by Ash Stinson
“Hey, now,” Raettonus said as they broke apart. “What did I just tell you about that?”
“Mm, my apologies, Raettonus,” purred Kimohr Raulinn, resting one hand on Raettonus’ thigh. “I really just can’t help myself, I’m afraid.”
“Understandable, I suppose. I am notoriously irresistible,” Raettonus said. “I suppose I can forgive you just this one—”
The words died away as Kimohr Raulinn pressed his mouth to Raettonus’ once again, this time threading the fingers of one hand through Raettonus’ long hair. With his other hand, the god began to roll down Raettonus’ tights over his thin hips. Raettonus pulled his lips slowly away from Kimohr Raulinn’s.
“Like I was saying—I’ll forgive you this once,” he said. “But, really, stop kissing me. I can’t help but feel you’re not treating this like the business transaction it is. No more with the kissing.”
Kimohr Raulinn sighed and propped himself up on his elbows. “Fine,” he said. “If you insist.” He untied the belt on his robes and pulled himself free of them. His body was pale and soft, and the skin was completely unmarred by scars or freckles or blemishes of any sort. With a sudden burst of aggressiveness that caught Raettonus off-guard, the god rolled him over onto his back and straddled his hips. “Well, I suppose, then, we should just get down to business, hm?”
“I suppose we should, yes,” answered Raettonus, his heartbeat quickening. With the god’s bare body atop him, he could feel his loins beginning to stir. Kimohr Raulinn chuckled softly and leaned down. Again he kissed Raettonus, but this time the man did not protest when they broke apart.
* * *
When they were finished with their tryst, Raettonus got dressed in awkward silence as Kimohr Raulinn wandered over to his bookshelf and began looking at his books. “Oh, I see,” he murmured, touching the ancient book Raettonus had used to cast his hiding spell. “This one is quite old. Kurok destroyed a lot of these a few thousand years ago because there was a spell in them that mortals were using to enchant weapons. Gods can only be killed by enchanted weapons, you know.”
“Was there something else you needed?” Raettonus asked evenly, cinching up his belt.
“Slade’s body. If you could tell me where he was buried, I can revive him a lot quicker. It’s hard for me to look into the world you came from, so I couldn’t look for his grave,” Kimohr Raulinn said, pulling out a book from the bookshelf. He began to thumb through it. “What is this? Is this from your world?”
“Yeah,” said Raettonus. “Even if it weren’t hard for you to look for it, you’d never find his grave. I never buried Master Slade. Give me a moment; I’ll get his body for you.”
Raettonus went to the bed and knelt on it. Taking a deep breath, he reached his hands out and focused on reaching into that holding space between worlds. His fingers brushed against a pitcher and a book with a soft leather cover. He kept probing the area until he felt cloth beneath his fingers. Beneath the cloth was flesh—stiff and cold and dead. He grabbed hold of the corpse and pulled it out of that space, onto the bed.
Sir Slade looked just the same as he had the day Raettonus had put him into that timeless world between worlds. His eyes and cheeks were sunken, but he hadn’t decayed. He was dressed in his best clothing, all in black and red with rampant gryphons embroidered across his chest. Raettonus remembered how he had washed and bandaged the wound that had killed him; between the fresh clothes and the red of his doublet, you couldn’t even tell there had been a wound. Slade’s empty blue eyes, clouded with death and illness, stared upwards.
Kimohr Raulinn closed the book he’d been looking at and walked to the bedside. “You kept his corpse?” asked the god. “Well. That’s not creepy. Not at all. Can I have this book?”
“No,” said Raettonus, taking it from him.
“All right,” said Kimohr Raulinn. “I was only asking. There’s no need to snap.” He took Slade’s limp wrist. “It’s going to take a while, but I’ll make him live again. In the meanwhile, make sure you take care of yourself. I’m sure you don’t have anything to worry about, but you never know what might be sailing your way. Until we meet again, my sweet Raettonus.”
And then he was gone, along with the body of Sir Slade. Raettonus stared at the place where the corpse had been for a full minute before he went to place his old tome back in the bookcase. He was sore all over, and he felt unclean. Deciding a bath might do him good, he snuffed out the fire in the brazier and left his room.
