The Boy from the Sea Ch. 07

*I want to apologize for both the shortness of this chapter, and the lack of sex. One thing that I should know by now is NOT to leave cliff hangers, because they make people angry O.o

Anyway, one more chapter to go, and please give me advice on anything I have to fix, no matter how small.

All characters are 18+*

Christopher was just groggily beginning to wake up. The seagulls were very loud today, maybe some fish had washed up. Sunlight streamed in a soft gold curtain down on the bed, and the blanket was tangled around their legs.

Christopher stretched slowly, trying not to wake the snoozing boy in his arms. Adriel's hair fell in a soft white fan over Christopher's arms and shoulder. His face looked so relaxed, and so happy while he slept. Chris yawned. The seagulls were getting louder.

Alarm was just beginning to spike through Christopher's sleepy brain, and Adriel was just starting to stir when the first blow hit the door.

"Wh-What?" Chris muttered, struggling to get up and untangle his legs.

"Christopher?" Adriel lifted his groggy head, hair matted with sleep.

The second blow hit the door, rattling the doorframe and breaking a hinge. The seagull cries were shouts, chants. The third blow hit the door and it collapsed. A flood of people poured into the tiny hut.

A huge farmer wielding a rusty pitchfork snarled at them. "Don't you FUCKING move!"

Christopher wrapped Adriel in his arms, Adriel cried out deliriously and cringed into Christopher's protective body. They were both naked, both terribly vulnerable. Surrounded by men that Chris had known his entire life.

Adriel cried out in terror when a lean white-haired wire of a man lunged forward and swung a fishing gaff at the side of Christopher's head. Chris moaned and went limp. A huge gash leaked blood on the side of his head while Adriel sobbed his name over and over, hugging his shoulders and cringing from the men who came closer with rope and weapons.

---

Chris was semiconscious. Blood leaked from the side of his head as he stumbled naked across the rocky path. Ropes were tight tight around his wrist, and another rope was tied around his neck. The man holding his rope was Matthus, a fisherman he had known his entire life. They had been friends, exchanging dirty jokes at the docks, and sometimes eating dinner at each other's huts.

Now Matthus was kicking him to his feet whenever he swooned from the terrible throbbing pain in his head. Matthus's face was a pale and bloodshot mess from weeping and fury. Adriel was sobbing. The weak cries kept the beat of the viscous pain in Christopher's skull.

His sight was half-blinded by blood, but he could see the fragile naked form of his lover limping and crawling across the path. Blood was dribbling down his shoulders and arms from where they kept prodding him with a pitchfork. They were calling him a demon, calling them both demons.

Chris stumbled. His feet were swollen and cut and burned on the sun-splashed rocks. Adriel's shoulders were a bright warning red.

"Adriel! Don't fight them, don't--"

Chris let out an anguished shriek and fell as someone jabbed him with a pitchfork in the upper back. He felt the hot trickles of blood dribble down his back from the five deep punctures.

"Shut the fuck up Whore!"

Adriel was crying, sobbing his name. To Chris it sounded like someone was shouting his name from a long ways away.

---

Neither of the young men understood the trial. One was not human, and the other was barely conscious.

They had been given rough white smocks that barely fell to their thighs. Their wrists were tied behind their backs. The trial was held in the town square, with them on the stage like freaks.

Adriel cried for the whole trial. His world had been torn to pieces, and the young man who had loved him and cared for him was swaying and moaning, a large sheet of blood drying to maroon on the side of his face.

The names of the two young men were not used. They were called the demon, and the demon's whore. Witnesses were brought up. Fishermen who saw ships sink, family members of the deceased, wounded showing off their scars.

A mass hysteria had taken over the town. Like the witch trials in salem, they all accused the dazed and weeping pale boy on the stage, and Christopher was blamed as his accomplice.

Christopher cracked open the eye that was less swollen, and he saw Max and Anna in the crowd. Anna was holding Moira tight and looking at him with absolute hatred. Max was weeping, his eyes bloodshot.

At the end of the trial, they were sentenced to hanging at dawn. They would be kept in the two rickety cells that held the town drunks when they got too rowdy.

Adriel was charged of Sorcery and nine counts of murder. Christopher was charged with Sodomy, Perversion, and Sorcery.

---

Christopher was thrown in one cell, and Adriel in the other. The cruelly tight cords on their hands sunk into their flesh. Christopher collapsed where he was thrown, moaning feebly. Adriel wormed his way over to the bars and whimpered Christopher's name. Crying weakly for the man he had started to love.

