Tales of the Slayer

  Fernandez did return, but he was impatient to resume his privateering. On August 27, with the heaviest of hearts and praying that he was doing the right thing, White kissed his daughter and granddaughter good-bye, embraced his son-in-law, and departed for England.

  * * *

  The time passed. Summer’s heat gave way to autumn, then to winter. The colony continued to work hard, finishing the needed repairs to the fort, erecting houses for each family, and making sure that the gate was well barred at night. If it had not been for the kindness of Manteo and the Croatoans, they would have died during that bitter winter. But Manteo and the sharp-eyed medicine man named Okisko, whom Manteo called “the flyer” and who wore a flattened woodpecker on his head and the head of a fox on his breechclout, kept bringing the hungry Englishmen food, even though this depleted their own stores. The colonists gratefully responded by sharing the few deer that they were able to catch on their own as well as tools and skills they had brought from England. More and more, the two very different peoples turned to one another, until at last, merging seemed the only logical thing to do.

  * * *

  “What do you mean, I’m not allowed to leave?” sputtered John White. “I’ve got Grenville and eight ships loaded with food and supplies ready to sail tomorrow! My God, man. We know she’s the Slayer. Dee’s confirmed it—you know what’s at stake! She has to have supervision!”

  The usually unflappable Sir Walter Raleigh looked as pained as White had ever seen him. “No one knows better than I, John. But I can’t go against the Privy Council and Her Majesty. If they want to confiscate your vessels for use against the Spanish Armada, there’s nothing any of us can do.”

  “But . . . she’s the Slayer, Walter! And my granddaughter . . .”

  Raleigh put a sympathetic hand on the man he had chosen to be governor of his newest colonization attempt. “Take heart, John. This war can’t last forever.”

  But to the anguished John White, a father who had left behind a daughter and granddaughter, and a Watcher who had, need be damned, forsaken his Slayer, the war did indeed seem to last forever.

  JULY 1588

  It had taken many months and many trips from Roanoke to Croatoan, but the task was almost complete. All the housing had already been broken down and transported by canoe and pinnace. The last of the supplies were going over the next day or two, and then the colonists would move. Two more nights in this place, and then it would be a new beginning. Eleanor hummed to herself as she finished packing her father’s prized possessions. They would be buried, kept safe from the ravages of nature and beasts, and when he returned, he would be overjoyed to see how well the colonists had taken care of his things.

  She turned to packing the few items her own family would be taking to Roanoke. Little enough—blankets, a few precious books, tools. Virginia’s cradle. Eleanor paused for a moment to regard her sleeping child with love.

  Ananias bent to pick up the chest containing the governor’s personal items. “Find another to help you,” Eleanor warned. “Armor isn’t light.”

  “You shouldn’t be packing that. We could use it,” he replied.

  “Our real enemies don’t care about physical armor,” she reminded him, lowering her voice. The Night Walkers had done their share, more than the fearsome Roanoacs, to diminish the ranks of the colonists. Several hunting parties had failed to return, and when their bodies were eventually found, according to Ananias they had had their skulls literally pulverized and sported two marks on their throats. Yet she and Ananias had refrained from informing the others, and soon, the threat would be gone.

  She shivered, though the night air was balmy. Yes, it would be good to be safely with their friends the Croatoans. Manteo had said there were no Walkers on Croatoan Island.

  “Lest I forget in the excitement of leaving, I’m going to go leave the message John told us to,” said Ananias.

  Eleanor looked up at him. “Can it not wait until morning? The Walkers . . .”

  “We’ve never seen a trace of them this close to the camp. I’ll be careful.” He kissed her quickly, and then stepped into the night. The two men whose job it was to guard the gate bolted the door behind his back. Eleanor stood and stared at the door, whispering a prayer for her husband’s safety.

  * * *

  Before he left, White had taken Ananias aside and told him, “If you must leave, for whatever reason, carve the name of your destination in a conspicuous place. Then I shall know how to find you. If there is danger, carve a cross beside the name.”

