The Golden Dynasty f-2

by Kristen Ashley

  Zahnin was at the back of the tent, his body heaving with the deep breaths mine was sucking in and I felt Bain’s pulling in against me. Zahnin held his bloody sword in one hand, pointed down, an equally bloody knife held in the other. Ghost was sitting at his feet, jaws bloody, tongue lolling, blinking like she was bored and ready for a nap.

  And I also saw a jagged slash of opened flesh scored down Zahnin’s chest and through his abs.

  “No,” I whispered as I watched the blood drip down his hides. “No!” I shrieked and Bain’s hold tightened around me.

  “It is fine, he is fine, my golden queen, it is a flesh wound,” Bain whispered.

  These fucking savage brute warrior guys.

  A flesh wound!

  His blood was dripping down his hides.

  With a heave I tore from Bain’s hold and ran across the cham on a direct route to my protector. That was to say, I ran over the bed. Ghost jumped to all fours and crept back, clearly reading her Loolah’s mood and wanting nothing to do with it.

  When I got to him, I put a gentle hand on him and tilted my head way back to look at him.

  “We need to get you down. We need to cleanse this. We need –”

  He cut in to grunt, “Queen Circe, I am fine.”

  I stepped back and screeched, “You are not fine!” Then I turned to the tent flaps and screamed, “Jacanda! Get in here!”

  “My golden –” Zahnin started but I whipped my head back to him, raised the point of my own bloody dagger toward his face and his mouth snapped shut as his eyes went to my weapon.

  “Quiet, Zahnin, you will allow me to see to your wound. Your queen commands it!” I ordered.

  His gaze moved from my blade to my face, his lips twitched and then his eyes slid to Bain.

  “Our king told us of this,” he remarked drily.

  “Indeed, our queen gets something in her head…” Bain trailed off, sounding amused… yes, amused... as he agreed with his brother from behind me.

  I turned to glare with narrowed eyes at Bain then I swung my glare back to Zahnin and I snapped, “No more banter. You!” I jabbed my dagger at Zahnin. “Lie down.” I swung the blade to the bed. “I’m seeing to your wound.”

  “As you wish, warrior queen,” he muttered, also sounding amused, deeply, my narrowed gaze got squinty and Jacanda scurried in, face pale, eyes wide, fear visible on every inch of her frame.

  I turned to her. “Boil water. I need soap, clean cloths and cleaner bandages. I’ll need a needle and thread uh…” I stopped because I didn’t know the Korwahk word for “sterilized” then said, “Cleaned.” When she looked confused, I explained, “Boil those too… for a long time.” She nodded though now she looked less afraid and more perplexed. I ignored it and kept going. “Bring the healer to me. And send someone to get some zakah. A lot of zakah.”

  “I could use some zakah,” Zahnin muttered and I whirled to him.

  “You’re not going to drink it. I’m going to use it to clean your wound.”

  He stared at me with unconcealed surprise.

  “Don’t question me,” I ordered. “They do it in my land. It’s a good thing to do.”

  “It’s a waste of good zakah,” Bain commented under his breath from across the tent but I caught it and I turned to him.

  “Don’t you have a Daxshee to lock down or possible enemies to round up or something?” I prompted.

  He pressed his lips together I knew to suppress a twitch and I squinted at him.

  “Yes, my true golden queen,” he muttered, his amused eyes slid through Zahnin then he left the tent and I noticed Jacanda was still standing there.

  “Go, sweetheart, now,” I urged, she nodded and shot off.

  I turned to Zahnin and noted, “You’re not lying down.”

  “Right,” he muttered, I moved to the bed and pulled the bloody sheet off and also any hides that had blood on them. Then I shoved off any pillows that had been bloodied.

  What I didn’t do was look at any of the cut up bodies or body pieces littering my tent or think of the fact that I, myself, had taken at least one, possibly one and a half lives (I might have delivered a killing wound but it was Bain who definitely executed the kill so I was counting that as a half). Nor did I allow myself to think about the obvious news that my Teetru had betrayed me to her people.

