Authors: Nicholas Anderson
"Aye, and like to be a trap as likely as not."
He turned to Dane.
"On your word, sir."
"First
squad on me," Dane called, ducking under the arm of the ballista to stand
in the
Bloodwake’s
bow. His ten
men crowded forward around him. He'd picked all archers for his squad.
If an enemy did ambush them as soon as they were off the boat, taking
half a score of them down with their first volley might give them a fighting
chance - or at least time to run like hell for the ship.
"Lock and
load," Dane said.
Each man placed
the butt of his crossbow on the deck and pushed down the cord until it locked
in place to a pronged pin attached to the trigger. Then they raised their
weapons and loaded a bolt into the slot that ran along the top of the forestock
and tucked it back against the string. Each man pointed his crossbow at
the sky with the butt resting on his hip and placed his hand on the stock but
kept his fingers spread away from the trigger.
"We jump as
soon as she strikes the beach,” Dane said. “Make for the left of the path
that runs into the wood from the docks. Don't stop moving until you reach
the trees. Let’s pay out the pain, boys."
"Aye,
Captain."
Dane glanced
around the deck once more. He caught sight of Fish, standing in the stern
with Leech and Elias and the women. The man’s face was the same blanched
color as the pickled herring he’d been making them all eat for the last three
days. Most of Dane’s warriors didn’t look much better.
They had passed
the tip of the dock. Glancing down, Dane could see the bed of pebbles
beneath the water. He crouched down, preparing for impact.
"Brace," he shouted.
"Now,"
Bailus shouted to the men at the oars. They gave one last mighty pull and
the ship seemed to jump forward. Dane could hear the red-painted keel
gliding,
then
scraping, over the stones beneath the
shallow water, and then, with an upward lurch that threw Dane and his men
against the gunwale and the men behind them against them, the prow struck dry
land and was driven several feet up onto the beach by the ship’s weight and
momentum. At the same time, men cut the sail free.
"With
me," Dane shouted as he rose and placed one hand on the gunwale while the
other grasped his crossbow.
He used the
jolt of impact to pivot on his hand and throw him forward and onto the
beach. He landed on his feet and used his free hand to steady himself as
he stumbled forward, using his momentum to break into a run. Around him
and behind him, his men were landing on the beach.
Some
less gracefully than he.
Rem Bodkin, one of Dane’s best marksmen,
rather ironically misjudged his jump and landed in the shallows with a splash
and a curse.
"Move,
move, move," Dane shouted over his shoulder.
Heart pounding
in his chest, blood pounding in his ears, feet pounding divots in the gravel
shore, crossbow cradled in both hands and aimed at the forest before him, Dane
broke up the beach. He had no idea if his men were following him.
He could hear nothing but the fury of his own breath and the crunch-crape of
his feet punching like fists on the gravel. He
hurdled
a large trunk of driftwood and ran twenty more yards and threw himself beside a
broad tree near the mouth of the path.
He chanced a
glance over his shoulder to check on his men. They were close behind him,
wide-eyed, foreheads glistening with sweat. In a moment they were all
huddled together behind the first large trees of the wood. He signaled to
them to spread out. "But stay behind cover."
He glanced back
over his shoulder. Second squad was most of the way up the beach.
Vick Crane, who would have been a decent archer if he didn’t get the shakes
with every fight, dove for cover behind one of the overturned rowboats.
Bailus jerked him to his feet and kicked him forward.
As soon as
Bailus's squad reached his, Dane assigned them to the woods on the right side
of the path. Then he waved both squads forward. They picked their
way through the woods alongside the path as silently as they could, weapons at
the ready. This would be the quickest way to the colony while also giving
them a chance to surprise any enemy who might be watching the path. The
wood was so thick Dane had only taken a few steps into it when he glanced over
his shoulder and saw that the beach, indeed the entire harbor, was already lost
from view.
The ground was
soft and spongy and the pine needles dripped with moisture and the forest
smelled of wood rot and wet earth. They had been walking for several
minutes when Dane thought he began to catch glimpses through gaps in the trees
of what looked like a solid line of trunks. He wondered if they were
heading into a thicket and then realized this must be the wooden wall of the
colony. Just as he realized this, one of his men off on his left hissed
sharply, "Down".
