He remained behind, but without regrets. He wasn’t much of a rider, and whatever job this was seemed more likely to be a quick ambush. Quick in, quick out.
As a foot soldier, he preferred more ordered combat. Especially in the dead of night when friend and foe were impossible to tell apart once it got frantic.
He did some more exercise, pushing walls, then crouched low and held his weight with his legs alone. The leg with the broken foot gave out first, and he spent a little while sitting on the bench near the whipping post rubbing the cramp out of his muscles. He would get there. He was doing better every day. In no small part because of Steel’s generosity, which he reluctantly acknowledged, but the need to get ready soon only strengthened his determination.
He checked on the noble, but Vistar An Grekaran was asleep. He waited outside the door for a while, but there was no movement beyond the woven door. When he heard metallic clanking and hoofbeats from the yard, he knew that Steel and the others had returned. He went into his room, undressed, and listened for the sounds of the returning mercenaries.
He was about to doze off when the door opened. He recognized Steel by the color of his hair in what little moonlight came into the room. Oh. Kendras felt too lazy to ask him what the fuck he was doing here. They both knew.
The man came closer, then crouched near the bed. “Are you awake?”
“Yes.” Kendras kept his breath slow and deep, despite Steel reaching out and touching his naked shoulder. He smelled war on Steel. Sweat, metal, and blood, with a whiff of smoke. Violence. Fear. Steel’s eyes looked wide.
Kendras recognized the look. It had been close, maybe much too close. He reached out, took Steel’s shoulder in his grip and pulled him close. The man had whipped him, attempted to claim him as a slave and in every other way that mattered, but he knew what Steel felt. More alive than ever now that he’d faced death and come out intact.
Steel even tasted of ashes and smoke as they kissed, clinging together like drowning men. Kendras struggled to get Steel’s armor off, and Steel pulled a dagger and placed it in his hand.
The leather straps gave immediately to the blade, and Kendras pushed Steel down on the bed, making the mercenary groan with need. He pulled the leather off, simply ripped the sweaty cloth underneath, and bit the muscles of his shoulders. Steel pushed himself up with his hands, and Kendras for a moment thought it would cost nothing—nothing at all—to cut the man’s exposed throat now with this same dagger.
He ran his hands over Steel’s naked back, to his ass, between his legs, to his balls and cock. Whoa, the man was so hard he had to be desperate, groaning at the lightest touch.
“Get me… off,” Steel muttered, opening his legs further. Kendras reached for the oil that had seen its last uses not when Steel had fucked him, but when he’d relieved himself and drawn out his own pleasure, lazy in bed.
He took Steel’s balls, rolling them in his hand, feeling them move and slide in the tender skin, then paused only long enough to oil his own cock. Steel realized too late what he was doing. Kendras was already lowering his weight on the man, holding him with one arm, guiding himself with the free hand.
Steel bucked when Kendras began to enter him, clenching up, but Kendras’s legs were strong enough to keep him open, and he slid the tip of his cock into the clenching opening.
“Gods… below… no.”
Kendras held him down. “I’ll get you off, Steel.” He reached for Steel’s cock, which returned to full hardness in his oily fist.
“Gods damn you….” Steel gritted out, but didn’t fight, merely resisted. Pride, Kendras figured, or maybe pain. He did feel tight, and maybe Steel had spoken the truth when he’d told him he didn’t do this. Kendras knew that he was fairly large. Not too large, just possibly difficult for a virgin. If a man with Steel’s looks was a virgin.
“You’re man enough, Steel?”
“Fuck you,” Steel groaned, and gasped when Kendras pushed deeper, then ran a finger along the stretched muscle holding him so tight. “You’ll taste the whip for that….”
Kendras laughed. “Fair enough.” He pushed deeper, grimaced, because it wasn’t easy. Steel felt like a particularly unforgiving fist. Everything in that man resisted, his mind, his body, but the thing that obeyed was the man’s cock, which Kendras now rewarded with more strokes.
