Riddick spotted the village first. His hand tightened on her arm and she looked up as well as the first of the low buildings came into view. The village, what could be seen of it, wasn’t much larger than the one they had just left but the ground was more open, the dwellings more scattered.
He remembered how she had been leered at and wanted her to go below deck but Shazza wouldn’t have it and he knew that he couldn’t make her go. Not unless he wanted to hurt her. He smirked at her as he let go of her arm and tried to get used to the idea that she had a will of her own. That he liked it.
Jack was another matter. He didn’t think he would have any more luck getting Jack to do as she was told happily but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He signaled to her as her head poked out of the door from the bridge, to go back inside and stay there. Rewarded with a defiant glare that he returned, he took a step towards her. He would lock her below if he had to, and deal with her being pissed off about it later. She glared for a half a breath and then slammed the door behind her as she went back to the bridge.
Shazza stifled her smirk; at any other time the two of them squaring off would be funny but not right now. Riddick was deadly serious. The last time they had visited a village it hadn’t gone so well and she knew that he feared a repeat. He reached down for the weapon he had kept in reach just below the railing and she rested her hand on his. “Not just yet, Riddick.”
His expression remained cold, emotionless, but he let go of the weapon, his breath a nearly inaudible huff. That she was right didn’t change how he felt about it. She had gotten to like his smile and it wasn’t until they were about to be thrown into the midst of others that she realized how comfortable he was here, with her. He stood before her and radiated cold menace, but she couldn’t help but feel flattered that he would show her another side, that he had let her see him.
Theo stepped forward to the front of the ship to stand near Riddick; he held Joanne behind him. She wouldn’t leave his side either but pulled at his shirt when they had reached the railing at the front. “I’ve been here before. M..maybe it would be easier if I stayed up here?” She didn’t look so sure about it but she didn’t look like she was about to leave either.
Her voice trembled a little, and she stayed close behind Theo when she looked at Riddick. Shazza didn’t blame her; Joanne had no way to know that this wasn’t the only face he had, the only emotion he showed. There wasn’t time to deal with it now. “All right, stay up here by me. Maybe you’ll spot someone you know and this will go a lot easier.” Shazza reached out for Joanne who stepped out from behind Theo and stood beside her as the Moorglade slid to a gentle stop.
Riddick felt the deeper thrum under his feet and knew that Jack hadn’t shut off whatever it was that ran the ship. She felt it too; he didn’t even know what it was he felt, but Jack had felt it too. The threat wasn’t here though, it wasn’t immediate, but it was still there, like something that waited.
Several villagers had spotted the ship as it crossed the open ground and had come out to greet them, their faces filled with wonder as they looked at the ship. Quite a few of them were armed and Shazza watched as Riddick tensed again, his hands clenched in fists as he fought the urge to reach for the weapon at hand. She would have told him to wait if she thought he would hear her; the black soulless goggles swept slowly left and right, to see where the threats would come from.
Joanne leaned forward as she saw a man that she recognized; he had been a friend of Marcus. That had her drop her voice again before it had even risen. What could she say to this man, how could she explain? She took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder at Theo; he was still there. She swallowed, turned to the front again, and found her voice. “Andrew…?”
The man she had called stepped forward, his weapon lowered as he recognized her. She felt awkward, and would have preferred to have been on the ground while she spoke; she didn’t like to yell. “We need to talk to the Elders, Andrew.” Joanne turned to look up at the hard face of Riddick before she turned to face Andrew, who had moved closer. The others stood back, their weapons lowered, but still at hand. “There’s been some trouble.” Her voice shook at the last. Trouble; she could feel her throat close up. It was a little more than just trouble.
“Looks like you brought trouble with you.” The man looked up at Riddick, who glared back, his arms crossed over his huge chest, radiating danger. A few of the others had slowly approached the Moorglade as their wonder overtook their caution.
Theo looked over the side as some of the villagers strayed close to the spears that still crackled with power as they hung over the side. His voice rang out with an authority that surprised him. “Keep back from the sides of my ship; those spears will kill you if you get anywhere near them.” The villagers stopped cold at the tone, and looked from Theo to Andrew, who lowered his hand to signal that they should lower their weapons as well. It appeared that the man was in charge.
