by T. A. Miles
“A final report on the situation here?” Korsten said, watching Merran nod. He leaned back onto his elbows as the other mage lowered routinely onto the edge of the mattress, resuming his role as physician. “I’m feeling better,” he lied, before Merran could ask.
However, Merran wasn’t easily convinced. “Are you sure you didn’t sustain any injuries while fighting the demon? We can’t afford to have them complaining during battle.”
“Or me,” Korsten translated. Then he sighed, “I suppose my neck still hurts a bit after being nearly crushed.”
Merran smiled in his mysterious way and reached his hand out, holding it just in front of Korsten’s throat. He began his healing spell and the pain began to leave instantly. “I’m proud of you, by the way.”
Korsten’s instinct was to laugh, but he managed only to form a half smile. It didn’t take him long to realize that Merran was serious and all traces of sarcasm vanished. Guilt returned. “There’s nothing to be proud of. I did what I had to do.”
“You saved Bael’s life,” Merran pointed out.
“But I took Ecland’s,” Korsten argued.
“He would have killed you.”
Korsten knew that, but … “What I did … the way I did it, was wrong. There’s no justifying it.”
“You achieved your Ambience,” Merran said next, irrelevantly, Korsten thought.
“It caught me off guard, and it effected my behavior in a way that will make me sick to think about for many long years to come. Forever maybe.” Korsten sighed, noticing that it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had just a few moments ago. “There must have been a better way.”
Merran’s words, his very expression questioned that statement. “Sometimes we have to do things that extend beyond the physical, mental, and even moral barriers we establish for ourselves in our mortal lives.”
“There’s nothing you can say that’s going to make me feel better about this,” Korsten finally said, looking his friend directly in the eye. “You know that.”
“Stop judging yourself so harshly for circumstances beyond your control,” Merran continued. “Ecland cornered you. You defended yourself and disposed of what was probably a very dangerous enemy to the Seminary and to Edrinor.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Korsten muttered obstinately.
“You’ve always had a selective sense of hearing.”
“Bastard.”
Merran smiled again. With the healing spell complete, he let his hand fall gently, maybe incidentally onto Korsten’s chest. “You’re hurting terribly,” the other mage said. “Guilt isn’t anything that’s going to serve your concentration well when it comes to defending this outpost.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Korsten replied, tempted to push Merran’s hand away, though it felt damnably good. Their skin wasn’t even making contact yet, but since Renmyr, Korsten had come to realize that he didn’t like to be alone quite so much as he put on in the past. He needed human contact far more than he ever would have been willing to admit before, even if it wasn’t love. Leaving the other man’s hand where it had come to rest, he said, “Still, you’re too generous. I feel like I’m taking far more than I can ever offer you in return.”
“It isn’t my hope to gain anything,” Merran told him, enveloping Korsten in the charming depth of his blue eyes. “I only want to alleviate your suffering, because I can.”
Korsten just stared at him for a moment. He’d vowed to himself that he wouldn’t do this anymore, that he wouldn’t take advantage of Merran’s ability or his willingness to share it. Gods, but he’s right. I haven’t slept a wink. I can’t stop thinking about Ecland. I want to cry and tears won’t stop the Morennish soldiers when they get here. Tears won’t….
Merran lowered and Korsten let the other man push him gently back. They stared at each other for just a moment before actual contact was made, not with Merran’s hands, but with his lips upon Korsten’s. His touch at this level didn’t have to come with kisses, but for some reason it always did and, as before, once begun there was no protesting. Korsten raised his arms around Merran and opened his mouth to the healer’s gently probing tongue, drawing him in, inviting him to come closer than he needed to. It felt so good.
Clothes were gradually removed and skin was touching, everywhere. Merran’s body was strong, and yet so gentle moving against Korsten, and with him. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since they last did this. Running his fingers slowly along the firm muscles of his friend’s back, Korsten sighed and felt the trauma of past events leave him. Merran was always so careful. Because he wasn’t sure. Korsten couldn’t feel badly about that right now. Right now, he didn’t feel badly about anything.
