Ebony Hill

by Anna Mackenzie

  “Is he all right?” I demand.

  Zeek glances briefly my way. “Bruised. Aiya convinced him to lie down.” He drags a hand across his face as he turns back to Truso. “I thought we were done for – there’s no way we can hold out against hardware like that – but something’s drawn their fire. They’ve pulled back.”

  Truso shrugs himself into his tattered jacket. “I’ll come,” he says. “How is everyone holding up?”

  “So so.”

  “I’ll talk to them.”

  “Can I do something?” I don’t want to be left alone here, not knowing what’s going on.

  Truso turns in the doorway. “You are doing something Ness. You’re doing as much as any of us.”

  In the silence that follows, I sink into Truso’s vacated chair. His words don’t feel true. Instead, their departure leaves me feeling aimless and inadequate. Almost, I could wish for some new injury that would bring Saice back; that would keep my mind from thinking about anything beyond the task in hand.

  What if we don’t win? What if the paras take Home Farm – kill Truso and the others? What if having Vidya behind us isn’t enough?

  Sidling to the door, I peer out into the hall. The sounds of fighting have lessened, though I can hear muffled wailing from the floor above. Leaving the door ajar I pull my chair close to Stefan’s bed and steel myself to wait.

  CHAPTER 13

  By evening we’ve begun to breathe easier, though we still creep like ghosts around the building, each face as haunted as the next.

  It’s near midnight when Saice insists I try to sleep – but not in my bed. The end wall of the house took so much damage in the mortar attack that Farra declares the upstairs dorms out of bounds. He’ll assess for structural soundness in the morning, he says. Saice tells me to sleep in the med room’s empty bed.

  “I’m not tired,” I tell her. “And anyway, where will you sleep?”

  “I’ll be in the ward – the scouts brought in extra squabs.” She pushes her hair from her eyes. “At least lie down and rest, Ness. You look ready to collapse where you stand.” She turns at the door. “If there’s any change with Stefan, come and get me,” she adds.

  The mortar attack marked the turning point of the battle. By rights, it should have been our adversaries it favoured, but just when things seemed stacked against us, the paras withdrew.

  We learnt later that it was a fresh unit of scouts that swung the battle in our favour. Alerted by the sound of gunfire, they’d crept into position while we were reeling under the first wave of the attack. If the timing had been different they’d have walked straight into an ambush. Instead they were able to outflank the paras. They’d just launched a counter-attack when the paras fired their first mortar.

  I stare at the ceiling and think about luck: our good luck, Esha’s bad. One of the prisoners claims Esha’s death was a mistake. He says they took her for a man – and it’s only our men they plan to kill. If Esha’s hair had been longer, her figure fuller, she might be alive now: alive and a prisoner. Would that prove better than dead and unknowing?

  Such thoughts don’t help me follow Saice’s advice to get some sleep. Esha and the men in the cellars feature readily enough in the dark imagery of my dreams without my helping them find a foothold there. I get up and check on Stefan. His face is still and distant, his mind somewhere long gone from here. Maybe he’s the better for that. I dribble a little water into his mouth, emptying the jug.

  Leaving the door ajar, I slip into the corridor. Around me the house holds only the sounds of people sleeping, some easy, some not. A sentry moves in the hall and I raise a hand. “I’m fetching water,” I whisper. He waves me on.

  The kitchen is dark, the storm shutters still closed. For all that Brenon announced we’d beaten the paras off, he’s not yet ready to trust his own assertion.

  “Are you all right, Ness?”

  The low voice startles me, coming from the dark recess of the pantry. Farra steps into view.

  “I need water for Stefan.”

  “Has he woken?”

  I shake my head. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” As far as I know, Farra’s had no rest since before the attack.

  His teeth flash. “Shouldn’t you?”

  “I can’t sleep,” I admit. “If that new unit of scouts hadn’t arrived when they did—”

  “It never pays to ponder the ‘might have beens’,” he says. “It’s done, Ness.”

  “I know. But…” My hands flap like trapped birds as I search for a graspable edge of my thoughts. “Why did it happen at all? Why did they attack us?”

