Distant Worlds Volume 1

by Benjamin Sperduto

  That, at least, he knew how to use, even if it wasn’t likely to amount to much against the Vinlanders’ steel armor.

  They left the fort around midday, just as the last stragglers from the surrounding countryside arrived. The militia men hoisted cannons into position atop the guard towers, most of them trained upon the river. Ekundayo realized now why the settlers had cut down the trees surrounding the fort. When the Vinlanders arrived, they would have to climb the hill without the benefit of cover, all the while enduring withering fire from the palisade’s towers.

  He wondered if the imposing defenses would amount to much should the Vinlanders summon another storm to their aid.

  Armed militia men ushered them through the gate before wheeling the heavily-laden cart into position to block further entry. They affixed row after row of sharpened pikes to the cart and in the ground before it. Anyone charging the gate would be forced to navigate the bristling spearpoints while musket fire rained down upon them.

  Crude though the defenses were, Ekundayo could see now why the English had failed to overcome them.

  Marcelle turned south after leaving the fort and struck out through the dense woodland. He set a grueling pace that Ekundayo struggled to match, but the trapper occasionally slowed to let him catch up.

  Every time Marcelle pulled ahead, Ekundayo considered slipping away and fleeing in the opposite direction. Uncertainty kept him trudging along behind the French trapper. Without the sight of the river nearby, he knew he would quickly become lost if he struck out on his own. Even if he had some sense of how to reach a settlement along the coast, his prospects were unlikely to improve once he got there. The cold lands of Acadia were thousands of miles from the familiar Caribbean isles. He had no means of bartering passage other than his labor, and Ekundayo was no mariner.

  The scouting mission may have bought him time before the ailing Danford could expose him as an escaped slave, but eventually they would have to return to the fort. If he didn’t come up with a plan of some kind before then, he was likely to end up in chains once again.

  They travelled for about six miles before Marcelle stopped and took cover behind a fallen tree. He waved for Ekundayo to join him before gesturing in the direction of the river, which was about fifty yards to their left.

  At first, Ekundayo saw nothing. Then he caught a glint of sunlight reflecting off metal and made out several figures walking along the shoreline. He counted five of them in all, each one carrying either a musket or a bow.

  “Hunters,” Marcelle said, his voice scarcely a whisper.

  Ekundayo scanned the rest of the shoreline, but there was no sign of the longship or the rest of its complement.

  “Where are the others?” he asked. “And what about the ship?”

  Marcelle shrugged.

  “Shallow water here.”

  Ekundayo watched the Vinlanders closely as they trudged alongside the river. The reavers made no effort to conceal their passage. He wondered if they could have run aground and then continued on foot. But if that was the case, their numbers should have been greater. There were at least five times as many Vinlanders aboard the longship he’d encountered before. He supposed they might have ranged ashore to gather food or fresh water, though none of them seemed particularly aware of their surroundings.

  “Now what? Should we—?”

  Marcelle clamped his hand over Ekundayo’s mouth and whispered something in French. Ekundayo glanced back to find him scanning the trees to the south. He followed the trapper’s gaze, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  The forest seemed quiet. During their trek from the fort, they’d heard birdcalls and chirping wildlife. Now there was nothing.

  “They come by land,” Marcelle said. “Do you see?”

  Ekundayo squinted, but still he saw nothing more than the forest underbrush swaying in the wind.

  Except there was no wind.

  “We go,” the trapper said. “Hurry.”

  They eased back from the trees they’d been leaning against. As they moved, Ekundayo looked back to the group of Vinlanders walking alongside the river. He was certain he’d seen five of them before, but now he only saw three.

  “Wait,” he said.

  But Marcelle had already moved several paces ahead of him, too far for Ekundayo to grasp for him.

  A high pitched hissing sound cut through the air and Marcelle collapsed with a choked gasp. He hit the ground on his side and rolled onto his back. An arrow with black fletching protruded from his chest. Blood gurgled up to the trapper’s lips and his body went into convulsions.

  Ekundayo threw his body down alongside the dying man as another arrow streaked out of the forest to embed itself into the tree behind him. Marcelle groped at his clothing, but the strength was already draining from his hands. Every attempted breath drew more blood into his punctured lung.

  Fighting to keep his wits about him, Ekundayo clumsily snatched the Frenchman’s loaded musket from his side, pulled the hammer back, and fired blindly in the direction he thought the arrows had come from. A cloud of smoke burst from the weapon’s firing pan, stinging his eyes. Before it dissipated, he sprang to his feet and ran, leaving Marcelle hacking for air he couldn’t seem to taste.

  If the unseen attackers fired more arrows, he didn’t notice them as he charged through the forest. The musket rapport seemed to awaken the woodland, echoing over the rolling hills and sending birds screeching through the treetops. He ran as fast as he could, pushing through the underbrush, but the ground proved rough and strewn with fallen limbs and exposed rocks. Ekundayo stumbled every few steps, but each time he managed to regain his balance to run a bit farther.

