The Price of Freedom (Heirs of the Empire #2)

10. Elric

10

ELRIC

T he rest of the day’s travel passes well enough. Lukas brushes off Elric’s further questions about his family and eventually, he falls silent, before amusing himself by picking up Marko and carrying her along in a cradle of his bound arms, murmuring sweetly into her black fur.

They make camp as the sun starts to set and eat a meal of hard, dark bread and some rabbits Little Lamb caught with Inga, roasted in the flames and Elric is hungry enough that, once again, such peasant food is truly delicious.

A bottle of spicewine is passed around. It’s homemade, Elric thinks and the spices are not generous. But it is still sweet and strong enough to make his body feel soft.

As it grows dark, Red Wolf starts to tell an old tale about five fae brothers who killed some kind of demon called a Bellator. Inga rests her head on Little Lamb’s shoulder. Elric half listens to Red Wolf’s story. Red Wolf is a good storyteller but mostly Elric just gazes at Lukas’s profile. His strong nose and wild hair are lit eerie by the dancing firelight. His cheeks are shaded dark with stubble.

As he finishes, Lukas turns to Elric. He sucks his bottom lip a moment then says, “There are people who think those old demons still live in the Amber Forest. That they have enslaved the forest tribes there and that is why they vanished. I met people descended from those lost tribes in Lunatum. The ones who taught me Ambolk. They believed the demons would find a way out of the forest one day to enslave us all.” He has removed his hook and the sleeve that holds it and is rubbing some ointment from a tin onto the blunt end of his arm. It is strange to see what lies beneath the hook. Lukas looks quite vulnerable with the fearsome hook gone and the reason for it exposed. The stump of Lukas’s arm is strangely banal in comparison. Elric tries not to stare.

He smiles. “Forest demons, really? Seen them, have you?”

Lukas smirks. “I would not be sitting here with you if I had, little Lordling.”

“You truly believe in such things as demons?” Elric asks. He would be surprised to learn that Lukas Darekul believes in anything.

“I believe in everything and nothing,” says Lukas. “The Empire demands we believe Zai knows all and makes only just rules. But if Zai truly exists and is who the High Word claims him to be then he must surely be a worse demon than anything they know of in the Amber Forest. And who is to say that Doroth Zain’s demon is real and their’s are not? Either all demons exist or none do.”

“And which do you think it is,” asks Elric. “All or none?”

Lukas shrugs. “I suppose I will decide when I meet a demon.”

Elric leans close, “So you need to know for sure? Tell me, Bastard, have you ever seen magic? I have. I met a man in Gleamview market in Attar once who could make coloured lights appear out of nowhere and send them dancing through the air.”

“Didn’t the Rose Court ban magic in Attar? I thought magic was considered Hevelikar filth and against Zai?”

Elric wets his lips. “The Rose Court ban a lot of things,” he says suggestively. “Doesn’t mean they don’t happen.” They’re both looking at each other when, across the other side of the fire, Inga raises the bottle of spicewine that has made its way around to her. “To Lucent,” she says, “The Golden Ram. May we find fair fortune in Lunatum.”

Elric looks at her in surprise. Quietly, he says to Lukas, “That is…I have never seen anyone toast Lucent before. It would get you a flogging in Attar to make an offering to a false God. It is heresy.”

Lukas laughs and announces, far more loudly, “I think our guest would like us to toast his God too. Pass me the wine, Inga.”

Inga gives the bottle to Little Lamb who leans over the fire to give it to Lukas. Lukas takes it and sits back. He raises the bottle high, “By Zai’s great and holy cock, I beg he’ll deign to let us fuck,” he announces, then swigs messily, spicewine running down his chin.

Everyone laughs, including Elric who is quite shocked to hear such a thing said aloud.

Lukas offers Elric the bottle and when he takes it, says, “How’s that for heresy?”

Elric takes a drink. “That’s blasphemy. They’d kill you for that in Attar,” he says.

“They’d kill me for a lot of things in Attar, Underlia.”