Steel cursed and squirmed, breathed loudly, and, very gradually, relaxed a little.
Kendras didn’t plunge inside, merely moved a little back and a little forth, allowing Steel to get used to it. The hissing noises were breaths through clenched teeth.
Kendras was willing to bet that Steel regretted having come to him. He was also willing to bet that while Steel would gladly whip him for this, he wouldn’t. He sat back on his haunches and pulled Steel up to sit on his thighs and his cock.
Very reluctantly, Steel sank back, took more of him inside, breaths pained. Kendras merely let him find the best way to take it, his hand teasing Steel’s cock, sliding, every now and then tracing a fingernail down the length, then used all his fingers again.
“It’s not so bad now, is it?”
Steel moved into his hand and gave a choked sound that meant that he was fucking himself on Kendras. Kendras ran his free hand along Steel’s belly, up to his chest and his throat.
Steel shuddered, moved faster, maybe to get him off, but Kendras felt that he was relaxing, taking him better. It might still hurt, but not necessarily in a bad way.
“It’ll feel better and better….” Kendras murmured into Steel’s ear and sealed the promise with a lick across the ear. “I could have taken you in battle and made you my prisoner. I’d fuck you like this until you’d crave it so bad you’d call me ‘master’.” He laughed when he felt Steel move more eagerly.
“I don’t… I’m not….”
Whatever Steel was about to say, it didn’t really come out, because Kendras was now thrusting up, small rocking movements that gave Steel more of what he was beginning to need. And he did. Kendras could feel that if he wasn’t careful, Steel would come before he did. And he wouldn’t let him.
“That’s good… you’re learning fast… feel me deep, don’t you?”
Steel groaned and shook his head but reached behind himself and touched Kendras’s arms and sides, changed the angle ever so slightly.
Kendras spread his legs further, opening Steel even more and now got his cock fully inside. Sweat made his grip slippery, and he thrust up harder, but soon this wasn’t enough.
He pushed Steel down flat on his belly, legs as far apart as they could go and fucked him hard and fast without mercy, holding him down by his neck. Every thrust pushed Steel’s cock into the mattress, and Kendras felt him come, violently squirming when passion broke.
He fucked more, harder, deeper, filled with grim joy that Steel had come, before he pulled out and came over Steel’s back and ass, finishing himself off with a few more strokes.
He remained on his knees for a while, watched Steel, but the man didn’t move, did nothing but breathe, the panting slowly returning to normal.
Kendras stood and went to piss, then came back to find Steel had turned on the bed, but not moved. Kendras walked around the bed and slid under the cover, leaving his chest bare.
Steel’s eyes were open, but only stared into the darkness.
“What happened?”
“Stick got it.” Steel sighed. “A guard killed him before we could help.”
“Did you bring the body?”
“No, we left… all the bodies there. Burned the house down. We had to move fast.” Steel turned away, as if to sleep, and Kendras moved closer, chest to back, groin to ass, his thighs touching Steel’s. The man shuddered and clenched his ass.
“Don’t worry, I don’t recover that fast.” Kendras chuckled and placed a hand on Steel’s damp belly, splayed his fingers there. “So, no rites, no goodbyes?”
“What for? We’re mercenaries. We know what’s waiting.”
Nobody released
Stick to death. He’d be just a charred skeleton in the ashes and twisted beams of a ruin.
“With the Scorpions, that is… was… different.” Kendras ran his fingers up to Steel’s chest, caressed the man’s small tight nipple, heard no protest and merely cupped the pec in his hand. “That is why I had to go back and look after their bodies. That’s how we used to do it. I owed them that.”
Steel gave another sigh and closed his eyes. “No, we don’t. I don’t.”
Not a unit. Not an officer. No loyalty, no ties. They were just meat to each other. Steel had nothing to offer to him. However this would play out, he’d return to the Scorpions and rebuild them, all of them. Their rites, every heart, every weapon, every ounce of courage and strength.
“I don’t understand this,” Kendras murmured, pulling Steel tighter against his body. “What do you want from me? It’s not the eyes. It’s not even my ass.”
