15. Lukas
15
LUKAS
L ukas feels hollow, like his body is an empty shell. The night wears on and he cannot sleep. He turns over on the ground. Usually, he has no trouble sleeping on the bare earth, but tonight is no usual night, and tonight the ground seems rocky and hard, impossible to let sleep take him.
Lukas thinks of Red Wolf as he lies on the ground wide awake. Mind full. He thinks of Damon too. First Damon and now Red Wolf.
Aching, complicated losses that both overwhelm and confuse him.
It makes no more sense to Lukas that Red Wolf is gone than it had that Damon was dead. Red Wolf seemed like a man who could never be gone. He was more alive than anyone Lukas has ever known.
He knows his relationship with Red Wolf was never good. Or, hadn’t been good since he returned from Lunatum. And even before that, Red Wolf had been spoiled and selfish. A terrible brat. A vain, lazy flirt. But he had also been funny and comely and kind. More charming than anyone Lukas had ever met. Abul’s son. A trophy in Lukas’s bed when he was part of the Mortingales inner circle.
Red Wolf had taken Lukas back to his bed when he returned and even if he had been disappointed with how Lukas was changed, he had never condemned him with the others. Not for being a traitor. Or for leaving. Although now, Lukas knows why.
Lukas owed Red Wolf a great deal, but as Red Wolf lay in Lukas’s arms, everything Lukas thought he knew about Red Wolf had been upended. Red Wolf had whispered something that changed everything. A great and heavy secret. A thought that keeps Lukas awake more than his grief. An insistent pounding on the inside of his skull. One his mind can’t seem to hold. If Red Wolf told him true, then everything he thinks, everything he ever thought about Red Wolf is wrong.
And how could it not be true? Why would Red Wolf whisper a lie in Lukas’s ear as he lay dying?
It must be true. And Lukas has no idea what he can do with that.
Eventually, he gives up on sleep. He sits up and looks around. There had been stars earlier as Red Wolf burned, but now the night is dark, the night sky masked with cloud. He picks up the leather sleeve lying on the ground beside him and slides it over his arm, buckling it into place and tightening the straps before adding the hook.
Inga has the watch. She sits awake by the fire. Her face is solemn, a mask carved from stone.
She looks at Lukas with dry, faraway eyes. “Can’t sleep,” he says, bending down to fill a cup with ale from the small barrel on the ground.
She nods. She takes a drink from her own cup and says, “He shouldn’t have been with us. He was no fighter. I don’t know why my father sent him.” She repeats again, “He was no fighter.” Clearly, Inga thinks she knows exactly why Lukas is having trouble sleeping. But she doesn’t know the worst of it.
Lukas nods. “He should never have been here.”
“I should have been faster,” says Inga. “I should have protected him.”
“There were five of them, one of them on horseback. We were lucky to only lose one man. We won,” he says. It sounds dull. “You and Lamb fought well.”
Inga doesn’t say anything. She stares into the fire. Lukas waits. Eventually, she says, “I still say we should make that fucking Lordling pay. They were his men.”
Lukas doesn’t contradict her. “I’m going to check on him.”
As Lukas walks towards the cart, Inga says to his back, “Tell him I would kill him myself if it wasn’t for the promise of the deal with Plumians and how much Abul wants that before he takes his last breath. I would delight in it. And he will pay. I will find a way.”
Lukas says nothing. He thinks he should tell Inga what Red Wolf said to him before he died, but she’d never believe him.
He walks past the pyre where they burned Red Wolf. It’s still flickering. Ash and orange embers and bones. Marko is sitting beside it, waiting patiently, as if she expects her master to rise from the ashes with treats and sweet words. It makes Lukas’s heart ache. He bends and scoops the little mutt up, juggling his cup of ale and the dog with his single hand. He manages to shift the dog onto his crooked arm above the hook so he can hold his cup. He pulls Marko tight to his chest and kisses her neck. “Come on, dearheart,” he says, whispering to Marko the way he’d seen Red Wolf do so many times. “You’re with me now. I’ll take care of you just like he did.”