  Ananias glanced about, but the night was still. He turned his attention to carefully carving the word CROATOAN in one of the fort’s stout posts. He nodded to himself, pleased that there was no need to carve the cross. It was a good departure. On an impulse, he decided to also place the word on a tree near where it was likely White would come ashore, just to be certain.

  Briskly he strode to the shore, found the tree, and began to carve.

  * * *

  When dawn came, Eleanor reached for her husband. He was not there. She bolted upright and hastened toward the men who had stood watch all night.

  “Has Ananias come and gone, then?”

  Roger Bailie exchanged glances with Chris Cooper. “Nay, Mistress Dare. He has not returned. Perchance he got lost in the dark, and will return soon.”

  She felt the blood drain from her face, but she forced a smile. These men did not know of the Walkers. But she did. She knew she was now a widow, and yet could not shed a tear. She kept up the facade through the day and into the evening. When a search party failed to find Dare, others grew concerned as well, but it was decided that they would leave as scheduled.

  “We’ll leave him a canoe,” said Bailie with exaggerated heartiness. “He’ll join us soon, I’m certain.”

  “Yes,” managed Eleanor, raw with grief and with a false smile on her face. “You are probably right.”

  * * *

  That night, as the colonists finished packing and lay down in small clusters of family groups around the bonfire in the center of the encampment, a familiar voice was raised outside the palisade.

  “Ho, good folks of the City of Raleigh! A lost lamb has wandered home!”

  The hairs on Eleanor’s arm stood up. She had been lying beside the fire, Virginia asleep in her cradle, and she turned at the sound of her husband’s voice. Fear gripped her heart, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Then air rushed into her lungs and she lurched to her feet, screaming, “Master Bailie! No! Don’t let him—”

  The gate swung open. Ananias stood there, grinning. Blood covered his neck and stained his shirt black in the flickering firelight. His teeth were sharp, and as his eyes met hers, they lit up as with an inner fire of their own.

  He had not come alone. Behind him stood several dozen Walkers, and like a tidal wave, they poured into the encampment.

  Though her heart was breaking, Eleanor Dare was the daughter of a Watcher, and she knew what she had to do. She dove for the fire and snatched a stick from its heart. It burned her hand. She reached for her child and, steeling herself against her daughter’s scream of pain, branded the girl with a cross on her perfect, pale forehead. Tears in her eyes, Eleanor whirled to face the thing that had been her husband. She stabbed forward with the sharp piece of wood, but the Walker was quicker.

  His hands grabbed her wrists and squeezed. Eleanor cried out as the bones snapped, and the stick fell from her hands.

  “It’s not so bad, my love,” Ananias whispered, lowering his mouth to her neck. “It’s sweet . . . so hot and sweet. . . .”

  Amid the shrieks of the dying and the victory cries of the killers, one sound rose up into the night sky more piercing than any other: the treble, thin cry of a wounded and terrified infant.

  * * *

  When the colonists did not arrive on the shores of Croatoan as planned, Manteo feared the worst. Mindful of the approaching night, he and Okisko, Ceremonial Fox, took a canoe to Roanoke. They heard no sounds of ta
lk. All the canoes and the pinnace were on the shore, laden with supplies.

  “Ananias!” Manteo called. No answer, save the cry of a lone hawk.

  “Takes From Eagle,” Ceremonial Fox called to him. “Look at this.” Takes From Eagle, called “Manteo” by the English, looked to where the conjurer pointed. On a tree were carved what the English called letters. Takes From Eagle had learned how to read when he lived with Raleigh in England. He sounded the letters out: “C. R. O”

  He turned to Ceremonial Fox. “It seems as though someone was trying to leave a message. These symbols are the first three letters of our island’s name in English.”

