The Ruins Box Set

by T. W. Piperbrook

  “Gone,” he said simply.

  A faraway look crossed Bray’s eyes as he looked from the bridge, to the river, to the fallen men and women lying in all directions.

  “I hope she can find a peace the islands could not give her,” Kirby said.

  Bray held an expression of sadness she hadn’t seen him wear. “As do I.” Looking at the horse on top of which she was riding, he said, “I will miss the other steed. He accompanied us through a lot. He was a good horse.”

  “I will miss him, as well.” Kirby shook her head. “But we need to find William.”

  Hearing their conversation, Samron walked over to join them. “If you are going to find William, I will come with you, with a group of my remaining men. I will leave the rest here.”

  Bray looked around. About two hundred of the Halifax men remained, as blood spattered as him.

  “Thank you,” Bray said. To Kirby, he said, “We should check the second island, if that is where you last saw him. We can search the houses closest to the road on the way.”

  “I thought the same. Why don’t you ride with me?” Kirby said, beckoning to a spot on the horse behind her.

  Bray hopped on the stirrup. Forcing a smile through his trepidation, he said, “Let’s go.”

  **

  Kirby, Bray, Samron, and a group of fifty Halifax men walked or rode the long road through the islands, surveying the aftermath of a hard-fought war. Bodies lay in all directions. Islanders and Halifax men were sprawled on top of one another, their blood mixed in puddles. Bray guessed about five or six hundred islanders had fallen in total. Several times, the Halifax men stopped next to the body of a fallen friend, saying some quiet words before moving on.

  “We will burn the bodies later,” Samron said. “First, we will find your friend.”

  They continued walking. The Halifax men split off from the road as they encountered each house, looking through the doorways, determining they were empty before moving on. Once, Bray got off his horse and went to the woods as he spotted someone through the trees, but it ended up being a young, scared woman. She ran when she saw them.

  “My guess is many of the islanders are still in hiding,” Samron said. “We will need to speak with them. I am not sure what we will say.”

  “Some of the islanders might be grateful to be rid of a leader such as Deacon,” Bray said, with an air of hope he wanted to believe, even though he didn’t fully.

  “Even still, they will harbor thoughts of revenge,” Samron said. He looked as if he was working through something. “I never thought I would live to see this day, walking a road that our ancestors must have walked when they were at peace.” He stared down at a body of one of the Halifax men, whose mouth was agape in death. “And now it holds the blood of our generation, as well as our ancestors’.”

  “Perhaps the blood of this new war will be for a reason,” Bray suggested. “Perhaps it will lead to peace.”

  “We will see,” Samron said.

  Riding past the open door of a butcher’s shop, Bray looked inside, surprised to see a body he recognized. A man hung half in and out of a doorway, looking as if he had gotten as far as he could before collapsing. He had fallen on his side, clutching a string of beads around his neck.

  “You look as if you recognize that person,” Kirby said to Bray.

  “Levi, one of the hunters I accompanied,” Bray said with a nod.

  “He gave information about you to Bartholomew,” Kirby remembered, “right before the soldiers attacked you.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are those beads around his neck?”

  “They contain the dirt of The Arches,” Bray said. “They carry them with them on the hunt. Or, they did.” Bray fell silent, walking away without a word as he got back on the horse.

  They moved on until they passed a body lying in the street among the others, a sword stuck in his gut. Half of his face was blackened by fire. It took Kirby a moment to recognize Bartholomew’s body. She noticed Bray staring at him from the back of her horse.

  “That revenge will be worthless without William,” Kirby said over her shoulder.

  “You are right,” Bray agreed.

  “Let’s get moving.”

  Chapter 85: Bray

  The sun shined over the wooden bridge as they crossed the small patch of water that ran in between the islands. Bray inhaled an odor that he hadn’t smelled since they’d been off the islands. Demons. The Halifax men, and Samron, looked around.

