by B A Simmons
“Sir.”
Shaw saluted and ran off again. However, no sooner had he done so than another runner arrived. He was no Punisher, but Joshua knew him; the entire island knew this young man.
“Mister Joshua, I’m—”
Joshua put his hand up to stop him. “First of all, it’s just Joshua. Don’t add any titles in front. Second, I know who you are Mister Roland Apgood. What do you need?”
“I’m here to tell you that the militia has fallen back to Harrisville. The Falcon soldiers are closing in now. They’ll soon find the road to the mine and cut Cap’n Edward and his forces off from the town. The people are scared. Can you spare any men?”
“Did you send a runner to Edward?”
“Yes, one of our best.”
“He’ll likely fall back. Damital, this is why they landed over here. They wanted to draw us out.”
Joshua stopped a soldier walking past him toward a trail. The man limped and his right hand was wrapped in a bloody cloth, yet he saluted when his officer called him.
“Evans. Get down to Sergeant Holcomb and tell him to make a strategic withdrawal back here to the cave. Hurry!”
Evans ran despite the obvious pain. Joshua strode back to the entrance of the cave, Roland walking next to him. “Apgood, get back to Harrisville and keep the east gate clear for us. We’re coming. Sister— I mean, Missus McClain!”
The Reverend Mother turned her attention from a wounded Punisher to the impertinent officer.
“Missus McClain, we are going to pull back to Harrisville before we get trapped out here. I ask you one last time to come. We can try to cave in the entrance so that no one can enter—”
“I have already given you my answer. We cannot be without the cave and we cannot allow its desecration.”
Joshua nodded with a sigh. “Can you at least spare a couple of your sisters to accompany the wounded?”
The stout woman contemplated the idea a while before responding. “Yes.” She turned to one of the other women standing nearby. “Tell Gwen and Sarah to come out please.”
A dozen Punishers, most of them with wounds either bandaged or open, began collecting in the open area around the cave entrance. A few whole men arrived with them as assistants; all of them looked to Joshua for information. After Gwen Smith and Sarah Engleman came out of the cave, Joshua spoke loudly to all.
“We’re pulling back before the Falcons cut us off from Harrisville. I know we could have held them here but withdrawing from this fight will help us win the whole war. Help the wounded back and then set up the defenses behind the east gate. Go!”
The men snapped into action. Someone produced a hand cart into which the invalid wounded were placed after the bodies of their slain brothers. Sarah and Gwen continued to help them as able-bodied Punishers pushed the cart down the road toward Harrisville.
Joshua scrambled down a trail past the retreating soldiers, passing on his orders as he went. Just before it opened into the southern pasture, he found Sergeant Holcomb, his empty right hand torn and bleeding, his left arm still holding his shield. The burly man blocked spear after spear with the shield as he called out to the men to walk backwards. Most had already cleared out, but a spearman named Thorsted remained on Holcomb’s left, jabbing away at any Falcon who dared get too near. At that moment, despite its deep and gruff nature, Holcomb’s voice sounded soothing and calm, as though he were lulling his men to sleep.
Joshua drew his sword and placed himself beside Holcomb’s wounded arm. He parried a hard thrust, then another and a third before deciding he didn’t like the spearman. When the spear point came at his head for the fourth time, Joshua ducked under it and jumped forward. For a moment, he saw the panic in the Falcon spearman’s face before focusing on imbedding the blade of his sword into the man’s neck.
The sudden offensive action caused the Falcon next to him to pull back and refocus his aim. It was a mistake he did not live to regret. A spear thrust from Thorsted found its place in this soldier’s eye.
Yet even as these two infantrymen fell, replacements were not far behind and Joshua again found himself parrying spear thrusts. He tried his rushing maneuver again, but these men were not so easily taken. They rushed backward as he came at them, and Joshua was not so foolish as to let himself be drawn away from his own men.