“Ah, fuck.” Steel shook his head. “Can’t you let it lie? Just ignore it. Say it’s that I’m a man short now. That’s it.”
“That’s why you came to me after the battle?”
Steel tensed. “Yes.”
“Liar.” Kendras chuckled. “Being alone after a battle isn’t as easy as it sounds.” He knew only too well. But at least he was no longer the only survivor. He had reasons to go on and get up and fight. “So, what are you fighting for?”
“I like fighting. I like winning.” Steel trailed his fingers along Kendras’s arm. “Sometimes I need other men just to make up the numbers. But I’m best on my own.”
“And you’re working for the priests?”
“I got involved in this particular racket with the last Dalmanye succession. The priests realized that killing me after the deed was a waste of my talents, so I stayed in their pocket. It’s nice and cozy there.”
Kendras chuckled. “What I’ve seen so far from temple guards, I’m not surprised they can’t use them to do the dirty work.”
“Temple guards are pious; they get paid badly enough and sometimes not at all. Why else would they do it? Most are cowards and are more interested in wearing new impressive armor and weapons than in using them. Useful idiots who are mostly for show, if you ask me, but often not even useful.” Steel huffed. “I could become an officer in the temple guard at any moment if I wanted, but I don’t.” Steel looked over his shoulder at Kendras. “After this, we could stay together. If you don’t like Widow and Puppy, I’ll send them away. A man like you could make good money. We could be good together.”
“Maybe.” Kendras pressed closer, felt the lust return, and knew that Steel felt it when the man stiffened in his arms. “Let me think about it.”
“That’s not thinking.”
“No, it’s not.” Kendras took him by the shoulder and pushed him back onto his belly.
Steel shuddered; he was reluctant, but again didn’t protest. It wasn’t need that drove him, or maybe a different kind of need that didn’t come from his body.
Kendras used plenty of oil, knew the man was already sore after the first fuck, but the thought that Steel would feel a fair measure of discomfort now made his desire grow.
He rubbed the oil into Steel’s ass, fucked him with two fingers until he was so hard he was begging for a touch, and then fucked him again, slowly, teasing him to the brink, but not allowing him to come. Kendras just held him until the man’s shudders subsided; then, when Steel asked him to, he fucked him hard and to completion, just like before.
He did the same in the morning and didn’t mind that Steel struggled against him. Steel needed to be subdued first, but he never said “no”, just struggled wordlessly and then asked for it once Kendras had fucked him raw again.
Maybe Steel thought he was being punished.
Maybe he thought the whipping was forgiven.
Chapter 12
JUST two days later, Steel told them to pack whatever they needed, and that they would most likely not return soon. Kendras didn’t own much, and what he owned fit into a pair of saddlebags. Widow traveled light too. Puppy seemed to own more than either of them, with Steel second. Those two shared a mule to carry additional things.
Vistar An Grekaran traveled with them and had a mule to himself. Decked out in bright clothes that were richly embroidered in silver, he could have been a young noble sent traveling to explore the world. Few could doubt the ornate dagger at his side was just an adornment, surrounded as he was by tough-looking bodyguards.
And Vistar certainly acted that part. The youth ordered them around and found that Puppy was the most patient of his minders. Puppy, by inclination good-natured, followed Vistar’s whims, while Kendras professed injury, and Steel responded to requests with a “did you really just ask that of me?” look. Widow had fallen deaf to anything said by any noble, whether future king or not.
Whenever something didn’t immediately go as desired, Vistar would take a deep, exasperated breath and begin “at home…,” to continue with a detailed account of just how his wishes were heeded at home—immediately, without reservation, and without any stupid questions.
A man proves his worth not by that of his father or mother.
