Gold Standard

by Kyell Gold

  When he was too tired to keep moving, with the shackles still holding fast, he thought about his companions. At some point, he must have realized that they’d given up on him, but he couldn’t remember when he’d made that transition. Not when he’d missed the first meeting after his capture, but when he’d missed the second, they must have known that something was amiss. He missed them all: Tella the fiery weasel, as bold a fighter as there was; Sherr the porcupine, their master tactician; Reese the hare, Volle’s friend and former roommate, now under cover as a merchant in Divalia; and Seir the mouse, Volle’s favorite, who took care of all of them. Seir could become almost invisible when she wanted to, sneaking around markets or an enemy camp, but even if she could become truly invisible, she couldn’t help Volle now.

  Rescue was no longer a realistic hope, if it ever had been. These prisons dated from the days of King Bucher, and Volle always cringed to think that Bucher had been a fox like himself. Hundreds of workers had died excavating the prisons, and hundreds of Bucher’s enemies had died inside the completed prisons afterwards. They were not exactly escape-proof, but they were daunting enough that a prisoner couldn’t hope for any help from outside. Even if that help were—but Volle stopped himself from even thinking the name. His contact within the palace would have helped him by now if he’d been able. He had tried to wipe the name from his mind, so that even under torture he wouldn’t be tempted to cry it out.

  He’d sworn he would take the name to his grave, and now he wondered how far he was from that end. The ploy with Streak smacked of desperation, and if they’d realized that nothing would work, they had nothing to gain by keeping him alive. Well, then, he would die an unsung hero. Or at least an unsung patriot—he wouldn’t be a hero unless he got the information he had back to his people.

  Dispirited but resolute, he looked around the cell again and sniffed the air. The cells were not cleaned out—ever—leaving the scents of each prisoner’s unfortunate predecessors to demoralize him. Volle had been in this cell for two months now, and could no longer smell the bear and stag that had been the most recent occupants. There was nothing but his own rank scent to his nostrils, and he wondered how long it would linger when he was gone.

  Limp Stripes was back again with the evening meal, and Volle saw nobody else for the next day. But after the evening meal that day, as he was holding his tail trying to brush the matted fur with his claws, the door opened again, and Streak walked in.

  He was scowling, and wasted no time on preliminaries. He stripped his pants off, but before Volle could open his muzzle, he shook a finger at him. “Not a word, fox, or I’ll…smash your muzzle into the wall.” The threat came with some hesitation, and nowhere near the force it needed to be effective. Volle noted that, like last time, Streak wasn’t fully erect, but he strode toward the fox anyway. With a rough push, he flipped Volle onto his stomach.

  The shackles clattered as Volle nearly fell, but retained his balance. He felt a paw yank his tail upward, and he pushed his rump in the air. Streak hesitated, and Volle took a chance. “Please,” he moaned. “It’s been so long.”

  “Shut up, I said.” But the wolf didn’t move.

  “It’s been months since I got laid, and you’re so sexy,” Volle went on. “Come on, stud. Do me.” He thrust his rump backwards and panted.

  The paw tightened around his tail, and for a moment he felt the wolf’s fur brush his rump. The touch was somewhat arousing, but he managed to keep from thrusting back any more. No need to overdo it.

  “Dammit!” the wolf yelled, letting go and standing up.

  Volle heard Streak pace back towards the door. He turned over cautiously, watching the wolf get into his pants. This time, Streak turned and met his eye as he pulled his pants up over his rump, and Volle thought he saw confusion there. But it was dark, and he could have been mistaken.

  Streak’s scent, though, lingered in the cell, and Volle inhaled it greedily: young and earnest, with, yes, a bit of predator, but also confusion and innocence. It reminded Volle of his own scent as a younger fox, and it reminded him of another young soldier he’d known, years ago, who had died for his beliefs. He held it to himself as he drifted into another night, a reminder that he was not alone.

