Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty (32 page)

“
Will you
shut up?
” I clipped and she threw her head back and
laughed.

Then she focused on me, still chuckling.
“The Daxshee is abuzz, as usual and, as usual of late, it’s all
about their Dax and golden Dahksahna. The Dax emerges bathed from
his cham and doesn’t visit the Xacto. His laughter is heard ringing
from his cham, amongst other things. He delays the ride until he’s
content with her health. He rides at the front of his warriors with
his wife tucked close. He gives her a horse –”

I cut her off with, “You have a horse.”

Her chuckles died, her eyes got serious and
I knew Korwahk wisdom was coming even before she replied quietly,
“I do, my dear. My Seerim gave me a horse two years after I was
claimed.” She looked at Narinda. “You see, the warriors, they war
which means they fall. The Horde is everything, they do form
friendships, in battle, they will act to protect their
brothers-in-arms but they hold themselves distant. Too many
opportunities to lose people who are in your heart. It beats down
the spirit, weakens it. But a warrior’s horse, now that’s a
different story,” she explained. “Warrior and horse ride into
battle connected. The horse of a warrior is part of him. They
actually consider their steeds an extension of their own limbs.
I’ve heard Seerim tell me battle stories of warriors receiving
wounds they would not get if they didn’t move to protect their
horse from steel.”

“Golly,” Narinda whispered.

“
Indeed,” Diandra stated. “This is why, my
dears, a newly claimed wife is set to straddling her husband’s
steed. It is akin to straddling
him
but also is a ceremonial offering from warrior to horse on
the night a warrior lets in the new most important being in his
life, as, while straddling his horse, his new bride will leak his
seed which, I think you both have come to understand, is vital to
any warrior. Therefore, they feel it is an extremely worthy
offering to a creature they feel keeps them safe, makes them strong
and is an extension of themselves.”

Yeah, any man, in this world or my own,
thinks that kind of offering is “extremely worthy”.

Jeez.

I scrunched my nose at Narinda and she
scrunched hers back.

Diandra ignored our looks and kept
speaking. “So, obviously, horses as a whole are revered greatly by
The Horde. It would be a guess but a good one that a vast amount of
warriors pray to the Horse God. And, therefore, owning a mount is
considered a privilege. One must
deserve
their own mount. Young warriors do not get their
own mount until they are chosen to perform their first kill which
means they’ll have trained for more than a decade before they
acquire a steed. That said, it is no surprise that a husband does
not bestow such an honor on his wife until he feels she deserves
it. For instance, after she has successfully given him their first
son or she has spent much time being a good warrior’s wife,
providing for his needs. Therefore, the Dax, bestowing a mount of
such beauty to his new bride is cause for much gossip. Gossip,” her
eyes came to me, “which was mostly speculation until, of course,
his cry was heard last night and his mirth heard this morning.” Her
face grew wicked as it looked back to Narinda. “It would seem,
sweet Narinda, our Dax’s new wife is providing quite well for his
needs.”

I stared at her, too shocked at the
knowledge that Lahn had given me a horse far earlier than most
wives earned one to be irritated at her teasing.

“He is a contradiction,” Narinda muttered
and my eyes slid to her to see her staring unseeing into the
Daxshee. “From what Circe told me about his mark, I do not wish to
like him and every time I see him, he frightens me. Yet much of
what you say shows there is a great deal of soft under that
hard.”

“
I’m not certain, sweet Narinda, it is the
soft our queen likes…” she paused and finished with emphasis,
“but
the
hard.
”

“Diandra!” I snapped but she chuckled as
another giggle escaped Narinda.

Just then, the object of our conversation
strode around a cham. He wasn’t close but he wasn’t far and still,
his raw energy invaded all around.

I drew in breath as he stopped to talk to
two warriors who waylaid him. Then I allowed my eyes to move over
my husband.

Okay, well, I wouldn’t admit it out loud but
I did have to admit to myself that I definitely liked the hard.

