Guardians of the Portals

by Nya Rawlyns

  His healing was more problematic. He could never undo the damage to his own soul, never shed the guilt or responsibility for his actions—not now, not for this. He’d extracted honor, respect and admiration for doing his duty, with pain and blood the currency more often than not. Emotionless. More android than human. She’d thought him a devil or a demon. It suited then, but no longer.

  Trey staggered to the cave entrance. Distant jagged peaks cradled the small yellow orb, its orbit close, rotation about the planet rapid, lapping the larger, more distant neighbour several times over during the extended moon phase. He watched as the moon slipped quickly behind the ridge, blinking once, then extinguished like a candle flame. The loss of lumens barely registered as the larger satellite loomed menacingly close, its light diamond hard, translucent. If he had a scroll, he could read it easily, but he had naught but his lust and it drove all need for caution from his thoughts. For he had no thoughts, only pulsing energies and whispers.

  Trey pulled his worn blanket over top of the woman. He would lay with her to keep her warm, but not yet. Not when his need overpowered good sense. He tended to the horses, unclear what to do to make them more comfortable, but he suspected their usefulness was limited. Her mount seemed in fair shape but his horse looked worn, exhausted, his eyes dulled, almost lifeless. The pitiful animal had born his weight up and down the gods-forsaken mountains for weeks. Even with extensive rest and a real meal and water, he doubted the creature would last out another week of heavy going. That would mean the woman must walk, though after seeing the damage done from the saddle abrading her soft flesh, he supposed that might not be a bad thing.

  He could let her ride, he should let her, but with any consideration, any comfort extended to ease her passage, he risked losing control over her powers. As it was, she taxed his abilities to block and contain the burgeoning magic reserves. How those powers would manifest was anyone’s guess. Her bloodlines indicated a high probability of prescience, perhaps even—and this was purely theory—the ability to shape shift. Such a gift would prove immensely attractive to the Althing and Greyfalcon clans.

  Trey adjusted the hobbles on the mule and gave him a pat. He wandered onto the broad ledge in front of the cave. To the right, the path slanted slightly downhill, but it was open and offered no convenient places to hide. To the left, uphill, large granitic outcrops offered far too many coverts for an enemy or predator to shelter while waiting for him to make a mistake. There was no discernible path in that direction, but that did not preclude a clever adversary from swinging down from ledges farther up the slope. His hope was that he would hear them coming and that meant staying awake. He’d told the woman time had no meaning here and that was partially true. The aborigines measured events in terms of daylight and moonlight. The perturbations in the planet’s orbit and the dissimilar orbital characteristics of the two moons made for an astronomer’s wet dream, but he was no astronomer or mathematician and could only guess when the planet’s wobbling would thrust them back into daylight.

  For now all he could do was stay alert. The barrenness of the landscape, the lack of vegetation to support mammalian-like species, precluded any ‘lions and tigers and bears, oh my’. He smiled at his near joke. It was the closest he ever came to humor or irony, characteristics thrashed out of him by his “pater familias” with a quick and lethal hand. Duty and honor rested on the hilt of a sword, writ in blood and vengeance. He fingered his blade and cast a wary eye to the night sky. The danger would come from above on silent wing beats, bearing talons and sharp beaks, large enough to carry away even a horse. The indigenous population worshipped the creatures and built their settlements on the flats, well away from known nesting areas.

  He listened carefully but not a sound, not a breath of wind, buzz of an insect, nor even his own harsh breaths penetrated the crystalline light. He existed out of time, out of place on this world—in it, yet not of it. He hoped he’d made a wise decision bringing her here. He’d had few choices at the time. As his uncle said, this time he’d really screwed the pooch. He was more inclined to call it a cluster fuck for the shrapnel had hit far and wide. In this time-space, he had at least a small chance of being the last man standing.