  Farra grunts softly.

  Despite the losses we’d suffered, the mood had been jubilant when the paras withdrew.

  “You cut it fine,” Brenon had told the scout unit leader, a lanky woman named Jolan.

  “Good to see you too,” she’d answered with a grin.

  Farra takes my jug and fills it with water. “They left us alone before now, but they’ve never been what you might call friendly. One of the prisoners claims there was a power struggle that left their community divided. Brenon’s surmise is that this is a splinter group looking for a new base.”

  I frown. “Why didn’t they just come and talk to Truso, or to Vidya’s governors? They could at least have tried to find a peaceful solution.”

  Farra shrugs. “Not everyone sees it like we do. It’s been every man for himself for a long time.” He pauses. “How does it work on your island when folk don’t agree?”

  I chew my lip. “They have to,” I say at last. “There’s only one way on Dunnett.”

  Farra doesn’t answer. What answer is there? Clutching the jug tight to my chest, I wish him goodnight and tiptoe back to the med room.

  Stefan hasn’t moved. I moisten his lips and am cheered when he mouths for more water. Once he’s quieted again, I slide back into my bed, but Farra’s words have done little to still my thoughts.

  “They’ve got big guns but no guts,” Jolan had told us, once the incoming scouts had driven the paras off. “Ran like rats as soon as they realised we had them outnumbered.”

  At Summertops, guns had been enough. But for Jolan’s arrival, they’d have been enough at Home Farm too. Remembering Farra’s question, I consider how Colm might behave, back on Dunnett, if he had access to the paras’ weaponry.

  And that’s another thought I don’t want to follow. Turning on my side, I scrunch up my pillow and wonder if I’ll ever sleep easy again. With a sigh, I turn to a memory of Dunnett, imagining myself standing on the island’s western headland, counting the seabirds that wheel and circle above me. The smell of the rookery wrinkles my nose, overlaying, as it does, the sea’s salt tang. Beneath my feet the grass is browned to crackling. But Dunnett Island feels further away than ever – not just in distance. In me. Morning takes me by surprise: I’ve not slept so sound for days. Even so, my eyes are gritty and my throat feels squeezed. An acrid smell lingers in the building, offset by a quick burst of laughter outside the med room door.

  When I open it, two of the new unit of scouts start guiltily. I give them a nod. It’s not resentment I feel for their light-heartedness, but envy.

  Venturing upstairs for a change of clothes, the extent of the destruction makes me wonder what use the farmhouse would have been to the paras if they’d had to knock it down to capture it.

  By mid-day Truso has imposed order of sorts, and Saice insists he spare a moment for us to check his arm. I’ve almost finished unveiling his wound when the crash of falling masonry makes me shy like a startled horse.

  “It’s all right,” Truso says. “They’re knocking out the wall of the east dormitory. It wasn’t stable enough to patch; better to rebuild it entirely.”

  Farra warned us all earlier, but the knowledge can’t stop me jumping at shadows. Saice rests a hand briefly on my shoulder.

  “Is there any word yet from Dales?” I ask Truso, as I prod at the dark crust that cups each of my carefully placed stitches.

>   “The scouts who went up aren’t yet back.”

  I study him to see if he knows more than he’s saying, but he meets my gaze easily. I return my eyes to my task. The bullet’s entry wound looks innocuous compared to its exit. He’ll be left with a well of scar tissue and likely some weakness in the muscle as well. Dunnett’s Council were maybe right, after all, to ban teck – at least the kind that rips a path through flesh and bone. It’s a revelation that doesn’t sit easily with me.

  “How’s Stefan?” Truso asks.

  “Still unconscious,” I say, then offer what consolation I can. “It saves him the pain of the burns.”

  Saice looks up from the desk where she’s dividing measures of powder from the supplies the new unit brought with them. “Head injuries are always unpredictable. There’s not much we can do, apart from keeping him alive while his body tries to heal.”

  Truso sighs and I think how much he’s aged this past week. We all have. As Saice comes over to assess his arm, I notice a streak of grey in her hair that I’ve not seen before.

