Withûr We

by Matthew Bruce Alexander

  “You’ll have the rest of your lives to stare at the beach, men,” said Duke, the attempted gruffness of his tone unable to cover a tone of relief, and perhaps of pride. “We’ve got unloading to do.”

  Duke was about to start directing but he found Alistair, who had shouldered his way through the crowd, standing at his side.

  “We shouldn’t take any chances with this,” Alistair said to him. “Why don’t you let me take a landing party ashore and make sure there is nothing waiting to ambush us?”

  Duke fixed a disapproving glare on Alistair. “I don’t even know your name. I’ve got lieutenants who have been with me a lot longer than you.”

  “You don’t have anybody like me, sir.”

  The Aldran, whose name Duke knew very well, did not salute, but he was stiffly standing at attention, his ample chest puffed out and his shoulders held wide. His gaze was direct but not challenging and Duke, as he considered the lad, rolled his lips and swiveled his jaw.

  “Phrimpong,” he barked, and a grizzled man of principally Oriental heritage, with jet black hair but weathered skin that would go better with gray, stepped forward.

  “Yes, sir,” responded Phrimpong, his rumbling voice even rougher than his skin and his accent British. Had Alistair only heard the voice he would have pictured a brown haired dock worker right off the streets of some English port.

  “Take a landing party to the beach and secure the area.” With a toss of his head in Alistair’s direction he added, “Take this one with you.”

  Phrimpong regarded Alistair with a deeply skeptical expression, and a challenging one, as if defying the Aldran to protest the fact that a man could be skeptical about him.

  The cool water of the ocean reached past Alistair’s waist, flooding his moccasins and causing him to wince as the liquid chilled his smoldering skin. Waves rolled past, taking the water to the middle of his back and he tensed his when they did, his sunburn protesting all the while. A spear was shoved into his grasp and, as if it were a rifle to be kept dry, he held it above the surface as he waded towards shore. Feeling the sand of the bottom slide and shift against his leather-clad feet, he moved as swiftly as decorum allowed, leaving a small wake but not splashing, always feeling the menace of the deep water behind him like a prickle at the back of his knees, a tingle blossoming once or twice into a full body shudder.

  It was fully three hundred feet from the boat to the shore, and for two hundred of it the water depth remained steady. Finally, at the last stretch, it grew shallow until the twelve warriors, filthy, bedraggled and exhausted, were standing on firm, wet sand as the timid light of dawn expanded. Silently, they faced the willows, birches and oaks that huddled together, regarding the new arrivals. A wave broke on the beach, then another, the water snaking around their ankles. Phrimpong, at the head of the squad, studied the layout, trying to read the secrets of the dense forest before him, his spear gripped tightly and at the ready, his knees bent and his muscles tensed. Somewhere in the distance a bird cawed, and this was answered by another caw farther away.

  To the west the beach disappeared around a bend, hiding behind the clustering trees, while to the east it stretched on for miles, more or less straight. Alistair noticed another boat to the east, far enough from them that the peaks of waves in the space between concealed it, but he said nothing for the moment. Apart from the waves and the placid breeze fluttering the foliage, causing it to whisper unintelligible secrets, there was no sound and no movement, just the inscrutable woods.

  “Groups of four,” muttered Phrimpong and he began to advance.

  The dozen men broke into three groups and Alistair chose the one moving west. He fell into place behind them and quietly, eyes always on the verdant mass before them, they swung around the curve, saw an expansive bay on the other side, and crept into the shadowless gloom of the forest. The weeds beneath their feet crackled as the branches hunched over them, blocking out the sky. A bird bolted from the confines of the branches of a willow, startling them before it disappeared. Deeper in, the air was still. Only the crisps and crackles of their companions to the east broke the stillness.

  “There is someone else here,” announced Alistair, his tone moderate and frank.

  “How do you know?”

  “Who?”

  The young Aldran had leapt onto a boulder and was scanning the ground on the other side.

  “There’s a path. Beaten down by feet.”

  “Men or animals?” asked the one nearest Alistair.

  Alistair jumped from the boulder to the ground and surveyed the terrain around the path running parallel to the beach to their north.

  “Both.”

  “How can there be men here?” asked one, his voice irritable and skeptical, but he knelt down all the same to inspect the ground.

  “It’s an animal trail they use for hunting,” said another, leaning on his spear.

  The man on his knees ran his hand just above the ground, as if he might feel the residue of human presence. “There can’t be nobody else on this island,” he declared and he glared at the tracks angrily, finally turning his glower on Alistair as if accusing him. “How the hell could they have made it here?”

  The Aldran met the glare with a wry look of his own. “We made it here.”

  “Nobody’s ever done what we done,” he declared with a wild gesture, sweeping his arm to indicate something or other.

  “We bull-rushed the island with numbers,” Alistair calmly replied. “Maybe others made it with stealth. Smaller craft.”

  “Smaller craft get devoured in the ocean.”

  Alistair shrugged and indicated the path with a nod of his head. “Explaining the presence of humans here is easier than explaining human tracks on a deserted island.” His eyes were not on the path but rather were tracking back and forth over the foliage while his companions were distracted by the footprints.

