Risen (21 page)

“Love? What do you speak of?” Ravan
advanced on Moira, and she cowered as he towered over her. He took
her by her shoulders, forced her about, and searched her face for
the truth behind what she said. “Moira, he is only a boy. He
can’t…”

Nicolette approached her husband
from behind, rested a hand on his shoulder. “Ravan…”

He paused as images flashed before
his eyes, images of his past. He tried to remember, tried to sense
what his son might be feeling. Immediately, he was reminded of the
Fat Wife, how much he’d loved her and how, as a mere boy, he’d been
willing to lay his life down for her. Just as quickly he remembered
the Old One—he’d loved him too, as sure as he would take another
breath.

Ravan shook his head. He had no
doubt he loved both of them, even as a boy. But in love, as in…what
he felt for his Nicolette? Could it be? His passion for her was
unequaled. He must have her, must be with her. There was simply no
other way, and he’d known this almost from the moment he’d first
laid eyes upon her. He would fight to his death to stand beside her
as he did now. But Risen? Could this be what his son was feeling
now? Could it be as Moira believed, that he was in love?

“How do you know this?” Ravan
demanded of Moira, done with the mystery of it all.

“Niveus told me,” she shared as she
tried to drop away from his hold and into the shadows.

“Niveus? What nonsense is…she could
not know! She…” his comment faded as his mind raced. Ravan’s
daughter was the greatest mystery of all, even greater to him than
Nicolette. He insisted, “Tell me! Moira, tell me!” and squeezed her
perhaps tighter than he should.

“She did not say, ‘Sylvie,’” Moira
was very nearly undone and blurted desperately, “She only said he
was in love. I pressed her on it, but she did not know who, only
that he was.” Moira appealed to him, “It must be Sylvie, my Lord.
There can be no other.”

Ravan released her and spun, his
hand to his eyes as he processed what the maiden shared.

“Yes.” Nicolette closed her eyes as
though focusing on the possibility. “Yes, it is so. He loves her,”
she repeated. “As truly as you love me; of this I am
certain.”

How could he not have known this?
How could he not know this about his own son, that he was in love?
He’d just seen him this morning, seen the bright fire in the eyes
of his first born as he’d marveled at the miracle of the newborn
colt. Was that spark only for the sake of the horse? Or was there
something else that drove the life into his son on this of all
days?

“Tobias,” he said urgently. “He’s
gone to Tobias’ house to try to help them, to try to save Sylvie,”
his voice was low, almost a whisper, and carried with it the awful
realization of what this could mean.

Nicolette nodded in grave agreement,
and Moira’s hand went up to her mouth. “But, that is on the
northeast side of the realm. It would be…”

“…
directly in the
path of the retreat,” Ravan finished the awful
thought.

Immediately, he called his best
available knights together. Within minutes, Velecent and nine of
his finest men stood before him. He whirled as he paced in front of
them.

“Did we warn Herluin? The sheep
farmer northeast of town—Tobias and Sylvie’s father?”

Velecent nodded, “There was a guard
there this morning, late, just as opposition forces moved upon the
east perimeter of the town. I cannot say what happened to them
after that.”

To Nicolette he promised, “I will
not return until I find him.” Then to Velecent, “Come with me,” and
stormed from the room, his closest friend and most elite soldiers
fast on his heels.

* * *

The tiny farm was destroyed, the
house and small outbuildings burned nearly to the ground. Charred
remains of what was left of the fire hissed and spat in the soft
blanket of rain, and smoldering, blackened rubble lay in twisted
piles of lost memories. Ravan lingered on the edge of what used to
be Sylvie’s home. He thought to himself how fire was such an awful
weapon, so quickly employed in a military campaign and with such a
terrible cost.

He scanned the wreckage, his knights
furiously digging through what they could. It was tedious, and a
dreadful wait—the most awful of all as they searched for remains of
casualties.

Velecent approached his friend from
the side, riding up close enough that they sat abreast of each
other. “It’s such a shame. And for what?”

Ravan said nothing, only squinted,
searching the distant forest’s edge, his eyes scouring the tree
line.

His friend paused a moment longer
before sharing, “Herluin is dead.”

This gathered Ravan’s attention
immediately. “How?”

He motioned to the distant meadow,
the one with the small hillside and gate that led to the back
pasture. There, if Ravan squinted he could see, not very far from a
watershed, the figure of a corpse lying face down on the
ground.

“He was struck in the back, a
deathly blow,” his friend explained almost regretfully.

“And his family?”

“Nothing yet,” Velecent shrugged.
“He had two children, you say?”

“Yes, a boy and a girl…and his
wife.”

Ravan swallowed thickly and drew his
eyes back to the smoldering rubble. He had a boy and a girl…and a
wife. Hours before, his life had not been so different from
Herluin’s. This gave him a pang of regret. Adorno had been unkind
to this family, and then he’d been unable to foresee this, to
prevent such suffering.

Why had he been attacked? What had
compelled this army to pit its force against the Ravan Dynasty? His
reputation was wide and well known. A victory against him would be
an ungodly task, even if the army outnumbered him as greatly as two
to one. Why? His coffers were great, this was true, but no greater
than other easier targets, and much of his amassed wealth was
redistributed to the realm. Yes, it stood as a convincing example
of why the town thrived as well as it had, but it should not have
made them a significant target. Ravan had no good answers to these
questions, and they tormented him.

At long last, his men confirmed that
there were two bodies within the burnt remains of the building—one
adult and one child—although they could not be certain who, for the
remains were so obliterated. This caused Ravan to consider deeply
what Nicolette had believed, that Risen was in love…with
Sylvie.