Dane and the
others dropped to one knee. Dane scoured the forest in front of them but
saw nothing but trees. Crouching, he hurried to the side of McKenzie
Quinn, the soldier who had given the command.
"What is
it?"
"There,
sir," Kenzie said, pointing ahead.
"That big
bush beside the tree trunk that's split in two."
"What did
you see?"
"Movement."
"An animal?"
Dane asked.
"No, sir;
the shape was all wrong for that. It was like someone wearing a dark
tunic just dodged behind the bush."
"Stay
here," Dane said.
Still crouching,
he skirted further to the left until he was out of sight from his little huddle
of soldiers. Then he darted forward, moving from one tree the next,
pausing behind each trunk to check for movement. He kept the bush in view
as much as possible. He hoped, whatever Kenzie had seen, that by cutting
left he had cut off its path of escape. He only briefly allowed himself
to wonder if it was wise to hope such things. He paused behind a tree
trunk and listened. Nothing but the sound of his breathing and the drip,
drip, drip of the moisture from the needles. Between the moisture and his
sweat he was quite damp. He hoped his bowstring would still work when he
needed it to. He scurried on to the next large trunk and then
another. The bush was now between him and his soldiers. He watched
the bush. There was a breath of wind and this time there was no mistaking
what he saw. A dark piece of cloth, like the hem of a cloak, fluttered
out from around the tree and then swept back out of sight.
Dane took a
final deep breath, bolted, no longer crouching but upright, moving as fast as
he could, threw his back against the pronged tree trunk, planted and pivoted on
his foot so he spun around the trunk with his crossbow leveled and nearly
pulled the trigger before he realized what he was looking at. The dark
figure in a dark cloak, the mysterious presence, was nothing more than a large
piece of cloth caught on some brambles. With each breath of wind it
billowed and moved. Dane was close to chuckling when he realized what it
was. When he did, the laughter died in his throat and fell like a stone
into the pit of his stomach. It wasn't just any piece of cloth. It
was the flag of the colony of Haven.
Dane gently
freed the cloth from the thorns and held it out before him. It was
unmistakable. A crossed silver hammer and miner's pick on a blue
field. He folded the flag carefully and tucked it into his pack.
“Kenzie, I'm coming out.”
"Alright,
Captain."
Dane stepped
around the bush so his men could see him. He waved them forward.
Ira Scott,
mohawk
and all, had crossed over from
Bailus’s squad and was conferring with Kenzie, likely asking what the holdup
was. When Ira saw Dane, he nodded and slunk back across the road to his
own squad.
As his men came
up, Dane thought about the flag and what it could mean. A flag was an
important symbol. Any normal enemy would have taken the flag as a sign of
their victory. Any normal colony would have prized its flag. He
wondered if disease, not conquest, could be the answer to their
questions.
He imagined a
whole village full of people behaving like Ben Cross had the morning he drifted
into port: raving, delirious, dying. And not just old men but
women, children. Not for the first time, he felt utterly unprepared to
meet what lay in wait for them up the narrow dirt path that ran through this
dark wood.
They made their
way forward again. Dane could see the walls of the village taking form
now between the trees. He halted his men a few paces from the edge of the
wood and had them hunker down behind trunks and bushes. In front of them,
the forest ended abruptly, having been cleared for twenty paces or so around
the perimeter of the settlement. But this did not surprise Dane.
What surprised him was the silence. The silence and the fact the gate was
standing wide open.
"What do
you make of it, sir," asked Kenzie, coming near.
Dane did not
answer right away. He just kept listening.
Silence.
Like the silence and stillness of the beach.
"I don't
know," he said finally, "But it could be a trap. Tell Bailus's
men to circle their side and we'll meet them at the rear."
Kenzie slid away
to the edge of the road, where he gave a whistle that sounded like a birdcall.
Dane, not watching Kenzie but the silent walls, started at the sudden
noise. He turned to watch Kenzie communicate via hand signals to another
man across the road
who
he could not see from his
position.
I suppose that's what a deaf-mute would look like if he ever
tried talking to himself
, he mused.
