Cross Purposes (Chronicles of Ylandre, Book 5) (36 page)

“
Deity’s blood, I’ve missed this!”

Tristen shivered as Keosqe’s thoughts brushed his mind. It was the ultimate intimacy, this silent speech between them.

“
As much as I did
.”

Keosqe gazed raptly at him. “
Did you? I was never sure that you really enjoyed making love with me.
”

Tristen lifted his head to catch Keosqe’s mouth in a fervent kiss.

“
I was an overly proud fool to keep the truth from you
.”

“
And what was the truth
?”

Tristen broke their kiss to softly declare against Keosqe’s lips, “That I enjoyed each and every time you bedded me.” He gazed at him with unabashed adoration. “That I’d oft want you so badly I would ache with the wanting.”

Keosqe swore under his breath. He drove into Tristen with all the fervor of the famished, cleaving him repeatedly until Tristen could do little more than cry out incomprehensibly and clutch at the rug under him so hard he nearly tore handfuls of fur from it.

They soon climaxed one after the other, the swiftness of their orgasms evidence of their fidelity to each other even while estranged. Tristen all but keened as ecstasy overwhelmed him. Sobbing, he clung to Keosqe as his lover thrust hard into him one last time. Liquid warmth filled him and he almost crooned in bliss at this evidence of Keosqe spending inside him once more. He kept his tight hold on him while he waited for the rapturous sensations to fade and his body to cease its trembling.

What felt like ages later, he felt sufficiently calm to loosen the weave of his limbs around Keosqe. Sated as well, Keosqe rested atop him awhile. Tristen ran his hand through his lover’s hair, happily letting the pale strands slip through his fingers.

At length, he murmured, “Could you hand me my shirt?”

Keosqe lifted his head and half-glared at him. “What? Done already?”

He softly laughed. “Of course not. I just want to wipe our bellies.”

“Ah, always the punctilious one,” Keosqe teased.

He groped for Tristen’s shirt where it had landed nearby. He did not pull out, however, but braced himself on his arms and slightly raised his torso while he cleaned their smeared abdomens. After tossing the soiled shirt aside, he returned his attention to Tristen. He ran his knuckles down Tristen’s cheek then gently stroked his skin. Tristen gazed at him wonderingly.

“I’ll never get tired of looking at you,” Keosqe said. “Your eyes, your lips, your skin. You are so beautiful,
ariad
.”

Tristen shivered as Keosqe leaned down to kiss him once more, his tongue slipping past his parted lips to pillage the innermost reaches of his mouth. He held on tightly, shaking in anticipation. His shaft stirred anew. As did Keosqe’s. Tristen gasped when the flesh still embedded in him returned to full proud arousal, filling and spreading him from within.

“Saints above,” he moaned, lifting a leg and slinging it around Keosqe’s hip in implicit encouragement.

Keosqe chuckled. “By the way,” he drawled, “I informed Eiren you won’t be reporting to him tomorrow.”

He stifled Tristen’s weak protests with more kisses. Giving up, Tristen waited for Keosqe to release his lips.

“Are you bringing physicians to Tenerith with you?” he asked as soon as he could speak.

Keosqe’s eyebrows rose. “We always have healers with us during military campaigns.”

“I’m going with you then. As a medical assistant,” Tristen quickly added.

“But you have no experience of war.”

“So I’ll gain some if I go.”

“Tris…”

“Besides, you’ll need healers gifted in assuaging pain. Even a neophyte like me.”

He curled his other leg behind Keosqe’s thighs and flexed it to press his lover’s shaft further up his backside. Keosqe groaned.

“Incidentally, I took
mirash
right after dinner,” Tristen shyly added. “Just in case.”

Keosqe stared at him and then burst out laughing.

“Sly minx!” he muttered. He tenderly caressed Tristen’s cheek. “Very well. If the healers say they have need of your particular skill, you will go to Tenerith with me.”

Chapter 24

Affirmation

Western Tenerith

Tristen straightened up with a grunt, the ache in his lower back telling him he’d stayed bent over for too long. He rubbed the spot, directing healing energy to it until the ache subsided. Once he felt comfortable once more, he reached for the scissors and the swath of gauzy fabric in the basket on the low stool beside him and started to cut the cloth to the size and length he needed to bandage the injury he’d been treating.

