by Rob Rosen
BEST
GAY EROTICA
OF THE YEAR
VOLUME TWO
BEST
GAY EROTICA
OF THE YEAR
VOLUME TWO
WARLORDS & WARRIORS
Edited by
Rob Rosen
Copyright © 2016 by Rob Rosen.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 101 Hudson Street, 37th Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302
Printed in the United States.
Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink
Cover photograph: Dreamstime
Text design: Frank Wiedemann
First Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-190-9
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-191-6
For Kenny,
my blue-eyed conquering hero
CONTENTS
Introduction
Athene Noctua
Dragon’s Son
To the Victor
Captives
The Orkney Landing
Rise Up
A Time for Thieves
More Use Alive
A Long Way Home
The Boy He Left Behind
Gifted
Redbone’s Man
For All Eternity
Mojave
About the Authors
About the Editor
INTRODUCTION
Roman legionaries, Britannic thieves, Egyptian royal guards, Vikings and barbarians and every sort of dashing warrior in between spill from the following adventure-teeming pages with tales of battles both past and future. Revel in the heart-pounding victories, sob at the wretched defeats, but, more importantly, immerse yourself in the steaming erotic encounters between enemies and allies alike, of men conquering men both on the field and in their beds.
Rhidian Brenig Jones temptingly starts us off with “Athene Noctua,” where our Roman hero finds himself held captive by the Silures, until captivity becomes a willing threesome you won’t soon forget. Mortal enemies turned lovers grace the pages of Salome Wilde’s “To the Victor,” while Evey Brett offers us the impossibly beautiful and harrowing tale of feudal Japanese warriors in “Dragon’s Son.” Brent Archer tells of a Viking battle with barbarian Picts in “The Orkney Landing,” and of two lovers adding a third to their lives, while Eric Del Carlo thrills us with “A Time for Thieves,” the guard in the story, of all things, a sexy albino. In between, read of a Greek and a Thracian prince, Revolutionary War Tories and Patriots, a Moldavian king, Gothic barbarians, Warsaw Ghetto resistance fighters, and, to finish it all off, the hauntingly original and futuristic “Mojave,” by famed erotica writer Dale Chase.
With a backdrop of sweeping vistas and fields bloody with battle, of remote deserts and landscapes long forgotten, the stories that follow are intricately woven, beautifully rendered and always of the highest literary caliber. In short, this collection is sure to have something for everyone!
Enjoy and happy reading,
Rob Rosen
San Francisco
ATHENE NOCTUA
Rhidian Brenig Jones
Dark. The smell of smoke. The light of a lamp falling on his face, hurting his eyes. A flinch, and the pain biting like an axe buried, rocking into bone. A wail breaking from his chest.
An arm supporting his shoulders. “Drink, Roman.” The clink of a cup against his teeth and a bitter mouthful, spraying as he coughed.
“Do you need to make water?” Something cold pushing between his thighs and the helpless gush of voiding.
The glimmer of a hearth, and the redder agony in his head receding as the kindly dark reclaimed him.
“Ah, you return to us.”
Lucius came to his senses in a round room, its curving walls whitewashed and painted with flowing patterns, spirals and coils in blue and green. A table. Stools. A column of smoke wafted into a thatched ceiling, bending now and again in a draft from the door.
A stout man, blunt-featured, his sparse white hair braided, unfolded his hands from a comfortable belly. “How does your head feel—ah, quiet now, quiet now! Pointless to pull against the ropes.” The world spun and Lucius sank back, a spurt of vomit sour in his throat. Under a brightly colored blanket he was naked and spread-eagled, tied by his wrists and ankles to the cot. Knowing fingers searched and probed the cropped curls at the back of his head. “Legionaries are renowned as doughty fighters, but, by the gods, they’re hardheaded, too. You have a lump like a duck’s egg, but no break, I think. My name is Aneirin. What’s yours?”
Lucius stared rigidly, his teeth clenched against the sickness that threatened to unman him.
