Authors: Kyell Gold
He felt the fox’s discomfort, and waved a paw to the sword on the ground. “You know, that’s too heavy for you.”
A long blink obscured the bright eyes for a moment. “I know,” Benton said finally. “I wanted to build up my muscles. Sir.”
“You’re better off doing it slowly with a sword you can carry. Otherwise your muscles are too tired to do the motions properly and you waste your energy.” Jherik walked over to the sword rack and picked a lighter, thinner sword. “Here. Try this one.”
Benton gaped at him. Jherik held out the sword’s handle to him and smiled. “I used to sneak in here at night too.”
“Thank you, sir.” He took the sword and raised it.
“You know how to hold it. Do you know the various positions?”
“I think so.” Benton started to move the sword, then hesitated.
Jherik smiled and stood behind him, bringing his arm down along the fox’s much thinner arm. He took the black-furred paw gently in his own. “Here. Basic guard position. Parry right. Parry left. Don’t be nervous, you’re doing fine.”
He could feel the fox trembling against him. Benton took a breath in and let it out slowly, but his tail still twitched against Jherik’s legs. “Thank you, sir.”
“Now thrust.” He pushed Benton’s arm forward, leaning to make the fox shift his weight. “Don’t be afraid of going too far forward. Just don’t overbalance. You don’t have to do it quickly now, just learn the position. The speed will come later.”
Benton seemed reluctant to move forward no matter how hard Jherik leaned on him, so he nudged the fox’s right foot with his own. “Move the foot forward. There you go.”
The fox’s ears twitched beneath Jherik’s muzzle as he slowly rose from the lunge position. “Thank you. Sir.”
Jherik stepped back, pleased. “Now, let’s see you try the positions.”
He watched Benton go through the basic positions, correcting his grip and stance several times. After an hour, the fox could move pretty well from one position to the next. Jherik felt a small swell of pride in his new pupil’s achievement.
“I think that’s enough for tonight,” he said when he noticed Benton’s eyes drooping. “I’m sure I could get permission for you to practice in here during the day if you want.”
Benton shook his head and walked over to the rack, putting the sword away. “Thank you, sir, but they keep us busy. I wouldn’t have time. I’ll just keep coming at night.” He smiled. “Thanks for your help, sir.”
“You’re welcome, Benton.” He patted the fox’s narrow shoulder and watched him leave, his tail dragging behind him. He enjoyed working with young soldiers, but he’d never taught before; he’d always just helped Corrif or Master Winson. Benton was obviously quick to learn, and he must have some passion for it, or he wouldn’t be sneaking down here at night. Jherik resolved to come back the next night, and continue his education.
And it was convenient, he thought, because he was already planning to come down to see Mishel before bed check anyway.
He snuck down to the kitchens after sleeping in again. At this time of the morning, only the cooks were in; the extra help from the recruits wouldn’t arrive until later, when they had to clean up from lunch and prepare dinner. He skipped over an otter cub who was sitting on the floor scrubbing a pot clean, dodged around two of the cooks, bobcats who were arguing over how long to cook the guinea fowl for lunch, and waved to Darra, the head cook. The little weasel put her paws on her hips. “You can’t get to breakfast like everyone else?”
“Darra,” he pleaded, “I was tired. Come on, I know there’s something left.”
“Of course, of course, there’s always something left, but why should I give it to you? We reuse all this food! I don’t just throw it away.” Her eyes twinkled as she teased him.
“Please!” He fell to his knees melodramatically.
“Well.” She looked nonplused. “This is the cheeriest I’ve seen you in a long time. I guess that deserves something.”
While he got up, she turned to a counter beside her where leftovers were stacked and took a plate from behind them that had obviously been prepared in advance, stacked with three berry cakes, some ripe grapes, and half of a freshly baked loaf of bread. Jherik took the plate and inhaled the aroma of the bread as he broke it open. “Any honey?” he asked, tail twitching hopefully.
“In there.” Darra shook her head and grinned, going back to her work. Jherik padded to the container she’d indicated and took out a lump of honeycomb, spread the honey on the bread, then popped the rest into his mouth as he waved cheerily and left the kitchen.
