Authors: Nicholas Anderson
Suddenly, from
down in the courtyard, one of the dogs began to bark. Rawl turned to
look. By walking a little ways northward along the wall he got around the
houses that blocked his view so he could see the dog. It was Tipper’s
dog, Dioji, the best dog of the company in Rawl’s opinion. Dioji was
pacing back and forth across the north gate, sometimes with his nose to the
ground, other times looking right at the solid timbers of the gate and
snarling, other times rearing up and placing his forepaws on the gate and
snapping and barking. Rawl watched Tipper come out of the barracks and
try to calm his dog. Dioji continued his assault on the gate.
Tipper took him by the collar and dragged him to the stables, which stood
nearby. He tied Dioji to a staple set in one of the stall walls.
The dog continued to lunge towards the gate.
Rawl trotted
down to the north end where Joseph stood above the gate.
“That dog’s
going crazy, huh?” Joseph said.
“Yeah,” Rawl
said. “What do you see out there?” He nodded toward the
forest.
“I don’t see
anything,” Joseph said.
Rawl scanned the
darkness beneath the trees. He did not see anything either. After a
moment he turned back towards his own post. As he started back, the other
dogs started howling and barking and snarling. Rawl had not made it
halfway back when a new sound, far worse than the first, rose to join the
cacophonous chorus. The sound was one of agony and fear. It was
coming from inside the compound. It was the sound of a man
screaming.
Rawl’s eyes
darted around, trying to locate the source in the dark courtyard. It was
coming from the holding cell. Rawl raced to the nearest ladder and slid
down it. As he charged across the courtyard the screams continued.
“No, no,
no.”
Then inarticulate shrieks of pain or fear.
Though it was too dark to see into the cell, Rawl knew the voice was
Aaron’s.
Rundal beat him
to the door of the cell and began banging on the bars. “What’s going on
in there?” he shouted.
“Move,” Rawl
said, shoving him aside more roughly than was necessary.
The cell door
had no key-lock but only a long bolt that could not be drawn from within.
Rawl released the catch and slid the bolt out and opened the door. It was
so dark he could see only vague forms. He could make out Aaron’s figure
of as it writhed on the floor. Rawl threw himself on top of Aaron,
pinning his arms with his hands and his legs with one knee. Aaron
continued to whip his head back and forth.
“Aaron,” Rawl
shouted. “Aaron, wake up.”
Now it was
Rawl’s turn to be pushed aside. Rundal knocked him aside with his knee
and doused Aaron’s face and chest with a bucket of water. Aaron lurched
up spluttering.
“What is wrong
with you?” Rawl asked.
For a moment,
Aaron was breathing too hard to answer. “Joseph?” he finally said.
“Where’s Joseph?”
“He’s up on the
wall,” Rawl said.
“But he’s
alright?”
“Yes, he’s
fine. What’s the matter with you?”
Aaron seemed to
relax. He sat back, leaning on his elbows. “Then it was only a
dream?”
“What are you
talking about?”
Aaron looked
into Rawl’s eyes. Aaron’s eyes were like two pits ringed in white.
The look of them was so discomfiting Rawl looked away.
“I dreamed
They
were here,” Aaron said. “I saw
Them
.”
He hesitated and
Rawl made himself look him in the eyes. “
Them
?”
Aaron’s voice
was so low, Rawl thought at first he’d heard wrong. “What did you
say?”
“They killed
him,” Aaron said. “They killed Joseph.”
Rundal
chuckled. He stepped out of the cell and shouted to the wall.
“Hey, Joseph, you still there?”
“Here,” Joseph
called back.
“You’ve got
Embries worked up into a real lather down here.”
“
You staying
warm enough in here?” Rawl asked Aaron.
Aaron
nodded. Rawl exited the cell and relocked the door. “I’ll get you a
dry shirt,” he said through the bars.
Rundal was still
shouting at Joseph, who had turned around to face them. “I don’t know
what I’d be more worried about,” Rundal said. “The fact he saw you dead
or the fact he’s screaming your name in his sleep.
Joseph,
oh, Joseph.”
Rundal moved his hips back and forth, mixing anguish
and passion in his voice.
In the light of
the torch that burned beside him on the wall, Rawl could see Joseph’s face
flooding with color. That’s when Rawl remembered the dogs. They
were still barking and snarling. “Be quiet, Rundal,” Rawl said.
Rundal turned
towards him. “What’s the matter? The dogs’re making more noise than
I am.”
“That’s what’s
worrying me,” Rawl started to say, but he never finished his sentence because
at that moment several things happened at once.