As he thought of what had just transpired, he couldn’t help but feel like a fool to let Kimohr Raulinn have his way with him so easily and then go off with Slade’s body, just like that. The god claimed he could resurrect him, but Raettonus didn’t have any proof he really could. He’d been far too trusting, he realized as he made his way toward the Kaebha Citadel’s bathing facilities. He’d allowed himself to believe Kimohr Raulinn could fix everything, and he’d been used.
As he opened the door to the bathing room, a cloud of steam rushed to meet Raettonus. The chamber within was large and cavernous, with several large pools carved into the stone floors. Centaurs were milling about, both in the water and beside it, as Raettonus stripped and made his way down into one of the pools. The side of the bath gently sloped to a flat bottom to make it easy for centaurs to get in and out, and the water was hot, but not hot enough to bother Raettonus in any way. He closed his eyes and sank beneath the water for a minute before resurfacing. His long, blond hair—now untied—spread out around his head and shoulders like blood in the water.
The pool he had chosen was empty but for him. In the bath beside him, however, two soldiers were splashing at each other and shouting in Kaerikyna. It was an awful language, Kaerikyna—it was full of hard sounds and the words were all too long. Centaurs had the most hideous language he’d ever heard. He much preferred what they called Common Zylekkhan—a hodgepodge language mostly based in Taurkyna, with some Kaerikyna, Zykyna, and Dokk’kyna words. It was far smoother, with a grammatical construction closer to English.
Raettonus leaned against the wall of the bath and relaxed, letting the heat loosen the knots in his muscles. He watched a group of four soldiers—one bay, one black, one roan, and one dun—showing off their scars beside his pool. The roan held up his arm proudly, showing his fellows a hard patch of tissue where something had once impaled his biceps. The dun said something in Kaerikyna and motioned back to his withers, where a chunk of flesh was missing and scarred over. Raettonus grew tired of watching them and, inclining his head, closed his eyes.
After a bit, he heard some of the centaurs shout and opened his eyes again. Beyond the steam, he saw a couple of soldiers teasing a human woman at the entrance to the bathhouse. Ebha. She ducked her head, mumbled something, and shuffled past them. Raettonus whistled and called out to her. She looked at him wide-eyed, and for a moment she looked as though she were about to flee. “Come on over here. There’s plenty of room in this one,” said Raettonus, waving her toward him. She glanced about, and then obeyed, stripping down and entering his pool.
Ebha moved quietly to the other side of the bath, staring glassy-eyed at the door. “H-hello, Magician,” she greeted quietly after a moment or two. “It’s…a nice night.”
“I disagree. I think it’s an awful night,” said Raettonus.
“Oh,” she said, lowering her gaze to stare into the water. “I’m sorry. I suppose I misspoke.”
“Yes, you certainly did. Don’t let it happen again,” Raettonus said with a smirk.
“I won’t,” said Ebha.
The smirk disappeared from Raettonus’ face. “I was joking, just now.”
“Oh,” said the woman. “I’m sorry, Magician. It was a good joke, Magician.”
Raettonus sighed and closed his eyes. “Never mind, then,” he muttered. “I suppose that’s as good a conversation as I’ll get out of you, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry, Magician,” she said again.
“This is a record for the longest conversati
on you and I have ever had, I must say. What is this, the second time we’ve spoken? Although, when I think of it… The other day, some time back, you seemed rather interested when you thought I could resurrect people,” Raettonus noted. “Is there any particular reason for that?”
She was silent for a moment, hesitant. “No, Magician,” she finally said, weakly.
“You shouldn’t lie,” Raettonus said. “Isn’t that the sort of thing a pet like you gets beaten for?”
Ebha stared down at the water. “Y-yes, it is,” she said. “I’m sorry, Magician.”
“So,” Raettonus asked. “Who was it that died?”
“My daughter,” she said. “It was a long time ago though…”
There was a shout outside the door, and two soldiers in scale mail rode in, panting hard. “Quick—to your arms!” shouted one of them. “Ships have been spotted—warships from Tahlehsohr. To the battlements, quickly!”
