The horizon is the only sanctuary left
The ten-year silence of Carimpluni is shattered the army of Telimicus. As the first plumes of smoke rise over the mountain pass, the hidden fleet is thrust into action. Messo must now join the very exodus he once feared, leading thousands away from the only home they have ever known and leaving others, who would not be saved, to their fate.
“This is my home. I have a family. We are comfortable here. I am staying to fight,” a former soldier shouted. “Who will stay with me?”
Hundreds answered with a cheer.
“I understand. This is my home too,” Messo said. “We have a child on the way. I was hoping to raise our son or daughter here.”
Messo waited. The crowd quieted as his words sank in.
“We are not going to force you to leave,” Messo continued. “The ships are our priority. Once the ships are provisioned, we will help you build defenses. The ships will be boarded the moment Telimicus’s army appears.”
“We will be grouped in seven clusters of ten ships,” Catenum explained to those preparing to depart. “Each cluster must carry enough tools and seeds to start a new settlement. Take only what you need. We don’t have a lot of space.”
It took weeks to provision the ships. Families loaded cargo during endless longboat trips, sometimes towing barges stacked with tools. Crews pushed themselves from dawn until the last usable light.
True to Messo’s word, once the ships were stocked, settlers and defenders worked together to dig ditches and raise a wooden stockade. Catenum kept his armory running day and night, forging weapons for those who would stay behind. The clang of hammers carried across the bay, a steady reminder of what was drawing nearer.
“Telimicus is coming!” a scout shouted one humid morning. “His forces are only days away.”
“Board the ships!” Catenum ordered.
Every longboat was launched as soon as it was loaded. As soon as a ship was full, it sailed out of the harbor towing its longboat behind. By the third day, only fourteen ships remained.
Then Telimicus’s army crested the hills.
They lacked formal uniforms, but they had a uniformly brutal appearance. Their bodies were streaked with charcoal and sweat. Most wore loincloths of bloodied linen or rough hide. They were armed with bows and arrows, swords and spears. Their war cries, rising as a chorus of visceral growls, rolled across the hillside like the call of wild animals, vibrating the humid air.
“Bring the ships closer!” Catenum shouted urgently. “Everyone who is coming with us, get to the beach.”
Captains anchored within fifty yards of the shore. Longboats churned back and forth ferrying passengers. Those waiting whispered hurried goodbyes to defenders already bracing behind the stockade.
The fighting began before the second round of boats reached the ships. Defenders fired volleys that dropped attackers hundreds of yards from the stockade. Return volleys struck several defenders who had not reached cover in time.
Telimicus’s forces fanned out, vanishing behind trees and stones. Once they reached the stockade, the defenders’ advantage disappeared. Attackers hacked at the timber with crude axes while others dug at its base. A few hung back, firing into any gap where a defender’s head or shoulder appeared. The thud of blades striking wood mixed with the sharp snap of bows and thwunk of arrows, forming a driving rhythm as the wall weakened.
The last two longboats reached their ships just as the attackers broke through. Looking back, Messo saw the fighting spill across the village. For every defender cut down, several attackers fell, yet the attackers pushed forward without hesitation. They slaughtered fighters, women, and children alike. Messo had to be dragged onto his ship as the anchor began to rise.
A squad of archers reached the beach before his vessel had gained more than a hundred yards. Several defenders panicked and leapt into the water, trying in vain to swim toward the departing ships. The captains could not turn back.
The archers loosed their arrows repeatedly. Arrows found their marks. Swimmers screamed, bleeding until the water darkened and frothed around them. Messo covered his mouth, choking on the words that would not change the scene of carnage before him.
The defenders were gone. The village was gone. Only a few squads of Telimicus’s soldiers remained on the sand, enough to finish the last resistance.
By the time the ships had sailed another couple hundred yards, Messo was sobbing openly, grieving for the dead he had left behind. The archers, not content with killing the swimmers, released one final volley. A few arrows clattered against the rails.
One struck flesh nearby.
Messo heard a dull, awful thud beside him, followed by a gasp. He turned, expecting to see a wounded sailor. Instead, he saw a familiar form crumpling to the deck. Holiana lay bleeding at his feet. The arrow had pierced her chest, killing her instantly. The light in her eyes was gone. Her fingers twitched once, then went still. Their child died with her. Messo’s every hope for their future died with them.
“No!” Messo cried. “Why them and not me?”
The last ship cleared the mouth of the bay before Telimicus’s remaining squads could reach its opening. At the rally point, beneath a gray, sinking sky, a shattered Messo slid the bodies of his wife and unborn child into the sea to join the others killed by the final volley. The swell rose and swallowed them, carrying them into the deep as the fleet turned toward the open ocean.
What Record Will You Examine Next?