Dane and Bailus
emerged at the same time from their respective rooms; Dioji dropped to the
ground in mid-lunge and backed away on his belly, whimpering with his tail
between his legs; and the torch beside Joseph was snuffed out like a
candle.
“Joseph, look
out,” Rawl screamed, for with the extinguishing of the torch a dark shape swung
over the wall directly behind his friend.
Joseph spun,
swinging his crossbow with him, but the figure blocked the bow with its
body. For a moment the two men stood there, it looked almost as if they
were embracing, their figures nearly indistinguishable from one another.
The thing that had come over the wall was dressed all in black so that it was
almost impossible to pick out its form from the backdrop of dark trees that
towered beyond the wall.
Rawl had already
pump-loaded his crossbow and brought it to his shoulder but the two combatants
were too close together and too far from him to risk a shot. He was
vaguely aware of Dane tearing up the stairs. In the time it took Rawl to
try sighting his shot and
realize
it was hopeless, it
was over.
The darkman
struck Joseph on the side of the head, whether with some weapon or with only
its fist Rawl never knew. Joseph gave a grunt and slid heavily to the
floor as the black figure released him and disappeared over the wall.
Dane reached
Joseph first. Joseph was lying face down on the cold planks of the
wall-walk. Dane rolled him over. One look at his face and Dane knew
he was dead. But he couldn’t believe it. He pulled back Joseph’s
cloak and inspected his body. There were no wounds, no blood. Dane
had seen men so lacerated in battles their bodies were no longer recognizable
as those of men. He might have taken the wholeness of Joseph’s body as a
mercy but instead it only mocked him. It seemed Dane should be able to
call him back to life, as though merely waking him from sleep, if he could only
find the right words. Joseph’s eyes, already clouding, were staring
sightlessly at the stars above them. Looking at the passive, almost
peaceful expression on his face, Dane rejoiced for one second that Joseph’s
spirit was already far from this place.
Then he rose to
his feet. He was already shaking. Rawl had gained the wall short
seconds after Dane had. The young man swung his bow out over the parapet,
scouring the tree line, swore, kicked the battlement, and dropped to his knees
beside Dane. Bailus and Rundal and Leech joined them on the wall-walk at
nearly the same time.
“You idiot,”
Rawl shouted, rounding on Rundal. “If you hadn’t been shouting at him he
never would have turned his back on the woods.”
Rundal just
stood there as Rawl threw him against the wall and drove his knee into his
gut. Rawl pinned him with one arm and kept shouting, “You killed him, you
killed him,” punctuating every sentence with a blow to Rundal’s stomach with his
free hand.
Rundal, his head
hung, let Rawl tear into him, giving little grunts with every blow Rawl
landed.
Dane stepped
past them like a sleepwalker.
“They were
grappling; that man that came over the wall only landed one blow, as I saw,”
Bailus was telling Leech behind him.
“One blow to the
side of the head is all it takes if it lands just right,” Leech said.
Dane dropped
down the stairs, and when his feet hit the hardpan of the courtyard something
finally snapped inside him and he was fully awake. He ran to his room,
shoved the door open, and picked up his crossbow. He ran for the
gate. Leech, who had seen him sprint to his room,
came
flying down the stairs. He caught Dane as he was drawing the bolt on the
small gate in the north of the wall. He hit Dane with his full momentum
and knocked him nearly off his feet.
“Leave me
alone,” Dane said.
Leech hardly
recognized his voice.
Dane lunged for
the bolt. Leech got between him and the gate and Dane smashed him against
it. The burs of the rough timber digging into his back, Leech shoved Dane
away.
“I can’t let you
do this,” he said, when Dane had regained his footing.
For a second
both men stood facing each other. “Get out of my way,” Dane said.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Dane, I know
you’re upset, but this won’t fix anything.”
“Upset?
Upset? I swear to Kran I’ll kill every last one of them.”
“You’d never
find them now.”
“They’re still
out there; I know it.”
He started for
the door again and Leech sighed and got in his way once more. Dane was
the stronger man but Leech was desperate and determined and Dane’s left arm was
hindered by his death-grip on his crossbow. Dane drove Leech against the
wall by sheer force, but Leech managed to wrap his arms around Dane, pinning
his arms to his side, and held on. Dane continued shoving with his legs,
knocking his friend against the gate as though he meant to use his body to
batter it down.
“He trusted me,”
Dane said, his voice was starting to crack and he could feel hot tears in his
eyes. “He trusted me to get him out of this.”
“What about all
the others who
are trusting
you for the same
thing? What’ll happen to them? Who will lead us after you run off
into the woods?
Bailus?
