The Invisible Chains - Part 3: Bonds of Blood (44 page)

He knew his hunch had been right when he felt two arms embrace him from behind. Timishi rested his chin on Lorcko's shoulder.

“What are you thinking about,” he asked.

“How peaceful it is here. Just a few miles away from the burning houses and the cries of the wounded. And then I wonder... Why? But it seems your tribesmen have some valid reasons.”

“No, they haven't. And they're not my tribesmen.”

“Huh?”

“As far as I and my real tribesmen are concerned, they're non-humans. It's a long story. I'll tell it another time. And I doubt they really care about justice or even reve. And evey'rnge. It's just an excuse, a justification for a war of aggression. For conquest.”

Lorcko leaned back in Timishi's arms.

“I'm afraid, Timishi. Afraid for you, Shermy and Rodomesh, and all of you. War isn't an orderly thing. You can try to organize it, but at the end of the day you can only control it in a very limited way.”

“What could happen to us? We're still your frishiu's guests. He even told me he thought he had been too hard on me.”

“He can't always be by your side, Timishi. And once when the war becomes more real, when people start dying... They might want to take revenge.”

Timishi laughed.

“I think we can take care of ourselves, Lorsho.”

Lorcko turned around in his arms.

“There's only eight of you,” he said angrily. “There's thousands upon thousands of Ximerionian soldiers. You wouldn't stand a chance if they turn against you.”

“I didn't realize you cared that much,” Timishi smiled.

“I don't,” the page bit at him. “Get yourself and your friends killed, for all I care. You, you... you stupid barbarian.”

He bit his lower lip while a single tear fell out of one eye, glistening in the moon light.

Timishi had stopped smiling and kissed him full on the lips. Lorcko opened them ever so slightly and let his mouth be entered by an hungry invader. He pressed his groin against Timishi's, and the contact, even through the layers of fabric, made shivers run down his spine. With both his arms he pulled the Mukthar as close as possible to himself in a velvet-iron grip. He wanted to never let go.

Timishi and Lorcko thought they were alone. They weren't. From the cover of a dry ditch someone was watching. And listening.

Ambrick had entered Mirkadesh high on the heels of Lorcko and the Mukthars. In the general confusion nobody had taken any notice of him.

Staying at a safe distance, sneaking behind the ruins of houses, he had followed them. He had hidden in some bushes from where he could observe the makeshift tent where they had remained all afternoon.

His lips curled in disgust when he saw the Mukthar embrace that beautiful body and kiss those full lips. He felt his stomach knot when he saw the eagerness with which Lorcko responded. For a moment he thought how that could have been him taking that willing, quivering body in his arms, kissing those welcoming lips, smelling that lush, scented hair. It should have been him. Or it should have been him being held by those strong arms, being wanted, desired by that man with his wild, alien charms. It should both have been him.

Both. He chased the troubling thoughts away. No. Ambrick was certain of it, like he had always been, that Lorcko of Iramid was a traitor. He hadn't said as much, but it was clear he was plotting for those wild beasts to escape. And that Mukthar chieftain — Ambrick wasn't going to dignify him with the title of prince — should by rights be dead, dead, dead. But they were counting without Ambrick. He would inform the prince.

He would see that traitor and his barbarian friends swing from a tree yet. Just like they deserved. His foresight and all the trouble he had taken were about to come to fruition.

Without making any noise, Ambrick of Keyld followed the dry ditch, crouching down, back to the road. He would go to where the soldiers own, bsoly nwere posted who guarded the barn. He would ask to see his highness.

Not without some difficulty Lorcko suppressed the urge to put his hand under Timishi's shirt.

“He has to let you go,” he said determined.

“What?”

“He has to let you go. It's as simple as that. Timishi, the Plains are but miles from here. There are many places where you can hide. Wait until all this is over. I... I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose. Not again.”

“And you?”

“I? I'll have to stay here. I can't come with you, as much as I would like to. It would be desertion.”

“I don't like it,” Timishi said.

“Don't worry, his highness has said us pages would remain in the base camp at Dermolhea. I'll be as far from the fighting as you.”

“Let's hope that's not true,” the Mukthar mumbled.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. You're right. Let's go speak with Anashantish.”

“He's asleep and I don't want to wake him. The coming days will be more than exacting and —”

“Yeah, that ship has sailed, I'm afraid,” Anaxantis said, coming from behind a slightly singed blanket that was hung up as a screen between two supporting beams. “What's going on?”

“Your highness,” Lorcko said, “in light of what has happened, I was thinking that it was becoming increasingly dangerous for the prince and his friends to stay here.”

Anaxantis arched his brows. The tone in which the page had spoken betrayed something more than just concern for some people entrusted to his charge, or friends even.

“Why?” he asked, not without a certain degree of malice.

Lorcko explained his reasons in a flood of words, sometimes pleading, urging, sometimes almost enjoining.

“I see,” Anaxantis said when he stopped speaking, out of breath.

“It really is too dangerous for them to stay here, your highness,” Lorcko added.

“I think you're right,” the prince said.

Lorcko looked at him, surprised that he didn't make any objections.

“You do?” he asked astounded.

“Yes. What's more, I think they should go now. By the time the sun comes up they should be far from here.

Come with me.”

Ambrick was just climbing out of the dry ditch when he saw Anaxantis, Timishi and Lorcko emerge from the barn. He saw them walk over to the tents and collect the other Mukthars, then go to an improvised pen where the horses were kept.

To his astonishment the prince himself was letting the barbarians go. He felt his blood almost boil in his veins as he saw, from between the long grass that bordered the ditch, how they mounted their horses and turned to the far end of the meadow.

