The Vanishing Isle
Bromm VIII
"It's not on any of our charts," said Bromm. He brushed a hand through his thick black hair and sighed. Turning to the ship's port side, he cast his gaze out over the clear blue waters to the golden shore some two hundred yards distant. The green-shrouded isle that rose out of the early morning fog had his crew baffled. In the middle of the night, they had seen boulders in the water and quickly dropped anchor lest they run aground, but only with the rising sun had they truly seen land. Yet despite scouring all their maps and charts, then taking another sighting of the stars, they had not reconciled the island with anything recorded. He turned his attention back to the charts and his four officers, all good friends from past voyages.
"The sea is mysterious," opined Pyet, youngest of Bromm's officers, as he leaned over the rail and scrutinized the dark green mass in the fog. "Would an island appearing where there was once nothing be the strangest thing that happened?"
"Mysterious and dangerous," grumbled Sahat, the eldest of Bromm's friends. He rubbed his shaven head and frowned at the map. "If it's uncharted, it's uncharted for a reason."
"Aye, it means no one has plundered it yet!" the five of them turned to see Urgan, a grizzled and salty dwarf who had claimed his spot as first mate, clamber up to the quarterdeck. His pale blonde beard spread across his chest, and he had an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. With wild eyes he swept a hand over the maps and charts arrayed on the deck, then smiled.
"We should go ashore immediately," he rumbled.
"We should go ashore cautiously, if at all," said Tahavi, Bromm's quartermaster. "The charted islands of the sea are choked with reefs and worse, so I expect that the uncharted ones will be even more so. The water's clear, so it shouldn't take long."
"Well then, let's get a boat in the water! What are we waiting for?"
Bromm frowned. Something about the island was unsettling to him. Nevertheless, he allowed Urgan to put a longboat in the water and plot a way to shore. The
White Shepherd's
other longboat had headed out to sea, for Bromm was concerned that they had accidentally sailed into a nest of reefs and might run aground on their way back out to sea. But Apliss had favored him, and the brig lay anchored at the edge of the reefs that surrounded the island. Their way out was clear.
Urgan climbed aboard from the boat and beamed to his waiting clique.
"It's just waiting for us!" the men cheered, and Bromm had to accede to their demands to go ashore. They piled into the longboats, leaving Sahat in charge of the ship with a reduced crew. Hefting axes, boarding pikes, and firelocks, fifty eager sailors rowed across the open water as silvery fish swirled around them in schools. Pyet dashed a hand into the water to seize one but came up empty. Some of the other sailors laughed.
"Careful, boy, you'll tip the boat over before you catch one," Urgan called from the prow of the other boat. Pyet scowled and took his seat again. Bromm paid them little mind. He crouched at the head of his longboat with a flintlock in hand, narrowed eyes searching the isle's shores.
An expanse of golden sand stretched perhaps a hundred yards from the water to the treeline, where the island was covered by thick green undergrowth and shaded by the canopies of towering trees whose branches were draped with vines. Here and there, Bromm spied brightly colored birds flitting through the branches, and from far off he heard the calls of strange beasts.
"I hope none of them are dangerous," he muttered to himself.
"What was that, captain?" asked Imre. His friend leaned closer, cradling a matchlock musket under his own arm.
"Nothing, just thinking aloud," Bromm replied. Imre nodded and sat back again. They were nearing the shore, and Bromm stood up as the sandy bottom of the sea floor grew nearer. As the longboat's keel brushed sand, he hopped from the boat with a splash and guided the vessel ashore by its prow. The others piled excitedly from the boat and hauled them out of the water. Bromm looked back to the
White Shepherd,
anchored in the open water with her gunports open and sails reefed. Sahat was on the quarterdeck with a spyglass, and Bromm gave him a confident wave which he returned.
He turned inland and felt his feigned confidence waver. The forest ahead of them was dark and foreboding, and the rising sun was doing little to illuminate it. He clutched his flintlock closer and touched a hand to the saber on his hip.
Behind him, the crew was unloading the boats before they returned to the
White Shepherd
for more supplies. The more diligent of them piled their provisions onto the beach while others set off toward the treeline with weapons in hand. Their spirits were high, and they spoke of the treasures they might find in the island's depths more than of any dangers that awaited.