Kenzie came back
and nodded and Dane led his men around the western half of the settlement,
keeping an eye out for anyone on the wall or anyone lying hidden in the
woods. They found and saw nothing.
They met up with
Bailus's squad on the far side of the compound. A smaller gate, just a
single door half the height of the wall, stood open on that side. Dane
crouched beside Bailus. "I'll lead my squad in. If I don't
signal for you to enter within five minutes, get back to the ship and get the
hell out of here."
"Better
that I go with you" Bailus said. "If there's danger in there,
it'd be better to face it together. And if it is a trap, for all we know
the ship’s already been taken."
Dane sat thinking
about that for a moment,
then
nodded.
"Alright."
Dane led his men
in a crouch quickly across the open space to the shadow under the wall.
With his back pressed to the wall, he craned his neck to peer through the open
door. Nothing stirred within. Not a sound. Dane studied the
compound for half a moment. There were several freestanding buildings in
the center.
Modest one-story half-timbered structures
with pitched roofs.
The entire inside of the wall was lined with
buildings whose rear wall was formed by the palisade itself. These had
flat roofs that formed a wall-walk by which a man could circle the entire
perimeter. The outer wall rose an extra five feet (maybe fifteen
total
) above the roof-walk to shelter anyone who stood
there.
Dane turned to
Bailus and nodded. The men entered the compound.
Dane half expected the door to
slam shut behind them like the jaw of a giant trap. But nothing
happened. Nothing stirred. Dane pointed to the closest of the buildings
built against the wall. "Start searching those rooms," he told
Bailus. "We'll search the ones in the center and then help
you."
Dane's men
approached the nearest building with their weapons raised, scanning the windows
for movement. Dane kicked the door open and entered, crossbow at the
ready. Something flew in his face and he fired. There was a sound
of shattering glass as his bolt smashed through the window behind the
fluttering curtain. Dane brushed aside the curtain, which had been shredded
(not by his bolt) and looked at the window. The window was partly ajar,
which had allowed the breeze to stir the curtain.
That's the
second time I've been startled by a piece of cloth, today,
he thought
.
Maybe there's nothing to fear here but my own imagination.
After loading
another bolt, he proceeded further into the building. It appeared to have
been a house.
A large table with a runner hanging
lop-eared off one side of it occupied one side of the front room.
Something crunched under his boots. He looked down. He was standing
on shards of pottery.
Plates.
A bowl.
Rooms opened on
either side. He motioned to Rem Bodkin and Owen Manies to check one and
he checked the other. A bunk bed had been overturned, filling most of the
room and preventing the door from closing. One of the mattresses had been
torn and straw stuck out from the slits. He stepped back to the front
door. His men returned from the other room shaking their heads.
The other houses
were in better shape. In one they found a loaf of bread sitting on the
counter. It was hard and dry as a brick but intact. The knife still
sat in a half-cut slice. On the floor of another they found a plate of
chicken bones, presumably set there for the family dog. In all the houses
the front room seemed to be a kitchen and dining area of sorts and the smaller
two bedrooms. The final house gave them the most cause for worry.
It was built
like the others; two smaller rooms, one on each side of the larger front room.
The front room and the one bedroom were in good order. But the door
to the second room would not open. It was not that the door was
locked. Or at least it was no longer locked. It opened about a half
a foot and then would go no further. The jamb had been splintered and
smashed where the latch would have sat. Owen, Wink snarling at his side,
threw his shoulder against the door; but this gained nothing. He was
about to do it again when Dane said, "Wait."
Dane was
beginning to doubt he wanted to know what was on the other side. A sudden
voice startled him.
"Sir, around here."
Dane stepped
outside and followed the voice. Kenzie had had the good idea to walk
around to the rear of the room. Dane found himself looking at a window,
or what had been a window. The glass was all smashed out of it. A
few shards lay at his feet. Dane approached slowly and parted the
tattered curtains with one hand, crossbow raised in the other. It took
half a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark. A bunk bed had been
toppled and wedged between the door and the wall - this was what had prevented
the door from opening. Dane handed his bow to Rem and crawled through the
window.
