The Fort

The Fort.                                                                                                          Introduction On an unnamed desert island off the coast of mainland Dresic, the Prison Fort barely broke the smooth flow of dune on dune. On calm, windless days it stood clear of the golden sand, but at other times showed signs of being half submerged, when its weather rounded battlements, dun coloured and rough as the sand itself, merely suggested a human-caused structure both long forgotten and seemingly abandoned. Always invisible from the mainland with no other building in sight it sat brooding and mysterious. Window slits were narrow and the main entrance small, making the stone fort look like a squatting troll, sitting, waiting, ready to pounce on an unwary passer-by. But there were no passers-by. No one visited the island of desert forts. If they came, they stayed. Well, apart from once a month, or so, depending on the weather, when small wagons of goods made a temporary trail to and from the coast. Waiting impatiently in the seething waters, a battered craft sat poised to make its way back the mainland bay of Landing. Having made the inward trip, loaded with a cargo of prisoners, and disgorging the sad trail of humanity to their potentially awful future, the craft took on bales and bales of hand-woven cloth. This was the produce from prison forts, for there were more than one, scattered across the desert isle. Each mostly unaware of the others, isolated in the misery of human consumption. The return trip, full of danger and risk, took the produce from these prisons to the mainland. This is the tale of the two ends of this short, often fatal, trip! The stretch of water between the desert island, lurking sullenly on the horizon and ‘civilization’, ran green/grey and violent as it ripped between the land masses, periodically claiming victims. It was known locally as the race. Race to cross, race to escape, race to your death. For decades, only one company had plied its trade across the race. Even then, only one ship at a time was ever beached in the tiny mainland bay, awaiting orders to take prisoners across or to collect trade exports and attempt to land them safely. Then the contents of the small ship were dragged ashore and loaded onto carts and taken away, in the shortest time possible. Not many people lived in the bay. Just those who made ships, provided labour and lived a hand to mouth existence. They toiled to earn enough to leave.