  The kneeling man finally rose and shook his head. “There wasn’t supposed to be nobody here.”

  “They don’t have to be our enemies,” said Alistair.

  One of the men grasped Alistair’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze of camaraderie. “On this moon, everyone who steps on your territory is an enemy.”

  Alistair, suppressing a wince from the firm grasp on his aching skin, shook his head firmly. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  Having found signs of a human presence, if not the humans themselves, the four men returned to the beach and reunited with the rest. The sun was now over the horizon and their elongated shadows stretched far to the west, as if trying to escape the new land to which they had been taken. The breeze having died, the ocean, the one-way street just traversed, was calm, only small waves lapping quietly at the beach. The beach on the other side, where Ansacroy and Issicroy were, was a thousand light years away. The wooden vessel which bore them across the waters was still run aground, but the others were assembling rafts and forming production lines to whisk the supplies from deck to raft. A few men were already on their way to shore, pushing their burdens over the surface of the water.

  When a few supplies were ashore, the famished immigrants opened a crate full of foodstuffs and ravenously tore into it. Alistair’s limbs shook. He and his friends, old and new, gathered together and devoured the bread, fruit and dry salted meat passed around. Water was all there was to drink, but this beggar’s meal was as succulent as anything he ever tasted. By degrees, as he consumed the food, steadiness returned to his weakened limbs and, the hunger much abated, fatigue made itself felt. As he lay back, his drowsy eyes closed and only the emphatic and strident insistence of Duke and his lieutenants roused him from an incipient slumber. No bed ever felt as soft as the sand on that beach, and no greater effort was ever required to leave comfort and return to work.

  The bulk of the party was sent back to the boat to finish unloading the supplies and, later on, to disassemble the ship whose materials would be used on the island. A few other smaller groups, comprised mainly of women with a handfu
l of warriors for protection, were sent out to scavenge while Duke himself, with a select group of men, including Alistair, set out to scout and map the area.

  The land around them was flat and verdant, bordering on marshy at times, and their steps often pressed deep into the ground, sometimes emerging with a slurp. The forest was about a mile thick before it thinned into more open territory. Perhaps a mile past that, the land sloped upwards. While there was nothing on the island that could be called a proper mountain, the interior was elevated a few hundred feet above sea level. They came across several more signs of human presence, which greatly displeased Duke, as well as a large pond nestled in the valley of a couple small hills. The unflagging British Captain finally took pity on his troops and allowed them a rest on the shores of the tranquil pond, though he himself scaled the nearest hill and, back straight with one hand over his eyes as he peered into the distance, kept watch over the area.

  The seven other warriors relaxed into a familiar camaraderie. Alistair, more reclusive, sat a few feet apart, looking over the surface of the pond, with its lilies and weeds, and a faraway and impassive stare smoothed over his features. He was not seated for more than a minute when, unnoticed by his comrades, he gave a start and perked up, sniffing the air and scanning the shore. A moment later he found what he was searching for and sprang to his feet, spear in hand, and took off. Only then did the others notice and their conversation halted.

  Having put several yards between him and the group, some of whom were now uneasily getting up, the Aldran exile finally stopped and knelt down. A moment later he was back on his feet bidding them, with an expansive wave of his arm, to join him. Duke, who descended the hill when he saw Alistair leaving, was just reaching his men.

  “Alistair! What the devil’s gotten into you?” he demanded, his hands cupped over his mouth.

  The Aldran did not speak but just waved them over one more time. With a muffled grumble, Duke snatched up his spear and led his men around the edge of the pond to Alistair’s position. As they drew nearer they detected what caught Alistair’s attention: the smell of smoldering wood. Pushing through the thigh-high grass, Duke finally stepped next to Alistair and stared down at the charred remains of three logs, still giving off some thin wisps of smoke. The fire was stamped out and the ashes scattered but other than that only footprints and other impressions remained.

  “Couple hours,” said Alistair. “I think there were three of them.”

  “Did they hide when they saw us coming?” wondered a man aloud.

  Shaking his head, Alistair replied, “When this campfire was being put out we were a couple miles away on the beach. They didn’t leave because we startled them. But they may be in the area. Whether they’re hostile or not—”

  “We’re going to proceed on that assumption,” Duke interjected, massaging the ends of his long mustache with his grimy fingers. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and he wiped it with his forearm. “We need to get back to camp. We’ll do more exploring once we’re settled in.” The note of finality in his voice had his men hefting their spears and turning to go, but before Duke himself left he nodded once to Alistair. “Good work,” was all he said.

  ***

  The sun was high in the sky when Duke’s group returned to the beach, and the sand had grown uncomfortably hot. Having finished unloading the supplies from the ship, the immigrants brought the various bundles and boxes and crates to the edge of the woods, underneath the cooler shade of the trees. A few were snoozing there, the snoring Miklos among their number, while others were busy disassembling the ship. A few more were separating the supplies by category, though they were in little hurry to finish, spending as much time leaning on the crates and chatting as they did actually dragging the heavy cargo about. Of the group with whom he had traveled, Alistair saw only the tattooed companion of Taribo. He assumed the others were either working on the boat or out foraging.