  “Where the hell is Truso?” a familiar voice demands.

  A moment later, Brenon barges into the med room. It seems to shrink with his arrival. He gives me a look that suggests I’ve committed an offence by requiring Truso’s time.

  “Good afternoon, Brenon,” Saice says pleasantly.

  “How’s Keval?” he barks.

  The young scout is our most worrying case. Glancing up as Saice answers, I’m startled by the grief on Brenon’s face.

  To compensate his lapse, he hurriedly pastes on a scowl. “Reports have just come in from Dales and Pinehill. There’s been no further trouble.”

  “What about Summertops?” Saice asks.

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Have you any word on casualties?”

  “They’ve suffered some losses at Dales: four from Tan’s unit and two residents. I don’t have specifics.”

  I swallow, thinking of Ronan and Opi.

  Brenon shifts restlessly, one fist opening and closing. “I don’t like it, Truso. Their withdrawal was too easy. It doesn’t feel right.” He pauses, sucking his teeth. “It makes me worry they’re waiting for reinforcements of their own.”

  Truso grunts. “You said yourself that with the new unit we outnumber them two to one. And Jolan said Vidya’s governors are calling up more.”

  Brenon’s expression sours. “Untrained volunteers carry a higher risk of casualties. And we don’t know what the paras’ base population is, or how much weaponry they have stockpiled.” He pauses. “You’ve seen what mortars can do.”

  Truso shrugs his free shoulder. “We have to deal with what confronts us. And right now my priority is getting the field crews out.”

  “I told you last night, I’d rather wait until—”

  “We can’t afford to wait,” Truso says, his voice swollen with impatience. “I agreed to another day. Not more.” He pulls his arm away from me, inspects the twin wounds and grunts.

  “I’ll be finished sooner if you sit still,” I snap, catching his wrist.

  From the corner of my eye, I see amusement relieve the tension on Saice’s tired face. Truso ignores my outburst. “Your job is to keep us safe,” he growls at Brenon, “mine is to feed Vidya. The season won’t grow longer to suit us, and being safe will be small compensation while we starve.”

  Brenon’s mouth works as if he’s trying out several answers, but eventually he nods. “I’ll put Lynd on it.”

  “Lynd is supposed to be off-duty,” Saice reminds him. “It’ll be at least a week before that ankle is fit for use.” Lynd had been trapped by falling masonry during the paras’ mortar attack. She’d been lucky to avoid injuries worse than a badly wrenched ankle and multiple contusions.

  “Bum on seat duty,” Brenon suggests. “You can sort out the details between you,” he tells Truso. “Don’t make any assumptions – no routines, nothing predictable. We can’t afford to let our guard down.”

  Truso surges to his feet the moment I finish knotting the bandage that holds his dressing in place.

  Brenon turns in the doorway, his glare sharp as a splinter run in beneath a nail. “In the longer term, we can’t afford to have an aggressor who can outgun us sitting on our northern boundary.”

  Truso’s lips thin. “That’s an issue for Vidya’s governors,” he says. “Where will I find Lynd?”

  In the men’s wake, Saice meets my eyes. It’s not over. We both know it’s not over. With a resigned shrug, she turns back to her medicines.

  My reprieve from broken nights proves temporary. When I stumble bleary-eyed into the kitchen next morning, the room seems overflowing with faces I know and yet don’t know. A man I tended in the wake of the bombing – one of Tan’s unit – nods a greeting.

  At the stove, Aiya stands elbow deep in pots of thinly bubbling porridge. As fast as she feeds each batch of sentries, another arrives, cold and hungry. It would be churlish to resent them. We know they saved our lives – but the knowledge can’t extend the farm’s shrinking reserves of food.

  At the table a group of three sits separate from the rest. My heart jolts in my chest. “Ronan!”

  He looks up, mouth quirking in the familiar half smile. I feel suddenly awkward, blood rising in my cheeks. “When did you get back?”

  “About an hour ago. Less.” He stands, an empty bowl in his hands.

  I take it and clatter it into the sink of soapy water, back turned to hide my confusion. Outside, the day hesitates, the first ray of sun tipping Ebony Hill in gold.

