The Devil's Island

 

Beyond the fall of night, as the waves roiled over the deep and the sky turned to fire in the west, Jaya and her men rowed for the dark shape of the island.  The ten Ekwa rowed silently, wise in the ways to cut the water without a sound, hunched low behind the rail of the longboat.  Dhatun himself rode the tiller, his leg hooked over the side to steady it with his foot.  Jaya was in the bow, bent low so she would not make a high shape above the waves.

She had spent almost the passing of a moon with the Ekwa, recovering from her ordeal, and now the scars of the sea only stung slightly when she touched them.  She had new tattoos on her shoulders, marking the heads she claimed and was entitled to, as well as new marks on her hands to make her known to all Ekwa she might encounter.  She wore her hair like one of them, twisted into braids and knotted behind her.  She had painted her face black tonight, so she would not be seen.

The island was a low shadow, like the raised spine of a dead animal, the central ridge jagged and cloaked by high jungle.  Even from so far away Jaya could smell the quick scents of flowers and smoke, the sour odor of sweat and shit and castoff food.  Men were there, it only remained to see how many.  If there were few, they would slaughter them, if there were more she would have to plan, as she wanted more than blood: She wanted a prisoner.

The harbor was on the north end of the island, so she had been told, so they cut for the southern shore, which was too rocky and exposed for large ships.  Dhatun knew the approach, and she watched carefully as they headed in for land.  She saw the slight disturbances of the water where reefs haunted and noted the way the currents broke.  Most of all she watched for any flicker of light, for they did not wish to be sighted.

The canoe’s bottom scraped on the sand and she jumped out, the others a breath behind.  They grabbed the boat and dragged it up beyond the reach of the water – easily done at high tide.  They moved it in among the rocks, and the other warriors quickly fanned out to gather seaweed clumps and large palm fronds to cover it, so it would not be easily spotted from afar.

Jaya took her new spear in hand and stood guard, watching for any sign that they had been noticed, but the night was quiet, with only the sounds of birds and insects in the trees.  She touched the sword sheathed at her side and sniffed the air, catching only a hint of smoke in among the jungle decay and, beneath it, something bitter and reptilian.

The warriors took up their wide-bladed war spears and their light, barbed javelins.  Each man had a blade at his side and a long hide shield on his arm.  They gathered around, and she saw the eager grins of their shark-like teeth in the waxing moonlight.

“Come,” she said.  “Remember I need a prisoner to question – the rest can die.  Take their heads so they cannot return to their gods, but I need one alive.”  She looked at Dhatun and he nodded, turned to lead the way.  He had been on this island once before, and so he was their best guide.  She followed close behind him as he led them up the beach, stepping over scattered stones and rifted wood, and then they turned inward and passed into the realm of the jungle.

The lowland here was hot, and the ground steamed and gave way at every footfall.  Insects as long as a human hand scuttled away, and Jaya stepped carefully, watchful for snakes both underfoot and above.  The legends of her people came back to her, and she shook aside the fears of man-sized spiders, hunting crabs, and vipers with sweet breath and deadly venom.  Dhatun led them surely, and they were soon climbing upward, ascending the back of the ridge among tumbled rocks heavy with green lichens and creeping vines.

They moved softly, making little sound, hoping they would not startle some night bird into shrieking flight.  They crested a stony ledge and then stood looking down the sweep of the far hillside toward the lagoon they sought.  Jaya saw it was a good one, with arms of the island enclosing it on three sides, so there was likely only room for one of the tall ships to enter at a time.  Now the water was silver from the rising moon, and she saw a single craft there.  It was bigger than any canoe, but not so big as the vessels the giants sailed in.  It had the same kind of shape to it, but was smaller and cruder, not as graceful.

On the shore she saw two bonfires, and even from here she could hear the sound of voices and see the small shadows of men moving around the beach.  Simple rowboats were drawn up on the sands, and she saw piles of what must be supplies strewn haphazardly around.

She crouched, and Dhatun squatted beside her.  “How many do you think could come in a ship like that?” she said, nodding toward it.