“Oh, what’s this?” Diandra muttered, I tore
my eyes from Lahn and looked to my right to see a young boy,
slight, perhaps eleven, twelve years old and definitely not of the
warrior sort. This was probably why he wasn’t off training
somewhere but instead at my cham carrying what looked a great deal
like a guitar and sounded like one when my eyes hit him, he
swallowed, looked up to a woman who was standing beside him and
then he started strumming and then, falteringly, singing.

The woman moved forward and laid a flower
carefully on the hides well away from me or my girls then she
scuttled back, her eyes shooting in Lahn’s direction and back to me
as her boy sang.

He looked nervous and kept screwing up the
chords and he wasn’t the greatest singer in the world, it must be
said, but he didn’t do half bad and it was definitely sweet. But
his mother gazed down on him like the sun’s rays sprouted out his
mouth with his voice and I could tell she thought he could do no
wrong and that was probably why she took him to her queen to bestow
what she thought was a precious gift.

I smiled encouragingly at him as he lost his
way, he found it and kept going and I nodded my head continuously
to keep him going.

Then I saw movement out of the corner of my
eye, I looked that way and tensed. I knew Diandra and Narinda saw
it too because I felt them tense.

Dortak was striding through the chams, a
dirty-looking, rough-woven bandage around his middle, the carves on
his chest and face had not been stitched but were glistening with
goo and were clearly not going to heal very well. But they were
healing.

His bride, clean but bruised up her arms,
around her neck and with a cut lip, stumbled behind him.

She was wearing her claiming necklace, he
was wearing a claiming chain around his waist, it was attached to
her necklace but he had it in his fist and was yanking on it as he
dragged her behind him.

Jeez, seriously, this guy was the king of
dicks.

He stopped at a warrior that was about five
feet from Lahn and he started talking to him and as he did, he
yanked her to her knees beside him and his hand fisted in her hair
to hold her there. Not that he had to, she wasn’t going anywhere.
Not without his permission.

My eyes moved over her and my heart hurt as
they did, clenching more and more the more I took in.

Whatever girl she once was now was gone.
Everything was gone. Her expression was blank, her eyes distant.
She was so deep in her head that she probably didn’t even know
where she was.

I looked swiftly at Lahn to see he and the
two warriors he was talking to were eyeing the couple with tight
faces.

But they did nor said a word. Lahn simply
turned his back on Dortak and resumed his conversation.

Without thinking, I turned to the boy
singing, pushed to my knees and reached out toward his instrument,
wiggling my fingers at it and smiling at him. His strumming
faltered as did his singing. He looked up at his mother, she jutted
her chin to me, he stopped making music and handed his guitar-like
thing to me.

One of my two lost loves was guitar crazy,
he had four of them, two acoustic, two electric and he taught me
how to play. Then he got shitty when I took to it and quickly got
better than him (one of the reasons, I kid you not, why I was
convinced he broke up with me but when I threw it in his face, he
swore it wasn’t but I knew it was). When he left me, I bought my
own guitar and always, every week, twice, three times, sometimes
every day, I found time to play.

And I couldn’t give anything to Dortak’s
wife, me being queen or not, except what that boy gave to me.

So I sat back on my calves as I tested the
strings and the frets, found my way and then started to sing Israel
Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World” but with a
guitar and not a ukulele.

You couldn’t say my singing voice was a lot
better than the boy’s but it didn’t have to be. Even if you
couldn’t understand the words, the song couldn’t be anything but
beautiful. I kept my eyes glued to her as she stared at the ground
and I hoped somewhere in her head the words to two sweet, hopeful
songs meshed together in one beautiful one penetrated and colored
that dark world she was living in with all the vibrant shades of a
rainbow.

Then, slowly, her head lifted, her eyes
found mine and I did what I thought any good queen would do and
that was all she
could
do to
provide what she could for her people – even if it wasn’t much and
it was just one of those people.

And I knew right when the song got in there.
Her eyes drifted slowly closed, her face grew soft and I hoped to
all that was holy that in that moment she was over the rainbow in a
wonderful world.