They continued to fall back even as they inflicted death and injury upon the Falcon vanguard. Understanding what was at stake, Joshua, Thorsted and Holcomb retreated as slowly as they dared, finding the balance between their own deaths at the hands of the Falcon infantry and leading the enemy to the rally point at the birthing cave.
A voice sounded behind them, “Sir, clear out!”
Responding to the voice, the three men turned and rushed back into the clearing where they found a line of Punisher crossbowmen waiting. As the crossbows fired into the approaching Falcons, Joshua took stock of the situation. The clearing in front of the birthing cave stood deserted save for the few Punishers fighting back the Falcons and two sisters of the Matriarch’s Circle who guarded the cave entrance.
“Holcomb, get all these men to the town!” Joshua ordered. He then turned and ran to the two women, snatching an abandoned shield up from the ground as he did. “Get inside!”
“We stand a better chance of survival if you are not here, so please be on your way,” was the response he received.
Joshua turned, sword and shield in hand, and watched Holcomb and the others continue the retreat down the road. Falcon infantry entered the clearing but moved forward with caution. They fanned out forming lance units of two shieldmen with a spear or crossbow behind for support. One of these units moved between Joshua and his men.
He knew he had to be aggressive to survive. Side-stepping to the right, he threw a feint at the shieldman on that side before pouncing back to attack the man on the left. He parried the spear that came at him from behind the enemy shields while punching with his own shield. The shieldman reeled backward from the blow, exposing his companion on Joshua’s right. As the rear spearman tried again to skewer him, Joshua used his own shield to block the spear while driving the point of his sword into the shieldman’s exposed ribs.
With their lance broken, the remaining men fell back from Joshua who took up a defensive posture between the gathering Falcon army and the women at the entrance of the birthing cave. He caught a crossbow bolt with the shield and watched the enemy soldiers form a line around him. The birds on their shields scowled at him as much as their countenances. Their weapons threatened his existence in conjunction with the Iyty slurs leveled at him.
His experience, gained over a lifetime of warfare and bloodshed, told him this was the end. He faced immediate attack from at least twenty men, each with the potential to be a better fighter than himself. Yet, his experience also told him that he was likely more skilled at killing than any one of them. If he could devise a way to take them on one or even two at a time, he might live through this.
Joshua grinned his defiance at them, aiming the smile at the fiercest looking of the Falcons. A young soldier on the end of the line took Joshua’s focused gaze as an opportunity to attack. He rushed in with spear and shield, aiming at the Punisher’s unhelmeted head. Joshua saw the attack from the periphery and moved in fluid, practiced motion to duck under the spear and sweep his sword across the young soldier’s ankles.
The soldier screamed and fell at Joshua’s feet. His hands no longer held spear or shield but grasped at his severed tendons. Writhing in pain, he served as an example to his comrades of how not to approach Joshua. A dozen or more of them rushed him at once and again, Joshua went on the offensive. He slashed and stabbed with the sword while blocking and bashing with the shield.
He felt a pain in his right thigh, another in his left foot and a spear narrowly missed his left eye, catching his ear instead. These wounds incensed Joshua more and sent him into a suicidal assault upon his foes.
“For the Brotherhood!” he screamed. They were words he had not u
ttered for many years, yet at that moment they felt most appropriate.
He felt his sword connect with flesh and armor, meting out pain and death with each stroke. He was hit hard; not by a weapon or shield, but a man himself. Joshua fell backward with the tackle, letting go of his sword and drawing his dagger. After driving the short blade into the man’s kidney, Joshua struggled to free himself.
More blows landed on his body, kicks to the head and spear thrusts to his legs and arm. They ripped his shield from his left arm and several of them held that limb. He punched one of them with his right hand before it too was restrained and his body was pulled up by the mob. His legs felt useless, he was bleeding from each limb as well as his nose. Yet, he took satisfaction in his misery. He saw at least eight of them on the ground, some motionless, others crying out while clutching bleeding body parts.
