The Wildest Woods

by S. K Munt

  ‘Good.’ My father nodded curtly. ‘Then you and your soldiers may stay here and recuperate until you are ready to make the journey home, but only on the condition that you will behave yourselves according to our laws, treat my people as fairly as I know they will treat you-’ he gave my court a warning look and most nodded in acquiescence, ‘and speak highly of both my kingdom and its people after.’

  ‘I will, your highness,’ Kohén said, nodding eagerly, and though Sam’s face was still red with indignation, his expression did not flicker the way it did when he heard a lie spoken in accordance to a contrary thought. ‘I am already impressed with your beautiful kingdom, and anticipate that I will have nothing but wonderful things about it to report back to my own king after.’ He pressed his hand to his heart and looked around, snagging my gaze and then smiling fondly up to the glass ceiling, whispering: ‘I feel God’s light here more than I have ever felt it anywhere before!’

  Sam coughed then to cover a laugh, but Bastien smiled tightly as he rubbed his temple, making me wonder what sort of violent thought Sam had just smashed into his mind. ‘That’s good to hear. I know that you’re tired and hungry, but your arrival here just so happens to coincide with a special occasion. We are having a masked ball tonight to celebrate an ally’s twenty-second birthday, and those of you that are feeling up to attending are welcome to attend.’ He sat up taller, looking my way again. ‘However, I must insisted that you at least attend as my special guest, Guardian Barachiel, even if your comrades are too out of sorts to join you. I am very curious to hear how Miguel’s people are faring in the wake of that dreadful episode with Larkin of Eden, and I am sure that you have many questions about Raphael that you would like answered as well, yes?’

  Kohén looked a little bewildered, but he nodded. ‘Of c-course, your highness. I would be honoured.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Playing the part of the overburdened king expertly, Bastien waved his hand and two of the villagers that were dressed up as guards stepped forward to attention. ‘Take the soldiers down to the hospital, please, and make sure that all of their needs are met at once.’

  ‘Thank you, your highness.’

  ‘God be with you, Guardian Barachiel.’

  As soon as he had excused Kohén, I pressed my hand to my stomach and whirled around to face Lady Lucida, feeling light-headed from how rapidly dread was being pumped through my heart and then out to the rest of my overheating body.

  ‘I can’t do it… but I know that I have to. If you can… if she can help me in any way…’ my eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ll do it okay? I’ll do anything, just so long as I don’t have to feel like myself when I do it!’

  ‘Of course, Erika,’ Lady Lucida took my hand, and began pulling me back towards the stairwell. ‘Follow me to your mirror, and then let the masquerade begin.’

  38.

  Château Aztaroth, Raphael

  Kohén Barachiel

  Nothing was as it seemed in Raphael, and this proved to be even truer than I’d first thought after we were led down an ancient set of stone steps, into a windowless basement- and into one of the dimmest, warmest spaces that I’d ever seen in my life that looked like little more than an underground tunnel.

  ‘This is your hospital?’ I asked of my escort, and he gestured in both directions.

  ‘Yes, but there’s more to it than that. This cellar runs the entire length of the castle, you see? There’s a wine cellar up the other end that’s not accessible via this wing, a series of storage rooms and meat lockers up the other that link to the kitchen, and the most popular part…’ he paused to open an arched, solid wood door off the corridor, making me gasp when a cloud of steam billowed out of it that smelled like incense and sulphur, ‘the hot springs are in here.’

  A few of my soldiers came to life then, but I was the only one close enough to get a quick look inside the small, dark and steamy room. I could hear water gurgling, but couldn’t actually see it due to the opacity of the air. ‘Surely you don’t mean to say that that’s a natural hot spring in there?’

  ‘Of course I do- this entire area is littered with them but this one is special. It’s only small and that’s a relief because if it were any bigger it would compromise the integrity of the chateau’s foundations, but it’s deep and hospitable- and quite a lot warmer than the others because the heat stays trapped inside by the stone walls.’

  ‘That’s amazing…’ Ambrose breathed, seemingly recovered from his intense migraine and malaise.

