We sit by the great roots that once anchored the tree to the earth. I’m confident we can hide here and quickly if necessary. Delphine helps me take off my bag and I take out my supplies. When I untie my tunic, blood and mud cake my leg. I need water to clean the wound.
“Delphine, can you walk a little way over there—” I point away from the direction of the voices, which have been getting steadily louder and are now punctuated with gunfire, “—and see if you can find water?”
Delphine is gone for what seems like hours. I’m cold in the shade and anxious about her safety and the fast approaching, unknown voices, and then I’m terrorized as I re-live the attack. I’m certain now it is Yanx’s army I can hear. Delphine falling from her horse and the animal attack has cost us dearly. I can’t believe they have caught up to us already.
I wonder where Millie is. Praise the Gods, I hope she finds us soon and I hope she has all the horses.
I’m now able to pick out individual words as they echo through the forest. Yanx’s men must be almost upon me. I want to call for Delphine but I don’t want to draw their attention. As I strain to listen for her, I notice the sound of someone moving through the forest. I don’t think they are on horseback because they seem to move too slowly. I hold my breath and wait, listening. Twigs snap to my right, breaking underfoot, and I can smell tobacco smoke.
Then from behind a trunk ten cubits away, I see Delphine’s face. She looks scared. She raises one finger and presses it to her lips, and then she fades back behind the tree. As quietly as I can, I shuffle backwards into the mass of roots behind me. Dank and rotting pieces of the once great tree break off in my hair and against my skin. I’m hunched over and deep within the rotting heart of the tree now.
The man walks by so close I can make out the texture of his linen trousers and the detail of his woven leather sandals. A rifle rests casually in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The shotgun is with my pack and I carefully reach for it.
I hold my breath and pray again. I wonder if he is a scout for Yanx’s army or some poor soul trying to get away from them. My question is answered when he whistles like a bird and immediately someone a short distance away repeats the signal. They are moving in formation. It must be Yanx’s army. The man moves back toward the responding whistle. I wait a few minutes and then edge slowly out from within the tree.
Delphine moves cautiously back to me and she shows me she’s found water. We embrace quickly, and then I pour half the flask over my wound. The beast has left two rows of puncture marks on my leg, some ragged and still bleeding. I dab healing balm onto the superficial wounds and grit my teeth as I sew the larger of the wounds closed. Delphine watches with fascination. We share the rest of the water as the sun dips low in the sky.
“It will be night soon.”
I shiver at the thought of being exposed out here, just the two of us. I appraise my dirty, bloodied tunic and decide against wearing it. I pull the spare tunic from my pack and put it on.
“I hope Millie is okay. I’ve seen no sign of her. What should we do now? Should we double back and try to find her?”
We are two or three days ride from my uncle’s house. Yanx’s army is close. I think we should press on and try to stay ahead of them. It’s the only way out of this.
“How can we possibly hope to stay ahead of them without our horses? What about Millie?”
Millie has a better chance of staying alive than we do. I think she will most likely head back to the winery. She’s probably already left.
Delphine is right that our best chance of getting out of here alive is to go to her uncle’s house, no matter how dangerous the journey is. We would not last long in the forest by ourselves. Although I have a nagging thought that Millie would not abandon us to fend for ourselves with Yanx so close. I wish we could find her.
I still have the books at least.
Delphine smiles and pulls the books from her pack to show me. I struggle to smile back. She writes once more in her notebook.
I’ve had a good idea. We can steal a couple of horses, and ride through the night. We’ll be able to pull ahead of Yanx and the army.
“Steal horses! From where?”
The tightness in my chest grows as Delphine describes her plan to steal horses from Yanx’s camp. The hand of death is hovering over us now. I do not know how we will survive this.
“Maybe we should just wait until the army passes us by?”
We have no food or shelter and once they leave, we will have no opportunity to get a horse. We won’t survive. What if the beast comes back? I need to get these books to the island.
I realize I have no choice but to agree with Delphine and her foolhardy plan. To stay here means death.
We sit side by side as the weak sunlight fades and the forest becomes dark. I can hear the clatter and menacing rumble of the army. They are close now. We smell the fires they have lit and their commotion unsettles the night. The depraved noises stir something deep within me. All of my senses are alive.
I squeeze Delphine’s hand and we both stand up. It’s time.
Chapter Eight
We pick our way slowly through the trees until we see the glow of fires in the distance. Delphine helps me as I limp carefully over the uneven forest floor. The men and women at the camp are raucous and unafraid. There are no lookouts posted. Some are singing crude songs, others are laughing and brawling.
I spot a group of fifty horses tethered together on the edge of the camp: “Over there.” I point them out to Delphine.
We steal slowly and silently through the darkness until the horses are only ten cubits away. No one has seen us. The horses nearest to us shuffle backwards as we approach and one whinnies loud enough to startle me. I hold back in the shadows with my gun and prepare to shoot.
Delphine steps cautiously into the light cast by the fires and I watch her silhouette edge closer towards the horses. I hold my breath and run my finger over the trigger of the gun. When Delphine reaches the horses without detection, I exhale deeply and draw in another breath, watching as she reaches up a hand to calm the skittish horse closest to her.
