The Silent Isle

by Nicholas Anderson

  Dane left the covered body in Leech’s care and called an assembly. Someone had finally noticed the gate and shut it. Dane ran through the roster. No one else was missing.

  “Who’s on the litter?” Tanlin Hall called.

  “We don’t know,” Dane said.

  “Maybe it’s Fletcher,” Fish, the cook, said.

  “It’s not Fletcher,” Rawl said.

  “Then it’s Rundal or one of the men who went with him,” Tanlin said.

  “Serves him right,” Dirk Ridder said.

  “I don’t think so,” Dane said. “I think we would have found them all together and we found no other bodies even after searching the beach.”

  “Then who is it?” Pratt asked as if the answer had been found in the scant seconds since Tanlin had first asked this.

  “I’ll tell you who it is,” Josie said, stepping out of the door of the infirmary. Everyone turned towards her. “It’s one of the colonists.”

  “But this man was killed within the hour,” Tipper said softly beside her.

  “I know,” Josie said. “They’ve kept some of the colonists alive. And now they’re killing them and leaving them for us to find.”

  “But why?” Paul said.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Josie said. “To mock us.”

  ***

  A few minutes later, Dane was back in the infirmary. The crowd had broken up with Josie’s words. Bax departed but told Mirela (he called her Mara) to spend another night in the infirmary under Leech’s care. Who is this man and where did he come from? Dane wondered.

  The body was wrapped in a thick shroud and laid on a bed where it would wait for dawn and burial. Bailus had returned to the barracks.

  Dane thought about Josie’s words. Somehow he knew she was right. The idea that there were still colonists alive but being held like hostages (or worse) made his blood boil. He wanted to lead another search party that night but knew it would only be madness.

  A number of men were still hanging around outside the infirmary talking about the body. Dane had allowed them to look at it if only to satisfy their curiosity. He knew nothing was worse in this kind of business than rumors and conjectures. Sitting down for the first time since returning from Tira, he noticed how tired he was. Tired and thirsty. He realized then he had done nothing for his men after their dash to the beach. He asked Josie, Rawl, and Paul, who were sitting with Mirela and watching Elias, to fetch some ginger beer from the cellar.

  Paul led the way to the cellar, his crossbow slung across his back. Rawl walked beside Josie in silence. He wanted to speak some words of comfort but he didn’t know what to say. He knew she was thinking about her family that had called the colony home. The thought that they were still alive and that their deaths were impending and that there was nothing they could do about it and they could only guess when they might stumble upon their corpses seemed far worse than the previous assumption that they were already dead.

  Paul reached the door of the cellar. He paused, looking at it. Someone had closed the door without latching it. A small oversight, no doubt; but in this environment it was enough to give one a moment’s hesitation. Paul opened the door and stumbled back with a shout, kicking the door shut as he fell. Rawl and Josie were at his side in the next moment. Rawl pulled his brother to his feet.

  “What was that?”

  “There’s something in there,” Paul said. “It was standing right at the bottom of the steps when I opened the door.”

  Josie put her hand to the latch. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Paul said. “It’s just a middling one, but it’s fast.”

  “A middling one?” Rawl said. “What, are you an expert on these things now?”

  Josie stepped back from the door. Paul unslung his bow and loaded it. Rawl handed the torch he had been carrying to Josie and did the same.

  “I thought you stopped up that hole,” Paul said to Rawl.

  “And I thought you knocked in that tunnel,” Rawl retorted.

  Rawl nodded to Josie. She swung the door open and the twins thrust their bows through the opening. There was nothing there but the hanging hams.

  “I think it darted into the corner,” Paul said, nodding towards the far corner that had housed the tunnel mouth.

  Rawl went down the steps first. Paul followed, then Josie, holding the light above her head. Paul reached the floor and stepped sideways, facing the dark corner, until his left shoulder was against the wall of casks. Rawl stood just to his right and Josie behind them. Rawl held up a hand for silence. There was a slight scuffling noise from the corner.

  “Josie,” Rawl whispered, reaching back, “The torch.”

  Josie pressed the torch into his hand. Rawl took the candle that hung in a sconce by his head and lit it. He tossed it over the barrels into the corner. There was a sudden movement and a scream (although everyone realized later the scream had come from Paul) and then everything happened at once. A dark shape leapt from the corner behind the barrels; Paul raised his crossbow on it; Josie threw herself against Paul from behind, throwing him against the barrels and causing him to drop his bow. Rawl, who caught just enough of a glimpse of the thing that leapt from the shadows to make the gamble of altering his course, dropped his bow and torch and sprang at the thing with open arms. The room was plunged into darkness. Rawl had more thrown than dropped the torch, snubbing off the burning end and extinguishing it. There was a confusion of noise. Paul crying out in surprise and anger at Josie. Josie calling for Rawl. Rawl grunting and kicking against things in the dark and then finally saying, “I’ve got him.”

  “Got who?” Paul almost screamed.

  “The boy,” Josie said. “The boy you tried to shoot.”

