by Jez Morrow
“You didn’t just lie, you swore an oath,” Devon said, his voice low in contempt. “You traitor. You lizard.”
Xan ignored Devon’s words. As if Devon were a dog. Or a jackass.
“What will you do with me?” Devon demanded.
“Same as you did to me,” said Xan. “I am taking you home for judgment in my village.”
Devon would not cooperate. He would not walk. If Xan chose to knock him unconscious, well, he could try. As soon as Devon could move an inch, he slid out from under Xan’s body, rolled, found his feet and bolted. And was quickly tackled.
Xan bound Devon’s wrists and ankles with rawhide strips. He came away with a few bite marks to show for it. When he tried to lift Devon over his shoulders to carry him, Devon kicked and writhed and bent this way and that like a muscular fish.
Xan dropped him.
Xan tried to drag his prisoner by his feet, but Devon kicked loose.
This was going to be a long journey.
Xan hadn’t wanted to, but he found a rock and he menaced the Sovereign with it.
Blows to the head were dodgy things. Xan could kill his prisoner before he could bring him to judgment. He needed a judgment.
Devon was not heeding any of Xan’s threats. The man was fearless, Xan had to give him that. And Devon was not coming quietly. Devon was not huge, but he was tall, firmly muscled and solidly boned, and he thrashed like a bagful of lynxes.
Xan dropped him again and set to fashioning a tether with which to drag him.
The dawn had come, gray and glowering.
Devon sat up tall. He spat olive leaves off his lips and shook back his lush black hair. He spoke, haughty as if crowned and sitting in state. “You said you knew the tribe who attacked me in the Witch’s Cleft.”
“I do,” said Xan, braiding wild grapevines into a tether. The infernal things were shredding as he twisted them. “The Kiriciki.”
“Take me to them.”
Xan paused. “What sort of trick is this?”
“We do not trick,” said the Sovereign, using royal plurals now.
Bound in the dust, Devon never looked so formidably regal. There was steel in the man.
“What do you expect to gain from the Kiriciki?” Xan asked.
“I want to ask them how they knew I was coming to the wild lands and why they attacked me in the pass.”
“You go to the Kiriciki, they will only finish what they started,” Xan warned.
“As they see fit,” Devon said. “Take me to them and I will walk with you.”
Xan blinked, startled. He was about to ask if Devon was sincere. But he could see the Sovereign was dead serious. More dead than Devon realized. Xan wanted to take Devon to Xan’s own tribe for judgment, but he was beginning to doubt his ability to get Devon there alive. Xan decided judgment before the Kiriciki would do just as well.
“Swear?” Xan asked.
“I do so swear,” said Devon. He really was an incredible manly beauty, angry, his black eyes flashing. Eyes that could not lie. “And my word is worth something.”
That stung. As hard as Xan tried to shake it off, the words bit. Xan told himself his loyalty was unswerving. Still, Xan had given a false oath.
And he was certain that Devon was not lying now.
Xan unbound the Raenthe Sovereign.
True to his word, Devon did not run. He made no move to reclaim his weapons.
Devon commanded, “Lead on.”
Xan gathered up the supplies he’d taken from the fortress kitchen and set out. Devon followed.
After a short way, Devon said, “This is not the way back to the pass.”
“We are not going back to the pass.”
“You said you would take me to the tribe who attacked me at the pass,” Devon said.
“The Kiriciki lands are broad. I will deliver you to the Shepherdess of the Kiriciki. I shan’t take you any way near the Raenthe Road or the Witch’s Cleft.”
“Then where are you taking me?”
“Up there.”
Xan nodded ahead. On the far horizon, a high plateau lay under a low shelf of moody clouds.
Xan had never quite credited the tales of Devon’s wartime service. Xan could not picture the elegant man as a soldier. Xan had expected this palace-dwelling flower to shrink in the harsh wild lands.
Devon thrived in this severe country. He existed moment to moment, admiring small wonders where he saw them—stars and meteors, sunrises, songs of jewel-colored birds, desert colors, cloud formations. And he was a skilled hunter. Not that Xan gave him weapons. Devon was wicked with a throwing stick. He brought down a big-eared rabbit for his supper and made the fire to cook it.