He sniffed the air.  “Smells like ten, twenty men, maybe a few more.”

“A lot, then.”  She looked at the slope, trying to judge how hard it would be to get down.  She pointed to the left.  “There, we come down the gentle side there and then come at them along the stream.”  She traced her finger along the narrow rill of water that glinted in the starlight.  “One of them will go into the jungle to piss and we’ll take him, then see how many are left.”

Dhatun smiled, showing his knife teeth.  “We will take heads tonight.”  He gestured.  “There is a waterfall this way – it will mask the sound of us, so none will hear.”  He beckoned the others, and they began to make their way along the hillside.  Jaya looked down at the gleams of the fires and touched the hilt of her sword.  She would have answers to her questions tonight, and whatever blood there was to spill.

o0o

They climbed down the hillside, slipping along the rocky ledges, creeping beneath the fine spray of the waterfall where it coursed from the cliff above and spilled over into the darkness.  Dhatun led the way, and she trusted him.  The Ekwa moved with purpose and a deadly silence, and she was pleased by what hardened warriors they were.  She had found men who could follow her into battle.

They came to a ridge and from there they looked down on the cove below.  Closer, Jaya could count two dozen men around the bonfires, drinking from clay jugs and laughing as they spat into the flames.  There were barrels stacked around the firelight, tents draped with cloth and nets, and she saw a black banner painted with a white skull.  She wondered what that meant to men like this.  She remembered the screams of the girls taken from her island, the bodies of her father and brother, and she set her teeth together with a desire to kill.

She climbed down from the outcrop and they moved into the steaming, soft-earthed jungle beside the stream.  There were bones embedded in the loamy soil, and that made her wary.  She kept her spear ready in her hand as they moved toward the glow of the bonfires.  She smelled again that rasping, reptilian scent, and she wondered what manner of beasts hunted in this place.  She wondered what reason men might have for not dwelling here, where there was a fine lagoon for a harbor.

The moonlight fell on the remnants of a stone wall, once higher than a man’s reach, now a tumble of decaying stones.  She saw that the giants had added to it, building up a barrier of sharpened stakes and logs lashed tight together.  It was not new, and she guessed they had crafted the barricade only a few years ago, and some parts had been recently repaired.  Jaya looked at the stakes jutting outward and then looked into the jungle dark behind them.  There was something here men feared by night.

She heard a clink of metal and saw movement, and Dhatun leaped in with his spear ready.  Jaya saw another movement and then realized there were two giants here, chained to the stone.  One drew breath to cry out and Dhatun tore open his throat with a quick thrust.  He turned to the second and Jaya barred his way.  The second man made no motion, only looked at her with pale eyes that glittered in the dark.

“Wait,” she said, her voice very low.  She was aware of how near the other giants were, how easily they might be heard.  “I wanted a prisoner.  One taken alive.”

“I can help you,” the giant whispered, his speech badly accented but understandable.  “Set me free and I will do what you wish.”

Jaya crouched down so her face was near to his.  He wore only ragged pants of dirty white cloth, and his hands were shackled to the ancient stone.  The mossy rock was stained dark, and from the smell, she thought it was blood.  “You do not know what I wish,” she said.

“Anything is better than feeding the devil in the forest,” he said.  “Let me live.”

“He will warn the others,” Dhatun said.  “Kill him.”

“They chained him here to die,” she said.  “Why would he aid them?”  Up close, the man was larger than even the other giants.  He was very hairy, with dark hair on his broad chest and his heavy arms.  His beard was long as was his hair.  He had tattoos on his shoulders, but not proper ones, just meaningless designs.

“Indeed,” the man said.  “They have left me here to feed the demon.  I have no loyalty to them.  Let me live and I will do whatever you ask!”  He kept glancing past her into the dark, and she didn’t like that.

She tapped his cheek with the point of her spear.  “I seek a ship, a great ship of your people.  Tall and with many sails.  It bears a golden eagle upon the prow, do you know that ship?”