  ***

  A half hour later, Dane was up on the wall. Josie and the twins had brought the shivering child into the infirmary, Rawl half carrying, half restraining him. Once he’d gotten inside the lit room with the fire and the calm adults, he settled down. Josie heated him up some soup and set him by the hearth in a blanket. Pretty soon Molly got there and did a great deal of talking to him and touching him. The boy never spoke. He never answered a single question they asked him, not even with a nod or head shake. When he seemed warmed up, Molly’s husband, Will, carried the boy (who no longer resisted) to their house. Josie, who was staying with them, had walked home with them.

  Dane heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Bax mounting the stairs. “I thought I’d find you up here,” he said.

  Dane nodded to him. “How are your hands?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Everything is so terribly awkward with your hands in bundles.” Bax stood beside him peering into the dark forest beyond the wall. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

  “I haven’t worked up the courage to try yet.”

  Bax nodded. “It’s easier to stare the darkness down than go swimming in it, isn’t it?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You know why I told that story?” There was a hint of a smile in his voice.

  Dane glanced over at him. “For the simple pleasure you take in embarrassing me?”

  Bax grinned wider. “You know, that wouldn’t be so bad. You used to laugh, you know. Even laugh at yourself. Might do you good to try it again. But no, that wasn’t the reason.” Bax was silent for a moment, as though waiting. “Well, aren’t you going to guess again?”

  “Sorry. I guess that’s the only explanation I have for anything you do around me.”

  “I’m crushed,” Bax said.

  “So why’d you tell it?”

  “I wanted to teach them something.”

  “About redheads from Parcia?”

  Bax grinned. “About you.”

  Dane kept his eyes fixed on the forest. “Even better.”

  “You know, I could have told a dozen such stories. Our whole lives you’ve been getting us into the worst scrapes. But you always found a way out of them. I wanted the younger men to know that. I’m still wondering how you’re going to get us out of
this one. I don’t know if I’ll be around to see it, but I don’t doubt you will.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Dane said.

  “No, I know you will,” Bax said. “I know because, after all those reckless, foolhardy adventures, after all those narrow escapes, after all that mad, meaningless living, you found a way out of that, too. And you got out unscathed.”

  “Unscathed?” Dane said, more to himself than to Bax.

  “But you left me behind that time,” Bax said. “Ever since you started changing, I knew things would never be the same for us. ‘Cause you pulled a trick I never learned, and I couldn’t follow you. You got out and away from your father. Ever since I was a boy I wanted nothing so much as to be nothing like my father. I hated him; I hate him, with every part of me.”

  Dane knew the kind of man Bax’s father had been. He had his wife and his family and his estate, but he had women and other families all over the country. Whether Bax’s mother was wise to it or not, his father kept up an elaborate charade. Bax was always the alibi, the unwilling accomplice. They were going fishing, father and son. They were going swimming. They were going to spend the night on the mountain and hunt wood pigeons with homemade bows and roast the meat over their campfire. Whatever the story, Bax always spent the days the same way: waiting for his father to come out of some other woman’s house; sometimes more than one woman in the same day. Then one day they really did go on an outing together. A hunting trip. A horrible accident befell them. Bax’s father came home draped over his horse. Bax never talked about it, but Dane had always wondered.

  “I wanted to get as far away from my father as I could,” Bax said. “I cursed him to his face. I cursed him every way I knew how. I swore I’d never be like him. But now look at me.” He laughed horribly. “I’m his spitting image. But you, I never heard you speak one word against your father. And I’ve never seen two men so different as you and he are today. It’s the one thing I admire most about you and the one thing I’ll never forgive you for.”

  So, Dane thought, you hate me because I remind you of what you are and I hate you because you remind me of what I was. Maybe if we could make our peaces with ourselves we could make peace with each other.

  “I know what you did, but I still have no idea how you did it,” Bax said. “You figured out a way to get out. And you did. And you never came back for me.”

  “I haven’t figured anything out, Bax.”

  “And you’ll figure your way out of this one.” Bax slapped him on the shoulder and started towards the steps. He paused and looked back at Dane. “Just don’t leave me out of your calculations this time.”

  XXI

  The Runaway

  Dane hardly slept that night, and at sunrise the next morning he and Bailus were taking inventory of the weapons and stores while the others were breakfasting.

  They went first to the room which sheltered the kegs of blasting powder.

  “There’s so much of it,” Dane said. “My father must have been planning to turn the whole island inside out.” He tapped one of the kegs with his foot. “I wish we could make some use of it.”

  “Whether you find a way to use it against them or not,” Bailus said, “I’ll stick to the old rules.” He tapped his finger on the head of his war-hammer. He studied the kegs wistfully. “One day this will be the way of war and there will be no place for old men like me. They’ll blow breaches so big in the walls that no man, no matter how brave or strong or skilled, will be able to hold them. The mysteries and the miracles will depart, and the world will continue to shrink around us. War will be an ugly, artless thing and life will follow suit.”

  “Maybe if it gets that bad we’ll stop fighting altogether,” Dane said.

  Bailus laughed. “No. I’m just glad I won’t be around to see it.”

