by Lena Austin
Le-An yanked off Brolly’s robe, for he still insisted on dressing like the other brothers. “You look like a female in this ridiculous thing.”
Brolly busied himself unbuckling Le-An’s sword belt. “You’re the female, lover.” He looked up from untying the string that held Le-An’s pants up. “That reminds me. When we get back home, am I going to worry about wolf-squirrel crosses? Leanina definitely has your speedy reaction time, though she’s full Vampire.”
Removing his shirt to become as naked as Brolly, Le-An’s voice was muffled. “Leanina is the only offspring I’ve ever produced, and she I fathered in this form. I’ve never given birth as a female. I guess the magic changed that too.”
They attacked one another with enthusiasm. Le-An ended up on his back, with Brolly atop him, the joined cots squeaking to bear their combined weight.
Brolly squirmed around like an eel to take Le-An’s cock in his mouth, and Le-An happily grabbed Brolly’s for a similar feast. The sounds of slurping and moans competed with the birds singing in the tree outside.
Brolly had Le-An’s cock firmly down his throat when the door opened, and a roar sounded. “Abomination!”
Brother Jacques leaned against the jamb, his face mirroring his horror. Just outside the door, Brother Andrew stared at the floor.
Brolly and Le-An separated themselves hastily. Le-An muttered in their own language, “Aw, harpy droppings. We’ve fallen in the midden now.”
Brother Jacques tottered further inside, and Brother Andrew followed, closing the door softly behind him without lifting his gaze from the flagstones.
Shaking with rage, Brother Jacques could barely maintain control of his Latin. Le-An understood him perfectly even when he lapsed into a spitting, gutter French. “You are abominations in the sight of God!”
Le-An listened as he recited something in Latin that sounded like rules. “This isn’t good. This really isn’t good at all.”
“Now I understand how you wrought all these miracles upon our sick. It is witchcraft! You speak the tongues of demons! I am the Abbot here and I will see to your torture myself! I will perform my penance for being fooled after your ashes are scattered to the winds!” Brother Jacques began to name horrific punishments, including threats to make them name their fellow witches.
Brolly stood with his head cocked to one side. “I can’t really understand you, Brother Jacques. Please calm down. What are a witch and a demon?”
His innocent question aroused Jacques’ ire to new levels. He sputtered and spat without making sense, foaming at the mouth.
Le-An sighed. In the tongue of the Valley, he muttered to Brolly, “Shut up for a moment. He’s threatening to kill us. I’ve been burnt as a witch before, and you don’t want to know.”
Le-An strode forward and punched Jacques in the jaw. The raging man went silent and fell to the floor at Brother Andrew’s feet.
Only then did Brother Andrew look up. He threw up his hands in defense. “I wish you no harm.” He looked down at Jacques. “I’m sorry he found out. I tried to stop him, but he insisted that he would show Brolly he could walk so he could return to his duties.”
Brolly stepped forward and put on his robe. Le-An followed his wise example while keeping a wary eye on Brother Andrew.
“Why aren’t you angry with us too, Brother Andrew?” Le-An asked quietly.
Brother Andrew smiled as sweetly as ever. “I may have taken a vow of celibacy, but I too am a lover of men. Half the brothers here are the same as I, even if we have chosen a life of deprivation rather than give in to the temptation.” He shrugged. “I won’t say it is an easy life, but I am an orphan who found peace here.”
Turning to Brolly, Le-An attempted to explain in as few words as possible. “Choice has been removed from you. Jacques is a man of great power. He will hunt us down like prey unless we return home.” Le-An buckled on his sword belt.
Brolly snatched his pack from under his cot and stuffed a few things in it.
Brother Andrew stepped forward. “Le-An, you must hit me too. I must be found unconscious beside the Father Abbot, or they will suspect I helped you and burn me.”
Le-An nodded reluctantly. “I’m going to miss you, Andrew.” He clasped Andrew’s shoulder reluctantly in farewell and let Brolly slip past him. “Do me a favor, will you? My horse is stabled at the Black Ewe. Will you take him as my gift? He can’t carry both Brolly and I, and we dare not take the time to go fetch him.”
