The Silent Isle

by Nicholas Anderson

  Then there were only two figures amidst a mass of dark, swelling shapes and forces. Dane saw a young boy running and knew he was in the center of the press of desperate fugitives. The boy looked over his shoulder at the screams that arose from the crowd but could see nothing for the press of taller bodies around him. Dane heard the hoofbeats of a single horse as distinct from the other noises as though they were the only sound the world had ever known. He saw the boy, Avery, once more. Then Dane saw the horse careen through the mass of bodies; saw Torin Felcrist swinging his sword like he was felling wheat. The horse surged forward, stamping more ruin than Torin’s sword. Bodies thrown aside, knocked down, crushed. The uproar was terrible.

  Then, above it all, he heard Avery scream.

  Silence.

  Dane jerked upright in bed. His clothes clung to his skin. Outside it was starting to get light. He splashed his face and dressed and stepped outside as the first hint of sun came over the trees to the east.

  Before the morning was half spent, the workers ran out of nets. The areas above both gates and facing the meadow were covered but large gaps remained elsewhere.

  “Sir,” said Rawl to Dane, “I know where to get more nets.”

  “You do?”

  “On the beach. They were stored under the rowboats.”

  “They might be long gone then.”

  “Let me and Paul run down there and at least check.”

  Tipper, Josie, and Mirela, all who were standing nearby, volunteered in the same breath.

  Dane had a bad feeling about letting the two women go, especially Mirela, but he ignored it. The best way to thank them for all they’d already done was to let them help more.

  “Go straight there,” he told Rawl. “If the nets are too heavy, come straight back and we’ll take out the cart and donkey.”

  Dane watched the five figures head out through the open gateway. All but Mirela carried a crossbow. He wanted to go with them, if only for a walk in the woods, but there were too many things to oversee in the settlement. He signaled the sentries to close the gate as the five disappeared down the trail. He watched until the gate was barred. He felt a growing sense of dread in his gut, like cold water leaking into his stomach. He pushed it down and wrote it off as merely the apprehension they all lived under while on this island. Turning, he made his way swiftly to the new infirmary.

  Leech had set up shop in the room Rawl had helped him move into yesterday. The windowless room was more secure than the original, larger infirmary. Leech had splinted and bound Lane’s and Owen’s broken bones yesterday, and the two men had been moving around the courtyard the whole morning, Owen hobbling on his crutch, trying to be helpful and mostly just getting in people’s way. Leech and Molly had brought in three more beds and were making them up. A bundle of bandages, fresh-made by tearing up old sheets, lay on one of the tables. A large pot of water was heating over the fire.

  Dane went to Elias’s bedside. The priest had not stirred or opened his eyes since Josie and the twins had pulled him from the harbor. His breathing was steady like one who sleeps, but it seemed unnaturally shallow. Dane did not know if he had come to see if there had been any improvement or to see if Elias had suddenly and silently slipped away forever. Finding neither had occurred, he sat at the bedside for a time and then rose and went silently out the door.

  The five were nearly to the beach.

  ***

  “The thing is,” Paul was saying, “Even if these nets haven’t been turned to ash along with everything else, we still won’t have enough to cover the gaps.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Rawl said. “But I think it will be alright.”

  “Alright for them,” Paul said.

  “Didn’t you notice how they attacked yesterday?” Rawl said. “There were wide gaps between all of us. But they didn’t go for those. They came right at us. I don’t think they were so interested in getting onto or over the wall as they were in closing with us.”

  “And that’s supposed to help us how?” Paul said.

  “It’s easy. We just stand above the areas that are protected by the nets. They’ll run right into them.”

  Somewhere in the middle of Rawl’s final sentence, from somewhere off in the dense brush to their right, there came a snap and a whizzing whine so that his sentence was punctuated by the thunk as the bolt hit a tree a foot from his head. Rawl yelped in surprise and dove for the ground. The others did the same. They crawled on their bellies to the right side of the path to shelter behind the trunks there. More bolts sliced through the branches above their heads.