  Thinking of her made him hard again. He rubbed the front of the tight jeans but it brought little relief. With a moan he staggered toward a granite outcrop and leaned against it. He glanced quickly around but nothing stirred. He released his straining cock into his rough hand, sighing on each stroke, desperately holding onto the physical sensations only, blocking his fantasies for fear they would transmit to her. The vision of her lifting her skirt, revealing the slim line of her thigh, leaked into his consciousness and the memory of rubbing her muscles hard, harder, drove him into a frenzy. He yanked his glasses off and covered his eyes with his left hand, pressing hard, forcing the visions to parade across a black screen and came on a whimper.

  “Was it good for you?” a familiar voice sneered.

  Trey inhaled sharply, then froze as the knife blade pierced his still-weeping cock. He turned his head to confirm the identity of the man threatening to castrate him.

  “How did you find me?”

  “It wasn’t easy, boyo. But you’ve been getting careless. Leaving blood scent.”

  Trey gave the man a curious look then muttered, “Fuck.” He’d forgotten how effective a tracker his assailant could be. “What do you want?”

  “It’s not what I want, Trey. It’s what my ... what he wants. And I’m here to take the asset back.”

  Trey’s head spun. He desperately wished he had his glasses but he’d dropped them somewhere to his left when he’d felt the first stab. For some reason, in this time-space he was intensely myopic. It put him at a distinct disadvantage.

  “You know I can’t let you do that.” He flinched as the tip of the blade traced a line across the slit, adding beads of blood to the slick coating. He pulled his right hand away from his cock and wiped it on his jeans.

  “I’d rather not hurt you. But, a long time ago, you chose wrong.”

  Trey inched his right hand along the waistband of his jeans. He allowed a small mewl of pain to escape as the assailant’s blade dug deeper into his cock. Though he blocked the pain as best he could, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Leaning forward, he forced the blade even deeper and stared into the man’s eyes, now widening in shock and incomprehension.

  With a savage thrust Trey drove his stiletto deep into the man’s gut, twisting and slicing until his assailant slid to the ground.

  “I’m sorry, Bryn. I’m so sorry, my brother.”

  ****

  Caitlin resisted the pressure on her chest. Her ears buzzed and echoed eerily. She tried to wriggle her left shoulder but it seemed pinned in place, the effort sending a sharp shaft of pain across her torso. A whisper, inside her head, told her shallow breaths, easy, stay calm. She cracked her eyelids open and tried to peer through the tangled mass of hair covering her face. A guttural sound in her ear made her jump. She immediately regretted the movement, as muscle groups argued over access to flaring nerves.

  She wondered, briefly, where she was. Shifting her focus, she concentrated on the pressure pinning her body in place, shoulders and hips immobile. She could move her legs and did, slowly lifting them against the weight of the blanket. Startled, she realized she was naked from the waist down as the frigid air caressed her thighs. She gave a shiver and arched against the weight bearing her to the floor.

  The cave. The demon-stranger. Moonlight.

  With a grunt she tried to wriggle free, but stopped as warm fluid trickled across her belly. She concentrated on the single point of flow, a drop, then a stream, inching toward her thigh, cooling to glacial slowness and pooling in the cavity left by her bony hips. What had he done to her this time?

  A sharp grunt and snort blasted her eardrum. She flipped her head to move the strands of hair out of her eyes and stared askance to her left at the man imprisoning her with his massive frame. His light
brown hair fell in a tangle across his face, hiding the square jaw and cruel mouth. His head rested against her ear and the harsh snores blasted her inner ear with almost painful intensity. He lay with his upper body partially across her own, his left arm balanced and pressing on her collarbone. The heat from the points of contact were searing on her parched skin. It confused and troubled her. She’d touched, or been touched by him, frequently over the last weeks and at no time did she remember his body temperature being abnormally high. She wondered if he had a fever. It would account for his immobility. For all she knew he could be unconscious. Her immediate concern was that, with his mass, it might be impossible to move him off and away so that she could at least get up and tend to nature’s call.

  The pressure on her bladder occupied her thoughts, as she explored what pinned her hips so solidly and perhaps identify the source of the odd stream of fluid trailing along her hip bone. With her legs free she had more leverage to scoot sideways, crablike, sliding against his groin, all too aware that his body responded immediately to her stimulation. The thought of him growing hard as she moved her hips and belly was almost too much to bear. Another gush of warm fluid as she maneuvered under his bulk made her realize that it came not from her, but from him. He was bleeding and every movement she made seemed to aggravate whatever wound had opened.

