The Silent Isle

by Nicholas Anderson

  "Huh, and I would have thought you'd be afraid to even say that word."

  Dane had a vision of lifting the girl bodily and hurling her into the ocean. But, since he had implicitly promised he wouldn't, he banished this fantasy from his mind. "I'm sorry about your sister. And I promise I'll do everything in my power to see the two of you happily reunited."

  She seemed to soften a little. Then her lip curled. "Yeah, she said you were quick with the empty promises then, too."

  Dane put his hands to his head as if he meant to pull out his hair. "Look, there are over thirty men on this ship. Try to find one you don't hate the very look of and tell him if you need anything." He ducked under the arm of the ballista and headed back down the deck.

  “So, I can stay?” she called out from behind him.

  He stopped. Why not? he thought. If I had a chance to go back and be where I needed to be for who I needed to be there for, even if it was just a fool's hope I could make it in time, I'd be doing exactly what you are now. And by the way, I'm sorry about your sister. I never meant to hurt her. He turned towards her.

  "You're not sending me back?"

  "No,” he said, turning and continuing down the deck. “You're just too much fun to have around."

  Dane spent the rest of the day trying to get to know the new bloods. His conversation with Rawl and Paul was as fruitful as any he had that day. “Have either of you seen combat?” Dane asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Rawl said. “We saw your fight at Loshōn.”

  “And a fine exhibition of Hallander manhood that was, wasn’t it?” Bax said.

  To their credit, the twins ignored him.

  “I meant,” said Dane, “Have either of you ever been in combat?”

  Paul shrugged. “First time for everything, right?”

  Molly Thatcher took Josie under her wing and kept close to her the rest of the voyage.

  “Don’t dote on her, ma’am,” Bailus said. “She’s not a lost child; she’s a criminal.”

  “Oh, pooh,” Molly said. “This girl is an angel.”

  That night Rawl was wrapped in his blanket, leaning against the gunwale between Paul and Fletch. He was almost asleep when Josie came up and knelt beside Bailus who was reclining against the opposite side of the ship. Her arms were wrapped around her. “Where could I find a spare blanket?” she asked.

  “On this ship?” Bailus said. “Not likely. Each man has only what he brought for himself.”

  Josie sneezed as he was speaking. She crouched there a moment longer, then rose to her feet with her arms still hugging her shoulders.

  “I can keep you warm, sweetheart,” Rundal said from his place beside Bailus.

  Josie turned and started walking back to her place near the rear of the ship without giving any indication she had heard him. Rawl rose to his feet and slipped out of his blanket and folded it hastily. “Did someone need a blanket?” he asked, looking more at Bailus than Josie’s retreating figure.

  “Seems the young lady was too busy climbing out her window to pack a bag,” Bailus said.

  “I have an extra blanket,” Rawl said, holding his out to Josie. She hesitated. He tossed it to her.

  “You don’t need it?” she asked.

  Rawl shook his head. “Paul said I was a fool for packing so much, but now it seems it wasn’t a mistake to bring a spare.”

  Josie thanked him and walked back to her place.

  Rawl wrapped his cloak about himself and sat down again beside Paul. He started shivering almost immediately. Paul stirred beside him. “A spare blanket, huh? Tell me, little brother, did you even remember to pack a change of clothes?”

  But Rawl’s teeth were chattering too hard to respond.

  The rest of the voyage was uneventful. Which meant time stretched on like the endless blues of sky and water before them and the men had far too much of it and nothing to do with it but worry. They had fair winds and little need to use the oars but this only contributed to the men’s restlessness. On the morning of their third day at sea, they came in sight of the island.

  V

  The Raid

  "Battle stations," Dane shouted from his place in the prow.

  All around him, men scurried to their places. Trenton “Fish” Fischer, their cook, skilled with all kinds of blades, put the finishing touches on the mohawk Ira Scott had commissioned him to shave in his scalp. Others checked their weapons for a final time. Checking their weapons, that's all most of them had done on this voyage when they weren't at the oars. Checking his weapons was a soldier's way of wringing his hands. Others sat on barrels or on the deck itself and wrapped their spats, broad strips of oilskin canvas, from their ankles to just below the knee. The spats covered the laces and mouths of their boots, to keep the laces from coming loose and to keep rocks and sand from getting in their boots as they charged up the beach. They were a good idea, even if they did no more than to give the men something to think about in these final moments.

  They had been Bailus's idea. Ever the pragmatist, Bailus had interviewed every man and woman he could find who had ever set foot on Haven. He wanted to know how deep the harbor was. How steep the beach. Could the ship be driven right onto the beach? Was the beach sand or rock? What distance and what kind of terrain lay between the beach and the colony? He had talked with everyone he could find, but those were few. It seemed most people who went to Haven chose to stay there. And with Arvis Hallander’s policy of secrecy, few had been chosen to go at all.