  She betrayed me yet got out my dagger, exposing it openly both to warn me and to give me a fighting chance by providing me with the only weapon she, or I, had at our disposal.

  And lastly, I did not think about why she would do either of these things, betray me first then warn me second.

  “May I have my queen’s leave to find a warrior and ask him to gather other warriors to collect these bodies?” Zahnin asked solicitously from behind me, far more solicitous than he ever spoke to me (mainly because he never spoke to me solicitously) and I heard the humor in his tone and something about it made the adrenalin surging through my system and subsequent temper flare evaporate.

  I straightened from the bed and turned to him.

  “I’ll do that,” I said softly, “can you please, for me, lie down?”

  He read the change in my tone and his face softened, the amusement faded and warmth hit his eyes.

  “I am fine, my golden queen, this is my vow.”

  “You bleed for me,” I whispered, “please, please, I know you don’t need it but I need to take care of you. Please.”

  He studied me. Then he nodded. Then he lay down.

  I ran to the flaps of the tent, stuck my head out and saw two warrior guards on either side.

  “We need clean up in here, if you don’t mind,” I said to the one on my left.

  He nodded but didn’t move. Instead, he bellowed my order to a warrior standing post some ten feet away. That warrior nodded, turned and bellowed my order to someone else.

  I didn’t hang around to watch the rest. I saw Packa running toward me with the big bath cloths Lahn and I used and I moved back into the tent.

  * * * * *

  Needless to say, everyone was a little surprised, and get this, sickened, by the medicine I explained was practiced freely in my land.

  They did not sew flesh together, Bain informed me with curled lip, eyes filled with disgust.

  Yes, this from a man who cut up a bunch of the enemy in what amounted to my freaking house. And, after, stood amongst the carnage bantering with his comrade.

  Furthermore, they didn’t have a word for germs, because they didn’t know what germs were, so my explanation of why I would waste good zakah cleansing Zahnin’s wound fell on deaf ears.

  Luckily, I was queen so they had no choice but to give into my commands and they did.

  Though Bain and Zahnin did it obviously humoring me.

  However, when I commanded a clearly squeamish Gaal (Jacanda told me she was a very gifted seamstress when I demanded she find the best one in the Daxshee) to sew together the edges of Zahnin’s wound, the healer, standing and observing, saw the wisdom of this.

  “Very clever,” she muttered as Gaal, swallowing with nerves and aversion but still game, started to use the needle I’d further sterilized in a candle flame and thread that Jacanda had boiled in a pot over the fire and I’d soaked in zakah to sew Zahnin’s wound together.

  Gaal looked like she was about to heave a couple of times (and I was right there with her, talk about gross) but she stuck with it mainly because I stayed close for moral support. Her eyes kept lifting to me, I nodded to encourage her and eventually she lost her distaste for it and did, from my extremely limited experience, what looked like a very good job.

  For Zahnin’s part, he didn’t even wince but lay on my bed with pillows I’d shoved under his head, one arm bent, hand behind his head, chatting amiably through the whole thing to Bain who was standing at the head of the bed, arms crossed on his chest and one ankle crossed over the other in a casual warrior pose which didn’t fit with what had become a minor medical procedure in a primitive examination room.

/>   Once closed, I cleansed the wound again with zakah when Gaal moved away, the healer gooped him up with some salve she promised aided healing (after I made her wash her hands with soap and rinse them in zakah) and then he sat up so she could press a long bandage down his front then roll a clean gauze tight around and around his torso, tying it expertly at the end.

  The bodies, by the way, had been removed by young trainee warriors and Packa and Beetus, faces pale, had grabbed the sheet and pillows and pulled up the rugs to take them out as Jacanda went to work wiping down furniture and trunks.

  Boy, I needed to go back to the market and buy my girls more gifts. They already went beyond the call of duty and got nothing for it except food, cham and minimal clothing. Wiping up blood went so beyond the call of duty, it wasn’t funny.

  Ghost, by the way, was lying on her side at the foot of the bed, napping in a dead to the world fashion and I knew this because, even with all the people and activity around, she didn’t even twitch.

