Free The Silent Isle by Nicholas Anderson Page A

better shape.  In one they found a loaf of bread sitting on the
counter.  It was hard and dry as a brick but intact.  The knife still
sat in a half-cut slice.  On the floor of another they found a plate of
chicken bones, presumably set there for the family dog.  In all the houses
the front room seemed to be a kitchen and dining area of sorts and the smaller
two bedrooms.  The final house gave them the most cause for worry. 
    It was built
like the others; two smaller rooms, one on each side of the larger front room.
 The front room and the one bedroom were in good order.  But the door
to the second room would not open.  It was not that the door was
locked.  Or at least it was no longer locked.  It opened about a half
a foot and then would go no further.  The jamb had been splintered and
smashed where the latch would have sat.  Owen, Wink snarling at his side,
threw his shoulder against the door; but this gained nothing.  He was
about to do it again when Dane said, "Wait." 
    Dane was
beginning to doubt he wanted to know what was on the other side.  A sudden
voice startled him.  "Sir, around here."  
    Dane stepped
outside and followed the voice.  Kenzie had had the good idea to walk
around to the rear of the room.  Dane found himself looking at a window,
or what had been a window.  The glass was all smashed out of it.  A
few shards lay at his feet.  Dane approached slowly and parted the
tattered curtains with one hand, crossbow raised in the other.  It took
half a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark.  A bunk bed had been
toppled and wedged between the door and the wall - this was what had prevented
the door from opening.  Dane handed his bow to Rem and crawled through the
window. 
    His boots
crunched as he stepped down inside.  More glass on the floor.  He
paused a moment to think about this.  The windows had been broken from the
outside.  A smear of dark stain on the floor boards.  
Dane went back to the windows.  Shards of glass still protruded from the
frame around the top and sides, but at the bottom the glass had been broken out
completely.  As though something heavy had been dragged
out over the sill.   Dane looked about the room.  He wondered
who had lived here.  Who had spent their final moments of terror here?  
He looked again at the short frame of the bunk bed.  Good God, had it been
only children?   He looked at the walls.  There was nothing to
read there.  He wished he could ask his questions of them.  But then,
he was not sure he wanted the answers.  He placed his hands on the
sill.  So smooth.   What had been dragged
through here to knock out all the glass?   He felt his throat
constricting.  Why do you ask yourself questions you already know the
answer to?   He leaned on his arms, bowed his head between his
shoulders. 
    It no longer
mattered to him that this mission had been his father's idea and his father's
idea to send him on it.  He didn't care who owned the ship which brought
them here or whose colony this had been or to whom these men swore allegiance
or on whose orders they had come.  He straightened.  This was Dane
Hallander's mission now, and it was by his hand he would make them pay for
this.   By Kran, he would make them pay.  
    He climbed back
through the window.  They searched the remaining buildings along the
wall.  A storeroom; strands of garlic and cured hams
hanging from the ceiling.   A woodshop with heavy
planks leaning against one wall.   A room of small barrels or casks
each marked with an X and covered by a tarp.  A cookhouse with bowls and
mugs and flatware laid out on the tables as though
waiting for a meal that had never been served.  A smithy and then a
stable, both open in front.  An armory - even better stocked than the
pantry:  bows and bolts and spears as well as picks and shovels; fishing
nets piled in one corner. 
    They met up with
Bailus and his men in a large room lined with bunks that sat beside the main
gate.