They had passed the tip of the dock. Glancing down, Dane could see the bed of pebbles beneath the water. He crouched down, preparing for impact. "Brace," he shouted.
"Now," Bailus shouted to the men at the oars. They gave one last mighty pull and the ship seemed to jump forward. Dane could hear the red-painted keel gliding, then scraping, over the stones beneath the shallow water, and then, with an upward lurch that threw Dane and his men against the gunwale and the men behind them against them, the prow struck dry land and was driven several feet up onto the beach by the ship’s weight and momentum. At the same time, men cut the sail free.
"With me," Dane shouted as he rose and placed one hand on the gunwale while the other grasped his crossbow. He used the jolt of impact to pivot on his hand and throw him forward and onto the beach. He landed on his feet and used his free hand to steady himself as he stumbled forward, using his momentum to break into a run. Around him and behind him, his men were landing on the beach. Some less gracefully than he. Rem Bodkin, one of Dane’s best marksmen, rather ironically misjudged his jump and landed in the shallows with a splash and a curse.
"Move, move, move," Dane shouted over his shoulder.
Heart pounding in his chest, blood pounding in his ears, feet pounding divots in the gravel shore, crossbow cradled in both hands and aimed at the forest before him, Dane broke up the beach. He had no idea if his men were following him. He could hear nothing but the fury of his own breath and the crunch-crape of his feet punching like fists on the gravel. He hurdled a large trunk of driftwood and ran twenty more yards and threw himself beside a broad tree near the mouth of the path.
He chanced a glance over his shoulder to check on his men. They were close behind him, wide-eyed, foreheads glistening with sweat. In a moment they were all huddled together behind the first large trees of the wood. He signaled to them to spread out. "But stay behind cover."
He glanced back over his shoulder. Second squad was most of the way up the beach. Vick Crane, who would have been a decent archer if he didn’t get the shakes with every fight, dove for cover behind one of the overturned rowboats. Bailus jerked him to his feet and kicked him forward.
As soon as Bailus's squad reached his, Dane assigned them to the woods on the right side of the path. Then he waved both squads forward. They picked their way through the woods alongside the path as silently as they could, weapons at the ready. This would be the quickest way to the colony while also giving them a chance to surprise any enemy who might be watching the path. The wood was so thick Dane had only taken a few steps into it when he glanced over his shoulder and saw that the beach, indeed the entire harbor, was already lost from view.
The ground was soft and spongy and the pine needles dripped with moisture and the forest smelled of wood rot and wet earth. They had been walking for several minutes when Dane thought he began to catch glimpses through gaps in the trees of what looked like a solid line of trunks. He wondered if they were heading into a thicket and then realized this must be the wooden wall of the colony. Just as he realized this, one of his men off on his left hissed sharply, "Down".
Dane and the others dropped to one knee. Dane scoured the forest in front of them but saw nothing but trees. Crouching, he hurried to the side of McKenzie Quinn, the soldier who had given the command.
"What is it?"
"There, sir," Kenzie said, pointing ahead. "That big bush beside the tree trunk that's split in two."
"What did you see?"
"Movement."
"An animal?" Dane asked.
"No, sir; the shape was all wrong for that. It was like someone wearing a dark tunic just dodged behind the bush."
"Stay here," Dane said.
Still crouching, he skirted further to the left until he was out of sight from his little huddle of soldiers. Then he darted forward, moving from one tree the next, pausing behind each trunk to check for movement. He kept the bush in view as much as possible. He hoped, whatever Kenzie had seen, that by cutting left he had cut off its path of escape. He only briefly allowed himself to wonder if it was wise to hope such things. He paused behind a tree trunk and listened. Nothing but the sound of his breathing and the drip, drip, drip of the moisture from the needles. Between the moisture and his sweat he was quite damp. He hoped his bowstring would still work when he needed it to. He scurried on to the next large trunk and then another. The bush was now between him and his soldiers. He watched the bush. There was a breath of wind and this time there was no mistaking what he saw. A dark piece of cloth, like the hem of a cloak, fluttered out from around the tree and then swept back out of sight.
