Passion of the Different (18 page)

Chapter Twenty Six - The Problem

Ryan awoke early and even beat his silent escort to the throne room by an hour. He was fully dressed in a thick dark green tunic and matching pants. The high quality boots that were delivered shortly after Nera's visit fit his large feet well, the expense of the custom fit coming out of the treasury. Designed for heavy trail use, they had thick soles and made a clopping sound on the marble flooring. He paced back and forth with a serious look on his face and didn't stop even when Darya approached, obviously alerted to the level of anxiety he displayed.

"What's wrong?" she demanded, a hint of concern mixed with her usual bold authority.

"I didn't consider this as a problem until I remembered my status here," he confided while still pacing, barely paying her a glance. His expression was troubled, his tone lower than normal. "I want this to work, damn it, I want you to succeed and get what you wish. There's simply no way around it in the rules you put in place for me."

"Stand still and face me," she ordered, and he did as asked. When he looked down at her, he softened his expression only by a fraction as she reminded him sharply of
her
status. "I'm queen here, my word is law. Tell me what you require and I'll see about making it happen."

"It's so simple yet so complicated," he started, reached out and clasped her hands. "I need to go out into the woods and find some wild food. I need to prepare it and bring it to you, and have you eat it. Then the cycle of courtship is over and we can have our intimacy until you're pregnant. I can't have servants doing it, I need to be the one to do it myself."

"Why is that?" she asked, her eyes seeming confused for a moment. To her, servants were always a means to get everything done.

"With my people," he lied with practiced efficiency, "men are the primary providers. It's an alignment thing, providing her with fresh wild food is important. If she accepts what he gives her on the
outside
, then she'll accept what he gives her on the
inside
." He guided her hand down to her belly and covered it with his own. "Without that final link, my seed won't come out for you no matter how hard I try."

"You fed me for three meals," she countered, but there was no hostility in her bold tone.

"This is different," he assured her smoothly. "I don't feed you. I present the prepared food and all you need to do is take a single bite and swallow it. That done, I'm all yours in the bedroom."

Her dark eyes continued searching his face, but this time she wasn't looking for deceit. He could see the wheels spinning behind that beautiful face when she came to a decision. "You can't go alone and you know the consequences for running." He gave her a hurt look and opened his mouth but she shushed him with a hand over his lips. "I don't doubt you anymore, Lord Za'Ryan. I just had to state the obvious and remind you of certain realities. How long do you need to find some wild food?"

"Half a day," he said gently, bringing a hopeful look into his eyes. "Sending men with me is fine, but they have to dress fast and light. They need to be able to keep up. No horses, I'm not going far."

She placed a hand on his face and he saw more real emotion come out of her again. "I don't want to hurt you," she told him honestly. "I even regret throwing you in the dungeon for a full winter. I don't want to threaten you anymore. But if you're not back by lunch time, I'll give the order to light the signal fire. Please, don't make me do that to you."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them while taking her hand up to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and radiated acceptance. "Thank you," he replied, packing a high amount of relief into his voice. That he didn't have to fake all that much. While water sat inside the signal tub instead of rock oil, it might not take the soldiers long to fix that problem once it was discovered.

Darya's sharp feature's lit up and she voiced a few more details to her new orders. "Those two you spoke well of, the palace guards whom you found favor with after you killed that Elerian traitor... what was his name?" She answered her own question before he could speak. "Ah yes, Avrohom. The two who escorted him. They should be the soldiers who go with you. What do you say, my mighty prince?"

"Not to disagree, my queen, but why would you send them with me and not just any other soldiers?" Ryan carefully asked, trying not to sound suspicious.

"You spared them from my wrath and even vouched for a pay raise. Which I granted," she told him as if he was a child to be schooled. "Even though they failed their charge, you
owe
them for slipping up. I doubt you'd want to do anything too reckless and make me upset, get them executed after all." She gave him a happy but tight smile. "Anybody else wouldn't have the same value to you, I think."

"My queen is wise," he replied, nodded in agreement. Her logic didn't make that much sense to him, unless there was a hidden reason for her wanting them to shadow him. Did they talk to her or one of her agents and blab about being in his good graces? He didn't know and at least his goals didn't matter if they were double agents or not. After the trip there's nothing he would like better than to have them tell her every little detail, just as long as they wait for him to make his final presentation to their queen.

