The Execution (28 page)

This triggered yet another coughing
fit and it was at that very moment that LanCoste, the giant, came
through the door unannounced.

Ravan struggled to sit and restrain
his coughing. He was able to slow his breathing and quiet the
coughing somewhat, and more easily than yesterday.

He flailed a bit as he tried to
extricate himself from the blanket and LanCoste, heavily bearded
and sporting his trademark axe, looked absently at the floundering
boy before grunting, “Get dressed. It is time to fight.”

“
I’m hungry and thirsty,”
Ravan said between spells of coughing.

LanCoste turned to leave. “You will
eat when you have fought. Get dressed.”

Ravan stood. “I will not
fight.”

LanCoste halted, his back to the
younger man.

Ravan was, again, silently awed by the
sheer size of the monster.

“
Then—you will die.” The
giant spoke calmly, matter-of-factly, and loosed the axe from its
bindings as he spoke. Turning slowly, he raised the awful weapon
above his head, holding it with both hands. The tip of the enormous
axe scraped the wood of the ceiling. The giant’s expression was
cold, blank.

LanCoste towered above Ravan,
occupying more space than any man he'd ever seen. The boy was
dumbstruck by a sudden realization of how awful the final moments
of his victims must be. They must’ve experienced great terror, just
from the giant’s presence alone. This man appeared to have a
solitary purpose and sincerely seemed about to express it right
here and now.

Ravan instinctively leapt to the other
side of the bed, landing heavily on his feet, feeling the burning
sear through his thigh as the coughing started again. His tousled
hair fell into his eyes and he hastily swept it aside.

LanCoste might have wondered at his
master’s reasoning for bringing the pup here.

For Ravan, common sense appeared the
better part of valor. Without a weapon, he realized the futility of
a fight. “All right, monsieur! All right—” He held his hands up,
acknowledging defeat, reasoning with the giant. “I will go fight
your little fight. You can put your cleaver away. I’ve no argument
with you.”

The giant paused and Ravan wasn’t at
all sure he’d communicated effectively, but ultimately LanCoste
lowered the mighty axe. He did not, however, replace it to its
resting place.

Ravan dropped his hands to his sides.
“But please—just a cup of water first.”

LanCoste hesitated, squinting so that
his eyes almost disappeared into the depths of his massive brow. He
turned and left without speaking, ducking to even fit through the
door. The crossbeam fell with a heavy thud back into
place.

Ravan stared at the retreating mass of
a man, confused. He sighed and pulled his boots on, shaking his
head as he recalled the giant ordering him to ‘get dressed.’ He’d
slept dressed. Never again would he allow himself to be unprepared,
and the first moment that allowed it, he would escape.

He stood, walked to the door and
pounded. “Hey, you out there—hello? I’m ready.” He purposefully
softened his words and the way he said them. Ravan realized that it
would serve to make an ally or two if he was ever to get out of
here alive. He considered whether or not the giant might be a good
target for allegiance. The man seemed too simple and too adequately
institutionalized by Duval. Even his thought process seemed slow.
Ravan wondered if the monster even had true reflex on the
battlefield, or if it was sheer strength that made him so
deadly.

He decided that LanCoste would not
serve as an ally.

Quite suddenly, and for no good
reason, he thought of Pierre. A wave of nausea and shame washed
over him. No one knew—no one, but Renoir and Pierre. As he thought
of the two of them, he was plunged back to that awful scene once
again, reminded of the snow crammed into his eyes and nose. He
remembered the gag choking him, the inability to breathe. Choking
back a sob, he recalled how his body had been bent and exposed,
Renoir’s boot on the back of his neck—them standing over him. He
remembered the smell of them, and then...

Ravan heard the skeleton keys jingle
and the crossbeam thud to the floor. He stepped back from the door,
jarred from the defilement of his memory back to the
present.

Two guards entered. LanCoste was not
with them. Ravan recognized one of the guards as the man who had
brought his dinner. The other was unfamiliar but carried in his
hand a single cup of water.