Once, a noble had told the officer to treat him with more respect because of his “worthy” family. Normally, the officer was more diplomatic than this; Kendras remembered that the officer had said it with a smile, like the outrageous concept it was, truly. Men had been whipped and hanged for less insolence. When they arrived at Dalman, they turned eastward to the temple city. Dalman stood on the cliffs above the sea, but the temple complex was built in the lowlands, next to the river. In old times, even before the Empire of Shara, Kendras had learned, the city of Dalman had been a fortress into which the priests fled when they were attacked. The temple complex had once been just Dalman’s harbor and trading outpost. Now Dalman had grown large and the new harbor occupied an area near the temple city.
The tripartite structure of the city served it well, however. Any army that attacked merely one of them found its back and flanks wide open to counterattacks from the others.
Kendras had never set foot into the temple city. As they waited in line with pilgrims and traders bringing their wares to the temple, Steel produced a signed letter from the priests. The temple guards at the gate examined it, then bid them to wait.
More guards appeared and guided them inside. Blue banners hung from the beams of the houses everywhere, flowing in the breeze like waterfalls. The cobbles were scrubbed clean by an army of devotees, and, strikingly, there was not a single beggar visible. Temple guards patrolled the streets, and everybody who was not a guard or a pilgrim was a priest. The pilgrims came with flowers in their hair and seashell necklaces or ornaments, and seemed to do nothing but dance and sing.
“The festivities are about to begin,” said Steel. “They are all crazy.”
Widow turned in the saddle and grinned wolfishly. “I’d show that wench over there there’s more to dance about.”
“As if you could do anything with her…,” Kendras muttered.
“There are other—better—ways to fuck a woman,” Widow shot back. “As if you had any clue. Or are you going to dress Steel up and have him paint his face for you?”
“Widow.” Steel’s voice was cold.
“Touchy? And why’s that?”
“Let’s do this and fight afterward.”
Widow grinned. “Wasted opportunity….” He winked at Vistar, who looked scandalized at their rough talk. “No worries, your lordship. None of us is going to fuck you.” The way he said it left it open to interpretation whether he’d placed more meaning on “us” or “you”. Kendras decided it was yet another dig at the priesthood.
Again this made him wonder where Widow was from. While he sounded and dressed like a Vededrinye, he didn’t think that Widow would have grown to be an adult in that city. Vededrin took its gods and goddesses very seriously. They executed more blasphemers than criminals, for one.
But it wasn’t entirely clear Widow was from
Fetin, either, despite his obvious history with the Fetinye lady and the fact he fit in well with the Flames. But it wasn’t a question to which Kendras expected an honest answer from him.
They followed along a wide canal that cut through the city, fed by the river. The banks were polished stone, and on the last few hundred paces, the ordinary gray stone was replaced by white marble, inlaid at intervals with blue-toned mosaics, telling the myths of the many ocean gods.
Every now and then, one rose to prominence, and Kendras knew that to the priests, all these gods were just different faces of one god. Still, they were sometimes thought of as the main god’s children or servants or slaves.
The unknowable, the great mysterious depth of the sea, the priests would call it. To Kendras, it sounded like they had no idea what their god was like at all and just claimed he or she was so far under the surface of the ocean that he or she couldn’t possibly be known. Why then worship that god on land?
They moved toward the main temple complex, at which they handed over their horses and the two mules. More guards appeared, and Kendras hoped none of them would turn out to be the ones who’d attacked him and Widow in that tavern a few weeks back.
Once they passed through the arch, there were many small and larger springs, brooks that ran in beds of marble. Water flowed everywhere, down a wall over ribbed stone, or dripping from pipes spanning the street.
As a result, the temple complex boasted plants and trees, creepers, flowers like Kendras had never seen in a city, and the air was washed clean of dust. It would have been a pleasant place, but Kendras didn’t like it. To him it felt too much like an enemy fortress—and no amount of sweet-smelling flowers and smiling pilgrims could change that.
Too many temple guards. They must have a few hundred men under arms here. Did they just kept the pilgrims in line, or did they actually have any worth as a fighting force? They didn’t have a great reputation for martial prowess, but what if their numbers were large enough to make a difference? They sure wore the blue and silver armors and tabards well.