---

They were both badly injured. If it were up to the town, then they wouldn't have gotten any care or food at all, but with some lobbying from the Spaewife and Christopher's adopted family, not to mention a sizable bribe, they got a visit from the Spaewife.

The guards carefully checked both her and the basket she was carrying, confiscated her sewing scissors and her knitting needles, one copped a feel, and then they let her in with a measure of privacy, the key to Christopher's cell, and a single oil lamp to keep away the darkness of the windowless room.

She moaned when she saw the two young men.

Christopher was slumped on the floor, the side of his head caked with brown dried blood, and his smock stained with more of it. Adriel was huddled into the corner closest to his fallen lover. His face was blistered from the bad sunburn of the outdoor trial. His left eye was swollen shut from a massive purple weal. Blood streaked his smock.

She didn't have the key for the Merlee's cell, only Christopher's. She entered Christopher's cell and took out her basket, wiping tears from her eyes. Adriel watched her dully. "Spaewife?" He whispered. His voice was a dry cracked thing.

She swore in a clogged teary voice. She went over to the bars between the cells and took out the leather water-bottle she had brought. She put the reed nozzle to the boy's bruised and swollen lips and Adriel drank greedily and gratefully, with little sobs of relief.

"I have to take care of Christopher, I will help you as best as I can." She whispered. Adriel nodded, and watched her, tears leaking from his huge dark eyes.

The Spaewife heaved the semiconscious boy into a sitting position against the wall and he stirred, moaning softly. She managed to get him to drink, though he dribbled half of it over his lips. She got a cloth wet with vinegar water and started to dab at his many wounds, taking off the smock when it got in the way.

They had jabbed him with a pitchfork, with a trident. Smashed his shoulder with a hoe. Someone had given him several bleeding welts with a horsewhip. He moaned drunkenly with the antiseptic pain of the vinegar water, but didn't wake up. Adriel whimpered his name.

She had brought a half-loaf of sourdough bread, and a lump of cheese, and a strip of dried mutton. She got up and bodily dragged Christopher to the wall, so Adriel could reach out and touch his shoulder, his face, smooth his matted hair. She gave the water-bottle, the rag, and all of the food to Adriel.

"Eat about half, and give the rest to him if he wakes up." The Spaewife started to cry. "I am so sorry Adriel." She let out several hoarse sobs. Adriel flinched when she looked up, her eyes dry and shiny. She glanced at the doorway, and whispered in a low hard voice.

"There are some people that will try to help. Try to wake him up, give him the food. You will both need your strength. Good luck Adriel, and goodbye."

She kissed the boy's small hand and got up, leaving. Adriel watched as the guard let her through, and came back to lock Christopher's cell. The guard spat through the bars at them and went back to the bench that he sat on guarding the entrance of the cell room.

Adriel didn't move for a moment, feeling hope, flutter in his chest, like a bird's wings against a cage. Then he took the rag and dabbed his numerous wounds, flinching with the vinegar sting of the rag.

---

Adriel flinched at the first scraping noise. It came from the wooden ceiling, and suddenly he realized that someone was trying to cut through the ceiling, to get them out. He waited, breathlessly. The sawing got louder, and he broke into a hacking cough, to cover the noise. Christopher stirred feverishly. Adriel had been dabbing the wound on his head, removing as much of the scabbed blood as he could.

Adriel had managed to feed Christopher all of the soft cheese, but the other food was too hard for him in his semiconscious state, so Adriel had eaten the meat and most of the bread.

The scraping noises continued. Whenever it got too loud, Adriel coughed to cover it up. The two guards shouted at him to shut up, but they were too tired to be bothered with checking up on him. They were deep in a simple gambling game with dice and pence, and deep into the jug of dark beer that one had brought along.

Adriel saw the shining tip of the blade pierce the roof, and then begin to laboriously saw perpendicular to the direction that the wide boards crossed the ceiling.. The sound was louder, and Adriel hacked out his sick-sounding cough. Christopher stirred feebly. "A-Adriel?"

Adriel stroked the cheek of his lover through the bars, faint with a day's worth of stubble. The saw cut about three boards across, and then was withdrawn. The scraping sounds came from about four feet away, sawing parallel to the first cut. The section of boards removed would lay halfway over Christopher's cell, and halfway over Adriel's cell.

The first board was nearly sawed through, and then carefully lifted out. Adriel looked up and saw four faces squinting down at them, outlined against the velvety midnight blue of the sky and the diamond crust of stars. He could not make out their faces.

They sawed at the second board, and Adriel coughed and shook Chris, trying to wake him. He was moving sluggishly. "Where am I?" His words were faint and slurred.

