The Soldier's Lotus

by Adonis Devereux

  “When can you leave, Captain?” The Vadal general continued to study the battle-map in front of him, placing the models of his various cohorts of soldiers around the city.

  “I will leave when the sun sets,” said Darien. His hand was still resting heavily on her shoulder, and he pressed her ever-so-slightly. “I will skirt the city, and if I travel swiftly, I can be at the sea by dawn. It might take a few days, so I will require provisions.”

  “What might take a few days?” General Lomenin fixed his grey eyes on Darien.

  “If my old ship – and the others as well – are not sailing for Ulen Ahnok, then they are likely harboring in coves a bit north of here. I know the places; I know where I would have taken my ship in such a situation, and I will go there.”

  “So we will besiege Arinport, but we will not make any assault unless and until we hear from you, Captain.” The general rose and bowed formally to Darien. “Would you mind leaving the Lotus here? She cannot be required in your preparations for departure, and I would like to learn something more of the city. I have not been so far into Sunjaa lands before.”

  Saerileth kept her eyes modestly lowered. She did not want to draw any further attention from the general, but she waited to hear Darien’s response.

  “You may speak with her tomorrow, General.” Darien laughed. “But she is necessary for my preparations, so you will have no time with her today.”

  Kamen, Saerileth noticed, bowed stiffly, and his frustration still danced on his tongue. He did not, however, speak at first. Instead, he followed Darien and Saerileth back to their tent. He did not wait for any invitation and stepped in after them so quickly that he trod on Saerileth’s heel.

  “Captain, you’re being foolish!”

  To Saerileth’s delight, Darien ignored Kamen, instead taking her into his arms and crushing her against him. His mouth sought hers, hungrily devouring her lips.

  “Darien!” Kamen laid his hand on Darien’s shoulder, but before Saerileth could push away the offending hand, Darien himself shook free.

  “What, Kamen?” Darien still kept Saerileth encircled in his arms.

  “Why are you ordering me to stay behind?”

  Saerileth saw the slight discomfort in Darien’s eyes, and she knew he did not want to have to admit to the truth to Kamen, to admit that he knew of Kamen’s affection for him.

  “No, Lord Itenu, it is you who are being foolish.” Saerileth spoke before Darien had to. “We fly the Sunjaa banner, true, but it is an army of Vadal that sits outside Arinport. Would you truly have both the only Sunjaa present leave?”

  “But you—”

  “I can represent my Master,” said Saerileth, not allowing Kamen to continue. “But I am Zenji; I cannot represent the Sunjaa.”

  “She’s right.” Darien’s phallus pressing against her belly showed her how proud he was of her. “You can’t come with me, and, you must admit, I was the captain. They’d follow me before they would you.”

  “I didn’t think that I should go instead of you, Captain.” Kamen’s raw voice told Saerileth much. She caught his gaze, and he held hers. The glitter in his eyes was equal parts desire and pain, and she pitied him.

  “Then leave us.” Darien did not even look at Kamen, instead giving all his attention to the hollow of Saerileth’s throat. “I must bid farewell to my Lotus.”

  Kamen nodded, but Saerileth knew Darien did not see the gesture. “Will I see you before you go?”

  “No. Farewell, Kamen.” Darien bent his head to Saerileth’s then, and even she did not see Kamen’s departure.

  “My Saeri.” Darien dropped kisses on her throat, deep, bruising kisses, and Saerileth ran her fingers over the scars on his back. She dropped her hands to his short Sunjaa skirt, and without being able to see it, still she unfastened it by touch alone.

  Darien laughed. “You were afraid I was going to take Kamen with me, weren’t you?”

  “I knew it was unwise – what I told him was true – but I feared it.” Saerileth gasped as Darien’s mouth dropped to her breasts. He took her nipple into his mouth, and the sensation of his teeth biting through her dress and into her flesh sent the cream dripping down her thighs.

  Darien threw her back onto the pallet they had shared on their way out, and he stood, naked, over her. The sight of his unclothed glory dazzled Saerileth, and she stared up at him, dumbstruck.