Then, from some dark place, a wicked growl erupts. The noise of the dog barking and snarling alerts me before I set eyes on it. I realize with a shock that Delphine can’t hear the dog coming for her. I scramble in the darkness to find something to throw near her to alert her of the danger.
I find a stick and lob it towards her, but it falls unnoticed behind her.
The dog is fast and now it’s almost upon Delphine.
A shout escapes my lips before I fire a round into its body. The dog falls heavily at her feet and she looks back at me, stunned.
The shot is loud and for a short moment afterwards there is total silence. Then the army rises up as one and surges towards us. The horses are panicking, looking for an escape. I silently will Delphine to move faster. Hurry! She grabs the closest horse, untethers it, and pulls herself onto its back. They are covering the distance to me quickly and I climb up behind her.
Shots are being fired in our direction. People are shouting. There are more dogs, barking and snarling.
It’s chaos.
I hold on to Delphine as the horse runs blindly through the night. Branches reach out and tear at our faces in the dark.
We ride for a long time. At first the horse is galloping frantically. But with each passing chain, we slow, we listen, and we breathe. Thankfully, miraculously, I realize that they are no longer pursing us. There are no more shots. My fast beating heart slows and I tap Delphine on the shoulder. She turns. In the moonlight, her eyes are red from crying.
“We can stop now,” I say. “I can’t hear anyone coming after us.”
We ride on slowly for a few more moments and then come to a halt. I wince from the pain of the dismount. The horse has a strong, muscular body and a proud face. There is a white diamond above his nose and I stroke it gently, thanking him for saving us. Delphine leans against a tree and writes.
We have to keep going.
I nod wearily. She is right.
The days and nights merge into one as we push through our fatigue. Riding without a saddle for days on end takes a heavy toll—the mental and physical exertion is intense. We take turns sitting behind each other and closing our burning eyes. Every so often I hear the army; gunshots and violent voices ring out loudly, but we pull ahead. I search for Millie as we ride. I think I see her in the shadows. I hear her voice on the wind. But we do not find her.
We finally reach Millie’s place in the middle of the third day. We are dirty, hungry and exhausted. Prue hears us and runs out to meet us. She looks at us with concern as she opens the gate to let us in. I’m not surprised. We are a sight; I think I’ve lost half my body weight and my hair is knotted over my head.
“Millie?” she breathes out her daughter’s name.
“She’s not here?” I ask, my voice choking in my throat. I know the answer to my question before I ask it. Prue falls to her knees in the dirt. Delphine dismounts and wraps her arms around her.
“Prue, I’m so sorry. We’ve been looking for her,” I say. My words fall flat. Morris appears in the doorway and surveys the scene silently for a moment.
“All of you, come inside,” he says. He helps Prue into the house and prepares tea and slices of bread with cheese while I speak. I drink the mug of hot, sweet tea gratefully and give them a jumbled account of how we separated from Millie and our journey back alone. Prue cries silently while I speak and I cannot face her.
“Our girl will be fine, Prudence,” says Morris when I finish. “She’s a survivor. She’ll be back soon I’m sure.”
“And what if she’s not?” asks Prue.
“I prefer not to dwell on the things we cannot change or control, love,” he says gently. “We have to have faith she will find her way back to us.” We all fall silent and study each other across the worn, smooth wooden table.
“Yanx and the army may be here before nightfall,” I interject grimly. “They were not far behind us. Should we…” My voice trails off.
I realize how grossly unprepared I am for a situation like this. Do we go underground before Millie returns? What if she comes back when we’ve barricaded ourselves in the cellar? In the silence that follows, Delphine snakes her hand under the table and takes mine in her own.
Morris is lost in thought until Prue rests her hand on his arm. Morris touches her face briefly and stands up, his chair scraping roughly against the ground.
“You’re right, son,” he says. He now aims his smile at me and my face reddens. I am undeserving of his affection. “We must prepare for the enemy’s assault.”
We spend a couple of hours preparing the winery for the approaching onslaught. All the while I search the horizon for any sign of Millie. Every time I gaze toward New York City, Prue mirrors me. The futility of our hope causes me to ache like I’ve never experienced before.
We begin the fortification by adding a lock to the high gate that completes the palisade around the property. Morris bolts closed the doors and windows of his home and we move valuable items into the underground cellar behind the house. The cellar is huge and bottles of wine line the walls, together with jars of food and large flasks of water.
We lead the stolen horse and the Graces’ last remaining horse into the cellar. The horses must sense our fear as they whinny and flick their ears back and forth nervously. I stroke the white diamond on the stolen horse’s face, and he calms a little. Last, Prue calls the dogs and they follow her obediently into the darkness below.
We gather in front of the Graces’ home and Prue takes both my hand and Delphine’s hand. Morris steps closer and takes our other hands, so we form a small circle. We look at one another quietly, summoning strength from our unity.
Over by the closest patch of forest, about fifty chains away, we notice smoke rising from the trees. Gunshots ring out loudly now. Dread folds itself over me, cloying and heavy in its encumbrance. We stand, the four of us shoulder to shoulder, and scan the horizon one last time looking for Millie. Then we enter the cellar, closing the heavy metal doors behind us.
