The Lost Reavers

by Mike Truk

Morwyn was shaking, her breath ragged. She didn’t answer.

  “It can be,” whispered Hugh. “The chain of command. Me your superior, using you how and when I want. Humiliating you. Pushing you to the edge. Over. And over. And over again.”

  Morwyn moaned, her hips grinding back, bearing down on his fingers. He slid one inside her, pushing it right to the knuckle.

  “You’ll come to hate me,” said Hugh. “Lust for me. Want me and hate yourself for being weak. Unable to control yourself. As my demands become evermore demeaning. And you’ll feel you deserve it. To be used. You’ll excuse by telling yourself it’s all but a way to protect yourself. But that won’t be true, will it.”

  Not a question. A statement. Clarity was coming to him even as he finger-fucked her. Hand tight about her chin, holding her in place, her arms shaking so that her whole body quivered.

  “Because this isn’t about protecting yourself, is it?” His voice low, breathing in her ear. “That’s just a lie you tell yourself. You think you deserve this. Don’t you?”

  Morwyn moaned, turning her head from side to side in negation, but not speaking. Hugh moved his hand up from her neck so that he could slide his thumb over her lips. She opened her mouth, but he resisted the urge to slide his thumb inside her.

  “The worse I treat you the more you’ll succumb. Until I push you too far. Until something happens that you can’t accept. What would it take? Forcing you to fuck one of the peasants? Chaining you up naked like a dog outside the front door? Whipping you?”

  “No,” moaned Morwyn, shaking her head again. But even as she did so, she pushed her ass back, as if seeking his crotch, seeking to rub against him.

  “Yes,” whispered Hugh. His heart was pounding, his pulse thunderous in his own ears. He felt as if he were walking on the edge of a ravine with terrible winds screaming about him. One misstep. “You crave destruction. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t want to die. That you don’t deserve to die.”

  She froze. Her chest was rising and falling. Her whole body quivering.

  He stopped fingering her. Held her lightly.

  “No,” she whispered, voice shaking. “That’s… that’s wrong.”

  “You want to be broken. You want to be degraded and then thrown away. No wonder you worship my brother. He gives you exactly what you believe you deserve. Disdain. To be treated like nothing more than a useful tool.”

  “No.” She broke free, turned around, falling back against the wall. “No!”

  “Why, Morwyn?” Hugh stared at her dark shadow. “Why do you loathe yourself? What happened to you? What twisted you so badly you’d let anybody treat you like this?”

  “Damn you!” Her hiss seared the air, vicious and violent. “You don’t know me. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m understanding you better by the minute.” His words were like great stones being dropped into a dark well. They stilled her, though he could sense an imminent attack if he kept pushing. “I just don’t understand why.”

  “Damn you,” she whispered, voice rough as she fought back tears. “Damn you to the Ashen Garden, Hugh of Stasiek.”

  “I’ll be there soon enough. But before I go, I want to understand why the woman I’ve admired and yearned for ever since I first saw her is willing to allow herself to be treated like a whore.”

  Her blow near broke his nose. He staggered back. Felt hot blood rush down his upper lip. But he steadied himself, kept his hands down, and stepped forward once more.

  “Call me that again and I’ll kill you.” Cold, absolute promise.

  “Then what should I call it? Where are your fucking breeches, Morwyn? What were you letting me do to you but moments ago? Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you respect yourself. Tell me you admire yourself. That you’re worth a damn.” A pregnant pause. Hugh took another half step forward. “Go on. Say it.”

  He heard her struggle to breathe, the rustle of cloth as she hauled her breeches back up, and then she shouldered her way past him. Flung the door open so that the evening light flooded the shelved chamber, and was gone, fleeing across the tavern room and out the front door.

  Hugh sighed. Lifted his wet fingers to his nose, breathed in Morwyn’s musky scent, then placed his hands on his hips.

  Where by Fortuna’s perfectly globular tits had that come from? What’d possessed him to push her so hard? He stood there, staring blankly at the shelving, feeling ponderous, a fool, a brutish idiot.

