“Sit.”
He did as instructed, lowering himself into the lukewarm water, his back to her.
Without saying anything, she sat down behind him, placing him between her legs and scooting forward until the front of her body was flush with his back. He could feel her crotch against his lower back as her breasts flattened against him. He dug his nails into the tops of his thighs, scrunching his eyes shut, trying to keep his body from reacting.
She began scrubbing with the cloth, starting with the back of his neck, working her way around his chest, and underneath his arms. “You smell like shit.” Her voice made it sound like a simple observation rather than an insult.
“I don’t think I’ve had a proper bath since arriving.”
“You will not lay in my bed like this.”
“You don’t have to do this. I can wash myself.”
She moved the cloth down his stomach and reached the point where his hands were clasped across his stiff member.
“Move your hands.”
“I’m—”
“Move them!”
Fearfully, he relented and dropped his hands into the water, bracing for her touch.
She took his member in her hands and worked the cloth around it, making no mention of the fact that he was hard. When she finished washing him she draped the cloth across the tub and stood. “You will dry before entering my bed.”
“I can sleep on the floor.”
She walked to the table, opened one of the bottles of fragrant oil, and began coating herself with it. “You will sleep in my bed. You are mine. You will do as I command.” She capped the bottle and looked at him; he was still standing in the tub, desperately attempting to conceal his erection. “If it would bring you relief, I can use my hand on you. But the rest of me belongs to Draxus.” The offer came with a heavy sigh.
For a moment, the thought of accepting the offer crossed his mind. She reminded him so much of Aurora; the hair, the lips, the skin, the small, delicate breasts. But then he saw the tips of her pointed teeth peaking between her parted lips and the images of her bloodlust came flooding back, killing any desire for her touch.
“Do you hear what I am offering you, Anthenian?”
“I’ll be fine, thanks.” He removed his hands as everything slowly returned to normal.
She shrugged and sat on the bed, folded her legs, and leaned her back against the wall, watching as he drip-dried. “Is it true you fucked an Eval girl?”
He wanted to tell her that Aurora had been more than just an Eval girl. And they hadn’t just fucked; they’d shared something. He wanted to tell her that it was something that a whore like her—a whore that spent her life bent over a slab of granite getting rammed in the arse by a dreadlocked demon—wouldn’t understand.
“She was everything to me,” he said simply.
“She was a traitorous cunt. If I had gotten my hands on her I would have cut her tongue from her mouth.”
Her words hit like raindrops, splashing and sliding away. “Unfortunately for you, Anthena got to her first.”
Mirela sat up on her knees, her hands gripping her thighs, satisfied by his response. “Good. It sounds like you’re ready.”
“For what?”
“For what’s to come. Tomorrow you will cross swords with those you once called friend; forced to draw their blood, forced to kill.” Goosebumps broke out across her flesh. “There will be no room for foolish emotion. You must be cold. Hard. Like Master. Draxus is worried about you; he’s beginning not to trust you. Tomorrow you must prove to him where you stand.”
He nodded. “I will.”
“Good. Now you can come to bed.” She lay on her side and faced the wall.
He stood for a long time, watching her, building up the courage to lie down next to her. It was a small bed and he was forced to lie on his side, facing the back of her head, in order to fit. He tried to keep his breathing shallow and his movements scarce; he didn’t want to risk disturbing her.
“Relax, Anthenian.” She reached back, took his arm, and put it around her waist. “Sleep. The trials of tomorrow approach.”
41
The sky was overcast, the clouds pregnant with rain. They rode along a narrow path into the hills; it was barely discernable in the knee-high grass that sprang up around the horse’s legs. They were stacked up two-by-two. Dominic and Hawthorne took up the rear. The hills surrounding them were vivid green and dotted with bushes, flowers, and trees; they rolled along, melding into one another, rising and falling. Dominic watched the hilltops anxiously, expecting that any moment would bring painted faces and arrows raining down on them.