A man stood out from the mob before Joshua. It was the fierce-looking soldier he’d sneered at just a few moments before. He felt as if his entire life had been summed up in those moments. The soldier gave his own sneer and drew a bronze dagger from its sheath. Joshua understood this expression, knew he was not to be given a quick death and braced himself for the pain he was about to experience.
Like something from a strange dream, a dark hole appeared on the soldier’s forehead. The sneer fell from his face as his body crumpled to the ground. The sudden death shocked everyone there. They began looking around as if to find Ayday pointing his fingers and issuing sudden death upon them.
They saw instead a woman holding a strange white hand cannon. At least, they figured it must be a cannon, for it had a muzzle and stock, though they saw no smoke and heard no report. Missus McClain aimed the weapon at another of the soldiers. A flash of light appeared from the muzzle and another hole was burned; this one through the soldier’s leg, causing him to cry out in excruciating agony.
“Release him!” she demanded.
Whether they understood her Engle-speaking tongue or just the threatening manner in which she spoke, they obeyed and dropped their prisoner. Retrieving their own dead and wounded, they backed away from the cave entrance.
Joshua recognized the weapon. It was the same as that which adorned Edward’s tavern back at Southport. A Shintoku laser rifle; an ancient weapon from the days of the first humans. Yet how the sisters had managed to keep this one in working condition puzzled Joshua. He had little time to ponder on the matter as his focus turned to helping the sisters drag him into the cave. The significance of this was not lost on him, for he remembered well the warnings the islanders had given the Punishers about the cave. He knew as they pulled him through the entrance, that he was the first adult man to enter the birthing cave in hundreds of years.
10
Deadly Passage
A nna emerged from the birthing cave with her child. She looked happy and as beautiful as when Rob first met her. The child was the perfect, though younger-looking image of Mark, but it was to Rob she gave him. He held the baby in his arms, rocking him, and feeling as content as if he was Rob’s own child.
The boat rocked Rob out of his dream. It was not the natural pitch and toss of the sea, but something violent. The hull shook as though colliding with rocks and Rob expected water to begin pouring in to drown him. In truth, he felt such a death would not only be justice for his failures, but a sweet release from his misery.
“Cosa sta succedendo?” he asked a passing sailor.
The sailor moved on without responding. The importance of some task outweighed answering the poorly spoken questions of a prisoner. Chained to the mast below decks, Rob had no chance of discovering the problem for himself. If it turned out to be a ship-sinking creature, Rob was in a prime position to be among the first to die. No being cast adrift with only his enemy for company this time.
A Falcon sailor stuck his head down the hatch and spoke in a harsh whisper, “Non si muova!”
Everyone stopped. The hull rattled as something large grated against it. Rob realized he was holding his breath and let it out with his mouth open wide. He looked as if he was yawning. The rattling continued on the opposite side of the ship before rounding the stern. Several minutes of silence passed, broken only by the normal creaking of wood swaying in the wind and waves. The sailors relaxed and sighed in relief.
One of them dropped the coil of rope he’d been holding, “Era troppo vicino.”
The hull buckled behind him. Water sprayed into the hold as the ship lurched from the impact. Men shouted in confusion; orders and exclamations of fear. Rob felt cold and looked down to see water gathering around his feet.
A man appeared before him, shouting in his face and pointing at the men attempting to patch up the leaking hull. “Vai ad aiutarli!”
Several seconds passed before Rob realized that the boatswain had just released him from the chains. He stumbled forward and took hold of a brace, assisting the sailor trying to place it against the hull. After this he took a spot at the pump, relieving a beleaguered sailor who bled from his nose and mouth.
None of the them questioned Rob’s assistance, nor did they attempt to control his movements. When another sailor came to relieve him at the pump, Rob moved aside and looked for the next task. Another impact caused the ship to shudder and the leak became worse.
“We have to stop the attack.” Rob muttered to himself.
Wading through the now shin-deep water, he made his way to the ladder leading up to the hatch. He looked to see if any of the sailors had noticed him; perhaps fearing he was making an escape attempt. All were busy trying to save the ship. Rob climbed and hoped that his efforts would not be misinterpreted.
