Warlords, Witches and Wolves: A Fantasy Realms Anthology

by Michelle Diener

  After his oppositions had been overcome, Absolon dragged him into the forest with an axe and they set to felling trees. Ragnar assisted where he could but Absolon did most of the work, and the air was filled with the sound of trees crashing through the canopy and hitting the ground. Absolon worked like a demon until dusk and the two returned sweaty and grimy and covered in saw dust.

  Ragnar felt double his age, but Absolon shone in his vitality. A barbarian like no other, showing no sign of exhaustion, he’d cut all he needed and sawn them into planks and posts. Ragnar asked if he could wash him which quickly led to him getting fucked against the trough. Absolon left him spent and satisfied.

  When Ragnar woke the next day Absolon was gone but returned by noon with a bag of nails. He dug the holes for the posts and grew the stables. Ragnar helped; despite Absolon’s strength, some things required more than one set of hands.

  By the end of the day, the stables had been erected and Ragnar was almost too exhausted to stand. Absolon had no such trouble and helped him to the trough. The strength he displayed on the battlefield was built for short bursts, not for sustained peasant labor. How had Absolon stood it on that family farm? Well, he hadn’t, had he? He’d left. In search of better things.

  And found Ragnar instead.

  Absolon stripped him gently of his clothes and washed him with cold water, running his coarse hands over his skin and proving that not every part of him was exhausted. Absolon smiled and continued washing him, but his strokes slowed and delved to the sensitive parts of him, around his neck, under his arms, his nipples, his obliques and down between his legs. His hand wrapped around Ragnar’s cock and he tensed, collapsed his head against Absolon’s body as he took the last of his strength, and stroked him into oblivion.

  He woke early the next morning with Absolon curled around him. He scooted backwards, deeper into the curves of Absolon’s body, slipped Absolon’s arm under his, and fell back to sleep.

  When he roused again, most of the day had passed and Absolon was gone. He dressed, needing the clothes more than ever now that winter was bearing down on them, and spied Absolon across the field. He waved and Absolon waved back, the light had faded already, the sun nearing its setting. Another day had passed without him noticing.

  Another day with Absolon.

  And another day when he hadn’t achieved his goal. He looked at the stable and saw what they had built together. He imagined it filled with horses, imagined the fields filled with barley, and the days passing in toil and his life slipping away in this strange domesticity. It seized him by the throat and warned him not to get complacent.

  The Darisami wandered over and when he reached him, he was smiling. He bowled him up into his arms and kissed him. The grip on Ragnar’s throat tightened even as he lost himself in that kiss, in the freedom of it, in the love of it.

  Absolon broke the kiss but for how long it had ensorcelled him, he didn’t know. “I thought you could do with some rest.” He didn’t unwrap his arms from around Ragnar’s waist.

  “I didn’t realize I was so tired.”

  He chuckled. “You nobles aren’t used to hard work.”

  And despite the word hitting Ragnar’s back teeth, he laughed too. Genuinely.

  It could be so easy to stay and give himself to Absolon totally. But there would always be this difference between them: Absolon’s strength and immortality versus Ragnar’s weakness and ageing. And as wonderful as it was to be in Absolon’s arms, it couldn’t last. He wouldn’t be satisfied with this for the rest of his days, no matter how easy. Absolon would know it too. And perhaps that’s where the bargain could be struck.

  “I’ve been thinking.” He untangled himself from Absolon’s arms and instantly regretted the loss of his body’s warmth. “What happens as I grow old and you stay young? Won’t that be—”

  “No!" The word fired from Absolon as if it had been shot from a musket.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I know what you’re asking, and I will not curse anyone else with this.” He stormed into the house.

  He was smarter than he gave him credit for. “Hear me out, Sol.” Ragnar chased after him. “It wouldn’t be a curse. It would be a kindness, for you and for me.”