  He seemed to share something of her emotions, for he dropped to his knees beside her and gathered her into his arms.

  “Abrexa’s chain, Saerileth! What have I done?”

  “What are you talking about?” Saerileth was perplexed.

  “It just occurred to me, seeing you lie there in your strange Vadal gown on the floor of an army tent – I shouldn’t have even brought you back from the Vadal court! You – you’re a Lotus! You’re fine and delicate and deserve to be cherished—”

  “Master,” said Saerileth, twining her arm around his neck. “I am a mere concubine, and I am well served by an army tent.”

  “Saeri.” Darien traced the curve of her cheek. “You know what I mean.”

  “I know that if you had left me behind, I would have followed the army.” Saerileth clung to him. “I wish you could take me with you!”

  “I thought of it,” said Darien. “But I can’t risk it. I can’t risk you. I’m trying to convince the very men who nearly gang-raped you—” His voice failed. “I’m not their captain anymore, and I don’t want you anywhere near them!”

  Saerileth kissed his lips, and their sweetness nearly made her drunk. “I know, and I will be waiting for you to return.”

  Darien did not speak; he acted. He tore her gown from her in one swift motion, leaving her open and exposed to his eyes. He pushed her back down onto the pallet, spreading her legs apart with his knee. Then he grasped her thighs and impaled her with his massive cock.

  Saerileth felt him stretching her open, the very pain a pleasure, and she clung to him as he shoved into her repeatedly. His hands wandered from her thighs up to her hips, and he – somehow, Saerileth did not know precisely how – he was on his knees, and she was on her back, only her shoulders touching the pallet. His rhythm shattered her, and she screamed his name. She focused on the water-serpent on his breast, and it seemed to be both the thick phallus that split her apart and also the sea-master who owned her heart. She felt pressure on her throat, and she knew that one of his hands was closed around it. She closed her eyes, giving in to the pleasure that only Darien could give.

  “Saeri, look at me.” The grunted command caused her eyes to flutter open. “Now come for me.”

  Saerileth felt the pressure on her throat increase, and a particularly deep thrust broke her apart again. She sobbed incoherently as their passion swept her away. She arched her back and came, squirting her juices all over Darien’s pelvis.

  “Good girl.” Darien rewarded her with thick streams of his seed, spraying hotly into her womb.

  ****

  “I have a gift for you, Darien.” Saerileth had resumed wearing her Zenji pallav, and Darien was dressed in the light armor of a Sunjaa soldier. They were still in their tent, but the sun was low on the horizon. Their time grew short.

  “What?” Darien pulled her close.

  “This.” She took from a fold of her pallav a thick, black bracelet capped with gold clasps. “I once told you that Lotuses gave away locks of their hair as favors, and I wanted you to have this when you left me.”

  Darien turned the bracelet over in his hands. “Your hair, Saeri? Thank you.” He held out his wrist for her to close the bracelet around. “Where did you get the clasps?”

  “In the Vadal court.” For a long moment, they were silent, and Darien kept her crushed against his chest. She could tell the impression her gift had made by the unevenness of his breath.

  “Saerileth, you must promise me something.”

  “I will promise you anything, my love.” Saerileth stirred in his arms.

  “Stop taking your herbs.
When I get back, I want to make a baby with you.”

  “I will not take them again.” Saerileth did not speak her fear, but Darien tilted her face up to his, seeming to sense her need.

  “I will come back for you, Saeri.”

  She could not look at him; she dropped her gaze.

  “And if I don’t—”

  “Don’t say that!” Saerileth interrupted him.

  “If I don’t, then you must promise me to make sure to achieve your vengeance.”

  Saerileth stared.

  “I saw you at my house as it burned. I saw you.”

  “I was going after you.” Saerileth leaned her cheek against his chest.

  “You have to achieve your vengeance, Saerileth. Even if you have to do it alone.” Darien looked away in his turn, and Saerileth saw that there was more he wished to say.

