XII
Hollow Men
"I think it's the island," Paul said, wiping his bowl with a hunk of bread. The men had returned from Bailus's briefing to finish their now-cold suppers.
"You mean the island itself?" Rawl asked.
"Yep. Think about it. The colonists were cutting it, scourging it, drilling and digging, changing it, blowing it up with the blasting powder. How would you like little creatures crawling all over you and doing those things?"
"I guess you've got a point," said Rawl with a shrug.
"So what, you think the land just opened up and swallowed them whole?" asked Vick Crane.
"I was just giving my theory," Paul said. "I never said I had all the answers."
"And what about Rem?" said Crane. "You think he tripped on a tree root and struck his head on a rock? You think that's how he died?"
"We don't know how he died," Paul said. "Dane's been so secretive about all that."
"Believe me," Crane said, "If it were that simple, Dane wouldn't bother being secretive."
"So who do you think did it, Vick?" Rawl asked. Crane’s presence annoyed him. He was Rundal’s lackey and having him around, even in Rundal’s absence, made Rawl fill like Crane was some slimy residue Rundal had left in passing.
"Well, they're using a symbol none of us have ever seen before," said Crane. "Maybe it’s an army from the pagan lands to the west."
"You mean Dim?" Rawl said.
Crane shrugged. "Or Alistar."
"Mara's from Alistar," Paul said. "If the rest of her people are like her, they don't seem like the type to wipe out an innocent colony."
"But what do we really know about her?" Crane said.
***
As he crossed the courtyard to take his turn on the wall, Rawl saw Josie coming across the courtyard from the house she shared with the Thatchers. He passed a house and turned slightly to the left, making for the nearest steps. Josie shifted slightly as she walked so that she kept facing him. Rawl hesitated. Was she coming to meet him? His heart began to pound and he felt his throat constricting. He stopped walking and turned toward her and smiled. She returned the smile. Rawl felt a feeling spread over his face and chest not unlike the one a man gets when he opens the door of a large oven.
She was holding something between her hands. He stepped towards her. He couldn't help smiling now. "Where are you off to?" he asked.
"I'm going to the kitchen to help Molly with the dishes. But I wanted to see you first."
Rawl wished he could get those last words engraved in precious metal to be worn about his neck on a chain.
"They make me work, too," he said. "It's my turn on watch."
"Trade you jobs," she said.
He laughed. "Dane'll kill me. But I just might be willing to run that risk for you."
She let out an exaggerated sigh. "I couldn't ask that of you," she said melodramatically. She smiled and shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to endure the tyrant of the scullery."
"Is it that bad?"
"She's a good woman; she's just very particular about her dishwashing."
"Well, I guess she's had fifty years to get set in her ways."
"Yes, she's determined to make something useful of me. I think she sees me as some kind of dishwashing disciple."
"Passing the torch to the next generation - I guess she had to find someone since she never had any children of her own, right?"
"Right. I guess she's doling out on me all the affection and attention she's been saving up for thirty years."
"Lucky you."
"I think she thinks she's doing me a favor. Making an honest woman out of me."
"I think you already had plenty of good qualities," Rawl said.
She blushed slightly. "I should let you get to the walls. But here," she said, pressing the object she held in her hands into his. He saw now it was a ceramic mug filled with warm liquid. "I knew you'd be going on watch, so I made you some tea."
Rawl wanted to drop on one knee and tell her he'd make her tea every morning and evening for the rest of her life if she would but let him, but he found it hard to say or do anything at all. Somehow he managed a "thank you" and a smile as she turned and headed for the kitchen.
The tea was only lukewarm by the time he settled at his station on the wall. He drank it slowly nonetheless. He wanted to savor it. To relish the feel of the warm mug pressed between his hands that moments before had been cradled in hers.
The minutes dragged on. He occasionally glanced down into the courtyard, hoping fruitlessly for a glimpse of her.
