Page 56

Lymok shrugs. “Nine or ten. And the Long Night after Harok reached his sixteenth summer, The Blood Priests named him. Named Harok. They could not do so until he was of age. But none were surprised when they did so as soon as they could. By that time the Blood sacrifices had become blatantly corrupt, nothing more than a way for Vahul to rid himself of anyone he misliked. So Harok was named, but he leapt into the pit before the Blood Priests could cut his throat. He faced the demon alive. Harok rose back out of the pit beneath Susal-ur-Bellan with a magical blade he claimed the Triple God had given to him. A sword called Demonica that could slay the demon. Said to be one of the weapons the five fae brothers used to slay the ancient Bellator that once ruled this land. He slayed Diazuul. Aged sixteen summers. And he carries that sword still, on his back. A sign of what he has done for all Solwen.” Lymok does not seem to have much respect for Harok, but there is genuine reverence in his voice as he says this.

Tobi shivers. Harok’s story is surely as rousing as any he has heard. A weapon bestowed by his mother’s God. A usurper trying to take the throne that is his by right by having him sacrificed to the same demon that usurper used to kill his father. This would make a good play. Perhaps when Tobi returns to Azuria he will sell the tale to a band of mummers.

That thought startles him a little. He will return to Azuria. His father will rescue him and he will leave this place and go home. He hasn’t thought of that for a while.

“My father, Irgo Vahul,” says Lymok, “was sitting on his throne in the Sacred Hall when Harok rose from that pit, blooded and demon-kissed, and he cut Vahul’s throat. I was there. I saw Harok kill my father when I was six years old. I thought he would kill me too, kushir, I did. But he chose to simply give me this.” Lymok pulls back the yellow kerchief he always wears. Beneath it is a ragged scar. Anyone who had scarred him so with a blade could easily have cut his throat instead.

Tobi stares. “Harok gave you that scar when he took the throne. But you were a child then? Why would he do that?”

“A reminder, I suppose, that he chose to spare me.”

Before Tobi can respond there is a knock on the door. The man they call into the room is an Urynwud messenger. “Kushir,” he says with a bow, “Irgo Harok requests you attend him in his bed chamber.”

Lymok looks at Tobi with his eyes narrowed. “Irgo needs hole for cock,” he says in Ambolk. Then in Artemian, “You’d better hurry along.”

When Tobi reaches the chamber he leaves his guards outside and walks in with Baby to find Harok in a bathtub set on the fur rug before the fire. His hair is wet, hanging over the edge of the tub, being washed by a body servant. A second servant fusses with a tray of oils.

Tobi’s breath catches. He has not seen Harok bathing before, although he knew that he must do. Tobi is bathed every few days by his own body servants, rubbed smooth with various salty pastes and sweet oils and shaved again whenever any of the hair on his body starts to regrow, a process he has grown quite used to. His skin has never been so smooth.

The fire is lit and the room is warm. More warmth comes from wide glazed windows looking out over the forest and letting in the sun. Tobi can’t help staring at Harok. When he was nine, his father was given to a demon by his uncle. When he was sixteen, he slayed both and took back his throne.

And I was sixteen summers, Tobi thinks, when I sent my own mother to madness.

Harok nods unsmiling at Tobi, saying, “Kushir,” in Ambolk, before waving a hand to dismiss his servants.

Tobi walks closer to the bath. Harok points to his hair. “Bathe me,” he says in Ambolk. Or something like it. Perhaps wash me, or attend me. But the meaning is clear.

“Sho, Irgorye.” Tobi takes up a position behind Harok, kneeling on the rug and runs his fingers through Harok’s long dark hair. He takes his time over it. This is not something he would ever have asked Harok to be allowed to do, and surely it is a job for a body servant, not a kushir, but he likes it, nevertheless. The water is warm and scented. Harok’s hair is soft, running slickly through his fingers. Harok does not speak as Tobi works, stroking sweet oils through Harok’s hair and then washing them away with a jug of warm water.

When it's done, Tobi stands and walks around the bath so he can face Harok. He holds up a folded linen cloth from the table of oils and bottles. He says what he thinks is the Ambolk word for ‘wash’. The word Harok used.

“Sho,” Harok says.

Tobi comes closer and kneels again. He uses the cloth to wipe warm water over Harok’s chest, then pours some rich oil into his hand and rubs that over Harok’s skin. He shivers. It feels so good to touch Harok like this.

Harok makes a soft sound of pleasure as Tobi’s hands slide lower on his body. Harok is roused. Tobi feels the tip of Harok’s cock nudging his hand. Tobi looks at Harok.

Harok smiles. “Cock,” he says in his odd-sounding Artemian. “Magnificent cock.”

Tobi laughs and replies in careful Ambolk, “I touch it, Ereyek?”

There is a cup of spiced mead on a table beside the bath. Harok takes a drink and replies in slow Ambolk Tobi can follow, “No. Remove alit. Stand. Show me body.”

Tobi swallows with a tickle of pleasure to be ordered so bluntly and does as he is bid, standing and walking around the bathtub, pulling his alit off so he is naked before Harok. His cock is almost fully hard from touching Harok’s body and being subject to Harok’s demands.

Harok groans aloud at the sight. “Beautiful Suskara,” he says in Ambolk. The words make Tobi shudder. “In bath now.”

It’s an order not a request. Tobi walks over to the bath and steps into it. The water is deliciously warm. The bathtub is large, but Harok is a large man. When Tobi lowers himself, he is pressed into Harok’s lap. He can feel Harok’s roused cock between their bodies. Tobi shifts, so his own desire is pushed against Harok’s. Harok groans. His next words are in Ambolk. He speaks slowly. “Suskara. At dawn I leave Urynwud.”

Tobi swallows. “Irgorye leave? Where you go?”

“I go for many days,” Harok says.

“Many? How many days?” says Tobi.

“Tal,” Harok says. He holds up three fingers, although Tobi knows the Ambolk numbers.

Tobi nods. “Tal,” he says. Three days. Tobi has never spent the night in Urynwud without Harok in all the moons he has been here. He has never fallen asleep without first having Harok take his body in all kinds of pleasing ways. “Where Irgorye go?” says Tobi.