  He scoffed. “You think I’d enjoy it? That I’d like to make another such as I, another such as Lysander? We’re monsters and there should be none of us, not more.”

  “Then why are you still here? If you think yourself so wicked, why not end it when your thirty days are up?”

  Absolon turned away to tend the hearth fire.

  Ragnar approached and smoothed his arms over Absolon’s thick shoulders. “It’s fine, Sol. No man wants to die, least of all me, so I understand why you haven’t let death come for you, but why not give yourself some pleasure? Why not make the years ahead easier?”

  “My guilt is forever.”

  “Then share it with me.”

  “You don’t understand what it’s like.”

  “I’ve taken men’s lives before. I know the horror that can come with it, but it can be soothed. The nights can be filled with love and laughter, not horror and screams. I would stay with you as long as I could, but old age will eventually take me from you, and then who will be there to remember you as you were?”

  “You are silver-tongued, that is certain, but you would hate me for what I would do to you.”

  “I think not. You are not Lysander. You will not do what you think is wrong. You will not abandon me. Think of it, the two of us together, untouchable, unconquerable, living the life we want with no one to ever tell us what to do.” Though Absolon always liked to follow orders. “Please, Sol. I do this willingly, knowingly. I want this so I can be with you always.”

  The words flowed out of his mouth and they came so easily he could have mistaken them for truth. He ignored the desperation in his heart.

  Absolon sighed and stared into the fire. He stayed like that for a long time. Ragnar’s tongue yearned to speak and press his case further, but the quiet intensity of Absolon’s pose told him that speaking was not needed. He waited.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Ragnar smiled and kissed the top of Absolon’s head. Absolon’s hand found his and they stayed together, warming by the fire while outside a harsh wind whistled and whipped the land.

  Chapter 6

  The morning had stolen Absolon from their bed, and the afternoon did not return him. At first Ragnar thought it possible Absolon had merely gone for a walk in the forest but, as the hours stretched with no sign of him, that idea lost all credence. Perhaps Absolon had gone to the village again for supplies.

  He had been left alone before and Absolon had returned, but as the sun passed its zenith and continued to its rest, he was forced to hunt out his own food, catching a hare and cooking it over the hearth. He left a leg out for the dog and stood inside the doorway while he ate, watching across a moonlit fallow field for sign of Absolon’s returning glow. He stayed until even the moon had gone to bed.

  He slept badly, listening for any sound of Absolon, but he was rewarded with nothing but the wind and an owl’s mournful warning. Had Absolon abandoned him? Had his request proved too much and now the soul-eater had gone in search of another home, one far from Ragnar and his petition? Had Absolon seen through his self-serving demand? Then why not stay and tell him no? Why not banish him, or take him to someplace far from here from which he could not return? Absolon had that power.

  The next day was no different except for the tension thickening in Ragnar’s neck and shoulders. He was a fool. He’d pushed Absolon too far too fast. He should have waited until midwinter. That would have given him more time to ply his honeyed words to make it appear like Absolon’s idea all along. He had been too eager for it. Nothing to do with wanting to hide from that look in Absolon’s eyes, the one that wanted and believed Ragnar could give him so much more.

  Heroes always had to make the hard choice, and this was his. A thousand years could pass
in this enchantment, and the world would move on and forget about Ragnar the Red. Time would take his enemies and rob him of his triumph. Then there’d be no place for him in hallowed halls. What kind of life would that be?

  He would stay a while longer. He couldn’t disprove that Absolon was not nearby, watching him, seeing what he would do when he was on his own. He’d show that he would stay, that he was genuine, that he waited for Absolon and not for Absolon’s power.

  So he chopped firewood for the stockpile. He oiled the tools. He went far enough into the forest to reach the stream and caught fish for his dinner.

  And he waited at the door for Absolon to return.

  What would it be like to stay forever?

  A bitter wind answered and cut him to the marrow.

