by Shannon West
Kelan gazed over at the young man and shook his head. “This boy can’t be very old. Little more than a child.”
“It took four of my men to chain this ‘child’ and transport him here from my ship. Look at the size of him.”
“Tygerians are big, of course, and this one is bigger than most. But he’s still young.”
“Mikos, The Bloody Prince of Tygeria, was only nineteen when he killed both my brothers in the war and when his exploits in battle earned that nickname,” Rasc said, a hint of bitterness creeping into his voice. “He was one of the fiercest warriors anyone had ever seen. And a stone-cold killer, I might add.”
“Perhaps so. But it was war, and many were trying to kill him as well. It was a long and vicious time. But this boy isn’t Prince Mikos. And I know King Janos’s tastes. They don’t run to children.”
Rasc lifted one elegant shoulder. “Hmm. Well, it’s not up to me or you. Prince Tibiel wants him ready for presentation to the king tonight at the banquet in honor of the king’s Naming Day. Keep it quiet, though. The prince wants it to be a surprise. Get him ready, and impress upon him, if you can, the importance of being well-behaved.”
Kelan snorted. “How would you have me do that? None of us here speaks his language.”
“I trust you’ll do your best. Perhaps he speaks Alliance,” he said, referring to the language the Alliance forces used to communicate with their allies during the long war. It was actually called Earthan and a combination of all the Earthan languages, plus some Lycan thrown in for good measure. It was still widely used and understood by many people on Laltana.
“At any rate, it would be a shame for the king to kill him at the feast before dessert. I understand it’s going to be quite spectacular.”
“What? The dessert or the execution?”
Rasc shrugged. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” He looked again at the handsome young man, who was staring back at them both warily. Though the boy certainly had the height and bulk of the Tygerians and might have passed for fully grown, he had that dewy complexion only seen on the very young, and his skin was so smooth Rasc was fairly sure he wasn’t shaving regularly yet. He sighed and stepped over a bit closer to him, looking him up and down.
“Time to get you cleaned up and ready, boy. You have to meet your new master.”
Chapter Three
Larz swam up out of a deep sleep and a dream of home to find a man with dark hair and eyes like chips of ice looming over him. He sprang to his feet, wincing a little from the bruises he’d earned in the fights he’d taken part in on the ship. In the end, they’d had to use drugs on him again to knock him out and drag him off. The dark-haired man looked startled and stepped back as Larz’s chains clattered with a heavy weight to the stone floor. Larz warily faced this new opponent, trying to figure out which fresh hell this might be. He stepped forward violently and swung his arm as far as he could extend it, trying to strike the man, but he couldn’t reach that far, as the chain kept him too close to the wall.
Larz could see that he was in some kind of stone room or cell, though it was not like any kind of dungeon he had ever seen before, and there was no longer any motion from a ship under his feet. They had brought him to this planet—wherever it was—while he was unconscious. Drugged again. The lingering ache in his head and the dryness in his mouth proved it.
The room he was in was richly appointed with wall hangings and even some large pillows scattered on the floor. The dark-haired man wore his hair long and swept up in some elaborate, alien style with braids, but Larz thought he was definitely human. He remembered him as the buyer from the ship, and he had rings on each finger and a short, dark beard. He gazed steadily at Larz without any sign of alarm at Larz’s attempts to reach him.
He had nothing to fear, because there was no way Larz could touch him. The heavy chain attached to the collar around his neck restricted his movement, so he could only go forward about two arm lengths. His ankles were chained together too, so he couldn’t kick out very far at the man either. He gazed at him with wary eyes, waiting to see what they would unleash on him next. He didn’t have long to wait.
Another person, with a bald head, both larger and older than the first man, stepped into the room, coming a little closer to Larz and speaking the strange language that he hadn’t been able to make heads nor tails of. “Heads nor tails” was one of his omak’s expressions, he realized with a pang of loneliness for him that he quickly repressed. He wouldn’t give into that now. Perhaps later when he was alone, he could think about home, but now it would only make him weak, and he needed his strength to face this new challenge, whatever it might be.
This older man began talking to him, holding out his hands in a conciliatory gesture, lowering his voice as if soothing a wild animal and still moving slowly toward him. When Larz didn’t respond, he switched to heavily accented Earthan.
“Is this better, boy? Do you know Alliance talk? I know most Tygerians learn at least a few words of it, right?”
Earthan was a language Larz understood and spoke perfectly, as it was the way he always communicated with his omak. Blake had once been a captured Alliance soldier before marrying his father, the king. But at any rate, most Tygerians knew it and were taught it as a second language, though they hated its source. The king, however, had long since decreed it as the official court language, so his omak, Blake, would feel more comfortable. Larz still had no intention of responding to these people.
When Larz didn’t answer, the bald man repeated the same words to him, only louder this time. As if saying words louder and over and over would help. “Boy, you need to take a bath. You stink.”
He began to pantomime washing himself, and Larz stared at him. He backed closer to the wall, not wanting these people anywhere near him.