  The next time Streak visited him, he opened the door, closed it, and then sat with his back against it, facing Volle. He wore a loose shirt this time, the same color as his pants, and made no move to unbutton it or the pants. He stared at the fox until Volle broke the silence.

  “Don’t I get a show today?”

  Streak shook his head slowly.

  “Pity. Aren’t I a good audience?”

  The wolf’s scowl deepened.

  “Well, why are you here, then?”

  Streak looked away from him, idly glancing around the cell.

  “Can I offer you a drink?” Volle gestured at the trickle of water coming down the wall beside him. “I don’t want to be a bad host.”

  This time he was sure he caught the flicker of a smile at the corner of the white wolf’s muzzle.

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “You told your boss that the rape went well, that I was demoralized, that you could get some information out of me. So they keep sending you back for more. Well, you’ll never get information if you don’t talk to me.”

  Streak was staring at him. “H-how did you know…”

  “I’m not stupid. You obviously weren’t all fired up to do it, and now you’re just killing time so it looks like you’re in here abusing me. You wouldn’t have come back if you were doing this on your own. So your boss must have sent you back in, ergo he thinks it’s going well, ergo you didn’t tell him otherwise.”

  The wolf thought that over for a moment, then looked up at Volle. “What’s ‘ergo’ mean?”

  Volle smiled. “Therefore.”

  “Well, you’re a traitor, ergo I don’t have anything to talk to you about.” Streak fixed his gaze pointedly on the other set of shackles.

  Volle leaned back against the wall. “First of all, I’m a patriot. And second, I’m dead anyway, so what does it matter?”

  “If you’d just cooperate, then you wouldn’t be dead. They would move you to a nicer cell, maybe even let you go.”

  Volle barked a surprised laugh that ended up being a racking cough. “I thought you were a little young to be on prison duty. First tour, isn’t it? What, you have an uncle with the King’s ear, didn’t want his nephew hacked to bits on the battlefield?” When Streak didn’t answer, he went on, “Or maybe you have a patron, someone who didn’t want his little sex toy all chewed up.”

  “Shut up!” The wolf leapt up, but stopped himself before taking a step forward. “I’m nobody’s toy.” He sat down again and glared.

  “Well, someone pulled strings to get you on prison duty this young.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Above the snarl, Volle could see confusion in his eyes again.

  “I’ve seen prison guards. They’re all veterans who’ve been through battles. Prison duty is easy. It’s a reward. Not only are you young, you’re also hopelessly naïve about what goes on here.”

  Streak shook his head. “I was chosen for duty by Minister Fardew himself. Top of my squad unit in drills.”

  “Drills.” Volle coughed another laugh. “And your first duty was to rape a prisoner?”

  The wolf’s white ears flickered uncertainly. “He said the other guards refused to do it. He said they wanted someone younger and energetic, more…”

  Volle watched his muzzle drop as he trailed off, and smiled despite himself at the guard’s self-consciousness. In a pub, it would be adorable. “More virile?” Streak didn’t say anything. “Well, you are that. No question.”

  He drew out the last couple words, and Streak glanced at him. “Why did you say I’m naïve?”

  “Because you think I have a chance of getting out of here alive.”

  “They said—”

  “They’re playing on your sympathies. The only thing keeping me al
ive is that I’m not cooperating.”

  “No. Maybe that’s how they do things in your kingdom, but here we keep our promises.”

  Volle looked at the earnest muzzle and didn’t have the strength to argue any more. “You’re probably right.” He turned to the wall.

  Streak got up, dusted off his clothes, and walked out.

  Volle watched the door after the wolf left. He lay down on the cold floor, trying to sleep, but he kept asking himself how long Dereath was going to keep him alive. By now the rat knew he wouldn’t respond to pain, and his gambit with Streak was failing; what else would he try? He was pretty well versed in most interrogation techniques, but he didn’t know everything. The chains of his shackles lay on the stone beside him, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he could wrap them around his neck and strangle himself. The thought circled his head and then he drove it out. Not yet.

