by Mark Albany
Carla came over and sat on Leena’s lap. “Well, I know a way that’s bound to get any man in the mood.” She pulled the strap of Leena’s shirt down and pulled out one of her breasts. Then she slowly leaned down and ran her tongue over it, starting at the base and climbing all the way to the pert nipple. She paused and looked at me with a grin.
“No, he’s definitely not sly, this one,” Carla said, pulling herself back up, standing, and moving back to the kitchen.
Leena was grinning too. I looked away quickly, realizing I was still staring. My cheeks grew hot. With my pale skin, I knew they were a furious red.
“I… well,” I started, but Leena laughed, tucking her breast back into her shirt.
“Now that the horseshit of you not being in the mood is out of the way, I think I’m done for the evening.” She stood as well, walking away, still failing to keep a straight line.
I leaned back in my seat, clearing my throat and taking another sip of my ale, giving my excitement, which was starting to be visible through my trousers, a moment to calm down. It might not be a bad idea for me to take one of the women for a round or two.
Maybe once I was a bit more drunk. I took another long sip from my mug and scanned the room. With the boys in the tavern’s rooms spending my money, the place had emptied out a bit, with only a couple of the regulars still nursing their drinks.
I was about to stand and look around for Carla. She was definitely my type—full hips, slim waist, a delightful pair begging for release from her tight dress, and a top of fiery red hair. I doubted there was a man in the world who wouldn’t feel lucky to be in bed with her.
As I was about to push myself to my feet, two men entered. They were large, wearing heavy cloaks that covered most of their bodies. While they tried to keep their heads down, I could see the scars on their faces from where I was sitting. These boys weren’t local. Nobody around our lands had been mauled by a bear over the past few decades, after all. I reached my feet, swaying a bit before moving toward them.
Elder Hammon beat me to it, leaving his goblet of wine somewhere as he approached these men. He had reached the same conclusion as I had, but he was going about enforcing it with a lot less tact than I had in mind.
“You lot,” he said, puffing out his chest and trying to look as authoritative as possible. “You’re trouble. Not welcome here. You can find some places more to your liking closer to the docks, you can.”
The men didn’t answer, but they reacted. They’d pulled their hoods down, revealing faces that most bears would be proud to have mauled. One of them reached out and grabbed Hammon by the collar of his shirt and dragged him close, raising a hand to hit him.
“You two had better rethink your actions,” I growled, coming closer. Both men looked at me. Both were taller than I was, though leaner, but I’d never lacked for confidence in my life. My hand was resting on the dagger sheathed in my belt. As weapons went, it wasn’t intimidating, but anyone who knew me recognized I could come up with all sorts of unseemly uses for the ten-inch steel blade.
They let Hammon go, and the older man stumbled back with a huff. They didn’t seem to lack confidence either, and honestly, I was starting to have doubts about mine. Sure, I had a dagger, but I couldn’t see what these men were hiding under their travel cloaks. Either way, the die was cast and I wasn’t backing down.
I could hear doors opening behind me and footsteps. I turned to see who it was. To my relief, it was the rest of my boys. Most were still working their trousers back on, but they all looked like they were ready for a tumble. And no matter what these strangers had under their cloaks, they wouldn’t stand a chance in a nine-on-two brawl.
“Like I said,” I turned back to the two, feeling a good deal more confident now, “you boys have some thinking to do.”
The two lost their bravado almost instantly.
“Why don’t you get the good Elder Hammon back home, Braks,” Corvin said, already halfway sober. “We’ll keep these lads out of trouble.”
“That’s a good idea, Corvin,” I said, turning to help Hammon up from his seat. As I moved toward the door, I shouldered one of the scarred fellows out of the way. “Best buy my boys a few pints, you two. They just saved your lives.” And with that, I helped Hammon out the door.
“Fucking newcomers,” Hammon growled, still leaning on my arm. “You can’t let them walk all over you. You have to be firm. You have to show them who’s boss, that they can’t…”
“Boss you around?” I completed when the man struggled to finish his sentence.
“Precisely,” the elder said, raising a finger and waving it about. “Elsewise, they think they can do as they want with your home. Soon there’s more of them than you, and then you’re fucked, I tell ye. Royally.”
I narrowed my eyes. I’d never understood that turn of phrase. If you were royally fucked, was that like getting fucked by a royal? I knew the royals, and I knew some of the women they’d fucked, and the parties involved all seemed rather pleased by the arrangement.
“Hey.” I heard a voice from behind me. “Wait up!”
I paused, with the elder grumbling about the fucking bounty hunters since he recognized the voice as well as I did. Leena jogged to catch up with me, her long red hair trailing behind her.
“I thought you were done for the night,” I said, seeing her flushed cheeks.
“I like to keep my options open.” She grinned and winked at the elder, who growled some more. “I heard you almost got into a brawl and left. Thought I’d see if everything was all right. Not like you to pass up a fight.”
“Wasn’t a fight,” I said as she moved in step with us as we started toward the elder’s house. “Two newcomers thought they could get rough with the old man. Not the usual kind of travelers we get around here. Left them to keep the boys company. They’ll keep them straight.”
“Sure they will,” Leena said, trying to help with keeping the elder up and laughed when he pushed her away. “Or get them into worse trouble than before. I can never tell with that lot.”
“I’m not an old man,” Hammon protested.
“Of course not,” I said without losing a step. “Everyone’s talking about how a hundred is the new thirty—ow!”
The old man’s bony elbow hit my ribs harder than expected. I backed away, laughing. Leena offered to help carry him but got pushed away again.
“That’s my cue,” Leena said once we were on our way again. “And my house is over there. I’ll see you soon, boys.” She wiggled her fingers at us mockingly before stumbling her way to her home.