Andrew spoke to a man beside him who then ran back into the village; Theo hoped it was to bring the Elders Joanne had spoken about, and not to bring reinforcements. “Could we do this without shouting up there?”
Joanne looked up at Riddick and mouthed a silent question; he still terrified her. Riddick leaned and whispered to Shazza, ‘stay here’. His face was still as cold as stone but the hand on her arm told a different story; a gentle caress that lingered long after he had let go.
Riddick vaulted gracefully over the side, and several of the villagers backed up when his feet hit the ground. He was armed; but for once that wasn’t the back up he relied on. He cut a quick look over his shoulder to Shazza who stood where he had stood earlier. He knew her hand was on the weapon that had rested there, and that if anything went south, he could rely on her; his life was in her hands.
“I should be down there too, Theo?” Joanne looked at Theo, who simply nodded and helped her over the side. Riddick caught her before she had to jump the last two feet and lowered her gently to the ground. She whispered her thanks up to him but he had already turned back towards the villagers once more. Theo dropped down to the ground on the other side of her, and stayed a step behind her as she walked forward towards her husband’s friend.
Joanne looked back at Theo; she had expected that once he was on the ground that he would take over. Theo just nodded at her and left his hand on her back for a moment. The skin at the base of his spine itched and he knew that Shazza was back there on the deck with a weapon trained; she would defend them all.
An old woman approached across the field from one of the houses, and they waited until she had reached Andrew’s side. She was smaller than Joanne, with the delicate features of a bird. Her fine white hair flowed loose over her shoulders and down her back. She leaned against the arm of Andrew, who had dropped his weapon in order to hold her. Despite this she radiated authority.
“Mother?” Joanne stepped forward to be hugged by the older woman. Theo and Riddick exchanged a brief glance; there was no way that the elderly woman was Joanne’s mother, and they figured that it was more of a title than anything else.
“There is trouble, child?” Her voice was clear, if quiet, and she nodded to herself as she looked at Riddick, who stood just to the right of Joanne. There was no judgment in her expression when she looked at him. He found that interesting.
Joanne looked down at the ground, ashamed that she had brought trouble but unsure about what to do about it. Mother reached out and her cool hand took Joanne’s. “We’ve had trouble before, child. It is drawn to this place, to test our resolve.”
Theo and Riddick shared another look, longer this time; everything they had experienced here had already borne that out. At least the fight they had made to be here had. Resolve was a good word for it. The woman’s pale eyes turned to Theo first and then to Riddick, who held her attention.
Fearlessly she dropped Joanne’s hand and took the few steps to stand before Riddick, her tiny frame dwarfed before him. And still she radiated power. The paper-thin skin of her hand rested on his crossed arms with a silent demand. He uncrossed his arms and held his hand out to her, which she took in both of hers. The fragile bones of her hand ran over his, before they stayed still and just held Riddick’s hand in hers. It made a strange picture.
She nodded and looked up at him, a steady determination in her eyes. “You are Rider.” There was no room for evasion in her gaze, she knew already, and he had no desire to second guess her.
He was quiet as she held his hand and everything else vanished. No men surrounded them; it was just him and Mother. “Yeah, I’m the Rider.” The weight of it sunk deep once he had said it out loud, an acceptance. He knew it, from the moment that he had first pulled the Moorglade, but he hadn’t fully accepted it, until now.
Mother patted his hand, as she would with a young child, and nodded at him. She slipped her frail arm through his and Riddick held her up as Joanne introduced her to Theo and mentioned Shazza’s name. Joanne left out the names of both Jack and Anna which wasn’t lost on Riddick. Joanne would do anything to protect Anna, no matter what, and she clearly extended that to Jack as well.
Mother asked Joanne for her name at the last and Joanne stammered for a moment, surprised that anyone would have asked her, before she finally got her own name out. Theo rested his hand against Joanne’s back in a slow caress, until she eased beneath the touch and drew strength from him. “Who is coming to test us this time, child?”
Joanne looked back to Theo, who left his hand at her back and nodded at her. Joanne spoke quietly, and told Mother what had happened so far. She began to cry quietly when she spoke about what had happened to her husband, and the man that she had recognized, Andrew, swore under his breath and turned to leave.