He holds Marko’s shaggy black form to his chest and looks at the smouldering pyre with stinging eyes. “I’m sorry, my Wolf,” he says. “Whatever you did, you didn’t deserve to go out like that. Like a dog on the ground.” He stops and looks at Marko, who is looking up at him. She looks almost indignant. “Sorry,” he says to the little dog. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He takes a solemn sip from his cup, staring at the pyre.
When Lukas had first bedded Red Wolf, Lukas had been twenty-nine summers, still wild and reckless and Red Wolf had just turned twenty and one and was comely beyond words.
It had been before the raid on the Rose Palace, before the purge, before any of it, Red Wolf was simply one of Abul’s many children. Abul’s sly son. It hadn’t mattered to anyone, including Abul, that Red Wolf had such tastes.
But things had changed after so many Mortingales died. First Jon, Abul’s eldest son, then several more of his children along with his first wife in a horrific attack on one of the outlaw’s homes during the purge. Lukas had only heard about that when he returned from Lunatum. They’d been sheltering in an old shepherd's hut, deep in the mountains when they were found by Imperial soldiers. The doors had been chained shut, the place burned to the ground. Inga had been the only survivor of that fire, suffering the burns that twisted her face.
Red Wolf had been in the forest, lying with one of his lovers. He’d returned to the tiny hut to find only Inga alive and himself his father’s presumed heir.
Jon dead at the Rose Palace. Two more of Abul’s sons dead in the purge, along with his first wife. And now Red Wolf too. Abul now has no adult sons living. Lukas would find it hard to think of any man who had lost as much to the Empire’s cruelty as Abul.
Abul deserves his revenge. He deserves to overthrow Zai and the Dareks and bring about a new age of freedom. And to do that, he needs the Plumians. And for that they need Elric.
Did Elric know those soldiers would come as Little Lamb and Inga claim? Did Elric somehow plan this?
Has every man he has lain with betrayed him?
He wonders if Elric deserves to die. Or to pay somehow for what happened. But he isn’t sure what he feels. He’s shared things with Elric in the last few days that he’s never shared with anyone. And he feels things for Elric he has never felt before. But in Lunatum he will trade Elric to the Plumians in return for an alliance. Any feelings he has that run contrary to that goal are a mire. He needs to be careful not to get stuck in it.
Those soldiers were Elric’s men. They called him commander. But the one who took hold of him also hit him. It did not feel like any kind of rescue.
The cart is a small distance away. It seems quiet. He knows Elric was left gagged and he supposes he is also sleeping. But when he reaches it, Elric is sitting roped in a ball, on the wooden planks, with his eyes open. When he sees Lukas his eyes stretch wider. As Lukas climbs in the cart, he whimpers into the gag and tries to wriggle away.
Lukas sits down beside him. As he does so, Marko hops out of his arms and nuzzles up to Elric, whimpering. Elric squirms, moving to nestle against her. Behind the gag, he makes a cooing sound, like he’s trying to soothe her.
Lukas stares out from the cart and the dark before him and says, “I want you to know this, Underlia. After they cut off my hand, they took me back to the gaol in Lunatum.”
He looks at his hook. And then over at Elric, staring up at him with big eyes.
“I’d be there still,” Lukas says, “In that cell. Or dead at their hands, I suppose. I suppose that is more likely. But they came for me. The Mortingales. They blew up the Lunatum gaol with saltfire and dragged me out. Even though most of them thought me a traitor who deserved all he got. But Abul ordered it. And when I asked him why he’d sent a dozen fighters on such a dangerous mission just to retrieve me, he told me it had been Red Wolf. Red Wolf had found out what had happened to me. He told Abul if he didn’t do something to get me out of there, he’d go himself. I cannot even imagine what would have happened if he had tried. But Abul told me he didn’t doubt Red Wolf meant it.”
Lukas looks at Elric again. He leans over and removes the gag. Elric splutters, spitting it out of his mouth. “Thank you,” he says eventually. His voice sounds scratchy.
Lukas holds out his cup of ale. Elric struggles into a more upright position, leaning against the side of the cart, wrists still bound to his ankles. Marko is snuggled on his lap. Lukas lifts the cup to Elric’s lips and Elric drinks all the ale left in the cup.
