Love and the Stubborn

by Xenia Melzer

  Daran was so good that Casto advised Kalad and Aegid to give him a second horse, a wish they gladly granted.

  While the cold still reigned over the Valley with an iron fist, Casto suddenly realized that he was truly happy. The feeling was so new, so unfamiliar, that it took him some time to understand what he was experiencing. Then he enjoyed it fully, for fear it wouldn’t last.

  After the last heavy snowfalls of the season, he even found time to return to the library. According to the chronicles, Wolfstan was the next Emeris who had joined the demigods. Casto didn’t know Wolfstan, the silent, composed husband of Lady Hulda, very well but he felt oddly drawn to his level personality. Nothing ever shocked the man.

  BENT DEEPLY, Wolfstan followed the stag’s trail, clearly visible on the ground softened by snow slush. Apparently his prey was no longer ahead of him. It had been two days since he’d started to trail the magnificent twelve-pointer he’d first spotted close to the village where he spent the winter. He’d planned to give the animal to the villagers as a thank-you for their hospitality—should he ever catch up with the beast. Careful not to make any sound, he moved through the thicket.

  It was uncomfortably wet and cold in the woods, winter fighting a ferocious battle with the first messengers of spring, resulting in earth that was frozen and softened at the same time. One moment you were treading solid ground, the next you were ankle-deep in mud. Wolfstan was grateful for his superb clothing, but even the cloak lined with rabbit’s fur and the high, warm leather boots weren’t able to completely banish the cold from his body. He only hoped he would find the damn stag sometime soon.

  As if a kind deity had heard his wish, a small clearing opened in front of him, and the beast was browsing there.

  Wolfstan froze. He checked the direction of the wind and moved in the opposite direction to prevent his prey from picking up his scent. With agonizing slowness he selected an arrow, put it on the bowstring, and then bent his bow with fingers clumsy from cold.

  He evened his breath and drew air into his lungs one more time. When he was sure of his aim, he let the projectile speed toward the stag. Eyes still following the arrow’s trail, Wolfstan saw another one zip through the air and find its target in the beast’s throat. Hit by the two arrows, the proud stag went down. For a moment the long legs kept twitching in fruitless struggle, and then it was over.

  Wolfstan placed his hand on the handle of his hunting knife and slowly entered the clearing, wondering who the second shooter might be. During unstable times like these, he assumed the worst and was prepared to fight for the prey as well as for his life if needed. In the thicket to his left, he heard a soft rustling before the wood spat out a slim figure clad in black leather.

  He froze.

  She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life. Her honey-blonde hair fell to her hips in a tight braid, and her lavender-colored eyes gazed imperiously at the world over a small, proud nose and generous, sensual lips. Her white skin was flawless. Black leather hugged her voluptuous curves tenderly and accentuated the long, slim muscles of her legs and arms.

  The woman moved with the grace of a dancer, and when she spoke, her voice was soft and melodic. “Seems like we’ll have to share the prey.”

  Feeling slightly guilty because he’d stared at her so openly, Wolfstan retreated a step. “You’re right. Your arrow hit the throat, mine the heart. Both were lethal.”

  “Then we have an agreement. Or do you wish to fight me?”

  Wolfstan hurried to shake his head. Although he’d met some truly amazing female warriors in his life, he usually tried to avoid fighting against a woman. It always made him feel as if he were doing something outrageous. “I’d never dare to! You’re a lady!”

  Her beautiful eyes widened in shock before she started to guffaw. The idea that she could be of noble lineage seemed to deeply amuse her.

  “Lady or not, you wouldn’t stand a chance anyway,” she added.

  Confidently she extended her hand. “My name’s Hulda. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Wolfstan took her small, cool hand, returning the smile with genuine joy. “I’m Wolfstan. And I’m pleased as well.”

  “Then let’s cut up this fellow. But first—”

  She whipped out a hunting knife, knelt next to the dead stag, and slit its throat. While the dark blood seeped slowly into the soil, she murmured something in a language Wolfstan didn’t know.