  Ceremonial Fox frowned, then reached into his medicine pouch and withdrew a handful of uppowok, which the English called “tobacco.” He sprinkled Takes From Eagle with it, then himself. It was an appeal to the mantoac, the gods, and it would help keep them safe. “We must hurry,” he said, glancing at the sky. “Night comes.”

  The fort’s massive door stood wide open. When they entered, the carnage that met their eyes was almost beyond belief. Both of them had seen Walker victims before, but never so many. Takes From Eagle’s eyes filled and he couldn’t see.

  The more practical Ceremonial Fox said, “They are not all here. The Walkers have taken many of them.”

  Takes From Eagle rubbed his eyes, and with fresh horror saw that Ceremonial Fox was right. While the number of bodies was staggering, it was nowhere near the hundred that they should have seen.

  “We need to take all the vessels away from here,” Takes From Eagle said. “So many Walkers . . .”

  Steeling themselves against the gore, they completed the grim task of pulverizing the skulls of the dead men, women, and children. They carried the bodies down to the shore aboard the pinnace, then set the ship aflame and cut the rope. The tide would take it away. As they turned to their own, they heard a faint sound from inside the fort. Takes From Eagle froze. It came again—the whimpering of an infant. Against all odds, someone had survived. He walked back to the English encampment. Slowly, almost reverently, Takes From Eagle picked up the baby from her cradle.

  “What is that on her head?” cried Ceremonial Fox. “Do these white men mutilate their own?”

  “It is a cross,” said Takes From Eagle. “A holy symbol. Eleanor no doubt marked her, to keep her alive. At the cost of her mother’s life, Virginia Dare yet lives.” He brought the infant close to his chest. The exhausted baby turned her head, seeking nourishment. “We will take her with us,” said Takes From Eagle. “She will be raised as my daughter. She will not fall to the Walkers as her parents did.”

  AUGUST 18,1590

  It had been with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation that John White had finally returned to Roanoke. The trip, as seemingly every sea voyage he had undertaken with regard to the colony, had been wretched and fraught with near disaster. He had fought steadily for permission to bring ships back to Virginia, and after three long years, he was finally honoring his promise to return.

  The day before yesterday, they had wasted precious time exploring a fire on the mainland, which had turned out to have been sparked by lightning, not by man. Yesterday, the expedition had gotten off to a very late start, and the weather had been horrible. The violent waves nearly sank White’s small vessel, and though there was no loss of life aboard, food, furniture, and gunpowder were swept overboard. Captain Spicer’s vessel fared more tragically. Seven men, including the captain himself and the surgeon who had come to join the colony, drowned. It had taken every ounce of persuasion White possessed to entice the disheartened men to put ashore. They headed for a second fire. They called aloud, sang English songs, and blew trumpets. Nothing. They had been duped a second time by nature into thinking the fire man-made.

  Finally, the party came to the site where the colony had been. On the beach was a tree that bore the letters CRO. White smiled to himself. They remembered. Then the smile faded. Why was not the word completed?

  As they made for the fort White’s eager footsteps slowed. All the houses had been taken down, and there were charred remains of what had once been a wooden palisade. Again, there was something carved on one of the remaining posts: CROATOAN. He felt a wave of relief. There was no cross, no sign that they had left for any reason other than their own free will. The Slayer was safe.

  Further exploration located White’s personal items, buried but since dug up and their contents ruined. His books were torn from the covers, the maps rotten and spoiled with rain.

  “My armor,” he sighed, gazing at the once-beautiful breastplate now nearly eaten through with rust. Ah, well. If my family is safe with Manteo’s people, it is little enough to pay. Tomorrow, he would see them at Croatoan.

  But evening brought more foul weather, such that they barely made it to the Hopewell. The storm raged through the night and into the next day. While Captain Cocke could make it to Croatoan, landing was impossible. Cocke made his decision. They would not land at all.

  Despite White’s pleas and protests, Cocke turned the fleet toward Puerto Rico. Yes, of course, they would return in the spring, he assured White. But even as he looked on Cocke’s face, White knew the truth, and it was a bitter draft.