Chapter Twenty Seven - The Moople

Neither of them understood at first why they had to be light and fast, but Merd'Fen and Zon'Jal complied and shucked off their heavy armor just outside the front gate. Their tank top tunics and shorts looked comfortable. One of Darya's servants who came along just in case there were any last minute requirements looked unhappy with the pile of metal he was commanded to watch for half a day so they wouldn't be stolen.

They wouldn't let Ryan have a bladed weapon of his own, so he would either have to borrow one or find a good sized rock. Either way, he was about to freak them all out and had to work from letting on about his true goals until it was too late to do anything about it. "A moment fellas," he said to his two sort-of friends. They had orders to kill Ryan if he tried to escape and would follow them to the letter no matter how much he helped them before. It wasn't too much a surprise considering the realm where even minor disobedience is rewarded with a death sentence. Then he got his thoughts back to the task at hand when they regarded him with expectation. He squatted and drew an image in the loose soil with his large finger. It wasn't half bad considering he didn't know if he had any real artistic talent or not. "Can either of you tell me if there are any animals that look like this?"

"That's a moople," Zon'Jal announced with a curious expression on his face. His partner nodded as he regarded the crude but unmistakable image.

"Where I'm from, we call this a
rabbit
," Ryan explained. "They get large around here?"

"I would say so," Merd'Fen replied casually, unsure where all of this was going. Even the servant looked at it and nodded as the palace guard continued to explain. "About a good ten pounds sometimes, a little less than half the size of my breastplate over there in that armor pile we made. Why?"

"Where would you find them out here, as close as possible please?" Ryan asked casually, ignored the question on purpose. "I only have just so long and that is a perfect sized animal for what I want."

"Uh, I guess out in the woods close to the farming district," Zon'Jal answered, his tone completely clueless as to why he wanted to see one. "The farmers have to shoo them away or they eat a lot of the vegetables."

"Perfect," Ryan announced, grinned large. "Lead the way, I'll follow. Don't walk men, jog. Time is against me today."

Resigning themselves to the puzzling endeavor, they sprinted and Ryan had no trouble at all keeping up. Even with a spear at their side they made a good steady pace. His legs needed the workout. After sitting in the dungeon for an entire winter, he was half afraid he would start going soft. Pleased that he wasn't breathing too hard after the first fifteen minutes, he wondered at his ability to stay physically fit so easily. It didn't feel right, as if he was somehow cheating. The half-thought vanished when they came to a halt and gestured to a wooded area that was at the edge of some farmland.

"Let's find a clear spot a little ways in and make a campfire," Ryan said casually, as if he did this sort of thing every day. Shrugging at each other, both soldiers followed him into the woods. A half hour later they had a nice circle of stones along with a moderate campfire. It was a good thing Zon'Jal carried extra flint behind his belt buckle or the fire would have required a lot longer to get going with only a pair of sticks to rub together.

"Come with me while he watches the fire," Ryan politely ordered Merd'Fen. "We need to find us a moople." They looked at each other again as if Ryan had lost his wits, but they couldn’t see any harm in complying.

"Alright," Merd'Fen agreed. "Let's go."

Twenty minutes of foraging through the brush, a large white patch of fur jumped out and ran to the right about a dozen yards, then stopped. The long ears were floppy, its attention riveted for a minute on the two men, then it shifted and started to munch on a nearby plant.

"Can I borrow your spear?" Ryan whispered to Merd'Fen.

"Whatever for?" he replied, voice at normal volume. Ryan winced but the moople didn't seem to care.

"I'm going to throw it at the moople, to catch it," Ryan explained, but only a little bit louder.

Merd'Fen blanched, shook his head. "No need for that, Lord Za'Ryan," the palace guard explained as if the idea was totally absurd. "We startled this one, but you don't have to murder the little thing to see it up close. Here, watch." With a bend and a soft tug, the soldier uprooted a large leafy green plant. He picked off a long thick white root and then broke it. A turnip like aroma quickly wafted up and greeted his nose. "Here," he said, handing Ryan the spear. "Don't throw it, just hold it for a moment." Once Ryan had the weapon, the soldier squatted and made a clicking sound, holding out the root.