Urgan stepped up to him, flanked by his lieutenant Nyvald and his lover Heyne. The former was a red-headed bear of a man, standing a hand taller than Bromm and with a wild beard to match Urgan's own. The latter was a slender youth not yet in his twentieth year, with a soft face and warm green eyes. Nyvald carried a hooked axe and a matchlock musket, while Heyne laid a blunderbuss over his shoulder and hung a straight sword from his hip. Urgan was armed with a pair of throwing axes and a heavy falchion, while a shirt of fine dwarven mail glittered on his chest.
"We should split up," the dwarf barked to Bromm, "we'll cover more ground that way."
"We'll be eaten faster that way," Imre retorted. The young man was carrying a boarding axe and a bundled tent. Two pistols were thrust through his belt. "We should stick together until we know what's in this forest."
"I'm the first mate here, boy," Urgan snapped.
"Aye, and I'm the captain," Bromm cut in. "We'll establish a base camp first, then we'll move into the interior in groups. We must be cautious."
"Bah!" Urgan roared, and stalked off. Nyvald gave Bromm a look and a shrug, then he and Heyne went off after the dwarf, whose grumbling could still be heard as he stalked down the beach.
"He wants to split up so you don't know what treasure he finds," Imre said quietly.
"Aye," Bromm replied. "I'm more wary of the island's dangers than being cheated."
Pyet approached them with a brace of pistols, which he handed to Bromm with a smile.
"Ready when you are, captain." Bromm thrust the pistols through his belt, next to his own ornate ivory-handled pistol and a companion engraved in dwarven runes. He ran a hand through his black beard and looked up the beach. The strip of golden sand stretched two miles east to a rocky cape, and three miles south until it curved away out of sight. As far as he could see, there was only empty beach.
"We should look inland for a base camp site," he said at last.
"Aye, Lukodo has our things set out," Pyet said. He indicated the landing spot, where the stout, dark-skinned Lukodo was supervising five sailors in the gathering of camping material. They hefted tents, timber, axes, and other tools onto their shoulders and Lukodo turned to Bromm.
"Lead the way, captain," he said, hefting a bundle of lumber onto his broad shoulders.
Bromm turned back to the treeline and pointed to a stand of trees that rose taller than the others.
"There. These trees are all the same type, so those taller ones must be on a hillock or a rise of some kind. We'll make for it and set up camp. Pyet, tell the boats to relay this to Sahat."
Bromm gathered his men at the treeline, where some had already ventured into the forest and need to be called back. With the eager Urgan at the head and Bromm bringing up the rear, they began their march through the forest to the hillock.
Overhead, strange birds wheeled through the trees, followed by hopping rodents with lustrous fur. Bromm thought that, if he could only catch a few, he could sell their furs for a fine price. But they darted expertly through the high branches far out of sight. The forest floor was an abundant place as well, for he saw many ferns and even flowers growing there. The ground rose slowly but steadily, and he found himself moving slowly to avoid tripping over the many roots that broke from the dark earth. The procession of sailors wound its way around a thicket and reach the base of the hillock where the ground climbed higher faster. With some effort, they reached the top and spread out.
"I want a defensive ring set up, and lookouts to go with it," Bromm ordered. Then he laid his weapons at the base of a tall tree and began to climb. The lower trunk was thick and its bark coarse, so he had Imre heft him up to a branch. The bark was rough on his hands, but Bromm was an experienced climber of both trees and rigging and went up undeterred. He hauled himself up onto a branch wide enough to walk up and paused to take stock of his camp.
His crew had begun to emplace sharpened stakes around the edge of the hillock, linked by thick rope as a further impediment to attackers. In the middle of the camp, Lukodo was excavating a firepit while Urgan and his crew dragged together branches for a shelter. Bromm smiled. His crew
From there, he pulled himself up through successive layers of the tree's limbs until he broke out through the green leaves of the top and could see unobstructed.
The view was magnificent. He first looked to the sea, where his beloved
White Shepherd
lay at anchor where he had left her. Beyond his ship was only the open expanse of the wide blue sea. Further inland, he could see tall crags rise from the tree cover, and the sun glinted off what looked to be a lake nestled within them. At the foot of the crags, he saw what looked to be a ruined stone structure of some kind. Above the crags, a small flock of birds wheeled overhead.
Bromm shaded his eyes as he looked east, into the morning sun. The sun's harsh rays nearly blinded him, but through the shade of his fingers he could make out the island's shape. It broadened like an arrowhead stabbing into the sea, covered completely by tree cover except for the thin fringe of golden sand along the water. Soon enough, he could stand to look into the sun no longer and turned his attention back to the central crags.
