drifted up from John’s clothes.
    “I’m sorry I stink,” John told Ravishan quietly. “Not that you care, do you?”
    Ravishan lay motionless. John bowed his head against the thin mattress of the cot. Apparently distressed by the sight of John sitting on the floor, Wah’roa had given John a private bedroom. With furniture salvaged from unruined parts of the fortress, Wah’roa had converted a small storeroom just adjacent to the infirmary into a cramped but welcoming space. John knew he should have gone and slept in it just as an acknowledgement of the courtesy, but he knew he wouldn’t. He would fall asleep here, waiting for Ravishan to wake. Every night it was the same, or nearly the same. Ravishan grew a little thinner, a little paler, and John’s hope faded a little more.
    From the fifth terrace, far below, night bells rang the hours, until finally morning bells replaced them. Soon entire regiments of Fai’daum would be up, repairing waterlines, rebuilding houses, melting down wrecked iron, and forging new weapons. Wah’roa would come find John in the infirmary and gently usher him to the latest crisis. He didn’t resent the kahlirash commander, exactly. He understood that Wah’roa, Ji, and the others were only attempting to recover from one battle while simultaneously preparing for the next. He knew it was all incredibly important and yet John found it hard to take heart in any achievement while Ravishan still hung in this limbo between life and death.
    More refugees arrived daily from Amura’hyym’ir and the surrounding mountain villages. They joined the Fai’daum in rebuilding Vundomu. In exchange they were given shelter and food. Ji’s witches treated the wounded and Wah’roa trained both men and women in the defense of the fortress. The stores of food had to be rationed, but they were plentiful enough to last several more months. Water, on the other hand, was becoming dangerously scarce. Even the snow had been gathered up and melted down.
    “I have to find a source of fresh water for them all.” John stroked Ravishan’s cheek. In the darkness he could sometimes imagine that he