After that, Elric looks at Lukas, “Are you going to kill me?” he says.
Lukas shakes his head. “No one is going to kill you. Inga wants to, but she can’t. She needs you. We all do.”
“To trade me to the Plumians?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose that’s heartening,” Elric says plainly.
Lukas breathes in hard through his nose. “Did you know they were there?” He says heavily. “In the woods?”
“No,” Elric says back, sharp. “How could I fucking know?”
They sit in silence for a few moments after that. Lukas can’t tell Inga what Red Wolf said. But he has to tell someone. He says, “Red Wolf told me something before he died.”
Elric takes a breath. “What?” He says nothing more, he looks at Lukas with his green eyes wide. They look like jewels.
Lukas says, “When we raided the Rose Palace they knew we were coming. There were dozens of soldiers awaiting us in Selim’s bedchamber. And Selim was gone. There was a traitor in the Mortingales who told them of our mission. When and where. It was him. Red Wolf told me he was that traitor. He sold secrets about the Mortingales to the Rose Court.”
“He…” Elric begins, trailing off shakily before he says, “Red Wolf?”.
“Inga didn’t hear it,” says Lukas. “She went to catch the horse and…” He takes another hard breath. “I don’t know if he waited for her to go, if he could even tell who he spoke to, but, I think perhaps he wanted it to only be heard by me, so I have told no one. But he said it was him. He worked for Vindar. All this time. It was him. I suppose there’s no reason to think it not the truth.” Lukas tips his head back and looks at the sky. “He saved me from the gaol cell in Lunatum. And I never knew why. He had Abul rescue me and then took me in. Gave me room in his hut while I tried to rebuild things with the Mortingales, sheltered me despite what everyone else thought about it. Let me live in his hut under his protection. But he never told me why he did it. I assumed it was some lingering feelings for what we once were to each other. But now, I suppose, he did it because he felt guilty. Because I was the one blamed for what he had done.”
Elric still doesn’t say anything. They sit in silence for a while and eventually, in a small voice, Elric says, “I’m sorry.”
“What about?”
“Everything, I suppose. Red Wolf. Damon.”
Lukas leans his head on Elric’s shoulder. He feels like he might cry. He forces himself not to. “Damon?” he says, “I hated him anyway.” His voice sounds thick.
“I know,” Elric says quietly.
When Lukas looks up at Elric, he knows he looks a mess. He swallows and says, “Who were those men who attacked us, truly?”
Elric looks back at him, his face so open. Despite everything, despite how vulnerable he is in this moment, there’s trust there. “They were men from my party who abandoned us the night before you attacked.”
“If there had been an additional five men in your party you may have been able to fight us. Why did they abandon you?”
Elric shakes his head as if this amuses him and says, “They did not care for me as leader.”
“Why not? Because you are young? Inexperienced?”
“Not exactly. Although I suppose that was some part of it. It was because of what I am. They did not take too happily to a man like me being in command.”
Lukas tilts his head. “And what aspect of you was the issue, exactly?” He says it with a small smile on his face. Even on this darkest of nights, Elric feels like a little chink of light. The tiniest breath of warmth in the cold.
“ Because, as you deduced, before I was given this command, I had a certain role in the Rose Palace. It was not public knowledge, officially, but the rumours about me were widespread. My father was indeed a merchant. He saw a place in the Rose Palace for something that was needed and no one was supplying.”
“Luxoli?”
Elric nods. “Luxoli for men, powerful men, who desire that and want to indulge without fear of being observed going to some pillow house in Ragspit. He always said it was Emperor Markus who gave him the idea. After Markus was exiled to Luxoria he overheard some nobles in Gleamview market saying that Markus wasn’t the first high-ranking noble to be sly, but the trouble was he wasn’t discreet. He visited whores in disguise but he was not careful enough. And then, of course, Selim became Emperor and declared Zai’s laws to be the laws of Azuria and my father thought…” Elric trails off.
Lukas reaches out and puts a hand on Elric’s knee. “He thought he’d find some of those high-powered nobles and offer them his son for discreet sly whoring?”
