Lost Republic (8 page)

Leigh and Julie had the sun at their backs as they wended their way through the sparse upland forest. Sea breezes had twisted many of the trees and made little drifts of brown sand on the seaward side of the trunks. Julie bitched a long time about being dragged off with her brother. Why did he have to throw his weight around? She would have been fine with the German guy.

“I did him a favor,” Leigh said. “Now he owes me one.”

“What does that mean?”

“Figure it out!”

Stomping along, arguing, they were the loudest things around. They had left behind the soft sound of the surf. A mile from the beach, the air was still. Though it wasn't hot, Leigh began to sweat.

“Stay where I can see you,” he told Julie. She was leaning against a boulder, scratching her ankle where mosquitoes had bitten her.

“You can see me,” she countered. “What's the big worry?”

Leigh surveyed the way ahead. All he could see were pines, sand, and blue sky. Anything could be out there—or anyone.

Sweat formed a drop on the end of his nose. It fell.

“Let's go back,” Julie said. “Bugs are eating me up. Unless there's a guy peddling samosas and mango lassi nearby, I'm ready to go back to the beach.”

Leigh was ready, too, but he didn't want to seem too eager. “A little farther,” he said.

Julie grimaced and followed.

The woods ended not a hundred yards on. A low wall made of loose rubble stood there, separating the pine barren from a large, open meadow. Seeing it, Leigh smiled. He paused with one foot resting on the wall. Muttering about malaria, yellow fever, and West Nile virus, Julie caught up with him.

“What?”

He held out a hand. “It's a meadow!”

“Big effin' deal.”

She sat down on the wall. A lizard covered with electric blue scales scampered into a dark crack in the wall to avoid her.

“Don't you get it? Meadows mean cows, or sheep, or something. And that means people.”

“There're some people over there.”

Leigh stepped back. He spotted who Julie meant: topping a low hill in the meadow came a group of men. They carried long poles. Sunlight glinted off their heads.

Metal helmets? They must be soldiers.

A cold sensation spread over Leigh's sweaty frame. He took another step back.

“Stand up,” he said quietly.

“Why? We came here to find help, didn't we?”

Julie stood up, waving a hand over her head. “Hey!” she shouted. “Over here!”

Leigh dragged her hand down. She tore free of his grip, using the worst language she knew.

“What's the matter with you?” she demanded.

“They've seen us!”

“Wasn't that the idea?”

Leigh backed up more steps. “There's something not right about this.” They looked like they were definitely wearing shiny metal helmets. Julie shrugged. Maybe they were a rescue party, looking for people from the lost
Carleton
?

The men stopped, pointed at Julie and Leigh, and then broke into a trot. They held onto those long poles, resting on their shoulders. It made no sense. Why run carrying a big pole?

“We gotta go—now!” Leigh said. Julie stared at the oncoming men and did not argue at all. She turned and ran, leaving her brother flat-footed.

They tore through the brush and pines, shielding their faces with their arms as they ran. They heard voices—loud, coarse voices—on the right and left and knew their unknown pursuers were trying to surround them. Leigh quickly lost any sense of direction in the sameness of the pinewoods. He tried to keep within a step or two of Julie, but she veered off to her right, and he had to follow.

“Wait!” he called, not too loudly. “We've got to stay together!”

Too late. Julie ran right into the arms of a band of six men. In addition to steel pot helmets, they wore metal breastplates and heavy, quilted trousers. The poles were not just sticks. At the end of each was a wickedly pointed, leaf-shaped head.

Two of the men dropped their spears and grabbed Julie. She screamed. Leigh ran up on them and threw one man aside before a third clubbed him across the shoulders with the shaft of his spear. Leigh's vision went red. He fell to his knees. Julie screamed again when she saw her brother fall.

France and Hans ran toward the screams. By the time they arrived, they saw the American teenagers being manhandled by a large group of strange men dressed like medieval foot soldiers. Hans skidded to a stop when he saw their steel helmets and armor. France blundered into his back, cursing in French at his companion's sudden stop.

