The Warrior's Tale

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  I thought of saying something sarcastic, such as it'd be best to be reborn in waters that seal hunters hadn't found yet, but thought better. Corais seldom relaxed as much as she had on this day.

  For the first time since his blinding, Gamelan also looked content. I chanced ruining the moment and asked if he could sense anything that might portend danger from the approaching land. He smiled and just shook his head, no.

  The island looked like a curled hand, with fingered headlands enclosing the bay, and in the centre the land rose to a plateau. I guessed the island to be about ten miles long by six wide. Everything was green, so green it hurt the eyes. I thought I spied a bit of white atop the plateau, but when I searched again, I decided my eyes had deceived.

  The water shallowed as we entered the bay and the ocean became a crystal blue like the finest diamond. One Guardswoman pointed, and I saw first a dolphin, then its mate, below our keel. They were swimming about thirty feet apart, and it looked as if they had something clenched in their jaws. I thought I saw glints from their foreheads, a reflection such as that which would come from a prince's diadem. Ahead of them I saw the flash of a school of silvery fish trying to escape their fate as the dolphins' midday meal. Then our ship passed over them and our wake obscured the scene.

  I heard a shout from across the waters. It was Cholla Yi, calling for the fleet to assemble on him. Oddly, he gave his orders without an obscenity or a curse. The day must've worked its charms on him as well. Within minutes, our ramshackle ships gathered, sails lowered, each rocking gently in the low waves. I could see long strands of weed and barnacles along the waterline and below. Shrouds were frayed and the ships' sides stained; the planking battered, splintering. I took a moment to pray this new island would fulfil its promise of peace. We desperately needed not only supplies and water, but to beach and careen our ships for repair.

  Cholla Yi's orders were brief - take arrow formation, half the ships as the point of the arrow, the others in line to the rear. No ship was to anchor or land without orders from the flagship. Then something most unusual occurred - he called to me, asking if I had any comments or additions. Perhaps the mutiny and its aftermath had made even a man as stubborn as he was realize there was no room for conflict among ourselves. I had only one suggestion - perhaps one galley should remain outside the bay for a few hours, close to the headlands, to make sure no hostile ships were lying in wait to bottle us in this beautiful trap. Cholla Yi grinned broadly and bellowed, 'A good idea. This one will be a sailor yet. Captain Meduduth ... you're the watchman. We'll try to save any wenches or wine we find for you.'

  My section sergeants had already ordered the Guard into armour and the rowers outed oars and crept into the great lagoon. At first it appeared we were the first people to encounter this paradise - which was not improbable, considering how isolated it was in these uncharted seas.

  Klisura told Stryker the bay would make a perfect base for a war fleet. Stryker's lips twisted into a grin and he said, 'Aye, but for the small problem that yer'd have to sail for two small forevers before yer came upon anythin' worth thievin'.'

  A few minutes later one of the lookouts posted in the chains shouted and we hurried to the rails.4 'ears some admiral shared yer view,' Stryker said.

  Across the centre of the bay were buoys, studded at measured intervals. Those buoys would have been meant for mooring in even rows, rather than to chance chaos and damage by haphazard anchoring. I counted ... ten, twenty, perhaps more. A fleet, indeed, could have harboured here. Our ship closed on them and there was no sound, except the whisper of the wind and the splashing of the oar blades as they lifted and feathered. The buoys were large wooden barrels, each connected to a cable that ran down to a greater one laid across the ocean floor. The buoys had not been in place long - the cable anchoring them was spotted with rust, but not yet covered with sea growth. It was strange, though, to see gaps in the line where buoys had broken away or sunk, with no one making repairs. It looked as if whoever laid out this anchoring had sailed away just after completing the task.

  We rounded a point and saw what we all knew had to be there. White stone buildings climbed up from the water on cobbled streets, to end at a high stone wall laid against a mountain face rearing up towards the plateau.

  'Naval port,' Klisura said, and I asked how he could tell.

