Authors: Nicholas Anderson
***
Joseph's eyes
were still bleary and his vision still blurry from crying as he walked across
the courtyard. He felt a little better, though. Dane did not hold
it against him. He did not want him to suffer, only to soldier on.
Joseph was not sure which was worse. But, if Dane didn't condemn him, no
one else could really say anything to him. Getting up on the wall
tomorrow night was something he could not let himself think about, but it was
still a day away. And Dane had asked him to go to the temple with him
tomorrow. Who knew, they might surprise some of their enemies there and
avenge Rem and Markis and Frankie and Kenzie and Edric. They might at
least smash their idols and burn the place. At the very least, the hike
would take his mind off of all this.
At that moment,
he looked up and saw a dark shape stumbling out of the cellar. It held
two shining object in its hands but Joseph's vision was still to blurry to see
them clearly. Joseph stopped walking. What he could see clearly
made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The walker was walking
funny; stumbling, shuffling sideways. It reminded him of a dog he had
seen once, its mind wiped out by rabies.
The tripping
gait.
The aimlessness.
He watched the
figure. He had not been entirely right. Its movements were clumsy
but not aimless. It was headed for him. All at once he recognized the
figure and the objects it held in its hands. It was Edric's cousin,
Aaron. In one hand he held a bottle; in the other, a naked knife.
Joseph knew what
Aaron wanted and that it was senseless to walk away. He waited.
"Why’d you
do it?" Aaron asked. He was close enough now for Joseph to smell the
alcohol on him.
"I didn't
know it was him. The way he was acting, I thought they'd turned him into
one of those things."
"Why did
you do it?" Aaron stumbled forward a pace.
Joseph took a
step back. "I just told you."
"But you
didn't," Aaron said.
"What do
you mean?"
"If you
thought he was a deathwalker, you should have known shooting him wouldn't have
done any good."
Joseph had
already thought of this. He hated himself for the panic that had caused
him to act so hastily.
"So, I want
to know. Why’d you shoot him?"
Joseph took
another step back. His back was to the wall.
"I want to
know." Aaron said, coming on.
Joseph brought
up his crossbow against his body as a shield.
"
You going
to shoot me like you shot him?"
"It's not
even loaded, Aaron. Take it easy."
"Why didn't
you take it easy?"
"I don't
want to fight you," Joseph said.
"Oh, no, I
bet you don't. You're scared, aren't you?
Just
like you were scared with Eddie.
Is that why you did it? Or
did you have some other reason?"
“Put the knife
down, Aaron,” said a voice from behind him.
Both men looked
over Aaron’s shoulder to see Bailus standing there. Bailus held no weapon
and his hands hung at his sides. “Put the knife down,” he repeated.
Aaron lunged for
Joseph. Bailus grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. For
a moment, both men stood grappling. Aaron jabbed with the knife; Bailus
stepped back and swung his forearm like a club into the side of Aaron’s head.
Aaron dropped like a sack of flour.
Dane came
running up with several soldiers behind him.
“Lock him up,”
Bailus said.
As squadmates
Smith Darinson and Gundar Holt pulled Aaron to his feet, Bailus added, “And
make sure you give him a blanket. I don’t want him freezing before we can
deal with him.”
“This was my
fault, sir,” Joseph said, his back still pressed against the wall.
“Nonsense,”
Bailus said. “Imagine having all this fuss over a fool like Edric
Embries.” Bailus nodded to Dane and moved to step past him. He
staggered.
“You’re hurt,”
said Dane. There was a dark, spreading patch on Bailus’s shirt above his
left hip.
Bailus put his
hand over the wound. “My own stupid fault,” Bailus said. “I think I
should be able to handle a drunk with a knife. What a misery it is
growing old.”
“Come on,” Dane
said.
Dane tried to
support him, but Bailus held out his other hand. He walked beside him to
Leech’s room.
While Leech went
to work on the wound, Dane said, “This was my fault. Joseph asked me to
place him in the cell. If I had, none of this could have happened.”
“When are you
people
going to stop talking like that?” Bailus said.
He slapped Leech’s hand away and turned to Dane. “You think every damned
thing that happens on this damned island is your own damned fault?”