  Part 2

  “What do you do when you’re not pretending to rape me?”

  Streak grinned—a definite grin, this time. “Guard duty on the top floors. I only come down here for special duty.”

  “Tough duty.” Volle shook his head.

  “Only the best can do it.”

  Volle chuckled softly. “What do the other guards think of that?”

  Streak paused for a moment, then shrugged. “We don’t talk much. They’re all older. Like you said.” He tilted his muzzle. “How old are you?”

  Volle instinctively went defensive. “What does it matter?”

  “I was just curious.” He looked away, as he always did when he didn’t know what else to say.

  The quiet in the cell bothered Volle less when he was alone. When Streak was here, he felt that the quiet was a waste of an opportunity, or a waste of something. After a month of Limp Stripes’ infuriating silence, Volle couldn’t stay quiet for long. “How old do you think I am?”

  Streak measured him with his eyes and then shrugged. “I’d say about a hundred from how you look now. Probably forty?”

  “You’re not out of your teens, are you?”

  “I turned twenty two months ago.” Streak settled back, smiling smugly. “So you’re not right about everything.”

  “You joined pretty late. Aren’t most male cubs conscripted at sixteen?”

  “Usually. I got an exemption. My father died and I had to run the farm.”

  “Sorry to hear that. How did it happen?”

  Streak shifted his gaze again. “Fits. He got bit by something and then it started a couple weeks later. We had to tie him up by the end of it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Volle said again. “How old were you?”

  “Eight.”

  “You were running the farm when you were eight?”

  “My mom helped. It was just the two of us.”

  “That’s pretty impressive.” Volle watched the wolf get up to leave, and couldn’t resist asking one more thing. “Who’s running the farm now?”

  “Jasper. Mom’s new mate.” The tone and the droop of his tail said more than those four words did. He stepped through the door.

  “Hey!” Volle called, and then coughed from the strain on his throat.

  Streak poked his head around the door. “What?”

  “Twenty-six.” The wolf didn’t move, wreathed in shadow from the dying torch. “I’m twenty-six.”

  He couldn’t read Streak’s expression as the wolf slowly withdrew and closed the door.

  A farm-wolf, eh? That explained the physique, and the naivete. Volle thought again, if only we’d met somewhere else. In a pub, in a bath, in the army…his eyes drifted shut, and in the darkness he saw the naked wolf again, reclining in a bath. He saw himself stepping into the bath next to the wolf, clean and well-groomed. Their paws reached out, touched each other’s chest, then moved lower…

  He stifled a moan. His shaft was fully exposed again, straining against his sheath, and the frustration was like a coiled spring inside him. He growled and tried to bend his head forward to lick himself, but the shackles prevented even that. Panting, he flipped over and pressed his erection into the cold floor. That discouraged it, though he couldn’t help rubbing it against the stone, gasping in relief even as he winced at the abrasions.

  Was this the game? Sexual frustration? Tie him up so he couldn’t pleasure himself, then torment him with a gorgeous wolf, physically perfect, cute and seductive, until he begged for release? That would be perfectly Dereath’s style, given their history. He clenched his teeth and swore that he wouldn’t let that happen. I should’ve just let him take me, the first time, he thought. But he knew even as he thought it that he couldn’t have done that. It would have given the rat power over him.

  But oh, he wanted it so badly.

  Part 3

  Streak had questions ready the next time. “Aren’t you a little young to be a spy?”

  “What did they tell you about me?” Volle was wary, as usual. Streak’s visits were erratic, and as they were not on his own schedule, they must be on someone else’s. He was trying to determine the pattern between them. This one was the very next day, the first time he’d visited two days in a row.

  “That you are a traitor who was captured stealing valuable plans of troop movements. That you’re in the employ of the Ferrenians.”

  “I might have looked at the plans, but I’m not a traitor.”

  “What was so important about the troop movements that you risked your life for them?”