  But he couldn’t take back his words. Nor did he believe he was wrong.

  He saw it, now. Against all sense, Morwyn loathed herself. It should have been impossible to believe, but somehow it clicked. Her years of self-abnegation, her punishing training regimen, her absolute fidelity to Annaro, who in turn treated her little better than a loyal dog.

  It was tied to her secret. What had Zarja said? That the scent of the Hanged God hung about her.

  “You have a way with women,” said Branka. Hugh turned to see her leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. “You reduce your disciplus to tears, and now drive your captain weeping from my tavern. And yet somehow I don’t think they hate you. Or, perhaps they do hate you, on some level, but somehow remain beholden to you. Captivated by you. And it’s not just your…” Her gaze traveled up and down his body. “Your stupidly handsome face and impossible physique. There’s more going on here.”

  “You think,” he said, turning to face her, crossing his arms as he did so.

  “I do. I’ve never met such fascinating, powerful women before. Or seen them drawn like moths to a flame. It’s as if…” Branka trailed off, seeking the right words. “As if you’re some kind of anvil on which they wish to be broken. Or… remade. Or… I don’t even know.”

  Hugh stepped forward. “What of you, Branka? You want me to break you?”

  Branka scoffed as she pushed off the doorframe. “Just try it, my lord.”

  Hugh smiled down at her. “That sounds like a dare.”

  “I may be little more than a humble Ale Wife who owes you her life, but you try and get inside my head and you’ll regret it.”

  Hugh cocked his head to one side. “Maybe there’s nothing worth meddling with in there.”

  Her eyes widened in a moment’s outrage and then she grinned. “Oh, you really are a cunt. You’re making me want to prove you wrong. And that’s with you standing there with your fingers still wet from another woman.” She paused, then raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. But it’s not going to work on me.”

  Hugh patted her on the shoulder as he strode past her. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  He could feel her glare on his back as he crossed the tavern.

  “Don’t forget your wine, my lord!” Her voice rich with anger. “Wouldn’t want you to sober up!”

  “No worries,” he said, raising a hand without looking back. “I’ve forty or fifty cases of better vintage over at my place. I’ll be fine.”

  He heard her spluttering as he stepped outside, and almost smiled.

  Instead, he stopped just outside the door and gazed up and down River Street. At the Mandroga rushing by below, a flock of chickens searching through the brush at its edge, the people making their way home after a day’s work. Smelled the rich scents of dinner, saw the first lights being lit within windows, a youth walking down the street with a live brand in hand, pausing to light the spear torches that were stabbed every dozen yards into the loam along the road.

  Thought of Katharzina. Of whom she worked for. Of the danger that hung over this small village, the threat of complete destruction, whether at Aleksandr’s hands or Annaro’s. Felt that threat like a guillotine blade that was held aloft by the merest of threads.

  And something within him solidified. Where he’d felt a desire to push Morwyn to breaking, he now felt a resolve to protect this place. To extend his hand and shelter it from doom. To pit himself against the fates and exert his will upon this town and its people.

  Witho
ut him, Erro didn’t stand a chance.

  “Smile down on me, Fortuna,” he said, voice quiet as he raised his gaze to the darkening sky and sought out her moon. “This sorry bastard of yours is going to need all the favor you can spare.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The imperial estate stood empty as if abandoned by his companions, each seeming to have fled in a disparate direction following their encounters with him that day. Hugh took to the kitchen and there sat in a state of ever deepening dissatisfaction, working his way through a crate of wine and only rising to piss behind the building into a bush of mountain laurel. The darkness grew complete, and the night outside the open windows textured by the sound of the Mandroga flowing past and the haunting cries from the forest behind the estate. Hugh thought continuously of lighting a candle, but never found the energy to do so.

  At last the front door opened, its hinges protesting violently, and Elena entered the building. Hesitated upon the threshold, saw him sitting in the gloom of the kitchen corner, and strode to the dining table with unerring confidence to light the candle he’d been eyeing.