Elric bites his lip as he nods. “That’s right. He planned it carefully. I could be delivered right to their bedchambers. Bought and sold by my father like any other goods. And it was a great success. My father delighted in me. I was good at what I did. I was a decadent pleasure and enjoyed being that. My father picked my bed companions well. Ever the merchant, he had an eye for a secret luxorite or for someone who could be swayed by the thought of me in their bed whether they were sly or not. Even men who delighted in female flesh could be curious about luxoli and my father could always spot a potential customer. I knelt for many men who would usually never consider such a thing, such was my whispered reputation in the Rose Palace. I had been quite useless in my father’s eyes until he started selling me. He was pleased with me then. He gained all kinds of favours. And of course, once I’d been in the bed of someone powerful, my father possessed secrets about them he could use to gain even more. For a long time, the situation was of benefit to everyone. I was passed from bed to bed. I met all kinds of interesting, powerful men. I was not lying when I told you I delighted in it. My father was careful and most of them treated me well. They were kind. They spoilt me like a precious treasure.”
“And your mother allowed your father to do this to you?”
“My mother…” Elric takes a breath. “Two years after it began. She fell from a window of one of the high towers in the heart of the Rose Palace. Of course, no one could say if she meant to do it or if it was an accident or…”
Lukas’s hand goes to his shirt. A light touch on the mirror pendant he wears under it, against his skin. “Had she found out what your father was doing?”
Elric shakes his head. “I don’t know, but my father’s mistress became my stepmother in four turns of the moon.”
“You still miss her? Your mother?”
“I do, yes.”
“So was that why you wanted to find a way to escape? Because of your mother’s death at your father’s hand?”
“No,” says Elric, wearily. “Not exactly. Even after that I still had a sweet life. But when I was two and twenty, it soured. My father was made Warden of Pluma-Ferris. He had earned that role and his Lordship from my skills. He did not take me or my stepmother with him to his posting. She wanted to stay in Attar, as did I. My father was happy to leave me behind. He was growing tired of me. I was not lying when I told you I was getting too old for his schemes. I was worth less coin with every passing day. Although I soon regretted not going with him. My stepmother, it turned out, wanted rid of me. She wanted to make way for the sons she planned to give my father. It took her a few years, but she persuaded Chancellor Vindar to find a new occupation for me.”
“To lead a doomed mission into the mountains? Why would Vindar do that for her?”
“Through my father, and I, she knew many secrets that Vindar wanted kept. But perhaps more importantly, I knew those secrets too. She persuaded Vindar it was dangerous to keep me around, after what I’d been doing at night. Someone like me, a sly whore, who knew what I knew.”
“Zai, Lordling,” Lukas breathes.
“You have to admire her cunning, I suppose,” Elric says bluntly. “It was a clever plan. I would be killed by Mortingale Outlaws. A hero. And she would be rid of me. Without my father having any idea she had a part in it. And I expect she negotiated carefully the compensation she would receive for my loss.”
Lukas shakes his head. “And you knew all along that this was her plan?”
“Oh, I knew. She is clever but not that clever.”
“And you didn’t stop it? You could have refused the mission, surely?”
“It was made clear to me that if I refused I would be charged with sins of the body. I am no Darek Prince. If my sins were exposed to the Rose Court I would have likely been executed. Truly, this seemed a far better option.” Elric stops and smiles sweetly, “But then when we set off, of course, I had no idea how to command a party of soldiers. And when the men started whispering about why their commander was an inexperienced Lordling, they concluded that I had won my post on my knees. Which was partially the truth. The one on the horse began it, I believe. He told the rest of them. He was called Frin. Frin wanted to march me straight back to Attar and have me dragged before the Rose Court for my crimes. There was a disagreement and a fight. In the end, the ones who couldn’t stand the sight of me left. The ones who were willing to put up with me for coin stayed. Those soldiers who attacked us were the ones who left. I assume they thought they might win coin for rescuing me. Or perhaps they meant to kill me in the name of Zai. Or perhaps…” Elric stops and sighs. “Who can say? I did not know they were coming. I certainly never ordered them to. And I cannot tell you for sure whether they meant to rescue me or kill me. But I did not want them to come after me. And I didn’t order them to kill anyone.”