His boots
crunched as he stepped down inside. More glass on the floor. He
paused a moment to think about this. The windows had been broken from the
outside.
A smear of dark stain on the floor boards.
Dane went back to the windows. Shards of glass still protruded from the
frame around the top and sides, but at the bottom the glass had been broken out
completely.
As though something heavy had been dragged
out over the sill.
Dane looked about the room. He wondered
who had lived here.
Who had spent their final moments of terror here?
He looked again at the short frame of the bunk bed.
Good God, had it been
only children?
He looked at the walls. There was nothing to
read there. He wished he could ask his questions of them. But then,
he was not sure he wanted the answers. He placed his hands on the
sill.
So smooth.
What had been dragged
through here to knock out all the glass?
He felt his throat
constricting.
Why do you ask yourself questions you already know the
answer to?
He leaned on his arms, bowed his head between his
shoulders.
It no longer
mattered to him that this mission had been his father's idea and his father's
idea to send him on it. He didn't care who owned the ship which brought
them here or whose colony this had been or to whom these men swore allegiance
or on whose orders they had come. He straightened. This was Dane
Hallander's mission now, and it was by his hand he would make them pay for
this.
By Kran, he would make them pay.
He climbed back
through the window. They searched the remaining buildings along the
wall.
A storeroom; strands of garlic and cured hams
hanging from the ceiling.
A woodshop with heavy
planks leaning against one wall.
A room of small barrels or casks
each marked with an X and covered by a tarp. A cookhouse with bowls and
mugs and flatware
laid
out on the tables as though
waiting for a meal that had never been served. A smithy and then a
stable, both open in front. An armory - even better stocked than the
pantry: bows and bolts and spears as well as picks and shovels; fishing
nets piled in one corner.
They met up with
Bailus and his men in a large room lined with bunks that sat beside the main
gate. "I guess this was the barracks," Bailus said.
"The single
men can occupy it," Dane said.
“I dig the
digs,” Paul Johnson said, glancing about the spacious room. A stone
fireplace sat in the center of one wall. “We can live like kings
here.”
"If we live
at all," his brother said.
"Come on,
don't be so glum. Bax had the right idea. We should have each
brought our own slave girl. This is double the space we need."
Then Paul’s voice trailed off as he realized what everyone else had
already seen. The barracks was so large because the garrison it had
housed, the garrison which no longer existed, the garrison that had been
powerless to prevent whatever had happened here, had been twice the size of
Dane's entire party.
The men filed
back out into the courtyard in silence. Dane pulled Bailus aside.
"Find anything?"
"A few signs of struggle.
But mostly everything's
in place, intact." He paused. "Whatever happened here, it
happened fast."
Dane
nodded. "Any chance some of them could have escaped?
That they could be hiding in the woods somewhere?"
"I don't
know. I guess that's what we have to keep hoping."
Dane
nodded. "Ira," he called.
"Yes,
sir?" the soldier said, starting towards them.
"Take the
rest of Bailus's squad with you. Get back to the ship and tell Forsythe
to dock her and start unloading everything but what he'll need to take a crew
of ten around the island. See if you can find any pushcarts to help with
the hauling."
"Yes, sir."
Ira departed with the others
following.
"You
two," Dane said, nodding to the Johnson twins. "Get a fire
going in the barracks and light a couple torches."
The two men
started off.
"Wait,"
Dane said. He slid his pack off his back and pulled the flag from
it. "Return this to its place first."
"Sir,"
they said and trotted off to do his will.
Dane turned back
to Bailus. Before he could say anything, Rawl and Paul came trotting
back. “Uh, sir, where would you like the flag?”
Dane looked and
realized there were two flag poles, one above the main gate facing south and
towards the harbor, the other above the smaller gate facing north into the
woods and the heart of the island.
Had
a flag hung from each? Maybe their enemies had taken one after all.
Thinking the attack had come from the sea and wanting to place the flag on that
side as an act of defiance, Dane said, “Above the main gate.” He still
understood so little about the island and what had happened there.
He turned back
to Bailus. "First light tomorrow we'll send out three patrols.