“This don’t feel good, does it, Mister Dominic?” Hawthorne could feel it too: the oppression in the air, the invisible serpent that worked its way through the trenches before battle, choking men with anxiety and blinding them with fear.
“Gunpowder hugs and cordite kisses,” Dominic said.
“What’s that?”
He shook his head. “Just something a guy in my unit used to say before shit would go down.”
“You think shit’s about to go down?”
“I’d say it’s more likely than not.”
As if queued by Dominic’s words, the world around them came apart. Hatches sprang open along the hillsides, shedding patches of grass that had been camouflaging them. Arrows flew from those hatches and men began to scream as those arrows found their marks. Horses bucked and fell, taking their riders with them. Somewhere, Eirik was shouting orders, but they were falling on deaf ears; it’d become all about survival.
“Off your horse, kid!” Dominic shouted as he fumbled to get his feet loose from the stirrups.
Hawthorne’s horse was turning circles and blood was running down his left cheek where an arrow had grazed him.
“C’mon, kid! Get off that goddamn horse! Get low!” Dominic landed hard on his back and watched as three arrows plunged into his horse’s neck; it bucked once more before its legs buckled and it fell to the ground panting and bleeding out.
Hawthorne landed hard on his back beside him, gasping for the air that had been ripped from his lungs by the fall.
All down the line, men were trying to dismount and take cover behind their horses as arrows descended upon them like a plague. Bradan, the young loudmouth that had attempted to challenge Dominic, took an arrow in the neck as he fought to retrieve his bow from the back of his saddle.
Dominic got up on one knee and pulled his sword, finding cover behind the body of his mortally wounded stallion.
“What should we do?” Hawthorne was sitting up on his butt, coughing and holding his ribs.
“Get your sword out and get in cover!”
An arrow plunked into the ground between them as Hawthorne propelled himself forward on his hands and feet, coming in hard beside Dominic; he was panting, his eyes were wild.
“I’m scared, Mister Dominic!”
“Just keep your head down.”
“What should we do?”
Two more arrows plunged into the horse’s corpse.
“We stay put.”
It was the Battle of the Canyons all over again.
“Men, take cover! Take cover, damn you!” Eirik was crouched behind his horse as well, keeping his head low. A little over half of their force was still standing. The rest were either dead or in the process of dying.
Then the arrows stopped and the sound of Eval war cries filled the air.
***
Byron was crouched behind an Eval archer. The man was bulky and bearded and he stank. Despite the large, square opening cut out of the hillside, Byron could see none of what was going on below; the only time the sun found is face is when the Eval turned his body to retrieve a fresh arrow from the stack beside his right knee. Byron was growing anxious as he listened to the screaming and shouting coming from below; he could have sworn he heard Eiriks voice among them. How many would be left when the arrows ran dry and it was his turn to charge the battlefield?
&
nbsp; Let Eirik be among the dead. No! Let him be among the dying; give me the pleasure of driving my sword through his heart; let my face be the last thing he sees.
Mirela was crouched beside him, knees against her chest, her expression betraying nothing.
“Stop clenching up. Stay loose. Tense muscles are slow.” She wasn’t even looking at him. Her eyes were straight ahead, awaiting the signal.
“Sitting here…waiting…it’s torture; I want to be out there.”
The archer loosed another arrow and harvested another scream.
She shook her head as her tongue moistened her top lip. “You lie poorly, Anthenian. You don’t want to be out there. You simply want it all to be over with. Waiting to die is worse than dying.”
“Perhaps.” It was all he could manage in the face of such brutal truth.
The Eval fired his last arrow and charged out of the tunnel without looking back.
Byron looked to her.
“What are you waiting for, Anthenian? Go!”
He took a deep breath and charged forth.
***
There were Eval charging from the hillsides. Some of them had stripes of black paint on their faces, others were caked in mud, most of them wore fur and tattered leather. Their weapons were just as crude as they had been on the docks and the men wielding them were just as fierce.
“At the ready, kid. On your feet. If we die, we die with a sword in our hands.”
