by Eric Thomson
Eighteen
“Decker.” A rough hand shook Zack by the shoulder. “Rise and shine.”
He sat up, instantly alert. The room was in complete darkness, at his suggestion, to avoid messing with their night vision.
“What time is it?”
“Three in the morning,” Gish replied.
“I guess you didn’t wake me for the shift change.” Decker swung his legs off the cot, one of six lining the walls of the guardroom beneath the watchtower. “What’s up?”
“Harben figures he saw movement out by the cornfield — the one closest to the wood line,” Gish added, in case Decker hadn’t memorized the agricultural layout yet.
“Large animals?” The Marine grabbed his bow and quiver.
“Doesn’t have that child of nature feel to it. You’ve seen wild ones up close recently. Perhaps you can tell what it is.”
“Wake the others, will you, in case we need to raise the alarm.”
“Sure thing.”
While Gish went around the room to shake the rest of the night watch from their slumber, Decker climbed the ladder leading to the platform above. Harben’s silhouette cut a black outline against the star-speckled night, one that moved when he heard Zack’s footsteps.
“There’s something out in the fields,” he said in a whisper. “A lot of something and it’s headed here.”
“Show me.”
Harben raised his arm and pointed towards the northeast, where the river emerged from the trees. Using the old soldier’s trick of not looking directly at a target in the dark, he picked up a line of shadows rippling through the tall stalks. He fancied he could see the light of Parth’s smallest moon, a mere crescent on the horizon, reflect off wide-open eyes and the odd metallic spear point or arrowhead.
“Two dozen at least, maybe even three,” the Marine said. Something odd attracted his attention. “Looks like the bastards have a pair of ladders.”
“You want me to ring the alarm?” Harben asked.
“No. Have the guys wake every member of the militia quietly. Tell Mikkels to come up and join me. We’ll wait until we know where they want to climb the wall, and then give them a big, bloody surprise. It’ll be twenty, even thirty minutes before they get here. If we ring the gong now, they’ll run away, regroup, and try tomorrow night or the one after that. Let’s end this now.”
Harben nodded once. “Makes sense.”
He disappeared down the ladder. Mikkels emerged moments later and joined Zack at the railing.
“Your instincts were on the mark,” he whispered, eyes scanning the shadows. “I see them. Quite the raiding party. I’ve never seen so many at once. They must be desperate for something.”
Decker grunted.
“Desperate to die and we’ll be glad to oblige.”
Mikkels gave Zack a curious glance. “You mean we should kill them all?”
“I don’t see that we have much choice. Give ‘em a bloody nose, and they’ll be back. Put ‘em in a grave, and that’s it.”
“You know none of us are professional killers, Decker. The pros don’t end up in exile; they’re put inside four walls or a coffin. We’ve all done something worthy of being separated from the rest of humanity for life, but mass slaughter isn’t it.”
“Whether we like it or not, this is war, Mikkels, not some random bloodletting. Our job is to defend Valla, and unless we permanently remove that bunch of assholes out there from Desolation Island, the war will merely go on. We can’t take them prisoner, so that leaves only one choice.”
“Are you always this cheerful in the middle of the night?”
“Only when I’m faced with the rare chance of wiping out critters who had me sized up as the main course.”
“You think it’s the same gang?”
“Perhaps, but even if it isn’t, they’re still critters who need killing before they kill us. Honest folk don’t come to a settlement in the middle of the night carrying weapons and ladders.”
Mikkels digested Zack’s comment in silence for a few moments, before asking, “Since you’re the pro, how do think this will unfold?”
“I don’t know yet.” Decker stared out at the fields, eyes following the rippling of the grain stalks. “It’s a shame Valla doesn’t have a sally port cut into the walls. Then we could have settled the matter outside.”
“A what?”
“It’s a secure entryway, sort of like an airlock. Allows defenders out to meet the enemy without compromising the integrity of the fortifications.”