Korsten was always the first to fall asleep, and that left Merran awake to hold him, to be aware of the fact that he was holding him. He wondered if Korsten would notice this time which one of them had done the seducing. Perhaps it was fortunate that the younger mage was quick to always blame himself for everything. It wouldn’t even cross his mind, more than likely. He would just assume that he was mostly responsible for their activities this night, as with every night previously.
It was true that Korsten had been harboring too much guilt to deal with currently, but Merran could temporarily heal his emotional suffering without sex. He could have from the beginning, but he knew there was no other way to make love to the one he had come to cherish most in this world since his family left it. Sadly, one lie had led to another. Merran didn’t know when exactly it had become a lie. He couldn’t say precisely when he’d fallen in love with Korsten, but over the years he’d become conscious to the fact that he had. His love made him despise Renmyr Camirey that much more.
Filthy beast … why can’t you release him? You can, but you won’t. You’ve bound him so utterly he’s become blinded and deaf. He can barely breathe. He’s suffocating in your madness and you don’t care. Damn you to the lowest depths of Hell, Camirey. I despise you as I’ve only despised one other. You should have killed me quickly when the chance was yours. Your end will be swift and sudden, I promise you. And if I have anything to say about it, you’ll never so much as lay eyes on him again.
Korsten stirred a little in his sleep, and Merran held him tighter for a moment, kissing the other man’s red hair. And then he relaxed as another unhappy truth settled upon him. You’ll never love me. Even if you should free yourself from your past lover, you’ll go to Ashwin. I can see it in your eyes when you look at him. I can hear it in your voice when you speak of him. He loves you, and he’s been honest about it. I know he won’t hurt you, in spite of what happened with Sharlotte, but it hurts me thinking about it. He pitied Sharlotte, and you pity me. I understand her now, better than I did … better than I ever could have before.
Eolyn clung to the ceiling overhead. It was dark, but Merran could still see her white wings traced against shadow. He knew that the smaller shape nearby was Analee. He remembered Korsten’s initial reaction to the red butterfly and wanted to laugh, but didn’t. Korsten would wake and…. Impulsively, Merran shifted onto his side and began kissing his sleeping friend. Korsten woke slowly, but receptively. Merran pinned the other man gently to the mattress and let his hands and his mouth begin to wander over Korsten’s fair, soft skin. Desire burned in him, tempered with a love that made him want to break down, to fall into Korsten’s arms sobbing and to tell him everything of how he felt.
“I thought we were finished,” Korsten whispered tiredly, just before he wrapped his long legs around Merran’s lower body in a very inviting fashion that all but crumbled Merran’s restraint. “Now … where were we?”
A sudden knock at the door halted Merran’s entrance into the very flexible body embracing him. He and Korsten exchanged surprised, if not slightly perturbed looks, in the dark. Korsten appeared as if he wanted to grumble a complaint and Merran calmly placed his hand over the redhead’s mouth. He la
y quietly on top of him for a moment, waiting for the knock to come again.
“Master Merran,” someone shouted from the hall. “They’re here! It’s time!”
“Tell the captain I’m on my way,” Merran hollered back. “Have you tried to wake Korsten?”
“I knocked on his door! He didn’t answer. Thought maybe he’d been put under by some medicine you gave him.”
Beneath Merran, Korsten began to laugh softly. Merran glanced at him, then said to the door, “I’ll wake him. Inform Captain Grisch that we’ll be with him shortly!”
“Yes, sir!”
Merran waited until he heard footsteps, then removed his hand from Korsten’s jaw, revealing a smile. He was tempted to kiss that smile, but decided to rise instead. “We’d better hurry.”
Korsten sat up, reaching over the edge of the bed for his clothes. “They’re early,” he noted, no longer smiling as Merran’s absent touch allowed guilt and grief to begin having their way with him again.