  'Merchant ships need docks, or a mole at any rate, to unload cargo. Warships lie out to harbour when they anchor. Makes 'em feel safer and they can get underway faster. But if it weren't for those buoys, I'd call this port a fishing village.' I knew what he meant. There was no sign of either defensive fortifications or war machines along the waterfront.

  That feeling of content lessened as I realized I heard nothing coming across the water from the town. There were no cries of hawkers or children, no creaking of wagon wheels, no bawling noises from draught animals. All was still, all was silent. I saw no signs of life whatsoever. There was but one boat in the harbour, a small smack that lay half-submerged along the single dock.

  'Captain Stryker,' I ordered. 'Signal the other ships to heave to where they lie. The admiral will remain in command. We'll send an armed landing party ashore first.'

  After our earlier experiences, Stryker didn't argue. I ordered Polillo to assemble a landing party - two boats, fifteen women.

  I wasn't surprised, soldiers being what they are, fearing boredom far more than the most grisly death, to see all my best milling in an excited knot; and there were twice as many Guardswomen as I needed, including Polillo, Corais, Ismet and Aspirant Dica, who I suspected was going to become a fire breather like the worst of us. They- and the others - were looking at me like so many puppies, eyes pleading not to be left aboard.

  I muttered a curse at always having to be the villain, but also found an inward smile - command may be a lonely task, but at least the commander has some sway in being able to choose who leads an expedition. I left both Polillo and Corais and put Sergeant Ismet as my second, taking Dica with me.

  We clambered into the boats, encumbered with battle gear and the sailors rowed towards the beach. No one came to greet us, no one came to warn us off. One of the oarsmen muttered, 'It's like some wizard whisked 'em up into the skies. A phantom village.' Sergeant Ismet glowered him to silence.

  The sound of the boats' keels scraping on the sand was loud. We jumped overside hastily, not intending to present any lush target if there was an ambush. The thigh-deep water was warm and inviting, as was the sand stretching up to a cobbled esplanade that ran along the front of the village. There were fishing-nets hung from racks, but they'd been hanging for some time, I noted. The beach sand was blown smooth and showed no footsteps, its only markings those of birds and where water animals had beached themselves to sun.

  I sent Sergeant Ismet and seven women to scout the eastern stretch of the waterfront and I patrolled down the western section. Again we heard nothing but the cry of gulls and saw nothing except the occasional rat scuttling across the cobbles. There was a scattering of roof tiles in the streets, blown off by storms. Winter storms, I wondered? We were now in spring, so the village might have been abandoned some time ago.

  The village appeared unremarkable, except for its inhabitants' disappearance. I chanced entering one small shop, sword ready. It was just what one would expect in a fishing village, a bit of a chandlery, a bit of a grocery. There was a faint, disagreeable smell I traced to some long-spoiled bait in a wooden bucket. There were still items on the shelves, but not many. I guessed the shop would have been barely making money for its owner, who probably had another job, either farming somewhere behind the village or working the fishing boats. That made me wonder where the boats themselves had gone to. Had all the inhabitants sailed off, fearing some doom that never came?

  I went into the back of the shop, where the owner had his living quarters - and the peacefulness was gone. There'd been a great struggle here. Blood, dried to black, spattered the bed, its blankets, the floor and walls. Someone had died her
e, fighting desperately before they did. I looked out the back door, which hung ajar, but saw nothing. I shivered, then retraced my steps through the shop to where my patrol waited. This was more than strange. But what made it eerie, was that I didn't feel any sense of danger. Although I was seeing that all this was most unusual, there didn't seem to be any special reason to keep my sword ready, my eyes darting from side to side. I forced wariness on myself - looking here and there for any threat. But nothing happened and we continued on.

  We checked the rest of the waterfront without learning anything more. We trotted back to the boats, where Sergeant Ismet waited. Her end of the village was equally desolate and she, too, had found evidence of a fight. Yet there were no bodies, no bones. Whoever had attacked this village had either taken the corpses with them, or, singularly neat butchers, had performed funeral services after the massacre. I thought it might be seaborne slavers - but slavers never destroy a village utterly. Rather, they take the young, the comely, and the talented and leave the rest to breed another generation to harvest. But what did I know about customs in these far lands?