“Mister Dominic, I—”
“You wanted to be a goddamn soldier! This is what soldiers do! They die! But they die fighting! On your fucking feet and kill as many of the sonsofbitches as you can!”
Hawthorne was up and shaking, but he had his sword at the ready.
Dominic saw something from the corners of his eyes that commanded his attention.
Eirik.
The sonofabitch was mounting one of the only horses left standing.
“Motherfucker!” Dominic hopped the corpse of his own horse, Hawthorne following close. “Don’t you do what I think you’re doing!”
Eirik dug his heels into the horse’s sides. “Hyah!” Eirik was retreating and Dominic was standing in his way. He got low in the saddle and raised his sword, ready to cut his way to freedom. Dominic had a decision to make: there were two Eval closing in from the left, they were closer and therefore a far greater threat than Eirik. He broke off and engaged the Eval, dashing and dodging against their blows. He opened up one of their sides and drove his sword through the other one’s heart. As their bodies fell at his feet he heard a clash of steel at his back.
“Stupid boy!” Eirik shouted.
Dominic turned. Hawthorne was still standing in the path. His sword was lying in the grass at his feet. He was clutching his throat with trembling hands as blood ran between his fingers and down his neck, soaking into the collar of his shirt. The ass end of Eirik’s horse was vanishing over the horizon. Hawthorne must have tried to stop him from fleeing. Had he been trying to prove his grit to Dominic? To himself? Christ, the kid could barely hold a fucking sword. There was no threat there; no reason to kill him.
Dominic ran toward Hawthorne. He wanted to catch him before he fell; he wanted to hold him, to try to bring him comfort in his final moments. But another Eval jumped in his path; he was carrying a wooden club embedded with wooden spikes. He stood with bent knees, running his tongue around black, painted lips, tossing the club from hand-to-hand. Dominic wasn’t attempting to fight with style or grace. He wanted to rip the bastard apart and get to the dying boy squirming in the grass. The Eval swung and connected. He felt the spikes dig into his shoulder. He head-butted the Eval in the nose, sending him stumbling back, blinded. He followed and drove his sword into his stomach, pushing him closer to Hawthorne. The Eval’s mouth opened in a silent scream, blood staining his teeth. He dropped the club and gripped the blade with both hands; it was hard to tell if he was trying to hold it in place or pull it out. Dominic yanked the sword back, severing some of the Eval’s fingers. He let the Eval roll away and took a knee beside Hawthorne, but it was too late; his face had gone white and his chest had stilled; his hands still clung to the gaping wound on his neck.
Dominic was granted no time to mourn. Shadows descended on him. Two of them; one smaller than the other. He stood, raising his sword. His attackers were a man that he recognized as Roserine’s outcast brother and a naked woman built out of lean strips of oily muscle. She was leading the charge. They came off the side of the hill, hopped Hawthorne’s body, and began their assault. Dominic deflected their initial blows and struck back at them with a wide swing, giving himself enough time to jump back and create some space. Byron and the woman separated, moving to the left and right, surrounding him on either side. They were sure-footed and focused, their initial strikes had shown precision; the only advantage Dominic seemed to have was size. He could taste the copper tinge of freshly spilled blood floating on the breeze. Down the line from where he stood the last of the Anthenian soldiers had fallen and were gasping their final breaths.
The battle had been lost.
He wasn’t mad. He’d always expected to die like a soldier. Broken and bloodstained. His corpse left to be eaten by the birds. The only thing he regretted was that he wouldn’t be able to push Eirik’s eyes through the back of his skull.
He held his sword upright in front of his face, bisecting his body, his eyes darting between Byron and the woman. “I think you forgot your armor, sweetheart.”
“My name is Mirela and I am a daughter of the earth, chosen by Master Draxus; he is the only armor I need, outsider.” With every word that left her lips, she grew more eager to strike, bobbing back and forth like a snake looking for its opening.
“You chose the wrong land and the wrong side,” Byron said.