A slow smile came across his face.  “Aye, I know that ship.  I know who commands it.  I know where he might be sought.”

“Tell me,” she said, digging the spear into his hairy jaw.

He smiled again.  “I will tell you when I am free and alive and away from this place.  Then I will tell you, else you will just kill me.”

“I could kill you anyway,” she said.

“But then you would not learn what you want to know,” he said.  “I have little to bargain with, that is the price of it.”

She hissed through her teeth and then stood.  “Very well.”  She gestured to Dhatun.  “Free him,” she said.  Dhatun looked displeased, so she met his gaze and held it until he looked away.  “I said free him.  Are you sworn to me, or are you not?”

Dhatun nodded and bent down, began to feel at the chains to find a weak point.  There came a sudden outcry of birds in the jungle behind them, and the giant made a small sound.  “It’s here, move quickly.”

“What is it?” Jaya said.

“The devil,” he said.  “It devours men whole and leaves nothing but bones.  Each voyage, men who are in ill favor are sacrificed to its hunger so that it leaves the others alive.”  Jaya heard branches snap in the dark, and something splashed in the shallow waters of the stream – something big.

“Get him free,” she said, not taking her gaze from the night, searching for movement.  “Stay back.”  She gripped her spear and stepped away from the wall, faced the dark with her heartbeat loud in her skull.  She crept forward, placing her feet with care, trying to see into the utter blackness here beneath the trees, and realized something was very close to her.

She heard it, the slithering movement of a great body, the sound of claws digging into the soft earth.  She heard something breathe in and then out, a long, low hiss like sand grating under rocks, like water spilled on hot stone.

“Light torches,” she hissed behind her, not turning her face away.  She had to be able to see, and the drunken men on the shore beyond the wall seemed a very distant, small concern now.  Facing men with steel and fire was one thing, this was something else.

Several of the men bore coals packed safe in clay pots, fed by smoldering grass.  She knew it would take only a moment for them to spark a fire.  She held out her spear and struck the water of the stream, splashing it so drops flecked her face.  She heard the shape in the darkness shift and then there came a low guttering sound like breaking iron, and the water surged past her.  It was very close, and the smell of it was so strong.

Fire flared behind her, and she saw it then, illuminated in the sudden wash of light that seemed, in the dark, as bright as the sun.  Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt a chill race along her arms and legs, for this was no reptile she had ever seen, save in paintings on cave-walls and in stories out of the old times.

It raised its head when the light came, and she saw the scaled neck and the long, pointed muzzle.  Jagged spines made the back of the neck into a saw-edged curve, and the body behind it was studded with armored plates as big as a skull, gleaming against the dull color of the massive body.  It was moving closer, wide, heavy legs churning as the claws dug into the earth.  It moved side to side, the long, heavy tail threshing behind it.  Golden eyes gleamed as it looked down at her, opened its mouth and flicked a tongue as long as her arm.

It was a dragon – a Zaja.  Of that she had no doubt – the war-beasts of her ancestors that were said to be extinct these many long centuries.  Once creatures like this had lounged before the thrones of her forefathers, the terror they wielded a shield against assassins and traitors.  Once they had swum in the seas and followed warships into battle, ready to use their claws and teeth to rend both hulls and men.

Now this relic of another age came toward her, longer than six men, its body as thick as a heavy tree.  It looked at the fire and Jaya waved her spear to catch its attention.  “Here,” she said.  “Here, look at me.”  She did not raise her voice, and yet it seemed to hear her, to listen.  The huge head moved quick as a sea-bird’s, ducking down and then turning so one golden eye could look hard at her.  She felt its attention and found her mouth was very dry.  She saw the glint of teeth and they were stained red by the venom the thing carried in its mouth.  One bite would mean an agonizing death that stained flesh as red as blood.

She heard the men behind her curse and hiss, and she ground her teeth as their noise distracted the thing.  It turned from her and looked at them its tail beginning to lash more quickly.  In the corner of her eye she saw a man draw back his arm to hurl a spear, and she snarled.