  Once she was done, he hunkered down as well to help her with the cutting. “A prayer for the beast’s soul?”

  “Something like that. I wished him a good journey to the Green Lands.”

  “You follow the Holy Mothers?”

  The numbers of those following the goddesses had been steadily decreasing for some time now, which was why he was surprised to meet one out here.

  “No. Or, to put it more accurately, only indirectly. I serve their sons.”

  Wolfstan paused in surprise. “You rank among the army of Lord Canubis and Lord Renaldo?”

  “You’ve heard of them?”

  “Who hasn’t? But I’ve never been sure whether their divine ancestry is just a trick to lure naive folk.”

  “It’s not a trick, of that I can assure you.”

  “May I ask what a beautiful woman like you does in an army of mercenaries?”

  Hulda laughed softly. Again she seemed amused by his assumptions. “Thanks for the compliment. But you’d be surprised how well I fit in.”

  “I know about armies. I’m an armorer. And no, I can’t imagine how you’d fit in.”

  “Armorer? We’ll have to talk about that. And to soothe your curiosity, I’m a trained killer. Once I was the Mother Superior of the Sisters of the Night. I can assure you, I’m perfectly integrated.”

  Wolfstan gulped. His respect for the beautiful woman had just grown again. That also explained her relaxed handling of the hunting knife and the grace of her movements. She wasn’t a dancer but a predator.

  “You said you’re an armorer. In which army?”

  “At the moment, in none. My former master and I had some variance of opinion, and I preferred to spend the winter in a small village close by. I’ve been planning to go looking for a new master soon.”

  “Forget about that. Canubis is in want of an armorer. It would be best if you could come with me right now so that he can meet you.”

  “As much as I’d love to follow your invitation, I have to decline.” Regretfully, Wolfstan eyed Hulda’s shapely body. “I promised the villagers this stag in return for their hospitality, and I intend to keep my word.”

  “Is that all? Just wait here. I’m getting my horse, and then we can deliver this prime specimen to your village. Once we’re done, you come with me.”

  “Just like that?” Wolfstan was amazed.

  “Of course just like that. But it wouldn’t hurt if you had a horse. It’s a long journey back to the Valley.”

  “That’s not a problem.”

  Still taken aback by the sudden turn of events, he watched Hulda disappearing between the trees. The villagers were more than pleased at his generous present and wished Wolfstan a good journey. Together with Hulda, he headed out to meet Canubis, the famous Wolf of War.

  AFTER ABOUT ten days on the road, they reached the Valley. Canubis was thrilled to get a skilled armorer and engaged Wolfstan for the upcoming campaign in the Eastern Kingdoms. Throughout the summer, Wolfstan fell more and more in love with Hulda, who’d bedded him every night on their way to her home.

  It took some time until Wolfstan got used to the stunning assassin sharing her bed with others as well. For him, love, intercourse, and fidelity were inseparable, while Hulda viewed sex as something with the significance of a shared excursion.

  After Wolfstan received the kiss from Ana-Isara that made him one of the Emeris, it took another hundred years until the blonde beauty chose him as her mate. But with the stoic perseverance that was built into his character, he waited for the woman w
ho had stolen his heart the first time they met.

  Hulda was the prize Ana-Isara had promised him for his service, and there was no way he would ever let her go.

  WITH A smile, Casto set the book aside. The love story showed Hulda in an entirely new light, although Casto had to admit that she met his expectations. His valuation of the beautiful woman was reinforced by every word he’d read, and he renewed his resolution to never provoke her anger.

  Yawning, he stretched his stiff muscles to shake off the fatigue before he went on his way back to the stables.

  Lys greeted him with a content snort, looking forward to the ride they had planned for today. The stallion loved galloping through the deep, fresh snow, and the bright sunshine only enhanced their good mood. Casto didn’t bother to saddle his brother or even give him a bridle. He reveled in the feeling of the strong muscles rolling beneath him while they were racing through the woods and along the slopes.

