Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (18 page)

“
If you get caught.”

“If?”

“Look,” Odin said, bridging the last amount of space between them to reach up and press a hand against Virgin’s chest, against the open spot in his jerkin where fine hairs curled beneath his fingers and a solid mass of muscle rose to greet him. “Say you help me…”

“Yeah,” the Halfling grunted.

“And say we do get the book I want.”

“All right.”

“Then we can do just about anything we want.”

“I won
’t read anything from that damn book.”

“But I will,” Odin said, training his eyes on the taller Halfling
’s face. “What do you say?” he asked, stroking the muscle beneath his fingers.

“You
’re propositioning me,” Virgin said. “Aren’t you?”

“Will it get you on my good side?” he asked.

“Maybe,” the man said.

Virgin dropped the swords within his grasp.

Leaning forward, he took Odin into his arms, led him to the ground and onto the bedroll, then pressed his lips against the side of Odin’s neck, reaching down to pop the first few buttons at the top of his jerkin.

Odin closed his eyes.

The Halfling kissed the line of his jaw until their lips touched.

“Virgin,” Odin whispered.

“Yeah?” the man breathed.

“Does this mean you
’re not robbing me?”

“Not yet.”

He parted his lips and allowed the man’s tongue in.

*

They rolled through the front gates of Ornala at dawn. Tired, uneasy and a bit discomforted by the fact that they had just spent the last several days within the back of a straw-covered caravan, Nova opened his eyes to find dawn bleeding across the horizon and closed them when he took notice of Carmen lying directly across from him, covered in straw and sleeping contently without any disruption whatsoever.

They must be able to sleep on anything,
he thought, vaguely regarding the fact that she’d taken her boots off in the middle of the night before laying his head back on his outstretched arm.

It was much too early for him to disturb his sleeping family, to rouse them from sleep only to have them discover he was, in fact, injured, and could have to worry about an infection that could be weeping through his bloodstream. For that reason, he continued to watch the horizon as the cart and the carriage that pulled it continued their way up the street and past the stalls normally reserved for vendors looking to sell their wares, all the more at peace about the situation now that he was in a place he could somewhat call home.

Home.

Home—the great, shining capital of his country, so grand and tall that it could have been called an icon testament to humanity and what all it had accomplished. It was here, at the brink of it all, on the coast of the Martyr
’s Ocean, that men came to fortune and fame and peasants lived lives comfortable and welcome. Vendors lined the roads, children played in the streets, men guarded the walls that separated the royal from the normal and women lived lives comfortable and not in the least bit sheltered. It was, as anyone would have been fit to describe, a perfect place, and in in all his life he had never once heard of Ornala turning away someone who had no place to go.

Not even me?

His conscience fading, his skin chilling in the cool morning air, he pushed himself back into the deeper parts of the cart and shivered as straw fell over his body, disrupting the natural feeling of cleanliness and creating the image of insects crawling across his body. That alone was enough to unsettle him, but regardless, he was somehow able to retain enough sanity to lay back down and close his eyes.

Across from him, Carmen mumbled something in her sleep.

“What?” he asked.

The Dwarf didn
’t reply.

Nova rolled onto his stomach, took a deep breath, then tried to
rest as the cart rolled to a stop.

*

He woke in the arms of a stranger whose intentions and life he barely knew. Naked, nestled within the bedroll and with a long, muscled arm draped over his waist, Odin opened his eyes to find that the distant horizon was still dark and had not yet birthed a child of light and energy.

Where am I?
he thought.

His first thoughts led him to believe that he was back in Sylina and asleep with the young barkeep who had somehow switched places with him in the night. Eventually, though, his recollections of the events of the previous night led him to believe that he was, in fact, within the Great Divide, and when he felt the scratch of stubble across the side of his face that could most certainly not be that of the young barkeep
’s, he jumped from his place in the bedroll and drew the black-bladed sword from its sheath.

Directly before him, the rogue who so easily had captured his heart cracked his eyes opened to slits to reveal a pair of startlingly-green eyes that seemed to glow even within the darkness.

“Who are you?” Odin asked.

“Don
’t remember me?” the rogue chuckled, propping his head up on one arm and staring at him through a haze of chestnut hair. “Come on. I’m not
that
forgettable, am I?”

You
’re the one who tried to rob me,
he thought, trembling, breath edging out of his chest like needles scratching the inside of his throat.
You’re—

The light, the fire, the dagger, the press of lips against his ear
, his hand against a stranger’s chest, the press of flesh in a fit of passion—all came flooding back instantaneously, as though summoned from the great wave of darkness.

Taking a moment to compose himself in both his nudity and the cold
air, Odin lowered his sword from its place directly before him and watched the rogue’s eyes shift across his body before closing, then as his head tilted back to greet the breeze that drifted from the west and offered some semblance of warmth.

“Virgin,”
Odin said.

“Yes?” the Halfling asked.

“I…” He paused. His companion’s eyes flicked open once again. “I’m a bit… well… embarrassed about what happened between us.”

“What
’s there to be ashamed of?”