“There is not another child?” Ravan
interrogated the search party.

“No, my Lord. None that we’ve yet
seen,” a soldier replied.

Could Risen have made it to the
small farm? In some way, had he been able to save the girl he
loved? Or was it just wishful thinking to believe that because
they’d not found the body of Herluin’s second child that she’d
survived?

Ravan remembered his flight in the
woods so many years ago. They’d said a boy could not do such a
thing. They said it’d been a task like no other. Just then, Ravan’s
belief in the determination of his son deepened.

The two men loped their horses to
the top of the small knoll. Velecent sat as Ravan dismounted,
walked over to the body, and turned the corpse gently onto its
back. Rigor was already beginning to set in, and it wounded him
that the man had been left alone on the cold knoll, unable to
defend his family from the terrible fire and disrespected after
death claimed him.

Ravan continued to struggle with the
sparse clues given him, struggled with such a seemingly reckless
waste of human life. His had been a life of war. No one was more
familiar with the brutality of conflict than him, but he’d never
before seen such cruel waste with such obvious lack of purpose. It
simply made no sense.

“Bury him,” he commanded of several
soldiers as they approached, and as they began to gather Herluin’s
body up, he ignored them, only studied the frozen, grassy ground
around the man who’d for so long been a kind friend to his son. He
tried not to consider too deeply the final moments of the child
left amongst the burnt wreckage. Ravan was sincerely fond of both
Tobias and Sylvie.

“My Lord…” Velecent began, but
Ravan ignored him.

Carefully, as though he would awaken
the earth if his foot fell too harshly, he walked to the nearby
watershed. All the while, he stared at the sparse earth, marred
with the muddied prints of livestock.

The small door was ajar; this was
unusual as the shed was intended to provide a clean cistern for the
family. Perhaps the enemy had left it open on purpose…but wouldn’t
they have vandalized it as well, destroyed the source? Maybe they
hadn’t had time, their greater urgency being the battle. But
perhaps…

All of these questions coursed like
a raging fiend through Ravan’s head. Nearing the cistern, his eyes
narrowed. He paused, continuing to scan the ground before leaning
his head in and allowing his eyes long enough to focus in the dark
interior of the small shack. Something wasn’t as it should be;
there was something more. The shallow pool was clear, but against
the edges of it where the current could not quickly affect it, if
one looked close enough, it was opaque with mud as though someone
had recently stirred it up. He peered intently at the surrounding
ledge, the narrow wooden poles, cut to provide a lip to the
cistern. Kneeling, he ran his fingertips along the cold, damp,
flattened surface of the wood and moss covered earth.

When the watershed ran out of
secrets for him, he turned to leave it, but suddenly, there in the
muck at the corner of the small shack, seemed to be a child’s small
footprint. He blinked, knelt to study the mark more closely, at
first not believing. Running his finger along it, he told himself
that it could simply be one of the farmer’s children, returning
from the cistern with water. But then again, even a partially
frozen as the ground was, he could see that the print was deep and
slipping, weighted heavily on one side, the side away from the
farmhouse. It would have meant that the child was running, away
from the house, toward…

Ravan held a hand to his eyes,
studied intently the woods beyond. Leaving his horse where it
stood, he strode toward the woods, stopping on several occasions to
stoop and study the damp ground. Brushing his hand across what was
left of the dead, waist high, winter grass, he focused again on the
edge of the shadowy woods.

Velecent caught up with him, started
to ask him something as though curious about what he saw, but Ravan
waved him to silence.

“There,” the mercenary gestured
with one hand. “They ran there.”

“Who?”

“Risen…and Sylvie.”

“I don’t see how?” Velecent
appeared thoroughly amazed, almost disbelieving.

Ravan indicated the ground behind
them. “The prints, two children, one larger than the
other.”

“Could it be the farmer’s
children?” Velecent wondered. “You said he had two?”

“No, at least not both of them.”
Ravan looked up at Velecent, a new fire burning in his eyes.
“Herluin had two children, a boy and a girl.”

“Yes, yes I know, I—”

“They were a year apart in age,”
Ravan explained, his excitement growing. “The boy was younger than
his sister and slight, but the girl was very small for her age, and
a cripple. She was, I would say, the even weight of her younger
brother, if that.” Ravan could barely contain himself. “But these
prints,” he waved again at something that Velecent struggled to
see, “are of two children; one heavier than the other.”

“I don’t…I think…Ravan, are you
saying?”

“It is Risen. He is bigger than
both of them. He is with one of them.” Saying it out loud for
himself was all that Ravan needed to hear.

Nearly knocking Velecent aside, he
swung onto his horse, then dispatched one of his knights to send
message straightaway to the castle, to let Nicolette know that he
was in pursuit of their son. Once the messenger was gone, Ravan
gathered the remaining eight soldiers—eight of his very best—and
rode into the forest with the purpose of one who intended to take
down the devil himself…if he could catch him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

†

Nicolette was in her bed chamber,
standing next to the long vacant crib. She’d kept the babies’ bed
in her room, had wanted to keep it close. She was idly rocking the
cradle with one finger, very lost in her thoughts, when the soft
rapping came on her door.

“Yes?”

“There are two messengers to see
you, my Lady.” Moulin hesitated in the massive doorway. “They bring
news.”

She did not ask him straightaway if
they’d found Risen. Perhaps he’d expected she would, and the
puzzled expression on his face went unnoticed as she swept past.
Down the main stairway she went, Moulin on her heels, and
approached the two men waiting for her in the grand foyer. As
usually happened, both messengers appeared ill at ease in the
presence of the strange mistress, looking away or down at their
feet as she addressed them in turn.