  I sent Sergeant Ismet out to the ship to report and to give my orders to Captain Stryker and to Cholla Yi. There appeared to be no immediate danger, so the ships could be brought in to anchor, although a fighting watch should be kept until I ordered differently. As an added precaution, I wanted another galley to join Captain Meduduth, out beyond the headland. I ordered the Guard to land in full strength. We would explore and secure the island. I told Sergeant Ismet I also thought it'd be safe for the ships to send watering parties ashore - there was a small creek with sweet water just at the west end of the village - although the parties should not skylark about, and be accompanied by armed men.

  Within the hour, my Guard was ashore. Cholla Yi's marines could provide safety along the waterfront and we did not plan to venture far inland, for fear of an ambush from the sea. The village was no more than a few blocks deep. For the moment we would ignore whatever lay on the plateau and the rest of the island. If we found no reason for alarm, Cholla Yi could send work parties inland to cut and shape trees for keel blocks and warp his ships, two at a time, close inshore and wait for the tide to strand them. Then work could begin on cleaning, caulking and retarring the bottoms, while my Guardswomen, with great relief, could become hunters to resupply our victuals.

  Then Gamelan, who'd come ashore without my noticing, came up with his two Guardswomen to ask if he could come with us. I thought several things, but said none of them.

  'Perhaps,' he explained, 'I might still have a small bit of my power left and could at least offer a warning of any magical danger.'

  I couldn't see any reason to deny him. We had no intention of racing through the village and if we were attacked ... well, Gamelan had said enough times that he hated the idea of being thought an anchor to the expedition.

  We moved into the village, weapons ready. I was in the front and once again I kept Dica beside me. Corais was just behind me and Polillo and Flag Sergeant Ismet commanded the rear. We passed shops, homes, all the things that made up a prosperous village. I entered several homes, trying to figure out how much warning the people would've had. Contrary to what I knew our barracks' tales would say later, when and if we returned to Orissa, there were no meals left unfinished on tables or tasks abandoned in mid-stroke.

  There was one exception - the main taproom of a large tavern was the remnants of chaos itself. There were wineskins ripped asunder, bottles and casks shattered, goblets scattered across the floor and tables overturned. Here also were several large bloodstains. I estimated that at least six, perhaps ten, drinkers had been surprised and slain in their cups. Remembering the shambles of the bedroom I'd been in earlier, I thought death came in the night, without warning. We moved on, ready for anything. But again, there was no sense of danger. It was as if we were exploring ruins of a civilization that died in our mothers' mothers' time.

  One of the flankers doubled back to report a large building ahead, just on the outskirts against the mountain face. She thought it might be a barracks, the first sign of a military presence beyond the anchorage. We moved towards it.

  It almost certainly was a barracks - a long two-storey structure, with regular buildings and, outside, a guardshack. For the first time I felt a whisper of danger, or of something untoward. 'Sergeant Ismet up!'

  In a moment she was beside me. I wanted her at my side and chose six others, all exceptional swordswomen, to accompany us inside. I sent Polillo with the rear element around the side. I put archers out as a screen, with orders to guard in all directions.

  We entered the building and found a charnel hell. It had been a barracks, sheltering at least two hundred soldiers. I knew because the building was filled with their bodies. Even my hardened soldiery was taken aback -I heard one or two gasps of horror and muttered curses.

  The ghastly scene reminded me of something, and before I could close my mind, the memory came: once, when very young, I'd been in one of my father's barns, playing with three half-grown kittens. They'd found a nest of field mice that had moved into what they thought was a sanctuary of unbaled hay. The kittens, so friendly and lovable a moment before, hewed true to their duties and with a great yowling and shrieking, slaughtered the entire nest before any of the mice could flee. Not content with killing them, they played with the dead and dying. Some they devoured, some they merely mutilated. Just as someone ... or something ... had done to these soldiers. Some had been asleep, some awake and on duty. It didn't matter. I saw shattered javelins, broken swords, fine plate armour that lay burst like potsherds.

