Relentless

Chapter Four

The celebration was enjoyable but Raphael wasn’t very comfortable with the large crowds of people. He was tense, the bad feeling growing until he could practically see his tension in the air.

He wanted to relax but the bad feeling kept coming back every time he tried to. It was coming to the end of the celebration and the queen asked Orchid to make a speech, to help make her more comfortable with speaking in front of people.

She was doing well and as she spoke, Raphael noticed the orchid necklace around her neck.

Suddenly she was tackled to the ground just as Raphael noticed a tiny object flying towards where she had been standing.

Gabriel jumped up from where he had landed after knocking Orchid down and leapt up into mid air to meet a man as he jumped towards Orchid.

As Gabriel knocked the man another jumped out and then another. There looked to be about five of them. They were all trying to get at Orchid. Kaydian had been knocked out trying to defend her as had a lot of the men who had rushed forward to defend.

Gabriel was taking the brunt of the attacks and was bleeding at several places. He had managed to knock down two of the men and was backing the others towards the forest that lined the edge of the garden. Two of the men grabbed the ones that were unconscious, threw them over their shoulders and ran for the forests. Gabriel stumbled and turned to make his way towards Orchid. Kaydian had come round and was shielding her from any other attacks.

“What is going on?” Kaydian asked, looking possessed.

Suddenly Gabriel shoved Raphael out the way and jumped in front of the couple.

“Would you stop that! For all we know you provoked them to attack! We don’t know anything about you! Your loyalty could belong to anyo -“

As Kaydian had been shouting, Gabriel fell forward, a knife stuck up out of his back and he was bleeding profusely.

Raphael rushed forward to place pressure on the wound. He couldn’t pull out the knife or he would bleed to death.

One of the healers came running towards them and took over taking care of Gabriel’s wounds. He took Gabriel to the healers place.

“I didn’t mean to say those things; he fought honorably and I had no right to question him.” Kaydian apologized

“I don’t think he heard you,” Raphael answered tired of his repeated strings of apologizes.

“It does not matter, you trusted him to watch over our family.”

“And we are lucky he did,”

“What do you mean?” Aidan asked.

“One of my men found a throwing knife. I saw something flying towards Orchid as Gabriel knocked her down. And he saved my life.”

“Princes, would you come with me,” one of the healers came towards them, looking troubled.

“Has he survived?” Raphael asked.

“Yes, but –“ the healer shook his head. “You should see for your selves.”

He lead then to a bedroom, he slowly pushed open the door and walked forward.

Raphael stopped short when he saw the girl lying on the bed. “I think there has been a misunderstanding, I wanted to check on Gabriel. He was wounded at the celebrations”

“There is a misunderstanding but not the one you think. We had to remove her shirt because of the blood and she was beneath it. I have no explanation.”

“Brothers, did either one of you ever see Gabriel’s face?” Raphael asked.

“No, he always had that hood shirt on.” Aidan said.

Kaydian shook his head, “Did you?”

“No, I never heard his voice either.” Raphael looked back at the girl on the bed. “I guess we know why.” He turned to the healer. “What can you tell us about her?”

“This isn’t the first time she has been stabbed. She has a lot of scars. Some of them indicated she has been burned as well and in she places it looks like, at some point, some pieces of her skin had been cut off.” He looked like he wanted to say something else but was hesitant to.

“What else?”

“I felt compelled to do a through search after seeing the extent of some of the scaring.” He stopped again and took a deep breath. “There was some scarring that suggested that rape has occurred.”

Raphael took a deep breath; rape was the worst crime that could be done. If there was any evidence at all that rape had ever occurred, the man would have been seriously punished that would lead to death. From what the healer had found, she had been severely tortured. But to violate a woman like that, that was beyond any form of torture, beyond Raphael’s understanding.

“How old?” Raphael asked.

“At least two years,”

Raphael looked at the girl; she looked so young and vulnerable. “How old would you say she is healer?” Kaydian asked.

“No more then seventeen, no younger then fifteen,”

Raphael went to the girl and studied her. She had shoulder length brown hair, high cheek bones, tanned skin, small nose, thick lashes and an average mouth. She wasn’t beautiful, just average looking. He looked down to study her body. She had a tiny waist with bigger hips that were the same width as her shoulders. She had medium sized breasts and slim arms.

“When do you think she learnt how to fight?” Raphael asked, interrupting the conversation behind him.

“I don’t know, I only know of her past injuries.”

“She protected the future queen; she is now under our protection.” Raphael said.

“Why did she become a warrior? Why would she risk her life?” Aidan asked. A woman could become a warrior; there was no law against it. But if there was a fight, there was a chance that she could be severely injured and unable to carry child. No woman deserved to suffer the pain of being unable to have a child of her own.

“She was probably hiding.” Raphael answered.

“From what?” Kaydian asked.                                  

“From what ever hurt her.”