The Ruins Box Set

by T. W. Piperbrook

  One guard was still on the bridge, waiting with a torch.

  William didn’t stop the horse.

  He might die as he was fleeing. But he needed to take the risk. He spurred the horse through the yard and onto the bridge, nearly trampling the surprised man who made a lunge for him, but it was too late. The man cried out as he fell aside. The horse’s hooves clomped on the bridge’s wooden planks.

  And then William was back on the first island, riding away from the shouts of alarm, free of the second island, but not free enough to think he was safe.

  Chapter 67: Bray

  Bray crept through the forest, his clothes dripping water, leading the way for Samron and the rest of the Halifax men as they walked through the moonlit forest. He gripped his sword. Thick, shadowy trees surrounded them on all sides. He saw no houses, no lights. They were heading west, toward the center of the island and the road that led to the bridge. He hoped. None of the other men had set foot on the island; most of Bray’s exploration had been on the far western shore.

  He was following Flora’s instructions, but for the most part, guessing.

  The swish of men’s and women’s wet clothing was loud enough that he feared every islander might hear it. Was someone watching them? Anyone close enough would see their silhouettes and suspect something. One hundred and fifty men walking without torches would prickle even the dimmest man’s skin.

  He heard no cries of alarm in the distance, no shouts of war.

  The island was unusually quiet.

  Finding a worn, beaten path cutting through the snow, Bray pointed it out to Samron. The trail likely led to houses, which increased the chances of being seen. Hoping to keep their cover, he altered their course, keeping in the same direction but sticking to the forest. The line of moving men and women followed his lead.

  They maneuvered over fallen branches, rocks, and exposed tree roots. A small, squat structure surprised Bray. He couldn’t see more than an outline, but permeating smoke filled his nostrils. He wove around it, holding his breath as more Halifax soldiers passed by. He waited for the door to burst open and a frightened, sword-wielding islander to confront them. Even a subtle noise from one hundred and fifty men might alert someone. No one came out.

  They moved through an area of thick, clustered pines when a crash in the underbrush ground Bray to a halt. A jolt of adrenaline shot through him. He stared through the dark pines, certain an islander had seen them. He listened to a few more crashes grow further away before he determined it was a frightened, retreating animal. The noises faded.

  The men breathed.

  They emerged from the forest to the edge of a farmer’s field, vacant and basked in moonlight. Bray surveyed the wide, open area. Far in the distance, he saw several, unmoving lights—the glow from some houses, perhaps, on the other side of what might be the road.

  Voices.

  Bray froze as distant, echoing conversation reached his ears. A moment later, he saw a dozen torches moving slowly past the field, on the road. The lights were moving at an even pace. The voices were conversational. A patrol.

  Samron put up a halting arm to stop the soldiers as they waited in the trees. Bray’s pulse pounded as he realized the moment of battle was at hand. He nodded at Samron in the moonlight, a gesture they both knew would be the last moment of peace until this was over.

  He looked behind him at the line of silhouettes that had followed him down the slope, across the river, and onto the island, hoping they would live longer than the battle.

  They ran into the field.

  Chapter 68: Kirby

  Kirby’s palm sweated around the grenade as she and Flora rode close enough to see faces in the rows of men and women behind the boulders. A line of soldiers much deeper than she’d realized stood behind each other, waiting. A few had their hands by the hilts of their swords.

  Two men walked out toward them, raising their hands as they prepared a greeting.

  “What—”

  Kirby pulled the pin and threw the grenade.

  Cries of surprise filled the air as men and women looked from Kirby to the round, arcing object, watching it spiral through the air and hit the ground. A few took steps forward, or backward, uncertain how to react. An ear-splitting crack pierced the air. The approaching guards screamed in agony as they were thrown from the blast, disappearing in a nasty cloud of dust and debris. Smoke billowed in a giant cloud, filling the front entrance of the bridge. Cries of commotion filled the air as more people scattered. Farther back, people tried to determine what was going on, crashing into each other.

