Into the man’s neck the saber drove. It was a superb move, one Ravan had insisted he learn and one they’d taken days to perfect. Risen felt the man’s grip loosen, and he twisted, breaking free.
He was next hit by gaping-maw man, and down he went, his sword thrown from his reach as the attacker fell hard on top of him. Still, he did not see his knife. All the while, William and Yeorathe were flailing away at one another.
Yeorathe clawed his way free long enough to snatch up a loose saber. Instead of turning it on William, however, he went for Sylvie, evidently intent upon venting his rage on an innocent one, killing her instead.
Catching Yeorathe just in time to trip him, William leapt, sweeping Sylvie close to himself with one arm. He held her tightly in front of himself so that no other might harm her, and pulled his own sword to defend her. The blood from the wound on his arm ran down his fingers and onto the chest of the girl.
The Englishman was an extraordinary swordsman. Risen could not know that Yeorathe had witnessed the soldier’s skills both on and off the battlefield, and so the Turk hesitated as though not certain he was willing to engage William any further.
Risen spied all of this from the corner of his eye, for his face was pressed into the dirt as the man pummeled on the back of his head with his fists.
That was when he first heard it—the howl—like a pack of wolves charging from somewhere in the trees. Suddenly, everything seemed to move in an absurdly slow motion, for as William held Sylvie tight, he stiffened, his eyes wide with alarm. It was so queer how the Englishman just stood there, staring first at Sylvie then at his chest. From it, just above Sylvie’s head, just about where the Englishman’s heart would be, protruded the tip of an arrow.
Williams’s eyes blinked slowly as the dark stain of blood poured down the front of his shirt.
“NOOooo!” Risen screamed.
The rain of fists on his head ceased, and he rolled out from under his assailant. There, from the center of the man’s head, protruded another arrow. Risen ran to William’s side just as Sylvie slipped from the Englishman’s grasp.
A band of horsemen was charging down on them from the distance, through the twisted stand of trees. Sylvie dropped to the ground next to William and sobbed.
“No!” She cried, her hands searching the mortal wound on William’s chest as though she might stop the bleeding. It was just as it had been with her father, the arrow so small, so seemingly insubstantial, so deadly.
Confusion continued, for the advancing thundering of horse’s feet was nearly upon them.
“Your father,” William sputtered as he lay on his side. “I’m certain of it.” He smiled weakly at the two children. “You will be free.”
It was true…the arrow tip was Ravan’s. Risen recognized the barb and looked up to try to pick his mercenary father out of the band of horsemen that thundered across the small meadow to their encampment.
The prophecy was complete. Ravan, in all his fury, was here at last. The other two of Yeorathe’s group, scattered, giving up the fight.
Sylvie cried and wrapped her arms around the Englishman’s neck. She stroked his cheek. “William, I’m so sorry!” He was fading.
“Don’t be,” he sputtered. “I have wanted this…for many years. You gave me the strength…” he struggled, “…to do something about it.”
The Englishman coughed and reached a bloody hand to her face and murmured one last word, just before he died. “Eleanor…”
“William,” Sylvie, covered in his blood, sobbed, but the chaos allowed no time to indulge her broken heart, for Risen was instantly snatched from where he knelt next to her.
It was Yeorathe. Clutching the sickled saber to Risen’s throat, he backed away, toward the narrow, stone trail behind them. He stared hatefully at the man he’d met twelve years before, his one, unbelieving eye a hollow hole to his wicked black soul.
“Follow, and I will kill him!” Yeorathe bellowed as he held Risen fast and continued to back away from the band of men.
Ravan held up his hand, and behind him his men halted their horses. In one swift move, he had an arrow drawn. His target—the monster who held his son.
“Release him. Release him or you will die poorly,” Ravan commanded, his deep voice echoing through the sudden quiet. All that could be heard was the crackling of the fire, the snorting of tired horses, and the coarse breathing of the captured boy.
“I will kill him and drag him to hell with me,” Yeorathe snarled, his blade pressed hard against Risen’s throat, a trickle of blood running down the boy’s neck. He lifted Ravan’s son off the ground as he held him, peering over the shoulder of his young, human shield.
“Take him,” Velecent encouraged Ravan as his horse stepped nervously in place, but Ravan was perhaps not entirely sure he could. What if…what if…
* * *
Yeorathe dropped Risen, his face a mask of surprise. The boy fell away and spun, surprised to have been released, his hand to his throat. Everyone froze, unsure exactly what had transpired. The most surprised of all was Yeorathe. His mouth opened in a wretched, sickening snarl as he staggered first, then fell hard, face down onto the ground, his skull crunching against a rock as he landed. In his back stuck the blade, Risen’s blade—monster killer…
Sylvie teetered beyond, hands clasped in front of her, tears staining her beautiful cheeks, William’s bloody handprint marking her own heart. She felled the demon, freed the boy she loved. Into Yeorathe’s back she’d plunged the blade.