  Lying on their stomachs, Paul and Josie pump-loaded their bows. Tipper stood up against a tree to load his bow. He set the butt on the ground and pushed the string into the lock above the trigger. As he straightened up, he yelled in pain and fell beside Rawl, tumbling back into the path. Rawl grabbed Tipper’s shoulders and dragged him back into cover. As he did, he saw a bolt had pierced Tipper’s leg. Rawl closed his eyes as he pulled Tipper the rest of the way to safety. He felt like his breakfast was trying to crawl its way back up his throat. The bolt had struck the muscle of Tipper’s thigh and the square head had come clear through.

  “Pull it out,” Tipper said between his teeth. “Get it out.”

  Paul helped prop Tipper on his side. Rawl, quite sure he was going to be sick, placed his hands against the wet warm patch on Tipper’s pants. The head was the broadest part of the bolt and the bolt had no fletching, so they all knew they had to pull it out in the same direction it had been traveling when it entered. Mirela wrapped one hand around the head of the bolt and pressed the other around the exit wound.

  “Josie, cover us,” Rawl said, nodding to her to watch the woods.

  “Paul,” Mirela said. “Give him something to bite.”

  Paul fished around in the litter and brought up a bit of a branch. He helped Tipper set it between his teeth. Paul nodded to Mirela. She pulled the bolt in one quick jerk. Tipper screamed into his gag.

  “Your knife, Rawl,” Mirela said. With Rawl’s knife, she cut away Tipper’s pant leg. She tore the material into strips and wrapped them about the wound.

  “We’ve got to get him back,” Mirela said.

  Rawl rose to a crouch and was greeted by a bolt that barely missed his ear. But this time, not thirty paces away, he caught sight of their faces. White, wide-eyed, human faces.

  Lying on his back, with his legs bent over him and his seat pressed to the trunk of a tree, Rawl set the butt of his crossbow against the trunk and bent and loaded it. He handed the bow to Josie and motioned for her to give him hers, which had originally been his. He handed Tipper’s bow back to him. Rawl worked his way to the side of their little huddle till he was closest to the beach. “Stay here,” he told them. “If you get a chance, get Tipper out of here.”

  “Where are you going?” Josie asked.

  “I’m going to try to get around them,” Rawl said.

  He chose to move towards the beach because he imagined their ambushers would expect them to try to retreat for the fort. Crawling on his belly, he scooted a ways down the path, then turned and began working his way into the woods. He heard Paul shout, and, looking back, saw his brother spring up into a crouch, fire a bolt, and drop back down. Rawl continued moving. He knew his brother was trying to hold their attention.

  Crawling through the underbrush, he couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. His greatest fear was that one of his enemies would appear suddenly above him and shoot him in the back before he got a chance to raise his bow. He closed his eyes several times and tried to picture a bird’s-eye view of his original position, the point at which he had seen his enemies, and the half-loop he was traveling. When he was as sure as he could be that he’d gone far enough, he rose to a compressed crouch behind the trunk of a large spruce. For all he knew, the ambushers were right on the other side of the trunk. They could also be twenty feet to either side of it. To make a misstep would be fatal. He couldn’t
risk moving until he had a better idea. The moments ticked by. He wondered if Tipper was still losing blood. Finally, his brother shouted and fired again. In the quiet that followed, he heard voices talking lowly just on the other side of the tree.

  “It’s no use now that they know we’re here,” Crane’s voice said.

  “And if you were all better shots, we’d already be done,” Rundal’s voice said.

  Rawl felt a strange chill when he heard Rundal’s voice. He recognized it easily enough, but there was something in it he had not heard before.

  “We’ll just have to wait for another chance,” Crane said.

  “You want to try explaining that to them, it’s your funeral,” Rundal said. “This is the only chance we’re going to get. We’ll have to flank them.”

  Rawl knew he had to act in that moment or his brother and the others might be killed. Checking for the dozenth time that his bow was loaded and saying a silent prayer that the magazine wouldn’t jam, he whirled around the tree.