  She whispered, “Aiden, Aiden wake up,” then more loudly, “AIDEN.”

  She managed to work her lower body loose. He moaned softly and rolled onto his back, freeing her torso. Caitlin gingerly felt her ribs, shocked to find them achy but not especially painful. How long had she been out? The bones felt solid and she allowed herself the luxury of a deep breath, then immediately regretted it as the chill air burned a path down her chest. Recalling why she was so anxious to get up, she stumbled across the uneven floor and approached the cavern entrance with caution. The horses and mule stirred restlessly. She reached into the canvas bag and distributed a bit of grain to each to keep them from nickering or otherwise alerting any predator that might be lurking outside.

  The smaller moon was at apogee though its lumens barely registered as the larger satellite dominated the southeast quadrant. The light was no longer diamond sharp but still gave off enough illumination that Caitlin could make out the dark stain on the ledge to the left of the cave entrance. Curious, she forgot about the urgent demands of her bladder and crept onto the outcrop after carefully checking right, then left, as if looking for traffic at a busy intersection.

  She laughed to herself, old habits die hard.

  The pea-size gravel over a sandstone base had caught a pool of the fluid. She poked at it with an index finger. It was viscous, skinned over but not yet hardened in the chill air. She sniffed at the finger and wretched at the familiar iron scent. Blood—vast quantities of blood, was this from him? If it was, he must be badly wounded, but by what? Had a flying predator surprised him? The talons could easily gut a man. The thought of him dealing with that kind of injury, alone, made her want to weep in despair. She would need to tend to him at once. Survival on her own was not an option. She needed the man to take her to safety. Without her powers she was helpless in this alien environment.

  Caitlin pulled at her thin blouse trying to cover as much of her belly as possible. Shivering, she tended to her body’s needs and retreated into the cave. She found her skirt in a bundle at the foot of the blanket and pulled it on. The man’s flannel jacket lay discarded by the panniers so she slipped that over the blouse and knelt beside the prone form to assess his injury. Garish weak light reflected off the walls, barely enough to see, but they no longer had any bottled gas with which to light the lantern and apparently candles were not part of the technology of this planet.

  Caitlin ran her hands down the muscled chest, her fingers nesting briefly in the sprinkling of soft hair, and gently trailed over ribs and belly. She followed the line of hair leading to his now flaccid penis. His right hip was sticky with blood but she found no open wounds or bullet holes that could account for the blood loss on the ledge, or on his hard body. Puzzled she gently moved his cock aside, shifting her body to allow light to flow over his lower body. The sight of the deep gash across the head and smaller nicks and cuts down its length made her gag. The main wound oozed pus and blood and even in the dim light it seemed angry and inflamed. She was no medic but surely the wound had to be infected.

  She could not imagine a predator doing this kind of damage. This wound looked like it had been inflicted by a psychopath in a blind rage. She had little knowledge of the male anatomy and had no clue if it were even possible to have the kind of blood loss indicated by the pool congealing on the ledge. However, it would account for him being unconscious and unresponsive.

  She felt his brow and confirmed her suspicion. He was burning up. With no water and no medical supplies, she was clueless how to deal with the situation. He trembled and shifted position. Caitlin carefully drew the blanket over his body then crawled over to the saddle pads and dragged them back to add to the thin wool cover. She made sure nothing heavy pressed on his cock.

  Out of options, she made for the cave opening. The thought that someone else might have caught the man unawares was almost incomprehensible. The man had demonstrated such superior skills that she’d gone so far as to call him supernatural, a demon in truth, no matter how far-fetched that idea seemed. Nothing stretched her credulity anymore. But if it were another assailant, then what or who had it been?

