Opening Atlantis

by Harry Turtledove

  “Too right they could,” another soldier agreed. “Damn trees go on forever.”

  “We’ll beat the bushes for a while, and then we’ll go and tell his Lordship we had no luck,” a third man said. “What else can we do?”

  They all nodded. They were luckier than they dreamt. Richard Radcliffe could have potted a couple of them as easily as made no difference. But he had his heart set on harder game, more dangerous game. He went on. The foul-mouthed soldiers never knew he passed them over.

  Things got harder when he came into settled country, but not much. Few people were out and about at night. Dogs barked, but never for long—he carried gobbets of honker meat to make them lose interest in him. One farmer swore at his hound for raising a ruckus. Otherwise, the night stayed still. Richard slid past Bredestown and down along the riverbank toward New Hastings.

  Torches blazed on poles thrust into the ground around the house Warwick had taken for his own. Richard Radcliffe smiled a predatory smile. Warwick’s men would have done better to leave it dark. That would have made it a tougher target. The light the torches threw didn’t reach anywhere close to the edge of bowshot. And standing in that light blinded the sentries to whatever might be going on beyond its reach.

  One of those sentries yawned. He said something to the man standing beside him. They both laughed. Richard took his place behind a pear tree whose trunk had grown man-thick in the fifteen years or so since it was planted. He strung the bow and fitted the leather wristguard to his left hand. Then, in one smooth motion, he fitted a shaft to the bowstring, drew, and let fly.

  The arrow caught the soldier who’d yawned a few inches above his navel—the bright torchlight made aiming easier, too. The trooper did what any suddenly wounded man would do: he screamed and clutched at himself. As he crumpled, his friend stooped to give what help he could. Richard’s second arrow punched through the man’s neck. He let out a gurgling wail and fell beside the other guard.

  Richard had a third shaft nocked and waiting. If the cries outside didn’t bring Warwick out, what would? And when the noble showed himself…

  But he didn’t. Another soldier opened the door to see what had happened. Richard let fly at him, too. He must have had uncommonly quick reactions, for he jerked the door shut an instant before the arrow slammed into it. The shaft stood thrilling in the redwood planks.

  If Richard had had some tow and a source of flame, he could have burnt the house with fire arrows. I should have thought of that, flashed through his mind. Remembering after the fact, sadly, was easier than getting the idea ahead of time.

  He heard the back door open and shut. He couldn’t see back there from where he crouched. Men spoke to one another in low voices. He couldn’t catch what they were saying, but he didn’t need to be Alexander the Great to figure it out.

  Before long, he could hear boots thumping on the ground. He’d lost some of his night vision staring toward the torches. He couldn’t see what Warwick’s men—or maybe Warwick and his men—were doing. Again, though, he didn’t need to be much of a general to know. They would work toward him, wait till he did something to show himself, and then close with him and finish him with swords and spears.

  It was as good a plan as they could make under the circumstances. But it would work only if he waited around and let them get that close. That didn’t look like the best thing he could do. The best thing he could do looked like disappearing now. So he did.

  He had practice moving quietly. Maybe he wasn’t quite quiet enough, or maybe one of them made a better woodsman than the rest. “There he goes, dammit!” somebody behind him called. “After him! He’s heading west.”

  “No need to chase him,” another voice said. This one was cold and calculating and deadly as a pitfall trap with a bottom full of upthrusting spears. If it wasn’t the Earl of Warwick’s voice, Richard would have been mightily surprised. It went on, “Make for the western edge of the cleared land beyond Bredestown, quick as you can. If you hurry, you can get there before him and keep him from sneaking into the woods.”

  Richard nodded to himself. Yes, that almost had to be Warwick. He thought fast, and he thought straight. They might be trouble if they interposed themselves between him and safety. They would be more trouble if he couldn’t get back into the woods before daybreak, but he thought he could. Bredestown didn’t lie that far upriver from New Hastings. Even after all these years, not much of Atlantis was settled.