“Well, nothing, but—“

“You’re obviously more human than I thought you were,” the man laughed, rolling onto his back and bracing his hands against the back of his head.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, for one thing, you seem more than a bit unsettled by the fact that you just slept with another man.”

“You
’re not my first.”

“Correction, then—
under
another man.”

“I—“

“And for two, it’s common within your kind to condemn that of which you don’t understand.”

“You
’re more human than I am,” Odin said, trailing his eyes around the visible upper-half of the Halfling’s body, across the expanse of hair dusted across his chest and down his abdomen.

“Only in appearance, my friend. Not in thought.”

Not in thought?
he frowned, focusing his attention on the man’s face while struggling to comprehend the concept.
What does that mean?

Were he to have thought about it in detail, he could have come up with several reasons. However, with such little notice as to when he would have to respond, he could only imagine t
hat the rogue considered him human because his beliefs were so vastly different—that, given the opportunity to engage in dialogue with another man, he could very well skip circles around his conceptions about the world and what it meant to live in society as a whole, to dance and jig and sing and laugh about the way life was supposed to be lived and learn about what was to be learned.

Get a hold of yourself,
Odin thought, idly thumbing the hilt of his sword at his side.
He’s no different than you are.

Was he, though?
Was
Virgin really different from him, in the end? He seemed to be, if only by appearance alone. His hair was brown, his eyes were green, his face wore scruff and his body bore hair, that of which Odin had once been teased and ridiculed about.
A girl,
they had called him, while laughing, jeering, pointing and grinning, all because of the fact that he did not look like the other boys, and a boy, he’d been considered, as with manhood comes hair in places fine and pure. To look at the two of them was like comparing an apple and an orange, the red and the blue and the good and the pure.

Could he and Virgin
, he dared to wonder, really be one and the same?

No, he decided, they couldn
’t, if only for the words and ideals that flowed from his fellow Halfling’s mouth.

Odin crouched down and sheathed his sword.

Virgin’s eyes cracked open.

Perturbed by the fact that he was so vulnerable within the open air, Odin stood and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Aren’t you coming back in?” the rogue asked.

“What we did was wrong.”

“We had a little fun,” Virgin laughed. “That’s all.”

“Still—“

“Still
what?”

“You don
’t even know my name.”

“Care to introduce yourself then?”

Do I?
he thought.

Though he could easily say whatever he want
ed to keep his identity shrouded within the darkness, he felt that would be cheating the man of the trust they seemed to create so easily last night, regardless of whether or not he was a thief. For that reason alone, Odin closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then pushed his hand out and said, “My name’s Odin.”

“Dwarven god,” Virgin replied.

“Yeah.”

“Good to meet you.”

“You too.”

With a laugh, Virgin tilted his head back and watched the overhead clouds. “So,” he asked. “Now that we know each other… you want back in here?”

Though as willing to refuse the offer as he was, he could not deny another person’s warmth.

A brief sigh and a troubled conscience later,
Odin crawled into the bedroll and closed his eyes just as Virgin draped his arm back over his shoulder.

As troubling as this seemed to be, he couldn
’t help but be comforted by the fact he finally had someone who, at the very least, seemed to care.

Later that morning, when he came to consciousness to the sound of a crackling fire and brief muttering under a strange man’s lips, Odin opened his eyes to find that the afternoon had waned and was now dark with clouds. The horse wading in the pool before him, Virgin tending to the fire and what looked to be a pot of stew just above it, he pushed himself into a sitting position and reached up to rub his eyes just as the Halfling turned to regard him.

“Morning,” Virgin said.

“Morning,” Odin replied, stretching his arms up over his head.

“You look like you
’ve slept well.”

I tried to.

“Thanks to you,” he managed.

With a smile on his face that seemed to change his entire demeanor, Virgin reached forward to take the pot from above the burning fire, nodding when Odin lifted its contents to find what appeared to be fresh chunks of meat boiling beside scant amounts of vegetables. “Did you—“

“Hunt?” the man asked. “Yes. I did.”

“What is it?”

“Just rabbit.”

“It smells good.”

“You learn to manage when you’ve been out on the road as long as I have,” Virgin said, taking one of the two bowls from his side and spooning soup into it. “Tell me something, Odin.”

“What?”

“How long have you been on the road to ‘steal the Book of the Dead?’”

“Nearly three weeks.”

“And you’ve covered how much ground in that time?”

“From Dwaydor to here.”

“It’s any wonder you’re still alive.”

“I
’m determined.”

“That kind of determination gets most people killed.”

Is it?
Odin thought, watching his new companion bow his head to sip the soup brimming over his bowl.
Or is it just iron will that’s gotten me this far?

It could be argued that determination was a great creature—that, given the chance, she could do many a great thing and instill within men the will the Gods were said to have. Here he was, a man of only nineteen, nearly twenty-years-old, questing across the countryside in order to acquire something that could destroy him were he not careful, yet not once had he stopped in a town except Sylina to purvey a map and gather supplies. That kind of push could have taken most normal men weeks, even months on end, yet he
’d already stepped into the Great Divide and was preparing to trek by foot to the Abroen which seemingly laid just across the road.