The Children of Archipelago

by B A Simmons

“You’re alive!” Brandt Engleman said with a smile to Riley. He placed himself under the opposite shoulder from Pete.

  “Nice to see you too,” Pete told Brandt, but his smile was no smaller than his young cousin’s.

  “Pete?! What are you doing here?” Mark Engleman said as he stepped out onto the street. The elder Mark, patriarch of the family, wept at seeing his nephews. Both Pete and Riley were brought into the house and placed into chairs. Food was shoved into their faces and questions in their ears. Pete remained quiet while Riley found difficulty in chewing, swallowing and talking at the same time.

  Pete kept looking at Lisette, who occupied herself with keeping some semblance of order among the chaos in her house. He knew what she must be wondering. It was impossible she knew already, yet she seemed too busy to be bothered by the absence of her husband.

  Pete flinched in pain when a hand was placed on his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were hurt,” Mark said.

  “It’s alright, Uncle Mark.”

  Pete stood and beckoned his uncle to follow him outside. Out of earshot, Pete let his smile disappear.

  “John was captured,” He blurted out. “He was three yards from me and I couldn’t save him.”

  Tears welled up, though Pete fought them back. Mark embraced him, taking care to avoid the wounded left shoulder.

  “It’s not your fault. You brought Riley back, didn’t you?”

  Pete shook his head, “John protected him. I was…”

  “You saved your brother when John could not. I know John wouldn’t have let himself be captured without ensuring Riley’s safety. He must have known he was safe with you there or he would have fought to the death.”

  “I’ll get him back. I promise. Please, tell Lisette… I’ll get him back.”

  “I’ll tell her. You don’t have to. You just rest and care for that shoulder. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  “Can you tell my da that I’m back. Or…”

  Pete saw his uncle’s countenance fall at the mention of his brother, Tim. Pete’s tears began falling.

  “He stayed in Port John to defend it. He did not come out with the rest of the militia.”

  Into this scene of emotion came Raymond Jones and Lewis Johnson. They paused after Pete and Mark saw them, allowing them a moment to compose themselves.

  “Captain Pete,” Lewis said. “We heard you were here and would like you to report on the circumstances of that fact.”

  “Even now, Lewis, you can’t help being a lawyer,” Mark said.

  “I am sorry, but the battle is not over.”

  Pete sniffed, and nodded. He left his family and walked with the councilmen to the courthouse at the center of Harrisville. There, surrounded by anxious and depressed faces, he made his report. Norman Shipley, council president, spoke solemn words as those assembled listened.

  “We’ve lost many good men, both native islander and foreign mercenary. Among the missing and presumed dead, Roger Cunningham, John Cooper, Joshua… does he have a surname?”

  “None that he’s ever told anyone,” Edward replied.

  “Joshua, Tim Engleman, both Bert and Nell FitzHugh, and both Hugo and Max Claythorne,” Shipley continued. “To add to our troubles, we still have no word or sign of Rob Engleman, or anyone else aboard the Entdecker. And Captain Pete tells us that not only is the Alphina heavily damaged and sailing to Isle de James for help, but the Old Man is destroyed.”

  “Tim and Richard were the only crew aboard, but they alone are a grave loss,” Pete said.

  “Wait, where’s Charlie?” Lewis Johnson asked.

  Edward answered, “He refuses to leave the wall. I must be honest with you. I would rather be out there with him. The enemy could assault the town at any moment.”

  “We must know where we stand. Captain Edward, how many Punishers are still able to fight?” Jones said.

  “All except the dead.”

  The old council man looked surprised. “Surely you have wounded?”

  Edward’s face was grim as he spoke. “Of course we have wounded. I’m wounded myself,” He lifted his arm to draw attention to the blood-stained dressing there. “But a Punisher wounded is a Punisher made more dangerous.”

  “Between Edward and Charlie, we’ve got the defenses covered. Every man has an assignment just like we counselled months ago,” Pete said.