  He had to get away now. He took advantage of every bush and every copse of trees. Before long, his eyes adapted to the moonlight again, and he could see farther and more plainly. But Warwick’s men would have the same edge, worse luck.

  Barking dogs told where they were, or where they might be. No dog barked around Richard for long. He still had plenty of his meaty bribes left. Those convinced the hounds of New Hastings he was a splendid fellow.

  Would Warwick have the wit to send someone into the woods to alert the unhappy men who’d gone after the younger Radcliffes? Richard’s lips skinned back from his teeth in a savage grin. If one of the noble’s men didn’t warn them he was around, he’d let them know himself.

  He didn’t go up the Brede, as he’d come down it. That was the shortest way back to the wild country, which also made it the way Warwick’s men were likeliest to take. All right—they were welcome to it. As long as he got into the trees before the sun rose, he was fine. He could lie up in a fern thicket and stay safe while they tramped by not ten feet from him.

  He had to cross a meadow to get to the wild wood. Cows turned their heads to stare at him: people didn’t belong out here at this time of night. Too right they don’t, he thought. But he made it back among the pines and redwoods and ferns, back to the cool dampness of the forest, back to the spicy scents that seemed as good to him as the odor of baking bread and better by far than the smells of the livestock brought here from England.

  The smell of burning wood led him to the fire Warwick’s troopers had set to warm themselves. It had died into embers now. They lay rolled in blankets, all but one who yawned and nodded and hit himself in the thigh with his fist to stay awake. Warwick hadn’t thought to warn them after all. He might be a good general, but he didn’t remember everything.

  Richard strung his bow. He shot the sentry first. He’d hoped for a clean, quiet kill, but the man let out a dreadful shriek when the arrow tore into his belly. The other soldiers sprang awake, grabbing for their weapons. Richard shot two of them, too, then slipped away.

  He’d hurt Warwick tonight. He’d hurt him badly, but he hadn’t killed him. Warwick was a man who would take a deal of killing.

  X

  Henry Radcliffe couldn’t believe Warwick would keep on gathering taxes after what happened with his father. Had the nobleman contented himself with going after the surviving Radcliffes, most of the settlers might have decided it was none of their affair and tried to get on with their lives. But Warwick acted as if there were no feud. And he soon brewed up a bigger one.

  More and more people fled into the woods. Richard began to worry. “We can’t feed them all,” he said. “Not enough game here to keep ’em eating.”

  “Then we have to fight Warwick straight up,” Henry said.

  “If it were just Warwick and his bully boys, we could do it. But he has settlers on his side, too,” his brother said. “I don’t want a war of settler against settler. It will leave bad blood for years.”

  “Bad blood’s already here,” Henry said. “Warwick’s started burning some of the farms and houses that belong to people on our side. And he’s giving others to his friends. Chances are that will make him more friends, too.”

  “Not everyone got away with a bow,” Richard complained.

  “Fine,” Henry said. “Do you want to give up?” Richard only glared at him.

  The next day, Bartholomew Smith came up from New Hastings with only the clothes on his back. “There’s a skeleton crew on the Rose,” the mate said. “They’re for us. They’ve gone out to
sea, far enough to keep Warwick’s wolves from surprising them.”

  “That would be better if we could work together with them,” Henry said.

  “Why can’t we?” Richard said. “Easy enough to go up and down the coast, out farther than the soldiers are likely to. But what comes after that?”

  “What comes after that?” Henry saw the answer as clearly as if God had whispered it in his ear. For all he knew, maybe God had. Words spilled out of him, a flood of them. His brother and the mate listened. The longer Henry talked, the wider their eyes got.

  At last, the fit left Henry. He slumped forward, exhausted. Richard leaned forward and set a hand on his shoulder. “We can do this. We will do this.” Then he said, “Father would be proud of you.” That was when Henry was sure he hadn’t been spouting nonsense.

  Bartholomew Smith said, “You sounded like a great captain, skipper—like somebody who’s won battles in the War of the Roses.”