  “I smell the twisted men,” Bray said, scanning the ground as they passed a few dead island soldiers.

  The soldiers appeared to have been half-eaten, but he saw a few demon carcasses among them, as well.

  “They must have heard the noise,” Kirby guessed. “Perhaps they crossed the river, as you did.”

  “Perhaps. We should keep vigilant, just in case there are more.”

  They kept a keen alert as they traveled onto the second island, passing a few more soldiers who had been killed by the twisted men, ripped open and partially consumed. Farther up on the island, in the land before the buildings, they saw more demon bodies, struck down by swords. Several had smaller stab wounds. Some looked as if they had been bludgeoned.

  “Strange,” Bray said aloud, as they looked between the bodies.

  Pointing to the buildings they approached, Kirby said to Samron, “Perhaps we can check the building where we stayed, while you check the other.”

  Before Samron could agree, the door of the right-hand building opened and people streamed from the inside, carrying knives, swords, and long, sharp sticks. They took positions in the yard, lining up in defensive rows. Some hobbled, while others used contraptions meant to hold them up as they walked. A younger man missing a leg limped out to join the others. Bray recognized some of The Important Ones he’d seen in the yard. About fifty or so people exited the building before the door closed. An old woman with white hair and a knife in her hand, stepping in front of the others, put up a shaky hand, and yelled, “Do not come closer!”

  Samron and the Halifax men paused, confused, or perhaps gauging the threat of the elderly and disabled.

  “We mean no harm,” Bray said. “The battle is over. We are here for our friend, the boy, William.”

  The woman with white hair surveyed them for a quiet moment. “You are the strangers. You have brought death to our door. You have come to finish us off.”

  “That is not our intention,” Bray returned. “We are in search of our friend, that is all.”

  “He is no longer here,” the woman said.

  “Where is he?” Kirby asked, bristling as some anger entered her voice.

  “Deacon took him, according to the whispers,” the woman said. “We do not know to where he was taken.”

  “Deacon is dead. And so are his soldiers,” Bray said, motioning to the bodies behind him, as if to prove his point. “Though we didn’t kill these men.”

  “We know that,” the woman said. “The Savages did. The wild men came over the water. The soldiers killed most of them, before they died, but we took care of the rest. It has been a long time since we have seen Savages here. It took the strongest of us to best them, and several died, but we had to protect ourselves, and the children inside. We will do what we have to, so you do not get to them.”

  The yard went quiet as the two parties looked at each other across the distance separating them. Finally, Samron stepped forward. “We have no interest in killing any of you, or the children, as Bray said,” Samron said. “Our people are not like yours. We do not kill for scalps, or for pleasure.”

  “Neither do we.” The woman looked down at her feeble hands.

  “Perhaps not now,” Samron said, taking back some of his words.

  “We have heard the rumors about your land,” the woman said. “We know why you are here.”

  “The islanders—your people—stole our land.”

  “The stories of The Arches have changed so many times that we do not know wha
t is a truth.” The woman sighed. “The leaders tell us what to believe—Deacon, his uncle, or the man before that. The stories change, but our lives do not. We live, we eat, we kill. We do what the rest of the people in this world do, in order to survive.”

  Samron seemed confused, or dismayed. As if to convince them, he repeated, “These islands were our ancestors’.”

  “Perhaps.” The woman looked as if she had more to say, but she didn’t dispute his claim. An elderly man next to her, with a pointed stick in his hand, asked, “Are you sure Deacon is dead? And his soldiers?”

  “Most of them, yes,” Bray said with certainty.

  An emotion passed through some of the crowd that Bray didn’t understand, until he thought about why. These people were as much a victim as he, or Kirby, or William. They seemed as if they were in shock. They were hesitant to believe they were safe. They had been thrown from bridges, killed when they lost their use. They had been treated as badly as anyone, he figured.