Letting go a single sob, Sylvie collapsed just as Risen reached her.
* * *
The Red Raven drifted from her slip as Samuel tossed the last lanyard to the docks. Salvatore was at the helm, father and son stood side by side on the foredeck.
There, four ships down, rested the slave vessel. Wordlessly, Risen mimicked his father, dipped the tip of his arrow into the smoldering tar bucket and seated it onto the rest of his bow. Together they drew—together they let go.
Risen’s arrow flew aloft and found the coiled up sails of the aft mast of the Virgin Wolf. Ravan’s slipped through an open hatch and smoldered in the coiled up rigging while all attentions were directed at the burning sails. By the time the arrow below caught, by the time someone noticed the fire, it was too late.
Down the Virgin Wolf went. The harbor militia pushed the burning ship from its mooring and it sunk, not thirty meters out. Demetrios, drunk in his cabin, went down with the ship. The small, black boy who’d coveted a lock of Sylvie’s hair leapt overboard and swam to shore. Shrugging, he disappeared into the market, off to seek a different fortune for himself.
“So you would make me run,” Salvatore grinned. “I will never be welcome in Antalya again.”
Ravan nodded toward the harbor militia who were just now positioning themselves as though they suspected the Red Raven of foul play. “I suppose that is right. But…I know of a ship they cannot possibly catch.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
†
“You were on the edge of a cliff.” A nine year old Risen was animated with excitement, stabbing at the fire with a stick.
“I was…and with nowhere else to go,” his father admitted.
“It was amazing, what you did! The traps…the deception…all so perfect! Duval and his men must have been so angry!”
Ravan shrugged. “I was fourteen years old with all the belief that I could survive and, if not, die on my own terms.”
The boy stopped stabbing at the fire and peered at his father’s dark face, so brooding and strong as he gazed into the night sky.
“Was that wrong? To believe you could have beaten them? Survived it?” his son wondered.
Ceasing his study of the stars, Ravan turned to face Risen, leaning on his elbow. He seemed to take a long time, to look very deeply into the eyes of his only son. “What do you think?” It was a sincere question, not at all sarcastic.
Risen thought for a moment, glancing down as he did. “I think the will to l
ive is strong.”
His father said nothing only waited.
The boy continued, “I think the will to die well is even stronger, to die on your own terms, as you say.”
This prompted a smile from Ravan, rare though it was. It spread across his face, and Risen glanced up in time to see it and wonder at what a splendid face it was, scars and all.
The smile subsided, and Ravan replied, his voice wonderfully deep and rich to his son, “Yes, that is exactly it. You are a man—blood and bone. There is only so much you can do to affect the strength and purpose of it. But your death…” he stared at the fire, “…that is something you can affect the purpose of entirely, no matter how dire, no matter how grim your fate might seem.”
Now it was Risen’s turn to smile. “I like that. It’s…good.”
* * *
Sylvie returned to France with Risen, and they were married that summer. Her beautiful heart was one day finally too weak to carry her soul any farther, and she died in the fall, cradled by the young man who loved her more than anything.
They buried her on the castle grounds in a lovely little meadow…next to William. Salvatore had orchestrated bringing him “home.” He’d burned the body and collected the ashes before they left Turkey. The Englishman would forever be with the young beauty who freed him, who helped him to live again.
Curiously, a sparrow lit on Risen’s shoulder as he laid flowers upon Sylvie’s grave. It looked at him solemnly with its bright, black eyes for only a moment, then it flew away. Salvatore thought it was a good sign.
Ravan pulled from his pocket a small bag of earth—the very earth he took from D’ata’s grave so long ago—and handed it to his son. Risen sprinkled the soil onto the fresh grave of his love, and it was there that wildflowers grew in the spring.
EPILOGUE
†
One year later…
Risen stood in the middle of the small arena just west of the stables. He held in his right hand a long whip that pointed to the ground. His other hand was open, his arm extended to the left. Around him, in a circle, loped the yearling colt, tossing its face and bucking for a few lengths before slipping back into the beautiful stride that ate ground like a monstrous rocking chair.
Leaning against the gate, Ravan watched his son lunge the horse. Beyond the technical aspects of what the boy was doing, there was something else happening between the pair—something that was more than a human training a horse. His son’s gestures inspired in the colt something willing, something playful and alive. The two had a magnificent symbiosis—something that he had with the black Destrier stallion. It was magic.
The horse had no name as of yet. Sylvie had loved the foal, called him “sweet boy” but never actually name it, said only that she would “think about it.”
Smiling, Ravan continued to watch, content just to observe his son and the colt grow together. Risen was nearly fourteen now, and Ravan saw in his son, more as the days went by, something of himself. He was surprised to feel a small hand slip into his, and turned to see Niveus staring up at him.