The bald man sighed and called out to someone in the next room. Soon men began to spill through the doors, big, burly men who looked like soldiers or guards. They advanced on him quickly and one of them came around behind him and got him in a choke hold, while the other four hoisted him up. He fought them with everything he had, but they unhooked his chains from the wall and carried him out of the room anyway, though it took all five of them.
“You need to learn to pick your battles,” the bald man said, trailing after them, still speaking in the heavily accented Earthan that he had called Alliance talk. “Why waste all this effort when all we want to do is to get you clean?”
The guards carried him down the hallway to another room with stone walls and the smell of scented water. Both the bald man and the dark-haired man followed. There was a large pool inside the chamber and the guards dumped him inside it, then held him down when he tried to climb back out, half-drowning him in the process. Finally, the bald man, who had been standing to one side, yelled at the guards and called out instructions to an old woman who had also followed them into the room. She edged closer and the bald man told her to get in the pool with him. “He won’t hurt you,” he said, but the ancient little woman didn’t look entirely convinced. Good—at least he scared somebody.
With the men still holding him down, the old woman, a tiny scrap of a thing, bent over and dipped a large sponge in the water. She applied some sweet-smelling soap to the sponge with arthritic hands and came into the water with him. The water level was only up to the top of Larz’s thighs, but on the woman, it was at her chest. The guards pulled him to his knees so she could reach him, and she kept eye contact with him the entire time. Slowly, she began to soap his chest. Larz glared impotently over her head at the bald-headed man, who was also carefully watching. Though he didn’t want her hands on him, he didn’t feel as if he could very well strike her either or try to push her away for fear of injuring her. She was probably a slave like he was, after all.
The guards held him still while she soaped up under each arm and even shampooed his hair, rinsing it with water from a bucket she’d brought with her. The water smelled of flowers.
He endured it all until
she started to wash his most private areas between his legs and then he began to buck his hips wildly and thrash his legs so that the guards had to rescue the old lady. They tightened their hold on him, pulling his legs wide apart, and the old woman slowly climbed back in the pool again with a reproachful look. She washed him thoroughly this time while he seethed with anger and humiliation.
Afterward, they hauled him from the water and the same old woman dried him with thick, white towels and then rubbed sweet smelling oil all over his body. They forced him to his knees again and the old woman began braiding his hair. She pulled and yanked on it until he thought he’d go mad, and then the bald man brought out a golden collar that he locked around Larz’s neck, with even wider golden cuffs to put on his wrists. By the time this ordeal was done, Larz was exhausted and still fighting back out of sheer stubbornness. They tied a white loincloth around his waist, and finally stepped away, nodding at the bald man to indicate they were finished.
The bald man stepped forward and attached a chain to the gold collar, then handed the chain to the man with the cold eyes, the human one he’d first seen on the ship. He had been leaning against the wall by the door, watching everything with a speculative gaze. The bald man spoke with the other one for a moment in that other language, having some kind of intense discussion. Finally, the younger one made an impatient sound and stepped toward him, pulling another one of the seemingly endless supply of needles from his pocket.
“Wait!” the bald man said. “Let me try to speak to him again first.” The dark-haired man waved his hand impatiently and the bald one stepped closer to him.
“I think you understand very well what I’m saying as long as I speak Alliance. Now they’re going to drug you again, but this time it won’t be as bad, if you don’t fight them. The more you fight, the worse it’s going to be, and for what purpose? You’re not anywhere near your home planet, nor likely to be for a long time. Maybe never again. I know that’s hard to hear, but you have to accept it and try to survive. Your family would want you to stay alive, isn’t that right?”
Larz dipped his head sharply in a nod after a moment and the older man smiled. “That’s right. So you do what you can to stay alive, and I’ll try to help if I can. Let them inject you and stop fighting so much.”
He stepped back and the man with the injection device advanced on him again. This time Larz didn’t struggle any more than he could help and the dark-haired man stabbed the needle into his neck. A familiar, floaty feeling began to come over him. This time, however, the darkness didn’t follow.
He fought it off as best he could, but his limbs felt languid and sluggish, and his bare feet stumbled as he was pulled down the long corridor by means of the thin chain, held up by two of the guards, one on either side of him. They went down one endless corridor after another, until finally they reached a large arched doorway. The dark-haired man opened the door to usher them inside a great hall, and here the guards forced Larz to his knees. The huge room was overly decorated, like everything else on this planet. The floors were tiled in an intricate pattern and the ceiling was high and vaulted, with elaborate carvings on the window frames. They were draped and overhung with rich sapphire colored silks that fell to the floor to make small luxurious pools on the floor.
With his arms lashed behind his back and the chain attached to his collar drawn up short and tight, Larz had no choice but to keep his head still and wait for whatever was coming. On either side of him stood a guard, with the man beside him, holding tight to his chain. They were waiting on something or someone and Larz had enough time to wonder who or what it was when there was a sudden flurry of activity as voices and footsteps approached from behind the doors. The large double doors flew open and the noise level increased tenfold as a large crowd of people came in. The man beside Larz jerked Larz’s head abruptly down as he bowed. Larz couldn’t hold back the growl that escaped his lips.