  Sensing their hesitation, Samron assured them, “We will not harm you or the children. That was never our intention in coming here. We have much to talk about, in the coming days. But if you will agree to put down your weapons, we will not raise ours. Allow us to pass, and to search for the boy for whom we are looking. We will figure out what the future holds.”

  Demonstrating his sincerity, Samron lowered the sword in his hand. Slowly, some of The Important Ones relaxed as the Halifax men followed suit.

  “The boy is not in here,” the woman repeated in a gentler tone. “Though you are welcome to check. I only ask that you send a few men. We do not want to scare the children any more than they are.”

  “I agree,” Samron said.

  “Kirby and I will go,” Bray said, dismounting the horse.

  “You might want to check the other building, as well,” said the old man with the stick, a grave expression on his face.

  “Do you think he is there?” Bray asked.

  “For his sake, I hope not,” the old man said.

  **

  Bray and Kirby walked through the halls of The Important Ones, peeking from one room to the next. Some of the feebler elderly lay in beds, or sat up, watching them. In other rooms, children peered out from behind the elder men or women protecting them, as if Bray and Kirby might attack. He and Kirby worked from hallway to hallway, looking in rooms they hadn’t seen, none of which harbored William.

  Finally, they exited to the back of the buildings.

  Samron and some other Halifax men emerged from the left-hand building, a stumbling, wounded man under their arms, looking as if he was at the edge of death. His body was starved so badly he resembled a skeleton. He was half-naked, battered in bruises and wounds. Samron broke from the man to meet Bray and Kirby.

  “Some of the worst things we suspected are true,” he said, rekindled anger in his eyes. “The devices, Jonas…”

  “Are there others?” Kirby asked, shaking her head.

  “He is the only one,” Samron said. “Another man is in there, dead. I can only guess how many others have suffered at the hands of Deacon and Jonas, and their soldiers. Our only comfort is that this will not happen again.”

  “William?” Bray asked, suspecting the answer.

  “He was not there. We found some relics, but those will not help us now.”

  Bray looked out into the forest, scanning the trees that he couldn’t see past. He saw no buildings, or places in which William would hide. Before he could make a decision, a door opened behind them.

  Bray and Kirby turned.

  The old woman with white hair emerged, as if she’d remembered something. She pointed to a spot behind the building, with hay, water, and an empty rope.

  “A horse was here before,” she said, pointing. “We heard some commotion, before everything began and the Savages came. I’m not sure if there is a connection to the boy you seek.”

  “Perhaps they took him elsewhere,” Kirby said, worry entering her voice.

  “I wish I could say for sure.” The woman threw up her hands.

  Bray looked toward the forest. On the ground, he saw what might be the impressions of horse hooves. He was thinking about following them when Kirby interrupted with, “Who’s that? Over there?”

  Bray spun.

  Between the buildings, far down to the wooden bridge and past it, where the rest of the Halifax men waited with he and Kirby’s horse, a figure appeared on a horse. A boy about the size and shape of William sat in the saddle, watching them. He looked as if he might turn and ride in the other direction.

  “William!” Bray called.

  Bray ran.

  The Halifax men spoke excitedly as Bray tore past them, between the buildings and past more Halifax men. Reaching the wooden bridge, he called out to the figure on horseback. The figure watched him for a moment, confused, or judging, and then the horse trotted slowly toward Bray.

  William’s hair was mussed, his face dirty. Pieces of hay clung to a bulky jacket draped over his shoulders that was obviously not his. Kirby limped to catch up. Disbelief crossed William’s face as he appraised Bray and Kirby, as if they might be a delusion, or he might be dreaming.

  “Where did you come from?” Bray asked, unable to believe what he was seeing, that William was all right.

  “I hid in the woods through the fighting,” he explained, as if he was making sense of it himself. “When I came out this morning, I thought I saw a horse passing this way, but I wasn’t sure. I followed it here. Is the war over? Has it ended?”

