Risen (33 page)

Her head snapped upright, and her
eyes flashed open. Clear as a frozen lake they were, and as her
other arm flew up and toward the two advancing men, both stopped,
not yet as incapacitated as their leader but struggling
nonetheless. Nicolette’s mouth remained unmoving, but from it came
a soft sound—a hushed, falling sound—like the dropping of dirt into
a grave.

Moira was frozen in place, her
handless arm over her mouth, her expression as shocked as it had
ever been. She simply stared, unable to tear herself from the
strange cluster of silent beings as her mistress controlled them as
effortlessly as she might draw a curtain from a window.

Time was finally broken by Moira’s
gasp. She hadn’t even realized she wasn’t breathing, had held her
breath since the beginning of the strange altercation. With her
breath came awareness, and she moved.

“Nicolette!”

Nothing.

“Nicolette, stop! You’re killing
them. They cannot breathe! You must stop!”

She staggered toward her but halted
when Nicolette’s head snapped sideways. She could, for the first
time since the strange incident began, clearly see her eyes. Moira
was stunned to see there were no eyes at all. They were simply
crystal clear globes where the color should have been. Moira
gasped.

Then the transparency dissipated,
and Nicolette’s eyes returned as they should be—dark green, damp,
and whole. She remained unmoving as the leader crumpled to his
knees, his hands clawing viciously at his neck, leaving deep red
scratches that seeped blood.

“You must not hurt them so. I think
they will leave now, if you let them live,” Moira pleaded, her gaze
locked on Nicolette’s.

As though it was almost incidental,
Nicolette nodded and softly dropped both arms. The tiny sparrow
disappeared into the canopy above. All at once, all three men
gasped for breath, drawing deep lungfuls of air. The leader’s face
was by then a dreadful ashen grey, his lips a pale blue, and he
remained weakly on his knees until color returned. Then, lifting
his head wearily, he cast tortured eyes on the dark
beauty.

His voice was a torn whisper as he
cried, “What…what magic is this? What wicked—”

Nicolette cut him off, and he
cowered like a whipped mongrel as she did. “I believe all
wickedness has been fairly vanquished. You need only to leave for
it to be gone entirely.”

It seemed briefly that she would
take a step toward the man, and his eyes shot open further, as
though he feared exactly this. He acted as though he might have
something more to say but reconsidered. Staggering to his feet, he
backed unsteadily away from the two women. He clutched at his
fallen trousers and struggled to re-belt his pants. Reaching for
his horse’s reins, and with some difficulty, he pulled himself up
onto the steed.

Facing the women one last time, the
man’s eyes lingered first on the strange woman who almost killed
him and then on the maiden who helped spare him. Without words, the
three turned and rode away, swallowed up shortly by the black woods
and the silence of the night.

Moira turned to face her mysterious
friend. She trembled, not at all certain if she was more shaken by
the awful intentions of the men or from the exhibition of her
mistress. She was about to say something when Nicolette spoke
first…as though their conversation had never lapsed in the
slightest.

“What is done is done. There is no
fate. However, circumstance might decide to have an unfortunate way
with Risen, and so I must find him so that I might control it. That
is the all of it.”

Moira was stunned. She stared in
awestruck silence and could only watch as her lady simply returned
to readying their camp. Nicolette behaved as though
nothing—absolutely nothing out of the ordinary—had
happened.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

†

The village they sought was farther
east, much farther. Ravan and his men had ridden without stopping
for nearly two days. His men were exhausted, and so were their
mounts, but his troop would have ridden another two without
complaint. Such was their loyalty to him, especially
Velecent.

There was another who once stood
fearless at Ravan’s side. He’d been a giant, a fearsome one to even
look upon. Their friendship had been unusual, tested by death and
despair. And then…Ravan had killed him.

That was a terrible time—to lose
LanCoste by his own hand. The greatest agony had been that Ravan
would have willingly died in his friend’s place a thousand times
over. He’d not meant to harm him, had not meant to release the
arrow that would so mortally strike him, his only
friend.

But it was done, and the sound of
the giant falling still echoed in the mercenary’s soul. It’d leant
itself perfectly to his own despair as the days turned into weeks
and the weeks into months in the castle dungeon in St. Jean de Luz.
And, he likewise believed he had lost Nicolette.

But then, the night before his
scheduled execution, a wondrous thing happened. He was visited by
the soft-spoken priest, met for the second time in his life the
robed angel named D’ata. On that night, he was visited by…his twin.
How perfect it was that he should know his brother. He believed
their one night together to be the most sacred hours of his
life.

Ravan physically shook himself,
shook these memories from between his ears. It would serve Risen
poorly to spend his time lost in thoughts such as these,
bittersweet though they were. He could drown in these thoughts,
spend eternity there, had spent eternity there. It was his
nature—had always been. But a child had since been born, and this
child had the face and beautiful spirit of his brother. It was
D’ata reborn—D’ata victorious. Risen was destined to be. Ravan was
convinced of it.

With a sudden renewal of strength,
Ravan led his men to the edge of the small town of Tonnerre. It was
scarcely light as the ragged band of men pulled up to the only
livery. A man, much too old to be tending horses, hobbled from the
stables.

“Need to be putting your steeds up
for the night?”

Ravan ignored the question. “Have
you seen a group of men come through here? Ten or thereabouts, and
with children—at least two—captive?”

The man squinted at Ravan, obviously
suspicious of the serious band of men with their strange questions.
He rubbed his chin and glanced sideways as though strongly
considering just hobbling away, as though no one would notice if he
did.

“I mean you no harm,” Ravan
offered. “It is my son I seek. He looks like…” His brow creased and
his face was cast into darkness. “He looks like…” He
struggled.

