“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.
“Here, this way.” Risen pointed downstream then grasped her hand and moved west, climbing from the ditch and following the edge of the creek. Gradually, the small creek turned south, back toward the open fields that ran along the edge of the realm.
Risen worried it would take them close to the tree edge too soon, that they would be seen if they continued to follow the stream, and so they strayed from it, working their way deeper into the forest. “We’ll be safer if we stay out of sight—in case any of the enemy are still coming back from battle.” He tried to sound encouraging. “We need to make our way west to the river. Then we can turn south to the castle. We’ll be safe there. It shouldn’t take long.”
Sylvie said nothing, just nodded and followed, staring only at her feet as she shuffled along. By and by, it started to rain, and still they pressed slowly toward the river, for Sylvie was unable to go very fast.
Risen tried to think of the colt, tried to remember that morning when the day had held so much promise. How quickly things had gone awry! He had no misgivings about the fate of Sylvie’s family, and it made his heart sink to consider the final moments of his best friend. He mouthed a silent prayer for Tobias, that he would be without pain and with his parents in heaven. He’d meant to save them all. This is what he told God as he prayed.
Then he wondered if his mother would be disappointed that he prayed to the God of Christians. Moulin and Moira had taught him to, and he believed it better to stack the odds in his favor. Nicolette would rather he appealed to the senses of the universe although, truthfully, he was not at all sure how to do such a thing yet. So, it was easier just to pray. The universe did not seem like a friend right now.
Once, when Risen had pressed his father about God, Ravan had admitted that he believed the harder men struggled to define God, the farther they seemed to alienate themselves from the idea of it.
“It’s something I believe we are not supposed to comprehend.” Ravan took another swipe with the blade as he helped Risen dress the deer out. “You will feel it, as do I, when you allow yourself to be overwhelmed by the wonder of all of this.” He motioned overhead and around with his knife, suggesting something very universal. “Even at its most tragic, the astonishment of our lives cannot be denied.
“Then where do you go, when you die, I mean? If God doesn’t take you away?”
Ravan frowned. “I believe that the essence of you, what is here…” he touched a bloody fingertip to Risen’s forehead, “…is part of what God is. When you die, the soul returns to the divine circulation. You needn’t look for it. You are part of it, every bit as important as anything else.”
This had flat amazed Risen, that his father genuinely believed this. It was a good conversation, and it gave him courage as he stumbled along, that he and Sylvie belonged, were significant in the grand scheme of things.
He glanced at her. She struggled to keep up, but did so valiantly, a firm set to her mouth. When she looked up at him, he looked away, unable to bear the pain in her eyes. “It shouldn’t be too much farther,” he mumbled, then they both retreated into their own thoughts and trudged on.
Risen knew his father would be angry that he left the castle, furious, more likely. And his mother would be worried too, probably in ways she’d never before been. Risen felt bad for Moira and Moulin, wondered if they would be implicated, and hoped that his parents wouldn’t blame them too severely. He’d had to—had to leave without them knowing. This he told himself over and over, for there was simply no other way. They could not understand, and he would never have been allowed.
Recalling the expression on Niveus’ face as he’d snuck from the library, he thought she had been all knowing. She said nothing, hadn’t tried to stop him. He paused at the doorway long enough to look back at her. All she did was sit there, content in her understanding, calm in her extraordinary insight. He sensed that somehow she knew—knew that he must leave. And he also knew she would not breathe a word of it.
I saved Sylvie. This belief was cemented firmly into his thoughts, for if he’d not left the castle, if he hadn’t snuck away to try to retrieve Sylvie and her family, they would have all perished on the hillside, she right along with her father. Risen had no misconceptions about this. He’d heard the stories—stories of how it used to be when a man named Adorno ruled the realm. Life had been cheap in those days, and it still was if you ventured very far from the sheltered safety of the realm.
Today was Risen’s first taste of true ruthlessness, of the savagery of man. So that was why his father held such a countenance. Now he understood! It was suddenly so clear to him, that his father’s scars were more than only on his skin. Ravan bore them much more deeply than what could be seen. It was because of the inhumanity of life that his father was the way he was, because of his history—his years of pain and suffering.
