D. MacHale - The Pilgrims of Rayne

“Where did you get these?” Genj asked in surprise.

“Rubic City” was my simple answer. I didn’t mention that it was Rubic City a few hundred years before, and that they were handed to me by Aja Killian. That would have made his brain melt.

Scanning the map, I immediately recognized the large bay where Rayne was constructed. Alder leaned in close, surveying the details of the island.

“There is only one place on the island where a large invasion can land,” Alder concluded. “Here in the bay.”

“That’s why Rayne was built here,” Genj explained. “It is the only workable port. The rest of the island is ringed by rocky cliffs and treacherous beaches.”

“Then we know where to put our defenses,” Alder said. He pointed to several red squares that were positioned in the water just outside the bay. “And what are these?”

Moman answered, “They are the guns the military installed generations ago. They are positioned to defend the entrance to the bay.”

Alder looked to me. He wasn’t familiar with guns.

“They fire automatically?” I asked.

“No,” Genj answered. “They are controlled and maintained by our security force from here in the mountain.”

“We’ll need to see how they work,” I said.

Genj shook his head. He didn’t like something. “This is difficult for us. From the time Ibara was settled, the tribunals have kept the military workings of this island a secret from the population. The guns have rarely been used, and then only at night for training.”

“Genj,” I said, trying to sound patient. “Do you seriously believe, after what happened to the pilgrims, that there is a single person left in Rayne who doesn’t know about those guns?”

Genj looked to Moman and Drea with anguish. I felt for them. They had dedicated their lives to following the guidelines set by Aja Killian centuries before. They were now learning that it no longer mattered. Their mission had changed from one of hope, to one of desperation.

“Continue,” he finally said to me.

“What is this thing?” I pointed to a thick, dark line that ran directly beneath the village, parallel to the beach.

“A tunnel,” Genj answered. “The military used it to store weapons.”

“Is anything left down there?” I asked hopefully. ‘Any weapons I mean?”

“No,” Genj answered. “They were destroyed when the military abandoned the island.”

“What other weapons do you have?” Alder asked.

Siry answered. “Blowguns. With poison tips.”

Alder and I exchanged dark looks. “Not a lot of good they’ll do against machines,” I said.

Genj added, “We also have bows that fire arrows longer distances. Would they help?”

Alder actually perked up after hearing that. “They will” he declared.

I knew what he was thinking. Arrows could deliver tak. “We must not waste time,” Alder concluded. “I have a plan.”

The plan was one part genius, one part clever, and eight parts desperation. The only real hope we had of defending the island was to pick off the dados as they landed. Our only advantage was that we could hide our defenses. The dados had to come at us. We would be waiting.

The first thing we did was address the people of Rayne in the large, outdoor theater. The place was jammed with anxious, frightened people. They had all seen the pilgrim ships being attacked. It didn’t take much to convince them that another attack was imminent. Genj did the talking, telling the people they weren’t the last of a dying world, they were the first of a new world. He gave them both hope and fear-hope for a new beginning and fear that they wouldn’t get the chance unless they defended the island. He was good. I had new respect for the guy. He wanted to do what was right for his people. I could argue that the people of Ibara should never have been kept in the dark for so long, but that wasn’t Genj’s fault. He was only following the instructions handed down for generations. Instructions that came from Aja. How weird was that?

Genj introduced Alder and me to the crowd. He told them how we had come from across the sea with the know-how to defend Ibara. Genj told them to follow our orders as if we were on the tribunal ourselves.

He put the trust of the people and the future of Ibara square into our hands.

Many things needed to be done quickly. Alder gave Telleo the task of organizing all those who couldn’t fight. That meant the children and the elderly. Several people were assigned to take them away from the village to a secure spot in a village across the island. While that exodus was under way, Siry led a group of thirty people to the rocky caves by the shore to transport the tak into the village.

He asked me, “What do I tell them about the dygo?”

“Tell them it’s something we brought to Ibara from far away. It’ll freak them out and give us total credibility.” I added, “And make sure nobody drops anything. The last sound they’ll hear is a very big boom.”

With that sobering thought in mind, Siry took off with his team.

Alder and I got a crash course in the guns of Ibara from a security dude. The firing room was built into the mountain, with a view high over the bay. From there, every gun position could be seen. There was a single chair that swiveled left and right. In front of the chair was a control panel, and a joystick with a trigger. Each of the ten weapons were controlled from that one spot. It was explained to us by the security guy that from the first day Ibara was settled, there was always one person manning the guns in case of an attack. It wasn’t until recently that they were needed.

Before leaving the room I looked out the rocky opening in the direction of Rubic City. The sea was empty. We still had time.

Once Siry and his team brought the tak to the mountain, they began the delicate task of fixing small bits of the explosive to the tips of arrows. Thousands of arrows were brought from storage deep within the mountain, along with several hundred bows. Siry took charge, organizing the men and women into assembly lines to efficiently turn out explosive arrows. He was a natural leader. He cajoled, ordered, threatened, and begged the people to ensure maximum output. They ended up creating an arsenal of thousands of arrows. Unfortunately there were many thousands of dados.

Alder’s plan called for archers to be positioned in four lines, parallel to the shore. The first line would begin near the water and others would continue on back toward the mountain. The archers would pick the dados off as they landed. Of course, there was no way they could get them all. As the dados grew closer, the lines would retreat and join the others to the rear, where they would continue to shoot. The goal was to take out as many as possible before they reached Tribunal Mountain.

Our final stand would be made from the mountain. It was the best defensive position to take. The archers would gradually move farther and farther back, until they all ended up inside the mountain. With luck, enough of the dados would have been taken out so we could successfully defend the mountain. If not, the mountain would become our tomb.

While Siry supervised the arrow making, Alder and I were taken into the tunnels beneath the village. The entrance was in Tribunal Mountain. We descended ancient stone stairs to find a long, narrow passageway that looked like a mine tunnel cut through solid rock. My sense of direction told me that it led toward the beach. We jogged the length of it, passing a few smaller cross-tunnels that weren’t even on the map. We finally hit the end of this first tunnel and an intersection where we had to turn either right or left. This was the large tunnel from the map. It stretched into darkness on either side of us for as far as I could see, parallel to the beach. There were ancient ladders propped up toward the ceiling every ten feet or so. Alder climbed one and peered into a cutout in the rock.