Risen (49 page)

“We’re going to be executed?” Ravan
offered.

“We are going to be executed,”
Salvatore concurred, “unless I can persuade him
otherwise.”

Then there was then an exchange
between the fat man and the Spaniard that went on for a bit, the
fat man becoming more and more animated, until the ship’s captain
whispered, “I am getting nowhere with this one.”

The guards holding Ravan drew him to
the center of the auction block before forcing him again to his
knees. From the crowd appeared a large fellow with a blade that,
for an instant, reminded Ravan briefly of an old friend—a
giant.

Obviously, Ravan was to be the first
victim, and the throngs crowded in, intent on a good look at the
beheading. Salvatore was feverishly imploring the fat man at this
point, speaking faster than Ravan had ever heard anyone talk.
Velecent yelled something he missed, struggling against his
captors.

Just when it seemed inevitable that
the executioner would raise the awful blade, the crowd hushed.
Ravan struggled and yelled, “You’re monsters! All of you, that you
would sell another man!” His argument was not for his own fate but
for the immorality of the people here.

The fat man spoke one more time
then, with some struggle, forced himself up and out of his chair.
All could clearly see the impressive robes the man wore, draped in
stones of many colors and woven with strands of the finest
filaments. He had an obvious flair for the dramatic and preached in
short bursts, engaging the crowd in increments until nearly all
murmured their agreements.

When the leader’s diatribe finally
ceased, the executioner stepped into place, and the guards forced
Ravan to bend forward, his hands bound behind him. Velecent kicked
his objection to the awful display, and the crowd gasped, but not
at him.

Onto the auction platform stepped a
pale beauty like no one had ever seen. Her hair flew long and black
about her, and she was paler than anyone else present. Fine and
fragile as a bird, she looked at the fat man behind the ledger and
spoke in her native, English tongue. “Let them go.”

The fat man was only further
incensed, as though a mere woman had halted the execution. He gave
a curt order of some sort, and the executioner went to lift his
blade—a mistake.

Nicolette lifted a hand, one finger
pointed, to the executioner. “Stop.” She gave the command with such
clarity, and a sparrow flitted down from seemingly nowhere to perch
upon her thin wrist.

The executioner hesitated, glanced
at the fat man as though uncertain whether he should continue. The
guards were evidently mesmerized enough by the peculiar display to
rest their hold a bit, and Ravan was able to lift his head just
enough to see Nicolette on the auction block. He began to protest,
sure that they would strike her down, but as a free soldier stepped
toward her, she lifted her other arm and reached, palm up and with
her wrist severely bent, at the man. Down he went as though
suddenly without legs, and he lay very still—breathing but not
moving.

“Screw a siren whore,” Salvatore
murmured, his eyes fixed on Nicolette.

The crowd hushed, obviously
intrigued by the display. As Nicolette’s mouth opened, she next
ushered a string of syllables unfamiliar to Ravan. The crowd,
likewise, stood as if confused, with the exception of a hag
standing at the corner of a stall of woven baskets and cradling a
piglet.

By now, all were gravely silent, and
the hag answered Nicolette’s tirade with one of her own, stepping
forward and dropping the piglet where she stood. It squealed before
disappearing between the legs of the crowd.

Nicolette’s eyes were no longer the
deep, emerald green that drew from Ravan his very breath. They were
no color at all, for they’d gone clear as glass, and her head
snapped about, obviously focused on the words the hag spoke. Just
as swiftly, however, she seemed unconcerned with what the other
witch had to say. Nicolette’s unfamiliar eyes looked up at the sky
as her head rocked back, her chin up.

The executioner, as though unsure
what to do next, chose to ignore the babbling women. He lifted the
blade, intent on finishing his task and having Ravan’s head. It was
poor judgment on his part, for as he did Nicolette spun her
hand—the one that was pointed at him—from palm up to palm down, her
fingers hooked and claw-like.

The blade swung in a violent arc,
missing Ravan altogether and burying itself instead in the thigh of
the big man. He fell, and the blade disengaged, clattering across
the auction block to directly in front of Salvatore.

The remaining guards, unsure of what
to do next, released the men and stepped toward Nicolette. Out of
her mouth coursed a string of further unintelligible words as she
swept her other arm across her chest and then back…at
them.

Down they went, several of them hard
onto the stage, and stayed, unable to move, eyes wide with fear.
Nicolette’s head tipped forward and turned sharply to the left as
she considered the fallen men with her vacant, crystal eyes. Now
her utterances were barely audible as though she whispered only to
herself.

The crowd mostly dispersed. Some
cowered and babbled, murmuring what, if Ravan could have
understood, would have been words such as witch, sorceress, evil
queen, vengeance upon us. There was chaos as they fell back,
leaving in their stead a handful of women who stood their ground.
All of these women remained motionless, having dropped whatever
they held, and only stared at Nicolette.

Ravan staggered to his feet,
followed by Salvatore, who snatched up the executioner’s blade as
well, and Velecent.

“Nicolette…” Ravan spoke softly,
reaching a hand toward his bride.

The fancy, fat man was the next to
speak, bellowing first to Nicolette—to no effect—and then to the
hag who’d uttered the similar syllables only moments before.
Several guards came from nowhere, grabbed her, and dragged her to
the stage.

Now the woman babbled in the tongue
of the fat man and pleaded, hands together, fingers laced and up,
begging mercy of him.

“What’s she saying!” Ravan hissed
to Salvatore. “What are they saying?”

“What, for hell’s sake, was your
bride saying?” he countered, fairly incredulous and with some
display.

“I’ve never heard her speak in such
a way,” Ravan admitted urgently but was then silenced by the chain
of events to follow.

