by David Hair
‘It’s a shepherd’s hut,’ Elena said, shrugging off her pack. Sweat clung to her back and Kazim saw the bloodstains had run; they’d had no chance to wash after the battle at the monastery. ‘I set it up as an alternative bolt-hole two years ago. There’s some equipment buried nearby. The river fills for three months or so after monsoon, but there’s a cave further upstream with a pool. The shepherd only uses the hut at midsummer, so we’re safe until Junesse, should we need to stay that long.’
He put down his pack and looked around: no windows, but a recess in the wall for a cooking fire with a smoke outlet in the roof above. The floor was filthy with dried dung, dirt and dead insects. There was a blackened metal tripod holding a battered pot, a bucket, a wooden bowl and a couple of spoons on the hearth, and a wooden bed-frame. Nothing else.
‘I guess I’ll fit, but where will you be?’
Elena chuckled. ‘We’ll make it work. We’ve got a cot, a fireplace and a cooking pot, and I’ve got stores buried behind the hut. There’s water in the next cave, about a hundred yards upstream.’
It didn’t take them long to get set up. Elena drove a family of cobras from their lair behind the hut, killed them with mage-bolts and gutted them so they’d be ready to roast, while Kazim used Air-gnosis to scour the hut of loose debris. Then he took the bucket to find the water cave Elena had mentioned. He found jackals lurking there, but a quick blast of Fire-gnosis was all it took to drive them off. The cave wasn’t deep, more like a deep overhang, but it sloped inwards to a pool that looked to be fed by a slow drip from the walls. The level was not high enough now to reach the narrow race into the riverbed, but from the way the rock was worn, Kazim guessed it would overflow in the rainy season and almost fill the gully. He lowered his bucket into the water, which was pleasantly cool.
He took it back, and while Elena washed the floor he dug up the stores. He found rice, lentils, nuts and chickpeas wrapped in greased canvas bags, and cured meat and dried fruits too, as well as various spices. Exploring further, he found a good pile of dried dung cakes stored behind a narrow cleft which the shepherd evidently used as a pen for his flock.
Finally, Elena showed him her watch-point, a place above the pool-cave that offered views over all the possible approaches. The day was beginning to heat up and in the distance the land shimmered.
‘I’m going to go and wash,’ she announced, her voice still husky from an old throat wound. She complained that she hardly knew her own voice, but to Kazim it was just the way she sounded and he couldn’t imagine her sounding any other way. ‘I’ve been dreaming of just being clean again,’ she added.
Kazim understood just how soiled she must feel – and he knew she wasn’t just talking about blood and sweat. She’d not had the chance to wash since she’d been almost raped by Gatoz, the fanatical Hadishah captain. And they had not yet even talked about that.
‘Elena,’ he said awkwardly, ‘what Gatoz was going to do … you must believe me when I say there is nothing in the Kalistham that justifies that. He was wrong and evil – please do not judge all Amteh by one man.’
‘Kaz, I’ve met men like Gatoz before – most of them Kore-worshippers, actually. Not surprising, I guess, as I’ve lived most of my life in Yuros. No religion has the monopoly on evil or good.’ She shuddered a little. ‘I’ve survived worse. But thank you for arriving on time. What he was going to do … I’ll never forget how much I owe you.’
He bowed his head, a lump in his throat because he didn’t know how to have someone feel indebted to him. He owed her too, in ways he couldn’t express. So he changed the subject. ‘Can we both drink and bathe in the pool?’
She understood, and also let the subject go.
‘I’m a Water-mage: I’ll purify our water before drinking.’ She flashed him a wan smile. ‘Your turn after me.’