“Yes, well…come, a sip of this will settle a queasy stomach.” The cot creaked, sagging dangerously under the old man’s bulk. He swirled the liquid in the cup. “Poison is not our way, decanus. This is only willow bark and ginger, with a drop of honey, no poppy this time. No? You’re sure? As you wish. It’ll keep for my poor knees. Ah, Nesta, there you are.”
A woman with a face like a frog hobbled toward them, a small pot in her hand. She muttered something in their hateful language and elbowed Aneirin out of her way.
“Nesta brings the pot for you to make water again.” Seeing Lucius’s expression, Aneirin said blandly, “She has swaddled five sons and their sons, too. I doubt a Roman cock will hold much terror for her. Or you can piss yourself and lie in it. It makes no odds.”
The woman lifted away the cloth from Lucius’s hips. She took his cock between finger and gnarled thumb and hung it over the rim of the pot. Once she was satisfied with its placing, she stared into the fire until Lucius had finished. She shook him perfunctorily, then peered into the pot and held it out for Anei-rin’s inspection. He nodded, dismissing her.
“There is no blood in your water,” he remarked.
Lucius’s face burned. He was beyond humiliation.
Aneirin drew up a stool. “I learned your language in Rome, as a young man. Your countrymen are not renowned for their manners, but I found her citizens courteous enough. That’s the privilege of the conqueror, of course. Nonetheless, I’ve given you my name; won’t you give me yours?” He paused, but Lucius lay as dumb as a stone. Perhaps his stubborn silence stung Aneirin, because he declared flatly, “Your comrades, the seven, are dead.”
The accursed rain had finally stopped and the scouting party, tired after a grueling day in the hills, lay wrapped in sodden cloaks. Scudding clouds revealed the moon, its light silvering Dulius’s spear point as he kept the watch. The silence was only broken by drips from the trees and the eerie shrieks of a distant vixen. Lucius tucked his chin into his chest and wished that he had the discipline of his tent mates, who had instantly fallen asleep. Thoughts of home drifted through his mind. Thoughts of the sun, diamond bright on blue seas. Of Marcellus. Marcellus…his iron-gray hair and iron-hard prick. He sighed and pushed away from the rock. If sleep wouldn’t come, he might as well share the watch. He reached for his sword. In that instant, a figure rose smoothly behind Dulius. Gorgon headed and terrible, it opened the man’s throat with one slash of a blade.
Lucius surged to his feet, roaring the battle cry, but it was lost in the screams of the demons who erupted from the trees, spears jabbing, murderous knives plunging. Without armor, with no shield and his head bare, he whirled into the me
lee, but before he could strike, a stunning blow to the back of his skull dropped him to his knees. He swayed, his sword falling from his fist as he pitched forward into the mud.
“Did you think you could pass through our lands without us knowing? That we were blind to the rats in the grain pits? We’d been watching you for days.” He patted Lucius’s thigh, making him jerk against his bindings. “You showed courage. No shame to you that we fought better.”
But shame crushed him. The heads of his comrades would now be rotting under the leaden skies of Cambria, nailed to trees or jouncing from triumphant saddles. Gap-toothed Marcus. Handsome, cool-eyed Antoninus. Lucullus, grabbing his balls and boasting that he’d leave the most leathery old whore in Isca bowlegged and whimpering after one night on his cock. No brothels for Lucullus now, none of the delights of Corinium. No whores, pox ridden or otherwise. And none for him, either. The men from the southlands of Germania were expensive, but he believed the talk he’d heard, that they were worth every last piece of silver they charged. They understood the hunger that gnawed and they fed it—ah, with their thick, oiled cocks they fed it, even if the appetite grew with the feeding.
“Aren’t you wondering why you’re still alive and the others dead, decanus? Your lumpy head is still on your shoulders, slingshot or no.” Aneirin reached out and touched the amulet that lay on Lucius’s breast, the baby charm that he still liked to wear, despite his comrades’ jeers. Marcellus had sucked the little golden owl that night in Tibur.