He regarded the barely conscious soldier on the pallet before him with compassion. The Deir was hardly older than Tristen himself and had come through blooding in his first actual conflict with a potentially crippling leg wound. Master Ivran, the head physician, had assessed the injury, a deep gash that fortuitously missed the Deir’s hamstrings by just an inch or so, and turned the soldier over to Tristen.

Tristen had gingerly cleaned the gash, sighing with relief when he saw the tendons were still whole. After stitching up the wound, he smeared the area with a loose paste of pounded herbs and medicinal extracts to minimize infection and encourage healing. He then wound the gauze around the soldier’s leg and tied the bandage in place with surgical twine. It was more tedious than simply laying his hands on the wound and closing it using his mind’s healing energy, but traditional suturing did not overly deplete his strength either.

Satisfied with his work, he raised his head and looked around to see if his help was needed elsewhere.

The field hospital consisted of three large tents set up in a small meadow not too far from the fighting around the Tenerithian town of Faleis. The Ylandrin army had methodically driven the separatist forces westward, compelling the rebels to relinquish two of the three towns they’d captured months previously. At present the army was in the process of liberating Faleis, the first to fall to the separatists.

Caught by surprise when the royal army descended on them, the rebels had been unable to consolidate their strength at all. Cleaved in twain by Ranael Mesare’s lightning quick assault, they were further scattered when Rohyr arrived with reinforcements. Now they were struggling to hold on to this last bastion, defiantly taking on the army despite being outnumbered three to one.

One had to give them credit for zeal and ferocity, Tristen conceded as he checked another patient’s injuries. But they were not worthy of respect, he thought, as he smeared ointment on the extensive burns on the soldier’s back. Not when the rebels resorted to the use of incendiary devices, which indiscriminately killed or maimed both soldiers and non-combatants, war steeds and wildlife alike, and did damage to the surrounding fields and forests as much as civilian dwellings and military structures.

They were fortunate Rohyr refused to respond in kind given the powers the Ardan and his officers had at their disposal. Tristen did not even want to imagine the carnage a powerful adept could inflict through supernormal means, let alone several adepts working together. Rohyr might and did employ his considerable gifts in battle but he refused to resort to tactics that would bring severe or lasting harm to a region and its peoples. That way lay disenchantment and potential dissidence.

He washed his hands in one of the basins provided for the purpose in one corner of the tent. After drying his hands, he checked his smock to see if it needed changing. The sight of an overly bloodstained smock could be quite demoralizing to the wounded and Master Ivran encouraged the healers under his charge to change soiled smocks for clean ones as often as possible.

After ascertaining his attire was still clean enough, Tristen stepped out of the tent for some fresh air. After a few minutes, he spotted a party of soldiers riding into the compound at a gallop. Most of them were astride zentyra, Ylandre’s famed single-horned warsteeds. He grimaced when he noticed the beasts’ short horns and sharp-cloven hooves were bloodied—that meant they had gored or disemboweled enemy soldiers and mounts alike. It made for a macabre sight when contrasted with the zentyra’s silken manes and whimsically dappled flanks.

The foremost rider held an injured soldier in his arms. Quickly taking note of the badges on their military tunics, Tristen realized both were officers. The rider shouted for a healer even before his zentyr came to a halt before the nearest tent.

Ivran emerged from the neighboring tent. He dashed to the officer, directing two assistants to take the injured soldier from him. The officer quickly dismounted and hurried after the healers, pulling off his helm to reveal honey-hued hair. Tristen recognized Ranael Mesare.

Tristen ran to the tent. Entering, he saw Ivran had ordered the injured soldier be laid on one of the cots rather than on a pallet. Tristen gasped when he glimpsed the soldier’s face. It was Vaeren Henaz, captain of the Ardan’s Guard.

The healers carefully divested the officer of his breastplate, military tunic, mail shirt, and thin leather undershirt to reveal a ghastly injury. Part of the shaft of a lance poked out of a deep gash in Vaeren’s right side at a slant, just below his ribs. Tristen easily envisioned what had happened.

The captain would have been mounted and a foot soldier had likely thrust his lance up at him. The sharp upward angle had allowed the lance head to slip through the side seam of his plate armor, tear through his tunic and the less tightly woven links in this area of his mail shirt to pierce Vaeren’s flank. Tristen wondered if the shaft had fractured on its own and shuddered at the thought of Vaeren breaking it himself before he passed out.

