Risen (19 page)

“No, all were closed, but they were
unbarred, as though someone exited through them. Everything else is
as it should be.”

“So he was either taken through
them or left of his own will and closed the doors behind as he
went.” Ravan focused on Moulin and Nicolette, both of them. “Where
did he go? Think. Why would he leave, and where would he
go?”

They only stared at him, and his
desperation rose. “You know his heart as well as I! What would
compel my son to leave the safety of the castle at such a time as
this; how could he disobey me?”

His ferocity was more than a little
intimidating, and Moulin took an involuntary step backward. Few,
since the mercenary had taken control of his realm, had ever seen
Ravan’s true wrath. Now, it was as near to being totally exposed as
it had ever been.

“He thought he could fight—wanted
to join you in battle,” Moulin said hastily, “Perhaps he left to do
this, to try to be brave, to prove himself to you.”

Pressing his fist to his closed
eyes, Ravan said, “Perhaps. But surely my forces would have seen
him, protected him and sent a message to me that he was within the
fray. All of them know him—know his appearance.” He dropped his
hand and focused on Nicolette. “None of my men have sent word that
Risen has been seen. There is much fighting to finish, but this
battle will be turned in our favor. We will be victorious. Someone
should have seen him if he was there, if he was in the
town.”

“Maybe he thought he would be safer
elsewhere?” Moulin began to say, but corrected himself, “No, that’s
simply not possible. Risen is smart. He would know there is no
place safer than the library, not in all the land.” Then he added,
“Even if the castle was stormed, it would be a long time before
they found him hiding there, and he knows this. I know he
does.”

Now there was excited chatter as all
present began to offer their thoughts onto the mysterious
disappearance of the dark haired child. It was urgent and very
pressing.

The room seemed to close in on
Ravan, becoming smaller and smaller until he believed he could no
longer breathe. He clenched his eyes, covered his ears with his
hands as he struggled to concentrate.

The voices around him were too loud,
blending, buzzing. They invaded his mind, his ability to think
clearly, and he wished he were in the woods where his thoughts were
the most clear and his instincts sharp as his blade. Then he would
know…

“Silence!” he boomed, and the room
fell instantly mute. All looked at him with blank eyes, eyes full
of regret and fear. He focused on Nicolette. “I will scour the town
and the castle grounds. I will find him. I promise you. And I will
not return until I do.”

“The battle is not finished, my
lord,” Velecent, his first knight, cautioned him regarding the
distribution of might.

“We have them on their heels,”
Ravan motioned to his dearest friend. “Send word amongst the
troops. The leader of the opposition, I want him alive; bring him
to the castle.” He kissed Nicolette briefly and swept from the
room, Velecent fast on his heels.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

†

The wind was coming from the east.
As it blew up and over the little knoll, the blanketing cloud of
grey obscured the small hillside at intervals, cloaking for short
stretches the body of Herluin—Sylvie’s father. They’d been in the
watershed for some time now, afraid to go out for fear the soldiers
could yet be close. But with the cover of smoke, Risen reasoned it
was their best chance to break away to the cover of the
forest.

“We need to go…while the smoke is
thick,” he pulled his arm from around Sylvie’s shoulder and took
her by the hand with both of his. Hers were icy to the touch. “If
we stay much longer, we will freeze.

Both of them were terribly cold, and
Risen knew hypothermia threatened. The boy had been supremely
trained by his father, knew the perilous risk of cold, especially
if they were wet. It was imperative they leave the watershed. Then,
they could find shelter and warmth, but, not nearby. This was not a
good fire. No, they must flee and gain the protection of the
castle. And he knew that if they started to move, they would warm
up in their flight.

“I have to get to my house. I have
to find Mother and Tobias.” Sylvie’s face was drawn, her eyes red
from crying into his shoulder for nearly an hour.

“We can’t. If they are alive, they
are not in the house.” He squeezed her hand again. “Sylvie, the
house is gone.”

She only stared, unwilling to
acknowledge the burning devastation and ruin that used to be her
home…and what was likely within.

Risen took her chin, gently turning
her eyes away from the direction of the horrible scene. “We need to
run, and as numb as our feet are, we cannot run fast at first. So
we must go to the woods. Sylvie, do you understand me? The
woods—we’ll be more protected there.” When her expression remained
blank, he put his hand on her shoulder and shook it
gently.

“Sylvie—”

“I can’t leave them.” She snapped.
Her lips were blue and her teeth chattered. “Go if you want, but
I’m staying.”

“We’ll come back. We’ll go get my
father, and we’ll come back for them, with soldiers. I
promise.”

She frowned. Sylvie was smart, she
was certainly struggling with all of it. Her capacity to reason was
fading. This is what Risen thought, that she was illogically not
ready to part from the home where she’d last seen her family alive.
Her desire to seek them out was an accidental suicide gesture if
ever there was one.

“It’s all we can do for now.
There’s no other way, and…” he said gently and glanced away, back
out the watershed slits toward the dead man on the hillside, “…and
I won’t let something happen to you, Sylvie. I can’t.” Another wave
of smoke swept over the corpse as though to say, there is nothing
here, all is gone.

Risen focused on her pale, green
eyes. “We must run, Sylvie. Do you hear? We must, or else we will
die.”

“Why are you here? Why did you come
for me?” She waved a hand overhead at nothing in particular. “I
should be out there with him! Not in here! Not in a water shack!”
Her accusations were emotional, and Risen knew this.

“Sylvie—”

“No! No, I’m not going with you! Do
you hear me? I have to…I…” Her face was stricken.

She was in shock. Risen could see
the color drain from her, see the ashen white color circle her lips
and threaten to move up her cheeks.