Someone walked closer to stand right in front of him, stopping only inches away. His shoes were black and shiny, and his legs were covered by rich-looking cloth. He was wearing some kind of tight trousers that clung to his shapely thighs. Larz slowly lifted up his gaze.
A king was standing in front of him. That fact was evident in every line of his body and every inch of his bearing as well as the crown on his head. He looked regal and untouchable. He was about the same height as his omak, but leaner, with an almost fragile quality about him. He was wearing a thin circlet studded with blue stones around his forehead. His long dark hair spilled down to his shoulders in the elaborate braids that seemed to be the fashion on this planet. His eyes were dark, almost navy blue, and he looked down at Larz with an expression of distaste, his nostrils flared slightly like he might smell something bad. He had fair skin and features that were patrician and delicate looking, except for his firm jaw. Larz thought he was one of the most beautiful men he’d ever seen.
But then the king opened his mouth to speak.
“I wondered what that disagreeable odor was in here. I thought at first it was dead vermin. I should have recognized it was a Tygerian, but it’s been so long since I was confronted with that odor.” It took Larz a moment to realize he was speaking Tygerian. The relief of hearing his own language was so great after so long without it that Larz raised his head as high as he could to look into those dark blue eyes staring back down at him with stormy contempt.
Larz wouldn’t have had to understand the language, however, to know this man hated him on sight. It was clearly written on his handsome, haughty face. The people who had come in with him, all standing behind him and dressed in clothing that was far too elaborate with lace and ruffles, laughed and tittered to each other behind their hands in excitement.
As Larz gazed up at the king in wonder, a blond, exquisite-looking creature called out and came forward from a side corridor. This one was much frailer looking, but he gestured down at Larz, smiling.
“Janos,” he called out and the king turned to look at the newcomer.
Was that his name then? King Janos? It wasn’t a name Larz had ever heard before, but then Larz had never paid much attention to politics. Learning more about government and politics had been something he’d wanted to change about himself during his training. The training that now would never happen.
The newcomer had the look of one who had just performed some hilarious prank or other and was quite pleased with himself about it. With a smile curling the corners of his mouth, he kept glancing back at the assembly behind the king as if to measure their hilarity at his joke.
Larz couldn’t understand the language spoken by the newcomer, who was still gesturing expansively toward him. The two men were back to speaking the unintelligible words to each other, and it seemed as though they might have been arguing this time from their expressions and tone.
All the while Larz knelt on the cold marble tiles of the hall and waited. He wondered if his fate was being decided, and then wondered if it even mattered. Many of the crew of the ship that had been taking him to the training camp, all brave warriors and good men, had been slaughtered right in front of him when they fought back. All except two of the younger ones, who had been taken along with the trainees. The other boys, almost all younger than he, except for the crewmen, had been taken for slaves, and he had just traveled for days on end in a ship taking him farther and farther away from his family, his friends, from everything and everyone he had ever known. Death might be preferable to what awaited him here.
That bald man had just told him he was on an alien world he’d never heard of, and he might never see his home again. Unfortunately, that was no news to him. Larz didn’t expect to see any of them ever again, and the most he could hope for might be a quick and honorable death. He wondered if he was about to get his wish.
He realized that the two men in front of him had stopped talking and were gazing down at him again. The one Larz was calling the king spoke to him in perfect Tygerian. “What’s your name, boy?”
Many things flew
through his head at the words, but the one thing that stood out was the tone the king had used. Contemptuous and full of antipathy, the words practically dripping with malice. He shook his head and lowered his gaze. Fuck this king and the rest of these people. He would tell them nothing. Let them do their worst.
“Are you deaf? Don’t you understand your own language? Or are you simply displaying the infuriating obstinacy the Tygerians are so well known for?” the king asked with a sneer.
Another flurry of words from the two men in front of him and then the king shouted something at the other one and flung down a hand, as if to say, that was an end to the discussion. The other man stepped back with his cheeks stained red and his lips pursed. He glanced over at Larz once and then sent a significant look to the dark-haired man at Larz’s side before sweeping from the hall. The dark-haired man watched him go, gave the leash in his hand to one of the guards, then bowed deeply to the king and took off after him.
The king leaned over Larz again, speaking in his perfect, careful Tygerian. “My brother bought you for my bed slave, but I told him I’d sooner lie with a filthy animal than with a Tygerian, though really, there would be little difference. Besides that,” he said his voice ringing with disdain as he looked Larz up and down, “Unlike your people, I don’t fuck children.”
Larz’s head shot up at the words. Bed slave? Fuck children? Had they brought him here for fucking? Not that he was all that sure what fucking entailed. Not exactly. Though the last time his brother Vannos had visited, he’d taken both Larz and Nicarr aside and told them things that Larz had found pretty hard to believe. He’d told them not to tell Omak what he’d said, but that he didn’t want them to be as ignorant of what went on between two men as he had been on his own wedding night, and that their omak had some crazy ideas about keeping his boys “innocent” so they wouldn’t grow up so fast and about letting their husbands teach them what they needed to know. He had planned to confirm the things Vannos had told him with the other trainees at school. Another thing he’d never get to do now.