The Silent Isle (6 page)

"Battle stations," Dane
shouted from his place in the prow. 

All around him,
men scurried to their places.  Trenton “Fish” Fischer, their cook, skilled
with all kinds of blades, put the finishing touches on the
mohawk
Ira Scott had commissioned him to shave in his scalp.  Others checked
their weapons for a final time.  Checking their weapons, that's all most
of them had done on this voyage when they weren't at the oars.  Checking
his weapons was a soldier's way of wringing his hands.   Others sat
on barrels or on the deck itself and wrapped their spats, broad strips of
oilskin canvas, from their ankles to just below the knee.  The spats
covered the laces and mouths of their boots, to keep the laces from coming
loose and to keep rocks and sand from getting in their boots as they charged up
the beach.  They were a good idea, even if they did no more than to give
the men something to think about in these final moments. 

They had been
Bailus's idea.  Ever the pragmatist, Bailus had interviewed every man and
woman he could find who had ever set foot on Haven.  He wanted to know how
deep the harbor was.  How steep the beach.  Could the ship be driven
right onto the beach?  Was the beach sand or rock?  What distance and
what kind of terrain lay between the beach and the colony?  He had talked
with everyone he could find, but those were few.  It seemed most people
who went to Haven chose to stay there.  And with Arvis Hallander’s policy
of secrecy, few had been chosen to go at all. 

Dane had been
grateful for the information Bailus had gathered if for no other reason than it
gave them cold, hard facts to talk about on the voyage.  The most mundane
details were better than Dane being left to his imaginings of what the island
held for them.  It was far more pleasant to listen to Bailus's research
than the rumors the men discussed about the island. 

As men scurried
about the deck, putting themselves and the ship in readiness, Dane felt his
gaze drawn back to the island in front of them. 
Haven.
 
It seemed anything but aptly named on this foggy morning.  They had had
sight of the island shortly after first light, but a mist which seemed to come
from the island itself had risen about them so that the island had grown more
obscure as they approached it.  A great dragon, that's what the hump of
land made Dane think of.  Seen from above, that is, as it appeared on the
map, it was a rough diamond with the longer points reaching northwest and
southeast.  In the center of the island rose a ridge of rock that ran from
one extreme to the other.  This hump of rock formed the spine of Dane's
dragon.  The ship was approaching the harbor on the southeastern
tip.  On the east side of the harbor the ridge ran out in a soft
semicircle before dropping into the water by sheer cliffs of rock.  The
dragon's head, Dane thought.  The other arm of the harbor was shorter and
less steep and covered in dark trees.  It was between these arms the
Bloodwake
was heading. 
Straight into the heart of darkness.
  Whatever waited
for them there, they’d meet it head on. 

There had, of
course, been alternatives.  Dane and Bailus had discussed them at
length.  They could have gone first to the island of Tira, a people
subject to Dane’s house.  The Tiran’s might know something about what had
happened to the colony but they also might have been the ones who did it. 
Even if they hadn’t, there was no reason for them to be friendly to a small
group of soldiers under the Hallander banner. 

Or Dane’s party
could have circled Haven looking for sign of an enemy's presence.  But
this would take time and with every hour that passed on the voyage, Dane was
more and more anxious to get to the colony.  Besides, they could have
circled the island a dozen times and failed to find any sign of their enemies
if they wished to stay concealed.  And if the colony was besieged or sick
or starving this time could mean the difference between life and death. 

They could have
also tried to land on a different part of the island and make their way in
stealth to the colony.   But there was no guarantee the enemy would
not spot them long before they landed.  Besides, none of Dane’s men knew
the island.  It could take days to find a decent spot to land and then
grope their way through the hills and forest to the colony. 