Forsythe will circle the island in the ship and we'll each lead an
overland." He glanced around. "I guess we should see
about getting the crew some lunch."
"Lunch,
sir?" said Bailus. "It's nearly dark."
Dane glanced up
at the sky.
How had he not noticed how late it was? Where had
the day gone?
The sweat he had worked up earlier was now a damp chill
beneath his clothes. He glanced around the compound once more. The
houses' dark windows gave one the impression someone could be inside, unseen,
but watching, looking out at him. But somehow this thought was better
than the knowledge the houses were empty.
Completely
empty.
He turned from
the little cluster of houses.
Why did the thought of ordering all
hands back to the ship and spending the night on the crowded deck or the open
beach seem better than to sleep within these walls?
Something wasn't
right here.
The open gates.
The stocked shelves.
The place had been conquered but
not plundered.
Why did that trouble him so?
That was when
Kenzie said something about the rats.
"What?"
Dane asked, turning to him as if waking from a dream.
"The rats, sir.
Where are the rats?"
"What
rats?"
"Well, think
about the bones in the dog dish; or the bread we saw. Those things have
been sitting there for days, I'd reckon. By this time they should have
been covered in rats, or mice, or ants or flies or something.”
“Or more likely
just plain gone,” Owen said.
“But there they
sit," Kenzie said.
"And there
weren't any birds singing in the trees when we landed this morning," Owen
said.
"What's
your point, soldier?" Bailus asked.
"Sir,"
Kenzie said, "I don't think there's a single living thing in this compound,
maybe not even on this whole island, but us."
As soon as Paul
and Rawl had a fire going, Dane took a torch (there were plenty stored in the
armory) and with Kenzie and Owen went to check the settlement’s stores.
His stated purpose was to take inventory, but he had a secret purpose as
well. He wanted to test Kenzie’s theories. "This place is
cursed," Smith Darinson had moaned as soon as Kenzie had finished
explaining his observation about the rats. Dane wasn’t ready to start
whining about devils and dark arts, but he was anxious for Elias to arrive from
the boat. But he wasn’t willing to sit still until he did either.
They went first
to the armory. This proved to be a mistake. It didn't take but a
glance to tell the armory was fully stocked. "
Which
means, whatever happened here," Kenzie said, "The men next door
didn't have time to get to their weapons.
"
"Or they
knew their weapons wouldn't do them any good," Owen said.
"Come
on," said Dane, leading them out.
There were of
course, no animals in the stable and, judging by the dryness of the droppings,
had been none for several days.
Next they went
to the room with the barrels. There was a latch on the inside of the door
which could be lifted only by a drawstring that passed through the top of the
door and hung just above Dane's head. They had left the door open during
their initial search so the three men walked right in. Dane had at first
assumed the barrels contained some kind of beverage. But, on shaking
them, guessed they were filled with some kind of fine dry material.
"Flour?"
Owen asked.
Dane didn't
answer. He was looking at the latch and drawstring.
Too high for a child to reach.
He thought about
that.
Kenzie leaned
close with the torch. He tipped a barrel back and passed the torch close
to its surface, looking for a label other than the red ‘X’ painted on the
side. Dane grabbed him by the arm which held the torch and pulled him
back. He took his knife and pried off the lid of the nearest
barrel. Kenzie came close again with the torch. "Stay
back," Dane ordered but he tilted the open top of the barrel towards the
light to reveal a fine white-gray powder.
Kenzie swore and
backed out the doorway with his torch. Dane recapped the barrel and set
it back with the others and covered them with the tarp. He exited the
room and latched the door. He had seen such powder many times before as a
boy. Watching the
chemists
labor over it with
great care - creating fireworks to celebrate another of his father's
victories. But he had never seen so much blasting powder. He
wondered where it had all come from. He had no doubt of what it was
for. To blast rocks. To open mine shafts.
But
why so much of it?
This was enough to bring down a mountain,
to turn the island inside-out. Clearly, his father's ambitions for the
mining work on Haven were far bigger than even he had imagined.
As they walked
to the door of the storeroom, the first band of men returned from the ship,
pulling a cart laden with bags and boxes. "Hey, give us a hand
here," they called.