  As soon as they left the vicinity of the stables and scattered houses, Lys increased his pace, not enough to make a random onlooker suspicious, but enough to at least partly satisfy their hunger for speed. Apart from the fact that nobody was to find out who Casto really was, it was the only drawback of living in the Valley—it was so unbearably confined.

  Lys, as well as Casto, longed for the endless plains where he could run for days. They missed that flash of freedom they’d enjoyed on a regular basis during the year after their escape from Ummana, the one thing that had made their loneliness bearable.

  They took a break at their favorite spot, the small lake at the foot of the ascending stone walls around the Valley. Everything was still icy at that time of year, and Casto’s favorite place for sunbathing was buried under a pile of snow, but the sun set the snow crystals to sparkling almost as temptingly as the waves on the lake during summer.

  Dreamily, Casto gazed at the spectacle of light in front of him. Almost automatically he was stroking his brother’s hair in the weak winter sun. Lys was soaking it up with his eyes closed.

  “Do you think we could stay here, perhaps?” Casto’s voice was very soft. Lys could understand him without words, but Casto had to say it aloud to comprehend all the implications of the almost-inconceivable thought. Lys made a snorting sound. Apart from the missing range, he liked the Valley. Casto continued speaking softly.

  “Renaldo isn’t that bad. He’s a Barbarian, no doubt about that, but I can deal with him. And nobody would ever find us here. It’s a good place.”

  Lys was waiting. He already suspected what Casto was getting at but let his brother go on at his own pace.

  “I’d have to tell him the truth. Who I am.” Casto hesitated again before voicing his greatest fear.

  “I’m afraid, Lys. He hates being lied to. What if he doesn’t want me anymore? Or worse, hands us over? I can’t stand lying to him any longer, but sometimes he makes me so angry I want to strangle him. I just don’t know what to do.”

  Casto started pacing in front of Lys. With each word, he was getting more agitated.

  “And then there’s this stupid prophecy. Of course I don’t believe in it, but even though it can’t be true, a man like him will want an heir sooner or later. I don’t think I could bear losing him like that.”

  With a determined whinny, Lys ended his brother’s train of thought. His mind was as clear as the night sky.

  Silently, Casto listened to the wisdom of the demon. With a whimper he buried his forehead in the soft hair. “You’re right. We await the end of this summer. If he really lets me fight, when he sees that I’m his equal, perhaps I can tell him.” Determined, he raised his head. “Let’s ride back home. I’m getting cold.”

  CASTO’S RETURN was watched by more than one set of resentful eyes. Most of the slaves working in the stables didn’t like him because of the way he treated them, but they kept their feelings hidden, mostly because it was imprudent to anger a personal slave—especially when that slave belonged to the Angel of Death.

  Some, among whom were Sindal and Elwan, didn’t hide their animosity. Nobody wanted to side with the losing party when it came to an open confrontation. Given how infatuated the Angel of Death was with Casto, there was no doubt who would lose out.

  Damon assessed those emotions and stored them in some corner of his complicated mind as useful information. He was determined to bring Casto down after he had so eloquently turned down his offer of friendship. It wasn’t that Damon hadn’t expected that. After all, Casto was a man with firm principles and Damon himself did not fit into that category, but the open hostility with which Casto had responded to him had woken his anger. He didn’t know how, but the slave of the Angel of Death had seen right through him, something Damon resented deeply. While Casto met the other slaves with complete indifference, he’d told Damon straight-out that he didn’t want anything to do with him.

  Fearing for his cover, Damon had been very reserved and made a hasty retreat. Nevertheless, he never forgot the ignominy. He would have loved to find out where the blond bastard and his beast went every day, but there was no chance he could follow them on foot. Apart from this small time span, Damon knew everything about Casto’s daily routine. If he couldn’t keep an eye on him, then Assani or one of the other six slaves in the Valley who also followed the Good Mother took over, and they told him every little detail about their target.