“If there was an appointed time to meet and supply information, Trev would have missed it. That may have hastened their actions.” Merran stood up and dressed while Korsten did the same.
“I’d better Reach back to my room,” Korsten decided, running both hands lightly through his hair. “There’s no reason for Grisch to be looking for a reason to send both of us over the edge of the highest wall, declaring us casualties of battle.”
“He wants to restore Edrinor,” Merran replied, not in admonishment. “His heart is in this, in spite of his personal feelings.”
“If you say so,” Korsten said, shrugging. And then, just as causally, he strolled up to Merran and planted a soft kiss on his jaw. “My thanks for the medicine, of course.” With a teasing smile that made Merran’s heart ache, he turned away, performed a Reach, and was gone.
Merran took a step back and lowered onto the edge of the bed. He let his hands hang limply off his knees for a moment before lifting one to his mouth. His lips were tense with indecision as he sat torn between laughing and crying. The crying surprised him. He hadn’t done that since losing his family. He didn’t do it now, but … almost.
Finally he ran his hand over his face and through his hair and rose to his feet again, prepared to face an army of enemies. Some days he thought he preferred facing them or the Vadryn to facing Korsten.
“According to our scouts, their camp should be there,” Grisch said, pointing from the northwest facing battlement. “Where the river is narrowest. It hasn’t rained in weeks. It will be shallow as well, easy for troops to cross without laying a bridge.”
“But they haven’t crossed yet?” Korsten asked, eyes following Grisch’s direction.
“I wouldn’t expect them to in darkness,” the captain replied, leaving out any tones of personal resent for sake of his role as commander of the forces that had no choice but to stop Morenne as it attempted to enter further into Edrinor. “They’ll wait till early morning.”
“When the light is just coming,” Korsten replied thoughtfully. “And the air is gray.”
“A mist?” Merran asked, clever enough to know what was on his friend’s mind. “That might slow their progress, but what’s the sense in delay at this point? We’re not waiting for reinforcements and the prolonged anticipation might affect the troops adversely. You’re thinking about Lilende again.”
“Yes, I am,” Korsten admitted, slanting Grisch a glance as the man groaned in complaint. “There’s no reason to let that army plow over them.”
“What are you suggesting?” the captain demanded.
“Surprise,” Korsten answered without hesitation.
“Surprise?” Grisch echoed with a twinge of irony in his voice. When Korsten nodded, the captain said, “May I remind you that they have us outnumbered? And just how in Hell are we supposed to surprise them? These things have to be planned well in advance. We would have to have put troops in the woods on the other side of Lilende already. That plan was ruled out weeks ago, or were you mentally absent from that meeting?”
“Captain’s right,” Lars put in. “There’s not enough time to march out there with hopes of doing anything other than meeting them half way.”
Korsten looked at Grisch while speaking to Lars. “Who said anything about marching?”
And now Merran interrupted. “Korsten.”
Looking at his friend, Korsten said, “It will work.”
Merran’s intensely blue eyes studied him for a moment, then the other mage frowned, questioning in expression as well as in voice. “A Reach?”
“It will work,” Korsten said again, with understanding for his doubt and perhaps a little pleading for Merran to hear him out before dismissing the notion as Grisch would have.
“With an army? That’s never been done before.”
“I’ve already thought it through. Reaching is nothing more than forming a gate for ourselves that shortens the distance between here and there and lets us step through. We only have to form a gate big enough for more than just ourselves.”
“An army,” Merran reminded.
“It’s all a matter of concentration. I know we can do it. With my first Reach, I went much farther than most mages with my limited years of experience can. I returned the same distance while half dead. I should have died, but my focus was somehow still intact and got me back to the Seminary.”
“No. It got you back to Ashwin.”
Korsten wondered just what Merran meant by that. His confused look must have let on to the fact.