“Story of my life.” He figured he might be able to get one of them before taking a blade between the ribs. “So are we going to stand here all day like a bunch of cunts, or are we going to get to the killing?”
“So eager to die.” Byron laughed. “I can tell you’re not much of a swordsman.”
“What gave it away?” He didn’t really give a shit.
“The way you separate your feet, the stiffness in your shoulders, and a hundred other things I could list.”
“Didn’t hinder me at the docks, didn’t stop me from cutting down three of you in the last five minutes, and it didn’t stop me from beating Eirik’s ass.”
“You expect me to believe that you bested Eirik?” Byron’s voice was shaky. “You—a man that can’t even hold proper form—bested one of the greatest sword fighters in Anthena? Unlikely.”
“I’m about to die, ain’t I? I don’t really give a fuck what you believe, exile.”
“Exile?” Byron wiped beads of sweat from his upper lip. “My sister has been talking out of turn.”
“She’s been talking, that much is true.”
“Enough!” Mirela shouted. “We kill this bastard.”
“Maybe you do and maybe you don’t.” He spun his sword and big arcs across either side of his body. “If you see Eirik before I do, make sure to kill him slow.”
“Oh, you can be sure of that,” Byron said, his hatred mirroring Dominic’s.
Mirela leaped into the air. Her right arm cranked around and came down with such force that her blade sparked when it met Dominic’s. His back was to Byron, but he turned his head in time to see him making his move; he was gearing up to strike from the right, intent on burying his blade in Dominic’s ribs. Dominic kicked back and sank his foot into Byron’s gut, folding him up and sending him spilling backward onto his ass.
Mirela continued to strike, one hand gripping the saber, advancing her position with each attack and forcing him to reestablish his balance. She swung low at his left leg, trying to sever it at the knee. He turned at the waist and managed a clumsy block. Her free hand came around and her fingernails raked across his face. He recoiled, swinging wildly to keep her from getting any closer. Behind him, Byron was
pushing up on his sword as if it were a cane, breath slowly refilling his lungs. He looked at Dominic sideways, his hair curtaining one side of his face.
“It’s gotta be tough for you,” he was shouting back at Byron. “Poor, little, Anthenian exile. Raised on the sword. Bested by some fucking foreigner that can’t even hold proper form.”
Byron was up and moving, aiming to skewer Dominic through the back. Mirela was moving too. Her feet were off the ground, her arm circling around again for another big strike. He blocked Mirela’s attack and pushed back this time, spinning aside right before Byron’s sword could find its mark. Dominic dropped his sword, grabbed Byron by the back of his collar, and launched him toward Mirela. Byron flew three feet, landed on the tips of his toes, stumbled, and fell backward into her. She held out her arms as if she were going to attempt to catch him, but he fell and she fell with him.
Dominic grabbed his sword and ran over to their tangled bodies. Hawthorne looked up, squealed like a schoolgirl, and rolled away as Dominic’s blow came raining down, leaving Mirela to take the hit. The blade cut into her beautiful face. Her right cheek caved and her eyeballs bulged from their sockets as her forehead opened up and her top teeth gave away against the invading steel, splintering, leaving her tongue to flop uselessly from the corner of her mouth.
He retracted the blade, figuring that Byron would be moving to get right back into the fray, but he remained on the ground, staring at Mirela’s twitching corpse, eyes wide with shock.
Perfect.
Before he could move in and finish him off an arrow plunged into the right side of his chest; he dropped the sword and fell to his knees, his hands going to the wooden shaft.
“I miss bullets.” His crazed laughter echoed toward the sky.
Why not die with a fucking smile?
Draxus was descending the hill. He had a machete in one hand and was dragging Emily along by her hair with the other; she was wincing, her knees bloody from falling as she struggled to keep pace. At his back were two women that looked like Mirela, right down to their lack of clothing and the sabers they wore on their hips. The rest of the Eval were also closing in on him, stepping over the corpses of the Anthenians, shaking the blood from their weapons to make room for his.
Blood & Stone: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 3 Page 29