Soldiers splashed up out of the baths, picking up their mail and weapons and helping each other strap them on. Ebha climbed out of the pool to help the nearest soldier suit up in his armor. Raettonus watched the commotion around him as centaurs scurried to and fro, gathering their armor and weapons and suiting each other up. There was a lot of confusion and excited shouts and concerned whispers. The soldiers who had managed to get their armor on galloped out of the bathhouse. Raettonus climbed out of the pool and got dressed before making his way out of the room, careful not to get trampled by the exiting soldiers. Out in the hall, the soldiers were clamoring about, the frantic sounds of hoofbeats echoing through the building as they ran to the barracks to wake their brothers. War horns were blowing wildly all over.
The giant, heavy doors on the face of the citadel were closed and braced, and the portcullis had been lowered. All the soldiers were galloping up toward the roof in neat rows, shouting and chattering, carrying swords, shields, bows, spears, and halberds. Raettonus stopped one of the soldiers as he was coming out of the bathhouse—the roan centaur he had seen earlier. “If I could get a ride to the battlements, please,” he said, in a tone that did not allow any declining.
“Certainly, Magician,” said the soldier. “But we must go quickly; my bow is needed.”
Raettonus effortlessly mounted the centaur and seated himself uncomfortably on the plate mail that ran along his back. He gripped the strap of the soldier’s quiver as he cantered into line with the others and began to ascend the stairs up to the citadel’s top. On their way up, Brecan managed to find him and squeeze into the column at his side. “What’s going on?” Brecan asked. “Everyone was shouting…”
“Tahlehson warships are apparently coming toward us,” Raettonus said.
Brecan sucked his breath in through his teeth. “That’s not good,” he said. “How many?”
“Don’t know. No one said,” Raettonus told him. “But from the fervor around here, I’d guess it’s enough to be a threat.”
The unicorn flattened his ears and cocked his head to the side. “What do you suppose Tahlehson warships would want with us, Raet?”
“War, I’d imagine.”
Because of the crowded, chaotic conditions of the citadel, it was quite a few minutes before they reached the roof. Just as soon as there was room for him to do so, Raettonus hopped off the roan centaur’s back. Archers were already taking the walls all around, setting up to either side of the iron spikes that made a cage over the Kaebha Citadel. Raettonus walked beside Brecan for a ways before mounting him so he could look over the archers lining the battlements. Sitting down, however, he couldn’t see over the heads of the massive man-horses. With a frustrated grunt, Raettonus grabbed hold of Brecan’s horn and used it to brace himself as he moved into a standing position on the unicorn’s back.
“Do you see the ships?” Brecan asked him, wincing a little as Raettonus rested some of his weight on his smooth, glassy horn.
“Oh, yeah,” said Raettonus, frowning. “I see them.”
“How many?” asked Brecan as the soldiers moved the catapults into position and began to load them.
“A line of them,” Raettonus said, squinting at the moonlit ocean, his focus on the dark shapes of the Tahlehson warships. “All along the horizon, in either direction for as far as I can see.”
Brecan flattened his ears and his tail drooping. “That many?” he said. “Maybe…do you think maybe they’re not hostile?”
Just as Raettonus was about to respond, a fair-sized rock struck the citadel, clanging against the cage on top of it. This was followed by another, which struck low on the stone of the fort and caused the building to shake a bit. Raettonus lost his balance and almost fell, but Brecan caught him with his wings. Frowning, Raettonus reseated himself as the catapults aboard the warships fired more rocks, most of which simply slammed harmlessly against the cliff side.
“No,” Raettonus said. “No, I’d definitely say they’re hostile.”
Chapter Six
Though the centaurs fired their arrows and catapults, and took down a couple ships and dozens of Tahlehson soldiers in the process, they couldn’t stop the invaders from landing. Most of the ships sailed on around the bend of the coast to land somewhere out of sight. There were enough Tahlehson ships left behind at Kaebha, however, to make the prospects of overpowering them seem bleak. When Raettonus went to sleep, the archers were still at it, trying to whittle down the foreign force before they could mount their attack.
