by T. J. Land
And so Courage’s party shrunk from nine to six: Uther, Sesserine, Oran, Courage himself, and two warriors whose names Uther hadn’t bothered to learn.
Two of us. Four of them, thought Uther, who’d conjured the errant breeze that had caused the man to slip.
Sesserine also did his part, insisting on stopping to catch his breath so many times that eventually Oran picked him up and carried him on his shoulders. Sesserine offered only a token protest. Thereafter, he kept up running commentary on Oran’s body odor, interspersed with the occasional ‘Mush, boy!’.
What stunned Uther was that, more than once, he heard Oran chuckle.
0
They climbed until they found snow, then spent the night on a rocky, wind-battered plateau, their tents huddled together to keep from being blown away. Oran didn’t come by, no doubt afraid that he’d be found out with the others so close by.
Thank the gods.
Ever since the encounter with Courage on the stairs, Uther had been restless. His imagination had sent him vivid fantasies of throwing Sesserine onto the snow and having him while Oran and Courage watched.
At midnight, when he was sure the rest of them were asleep, Uther rolled over and faced Sesserine.
“You’re awake,” Sesserine said, the cold making his voice even raspier than usual.
“I am.”
“You look like you’re scheming.”
“I’m always scheming.”
Sesserine gasped as Uther climbed on top of him.
“You’ll need to be quiet. The others are close,” Uther purred.
Having complained about the chill until Oran surrendered all of his blankets, Sesserine was tightly wrapped up. Unbundling him took some time. When his skin was finally exposed, Uther saw that it had acquired new defacements since last he had gazed upon it; small scars and shallow bite marks.
“The mutt lacks self-control,” Uther muttered to himself, scarcely realizing he spoke aloud.
“He’s young,” said Sesserine. Uther couldn’t tell whether the statement was supposed to be a critique or a defense of Oran.
It was colder than he’d realized. As he took both of their cocks in hand, squeezing them together, he could see their breaths mingling. Sesserine responded readily to his ministrations, but the way he clung to Uther’s shoulders was more suggestive of a desire for warmth than ardor.
“Nngh. That’s good,” Sesserine groaned, as Uther drew aside his foreskin.
Despite his vocal responses, his cock was still soft. Moreover, his teeth had begun to chatter.
Cursing, Uther released him and started piling the blankets back on top of his slender body.
“Uther?”
“Snails, crabs, lobsters – when the gods crafted such invertebrates, they had the sense to bless them with hard outer shells to protect their soft, spineless bodies. It’s a cruel trick indeed for the gods to have deprived you of both a spine and a shell. You weren’t made to survive this world, my chancellor.”
“Oh, fuck you too,” Sesserine snapped, slithering down into the blankets and glowering at him.
Uther sat back, folding his arms. For want of anything better to do, he gazed out of a slit in the side of their tent.
The view was impressive. He had a clear view of the forest and, in the distance, the sea.
“This is a good land. A beautiful land,” he said moodily, as he had said many times before. “It deserves so much better than that hateful old man.”
“Soon enough. Soon enough, Uther,” Sesserine murmured.
Uther continued to stare out, envisioning the city he would build.
He’d been planning it for years. It would be the grandest in the world, a spectacle travelers would wonder at for centuries to come. Everyone would have access to clean running water. There would be three mighty libraries, dedicated to those disciplines he considered paramount – Science, Philosophy, and Art – and a university, attendance at which would be free and compulsory. The marketplace would be immense, drawing in traders of all species from all corners of the world, and they’d bring their skills and their wares and their languages, and the city would grow up and out like a wild flower finally planted in healthy soil.
While he was lost in fantasy, Sesserine’s cold hand snaked over his side and came to rest on his cock.
Rolling over, Uther took hold of Sesserine’s jaw. His thoughts stormy, he studied his chancellor’s familiar face for a moment, then pressed an ungentle kiss to his mouth. He misjudged the distance and their teeth knocked together. Aware that he was doing an imperfect job – aware that now Sesserine had bloody Oran to compare him to – he sought to make up for it by kissing harder. Sesserine chuckled and fought back with his tongue.
A harsh laugh interrupted them.
“Not really surprising,” said Oran. “I might not have been able to smell you on him, Uther, but I know your type.”
Sesserine had gone still, his hand still gripping Uther’s manhood. Pushing him away, Uther sat up, ready to fight off the werewolf if he lunged.
Crouched at the entrance to their tent, Oran continued, “Men like you, Uther, believe that anyone weaker than yourselves is your property. I imagine you see nothing unnatural or perverse in forcing your servants to service you in such a manner.”
Ah.
Thinking quickly, Uther concluded that if Oran believed Sesserine had been unwilling, their plan might yet prevail. Oran might convince himself that he was Sesserine’s savior, the only one who could shield him from Uther’s barbarity. That might make it all the easier to bring him round to the opinion that Sesserine needed to be saved from whatever punishment the emperor had in store.
Deciding to encourage the narrative forming in Oran’s mind, Uther said, “If you feel like I’ve stolen your chew toy, why don’t you come and get him back?”