“I’m sorry,”
Dane said.
“Enough of
that,” Bailus said. “You think it gives you some kind of control over
what happens here if you try to take responsibility for it?
If you blame yourself for it?”
“I don’t
know.”
“Sir,” Bailus
said, “You don’t have any control here. None of us do. The only way
any of us are going to survive is if we dig in like ticks on a dog and hang
on. We have to be ready for whatever comes at us, but we can’t expect to
control any of it.”
Leech put his
hands out tentatively. Bailus ignored him. He gingerly began to
dress the wound. As soon as he was finished Bailus got up and walked
out.
“You think he’ll
be OK?” Dane asked.
“He’ll be fine,”
Leech said. “He’s too mean to die.” Leech began to put his things
away. “Actually, I think it’s good for him to get little cuts like this
once in a while.
Lets him vent.
Otherwise
he’d just boil over.”
At first light they buried
Kenzie, Franklin, Markis, and Edric. Aaron was in the cell the whole
time, sleeping off his liquor. Elias gave a eulogy. A few others
spoke. Dane listened to it all without hearing. He stared at the
graves.
First Rem and now these four.
Five of our men buried in less than a day.
A sixth of
our fighting force.
And we haven’t even seen the enemy.
He
wondered if any of them would before they all ended up like these five.
He glanced once at Joseph and immediately wished he hadn’t.
As they moved
away from the graveyard and Dane’s men assembled around him, Mirela approached
him. “I want to go with you,” she said.
“Absolutely
not,” he said. He turned to lead his men away.
“You wanted to
help me,” she said. “Why should it surprise you if I want to help
you?”
“You’ve helped
enough,” he said. “Stay here where it’s safe.”
“Nowhere is
safe,” she said. “At least let me go where I can do some good.”
“We need to get
moving,” he said as much to his men as to her. He led them away, leaving
her standing there staring after them as they disappeared into the
forest.
Right away Dane
hated himself for refusing her request. The Johnson twins had volunteered
to go as well, and he had refused, but that was different. They were
young and inexperienced and he had already conferred with Bailus on a better
way to use them today. But Mirela had been a great help in all the
dangers they’d yet passed through.
She’d done more on this trip than
Dane had. Hell, she was worth ten of him. So why not accept her
help now?
It was partly
just that, because she had already been so helpful. One, because he felt
she deserved to rest after doing so much for others. Two, because she was
such a help and likely would be needed again; he felt he was more expendable to
this enterprise than she was.
But he knew
those weren’t the only reasons. He worried what would happen to
her. He worried more about her than he did any other member of the
company. He rebelled against these feelings. He knew they were not
healthy. He should care about the people under him, but as an objective
whole; he should do all he could to make sure as many of them got home as
possible – regardless of who those many were. He rebelled against these
feelings, but he was powerless to change them.
And what had
his concern won her?
A prison.
She had not
known freedom since Bax’s botched raid on Alistar more than a year ago.
And now she had made one request, probably the only request she had made in all
her long days away from her homeland, and she had made it of him, and he had
refused her. Why? Because he, he, was sick with the thought of
losing her. Losing her? She was not his to hold onto. Never
was. Never would be. He had one chance to let her choose something
for herself and he slammed the door in her face. When it came down to it,
he was the same as Bax. Whether the reason was lust or something like
love, control or concern, if the end result was to crush her freedom and
annihilate her personhood, did the motivation really make one damn bit of
difference?
Only Elias
seemed to enjoy the hike. He talked about the trees, the flowers, even
the breeze. Dane heard him without listening. He walked along in
his own misery. All he could think of was what it would be like to share these
sights with Mirela.
To walk beneath these trees with
her.
Not as a slave but as a chooser of her own paths, the master
of her own destiny. He wondered if he was even man enough to face her in
such a state.
The only thing
Dane paid any real attention to was their path. He made sure they crossed
the stream in the same two places they had two days ago. He saw the two
boulders at the next hilltop sitting like crumbling towers in a ruined
gateway. They passed between them and he looked at the tree on his
right. The trunk was bare. He walked all the way around it, looking
up and down its length, but there was nothing there. He checked the other
trees on the hilltop. The bird skull totem was not there.