  ‘It is. It was little more than a cave until last summer, but we’ve recently renovated it so it functions like a bath house, with benches to steam ourselves on, and a freshwater shower to rinse off under before and after.’ Our tour guide pulled the door shut and motioned for us to continue on while behind me, my division murmured in astonishment and I wiped sulphur-scented sweat off my brow. ‘I doubt you’re in any state to really enjoy it right now, but that’s where you’ll be taken to wash off soon and I urge you to take a long soak while you have the chance- it works wonders for the muscles.’

  ‘It’ll put me right to sleep!’ Saul-Yin breathed from behind me, taking another frantic gulp from the large urn of water she’d been given upstairs. ‘But I don’t care. Kohén, this truly is a paradise! Have I thanked you yet for dragging me through hell in order to find it?’

  I glanced back at her, taking in how dirty, scratched up and pale she was and smiled tightly. Hadn’t she noticed how low the ceilings were? The lack of windows? How heavily we were being guarded? How many death looks I’d gotten from people? ‘How about you thank me after we manage to make it out of here in one piece, hmm?’

  ‘Make it out of here?’ Saul-Yin looked at me like I was an alien, and I was startled by how quickly she was recovering her wits now that her body was getting what it needed again. ‘I’ve only been here half an hour and I’m already convinced that I never want to leave!’

  ‘That’s disloyal,’ Macklin grouched from behind her, shaking his head in consternation. ‘We’re soldiers of Calliel, little one, and they’ve treated us well. Show your homeland some respect, won’t you?’

  ‘Pardon me, Mack,’ Saul-Yin rolled her eyes and drooped again, grumbling to the ground: ‘How dare I forget to reaffirm my loyalty to the king that called me a whore and then sent me off to die?’

  My guard turned around, eyebrows shooting up. ‘Is it customary for your ruler to treat his soldiers so appallingly?’

  ‘No,’ I said, trying not to flush. ‘We’re just special.’

  And that was the end of that conversation.

  We were led to a room that resembled the small hospital that we had in the barracks in Rachiel, only it was smaller, warmer and more colourful. There were no flat beds with starched white sheets, no bright lights and no funky medical smell to speak of- instead sets of bunks were covered in soft looking quilts in rows, kerosene lamps illuminated the room with a cosy glow and there seemed to be as many books in there as there was medical equipment. It was empty when we arrived, but two nurses and one doctor came in just as I helped Theodore hobble over to one of the lower bunks, and I was commanded to sit and await my own inspection and not to exert myself in any way by one nurse, and I did so until the ‘doctor’ (who was oddly dressed like a Warlock) came over and asked me for a full report on the worst injuries, as well as the names of the patients, their ages and their medical history- if I knew any of it.

  I knew it all and though he seemed surprised by that fact, he jotted down everything I said while Saul-Yin and Ambrose (the least injured aside from myself) were handed robes, towels and soap, then asked to go straight down to the hot springs to wash up while the worst cases were triaged. I explained that Macklin was a diabetic that was going to need something to eat almost straight away, but that aside from being severely dehydrated from the last leg of the journey, his only injury was a massive lump on the back of his head from where a rock that had bounced off it at the beginning of the avalanche. Paisley’s injuries were avalanche
related as well- we’d escaped being buried under the brunt of the landslide, but Paisley had leapt from one rock to another while escaping and had missed, coming down in the gap between them and snapping her arm in half when it had struck the rock she’d been hoping to land on. In addition to that, she’d jarred her neck and had gotten a bad cold during the first leg of the journey when we’d trekked through that stream for two days in ice water, so she was in a pretty bad way and had run out of the strength to heal herself two days before. Naturally though, I did not mention the healer part.

  Theodore had seventeen lacerations that I knew that would require stitches, and a multitude of superficial ones that were beginning to look infected after days of being covered in sweat, grime and slush despite my best efforts to keep them clean. I didn’t know if he was dehydrated or malnourished because he was sort of like a camel given how big he was, but I had to quickly explain to the doctor that he was a decade younger than he looked and that he wouldn’t be able to tell us what else was wrong with him unless he was given a pad and paper because he was a mute. No I didn’t know why he was mute because he didn’t like talking about it (or writing about it), but he definitely had a tongue still and his hearing worked just fine. The doctor walked over to Theodore to ask him if there was anything else wrong with him that he’d like to write down, but the massive boy was already snoring again so the doctor let him be and ordered for a drip to be put in his arm too.