Andrew nodded, and stepped back a pace. He stuck out his jaw in invitation, and closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry about this.” Le-An drew a deep breath, and hit him squarely. Andrew sank down like a felled log in the forest, falling neatly beside Jacques in a heap.
Grabbing Brolly by the arm, Le-An tugged Brolly away. “Come on, lover.” It would be a relief to give up this human life, this ridiculous language, and return to the Valley. “I’ll explain to you why all this has happened while we put as much distance between this place and our unburned bodies as possible.”
“You hit him. He was our friend and you hit him.” Brolly’s golden brown eyes welled up with tears. “They adopted me and you hit them.”
“They just unadopted you for the crime of loving a man, Brolly. Come on. Let’s walk casually out the gate and into the forest. We’ve a long walk home.” Le-An ushered the reluctant Brolly down the stairs and out the abbey doors.
They made it to the edge of the forest before Le-An began to sneeze. Brolly dropped his pack instantly. He put his hand on Le-An’s brow. “You’ve got the sickness, Le-An.”
“Nonsense. I feel fine.”
Brolly tried to turn around. “I’ll go get the bread and wine. Won’t be but a few minutes.”
Le-An grabbed his arm. “We don’t have a few minutes.” To punctuate his words, they heard a shout from the abbey. Le-An dragged Brolly into the shadows, and sneezed again. “If I am sick, we have but one hope. You have to get us home, Brolly.”
He turned and picked up his pack. “I don’t care what happens to me, but if I die of the plague, they’ll burn you, and that I care about very much. Come on. I’ve got to get you home to safety.”
Brolly stared at his back and began to follow. “But I care about what happens to you.”
“Then get moving, lover. Because we just became each others’ best hope for getting home alive.”
Chapter Eight
The snow fell in heavy, fat flakes the size of the coins that remained in Le-An’s belt pouch. Brolly pulled the small, two-wheeled cart along the road, no longer able to see the mountains that had led him toward home for the past two days.
He knew he was close, but the snow had changed the landscape to the point where he wasn’t sure of anything. He’d traded some of the shiny coins for a cart when Le-An collapsed, too fevered to go on, just outside a town that had once been burned to the ground.
Brolly pulled the cart over to the side of the road, sheltering them in a stand of boulders and trees. Le-An lay in the cart, having thrown aside his blankets once more in the midst of his fevered dreams. He looked up from his nest of packs, blankets, and a few leftover supplies. His eyes held a hint of consciousness. His face was spattered with the black pustules that gave this illness the name of Black Death.
Caressing the sweat-soaked hair of his lover, Brolly checked Le-An’s fever and willed himself not to shiver visibly where Le-An could see and worry. “Hello, my love. Do you know who I am?”
Le-An nodded. “Brolly. Mate.” He coughed violently, and spat blood into the rag Brolly had given him.
The wind was not so fierce among the rocks. “I’m lost, Le-An. Nothing looks familiar here in the snow. We passed a town a few hours ago. It looked familiar, so I think we’re close.” He leaned up against the icy side of a large boulder.
Le-An nodded, and his eyes glazed for a few moments. Then he seemed to regain awareness once more. “Close. Tingle.” Then his eyes rolled back into his head and closed.
“Aw, thunder. Do
n’t pass out on me now,” Brolly begged. It was too late. Le-An was gone again. Sobbing with cold and worry, Brolly covered Le-An back up and tucked the blankets firmly around his mate.
There seemed to be no choice but to stop for a few hours. Long enough to perhaps make a small fire and get as warm as he could. He trudged out of the sheltering rocks and found a few bits of deadfall sticking out from the snow.
Coming back with his arms loaded, Brolly tried not to despair. He was shivering uncontrollably in the robes Brother Andrew had given him. Once they had been too warm and scratchy. Now they seemed as thin as the gauzy fabrics his sisters had worn on hot days. At least he had his own clothes underneath them now, and his boots were warmer than the open sandals he’d worn in the abbey.
His hands couldn’t feel anything, and hadn’t for many hours now. They were so cold they’d turned purple, then white as the snow around them. His feet were only marginally better, encased as they were in the boots.
