Goliath, Volume One
David
The line ahead of him moved with glacial slowness.
David shifted on his feet, watching the digital display clock on the wall of the palace antechamber. If he didn’t get his moment with the king in the next thirty minutes, he’d have to turn around and go back to the barracks to take up his watch. That would mean coming back another day, something he’d already done twice.
Please let this blasted line move faster.
His ceremonial uniform, worn just for this potential audience, chafed against his shoulders and thighs. Fitted for him when he was sixteen years old and first joined the Panath army, it no longer fit his form six years later despite multiple tailors putting their hands on it. As a fourth son of a single mother, he made due with what he had.
To his surprise, the line ahead of him moved quickly. Perhaps the king was in a benevolent mood today. Though he was known internationally for many things, King Samuel Solum II was not the symbol of grace and benevolence his father and grandfather had been.
And yet, David held out hope that he would listen to his plea. If nothing else, he had to try.
There were only three citizens in front of him in line, and he had fifteen minutes left. Closing his eyes, David sent a prayer up to the Father for time to be on his side.
The wide-open doors to the audience chamber were as tall as five men and wide enough for David to drive a tank through. He amused himself with the thought of it for a while, trying to picture the look on the stuffy servants’ faces.
Then his turn came.
David stepped up to the doors and gave the herald his name.
“Captain David Thresher!” the man announced into the room.
David walked into the audience chamber, appreciating its high, vaulted ceilings and polished marble floors in the classical style. In the center of the room, a shallow dais rose from the ground, topped by three majestic steel and stone thrones in the 22
nd
century style. On one throne sat King Samuel Solum II, the picture of grave, disapproving power, his throne the highest of them all. At his side was his wife and queen, Valencia Solum, her face eternally drawn in displeasure. Beside her was their son, Prince Jonathan Solum, the picture of boredom and disregard. The young man, almost David’s age, looked to be everything the rumors said he was: spoiled, lazy, uninterested in governance, and obsessed with his own appearance. He had dark hazel eyes, more colorful than his father’s grey ones, along with silky blond hair and a too-perfect, pouty mouth. David would have known him for a prince even without the throne and all its trappings.
David saluted and bowed, his ceremonial soldier’s cloak sweeping around his outstretched arm.
“You may rise,” the king said, his deep, gravelly voice echoing in the oval audience chamber. “What grievance do you bring before your king? And be quick with it.”
Samuel’s temper was the talk of every soldier in the barracks; David wasn’t surprised to see it displayed here. He’d only ever seen the man’s face on streaming video before, when he gave speeches to rally the soldiers - usually concerning the evils of their enemy Gibran - but even on a monitor cupped in David’s palm, he had seen the man’s impatience in his drawn, heavy brows.
“Captain David Thresher, of the Fifth Company.” David brushed his cloak behind himself and rested his hand on his ceremonial soldier’s sword, belted from his shoulder to his hip. “I’ve come to make a request on behalf of my men.”
The king was silent. David’s mouth was suddenly dry, and he had to summon his courage to keep going. “You see, Your Grace, we’ve been moved closer to the borderlands, where as you know the fighting is worse. I’m more than thankful to be in the thick of things - that’s not why I’m here, to request that we be moved.”
“Good, because we wouldn’t listen to any such request.” The king’s face was stone. David suddenly regretted the way he’d begun, but it was too late to go back now. He glanced around briefly, looking for any sign of support; his eyes landed on the prince’s face, but the young man was just as impassive as ever, looking at him with an unnerving lack of expression.
“Things have gotten different on the border. It’s not my first time serving out there since I joined up, although it is my first time as Captain. The enemy is growing, not just in number, but in strength. They’re looking less and less… human, Your Grace.”
The king shifted in his seat, displaying his impatience; David rushed on.
“We recently came back from our last deployment and are headed out again. I’d like to formally request stronger body suits for them. Something like…” He felt a bead of sweat form on his temple and roll towards his eyebrow. “Something like what the dreadknights wear.”
There was murmuring from the nobles gathered at the edges of the audience chamber, seated in comfort while David, and other commoners like him, stood. David had known the risk he took by making such a request - the dreadknights were noblemen, wearing suits of advanced kevlar from the Old Ages, while David’s common soldiers made due with modern plate armor and chain mail. As the room whipped into a furor, though, he began to regret ever speaking.
“Enough!” The king’s deep voice silenced the fretting nobles. His wife, her hand gripping his arm, leaned over to speak to him in a hushed voice. Even the young, bored prince was paying attention, his dark hazel eyes looking at David rather as if he’d sprouted a second head.
“Less human, you say?” It took a moment for David to realize the prince was speaking to him.
“Yes, Your Grace.” He dipped his head briefly, fighting to stay calm as his heart pummeled against his ribs. “All the men have noticed it. They’ve grown taller, and stronger. There’s one leading them, we’ve only seen him from afar, but we call him-“
“Goliath.”
David ripped his attention back to the king. “Yes, Your Grace.” If the prince’s gaze was unnerving, the king’s was like standing in a tempest. David found himself wishing he were back on the borderlands again, fighting something he felt a little less defenseless again.
“We have heard of this,” the king said, surprising David for the first time.
The prince seemed surprised as well. “I hadn’t heard of such a thing. Why wouldn’t you tell me about this, Father?”
The queen turned to her son with a curt look, and he retreated sullenly into himself again.
“Tell me, Captain, have you gone to your superiors with your request?”
David bowed, every instinct in him screaming deference. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“So you do know your proper chain of command.”
David swallowed, and merely nodded as an answer.
“Kevlar is kept for Panath’s most necessary generals. Your men will make do as they always have, Captain Thresher. You are dismissed.”