  Time had passed since that murderous night, but the horror was not lessened. Some of the bodies had rotted to skeletons, but others had dried and mummified, brown lips pulled back over yellowed teeth in horrid mirth. Not one body, though, was whole. Perhaps scavengers or rodents had fed, or carried the bones away for their own usage. Perhaps.

  It was just then I heard the music. Flute music. It came from outside. Without orders, we ran out of the barracks, towards the sound.

  It came from beyond the barracks, where a large semi-circular wall reared. I started to rush towards it, then caught myself. I motioned and my Guardswomen spread into a hedgehog semi-circle, and advanced. We rounded the end of the wall, and stopped in our tracks. The wall became a high stone balustrade. A matching wall curved towards us on the other side. In the centre, stone steps had been carved, a colossal staircase up the side of the plateau. On either side of the stairs luxuriant vines grew down, their flowers rich with a rainbow of colours.

  The music came from the base of those stairs. It came, indeed, from a flute. The flute was being played by a strange creature. He was certainly not a man, for not even the barbarians of the icy south are that hairy, or so I've been told. Nor was he an ape, at least not from any species I've ever seen in the wild or a menagerie. Its face was neither ape- nor man-like. The best I could compare it to was that of a lion, with great fangs, but without whiskers. Around his neck he wore a ribbon with a small jewel on it.

  The creature looked at us with calm interest, showing no fear whatsoever and its flute-playing never stopped, a melody that sang of birds over a stormy sea, birds wheeling in search of a home the winds had driven them from, a home they could never hope to find again.

  I caught my breath, realizing what the flute had been made from. It was a human femur that had been lovingly pierced and polished. I saw a blur from the corner of my eye. It was Gerasa, my best archer, bringing her bow up, right hand drawing smoothly until the broadhead just touched the arrow rest.

  'Stop,' I snapped, and such was the discipline I'd worked into my women that the shaft never flew. But neither was the bow lowered. 'We aren't starting a war here. We don't know who those soldiers were, nor why they were killed. Let alone whether our friend was the killer.'

  Gerasa's eyes flicked to the side at me, and I could tell her thoughts: No trooper should be slaughtered in such a manner, nor his or her memory
mocked by an ape. But she lowered her bow.

  Gamelan was beside me, his two guides just behind. Since the musician showed no sign of tiring, I briefly told him what we were looking at - and what I'd seen in the barracks not far away. Gamelan was silent for a long moment. His head turned back and forth, sweeping the wide base of the staircase as if he were sighted or, better yet, a hunting hound keen on the scent. A smile came and went on his lips.

  'I do not know how to describe this. My powers are not returning,' he said, and I could see he was forcing calmness. 'There is something here. It is ... it is like when you have had your eyes shut in absolute dark for a long time and then your thoughts claim you are seeing something. I can sense sorcery all about us ... Good or ill, I do not know. But it is something we must meet and face.'

  The creature's fluting broke off as if it were waiting for those words. It sprang to the railing of the stairs, took hold of a vine, swarmed up and was gone.

  I listened within myself, to see if I sensed anything. There was something here, I realized - just as Gamelan had said. It was stirring, I felt as if I were a minnow near the surface of a pond and a great pike was moving below me in the mud and the reeds. Yet still, I felt no menace, no threat.

  'We climb those stairs,' I decided. I sent a runner and escort back to the beach to inform Cholla Yi of our intent. We started up, keeping six steps between us so if archers or spearmen lay in wait, they could find no target more inviting than a single woman. The steps were carved perfectly out of the rock, as if masons by the multitude had all eternity for their task. We reached a landing and turned - the steps becoming a tunnel into the cliff itself, windows cleverly carved to appear like faultlines to anyone below. The stone walls were also carved with bas-reliefs. They told a story, a story of bloody battles and strange cities on even stranger islands. I tried to follow the story, just as one studies a tapestry, but could make no sense of it. The carvings grew more elaborate, and stranger and more violent - and I took my eyes away.