  Jent wasn’t injured at all but he had the worst cold of any of us and had been having hot sweats for the past day, and so he was given a cool sponge bath there on the spot before someone inserted a drip of fluids into his veins, and though Templar’s own illness wasn’t quite as dire, he had been attacked by a massive wolf earlier that morning and had a twisted, badly chewed-up ankle as a result. The medical carers didn’t seem too worried about any of us until they saw the state of Templar’s ankle and then, Miguel’s calf muscle, because he’d been the unluckiest of us all- not only had he been bitten by a snake in his slumber the night before and now had one leg that had swollen to twice the size of the other, but a male salt and pepper bear had attacked him after he’d woken up screaming, leaving four perfect scratches across him from the single swipe that had raked him from one side of his neck to the opposite shoulder.

  ‘Sounds like you had quite a night!’ the doctor said, abandoning me before rushing over to the bed where Miguel was lying, prone, his usually gleaming black skin shredded and juicy with blood and flesh. ‘I’m surprised that you made it through all of that; period. How on earth did you handle the bear?’

  ‘I shot it,’ Raithe said in his funny little voice, sitting up and swinging his stumpy legs over the edge of his bunk. He scratched at the crimson, pustule-covered rash that had creeped under his matted beard then gestured to himself, an incredulous look on his face. ‘But its roar got me good, I tell yah. I thought only my balls shrunk up in fear at first, but when I woke up, I realised that I’d lost a good two feet in height too!’

  I snorted and the doctor impressed me by playing along. ‘That’s unfortunate, I must say. Though I can’t pretend to know how to cure spontaneous dwarfism, I would recommend that you avoid the hot springs. If you shrank two feet from fear, then you’re likely to shrink to the size of an ear in that hot water.’

  I chuckled but Raithe pretended to be deep in thought. ‘Do you have a professional degree from the Academics caste doctor? Or should I seek a second opinion? ‘T’would be a shame to miss out on a dip in those springs!’

  ‘I don’t have a professional degree in medicine that your nation would recognise, but my spouse runs the laundry here in the chateau so she knows her stuff when it comes to shrinkage.’ The doctor winked at him as he accepted a tub of ointment from the nurse’s hands and began to examine Miguel’s calf muscle closely. ‘But if you insist on going for a bath anyway, just make sure you go with a regular sized person, all right?’

  ‘I can swim!’ Raithe insisted, indignant.

  ‘I do not doubt it. However, the knob on the door is fairly high, so you might not be able to access the bath house to begin with.’

  We all cracked up laughing then, and I saw Raithe’s bright green eyes twinkle with approval to understand that he would be accepted here. Likewise, I felt more at ease in that odd little cellar room after that too, especially when the doctor assured me that I’d done a good job of irrigating and bandaging up my soldiers’ wounds, and that he was sure that everyone was going to be fine because he hadn’t seen anything in my squadron that he hadn’t already treated before. I didn’t know a whole lot about medicine, and was disappointed to realise that they honestly didn’t seem to have a Nephilim healer, but everything they were doing to treat us seemed above board and so once I realised that there was nothing else I could do for my people but stay out of their way of the people tending to them, I excused myself to go down to the hot springs, leaving a protesting Raithe behind with an apothecary that was dressed like a troll. I wanted to take him, I did because after Saul-Yin and Theodore he was definitely my closest friend and always lively company to keep thanks to his terrific sense of humour, but he was covered with a rash from having slept in poison oak two nights before and I knew that immersion in hot water was probably the last thing that he needed.

  The hot springs were hard to figure out because it was so dark and cloudy in there, but I was glad for the darkness because apparently one of the rules was that you couldn’t get in there while wearing clothes for fear of contamination, and you even had to wash off under a limp, warm shower before you were allowed in, which I did in the corner as Saul-Yin chattered away. My dainty, excitable friend had been in a few different kinds of hot springs before in the past and pronounced that these ones were mineral heavy, meaning that they’d do us a hell of a lot of good, and although she was so relaxed that she was slurring, she quizzed me about all that she’d missed when she’d been in a daze, and demanded to know what I thought of Raphael so far- really.