  Kirby’s horse reared. She clutched onto the pommel, fighting to settle the confused beast.

  “Kirby!” Flora screamed, somewhere through the smoke.

  “Hang on!” Kirby yelled.

  She pulled another grenade—her last—as the horse landed.

  Several of the soldiers, initially surprised, recovered, stepping through the smoke. Kirby took her last grenade, ripped out the pin, and flung it as far as she could, creating a second blast, prompting even more cries of pain and confusion. Many of the silhouettes disappeared. Flora coughed next to her as she controlled her steed. Kirby blinked and covered her mouth. Through the haze of smoke, she saw bodies and burning torches on the ground. One of the soldiers, not yet dead, shrieked as he clutched a missing leg. Another groaned loudly as he lay flat on his stomach, writhing.

  The war cries of fifteen Halifax men pierced the air behind her.

  Reinforcements were here.

  Kirby grabbed her rifle as men and women ripped past her, aiming their guns and running through the gap next to the boulders, storming the bridge.

  “Ride, Flora!”

  They spurred their horses through the gap next to the boulders, keeping behind the Halifax men. Kirby aimed through the haze, shooting her rifle at several islanders who had already regrouped, or were brave enough to stand and fight. The Halifax men took positions just past the boulders, dodging the bodies of several fallen islanders.

  Bullets pierced the air.

  Men and women shrieked cries of death.

  Kirby’s horse whinnied. She scanned the front half of the bridge, still hazy from the drifting smoke, looking for Deacon, Bartholomew, or Enoch’s reinforcements, but she saw only a chaotic mess of moving shapes and burning, dropped torches. An islander ran screaming at Kirby through the smoke, swinging his blade. She fired several times as her horse jostled, finally landing a shot. The islander fell. Another man dashed toward her side, hoping to surprise her, but she managed to shoot him in the chest, sending him reeling back into the smoke. Several arrows skidded off the pavement near her, missing their marks, as Kirby realized shooting from a horse was harder than she’d anticipated. She kept low in the saddle, knowing a well-placed arrow could topple her.

  She halted her horse as Halifax men shot their guns. Not all of their shots connected, but they managed to drive back the attacking islanders enough to hold them off. But that wouldn’t last.

  Looking in the distance, Kirby saw more islanders running up the moonlit, sloping road to join the battle.

  More than she’d expected.

  She saw no sign of Bray, Samron, or their men.

  Where were they?

  If something had happened, Kirby, Flora, and their fifteen might have ridden in to their deaths.

  “Keep close!” she shouted at Flora.

  The noise around her got louder as more Halifax men kept near, finding targets, firing rounds that echoed off the sides of the bridge. Kirby shot whatever enemies she could from the top of her horse, while Flora kept nearby. Dying men screamed last breaths in the moonlight. A particularly loud scream drew Kirby’s attention to the ground, where a man lay on his back, shrieking as he held a wounded arm. Kirby was reminded of the worst wars, where men died in agony.

  Screaming, an islander ran at Kirby from somewhere she didn’t see, ripping her from a bad memory and jabbing his sword, probably hoping he’d get a lucky stab. Kirby fir
ed, striking him in the head as he tumbled to the ground. She was getting better at firing from her saddle, and she was managing to keep the horse under control, but the ammunition wouldn’t last long.

  Where were Enoch and Bray?

  Chapter 69: Bray

  A boom in the distance echoed through the islands.

  Then another.

  War was here.

  Bray’s breath came in short bursts as he crossed over the hardened dirt, wind whipping against his wet clothes, eyes locked on the torches and the patrolmen they had been hoping to surprise, until the blasts gave them away.

  The torches stopped moving as the soldiers prepared to react to something they hadn’t fully processed. Before Bray knew it, he was upon a group of stunned soldiers, who had just enough time to get their swords out.

