2. Elric
2
ELRIC
D usk is falling in the Mortingale Mountains. Elric Underlia is in command of a small scouting party that consists of a supply wagon, three horses and ten Imperial soldiers. He’s the supposed leader, although every man he commands is more experienced and capable than he.
He is, however, the son of a Lord. His status, his rank as Commander, rests on his being the only man of titled stock in the small company.
The only noble amongst them, and this evening he is a noble on his knees. Hidden from most of his men, but barely. Elric and his chosen companion are behind a small clump of trees only a scant distance from where the rest of the party has made camp. Five of the men are sitting by the cookfire beside a rocky outcrop on the grasslands. But a sixth man is here, with him, standing with his back to a wide oak as Elric kneels in the dirt.
The rest of the party — the other four men and one horse — are gone, but Elric is sure they’ll be back. They’ll see sense soon enough. Give them time to boil their breeches.
And right now, he has other concerns. He looks up at the man before him with eager eyes. The man nods. He’s called Ren, this one. He’s handsome enough for an evening’s diversion, with dark stubbled cheeks and a wide, pleasing face. He’s probably Elric’s favourite of the soldiers he commands. But Elric plans to suck all of them in turn as they journey through the mountains.
A simple enough plan for an inexperienced commander, ensure some loyalty by giving them the most intense spend of their lives. His skills on his knees have got him a long way in life.
Ren looks down. “What are you doing down there, boy? Get on with it.” He twitches his hips so his cock slaps against Elric’s lips.
Boy. Elric is twenty-six summers and this man’s commander. Still, he can be this hulking brute’s boy if it gets them both what they need. He feels satisfyingly small on his knees before Ren. Ren is sturdy. Fat, really, but fat in a way that has a fair amount of strength beneath it. Elric wants to feel that strength now.
“Hold my head,” he says. “Pull my hair and make me choke on it.”
Ren raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t look unenthused by the idea. Elric knows well that most men who like a pretty face like his can be persuaded to indulge in some rough treatment with a little nudge.
Ren’s eyes go dark as he grasps Elric’s hair in two clumsy, painful handfuls.
“You filthy fucking luxorite,” he says, sounding amused. And it’s good. Ren is strong. Elric feels nicely helpless with Ren holding him so cruelly. Ren has promise, Elric thinks. If he does this with Ren again, he’ll ask him to rope his wrists for it.
The thought of that sends a thump of arousal through Elric. He moans, leaning forward and opening his mouth for Ren’s stiff, salty cock. Ren growls, “Pretty cocksucking fuck,” but over that, something else. Elric freezes, lips a whisper from their target.
Cries from the camp just outside the cover of the trees. A mess of overlapping shouts.
“Raiders!”
“Bandits!”
“ Mortingales!”
Mixed with screaming, whooping. It’s an attack.
Ren tenses. Elric turns. Only feet away from them, just beyond the treeline, the night comes alive with torches and cries and clashes of steel.
Ren pulls up his breeches deftly and, as soon as he has his belt fastened, he grabs his sword from where he’d stuck it in the earth.
Elric notices this with some interest, as he gets silently to his feet. Ren is clearly a capable soldier. With some idea of defensive precaution. He’s left his blade in easy reach, even when he’s going to get his cock sucked by the party’s slut.
“Behind me, Sire,” Ren says to Elric in a careful hiss, raising his sword in a two-handed grip. Elric slides into the gap between Ren and the tree Ren had been leaning against. They can hear screaming now, clashing steel, shouts and sounds of violence coming from the direction of the camp. Sounds of their small party of tired men being overwhelmed by much greater numbers.
Elric shivers. From the sounds he can hear, it seems the Mortingales are taking no prisoners. He only had five men left at that camp.
“On my mark,” Ren says.
“What?” Elric whispers “What mark? Whatever do you mean?”
“On my mark,” Ren says in more of a growl. “Get ready, Sire. We advance now. We will have the power of surprise. They think they have us all at the camp.”
Elric shakes his head. “No. Ren, there will be no mark. We stay hidden. With luck, they will not search the woods. They will assume all are at the fire, raid the wagon and leave.”
“They’re Mortingales,” Ren says, showing his teeth. “Outlaws of the Empire. We are bound by our oaths before Zai to attack and leave none alive.”
“No.” Elric tries to sound like a commander. “They’re too many Mortingales for five men, let alone for one.”
But to that, Ren just smiles, as if this is a game. As if he wants this, in some kind of foolish sense. Ren is lost in fantasies in which he takes down an overwhelming number of bandits, a single sword, victorious.
“Stand down,” Elric hisses. “You are not the One Man Army. You’ll get us both killed.”
“One Man Army’s dead,” Ren says, eyes fixed on the orange glow of the fire. From the same direction, Elric can hear whoops of victory. The Mortingales think they are done. But Ren still has his plan. He says, “Perhaps it’s time for someone new to take that mantle.”
“No,” Elric says, as firmly as he can. “Ren, I told you to stand down.” This ought to be his command. Ren ought to obey. But Ren pays Elric no heed at all and a moment later he bolts forward. He hurtles into the midst of the celebrating Mortingales.