Bax?”
“Let me
go.”
“Don’t you see that’s
exactly what they want?”
“It’s what I
want.”
As Dane crouched
back for another thrust with his legs, Leech twisted and flung himself forward,
spinning Dane off balance and driving him to the ground. Leech sprung
back to his feet and got between Dane and the gate once more. But Dane
just lay there on his back looking up at the sky and gulping down air.
His knees were bent and his feet were drawn up close to his body. Leech,
leaning back against the gate, slid down to a sitting position. He took
several deep breaths before he spoke. “There’ll be chances to avenge
Joseph. But if you go running off like this it’s only to escape your own
hurt and fear, and we’ll all pay for it.”
Dane did not
even acknowledge he had heard him. He just
lay
there, his only movement the rise and fall of his chest. He made no
sound, but Leech saw tears running from the corner of his eye under his
temple.
Looking up,
Leech saw Bailus standing a short ways off in silence. He was watching
them.
After what
seemed like years, Dane got up silently, picked up his crossbow, and walked
back to his room. He shut the door behind him.
Leech glanced at
Bailus. The older man seemed to sway on his feet, but Leech thought it
was only his own weariness and the tears in his own eyes that made him see
this.
Leech looked at
the back of his hands, crisscrossed with cuts and scrapes from being dashed
against the timbers of wall and gate. He studied the lines as though they
were a map that might help him find a way forward. He did not know
whether he had done a good thing or a bad thing. He was too tired to feel
one way or another about it. He pulled his feet under him and stood
up. Beside him Bailus made a funny sighing noise. Leech looked at
him, and as he did, Bailus’s knees buckled and he collapsed.
Dane was seated at his hearth,
leaning forward, staring into the embers, lost in
himself
,
when a knock sounded at his door. He rose slowly. Good news never
came at this time of night. Not on this island.
Maybe
not on this planet.
He opened the door to Rawl Johnson.
“Sir,” the young
man said, stepping back as though the opening of the door had surprised him.
Dane just stood
there, waiting for it, like a lamb in a slaughterhouse.
“Sir, its
Bailus. He’s with Leech in the infirmary.”
Dane
nodded. He was not sure what he intended this action to mean.
Whether he had expected it or whether he would follow Rawl there
immediately. At any rate, he expected Rawl to depart with it. But
Rawl did not depart; he stood there looking like he was trying to figure out
how to say something more. Dane gave him no encouragement or hindrance;
he just waited patiently.
“Mara’s there,
too. We thought you should know.”
It was more how
Rawl said it than what he said that allowed Dane to catch his meaning.
Rawl turned on his heels and headed off in the direction of the
infirmary. Dane followed him, not even bothering to close the door behind
him.
Rawl held the
door to the infirmary open for him and looked away as he stepped in.
Bailus was in the bed closest to the door. His eyes were closed.
“Bailus,” Dane said, stepping to the bedside.
Leech came up
beside him. “He’s unconscious. But maybe it’s better this
way. He’d never let me near him otherwise.”
“What happened?”
“His wound had
opened up again. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he’d been wearing
dark clothing to try to hide it from me.”
“Will he be
alright?”
“I don’t know,
Dane. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
Dane lifted his
eyes and saw Mirela. He caught his breath. He felt something
tearing loose inside of him. She was lying under several blankets in one
of the beds closest to the fire. She was lying on her side and was curled
almost into a ball. She looked so small and vulnerable. Had it only
been a few days ago that he had pulled the bed up to the hearth for her?
It seemed years ago. He felt he was looking at a different woman.
He glanced around the room once before looking back to her. Elias
sat in a chair beneath the room’s only window. Bax was conspicuously
absent.
Leech spoke
beside him; he had seen where his friend was staring. “It’s the baby,
Dane. She’s losing it.”
“Is there
nothing you can do?”
“Not for the
child.”
“But for her?”
“Nothing more
than we’re already doing.”
Dane did not remember
crossing the room. He only remembered kneeling at her bedside.
Josie had been sitting beside her, holding her hand.
How had he not
noticed her before?
She slid silently aside as he came up. He
took Mirela’s hand in his. It was warm, and he was grateful for that, but
he wondered if it was only the lingering effect of Josie’s touch. Her
eyes fluttered open and then closed and remained closed. She smiled
weakly. Something caught in his throat and he swallowed it down.
“How are you?”
he asked.
Her weak smile
hovered on her lips. “I hurt.”
He tightened his
grip on her hand. “Did Bax do this to you? Did he hit you?”
Her expression
did not change, but from deep inside her she pushed out a sigh. “Why do
you do this to yourself, Captain?”
