The Invisible Chains - Part 3: Bonds of Blood (17 page)

They were supposed to be his friends, but the look on their faces left no doubt whatsoever as to their intentions. At this point they didn't even take the trouble to disguise their leering gaze. They meant to gang rape him pure and simple, and he wasn't even sure they would stop at that.

Lorcko didn't know what to do.

“You as well, Loduvant?” he said, disappointed. “We were friends.”

“Correction. We knew each other. We shared a room. Don't dally, whore. Off with your clothes.”

At that precise moment Lorcko decided that if he had to go down anyway, it wouldn't be without a struggle.

“Go fuck yourself, Loduvant. You as well, peasants. If you want me, you'll have to come and get me, cowards.”

His words had sounded more self-assured than he felt, unarmed as he was.

Mad with rage, Loduvant lunged forward, drawing his dagger. Lorcko, in a desperate move, grabbed his wrist and managed to slam it into the wall of the barrack. With an angry, painful as well as surprised outcry Loduvant dropped his weapon. Lorcko butted his head, protected by his thick hair, against Loduvant's nose.

While his assailant was still recovering from this blow, Lorcko hastily picked up his dagger. Wrenching his opponents arm behind his back with one hand, he held the dagger against his chest with the other. Loduvant was bleeding profusely out of his nose.

“
Well, well, there is an iron center after all. Who would have guessed?”
one of the observers thought, both amused and with a degree of admiration.

“Any more takers?” Lorcko shouted, emboldened by his unexpected success.

In a swift movement he stuck the dagger behind Loduvant's belt and cut it, at the same ti behind L wime ripping through his underwear.

“Wanted to see a dick, did you?” Lorcko snarled enraged. “Take a look at this.”

Loduvant wasn't wearing a tunic, and when his pants dropped he felt his member being lifted by the cold flat side of his own dagger. Then he heard Lorcko laugh loudly from behind his shoulders.

“Oh my, Loduvant, is it on that little, frilly thing the future of the House of Brynmark depends? May the Gods have mercy on you.”

Bleeding out of his nose, his ass and private parts bared, ridiculed before his peers, held immobilized in this degrading position by the guy he had meant to rape, Loduvant began to cry. From bully to little boy in a few instants.

He felt Lorcko's boot on his bare ass and tumbled in the dust.

“Go, go, you despicable, cowardly lowlife,” Lorcko spat. “And that goes for you as well,” he shouted in the direction of Morneck and Sterff. “You're not nobles. There's nothing remotely noble about the lot of you, you primitive serfs.”

The two pages looked uncertainly at each other. Lorcko took a few steps in their direction, brandishing Loduvant's dagger menacingly before him. They both saw that as their cue to leave the scene. They turned and ran for it.

Loduvant was crawling up, looking at Lorcko, hate mixed with mortal fear in his eyes.

“Go, Loduvant,” Lorcko said, wiping the sweat of his brow with his free hand. “You bore me.”

Only when Loduvant was out of sight, Lorcko permitted himself to crouch down, his back against the wall of the barrack, panting heavily, still holding the dagger. As soon as he had done so, he heard someone clap his hands slowly.

Timishi emerged from behind the barrack.

“Very good, Lorsho. Very good. You could almost be a Mukthar. Almost.”

Lorcko looked up, surprised.

“You? You here? You saw all that?”

Timishi nodded and pointed at the barrack he had been hiding behind.

“You saw all that, but you didn't see fit to come and help me?”

“What am I, Lorsho? Your father? Your brother? Your nagàrouwin?”

“No, none of those, I suppose,” Lorcko replied morosely. “I don't even know what a nagà—”

“Oh, don't mope,” Timishi said cheerfully. “If you had been in trouble, I would have intervened, but it looked as if you were doing just fine on your own. Just fine.”

He produced his grin-shrug. Lorcko couldn't help grinning back.

“Yes, I was, wasn't I?” he said.

“Liked the subtle touch of displaying his little shlong on his own dagger,” Timishi chuckled.

“Yeah, I got inspired. Guess by who.”

They remained silent for a while.

“Why are you here? Were you following me?” Lorcko asked.

“Ah, yes,” Timishi said, producing a purse. “I woke up just as you closed the door behind you. You forgot your purse. Thought you might need it.”

Taking it, Lorcko thanked th="1e thot the prince.

“They won't mess with you anytime soon, I think,” Timishi said.

Lorcko sighed.

“I don't know. They will want their revenge. Sooner or later they'll get it too. I have to return to my barrack. I can barricade the door, but one day they will get through. I might scare them off once more. Twice. Thrice.

But one night they will be too fast. Or I will be too tired. Or there will just be too many of them. Sooner or later I'm done for. And they will do all they threatened to do.”

Timishi looked at him without speaking. Then he stood up and stuck out his hand to help Lorcko up as well.

“Come on, let's go,” he said.

“Where to?” Lorcko asked surprised.

“To your barrack, of course.”

“My barrack?”

“Your barrack. To get your gear. You're staying with us.”

Lorcko looked at him, dumbstruck.

“It's a funny old world, isn't it? Seems you're safer among your enemies than among your own people.”

Timishi smirked.

Consumed with frustrated rage, Ambrick turned around. Nobody had seen him, but he had seen everything.

Iramid had escaped. Iramid had once again escaped his just deserts. It was not fair. By all rights he should have been lying in the dust, maimed, bleeding out of his ears, out of his nose, out of his mouth. Out of his hole. His teeth should have been knocked out, his legs broken, his nose slit. And none of it had happened, none of it had materialized. And that stinking barbarian, why was he so friendly with Iramid? And Iramid with him. Surely he must be a traitor.