  “I don’t want to sound like a captain. I don’t want to have to sound like one,” Henry said. “And I don’t care about roses, except I wish more of them grew here. If not for Warwick, I never would have worried about any of this.”

  “Well, then, he’s got a lot to answer for, by Our Lady,” Richard said. “Only thing is, he doesn’t know it yet.”

  Like his father, Henry Radcliffe was a leader of men. Richard had never much wanted to tell anyone what to do. He’d never wanted anyone else telling him what to do, either. No wonder wandering alone through lands no other man had ever seen suited him so well.

  Hurrying through the Atlantean woods with a dozen grim, angry, determined men at his back felt very different. Bartholomew Smith would have made a better leader, but everyone looked to Richard. He was Edward’s son. The magic had to be in him. They thought it did, anyhow.

  Maybe their thinking so would help make it true. He could hope so. He had to hope so. If it didn’t, he was only leading them into disaster.

  Farms above Bredestown were thin on the ground. Only men with some of the same hermit streak that ran so wide in Richard built on the edge of the wilderness. But Richard and his followers had no trouble coming out of the forest wherever they pleased. Warwick’s soldiers weren’t about to go in among the trees again. They defended a perimeter closer to the sea.

  “Go away!” shouted the first man whose house the raiders approached. “I don’t want anything to do with the quarrel. I just want to be left in peace.”

  “Will Warwick heed you if you say that?” Richard asked angrily.

  “No. All the more reason you should.”

  Richard felt the force of the embittered argument. He might have made it himself. But he couldn’t listen to it now, not unless he wanted to let his father down. “We have to fight him,” he said. “Otherwise, he’ll be king in truth over us. Do you want that?”

  “No. Don’t want you doing it, neither.”

  “Not me, by God!” Richard said, and said not a word about his brother. “If we want to live our own lives, we have to free the land of the Earl of Warwick. We have to, dammit! Then I can go back to the woods and make my wife wonder whether I’m ever coming home again. And that’s all I want to do. Don’t you understand? Warwick won’t leave you alone.”

  “He hasn’t done anything to me yet,” the man said. “When he does, that’s the time for me to worry about it.”

  “No.” Richard shook his head. “That’s when it’s too late to worry about it.” He turned to the men at his back. “Come on. We’ll find men who aren’t puling babes somewhere else.” We’d better, or we’re ruined, he thought.

  And they did. Some men could see the writing on the wall, unlike the blockhead at the first farm where they stopped. Some had kin whom Warwick’s hounds had already despoiled. And some, like Richard himself, didn’t want anybody telling them what to do. “I don’t much like you,” one of those told Richard as he grabbed his bow and slung a full quiver over his shoulder, “but you’re the ague, and that Warwick, he’s the plague.”

  “Too bloody right he is,” Richard said. “I don’t care if you like me or not. Put up with me till we dig the God-cursed badger out of his sett. Then you can go back to thinking I’m a fool, and I’ll go off into the woods and forget all about you. Is it a bargain?”

  “It is,” the farmer answered. “Not the best one, maybe, but the best I’m likely to get.”

  Richard wondered whether they would have to fight before they got to New Hastings. They did. Maybe one of the men who didn’t want to fight on his side slipped away and carried word to Warwick’s soldiers. Maybe they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. However that was, a clump of them spotted Richard’s ragtag force as it came out from behind some trees. The troopers wasted no time figuring out who was who. They strung their bows with frantic haste and started shooting.

  “Back into the wood!” Richard cried. “The trunks will give us cover!” They would need it, too; a man screamed as he was hit. The soldiers had mailshirts and helmets and swords. Only a few of Richard’s men had swords; most made do with belt knives or axes. None of them wore armor. If Warwick’s troopers came to close quarters, they would slaughter their foes. They knew it, too. Some of them lumbered forward while others kept shooting to disrupt the Atlanteans’ archery.

  How fast could a man in a byrnie cover a couple of hundred yards? Not fast enough to keep the settlers from shooting before they got to the edge of the copse. Rings of iron kept glancing hits out, but an arrow that struck square would punch through any armor made.