“Yes, and why don’t I give you a sword and armor to make the match even?” said Oran, rolling his eyes. “For God’s sake, show me some respect. I’m not a mindless beast. I know that any attempt you make to provoke me is motivated by your desire for freedom. As for him; you’ll unhand him at once, before I call for help. He’s not my mate and I feel nothing towards him, but he is Sir Michael Courage’s prisoner. Courage takes pride in how he treats his prisoners – he certainly wouldn’t want to know that one of them was being molested.”
Uther submitted to having his hands and feet bound by the werewolf, who did not once look in Sesserine’s direction. Only when he was leaving did Sesserine reach out and touch Oran’s arm.
“Thank you,” Sesserine said, his voice soft and his eyes lowered.
Oran swallowed.
As soon as the tent flap fell closed behind him, Sesserine smiled like a demon and fell back with his hand clamped over his mouth, stifling the giggles. It was infectious and soon Uther had to press his own face into the blankets to keep his laughter under control.
They said nothing more to one another than night, for fear of being overheard.
0
“Time’s running out,” Sesserine murmured the next morning. “At this rate, we’ll be at the gem in five days.”
“Yes, yes. Don’t worry.”
Courage, Uther had decided, needed to be tested.
To do that, he had to get him alone.
As they approached the bottom of the mountain, Uther began to gather his power to him. Ever since Sesserine had find out that names and nature of the restraining spells used on him, he’d been undoing them one by one. Today, his plan was to bring down a small avalanche that would separate Courage and himself from the others.
It was bold. To achieve it without endangering his own life or Sesserine’s life would require finesse and impeccable timing.
And perhaps it was an unnecessary risk. Now that he had most of his powers back, Uther could probably have manufactured a way for them both to escape.
But he’d made a decision. Being defeated by Courage had been humiliating. An infuriating set-back. To make up for it, Uther wan
ted to do something that would spit directly into the emperor’s eye.
And what better way to do that than to convince his greater warrior to join Uther’s cause?
If Uther escaped now, that would never happened. Courage would hunt him to the end of the world and would continue to be a thorn in his side even after Uther had rebuilt his forces. If he killed Courage, all the golden knight’s friends and allies would come for him. He’d spend decades fighting off waves of avengers. No. This was craftier.
This, above all, would be much more fun.
0
The party had reached the bottommost slopes when there came a rumble.
“Courage!” Oran bellowed, pointing upwards. “Look!”
An unnecessary invocation. It was hard to miss the wall of snow and ice bearing down on them.
“Run to the left!” Courage shouted.
Too late. Most of the others had already begun to run to the right, and couldn’t hear him over the rising roar. Courage was about to alter his course to follow them when Uther, running left, knocked into him, sending both of them down.
“Damn you, Uther, get off,” Courage snarled, pushing him away.
Then the avalanche hit.
The last thing Courage saw before the snow folded over him was Sesserine leaping to safety behind a cluster of sturdy boulders.
Blind, battered, unable to tell which way was up, he was carried for what seemed a great distance.
When he finally came to a stop, he was unable to move. He whimpered, fearing he might be paralyzed, before realizing that most of his body was simply weighted down by snow. Not too deep, praise the emperor; his left hand was still free and he could breathe, although he couldn’t see anything.
Wriggling, he managed to free the rest of his left arm and shake off the thin layer covering his head.
“Courage?”
Uther’s voice.
Courage turned and watched Uther stagger up to where he lay. The necromancer looked as disheveled as he’d ever seen him, even after the flogging. His shirt was torn, his shoulder bleeding, and he was so thoroughly coated in snow he might have been mistaken for a white bear.
I can’t reach my sword, Courage thought suddenly. He’s unarmed, but I’m half-buried and helpless to stop him strangling me or beating out my brains with a rock.
“Silly boy,” said Uther, shaking his head. “What predicaments you get yourself into.”
He knelt down and began digging with his bare hands. Courage remembered hearing that necromancers were immune to cold.
“You were the one who knocked me down,” he returned, trying to hide his embarrassment.
“You said to run left. I ran left.”
Unable to dispute that and in no mood to argue, Courage remained silent as Uther finished digging him out. When he could sit up, he saw that a thick barrier of snow separated Uther and himself from where he presumed the others had taken shelter.
Damn! Another blasted setback. What a nuisance this whole mission is turning out to be.
Kicking off the last of the snow, Courage was relieved to find that he’d sustained no broken bones. Uther offered his hand, which he ignored.
“My own fault,” said Courage, getting to his feet. “I knew these slopes were treacherous. I should have been paying closer attention to the terrain.”
“We all make mistakes. Even the flawless paragon Sir Michael Rupert Courage.”
How had the cursed man learned his middle name? Even Oran didn’t know it.
Courage shouted for the others, until Uther placed a hand on his shoulder, saying, “If you keep that up you’ll bring the rest of the mountain down on our heads. Do try to think, boy.”
“You’re not that much older than me and I wouldn’t permit you to call me that even if you were,” Courage said. Anger and frustration prompted him to say more, and he suppressed the desire with the entrenched discipline of his order. Becoming aware of just how battered his body was, how it deeply ached, he sat down in the snow.