She returned almost an hour later, hair tied up and her damp clothes clinging to her. She smiled as he passed her and climbed to the cave. He too was relieved to finally remove the days of sweat, grime and blood from his skin. It was blissful, to enter the cool water and feel it soak into him. He floated on his back and closed his eyes, just as he used to do when bathing in the Imuna River at Baranasi, seeking peace amidst the clamour of ten thousand Lakh praying and washing and laundering all round him. He felt human again: his gnosis fully replenished after all the killing at the monastery, erasing the gnawing hunger he felt when it was low. He felt at peace … almost …
*
Elena brought the rice to the boil and added some of the cured meat and the last of their greens. Her time in Brochena and Forensa as Royal Protector to the Nesti family, when all her meals had been prepared for her and she had been waited on hand and foot, felt like another life. She glanced up to see Kazim walking back from the pool-cave, his wet clothing clinging to his damp skin, and her throat went dry.
For four months they’d been living and training together, trying to find a way through all the cultural and religious barriers that divided them: Yurosian and Ahmedhassan; skin colour; religion; Crusade and shihad; mage and Souldrinker; youth and age; man and woman … She could not imagine two more opposite people, and yet here they were. They’d argued, sulked, fought, laughed and cried. They’d found compromises when others might have come to real blows; they’d worked out what mattered to them both and what they could work round. They’d found a cause they could both believe in. They’d saved each other’s lives. But every day still brought new challenges.
Think of all the common ground, she reminded herself. I speak his tongue. And we’re both warriors. We understand the language of blades. We have a cause, to free Javon from the invaders. We have common enemies.
She admired his smooth, powerful gait. With the hunger of his condition currently abated, his aura was quiescent, almost normal; if you didn’t know what to look for you wouldn’t know he was a Souldrinker.
Damn Nasette and her rukking transformation.
He put his back against the hut and sat, facing her, his gaze direct and straightforward. It was one of the many traits she liked in him. Not to mention looking like an eastern demi-god and having an honest heart. He might be no courtier – he had neither sophistication nor a Western education – but he was smart. And too young for her, really …
But since when has any lover of mine been perfect?
Lover.
That was the crux of it. He wanted her, and she wanted him.
Damn Nasette to Hel.
‘What are we going to do?’ he asked.
It could have been a question about their next move, or their long-term goals, but it wasn’t.
‘Nasette was wounded when the two Dokken shifters captured her,’ she said. ‘That could have been the source of the infection, if it was an infection that made her change. Alternatively, one of them got her with child – if a human woman becomes pregnant to a high-blooded mage she can develop the gnosis, so it’s not unreasonable to think that being impregnated by a Dokken could have altered her gnostic abilities. It might have been a temporary thing, but she was put to death so we’ll never know.’ Poor cow. What kind of father butchers his own daughter? ‘Or there might have been some other factor at play. We just don’t know.’
He listened to her quietly, then pointed at the cot. ‘That’s too small for me. I can sleep outside.’ His voice had an adult maturity that showed the type of man he was becoming.
She shook her head, shuffled closer to him, threw a leg over his hip and straddled him. He went utterly still, as if afraid that if he reacted, she’d stop. She cradled his head and whispered, ‘Here’s what I think. The wound is a red herring—’ She stopped, then said with a snigger, ‘Pardon the pun.’
‘What has a red fish to do with anything?’ Tentatively, he put his arms about her. She felt her skin flush and her breath quicken.
‘Nothing. Forget the herring.’ She laughed nervously, feeling like a young woman again, the girl she had been before the Noros Revolt, before she’d met Gurvon Gyle. She had a
lmost forgotten that girl: earnest, determined, straightforward, all innocent single-mindedness. That girl was a lot like the young man in her arms. ‘I think the pregnancy caused Nasette to alter. So I think we just need to be careful.’
‘You are willing to risk it?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Because I want you too much not to.’
She kissed him as he opened his mouth to reply. He hesitated an instant, then responded, his mouth equally hungry for hers. Long minutes vanished as they clung to each other, tasting each other, nipping at lips, flicking with tongues, then his lips slipped to her neck and his hands slid inside her shift and up the silken skin of her back.
She murmured encouragement, all the while kneading his shoulders, feeling the strength in his solid muscles. Then it was too much and she raised her arms over her head and whispered in his ear, ‘Pull it off.’