  “It’s over,” Bray said. “Or at least, for us it is.”

  A noise from Bray’s left made him look over at Kirby. Silent tears fell from Kirby’s eyes. She wiped her face and smiled.

  “You’re alive.”

  William pointed behind them, at the group of Halifax men watching intently. “Why are they here with you? Are we prisoners?”

  “No,” Bray said. “We are free.”

  “And so is everyone else on the island,” Kirby said with a smile. “Come on, William. You must be cold and hungry. Follow us.”

  **

  Bray, Kirby, and William led the other steed up toward the buildings. The sun had risen higher in the sky, taking away some of the night’s chill. The Halifax men in front of the buildings watched them approach. Passing by some of the dead demons, Bray noticed William staring.

  “What’s wrong, William?”

  “It’s…nothing,” William said.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Kirby asked. “Perhaps you are still feverish.”

  “I think I am still recovering,” William said evasively.

  “We will set the horse up in back of the buildings,” Kirby said. “Perhaps the elderly people who live here will allow us to stay for a bit.”

  “A healer should look at your leg,” Bray warned. “You will need to remove the rest of the arrow.”

  Kirby didn’t look as if she needed the help, but she didn’t refuse it, either. Samron met them in the middle of the yard, with a half-smile Bray had only seen him wear a few times.

  “You have found the boy you were looking for,” he said.

  “We did,” Bray said, feeling a relief he hadn’t yet processed.

  The war felt as if it had been going for days, or weeks. He was exhausted, drained.

  “Perhaps The Holy One blessed our battle, after all,” Samron said, looking at William.

  William looked as if he had something else to say. Turning to Kirby and Bray, a worried expression overtook him. “I have forgotten something,” he said.

  “What is it?” Bray asked.

  “Follow me.”

  **

  Bray and Kirby rode behind William on the horses as they trekked deeper into the woods on the second island, heading down a snow-speckled path filled with horse, boot, and demon prints that Bray might’ve noticed, if they hadn’t found William by the bridge. Bray studied the trail, alert for demons or other dangers.

  “Where are we going?”
<
br />   “I will show you,” said William.

  He led them further, until a small, squat building appeared in the distance, sheltered by trees and isolated from everything else. Bray frowned as he noticed the tracks leading up to it.

  “This is where they kept me,” William said, dismounting his horse and tying it to a tree. A strange, reflective expression crossed his face.

  Bray tied their horse, and he and Kirby accompanied William to the building. Reaching into the oversized jacket on his shoulders, William pulled out a key and inserted it in the door. Bray looked around the forest, his sword out and ready. Before Bray or Kirby could question him, William pulled open the door.

  The daylight revealed a tired, scared old woman. An empty tray that might’ve contained food lay on the floor next to her. The room stank of a used chamber pot, and sweaty, unwashed clothes.

  “Berta,” Kirby whispered, recognizing her.

  The woman looked as if she might crawl backward against the wall.

  “We are not here to hurt you,” William said. “I’ve come to let you out.”

  Chapter 86: Bray

  Bray, Kirby, and William sat in a room in the building with The Important Ones, a room they were no longer confined to. The room was much nicer than the cold in which they’d all slept for several nights, or the battlefield in which they’d spent too many hours.

  The woman with the white hair, who told them that her name was Marygrace, sent some of the healers to tend their wounds. A woman with obvious skill removed the arrow from Kirby’s leg, patching her up and stopping the bleeding.

  “It seems we have matching wounds,” Bray said with a grim smile, pointing to Kirby’s leg, and a slice he’d received in roughly the same spot.

  “We all wear too many scars,” Kirby said. “But I will take a scar over my death.”

  “As will I,” Bray agreed.

  William sat silently on the bed, closing his eyes as he took some well-deserved rest.

  “Are you all right, William?” Bray asked.

  “I’m fine,” William said. “I don’t remember when, or how much, I slept last. Too many days seem to have run together.”