  When I put pressure on Zahnin’s shoulder to press him back, he went without complaint but he looked at me when he was fully reclining.

  “Can I have some zakah now?”

  I studied him. He was not pale. He had never been faint. And his eyes held no pain. None at all. In fact, he looked totally normal.

  Boy, they trained these boys to within an inch of their life.

  Literally.

  I sucked in a calming breath and answered, “Yes, my protector, you can have –”

  I stopped speaking when the cham flaps slapped and I was turning toward them when I heard a soft, feminine intake of breath.

  Sabine was standing inside my cham and Diandra and Claudine were entering the flaps at her back. And Sabine was staring at her husband and his bandage, her eyes wide, her face pale, her mouth soft. I watched those eyes drift up his chest to his face then I stared as they got bright with unshed tears.

  They slid to me. “Circe?” she whispered.

  “He’s fine, sweetheart, we’ve fixed him up,” I assured her.

  She held my gaze for several moments before she nodded. Her eyes went back to Zahnin who I noticed had not moved and he was watching her silently. Then they swiftly came back to me.

  It hit me that she didn’t know what to do.

  I was sitting on my knees in the middle of the bed next to her husband and I extended my arm to her.

  “It’s okay, you can come to him. He’s fine and you won’t hurt him,” I called softly, her body jerked slightly then she bit her lip.

  I held my breath.

  Then slowly, foot in front of foot, she walked to the bed. When she made it to the end, she put a knee to it and crawled on all fours to me.

  Zahnin watched without a word.

  I scuttled back and she stopped when she took my place, sitting ass to calves, knees an inch from his hip.

  My feet hit stone at the side of the bed when I heard her whisper, “You are all right, husband?”

  “Meena,” Zahnin replied instantly.

  A pause then from Sabine, “Are you in pain?”

  “Me,” Zahnin answered again instantly.

  I heard her soft intake of breath and let out my own when her hand tentatively lifted, then settled lightly on the bandage at his stomach as she whispered, “Dohno.”

  At her word and touch, with his gaze warm on his wife, his face soft, Zahnin lifted his hand and her body didn’t move or even tense as she allowed her husband to cup her cheek.

  Then she did something that proved I was right about how sweet Sabine was.

  She slowly and carefully dropped gracefully to her side and curled up next to him, her head on his shoulder, her hand light on his bandage. As she moved, Zahnin’s fingers slid through her hair so when she was settled, they cupped the back of her head.

  My eyes went to his to see his were on me.

  And they were communicating.

  I nodded, getting the message loud and clear.

  His fingers started sifting through his wife’s hair.

  “Everybody out,” I ordered softly and I didn’t need to ask twice.

  Jacanda quit wiping, grabbed her bucket and scurried. The healer and Bain moved to the tent flaps that Claudine had exited and Diandra was currently moving through. Gaal was already gone.

  I wanted to look back but didn’t, it wasn’t right, but I really, really wanted to.

  I didn’t need to.

  I heard Zahnin mutter, “Thank you for coming to me, my beautiful one.”

  Before I dropped the flaps behind me, I heard Sabine’s soft sigh.

  And as the flaps settled, I heard Sabine ask with cute, quiet surprise, “Oh my, Zahnin, is that a tiger?”

  This was followed by a quiet manly chuckle.

  Hmm. It seemed I never shared about Ghost with Sabine and it occurred to me I’d never hosted her at my cham.

  I walked toward Diandra and Claudine thinking I was going to have to do that. I’d had lunch or dinner at all my posse’s chams. I was falling down. It was way my turn.

  These thoughts were wiped from my brain when Diandra’s eyes came to me then drifted the length of me.

  Then they filled with tears.

  “Oh, my Circe,” she breathed, I stopped moving, looked down and saw I had blood all over me.

  I hadn’t even noticed.

  I looked up to assure her I was fine when suddenly the air changed and I heard the thunder of hooves.

  My head turned to my left just in time to see Lahn on Lahkan clear the cham closest to us. I had no time to experience shock at his early return, or delight. I didn’t because he was coming at a full gallop and he wasn’t slowing.