  I didn’t know if we were being spied on or even if that Sam guy was lurking somewhere nearby, reading our thoughts, but as I did my best to rinse dirt and blood out of my hair, I answered as honestly as I could without going out of my way to insult anyone. I didn’t like the look of Cairo Kingslater, not at all, and from what I’d heard of his reputation there was nothing to like… but then again, the Kingslater captain that I’d always heard referred to had been named Paris, not Cairo, so there was a good chance that I didn’t know a thing about him except for the fact that he’d closed his fist around the beautiful Erika. Sam had definitely rubbed me the wrong way too, but that wasn’t a surprise to Saul-Yin because she’d overheard some of the less-polite things that we’d said to one another out loud, but she was eager to give him a second chance to make a better first impression because apparently he was ‘almost as fine as you,’ though she did elaborate enough to say that Sam was taller and redder and more dangerous-looking, which made her ‘all tingly down there’.

  I was embarrassed to be naked in front of her while she was apparently drunk on testosterone, but it wasn’t the first time we’d all been naked together while discussing inappropriate things and it wouldn’t be the last because in the Corps, you showered where you had to with whoever you had to, or you didn’t shower at all. As a result, I’d seen Saul-Yin’s naked body once or twice before and she’d seen mine, but I’d been at half-mast since I’d seen the Companion brand on the beautiful Erika’s shoulder, and remembering that moment put so much wind in my sails that I actually began to throb with barely suppressed desire as I wondered what it would take to make Erika ‘all tingly’ for me.

  If that pirate wasn’t here, I could proposition her, and she might even say yes! It would be safe, it would be legal… and it would be the best night of my life, wouldn’t it? God forgive me, but she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! How can I not imagine what taking her to bed would be like?

  My thoughts weren’t helping diffuse my situation, so I covered
myself by pretending to scratch the opposite thigh as I climbed into the water, keeping my cock pointed down as I made a casual remark about how intense the scents in there were. But Saul-Yin liked embarrassing me so she made a show of whistling as I slid into the water anyway, splashing me as I lowered myself onto a narrow, rocky shelf. Wow, baths sure put her in one hell of a mood!

  ‘I keep forgetting how muscular you’ve gotten, your highness…’ she purred while I splashed her back, feeling instantly light-headed from the heat of the enclosed space and the almost unbearable temperature of that dark water. ‘Maybe you’re a bit more dangerous-looking now than you were after my last full body inspection...’

  ‘Keep it forgotten,’ I joked, groaning as I eased my torso under the water. ‘You’re more focused when you’re high and dry and not on the prowl. And enough with the your highness bit, Guard- it’s never felt more like an ill-fitting label than it does here.’

  ‘I get that…’ Saul-Yin sighed in the darkness, before taking another sip from her glass urn. ‘I mean, compare yourself to this king, and how could you possibly feel like anything but an inferior royal in contrast? He’s so tall and golden, those eyes are full of such wisdom, and his ass… wow!’

  ‘Saul-Yin!’ I used my forearm to send a wave of water her way and she shrieked and then spluttered before giggling. I ducked my head under the surface and then came up again, wiping water out of my eyes and sighing at how nice it felt to be in a warm bath again. ‘Show some respect! That’s an archangel you’re mentally violating!’

  ‘Sorry. I’m just so relaxed right now…’ Saul-Yin sobered, studying me while wearing a thoughtful expression. ‘So you believe it? All of it?’

  ‘I do… I think…’ I looked over at her, watching her recline back against the rock wall behind her, and enjoying the sight of the tips of her tiny little breasts surfacing through the haze as she arched her back while being grateful that I couldn’t see anything from her waist down. I didn’t make a habit of eyeing off Saul-Yin because what we had went much deeper than physical attraction and I was determined to keep it sacred- but she was incredibly attractive and I was so worked up that I snuck a peek anyway, telling myself that if she was allowed to drool all over me, I should be allowed to check out her tits from time to time, especially seeing how much she enjoyed showing them off. In response, my hands throbbed a pale blue under the water and I groaned, slinging my arms across the rock wall on either side of me so that I wouldn’t accidentally kill us all. ‘What about you?’