Dane took a final deep breath, bolted, no longer crouching but upright, moving as fast as he could, threw his back against the pronged tree trunk, planted and pivoted on his foot so he spun around the trunk with his crossbow leveled and nearly pulled the trigger before he realized what he was looking at. The dark figure in a dark cloak, the mysterious presence, was nothing more than a large piece of cloth caught on some brambles. With each breath of wind it billowed and moved. Dane was close to chuckling when he realized what it was. When he did, the laughter died in his throat and fell like a stone into the pit of his stomach. It wasn't just any piece of cloth. It was the flag of the colony of Haven.
Dane gently freed the cloth from the thorns and held it out before him. It was unmistakable. A crossed silver hammer and miner's pick on a blue field. He folded the flag carefully and tucked it into his pack. “Kenzie, I'm coming out.”
"Alright, Captain."
Dane stepped around the bush so his men could see him. He waved them forward. Ira Scott, mohawk and all, had crossed over from Bailus’s squad and was conferring with Kenzie, likely asking what the holdup was. When Ira saw Dane, he nodded and slunk back across the road to his own squad.
As his men came up, Dane thought about the flag and what it could mean. A flag was an important symbol. Any normal enemy would have taken the flag as a sign of their victory. Any normal colony would have prized its flag. He wondered if disease, not conquest, could be the answer to their questions.
He imagined a whole village full of people behaving like Ben Cross had the morning he drifted into port: raving, delirious, dying. And not just old men but women, children. Not for the first time, he felt utterly unprepared to meet what lay in wait for them up the narrow dirt path that ran through this dark wood.
They made their way forward again. Dane could see the walls of the village taking form now between the trees. He halted his men a few paces from the edge of the wood and had them hunker down behind trunks and bushes. In front of them, the forest ended abruptly, having been cleared for twenty paces or so around the perimeter of the settlement. But this did not surprise Dane. What surprised him was the silence. The silence and the fact the gate was standing wide open.
"What do you make of it, sir," asked Kenzie, coming near.
Dane did not answer right away. He just kept listening. Silence. Like the silence and stillness of the beach.
"I don't know," he said finally, "But it could be a trap. Tell Bailus's men to circle their side and we'll meet them at the rear."
Kenzie slid away to the edge of the road, where he gave a whistle that sounded like a birdcall. Dane, not watching Kenzie but the silent walls, started at the sudden noise. He turned to watch Kenzie communicate via hand signals to another man across the road who he could not see from his position. I suppose that's what a deaf-mute would look like if he ever tried talking to himself, he mused.
Kenzie came back and nodded and Dane led his men around the western half of the settlement, keeping an eye out for anyone on the wall or anyone lying hidden in the woods. They found and saw nothing.
They met up with Bailus's squad on the far side of the compound. A smaller gate, just a single door half the height of the wall, stood open on that side. Dane crouched beside Bailus. "I'll lead my squad in. If I don't signal for you to enter within five minutes, get back to the ship and get the hell out of here."
"Better that I go with you" Bailus said. "If there's danger in there, it'd be better to face it together. And if it is a trap, for all we know the ship’s already been taken."
Dane sat thinking about that for a moment, then nodded. "Alright."
Dane led his men in a crouch quickly across the open space to the shadow under the wall. With his back pressed to the wall, he craned his neck to peer through the open door. Nothing stirred within. Not a sound. Dane studied the compound for half a moment. There were several freestanding buildings in the center. Modest one-story half-timbered structures with pitched roofs. The entire inside of the wall was lined with buildings whose rear wall was formed by the palisade itself. These had flat roofs that formed a wall-walk by which a man could circle the entire perimeter. The outer wall rose an extra five feet (maybe fifteen total) above the roof-walk to shelter anyone who stood there.