  When he finally chanced a look over his shoulder to see if he was being pursued, his foot caught on a root and brought him crashing to the ground. His shoulder hit first, hard enough that he feared it might be dislocated by the impact, followed by the rest of his flailing body. When he at last rolled to a halt, he reached for the hatchet he’d slipped into his belt.

  But the weapon was gone, lost either during his flight or his fall.

  Heart pounding, he tried to get up.

  A Vinlander burst out from the nearby bushes, whooping and crying excitedly. He tackled Ekundayo, pinned him against the ground, and pressed a steel knife against his throat.

  A swirl of black warpaint covered the reaver’s face. He wore no helmet, instead allowing his dark hair to hang down past his shoulders. Framed by such stark tones, his bright, blue eyes seemed to burn with an almost demonic intensity.

  The Vinlander said something, but Ekundayo couldn’t understand him. It was a strange tongue, melding sounds that didn’t seem like they belonged together.

  He felt the dagger’s blade push harder against his skin.

  Another voice called out somewhere behind his attacker. The Vindlander half-turned at the sound and snarled in response, but then he withdrew the dagger and hoisted Ekundayo to his feet.

  Several of the reavers emerged from the forest, a few of them carrying bows, muskets, and swords at the ready. But Ekundayo’s attention went directly to the man at the head of the group. He wore a longsword at one side and a hatchet at the other, with a sliver-engraved wheellock shoved into his belt.

  Ekundayo recognized the Vinlander’s clothing and the jawbone adorned helmet quickly.

  “You,” he said. “I know you.”

  The reaver smiled.

  “And I you. The slave who betrayed his master.” He spoke English with a practiced comfort, but his strange accent betrayed the fact that it was not his first language. “The Old Father’s ravens guided you ashore, did they?”

  Ekundayo nodded.

  “And now he’s delivered you into my hands once more. What am I to do with you this time after our first debt was settled on the spot?”

  “Debt?”

  “A blood debt. Your action gave me a chance at life, and I repaid that debt, giving you a chance at yours. Our people have always honored their deb
ts, all the way back to the days of our ancestors, to the time when wolves and ravens were betrothed in blood and sweat.”

  Ekundayo glanced at the reaver’s clothing again, this time noting the wolfskin cloak and the black feathers stitched into it.

  “You’ve come from the fort, haven’t you?” the Vinlander asked. “The place the English call Desolation.”

  Ekundayo nodded again. There seemed little sense in lying.

  “What do you want here?” he asked. “The people here have no wealth worth stealing.”

  The Vinlander sneered.

  “Wealth! If this wretched country had anything worth taking we’d have roasted every one of these French fools on a spit.”

  “For what then? Sport? The fort is well defended. Even English guns couldn’t bring down its walls. What could be so important about it to risk death?”

  The reaver scowled, his eyes filled with hatred.

  “Vengeance. Your former master had dealings with my brother, dealings that led him and my nephew into an English noose. Danford used them to dispose of his rivals, then turned them in to claim a bounty. The father has paid his bloody debt, but I cannot rest until the son atones for my nephew.”

  “That’s why you attacked the ship? But what about the sailors you killed? What did they have to do with your vengeance?”

  “They were in my way.”

  The answer didn’t give Ekundayo much hope for the people of New Anjou.

  “Young Danford escaped my blade once, but he will soon be under it again. My seers know he still lives, that he’s come this way and found succor with the weak of heart.

  “But you already know that, don’t you, slave?”

  Ekundayo stood a bit taller, puffing his chest out.

  “I’m not a slave,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  The Vinlander laughed, then barked a command to the rest of his men. They moved a bit closer to Ekundayo, some of them gripping their weapons tightly while the others loosened their limbs and positioned themselves to lunge at him.

  “You think you’re a free man?” the reaver said. “Then walk away now. Strike me down, if you think you can. What do you think you can do before these men drag you down and bind you? No, your life belongs to me now.”

  Ekundayo glared at him, but he knew in his heart that the Vinlander spoke truth.

  “I could kill you now, just as I killed your companion. But I prefer to let you live.”

  “Why?”

  “Because to repay that debt, you’re going to do something for me.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  The Vinlander drew his longsword.

  “Then you’re just one more thing in my way.”

  Ekundayo reached the fort’s makeshift gate just after sunset. After a brief moment of confusion in which a few of the men atop the guardtowers almost opened fire on him, word of his arrival spread quickly and they threw a rope over the wall to hoist him up. They dared not open the gate both because it was so firmly fixed in place and there was a good chance the Vinlanders might be lingering in the darkness, waiting for a chance to rush the exposed entrance.

  Jean Francois came to meet him at the southwestern watchtower. The priest seemed pleased to see Ekundayo again, but his face turned grim when he learned of Marcelle’s fate. Ekundayo related what they’d seen and informed Jean Francois that the reavers were no more than five miles away from them.

  He said nothing of his capture or of his prolonged discussions with the Vinlanders.

  “Your shipmate’s fever has subsided,” the priest said. “But he still slumbers. I imagine he’ll come around within the next few hours. Tomorrow at the latest.”

  Ekundayo had dearly hoped the younger Danford had died in his absence, both for his own sake and New Anjou’s.