On the third day, a plaintive sun shed cold light on a dreary fen. Jagged spikes of charred tree trunks stabbing upward from the stagnant water were all that was left of a forest that once stood here.
Devon saw the skin on Xan’s broad shoulder ripple like a horse shivering. The barbarian didn’t like this place.
“Take off your rings,” Xan said.
Devon told him, “I am not giving you my rings, traitor.”
“I don’t care if you put them up your ass. Just hide them.”
And suddenly Xan’s leather belt was closing around Devon’s neck. Xan snugged the belt and closed his fist on the hair at the back of Devon’s head. Before Devon could demand to know what Xan was doing, the men came out of the fen.
Xan’s open palm crossed Devon’s face as Devon opened his mouth to protest.
Xan growled in his ear, “If you would live, do not say a word.”
Devon’s cheek was stinging. But his jaw was unscathed. The blow had been a glancing one just for sound and show. Devon took in the meaning. No matter whose side Xan was on, his words were true—if Devon would live, do not say a word.
The creatures of the fen snarled. Devon read hunger on their brute faces. They all but drooled over Devon’s fine tunic and his sturdy boots, and Devon himself. He was young, clean and otherworldly handsome.
They gave brittle smiles to see the fine Raenthe peacock heeling on the end of a desert man’s leash.
Xan tugged on the belt. He snarled out loud in a desert tongue. Devon recognized the words. “Keep up, dog.”
“Bastard,” Devon hissed between his teeth.
The brigands studied their prey. Devon studied them back. He counted twelve of them, though there might be more in reserve, unseen among the nightmare trees. They said something at Xan in a barbaric tongue. Xan answered them back.
Devon caught every fourth word. The brigands’ rheumy eyes and rotted-toothed grins spoke everything Devon needed to know.
They wanted Devon. His clothes, his boots. Him.
From behind, a rude hand grabbed Devon’s cheek and squeezed. Devon’s heel came up hard. The hand withdrew too quickly for him to make contact. The outlaw grinned like wicked boy—a boy with very bad teeth, rancid breath and a beard like a rotted rag.
Danger pressed with full force. These men were not friendly either to Raenthe or to Xan’s people. Both Devon and Xan were on sword’s edge here.
Xan roared into Devon’s face. His voice sounded like a ranting scold. That tone of voice was for the fen folk to hear. They wouldn’t understand Xan’s words which he spoke in the Raenthe language. The words carried the true message. “The dagger in my belt! If this goes to hell, use that to take out the two men behind you! Don’t turn around! I’ll tell you when it comes to that!”
Xan turned back to the brigands, acting as if he’d just put his dog in its place.
Devon stood very close to Xan, almost touching. He kept watch at Xan’s back, ready to do battle with him like brothers-in-arms. They were outnumbered, but Xan was a champion gladiator and Devon was lethal as a mountain cat.
Devon understood the next words. A brigand asking Xan, “How did you get it?”
It was Devon.
“I got it at a loss,” Xan answered. “This thing wagered more gold than it had. Now it is
mine. I don’t think you have enough to buy it.”
Devon could tell the brigands were not thinking about a purchase.
At length the creatures of the fen let Xan pass with his possession.
“What tribe was that?” Devon asked when he could no longer see the fen folk.
“No tribe,” said Xan. “Outcasts. Outlaws. Vermin.”
“They will follow,” said Devon. “They are waiting for us to sleep.”
“I know,” said Xan. “We are not going to sleep.”
Xan picked up the pace to a loping dogtrot until the ground became firmer, not so sodden. Patches of meadow grasses and a few real trees grew. Xan and Devon were coming out of the fen. Devon said, “You can take this leash off me now.”
“No,” Xan said.
And to Devon’s daggered glare, Xan said, “The vermin are still shadowing us.”
“Where?”
“A tracker knows when he is being tracked.”
“I don’t see them,” Devon said.
“You wouldn’t. This is not your territory.”