“Lose something,
your highness?” Bax said.
Dane said
nothing. He had wanted to show the thing to Elias. Its absence
troubled him more than the mere fact he would not be able to get Elias’s
opinion on it. He started moving uphill again.
They climbed up
the stair-like stones alongside the face of the waterfall. Elias was
sweating and his face was drawn when he reached the top, but he did not
complain. When the others stopped to rest he was the first to suggest
they get on.
They passed the
caves. Dane hardly looked at them. He did not fear them, but he
felt they beckoned to the darkness he carried inside him,
a
darkness
deeper than the shade of any of those holes.
Elias was the
first to spot the temple. Perhaps his gaze was drawn toward it by some
sense sharper than the sight of his eyes. “Is that it?” he asked,
pointing.
The men halted
and Dane nodded. Owen got out his tinder box and with Joseph’s help
struck a fire. They made torches from rags they had brought with them and
with branches they found lying around.
While the others
made the fire, Dane crouched, watching the temple. No sound came from it
or the surrounding woods. Nothing stirred. Nothing leapt from the
dark doorways. The temple just sat there, waiting, as though it had been
waiting for them all their lives.
Dane set his
crossbow against a tree. He held his torch in one hand and drew his knife
with the other. If there was danger in there, the space would be too
small to allow good use of the bow. He picked up a spare branch and
gripped it in his knife hand. He led them forward. With every step,
he struck the ground in front of him with his stick, testing for traps.
The men passed under one of the rectangular stone arches and over the threshold
of the temple.
***
Bailus spent his
morning making preparations for the role Paul and Rawl were to play that
day. He had two burlap sacks filled with straw from the stables and hung
against a windowless part of the wall near the north gate. He had his
workers mark off lines 10, 20, and 30 paces from the sacks. He had tables
set up on one side and had them laden with food and drink.
The atmosphere
inside the compound was tense. The gates remained shut. The
sentries kept their ceaseless vigil on the walls. No one talked more than
was absolutely necessary. Bailus nodded to himself; Dane had known what
he was doing when he described to him what he wanted the Johnson twins to
do. Bailus felt better already. Only rarely did he wince and put
his hand over his wound or feel the need to lean against something.
When all was
ready, he called the men together. Only the sentries were absent, and the
ones who could
watched
from the walls. Not even
Bailus had the heart to correct them. “Alright, Roly-Poly,” he said, “Do
your thing.”
Paul stepped
forward. “Excuse me, sir, but as today’s entertainment I feel we deserve
a little more respect.”
“Very well,”
Bailus said. He turned to the spectators. “Ladies and gentlemen, I
give you Piss and Vinegar.” He turned back to Paul and Rawl.
“Please, proceed.”
“I’m serious,
sir,” Paul said.
“Oh, grow up,
Paul,” Rawl said.
“Grow up?
I’m older than you, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“That’s right,”
said Rawl.
“A whole hour.
All it means is
you’ve been embarrassing me since before I was born.”
Bailus cleared
his throat.
The two young
men bit their lips and nodded to him. The laughter from the spectators
fell to a hush as they stepped up side by side on the line closest to the straw
sacks. Each of them held a repeating crossbow. The weapons were
relatively new to Hallander territory. Being smaller and less powerful
than the standard bows, many of the veterans rejected them out of hand.
But they seemed the right size for the smooth-faced youths stepping up to the
target range. The bows had a boxy magazine on top which fed bolts into the
slot. A lever that moved back and forth like the handle of a pump strung
the bow and dropped a bolt out of the magazine.
“Go,” Bailus
shouted.
It was the
contest of two worldviews. Paul, precise and meticulous, form and poise
like a statue, sighted down every bolt like he was trying to split a
hair. Rawl, hair unkempt, could have been shooting with his eyes closed
for all the care he took in aiming. He squeezed the trigger each time
almost before completing the pumping action. Not a single bolt from
either bow missed the target.
That’s when the
argument began.
Paul’s bolts had
all struck in an area hardly bigger than the circle a man could make by placing
his fingertips together. Rawl’s bolts were all over the target.