The weather was nice, so he carried his food down the hill and watched the soldiers training. Benton was in this batch, just doing basic strengthening exercises. He kept one eye on the fox as he amused himself sticking the grapes to his honey-coated paw and then licking them off. He’d finished most of his food and was licking his paw clean when a shadow fell over his plate; he looked up and saw his father.
The older cougar squatted down beside him. “Jherik. I want to talk to you.”
His good mood vanished in the shadow. He stared down sullenly at the barracks, dreading what this talk would be about. Another warning about consorting with soldiers, perhaps, or a gentle admonition to keep regular hours. With the inevitable subtext,
why can’t you be more responsible like your brother?
“Yes, sir.”
“I know it’s been hard since your brother left. I keep wondering if I did the right thing. But he was right, that was how it had to be.”
He paused, perhaps to allow Jherik to voice his feelings. The young cougar grunted.
“So,” his father continued, “I thought that to keep our minds off of his mission, and to...prepare for the worst...”
Jherik interrupted then. “He’ll be fine.”
His father put a paw on his shoulder. “I know. I keep thinking that too. But it might be a good idea for you to start sitting with me for a couple hours every morning. Some days I meet with people, and other days we can just talk about politics and affairs of state.”
“I’m no good at that.”
His father sighed. “Maybe you’ve just never tried hard enough.”
Jherik could vividly remember sitting through history and state lessons with a tutor, dozing off as he stared out the window at the soldiers practicing below. But there wasn’t any point in arguing with his father. If he wanted Jherik to sit through interminable discussions and archaic lessons that served no useful purpose, then Jherik would sit through them and that was the end of it.
“Fine,” he said, looking down the hill to where the recruits were finishing up their exercises.
“You’ll have the afternoons free to be with your army friends,” his father assured him. “I’m just asking for a little time. I think it would help both of us.”
“I said fine.” He regretted the sharpness in his tone, not because he didn’t want to express his bitterness, but because he was afraid his father would get angry with him.
The older cougar looked as though he were considering that as an option. In the end, he sighed and stood up. “Tomorrow morning after breakfast, in my office, then.” Jherik nodded, and a moment later the shadow was gone.
Benton was gone, too, and Master Winson was working with a new class of recruits, Mishel among them. Jherik hadn’t seen where the fox had gone, but he didn’t spend a lot of time wondering about it. The sight of the coyote working out kept him quite enjoyably distracted for an hour and a half, during which he planned that evening’s activities and shifted several times to accommodate his surprisingly enthusiastic sheath.
When the recruits had disappeared into the manor, Jherik stood and stretched, and walked down to the barracks. He thought he might do some sparring in the practice room, but when he got there, Master Winson was in the middle of a training session.
“Ah, Jherik,” he said, and waved him in. “Could you join us? I could use a helper here.”
“Sure.” Jherik grabbed a practice sword from the wall and stripped his shirt off, doing a couple stretches before he stood and faced the soldiers, a mountain goat and a rat. He knew them both, but not well; they were in their third year of service and showed neither the inclination to leave nor the drive to excel. He saw Cherruf, the goat, flare his nostrils, and Barbric, the rat, twitched his whiskers, but otherwise they didn’t show any intimidation they felt.
He could have gotten past their defenses with ease, and once or twice he did, but as he listened to Master Winson instructing them, he followed the old badger’s instructions. His former teacher was well aware of his capabilities and told him how much to keep them in check. Previously, Jherik had simply followed his instructions, but today, with Benton in mind, he tried to observe and see how Master Winson was trying to increase Cherruf and Barbric’s confidence while at the same time showing them where they needed to improve. Barbric in particular seemed uninterested in learning that day; Master Winson had to repeat instructions two and three times before he followed them, and five minutes later he appeared to have forgotten he’d ever heard them. Benton would have picked up on that by now, Jherik found himself thinking more than once, and he stored away tips to give the fox the next time he saw him.
“That was good,” Master Winson said after Cherruf and Barbric had been dismissed. He was eyeing Jherik curiously, one white eye-stripe lifted. “What did you think of them?”