The guards began to beat the hag,
and Nicolette appeared to take offense to that. She opened her
mouth, and this time said nothing, but a sound—a terrible
‘screeing’ sound—funneled around everyone on the stage, taking up
an awful momentum as it circled. All clapped their hands over their
ears, and in one final bolt of noise, the guards who mistreated the
hag were veritably blown from the stage as though a cyclone had
bowled them over. Off they tumbled, out of sight of those who
remained, and were not seen to rise.

The hag was unaffected by the blast
and remained lying on the stage, hands over her ears. Still bound,
Salvatore approached her, murmuring in her native tongue, urgent
words as he looked between her and Nicolette.

She answered, indicating Ravan, the
fat man, the solitary women who stood out from the crowd, and
lastly Nicolette. Between her urgent babblings, she laid her palm
to rest on her own chest and shook her head no.

Salvatore helped her to rise then
approached Ravan. “Your wife is a witch,” he said simply as though
he was commenting on the weather.

“Bloody hell, you say.”

“The hag concurs. She is, likewise,
a sorceress, possessing an iota of what Nicolette evidently does.
She tells me your wife has power that will not be denied, and it is
strengthened by the proximity of others of her kind, of which there
are several about.” He indicated the random women who were left in
the crowd, all standing solemnly and exactly the same, hands folded
in front of them. The pigless hag nodded as though she understood
everything Salvatore was saying.

The fat man with the ledgers was
apparently just then overcome with a need to be elsewhere and
turned as though he would make his way from this insanity,
disappearing out a rear exit.

Nicolette’s head snapped in his
direction, and her lips curled back, revealing a snarl of exquisite
proportion. He halted, hands to his throat, and staggered backward,
back into his raised pavilion. Just when it seemed his significant
mass would careen out of the elevated platform, possibly falling to
his death below, Ravan called to Nicolette.

“Nicolette! No!”

Her face snapped his direction, and
her snarl disappeared, her mouth open as though she might speak,
but with no words coming forth. The fat man teetered against the
railing, a thin row of slatted wood all that prevented him from
plunging to his peril.

“Don’t hurt him, my love. I hate
him too, but he may know where our son is. Risen, our son—he may
know who has taken him.”

The glass eyes faded, replaced
straightaway with the beautiful green eyes Ravan knew and loved.
She appeared at first confused, then she staggered as she murmured,
“Ask of him what you will.” It seemed the most reasonable request
in the world as she lowered both hands to her sides.

There were more hushed comments
amongst what was left of the crowd, but no one further challenged
the strange beauty who’d commanded their stage. The fat man
regained his composure, whirled, and sat heavily in his chair. His
tanned features were reddened, and his turban was dangerously close
to sliding off the side of his head. He spoke in a hoarse voice to
Salvatore.

“What does he say?” Ravan was by
then free of his bonds and standing by Nicolette, his arm around
her shoulders. In his embrace, she looked suddenly so frail that
anyone might break her if they so chose.

“He says he will look at the ledger
with you, but only if you agree to be gone and take the evil one
with you, to vex his city no more.”

“Tell him I will leave and take my
men and Nicolette with me, but first…we will talk.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE

†

Nicolette was exceedingly weakened
by the event. The hag explained to Salvatore how what the beauty
had done was unusual, even amongst witches. She told them that
Nicolette’s extraordinary gifts had been compounded because the
“others” had been present with her. She’d pulled from them, other
sorceress’…their strength, and unleashed terror of a kind she might
not have otherwise been able to command.

Now, quite spent by the whole affair
and with only a marginal memory of it, Nicolette was escorted back
to the Red Raven by the hag and several of Ravan’s men. She would
be too weak to travel farther, and the remainder of the chase fell
onto Ravan’s shoulders.

“Rest,” Ravan kissed his bride
before she returned with half his men to the boat. “I will return
soon…with our son.”

Next, Ravan conferenced with the fat
chieftain. It was a tight fit—Ravan, Velecent, Salvatore, and the
fat man in a ridiculously small hut near the center of the village.
Four of Ravan’s men waited for him just outside.

It appeared the fellow could not be
rid of the foreigners fast enough—his mannerisms bespoke this—and
he forbade Nicolette’s presence, explained that he would die rather
than poison his soul with the evil of one such as she. Truly her
display had rattled him thoroughly, and it seemed most of the town
would simply be happy to have the dark mercenary and his group gone
from them. It even took some persuasion for the harbormaster to
allow the Red Raven to remain in port.

The chieftain sprawled behind a
table, some sheaves of parchment laid before him. Weighting down
the bulk of the papers was a gorilla’s hand, preserved almost as
perfect as the day it was taken from the beast. Velecent eyed the
strange paw, but Ravan ignored it entirely, focused instead on the
task at hand. Strange formalities and conventions were nothing to
him. He’d suffered the wicked indulgences of many over his years
and was surprised by nearly nothing.

He pressed the fat man, and
Salvatore translated. When all was said and done, the information
that could be gleaned was as follows. There were eight boys sold in
the auction, none of them of the age or resembling the description
of Risen, and no female children had been sold at
auction.

This raised the question of whether
Risen and Sylvie had perished on the journey, something nearly
impossible to consider but must be ruled out nonetheless. Ravan
would not allow the chieftain pardon from their meeting until a
courier was sent to retrieve the harbormaster.

Within the hour the harbormaster
came huffing into the small hut with his records. A nervous fellow,
although it could have been the compelling circumstances, recounted
that, besides the crew and adult slave cargo, there were five
children that went land side from the Virgin Wolf. All were
European, but only three of the child slaves were branded as cargo
when taken from the vessel. He showed them the brand, and it was
confirmed. These three were sold at auction, their brands matching
those of the Virgin Wolf, leaving two…unaccounted for. But why? Why
would Risen and Sylvie not have been sold?