“Oh.” Mikkels nodded his understanding. “We never saw the need for one. In fact, the wall itself is relatively recent.”
“There’s no reason you should have.” Decker glanced at his companion. “I figure they’ll want to send a small party over the walls to open the gate from the inside and let the main force in. Or at least that’s how I’d do it if I had only two ladders.”
“Wouldn’t they try to enter in two places at once?”
The Marine chuckled softly, then turned his eyes back on the approaching raiders.
“Valla’s walls are high enough no one in his right mind would try to jump off the top, not in the dark. And you guys were smart enough to keep a space between them and the closest houses. One ladder to go up, the other to go back down.”
“See, this is why you’ll have my vote to lead the militia come election time. If you stick around that is.”
“Huh.” Decker squinted at the faint shimmer of the river which momentarily outlined several swiftly moving silhouettes. “I think they’re aiming at a point to our left.”
“Looks like they want to shimmy around the riverside wall and try to enter via the wharf. The wall’s lower there, and it’s a straight run across Valla to the front gate.”
“Trying to be back door men? A lot of good that’ll do.” The Marine snorted. “Once they’ve committed, I suggest we move half of the troops to the wharf gate, hide, and wait for them. I make about thirty. We take out the squad that’ll come over the wall, and then charge out. The other half of our men will be the mobile reserve, in case we’ve missed a second column aiming to come at us from another side. And to backstop the wharf force.”
“I’ll stay here with the mobile reserve,” Mikkels replied after a moment’s reflection. “You go get the bastards, okay?”
“Already giving me command?”
“The guys have figured out by now you know the fighting business better than any of us, me included. They’ll follow you.”
“Lucky me.”
“Looks like they’re headed for the water’s edge. Go.”
Decker tossed off a mock salute, then climbed down the ladder. Valla’s militia had assembled in orderly ranks along the settlement’s main street, armed and silent while the troop leaders waited for orders by the guardhouse door.
“The enemy’s headed for the wharf gate,” the Marine said in a low tone the moment he stepped into their midst. “We figure they’ll try there since it’s the section with the lowest wall. Mikkels wants half of us at the gate and the other half to stay here as a mobile reserve.”
“Who’s going to the wharf and who will lead them?” A man named Larys asked.
“Since it doesn’t really matter who’s in what half, I’d say Troops One and Two. As to who leads, Mikkels gave me the job.”
“That’s highly irregular,” Larys replied. “I’m second in command.”
“You can argue with the boss after this is over,” Decker replied. “Right now we need to shake out and move into position. There’s about thirty of them, armed pretty much as we are. They’ll send up to eight or ten of their men over the wall. Those will open the back gate for the rest. We, the wharf force, will take up hidden firing positions. On my mark, which will be the hoot of a dire owl, archers kill the ones who came in. Then, we open the gate and charge out, spearmen first, archers to cover. They won’t be expecting us to sortie, so it’ll be shock and awe. Shouting, yelling and cursing during the charge is highly
encouraged. None of them make it out alive.”
“No quarter?” Rinada, another of the troop leaders asked.
“They wouldn’t have given us any, so no. It’s not as if we want to keep wild ones as prisoners of war, right? Now, here’s how it breaks out. We regroup the first two troops into spearmen and archers. Larys, you’ll take charge of the archers. You’re a damn sight better at it than I’ll ever be. I’ll lead the spearmen with Rinada, and therefore the charge.” He hefted a metal-tipped length of Parthian oak. “Troop leaders for Three and Four, I suggest you join Mikkels up on the platform. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Rinada replied, “plenty, starting with are you fucking nuts?”
Decker nodded.
“Probably. Any questions about how we’ll take the bastards? I know it sounds simplistic, but this isn’t the Battle of Cannae, it’s a raid by some assholes looking for long pig. No? Let’s move.”