Ravan choked back the emotions from
seconds before and thought to himself, 'Perhaps LanCoste was a
possible ally after all.’

The man reached towards him handing
him the cup.

Never taking his eyes from the guard,
Ravan drank the water, cautiously, like a wild creature forced from
the highlands by severe weather that accepts food from the hunter
in the valleys below. Their eyes never parted.

“
Thank you.” He handed the
cup back. The guard looked at him quizzically and turned but said
nothing.

The two men escorted Ravan from his
quarters down two corridors, the second of which ended in a heavy
door without windows. Unlocking the door, the first guard pushed it
open to the outside courtyard. All three men squinted at the
brightness of the morning.

It was cold and clear, and the fresh,
icy air burned in Ravan’s lungs. His breath puffed out in tiny
frosty clouds. He remembered his flight in the woods, before he'd
fallen, how the cold had burned his lungs. He wondered how severely
they might be scarred. Mustn’t breathe too deeply or too
rapidly—must keep the coughing at bay.

He stepped into the light—fragile,
bent, and small in comparison to the men who stopped to
stare.

Ravan’s feet were numb almost right
away. He had absolutely no idea of where they were, but he guessed
from the amount of time they’d traveled that they were either in
the Western Mountains, toward Switzerland, or further north to
Picardy. He only knew this because of the way traveler's at the Inn
had talked about their journeys and the magnificent mountain ranges
they’d seen.

He rubbed his arms to warm himself and
hopped lightly from foot to foot, testing his legs. They were weak
but seemed predictable enough. His thigh would need more time to
recover, but for the first time in a long while his legs felt
familiar to him. He tested his breathing again and searched the
yard. Some of the men were familiar, most not. He then scanned the
walls.

The encampment was built fortress
style with broad, covered walkways atop the enormous stone walls.
The base was much larger than Ravan had originally realized with
archer’s windows built into the distal towers and corner peaks. It
was clever for even in foul weather the encampment could easily
stand guard.

Men walked casually on top of the
walls, keeping guard, their longbows and crossbows engaged and
ready. They watched outwards, not in. Apparently the threat was not
that the fighters within the yard would leave but that they might
be attacked from outside the fortress. Ravan thought to himself,
‘These men are here of their own accord,’ and then he wondered
again, why he’d been chosen.

Just then, LanCoste turned the corner
and approached the three men. He towered enormous, even in the out
of doors. The giant carried with him a sword, a wooden sword, and
offered it to Ravan.

The young man looked around as
mercenaries slowed and paused their training to watch. “What would
you have me do with that?” Ravan asked. He offered a wry grin to
the giant, remembering the water offering from just moments before,
and politely accepted the weapon.

The smile immediately faded as he saw
Renoir step from around the corner of the barracks.

He froze, the wooden sword dangling
from his hand. This was impossible, a horrible joke. He looked at
LanCoste to implore his assistance, but LanCoste remained silent
and instead gazed towards the advancing Renoir.

Renoir was a coward, a dangerous and
cruel coward, an opportunist—and a rapist. He carried in his right
fist both rapiers that were his trademark.

Instinctively backing away, Ravan was
mortified to be facing the man who had not so long ago dragged him
from the cage.

The horrid little man sneered at Ravan
and briefly grabbed his crotch as he approached, a gesture of his
true intent, or perhaps a reminder of a previous day. He laid aside
the rapiers, picking up instead a wooden staff, almost two and a
half meters long.

LanCoste stepped back and nodded
slowly, his expression blank.

Holding his hands out, Ravan allowed
the wooden sword to dangle loosely, looking in appeal at the giant.
“What? You want me to—”

Renoir lashed out violently with the
staff, striking Ravan heavily in the midriff and sending him
sprawling backwards onto the frozen ground. The greasy, wiry man
laughed heartily and advanced upon his prey swiftly and with
precision.