When the tea was gone, he set the mug carefully against two beams of the wall where it would not be kicked or broken by passing sentries. He began to pace back and forth along the wall, keeping the mug as the center of his passes.
Instead of growing more relaxed he grew more serious as time passed. His eyes never left the woods, even when he changed direction. Mist was rising from the ground. Soon it filled all the space between the lower branches of the trees, shrouding these dark places in nebulous gray.
The lights which stood at intervals along the wall (another of Dane's and Bailus's orders) made little ethereal yellow-white clouds in the fog.
Rawl had at first been warmed by the tea and his thoughts of Josie, but as the minutes ticked by, the cold damp of the night settled in on him. Something about this night seemed different than the one before it, the one in which they had been waiting for Dane to return. Tonight was different but he felt no less tense than he had the night before. The woods last night had been clear and dark, while tonight they were shrouded in the gray mist. But it was not the sight that seemed out of place.
It was the sound, or the lack of sound, that troubled him. He realized he had not heard a single one of the terrible screams tonight that he had heard the night before. If someone had explained this to him, he would have thought them crazy. Why should the absence of the screams be unnerving? Last night he had wanted to stop up his ears from them. But the screams told you something. They were mountain cats hunting or fighting over territory or mates. Or the anguished cry of some animal as it was caught in the talons of a predator.
Yes, the screams had told you something. They told you where the things were that were making them, be they predators or prey or enemies. It was the sound of things happening. But the silence tonight told you nothing.
It was the silence of things waiting to happen.
Rawl had no sense of time or how long he'd been on the wall. He wondered how long it would be before he was relieved. He had just completed one length of his walk and was turning northward back towards his mug when he heard Pratt Jennings, the sentry at the north gate, shouting for help.
Rawl ran to his aid. He got to the reinforced battlements that overlooked the gate in time to see a dim shape emerge from the fog and trees. Rawl recognized it even as Pratt, so relieved he was almost laughing, said, "It's Markis. Open the gate."
The command was directed at Rawl, but Rawl did not move. He was watching Markis. In the instant he recognized him in the faint light of the torches he had shared Pratt's relief, but now he hesitated.
"Why's he moving like that?" Rawl asked to the mist as much as to Pratt.
"He's hurt. You should be glad he's moving at all," Pratt said.
Rawl still did not move. Markis kept on towards the gate. He moved slowly, deliberately, jerkily, falteringly. He never once lifted his head though Rawl was sure he should have been able to hear their voices. His movements reminded Rawl of something he had seen years ago but couldn't quite name.
While he was grasping for this memory, Pratt backhanded him on the shoulder. "Get the gate open."
"Why'd it take him so long to get back?"
"I told you: he's hurt."
Rawl shook his head. "Something's not right."
Pratt rounded on him, his voicing rising. "You're damn right something isn't right. I told you to get the gate open years ago and yet here you stand like an old mule."
&n
bsp; "Look," Rawl said, pointing.
Pratt turned in time to see Markis lurch forward. His body leaned so far forward it seemed he would topple, but at the last second he threw out his foot and righted himself. He took another step, then stood still.
Rawl realized he was holding his breath. He blew it out and, as he did, Markis fell forward flat on his face.
Then Rawl and Pratt were racing each other down the stairs. A small crowd had already gathered at the gate and the other sentries were racing along the top of the wall towards them.
"Markis's hurt," Pratt shouted. "Get a stretcher up here."
"There's no time for a stretcher," Rawl shouted, throwing the bolt and dragging the door open. "Come on."
Half a dozen men raced out the open gate to Markis's prone form. He had not moved.
They hoisted him, grabbing hold of legs, shoulders, clothing, anything they could to get a grip, and carried him inside.
"Someone get Leech," Rawl shouted to the onlookers.
***
"Can I make you some tea?" Dane asked Elias.
"I'm fine, thank you," Elias said, raising a hand.
