The Silent Isle

by Nicholas Anderson

  Edric did not lower his bow but pointed it in the empty space between Bailus and Tipper. "Who's with me?" he asked.

  "Don't do anything stupid, Eddie," Tipper said.

  “Why should that matter?” Edric said. "Stupid's what we've been doing all morning."

  "Bailus, can't we at least check out the smoke?" Markis said.

  "That smoke could be a mile away for all you know. You could look for it all day and still not find its source."

  “Who you going to listen to?” Edric said.

  Slowly, with hung heads, Markis and Franklin stepped behind Edric.

  Edric nodded towards Bailus and Tipper. "Still no?"

  Neither man moved. "Shame,” Edric said. “We could have made better use of the dog. Well, we'll be seeing you ladies."

  ***

  By late morning Dane’s party came to a waterfall in which the stream spilled down over a large nose-shaped rock into a little pool. On one side of the falls, stones formed crude steps to the top of the little cliff. After drinking and resting by the pool, they climbed the cliff and found themselves in a narrow ravine, the base of which was nearly filled by the stream. Strapping their bows to their backs, they picked their way carefully along the side, stepping on stones and clinging to roots which protruded from the earthen walls. Wink ran lightly along the side.

  Dane, in the lead (except for the dog), grasped a root and stretched to place his foot on the next stone. Suddenly, the dog barked. Dane started. The root tore loose and his foot slipped, splashing into the water. As he slid, he looked up, hoping to spot another root to catch hold of. In the split second his gaze was focused skyward he thought he saw two dark eyes watching him from a dark masked face from the lip of the ravine above. All this happened as his foot was still sliding off the rock. He looked down, involuntarily, to steady himself.

  Joseph, coming behind him, grabbed Dane’s left arm to steady him. Wet to his knees, but his feet once again on a firm surface, Dane looked up. Whatever he had seen or thought he'd seen was gone. Then he looked at the dog. Wink was growling lowly and his ears were lowered and the hair on the back of his neck stood up like spikes. He was looking at the brow of the cutbank above Dane’s head.

  They continued on and presently the ravine opened up so that they were walking on a broad, shallow bank. Their path continued to ascend and became rockier. Trees lined the bank. They passed several small cave mouths, dark openings in the rocks. How far back they went and where they led Dane could only guess. He wondered if any of these had been mines. At some of the larger entrances they stopped to call out and checked for ashes but they never found anything.

  Dane was guessing the noon hour had already passed when he said, "We should turn back soon."

  Rem, stepping up to him and pointing over his shoulder, said, "What's that?"

  Dane turned to see what appeared at first glance to be just a pile of moss-covered rocks.

  "If I didn't know better I'd say it looked like a building,” Owen said. “Like a hermit's or mage's dwelling out of one of the dark stories."

  "It's just another cave," said Bax.

  Dane stepped closer to the rocks. He did not think it was a cave, at least not like the others they had seen, but he would not have thought of it as a hermit's home either. Large, roughly cylindrical standing stones supported a roof of long, flat slate-like rocks. But these rocks were themselves covered in grass and the standing stones were dark with moss.

  A temple; that is the first description his mind attached to it. Or the entrance to a mine, perhaps. But if it was that, then it was no work of the servants of his father. This thing looked as old as the island itself. He could imagine industrious little dwarves building this entrance to a cavern hall when mankind was still only scattered tribes of nomadic hunter-gatherers. The creation of another age it seemed.

  He placed his hand on one of the standing stones. He squinted trying to see inside, but it was too dark. Darker than he would have thought natural. He was running his hand over the stone column (he was sure that was what it was now) and trying to make up his mind, or perhaps build up his nerve, to enter, when his hand felt something different. Till now he had been aware only of the scraggly moss and the grainy smoothness of the stone, but his fingers now traced a groove in the stone. When he looked at the stone, he could only tell the groove was there because he felt it, so well did the moss conceal its presence. But Dane was quite sure this was no natural feature of the rock. It was too even and smooth, running down at a slight angle across the height of the column.