  He could, and would, continue to try to get a relief fleet to the colonists. But in his heart, he knew that, despite his efforts, he would never see his family again.

  * * *

  They gave Virginia Dare the name White Doe, and she grew up as one of the other Croatoan children. Takes From Eagle doted on her but strove to show no favoritism. Even those who disliked the white man, among them Wanchese—He Who Flies Out, who had traveled to England with Takes From Eagle, had no dislike of this innocent little girl.

  Takes From Eagle decided that it would be best if the girl did not know her horrific origins. She would be a gift from the mantoac to the tribe, nothing less.

  But destiny would not permit White Doe to grow up as just another Croatoan, albeit a pale-complexioned, yellow-haired one. No child in the tribe was more agile in climbing trees or catching fish with the spear than White Doe. No child could run as fast, or as far, and no child survived the bumps and scrapes of play with as little injury as the English child. At first, Takes From Eagle attributed it to her race. Perhaps the white man was hardier than the Croatoan. But when White Doe was six and a broken bone healed within days, everyone took notice. This was more than good heritage. This smacked of spirit intervention.

  The werowances met one night after the children had gone to bed. They talked about White Doe in soft voices until finally Takes From Eagle had to speak the truth that was in his heart.

  “She is no demon,” he said, sorrow tingeing his voice. He had not realized until now how much he had wanted his adopted daughter to just be herself, not something as magical as. . . .

  “Before he left, John White told me of a heroic Walker-killer who is born to each generation. She has miraculous healing power, sharp senses, and strength beyond even the most powerful warrior. Her destiny is to stand against evil, be it demons or Walkers. It is always a girl, and the name White gave me to call her, should she be born into our tribe, is the Slayer.”

  He studied their surprised reactions, but no one doubted him. Takes From Eagle did not lie. “White Doe was not born into our tribe, but she has been Croatoan since she was but a few months old. I could not love her more if she were my own flesh. I believe that she is this Slayer of whom White told me, and it is imperative that we protect and train her, that she will later protect us.”

  “I think Takes From Eagle is correct,” said Ceremonial Fox. “We should begin training White Doe immediately, lest these powers get out of hand.”

  “A few more years,” pleaded Manteo. “Let her be a child a little while longer.”

  They surrendered to his plea, but when the day came that Manteo’s wife told him that their pale child had experienced her first bleeding, Manteo knew the time had come. With the moon blood came womanhood, and White Doe was no longer a chi
ld. After her flow had run its five-day course, he called her to him. She came at once, as always, eager to please her beloved father.

  “You sent for me, Father?”

  He nodded sadly and indicated that she sit on the floor of their large house. She did so.

  “Your mother tells me you have become a woman.”

  By the firelight, he saw that her face reddened. It was a reaction unique to her; Croatan skin was so dark that the rush of blood could not usually be seen.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I am now a woman.”

  “You are more than a woman, daughter, and the time has come for you to accept your duties. Surely you have noticed that you are different from the others?”

  “My skin—”

  He waved the words aside. “Nothing so trivial as that. Your healing. Your skill. Your strength, your agility . . .” He took a branch that would soon be used to feed the fire. “Squeeze this as tightly as you can.”

  She obeyed, and he felt a shiver run through him as the branch, thick as his arm, shattered. Calmly he took a sharp splinter the width of his hand from the shattered branch, and he jabbed it deep into the soft flesh of her left arm. She cried out and pulled the stick free. But once she had wiped off the blood, she saw that the wound was already beginning to close.

  “Do you see? You are a gift from the gods, more than we had dreamed. You are born to protect your people from darkness, White Doe. You are the Slayer, and whether you will it or no, you must be trained. It is a brave and noble calling. Do you accept?”

  She lowered her eyes. “I didn’t want to be different . . . but I suppose I have always known.” She looked up at him, and her gaze was steady. “I will be the Slayer, Father, if you will teach me how.”