Scraping the snow away from the center of their meager shelter, Brolly laid the sticks in the pattern Le-An had taught him, and got out the precious fire-starting stone and knife. It was hard work to get the fire going, but soon he had a tiny, flickering blaze. Squatting next to it, he managed to feed it until it provided painful warmth to his aching hands and face.
Using the tiny pot from Le-An’s pack, he melted a bit of the snow, and into this Brolly sprinkled the last of his dried feverfew and peppermint. “I’ve got to find you better, Le-An. Better shelter, better medicines. Home. I’ve got to get you home.”
From the cart came the sounds of Le-An stirring. “Follow your nose.”
Brolly rushed to feed Le-An the tea while he was still awake enough to drink. Le-An sipped weakly and coughed most of it back up almost immediately. He wasn’t truly conscious, and all attempts to get him to speak further failed.
Turning to put the mug away, Brolly gazed at the ice-glazed boulders, his hope beginning to fade. The fevered words made no sense. “Follow my nose, indeed. I…”
The boulders looked familiar. He stuffed the mug away in the pack and walked around. One of the outcroppings nearest the road had an almost flat top. “I know this place.”
He ran to the back of the shelter. He saw a stand of evergreens on a slope, and fought his way to them. From the top of the small hill, he saw the lights and smoke of the village they’d passed hours before.
The snow obligingly slowed for a few precious moments. Brolly turned his eyes east. There, in the distance, the forest wavered for a moment, and blurred. Home. He knew it, as surely as he knew his name. He whooped. “That blurry place is the veil of the Valley! I’m positive of it.”
He thriftily put out his fire, and dumped the rest of the tea into the snow. There was no time for a warming cup now.
Le-An moaned and threw off the blanket, coughing violently. His breath rasped in his throat and rattled, even as Brolly threw the pot into the corner to cool and covered it with a pack so Le-An wouldn’t burn himself if he took to thrashing about as some did in their fevered dreams.
“Give me an hour or two, Le-An. We’ll have you home.” Brolly made the vow and yanked the cart around to begin the long, difficult journey through the forest without benefit of a road.
His violent shivering didn’t matter anymore. They were close. A thought struck him like a club. “Close. You said close. You can feel it, can’t you?” It didn’t matter that Le-An couldn’t understand him now.
He had no breath left to waste. They were climbing a hill, and it took every ounce of his strength to hang on to the cart and pull. He stopped and tore the hem of his robe to make straps. Then he tied himself to the cart, using his teeth to make the last knot tight on his cold-weakened hands. They wouldn’t hold the handles anymore, so he forced them.
Finally, they reached the top of the hill. Rocky ground lay between them and what had to be the Valley entrance.
Brolly fell to his knees, forced to rest. Outstretched and bound to the handles of the cart, his arms screamed with pain and fatigue.
“Tingle. You said tingle. Does that mean you can feel the Valley? Does it tingle on your skin, like ants crawling? Is that it? Gods above and below, I wish I could sense it.”
Sense? Sense as in smell? Could it be that he was close enough to change to wolf and smell out the Valley? “Could that be what you meant, Le-An, when you said to follow my nose? Gods, why can’t you be aware? Why must the illness take you so completely now?”
Brolly wept in desperation, and fought his own knots. The left knot he could not budge, it was so iced over and tight. His right hand wouldn’t work. The white fingers refused to move, and were swollen. He tore the cloth with his teeth to free his hands. The right wrist slipped free, and his arm fell by his side, useless.
Laughter sounded. Harsh, cruel, familiar laughter. His father, the Pack Leader, stood in front of him. “You little weakling.” He strode forward as if he would cuff Brolly. His son fought madly at the strap binding his other hand. “You’ll never amount to anything. I should kill you now.”
The growl from Brolly’s throat surprised even him. “I am something, Father. I’m alive and you’re dead. You can’t harm me.” He glanced back at the cart, where Le-An lay unnaturally still and pale. “I have someone to live for, and a dream worth having. Go away.”
