Esther's Innocence

by Benjamin Boswell

  Esther skidded to a halt as the scene before her assaulted her senses. A few of the buildings on the south end of town were in flames, including the church, bathing the night sky in an eerie orange light. Large airships hovered overhead, dropping thick rope lines. It wasn’t thunder she had heard—it was cannon fire. Men—foreigners—were already sliding down the ropes before they had even touched the ground. As soon as they hit the ground, they ran off in groups of three, one with a sword, the other two carrying a large net between them, throwing them over anyone they came across. As she watched, a large platform on the underside of the largest airship separated and lowered to the ground, disgorging more men. Those who’d captured townspeople in their nets were hauling them towards the platform.

  Two smaller, sleeker airships had been moving among the larger ones and suddenly they unleashed a cannon barrage, targeting Merchant McKinney’s airship. Unfortunately, Esther stood only twenty yards from the merchant’s ship and the sound was deafening as the cannon fire ripped into the ship, sending wooden splinters flying in all directions. Horrified, Esther dropped to the ground and just narrowly missed getting hit by a large piece of wooden shrapnel. McKinney’s ship was never designed to withstand such a blast of cannon fire and its unarmored hull disintegrated under the fusillade.

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught movement and turned. Two men with a net were running towards her. Fear gripped her and she felt like she was mired in thick mud—like in a bad dream when you try to run but can’t move. This wasn’t a dream, however, and with the approach of this imminent threat, adrenaline poured into her veins and her heart began to thud so loudly in her ears that she wondered how it stayed confined in her chest. The morass of panic bogging her mind down cleared and, using every ounce of physical adroitness that her years of dancing had instilled in her, she flung herself forward, spinning under their reach—narrowly avoiding the snare of their net as it brushed against her shoulder. She tore off across the ground as fast as her legs would carry her, cutting left around the front corner of the town hall.

  People were pouring out of the door and were putting up resistance, but Esther didn’t stop. There was no way they were going to be able to stop a concerted assault once the attackers realized how many people were bottled up in the building. She tried not to think what that meant for her father, blinking back tears as she ran. She angled her flight towards Mrs. Courtney’s house on the northeastern edge of town. Hopefully, her mother and siblings would be there. Looking back, it appeared that she had lost her pursuers in the chaos—for now.

  CHAPTER 4

  Ruse

  I don’t know what it was, but I felt something driving me that night. Some instinct awoke inside me and I just knew what I had to do to save my family. I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be.

  Esther looked up into the night sky as she ran, noting the location and type of each of the raiding airships. They could only be Madrausan ships, given the news that McKinney had brought, and indeed, she recognized some of the shipbuilding styles of that part of the world with their long, narrow hulls. The very large one hovering over the center of town had big balloon sails and was obviously a transport of some kind. Two smaller transports floated on the northwest and southeast edges of town, probably distributing capture teams like the one that Esther had narrowly avoided. There were also two sleek warships—easily identifiable by their lack of balloon sails—repositioning themselves towards the southwest and northeast parts of town. She pushed herself harder to run faster. If she didn’t hurry, the raiders would have the town surrounded and no one would get away.

  Esther didn’t know much about Madrausan shipbuilding, but these warships differed greatly from what she knew about her own Kingdom’s ship building practices. For one, they only had one tall mast with one large square sail and one smaller mast towards the front to help with tacking. For primary propulsion, they looked like they relied instead on several propellers attached to stanchions jutting out along the sides and rear of the ship. The manpower required to turn all of those propeller’s would be incredible, thought Esther as she ducked in between a pair of buildings—there must be rows of men inside the hulls whose only job would be to turn the propeller shafts.

  The other thing she noticed was that whereas Ardmorran ships tended to be deep and shorter, the Madrausan ships were much longer and shallow with what she could only identify as some sort of ram attached to the front. That made sense in a way. The propeller’s would provide greater maneuverability during any engagement, though she could see speed being a hindering factor for them if the winds weren’t right—but if they could use that maneuverability to ram the enemy, they could board and take the other ship. That seemed to fit the Madrausan cultural paradigm that she had read about.

  Her thoughts refocused as she finally arrived at Mrs. Courtney’s house. Off to the north, she heard raider’s breaking down a door and a woman scream. She had to hurry. There were no lanterns lit in the house, but as she approached the front door she heard a voice whisper from the front window.

  “Esther, is that you?” she recognized her brother Merek’s voice and relief flooded through her. He was two years younger than Esther, but just to know that he was alright seemed a huge victory.

  “Yes, hurry, open the door!” she whispered back, urgently.

  The door opened and Esther ducked inside. In the darkened room, she couldn’t make out faces, but the orange glow from the fires around town provided enough light to see that far more than just her mother, siblings, and Mrs. Courtney occupied the room.