“Me?” Jherik flicked his ears. The old badger nodded at him. “Well...Barbric never seemed motivated, but today especially he just didn’t seem to care. Even when he was putting the swords away.” He indicated a piece of the weapons rack that the rat had knocked off when he carelessly banged it with the sword.
“What about Cherruf?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. He seems to be working pretty hard.”
“What would you tell him to work on?”
“Just what you said. He comes out of his defense too slowly. It needs to be more fluid.”
Master Winson grinned. “What would you tell him to work on in addition to what I told him?”
Jherik thought about that. “I guess I would just tell him to try to understand what he’s doing. He doesn’t have a glaring weakness, but it seems like...like...” he groped for words. “Like he just knows what to do, but not why. You know, when he blocks a left-side attack, he blocks to the left away from the body because that’s what we taught him. But what if it was a left-side sidestep? He’d be blocking it along the line of motion and leave himself open to a strike.”
Master Winson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You’re thinking more about this. That’s good. Why don’t you come back tomorrow? Cherruf will be back the day after, and we can work with him then, but I’d like your help tomorrow too.”
“All right.” Jherik pulled his shirt on, hiding his surprise. He’d assisted Master Winson in the past and had never been commended like this. Cougar gives with one paw and takes with the other, he thought, only today the order had been reversed. He thought he could make it through the mornings with his father if he had afternoon classes to look forward to. And the nighttime classes as well, and for as long as they lasted, his evening trysts.
After dinner, he waited for Mishel in the same place, and the coyote crossed over to him again, leaving his fellow recruits. Jherik noticed that several of them turned to look at him as Mishel approached him, and when the coyote was near, Jherik said, “Maybe I should just meet you in the trees from now on.”
“As you wish, m’lord,” Mishel said easily, and this time he led the way, pulling his tunic off before they were halfway to the grove. Jherik watched the play of muscles under the fur of his back, the taut round shape of his rump through the shorts as his tail swayed across it, and the powerful spring of his calves and thighs in the fading light. He was aroused not only by Mishel’s wonderful body, but also by the coyote’s easy acceptance of the implicit request for future meetings.
Inside the trees, the coyote turned and placed his paws on either side of Jherik’s chest. He turned his muzzle up to the cougar’s, and when he spoke, his breath slid across Jherik’s nose and whiskers, bringing the scent of meat and bread and desire. “What is my lord’s pleasure tonight?”
Jherik hooked his claws into the fabric of Mishel’s shorts and pulled them down to the ground. As he straightened, he ran his paw along the thick bulge of leg muscle until he met the soft round sac. Cupping it, he moved his paw gently back and up, rubbing a finger under Mishel’s tail until he felt the opening there.
Mishel smiled. “I see.” He touched his nose to Jherik’s and lifted at his shirt. “If I may...?”
Jherik nodded, moving his arms so Mishel could remove his shirt. He returned his paw to the coyote’s rear, teasing his sheath with the other while the coyote’s paws worked at his pants, pulling them down. Upon seeing Jherik’s erection, the long muzzle stretched into a smile. “Oh. My lord is ready already...”
Trying to tease the coyote out of his sheath suddenly because much easier. Jherik felt the sheath push against his paw and saw the tip of the pink length a moment later, moving quickly out. As he did, Mishel stepped around to one side, letting Jherik’s paw stay on him as he leaned over to bathe the cougar’s long member with his tongue. Jherik shuddered at the soft touch and stroked harder with his paw, pausing only to take his shirt off.
Being naked against the tree was not a new sensation; he and his brother had sometimes slept nude out in the grounds when they wanted to be outside and the weather was nice. But in this context, it was somehow more daring, more dangerous. He wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not.
He definitely liked the coyote, though, and the warm tongue sliding up and down as well as the teeth just grazing the skin of his taut member sent shivers through him, driving other thoughts and worries from his mind. Settling back against the tree, he let the throaty growl that was building in his chest move into his throat as a purr. His fingers stayed active between Mishel’s legs, brushing his dangling sac back and forth, and rubbing under his tail as well as up his growing sheath, because the coyote rumbled in pleasure whenever he did either of those things.