  He pulled out his knife and began to peel back the moss. The carving began to take shape. Dane's heart beat faster. Working with the knife in one hand and the nails of the other, he scraped away the moss and lichen. All at once he recognized what he was looking at and he knew he'd been wrong about the island. He had to get back and tell Bailus. If he were not already too late. But, at that moment, Dane’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone screaming.

  VIII

  Dead Reckoning

  "We're really going to catch it if Bailus gets to Dane before we do," Markis said, hurrying to catch up with Edric and Franklin.

  "Dane won't let him touch us once we return with his precious settlers in tow," Edric said. "Dane's not a total fool. He values intelligence. He values initiative."

  Their path began to climb and soon they found they had left the swamp and returned to the firm ground of the sweet-smelling forest. Edric counted this a success in itself.

  Bailus had been right about one thing: the fire did prove hard to find. As soon as they were in the woods they lost sight of the smoke and were forced to spend the better part of two hours without much more than a glimpse of it. But Edric prided himself on his sense of direction and he kept the general coordinates of the smoke in his mind and continued to lead his little band on a winding climb into the heart of the island. Only once did Edric really feel lost.

  They had been forced to walk around a curving ridge that swept them out in the opposite direction they'd been heading, and when they finally got around it, he realized he no longer knew what direction they'd been heading for.

  “Make’s me wish I had Blackthorn with me,” Franklin said.

  “Oh, please,” Markis said. “Your mutt could get lost chasing his own tail.”

  “I know he’s no good on the trail,” Franklin said. “But a man feels better when he has his dog with him.”

  “So, what now, hotshot?” Markis said to Edric.

  “It’s easy,” Edric said. “We use dead reckoning, just like on the ship. We imagine our original position and the position of the smoke as two points on a map. Then we estimate the distance and direction we’ve traveled to guess how close we are.”

  “Dead reckoning.” Franklin laughed. “I’m climbing a tree.”

  The first thing Franklin noticed when he got up his tree was how low the sun was. It had already gone behind the higher ridges to the west of them. He looked northward and sighted the column of smoke. He hurried down to report what he had seen.

  They walked on. They came to a cave opening in a rocky hill face from which a little stream ran out on one side. They drank from the stream but the chill in the air compelled them to keep moving. The forest began to grow dark around them. The dark came on uncommonly fast. They had not taken the hills into account when calculating how much daylight they would have; but with the sun already behind the hills, the forest about them was sinking into dusk.

  "Whoever lit this fire, I hope they're fixing dinner over it," said Franklin.

  Presently, they came into a clearing and there in its center sat a smoking fire pit. The pit was ringed with round white stones. The clearing was deserted; but little tendrils of mist were beginning to seep through the trees on the other side. The silence was almost tangible; like a wall one pressed against. It took will to step further out from the trees.

  The three men had expected the clearing to be full of people; men, women, children. They had expec
ted to enter to shouts of surprise and joy. Somehow, this silent greeting made them wary. They moved slowly towards the smoldering fire pit; solemnly, without a word, as though they feared disturbing some invisible assembly there. They were close enough to feel the welcome warmth of the embers when Franklin swore and stumbled back from the ring of stones.

  "What?" Edric asked.

  But Franklin only stared at the ring. Edric glanced back at the ring of stones and that was when he realized they were not stones at all, but skulls.

  Human skulls.

  ***

  At the sound of screaming, Dane spun from the moss-covered stone to see Owen lying on his back. The lower half of his right leg had disappeared. Dane ran towards him even as Bax and Joseph reached him.

  Owen had stopped screaming but he was making almost as much noise with his groaning and cursing. Dane saw his right leg was stuck in a hole in the ground. Owen tried to sit up and then flopped back again with a curse.

  "Get his leg out of there," Dane shouted.

  Bax and Joseph tried pulling on Owen’s leg but he cursed louder and flailed his arms at them, nearly sitting up again in his attempts to beat them off. Wink snapped and snarled at them.