The second board was lifted away. One more to go.

"Adriel? What is that noise?" Adriel shushed him gently.

"Friends save Christopher and I. Look up Christopher!" He whispered, tears running down his face. The third board was lifted away.

A rope dropped down into Adriel's cell. The rope had a rough harness at the end, two loops to put his arms through. He did, and he grabbed the rope at the center. The rope chafed at his chest and shoulders as he was pulled up, but he gritted his teeth and handled it. It was freedom. He was pulled to the roof, and he saw his rescuers.

Four of them, pulling at the rope. The Spaewife, her teeth bared, Max, an older balding man with Max's facial features, and an older woman with Max's eyes.

"Christopher not awake, send I down into his cage."

The Spaewife nodded. In the starry stillness of the sleeping town, they lowered the boy into Christopher's cell. Adriel fastened the rough harness around his lover's arms. He wrapped the rope around his lover's waist and tugged it quickly to let them know that he was ready.

Christopher hung like a sack of meat, and he outweighed Adriel by fifty pounds. They took longer to pull him up, but once he was at the surface, his adopted mother ran to him and pulled his body up.

For a terrible moment, Adriel thought that they were going to leave him, but then the rope came back down, and he was pulled up again.

As soon as he was up, Max and his father were at the hole in the roof, fixing the boards so they would go back into the hole and give the appearance of being part of a smooth ceiling. The Spaewife was tending to Christopher, holding something under his nose that made him gasp and come awake.

Max's mother tended to Adriel, helping him to stand and put on some clothes. A pair of the hated breeches and a linen shirt and a vest and a cloak. Some boots too, which Adriel hated even more then the breeches. They made his feet feel heavy, and dead.

The town was asleep, nursing their wounds, and the four men and two women were able to cross it unseen.

---

They barely stopped at the home of Christopher's adopted parents. His mother gave them both bowls of soup, which they fell on soundlessly. There was very little talking. Both of the young men were bruised and hollow-eyed.

Max came in. "Come here Chris, and... you come too."

Adriel got up and stood next to Chris, supporting his weight. Chris was awake, but groggy and very weak. They went to the stable, and there was an old grey mule saddled and loaded with two packsacks on either side of her.

"Betsy is a gentle old mule." Max whispered. "If they think that you both are demons, then maybe they will think that you both disappeared. Betsy will come back if you unsaddle her and take off the bags. Do you remember our old fort Chris?"

Christopher nodded.

"There are supplies to last you two for a couple days. Hide out there, and when things calm down, I'll find you."

He helped them up on the mule, Adriel behind Chris, to hold him in case he went unconscious again.

"I love you brother." Max whispered. Christopher's eyes filled with tears.

"Thank you brother." He whispered, squeezing Max's hand. Then Max slapped the mule's rear, and Betsy took off at a fast walk, Adriel clinging to Christopher so he didn't fall off.

---

The fort was an old ruins that they had found high in the mountains. Fifteen miles away from the village. They made it there just as the horizon was beginning to lighten. Adriel fell clumsily off the mule, feeling more sore then he had been in his entire life. Betsy patiently waited as the clumsy, inexperienced boy took his semiconscious friend off, and spent several minutes figuring out the knots to release the packsacks and saddle.

Betsy began to trot off home, eager for breakfast oats. Adriel looked around the ruins. It was the remains of three stone houses, a stone storehouse, and the foundations of a church. None had roofs, most of the walls were knocked down with weight and time.

When Max and Christopher were kids, they had found the ruins while wandering far off the beaten path hunting squirrels. They had made a project of it, and their father had been with them, teaching them how to build a low stone wall without mortar, and how to make a lean-two, and getting them old boards from a ceiling that had been remade.

The fort was built with the sturdiest remaining corner as two of their walls. They had made their own clumsy wall with loose stones, and the last wall was open. The ceiling had been with nailed-together boards that kept out the worst of the rain and sunshine.

They had played here every day as kids, it was worth the fifteen-mile ride, and their father usually let them ride a placid mare up as long as they were careful.

Adriel helped Chris limp over to the little 'fort', and then went back to get the supplies. There were two bedrolls filled with loose wool and straw as padding. There were two loaves of bread, dried meat, cheese, and a covered earthen pot of cold seafood stew. There was a quilt, and a cloth sack of apples.

Adriel rolled out the bedrolls, and Chris crawled onto one unsteadily. "Gotta sleep." He slurred. "Don't feel so good..."

Adriel hadn't had a wink of sleep for twenty four hours. He lay on the bedroll beside his lover and put the quilt over them both. They were safe.