  Its golden glow caused her blonde hair to smolder, highlighted the ridges of the scars that defaced her, and revealed the stern, disapproving stare with which she regarded him.

  “Your cheeks,” said Hugh. “If you can pick what you look like, why the scars?”

  Elena reached up to touch them, trace their ragged contours. “When I was young I adopted simple, beautiful appearances. But they provoked an endless stream of boorish attention from men of all ages and social classes. To many human males, beauty in a woman is an invitation to transgress. I learned that by adding complexity to my appearance - a missing eye, burns, or scars - I could check the constant assault of thoughtless attention, filter out that which bored me.”

  Hugh mulled this over, swirling his wine within his cup. “You could have made yourself ugly.”

  “And have. But the experience didn’t suit me. If beauty invites assault, then ugliness is seen by men as an assault. As if those born less than fair should apologize for imposing themselves on the world.”

  “You seem to be very focused on what men think.”

  “Because I like men,” said Elena, hopping up onto the edge of the table. “I like falling in love and being loved by men.”

  “Oh? I thought you were sweet on Anastasia.”

  “And I am.” Elena’s voice deepened, took on dark overtones of amusement. “Very much so. But human society is governed by males. Human women must react to how your patriarchal society treats them. Thus, it suits me to interface with your society on my terms, and in the manner that results in my being treated as I prefer. Do you know, the only time I became completely invisible - invoking neither disgust nor embarrassment, curiosity or lust - was when I assumed the guise of an eighty-year-old woman? I’ve never felt so free in human society. For two years I could do as I pleased. For some reason, elderly women are excused of all expectations. But I grew bored. So here I am. Scarred and alluring, demure and servile, watching and approached only by those whose inner sophistication has made them curious about the more interesting things in life.”

  Hugh tried to sort through her words. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this. Why bother? Why not stay in the woods with your other lisica?”

  A look of fleeting sadness passed over Elena’s features. “Yes. Well. My kind has always been drawn to your society. We enjoy being amongst you humans. Your passions and vagaries. Your petty cruelties and awe-inspiring ambitions. You’re capable of miracles and sordid miseries. At first glance, and from a distance, you all appear the same: wanting nothing more than sex and power, children and comfort. But scratch the surface and every one of you is startlingly different. Unlike my own kind. All lisica are much the same. For example, in all my years, I’ve never met a man such as yourself, Hugh of Stasiek, and once you are gone and dead and dust, I doubt I ever shall again.”

  “That’s cheering,” said Hugh.

  “Being amongst humanity is like dancing amongst a banquet of flames. Like sipping from a million bottles of wine, finding each and every one distinct and different. It is hard to leave such vital variety and go back to my kind, which is never changing.”

  It was still hard to believe she was near two hundred years old. That she’d walked this world when his great, great, great grandfather had been born. “Don’t you grow sad, watching those you grow close to age and die?”

  “Yes.” Simply said.

  “But?”

  “Should one not cultivate roses knowing that they will soon die? Sadness is part of the savor. I cherish those I find worth cherishing all the more knowing they will soon fade and die.” She paused, gazing through him, into some distant memory of her own. Her voice took on a dreamy, distant tone. “One’s capacity to love is limited only by one’s tolerance for pain.”

  “Huh,” Hugh said, her words hitting him like a fist to the sternum. “I… I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it in that way.”

  “You might have, given enough time.” Elena’s smile grew fond and wistful and sad. “But you’ve only been a mature man for - what - fifteen years? Twenty?”

  “Some would debate my having matured at all,” muttered Hugh.

  “I know. I amongst them.” Her tone hardened slightly. “Hugh, you hurt Anastasia badly this afternoon. We spent time together in the forest. She confided in me what she felt both during and after speaking to you.”

  “What I did -”

  Elena cut him off with a raised hand. “I understand why. But you exercised no caution and precious little love.”