  Looking back on it, he was always a little ashamed he hadn’t been able to do it silently. But, in the moment, his adrenaline got the best of him and for the next few seconds he was making one prolonged war cry-scream.

  Smith Darinson was crouching with his back to the opposite side of the tree so that Rawl almost tripped over him as he came around it. Rawl’s first bolt hit Smith between the shoulder blades. The man slumped forward and died with a sigh. Vick Crane jumped up, screaming just like Rawl, although Rawl hardly noticed Crane’s screaming or his own in the thick of things. Crane swung his bow towards Rawl but Rawl fired first, then again. His bolts hit Crane in the shoulder and the thigh and the older man dropped with a shriek. Even as Crane was jumping, swinging, screaming, and falling, Gundar Holt jumped to his feet and took off in the opposite direction through the trees. Rawl fired after him but missed. “That’s what I thought,” Rawl shouted after him.

  Rawl’s taunt was still on his lips when something swung out from behind the tree in front of him, smashed his bow from his hands, then caught him in the face and threw him on his back. Rundal Tillman was suddenly on top of him, his spear shaft, which Rundal had used like a club to disarm Rawl and knock him down, pressed against Rawl’s throat. The ash shaft was slowly crushing Rawl’s windpipe, but Rundal, who’d pinned Rawl’s arms just below the shoulder with his knees, did not seem content to wait for this. Keeping the shaft in place with one hand, he used the other to draw his knife.

  “You shouldn’t have gotten in our way, boy,” Rundal said. “The foreign witch is the only one they wanted us to kill.”

  Rawl had never liked Rundal, had never quite thought him fully human, but there was something new in his voice, and in his eyes, which made Rawl long for the old Rundal. Or perhaps it was not the presence of something new but the absence of something that had once been there far below the surface but had now been completely smothered out.

  “You could have joined us. We could have had some fun with her first. You might have found you liked our idea of fun.”

  Black spots were exploding in Rawl’s vision. Rundal raised his knife.

  “Who knows, we might have even taken your little sweetheart along for the ride.”

  “You boys talking about me?”

  For the rest of her life, Josie would remember the look on Rundal’s face when he spun to find her standing behind him with her crossbow trained on his chest. As he turned, Rundal shifted his knife in his hand and arched his arm for the throw. Even so, he was too slow. Josie’s finger twitched on the trigger. Her bolt buried half its length in Rundal’s chest and slammed him to the ground.

  Rawl rolled out from under Rundal’s still-twitching body. He lay with one arm under his chest while his free hand massaged his throat. He coughed and sobbed for air and both actions felt like knives being rammed down his windpipe. Josie knelt beside him. “Are you alright?”

  He nodded. “Thanks to you,” he added when he’d recovered his voice.

  Rawl got to his feet. He staggered and Josie grabbed his arm and steadied him. They turned towards where they’d left the others.

  “Please,” rasped a voice behind them.

  They turned to see Vick Crane lying half-buried in the undergrowth.

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t leave me here for them to find me.”

  Rawl turned away.

  “Just finish me,” Crane pleaded.

  Rawl took a step back towards the path.

  “Please,” Crane said.

  Rawl took another step. Josie said nothing and she faced the same direction as Rawl but she did not move. Rawl took another step.

  “Wait,” Josie said.

  Rawl turned to her.

  “We have to help him.”

  “Help him?” Rawl said. “He tried to kill us.”

  “We can’t just leave him here.”

  “Then go and wait with Paul and the others,” Rawl said, stepping back towards Crane. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

  “You can’t do that, Rawl.”

  “Sure I can. He’s asking for it. He’s been asking for it for days.”

  “Dane wouldn’t like it.”

  “Dane? Since when have you cared about what Dane would or wouldn’t like?”

  “It’s not right.”

  Rawl was angry at Crane; he was angry at Josie for defending him; and he was angry at having to talk, which was excruciating. “Not right? It’s justice. For all we know he’s the one who shot Tipper.”

  “Tipper’s going to be fine.”

