Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(55)

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.




WE 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.