Elric looks at Lukas. He wants to kiss that wide mouth, still sticky with spicewine. “Do you really speak Ambolk?” he says, genuinely curious.

Lukas nods. He pulls his pipe from his pocket and uses a spill from the fire to light it. He sucks on it and Elric smells the sweet, familiar scent of moonleaf. “I do indeed.”

“The only Ambolk I know is words from the dirty tavern songs,” Elric says, sweetly flattering. He’s always found flirtation easy. He has decided not to miss this chance at a seduction. How sweet it would be to be able to claim he had sucked the cock of the Rebel Prince of Azuria, the notorious outlaw Darek?

“Dirty tavern songs?” says Lukas, feigning shock. “Lordlings like you shouldn’t be singing songs like that.”

Elric feels his cheeks flush. “Oh, I don’t sing them. But I know some. Ar-lily Kush .”

“You know what that means?” Lukas says. His voice roughened from moonleaf smoke. “Ar-lily kush? That’s a filthy thing to say to a prince.”

“The seamstress’s cunt,” Elric says, his skin prickling from more than just the day’s sunshine. “It’s the name of a bawdy song. Kush is the one Ambolk word everyone knows. So Ar-lily must be Ambolk for seamstress.”

“It is, yes,” Lukas says. He sucks on the pipe again and exhales, “but it’s also a joke. Lily is also Ambolk slang for cunt. It means a pocket or a fold of cloth, in Ambolk. So it's a double meaning.”

“You really do speak Ambolk.”

“You thought I lied?”

“Maybe a little,” Elric says and repeats, “Ar-lily Kush.” Then stares at Lukas with a bitten lip.

“In the Amber Forest,” says Lukas, “Kush doesn’t only mean a woman’s cunny. They’d call your sweet hole a kush too.”

Elric is breathing a little heavily. “ Kush ,” he says again. “It means any hole that gets fucked?”

“Indeed,” Lukas murmurs. “Such filthy words on the lips of a high-born creature like you.” He slides a little closer.

Elric bites his lip. “My mouth is very filthy, you know.”

“Is it?”

“Didn’t you notice when you kissed me? As filthy as the cobblestones of Ragspit.”

“That’s very filthy indeed.”

“Oh yes.”

“But I’m not sure if I quite remember how filthy your mouth tasted. Perhaps I should…” Lukas leans close. Elric’s heart is beating hard. Lukas drops his pipe and puts his hand on the side of Elric’s face, fingers splayed wide.

Lukas closes the tiny distance between their faces and kisses Elric.

Lukas’s lips brush across Elric’s light as a feather. Elric whimpers softly. Lukas shifts his body a little closer, just a little, but enough that his chest presses to Elric’s. Elric can feel Lukas’s warmth through his shirt. The tip of Lukas’s tongue flickers over Elric’s lips.

Elric groans and opens his mouth. He wants more than this delicacy. He wants Lukas to kiss him the way he kissed him back in the cellar room. Greedily claiming.

But Lukas takes the kiss no further. He pulls back, licking his own lips as if tasting Elric on them. “Filthy indeed,” he says.

“Perhaps we could go somewhere a little more private,” Elric says. “I could show you some more of the things my mouth can do.”

Lukas smiles a slow smile, “And let you bewitch me so you can vanish into the night? I’m not sure that is wise, Underlia.”

Before Elric can say anything to that, Inga’s voice drifts over the fire, “If you’re gonna fuck that sly slut, take him into the woods. I don’t want to see it.”

Elric looks over at her. Inga lifts the bottle of spicewine as if toasting both of them and takes a swig.

Little Lamb is sleeping, his head on Inga’s lap. Red Wolf is on the other side of the fire, watching them both, his face lit eerie by the flames.

Elric nods to him. He cannot imagine what he must be thinking.

A moment ago it felt like Lukas and Elric were all alone, the only people in the world. But that’s not true. They are surrounded and being watched. Elric feels his face flush.