“
Just as was to be expected from a Tanahkos usurper.”

But, in all his fury, there was nothing he could do. Nothing.

Anaxantis led the way. "8pt" theherAfter about an hour he halted. Before them the landscape sloped down, steeply at first then gently until it flowed into the Plains.

“Here our ways part,” Anaxantis said. “Good luck.”

The first Mukthars were already descending the slope.

Timishi took a broad, iron bracelet with intricate silver ornaments from his right wrist and proffered it in Lorcko's direction.

“I want you to have this. Wear it. Every Wolf Mukthar will recognize this and know you are inviolable.”

Lorcko colored red as he put the bracelet around his own wrist. He wanted to say something, but Timishi stopped him with a sign of his hand.

“Thank you, Anashantish. For everything. Lorsho, take care. Fare well, my prince,” he said, turning his horse around.

It was not too clear for who the last words were meant, but it was Anaxantis who answered.

“Fare well, quedash, and return safely to your màhai.”

Timishi turned in his saddle.

“You know? You
knew
all along?” he asked, surprised.

Anaxantis grinned.

“For some time, anyway.”

“Rodo,” Timishi said. It sounded just the tiniest bit disappointed, not angry.

“He couldn't help it, my king. I'm afraid I tricked him,” Anaxantis smiled.

“Quedash?” Lorcko said, looking from one to the other.

“I would have told you,” Timishi said, and he grin-shrugged. “There was no time. No right time, anyway.”

“I'll explain it to you on the way back,” Anaxantis said.

“
And you will tell me everything you learned from them.”

The last one to cast a wistful look backward was Shermy.

Ambrick had collected his horse from the bushes near the road leading up to the barn where he had left it earlier.

He rode back, aimlessly, still furious and deeply frustrated, to the center of the village. He wasn't too sure what to do next, but then he overheard some chance remarks between two soldiers, returning to their unit.

“
The Third Regiment, they said? That's general Iramid's. Lorcko's father,”
he mused silently.

Riding at a very slow walk he followed them at a distance. When they left the village, he could see several tents in the distance. A plan, at first slowly, formed in his head. By the time he had reached the encampment it was fully formed.

Two guards stood where a small wooden bridge over a ditch led to the meadow where the Third had made it's camp. Ambrick announced himself as the count of Keyld. That was somewhat premature as far as he knew, but then again his father was very poorly, wasn't he?

Volcko of Iramid was surprised when he saw Ambrick being brought into his tent. He had expected an elderly gentlemen, he vaguely remembered.

“You're not the count of Keyld,” he said bluntly. “You're his son. You're a page in his highned blunis " ass's service.”

“I beg your pardon, baron, that was who I said I was. Your men must have misunderstood me,” he lied.

Volcko looked him over.

“Well, since you're here, please, sit down and tell me what you're business is.”

Ambrick looked at the soldier who had accompanied him.

“It's rather delicate, my lord,” he said hesitatingly.

The general nodded at the soldier, who turned around and left.

“I don't know where to start. I don't even know if I should be here,” Ambrick continued.

“Suppose you tell me what it's about, generally speaking.”

Ambrick looked up at him in a hesitant, almost shy way.

“It's about your son. Lorcko. A good and dear friend of mine.”

“What about him?”

“I... I wouldn't want to give you the impression that I'm a snitch. It's just that my conscience has been bothering me. And—”

“Out with it, boy,” Volcko snapped.

“Hm, yes. You know that lately he has been seeing a lot of those barbarians his highness captured?”

“Of course I know. He told me. The prince has appointed him as kind of a liaison officer.”

“That's correct as far as it goes,” Ambrick said softly.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that it goes a lot further than that. He confessed to me that, these last weeks, he has become, eh, infatuated, not to say, besotted with their chieftain.”

“Nonsense. He's a Ximerionian noble.”

“Nevertheless. Oh, by the Gods, I feel as if I'm betraying one of my best friends. I should probably go...”

He made as if to stand up.

“Sit down,” Volcko thundered. “Sit down and explain to me what you think is happening.”

Ambrick sat down again.

“It's not so much what I think, as what I saw,” he said in a loud harsh voice. “I saw them kissing, fondling each other and... and more.”

“Never,” Iramid senior burst out.

“Oh yes. They're barely keeping it a secret. Didn't he show you his Mukthar dagger?”

“In fact he did. He said he bought it from one of the barbarians.”

“Bought? Yes, with his body.”

For a moment it looked as if Volcko would strike Ambrick in the face, but knowing his temper was one of his weak points, he managed to control himself.

“Ah, well,” he said through gritted teeth, “we're all civilized people. We're nobles. He's young. Why shouldn't he have a bit of fun? I always knew his tastes ran strange. Did you know he went through a phase of seeking out ugly people?”

Ambrick recoiled as if Volcko had backhanded him in the face.

“Lately his taste runs to high treason, my lord baron,” he spat back.

Again Vk.">Ahisolcko had to muster all his will power to restrain himself.

“Be very, very careful what your next words are, boy, or by the Gods, son of a count or not...”

He let the threat hang unfinished in the air.

“He has let the Mukthars escape, my lord. Careful enough for you? Treason high enough for you?”

“What?”

“All of them. I tried to talk him out of it, but he went behind my back and did it anyway.”

Volcko's thoughts raced through his head. He tried to evaluate the information Ambrick had given him. To think clearly. Thinking clearly, however, was not the main strength of the baron of Iramid.

“
Lorcko, you fool. How could you let your heart run away with you like that? Why didn't you come to me?

We could have talked. I could have talked you out of this folly. Or we could have found a sensible solution.

High treason. That wretched boy is right. You've let enemies of the kingdom escape. Prisoners in your care.