  “Please just get on with it,” Crane said. “They’ll be coming for me now that I failed them.”

  “Fine,” Rawl said to Josie. “You three get Tipper back to the fort and bring help.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll wait with Crane.”

  “Rawl, don’t…”

  “I said get going,” Rawl said.

  Josie waited a moment longer, looking from one man to the other. Rawl wouldn’t meet her eyes. Finally, she turned and walked back through the brush to the others.

  When she was gone, Rawl picked up his bow and loaded it. He stood there, looking down at Crane.

  “Just do it,” Crane said. “They’re coming for me. Taking me back to the fort won’t help me. Won’t help any of us.”

  Rawl’s eyes flickered to Smith’s hunched form and then back to Crane. He turned and began to walk away.

  “Don’t leave me,” Crane called. “Please, don’t leave me.”

  Rawl ignored him. He walked several paces away until Crane was out of sight. He sat down on a rotting log and set his bow beside him and he buried his face in his hands and wept.

  It seemed only a short time later he heard the rumble of cart wheels. He figured he should stand and hail them but he stayed where he was. He wiped his face with his sleeve. The cart passed on.

  Soon it returned and Rawl heard it halt on the trail nearby. He walked out to it to find Paul and Dane and Josie and several others. They had already been to the beach and loaded the nets on the cart. Rawl led Paul to where Crane lay. His brother paused looking at Rundal’s twisted form. They laid a cloak out on the ground and shifted Crane onto it. As they lifted Crane, Paul nodded towards the figure doubled over nearby. “Is that Smith?”

  Rawl made no answer and they walked back to the cart in silence.

  “Why are you helping me?” Crane asked.

  “Don’t ask me,” Paul said.

  “They’ll only kill you for helping me.”

  “Shut up before we change our minds,” Paul said, setting him roughly down on the bed of nets.

  When they reached the fort, Dane wanted to install Crane in the holding cell.

  “But he’s wounded,” Josie said.

  “Leech can treat him just as well in there,” Dane said.

  “You know that’s not true,” said Leech, who’d come out of the infirmary when the cart rolled through the gate.

  “Put him in the infirmary,” said Tippe
r, walking up, rather stiff-leggedly. “Not even the four of them could keep me in there long, so he can have my bed.”

  Seeing Tipper walking seemed to change everyone’s mind more than any argument could have.

  As soon as Crane was on the bed in the infirmary, Dane had him made fast to it by having a rope tied around his waist and knotted under the bed. He had a second rope looped loosely around Crane’s neck and secured to one of the legs of the bed.

  Leech treated his wounds as gently as he treated anyone’s.

  “Why did you attack them,” Dane asked as Leech worked.

  Crane did not say anything but only stared at the opposite wall.

  “Answer me,” Dane said.

  Crane took a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about it, sir,” he said. “It was what they told us to do.”

  “What do you mean?” Dane said.

  “They sent them to kill Mara,” Rawl said.

  Dane turned to him.

  “Tell them,” Rawl said to Crane.

  Crane said nothing, which was answer enough.

  “Why?” Dane asked.

  “I don’t know,” Crane said. “It’s just what they wanted.”

  “They’re afraid of her,” Paul said.

  Dane looked at him.

  “Didn’t you hear them screaming when she came through the gate yesterday?” Paul asked.

  “I thought,” Crane said, and everyone turned to him. “I thought that if we did what they said, they would let the rest of us go.”

  “You four, you mean?” Dane said.

  “No, all of us,” Crane said, indicating those standing around him with a shake of his head.

  “All of us, huh? And how many of us would you have killed so you could get to her and save your own sorry hide?” Dane asked.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Crane said. “We weren’t thinking clearly. We were all so frightened.”

  “Frightened?” Rawl said, lunging forward. Dane put an arm out to restrain him. “You were frightened? You think that’s an excuse? You don’t think every last of us is as frightened as he’s ever been?” He pulled away from Dane and spoke his final words to the wall in a lowered voice. “I have nightmares all night long and then I wake up and my days are worse than the dreams.” He turned and went out the door.