We are plunged into darkness. Prue lights a candle with a flint and dried leaves as fuel, her face illuminated by the paltry yellow glow. Morris closes a complicated locking mechanism and places his hand flat on the closed doors, whispering something to himself.
I’m surprised to discover a current of fresh air from the back of the cellar. I bend down to see a narrow opening, lower than my knees. In the opening there is nothing but blackness. “This was an underground cave,” says Morris. “We widened it and added the fortified doors. I’m not sure where that opening leads but the fresh air has helped us during more than one attack.”
How long will we be down here?
“It depends on how long it takes for Yanx and the army to move on.”
I catch Morris’ face before he turns to busy himself with the animals. He looks unbearably sad. Delphine requests a candle and settles herself against the opposite wall with her books. Prue sits on a chair by the small opening at the back with her eyes closed. She is crying. I sit by the doors and listen for Yanx. The four of us are sitting as far away from each other as possible. Millie is the vast ocean between us.
It does not take long for the army to arrive. The thrum of their horses and their war cries are muffled through the thick metal doors but their proximity is unmistakable. They are all around us. Morris stands next to me now, listening to the destruction of his home.
The palisade is the first to go. There is a loud crash, followed by a series of subsequent crashes as they pull it—post by post—to the ground. I picture them tumbling like giant dominoes. Then they are swarming over the winery. There is violent banging and voices calling loudly to one another.
“That’s them trying to get in to the house. It won’t take them long to break down the door,” says Morris in his quiet way. I’m not sure what to say to him. I want to apologize.
The first thud against the metal doors takes me by surprise and I leap backwards. Morris places an arm around me and we step forward together, standing side by side at the entrance to the cellar. They continue to charge at the doors, trying to break them down. My heart seems to stop with every thud then restart only when I realize the doors are still intact.
After some time, the assault against the cellar stops. We press our ears to the door and listen. The voices are fading. It sounds as though they are finally moving on.
Prue joins us at the door. She holds her candle on a small plate and it has almost burnt right down, the wax a gnarled puddle.
“It’s quiet outside,” says Prue.
“Should we open the doors and take a look?” I reach out to touch the door: “It’s hot!”
“God damn!” cries Morris. “They’ve gone and lit the place up.”
“A fire?” I ask.
“Yes son, a fire. We’ve got no choice but to wait this one out.”
The cellar seems to grow impossibly hot and we sit by the small opening at the back, gratefully breathing in the cooler air. The animals are stressed by the heat but we give them water and calm them as best we can. My brow drips with sweat and I take long mouthfuls of the lukewarm water that Prue presses into my hands.
“We’ve been here before,” she says. “We’ve been attacked before. We’ve never been burnt down though.”
“I’m sorry Prue. I wish we could have done something.”
There is nothing we could have done. They outnumbered us. We would all be dead now if we tried to fight them.
I read Delphine’s note to myself and pass it to Prue. She reads the note and pulls Delphine towards her, kissing her hair.
Morris reads the note next. “You’re right Delphine. There’s nothing we could have done,” he says. I’m angry but I’m not sure why. I turn from them and walk back to the blisteringly hot door. It is unbearable.
“Can we survive in here? What if the fire keeps burning?” I ask no one in p
articular. They stare at me but no one answers.
We spend the night in the cellar. I sleep deeply and dreamlessly until a loud scraping sound jolts me awake. I open my eyes to the sun pouring through a crack in the heavy metal doors. Morris is peering through the gap and then, ever so cautiously, opens the doors further. Prue and Delphine are next to him and I scramble to my feet and follow them out.
Outside is a world unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The ground is black and charred from the fire that ravaged the winery. Fine ash swirls and rains down on us, choking our every breath. Where the Graces’ home once stood is a pile of smoldering rubble. I hear Prue’s sharp intake of breath as we stand mournfully before her home.
My eyes burn from the residual smoke and I rub them, tears snaking down my cheeks. I need space from the others and move away, surveying the damage inflicted by Yanx’s army. The winery has been obliterated. Everything is black or gone, taken by the men or the fire. One dog is barking frantically from the other side of the destroyed house and I find myself drawn to the sound.
I am the first to reach the dog and what I see causes me to bend over and throw up. The dog is running in circles, barking like a mad thing at the twisted, scorched horse’s carcass that has been left by Yanx and the army. The wind carries the smell of death, drifting deeply and perversely into my psyche. A burnt quarrel protrudes from the animal’s chest and the horse’s hooves, remarkably intact, are ghoulishly still attached to charred limbs. Morris arrives next and puts his hand on my back. Then he moves closer, bending down to examine the horse more closely.
“It’s Lucky,” he says over his shoulder. The tears in my eyes become real as I mourn the fallen creature. Overcome, I turn and slam my hands into a black, crumbling wall. Delphine pulls me into an embrace. We are both crying now.
“It’s Millie’s, isn’t it?” asks Prue in a cold voice.
Morris nods, the burnt quarrel in his hands. “Why would Yanx care about Millie?” Morris says, his face stricken.
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