  It was more warning than Bray had gotten, when they’d stabbed him into the river and left him for dead.

  Anger overtook him as he swung at the first man he reached. The soldier stuck up his blade in time to block the first blow, but not in time to block the second. Bray sliced the man’s stomach, and he groaned and fell. Nearby, Samron sparred with another soldier. Clusters of Halifax men entered the fray, clashing swords and outnumbering their enemies. Torches fell from soldier’s hands and swords and bodies quickly hit the ground. A few gunshots pierced the air.

  “Save the guns!” Bray said.

  The surprise might be gone, but they still needed to preserve ammunition.

  Samron relayed the message to the Halifax men.

  A few lights appeared in opened doorways as more men with torches and swords appeared, looking in both directions. New shouts of alarm echoed through the streets as they saw Bray, Samron, and their group of one hundred and fifty men.

  “Halifax savages!”

  “Dirty pigs!”

  More men ran to face the intruders, dropping their torches as they fought the closest Halifax men, failing against so many numbers. Samron and Bray’s men cut them down with ease, swinging and attacking. Some of the islanders ran in the opposite direction, confused and fleeing. The Halifax men chased a few of them down, finishing them in quick, violent scuffles, but the commotion was spreading. More torches appeared up the road, near a thick cluster of houses past the farmer’s field, the tradesmen’s houses. Many more men and women than Bray expected entered the road, hearing the noises in the street and the booms from the bridge. Most were fighting peasants, but he saw soldiers among them.

  “What’s going on?” Bray yelled to Samron. “Why are so many here? Most of these houses should be empty, according to Flora.”

  “I’m not sure. I did not expect more than patrols on this road,” Samron shouted back.

  Bray gritted his teeth as he ran to meet a flock of twenty determined soldiers, who had run to the head of the peasant fighters. Some were already readying their swords; others were nocking arrows and aiming at the coming line. A Halifax man to Bray’s left cried out, clutching an arrow in his neck. He collapsed. A few more Halifax men fell, screaming, before they charged and overwhelmed the soldiers. Some of the fighting peasants, who had fallen back, seeing that the soldiers were dead, ran in the opposite direction. But more soldiers and peasants flocked the road ahead, grouping in larger numbers.

  Bray hadn’t expected so much opposition in the middle of the island, and certainly not before the bridge.

  In the distance, he heard the cracks of gunfire and faraway cries.

  They’d never make it to Kirby, Enoch, and Flora before a main battle happened.

  They might be fighting two separate battles, each on their own.

  Chapter 70: Bartholomew

  Bartholomew ran from one house to the next, barking orders as he sent the men to the bridge, watching them hurry up the road and toward the distant booms that had already woken most of them. The doors of the soldier’s houses spilled open as men ran from inside, brandishing swords and bows.

  Deacon’s fear was right.

  War had come.

  “To the bridge!” he cried at two slower soldiers, spurring them faster.

  He directed several others as he kept striding up the road, heading past the last of the soldier’s houses and towards some of the tradesmen’s. Several cracks split the air. Unlike the others, these came from the center of the island. Something else was happening. Bartholomew ran faster as he reached the first tradesman’s house, where some peasants emerged, confusion on their faces.

  “To the bridge?” one of them asked.

  Bartholomew thought for a split second. “No, the other way!”

  “But—”

  “Do as I say!” he barked.

  He ran next to them as he reached the next house, instructing more people to do the same as he continued toward the center of the island to see what was going on.

  Chapter 71: William

  Lightning and thunder, William thought frantically.

  He looked up at the sky, which was clear and empty except for the full moon.

  It wasn’t lightning and thunder.

  It was something else.

  William looked around, confused, as he rode the galloping horse down the road. He saw no sign of the shouting, chasing men he had escaped on the second island. What was happening? He clutched the reins of his stolen horse as he rode down the center of the road. Screams and blasts that sounded like gunfire echoed from somewhere he couldn’t see. The commotion was coming from in front of him, not behind.