  I registered vaguely he was followed by a number of other horses but I didn’t pay much attention because suddenly his body was swinging off his horse while Lahkan kept galloping!

  “Lahn!” I cried, frozen stiff in panic when his feet solidly hit ground and Lahkan zoomed by me so close, I felt the breeze of motion and a whisper of touch from his tail but I couldn’t concentrate on that either.

  Lahn was on me.

  Or, his hands were. Travelling over my limbs, my shoulders, my breasts, my belly, my waist, drifting over the dried blood, he jerked me so my back was to him and did the same.

  It finally hit me what he was doing and I tried to turn back, saying, “Lahn, I’m okay.”

  I didn’t turn around. He jerked me back around and my body swayed with the force of it and only remained standing because his hands clamped on either side of my jaw.

  Then he stared into my eyes and I held my breath because his spirit was there, right there, right at the surface, burning golden, bright and brutal more than it had even after Dortak called out his threats.

  He was not pissed. He was not angry.

  His spirit was filled with wrath.

  Oh shit.

  “I’m okay, honey,” I whispered, my hands lifting to curl my fingers around his wrists and his fingers pressed in so hard they caused pain. “Honestly, I’m –”

  I didn’t finish because he released me but threw back his head and roared with rage. No words, just a primal shout he thundered to the heavens that came straight from his gut and was filled with a fury unsurpassed. I took a step back in shock and surprise at this uninhibited, savage display as he dropped his chin and roared again, thumping his fist on his chest and turning his massive body toward the phalanx of warriors on their horses who had crowded thigh to thigh in the limited space.

  He thumped his fist on his chest again and roared, “We ride on Maroo!”

  Oh shit!

  The warriors on horses, those standing around, others standing sentry and all of those guarding our cham roared in response, punching fists in the air or thumping their own chests.

  “The blood of our enemy stains the gold of my queen!” Lahn kept bellowing, thumping his chest on the word “my” then swinging a powerful arm around to point at me. “They closed on her in my cham,” another thump, “shattering the safety I provid
e her,” another thump, “and spilling the blood of our brother!” He beat at his chest with both fists. “In return, we will create rivers of Maroo blood. The stone of our earth will weep with it and we will know vengeance!” Another thump and another returning roar from his warriors, now, their numbers were growing as more were joining or closing in.

  I felt Diandra and Claudine move in on my sides, Diandra’s hand finding mine as Lahn turned but he didn’t look at me.

  He looked beyond me and ordered, “Bathe their blood from her golden skin. Remove our possessions and burn this cham, now. Order a new one made, I want it up and sheltering my golden bride in a week.” He paused, leaned forward, I turned my head and saw Gaal and Beetus staring at him, frozen, and he roared, “Move!”

  They moved and they did it fast.

  Lahn again didn’t look at me when he turned back to his warriors and kept thundering, “My seed has been planted in her womb and she carries my child. They attacked my tigress and your golden warrior queen. They attacked all that is the beauty of Suh Tunak and my unborn. They will know a vengeance that their grandchildren will understand and knowing it through the ages to come they will still quake in their beds!”

  Okay, he wasn’t calming down, like… at all.

  “Lahn,” I whispered, for some reason my voice not able to get any louder but Diandra squeezed my hand.

  “No, Circe, not now. Not at all,” she murmured in my ear. “Even a normal warrior’s wife is off limits and the enemy knows it. The Daxshee is never penetrated, ever. In times far past, this happened and in that past, Suh Tunak has ridden just like our Dax now describes and the brutality of their vengeance has not been forgotten… until now.” I looked up at her and she finished quickly. “To invade a cham is akin to them taking you by force. It is symbolic. It is the safety he offers you as your husband and it was violated. He will taste vengeance and the Maroo will bleed for it.”

  Oh God.

  My eyes snapped to Lahn when I heard him ask, “She is taken?”

  I saw he was glowering at a warrior who jerked up a chin.

  Then Lahn ordered, “Bring me the traitor.”