  The slamming of the storeroom door brought him out of his somber musings. He stalked off to investigate and met Absolon coming around the corner. The moon blessed him, and he shone with the light of a hundred souls. The magnificence of the sight stole Ragnar’s breath. If he were a religious man, he would have fallen to his knees and praised the heavens.

  But he was not a religious man and he had no use for God.

  Still, he would fall to his knees before Absolon.

  Absolon almost walked into him, lost in his own thoughts.

  “Where were you?” Ragnar asked.

  “I had to…do something.” He pushed past him and washed his hands and face in the trough.

  “I thought you might have left me for good.”

  “Only you would do that, Ragnar.” He went into the farmhouse and dried his face on a cloth, while his accusation dripped into the cold pit of Ragnar’s stomach. “I thought about what you asked.”

  “And?”

  Absolon threw the cloth on the table and stood with a hand on his hip. “You need to understand that this is not something to be done lightly, that it turns you into something that even I don’t fully understand. The hunger to feed on souls can be…”

  “I understand. It can be difficult.”

  “No, that’s not it.” He sank onto the edge of the table and expelled a heavy breath. “It’s easy. It is so easy.” He shook his head at the marvel of it. “At first you think you can’t do it and that it will disgust you, that you’ll never do it again, but it’s almost impossible to stop. There’s a hunger in you that’s never quite sated, and it tells you that you want to do it, that you want to take that soul and feel it inside you.” He licked his lips. “And when you do, there’s sadness, but there’s also joy, and there’s anger, and hate, and fear, and love, and every single thing that person has ever felt passes through you. And once it’s in there, you are filled with a divine ecstasy.” He paused. His eyes shimmered. He tilted his face to the heavens. “And once it’s done, you regret it, but you want it again and you know you’ll have it.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Ragnar chuckled.

  “This is not funny, Ragnar.” He bared his teeth. “This is life and death and it is inescapable.”

  “It always has been.”

  “But for you, now, you can choose not to kill, not to take a life. You can live a life where you do not harm another. Do this, and you have no choice but to kill or die.”

  His heart stilled, frightened of beating lest it scare Absolon away. What would it be like to feel that power?

  “It is no different for me. I would have it. I would be what you are so I may ease your burdens as well as my own. I would share the winters and the summers with you. It would be like it was before, the two of us against the world.”

  Absolon stood, his hand opening and reaching for him but closing in a fist, too scared to touch. “But it could be that way now, without me doing this, without me cursing you.” He slumped back onto the edge of the table.

  “It would not last. I would age and weaken, and you would grow tired of my humanity.” Ragnar took up his hands. “You would resent my need to eat ordinary food. You would be shamed by my growing infirmity, and I would be jealous of your youth and strength. We would become enemies and you would take my life and damn yourself for eternity.”

  Absolon sighed and let Ragnar hold him. He rested his forehead against Ragnar’s shoulder and enfolded him in a tight, strong embrace. He hugged him with his sorrow and his love. At first it warmed Ragnar’s heart, but then it grew too hot and scorched him.

  He will never forgive me for what I do to him.

  But it was unavoidable.

  “I want this, Absolon. I want it so we can be together forever.”

  Absolon looked up. “I hate how much I want this too, how selfish that makes me, because you hear my words, but you do not know what it means to be what I am.”

  “Then allow me to make that choice. Your soul will be clean, the damnation is mine, but you will be here to make it all the sweeter.”

  Absolon shook his head, a small sad smile on his lips. Ragnar leaned down, lifted Absolon’s chin and with a gentle kiss sealed his fate. He rubbed his thumb across Absolon’s cheek and smiled brighter than Absolon in the moonlight.

  “Please, Sol. I want this.”

  Absolon nodded. “Just remember I warned you, please, and don’t hate me for it.”

  “Never.” He kissed him again, his lips buzzing with the anticipation flooding his blood. “How do we begin?”