  Though it was not immediately apparent to him, the members of his party were familiar enough with the other crew members to notice there were some new faces in camp. With a hearty and manly greeting, Duke immediately hailed the half dozen newcomers. Their boat, like Duke’s, hit shallow waters many yards out and could not be rowed to shore, but there was a large pile of supplies about a mile distant.

  It was quickly decided the two camps would merge. Scouts from the other camp had also come across unmistakable signs of a human presence and were no more sanguine about the implications than was Duke. Miklos and the other napping crewmen were roused and sent to help raft the other cargo to their position. By the time the sun was nearing the far horizon and every foot in camp, including Duke’s, dragged across the ground rather than lift to take proper steps, the separate pieces of the boat were brought ashore and stacked as a makeshift defensive wall. The population of the camp swelled to nearly three hundred, and Mordecai, it turned out, was one of the new arrivals. Alistair cast a fleeting dark glance in his direction, but the former chieftain did not look at him.

  It was not fully dark, and the waning Srillium had yet to rise, when Alistair collapsed into a heap on the grass beneath a willow tree. The evening wind picked up intensity, rustling the leaves and making the waves crash more loudly. Gregory, Wellesley, Taribo, Miklos, Santiago, Giselle, Layla and Clyde, all having reunited, gathered around him, like celestial bodies will accrete around the one with the most gravity. Gregory and Layla quietly conversed as they prepared to sleep, finishing a talk started earlier while they foraged together. The rest fell into exhausted slumber before Srillium made its appearance.

  Duke remained alert for an hour, along with a handful of unfortunates chosen for the first watch. When a scout group from a third ship arrived, only they were awake to notice. The scouts brought news of a successful landing and contact with two other ships. They gave their account, took the exchange of information Duke offered, and said farewell, bound to return to the larger camp. The following day, those two camps would merge in the bay. Until then, there was naught to do but rest while some kept watch, wary of the eyes that might be watching them, of the locals who might not be keen to share the island.

  Chapter 58

  With the heavy mallet he wielded in his equally heavy hands, Miklos battered the top of a post, lately part of a ship, and drove it into the turf. The man with the multitude of black tattoos and the Greek appellation stood upon a pile of posts so he could reach high enough to hammer the plank downward. Taribo and Alistair held it in place. A few feet away from them, Santiago, Clyde and Wellesley were busy with the same job, working their way towards Alistair. Dozens of cracks rang out across the bay as workers built a defensive fortification in an arc touching the water at two points. Other cracks, distinct from those made at the wall, also rang out, products of tools hacking away at tree trunks, clearing away space inside the embryonic fortress whose curve plunged into the forest.

  “They should gather everyone up,” Miklos said when, after three powerful blows, he stopped to rest. “There were ten thousand of us, they say.”

  “There will be less now,” Taribo reminded him.

  “Yes, but there must still be several thousand. They should gather everyone up and we can build one city in the middle of the island. Ten thousand strong. Do you know why ten thousand, Alistair?”

  “The post isn’t in yet,” the Aldran responded.

  Miklos smashed the top of the post again. “Do you know why ten thousand? Because it’s the perfect size for a city-state. Plato proved that long ago.” Alistair did not respond and Miklos filled the interim with another whack. “Have you read Plato?”

  “Yes.”

  Miklos delivered another blow. “With a wise philosopher-king to lead the government. A great Greek philosopher,” he added with a note of pride.

  “Miklos, why don’t you let me take a turn with the mallet?” asked Alistair, holding out his hand with some insistence.

  Miklos plopped down on the ground and dumped the tool in Alistair’s hands. Alistair cl
ambered to the top of the pile of posts and began a far more rapid assault on the wood.

  “These are things we need to worry about,” continued Miklos, his voice louder now to compete with the noise of Alistair’s labors. “This is going to be our own nation.”

  By the time the Greek finished speaking, Alistair, with a rapid barrage, had driven the post far enough to bring it in line with the others. He leaned on it, his chest heaving only a little, and his eyes narrowed as he looked at something at the center of the fortification. Hopping down, he handed the mallet to Miklos.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he promised and left his two large companions.

  Emerging from the comparatively cool shadows, he passed two dozen women gathered together in a tight group. They spoke softly among themselves while they fabricated nets for fishing and patched clothing. He caught Giselle’s eye, but she looked down at the twine she was forming before he could give her a nod of greeting. To his left, in the shade of trees where posts were being roped together, he spied Gregory attending to a handful of ill and wounded, though with scant supplies Alistair was not sure how much he could accomplish apart from a soothing hand on the forehead and an air of calm assurance.

  Duke was in the center of the encampment, surrounded by his officers whose postures and poses indicated how important they felt they were. When Alistair approached, he was greeted with unwelcoming gazes tinged with an unease born of the fear a physically inferior creature feels when its station, itself built on force of strength, is implicitly challenged by a more intimidating specimen.

  “What’s the commotion?” asked Alistair.

  “The wall is finished, then, is it?” Duke absently asked, twirling his ample mustache, his concentration on a scroll a young man was busy marking with a quill and ink. Glancing at it, Alistair saw they were forming a rough sketch of the island.