“Schauen Sie!”
Hans gasped. “Look!”

They did, but the strangers saw them, too. Several fanned out and started after France and Hans.

“Get away!” Julie cried. “Get help!” Leigh seemed stunned. He was being carried by the arms by two of the soldiers.

“She's right,” said Hans. “We'd better tell the others—”

“We can't leave them,” France protested. “What will happen to them if we go?”

Hans thought of several things, none of them good. The men were rough looking, with dirty faces and long, matted hair sticking out from under their helmets.

Back to back, Hans and France backed away as the soldiers advanced.

“Can you fight?” France muttered.

“Fight? I've never been in a fight in my life,” Hans replied.

France abandoned any idea of heroics and bolted, dragging Hans along by his shirt. He almost stumbled over his own feet in surprise when he heard one of the soldiers declare,
“Après les avoir!”
(“After them!”).

French? His accent was terrible, but why were their attackers speaking French?

Hans asked no questions but ran as fast as he could. They dodged the soldiers trying to hem them in and broke free. For a while, they kept ahead of their pursuers, but they never lost them. It occurred to France the men weren't trying very hard to catch them—they were following them. And he and Hans were leading them right to the beach, where the rest of the
Carleton
survivors waited unaware of this strange new peril.

What else could they do? The boys ran until their chests ached. Ahead, the trees thinned, and then disappeared. It was midafternoon, judging by the sun, and the passengers and crew were still squatting in the sand, passively waiting the return of the scouts.

“Alarm!” Hans shouted as he cleared the trees. “Alarm! Look out!” France joined in yelling warnings.

The Irish footballers and the American navy men were first to respond. They formed a ragged line between the children and old people.
Carleton
crewmen joined them, along with fit and ready passengers like Kiran Trevedi, Jenny Hopkins, and the Chen brothers.

Out of the trees, the soldiers halted, deterred by the numbers they faced. They formed close ranks with spears shouldered and stood off some distance. Hans and France rejoined the
Carleton
people. They gasped out their story, how Leigh and Julie were captured, how the strange men chased them, and how France heard at least one of them give orders in crude French.

“French?” said Chief Steward Bernardi. “Are we on the coast of French Canada?”

“Insanity,” said Gilligan, the footballer. “Nobody in Canada runs around wearing bassinets and carrying spears!”

Jenny thought bassinets were something you put a baby in, and the men didn't look like fatherly types.

“Maybe we should rush 'em,” said Clarke, the American petty officer. “There are only ten or so of them and more than a hundred of us!”

“Go right ahead,” said Bernardi. “While they're busy spearing you, the rest of us can get them, yes?”

In the end, they just stood there, fifty yards apart, watching each other. Before long, another quartet of soldiers emerged from the woods with Leigh and Julie. Brother and sister stumbled along, hands tied behind their backs.

Cries went up from some of the
Carleton
people. Eleanor worked her way forward and demanded they do something to help the Morrisons. They had spears at their backs. If the
Carleton
people charged, Leigh and Julie might be dead before they ran five steps.

The standoff continued until a column of men appeared out of the east, marching along the high side of the beach. With them were three men on horseback. The riders wore more armor—polished steel plates on their arms and legs, closed visors on their helmets. Pennants fluttered from their lance tips. They looked like extras from a movie about Joan of Arc or the Crusades, only there were no cameras, no soundtrack, and no audience.

The
Carleton
survivors backed away from the oncoming men, concentrating into a tight circle. The soldiers who caught the Morrisons and chased Hans and France joined their comrades, dragging their captives with them.

Gilligan and his teammates flexed their hands into fists. Clarke and his Navy buddies muttered tactical advice to each other in jargon no one else understood. Bernardi hung his head. He was a service professional, not a fighter. His men were game, but the chief steward was horrified by the thought of bloodshed, and said so.

The soldiers stopped as one forty yards away. One man on horseback continued forward until he was quite close. He raised his visor. He had a young face, clean shaven, with expressive black eyes.