“You’re still a cowardly little ball of nothing.” The taunt from his insane father echoed in his ears even as Brolly shifted to wolf and tore at the bindings holding his left paw down. “You won’t take up the duties I left for you. You went in search of your worthless brother rather than take responsibility for the Pack.”
The sturdy fabric ripped, and Brolly was free. He turned, snarling, to face his father. In mindspeech, he growled, “I have a responsibility that is greater, Father. I am responsible for the health of the whole Valley, not one race! I will not let one being die.” He lunged, intending to kill his Father forever.
The image disappeared. “Oh, really? You’re letting one die now, while you fight me.” The parting words echoed as Brolly’s teeth closed on empty air, and he tumbled down the hill.
He couldn’t stop the yip that left his mouth when his hip struck a large rock hidden in the snow. When he stood, his left back leg screamed in pain. But his nose told him a different story.
Flowers! I smell flowers. And grass. He turned, sniffing, until he had the direction. A large patch of rocks, yet unburied by snow, marked the spot. He limped painfully back up the hill to Le-An’s cart.
Le-An lay still and silent save for the rattling of his breath. Brolly recognized that horrible sound. Minutes. He had bare minutes to push Le-An through the veil to Valley.
He shifted back to human and pushed the cart the last painful distance to the top of the hill, and down the slope to the bare patch of rocks. His left leg screamed in pain, and refused to bear his weight.
“Thunder. What a time to break a leg. Was it a hallucination, or am I going as mad as my father?” He panted, and sat down heavily on the rocks.
How long he sat in a stupor of pain, he couldn’t say. The snow no longer fell so heavily, and he blessed any last favor the gods would grant. Even the wind had died.
Silence. Not even the sound of Le-An’s rattling breath. Brolly scrambled to stand on his right leg. Was he too late? He tenderly felt Le-An’s chest. It moved beneath his cold-numbed hand. Brolly wept unashamedly.
He brushed Le-An’s hair out of his face. The pustules looked better. They were still ugly, and some bled, but still they seemed less angry. “Could it be the Valley heals you, even a little, here so close? Could I be so lucky that I’ve been spared a few moments to say goodbye?”
He kissed the lips he’d known so long. The lips that had kissed his small cub’s injuries away, and loved him so tenderly as a full-grown jack.
The good right leg refused to bear anymore. It collapsed, sending Brolly sprawling. His flailing arms and body connected with the cart. It rolled a few more feet, and disappeared from vie
w.
Brolly hit the snow face first. He felt his forehead connect with something hard, and winced in pain. Then he knew no more.
“Well, son, you certainly know how to go out with a bang, don’t you?”
Brolly stirred feebly. The snow felt like a warm, soft blanket. “Shut up, Father. Don’t you have the sense to stay dead? Or is that part of being insane? I wonder if I’m about to find out.”
“No, you incompetent twit. Look at me.”
Brolly forced his face out of the snow, and blinked until his eyes cleared. “Can’t you just let me sleep? I’m so tired.”
His father stood a few feet away, the trees clearly visible through his body. Green grass and an odd weed seemed to be there with him.
“How can grass and weeds be here in the snow?” Brolly mused on that phenomenon.
“Don’t you recognize the weed, stupid? Ach, you aren’t worth bothering with.” The image of his father threw up his hands and winked out.
“Good riddance.” Brolly sighed with relief. Now he could sleep. He shut his eyes.
“Brolly.”
“Damn. Can’t a fellow get some rest around here?” Brolly peered through his blanket of snow.
Le-An. It was Le-An. Only the trees were visible through him too. “What do you love, Brolly? What do you love most?”
“You. Healing. Making things better.”
“You can still do that, you know. Make things better. I’m waiting, Brolly. But you have to want it. I can’t make you come forward just a few feet more. You have to do that yourself. Won’t you crawl just a few more feet and follow? Come to where I am.”
Brolly sighed. “Then can I sleep?”
Le-An’s image wavered, his smile enticing. “Yes, all you want. I’m waiting. Come make things better for me. Don’t you want to?”
“Yes.” Brolly felt his arms move. He forced his one good leg to push against a rock. At least, he thought it was a rock. None of his extremities seemed to have feeling. He slid a bit forward.
