Strongman

by Denise Rossetti

  His vran whickered. Something whizzed past his ear like an evil insect and embedded itself with a thunk! in the trunk of a candlewood tree.

  Fort stepped out onto the trail in front of him, his face like iron, a loaded crossbow in his hands. “If I was a Hssrdan, you’d be dead by now. Meat for the pot.”

  Griff unclenched his jaw, his guts heaving with shock. “I can take care of myself.”

  “No, you can’t.” Fort jerked his head. “Get down.” The crossbow didn’t waver.

  “What for?”

  “Get. The. Fuck. Down.”

  Griff sheathed the dagger he’d drawn, threw his leg over and slid down the side of the vran.

  “Move.” Another jerk of the head, a gesture with the bow. “Up the side trail.”

  His heart thundering, Griff led the way up a steep, winding path. He could hear the vran laboring along behind, hooting in protest. Surefooted on even terrain, vranee didn’t much like climbing. Fort was silent.

  The back of Griff’s neck prickled. “Where are we—” he began.

  “Shut up.”

  Griff pressed his lips together, resentment burning inside him, mixed with the sickening realization he’d made a complete fool of himself. His eyes stung and he blinked fiercely, nursing his anger, letting it build.

  Another ten minutes of effort brought them to the foot of a small bluff. He slowed. Fort said, “Left. Behind the candlewood tree.”

  The opening was a mere slit between the rocks, barely wide enough for the vran’s breadth. It grumbled its distress, but Griff took the reins and pulled, Fort pushing from behind. The density of the shadows was suffocating, the walls brushing their shoulders on both sides. But after a few minutes of winding and jinking, they emerged into a small grassy clearing, bathed in late afternoon sunlight. A narrow band of water trickled across the farther end, widening into a pool no more than four feet across. The headwaters of the stream he’d been following, no doubt. The big brown mare lifted her head from grazing and whickered a welcome.

  Fort released Griff’s animal with a slap on its feathered rump and turned. “Explain yourself.” The dark stubble on his face made him look scruffy and hard-bitten, like a brigand.

  Griff decided he’d seen ice warmer than those eyes. He set his jaw. “Why? I’m not a new recruit.”

  “While you are here,” snarled Fort, “you are under my command. Understood?”

  Propping his hands on his hips, Griff returned the glare in full measure. “Fuck off. I’m perfectly capable of—”

  A huge hand grabbed him by the back of the neck as if he were a naughty puppy. Automatically, Griff twisted, a dagger slipping sweetly from its forearm sheath into his fingers, but Fort struck his wrist a numbing blow and pulled him clean off his feet. “Look, you stupid little shit!” He dragged the other man to the lip of the hidden valley and shoved him forward over a rock ‘til he was leaning out over the drop below, gasping for breath. “Look down there!” Hard fingers dug into the back of his neck, pushing his head around to the right.

  Griff opened his mouth to swear, but something moved in the far distance. Many, many somethings. He narrowed his eyes and the breath rushed out of him in a hiss. “Shit!”

  “Exactly.” Fort loosened his grip. “Shit.”

  “There must be, must be…”

  “Three hundred Hssrda. I counted.”

  “Twister, I didn’t know that many could exist in one place.”

  “Well, they do. And you were headed straight for them, blundering along like a bunrat in a mating daze.”

  Griff let that one go. He peered at the dots on the horizon. “What are they doing?”

  “I haven’t got close enough to tell yet.” Fort shrugged. “This camp is one of half a dozen.” He stepped up next to Griff, his big body giving off an amazing heat. “Do you have any idea what they’d do to you, any idea at all?”

  Griff straightened, concentrating on holding himself steady. “Yes,” he managed. “Slavery or being…eaten.”

  “They castrate male slaves, did you know that?” Fort thrust his face right into Griff’s, his eyes glittering. “They’d cut off those pretty balls. Unless, of course, they sell you as a pleasure slave.” His mouth twisted. “Hell, they might just geld you anyway. You don’t need balls to be buggered.”

  Griff pulled back his arm and punched Fort in the gut with all his strength. “Stop it!” he shouted.