“N'ayez pas peur! Je suis chevalier Armand de Sagesse. Vous êtes maintenant prisonniers du roi d'Ys!”

Everyone looked at France, or Emile, or any of the other French speakers in the
Carleton
group.

“What did he say?” Bernardi asked.

“He's crazy. He makes no sense,” Emile said, shaking his head.

“He says his name is Sir Armand de Sagesse,” France said. “We are prisoners of the king of Ys—whatever that is.”

“It's a lost city,” said Emile. “A medieval city lost under the sea hundreds of years ago!”

Jenny said, “A real place?”

“No. Just a legend.”

“Well, the ‘legend' has sixty armed men behind him,” Clarke said in a low voice. “So I'm not calling him a liar.”

“Rendre pacifiquement! Vous ne serez pas lésés!”

“He says, surrender peacefully, and we won't be harmed,” Emile added.

“They always say that,” Trevedi said. “But what do we do?”

Bernardi pushed through the crowd and presented himself to the chevalier de Sagesse, who sat haughtily on his horse six feet away. Remembering he didn't speak French, he waved France forward to translate for him. The footballers and Navy men protested. Bernardi had no right to speak for them.

France joined the chief steward. Up close, something smelled terrible. It wasn't the horse, who was a fine, clean animal. It was the noble knight. He smelled like he had never bathed in his life.

“Tell him, I want guarantees for these people.” Bernardi rubbed his sweaty hands together. “Tell him, we are unarmed, and are only here because our ship wrecked offshore. Tell him we're peaceful—”

France repeated the chief steward's message. The chevalier's lip curled in disgust.

“Dommage! J'avais hâte d'un bon combat!”

So saying, he lashed out with his ironclad foot, kicking Bernardi in the chest. The chief sprawled in the sand. When France helped him up, blood was running from his nose.

Gilligan, Clarke, and the others shouted at the knight's brutal treatment of Bernardi. In reply he lowered his lance and shouted a command to his troops. The soldiers broke ranks and jogged forward, spears and shields ready.

This is madness, France thought, holding up the stunned steward. I'm about to be killed by medieval soldiers in the middle of the twenty-first century!

The heavily armed men found it slow going through the beach sand. They were only halfway to the
Carleton
party when an arrow flicked through the air, striking the chevalier de Sagesse on his breastplate. There was a bright flash, a loud crack, and the smell of ozone. The chevalier dropped his lance, threw up his hands, and fell to the ground. His horse collapsed after him. Astonished, France and Bernardi staggered back to their friends.

The soldiers stopped short when their commander fell. They shouted among themselves, eyeing the
Carleton
people with fear and anger. Many threw down their spears and drew swords. Screams rose from the passengers. It looked like a massacre in the making.

More arrows hissed in the air, sprouting in the sand ahead of the furious soldiers. They hesitated, throwing their small round shields up over their heads before coming on. The next volley of arrows arrived. Some found their way past the shields. More bangs and intense flashes, like cameras going off, and several soldiers were left motionless on the sand.

At last the unseen archers appeared out of the pinewoods. They wore small metal helmets, light metal breastplates, and short kilts instead of the heavy trousers the French-speaking soldiers wore. They dashed out of the trees, aiming and loosing arrows at their foes just a hundred yards away. The soldiers shouted in alarm. They obviously knew who their enemy was. Packing close together, they held their shields high to ward off arrows. Two more knights on horseback trotted up, waving their lances and bellowing orders.

“What the hell?” Clarke said for most everyone. “What the hell?”

Behind the two dozen or so archers came more men—foot soldiers in gray armor and big, pot-shaped helmets with flaring neck guards. They carried large rectangular shields trimmed in brass. Short swords gleamed in their hands.

“Wahnsinn!”
Hans Bachmann declared. “Insanity.” The newcomers looked for all the world like Roman legionnaires.

Unarmed and helpless, the
Carleton
people shrank from both sides. The legionnaires deployed in close formation with their archers out front. The medieval French soldiers clustered together nervously. They had no bows, and they had seen the strangely powerful effect the arrows had.