  Something much larger than William’s escape was happening.

  He looked left and right in the moonlight, taking in patches of forest, trying to catch his bearings. The island looked foreign and strange in the night. Even if he remembered the landmarks in the day, he wasn’t sure he’d recognize them now.

  His heart pounded in his chest as he fought for wind. He was still recovering, and yet he had no choice to slow down. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he certainly couldn’t return to the second island. The soldiers would alert others. They were probably chasing him already. And once everyone in The Arches was looking for him, he’d never hide with a horse.

  He spurred his steed faster as commotion in the distance got louder.

  He looked left and right again. The farmer’s fields. A flash of memory hit him as he recalled riding past them with Bray and Kirby, when they’d gone to meet Deacon. Before he could make a decision on where to go, the horse rounded a curve, and suddenly the screams were everywhere.

  Chaos.

  Figures clashed swords. Men shouted.

  Torches burned, dropped in the center of the road.

  William stopped.

  Frantic, he looked behind him, certain he’d find men running his way, but he saw nothing but empty road.

  War.

  That’s what this was.

  He watched for another second, long enough to catch sight of shouting, angry men that looked like the people from Halifax that he’d seen at Kirby’s settlement, fighting islanders. Guns hung over their shoulders, visible in the torchlight. William had seen enough war in Brighton to know that he wanted no more. He knew what the guns could do. Continuing on this road was an easy way to get killed, if not by a gun, then by an arrow in the head, or a sword in the belly.

  With no place left to go, William veered into the farmer’s fields, heading southwest and towards the woods.

  Chapter 72: Bray

  The road turned to bedlam as more and more island soldiers appeared. The Halifax men were quickly becoming outnumbered.

  “Use your guns!” Bray screamed, forgetting that no one would understand him, until Samron interpreted.

  Unable to take his own advice, yet, Bray clashed blades with a portly islander, grunting and pushing the islander backward, before spearing him in the stomach. Several times, men skirted around Bray, uncertain with whom he was fighting. He didn’t look like a Halifax man, and he was using the advantage to get the jump on them.

  Another man ran at Bray, shouting as he got close enough to see
his features.

  “It’s the stranger!” he shouted to others, perhaps thinking he might win some special privilege by besting him. Bray slashed the man’s throat before he had a chance to swing.

  Cracks of closer gunfire burst nearby as Halifax men fired their rifles, sending islanders pitching to the ground, shrieking, or dead before they had a chance to react. More torches bobbed as islanders joined the fray. Bray saw more people under the moonlight than he could count as he reached for the small gun called a pistol at his side. Balancing his sword and his gun, he aimed at the first man to approach him, a bearded islander with his blade high in the air, ready to take a vicious slice.

  Aim, and watch for the…

  What was the word?

  It didn’t matter.

  Bray squeezed the metal.

  A loud crack pierced the air, louder than anything else around him. A high-pitched whine rang in Bray’s ears as a red splotch appeared in the center of the bearded islander’s stomach, and the man collapsed to his knees. Bray opened and closed his mouth. If it had been another situation, he might’ve reveled at the weapon’s power, but he had no time. More islanders ran toward him. He squeezed the metal several more times, missing a few shots, but striking enough to stop the men before they reached him. Kirby hadn’t lied. The metal inside the gun—the bullets—were running out quickly. Soon he would be back to his sword. He fended off another islander with a shot to the stomach, requiring only one bullet to stop him. Firing a few more times, he took down some men that appeared to be soldiers.

  A Halifax man shouted.

  Several of the Halifax men turned.

  More islanders ran from the woods around them, to the sides and behind. What had started as an advantageous fight was quickly turning sour. There were too many islanders, and more coming. Bray noticed several women in the torchlight, hurling insults at the Halifax men, swinging their swords as savagely as the island men.