The Pilgrims of Rayne

IBARA

This is my last journal.

I know I’ve written words like that before, but it was always out of fear that something might prevent me from writing. That’s not the case here. Nothing is going to happen to me. Not anymore. I made sure of that. As I write this journal, I feel safe for the first time since I left home to become a Traveler. It wasn’t easy getting to this place. In fact, it was a nightmare. But it’s over now. Sort of. I’m going to have to relive it in these pages. Part of me wants to skip writing it all down, because it’s too painful. That wouldn’t be fair. Not to you, Courtney. Not to the other Travelers. Not to Uncle Press. I have to finish what I started, just as I did here on Ibara. After looking back on all that’s happened since I wrote my last journal, there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty. The battle for Halla is over. How that happened will be related to you here, in my final journal. I hope I can find the right words to paint the picture as it happened. As I saw it. As it was meant to be.

When we returned to the island of Ibara with the tak, we dressed Alder in local clothes and hurried out of the newly dug tunnel, headed for Tribunal Mountain. Not a single quig-bee bothered us. The poison must have killed them all. When we reached the village, the people were milling around nervously. Many cried. Others consoled them. There was an air of foreboding.

“It’s like we never left,” Siry said to me in wonder.

“I told you. The flume puts us where we need to be, when we need to be there. It looks like the Flighters attacked the pilgrims only a few hours ago.”

“Amazing,” Siry whispered in awe.

I didn’t think it was amazing at all. The amazing thing was that I didn’t question it. As we hurried through the village, I saw that Alder was taking it all in. Analyzing our chances. He didn’t have anything good to say.

“Where is the army?” he asked.

“There is no army” was my sober answer.

“Then who will fight the dados?”

“You’re looking at them,” I answered.

“These people are not prepared for war,” he declared. “They are not trained. How do you plan to fight off an army of machines with fishermen?”

“Now you see why we need the tak” was my answer.

As we got closer to the mountain, I saw that Genj had done what I’d asked. A crowd had formed at the mountain’s base. The security force was rounding up every person in the village who was willing and able to fight. Seeing this crowd of frightened villagers made me realize just how right Alder was. These people had no chance of defending their island.

The tribunal was waiting for us in their cavern room. Telleo was there too. The security guys waved us right in. Man, things had changed. We were no longer outlaws.

“This is Alder,” I announced. “He is a warrior. He can help us.”

When Genj saw us, he frowned. “You went for help and returned with a single man?”

Genj looked skeptical. So did Moman and Drea. Telleo didn’t look so thrilled either. That was okay. They didn’t know Alder.

“There’s no way to know how long we have,” I said. “We need to form our defense now.”

“I don’t understand,” Moman said. “The Flighters have already attacked. The pilgrim ships are destroyed. Why would they attack again?”

“It’s not the Flighters we have to worry about,” I explained. “There is an army gathered on Rubic City that is going to invade Ibara. They are worse than Flighters. They’re machines.”

Genj and the others stared at me as if I were from Neptune. Or wherever it was crazy people came from on Veelox.

“I’ve seen it,” Siry added. “They’re going to come here on small ships. Thousands of them.”

Genj asked, “And who is this person who controls the army? The man who killed Remudi?”

“He’s the leader of the Flighters,” I answered. It was only a small lie. He was leading the Flighters. Of course, he had bigger plans than that, but I didn’t want to go there just then. Or ever. The tribunal exchanged looks. They still needed convincing.

“Look,” I said sharply. “Either let us help you, or everything you’ve worked for, everything your ancestors worked to build, everything Aja Killian envisioned for Ibara is going to be destroyed. The choice is yours.”

That stung them.

“I believe Pendragon,” Telleo said. “The Flighters have destroyed our future. Why do we doubt they’ll stop there?”

“We aren’t warriors,” Genj declared.

“I know,” I said. “We’ve got to be smart… and lucky.”

It was time to prepare for the defense of Ibara. My idea of bringing tak was to use it as a weapon against the dados. My thoughts didn’t go much beyond that. Having Alder around suddenly seemed like a brilliant idea. He knew tactics. He was part of an army. Okay, it was an army of knights, but it was still an army. We spread out the maps of Ibara that Aja had given me on the tribunal’s table and huddled around.

“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.

“I see the water/’ he announced.”These are defensive positions. We will position our third line down here. The dados will not know where the attack is coming from.”

When Alder jumped down he actually had a smile on his face. “We may have a chance after all, Pendragon.”

I looked up and down the dark tunnel. An idea was forming.

“What are you thinking?” Alder asked.

“This tunnel is our secret weapon. The trick is to figure out how best to use it.”

It was getting late in the day. The sun dipped down over the mountain, casting long shadows over Rayne. Alder thought the chances of the dados attacking at night were pretty slim. It took a little pressure off. Very little. When the sun came up the next day, it would be over the water. That meant it would be in our eyes.

Alder said, “If they are smart, they will attack at dawn when the sun is at its lowest point.”

“You mean when we’d be blind,” I said.

Alder nodded. Great. We had to prepare as if dawn would bring the dados. Dawn of the Dados. Sounds like a bad horror movie. Maybe it was.

Telleo returned after dark to report that the children and the older folks were safe on the far side of the island. Safe? Did I say “safe”? For how long? It wasn’t something I wanted to think about.