He pulled her shift over her head, then put his mouth to her left nipple and began to suckle it, hard, drawing a moan from her lips as she held him there, arching against him.
Only once did the ugliness of Gatoz and his threats intrude, a brief flash that she pushed aside. Done was done, and there was no point in dwelling on it. If there was one thing her career in the shadows had taught her, it was how to forget. Life was always renewing itself: that was its lesson. She let the pure physical pleasure of his touch lick her soul clean, then murmured, ‘Let’s try out that cot anyway, shall we?’
*
Kazim undressed, and then she let him pull her leggings off. The afternoon sun was brilliant outside, but inside the tiny shepherd’s rick, there was shade enough to make it a haven. All he could see was Elena as she lowered herself onto her back and pulled him down onto her. Her hair shone palely as he stopped, poised above her, then he had to catch his breath as she grasped his shaft and pulled him towards her. She lifted her face to meet his and his mouth locked on hers. She tasted salty, as if she’d been drinking tears, and her lips moved as she sighed. His hand found her breast and he cupped it, his fingers stroking the nipple into a hard little nub while he pushed into her wetness, into her warmth. Memories of Ramita flashed momentarily before him, then they were swept away by the here and now as Elena gasped and made a sobbing sound as he thrust into her. Her hands gripped his buttocks as he found his rhythm, in-in-in, and the heat inside him rushed to his loins and suddenly all control was gone, borne away on the tumult that flooded through his lingam and into her yoni. A moan burst from his throat and he found himself sobbing tearlessly into the soft triangle of her neck.
When his breathing had come back to something like normal, he slid out of her and rolled back onto his side, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘I love you,’ he whispered, because that’s what the boys in Aruna Nagar said you were supposed to say, and right now, it was very possibly true.
She giggled, a girlish sound that made him quiver. ‘Thank you. I’m rather fond of you too. That was … mmm, passionate.’ In the soft light she could have been sixteen. Then her eyes narrowed and her rasping almost-cough voice sounded more its usual acerbic self. ‘However, it was also exceedingly brief.’ Her mouth twitched and she stroked his hair affectionately. ‘Young men … no control at all.’
‘Don’t I please you?’ he asked anxiously.
‘You please me very much. You have a face like a demi-god, and the body of a mythic hero. You rescued me from an awful fate and I adore you for all of these things.’ She rolled over to face him and propped herself up on one elbow. ‘However, one minute of lovemaking is not enough. But you’re young: there’s still time to knock you into shape.’ She smiled, reached out and grasped his softening member. ‘I’ve had to teach you war, magic and cooking. I will very much enjoy teaching you this as well.’
He cuffed her gently, growling. ‘I’ll show you how to—’
She smiled softly, putting a finger to his lips. ‘No, I’ll show you. Listen! I have some good news for you: we’re magi and that comes with some very nice side-benefits. Now, start by closing your eyes, and thinking of an incredibly desirable woman. Obviously I’d like to think it’s me,’ she added with a giggle. ‘Now, let those thoughts swirl about, then wrap them around your gnosis … got it?’
He concentrated and his imagination roaming over her body gave him all the stimulus he needed. He began to feel a warm, erotic glow.
‘That’s it,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘Now, send those naughty thoughts coursing into this fellow.’ She stroked his slick member with one fingernail, sending a shiver up his spine, and to his amazement it began to grow turgid again. ‘Mmm,’ she murmured, ‘that’s the way.’
He felt a painful throbbing as flesh that had only just convulsed in orgasm was forced to harden again, but that was almost immediately overwhelmed by a return of aching desire – then the full effect of the gnosis boost hit his groin and his lingam went so hard he gasped in shock.
She pushed him over onto his back. ‘Now,’ she purred, sitting astride him, ‘let’s try this again, shall we?’
*
Elena lay naked on the rock, baking in the sun. She felt perfect. Her body was as limber and lean as it had ever been, and even in winter the air was warm through the middle of the day. Her pale skin was slowly turning brown. Her limbs ached from training and her loins from lovemaking. The warm glow of amatory satiation suffused her with rare happiness. She felt utterly divorced from what might be happening in the world; only occasionally did her mind prickle with a lingering discontent that those who had wronged her were still prospering.