His father had immense power, was a revered leader, and he’d worked tirelessly to create stability and security in his realm. Risen realized why Ravan had a darkness about his step, a mistrust, a wisdom born of ill fate. For the first time, it made sense, was finally real.
He suddenly appreciated why his father had forbidden he join in the battle, why he was prohibited from leaving the castle. He’d resented him for it, thought he’d been treated like a child. He realized that he was in the same position with Sylvie as he’d been with his father. She wanted to put herself in harm’s way, wanted to run to the burning house, and he’d forbidden it as well.
Somewhere in the depths of his heart, he believed his father would be proud of him, proud that he’d been able to save at least one…Sylvie.
This gave him a small amount of happiness, what little he could glean after the horrible string of events, that she was not lying upon the hillside next to her father, shot through with an arrow or speared to death. It was not a small bit of grace, and he clung to it. She was alive.
Then, he heard the horses…
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
†
Tor’s troops were thoroughly taken by surprise. As they jockeyed into position for a covert attack and snuck through the tall grasses to their point of charge, something unforeseen happened. An alarm sounded, the deep call of a horn answered by another, then another, and another, until the sweeping echo of a battle signal sped above the trees, over the hills, across the village and castle grounds.
Confusion ensued, and an onslaught like no other was cast upon the intruders. It seemed the assault came from everywhere, from the sky, from the trees, up from the very earth beneath their feet.
Tor’s army, spread out and thinking briefly that the echoing alarm was their own, stood up from where they hid in the tall grasses and stepped into the open from along the forest edges. That proved a lethal first mistake. Arrows, seemingly from nowhere, rained down on them. It was as though God dropped them from the heavens. From every tree, from every hovel’s roof, from any and every perch on the village’s margin rained a deluge of arrows.
A sizable portion of the invading army fell straightaway, some turned in confusion and ran, and those that remained scrambled to organize themselves for a desperate, secondary counter attack.
Then, Ravan’s soldiers all at once appeared as though from nowhere. Side by side and with their shields overlapping, they moved up, taking ground as the battle waged. Tor’s archers unleashed fire arrows, an attempt to create panic and mayhem, but the small homes on the edge of the village were deserted. There was no mass exodus, no screaming women or burning children. It was a burning village of phantoms, a p
yre of ghosts, and it demoralized Tor’s forces greatly as the perimeter homes went up in flames but with no voices attached to them.
Next, the battle raged between the homes and along the narrow village streets. Those enemy forces that were able to break off and storm the moat of the castle were immediately picked off by the remaining castle archers. It was a brief and brutal skirmish, but the longbowmen made the difference entirely, just as Ravan had believed they would.
Years before, Tor knew all too intimately that it was Ravan’s bow that had been his final undoing after the skirmish in the inn, the night they foolishly confronted the dark, lean traveler who was so willing to step in front of a handless maiden. Today, Ravan no longer wielded his bow alone, but it struck as certainly and with as much fear as it had on that fateful day when Modred was felled on the hillside overlooking the inn.
Fighting to his last, the wounded leader was finally overcome by Ravan’s cavalry. It was the final blow for the enemy army as most of them lay dead on the fields surrounding the village and between the streets of the burning town. A handful were held prisoner, but the scant remainder of Tor’s forces scattered and retreated from whence they’d come.
* * *
The realm was wounded but secure. Ravan’s heart, however, was not. With long strides, he strode into the foyer of the castle to find Nicolette sitting unmoving, quietly waiting for him to return. He dreaded what he needed to tell her and expected tears, but when she looked up at him, there were none. Her eyes were dry, her face almost calm.
“You haven’t found him,” she said flatly.
There was blood on his armor, blood on his sword, blood on his hands.
“My love,” he knelt before her, taking both her hands in his, “we are searching every inch of the town and castle grounds. The word is spread; all are looking for him.” His voice was thick with regret, his mind awash with the unthinkable thought of losing his son. How had this happened?
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