  Setting the bowl on the draining rack I risk a glance at Ronan. “What happened? Zeek told us that you and Opi went to Dales, but he didn’t know if you got there before the attack.”

  “We nearly walked into a troop of paras – we would have if Opi hadn’t been so alert. They were preparing to attack Dales. They’d have seen us if they hadn’t been so focused.”

  I don’t understand. “But if you weren’t trapped at Dales, where have you been?” I say, thinking of the worry I’ve wasted on Ronan.

  “I was. We had to warn them.”

  The cauldron of emotion that seems to live in my belly has begun a slow simmer. “Do you mean,” I say, thinking it through, “that you went into Dales while it was under attack?”

  “Just before the attack began,” Ronan confirms. “We had no choice, Ness. If we hadn’t warned them, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

  I set this aside for the moment. “Is Opi back too?” I look around, thinking how pleased Truso will be: Opi heads one of the field crews.

  Ronan doesn’t answer. I turn back to him. “What?”

  “We split up. I went into Dales while Opi came back to warn Brenon.”

  “But—” Our eyes meet. Aiya pushes a mug into my hands, my fingers closing around it automatically. Her eyes are dark. I suddenly recall that Aiya’s daughter was one of the first evacuees to return to Vidya, and that she went because she was pregnant. The father of that child, Aiya’s grandchild, is Opi.

  “He might still be—” I begin.

  Ronan nods.

  I clear my throat.

  “Aiya told me that Truso intends sending field crews out tomorrow,” Ronan says at last. “Are you planning to join them?”

  I shake my head. “Saice wants my help in the med room.”

  “We’d have been lost without her,” someone says. I turn to find a young woman at my shoulder. She smiles and I remember her: the sentry who helped bring the children back from Pinehill.

  “My partner was one of the scouts injured in the attack on the jigger line,” she says, relief spilling across her face as she adds: “He says he was up yesterday and took a few steps.”

  All but one of the scouts injured in the blast are making progress. “He’s doing well,” I agree.

  “Thanks to your care.”

  I shake my head. “Thanks to Saice.”

  “And you,” she insists. “He told me you helped save his leg.” />
  I blush and wave her thanks away. “I should get on,” I say.

  Ronan trails me to the med room. “I didn’t know you were a medic.”

  “I’m not. Saice needed help, that’s all. I’m not anything.” I can’t explain the ill-temper the woman’s words have set off – though it’s not just her words. My hands arrange rolls of bandage into neat lines on the desk.

  “If Tan hadn’t arrived when he did, we wouldn’t have been able to hold out,” Ronan says.

  I glance at him quickly, remembering Brenon’s reluctance to send any of his scouts up to Dales. Remembering, too, that if it hadn’t been for Jolan’s unit, Home Farm couldn’t have held out either – which maybe makes Brenon right.

  “Did they have mortars?” I ask. “I don’t see how we can fight against weapons like that.”

  “Not at Dales – they probably have to ration their ammunition. They can’t have an unlimited supply.” He pauses. “Jofeia says we’ll have to find the paras’ home base. Find out what we’re up against.”

  I frown. “Who’s Jofeia?”

  “She’s in Decon. She was the first to reach us, before Tan’s unit arrived. She got in past the paras.”

  “Like you.” Angers stirs in me that he chose to take such a risk. That he went at all. That he didn’t tell me he was going, or trouble himself to say goodbye. “You might have been killed. You—” I stop, tongue pressed against my clenched teeth.

  He shrugs. “I had to do something.”

  “Not something foolish,” I snap. I don’t want to be arguing, but my stomach feels as though it’s spilling over with acid. I can’t make the words stop. “Did you even think about the risk you were taking?”

  Ronan simply stares at me. I turn away, furious with myself, and with him. With quick, angry movements I strip the sheet from the bed and reach for a clean one, flicking it out with a sharp snap. A silence stretches out behind me.

  “Jofeia says this is only the beginning,” Ronan says at last. “That we can’t assume their aggression will end with one defeat. She says we have to find out how big their community is and how well equipped. That we need to be prepared.”