Rinada and Larys jogged over to their troops and in as few words as possible, briefed them on the plan, then split them up into bows and spears. The bowmen, under Larys, scattered through the village’s alleys, to take up firing positions in a semicircle covering the wharf wall. Meanwhile, Decker and Rinada hid the rest behind houses close to the gate. After a rush of muffled footsteps and muttered curses, an eerie silence smothered Valla, unbroken save for the surf’s soft murmur.
Decker found a vantage point behind a woodpile that allowed him to take in most of the seaside wall, with the back gate at its center. He couldn’t see Larys’ archers but sensed their presence, as well as the coiled tension that enveloped every militiaman present. They were used to fighting off small raids aimed at stealing livestock and tools, but none had witnessed this level of boldness before.
Without warning, he felt a change in the atmosphere, as if a palpable evil was nearing. Straining his ears, Decker thought he could hear the faint sounds of human movement on the other side of the wooden palisade.
A minute passed, then two, before a muffled thud indicated that the raiding party had placed their first ladder against the top of the wall. Moments later, the dirty, hirsute face of a wild one appeared, his greasy skin glinting faintly in the light of the rising moon.
Decker imagined hungry eyes scanning the darkened houses and alleys leading to the small plaza, looking for any sign of alert and waiting inhabitants. He must have been satisfied because he hoisted the second crude ladder over the top of the wall and carefully set it on the other side.
The wild one swung his right leg over, found his balance, then then followed with the left leg and scrambled down rungs lashed to a central pole. A second invader soon followed, joined by a third and a fourth.
Decker expected more. However, the first two men began working on the gate’s crude latching bar, while the other two, spear in hand, slowly circled the plaza, their hungry eyes avidly studying racks loaded with drying fish carcasses. Four out of thirty. The odds wouldn’t be as good as he’d hoped once they charged into the war party. But as he knew only too well, no plan survived contact with the enemy.
Decker hooted twice, the signal to open fire, and four arrows slashed through the small plaza almost at once. The four raiders keeled over with no more sound than a plaintive gurgle, each sporting a feathered shaft in the neck or face. He turned back to catch Rinada’s eye and made a pumping motion with his fist before rising to his feet.
Two of the spearmen sprinted past him to remove the latching bar while the rest formed up in close ranks around the Marine, weapons at the ready.
A glance to either side told Decker the archers had joined them to offer direct fire support from the flanks.
It wasn’t in the plan, but he was glad to see Larys take the initiative. With only two meters left between the front rank of the massed militia troops and the gate, Zack motioned with his spear.
The latching bar fell away with a thunk. Greedy hands on the other side of the gate pulled it outwards, uncovering a seething knot of barely restrained savagery on the verge of exulting in a deadly raid. The air of expectation instantly turned to incomprehension, and then to terror.
Larys’ voice rang out over the plaza.
“Archers, fire.”
Nineteen
A cloud of arrows whipped past the spearmen, turning the front rank of wild ones into human-sized pincushions. Screams of pain, fear, and defiance rang out in an unholy mixture. The sounds eerily reminded Decker of the ice wolves he’d once heard tracking his patrol at the edge of the Great Glacier on Scandia. His shout cut through the din.
“Advance.”
Shoulder to shoulder, in a tight cluster bristling with serrated spear points, the militiamen stomped through the open gate, stepping over the wild ones mowed down moments earlier. Short swords from the rear rank severed the windpipes of those still thrashing.
Decker thrust his spear at a crazed face, slicing through the raider’s left cheek and into the back of his throat. He died after a brief blood-flecked howl. His comrades, at least those still on their feet, fell back in confusion, unable to understand how their victims had so handily turned the tables.
Some, those who still had their wits about them, tried to retrace their steps around the riverside wall, but most found themselves crowded onto the stone wharf.
Spear points jabbed mercilessly at the panicked raiders while individual archers fired over or through the ranks to kill those attempting to flee. Many jumped into the lagoon, hoping for escape. But even though large pelagic predators rarely made it across the barrier reef, at least one of the nocturnal species that preferred shallower waters could be just as deadly in sufficient numbers. And the unusual activity by the jetty attracted their attention.