  “Why won’t you speak?” She kissed his chest. “After everything – what can you hesitate to say?”

  “I can hesitate to be selfish,” said Darien. “For I have insisted you be true to yourself, to your clan, knowing that that would mean you living and loving again, and yet I find that I want to be sure that it isn’t—”

  “I cannot love again, Darien.” Saerileth laughed, a sound more bitter than sweet. “You’ve ruined me for any other man, and I wouldn’t want another. And I shan’t love Kamen. That is a promise.”

  Darien kissed her then, his lips on hers the sweetest fire she had ever known.

  And then he was gone.

  ****

  The moonslight was more red than blue, and as Saerileth sat in the general’s tent looking at the battle-map, she thought it was a bad omen that the whole map looked to be bathed in blood.

  “So, Lord Itenu,” said General Lomenin. “Why have you asked to see us at this hour?”

  Saerileth glanced at Kamen. So he had asked for her presence, too? She hoped that his desire for her had not become something more.

  “Why haven’t we been met by the army yet?” asked Kamen. “We have come into the heart of our own nation – through the desert, true – but so far to have met no opposition?”

  “We march under the banner of the Sunjaa king.” The general gestured vaguely in the direction of the tent-flap. “Surely that is why?”

  “No, it isn’t.” Kamen paced, and Saerileth saw the resemblance to Darien in the way he responded to stress. She supposed that Kamen might have picked up the habit from his captain. “You are obviously Vadal, and if the Sunjaa army were so idiotic as to fall for such a simple ruse, you would not have lost the war.”

  “It is not a ruse!” General Lomenin half rose from his chair.

  “Of course not.” Saerileth spoke then, easing the tension she felt rising between the two men. General Lomenin was, like Kamen, a nobleman, and they brought out the irritable pride in each other. “But the young king’s existence is not widely known. The banner would have been assumed to be a half-hearted attempt at deception.”

  “So what then?” The general, obviously mollified, sat back down.

  “It is doubtful that Ulen Ahnok,” Saerileth refused to give him his title of “Lord”, “has so much support as he would like.”

  “We have already established that he does not have the navy.” Kamen nodded his agreement, and Saerileth felt a chill of discomfort at his courtesy.

  “He does have at least some support, for there were many who were not entirely pleased with His Grace’s taking of the Princess Royal for his concubine.” Saerileth paused, calculating. “But displeasure and rebellion are different. He has, I am sure, the support of the infantry at least so long as they are near him. He knows, though I am sure not all his men do, that the young king lives. He cannot risk sending out troops into the desert. He might lose them.”

  “Not to death but to us.” Kamen clearly understood what she meant. “So he keeps them with him.”

  “Until we arrive, and then he can call us aggressors. He can cement his hold on the city by uniting them against ‘the Vadal invasion’.” General Lomenin seemed impressed by Saerileth’s acumen. “Do they train Lotuses in warcraft?”

  “Not in tactics, my lord.” Saerileth smiled. “But in reading motivations, yes.”

  “We need more information,” said Kamen.

  “Yes.” Saerileth caught his eye. “For the Zenji connection still has no explanation. How has Ulen Ahnok been able to get the Zenji to guard his harbor for him?”

  “I will go,” said Kamen. He turned to the general. “We will not be moving against the city before Captain Darien’s return, and I will be able to be back before then.”

  “You’re sure?” asked the general. “I wouldn’t want to be left alone without even a single Sunjaa to give countenance to my ‘invasion’.”

  “I will be back by tomorrow night.” Kamen bowed and left, and Saerileth, not liking the lascivious gleam in the general’s eye, followed immediately.

  Kamen was waiting for her outside the tent, and he dropped his voice, speaking in low, quick Sunjaa, ensuring secrecy, though they were in public view. “You’re not coming with me.”

  “I actually had thought to go instead of you,” said Saerileth mildly. “I can be stealthier than you could.” She saw the flash of darkness in his eyes. “But you are not going by stealth. You are going to approach Ulen Ahnok openly, as an ally.”

