The Silver Arrow (13 page)

Elye was the first to run into
Samuel’s arms. “We were worried something horrible may have
happened to you,” he said, hugging Samuel even tighter with his
head resting on his chest.

Tears were running down Celina
cheek as she ran to embraced and kissed Samuel. Her son and the
family were finally safe.

Samuel sat on the ground in the
dark cave that was lit by the fire burning in front of him. The
fire was little, almost a tease−a reminder that he would have been
enjoying more of this at home. He ignored that thought, focusing on
their present circumstance as he continued to look around. Samuel
wasn’t sure if it was poor lighting that gave the cave an odd shape
in some areas, making it appear almost flat, like a wall. It
reminded him more of a tomb.

He could make out old fire
posts that were barely visible sticking out of the wall as they
appeared and disappeared with the wavering firelight.

“What was this place used for
before?” he wondered as he began to notice other oddities. His
father had never mentioned anything about this place. First the
sword, and now this cave. There was more to his father than the
mere farmer he’d always thought him to be.

“How did I miss this place
after all my years of exploring around it?” Samuel wondered. This
thought was cast away by a more pressing question that loomed at
the back of his mind.

He needed to know what happened
to their townspeople and to fill in gaps on the information he’d
gathered so far. He knew the town was attacked, from what his
father told him, and also about the mysterious creatures that flew
overhead, preying on the people.

He stood up and walked around
the fire over to Faray, who was leaning against the cave wall.
Faray was deep in his own thoughts, like everyone else, as the
firelight shifted in and out, revealing and hiding parts of Faray’s
features in the shadow.

He did not notice Samuel
approaching until he said, “Has Father said anything about what we
are going to do next?”

“Hmm…what?” Faray responded as
he became aware of Samuel’s presence.

“Has Father said anything about
what we are going to do next?” Samuel asked again.

“No,” Faray replied.

Faray had being thinking about
it, too− a plan.

“I know we can’t stay here too
long, since we don’t have any real supplies, but hopefully it
should be safe by morning.” Faray’s last words were more of a wish
than anything else; like the rest of the family, he hoped it would
all be over by morning.

“So what happened?” Samuel
asked in a rushed whisper, the eagerness in his tone obvious. “I
mean, in town.”

Faray was at first perplexed by
the question, but it dawned on him that Samuel had no idea what had
happened; he had been absent. So he didn’t know what sort of danger
they were in.

“Father had gone to the smithy,
and about an hour later dashed in through the door, startling
everyone. He was breathing hard as he spoke, his face
panic-stricken. ‘The town is under attack and we have to leave. Get
some food and water now…hurry!’ For a second, we all stood there
trying to process what Father said and when Mother moved, we all
rushed into action, gathering basic supplies.

“Father rushed into his room
and came out with a sword. ‘Where is Samuel?’ he asked, hoping you
were back from the lake. It hit everyone then that you were still
out in the woods, but before we could dwell on it, Father
continued, ‘I’ll get him, but we need to leave now.’

“We gathered the basic
necessities that we could carry before Father rushed us out the
door. We were gone less than five minutes when we saw a bat-like
creature heading toward the house. It made a high-pitched shrieking
sound as it circled the house and then flew ahead. ‘Everyone take
cover under a tree,’ Father said, ‘and don’t move until I tell
you.’ Once we made it here safely, he went searching for you.”

“I need to speak with Father,”
Samuel said just before leaving. Faray remained in the same spot,
watching Samuel as made his way to their father, who was carving a
tree branch. He could see Samuel sit next to him and was in the
process of having a conversation as their father picked up another
stick and started carving.

“So what happened in town?”
Samuel asked once he had his father’s attention, and he told him
everything, recounting the events that led to their current
circumstance.

“A few minutes after you left,
I took the wagon to the smithy to have the right wheel checked and
maybe replaced. You remember the one that gave us problems on our
way home?” Samuel nodded, humming a yes as he folded his arms to
listen.