  They shut the door to the explosives room and went to the armory. Here were things they could use. Bows and spears and round wooden shields with brass bosses in their centers.

  They checked the cellar next. What with the well in the center of the courtyard and all the food the colonists had left, Dane’s small company could survive in the fort for weeks without having to open the gate. But Dane did not want that.

  He turned to Bailus. “Say we were to leave the fort behind. What’s the best we could do as far as setting up some kind of nightly perimeter? Each man, say, carrying a long stake or two and a bit of rope to make a pointed fence each time we make camp.”

  “What for, sir?”

  “Because I want to take everyone, every last man and woman with us here, across the island. One big sweep, even if it takes days, until we’ve cornered these butchers and forced them to fight.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Think about it from their perspective. They’ve baited us, they’ve led us here, and now they’ve cut off our escape. I don’t think we need to go looking for them. I think they’ll come to us.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We wait.”

  Dane stood for a moment longer in the open doorway of the cellar. Then he stepped back, closed the door, and nodded. They would wait.

  They would not have to wait long.

  ***

  After breakfast, Dane had each man inspect his weapons and armor and assemble before the armory. In military terms, his men could be described as irregulars. There was little uniformity in terms of weapons and armor from man to man. The wealthier and older men were generally the best supplied. Some, like the Johnson twins, favored the crossbow; others preferred the axe or spear as their primary weapon. Bailus had his hammer. Dane made sure each man was outfitted with a shield and spear and a double-edged knife either from the armory or what they’d brought from home. The knife, a standard piece of equipment for most Hallander soldiers, doubled as tool and weapon and made a passable short stabbing sword. There were enough helmets in the armory to suit those who did not yet own one. Ira Scott, a young veteran, refused to wear a helmet as he said it would muss up his mohawk. There were even a few mail shirts and the men cast lots for these. Rawl won one of them and immediately modeled it for his comrades.

  Dane had some of the men fill sacks with straw and set them on poles in the open courtyard. Bailus ran the men through drills. Bailus had trained each of these men in the art of war on the mainland and they were already familiar with the weapons. But Dane’s intention was not training but the surge in adrenaline that the activity, and especially the simulated killing, would bring his men. He felt they had been too long on the defensive already.

  He watched them as they drilled. Skewering the strawmen with their spear tips and using their spear shafts to spar with one another. He helped Fish, the company cook, and the women, Josie and Molly, for he had not seen Mirela all morning, set out a veritable banquet and excused the men to an early lunch.

  The boy was at the table, seated between Will and Molly. He may have been silent and wary as a wild animal, but he ate like one, too. A hungry one. It gave Dane a measure of satisfaction to see the skinny child stuff his mouth so full he could hardly chew. Dark circles ringed the boy’s eyes and scratches covered his arms and face. Dane wondered how long he’d been sleeping in the forest.

  Dane ordered four men who had finished eating to relieve the sentries so they could eat. As he stepped away from the table with them, Bax met him, coming from the infirmary. He looked sick. He caught Dane by the arm and leaned close.

  “Dane, she’s gone.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Mara; I can’t find her anywhere.”

  Dane pulled his arm free. “You’ve checked the infirmary?”

  “Of course. She was there this morning when she changed my bandages, but Leech says he hasn’t seen her now for a couple of hours.”

  Dane left him before he had finished his sentence. He searched the obvious places first: Bax’s house, the kitchen, the infirmary. Then, starting with the Thatchers’ and Josie’
s house, he checked every building and room in the compound. By the end he was shouting her name. Bax caught up to him. “You’re wasting time,” he said. “I’m sure she’s not inside the walls.”

  Dane pulled away from Bax again and headed for his room. Bax ran alongside him. Dane retrieved his crossbow and quiver from his room and started for the south gate. Bax followed him.

  “What were you doing now, Bax?” he said, not even bothering to look over his shoulder. “Finding new ways to hurt and humiliate her?”

  “I didn’t do anything to her. I told you I haven’t seen her since breakfast.”

  “You didn’t do anything to her,” Dane said. “You realize she’s probably already dead? I hope you’re happy now.”

  “Of course I’m not happy. I’ve never been happy. You know that.”

  “Then why do you have to make your misery everyone else’s?”

  “Dane, I was going to marry her.”

  “Marry her? Why on earth would she want to marry you? Or were you not going to give her a choice in that either?”

  “Dane, I’m trying to make things right.”

  Dane finally turned on him. “Right? What could you possibly do to make things right?”

  Somewhere in the trip across the courtyard, Bax had picked up a spear. He looked rather pathetic standing there before Dane with his eyes cast down and his spear cradled between his bandaged hands.

  “You want to make things right? Where were you when she was lying in the infirmary, bleeding half to death?”

  “How could I stand to be there when I was the whole reason she was there?”

  Dane spun on his heels and in a few strides reached the gate. He did not bother waiting for the sentry to come down from the wall; he opened it himself. He whirled on Bax once more. “Stay here and stay out of my way.”

  Bax held his ground. “I told you: I want to make things right.”