  Volle studied him, and then chose his words carefully. “Do you know about the Pax Valleris?” Streak shook his head. “It’s an agreement Tephos and Ferrenis entered into some fifty-odd years ago. It divides the Reysfields plains evenly between them. I heard rumors in the palace that the king was planning to break the Pax and I didn’t think that was right. So I went to see if the plans were true. They were. I was chased from the office and captured. The plans were gone and they blamed me.”

  “Did you take them?”

  Volle shrugged. “Go ask your bosses.”

  “We wouldn’t break a peace. Not without a good reason.”

  “Like a poor harvest in the Reysfields?”

  Streak’s eyes glinted in the torchlight. “Like the Ferrenians moving first.”

  “You can check that too, if you like. Maybe they’ve done something in the last month. But last I heard, they were just fortifying defenses around the plains. Neither side is allowed to have armies on the plains , and neither side has violated that agreement.”

  “I will check it.” Streak stared stubbornly at Volle. “What information do they want from you?”

  Volle shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Now I know you’re lying. They must have asked you.”

  The conversation was treading too close to dangerous waters for Volle’s liking. “Are those your new orders? Get information from the fox with kindness?”

  Streak recoiled, but he didn’t look away this time. “No,” he mumbled. “I was…just curious. I don’t know what could be that important to them. Or to you.”

  “I love my country and my King,” Volle said, “and my life is worth nothing to me if it would be better spent in their defense. Don’t you feel the same?”

  “I…I suppose so…”

  “Let’s hope you never have to test it.”

  There was a lengthy pause, then Streak said, “No, I want to test it. I mean, that’s why I’m a soldier.”

  “Aren’t you a soldier because they made you one?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I could’ve stayed on the farm, or taken a trade in town. I was past the age of conscription.”

  “Why didn’t you stay on the farm?”

  Now, he did look away. “My mom was okay without me. And you know, I’m too old to be living at home.”

  “Is that what he told you?” Volle spoke gently.

  Streak nodded. He looked down at the ground.

  “I don’t think much of your stepfather, then,” Volle said, with more feeling than he had thought hi
mself capable of.

  The wolf just flicked an ear, and said, “I’d better go.”

  Volle watched him go, watched the door close, and settled back against the wall. Poor kid, he thought, and set to grooming his tail again.

  It was five long days before Streak appeared again. Volle had gotten fidgety by the third day, and on the fifth was almost tempted to ask Limp Stripes if something had happened to the young wolf. He bit his tongue just in time. That’s what Dereath wanted him to do: get attached, pine away for him.

  His body wasn’t helping him much, either. It seemed every time he closed his eyes, he could see that white shape, highlighted by the flickering torch. The curve of his chest, the bulge in his arms and legs, and the large white ridge of fur between his legs, with the thick red shaft standing proudly above it. Volle envisioned all kinds of positions, most starting with the wolf just wrapping his strong arms around him and pressing that firm body against his. The dreams went on from there, and though he tried to avoid moaning his frustration, sometimes it was just too much. It was worst after he’d eaten, when he didn’t have hunger pangs to distract his lust. Amazing that with his cramped, weak arms, his matted and dirty fur, and his imminent death, he could still be so aroused by a dream. He wondered whether at some point the basic urges of life were all that would be left to him.

  On the fifth day, after he’d eaten the evening meal, the images returned unbidden to him and he was almost trembling with suppressed desire. He clenched his fists, then pulled all his chains to their fullest extent and let out a loud scream of frustration, then fell back to the floor, panting.

  “What’s going on here?” He hadn’t heard the door open, but Streak was standing over him, a halo of weak torchlight around him. His expression was hidden in shadows, but his tail was twitching as though he were worried.

  “Oh. Nothing. Sorry.” Volle looked up at the wolf, and saw the slight shift of the muzzle as it examined his prostrate form, from his flattened ears down his gaunt, heaving chest, down to his tense and painfully obvious erection. “Uh…” He tried to swing his bedraggled tail around to cover himself, with only partial success.