“Shhh, please think. Listen to me.
We must act quickly,” he tried to keep his voice low and clam. Even
as he was making his plea, he could hear a commotion in the
distance, closer, and coming from the town. The forces sounded as
though they were getting approaching them, as though they were
retreating from the fight.

Likely the siege had been
unsuccessful. Risen knew that what remained of the enemy would run
back to the forest, east and northeast of the town…back the
direction to where Sylvie’s scorched farm stood. It was the closest
cover for the enemy. The children could stay in the watershed and
succumb to the cold…or they could run.

He eased the door to the watershed
open and peeked around. The smoke was still billowing from the
burning house and barn, and he tried not to look at Herluin’s body
as it appeared and disappeared in the blue-white ribbons of haze.
Grasping Sylvie by the hand, he pulled her up, encouraged her to
step behind him from the watershed.

His feet were numb, so numb he could
scarcely feel the ground underneath him, and he knew it must be
even worse for her. She was a year older, but thinner and smaller
than he was, and he noticed that her lips were now a dreadful shade
of grey.

“My mother—” she began.

He held his hand up to her lips to
silence her and shook his head, no.

He couldn’t see any soldiers around
the burning house and glanced toward the forest, perhaps two
hundred paces away. Squinting, he scanned the woods, looked for
movement between the trees. Nothing.

Jerking his head in the direction of
the forest, he started to cross the small, sloping meadow toward
it. She followed in a daze. He tried to support her as they walked,
his legs unsteady underneath him. Even as wobbly as they were, he
hurried them along as best he could to the risk of them
falling.

They were nearly halfway to the edge
of the trees when he heard voices coming from behind them, perhaps
from over the top of the knoll, and they were getting nearer by the
second.

“Hurry,” he whispered, “we have to
hurry!”

“Risen, my feet…” she let go a
whimper and smudged her already filthy face with more dirt as she
wiped another flood of tears away.

Wrapping his arm around her waist,
he hurried her along, half carrying her now. He considered hoisting
her onto his back and running with her, but his feet were so numb
and his legs so weakened, he feared he would just fall.

The voices were even louder behind
them as they approached the edge of the woods, and Risen was afraid
to look back. As they crashed into the first small stand of trees,
he did look back and saw the small troop of soldiers, most of them
on foot, several on horses, evidently fleeing for the trees as
well. These men were in full retreat and did not appear to have
seen the children.

“Quick! Come on!” he dropped his
voice. “We must hide!”

They were barely into the thicket of
the woods when they came to the small creek bed. It ran in a narrow
stream westward, toward the river. The children had spent many long
hours playing in this creek, and Risen knew it well, had mapped
most of it in his mind just as his father had taught him to
do.

Sylvie hesitated, but he plunged
down the embankment into the creek, dragging her along. She
stumbled, and he yanked her up, pulling her roughly along with
him.

“Wait! I can’t!” she cried and
scrambled, trying to keep up.

He glanced furtively about. There,
just upstream from them, was a vine entangled, earthen overhang on
the near side of the stream. Risen bolted desperately for it.
Underneath the slough of roots and dirt he crawled, hauling her in
with him. Pulling their legs up, they curled in a ball and hid. He
yanked his grime covered jacket off, draping it over them both so
that it mostly covered them.

“Hide,” he whispered and Sylvie
dropped her head, concealing her fair locks from beneath the collar
of his overcoat. Praying that they were sheltered enough, that they
looked simply like a dirty little boulder in the shadows, Risen
peered over the collar of his coat, held his breath…and
waited.

He could hear the urgent voices
approaching, could hear the soldiers crashing—retreating—into the
trees. The men sounded afraid, defeated, and were evidently running
to safety. The ground shook with their strides—they were that
close—and the men and horses all at once crashed over the
embankment, right above their hiding place, leaping through the
stream to the other side. It was terribly chaotic, and water and
mud were splashed everywhere in the insane scramble of animal and
human fear.

Risen worried the embankment might
cave down on them with the weight of the horses. A wall of earth,
pebbles, and grass rained down from above, but the ledge held, even
when the animals leapt from it, stumbling to get their footing in
the sodden bed of the stream. Finally, nearly all the men were past
and running deeper into the woods…nearly.

A last man scaled the ditch. He was
wounded, a trickle of blood running down the ripped clothing on his
back. Losing his footing on the other side, he scrambled and
grasped at the embankment. Turning onto his back to untangle
himself from some brambles, he froze, his eyes narrowing as he
spied the two underneath the ledge.

Risen was peeking from over the
collar of his coat as the man stared, his eyes fixed coldly on the
boy’s. There was no way the children could know the invading troops
had been ordered to ransack all nearby farms, killing any they came
across—even children. Evidently…two had been missed.

For a fleeting second, both just
remained like this, staring at one another, the boy’s eyes large
and pleading. In the next instant, the man simply turned away,
scrambling and clawing his way up the far embankment, and was
gone.

The children sat unmoving, huddled
under the ledge, waiting to see if there were any more soldiers to
come, waiting to see if Ravan’s troops would give chase. Neither of
them said anything, only sat in silent terror, shocked by the
morning’s events and afraid to go any farther.

A hazy sun moved slowly overhead but
was eventually consumed as clouds thickened and threatened,
building their gray momentum as the morning passed. Risen murmured,
“Let’s go. We can’t stay here. We need to get to the
castle.”

This time there was no argument.
Sylvie only nodded, and they eased themselves from beneath the
embankment, slipping and sliding to the bottom of the little creek
bed.

“Which way?” Sylvie shivered, her
teeth clattering. Ordinarily she would know, for they’d followed
the creek from her house to the castle many times.