The moople turned to the clicking sound, clicked back softly. Then it squeaked when it smelled the broken root that was being offered by hand. After a minute of coaxing, the animal trundled up and started to nibble the unexpected morsel.

Ryan could hear it emit a soft purr as it munched.
Tame little sucker
, he thought. Then without hesitation, he reversed the spear and used it like a club on the critter's head. The doomed little screech it gave mirrored Merd'Fen's horrified reaction as he yanked the spear back. Ryan let it go, that part of his personal mission accomplished.

"Why did you do that?" the soldier demanded, pale skin turning almost milk white. "What did that innocent little moople ever do to
you
?"

"Nothing," Ryan admitted with a grin as he picked up the fresh carcass. "What it's going to do
for me
is what really matters. Come on, back to the camp fire."

As they arrived, Merd'Fen couldn't hold his disgust in as he told Zon'Jal what happened, and followed it up with, "I swear it, for no reason at all, he just clobbered it right in front of my eyes. I was feeding it so he could see up close."

"Can I borrow one of your spears?" Ryan politely asked them both, eye balling the sharp steel head and hoped it had an edge good enough for slicing.

"No," Zon'Jal told him with a fair amount of scorn. "Will one of us be next, Lord Za'Ryan? Dragging us all the way out here and blunting a harmless moople to death just not satisfactory enough?"

"I need to cut this open," he started to explain to their growing horror, displaying the slain moople in his grip. Then something happened to Ryan. It was like an audible click in the back of his ear, and a method surged from the blackened portion of his buried memories. He suddenly knew what to do, though he couldn't recall doing it before. He hated that sourceless dose of information. He wanted
all
of his memory, not just a relevant tiny portion.

"Gentlemen," Ryan announced to them both suddenly. Still looking disgusted and holding their spears a bit more possessively, they took a half step back at his sudden confidence. "This is survival class one zero one, you're about to learn a valuable skill. Pay close attention, this is how you skin a small animal without a knife."

Ryan gripped the critter's head and started to turn it. The tongue lolled out and its dead eyes bugged as he counted twenty full twists. Both of the soldiers had their mouths drop open, eyes wide and their stance faltered as if they might start convulsing. Shock and horror chased each other across their features as Ryan gave a tug on the head, and the little knot that formed in place of a neck parted with a wet snap.

Then the large man cracked each leg bone at the first joint. He turned each paw twenty twists and pulled them off one at a time. Speechless and completely mesmerized by the procedure they never imagined possible, both soldiers started to breathe hard. Merd'Fen started to shiver.

Ryan's huge hand grabbed the flap of skin at the neck hole, his other hand pushed hard on the creature's ass while the neck skin was pulled backwards. With a sinew ripping sucking sound, Ryan pushed the meat out as the hide skinned backwards. He stopped just short of finishing the skinning and grabbed the meat so it wouldn't fall and get dirty, then finished yanking the now inside out hide off. Smiling at his work and hands covered with red, he scooped any remaining innards out and set the pelt aside.

Zon'Jal had enough. He dropped his spear, clutched his gut and turned sideways. As he vomited, Ryan casually picked up the spear and stabbed the now cleaned meat through the spine.

"What the hell?" Merd'Fen suddenly shouted at him, totally misunderstanding. "What's the matter with you? It's already dead, damn it!"

"Calm down," Ryan barked back, then softened his tone a little. "You can't expect me to cook it while it's still in my hands, do you?" He thrust the package of dead moople meat over the campfire and sat down, slowly turning it. "It's going to take a bit, so relax. We'll make it back to the castle in plenty of time for a late breakfast. Or early lunch. Whatever."

Both of his not-so-much-a-friend-anymore palace guards suffered the hour and a half of cooking in silence, showing him their backs as they faced away from it all. Once Ryan was satisfied it was finished cooking all the way through, he took off his shirt and wrapped the browned meat. The blood on his hands had dried and he didn't want the food contaminated. Once it was packaged in the cloth, he pulled it off the spear point. The fire was small enough now to safely die out in the circle of stones they made, so he was ready to go. He startled them both by handing the soiled spear back to Zon'Jal from behind and grinned.

"Alright guys, sorry it bothered you to see that. It smells absolutely delicious. Unless you want to eat some for yourself, please lead me back?" Ryan almost boomed laughter as they quickly took off, no longer caring to speak to the monster.