The last event of the night was to bring our makeshift army back to the gathering place to pass along final orders. This wasn’t a real army. There were no officers or sergeants or any true organization. Besides Alder, none of us had any experience with waging a war. We were making it up as we went along.

I left it to Siry to organize his people. He divided them into groups. Those who felt confident with the bows and arrows were moved to one side. My quick count said there were around a hundred potential archers. Another group was chosen for their speed. They would be the messengers who would relay orders from the mountain command post to the lines of archers. The final group would be the utility players. They would go where they were needed, whether it be to move ammunition around, help the wounded, or in the worst case, take the bows and tak arrows from those who fell, to be used elsewhere.

It was going to be a war and it was going to be ugly.

Alder explained his strategy to the group, showing them on the map where each line should be when the invasion began. He told them they should stay in their positions as long as possible and wait for the order to move back before retreating. The final move would be into the mountain, where they would continue their defense for as long as possible.

As long as possible. Who knew how long that would be? What had Saint Dane told the dados to do? How would this end? Would there be a chance for surrender? Or was their mission to wipe out the entire population? I didn’t want to go there, but it was a very real possibility.

While Alder spoke, I sat behind him, looking into the faces of the people of Ibara. There were about two hundred who stayed to fight. Nobody said a word. They listened intently. Every last one of them looked scared. They were listening for anything that might give them a little assurance that they actually had a chance. They had seen what happened to the pilgrims. They may not have understood their enemy, but they knew what they were capable of. Out of the nine hundred pilgrims who left on ships that morning, only half had survived the attack.

Up until that moment, the only thing on my mind was beating Saint Dane. Like I’ve said, the battle for Ibara was likely to be the first battle for all of Halla. But staring into those frightened faces made me realize that it was also their battle. These weren’t pawns to be used for some grander conflict. They were innocent people who had lived peaceful, productive lives. This was their home. They’d done nothing to bring on the horror that was about to descend on them. The future of all existence now rested on their shoulders. It wasn’t fair. Saint Dane has said how the people of the territories always brought on their own misfortune. What had these people done wrong? Their sole mission was to survive and try to revive a dying culture. What had they done to deserve this? The answer was nothing, and it made me hate Saint Dane all the more. I wanted to win this battle for all the reasons I’ve said, but after spending time with these people and feeling their fear, I wanted to win for them, too.

When Alder was finished, he asked if I wanted to say something to the people. It was a tough thing. What could I say that would make them understand how important the fight was going to be? Or to give them hope that there was a chance they wouldn’t be slaughtered? I stood on the stage, alone, looking out on their frightened faces. The tribunal sat to the side of the stage, trying to look confident. I knew they were just as scared as everyone else, including me. Telleo sat next to her father. She gave me a smile and a nod of support. I wanted to say something to make them feel better, but what? Most of them didn’t know about the world beyond their shore. How could I begin to explain Halla? They had no idea that they were about to play a pivotal role in the future of all that ever existed, or would exist. What could I possibly tell these people that would give them confidence? They all stared at me, looking for answers. Or inspiration. Or something.

“This battle isn’t our entire future,” I finally said. “This isn’t the end. It’s only a moment in time. No matter what happens, there will always be a future. It’s up to us to make it a better one. I believe we can do that. Never, ever give up hope, because that’s exactly what they want. No matter how this battle turns out, if we continue to believe there is hope for a better future, we will have won.”

That’s all I said. I left the stage feeling as if I had failed. The first person I saw when I stepped down was Siry. He had tears in his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Of all the things you’ve told me, those are the words I will remember.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Telleo.

“Destiny brought you here for us, Pendragon,” she said. “You are our future.”

She leaned forward, kissed me on the cheek, and hugged me close. I hugged back. For that one moment, I let myself believe that everything was going to be okay.

Alder and I returned to the community hut that I had made my home. That’s where I finished my last journal and sent it to you. There was no way I could sleep. What would the morning bring? How would this play out? Was this going to be the beginning of the end? Or the greatest victory of all time? No, of all times.

For so many years we’ve lived by Uncle Press’s mandate that the territories should never be mixed. Each territory is supposed to live out its own destiny without interference. That’s the way it was meant to be. But Saint Dane changed that and forced me to make a difficult choice. Is there a price that is too high to pay for victory? Should we have let the klee of Eelong kill off the gars? Should I have left Quillan without entering the Grand X? Saying things should happen the way they were meant to be doesn’t mean that things will always turn out for the best. We shouldn’t interfere with the natural order of the territories, but neither should Saint Dane. Because of his devious influence things have not played out the way they were supposed to. Anywhere. Will two wrongs make a right? I don’t know. The only thing I can say for sure is that it’s too late to turn back now.

As I finished that last journal, I still held out hope that you had gotten to Mark, Courtney. I imagined the sun rising with no dados on the horizon. I imagined waiting for a battle that was not to happen, because the dados had ceased to exist. It actually made me more anxious. I couldn’t let myself think that way. I had to prepare as if the battle were inevitable. I had to put my game face on. Lying at my feet was one of the black dado weapons from Quillan. I wanted to use it. I wanted the sun to rise.

I wanted to fight.

(CONTINUED)