When dawn broke, the Tahlehsons had made it part way up the mountain and were out of range of the Zylekkhans’ weapons. “They’re setting up for a siege,” General Tykkleht told Raettonus when he asked the magician to attend him in the citadel’s shrine the following day. Raettonus noticed that there were many, many more candles burning at the base of Cykkus’ statue today than he had seen previously, and even more were at the statues of Kurok, Harkkan, and Virkki.
“Do you have the provisions here to hold off a siege?” Raettonus asked as he knelt with the general beside the statue of Kurok. The shrine was packed with soldiers stopping in between shifts.
“For a time,” Tykkleht said. “But at some point we’re going to have to engage them, I fear. I’m certain they didn’t sail all the way from Tahlehsohr to sit around a few months, get bored, and leave.”
“No, probably not,” Raettonus said. He could tell Tykkleht was hoping he’d offer his sword to defend the citadel. He had more than enough power as a pyromancer to raze the whole Tahlehson fleet and every single soldier they’d brought. But Raettonus didn’t offer; it wasn’t his fight.
When Tykkleht was done with his prayers, they walked together to Dohrleht and Maeleht’s room. “It’s such a large force,” said the general. “I hope the other citadels are holding up. I’d send a messenger out to them, but—regrettably—there aren’t any ‘gryphs here. We’re supposed to keep some as messengers, but they’ve all left on errands. All we have here now in terms of flyers is your friend, Brecan. I’m wondering if perhaps—”
Raettonus shot him a glare. “I will not let you send Brecan out as a messenger,” he said sharply. “He is not part of your army and will not be shot down because you were curious about how the other fortresses were holding up. Focus on holding your fort, General, and then see if there’s still a Zylekkha to hold it for.”
“I think there’s a substantial flaw in your plan, Magician,” said Tykkleht. He sighed and rubbed at his sagging chin. “I’ll take it under consideration, however. What else can I do?”
“I don’t really care what you do, just so long as you don’t put Brecan in danger’s way to do it,” he said. “Any messenger you send out is surely going to get a hundred arrows through their wings, and that’s if they’re lucky.”
“I’ve seen the unicorn fly,” Tykkleht said. “He’s a quick one. I think if there were ever a flyer who had a chance getting past a host that size—”
“I’m not going to discuss this,” Raettonus told him bluntly. “Brecan is not part of your army, and he is not going to beco
me part of your army. Find a different god damn messenger, do you understand me, General?”
Tykkleht furrowed his brow and looked down at Raettonus coldly. “Yes, I understand you, Magician,” he said, his voice tightly restrained.
“Good,” said Raettonus. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job you’ve paid me to do. Good day to you, General, and good luck with your war.”
He left the general at the door to the young centaurs’ room and went inside. Dohrleht had a sword sheathed at his waist, and Maeleht looked positively terrified. Looking around, Raettonus noticed Ebha wasn’t there. “Where’s your woman?” Raettonus asked, setting down a book and some dried herbs on the table.
“She’s helping in the infirmary, getting it ready to handle the load when the fighting starts. Also, I guess some of the men got injured last night, so she’s probably looking after them,” Dohrleht said. “Did you see the invaders? Dad won’t let us up on the roof to look.”
“I don’t want to look,” said Maeleht. “It sounds dangerous.”
Dohrleht punched him in the arm. “Stop being such a coward,” he said. “You talk like an elf.”
“I do not!” objected Maeleht. “I just think that it sounds dangerous, that’s all!”
“Elf!”
“Shut up! I’m not an elf!”
“Boys,” said Raettonus. “We have a lesson to get to, if you please.”
“Yes, Raettonus,” they said in unison, scooting away from one another.
“Raettonus,” said Maeleht, after a moment. “Do you think…do you think it’s going to come to fighting? I mean, actual fighting, not just our archers loosing arrows down from the parapets?”
“I don’t know much about military matters, so I couldn’t say. That’s a question you’d be better off asking your father,” Raettonus said, arranging herbs on the table.