“The smithy was in the middle
of his work when I knocked on the board to his shop.”

“‘I’ll be with you in a
minute,’ the man inside said absentmindedly. ‘Owen!’ the smithy
called to his son, a young man who was older than Samuel by a year
or two.

“‘Yes, Pa…’ Owen replied as he
stopped what he was doing with the grinder and walked over to Stan,
his worn-out apron covered in soot.

“‘I need this going for a few
more minutes,’ Stan said as he handed Owen the tong, which he held
in place. Owen was a tall and muscular young man with long black
hair that extended over his ears. He started working with his
father at the shop as a young boy, and his knowledge of the craft
was comparable to his father. When his father wasn’t around, he ran
the shop on his own.

“‘If I’m not back in five
minutes, it should be tempered enough,’ Stan said as he stepped
away. ‘What can I do for you, Harold?’ Stan asked as he walked out
of his shop while taking off his gloves.

“‘There is a problem with the
right wheel on the wagon, if you could take a look.’ I pointed to
the area on the wheel. ‘I’m planning to move some heavy equipment
tomorrow. I need to make sure this won’t be a problem.’

“‘Of course,’ Stan said as he
crouched down with his hand on a spoke to look at the wheel more
closely. Stan was a stocky man with dark eyes and thick brown hair
with streaks of gray in his bushy mustache and beard. His arms were
muscular and well defined behind the rolled sleeves that came up to
his elbow.

“As he examined the wheel, Big
Bart started fidgeting.

“Bento soon joined, and they
moved their heads and feet with unease. They seemed troubled, which
was strange for Big Bart and Bento. They are the mildest farm
horses we have ever owned. I walked over to try to ease their
tension, stroking and talking to each one.

“‘Something is happening over
there,’ Stan said, pointing to the plume of smoke rising in the
distance. ‘I wonder if that is why they are acting agitated.’

“‘It looks like there might be
more than one building burning, with that much smoke,’ I said, once
I saw what the smithy was pointing to. ‘With that much smoke, I
think they might need help keeping that fire under control.’ Stan
nodded his head in agreement. We decided to go and see what we
could do to help.

“As we hurried toward the
general area, which, from what we could tell, was around the town
square, we heard the faint noise of a mounting crowd that was
rising as we drew closer to the square. What was once the jumbled
sound of an approaching mob soon resolved itself into a loud
chaotic noise, as people ran past us, frantic and horrified. Most
of the people were families with young children.

“‘We are under attack! We are
under attack,’ some cried, but the town bells never went off.

“Stan and I looked at each
other briefly, deciding what to do next as we were jostled back. We
realized we didn’t have anything to protect ourselves, so I started
looking for anything I could use as a weapon. I found a piece of
wood by the corner of the street that was about four feet long. I
tapped it on the ground to make sure it was hard enough. Stan, too,
was looking for something he could use to defend himself, and he
found a rusting rod.

“‘Well, this isn’t much, but it
beats having nothing,’ Stan said under his breath as we turned the
corner to the main street, the path that led straight into the
square. What we saw next stopped us in our tracks, and for a brief
second we stood in shock and disbelief.

“If this was a nightmare, it
had come to life, and in the flesh was destroying the town. What we
saw were creatures that looked like corpses with bloodless skin and
cold blue eyes like frost. They had human forms, but willowy,
dressed in ash gray and black. Hundreds of them, like bees in a
hive, destroyed everything in their path as they made their way
toward Stan and me. To make sure nothing survived, they split into
two groups, with the second group coming behind the first to make
sure nothing was left alive. Their monstrous facial features didn’t
hide their thirst for blood.

“The town could not be saved.
We could only watch in horror as the invaders ran in and out of
shops, destroying everything inside before setting them ablaze.
Along the street were mutilated bodies covered in puddles of
blood−people who were trying to flee or protect their loved ones
just before they were struck down.”