Mother pulled her closer, and Joanne found that she was huddled between the elderly woman and Riddick, who still held her arm. Theo stood behind her, his hand on her back. She felt safe, truly safe, for perhaps the first time in her entire life. Joanne swiped at her tears and turned to Theo. “The Company…” It was a part of the story she didn’t really understand, and so let Theo explain that part of the trouble that was to come, and where he believed the Company ship would come down.
Mother nodded and turned towards a man on her right and sent him back to the village to let them know what had happened. Riddick looked down at the elderly woman that still held his arm fearlessly. In another time and place it would have pissed him off, this casual contact but his voice was gentle when he spoke. “There are about a dozen villagers that might go across to the other side.”
Her eyes were clear and shrewd when she looked back up at him, and he saw her not as an old woman, but more like Shazza, hard and brave, as a younger woman. She would have been a force to contend with, and he doubted that much had changed. “There are a few more than that, I’m afraid, but we have dealt with their kind before. We’ll send your Company back with their dead and then take care of the others.” He found that he really liked this woman and stroked the skin of her arm gently. He could have agreed with her, but she had spoken what he had already thought so he nodded down to her.
Theo stepped forward and his arm circled Joanne’s waist before he spoke to the elderly woman. “We’ll need some supplies. We’re okay for water, but we’ll need just about everything else.”
She nodded and sent off another young man to run back to the village. “Would you like to spend the night here? We could assure your safety here.”
Theo was about to speak but the words were frozen before they fell when he looked at Riddick. Night had nearly fallen and Riddick glared out over the expanse of grass the way they had come. “We can’t stay. Something’s coming.” Riddick ground out; he didn’t understand what he felt either, he just knew that he had to get back. That he knew that he was going back for Warfield made him uneasy. One merc was enough, but two?
Mother wasn’t in any way offended by his tone, she patted and soothed her hand over Riddick’s arm until he looked down at her and graced her with a ghost of a smile. She stepped forward while Riddick held her arm until she reached the skin of the Moorglade, her pale hand ran over the wood with the same sense of wonder that Theo had. “I saw her once, as a young girl. In full flight she was. The most beautiful thing I had ever saw. Then or since.”
A hum of agreement was all that he could manage. The ship was beautiful, of that there was no doubt. He looked up at Shazza in the bow of the ship and thought of beautiful. “Will you stay and watch when we leave?”
She smiled up at him, her face softer as she watched the heat pass between the young couple. “Of course.” They turned as one as men pulled carts of supplies up to the Moorglade, mindful of the spears along the sides. Theo looked to Riddick before he quickly boarded and used a set of pulleys to load the supplies onto the deck.
Joanne shyly stood next to Riddick; she would need to ask for his help, but didn’t want to interrupt him. He was so gentle with the old woman; it surprised her. Mother broke her train of thought when she reached out and touched the side of her face, her slender fingers stronger than they appeared. It was as though she were an open book to the older woman; every horrible moment in her life laid bare, and she tried to drop her head, to no avail. “A hard life makes you fight all the harder for what’s yours.” She gazed up at Riddick, to include him in what she had said, before she patted Riddick’s hand one last time and made her way back across the field a short way where someone else held their arm out for her.
“Nothing weak at all about that woman.” It made him think of Shazza again, that same strength. He wondered if Shazza would be like that when she was older and his brow knotted; he had never thought of anything in those kinds of terms, that length of time. He counted his own life in terms of weeks or months survived, rarely did he think in terms of years. He had never expected to live this long.
Joanne admired her too, that much was obvious as he looked down at her. “All kinds of strength, Joanne.” She blinked when she peered up at him; if he had said it any quieter she wouldn’t have heard him at all.
‘Thank you’. Her answer was barely a whisper when he knelt down to help boost her up into the waiting arms of Theo. Riddick looked out to catch sight of the old woman, as Theo tossed down the rope to pull the Moorglade off the ground. She didn’t take her eyes off him as he ran, and he watched her faint smile when he swung up onto the deck.
“Fast, Jack…” Riddick strode up behind Jack on the bridge, to get her to pull out all the stops to get them back. He needn’t have worried, as the ship lurched forward powerfully.
She swung the wheel forcefully and everyone hung on as the Moorglade slewed nearly in place, to race back the way she had come. “Already on it, Riddick.” She had felt it too.
Copyright © January 2007 xxxevilgrinxxx