Dane still couldn't help crossing to the embers that blazed in the hearth in his room and stoking them back into flames. He always felt fidgety in the presence of Elias. What was it about this man that made him so uncomfortable? Maybe it wasn't the man but the request he wanted to make of him.
He was aware the silence was dragging but he didn't know how to begin.
"You've had a couple very busy days, Captain," Elias said.
Dane appreciated the man's graciousness; he probably sensed his discomfort.
"I'm sure it's all been very stressful. How are you holding up?"
Dane forced himself to sit down facing the priest. He wrapped his hands around his knees. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "I wish we knew something, anything, about Edric, Markis, and Franklin."
Elias nodded. "The unknown does gnaw at a man, doesn't it?"
There was a moment's silence, then Elias continued. "But I think you've done an excellent job so far. You're seeking answers - and that is sometimes the greatest courage a man can have."
"I think we may have found something?"
Elias looked up at him. "An answer?"
"I don't know, but I've been thinking about it all day now."
Elias leaned forward. "What did you find?"
"Some kind of structure, a building. I think maybe it's some kind of temple."
"Where?"
"Up in the hills. We found it yesterday on patrol."
"And you're thinking about returning?"
Dane nodded. This insight, this leading the conversation, was part of Elias's grace. "Maybe it will hold some answer. Or at least a clue."
Elias looked very serious, but excited at the same time. "Who are you taking with you?"
"A small party. The men who were with me yesterday. Minus Rem, of course. Maybe a few others."
"You want to ask me to go with you?"
The sentence was as much a statement as it was a question. Dane felt slightly relieved he hadn't had to say those words himself. He nodded. Elias opened his mouth to speak, but Dane said, "But it's a difficult hike. All uphill."
Elias laughed and slapped his bad leg. "Don't worry, Captain, I won't leave you behind. You'll have to show me the way, after all."
Dane smiled, then became serious again. "The climb isn't the only danger. Where we're going, it's right where Owen stepped in the trap."
Elias was silent for a moment. He nodded understanding and then smiled slightly. "Well, in that case maybe I should have you carry me."
Dane laughed but the soft sound was drowned out by Rawl's and Pratt's sudden shouts to open the gate.
Elias was on his feet faster than Dane.
As Rawl and the others bearing Markis came back through the gate, they saw Dane was already there.
"What happened?" Dane asked.
"He stumbled out of the fog and collapsed just shy of the gate," Rawl said.
"This way," Dane said, leading them towards Leech's infirmary. He looked back over his shoulder and shouted, "Close the gate."
He heard the gate close and the bolt slide home.
Leech came bounding out of his room. "Who is it?"
"Markis," Dane said.
Leech held the infirmary door open for them. They set Markis down on the closest bed. Leech set his bag on the table between the bed and the door. Dane helped light a few more candles then turned to the men. "Thank you. You men return to your posts."
They all shot worried glances at Markis and then filed out. As the last one exited, Dane heard Ira Scott shout, "Get the gate open. Frankie's here, too."
Dane heard running footsteps take off in the direction of the gate.
He turned to Leech. Leech turned to his patient. He set a candle by Markis's head and seemed to give a little start. Dane moved closer, trying to see around Leech's body. Leech put his hand to Markis's throat and pulled it away almost immediately. He rounded on Dane. "What the hell, Dane? Is this some kind of joke?"
"Of course it's not a joke; he could be dying."
"Dying?" Leech said, almost shouting. "Dane, this man is dead."
"That's impossible."
"It's undisputable," Leech said.
Leech was blocking Dane’s view of Markis, but he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "The men saw him walk right up to the wall. Then he collapsed. Maybe if we'd gotten to him a few minutes sooner we could have..."
"A few minutes?" Leech said. "Dane look at his color, feel his skin. This man has been dead for hours."
"But that can't be."
"See for yourself," said Leech, stepping aside and holding his hand out towards the body.
Dane did not move. His mouth was hanging slightly open and his eyes refused to focus. "Oh my god," he breathed.