Above deck, Rob found the situation no better. Men scrambled from side to side with weapons and on occasion, threw a harpoon or fired a swivel gun down into the water. Rob followed them to the port side and looked down into the deep blue waves. A large shadow swam there, unknown and indescribable to his mind. He watched it swim clear of the ship on that side before making a leisurely turn and come charging back at the ship.
Rob braced himself against the gunwale, but the impact sent a more foolish man into the water.
“Uomo in mare!”
The shout was repeated, but no other immediate action was taken. Rob wasted no time. He acted as a man possessed by some spirit other than his own. He snatched a harpoon from a nearby sailor and dove into the waves. The sailor hadn’t gone far and was desperate to swim his way back to the relative safety of his ship. Yet Rob did not swim to save him.
Diving under the waves, Rob saw the shadow of the monster determined to sink them. As he supposed, it had detected their splashes and now came to investigate the fruit shaken from the tree. However large its shadowy shape appeared from above the waves, it loomed larger still while cleaving its way through the water with enormous paddle-like, clawed limbs. Its head and tail swung back and forth in alternating fluid motions.
Rob resurfaced for air, noting as he did, the crews attempts to save him and their own sailor by throwing out ropes. The sailor now clung to one of these calling for his comrades to pull him up. As his body cleared the surface of the sea, the water below him boiled and the creature breached with jaws open wide.
The sailor was cut in half by the teeth. Rob dove under again and fought against the waves that emanated from the sea monster’s reentry. He could not catch it before it swam away again, having swallowed only half of the tidbit. However, Rob intended to give it all of him, plus a harpoon.
The blood issuing from the torso that now bobbed near Rob would bring the creature back again. Rob waited, finding himself buoyant enough to float beneath the red cloud but sink no farther into the depths. The monster had lined itself up again and rushed forward, eager for another taste of human. Whether it recognized Rob as an entity separate from the sailor’s remains was a ponderance that flashed for just a moment in Rob’s mind.
In the next moment he curled himself up into a ball holding the harpoon haft with all his strength. The point stuck up toward the
blood-stained surface like an arrow. Just as the creature’s jaws opened to swallow him, Rob closed his eyes. He expected to feel some pain; hoped it wouldn’t be much. He expected everything to go black and blank after that. He expected his death to coincide with that of the creature, thus saving the rest of his captors.
Yet he did not die. He did not even feel pain. The jaws closed upon him, and as he’d planned, the harpoon point became embedded in the roof of the creature’s mouth. Rob felt the pressure of the mouth closing, but this was followed by pressure from creature’s throat as it attempted to expel Rob and his weapon from it. The pressure snapped the harpoon haft and forced Rob clear of the jaws which now hung open at an awkward angle.
Reaching the surface again, Rob swam toward the hobbled vessel that was his prison. Yet as the crew hauled him aboard, he was treated as anything but a prisoner. Several of the crew laughed and cheered, slapping him on the back. He was allowed to sit on a crate and they threw a dry blanket over him.
Yet the captain and first mate dispersed the crew with their voices, sending them to help get the ship back into shape. To Rob’s eyes they seemed neither happy nor angry, just content with not having to contend anymore with the sea monster.
“Capitano, parli Englese?” Rob asked.
The captain stared at Rob as if he could not believe such a man existed. He shook his head and walked back to the quarter deck. The first mate held a hand out to Rob and pulled him back onto his feet. He escorted him to the captain’s cabin which, to Rob’s surprise, was spartan in its décor. This Falcon captain was not from a wealthy family nor was he prone to making himself appear better than his crew.
Quartering Rob in the captain’s cabin became both a privilege and a punishment. It was the only part of the ship with a lock on the door, and the door was kept locked. On the other hand, he was fed well and slept in the captain’s bed. The two windows allowed him some comfort in looking out over the seas. Yet, with the exception of a few bollywogs and a spiked manta, the view was a monotonous blue.