  “And where our losses have thinned our defenses, we’ve reassigned some of the men. When the Falcons try to breach the wall, they will be met by death,” Edward said.

  “Can we conclude this meeting now?” Pete said.

  “One last matter,” Lewis Johnson said. “Do we have any information about the sisters of the Matriarchs Circle?”

  An awkward silence followed, broken after several seconds of guilty glances.

  “Only that they were last seen in your birthing cave when they should have been brought, even kicking and screaming, into the safety of these walls,” Edward said. He waited a moment longer for anyone to challenge his assertion before leaving. No challenge was made. They all understood Edward’s feelings on the matter. While he admitted not understanding their culture in regard to the Matriarchs Circle, Edward was against allowing them to stay at the birthing cave. He’d sent Joshua to convince them to remain at Harrisville. Joshua had not returned from this assignment and while Edward blamed himself for this, he also blamed the men of Engle Isle for not having more control over their women.

  The meeting adjourned without another word. The council members rejoined their families, while the rest looked to take their places at the wall. To their credit, the Falcon commanders knew how to besiege a town. With all three of the gates shut, barricaded and defended, they kept their men out of range of any archers, but still in view of the defenders. Lines of white shields with the double-headed falcon stretched across each of the roads leading to Harrisville. More soldiers moved to and fro behind them, occasionally exchanging line duty with those who stood watching the town.

  For their part, the defenders kept wary eyes on the Falcons’ movements. Every time a group of them moved forward or backward on the roads or in the nearby fields, it drew speculation from the native Engle Islanders.

  “Relax,” Edward and Charlie said often, “They’re just replacing the unit that’s been there the past few hours.”

  “What’s that over there!?” A young militiaman said, pointing to the west fields near the island’s small cemetery.

  “It looks like a commander’s tent is being pitched. They’re settling in for the long haul,” Edward told him.

  “The long haul?”

  “They’re going to wait us out. See how long our supplies and patience last. They don’t want to lose another man on us if they don’t have to. We’ve already made them pay dearly for this little island.”

  “We gave them quite a fight, didn’t we?”

  “We did. And we’ve yet got more fight to give. Just you wait and see.”

  The Falcon soldiers surrounded the town and waited. The island’s defenders watched them from the wall and waited.

  A day of waiting became two, two became four. The siege was set and neither side appeared to be willing to indulge the other.

  * * *

  Joshua awoke when the assault on the door began anew. It was the fifth such attack in the time since they had entered the birthing cave. Joshua wondered if they were doing it just to keep them from resting. The women of the Matriarch’s Circle had all accepted that the door was going to withstand the Falcon’s attempts to break through it. They focused themselves on prayers and attending to their wounded sister, Emily Galbraith, who now lay asleep on the table with her wounds repaired as best as could be done.

  “Water,” Joshua whispered hoarsely, “Victoria? Can I get water?”

  The smooth brim of a cup was pressed to his lips and he felt the cool liquid enter his mouth. He drank but found that swallowing hurt as much as drawing in a deep breath. A bit of water fou
nd its way into his trachea. He coughed and felt daggers piercing his ribs.

  “The medicine I gave you has lost its effect. You need to let us examine you,” Victoria said.

  “Give me more.”

  “I can’t. I’ve already given you too much. I won’t give you more until I know the extent of your injuries,” She said.

  Abigail McClain appeared next to Victoria. “Joshua, we are going to take your armor off and I ask that you don’t fight us as we do so.”

  Joshua shook his head. He knew the wounds were severe, even life-threatening. While he did not fear death, he did fear that dying would leave nothing but a door between the women surrounding him and the angry mob of Falcon soldiers. He offered no resistance to them as they unfastened the leather straps down his sides and lifted the jacket off his body.

  Joshua lifted his arms as best he could, wincing at the effort. Then he smelled himself and winced again. His undertunic was removed next, revealing large bruises and discoloration on his ribs. Both Abigail and Victoria examined him, the former without gentleness.