No, whatever
waited for them, Dane preferred to meet it head on.  He studied the island
again.  What he could see of it through the fog.  What surprised him
was how big it was.  You didn't get a sense of that from the maps – not
even the detailed ones his father kept locked away.  Not until you saw it
looming before you, ready to swallow you into that mouth of a harbor.  The
maps had given Dane an inkling of Haven's size but when he had remarked on it
to Bailus his father's weapons master had looked at him with surprise and said,
"But surely this isn't the first time you've seen these." 

"Why should
that surprise you?  I'm not exactly in my father's confidence," Dane
had said. 

Bailus had made
no answer but had returned to studying the maps. 

In truth Dane
had never cared to learn about Haven before now.  Time had been when he
would have been proud to think of his father owning another a piece of
earth. 
But ever since the events at Loshōn, the
idea of his father’s control reaching to new lands had only depressed him.

Dane turned back
to the ship.  "Gather around," he called. 

The men ceased
their preparations and pressed forward into the front of the ship. 

"I don't
doubt that every one of you has wondered what we were driving towards as you
worked the oars or lay awake on the deck at night.  The same questions
have consumed my thoughts since before we set sail.  But I have no answers
for you.  I cannot promise you anything about what or who we will find
there.  I know many of you have family and friends on Haven.  I can
tell you nothing of how we will find them when we land.  But the time for
doubt is over; our long journey is at an end and our real work is about to
begin.  We will know the truth today.  And I promise you this - I
swear it to you with every fiber of my being:  In whatever state we find
the people of Haven, we will do everything in our power to bring each of them
safely home or we will avenge all they have suffered on the bodies of our
enemies." 

No one
cheered.  A few men beat their spears or axes on the deck or their shields
- a grim applause to match Dane's words and their own faces. 

"To your
places, and
may
Kran strengthen your hands,” Dane
said.

Dane had ordered
his fighting men into three groups.  The first stood with him now in the
prow and would follow him ashore as soon as the
Bloodwake
was driven up on the beach.  The other two worked
the oars.  As soon as the ship was on the beach, half the oarsmen, led by
Bailus, would grab their gear and follow Dane's party.  The final group
and the women would remain aboard.  In the event of a retreat, half of
them would cover the retreating soldiers with their crossbows and the ship's
ballista while the others pushed the boat back into the water. 

"Dirk and
Tanlin, get on the ballista," Dane shouted and the two young men sprang
forward to the giant crossbow mounted in the prow of the ship. 

Dirk Ridder
strung the cord between the two arms of the weapon and Tanlin Hall heaved down
a canvas bundle on the deck beside it.  Tanlin flipped back the top flap
of canvas revealing a pile of barb-tipped bolts, each as tall as a man and
thick as a walking staff.  Dirk cranked back the cord and Tanlin fitted a
bolt in place.

"Keep it
ready but aimed over our heads and don't take your eyes off the tree line,”
Dane said.

"Yes,
sir," Dirk said.

Dane glanced
down the length of the ballista and then stepped past it to the prow.  He
had witnessed the effectiveness of such weapons on beach landings.  Back
when he still felt young and unstoppable and the battles of his father were
glorious things. 
Or had that been in another life?
 

He had seen the
ballistae do their work when his father had taken the isle of Tira.  Dane
remembered the half-naked warriors streaming out of the trees, bodies smeared
with paint and ash, clashing their weapons on their hide shields and chanting
and howling.  But his father had ordered the longships driven right up on
the beach and the ballistae all aimed at the center of the enemy's shieldwall
and the men of Tira, strong and savage though they were, were nearly cut in two
before the Hallander men were halfway up the beach. 

But there had
been ten such ships then, each with a ballista in its prow.  Now there was
but one ship with two boys who looked like they'd never shaved in their lives
manning its lonely ballista. 