  The big man grunted, absorbing the blow, but he didn’t retaliate.

  “Fuck, just stop…stop it…” Griff ran down, conscious his voice had cracked. He stood with his fists clenched, breathing like a blown vran. Bile rose in his throat, foul and bitter. “All right,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll go.”

  Fort stood like a mountain, saying nothing.

  “I’m…” Griff inhaled with a painful effort. “I’m sorry, Fort.” He made to step away.

  “No.” A brawny forearm barred his progress. “You stay. I can’t risk it.”

  They stared at each other, but it was Fort who broke away. “C’mon,” he said gruffly, heading back toward the small tent pitched at the far end of the clearing. “We’d better unload your vran.”

  * * * * *

  Half an hour later, Fort had a tiny smokeless fire going, hard up against the rocks, water bubbling for roberry. When he handed Griff a mug, the tumbler gave a bark of wry laughter. “The Sereian cups. Fort, only you.”

  By Lufra, he hated this! Emotions seethed inside Fort, so turbulent he couldn’t seem to snag one long enough to give it a name, let alone deal with it. He gripped his cup so hard, he knew if it hadn’t been Sereian ware it would have collapsed in his hands. Just caved in.

  He gazed around the little green cup of the valley, thinking of the massed Hssrda, their reptilian stink, their flat cold eyes and wretched slaves. This was what he knew—this—the long cold nights on watch, the acrid stench of hot green blood when you skewered a Hssrdan in the throat or under the arm, the only parts of their bodies not armored. Mud and blood and death. Oh yes, Ruler God had made him fit for it.

  Rage and frustration clawing at his guts, he tried not to look at Griff’s strong profile in the dying light, tried not to think of how good it felt to have him sitting by the fire. Even if he couldn’t come up with a thing to say that wasn’t either an order or a curse.

  He’d handled himself well, the tumbler. If his opponent had been anyone else, someone who didn’t know the little shit so well, Ruler, he would have been sliced, no doubt of it. He’d have to rejig all his plans to accommodate the other man and his capabilities. Because he wasn’t letting Griff out of his sight again. When he thought of him trotting happily down the forest path toward slavery and death, the cold sweat started on the back of his neck, trickled down his spine. Fort frowned heavily, trying to focus.

  “Fort?”

  He grunted.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “About Jan.”

  Fort’s hand jerked and hot roberry splashed on his wrist. Swearing under his breath, he busied himself wiping it off. “I did, remember?”

  Griff’s voice was colder than he’d ever heard it, tight with anger. “You forgot to mention the little matter of employment. Were you going to keep my share of the money, Fort?”

  “Shit, no!” That Griff should even think that!

  “Then why the fuck didn’t you do me the courtesy of telling me the man had offered me a job?”

  Persistent as a biteme, that’s what he’d called the tumbler, a lifetime ago, but this was more than that. This was the mental strength of an athlete whose discipline and courage made it possible for him to risk his life every day, not in the heat haze of battle, but in cold blood, for the entertainment of those with no understanding of the price he paid.

  What the hell was he supposed to say now? He ran a hand through his hair. Some version of the truth? “I was trying to protect you.”

  “Protect me?”

  Shit, he
was doing this all wrong! Driven, he reached out to clamp a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Griff, this is what I do, what I’ve always done. Hunt, fight, kill.”

  He paused. Griff was shaking his head.

  “Yes,” insisted Fort. “Yes. And I do it better alone.”

  The tumbler froze then shrugged out of his hold. “Fine. I’ll leave in the morning.”

  “Like hell!” Fort made a deliberate effort to moderate his tone. “Too many Hssrda patrols. I won’t risk your life.”

  Griff went so still he could have been a statue, bathed in the dying light of the day. His face was so deeply shadowed Fort couldn’t make out his expression. His voice floated out of the dusk. “And what does my life mean to you, Fortitude McLaren?”

  Ah fuck, this conversation was completely beyond him! Because he didn’t know what to say, what else to do, Fort dug out his cooking pot and rummaged through his saddlebag for the cubes of dried nut paste and trintri roots.

  The silence stretched on and on, until he was gripping the pot so hard the handle wobbled in his hand.