“I’m not going to fuck him,” Lukas says to Inga. “I know better than that. What I’m going to do right now is, I’m gonna take a piss.” He stands up. “Watch Underlia, will you, Red.”

“Very well,” says Red Wolf, getting to his feet and walking around the fire.

Lukas vanishes into the trees and Red Wolf sits down next to Elric. He doesn’t look at him. He stares into the fire.

Elric waits for Red Wolf to say something and eventually, he does. He says, “I told you not to hurt him,” still looking into the fire. “I meant it.”

“It seems like he can take care of himself,” Elric says.

“It’s all for show. He’s brittle as chalk.” Red Wolf turns to look at Elric. “Worse happened to him in Lunatum than losing his hand.”

“What?” says Elric.

Red Wolf shakes his head. “He won’t speak about it.”

Elric wonders if Red Wolf blames himself for what happened to Lukas. Whatever it was. He shouldn’t. Not really.

“Want him for yourself, do you?” Elric says brashly.

Red Wolf shakes his head. “You know he deserves better than you or I,” he says. “He deserves to be loved by someone who hasn’t betrayed him. Truly, I don’t think that has ever happened.”

Elric says nothing.

Red Wolf continues, “You’re planning to run when we reach Lunatum. And I will be glad to see you gone. But don’t forget that. You’re going to abandon him. So don’t make him care about you.”

“He doesn’t seem like he cares about anything.”

Red Wolf takes a slow breath. “He cares,” Red Wolf says. “He cares far too much about far too many things.”

They sit unspeaking for a moment, before Lukas returns, walking up behind them saying, “I hope Underlia behaved himself.”

Red Wolf turns and stands. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he says in his usual cheery tones.

Lukas laughs. He sounds quite merry as he sits back down next to Elric.

“I’m to bed,” says Red Wolf. “I’m going to sleep in the cart. I’m heartily sick of this damp earth.” He stalks away.

Lukas waits for him to leave and leans close to Elric, “Now, Underlia,” he says in low tones, “where were we?”

He leans in close as if to take another kiss. Elric leans back. “Actually, you decided not to fuck me because it would break your heart when you had to trade me in Lunatum. And you are right. My mouth is the finest in Azuria. If you sample it and then have to give me up, I fear your heart will break.”

Lukas looks at Elric for a moment. His eyes narrow in the dark. He picks up his pipe from the ground and puts it to his mouth, gripping it with his teeth as he relights it with a small twig from the fire. He inhales and blows out pale silvery smoke. “I do not doubt it, Underlia. Perhaps you are right. You are comely, but it would make things complicated if when we reach Lunatum and I must trade you to the Plumians, I find I am so besotted with the finest mouth in Azuria on my cock that I run away with you.”

“Indeed,” says Elric. “To avoid that fate you will simply have to resist me all the way to Lunatum.”

Lukas laughs, shaking his head. “Come on, you flirtatious little whore,” he says playfully. “We have a long day of travel in the morning.”

“Am I to spend another night tied to the cartwheel?” Elric says.

“No. You can sleep here.” Lukas lies back, stretching out. He taps the ground beside him. “Come on, Underlia, keep me warm on the bitter Fanosti night.”

Elric does as he is bid, lying down beside Lukas. His body is prickly. But he knows Red Wolf is right. There should never be anything between him and Lukas. There are too many secrets in his past. Too many potential complications. Not worth risking an upset to his plans just to be able to claim he once sucked the Rebel Prince.

It would be a sweet delight to bring Lukas to spend with his mouth, perhaps with Lukas stroking his face with that smooth, deadly hook. But Elric will have to live without that delight. He has more important plans.

A pleasant diversion on the way to Lunatum is all Lukas is. That much he is sure about as Lukas pulls him close with one arm. Elric can hear Inga make a tutting sound, behind them and mutter, “Fucking luxoli shit.”

As he drifts off to sleep, Elric is still thinking about the Bastard Prince holding him. And as sleep grows nearer his thoughts wander.