“Get back and do not think to shed this creature’s blood!  Touch it and I shall kill you myself!”  She thrust her spear out sideways to bar the way.  “This is a dragon, a true Zaja from the old ages.  It is mine, and you will not touch it!”

Her voice startled it, and she heard querying voices from the other side of the wall.  She backed away, moving her spear side to side to attract the dragon.  “Stand aside, lie down and do not move!”  She led it back toward the wall, leading its head to swing side to side as it followed her.  The tension mounted in the immense body, and she saw it rise up higher on its legs.  It lowered its wide head and she knew it was about to charge.

“Come come,” she said, her voice singsong.  “Come and follow me.  Led me lead you to war with steel and with blood as of old.  Come.”

She saw its eye flicker, and then she turned and ran, hearing the tearing of earth and rock as it exploded into motion behind her.  The hissing was like the seethe of boiling water, and she heard her men cry out as they threw themselves out of the path.  One was too slow, and when she glanced back she saw the slashing tail rip his chest open, splitting him apart in a gout of blood.

Then the barricade was before her.  She saw men looking down over the top, and she hurled her spear at them before she leaped into the forest of pointed stakes.  Her blade flashed out and she hacked her way through, severing spike after spike as she fought her way up.  She heard shouting above her, and then the whole wall shuddered under the impact of the dragon as it smashed into the barrier, splintering wood and sending shards flying through the flame-lit darkness.

o0o

The blow nearly tore her loose from the barricade, but she hung on grimly and swung to the top of the wall, the ancient stone under her feet.  There were six men here, all of them looking half-drunk and stunned, and she struck out at them with furious screams.  The edge of her sword severed an arm and two necks, splashing her with their blood, and then the dragon bellowed and smashed through the wall, and she leaped down and rolled on the sand.

The bonfires lit the night as the beast tore through the barrier and was loose on the white sands of the cove.  Pale-skinned giants ran everywhere, screaming, as the beast of the night came among them, and Jaya laughed to see it fall upon them.  It snapped up a man in its jaws and shook him until his arms tore off, it trampled two more underfoot, claws gouging them to pieces, and the great tail whipped side-to-side, cutting through flesh like an axe-blade.

A yellow-bearded giant rose before her, pointing a smoking club at her face, and Jaya remembered the battle on the beach on her home island.  She slapped the weapon aside just as it flashed and spat smoke into the air, and she hacked off the arm that held it and left the man howling, clutching at the stump as blood jetted through his fingers.

The beach was chaos, and Jaya raced through it, striking at anything that rose up before her.  She slashed faces and arms, bellies and backs, painting the white sands with red that was black in the moonlight and the blaze of the bonfires.  The dragon raged through like a storm, bellowing so deeply the sound vibrated between her back teeth.  It scattered one of the fires with a blow of its tail and flames arced across the night sky, setting fire to tents and bales of cloth.  Jaya saw the skull banner in flames and she laughed.

Giants ran into the water and swam for their boat, but the dragon went in after them and crushed them in its jaws, tail lashing through the water, making waves that slashed across the longboats drawn up on the shore.  One of the boats began to burn, drifting out on the tide, spinning in the confused waves.

Jaya came to a last man kneeling in the wash of the surf, shaking, blood running from a wound on his head.  He looked up at her as she cast her shadow across him, and she saw one eye was white and blind, the other wide with terror.  He said something in his crude, ugly tongue, and then Jaya drew back her arm and hacked off his head, glad of the sound it made when it landed in the shallow water, of the twin black jets of blood that gouted from his neck as his body toppled.

It was suddenly quiet, save for the sound of the waves, and she held very still.  Slowly, she raised her head and saw the dragon there, looking down at her with its neck arched high.  The spines on its crest flared and moved, and the wattles beneath shifted as it looked at her.  She saw its golden eyes and felt the eagerness to strike, the blood-hunger she had wakened in it.  The cove stank of sea spray and blood, the wind carrying the smoke between them like a veil.