“
He will haunt my dreams forever. He will take revenge. Sweet revenge. This night. He will appear and
appear again to touch me, to caress me, to make me come against my will, to vilify me. I will never be rid of
him. And during the day he will look at me with those dark eyes of his...”

Timishi had almost stamped the door to Lorcko's barrack out of it's hinges. Loduvant had been sitting at the table, his nose being tended to by another page. They had looked up at the noise and seen Lorcko enter, followed by the Mukthar.

Without looking at them, as if they were beyond contempt, the heir of Iramid had entered his room to pack his things.

Some of the pages had stood up and taken a few steps in his direction.

Before Timishi's wolfish grin the vultures had recoiled.

Obyann came out of the tower, after having checked up on Rahendo. He saw the Mukthar prince, not his concern, and Iramid, definitely his concern, crossing the courtyard together.

“Hey, hey, ho, Iramid,” he shouted, “where do you think you're going with that bag? Leaving us? Nobody has notified me.”

They both stopped in their tracked and turned around while Obyann sped to them.

“Oh, come on, Ramaldah,” Lorcko said in a tired voice, “this has not been a very good day and it has barely started, nor has it been a good week, nor a good month, for that matter. Don't you—”

“You are oneht="8pu awee of the head pages, yes?” Timishi interrupted him.

“Eh, yes, yes, I am,” Obyann said. “Your highness,” he added unsurely.

“Ah, a leader of men,” Timishi grinned. “So, you will understand. I thought it necessary to invite Lorsho to stay with us.”

“All good and well, your highness,” Obyann said, not in the least mollified by being called a leader of men, a fact he took for granted anyway, “but there are regulations.”

“I understand that,” Timishi said. “Do the regulations specify that you have to let yourself be raped by your barrack-mates?”

“What's he... what's his highness talking about, Iramid?” Obyann asked, surprised.

“What do you think he's talking about, Ramaldah?” Lorcko replied evenly.

Obyann looked from one to the other.

“Are you being bullied by those morons in your barrack?” he asked.

“Oh, being bullied is the least of it, I would say,” Lorcko answered.

“I hate, hate,
hate
bullies,” Obyann snarled.

He frowned.

“Tell you what, Iramid. It's actually not my responsibility. It's Landemere's. But I'll tell him you spoke with me. I'll clear it with him.”

“Thanks, Ramaldah, that's nice of you.”

Obyann snorted.

“What's all the rumpus about? On second thought, don't tell me. I've headaches enough as it is, what with my own barrack crawling with weird little guys with an aversion to all things textile. Don't ask... But I'll have a word with the pages in your barrack. You can count on that. Carry on and try to stay out of trouble, Iramid.”

He nodded at Timishi. “Your highness.”

“My lord,” Timishi nodded back.

“Thank you, eh...” Lorcko said, when Obyann was gone.

“You can call me Timishi. We Mukthars don't attach too much importance to titles. We know who we are and we don't need to be reminded constantly. By the way, don't misunderstand my actions, Lorsho. I'm not exactly adopting you. Anashantish happens to have lodged us in a housing with several rooms, more than twenty actually, and there's only eight of us. You'll have your own room and I guarantee that nobody will bother you, but that's it.”

“I understand,” Lorcko said in a restrained tone. “Still. Thank you, eh, Timishi.”

“
At least I'll be safe,”
he thought. Then he smiled, as a cynical, random thought entered his mind. “
Father
would be so proud if he knew I finally managed to get myself fucked by a prince. Or maybe he wouldn't be.”

Timishi didn't understand what Lorcko was snickering about, but he said nothing.

Grumbling all the way about rotten pages whose sole purpose on earth was doing their damnedest to ruin his already miserable life even more, Obyann went to his own barrack. When he entered, he saw the curly weirdo yapping excitedly with Landemere at the table. He hung his mantle at one of the wooden pegs.

“Yeah, but Nulf my man, it's downright embarrassing,” he heard Ryhunzo complain. “I just can't take him and Ird Ryhhimy"> am the older one too.”

“By three months,” Arranulf said, with an indulgent smile.

“And thirteen days. Three months and thirteen days. I should be able to take him. Instead, the Sorrow of my Sorrows takes me all the time.”

Obyann sat down with them at the table. Wrestling, he guessed. For once they were discussing something manly.

“Of course you can take him,” he said, “it's just a question of technique and exercise. Is all.”

He yawned. Ryhunzo looked at him with mild surprise.

“Been a long shift, Obe? Well, you make it sound easy. But it isn't. He is... he is just too much for me.”

“Nonsense,” Obyann stated firmly.

“Obyann, maybe you should first understand what—”

“What is there to understand, Landemere? It's obvious. Listen, when the young guy needs advise in the fine art of mixing perfumes or needs to know which belt goes with which tunic, we'll consult you. I think in this matter, the expert is me.”

Arranulf leaned back, smiling.

“First of all,” Obyann said to Ryhunzo, “you have to get into the right attitude. You must seem eager. Ready to take anything on that comes your way.”

“I am, I am, Obe, my man. I so am,” Ryhunzo protested emphatically, underlining his willingness with broad gestures and an avalanche of curls moving wildly over his forehead.

“Let me tell you, having grown up among a lot of bumpkinly peasants I know a thing or two. One of them, a certain Ruldo — you won't know him, and, believe me, you don't want to — always tried funny stuff with me. Well, at first I couldn't take him either, but that didn't keep me from trying.”