He cares far too much about far too many things.

Elric likes this strange, complicated man, he thinks. Both of them, used by their fathers. Perhaps that is the real reason he should hold back. He likes Lukas enough that he doesn’t want him to hurt when he finds out the secrets Elric shares with Red Wolf.

The next day, as they journey on, Lukas seems in a fine mood. He even exchanges some smiles with Elric. The sun is warm again and birds sing in the clumps of trees that become more and more numerous as the flatlands give way to dense forest. They have to move more slowly as the trees get thicker, the cart making use of an uneven, pitted track that is worn into the woodland, marking the way south.

Lukas leads Elric off the track, to gather some mushrooms for the evening pot.

As they wind amongst the trees, Elric says, sweet and bold, “Why did you leave the Rose Palace? You said you were fourteen. What happened?”

Elric gets the impression Lukas wouldn’t normally answer a question like that. But this day, in this sweetly earthy forest with birds singing and the sun leaking through leaves, he does. “My father is what happened,” he says, bending to pluck a wide frilly mushroom from the base of a large ash tree. “Selim became emperor and made the fathering of bastard children a crime. All of Zai’s laws became the laws of the Empire. Sins against Zai were crimes. And my father carried on committing such crimes. He wound up with a sentence of twenty years indentured servitude rumoured to be for fathering another bastard. One that was never officially named. He asked Damon to take the sentence for him under the law of stead. And of course, Damon agreed. So I left.” Lukas wanders over to Elric and breaks off a piece of the mushroom. “Try this,” he says, offering it. “It tastes like roasted fowl.”

Elric bends his head to pluck the piece of mushroom from Lukas’s fingers. It’s pleasant and savoury, but Elric does not think it is much like roasted fowl. He takes another piece of the mushroom from the bowl Lukas carries. “You thought he might do it again and force you into the army too?” he says.

“My father cannot control himself when he sees a pretty woman. He is no better than a dog when it comes to burying his cock. So I thought that was quite likely. I assumed he would use me too when he had cause. That was what we were for. Damon and I. Rafus’s disposable sons to avoid punishment.”

Elric whistles long and low. “But Damon must have agreed to offer stead. If your father had asked you instead of Damon, you would have had to agree to take stead? Would you have done that for him?”

“I would. When I was 14, I would have done. It scared me, how hard it would be to refuse him. Of course, I feel differently now.” There is a pause. They walk on in silence, bending to pick more mushrooms. The wooden bowl Lukas took from the cart is almost full. Then Lukas says, “He wanted it to be me that was sent. Not Damon. He begged the Rose Court to take me instead of his favoured son.”

“Oh Zai,” Elric says quietly, straightening up to look at Lukas.

“I am the second son,” says Lukas. “Always the second son. Damon was Rafus’s favourite. Certainly his favourite bastard and perhaps his favourite child. Barely a moon older than me, but he held that mantle of the firstborn. And he wore it well. He was first in every sense. Damon Darekul with his perfect wife and his manor house and his great blood-soaked career for the glory of Azuria.” Lukas says bitterly. “The One Man Army.”

At this, Elric takes a breath.

He realises that Lukas truly doesn’t know.

He has no idea about what befell Damon six moons ago. But Elric says nothing. They go back to their task for a few moments, wandering through the trees in search of more mushrooms. They find another crop and when they pick those, the bowl is full to the brim. Lukas puts his hook on Elric’s wrist. When Elric turns, Lukas’s expression is stern. “What is it?” he says coldly. “You’re never this quiet when you’re alone with me. What do you know of Damon?”

Elric comes from a world where everyone knows about Damon Darekul and what happened to him. How can it be possible that Lukas, Damon’s own brother, is ignorant of the terrible events of the last Nubis moon?

Heavily Elric says, “You are not the second anymore. You are Prince Rafus’s oldest living son. Your brother Damon is dead. Exiled into death by the Rose Court, after he was given one hundred lashes in the punishment square outside Gleamview market. I saw it happen.”