She held that feral gaze, and slowly she bent down and felt for the fallen head, lifted it by the wet hair and held it up.  The beast’s eyes followed the motion, and then she threw the head to it, saw it snapped from the air by those dagger-toothed jaws.  She heard the crunching of the bones as it devoured the head, and while it was occupied she caught up a burning piece of wood from the fire.

The dragon turned and watched her, eyes glimmering in the fire, and she held up the flaming brand and stepped closer to the thing.  “You will not.  You will obey me.  Obey.  Take your feast and go.  Obey!”

The beast moved closer to her, breathing out a cloud of salted mist.  Blood dripped from the red-stained jaws.  She moved the torch back and forth, the dragon following with sinuous motions of its head and neck.  It flicked out its long tongue and growled like breaking stones.  Jaya felt her heart beating fast in her chest, making her vision blur and her head throb.  She was so close she could smell the reptilian reek of the thing, even over the smoke and slaughter.

It came closer, looking down at her, and she threw the torch away, heard it hiss in the water.  “Go!” she said, pointing along the shore toward the dark jungle.  “Go.  I will return for you.  I will.”

The dragon let out a long breath, grunting, and then it turned away from her.  She watched as it plucked up a corpse from the waters, almost delicately.  Carrying its meal, it turned and surged into the waves.  It swam away into the night, tail making great sweeps behind it.  She heard one last growl, and then it vanished into the dark and the drifting smoke.

She stood there, feeling a weakness come over her limbs, and she wondered if she was going to fall.  She closed her eyes and took deep breaths.  Now it was over she felt a dozen minor scrapes and pains, tasted blood in her mouth and smelled it on her skin.  She looked down and saw her hands and arms were painted red, her left hand singed and blackened with soot.

When she turned back to the fire she saw Dhatun there with her other Ekwa – less two that had fallen.  The prisoner was with them, held on his knees with a spear in his back.  None of them spoke, and she saw a trembling look of awe on their faces.

Wordlessly, they brought her the heads taken from the slain giants and piled them before her.  It was the honor accorded a war chieftain – to give all honor to the leader who had led them to victory.  It was given only to those with the greatest courage, and she began to realize what they had seen her do.  Even now, thinking of it, she could not really believe it.  In the moment, one act had flowed into another, but now it all seemed like something she had imagined.

She looked at the prisoner and she saw the same kind of fear on his face, though he hid it better than the Ekwa.  She came to stand before him and laid the flat of her bloodied sword on his shoulder.  “You, what are you called?”

He swallowed.  “Bastar,” he said.

“How do you speak our tongue, Bastar?” she said.  She felt light-headed, and knew she would have to sit down soon, but not yet.

“I have been in these islands for five years,” he said, looking nervously down at her blade.  “I have spent my time well.”

She pointed to the ship anchored in the cove.  “You will take me aboard that ship and show me how to sail it.  You will teach me how it works, you will teach me the weapons and ways of your kind.”

“I will,” he said.  “I promise I will.”

Now she could see his fear a little clearer, and she liked it.  “You said you know the one I seek, the one who sails the eagle ship.  Tell me his name.”

“Lozonarre, who men call the Destroyer,” he said.  “I know his ship, and I know where you may find him, if you seek.  He is no friend of mine.  I will show you to him and suffer no guilt of it.”  He held up his open hands.  “I swear it.”

Jaya nodded and took her sword away from his flesh.  She turned to Dhatun.  “Search this camp, kill any wounded who still live, and see what there is that might be of use to us.  Take all the swords and daggers – any weapons you find.  Bring the canoe down the coast.”  She gestured to the giant craft in the water.  “We will take this ship.  It will carry us where we need to go.”  She walked away from them and sat down on a rock beside a tidal pool, feeling weary and sore and hollowed-out.  She looked up at the stars, where the path of light led above them from the east into the unknown west, and she breathed deep the night air, tasting smoke and death and the pulse of the sea.  Somewhere on that horizon was the man she hunted, and she would find him under another moon.