Those words sent flashes in
Harold’s mind as images of the man pinned to the ground with his
son while trying to protect him flooded his memory. Their still
bodies had been held in place by the rod that was driven through
his back.

“Steven’s butcher shop, the
mill, and everything on that side of the town’s square was set
ablaze. They must have come from the southwest side of the town
where no one would have been expecting anyone, much less an
army.”

“That is not possible,” Samuel
said to himself, as if trying to deny the fact. Everyone knew that
side of the pass was dangerous because of sinkholes that lay
everywhere. It was literally unusable. If they had used the main
pass, with how numerous they were, they would have been spotted a
mile off, and it would have given the town enough time to
evacuate.

“They charged with a lust for
blood, growling like wild animals, and in the chaos at the heart of
the square, a creature stood watching,” Harold continued. “It was
large in size and tall, with broad shoulders. It moved slowly,
taking everything in around him, shrouded in his black cloak. A
little breeze parted its cloak, revealing a red lining inside,
before it pulled the cloak back in place. The hood on his
robe was over his head, hiding his face, but not its
catlike eyes or gray skin with claws for fingers.

“Allan, who owned the shoe
shop, did not make it. He was captured and brought to the man in
the middle of the square, dropped off by the bat-like creature you
saw fly overhead. The creature was black as tar and almost as tall
as the hooded man in the middle of the square. Once Allan was on
the ground, it took flight. The hooded man did not move, but pulled
out a scroll from his robe, opened it, and showed it to Allan. I
could not see from our distance what was on the paper.

“Realizing we too were in
danger, I tapped Stan on the shoulder. ‘We’d better leave,’ I said,
pulling Stan.

“‘Yeah, yeah!’ Stan replied,
shaking his head out of his stupor. We heard a scream behind us as
we turned and began to run away. As we ran back, we saw Owen
heading our way with a half-moon ax in his right hand.

“‘We have to leave,’ Stan said,
and Owen gave him a questioning look. ‘I will explain later, but
right now we have to be as far away from here as we can.’ We
started running again, with Owen joining us.

“‘Be safe,’ I said to Stan
before rushing over to my wagon. I unbuckled one of the horses
quickly and galloped home as fast as I could.”

Harold remembered thinking as
he rode home that he only had a few minutes before the bat-like
creatures would be upon him and his family−if it wasn’t already too
late.

Samuel turned to look at his
family when Harold was done speaking. What was going to happen now?
he wondered. Elye was sitting next to his mother, gazing into the
fire, while Faray was still leaning against the cave wall. The
place again fell into silence, broken only by the crackling sound
of their little fire.

It wasn’t too long after he
went to sleep that Harold tapped Samuel on his shoulder. “People
are heading this way,” he said in a whisper as Samuel cleared his
eyes.

Samuel could see his mother,
Elye, and Faray were already up. As he listened, he heard it−the
sound of footsteps drawing closer. It was clear that no search
party would be about this late at night, which meant that the
invaders were still searching for survivors.

“I need some light,” Harold
said in a whisper to Samuel. “Grab one of the sticks,” he said,
pointing to the fire, “and come with me.”

Samuel did and followed his
father to the left side of the cave.

Harold took with him the two
sticks he’d been carving, from what Samuel could see. The sticks
weren’t completely pointed at the tip, even though his father could
try to use them as a spear. The shape at the tip was too flat, and
the stick wasn’t long, either, so throwing it as a spear would do
no real damage.

A slope went down five feet at
the corner of the cave, hidden behind a rocky mound.

“Here! Bring it closer,” Harold
said. As Samuel brought the light closer, he could see a
circular-shaped wall just wide enough to admit one adult.

It became clear to Samuel why
the sticks were shaped the way they were as Harold started scraping
the edges of the circle while he held the burning branch.

Speaking softly to fill the
silence, Samuel asked “What is this place?”

“Actually, it’s not just this
place. Chartum-Valley, a long time ago, used to be a mining town,
and we are at one of the mining stations. It’s been abandoned a
long time. I discovered this place as a boy.”