  At last, Griff rose and walked away into the dark. He didn’t come back, but Fort could hear him moving, the occasional oath as he erected a tent, wrestled his saddlebags inside.

  Not long after moonrise, he approached Griff’s tent, not bothering to muffle his footsteps. “I have leftovers,” he said to the night.

  A pause. Rustling as the other man shifted. “I brought my own supplies. Thank you.”

  “Fine.” Fuck you.

  Later, after he’d stripped and washed up in the chilly pool, Fort slid into the silken bedroll he’d had specially made to accommodate his length. But for once, he took no pleasure in the glide of the fabric over his naked skin. Folding his hands beneath his head, he stared out the open flap at the stars wheeling past, listened to the sounds of nocturnal life. It was a long time before he slept.

  And dreamed.

  His mother sat across from him at the table in The Unbridled Vran. She didn’t seem at all discomposed, her lined face tranquil in a way he’d never seen in life. She set the box of white stones to one side with the careful, fluttering movements he remembered and leaned forward. “He was never the same after that,” she said.

  “What?” Fort stared stupidly, his fist clamped around the brandy bottle. “Who? Mother, this is no place—”

  “Your father.”

  Gods, when had she grown so small? He could have tucked her under his arm, lifted her with one hand.

  “You broke his jaw, did you know that?”

  Fort swallowed, his guts heaving with remembered guilt and terror. He estimated he’d been almost eighteen, tall and bony and awkward. But unremitting labor had packed muscle on his lanky frame and his blood had run hot with half-understood urges.

  In the strange way of dreams, he was there and not there, cradling his raw knuckles, standing over the body of Sobriety McLaren, the belt still doubled in his father’s out-flung hand. Ruler God, he’d killed him! Killed the old bastard. Little Prue clung to Fort’s leg, her narrow chest heaving with the sobs she knew better than to release. Bruises flowered on her cheek, the back of her skinny legs, and one eye was almost closed. “Run,” he’d whispered to her through trembling lips. “Run and hide, sweetheart.” But in the end, he’d had to pry her loose, give her a gentle push.

  “No, I killed him,” he said, the words emerging as if they’d been yanked forth. They hurt on the way out, like barbed arrowheads. “My father.”

  As he stared into his mother’s faded blue eyes, they darkened, widening until he was lurching forward into a star-filled infinity. Let it go, child, said a huge voice in his head.

  “I can’t,” he cried, in a kind of agony. “Don’t you understand? I murdered my own father!”

  A vast womanly chuckle. One punch, from an untried lad? It took more than that to finish Sobriety McLaren and many years to boot.

  Tears of shame slid down his cheeks. “And then I ran. I left them, Grace and Constance and Silence and little Prue. Mother.” He scrubbed them away with his fists. “I ran.”

  Females are practical creatures, Fort. We have to be. What use would you have been to them after the Ecclesiastical Court finished with you?

  Fort shuddered. “None.”

  They prayed for you every day. Still do.

  Something in his chest contracted, as if a great fist gripped his heart and squeezed. “They live? They’re well?”

  Let it go, child. A gentle hand on his hair, a fleeting benediction. The touch drifted to the back of his neck and heat trickled down his spine. Don’t waste My gift.

  “What?” He wet his lips. “What’s Your gift?”

  Joy, child. I give you joy.

  Chapter Ten

  Whether it’s a furtive fumble or a dance of power and grace, the act of sex is a homage to Lufra. Never forget that sacred fact.

  Lady Chelisand’s Admonishment to the Temple class of 10,351 ATF, later enshrined as a Precept.

  Fort woke instantly, battle-ready, the way he always did. But all was quiet, save for the twitter of rasa birds in the brush, the tearing sound of the vranee cropping the grass. He frowned, idly scratching his chest, chasing the trailing fragments of a dream.

  I give you joy, child.

  His fingers slowed and stilled as he became aware of a shift, a…settling, somewhere inside him. When he inhaled and his chest expanded under his hand, it felt as if he had infinite room under his ribs, as if he were lighter somehow, freer. Fort blinked and shook his head, tears coming from nowhere, prickling behind his eyes. What the fuck?