  “Esther?” she heard Charity’s voice call out. Esther looked over and saw Charity’s silhouette standing in the corner with Charity’s mother and siblings. Then Esther saw her own mother and quickly stepped over to her, wrapping her arms around her in a tight hug. Her mother hugged her back, then stepped back, still holding her arms.

  “Esther, where have you been?” she said.

  “At the town hall,” Esther whispered back, “Listen, we have to hurry. We can’t stay here. The town will be completely overrun soon. We have to leave now!”

  “But…what about your father?” her mother asked. Esther could hear the fear in her voice.

  Esther shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. “I don’t know. We can’t wait mother. We have to go now.” Esther paused a moment to let that thought sink in, and then turned to the rest of the people huddled in the house. Her eyes were adjusting to the gloom and she saw that there must be over fifty people crammed into the small house. The Charlottes, the Nichols, and several other families she recognized. Her mother must have gathered them together from the surrounding houses. All the men were gone, most probably at the town hall.

  Esther turned back to her mother who must have noticed the urgent look in Esther’s eye because she nodded and turned to the others. “Everyone, listen,” said her mother. “Leave everything. We’re going to go out the back door and we’ll head for the woods as fast as we can.”

  “Mother,” said Esther, “We should head to the Charlotte’s farm.”

  “Why the Charlotte’s?” asked Mrs. Courtney. “The Nichols place, or your families place for that matter, are larger and would have more room and supplies.”

  “Precisely, Mrs. Courtney,” Esther replied, “And that is where these Madrausan raiders are more likely to head if they decide to hit the outlying settlements.” She looked around the dark room, unable to see the fear in their eyes, but she could sense it. She felt it as well.

  “Madrausans?” Mrs. Nichols said with a shudder.

  Esther nodded.

  “Gather your children and move quickly and silently,” said Esther’s mother, the fear and urgency now tainting her voice as well.

  Esther led the way out the back door, ducking her head out first to make sure the way was clear. Her brother, Merek, was right behind her, wielding a large butcher knife, followed by their mother. She led them directly away from town to the edge of the woods. The warship that had
been headed to the southeast edge of town was settling in overhead. They’d have to stay under the cover of the trees to avoid being spotted. Instead of heading directly towards the Charlotte’s farm, Esther directed the group northeast.

  “Esther! Where are you going? The road is this way,” Merek said, pointing east.

  “We can’t take the road, Merek,” she replied, “They’ll be watching it.”

  “Oh.” He looking down in embarrassment. He was the oldest male among the group and probably felt the weight of responsibility.

  Feeling compassion for how he must be feeling, she stopped briefly and turned to him. “We’ll cut through the forest until we get to the path that goes out to the old Mitchell farm, then we should be able to cut across the road and through the fields to the Charlottes.” Esther decided that giving him something to do might make him feel better. “Pass the word down the line. And tell them to stay close and quiet. No talking other than to pass the word along.”

  “Alright,” Merek nodded, turning to the person behind him to relay her instructions.

  They walked as quickly and quietly as they could, breaking trail through the forest until they reached the path that ran between town and the old Mitchell place. Fear enforced the order of silence that Esther had given. The going was much quicker along the path. A nagging thought kept poking at Esther’s subconscious and she kept looking back at the group of people following her. After the third time looking back, she finally figured out what her subconscious was trying to tell her. There are too many of us, she thought. Even with the cover of darkness, there was a good chance that the enemy warship had seen them running into the trees. Even now, they might be organizing a pursuit. She needed someone to scout behind them to see what was happening. She thought about sending her brother, Merek, but dismissed the idea. She’d been hunting with him many times before and he wasn’t exactly the most patient person—or the most quiet. Besides, if they were being pursued, Merek wouldn’t know what to do about it. Of course, neither do you, she thought to herself with a scornful laugh.

  “Merek. Mother,” she called to them quietly.

  They both quickened their pace, drawing even with her on the path.

  “Listen, I’m going to go back to see if we’re being followed. That warship had plenty of time to spot us as we were entering the woods. Merek, I need you to lead them out of here. Mother, as soon as you get to the Charlottes, gather provisions and supplies, then head north towards Worcester. Don’t wait for me, and don’t dawdle at the Charlottes. You’ll have to follow game trails until you get to Lake Windmiller, then you should be able to take the road from there to Worcester.”

  “You don’t think we’ll be safe at the Charlottes’?” Merek asked.

  Esther shrugged, “I guess it depends if this is a raid or an invasion. We’re the next largest town north of Port Hastings. If they’ve hit us, then they’ve hit Hastings as well. If it’s a raid, it’s a pretty big one. Under the circumstances, I’d rather err on the side of caution. If it’s an invasion, the farther north you get, the better off you’ll be. I’ll meet you in Worcester if I can.”