It’s frantic then. Horrible. Elric hears him die. Which is worse than hearing the others meet their end on bloody blades. Ren was standing beside him a moment ago and had his fist tangled in Elric’s hair a moment before that.
Elric feels queasy. But he realises quickly that if Ren came from the woods, that will fast bring the Mortingales attention to where he is hiding. Elric needs to run, while he has the chance. But he’s not deep enough in the trees. He’s barely hidden at all and before he can — before he even finishes his thought of running — three Mortingales are on him, and he is being dragged out of the trees and towards the fire.
Elric can hardly think. He feels wild with fear. There are six bodies on the ground. Bloody, brutally slain. Cut to pieces. One of them looks as if he has almost been sliced in half. The work of crude melee weapons. Axes, hammers and clubs. Weapons that break swords. A crowd of sneering faces surround Elric.
When Elric was given this mission by the Rose Court, he had known they would face a risk of attack if any outlaws remained in the mountains. Before their numbers were reduced by the brutal force of the Imperial Army, the Mortingales were known to attack any party they discovered travelling through their territory. They would steal goods from merchants and kill anyone they considered Azurian.
When Elric was little more than a youth, he met a high-born woman at the Rose Palace who was famed for having been taken by the Mortingales. Not only did the Lady Fabia get a lot of attention at feasts from people who wanted to hear about her harrowing experience, but the story she told seemed rather thrilling. Although her father had to pay a very large ransom to get her back and her marriage prospects had been significantly diminished for reasons that were shared in hushed whispers. Fabia had once told Elric that she still missed the man called Frin who kidnapped her and he had treated her well.
“ Very well?” Elric had asked with a wink.
Fabia had blushed and given him a little nod.
But Fabia’s kidnap had been years ago. Since the purge, no one at the Rose Palace was even sure if any Mortingale Outlaws survived. But Elric had heard people say that any who had managed to avoid the rampage of the Imperial Army, would surely be the most hardened and bloodthirsty. And as the Mortingale Outlaws crowd around him, there is no sign of the handsome roguish men Fabia hinted about. All he can see are missing or blackened teeth, one man with a missing eye, filthy clothes and filthy grins.
And they don’t seem interested in kidnap and ransom.
Elric swallows.
Could this be his end? It feels impossible that it would be as inconsequential as this.
One of the Mortingales holds an old, battered sword. Elric only realises she is a woman when she moves. She has a cruel, thin face, with a burn scar covering half of it. She prods at Elric’s belly with her sword point. A man in tattered armour stands beside her holding a heavy-looking axe. This particular man is huge. He has a head and a half on Elric and he is almost as wide as he is tall. Elric squirms in the arms of the man who holds him. The woman with the sword grins like she finds this entertaining. “Well now, you’re a pretty boy. You the company fuck toy?”
Elric lifts his chin. “I’m their leader,” he says firmly. “I’m a Commander in the Imperial Army.”
The whole horrible crowd ignites into laughter at this. Elric shudders.
“Leader?” the huge man says. “Really?” His accent is thick, but he’s clearly from Attar. Some nasty part. Ragspit or some other slum.
Elric grits his teeth. “I’ll have you know I’m here on Emperor Selim’s command.”
“Emperor Selim?” says the woman with a sneer. “Oh, I do apologise, a representative of his great Imperial Majesty.” She makes a mock bow to Elric. “Greetings, Sire.”
This makes them all laugh again. Even the man holding Elric laughs. Elric feels it, the grip on his arms from the man behind him loosens, just a little, just enough. He takes his chance while the vile outlaws are still hopelessly amused.
He tears free, dodges the sword at his belly and bolts. The Mortingales laughter turns to shouts of anger, but the surprise has given him a few moments on them. He hears them scramble to start after him as he races for the trees. It’s a wild attempt. One that would have been hopeless but for the small advantage that the outlaws are in disarray and worn from the attack on the rest of Elric’s men. His blood is up and his legs are long. Elric reaches the trees and dodges and weaves through them, vanishing into the dark.
He keeps going until he’s breathless and his burst of speed has long left him. He finds a large oak with great roots spidering out into the earth. He crouches down and nestles amongst them, folding his body into a tiny space, breathing hard, blood aflame.
He stays still as long as he can, pressed into the tree roots. He listens until he can hear no cries, no shouts of Mortingales searching for him. Nothing. Nothing but wind in the trees and some small scufflings of animals in the undergrowth.
He lets his breathing calm. They’re gone. He is safe. He is alone in the middle of the mountains, defenceless, but he is not in the clutches of outlaws.
He waits a little longer. Should he stay hidden under the oak tree all night? Would it be safer to get further away while it is still dark?
He climbs carefully, silently, out from under the tree. His legs feel shaky still. He looks up at the moon, through the canopy of dark leaves.
Out of nowhere, he realises he’s made a mistake. A rush of sound, force, he is slammed up against the wide trunk of the tree.
At his throat, the point of a hook.