  “I don’t love her -”

  “Then that is your failing. Anastasia is eminently worthy of love, as are all good-hearted people. You attacked the walls of her sense of self with a sledgehammer. Yes, you broke through. But you did it in a manner most violent. It took hours for me to bring her down from the emotional ledge out onto which she’d stepped. A sense of righteousness does not make everything permissible.”

  “She was going to send a report to Annaro,” said Hugh, leaning forward, face flushing. “I didn’t have time to pussyfoot around.”

  “She was willing to listen to you. That meant you could have taken your time in speaking with her. You could have found a kinder, more delicate way to connect with her, help her understand herself. Instead, you attacked her. It was very masculine of you. Domination. Forcing her to understand herself. And no doubt it felt good. You achieved your goal and made her accept aspects of herself she was hitherto unwilling to do. And yet. You should have seen how she cried on my shoulder, Hugh, as she apologized over and over to me.”

  Hugh felt his face grow cold. “What was she apologizing for?”

  “She didn’t know, poor thing. But she mourned. Perhaps it was for the death of her own self. Perhaps it was for her loss of innocence, or finally stepping over the boundaries that had circumscribed her existence all her life. Regardless. It took all my skill and tenderness to help her through it. She’ll not come back here tonight. She can’t face you. She’ll sleep at Branka’s and see how she is feeling in the morning.”

  Hugh’s face burned now, and he stared fixedly at the ground. “Hurting her was never my intention.”

  “But it was an acceptable casualty if it meant achieving your goal, yes?”

  Hugh thought of Anastasia, pressed back against the wall, eyes wild. How he’d sensed her weakness, the flaw in her argument, her reasoning, and gone for it like a hound after a wounded deer. “Yes,” he said, voice quiet.

  “I am a lisica, Hugh. My kind thrives on harmonious and positive relationships. Relationships that are charged with love and respect and passion and excitement. Humans, as it turns out, do the same. But your kind is so complicated, overwrought, and twisted by your own society, weaknesses, and doubts, that you often do the opposite to each other. Hurt each other, abuse each other, and then claim it was necessary for any number of spurious reasons. It isn’t. You can always choose kindn
ess and compassion. And when you do, you will find that you will be repaid in full many times over.”

  “All right, all right, I understand.” Angrily, Hugh drank the last of his wine. Cast around for the bottle. “I’ll be more careful moving forward.”

  “Good.” Elena slipped off the table, moved into the kitchen, and drew the wine bottle out of the shadows. “Here. Where’s Morwyn?”

  Fuck.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s past dusk. You don’t know? Is she in town?”

  “Somehow, I doubt it.” Fuck. How am I going to explain…?

  “Hugh?” Elena stepped back and dropped into an easy crouch before him. “What happened?”

  He stared stonily at her. “Aleksandr sent an emissary. A witch called Katharzina. I spoke with her while you and Anastasia were off in the woods. She’s negotiating the terms of my bribery. Morwyn came in toward the end of the meeting. When Katharzina left, we…”

  He trailed off. How had things progressed to such dark and fraught proceedings?

  “We…?” prompted Elena.

  “I don’t remember, exactly.” Katharzina’s scent came back to him, weirdly enough. Hugh fought to focus. “But I called her on the fact that she’d still not revealed her secret to me. That whole thing about the Hanged God. Had seduced me on the bridge last night so as to not get into it. And I made her an offer.” Hugh didn’t want to say the words. Couldn’t meet the lisica’s eyes. But nor would he shy away from the truth. “If she let me fuck her in Branka’s pantry, I’d not press her again.”

  Elena simply stared at him, then rose and backed away till her ass hit the far counter. “You what?”

  “And she went for it. I followed her into the pantry, and there… well. I guess you’d say I dominated her. And realized… realized that she liked to be dominated. To be hurt. She was getting off on it. So I pushed her, told her to admit she felt worthless. Wanted to be hurt and degraded. And then demanded that she tell me why.”

  His words hung in the air between them.

  “Oh Hugh,” said Elena softly.