“Impertinent wench,” Hammon griped at her back, and then he turned to me. “You know, we didn’t need help back there. You and me, we could have taken those bastards. I could have taken the one on the right and then helped you with the other. I was quite the brawler in my day, you know.”
I nodded, keeping a grin from my face. “I can see that. You practically stabbed me with your elbow back there.”
“Exactly.” He hardly even listened to me. The man had been nursing wine all night. No wonder he was this drunk. He probably would have let me handle the two, otherwise. I chuckled as he moved closer to Okiim’s Forest. The elder had a nice home beyond its borders, which had always seemed like the oddest of places to have a house. It wasn’t a sightly place, the forest.
We finally reached the man’s house. And it was a house proper, not like the little cottage I had inside the castle walls. It was made of brick, and the roof had shingles instead of hay. It was two stories tall and told of the kind of prosperity Hammon had enjoyed while a merchant. He still enjoyed it, thanks to his sons.
I opened the gate to the front yard and guided the drunken elder into his house. The inside was well-furnished if a bit sparse. It wasn’t going to be a cold night, so a fire wasn’t needed. I helped the man to a seat at his kitchen table and went around the house, making sure all the windows and doors were locked. Once I came back around, the man had fallen asleep, using his kitchen table
as a pillow. He was even snoring.
“No, no, you’re welcome,” I said to myself, heading back out and latching the door behind me. “Getting your drunk ass home wasn’t at all out of my way. I love coming around here. Especially at… night.” I looked out at the forest, making a face. There was something about the place that irked me. The dead trees loomed there with the half moonlight casting an ominous shadow. It wasn’t a happy place during the daytime, but at night, it could get on a man’s nerves.
I cocked my head. I’d seen something out of the corner of my eye. Or thought I had, anyway. I looked toward the forest. The clear sky meant that the moon was casting all sorts of weird shadows with the dead trees. Even so, I couldn’t help the sinking feeling in my gut, like someone was watching me. I curled my fingers around the leather grip of my dagger.
When a hand landed on my shoulder, I snapped around, pulling the dagger clear and holding it up, ready to fight. I’d half-expected to see one or both of those scarred men looking to finish what Elder Hammon had started. Instead, a youngish, handsome face greeted me with a laugh.
“A bit on edge, are we, Braks?” the man asked.
I quickly put my dagger back into its sheath. “Apologies, Prince Olin.”
Olin made a face. “Please, we’re alone. You can drop the whole ‘prince’ horseshit.”
I chuckled as we started walking again. Olin was only a year or so younger than me, so when I joined the guards at the age of fourteen, my first job had been to teach the boy how to defend himself. I’d had a bit of practice in it myself, and since I was the most junior member of the group, I had been given the task. Olin had always been a good sport about it, and we had been friends ever since.
Well, not that close. He was the oldest son to King Nyle Everly, ruler of Radon, so it wouldn’t do to have a prince be close to a common guardsman.
“What are you doing so close to Okiim’s Forest, anyway?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I was escorting Elder Hammon back to his house.”
“All on your own?”
I considered telling him Leena had been with us through part of the journey but immediately thought better. For some reason, he thought I had a torch for the woman and never passed up a chance to poke and prod me over it.
“All on my own,” I replied, smiling.
“Do you think that’s safe?”
I turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”
He tried to look serious. “I mean, certainly you’ve heard the stories. Cattle going missing. Hunters disappearing amidst the trees. The forest is said to be cursed by a most dreadful—”
“Curse?”
“Yes! Monsters and evil about. Liches and werewolves prowl when the moon is full!” His voice was mockingly shaky.
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the moon is only half full.” I pointed at the sky. “We should be safe.”
“Oh, the skeptic mocks, does he?” Olin raised an eyebrow. “Well, perhaps he should mock in the face of the terrifying dark elves? Or perhaps the living trees that have an ax to grind with the humans who chop their brothers down for firewood and use those foolish enough to wander the forest as fertilizer to help them grow even more monstrous? Did you see what I did there, with the—”
“Living trees with an ax to grind.” I grinned. “I caught it. That was a good one.”
It was a good one, no denying that.
We were out of sight of the forest by now, heading back to the castle. Despite my mockery, I couldn’t help feeling a little relieved.
“So what’s happening at the castle? What brings you all the way out to the forest yourself? Not following me, were you?”
“Nah. Father got news there might be an army headed our way.” He paused, and I raised an eyebrow. “Nothing to worry about, of course. Our scouts haven’t noticed anything out of place, and nobody’s marching through the forest. Say what you will, but soldiers are a superstitious lot. You couldn’t pay them enough to march through there.”
“Is that why we don’t have any patrols in the forest?”
“Exactly.” He didn’t catch my sarcasm. “But anyway. Our walls aren’t coming down, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
I wasn’t terribly worried either. There weren’t too many who would bother attacking us.
“Oh!” Olin punched me in the shoulder to get my attention. “I have something I want to show you. Not now, of course, but tomorrow. Find me tomorrow when you have the time. I need to get back to the castle.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” I rubbed my shoulder as the young prince jogged off. It was weird to see him without his horse.
I didn’t want to go back to the Wet Maiden. If I’d been in the mood for something earlier, it was gone now. Though there was always the possibility Leena had gone back there. She’d said she was keeping her options open. Maybe I could be the one licking her breast. Maybe licking a bit more than that.
I paused, clearing my throat and shaking my head. Where’d that thought come from? Maybe I’d had too much to drink. Three ales weren’t enough to get a man drunk. Not that drunk, anyway.
I shook my head again, chuckling softly as I made my way back to the castle. A good night’s sleep was what I needed.
