Chapter 4 Gutter Gut
CHAPTER FOUR
GUTTER GUT
Seven Years Later
Watery sunlight chased away the last remnants of his dream.
As the light flooded behind his closed lids, he shifted, tucking his head under the pillow in a desperate attempt to chase the dream.
Faded fragments lingered—a word here, a sensation there, but they were disappearing faster than he could cling to them.
It was pleasant. Brune could remember that, at least. The specifics were lost to the morning sun, but the feeling remained.
It probably had something to do with food.
All his best dreams did. Maybe he was thinking of that roasting meat from the corner mage, the one who used his magic to toast the spices before marinating.
It was so tender he hadn’t even had to chew. Or those sugar balls that—
The pillow was jerked off his head, and he was poked with a stiff finger. “Get up or you’ll miss muster.”
Normally Brune found Niklas’s monotone voice soothing, but today he could snap at him. It didn’t matter that he was right. Groaning, Brune rolled on his thin cot and kicked off the tattered quilt. It was threadbare—as most things the military issued were—but it was a welcome treat on winter nights.
Pulling himself up, he realized just how late he was. All his fellow soldiers were already moving. Early morning sunlight was flooding the small room from the single arched window on the East wall.
Like most things in the Kaledonean army, the barracks were bland.
The walls were made of stone. Someone once said the mortar between the slate was magically imbued, but Brune thought that was probably something the builders had done, back when magic was abundant enough to waste on such frivolous things.
Either way, the magic was long since gone.
The small room was hot in summers and cold in winters.
When it rained, water plinked down the uneven walls maddeningly.
It would keep them all up if they weren’t so exhausted.
Cots lined the walls, with barely any room to stand between.
Flimsy things, most had been hastily repaired by their owners.
Brune’s was held together with the twine Niklas found two years ago.
The strands were fraying, slowly failing under his not inconsiderable size.
It had been fine when he first joined up—a twig of a boy who had never known a full stomach.
But now that he’d been regularly fed and trained, the twine was struggling.
He admired its tenacity.
Patting the strands, he silently thanked them for another night, ignoring the tittering from his battalion mates.
They could laugh from the floor when their own cot failed.
If gratitude kept him off the hard ground, he’d fall to his knees in thanks.
Brune had had enough of sleeping on the ground for a lifetime.
“Hurry up,” Niklas hissed anxiously, glancing at the heavy wooden door at the end of the dorm.
Brune huffed and got to his feet, quickly making his cot.
It didn’t take long to get ready, not when all his worldly possessions were stuffed into a small trunk.
The army gave most of it to him—more than he’d ever owned in his life.
Looking down at the trunk, he couldn’t help but feel pride in it.
Things. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it was silly.
A man should care more about what filled his heart, not his trunk.
But that was easy to say when you had things.
Brune grew up with nothing. There was a time when even the clothes on his back were temporary.
His until someone stronger wanted them, then all he could do was put up enough of a fight to keep himself warm for another night.
Food was whatever you could put in your mouth.
He’d never even seen a pair of shoes until the army thrust a thin pair of ill-fitting boots into his skinny arms.
Ignoring the contents of his trunk, he dressed quickly.
His uniform was the same as every other low-ranking soldier—linen shirt and pants, with thin leather armor buckled over the top.
Brune was no armorer, but he wasn’t sure what they gave him could even be considered armor.
So thin it was rubbing through in some areas, it would hardly stand against anything sharper than a fingernail.
Still, it was better than nothing. Probably.
Niklas was vibrating in place; arms crossed and worry lines decorating his face. Only a couple of years older than Brune, his face wouldn’t stay smooth much longer if he kept worrying like he did.
He’d met Niklas on his first day. Shoved into a courtyard with a dozen other new recruits, he’d looked up from behind filthy bangs to see the black haired beta.
He appeared as if he wanted to die, with his shoulders curled up around his ears.
Some of the other men were hassling him, grubby fingers pinching the tips of his ears.
Even though Niklas was older and taller, he didn’t bat them off, choosing to curl in on himself instead.
Brune hated an empty stomach, but he hated bullies more.
In Guttersnipe he’d learned to throw a punch before taking a step, and he did it without question.
Head down to protect his face, he barreled into the group, throwing wildly inaccurate punches and baring his teeth in a snarl.
The biggest grabbed him by the hair, but he couldn’t get a good grip in the thick knots.
Brune whirled around and sank his teeth into his arm hard enough to draw blood.
The man shrieked, ripping his arm open on his teeth.
Brune spat the bloody chunk at him. “I’ve tasted better dog.”
When they left, he’d turned back to the taller boy. He took one look at Brunes’s bloody smile and gave him a wobbly one back.
They became friends after that. Niklas had it a little better than Brune. His family were servants in the palace, and he’d grown up there. Someone even taught him how to read. When he came of age, he had a choice to either join the army or hit the streets. He chose the army.
Nearly as tall as Brune, he was thin and fast. And just as strong, something Brune was reminded of when Niklas grabbed him by the arm and dragged him from the barracks.
“They’ll take away your evening rations if you’re late,” he mumbled, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he led them through the narrow hallways.
The barracks were attached to the city walls.
Built around the same time, they jutted out from the base of the walls like tumors.
At some point, they might have looked intimidating with their thick wooden doors and courtyards full of soldiers, but time had stripped away any prestige.
Now it was just crumbling walls and wobbly hinges.
Their cohort filed out into the massive courtyard, lining up shoulder to shoulder for muster.
They did this every morning, baking under the sun or freezing in the wind.
Brune didn’t really know why—the doors were all locked from the outside.
Where could they go in the night? But as long as he was guaranteed two meals and a roof, he’d happily stand in whatever line they wanted.
While they waited for the officers, he took a moment to look over at the rut cage.
At some point, it used to be a cell. But now its thick iron bars were used for the alpha’s ruts.
There was no privacy. It was an unspoken rule to never look while occupied.
Never comment on what you heard or saw when someone was in the throes of their rut.
Brune shivered as he remembered presenting.
It was later than normal. The army surgeon said it was probably because of malnutrition and his large size.
His second month in the barracks, he’d woken hot and angry.
Niklas had to wrestle him to the ground, avoiding his snapping jaws.
He’d dragged him down to the rut room so that the officers wouldn’t punish him.
He stayed with him until muster, talking to Brune through the bars and trying to soothe him with his neutral beta scent.
Rut was still unpleasant, and he was grateful he didn’t have to go through it as often as omegas did with their heat. A healthy alpha will only have a regular rut once or twice a year, unless they had an omega, then they would match their mate's heats.
Or at least that’s what his commander said when he realized Brune knew nothing about subgenders and found himself responsible for giving him a lecture on it. He tried asking Niklas, but the man turned red and couldn’t form a coherent sentence for the rest of the afternoon.
The far door banged open, and every soldier sucked in their gut.
Brune resisted the urge to laugh at fifty men inhaling at once.
Officers had their own barracks, their rank designated by the marks on their bracers.
He didn’t know their names. Officers switched in and out so frequently it was pointless to get to know them. They were all the same, really.
To be an officer, you had to be magic born.
Most of them couldn’t do more than blow sparks, or perhaps light a candle on a good day, but magic was magic, and Kaledonea was desperate to build up their ranks.
Niklas said he’d read that Kaledonea used to have battalions of mages.
But now only a handful of babies were born every year with the ability to use magic.
Most of them to the noble families. Brune had never even seen a noble, but Niklas said they bred themselves like horses—picking lines for the best magic.
Brune didn’t think that sounded very romantic, but the last time he said that one of his battalion mates threw a boot at his head and told him romance was for the well fed.