  Dane had been grateful for the information Bailus had gathered if for no other reason than it gave them cold, hard facts to talk about on the voyage. The most mundane details were better than Dane being left to his imaginings of what the island held for them. It was far more pleasant to listen to Bailus's research than the rumors the men discussed about the island.

  As men scurried about the deck, putting themselves and the ship in readiness, Dane felt his gaze drawn back to the island in front of them. Haven. It seemed anything but aptly named on this foggy morning. They had had sight of the island shortly after first light, but a mist which seemed to come from the island itself had risen about them so that the island had grown more obscure as they approached it. A great dragon, that's what the hump of land made Dane think of. Seen from above, that is, as it appeared on the map, it was a rough diamond with the longer points reaching northwest and southeast. In the center of the island rose a ridge of rock that ran from one extreme to the other. This hump of rock formed the spine of Dane's dragon. The ship was approaching the harbor on the southeastern tip. On the east side of the harbor the ridge ran out in a soft semicircle before dropping into the water by sheer cliffs of rock. The dragon's head, Dane thought. The other arm of the harbor was shorter and less steep and covered in dark trees. It was between these arms the Bloodwake was heading. Straight into the heart of darkness. Whatever waited for them there, they’d meet it head on.

  There had, of course, been alternatives. Dane and Bailus had discussed them at length. They could have gone first to the island of Tira, a people subject to Dane’s house. The Tiran’s might know something about what had happened to the colony but they also might have been the ones who did it. Even if they hadn’t, there was no reason for them to be friendly to a small group of soldiers under the Hallander banner.

  Or Dane’s party could have circled Haven looking for sign of an enemy's presence. But this would take time and with every hour that passed on the voyage, Dane was more and more anxious to get to the colony. Besides, they could have circled the island a dozen times and failed to find any sign of their enemies if they wished to stay concealed. And if the colony was besieged or sick or starving this time could mean the difference between life and death.

  They could have also tried to land on a different part of the island and make their way in stealth to the colony. But there was no guarantee the enemy would not spot them long before they landed. Besides, none of Dane’s men knew the island. It could take days to find a decent spot to land and then
grope their way through the hills and forest to the colony.

  No, whatever waited for them, Dane preferred to meet it head on. He studied the island again. What he could see of it through the fog. What surprised him was how big it was. You didn't get a sense of that from the maps – not even the detailed ones his father kept locked away. Not until you saw it looming before you, ready to swallow you into that mouth of a harbor. The maps had given Dane an inkling of Haven's size but when he had remarked on it to Bailus his father's weapons master had looked at him with surprise and said, "But surely this isn't the first time you've seen these."

  "Why should that surprise you? I'm not exactly in my father's confidence," Dane had said.

  Bailus had made no answer but had returned to studying the maps.

  In truth Dane had never cared to learn about Haven before now. Time had been when he would have been proud to think of his father owning another a piece of earth. But ever since the events at Loshōn, the idea of his father’s control reaching to new lands had only depressed him.

  Dane turned back to the ship. "Gather around," he called.

  The men ceased their preparations and pressed forward into the front of the ship.

  "I don't doubt that every one of you has wondered what we were driving towards as you worked the oars or lay awake on the deck at night. The same questions have consumed my thoughts since before we set sail. But I have no answers for you. I cannot promise you anything about what or who we will find there. I know many of you have family and friends on Haven. I can tell you nothing of how we will find them when we land. But the time for doubt is over; our long journey is at an end and our real work is about to begin. We will know the truth today. And I promise you this - I swear it to you with every fiber of my being: In whatever state we find the people of Haven, we will do everything in our power to bring each of them safely home or we will avenge all they have suffered on the bodies of our enemies."

  No one cheered. A few men beat their spears or axes on the deck or their shields - a grim applause to match Dane's words and their own faces.

  "To your places, and may Kran strengthen your hands,” Dane said.

  Dane had ordered his fighting men into three groups. The first stood with him now in the prow and would follow him ashore as soon as the Bloodwake was driven up on the beach. The other two worked the oars. As soon as the ship was on the beach, half the oarsmen, led by Bailus, would grab their gear and follow Dane's party. The final group and the women would remain aboard. In the event of a retreat, half of them would cover the retreating soldiers with their crossbows and the ship's ballista while the others pushed the boat back into the water.

  "Dirk and Tanlin, get on the ballista," Dane shouted and the two young men sprang forward to the giant crossbow mounted in the prow of the ship.

  Dirk Ridder strung the cord between the two arms of the weapon and Tanlin Hall heaved down a canvas bundle on the deck beside it. Tanlin flipped back the top flap of canvas revealing a pile of barb-tipped bolts, each as tall as a man and thick as a walking staff. Dirk cranked back the cord and Tanlin fitted a bolt in place.