Dane turned to Bailus and nodded. The men entered the compound.
VI
Inside Information
Dane half expected the door to slam shut behind them like the jaw of a giant trap. But nothing happened. Nothing stirred. Dane pointed to the closest of the buildings built against the wall. "Start searching those rooms," he told Bailus. "We'll search the ones in the center and then help you."
Dane's men approached the nearest building with their weapons raised, scanning the windows for movement. Dane kicked the door open and entered, crossbow at the ready. Something flew in his face and he fired. There was a sound of shattering glass as his bolt smashed through the window behind the fluttering curtain. Dane brushed aside the curtain, which had been shredded (not by his bolt) and looked at the window. The window was partly ajar, which had allowed the breeze to stir the curtain.
That's the second time I've been startled by a piece of cloth, today, he thought. Maybe there's nothing to fear here but my own imagination.
After loading another bolt, he proceeded further into the building. It appeared to have been a house. A large table with a runner hanging lop-eared off one side of it occupied one side of the front room. Something crunched under his boots. He looked down. He was standing on shards of pottery. Plates. A bowl.
Rooms opened on either side. He motioned to Rem Bodkin and Owen Manies to check one and he checked the other. A bunk bed had been overturned, filling most of the room and preventing the door from closing. One of the mattresses had been torn and straw stuck out from the slits. He stepped back to the front door. His men returned from the other room shaking their heads.
The other houses were in better shape. In one they found a loaf of bread sitting on the counter. It was hard and dry as a brick but intact. The knife still sat in a half-cut slice. On the floor of another they found a plate of chicken bones, presumably set there for the family dog. In all the houses the front room seemed to be a kitchen and dining area of sorts and the smaller two bedrooms. The final house gave them the most cause for worry.
It was built like the others; two smaller rooms, one on each side of the larger front room. The front room and the one bedroom were in good order. But the door to the second room would not open. It was not that the door was locked. Or at least it was no longer locked. It opened about a half a foot and then would go no further. The jamb had been splintered and smashed where the latch would have sat. Owen, Wink snarling at his side, threw his shoulder against the door; but this gained nothing. He was about to do it again when Dane said, "Wait."
Dane was beginning to doubt he wanted to know what was on the other side. A sudden voice startled him. "Sir, around here."
Dane stepped outside and followed the voice. Kenzie had had the good idea to walk around to the rear of the room. Dane found himself looking at a window, or what had been a window. The glass was all smashed out of it. A few shards lay at his feet. Dane approached slowly and parted the tattered curtains with one hand, crossbow raised in the other. It took half a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark. A bunk bed had been toppled and wedged between the door and the wall - this was what had prevented the door from opening. Dane handed his bow to Rem and crawled through the window.
His boots crunched as he stepped down inside. More glass on the floor. He paused a moment to think about this. The windows had been broken from the outside. A smear of dark stain on the floor boards. Dane went back to the windows. Shards of glass still protruded from the frame around the top and sides, but at the bottom the glass had been broken out completely. As though something heavy had been dragged out over the sill. Dane looked about the room. He wondered who had lived here. Who had spent their final moments of terror here? He looked again at the short frame of the bunk bed. Good God, had it been only children? He looked at the walls. There was nothing to read there. He wished he could ask his questions of them. But then, he was not sure he wanted the answers. He placed his hands on the sill. So smooth. What had been dragged through here to knock out all the glass? He felt his throat constricting. Why do you ask yourself questions you already know the answer to? He leaned on his arms, bowed his head between his shoulders.
It no longer mattered to him that this mission had been his father's idea and his father's idea to send him on it. He didn't care who owned the ship which brought them here or whose colony this had been or to whom these men swore allegiance or on whose orders they had come. He straightened. This was Dane Hallander's mission now, and it was by his hand he would make them pay for this. By Kran, he would make them pay.