  “I am no traitor!” Kamen’s voice, though still low, was full of burning passion. “You can’t think that I am!”

  “I know you did not betray King Jahen or his father, and I know that you love my Master too much to betray him – knowingly.”

  “Abrexa’s chain! You’re a witch.” Kamen grabbed her wrist and held it.

  “Not a witch.” Saerileth almost wanted to roll her eyes. “Just a Lotus. You knew about my Master’s concubines being sent upriver. You assumed that I was among them. You told Ulen about it, hoping he would take me away. But he slaughtered them all, and I was not even there.”

  Kamen seemed to be choking. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think he’d kill them. Gods, I wouldn’t do that to Darien! He didn’t love those women, but—”

  “But he wanted to protect them.” Saerileth disengaged her wrist from Kamen’s clasp. “And you endangered them.”

  “I didn’t know.” Kamen’s misery moved Saerileth to pity, and some of her hate melted away. She knew that Darien loved her; Kamen would never be loved by Darien, not the way Kamen wanted. Was that not enough punishment?

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Saerileth. “You don’t have to prove anything to him.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Make sure you come back safely,” said Saerileth. “I don’t want to have to explain to my Master why his best friend was taken by the enemy.”

  “I promise I will be back. Ulen trusts me because he knows how much I hated you.”

  “Do you still?” asked Saerileth.

  “No.” He did not look at her as he walked away, and Saerileth was left alone in the midst of the Vadal host.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The crash of sea-waves was a welcome sound to Darien. He crouched atop the sheer cliff and peered out into the depthless night of the ocean. The overcast sky muted everything and cast the shore in deep shadow. If his old ship was out there, he would have to wait until dawn to see. Darien looked around at the tufts of rough and thirsty grass that grew out of the rocky soil. The coastline got more rain than the parched inland, but compared to places up north, even here the precipitation was scant. It was not as cold here as it was in the desert at night, so Darien did not bother to unpack his wool blanket, instead making do with a thin cloak. He lay back and stared up into the black sky, and he wished at that moment he could see the stars and the twin moons rising above the sea to make their customary journey. He would spend the night in peace and dream of Saerileth, she who was that brilliant moon risen over his horizon.

  Sleep claimed Darien with an alacrity that amazed him, for when he woke with a start, he found that the sky had
cleared, and the moons hung directly overhead. The soft glow of their blue and red commingled light was like dessert after a succulent main course. He had been dreaming of his Lotus. But his nocturnal bliss vanished almost as quickly as he shook the grogginess of sleep from his brain, for his soldier’s instincts alerted him to the reason why he had suddenly awoken. Voices carried on the wind, and Darien rolled over to look. A contingent of soldiers marched up the coast along the cliff’s edge. They would be upon Darien in moments.

  He counted over twenty men, all armed, most likely on patrol. If they caught him, they would press him into service, or they would kill him if they knew who he was or discovered what he was about. Darien considered standing and unfolding himself, appealing to these men to turn against the usurping dog Ulen and join his right and just cause. The soldiers drew nearer, and Darien laughed to himself. His optimism would get him killed, and though he would have loved nothing more than to cut down anyone who lowered himself to march under Ulen’s flag, he knew he could never have defeated so many single-handedly. So, Darien took the only course available to him: he jumped off the cliff.

  He knew the land. One time his ship had taken pirates here, and when the sea-rats fled, he, Kamen, and a few other sailors who had proven themselves in battle had taken a boat to shore in pursuit. They had chased the pirates across the beach and up the coast to this very cliff. There was no way up except to climb. The pirates had been cornered, and they had known it. They had no choice but to try to climb. Some had stood their ground and died. The pirate captain and his mates had climbed. Darien and Kamen had pursued, and once they reached the top, they had chased the thieves down and slaughtered them. The gold and jewels Darien took off the captain that day had bought him his country house. As he hung by his fingers on the jagged rock-face, he chuckled at the memory. And then he thought of Kamen. His smile disappeared.