Yes, yes, we will move soon – we will bloody our swords. But I will enjoy this first.
She turned her head and gazed at Kazim, basking on the rock beside her. It was a month or more since they’d first made love and those early days had been intense, as if they had been making up for lost time. Her loins had taken a battering, but she’d been as insatiable as he was. They rukked the days and nights away: in the pool or beside it; on the cot or under the sky. She lay above him, beneath him, beside him, and whichever way she revelled in him, and in the power of their lovemaking. It even succeeded in banishing her lingering sense of loss for Lorenzo di Kestria, her previous lover; she would always wonder what might have been, but time had passed and Kazim was a young man and full to bursting with life. Even now she marvelled to see his muscular golden body lying beside her; she had to physically quell the urge to crawl onto him and start another bout – but it was darkmoon this week, her bleeding time.
Managing the risk of pregnancy might have made their sexual explorations a little tricky, but they’d managed to be inventive. During her fertile period they put their energies to other uses: scouting the area, flying at night, then moving on foot during the day, checking the road and marking the best ambush points. They slept rough under the starlit skies and used fingers and tongues to pleasure each other, and other tricks to ensure their bliss didn’t lead to conception. Such acts were ‘nefara’ under the Amteh code, but Kazim said he didn’t care. ‘Rape is the greatest act of nefara, and Gatoz had no qualms about that,’ he growled. ‘I don’t believe in that bok any more.’
This was a significant moment for him: a renunciation of the last vestiges of fanaticism. But then again, he’s a young man and preternaturally horny, Elena thought with a grin. I suspect he’d renounce anything for sex!
The following week took them into Janune and they spent the month watching troop movements in the Hytel area, identifying places they could lie low and preparing those sites with caches of food and equipment. She bled as the new moon rose, to her huge relief. She’d never wanted a child with Gurvon, and she certainly didn’t want one now, not to a Souldrinker, in spite of all she felt for him. Her theory appeared to be correct too: her gnostic abilities were unchanged, though sometimes she noticed his aura clinging to hers, and she had to forcibly sever those bindings, an odd and uncomfortable sensation. She started to worry that the intermingling of auras might be what turned a mage into a Dokken, but
weeks passed and she decided that it too was a false concern.
When her courses passed, they were at each other again like rabbits until fertility once again enforced caution and gave her battered purse a respite. Now, though, she felt ready to draw steel once again.
‘Kaz, Janune – Moharram – is almost gone,’ she whispered now. ‘It’s time we acted.’
He nodded, not opening his eyes. ‘I am ready.’
‘Are you? To kill men you’ve never met?’
‘They are invaders and infid—’ He grunted. ‘They are enemies.’ He rolled onto his side, which gave her a wonderful view of his magnificent physique. ‘You are the one who will be fighting your countrymen. How do you feel?’
‘They’re not my countrymen. Noromen don’t like Rondians either.’
‘Neighbours always make the worst enemies. It is like that everywhere.’
‘True enough.’ She sat up and drew her knees to her chest. ‘I just wish we could stay like this for ever.’
He sat up too and studied her face. ‘Because we two are at peace does not mean the world is.’
‘I know. Gurvon is out there, and Rutt and Mara too. They deserve death many times over.’ She shifted a little uneasily, then added, ‘Cera too.’ Oh Cera, I still don’t understand why you turned on me. ‘The Dorobon think they can turn my spiritual home into their own pig-trough. I’m not going to let them.’
‘You don’t need to persuade me. All my life I was raised on the evil of the Crusade,’ Kazim murmured. ‘My father was all but burned alive in it.’
‘As was my sister,’ Elena commented. ‘Strange coincidence.’
Kazim raised an eyebrow, but didn’t follow up the thought. ‘My point is, I must do my part, as any man must. I will not fight alongside the Hadishah, because they are corrupt. But I must still fight, and I will do that at your side. Because I love you.’