Velecent stepped his horse forward
and tipped his head, allowed a beautiful smile to spread warmly
across his lips and face. “He looks like my friend here. Every bit
the scoundrel that he is as well.” He nodded toward Ravan and
became more serious. “The boy is twelve. We would pay dearly for
information.”

The elder tipped his head back,
squinted into the overcast light, and appeared to deeply consider
what the strangers just shared. Suddenly, from the barn emerged a
boy of about ten years of age. “Grandfather! Are there horses? Do
we have customers?”

Ravan’s dark face did not change,
not in the slightest, but he cast his eyes immediately on the boy
as though he could not tear them away. His voice was hoarse as he
spoke to the old man, but kept his eyes fixed on the child. “I see
you too have a young one who must be very dear to you.”

The old man hissed at the boy. “Back
into the barn! Bennet, go back into the barn! You know the
rules!”

Bennet’s face was a flash of
remorse, and in another flash, he was gone. The livery man watched
to make certain the boy obeyed, then turned to Ravan, this time
with longing and appeal in his eyes.

“Please, he is all I have. I can
put up the steeds, but I beg of you, don’t hurt him.”

His comment surprised Ravan
completely. “You insult the memory of the boy’s parents if you
believe I would harm that child. But harm may come to my son, and
you have the opportunity to do a noble thing.” He focused his stare
entirely on the old man. “However, make no mistake. If you
purposefully lead me astray, it will not be the boy whom I
harm.”

Again the man cowered but appeared
to consider the stranger’s words carefully. He finally admitted,
“There have been none this way for at least two weeks.”

“Children? Two weeks? My son has
only been missing for…” Ravan’s words trailed off, his heart
weighted with disappointment as he realized Risen had not been
through the town. It was not as he’d hoped to hear.

The old man replied, “Yes, two
weeks. Not recently, but I can tell you there have been those who
have come through before—with children, as you say.”

Velecent brightened. “When? When
have you seen this?”

“I am a livery man. I see
everything and nothing.” He shrugged. “These men come through on
their way to the coast. This is the only pass if you come from the
north.”

“We do not. We hail from the west.”
Ravan could not answer him fast enough.

“Then you need to go farther south.
The children you speak of are a strong two—maybe three days from
here—from you. They would be in Nevers by now, or on their way to
Lyons. But once they reach the port of Toulon, they will be
lost.”

“Why?” Ravan implored the man. “How
do you know this?” he demanded.

The man drew back, seemed reticent
to answer. Then, as though he perhaps feared the immediate wrath of
this ill-tempered stranger more than the eventual anger from those
that captured children, he explained, “They will go to Naples,
perhaps—maybe Sicily. They are bound for the Ottoman Empire.” He
shrugged. “It’s the Turks who own them now. Word is that they have
an army of children—human shields. That is what they use to march
north and west against the Byzantium.”

“Why?” Velecent repeated the
question.

“The Ottoman’s, one called Murad,
sacrifice might with numbers. These soldiers, they say, are
hardened boys only because they survive to become one.”

Ravan was stricken. Could it be?
Could his son have been taken merely for sale? For service in a
foreign army? Of course he could! Such was the capacity of evil
amongst men! He, himself, had fallen victim to these kinds of men.
This thought fueled in him an immediate feeling of desperate
helplessness. This was an emotion not entirely foreign to Ravan,
but it had been a very, very long time since he’d suffered
it.

All at once, impotent rage overcame
him; he simply needed to kill something, to punish something for
this terrible wrong. With swift reflex, he pulled his sword from
his scabbard and raised it over his head as though he would strike
the old man down simply because he dared share this awful
news.

The livery man cringed, raised his
arms over his head, obviously expecting the blow, but Velecent’s
sword was drawn nearly as fast and clashed against his friend’s
before it could be swung. Their eyes met, locked on each other,
Ravan’s black with rage and Velecent’s in hardened defiance. His
first in command and closest friend hissed beneath his breath. “He
is not your enemy, my friend. He is simply profiting from your
enemy.”

Ravan relaxed but held his sword
firm against Velecent’s. “He enables the traders to keep stolen
children here. He knows he does wrong.”

“Kill him and you kill your source
of information. He is the only link we have to your son.” Velecent
shoved Ravan’s sword from him and appealed to his sense of
morality. “You would leave the child,” he indicated the direction
Bennet had disappeared, “with no one. We cannot right all that is
wrong. But we can find Risen and Sylvie.”

With that, rational thought
returned, and Ravan slid his weapon back into the scabbard.
Swinging from his steed, he motioned to his men. They liveried
their horses for the rest of the afternoon and into the night. Over
the evening they discovered what more they could from the old man,
and it was significant. He told them of one named Murad I—the
reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire—told them word was Murad was
pressing his forces against the Byzantines. Gallipoli was his
evident conquest, and his army was fortified by boy soldiers, or so
the old livery owner had heard.

“I didn’t believe it at first. But
then the children kept coming.” He swept with his hand as though
they might see a herd of them at any moment. “I worry. Afraid they
might take my grandson.” He motioned again, but Bennet was nowhere
to be seen.

So that was where Risen was bound.
If the boy was strong enough, he would survive to be sold on the
slave market, an indentured soldier to the Sultan’s empire. And it
would be profitable for the man who sold him, for Murad was wealthy
beyond imagination—so the liveryman said.

What kind of king enslaves foreign
children for his army, Ravan wondered to himself. Then he swallowed
the bitter question, sharing it with no one. It was no king, not a
monarch or emperor. Men did such a thing. It might be a king in
this instance, but it was the nature of humanity to do such
wretchedness to the weaker, more innocent of mankind.