Uther regarded him speculatively, rubbing his beard. “May I ask you a question?”
“What is it?” asked Courage, wearily.
“Do you never question your place in the world?”
Feeling a headache coming on, he replied, “Uther, if this is the preface to an offer involving the phrase ‘we can rule together’, please be aware that I’m not interested.”
“I was merely wondering whether you had ever, in your entire life, contemplated any other line of work than serving a senile autocrat.”
“Neither am I interested in listening to you slander the emperor. In answer to your question, no. I’ve never regretted my choice to serve as a defender of the innocent.”
“I didn’t ask whether you regretted it. I asked whether you’d ever considered becoming anything else. A baker, for example, or a librarian.”
“No,” said Courage, and then wondered why he was lying. He never lied, not unless it was utterly unavoidable. And to lie to his enemy suggested that he had something to hide, which he certainly didn’t. “That is to say, no other career choices appealed as much to me, although I did entertain notions of becoming an artist when I was very young.”
“An artist? How fascinating! Did you sculpt? Paint?”
“No, I most enjoyed sketching with charcoal.”
Courage smiled, remembering the first time his mother, a worried woman, had seen his fingers stained with the stuff and feared that he’d caught some horrible disease. “I was good, as it happens. I won a prize.”
“How sweet. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you boast.”
“What of you, Uther? Did you ever consider being anything other than a criminal and a traitor?”
“Hah! Is that what they call me in your great capital city? I’ve never heard myself described as such by the people who actually live on my lands.”
“They’re not ‘your lands’, they’re lands you stole from…”
Courage cut himself off. What was he thinking – getting drawn into a petty squabble with Uther the Deceiver? No good would come of it.
“Stole from your emperor,” finished Uther. “Who stole them from my ancestors. Who stole them from his ancestors. Who stole them from their original inhabitants, whose names are lost to the mists of time. Really, Courage, I doubt you could point out one single scrap of terrain in all the world that wasn’t stolen from someone at some point. Surely the more important matter should be…”
“No more,” Courage interrupted, holding up a hand. “I was warned many times not to converse with you for any extended period. You’ve twisted the minds of too many good men with your forked tongue.”
Uther smirked. Some snow still clung to his dark mane. He looked, Courage thought, like he belonged to one of those savage tribes in the far north who, in their stubbornness and ignorance, resisted the emperor’s embrace.
“Their minds? How naïve you are. You don’t win a man over by appealing to his mind. You appeal to his stomach. Or his cock.”
Courage had had a sheltered upbringing. The one and only time he’d used a dirty word, an eavesdropping neighbor had reported him to his father and he’d been roundly whipped. As for dirty words that referred to genitals, he doubted he’d be alive today if his father had overheard him using one of those. Even though he was now a seasoned warrior and, he thought, as worldly as any man, he still shuddered at profanity.
To hear Uther’s rich dark voice wrap itself around the word ‘cock’ – the rounded ‘o’, the sharp, cutting ‘k’ – made all the thoughts and fantasies Courage had been working so hard to suppress come flooding back.
To his horror, his body reacted in a manner most improper.
“Of the two – stomach or cock – I’ve found the latter to be the more reliable,” Uther continued, curse him. “A man’s stomach will win you his loyalty only until he is hungry again. If you feed a man once, then fail to satisfy his stomach for a week, he will forget all oaths and vows of allegiance. On the other hand
, if you give a man’s cock what it yearns for, then fail to satisfy said cock for a week, the memory of your touch grows only more powerful as the man yearns for what you, and only you, can offer him. Cocks are trustworthy.”
It occurred to Courage that they were standing quite close to one another – when had that happened? He could see every detail of the face he’d spent the last few weeks trying not to notice.
Beneath Uther’s sharp cheekbones there was a faint rosiness, as though he’d had one drink too many.
“Have you ever made love to a man, Courage?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Simple question, boy; have you ever been with another man in an intimate fashion?”
“I… that is, I…”
“Your answer has no impact on what I’m about to propose. I’m not one of those men who considers virgin flesh especially desirable. I ask only because I would like to kiss you, and would like to know how harsh a critic you might be. Consider my situation; I’m soon to go before the emperor, who might, on a whim, execute me, exile me, or throw me in a cell forever. This might be my last chance to kiss anyone. I don’t just want to do it well. I want to do it so well that I’m never forgotten. So I ask again…”
“No,” Courage interrupted, for though he was still adrift in a sea of confusion and embarrassment, he was sick of standing there like a slack-jawed idiot. “No. Never. No one.”
“Good,” said Uther. “For clarity’s sake; am I permitted to kiss y-…”
Got the drop on him at last, thought Courage, patting himself on the back. Well done, Courage old boy.
That was before all his mental faculties seized up at the realization that he was kissing his mortal enemy. Fervently, in fact.
It felt good.
Despite his lack of experience, nothing was uncomfortable or awkward. His hands knew exactly where to go; his hips and arms did what they needed to without his having to instruct them. When Uther surged against him like a wave breaking on the shore, Courage understood what he wanted him to do, and how to do it. Everything worked, everything fit.