  Dane knelt beside him and helped him lay down again. "Don't move," he said.

  "Don't worry, Captain," Owen said through gritted teeth, "I'm not going anywhere."

  "What happened?"

  "I don't know. I took a step and my foot went right down. Feels like I stepped on a dozen red-hot nails."

  Dane patted Owen's shoulder. The man was sweating badly. "Just hold still."

  Kneeling with his chest almost to the ground, Dane slid his hand down the hole. There were lots of twigs and grass, probably what had concealed the trap, but the walls were smooth dirt. Dane felt gingerly around Owen's foot. Several long spikes, longer and thinner than any nails Dane had ever seen, stood point-upward on either side of Owen's boot.

  Lying with his chest pressed against the ground, Dane reached to the bottom of the hole and felt a wooden plate which the nails were fixed to. He worked his hand around, feeling the edge of the plate and trying to judge how much smaller it was than the hole. It might just be small enough. "Bax, help me get him up," Dane said. "Owen, we're going to pull you up into a crouch. Keep all your weight on your good foot. Bax will help keep you steady."

  Together, Bax and Dane pulled Owen up into a crouch so his right leg was extended straight, the top half of it above the mouth of the hole. Bax knelt at his left and had Owen lean against him for support.

  "OK, Bax, help him stand, slowly. Joseph, give Bax a hand. Owen, keep your leg straight. Rem, get behind him and make sure he doesn't topple."

  Breathing heavily, Owen let Bax help him stand. Dane kept his hands around Owen's boot and the nail plate, guiding them out of the hole. Owen only swore once, hissing "slower" to Bax.

  As soon as they had the foot out, they helped him lie back on the grass again. Dane drew a sharp breath when he saw the boot. Three of the spikes had had gone clean through Owen’s foot and protruded from the top of his boot.

  Dane looked at the spikes and then patted Owen on the shoulder again. "It's your lucky day, Manies. I was worried these would be barbed."

  "I'd hate to see your unlucky, Captain," Owen said in one sharp exhalation.

  "Bax, come down here and hold his ankle."

  Bax knelt beside him.

  "Hold it tight," Dane whispered. "Now, Owen, I want you to think about the girl who's waiting for you back home. What's her name? Ruth, right?"

  "Yes, sir," said Owen, staring up at the sky.

  Dane gripped the wooden plate firmly. Bax turned his head away, but tightened his grip on the ankle.

  "Think about the last few hours you spent together before you shipped out." Dane took a deep breath.

  "That's all I've thought about since we aaahhhh!"

  As Owen talked, Dane had given a sharp tug. He sat back now, the newly-liberated spike plate in his hands.

  “What is wrong with you?” Owen said. “You nearly made me bite my tongue off. You could have warned me.”

  "Nope," Dane said, "The anticipation is worse than the actual pain."

  "I doubt it," said Owen.

  "You're welcome," chuckled Dane, getting to his feet.

  "Oh, yes, sir. Thank you for ruining my favorite memory. I'm forever indebted to you."

  Dane pushed the spikes into the earth and stamped the plate down flat with his boot. He removed Owen's boot and tore his undershirt into strips for bandages. Bax turned away again. He'd never been good with blood. Dane sent him off to cut some branches to make a stretcher. Joseph and Rem went with him. Dane began to wrap Owen’s wounds.

  "Oh, Ruth," Owen said, his eyes half closed and his breathing shallow. "Your touch thrills me."

  "I'm being as gentle as I can," said Dane dryly, giving the two ends of the bandage a sharp tug and tying them off more tightly than he needed.

  "Oh, Baby, don't stop now," Owen moaned.

  ***

  “There’s no way I’m going in there,” Markis said.

  “It’s as good a place as any to spend the night,” Edric said. The three rangers had returned to the cave. From the orangish tint of the sky, Edric guessed the sun was setting over the water far to the west. The sky’s last light did little to penetrate the forest. In the gathering gloom and rising mist, it was hard to see more than fifty paces.