Lukas nods and says quietly. “Lordling, truly, I know what it is like to take the blame for things because of who you are and not what you have done.”
Elric nods “And I am sorry that your lover turned out to be the traitor. You might be my heartless captor, but I don’t think you could possibly have deserved that. Or any of what happened to you because of it.”
Neither of them speak for a long moment. And then Elric says, “You think you’re ruined, don’t you? Because of what was done to you? What was done to you in Lunatum. Because they took your hand.”
Lukas swallows. This statement makes him prickle with unease. “Don’t, Lordling,” he says softly. He feels like Elric is getting too close to a tender spot inside him that he guards fiercely. Will always guard fiercely. The things that happened to him in Lunatum are things he prefers not to think about. More than a lost hand. Pain and blood. Magic and madness.
“It’s beautiful, you know,” Elric says softly. “The hook. It makes you so beautiful. I just thought you ought to know.”
Lukas doesn’t know what possesses him then. But this cannot continue. He moves, swinging a leg over Elric, straddling him and grabbing hold of his shirt. Marko yelps and leaps out of the way. Elric cries out, seeming to think Lukas is about to attack him. “Please,” Elric says as Lukas grabs his shoulders, one hand and one hook in the silk of his shirt. “I told you I didn’t know about them.”
Lukas ignores this. He bends down and kisses Elric. He slams his mouth into Elric’s like he’s trying to express something he doesn’t fully understand. Their lips press hard together. Elric’s mouth is warm. He smells so good. He tastes so good.
Has anyone, ever, controlled his heart as strongly as Elric fucking Underlia? Scion of the Rose Palace? Son of the Warden of Pluma Ferris? Concubine to the most powerful men in Attar? Lukas shoves his tongue into Elric’s mouth, drinks in the sounds of surprise Elric makes and then feels the softness as Elric yields. Taking it and then kissing back with equal fury and want.
The kiss goes on, heated and greedy. Desperate. Lukas presses his body to Elric, pushing their chests together, their thighs. He groans, deep into Elric’s mouth, almost sobbing with it. Pouring every messy emotion he feels into the kiss, into Elric’s body. He feels like nothing in this world can soothe him but this. Elric’s hot mouth, needy moans, warm, sinful body.
When Lukas finally pulls back from the kiss. Elric is gasping, lips swollen red. The sight makes Lukas’s cock pulse in his breeches.
The sky is lightening now. Black turning blue in the light before dawn. Lukas shifts, climbing off to the side of Elric and reaching behind him. He starts to untie Elric’s ropes. “We will be travelling again soon,” says Lukas. “We lost time yesterday. Inga will want to start early. We could be sleeping in a Lunatum tavern room tonight.” He finishes unfastening the ropes around Elric’s wrists, re-tied by Little Lamb, far too tight. As they fall away, Lukas can see the abraded skin from the fight the day before is speckled with blood.
“Are you sure one of your outlaws won’t kill me before we reach Lunatum?” Elric says surprisingly lightly as Lukas unties the ropes around Elric’s legs.
“They won’t,” Lukas says. “I told you, you’re far too valuable.” And what he doesn’t add, only thinks, is that he will kill anyone who even tries. He takes out his tin of salve, lifts it to his mouth to pull off the lid. Elric stares at him. Elric’s face is tired and drawn. His skin a little too pale and his stubbled cheeks sunken.
Lukas applies the salve to Elric’s sore wrists in the quiet dawn. He doesn’t have much of it left. “I can’t bind you again,” he says. “Not after you spent the night in those knots Little Lamb tied. You’ll be travelling the next part of the journey unroped. But don’t get any ideas. If you run they might use that as an excuse to cut you down. You’ll ride in the cart. You can take care of Marko.”
Elric nods.
“We don’t have far to go now,” Lukas says, rubbing the salve into Elric’s warm skin, trying to be gentle over the sorest spots and not make Elric hiss.
When they arrive in Lunatum this all ends. Perhaps that is for the best.