When I stopped playing, her eyes opened and
I smiled at her. Dortak yanked her chain which wrenched her neck
and the soft look disappeared instantly from her face as a flash of
pain replaced it.

The moment he did this, I heard a deep, male
voice call out tersely and that voice was really pissed off.

And it was not Lahn’s voice.

I looked to my left and saw it was Bohtan. I
also saw I had drawn a crowd. And I also saw Lahn’s dark eyes
riveted to me in a way he’d never looked at me before but one that
made my belly dip and my heart feel light.

“You disrespect your queen,” Diandra
whispered and I started then looked at her to see her eyes on the
action in front of us and I realized she was translating.

I followed her gaze and saw that Bohtan was
striding swiftly toward Dortak and words were being exchanged.

Diandra interpreted.

“I care nothing of women singing.” That was
Dortak.

“You care nothing of women.” That was Bohtan
with a jerk of his head to Dortak’s wife.

“Caution, Bohtan,” some other warrior
said.

“Yes, caution, Bohtan. My wife is not your
concern,” Dortak warned.

“
You’re right. Your wife wouldn’t be my
concern. But I’m not talking about your wife. I’m talking about
your dog. You’ve made your wife your pet. Do you like to thrust
your cock into animals, Dortak?” Bohtan returned and I pressed my
lips together because those were fighting words in my world so I
was guessing amongst The Horde they were
serious
fighting words.

Bohtan went on. “Do not answer that, I know
you do. This could not be missed considering you rarely miss an
opportunity to show us what a warrior you are by thrusting your
cock into in any hole your animal provides.”

“My bride is none of your concern!” Dortak
shouted, yanking on her chain again.

“
But she isn’t your bride!” Bohtan shot
back, having made it to Dortak, he leaned in dangerously. “She’s
nothing but an animal you’ve brought to heel. You sully The Horde
with your actions, thrusting into her face at the games,
challenging our Dax while armed, disrespecting our queen
in front of our
king.
”

Diandra gasped at Dortak’s reply and I knew
not only by her gasp but the fact the air went still that something
very, very bad had happened.

A glance showed she’d gone pale and I
whispered urgently, “What?”

She didn’t tear her eyes off what was
happening when she whispered back. “Dortak said, ‘I care not for
our queen or a king whose new wife
rides
so soon after the claiming. The yellow one has had his cock
two weeks and she’s leading him around by it. Our
king
is the one who has come to
heel.’” Her eyes slid to Lahn and she finished, “That is a
challenge.”

Oh shit.

My eyes moved to Lahn too. He was surveying
the scene with his arms crossed on his chest and an expression on
his face that stated clearly he found it mildly interesting. But
only mildly.

“You challenge the Dax?” Diandra interpreted
what a warrior standing with Lahn called to Dortak.

“
What
Dax?
”
Dortak spit the words then he spit into the ground in Lahn’s
direction. “I see no Dax.”

Finally, Lahn spoke and he did this mildly
too.

“I advise you stop taking your fists and
your cock to your bride, Dortak, so you can heal. I want you fit
before I bring you to your knees and take your head.”

“I claim the Dax,” Dortak shot back, “the
first thing I do is thrust my cock into the yellow one, spilling my
seed until it leaks out of every orifice in her body.”

I sucked in breath but Lahn grinned and I
stared at his reaction in shock.

Then Diandra gasped again but quickly
translated Lahn’s words, “You take my head, the Gods would weep
because the world is falling from the sky. You get near my tigress,
she’ll sink her claws in you and you’ll be looking at your innards
spilling out before your last breath escapes your body.” Diandra
looked at me. “This is a grave insult to any warrior, my dear, to
infer a woman could best him.”

It would be a grave insult to anyone. Still,
it was a pretty awesome comeback.

Diandra started translating again as Dortak
spat, “The yellow one owns your cock!”

To this, Lahn returned, “You speak truth and
I’m glad of it, she knows what to do with it and she likes what she
knows how to do. While I was driving it inside her last night, my
queen gasped that she loved my cock right before I planted my seed
in her womb, seed that might make a warrior, seed that’s already
more warrior than you.”