  Merek nodded. Her mother’s gaze lingered on her worriedly a moment and she seemed as if she wanted to say something, but then she simply nodded as well and Esther turned back towards the town, walking along the line of people that had followed them. She stopped and hugged Charity briefly as she passed, then picked up her pace and began jogging.

  - - -

  The man standing on the wooden deck of the Madrausan warship was tall and well-muscled. As was typical of many Madrausan officers, he had a thick beard and a shaved head. Scars marred his deeply tanned, olive colored skin, made darker by so much time spent on the deck of his ship. He leaned over the railing, looking around at the town below. Many parts of it burned, giving the night an orange cast as the firelight reflected off patches of clouds. His airship hovered some ninety feet in the air, dropping teams of his men to round up the town’s occupants. He sneered. There had been practically no resistance and they had been successful in capturing most of the townspeople. His sneer turned to a frown. Except for the section of town his airship was currently floating above, that is. Quite a few occupants of this part of town had been able to escape into the woods.

  Before the attack had commenced, he and the other warship captain had decided to jointly take out the merchant’s airship to ensure that no one was able to escape aboard it before setting up position to surround the town. He still thought that had been the right course of action, but it had given some of the towns occupants time to escape the net. No matter, he thought, it won’t take long to track them down.

  “Dipak! Shyam!” he yelled back over his shoulder in his native tongue. Two equally large men stepped up to the rail, looking at their Captain. “Follow their trail. Shyam, once you have an idea what direction they are headed, come back. By that time, we’ll have finished up here and have enough men available to send a group back along the trail with you. I’ll take everybody else with me, fly ahead, and drop in ahead of them to cut them off. Don’t take long, we’ve only got a couple of hours before we’re pulling out. We need as many of these people as we can get our hands on and somebody’s going to pay if we can’t capture this last group before we leave. It ain’t going to be me, so don’t screw this up.”

  Both of the men nodded their understanding, then stepped over to the drop ropes and quickly descended to the ground, running off into the night towards the forest edge.

  - - -

  It only took a couple of minutes for Esther to jog back to the point where they had come out of the forest onto the path. She slowed her pace, entering the forest and making her way southwest, the same way they had come, trying to cover their tracks as best she could by straightening out the grass where it had been flattened by the many feet passing over it and rubbing out footprints. Her subterfuge would not hold up to detailed inspection, but if she created an alternate set of tracks, it might buy her family and friends some time.

  She looked around on the ground until she found a short stubby log. Tearing a long strip of cloth off the hem of her dress, she tied it to the log. Then, holding the other end tightly in her left hand, she started dragging it behind her, being careful to avoid dragging it over the top of her own tracks. She wanted as clear an impression as she could.

  She turned southeast towards the road to the coast and picked up her pace, jogging as quickly as she could through the trees and underbrush with the log flattening the grass behind her. After ten minutes, she broke out of the forest onto the road that ran between Tewksbury and the eastern coast of Ardmorr. With any luck, anyone following would assume they had moved onto the road and headed east. A single small farmhouse stood about a hundred yards off the other side of the road. The Wilstead place. They had been in town when the raiders struck. Esther remembered seeing Mrs. Wilstead with the kids at the Rosebud. Mr. Wilstead would most likely have been at the town hall. At least she hadn’t lead the raiders to another set of innocents.

  She turned around, looking at the path she’d made through the forest. It’s not big enough, she thought. She didn’t know how much time she had before someone might come up the trail she’d left, but she knew she couldn’t take a chance that they might find the real trail. She ran back down the way she’d come, widening the trail by running parallel next to the tracks and bent grass she’d previously made. With any luck, she would be able to widen the path all the way back to the point where the real trail headed northeast.

  After a few minutes, she stopped and pushed the log into the bushes. It was making too much noise and someone could be coming up the trail any minute. She’d have to be satisfied with just the trail that her own two feet made now.

  She continued running back down the trail for a bit, but slowed her pace as she got closer to town. After another few feet, she saw torchlight up ahead. Very cautiously, she walked forward, easing herself around the slight bend in the trail. Two men, each holding a torch, were
standing in the middle of the trail, looking down at the ground and talking to each other. They were at the place where the real trail diverged from Esther’s fake trail. She had tried to cover the group’s tracks, but it looked like it might not be working. If they find the real trail…she thought, a hole opened in her stomach as she thought about what would happen. She felt like she was going to be sick and she swallowed forcefully. I’m not going to let them catch my family!

  With that thought firmly planted in her mind, she reached out and grabbed a tree branch, shaking it firmly, then turned and started running as fast as she could back up her trail that she had made. Glancing back briefly, she saw one of the Madrausans round the bend and come running after her. She couldn’t see the other man, but his torchlight was receding, so she assumed that he was heading back towards town…probably to get more men. Thank goodness, one is bad enough. Hopefully this ruse worked, because she wasn’t likely to live through it, even if it did.