  Another Atlantean shrieked. He fell, clawing at the arrow in his throat. His blood rivered out, hideously red. Still another farmer took a clothyard shaft an inch above the nose and died before he knew it.

  One of Richard’s arrows caught a soldier in the left shoulder. Though it got through, it did less harm than the bowman would have liked. The soldier yelled, but he broke off the shaft and kept coming.

  “Away!” Richard shouted. “This isn’t the place for a big fight!” He didn’t want the men to empty their quivers here. Archery was the one skill they had that let them confront Warwick’s fighters. Without arrows, they could only run when armored men came after them. We’ll, we’ve got arrows, and we’re running anyhow, Richard thought glumly. He misliked the omen.

  They had to leave their wounded behind. That was no good. Lord only knew what the angry troopers would do to them. But Richard didn’t see what else he could do. Trying to drag them along would have slowed the whole band. If the soldiers caught up with them, the rising would die before it ever came to life.

  “You should have planned this better,” one of his men panted as they trotted north and east.

  Richard looked at him. “What makes you think I planned it at all? Those bastards were there, so we fought them. We hurt them, too.”

  “And they hurt us,” the settler answered. “Worse, I daresay.”

  “That’s what fighting’s all about, Peter,” Richard agreed. “When we get the battle we want, we’ll hurt them worse.”

  “How do you know?” Peter asked. Richard told him how he knew—or how he hoped, rather. The man trotted on for a couple of paces, then nodded. So did Richard, thoughtfully. If anything happens to him before the big fight, I have to knock him over the head. Can’t give him the chance to spill his guts to Warwick’s men.

  One thing: men without mailshirts could run faster than men with mailshirts could chase them. After Richard’s followers pulled away, he relaxed—a little. He still had a decent-sized force behind him, and he was still moving in the direction he wanted to go. It could have been worse. But it would have been better if they’d reached the seaside unbloodied.

  Black midnight, blacker than the Earl of Warwick’s heart. Henry Radcliffe and Bartholomew Smith crouched on the beach, a couple of miles south of New Hastings. “You’re sure they know the signal?” Henry said.

  “They’d better,” the mate answered, which wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

 
Henry set dry pine needles and other tinder on the sand. He clashed flint and steel above them again and again till they caught. No matter how many times you did it, starting a fire was rarely quick or easy. He breathed on the flames when he finally got them going, coaxing them to brighter life. Smith fed them more fuel. At last, the two men had a fire that gave some warmth against the chilly breeze.

  They’d picked this spot not least because it was as close as they could come to New Hastings without being seen from the settlement. All the same, Bartholomew Smith sounded worried when he said, “What if they spy it?”

  “Then we run,” Henry answered. “In the darkness, we’ll lose them.” They would probably lose each other, too, but they could find each other after they’d shaken off Warwick’s men: after daylight, if need be. He went on, “But Warwick’s eyes should be on the north—that’s where Richard is.” He hoped that was where his brother was. That was where Richard was supposed to be.

  Smith peered out to sea. “Where’s the bloody boat? The longer we have to wait here—”

  “Don’t worry,” Henry said. “They have to see the fire. They have to put men into the boat. They have to row ashore. They—”

  Sand grated under a keel. “Come on,” someone called. “What are you waiting for?” Bartholomew Smith and Henry both laughed, in relief as much as for any other reason. They hurried to the boat and scrambled in.

  As soon as Henry had a shifting deck under his feet again instead of the dull, unmoving dirt, he felt like himself. Richard was welcome to the woods and the oil thrushes and the mountains. Henry came alive on the ocean. Clambering up from the boat and over the Rose’s gunwale made him feel ten years younger.

  “Where now, skipper?” a sailor asked.

  “North,” Henry answered at once. “North past the lights of New Hastings.” He could see them from the Rose, where a swell of land had blocked his view from shore. “Then we anchor till we see just where we have to go.”