  “We should head back to the settlement,” Markis said.

  “We’d never make it in the dark,” Franklin said.

  “But Dane wanted everyone within the walls by nightfall.”

  “Dane is the least of our worries, now,” said Edric.

  “Well, can’t we sleep out here in the open?” said Markis.

  “If you don’t want to check it out, then go back and get some embers from the fire,” Edric said.

  “I’d sleep out in the cold all night before I took anything from that hell-hole,” Markis said.

  “Well, then just wait here while we make sure it’s safe,” Franklin said.

  Markis sat down on a rock outside the cave mouth. The last sight Edric had of him, he was beginning to pull his cloak out of his pack. Then Edric turned and, with Franklin behind him, stepped into the cave.

  The stream ran out on their right and they were walking on a steep, sandy floor that ran down towards it like a bank. Edric glanced around the mouth of the cave for any signs of recent occupancy. Ash. Bones. He saw nothing but the gravelly floor. He stepped over a heavy, leafless tree branch. He figured it must have been washed out of the cave when heavy rains swelled the creek but then he wondered without guessing how a branch would come to be in a cave at all. He went a few paces forward. He found that the gravelly bank ended shortly inside, running down to the stream, and that the stream, shallow though it was, covered the rear of the cave from wall to wall.

  He stepped into the stream. He heard Franklin enter the water away on his left. Except for when he stepped, the water slipped silently around his boots. From further back in the cave, a drip-drip-drip came. Just water from above seeping off those stalagmites or stalactites or whatever they’re called, Edric told himself. It was almost completely dark around him now. The only light came from the cave opening, which he did look at, as he wanted his eyes to adjust to the dark as much as possible.

  Every once in a while, Edric sensed he passed openings in the sides of the cave, blacker holes in the darkness around him which seemed to swallow the sound of his footfalls. He felt rather than saw the cave roof come steeply down so that it was now just over his head. He reached up and touched it. He felt his way forward cautiously, keeping one hand on the roof so as to not strike his head. He paused. No sound but the drip-drip-drip and Franklin’s breathing beside him. He went forward a little ways. He had to crouch now so his knees almost touched the water. He paused again, sitting on his haunches. He sniffed. There was a faint burnt odor in the stale cave air. “Let’s turn back,” he said. “The
re’s nothing here. What’s it like on your side?”

  There was no answer.

  Edric tightened his grip on his bow. “Frankie?”

  No reply.

  Edric swallowed hard. He strained his ears. That’s when he noticed how dead silent it was. Even the drip-drip-drip had ceased. He held his breath. His eyes darted around but could find nothing to grasp on in the infinite, uniform darkness.

  He was about to exhale when he realized he had been wrong about the silence. In the pitch black, someone, or something, was breathing beside him.

  “Frankie?” Edric’s whisper was more of a whimper.

  A strange croaking cry came from the blackness. Edric imagined he could but reach out his hand and touch the source of the sound.

  He turned and ran. Oh, glory. As soon as he turned, he had before him the light at the end of the tunnel, fading though it was. He never took his eyes off it. Once he tripped on a stone and stumbled to his knees but he was up before the water had time to soak his leggings. His ragged breathing and the splashes of his footfalls seemed as loud as explosions. He was almost to the gravel bank when he realized he no longer carried his crossbow. He must have dropped it when he fell. All these things flashed through his mind as he stumbled up the bank. There was enough light now that, if he looked over his shoulder, he might be able to see what was behind him. But he did not look back. Perhaps for that very reason.

  Something, or someone, struck him in the legs and he fell face-first in the scree. He tried to get up but something still held his leg. He kicked wildly, felt his foot strike something, and then he was free and running again. He burst out of the mouth of the cave.

  The twilight he had fled into had a two-dimensional feel to it. The mist so thick it was like a wall.

  Edric pulled his knife from the sheath at his hip as he spun to face the cave entrance. He waited. Nothing charged out at him. But still he did not look away. He gripped his knife and waited. His breathing calmed and his heart slowed its hammering.