He had wondered, and wondered with dread. The taverns of Isca had been rife with tales of the inventiveness of the Silures in designing death for soldiers unlucky enough to survive the field of battle. Flaying. White-hot rods thrust into the openings of the body. Boiling in cauldrons. Sweat blistered his hairline and his mouth dried. But he met the old man’s eyes steadily enough.
“There in the valley, when you lay senseless and the warriors were about to slit your throat, they saw this.” Aneirin touched the charm again, with reverence. “Arianrhod’s owl. You know her as Minerva, of course, but the goddess has many names. It’s a sign that you’re under her protection—for now. But her silver wheel is turning. Pray that when it stops you’re not broken beneath it.” He sighed. “Are you hungry? I have some good bread and new cheese—” He cocked an ear. The clopping of hooves cantering to a halt outside the house brought him to his feet. “A moment.”
With every ounce of strength in his back, Lucius strained against the ropes. Veins stood out on his temples and red spots danced before his eyes, but the bindings only tightened and cut into his skin. His head spinning, almost howling with frustrated fury, he fell back and listened to the excited hubbub outside. Arianrhod? Some ugly bitch goddess of these savages.
“You still wear a bulla.” Amused, Marcellus drew the chain from Lucius’s tunic and let the warmed charm dangle.
“Laugh if you like, everyone does, but I like it.”
Marcellus touched a knuckle to Lucius’s jaw, where the down of a boy was coarsening into the beard of a man. “Ah, little owl, you’re fledging.” Gray eyes gazed into marigold, into the bright eyes that had given Lucius his nickname, but the older man dropped his hand and turned abruptly away. This high in the hills, the late evening air was cool, freshened by the cascades of sweet water that made the summer villas of Tibur so popular, far as they were from the festering stinks of Rome. He looked up at the stars. “The gods order men’s lives with great cruelty.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they’d truly favored us, we’d have been born Greek.”
“Why would you want us to be born Greek?”
“You know very well why. Don’t tease, Lucius, I’m not in the mood for it.”
Lucius got up from the couch and joined Marcellus at the window. They had had this conversation many times, and always to no avail—his luck to be in love with a principled man! He touched the broad shoulder, the tough curve of muscle of a seasoned tribune, and heat leaped through the linen. “Marcellus, nobody need know.”
“I would know and so would you. We’d know that we’d dishonored each other.”
“Dishonored each other? By loving? How can you say that?” He took Marcellus’s hand and pulled him around to face him. “Kiss me, then. Only a kiss, if it’s all you can give.”
“Kiss you?” Marcellus swallowed hard. “I want to do more than kiss you. All shame to me.”
“No shame. You’re a good man, an honorable man, and I love you for it.”
He smiled tightly. “I don’t feel very good and honorable at the moment.”
Lucius pressed his hand to the center of Marcellus’s chest and felt the thumping beat of that great heart. “Tell Felix and the other slaves to leave us alone. Please?”
With a troubled look, Marcellus walked to the door and opened it, calling out as he did so and pulling it shut behind him. Lucius could just make out Felix’s anxious squeak and his master’s gruff response. No doubt the fussy soul would be wanting to clear away the remains of the supper and bring oil for the lamps. Night was falling fast. It had been a fine supper— pork cheeks and fat dormice, mullet, pears and honey cakes— although Marcellus had eaten sparingly, as he always did. The door opened and he came back into the room. Lucius kicked away the soft woolen folds that had pooled at his feet and stood naked, his strong young cock rearing erect from a cloud of black hair. Carefully, Marcellus closed the door and leaned against it, his head bowed and his hands behind his back. He looked up and, for an instant, Lucius saw the face that his battle captains saw when they waited, steady in serried ranks, for his command. He walked to Lucius and gently, so gently, kissed his brow.
“So be it, then, little owl. So be it.”
Lucius smiled and spread his thighs and opened his mouth for the kiss.
Two men swept in, Aneirin behind them.
“So this is our guest.”