“Looks like
that’s an obvious call,” Paul said.
“I should say
so,” Rawl said. “I finished in half the time you did.”
“Time?
Since when was a shooting match ever judged by
time?”
“Well, no one
ever said it was a beauty contest either,” Rawl said. “I hit the target just
as much as you.”
“Gentlemen,”
Bailus said, “If we can’t agree on a winner, why
don’t we
try a different contest? Square off at 50 paces and open up. The
last one standing wins.”
“No contest,”
Rawl said. “I’m the faster shot.”
“You couldn’t
hit our milk cow at 50 paces,” Paul said.
“Maybe not, but
I shouldn’t have any problem with your fat ass.”
The men were
getting into it now.
Some for Rawl, some for Paul, and
others for Bailus.
“I want a
rematch,” Paul said.
“With better defined rules.”
“Fair enough,”
Bailus said.
The archers were
moved back to the 20-pace line. Half the straw was removed from the bags
and the hang cord was tied around the middle of the sacks, reducing the target
area by half. “You each have ten bolts in your magazines,” Bailus
said. “Shoot till you’re dry. The man who hits the target the most
is the winner.”
Rawl sunk four
bolts in the target and dry fired twice before he realized he was out of
bolts. Paul had sunk three bolts by that time but had three left.
He placed the remaining three in the target, sparing time to glance at his
brother after each shot.
Paul’s
supporters cheered. Paul gave an exaggerated bow.
“Put them
farther back,” Fish shouted.
The boys
retrieved their bolts and walked to the 30-pace line.
Paul knew why
his brother was so hasty. He’d been born an hour late and was still
trying to catch up.
Rawl knew why
Paul was so picky. He’d skipped out of the womb too early, before they’d
handed out the common sense, or the senses of humor.
The two men
faced off silently and then turned towards the targets. “Wait,” Bailus
said. “This time we’ll try something different. The first one to
hit the target wins.”
The men brought
their bows to their shoulders.
“Go.”
Rawl’s first
shot was so wild the men standing along the shooting range jumped back with a
curse. His second shot was in the air almost before the first shot hit
the wall and was less ridiculous. Paul was still working on relaxing his
breathing and drawing a bead when Rawl’s third bolt nailed the target to the
wall.
The crowd
exploded. They demanded a tie-breaker.
Right then they
were
interrupted by a shout. They turned in the
direction from which it had come. They all knew what it was. It had
been a cry of pain.
***
Though the
openings between the standing stones were the dark of a starless sky as Dane
and the others approached them, they found when they entered they did not need
the torches. The building was filled with a pallid green light.
Whether this was the effect of the sunrays bouncing off the leaves outside or
some spell, Dane was never sure. In the dim light, they could see to the
furthest reaches of the space.
The rear and two
side walls were solid; only the front held openings. The closed walls
were lined with low shelves dug into the walls that reminded Dane of niches in
a funeral vault. Two of them, the center two in the rear wall, held
skeletons. Stepping up to them, Dane guessed they must have been great
men in their lifetimes, giants nearly, taller than any man in his father’s army.
But at first glance, their arms seemed too short for their stature. On
leaning closer he saw why. The skeletons had no hands. The bones
from the ends of the forearms down were missing.
Dane moved to
some of the other shelves. Elias stepped beside him. “There is
magic here. It is like the preserving spells which were placed on the
settlement, but much stronger. Whoever put these things here wanted to
ensure they endured.”
“Looks like
they’ve been here a long time already,” Dane said, wiping his hand through the
dust that clung to the lid of a dark chest.
“Yes,” said
Elias.
“Doesn’t look
like anyone’s been here for a long time either,” Dane said.
“It looks that
way,” Elias said.
Dane picked up a
heavy object of wood and metal that sat on a nearby shelf. He thought at
first it was a kind of club. But one end could be rested against one’s
shoulder not unlike their crossbows and near the center protruded a strange
curving handle of metal. The other end had a small opening. Dane
wondered if it had been a crossbow from which the arms had been removed or if
it was some kind of ceremonial pipe. He set it back on the shelf.
“Strange relics,” he said to Elias.