  "Keep it ready but aimed over our heads and don't take your eyes off the tree line,” Dane said.

  "Yes, sir," Dirk said.

  Dane glanced down the length of the ballista and then stepped past it to the prow. He had witnessed the effectiveness of such weapons on beach landings. Back when he still felt young and unstoppable and the battles of his father were glorious things. Or had that been in another life?

  He had seen the ballistae do their work when his father had taken the isle of Tira. Dane remembered the half-naked warriors streaming out of the trees, bodies smeared with paint and ash, clashing their weapons on their hide shields and chanting and howling. But his father had ordered the longships driven right up on the beach and the ballistae all aimed at the center of the enemy's shieldwall and the men of Tira, strong and savage though they were, were nearly cut in two before the Hallander men were halfway up the beach.

  But there had been ten such ships then, each with a ballista in its prow. Now there was but one ship with two boys who looked like they'd never shaved in their lives manning its lonely ballista.

  Dane studied the forest that rose from the rear of the beach. They were close enough now he could make out individual trees. They stood like pillars in a temple of darkness - and in the gloom Dane imagined nothing but eternal night slept beneath their branches. His eyes raked the beach. Deserted. There were two rowboats resting upside down like giant tortoises near where the path to the colony came out from the trees. Besides these, the beach was completely bare. He remembered the beach battlefield at Tira. Streaming with bright bodies and glittering with weapons. A shower of arrows soaring towards them with the battle cries of the barbarians. Sights and sounds to turn your blood to water. But somehow this empty beach and the dark forest beyond held far more menace in Dane's mind than any battlefield he had stormed.

  That was when Bailus said something about the ships. Dane started as if from a dream. He had not noticed the ships. There were three of them, formed up in tight formation at the eastern end of the harbor.

  "Ware the ships," Dane was about to shout when he remembered what he'd taken in at his first glance at them. They were moored to the dock that ran out from the beach at the eastern end of the harbor and were as deserted as the beach.

  He turned to Bailus. "What do you make of them?"

  Bailus seemed as though his face was trying to decide whether or not to smile, something it rarely did. "They're ours, sir."

  "You're sure of it?" Dane asked.

  "Or I was born yesterday," Bailus said. "Why that's the Raven, the Seawolf, and the Harbinger."

  Dane noticed the murmurings that had risen around him. He had heard them begin when they first entered the harbor but had not paid attention to them, distracted as he was by his own thoughts. They were hopeful murmurings, even happy. Some of his men were smiling. The sight of their own ships sitting unmolested at the dock had lifted their spirits unlike anything else in the whole voyage.

  Was everything alright after all? Were all their fears and doubts just the conjectures of frightened children who see ghouls and monsters in every corner of the night-darkened room only to awaken in the morning to find nothing but the familiar furniture and toys? Wouldn't it be funny, and Dane found himself almost laughing as he thought this (though he was not sure it wasn't just nerves), if they stormed ashore with weapons drawn only to find the colony bustling and secure - unaware of the stir that had been created. What a story they would have. What a laugh. Had Ben Cross been just a senile old fool who bashed himself on the forehead and snuck down to the harbor and set sail for the mainland without food or water thinking it would be a nice afternoon cruise? Ben Cross, the old mutterer who roused an army, small though it was, and nearly started a war. Ha ha. Of course, at the end of the day, Ben Cross was still dead - but tragedy plus time, right? - and at any rate, that was better than an entire colony.

  Dane glanced at Josie as she stepped up beside him. Her hand rested on the gunwale and she was, like most of the crew, watching the ships. She must have sensed Dane watching her because she glanced back at him, met his eye for only a moment, and then turned back to the ships. She had looked at him long enough for him to read her expression. She wasn't allowing herself to hope. Then neither could he. He had thought he'd been prepared for anything on entering this harbor. He'd been prepared to see it ringed with enemy warships. But somehow the look Josie had given him, a questioning, "what do you think" kind of look, when all he could do was think and guess and fear, unnerved him more than a dozen enemy ships. That and the utter silence and stillness of the place.

  The Haven ships made a deep, hollow sound as the waves tapped them against the dock. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Like the sound of a shovelful of earth striking a coffin lid.

  Dane placed his hand on Josie’s shoulder. She shied away from his touch, but did not leave her place by the gunwale.
r />   "There's no use worrying now,” he said. "We'll know everything within the hour."

  As he'd learn in the days to come, his statement could not have been more wrong. But, at the time, he even found himself believing it. Or at least trying to.

  Bailus stepped up beside Dane but spoke to Josie. “Best get below, Missy. I've seen weapons as even at this distance (he nodded towards the tree line) could take your head clean off your shoulders.”

  Josie made a face but stayed put. "But you said those were our ships." Her tone mocked Bailus for his cheerfulness at recognizing Hallander vessels.

  "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.