  Caitlin eased around the corner of the cave, listening for wing beats but nothing moved, the silence almost deafening in the absolute absence of sound. She could make out where the ground had been disturbed with scuffmarks clustered near the cave mouth, then more marks in a line leading to the edge of the outcrop. A glint to her left caught her interest. She leaned down to examine the ground. His glasses lay next to a granite boulder, still intact. She picked them up and examined them, relieved to see they were undamaged.

  She crept along the boulder’s face, following the line of displaced gravel, past the pool of blood, to the very lip of the ledge. Jagged bits of rock indicated a recent spalling away, leaving a freshly fractured surface that glinted in the cool moonlight. She looked over the ledge, pretty sure she knew what had occurred. The base of the rock fall lay cast in shadows. She would see nothing from that vantage point and there was no way she would risk slip-sliding down the mountainside to satisfy idle curiosity. She was quite sure it made no difference. Whoever it was, he, or it, was long since dead. She backed away, mesmerized by the possibilities and stepped on something that caused her bare foot to roll. She bent to pick it up; it was his stiletto, coated with a dark sticky substance—blood.

  Caitlin admired the heft of the blade and wondered again who had dared to follow them into this unforgiving wilderness. The indigenous peoples were supposedly too frightened to trespass on the predators’ nesting areas, and in any case, they had yet to make their own presence known to the local population. Stealth had been the name of the game since they’d arrived. The other option was a pursuer from her own world, and that thought had her gut clenching in fear. The man had told her little about the Portal but she’d gotten the impression that he, or his organization, had some sort of exclusive control over the access points. Someone may have changed the rules of the conflict.

  Caitlin hustled back into the cave. The man still lay unconscious, his breathing raspy and labored. He looked younger somehow, vulnerable. She knelt beside him and brushed his matted hair away from his face. Her finger traced a path along the ridge of his prominent cheekbone, brushing the long lashes with a feather stroke. She hadn’t noticed before but his nose had a ridge, as if it had been broken at some time in the distant past. He had faint scar lines radiating out from his left eye socket. Strange, she’d not noticed that in the light. His full lips were dry and crusted like hers but she longed to taste him, to sample the salt and ease the cracked flesh with her own moisture. She ran her palm over the rough stubble, loving the prickly feel.

/>   The nameless stranger shivered again and groaned. Caitlin slipped under the blanket and pads and cradled his muscular body with her own thin frame. It was all she could do for him until daylight reappeared.

  She had made a deal with the devil. She hoped to hell she’d made the right decision.

  Chapter Ten

  Trey cracked his eyelids. Daylight flooded the cave and the animals stirred restlessly, snuffling the ground in search of morsels of grain. He felt like he’d been cocooned in a blast furnace. Sweat dripped into his eyes and off his nose. He couldn’t move his shoulders and his lower torso still ached.

  He’d gone into stasis, a healing process he and a few others of his clan had learned from their shaman. Only the ‘sensitives’ had entrée to the proper sequencing. When others tried it, they merely slipped into hallucinogenic inner space. Trey appreciated both aspects of that ride but recognized the dangers inherent in unrestricted access so he’d had blocks coded into the mantra. Only when no other routes for healing were available could he bypass the encoding. Apparently his body had chosen for him, as he had no recollection of how he’d ended up back in the cave, flat on his back on unforgiving ground.

  He glanced over at the sleeping figure pinning him to the floor. Her tangled locks and his own matted hair intertwined in a sea of pinkish-tan polyps, waving in slow undulations every time he took a deep breath. The woman still breathed with shallow gasps through parched lips. He regretted he could do no more to ease the pain of her damaged ribcage.

  With a grunt, he hoisted himself away from Caitlin’s thin form. He ran his tongue over his lips, perplexed at the sticky consistency and slightly sweet taste. With a start he realized she must have been moistening his mouth with the liquid from their last can of canned fruit. He scanned the cave floor and spied the open can near the saddles, well away from their bedding and any chance of knocking it over. The taste sent waves of hunger through his belly. He crawled over to the can, hoping to sample any dregs. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw all the fruit still present and only a small amount of liquid missing. She could have eaten the contents—he would have, had their roles been reversed.