  He’d dreamed of his mother and she’d given him the absolution he’d always longed for. Fort’s lips thinned. Well, of course she had. It was his dream, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t shake the conviction the old bastard had survived that desperate, roundhouse blow. And if he had, he’d gone on and on for years, making everyone’s lives a misery. The cruel, bigoted, drunken sot of a bastard coward. He’d looked somehow diminished, lying there crumpled at his children’s feet. A fallen giant.

  Shaking his head, Fort sat up, shoving the bedroll down to his hips. When the job was over and Jan had paid him, he’d finish his contract with the Fair and go back to find them, his womenfolk. Surely he was big enough, mean enough, to take care of himself among the Brethren? Not a frightened boy any longer. And Lufra help him, he’d find Sobriety McLaren’s grave and piss on it.

  Heat gathered in the small of his back, simultaneously comforting and stimulating. His morning erection reared happily and Fort grunted, the vividness of the dream fading. Cradling his cock, he crouched to leave the tent, coming to his feet in the morning sun. Involuntarily, he smiled. Lufra was good to Her children. Sunlight spilled into the hidden glade, brightening the white upturned faces of the goddess daisies dotting the grass. The tiny stream swished over rocks in a soothing murmur.

  Luxuriously, Fort scratched his balls, enjoying the moment.

  But when his eye fell on the other tent, his pleasant mood evaporated as if it had never been. Growling curses, he fished out his trews and pulled them on. Then he stumped off to relieve himself and dunk his head in the chilly water of the pool.

  Ten minutes later, he was still trying to decide what to do about the tumbler as he poured hot roberry into the Sereian cups. Should he escort him back to the borders of the Empty Lands and lose two days or keep him close and have to watch him every minute? Indecision made him so irritable he planted himself outside Griff’s tent and barked, “Get up, you lazy little shit!”

  Silence.

  “C’mon, Griff. Up! I’ve got things to do.”

  Nothing. Only the rasa birds cheeping and the sound of running water singing a counterpoint to the wind.

  Fort extended a big, bare foot and pushed the tent flap aside. He peered. Empty.

  His guts disappeared into a cold, dark void. Ruler God! A hasty glance confirmed the presence of both vranee, so wherever the other man was, he was on foot. Fort tossed the cu
ps aside and dived for his saddlebags. Shit, shit, shit! It took him two tries to loosen the buckle because his hands were shaking so hard. Lufra’s tits, he’d kill him, make the stupid bastard rue the day he was born. He’d—

  “The view’s much better from up there.”

  Fort spun around, sword in one hand, boots in the other.

  Griff was easing out of the cleft in the rocks. He reached up to give his hobbled vran an affectionate slap on the rump as he passed, his dark eyes bright with excitement.

  For a hideous instant, Fort thought his heart had stopped forever. Then it thumped back to life and with it came a wave of pure red, pulsing fury.

  Griff was grinning with triumph. He gestured toward the very top of the bluff. “You can see for miles, especially from the old candlewood. You’ll never guess what—”

  The words choked off as Fort gripped his biceps and hauled him to his toes. “Never—” He shook the tumbler so hard his head rocked on his shoulders. “Never do that again!”

  Recovering, Griff glared. “Do what?”

  “Leave.” Another shake. “Without telling me.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of—”

  Fort lowered his head until they were nose to nose. “You’re not!”

  “Fuck you!” Griff twisted in his grip, freeing himself with an acrobat’s supple strength. His sloe eyes burning, he hissed, “Listen, you stubborn bastard, it worked. I saw what—”

  The words slid past Fort’s ear in a meaningless jumble of noise. Grimly, he stepped forward and Griff fell back, wariness crossing his face for the first time. “Fort?” he said. “Fort?”

  Fort closed his hand over a straight shoulder and spun Griff around, clamping the younger man’s back to his chest. He hooked a brawny forearm around his throat. “You,” he snarled, “will learn to do as you’re told.”

  Griff heaved and bucked in his grasp, incredibly strong for his size, but Fort increased the pressure. “I’m going to beat the crap out of you, so I never need worry again. Understand?”