The same abysmal dress as Aneirin—breeches colored with faint stripes, tunics gathered at the waist with broad belts—but the nearer wore a heavy torc of twisted gold strands and a fine gold circlet on his dark hair. Multiple braids pulled back from his lean, sculpted face and hung down past his shoulders. The other was fairer and more heavily built, and he studied Lucius with expressionless blue eyes.
The dark-haired man picked a hazelnut out of a bowl and threw it into his mouth. He cracked it with back teeth and spat the shell onto the floor. “What’s your name, Roman?” His accent was more pronounced than Aneirin’s, but the question was clear enough.
Stonily, Lucius held his gaze.
“Doesn’t he speak? Perhaps he’s deaf. What’s your name, Roman?” His lip curled. “Perhaps he’s sulking, like a woman all peevish in her moon blood. Are you a woman, Julia Drusilla?”
Lucius paled. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Untie me, barbarian, and I’ll give you my name. I’ll carve it in your guts.”
“Oh ho, a barbarian he calls me! If he really is a he. They’re tricky these Romans, not to be trusted.” He took a step and yanked the blanket from Lucius’s hips. Two pairs of eyes lingered on his body, then flicked to his face. The fair man muttered something and they both laughed, but it seemed to Lucius, as he lay, bound in helpless fury, that their laughter was forced and rang with a false note.
“Llyr,” Aneirin said, quietly reproachful.
“Aneirin.” But he dropped the blanket and spun around and feigned a punch at the fair man. Barking with laughter, they wrestled, each trying to hook the other’s feet from under him, but neither managing to do it. Grasping each other’s shoulders, they struggled and heaved, staggering around the fire until they knocked into a table and sent a dish crashing to the floor.
“Llyr!”
They broke apart and grinned at each other, naughty boys chastised. But their grins faded suddenly, like lights blown out, and, to Lucius’s astonishment, they kissed, mouths wide and hungrily seeking. Llyr, for it appeared that this was the barbarian’s name, draped his arm around his friend’s shoulde
rs. “I’ll have it, Roman. Your name or your head. In one hour.” They sauntered out, still jostling, still shoving, still kissing.
Aneirin lowered himself painfully to gather up the shards of pottery. “I’d treat Llyr with respect if I were you. He’s the king’s son and he’s proud. Also, he means what he says.” He hauled himself to his feet with a groan. “I liked that dish,” he said ruefully. “Ah, well. Now then, you must be hungry, but how do you intend to eat your food? Shall I feed it to you? Wouldn’t you rather have your hands free? Think you’ll need to shit before nightfall? Do you really want Nesta visiting with her pot? Come, tell me your name and I’ll release you.” He raised a whiskery white eyebrow. “I’ll heat water so you can wash…”
Lucius told himself that Llyr’s threats would never have broken him, but the offer of a wash, to be clean again…his skin was marbled with mud and dried blood, and although the old woman had been careful, drips of piss had wet his balls. He probably stank. “Lucius Matius Dexion,” he said.
Aneirin took a knife from the table and began to saw at the cords. “Listen to me, Lucius Matius. Are you listening? You’re free under my parole to walk in the hillfort. If you try to escape, you’ll be killed, owl or no owl, and your death will be hard.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
The last strands of rope separated and Lucius bit back a groan as he sat up, stiff muscles complaining.
“Hywel the king has a shaking palsy that I can’t cure. His son decides such things now. Look, let me rub your joints with some salve. My rosemary salve, this, very good for easing and loosening.”
“Who are you? What are you?”
“I? An old man with some small skill as a healer. I listen for Arianrhod’s voice and sometimes she is gracious enough to speak to me.”
“Llyr and the other one?”
“ Llyr,” Aneirin said, correcting his pronunciation.
“Llyr.” The acrid smell of the herb filled his nostrils as Aneirin rubbed a palmful of the ointment into the tendons behind his knees, digging in, then stroking the long thighs. He paused and threw Lucius a glance. “You liked what you saw, didn’t you? The two of them?”