“What?”
“Look for whom
to blame. If you can’t find anyone, will you blame yourself? The
way you do for Rem and Markis and Franklin and Kenzie and Edric.
And now Joseph.
Tell me, Captain, what else do you
blame yourself for?”
He stayed there
a minute longer, wishing he could suffer for her. He lifted her hand and
pressed it to his lips. He did not care who saw him. He would have
done the same if the whole world were watching. “Rest, Mirela,” he said,
leaning close to her ear. “Nothing will disturb you here.”
He rose.
He nodded to Elias and Leech on his way to the door and both men followed him
out.
“I can’t go,” he
said, turning to them as soon as they were outside.
“Dane,” Leech
said. “You have to go.”
“I can’t leave
them like this.”
“If you think you
can find any answer on Tira - any way to make sense of what is happening here -
then you owe it to them. You owe it to every one of us who has suffered
here.”
“But I can
wait.”
“No, you can’t,”
Leech said. “Every day we’re here more of us will die.”
“Then we’ll all
go. I won’t leave anyone behind.”
“We can’t.
It would kill them for sure to travel now.”
“Then send
someone else.”
“It has to be
you. You said so yourself. You are your father’s son, the one man
the Tirans are most likely to receive.”
“But I can’t
take half our strength away. Not after what happened tonight.”
“Dane,” Elias
said. “So far all their strikes against us have relied on stealth and
deception. Bailus thinks maybe this island is some kind of sacred
spiritual site for them. Likely their army is not even here. Maybe
there’s only a small group of priests who make the island their home
year-round. Everything they’ve done so far could be attributed to
that. If we are vigilant, we can hold the fort with half our number.”
“But if they do
land in force?” Dane said.
Elias
sighed. “I’m no soldier. But even I know that, if they come in
force, having fifteen men on the walls as opposed to thirty makes no more
difference than all being dead in five minutes rather than in ten.”
“I can’t leave
her,” Dane said.
Leech
swore. “And what do you think you’ll be able to do for her, Dane?
Dig her grave?”
“But Bailus is
sick. Bax and Forsythe are going with me. I won’t leave Bax here
with her like this. Who will lead if we’re all gone, if we never come
back?”
Leech glanced at
Elias. “We’ll lead until you return.”
“That’s more
than I can ask of you,” Dane said.
“Just get there,
get your answers, and get back here as soon as you can.”
“I’m afraid it
won’t be soon enough,” Dane said.
“Then there’s no
point in you staying here anyway,” Leech said.
***
Dawn never
seemed to come. Night bled out into a gray twilight. They buried
Joseph beneath the dark earth under a leaden sky. Dane and his company
walked out to the
Bloodwake
as soon
as the last shovelful of earth had been flung down. No one accompanied
them to the docks. Rawl and Paul watched them from above the south gate
until they disappeared around a bend in the trail.
“You’ve sure got
this figured out, your highness,” Bax said, walking close behind Dane.
“Leaving as soon as things get really bad.
Do you
think any of those saps back there have guessed your game? That you’ll be
sailing us right past Tira and straight on to Daddy with your tail between your
legs. Who needs Haven? You can find other ways to make your peace
with your old man.”
“Don’t act so
smug,” Dane said. “You wouldn’t stay now if I ordered you to.”
“True,” Bax
said. “But then when have your orders ever meant anything to me?”
Bax’s words were
always the worst when they had some truth in them. Dane did feel he was
abandoning those still on the island. He wondered if they felt the same
way. He remembered his last words to Leech. He had passed through
the fortress on his way to the beach with the intent of seeing Mirela one last
time. She had been sleeping. He’d watched her from the doorway,
then
turned to Leech. “Do everything you can for her.”
“We are.”
“I mean
it. Treat her as though she were my own sister.”
“Dane.”
He nodded.
He glanced around the room. Elias was stoking the fire. Josie sat
by Mirela’s side. Her eyes were red.
Had she slept at all last
night?
He patted Leech’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“She’s in the best of hands.” He looked at each of their faces once
more.
All so young.
All
so brave.
He wondered if
there would be anyone left to dig their graves when their time came.
***
“It’s wasn’t
human,” Paul said. He and Rawl had come down from the wall after watching
Dane depart and joined the others already at breakfast. “It came right
over the wall. No ladder, no rope.
Like it just
dropped out of the sky.”
“Or appeared out
of thin air,” Crane said.
“Neither of you
were there, and it’s not something you should be talking about,
” Rawl
said, pausing between hasty spoonfuls of gruel.