“Point of law, it is my territory,” Devon said.
“Hold your illusions, tyrant. Just keep up.” Xan tugged on the leash.
“You are enjoying this, Savage.”
Xan met his eyes. “Yes.”
“I am not,” Devon said.
“So noted, ma dahn.”
Xan and Devon kept going long after the sun set, to get as much distance as they could between themselves and the fen. The clouds lifted. The moon shone bright.
They came to more settled territory, an oasis in the stark land. Sweet grasses grew thick underfoot. Stone houses stood here and there, with smoke curling from their chimneys.
Xan took off the leash.
Devon heard a farmer’s pack of hounds baying, chasing something back to the fen.
The other side of the oasis brought Xan and Devon back into hard lands. The desert wind, the sooa, kicked Devon’s hair across his brow. The sunset blazed gold and molten bronze. The opposite horizon lay cloaked in royal darkness. The high plateau before them was very close now, ominous, the place where Devon would meet his doom.
Devon and Xan paused at a nomad camp on the dry plain. The nomads were hospitable with what little they had. They gave the two strangers food and drink. Their tent of antelope hides was open at the peak. Several families sat around the fire inside it, drinking and talking.
Devon was silent, serious, watching. Xan could not call it a sulk. Devon was not rude to their hosts.
It was a convivial group.
A little girl kept bending her ear to a bird’s nest. Devon’s eyes flickered over the nomads’ seamed faces. Devon seemed to know the present conversation was about the little girl, but he had no idea what the adults were saying.
Xan leaned aside to tell him in the Raenthe tongue, “The little girl. She thinks the egg is about to hatch.”
“Is it?” Devon asked.
“It is cooked.”
None of the adults seemed about to enlighten the hopeful child.
The girl leaned her ear very close to the egg, earnestly listening, holding her breath, expecting any moment to hear a chick stir.
Devon stealthily reached over behind the girl’s turned head and very lightly tapped the eggshell with his fingernail to make the smallest tick!
Devon quickly snatched his hand back as the girl straightened right up with a gasp of astonished joy.
The nomads laughed. Devon shrank into himself, shoulders hunched, guilty.
The adults told on him. The little girl came at Devon in a mock fury, hitting him with the wrong sides of her badly formed fists. She ended up curled in Devon’s lap, giggling up at him. The adults smiled, their eyes formed into crescents with fans of wrinkles at the corners.
“The little girl says you are pretty,” said Xan. “And the woman asks if you are handfasted.”
A nomad man reached over to squeeze Devon’s biceps, testing for hardness. The man gave the others a frowning nod of approval to tell them that the pretty man was solid stock.
Devon appeared nervous, his eyes shifting around the ring of smiling nomads. “Xan, get me out of this.”
It took everything Xan had not to smile. “Yes, ma dahn.”
Xan got a set of nomad clothes for Devon in trade for Devon’s blue tunic edged in gold thread. As Devon donned his scratchy nomad shirt and dust-colored trousers, Xan informed Devon that his fine tunic was destined to become the little girl’s wedding dress.
Devon looked alarmed. “I’m not betrothed, am I?”
“No,” said Xan. “I told them you were promised.” Then returning to grim reality, Xan reminded Devon, “And so you are.”
Devon was promised to die.
As Xan and Devon parted from the nomads, Devon ordered Xan, “Tell them they should move. Far from here. Kani’s men will be out for blood. If Kani thinks I’m dead, he won’t care whose blood he lets.”
“I already told them,” said Xan with a twinge of regret. Even walking to his certain death, Devon acted as if he were the Sovereign, as if he had power. And with his imagined power, Devon looked out for the safety of the desert people.
It was a fair thing for Devon to do. Xan felt as if he’d swallowed a glowing lump of coal.
The path was steep and rocky up to the plateau. Xan and Devon climbed by moonlight. At the top, they huddled in someone’s haystack for the last few hours of darkness. It was colder up here. They hadn’t spoken since they left the nomads.
“Are you promised?” Xan asked.
“No,” Devon said.
“Why do you have no consort?”