  He took a deep breath. “I will take your soul, pass it through mine, and return it to you different from before. I don’t know how the magic works, but that’s the process as near enough as I remember.”

  “Near enough?”

  He shrugged. “Lysander told me how, but the steps were vague.”

  Ragnar felt fear for the first time. “You’re not inspiring confidence here, Sol.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll understand once it’s over how it’s hard to go wrong with this, or anything we do. There are certain symbols and they feel right. They’re just there.” He sighed again. “You’ll understand when it happens to you.”

  “And what about after that?”

  “There’ll be pain. Lots of it—for you, not me—and then you’ll need to feed. I don’t know how long after but it’s best to do it soon.”

  The storeroom…

  He turned towards it.

  “Yes. I found someone already. You will have to take their life in cold blood or lose your own. Can you do that?”

  He paused. Of course he could. Couldn’t he? But if he couldn’t, then that would be his escape. If it proved as horrific as Absolon tried to make it sound, and he could not accept his new nature, he would refuse to feed and go willingly to his death. Wouldn’t he?

  He nodded, rather than risk uttering those thoughts. Energy thrummed through his body. All that strength. All that light. All that power. A great and glorious future unfurled before him. Nations would tremble. The world would be his.

  “Now or never, I suppose,” Absolon said. “It’s better if you lie down.” He led Ragnar to the bed, took off his boots and his coat, and tended to him like he was preparing a corpse. He undid the cords at his shirt and settled his hand onto Ragnar’s chest. Heat pressed onto his skin and Absolon’s hand weighed heavy on his heart.

  “I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’m about to do.” Absolon’s sadness poured off him in waves. This was meant to be a happy occasion but…

  What if Absolon had no intention of making him into a Darisami? What if he was going to kill him instead?

  Absolon’s hand burned his flesh. It had begun. Fast. Like an arrow shooting through him that hooked onto his soul.

  My soul.

  He had never contemplated it fully before, never ruminated that there was even such a thing as a soul, a part of him inside the rest of the meat and blood and bone that kept him alive. If someone had asked him to describe it, he would have been unable to find the words and struggle to say with any certainty it existed.

  But whatever Absolon had done, it defined the length, breadth, and width of Ragnar the Red’s soul. The magic caught it, and it flail
ed. Doomed. He panicked. He knew, instinctively, primally, that if Absolon took his soul, he would die.

  Absolon dragged it from Ragnar’s body, and the pain arched his back. Iron nails pushed through his veins and he strained against the agony. He raised up off the bed, his neck bulged, his teeth clenched, and toes curled. He grabbed Absolon’s hand. He had to stop it, but he could do nothing more than hold on to Absolon’s stillness. He was irrevocably within Absolon’s power.

  White obliterated his mind and he lost all consciousness of what happened next. His soul was torn out and threshed. But then his soul was back as if it had never been taken and he was alive. But something was different.

  Very different.

  Something had been added. His soul was now something greater than it had been. And when he opened his eyes, Absolon’s hand was no longer pressing down on him, but the burn remained like a bright day’s afterglow.

  He opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but as he met Absolon’s sad eyes he stopped.

  “It’s not over yet.”

  A great chasm opened in the bottom of Ragnar’s stomach, creating a vortex that dragged into it everything that he was. Down and down and on and on until he had been turned inside out. He may have screamed. He may have howled. He could have died and not known. He curled in on himself, pulled his knees up to his chest and waited for birth and death to end.

  Then, without him doing anything, because there was nothing he could do, it passed, and he could think again. He could open his eyes again.

  He was alive.

  “How do you feel?”

  His mouth was dry and his throat raspy. He struggled to speak. “Like I’ve been hanged, drawn, and quartered. Is there more?”

  Please, let there be no more.

  “That’s the ritual over. You’ll hurt for a while, but…” Absolon sighed. “But the next part will make that easier.” He stood and made a torch from the hearth. “We should get this over with. I don’t know how long you’ll have otherwise.”