Aleksey's Kingdom (23 page)

He then spat upon his doll.

The foulness of the child crept once more into my heart. I had somewhat forgotten about him over the difficulties of the crossing and the revelations Aleksey and I had experienced on the shoreline. To be honest, I think I was almost beyond rational thought at this point. The hollowness I had felt days earlier had not been filled either by rest or good food. I was ill and my thoughts confused, but once again the child loomed far larger in my mind than his tiny stature should have allowed. I did not want him behind me and so swapped my position with the captain, letting him take the lead. Aleksey stayed by my side. I think Etienne had at least been right about the game. I saw no animals at all in the place. This absence only added to the sense of wrongness.

But nothing prepared us for the palpable sense of offense when we discovered what we did: as far as we could ascertain with our thorough search, the island was entirely deserted.

We had all seen the woman.

Aleksey and I had seen another.

But the island was now unoccupied.

Can I be blamed for my mind wandering once again to a blasted clearing and a people lying down without a single trace of how they had got there and why they had been so killed? It was as if the woman we had seen here had been plucked into the sky by the same god that had destroyed the Black Crow nation. We were totally at a loss.

We were more so when we returned to the shoreline and discovered our ropes gone.

I
FIND
it hard even now at this little distance to describe the sense of horror we felt at discovering we were marooned upon this accursed piece of land with no obvious means of escape. It was as I had foretold—although I had not the heart to point this out: none of us were to return to the world.

We could see the short ends of our ropes dangling from the trees along with those of the poor colonists, who it seemed had been lured also into this trap. For trap we now saw it to be. I could not tell at this distance whether the ends of our ropes were cut, but they must have been untied from our side, for not a trace remained upon the tree where I had tied them.

But the island was
deserted
.

We could still not yet see where the trap lay. All we could do was move in the direction we were being driven, as if a leaf upon that awful current, with no more ability to control events than that leaf had to change its course. It was an apt analogy, I discovered later.

We could see no sign of Lieutenant McIntyre or the three Wrights we had left to prevent the very thing we were witnessing. I turned to speak to the reverend. He was not there. Aleksey, the captain, the major, and I were alone upon the shore. And for once, I did not feel the child’s eyes upon me.

We searched for them just as we had for the naked woman, but they were gone.

We were utterly broken down in body and spirit by this time.

It was beginning to get dark. When I tell you that I was close to offering to attempt to swim the river just to get away from this place, you will understand how desperate I had become.

Aleksey was the one to find the doll and to then discover that it was not a toy at all.

It would have been a horrifying revelation in any circumstances, but upon that lifeless island, trapped, cold, and hungry, it was one of the most terrifying discoveries he could have made.

The child had made a small representation of me.

He had used the sleeve of my bloodied and burnt shirt, with which I had fixed his restraint in the cart, to form the body: arms, legs, and a crude head had each been shaped by the deft application and tightening of thread. He had put yellow hair upon it made from a gold tassel cut from one of the officers’ sashes. It had one burnt-off arm. It was soaking wet, but what most turned my stomach was the thorns, which had been dipped in some dark foul-smelling liquid, that pierced its eyes, mouth, and genitals.

Aleksey held it in his hand, his eyes wide as he stood mute, appealing to me to tell him what it was, what to do. I took it from him. It was a poppet. I had inhabited the world of poisoners. I had seen these before. Very carefully, I removed the thorns and placed them upon the ground. Did I believe that the poppet had been making me sick? Why could it not, if looking upon green wallpaper could kill a man? I do not think any entirely rational and scientific man who had been through what we had would doubt the power of the unseen that day.

Whether the poppet was potent or not, I began to feel a great deal better once I had removed the thorns. I do not think the child had intended to drop his delightful toy, but there was no clue as to why he had, here, close to where the island fell away alongside the falls.

W
E
COULD
not even light a fire. Everything was wet from the breath of the falls, and we had nothing to light one with. Although I occasionally impressed Aleksey with some of my native skills and sparked fire from nothing more than sticks, I could not this night. It was bitterly cold. I was without boots.

We were in a bad way.

We discussed various ideas for escape for some time until we became too frustrated to continue. Gradually and cautiously we then began to talk about the mysteries that seemed to surround us. Listening to the other three casting their theories and speculating, I finally told them the idea that had been forming in my mind since Aleksey and I had stood upon the beach and seen the colonists’ rope cut. It seemed to me that we had been deliberately lured to this place. That far from us mounting a rescue mission, we had been brought here. It was no longer a spooky coincidence to me that the very things we found at the fort—strange messages in blood upon the walls, missing people, no disturbance—were exactly what had been predicted in the rumors and gossip in the colony. In other words, the suggestions had been planted deliberately, and I did not need to tell my companions who I thought had done this. Mary Wright had not come to the New World upon the ship from Southampton as she claimed. She had latched on to the reverend and his family when she had discovered they were to come to the outpost. This all seemed clear, but I could not put the final pieces of this dreadful picture together.

Things became both plainer and more mystifying the next morning when a dreadful shrieking woke us, much as we had heard from the other side coming from this island. We were some feet back in the trees, not far from the shore where we had crossed. We rose as one and went to the beach.

The dawn made the far bank visible, but I wished it had not.

The devil stood upon the banks of the river, and he had his arms stretched wide as if summoning the morning light. On his right hand was Mary Wright and on his left the child. At his feet were the two trappers, and they had Reverend Wright between them and were tying him upon a hurdle. He was the one who had woken us with his cries of terror, and to be fair to the old man, I do not think it was the dreadful torment he was about to suffer that was making him scream so. I think it was that the devil wore the face of his oldest son.