“Ashwin told me about that incident,” Merran explained. “He was quite proud. Very few mages can Reach to an individual. It requires sensing where that individual is … where they might be of a thousand possible places. Reaching to a location is simply knowing where you’re going. It isn’t likely that it will have moved.”
Korsten ignored his internal reaction, both to news of what he’d done, and Ashwin’s sentiments about it. He kept his focus on the present circumstances. “It’s a short Reach, Merran. I can see the destination I want from here. I’ll be able to envision it with no trouble on the ground and I know I can get the soldiers to cooperate by concentrating on that same place, envisioning themselves there in advance so that the Reach won’t disorientate them too greatly. I’ll put us on the near side of the river and cast the mist as the enemy is crossing. They’ve come thinking they won’t have much to deal with. Maybe we can shock and confuse them enough that they’ll be forced to retreat.”
“And plan a second attack,” Grisch said pointedly.
“Not with these forces,” Korsten countered. “Without knowing what they’re up against, they’ll want to regroup at the border, wherever their main forces are. In the time it takes them to reorganize and make new plans reinforcements can be gathered.”
“From where?” Grisch argued.
“Temstead, now that we know for certain that this outpost is a target. We can solicit the free armies as well and the Seminary can appoint a mage or two here for a longer term. In fact, knowing that this place is the next serious trouble spot, I’m sure the Council will. With resident mages, Barriers can be put up and maintained, keeping the Vadryn out. Your sole concentration will be defending against Morenne.”
Firming his frown, Grisch shook his head tautly. “It’s too much of a risk.”
“Riskier than losing your future recruits to Morenne?” Korsten asked. “Many of the youngsters in the city below us are destined to be soldiers. Raised in time of war, they have little choice. Which side do you want them fighting for, captain? Or would you rather they were simply killed by the enemy that will be tearing through Lilende tomorrow if we don’t stop them?” Korsten matched Grisch’s hard gaze. “It is a risk, yes, but one we can afford to take. The only difference between going to them and letting them come to us, is when we face them. We can face them now, outnumbered, with them caught off guard. Or we can wa
it for them to come up here and we can face them after they’ve broken through our defenses, outnumbered, with them sure of their victory. You know I’m right, Grisch. Even after they’ve discovered resistance and found that maybe they don’t have enough men or supplies to break through in the span they would have liked, they’ll only send for reinforcements. They’ll be in eventually, and we’ll be cornered.”
Grisch stood glaring at the horizon, looking decided though he hadn’t said anything yet. Korsten was on the verge of turning toward Merran for support when the captain drew in a breath and on the release said, “We can’t leave the keep defenseless in the event of penetration. How many troops would you suggest we send out?”
Korsten refrained from smiling in his shock and relief. He answered simply, “Three hundred. I’m not sure I could Reach with too many more.” He wasn’t sure he could Reach with that many, but realized that now was the time for a little optimism. “Besides, this has to work fast or it won’t work at all. We’ll lose a prolonged battle, no matter how we approach it, simply for a lack of number in comparison to the enemy. We have to attack abruptly and confuse them enough to make them reconsider their advance.”
“This seems insane,” Grisch said, rubbing his jaw. In a moment he lowered his hand and looked at Korsten with something resembling tolerance. “But let’s get it done.”
Korsten nodded. “Right. We haven’t much time.”
“Lars,” the captain beckoned.
“Yes, sir?”
“Inform General Aetrix that he’s getting field command for our strike against the coming enemy. Prepare his unit along with General Ferr and General Selbyn’s units. Mage-Adept Korsten will serve as tactical officer.”
“Sir,” came the elder’s brisk reply as he set about his task.
“Merran,” Grisch continued. “Your colleague is liable to get himself killed in rather short order. I’d like you here for reserve and advisement as events unfold.”
Merran agreed to stay and Korsten decided not to take offense at the captain’s words. He’d agreed to the plan. It would work. Korsten only had a few hours to figure out how.