  “Two left ribs are cracked,” Abigail said.

  “One cracked rib on the right,” Victoria added.

  “That’s nothing. You should let me tell you about the scars I’ve got across my back,” Joshua leaned forward with a grunt. A long scar ran from this left shoulder blade along the spine and disappeared under his belt.

  “With any luck, you can regale us with tales of your exploits later. For now, we need to treat you, so lean back,” Abigail retorted.

  Victoria disappeared for a minute only to return with a strange white box. It was not made of wood or metal, yet was a rigid as tin. From the box she pulled a roll of fabric. Also white in color, it was a material Joshua had never seen. She unrolled the fabric and with Abigail’s assistance, wrapped it around Joshua’s torso.

  “Breathe out,” Abigail said. “Force all the air from your lungs.”

  Joshua complied and again winced as he exhaled. Just before breathing in again, Abigail McClain pressed a small, dark dot at the corner of the fabric. In a moment, the fabric compressed itself against Joshua’s torso, squeezing itself tight against him. He released the last bit of breath with a surprised cry of pain before sucking in a new lungful.

  “Ahhh!” he said and paused before saying more. “That hurt… but now it feels good.”

  “This fabric will remain tight against your chest until it is removed. Do not remove it until your ribs have healed.”

  “That will be weeks,” Joshua said.

  “Indeed. I pray Ayday sustains your life that long.”

  The Falcon’s pounding on the door ended again. Joshua retrieved his armor and placed it over his body once again. He didn’t bother with the filthy undertunic.

  “How long was I asleep?” he asked.

  “We have no way of gauging the hours inside the birthing cave. However, it was a long time. I suspect we are now well into our fourth day.” Abigail said.

  “I take it we have no way to communicate with Harrisville.”

  The Reverend Mother sighed, “Despite the ancient technology we have here, our abilities are limited. We have been able to sustain the power this place holds for centuries because we use it sparingly. However, I must admit there are devices here that none of us understand. We hold them sacred as they served our ancestors, but despite the records we keep, some things are a mystery to us.”

  “The rifle. How many shots are left?”

  She shrugged. “This is the first we’ve used it since our people first arrived on this island.”

  “May I see it?”

  Abigail lifted the Shintoku laser rifle from the floor and handed it to Joshua. Being careful to point the muzzle away from everyone, he examined the pistol-grip handle. From there, he dislodged a small rectangular piece, on the side of which a faded red line appeared next to painted hash marks with numbers.

  “You’ve got enough power for one more shot, unless we can recharge this power pack,” Joshua explained. “Do you know if you have a recharging station?”

  “I do not. However, I am willing to let you search for what you need, so long as you swear an oath of secrecy. Do you promise never to reveal what you’ve seen here?”

  Joshua grinned, nodded his head and placed a hand over his heart. “I swear. Your secrets are safe with me.”

  Abigail led him into the back room which extended to the left and right of the front room with another small door at the left end of the room. More medical equipment was found there, including the strange bed for infants which Anna had discovered after giving birth in the cave some weeks before.

  “Where does that door lead?” he asked.

  “Into a part of the cave that collapsed.”

  “So, the door doesn’t open?”

  Abigail’s eyebrows went up. “We’ve never tried to open it. Not in my time as a member of this circle.”

  “Cave. Hmph!” Joshua approached the door, checked around the edges where it set into wall, and lifted on the handle. It did not open. He found a panel on the wall beside the door and after examining it for a moment, pressed his thumb to it.

  A loud hiss startled those watching. Joshua again tried to handle and found the door moved with his effort. An excited Victoria moved forward to help him push the unused door open. A musty smell wafted into the cave.

  No light emanated from the space beyond the door, but in a trice, Abigail McClain held a small device in her hand. From this device she produced a white light that illuminated the darkness. A bit of dust hung in the air; particles swirled in the beam of light coming from Abigail’s hand. Past this, a large object was seen, which took up most of the space in the room. It was an enormous boulder of the same black rock as the pinnacles. A few smaller rocks lay on the dirt covered floor and the roots of plants festooned the open space around them.