  That was how Damon knew that Sic and Casto had established a very fragile friendship grimly tolerated by Lord Noran and constantly questioned by Casto. It was also how he’d found out—which Elwan had confirmed—that Casto was taking special care of the brown mare belonging to Lord Wolfstan, although the horse had a reputation of being completely bonkers. Neither Casto’s visits to the library nor his lessons with Daran were hidden to Damon. He knew Casto better than anybody else in the Valley did, and he was sure he had him thoroughly figured out. Now he only had to wait for his chance to teach the arrogant bastard the lesson he deserved.

  A plan started to form in his mind. A plan that would not only destroy Casto, but would also hit the damn Angel of Death and his cursed brother hard. Renaldo’s infatuation with Casto was his greatest weakness, one Damon would use for the greater glory of the Good Mother.

  FULL OF anticipation, Casto entered the small reading chamber in the library. He was eager to get back to his reading and find out more about the other Emeris.

  Ever since he had witnessed Renaldo’s miraculous return from the dead, Casto had slowly started to change his opinion about him. A part of him still refused to believe that Canubis and Renaldo could be demigods, but he was willing to set aside his skepticism for the time being.

  Casto opened the chronicles at the marked page, made himself comfortable in the chair, and forgot everything around him for the next hour.

  DEEPLY WORRIED, Bantu cleaned his sleeping sister’s face with a wet cloth. Although she had assured him time and again that she was fine, he doubted it. And at the moment, their survival was inevitably linked to her endurance. The slave traders who had captured them two weeks ago weren’t squeamish when it came to keeping their traveling pace. It had been only yesterday when they had left an exhausted slave with his throat slit open in the roadside ditch.

  Cornelia had recovered from the wounds she had suffered during the raid on their village, but she wasn’t completely healed yet. Bantu shuddered whenever he remembered how he had found his little sister on that fateful day.

  Bantu was out in the fields with the other men, gathering the harvest, and hadn’t even registered the raid. Only when they returned home in the evening had they found out what had happened.

  The cabins had all been destroyed, everything of worth either stolen or broken. The elderly and the children, as well as the few women, had been raped and killed. Only Cornelia had survived, and for many days afterward, it had seemed as if she would follow the other victims. But his sister was tough. Day after day she fought her way back to life and conquered anew what the marauders had taken from her. She never tal
ked about what had been done to her, but Bantu had seen the terrible wounds. Even now, almost a year after the raid, he still had to fight back the horror that tried to claim him at the memory of her injuries.

  As soon as Cornelia felt better, she asked Bantu to take her away from the village. She simply wasn’t able to cope with the horrors she had experienced. Even after the cabins had been rebuilt, all she could see was burned wood and the ground drenched in blood. During the night she woke from dreams that were so vivid she could smell the stench of the corpses. The only way to escape this never-ending nightmare was to leave the village.

  And so the siblings had gathered their few belongings and started their journey south, in the hope of finding a place they could turn into a new home. But after less than a week, they had been captured by slave traders, and now Bantu’s most pressing worry was again the bare survival of his sister.

  Their group consisted of five slave traders and thirty slaves, all chained together at the ankles, following the Umman River in a northeastern direction. As far as Bantu understood, their destination was a mining city in the mountains. Should they make it there, they were as good as dead. The mines weren’t a place you left alive. Once you passed into the dark maw, you were lost to the void. The blood of countless slaves was the price a vengeful god demanded for the desecration of the mountains that hid in their depths the raw material for blue steel—the hardest material the human race knew.

  To sate the human hunger for steel and the divine hunger for blood, the stream of slaves had to be endless, a sad procession of the doomed. Bantu had never intended to stay with the caravan long enough to catch a glimpse of the mountains, but at the moment things looked grim. All his plans for escape were risky, if not impossible, especially now when all that was keeping Cornelia upright was her iron will. Bantu knew his sister’s spirit was unbreakable, but even she couldn’t endlessly force an exhausted body just recovered from terrible injuries.