He wanted to finish breakfast as quickly as possible. This was not a
conversation he wanted to have, and the fact that the only seats left at the
table had been next to Rundal and his hangers-on made it all the worse.
“Well, I was
there,” Rundal said, “And I can tell you we’ve been going about this all
wrong. We should just forget the colonists. Forget about trying to
find them or avenge them. Whatever did them is doing us now, and I tell
you it’s not the kind of thing a man can fight. It’s not the kind of
thing he was meant to fight.”
“So what’s your
idea?” Paul said. “Turn tail and sail for home?”
“That would
hardly gain us anything, now would it?” Rundal said.
“You want us to
surrender to them?” Crane asked.
“Surrender.
Or serve them.”
“You’d be their
slave?” Paul asked.
At that moment,
Fletcher Dibsy passed by. He stopped behind Rawl, placing both hands on
his shoulders and leaning over him. “Who’s going to drink my health
tonight?” he asked.
“What’s the occasion?”
Crane asked.
“It’s my
birthday,” Fletcher said. “It’s my birthday and my best friend here
didn’t even remember.” He slapped Rawl’s shoulders.
“I didn’t
forget,” Rawl said.
“Happy birthday, Fletch.”
I remembered,
Rawl thought
, but somehow Joseph’s funeral didn’t seem
like the time or place to say it.
“Am I
interrupting something?” Fletcher asked.
“No,” Rawl said.
“Then you won’t
mind if I take the time to invite you all to raid the whisky supply with me in
my honor tonight.”
Raid the
whisky supply? What did Fletch think this was?
A
hunting party?
A holiday?
“I’ll
be on the wall.”
Fletch slapped
his shoulders again. “I haven’t even told you what time yet. You’re
not going to be on the wall all night, are you?
Midnight.
The storage cellar.”
Fletcher slapped Rawl’s
shoulders a final time and sauntered off.
Rundal turned
back to Paul and leaned close. “Not their slave,” Rundal said.
“Their priest.”
“You think
they’re some kind of god?” Paul asked.
“They’re more
real, and more powerful, than the ones our priest claims to serve.
Imagine the power we would have as priests to such beings.”
“We don’t even
know what they are,” Crane said.
“But we know
what they’re like,” Rundal said.
Rawl got up
noisily and left the table. He stepped outside to the wash basin and
dipped his dish beneath the gray water. Elias was standing there washing
dishes and stacking them to dry. Rawl helped him. As they were
working, Owen came out of the mess hall and walked off in the direction of the
barracks. Rawl looked up. He noticed Elias was watching Owen.
“You’d never
know he’d been injured,” Elias said.
Rawl did not
know if he was speaking to him or to himself.
“More than
injured, sir,” he said. “It’s a good thing you knew what to do.”
“It makes you wonder,
doesn’t it?”
“What’s that,
sir?”
“If a man could
do for the island what the stone did for Owen.”
***
Despite their
best efforts, Dane’s crew made poor time and it was dark by the time they
approached the sheltered beach that served as the doorstep of the greatest of
Tira’s villages. Dane had the men hold the
Bloodwake
a short ways back from the beach.
“Who’s there?”
came
the challenge from shore.
Dane climbed up
on the prow. The fires of the village burned like fierce eyes in the
darkness, and between them and himself he could see the shadowy shapes of
sentries passing on the beach. Forsythe came up beside him. He was
holding his javelin. Dane caught his eye and shook his head. Even
at this distance, Forsythe had deadly aim with the throwing spear. Dane
wasn’t sure his presence here wouldn’t lead to hostilities, but he wanted to
give peace the best chance he could. He had Forsythe lay the weapon on
the deck out of sight.
“Who’s there?”
the sentry called again.
“I am Dane, son
of Arvis Hallander,” Dane called, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Hail,
Tomka, Lord of Tira.”
Silence from the
beach. Dane thought he’d seen one of the sentries moving back towards the
village but he wasn’t sure. He felt the tension build behind him in the
silence of his men. He watched the fires. Finally, he saw a body of
people pass between two fires. The weapons in their hands glinted in the
ruddy light. They were headed for the beach.
“Beach your
ship,” the sentry boomed.
Dane nodded to
Forsythe. His steersman gave orders to the men behind him. They did
as they were told. As soon as the prow was nested snugly on the sand,
Dane jumped down to the beach. Reluctantly, his men followed him.
He had ordered them to leave all weapons on board. Some of them had
complained at the thought of laying down their weapons before walking among a
conquered people, but Dane had held his ground. If there was violence,
there would be no point in resisting, and he did not want to give the Tirans
any reason to suspect their motives were anything but peaceful.