“I should think that would be obvious,” Devon said. “I will not pledge faith where I cannot give it.”
“There are to be no heirs?” Xan asked.
“I am not a Prince,” said Devon. “No one cares if I breed or not. My reign is not heritable.”
“Your station was won by worth?” Xan asked.
“Yes. Point of fact, it was.”
Devon the man may go down, but the Sovereign stayed aloof, apart. In sex, Xan sensed Devon kept something in reserve. He would give away his body and even his soul, but not his responsibility to his people.
Devon was more than a picturesque figurehead. He was vastly stronger than Xan ever imagined.
“You are not what I thought you were.” Xan hadn’t meant to speak that aloud.
“Neither are you,” Devon said. He sounded disappointed.
They lay together in silence for a while, Xan’s body spooned behind Devon’s. Xan nuzzled Devon’s hair. His fingertips grazed the length of Devon’s erection, teasing him.
Finally Devon’s hips bucked up. He shouldered, elbowed and pushed himself over in place so that he was facing Xan. His hands rested over Xan’s heart. They felt good there.
Xan traded breaths with him, their lips brushing with a feathery touch, almost a kiss.
Xan still had olives from the grove. He crushed some in his hand.
Devon got out of his clothes.
Xan cupped Devon’s balls, caressing them softly. When Devon squirmed, long past ready, Xan slowly reached farther to spread olive oil between Devon’s cheeks.
Devon’s body felt to be humming, expectant, under Xan’s touch. When Xan pressed a finger deep, Devon responded, uttering a moan of pleasure.
Xan rolled Devon over again and drew him in tight, both arms around his exquisite body—one arm wrapped around his shoulders, his other hand caging his groin.
Xan’s own cock nested firmly between Devon’s buttocks. He rocked, sliding his sex back and forth in that sweet cleft, wanting inside.
Xan murmured a warning at the back of Devon’s ear, “I hope you don’t imagine I will let you go free if you please me.”
“Never crossed my mind.” Devon ran his tongue across the arm that held him. “This has nothing at all to do with pleasing you. Just don’t talk. I want to pretend you are someone you are not.”
�
�Who would you pretend I am?”
Devon moved his ass against Xan’s erection. “My gladiator. Brave and true.”
“You think I am not brave or true to my people?”
“You are not. A brave man would not have given a false oath to me.”
“You would have executed me if I didn’t.”
“The brave are willing to take the fall,” Devon said. “Only one of us is a coward.”
Devon was right about one thing. They should not have talked. Now Xan was angry.
They were not lovers. But love was not needed for fucking. Devon’s words should not mean anything to him. Xan should just fuck him.
Xan wrested his arm out from under Devon and pushed away. His chest, abdomen, sex—his whole being—felt cold and vacant where Devon’s hot skin had pressed.
He got up and pulled his breeches closed, incensed, too angry even for sex. Angry at Devon. At himself. He stalked out into the night. “Go please yourself.”
The word of the Kiriciki Shepherdess held sway over a wide territory on the high hard steppe. Xan didn’t know the Kiriciki tongue all that well. But the name Xandaras was known here. He was a hero and everyone was willing to help him.
Xan asked for the village where the Shepherdess was in current residence and people pointed the way.
Devon walked easily toward his judgment without fear.
With days to live, Devon remained curious as a traveling scholar. He paused to look at a shrine covered with runes.
“That is a holy place,” Xan said. “We shouldn’t go in.”
“It’s a shrine for the god of travelers,” said Devon. “We are meant to go in.”
Sure enough, there was an olivewood statue of a walking man inside the stone building. The ancient figure was weathered black. There were gifts at his feet. A traveler gave or took one as he needed. Devon left a piece of flint behind at the Traveler’s feet before moving on.
Xan and Devon had both been noting a column of smoke in the south. They had been seeing it since they left the citadel. Something beyond the rise belched smoke day and night.
“What is that?” Devon asked.
Xan didn’t know. He had to ask other travelers. At last Xan got an answer. He translated for Devon, “That is the Belly of the Beast.”
