Wicked Hunt

Chapter Fourteen, Part II

Halle: Friends Or Allies 

"What's going on?" Halle whispered. She saw Maddox swallow, but he remained silent. Clive stood up and slowly began walking toward the man. He was openly weeping now and bent onto his hands and knees. Clive placed his hands behind his back as he walked around the man.

"Please," the man whimpered.

"Oh Isaac," Clive tutted, shaking his head. His eyes looked black and narrowed, evil slits in his stone face.

"I-" the man named Isaac began, but Clive flew over to him and placed his boot upon the man's chest. He kicked him back. The movement was so quick, Halle yelped in startlement. A wicked grin spread wide across her husband's face. His eyes found her, pinning her to the floor. She let go of Maddox.

"This frightens you?" he asked her lowly. She did not reply. Several men in the crowd cowered away from her.

"Perhaps..." Maddox interjected, stepping in between them.

"Speak!" Clive shrieked, cutting him off. She had seen her husband crazed and rageful. She had seen hatred gleam in his cold eyes. She had seen him take sick pleasure in torture. But this anger was something else. His eyes were hollow, devoid of any emotion save coldness. He did not even appear human. He looked like some wild, hungry beast, trailing and waiting to go in for the kill.

"I am not afraid," Halle responded calmly. Thank Ryker my voice did not quiver.

Clive sneered at her but grew bored. He lunged away and grabbed Isaac by the hair. He drug him by his ponytail back to his throne, where he slung him on the hard stone floor. Clive then dusted his hands off and sank back into the large seat. The crowd unanimously released its breath.

"I've never seen him this way," Halle admitted to Maddox, who finally glanced at her. He shrugged.

"It is always worse when the Commander is away."

"I see," Halle said, her voice cracking slightly. And why is that? Surely my husband is not afraid of Rafe Walsh. He appeared ordinarily enough to me. She sighed and rubbed her forehead, knowing full well she was lying to herself. Whatever he was, the Commander was no ordinary man. She shouldn't be so surprised that her brutish husband was kept at bay when he was around.

"And when will he be returning?" she found herself blurting out before she could stop herself. Maddox eyed her with a funny expression on his face. His old, grizzled brows furrowed but a thin smile covered the unease.

"Soon I hope. Soon." He reached out and placed his wrinkled palm over top of her own. She did not know the man well at all, yet here he was, showing her a small kindness, a small token of warmth in the cold, dismal abyss her life had fallen into. She could not help but smile back at him.

"What are your crimes?" Clive's voice cut through the faint chatter that had swelled from the crowd sharply.

"He was in the woods." Heads turned left and right, trying to see who had spoken. Halle stood on her tiptoes to see but could not make out much more than dark heads and freckled necks. Boots clicked and the speaker inched forward, parting the crowd like some massive wave.

"I took some men out to have some fun in the trees, and we caught him hunting." Bruce Palisade came out of the throng of people. Halle held her breath. Bruce looked much changed since the last time she had seen him: the day her brother and Hector returned to Rodantha. His hair hung limp about his hollowed face, a torn ornament shielding several scratches and cuts along his neck and jaw. Dark half moons clung to the bottom of blood shot eyes that continually blinked as if there were dust in them. Both green and blue irises looked black and inhuman. Never before had Halle seen Bruce look more like his father.

The crowd buzzed instantly, a low hum echoing off the cool walls. Bruce strode to his father, flung his tattered cape back and knelt before the throne. Clive raised his eyebrows and leaned back. "He killed one of the stags, My King." The voices stilled.

"No," Isaac whispered.

"Liar," Bruce spat, jutting his head up and standing in one swift motion. "You're lucky the king is merciful enough to speak with you." Slowly, he rotated and glowered at Isaac. "I would have strung you up in the forest; let the shadows do with you what they want." Isaac whimpered, and Halle wondered what the truth was. Was Bruce telling the story the way it happened, or was he egging his father on, toward some sick end for the poor man cowering before them. And shouldn't Isaac have known what would happen if one of the sacred stags were killed? Why was he hunting in the forest in the first place? Although, it would not surprise Halle one bit if she found that Clive starved or taxed his citizen heavily. She had not been shown any documentation or rules for how the upkeep of Dunhelm Keep was paid for. She doubted she'd ever been shown anything.

Just as regret was beginning to stab into Halle's heart with a jagged blade, Bruce spoke again. "The stags are sacred," he announced to the crowd. "The crime is punishable by death." Several women near her began sniffling. One choked on a deep sob. They held onto each other with tight fingers. Halle resisted the urge to reach out to them and...

...comfort them? Console them? She did not know why she should feel some kind of kinship with strangers she did not know.

"Mercy!" one of the women yelled.

"Silence her," Clive remarked in a bored drawl. Bruce walked purposely to the one who had yelled and slapped her hard across the cheek. The others folded into her, wrapping arms and blankets about her shoulders. Halle bit her lip to keep from saying something and clenched her hands tightly at her sides.

It is not your place. This is not the time. Think you fool! Think what your husband would do to you tonight when you're alone! Think how he would punish you! A shiver ran down her spine, and she looked down at her feet. Cowardice was not in her nature. She felt taut like a bow waiting to be released. She just didn't know what the target should be. Clive with his leering grin and deep ingrooved sadism? Bruce with his playful banter and sinister turn? Or perhaps Maddox? She glanced at the old man who stood passively out of the spotlight. Wasn't it worse to stand by and watch injustice unfold?

"How do you plead?" Clive asked. Isaac's lips trembled, but he did not speak. Bruce chuckled lowly and went to him them, jerking the man's feeble chin up and clamping his fingers about his jaw. His dirty fingers found their way to Isaac's mouth and moved his lips up and down.

"Guilty," Bruce said in a tinny, mimicked tone, making Isaac's lips form the words. Clive threw back his head and roared with laughter as if it were the greatest joke he had heard.