  “I can see why no one’s bothered to come in here,” Joshua said.

  He stepped forward, pushing aside the long white tendrils of roots as he searched the small area under the boulder. He yanked on a few of the roots in an attempt to remove them, but this only brought cascades of dirt and pebbles upon his head. Someone handed him a bronze knife and he began cutting.

  “I don’t mean to question you, Joshua, but is there a point to clearing out the roots?” Abigail said.

  “You don’t hear that?” he said.

  She paused and listened. There was a hum. Faint and high-pitched, but now that she listened for it, she could hear it coming from somewhere beyond the curtain of roots and under the boulder. Joshua continued to cut a hole deeper into the curtain until he could fit himself into that hole. He grunted and groaned on all fours as he attempted to slide past the boulder. He reached up with the knife to slice at an especially thick root jutting out from the under the boulder, only to realize it was stiff and hard. With closer inspection, the roots turned out to be the skeletal forearm and hand of a human.

  “Hand me that lighting device,” he said. When Abigail hesitated, he added “Please.”

  With the light in hand, Joshua gave the collapsed room a detailed examination. He could see that the boulder had come through a window of sorts; bits of a glass-like material mixed with the dirt on the floor. It thrust itself into the room until being stopped by a set of chairs. Both of these chairs faced the window and, to the misfortune of some poor soul sitting in one, seemed to have kept the boulder from piercing further into the vessel.

  Joshua was sure it was a vessel. Something similar to that which he had been privileged to visit years before. The room he now crawled through was called the cockpit. It served as the quarterdeck of the craft, though it was located at the bow rather than astern. He realized that the vessel must have crashed on Engle Isle with the first people to arrive on the island. Despite the damage done in the crash, the vessel has remained serviceable as source of power and birthing chamber for the island community.

  The source of the humming was now what occupied him. Finding it
might be the key to their survival. He could feel the subtle vibrations causing the hum. He looked for a familiar shape but did not see it. With his back scraping against the bottom of the boulder, he began moving the dusty soil on the floor, hoping the boulder remained fixed in its position. His hand cleared the dirt away from the panel between the chairs. There, he found the aim of his search. A small rectangular-shaped port. After cleaning as much dirt from the port as he could, Joshua placed the Shintoku rifle’s power pack into the port. The faded red line lit up to indicate it was receiving power.

  “I don’t know how long it will take to fully charge, but let’s hope the door holds out for longer,” he said as after sliding out from under the boulder.

  “They haven’t started beating against it again,” Heidi Massoud said. “That’s a good sign.”

  “Is it?” Victoria said. “Or are they up to something else?”

  Joshua couldn’t help but smile at Victoria’s paranoia, even as he placed an admonishing finger to his lips and moved back into the front room. He placed his ear to the door, hoping perhaps he might hear something from the Falcon soldiers outside. There was nothing, no hint of their presence. He placed his hand on the latch, but before opening the door to peek outside, he turned to the women.

  “All of you—”

  Joshua was unable to finish his sentence. An explosion on the other side of the door shook the entire cave, blasting him back onto the floor. The wall of the cave rang, a piercing ring which echoed through Joshua’s ears. He felt his ribs pop and his chest ached as he inhaled. The smell of dirt and powder smoke filled his nostrils. Several moments passed before he could focus his eyes.

  When he could see well enough, he lifted himself onto all fours. A hand reached out to help him. He saw the copper wedding band on the fourth finger. It was Victoria, she was speaking to him, but he could only hear the ringing.

  “Get back!” he shouted at her, swatting at her hand. His own muffled voice was drowned in the song of the blast. To her credit, Victoria obeyed. He saw her eyes look past him at the door and she moved back to the other women crowded together at the inner doorway.