Sensing a safe path out of battle as he had many times before, David bowed a final time and swiftly withdrew.
Jonathan
“You could have told me.”
Jonathan’s father stood stiffly at attention while his manservants unclasped his heavy brocade cloak and withdrew. They were alone together in the antechamber to his father’s private rooms - or as alone as royalty ever could be, that is. His mother, uninterested in refereeing yet another fight between them, was in her lady’s solar, where she and a group of scholars translated and copied ancient texts.
“The existence - or nonexistence - of Goliath is a matter of national security. If you’d wanted to know about it, you could have easily attended the military council. Instead, you played around with your toys.” Samuel swept his eyes over Jonathan and his guards, who stood at attention several feet behind him, faces carefully blank.
Does he know?
If he did know, he wasn’t tipping his cards, as usual. “I didn’t realize I was invited to join the council again.”
His father’s dark, near-colorless eyes bored into Jonathan until he dropped his gaze. Even the king’s own son couldn’t help but submit to him. “An invitation to the council is not printed on paper, my son. It is earned when it is wanted. And you? Have never shown any aptitude, or interest in, affairs of state.”
“It’s important that I be included in such matters. I will be King.” To his shame, Jonathan’s voice came out a mere whisper, a thin echo of his father’s baritone.
The king didn’t answer him; he seemed to think their conversation was over. Turning, he marched with slow, sure steps into his study - leaving his son, blinking slowly and deliberately to keep himself composed, standing in his wake.
Jonathan
Jonathan’s bedchamber was dark and drafty despite the fire a servant had coaxed in his fireplace. One such servant approached now to take his cloak, but he motioned him away, turning his attention to the four stiff-backed guards who followed him everywhere.
His father’s disapproval burned a hot pit in his throat.
“Leave, all of you.” Jonathan’s guards bowed and stepped back. “Except Linnaeus.”
The dark-haired youth froze in place, his head bowed. “As Your Grace wishes.” The other three guards walked out with their heads bowed, closing the palatial doors behind them.
Jonathan sauntered over to his bed and sat on it, leaning back on his elbows. A small smile tugged at his lips, and he savored Linnaeus’s profile from afar. “Undress for me.”
Linnaeus unclasped his cloak pin and bent down to take off his boots.
“Slower,” Jonathan said, adding, “and look at me, why don’t you.”
“It’s hard to look at you and my boots at the same time,” Linnaeus said, stepping out of them and tilting his chin up. A flirtatious grin played around his normally solemn mouth. “But I’ll try.”
“You should
try
not to look so eager.” Jonathan stood and strode over to his drinks cabinet, watching Linnaeus slowly peel off his blue and gold overcoat. He wore a ceremonial sword at his shoulder and two very real guns at his hip, ready at any moment to lay his life down for his prince. A prince he would do anything for, eager and easy to please.
“It’s difficult not to be enthusiastic when it’s been a while… Your Grace.” Linnaeus unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it at his feet. He wore a clingy white button-up and a pair of black leather pants that clung to his now-revealed form. Jonathan poured them each a glass of red wine and walked slowly, deliberately, over to Linnaeus, reveling in the fact that he was still completely dressed. Maybe he would even stay that way, this time.
“Drink up,” he said, handing the glass over. “Consider your guard duties over for tonight.”
“That’s just as well, Your Grace, because I sent for Matthew to take over from me.” He took the glass with long, callused fingers, looking down at David from between his eyelashes. “Should I continue undressing?”
“No.” Jonathan drank his wine and dropped the glass on the plush carpet. “I’ll do the rest of it myself.”
He pressed his hand against the soldier’s crotch, enjoying the soft moan that escaped from the man’s lips. Linnaeus drank his own wine, but set the glass down more carefully on a side tablet, backing slowly into one of the many couches in Jonathan’s bedroom.
Jonathan pulled his guard’s shift out of his pants, reaching under to press his fingers greedily against his warm skin. He tilted his head up for a kiss and was met by hungry lips that took his forcefully; gone was Linnaeus’s deference, his titles and duties. In its place was the hungry dance they’d danced many times before, each time more demanding than the one before.
Slipping his tongue into Linnaeus’s mouth, Jonathan reached behind him to unbuckle his gun belt and thought suddenly of the soldier who’d come before his father that morning.
Not now, Jonathan.
He pushed the thought away, dropping the belt and slipping his fingertips into the edge of Linnaeus’s tight leather trousers. “They really need to give you a more relaxed uniform,” he said, pulling back from the hungry kiss for a moment. “This one is so difficult to get you out of.”
“I told you, it’s all in the laces.” Linnaeus took his hand and pushed it southward to his groin, pressing against him with a moan. Jonathan cupped the man’s hard cock through leather and cotton, watching as Linnaeus’s brown eyes glazed over with desire.
The soldier from this morning had blue eyes
, he thought absently, annoyed with himself again.
“You should start taking off your clothes,” Linnaeus said, reaching for his thick red-and-black cloak.
“Not yet.” Jonathan pushed the guard back until he sat down on the couch, looking up now instead of down. “I have something else in mind, first.”
Linnaeus reached up and traced a finger around his mouth. “Are you going to put those useless lips to good work?”
“They’re only good for one thing,” Jonathan said, ignoring the ache in his chest it gave him to admit that. He’d never been the son his father had wanted and if filled him with grief, but that had no place here in his bedroom, with one of his favorite lovers.
Jonathan straddled Linnaeus and bent towards him, engulfing his lips with his own. He teased and nibbled at the soldier’s upper lip, and Linnaeus, for his part, pressed his hands against the outside of Jonathan’s white calfskin trousers and stroked him through the leather. Jonathan pressed against him, lost in the sensations, even letting him unlace his trousers until they were loose around his hips.