He climbed back through the window. They searched the remaining buildings along the wall. A storeroom; strands of garlic and cured hams hanging from the ceiling. A woodshop with heavy planks leaning against one wall. A room of small barrels or casks each marked with an X and covered by a tarp. A cookhouse with bowls and mugs and flatware laid out on the tables as though waiting for a meal that had never been served. A smithy and then a stable, both open in front. An armory - even better stocked than the pantry: bows and bolts and spears as well as picks and shovels; fishing nets piled in one corner.
They met up with Bailus and his men in a large room lined with bunks that sat beside the main gate. "I guess this was the barracks," Bailus said.
"The single men can occupy it," Dane said.
“I dig the digs,” Paul Johnson said, glancing about the spacious room. A stone fireplace sat in the center of one wall. “We can live like kings here.”
"If we live at all," his brother said.
"Come on, don't be so glum. Bax had the right idea. We should have each brought our own slave girl. This is double the space we need." Then Paul’s voice trailed off as he realized what everyone else had already seen. The barracks was so large because the garrison it had housed, the garrison which no longer existed, the garrison that had been powerless to prevent whatever had happened here, had been twice the size of Dane's entire party.
The men filed back out into the courtyard in silence. Dane pulled Bailus aside. "Find anything?"
"A few signs of struggle. But mostly everything's in place, intact." He paused. "Whatever happened here, it happened fast."
Dane nodded. "Any chance some of them could have escaped? That they could be hiding in the woods somewhere?"
"I don't know. I guess that's what we have to keep hoping."
Dane nodded. "Ira," he called.
"Yes, sir?" the soldier said, starting towards them.
"Take the rest of Bailus's squad with you. Get back to the ship and tell Forsythe to dock her and start unloading everything but what he'll need to take a crew of ten around the island. See if you can find any pushcarts to help with the hauling."
"Yes, sir." Ira departed with the others following.
"You two," Dane said, nodding to the Johnson twins. "Get a fire going in the barracks and light a couple torches."
The two men started off.
"Wait," Dane said. He slid his pack off his back and pulled the flag from it. "Return this to its place first."
"Sir," they said and trotted off to do his will.
Dane turned bac
k to Bailus. Before he could say anything, Rawl and Paul came trotting back. “Uh, sir, where would you like the flag?”
Dane looked and realized there were two flag poles, one above the main gate facing south and towards the harbor, the other above the smaller gate facing north into the woods and the heart of the island. Had a flag hung from each? Maybe their enemies had taken one after all. Thinking the attack had come from the sea and wanting to place the flag on that side as an act of defiance, Dane said, “Above the main gate.” He still understood so little about the island and what had happened there.
He turned back to Bailus. "First light tomorrow we'll send out three patrols. Forsythe will circle the island in the ship and we'll each lead an overland." He glanced around. "I guess we should see about getting the crew some lunch."
"Lunch, sir?" said Bailus. "It's nearly dark."
Dane glanced up at the sky. How had he not noticed how late it was? Where had the day gone? The sweat he had worked up earlier was now a damp chill beneath his clothes. He glanced around the compound once more. The houses' dark windows gave one the impression someone could be inside, unseen, but watching, looking out at him. But somehow this thought was better than the knowledge the houses were empty. Completely empty.
He turned from the little cluster of houses. Why did the thought of ordering all hands back to the ship and spending the night on the crowded deck or the open beach seem better than to sleep within these walls? Something wasn't right here. The open gates. The stocked shelves. The place had been conquered but not plundered. Why did that trouble him so? That was when Kenzie said something about the rats.
"What?" Dane asked, turning to him as if waking from a dream.
"The rats, sir. Where are the rats?"
"What rats?"
"Well, think about the bones in the dog dish; or the bread we saw. Those things have been sitting there for days, I'd reckon. By this time they should have been covered in rats, or mice, or ants or flies or something.”
The Silent Isle Page 6