Ravan recognized his immediate peril
as he gasped, shocked and surprised, the breath knocked from him.
The sword had fallen from his hand and lay ten feet from
him.

As the older and more seasoned
mercenary moved in on him, Ravan rolled quickly to one side. He
avoided Renoir’s staff, which would have caught him viciously on
the side of his head. He kicked backwards, crablike, scrambling to
avoid Renoir’s assault and struggling to reach the
sword.

His fingers
wrapped around the roughly hewn handle and he feinted Renoir’s next
blow with the ridiculous wooden weapon. He struggled to his knees
and then, to the surprise of his enemy, lunged for his tormentor
taking them both down heavily onto the ground. His opponent grunted
and gasped as Ravan,
lighter though he
was,
allowed his elbow to
absorb the majority of his own weight squarely onto Renoir’s
sternum.

Renoir easily tossed the younger,
slighter man from him, but not before Ravan landed a solid and
vicious blow with the butt of the sword to the hawk-like face of
Renoir. Blood streamed from the man’s nose and Renoir paused,
wiping it from his face and staring at the bright red hand before
him.

Fighting a man was something Ravan had
never done before. He took a moment to regain his composure and
adopted a stance ready for the next round. He trembled with
anticipation, adrenalin coursing through him. When Renoir finally
looked up at his attacker, Ravan laughed aloud, pointing at
Renoir’s dripping nose, purposefully taunting him.

He knew this would only serve to
enrage the man. Ravan had observed this often enough at the Inn—the
weekend fights. Animals were much more dignified, refusing to
surrender to blind rage, succumbing only to a quiet honor when
death ultimately claimed them. Dumb with fury, Renoir squealed,
lunging at the younger man.

Ravan retreated. Then, he turned
suddenly as though he’d fallen and dropped to the ground. His legs
were drawn up and ready. As Renoir plunged recklessly upon his
prey, bent with rage, the boy parried the staff with his sword
allowing it to narrowly miss his head. Suddenly, he thrust his feet
upwards with all of his strength into the groin of his attacker. He
landed a solid, crunching blow into the man’s testicles.

This crippled Renoir and sent him,
first into the air, then heavily to the ground where he curled into
a sniveling heap. He frothed at the mouth like a rabid animal as he
struggled to overcome the brutal waves of pain and nausea,
clutching desperately at his scrotum.

By now a sizable group of men had
ceased their own training to watch.

Ravan didn’t hesitate. He leapt onto
the fallen Renoir, shoved his knee between the man's’ shoulder
blades, grasped his head by the hair and forced it sharply back
exposing the vulnerable soft tissue of the neck.

Drawing his wooden sword, Ravan
ritualistically drew the blade slowly and deliberately across the
neck of his enemy before bringing the butt of the sword crushing
and savage into the temple of the man who had staged his rape.
Ravan's eyes glazed with untamed fury and he gasped raggedly, then
stepped up and off of Renoir.

The man lie unconscious and dead
apparent, face down on the ground.

Ravan stood, sword pointed to the sky,
and let out a long and deep, feral howl. It was all of his rage,
all of his anger and righteous indignation that culminated in this
one glorious gesture. It echoed back from the canyons around them
and carried with it all the ferocity of a caged animal that had
finally, mortally, bested his captor.

As the howl died, Ravan panted and
coughed only once, breathless from the fight. Clarity slowly
returned.

Glancing about himself, the sword
still in his clenched fist, he noticed that the courtyard had
become completely silent. All eyes were on him. Even the birds and
animals were deathly quiet. The cold, soft whistling of the early
winter wind was the only one who dared speak.

Motionless, breathing heavily, evenly,
he slowly looked about the yard at the stares. Squinting, he
scanned the fortress walls. Four hundred paces away, on the east
wall of the yard, stood a familiar figure. It was black with the
sun behind him, but the silhouette was unmistakable. Ravan watched
Duval nod slowly in satisfaction.