Dane studied the
forest that rose from the rear of the beach.  They were close enough now
he could make out individual trees.  They stood like pillars in a temple
of darkness - and in the gloom Dane imagined nothing but eternal night slept
beneath their branches.  His eyes raked the beach. 
Deserted.
  There were two rowboats resting upside down
like giant tortoises near where the path to the colony came out from the
trees.  Besides these, the beach was completely bare.  He remembered
the beach battlefield at Tira.  Streaming with bright bodies and
glittering with weapons.  A shower of arrows soaring towards them with the
battle cries of the barbarians.  Sights and sounds to turn your blood to
water.  But somehow this empty beach and the dark forest beyond held far
more menace in Dane's mind than any battlefield he had stormed. 

That was when
Bailus said something about the ships.  Dane started as if from a
dream.  He had not noticed the ships.  There were three of them,
formed up in tight formation at the eastern end of the harbor. 

"Ware the
ships," Dane was about to shout when he remembered what he'd taken in at
his first glance at them.  They were moored to the dock that ran out from
the beach at the eastern end of the harbor and were as deserted as the
beach. 

He turned to
Bailus.  "What do you make of them?" 

Bailus seemed as
though his face was trying to decide whether or not to smile, something it
rarely did.  "They're ours, sir." 

"You're
sure of it?" Dane asked. 

"Or I was
born yesterday," Bailus said.  "Why that's the
Raven
, the
Seawolf
, and the
Harbinger
."

Dane noticed the
murmurings that had risen around him.  He had heard them begin when they
first entered the harbor but had not paid attention to them, distracted as he
was by his own thoughts.  They were hopeful murmurings, even happy. 
Some of his men were smiling.  The sight of their own ships sitting
unmolested at the dock had lifted their spirits unlike anything else in the
whole voyage.

Was
everything alright after all?  Were all their fears and doubts just the
conjectures of frightened children who see ghouls and monsters in every corner
of the night-darkened room only to awaken in the morning to find nothing but
the familiar furniture and toys?  Wouldn't it be funny,
and Dane found
himself almost laughing as he thought this (though he was not sure it wasn't
just nerves),
if they stormed ashore with weapons drawn only to find the
colony bustling and secure - unaware of the stir that had been created. 
What a story they would have.  What a laugh.  Had Ben Cross been just
a senile old fool who bashed himself on the forehead and snuck down to the
harbor and set sail for the mainland without food or water thinking it would be
a nice afternoon cruise? 
Ben Cross, the old mutterer
who roused an army, small though it was, and nearly started a war.
 
Ha ha.  Of course, at the end of the day, Ben Cross was still dead - but
tragedy plus time, right? -
and
at any rate, that was
better than an entire colony.
 

Dane glanced at
Josie as she stepped up beside him.  Her hand rested on the gunwale and
she was, like most of the crew, watching the ships.  She must have sensed
Dane watching her because she glanced back at him, met his eye for only a
moment, and then turned back to the ships.  She had looked at him long
enough for him to read her expression.  She wasn't allowing herself to hope. 
Then neither could he.  He had thought he'd been prepared for anything on
entering this harbor.  He'd been prepared to see it ringed with enemy
warships.  But somehow the look Josie had given him, a questioning, "
what
do you think
" kind of look, when all he could do was think and guess
and fear, unnerved him more than a dozen enemy ships. 
That
and the utter silence and stillness of the place.
 

The Haven ships
made a deep, hollow sound as the waves tapped them against the dock. 
Thunk
.
 
Thunk
.
  
Thunk
.
  Like the sound of a shovelful of
earth striking a coffin lid. 

Dane placed his
hand on Josie’s shoulder.  She shied away from his touch, but did not
leave her place by the gunwale. 

"There's no
use worrying now,” he said.  "We'll know everything within the
hour." 

As he'd learn in
the days to come, his statement could not have been more wrong.  But, at
the time, he even found himself believing it. 
Or at
least trying to.
 

Bailus stepped
up beside Dane but spoke to Josie.  “Best get below, Missy.  I've
seen weapons as even at this distance (he nodded towards the tree line) could
take your head clean off your shoulders.” 

Josie made a
face but stayed put.  "But you said those were our ships." 
Her tone mocked Bailus for his cheerfulness at recognizing Hallander
vessels.