Blood streamed from the wound as Ivran carefully cut around the embedded steel head with a surgical blade. The physician swore and stopped for a moment to press his palm over the injury, directing energy to stanch the bleeding. Once the flow of blood slowed to a trickle, he continued to dislodge the lance head. Tristen noticed Vaeren’s labored breathing and softly mentioned it to healer.

“It likely pierced his lung,” Ivran agreed, as he lifted out the head. Tossing the gory piece aside, he placed his hands over the wound, forcing healing energy into Vaeren’s body. “Come, all of you, lend me strength.”

Tristen and the other healers quickly placed their hands over Ivran’s and concentrated on letting their energy meld with the physician’s into a potent healing force. Tristen glanced up at Ranael who had taken a spot near the head of the cot and stared down at Vaeren’s face. The tribune’s features were pinched with fear and something else. Now and again he gently stroked Vaeren’s forehead with his fingers, his anxious gaze never abating.

Vaeren’s breathing suddenly eased and took a more regular rhythm. The frightening pallor of his skin receded to a healthier hue. Tristen looked at Ivran and was gratified to see the corners of the physician’s mouth curve up in a tired but visibly relieved smile.

Ranael saw it too and he urgently asked, “Will he live?”

Ivran looked at him and nodded. “I’m confident he will. You got him here in time.”

“Thank the Maker,” Ranael whispered. He moved to Vaeren’s side and reached for his hand. “May I?”

“By all means,” the healer replied. “An assuring touch makes for powerful medicine. He’s not conscious of it, but his senses will tell him a friend is nearby.”

“Then I’ll stay with him until I’m summoned back,” Ranael said, taking hold of the captain’s hand.

While one of the assistants gently cleansed the wound, the other brought over a small table on which he placed a basket of suturing materials. Ivran placed his hand over the gash once more and closed his eyes a moment. At length, he sighed and looked at the others with a happy grin.

“We won’t need to open him up,” he said. “We managed to heal the damage to his lung. Well done, all of you.”

Tristen blew his breath out in relief. He was glad of the reprieve. Major surgery outside of a hospital operating theater was always a dicey situation and while he knew he would likely experience it some day, he preferred to put off that moment as long as was possible.

He waited a while longer to watch one of the other healers begin to suture the wound before quietly taking his leave and making his way to the bench near the entrance. He sat down, feeling tired. Lending Ivran some of his energy had depleted him. The fact made itself known in the leadenness of his steps and several small yawns.

“Are you all right?”

Tristen started a little at the question softly voiced near his ear accompanied by a tender caress of his face. He looked sideways to find Keosqe seated beside him.

“Did you just arrive?” he asked, lifting a hand to cup his lover’s cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice.”

Keosqe kissed him and said, “Don’t apologize. You’ve been so busy you can hardly stay on your feet. But, yes, I just arrived. A rebel band fled the battle and headed in this direction. Rohyr feared they would happen upon the camp and attack it.”

“I take it you discovered their whereabouts before you returned here.”

“We engaged them less than half a mile to the east. Unfortunately, there were none left after to take prisoner.” Keosqe shook his head in disgust. “They’d apparently been told capture would be worse than death. Stupid, misguided fools.”

About to comment, Tristen noticed some rust-colored stains on his lover’s breastplate. He quickly ran his eyes over Keosqe, noting more stains on his sleeves and the thick leather bracer of his sword arm, as well as splotches above the hem of his tunic and on his boots.

“Is any of that yours?” he worriedly asked, touching his fingers to a large smudge.

Keosqe caught his hand in a gentle grip and kissed the knuckles. “Nay, I’m not wounded. But I hear Vaeren is.”

Tristen nodded. “He took a lance to his flank. The wound was hideous. I was quite scared for him.” He shuddered a little at the memory of the injury. “He’s fortunate Lord Ranael got him here so quickly.”

Keosqe looked over at the team of healers as they continued to work on the captain. His eyes softened when he spotted Ranael at the other side of the cot, holding Vaeren’s hand tightly between his. Tristen sensed something pass between his lover and the tribune and he glanced from one to the other. Mind-speech, he deduced. Sure enough, Ranael turned his head and upon seeing Keosqe wanly smiled and held his cousin’s gaze for several heartbeats before turning his attention back to Vaeren.