“Niveus, what is it? Is everything all right?”
His daughter seldom stepped into the light of day and almost never when the sun shined. Today, the sky was a brilliant, clear blue.
“Risen named the colt today.” She peered at her brother and the foal.
“What? Did he, now?” When Niveus said nothing, he added, “I know he’s struggled with a name. But he can’t keep calling it ‘horse’ forever, now can he?”
He smiled down at his daughter, but Niveus only continued to stare at her brother and the beautiful beast that ran in lazy loops around him.
Ravan leaned down and kissed her on the fairy wisps of hair that seemed to swirl perpetually wild around her face. “It was a very personal task for Risen. Did he tell you what name he chose?”
“No,” she replied curtly, then just as simply added, “The horse is named Alerion.”
“Alerion? But if he did not tell you, how do you know this?”
“Alerion,” Niveus repeated the word. “It was her favorite name. She would have named their son that one day, if she’d lived.”
Somewhat alarmed, Ravan leaned down close to his daughter and took her by her shoulders. “Son? What? Niveus, of whom do you speak?” He was thoroughly perplexed by her.
“Sylvie.”
“Sylvie?”
“Yes. She told me.”
“Niveus, when did Sylvie tell you this?” He shook her gently, urgently.
“This morning,” she explained calmly before turning and walking back toward the castle without even bidding her father goodbye.
Ravan watched his daughter walk away, wondered at the mystical complexities that he and Nicolette had created in this strange, beautiful child. He loved her—loved her as much as he ever loved anyone, but Niveus was as incomprehensible as the path of a star. He watched until she disappeared into the castle then turned to regard his son.
It’d been a long year and a very sad time for all of them after Sylvie died. Risen never regretted chasing after his love, finally bringing her home, but he struggled greatly with the loss of her. It changed him—changed him in an eternal way that only such a tragic event could.
Now the boy understood his father completely, comprehended the expression that sometimes crossed Ravan’s face, realized why his heart was so imperfect on some days.
For the longest time Ravan worried his son would not come around. It broke his heart to see him sitting for endless, winter days in the dormer of a castle window, one leg dangling, inviting what may. He knew the feeling, had gone to that dark place himself several times before.
Nicolette believed they should just give him time, and Ravan trusted her about this. Curiously, it was Niveus who reached out to her brother. When he sat, only wishing to be alone, there she would be, leaning against a wall in the shadows behind him. She never spoke to him, never invaded his privacy in that way, only stayed close by. It was enough that Risen knew she was there.
The winter days came and went, and little was seen of the young man around the castle grounds. Eventually, as spring approached and the warm breath of the season spread over the realm like salve onto a wound, Risen could be seen stirring, embracing again the ebb and flow of life.
Now, nearly a year after Sylvie’s death, Risen stopped lunging the yearling colt. Ravan could not help but be amazed how much his son had grown in the last year. His voice was deepening even more, and he could see by the way he moved the warrior he would soon be.
Risen approached his father, smiling as he led the beautiful creature across the pen. It pranced even though sleek with sweat on this late summer day. Nipping at the elbow of its young handler, Sylvie’s horse pulled its nose away at just the right moment, only to plunge in for another playful stab. The yearling was a display of mischievous cleverness if ever there was one, and Risen beamed. He’d grown to love the colt dearly.
Ravan laughed but couldn’t help asking as his son approached. “So, have you named this smart, young fellow yet?”
“I have, Father. Just today. And I think you will like it.” Risen grinned broadly. “His name is…
…Alerion.”
THE END
Did you enjoy RISEN? You can Pre-order NIVEUS HERE!
Thank you for reading RISEN.
If you liked my book, won’t you please take the time to leave me a review at your favorite retailer? I wish you to know how sincerely I appreciate you.
~Sharon Cramer~
Other Books by Sharon Cramer
THE EXECUTION
THE CERULEAN STAR: LIBERTY
The Cerulean Star: SARTEK (Coming Soon)
NIVEUS (Coming Soon)
Just an American Girl (Coming Soon)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharon Cramer is the author and illustrator of the award-winning, three picture book series, Cougar Cub Tales. She is also the author and illustrator of the Book of the Year Finalist, children’s picture boo
k, Marlow and the Monster, and is currently working on a new young adult series called The Cerulean Star. Sharon’s first novel, The Execution, was released in February of 2012. RISEN is the sequel. NIVEUS will be the third book in the series, out in 2015.
Cramer lived throughout the United States before coming to Washington State. Long settled in the Pacific Northwest, she says she will stay, “Because I love how beautiful it is, and the crazy weather patterns lend themselves to creative writing!”
It is in Spokane, Washington that she lives and writes. She is married and has three grown sons.
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Sharon 2014
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