  “You should get some rest, my friend,” Jean Francois said. “We’ll need every good man ready when the heathens launch their assault. You can take one of the beds in the house with Danford.”

  The suggestion almost made him laugh.

  “Right…”

  Ekundayo looked upon the small town crammed inside the fort’s walls. There were more people there now, farmers, fishermen, and trappers come to take refuge before the Vinlanders came to plunder their homes.

  Somewhere below, he heard the sound of children’s voices.

  Families.

  What would the reavers do with them, he wondered. Would they put the women and children to the sword? Or would they be shackled and hauled off to sold as slaves in the freezing wastes of Vinland? Ekundayo still remembered the sound of screams echoing through the black bowels of the slaver ship that carried him away from his childhood home, remembered the stench of sickness and death coiling around his throat as he wept in the darkness.

  Death, however terrible and violent, was a preferable fate, though he imagined that fact would come as small comfort to the families gathered below him.

  Before descending the watchtower’s ladder, he turned to gaze out over the palisade. The Vinlanders lay waiting out there in the forest, much closer than he’d given the French reason to believe.

  Waiting for his signal.

  If no signal came, the attack would commence just before dawn.

  Ekundayo climbed down the ladder, his mind turning and twisting so riotously that he felt another headache coming on. The Vinlander captain had allowed him to return to the fort and promised him safe passage to whatever port he named in exchange for helping the reavers breach the walls. A gunpowder explosion, a fire, or opening the gate, anything that might allow them to swarm over the defenses more easily. If Ekundayo failed to keep his end of the bargain before sunrise, however, the captain promised to flay him alive and string up his bloody remains for the crows.

  Considering the Vinlanders held him at their mercy at the time, Ekundayo had little choice but to accept the offer.

  For most of the walk back to the fort, he tried to convince himself that the French settlers deserved their fate. After all, he had little reason to believe that they wouldn’t give him over to Danford once the Englishman recovered. Jean Francois seemed like a good hearted man, but by his own admission, he’d done nothing to prevent slaveowners from claiming what they believed was their rightful property. Ekundayo didn’t know what Acadian law said about slavery, but he’d seen French slave policy in action during frequent visits to the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue.

  He didn’t care to find out if the same brutal practices extended to France’s northernmost colonies.

  Every person he passed seemed to eye him suspiciously. Ekundayo couldn’t decide if they simply distrusted him because of his race or if they somehow knew he’d conspired with the enemy beyond their walls. He found it difficult to look at any of them, especially the few children he encountered.

  His mood blacker than the night sky, Ekundayo retired to the small house with the beds. Danford remained where he’d left him earlier in the day, still slumbering, though less fitfully now. In the dim candlelight, the young Englishman looked even more like his father. Ekundayo had little reason to believe that the son would grow into a different sort of man. If anything, Thomas Danford possessed all of the elder Danford’s worst qualities and none of his few redeeming characteristics. For all his cruelty, William Danford had a sense of loyalty and propriety. He understood how to mix severity with kindness, even if he only did so to make others more pliable to his needs.

  When it came to compelling men, the younger Danford understood only the power of the lash. As a boy, he occasionally whipped his father’s slaves, Ekundayo included, for no reason at all, each time threatening them with even more severe punishment if they ever spoke of what he’d done. When he grew older, he forced himself upon several women, again promising a brutal beating if they dared to mention his actions. Ekundayo needed little imagination to know what kind of master Thomas would become without the threat of his father’s recriminations hovering over him.

  He took some solace in the knowledge that the yo
unger Danford would not survive when the Vinlanders attacked, but even that satisfaction came at a high price. How many French settlers would have to die for the sake of upholding one Vinlander’s sense of honor? Even in death, it seemed, the elder Danford continued to inflict misery upon innocent lives.

  Ekundayo sighed and rubbed his eyes. His headache was getting worse by the minute, and he could find no way to extract himself from the dilemma he’d created for himself. At one point, he’d considered proposing to Jean Francois that they simply give Danford to the Vinlanders, but he knew the French would never agree to the idea of handing a fellow Christian over to a ravening pack of heathens.

  When he let his arms fall to his side, one hand brushed against the hatchet in his belt. The Vinlanders had returned it to him when they sent him back to the fort as a show of good faith. He’d forgotten that he still had the weapon.

  Danford stirred, grumbling hoarsely as his eyelids twitched.

  Ekundayo’s hand closed around the hatchet.

  The Vinlander captain wasn’t the only one who had the right to vengeance against the Danfords.

  He found Jean Francois in the chapel, leading a large group of frightened settlers in prayer. A large wooden cross hung from the ceiling behind him. Ekundayo knew the symbol well, but he still didn’t understand why some of the crosses had a thin man nailed to them and others did not. The elder Danford tried to explain it to him once, but the answer, like so many other things about the Europeans, didn’t make much sense.

  The priest saw him enter and excused himself from the rest of the group once he’d finished the prayer. He crossed the room to join Ekundayo by the door.

  “I expected you to be resting, my friend. Have you come to pray with us instead in this most trying hour?”

  Ekundayo shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “There’s something I need to tell you. Can we speak in private?”