A different sort of scream joined the cacophony when the first school of carnivorous fish struck; it was that of a soul damned to eternal torment. Moments later, the shriek died in a roiling mass of water so red it seemed black beneath the starlit sky.
Then, like a chorus from hell, several more tormented voices echoed off Valla’s walls as the underwater feeding frenzy exploded. Unearthly wails put the desperate fight into suspended animation as both militiamen and surviving raiders digested the horror of the scene.
Decker was the first to snap out of his trance. He charged the last trio of wild ones standing on the far end of the jetty, frozen between the carnage below and the menace in front. He had just enough time to register the sheer terror on the face of the closest man before his spear found its mark. Then, he pushed the mortally wounded raider into the water. The other two, struck by several arrows each, joined their comrade.
An appalled silence fell over Valla’s defenders, stunned by both the swiftness and the ferocity of their victory. Here and there, the feeble voices of mortally wounded wild ones babbled incoherently. But the sound of thrashing fish eager to eat their fill mostly drowned out the raiders’ pleas.
The Marine cleared his throat. Though no stranger to violent death, he felt abnormally sickened by the slaughter.
“Push the rest into the lagoon. Let nature finish cleaning up.”
“A few are still alive,” Larys protested.
Decker’s voice cut through the night air with a coldness that stunned many of his fellow militiamen.
“Then slice their damned throats beforehand if you’re too squeamish. Unless you’d like to nurse them back to health in your own quarters.”
“What about those who escaped?” Another man asked.
“Damn.” Decker stalked back up the jetty towards shore. “How many?”
“I saw two,” Larys replied. “Running like the hounds of hell were nipping at their balls.”
A leaden cloak of fatigue settled on the Marine’s shoulders. He took another glance at the bodies carpeting the wharf.
“Let them run. There’s been enough death tonight. If that was the gang who captured me, then I’d say we killed two-thirds of their strength. The rest will find life has become much harder, that’s if they survive for long. Something dire mu
st have driven them to attack us.”
He bent over to examine an emaciated corpse showing signs of chronic disease and malnutrition.
“And I guess dietary deficiencies play a part in it. Man cannot live on Parth wildlife alone, I suppose. Whoever thought it might be funny to drop convicts in the middle of nowhere without the means to survive long-term needs a solid reaming out. Preferably with a plasma burner. Execution would have been kinder than the slow death these men faced.”
“Your pity is misplaced, Decker.” Larys nudged the body with his foot. “They would have slit our throats while we slept.”
“Is it?” Decker’s harsh tone conveyed a surprising depth of anger and disgust at the carnage. “Would they have? Or were these walking skeletons merely interested in pilfering our food stores?”
He turned an icy stare on the militia leader.
“The whole notion of exile on Desolation Island stinks, as far as I’m concerned. If society wants to punish people without incarcerating them, or at least without leaving them in the largest open air prison in history, it should use convicts to break ground for new colonies. You know, give our like something socially useful to do, rather than molder here pretending we live in the dark ages.”
“What the hell’s eating you? We won with nary a casualty. I thought you were a warrior’s warrior, the man who decreed there would be no quarter given. This is Desolation Island where only the fit survive.”
“You saw how quickly we overwhelmed them. These weren’t the ruthless hunters who chased me, and this wasn’t war. It was a slaughter. It was us doing the cowardly justice system’s job, executing the unredeemable. We saved the Correctional Service a lot of money by killing the ones they should have locked away in a maximum-security facility for life. Fuck this shit.”
He headed towards the gate, parting a sea of shocked and silent militiamen. Many a face reflected thoughts that mirrored his words, but Decker saw none of them. He felt a burning desire to get the hell off Desolation Island and struggled with the impulse to trigger the transponder implanted at the base of his skull.