They pushed the old man into the river, and the current snatched him away as if it was starving and he was needed to feed its great maw. He howled all the way to the terrible edge.

The demon raised his arms, his stolen face tipped back to the rising sun as if waiting for revelation. They stood there for some minutes until he shouted something we could not hear over the roar of the falls, and then he turned and walked back toward the cabins.

The child stayed on the beach, staring at our small group, and then he lifted a hand and pointed.

I felt a chill wash down my spine. The implication was clear enough to us all.

Thus some things were answered for me, but some things confused me more. How had the devil spirited the woman and child and the poor old man back to the other shore, when we had seen with our own eyes that there were no other crossing points and ours had been destroyed? That was a new mystery. But I did understand the tableau I had just witnessed, and so I told the others.

I believed the people in the colony had been sacrificed to the falls, for the devil was sick and was trying to heal himself through their oblation.

I did myself no favors offering this explanation, but as they could not come up with a better one, it was what we had.

I was proved right, but I wish I had not.

They came for us that night.

W
E
SPENT
a terrible, miserable day, walking around the island, hungry and cold and desperate that we could not escape. The trap we had been led into was so complete that we did not even need to be restrained. I did not, could not, believe the woman and her bastard had flown off the island, so there must be a crossing point that we could not see. But search as we might, we could not discover it.

By the time the light fell, we had exhausted ourselves and moved into a huddle in a small clearing on the far side of the island on the north shore, away from where we had seen the devil and his rites that morning. It gave the smallest appearance of safety.

It was only an illusion.

Two shots rang out, their sharp crack in the night air startling even against the thunder from the falls. We scattered, falling to the sides of our huddle. I realized I was not hit as I tumbled with Aleksey toward the shore. I lost sight of our two companions in the darkness. Military men all of us, in our own ways, we were silent and still once the dive for cover was over.

Aleksey was immobile, mainly because I was lying upon him. I had little experience of musket balls, but I did not think they could travel through one man and hurt a second.

“Whore’s cunt. I cannot see. Are you reloaded?” The voice was far closer to our hiding place than I had guessed, or we would not have heard this hissed whisper over the constant roar of water. Apparently our trappers’ aim had not improved. “Did you hit the blond whoreson savage this time?”

I felt Aleksey shift beneath me, and I laid a hand over his mouth—gently, though, for I knew he did not really need my caution to stay motionless and silent.

“Do I have eyes that see in the dark? He has the devil’s luck.”

“Or you have the aim of a drunk pissing. Mayhap you have again bagged a wolf in his place.”

I did not know whether I was relieved or furious that Faelan had not been the target of their attack on us on the journey. It was hard to know, however, that such a comrade had fallen in my place.

At that, I put my mouth to Aleksey’s ear and spoke no louder than a heartbeat, for although the falls were ferociously loud, I had discovered a new respect for musketry. “They did not fly here.”

Aleksey nodded beneath my hand. He understood my meaning.

We now had a real chance, for even if I believed the witch and her unholy offspring had flown off this island, I did not believe these two men had flown
onto
it. They had crossed, and I was now determined to find out how.

Still cursing their luck at missing me, they split up to search for us, which was a very stupid thing for them to do.

Without needing further communication between us, Aleksey took one and I the other.

I chose to follow the one who had laughed about shooting Faelan—we needed them alive, and I did not entirely trust Aleksey to remember this if he had the man’s life in his hands.

I stalked my prey silently and took him down without him making a single cry of warning to his companion.

Despite his bluster and courage when behind his gun, he was not a man as I was: raised in a savage world by savage people. He fought only with his head and his body, throwing this latter, large and powerful, into the mix with abandon: teeth, nails, feet, forehead. Head and body are not enough, however. I had learnt to fight with my
soul
, my whole being engaged in my desire to destroy an enemy; so, cold and starved even as I was, no boots and sick, he was no match for me.

We stumbled through the trees, one chasing, one running, then wrestling viciously until escaping once more. And then he came to the river, and there was nowhere more for him to run. He picked up a rock, and, trust me, if you have never witnessed someone being stoned to death, then you may underestimate the threat from a fist-sized river pebble. If it hit my head, he would kill me. But he had not the aim or speed to inflict such a mortal wound, and it only glanced off my shoulder, and then I was on him once more.

But then something unexpected happened that shows how deeply I was concentrating on him and the threat he posed. I had overlooked the river. It tasted him, and then it wanted him.

One leg shifted the sand beneath him, and a hole formed. The current swung away from its course and filled it, and from that one
nip
, it wanted more. He was swept into the force of its greed, but I lunged and held his arm. I needed him to show me how he had come to the island—I was desperate to save him, and he to have himself saved, of course, but I felt the traitorous grit shift beneath my feet too. I was sitting then, trying to brace myself upon the shore. He was dragging me in. I let go with one hand and seized a root projecting from the bank behind me. His face registered the horror of our situation. Was I strong enough to pull him against the river with one arm? I might have been, but in his terror, he clawed his way up my arm—my burnt arm, and the pain made me cry out and open my hand. He was gone before I could blink, and I was holding only air. I felt the root start to give behind me. I was only in a few inches of water. It was incredible how powerful it was. Very cautiously, I twisted, grabbed another handhold, and heaved myself up onto the gnarled roots. I did not ever want to be this close to the river again.

C
APTAIN
R
OCHESTER
and Aleksey had captured the second man.