Roanoke: The Price of Power

The Patrol

Anthony Cage was leading two men through the network of trails radiating from and circling around the officially-named township of Raleigh, colony Roanoke. Flanking him and a pace behind, were M. Smith and Cooper, armed with matchlock rifle and cutlass.

Being the vanguard of their disinterested formation, Cage was the first to spot the man in black. He saw him motionless, ten yards ahead on their narrow footpath which was framed on both sides by tall trees and dense underbrush.

"Oi!" shouted Cage, and the patrol halted. "Who goes there?"

No answer. No movement save for the slow rolling of the black fabric surrounding the man's form. No face, for it was blocked completely by the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat.

"Hell's ride," Cage muttered.

He bore no desire for confrontation. The patrol was only a formality, right? Besides, who in all the New World would be on the trails garbed like that? Only one.

"Oi, damn your eyes!" he called again. "I know it's you, Doc! Say some words and let us be on our way!"

Nothing.

"Tony!" hissed Cooper from behind. "Look at this!"

Cage turned, and both of his men were staring back down the trail. At their rear, and without sound or signal, three of the colony's young folk had appeared on the path. Fool sprats out to play games beyond the stockade walls. Exactly the sort of thing that would lead to more missing colonists.

"Get your hides back to the colony!" Cage yelled. "Get moving, now . . ."

When he turned back around the man who could only be the Doctor was gone.

"Damn your eyes," he muttered again.

Those would be his last words, for no sooner than they left his lips the patrol was overtaken by the three Roanoke children.

They flashed shaving razors, belt knives and wood axes, but shock was their true weapon. Shock and disbelief. Even as Cage felt the lethal kiss of cold steel just below his ribs he knew for certain that a child wouldn't kill a man grown. He knew it, with blood bubbling from between his lips, just as well as he knew the man in black had been the man they call the Doctor.