"What?" said Leech.
Dane looked him in the eyes. "There's more of them out there."
Before Leech could ask him what he meant, Dane was out the door and shouting, "Don't open the gate."
He was already too late.
***
In response to Ira’s shouts from the wall, Kenzie Quinn and Vick Crane opened the gate and stepped aside to let Franklin enter. Franklin staggered through the gateway. Kenzie’s first impulse was to reach out and steady him, but something, some sixth sense, held him back.
"Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes," Crane said.
"He looks pretty sore himself," Kenzie said.
Franklin said nothing. He stood there, leaning slightly forward with his head down, staring at his boots. His right hand grasped his naked knife but his arm hung limply at his side.
"Frankie, are you alright?" Kenzie said, holding out a tentative hand.
There was no answer.
Rawl, standing a few rows back, thought the silence as eerie as a graveyard at midnight. But it was eerier even than that, he thought. It was more like the silence of a deserted town which was bustling with life the day before.
Fletcher Dibsy unchained Blackthorn. The dog bolted towards his master. Ten feet from Franklin, however, the dog skidded to a halt and sank into a crouch, his hackles raised. He let out a low growl followed by a whimper. Then he tucked his tail and slunk off in the other direction.
"Franklin?" said Kenzie, taking a step closer.
Finally, Franklin Moore lifted his head and spoke. But the voice was not his own. "Thank you, Kenzie, for letting me in."
"Frankie, what the he-." Kenzie never finished, for, at that moment, Franklin's knife arm arced up and cut a red trench through his throat.
Bailus, who was standing behind Kenzie when Franklin came through the gate, had turned at the sound of Dane's shouts to keep the gate shut. He looked back just in time to see Kenzie sinking slowly down and Franklin lunging at him with drawn blade.
Bailus was a big man and well past his prime but he was still light on his feet. He sidestepped Franklin's first thrust an
d this gave him time to draw his knife. He parried the second, knocking Franklin slightly off balance, and at the same moment landed a left hook on his enemy's jaw that drove Franklin, or the thing that had been Franklin, to the ground.
Bailus kicked the sword from the thing's hand and dropped his knee against its throat, pinning it to the ground. Dane came running up beside him. He took in the situation in a flash. "Don't let him up, whatever you do. Do whatever you have to to keep him down."
"I'll kill him if I have to," Bailus growled.
"That won't do any good," Dane said, "Just hold him there. Where is Elias?" Dane spun around to look for him and almost crashed into the priest. "Elias," Dane began, but he saw in the man's face he already understood.
"We better get Mara out here as well," the priest said.
Then, before Dane had time to ask him where he was going, Elias turned and ran. That was when Dane remembered Leech.
***
Leech had stepped to the open door of the infirmary when Dane went running out into the night. Leaning against the jamb, he had watched the events at the gate. But he could make nothing of them; there were too many people standing between him and the action and it was nothing to him but a huddle of bodies and a confusion of shouts.
He frowned and fidgeted a little. Obviously, something was wrong, and Dane had certainly acted strangely. He saw someone break from the group by the gate and make for the opposite wall at a run. He realized it was Elias, the priest.
Leech's attention was so held by the events outside he never saw nor heard what was happening behind him.
***
Dane pushed his way through the press of onlookers that stood between him and Leech and the infirmary and the cold thing he had left lying there on the bed. It seemed the more he pushed, the more people crowded him, trying to get a glimpse of Bailus straddling the man on the ground. Finally, he broke through the huddle of bodies and sprinted for the infirmary.
From where he'd broken out of the crowd, he approached the infirmary door nearly straight on. So he could see what was happening - and what was about to happen. His legs felt so weak he marveled he could move at all - still, it felt like he was moving at a crawl. He could see Leech silhouetted in the doorway. And behind him - oh god, behind him, the thing was rising off the bed.
The Silent Isle Page 14