Bloodraven (26 page)

He’d had that dreadful collar removed, even if the brand still marked him. He was a slave no longer, and approaching Bloodraven as a free man was by far harder than approaching him as a slave. Even with the threat of violence hanging over his head, it was like giving up a part of himself when he bent to Bloodraven’s will. It was like admitting that he was still slave to Bloodraven’s mastery.

Bloodraven didn’t urge him further, leaving it up to Yhalen to separate himself from the support of the bars and move towards the back wall of the cell. A step at a time, his feet feeling like they were encased in iron shoes as he moved, his stomach coiling in unease and nausea until he stood encased in the same shadows that shielded Bloodraven. He stared down at the top of Bloodraven’s head, at the gracefully pointed ears with their dangling rings. He noted that a few of those rings were gone, leaving tears that had scabbed over in the shell of the ogr’ron’s ears. There were other marks, which had been hidden by the darkness, and the extent of which were still shrouded in shadow. The smell of dried blood was strong this close, mingling with that of infection.

“You’re wounded,” Yhalen said numbly. He remembered all the blood that had covered the ogr’ron when the soldiers had brought him into the keep, chained in the back of the cart like the prize of war they thought he was.

“You’re not.”

Bloodraven lifted a hand, fingers circling Yhalen’s arm—the one that Bloodraven’s dog had broken only days ago. He could do so easily again, himself, with those hands strong enough to rip a metal plate from a stone wall. But he didn’t, simply running large fingers up the length of Yhalen’s arm and back down again to his wrist. He used that to pull Yhalen that last step forward, which put him between Bloodraven’s legs and close enough to his body that he felt the heat of fever rising from the bared skin of his chest.

Wounded and fevered, then, and still he’d almost torn his chains free. If he’d have been whole, he might have succeeded faster. When Yhalen had come down the first time, Bloodraven might very likely 78

have been out of his mind with the heat of fever. He wondered if Dunval’s men had done anything for the wounds and doubted it the moment the thought entered his head. None of them would have gotten this close while Bloodraven was conscious. Nor would they have cared enough to try.

“No,” he agreed to Bloodraven’s observation. “No. It wasn’t done...I didn’t mean—”

He swallowed, not able to explain it to even himself, much less another, even in his own defense.

He was pulled down suddenly, drawn to his knees and half turned across one of Bloodraven’s knees while the ogr’ron pushed up the back of his tunic and bared his skin. The big fingers brushed across the small of his back and the brand that marked it. Yhalen shuddered, enduring it. It was on the tip of his tongue to blurt out that it meant nothing, that mark, but a sliver of good sense intervened, warning that he was in no position to initiate an argument he wasn’t equipped to win. Though Bloodraven’s hands had yet to cause serious pain, his mood couldn’t have been the most conductive to reasoning, all things considered.

Bloodraven grasped Yhalen’s braid, winding its length around his knuckles and using it as a very effective leash to pull Yhalen closer to his own face. They were healing, but the bruises and cuts were obvious on the ogr’ron's face.

“Will you use your black magicks on me, little human shaman, and whither my skin as you did to Deathclaw?”

The position was painful—Yhalen’s neck bent back, his body drawn half off his knees and held there by Bloodraven’s hand in his hair. Out of necessity he had to brace his hands on Bloodraven’s thighs. When he didn’t immediately answer, Bloodraven’s other hand snuck between his legs, big fingers pressing his scrotum up tight against his body. Yhalen drew breath and struggled, pushing against Bloodraven’s broad body, suddenly more frantic over the notion that the ogr’ron would rape him in this cell than he’d been over the thought of him snapping his neck.

Bloodraven yanked him close, pressing Yhalen’s cheek against the skin of his chest while he wormed his hand down the front of Yhalen’s pants. He snapped a lacing or two in the process, as fever-warm fingers cupped Yhalen’s shrinking genitals and squeezed. The threat against thrashing about in attempts at an escape that Yhalen hadn’t the strength to accomplish, was implicit. One finger probed further, curling around behind his balls and pressing hard against the clenched mouth of his anus.

A sob escaped him and some small bit of wetness leaked from between lashes tightly closed.

“Will you not show me this magic of yours?” Bloodraven growled at him and the tip of his blunt finger overcame Yhalen’s protesting muscles and pushed inside without the soothing benefit of salve. It hurt, dry and burning and he cried out and tried to arch away, but he was properly impaled—held close by his hair and the anchoring finger inches inside his body. After he lay still again, panting and exhausted, Bloodraven leaned his head down and purred close to Yhalen’s ear.

“Have I not given you ample cause to cast your curses on me? Why have I not seen this power of yours?”

“Do you wish to so badly?” Yhalen gasped, aware, so very aware of the thick finger slowly moving inside him. The passage was smoother now, eased by the wetness of his own blood, but no less painful because of it as the mouth of his opening widened to swallow the bulge of Bloodraven’s knuckle, then widened again as it was pulled out, only to be shoved back in roughly in a cruel parody of sex.

“I’d show you...if I could.” Yhalen ground his teeth as Bloodraven pulled him up a little by the knot of his hair, so that the hand between his legs could gain a better angle—so that the finger could thrust up into his body as far as it could go and then curl and probe inside him. Exploring the wet walls of his insides in a fashion that Bloodraven’s thick member presently could not.

“Then do so,” Bloodraven hissed at him, pulling out almost entirely, only to press a second finger at the mouth of Yhalen’s opening. Without the benefit of salve, he’d have torn with the addition, Bloodraven’s two fingers being painfully thick combined. It would be very much like what Deathclaw had done to him, mindless of the damage...simply reveling in the blood and the ripped flesh and the intrusion. Bloodraven had never enjoyed his pain.

“Please don’t,” he whispered, lips pressed against the warm skin of Bloodraven’s neck.

And Bloodraven paused, the only movement of his body the rise and fall of his chest. Then he slid his finger out, quick and smooth, the sudden void of it causing a sensation of relief so strong that Yhalen shuddered and bit his lips at the strength of it. The hold on his hair loosened enough so that he was able to slide down and rest on the straw-covered floor between Bloodraven’s knees. He didn’t try and distance himself, for Bloodraven had not completely given up his hold on the braid, but simply lay 79

there against the ogr’ron’s stomach trying to catch his lost breath.

Nothing about that act had been sexual, he realized. His position was close enough to Bloodraven’s crotch to allow Yhalen ample opportunity to realize there had been no stirring there. It had been prompted out of anger and perhaps some small bit of fear for the unknown. If Bloodraven’s people did not practice magic of their own, then they’d have a healthy superstition of that practiced by other peoples.

There was silence for a while, save for the sound of Bloodraven’s breathing, and Yhalen’s softer inhalations. This far below the earth, surrounded by so much stone, no other noises intruded. It was as if they were entombed, which Yhalen supposed, in a way they were. He hated it. Hated not having the sky overhead and the sound of the living forest around him. There was no sense of the Goddess this far under earth and stone. Or perhaps she’d merely distanced herself from him, cutting him off from her warmth because of his misuse of the power she had granted him.

“You are,” Bloodraven said finally, “a poor excuse for a shaman. You could at least have killed him, when you cast your curse upon him.”

Yhalen didn’t comprehend at first, what Bloodraven meant or why, then it occurred to him that Bloodraven and his larger, full-blooded fellow with all the gold in his ears and cruelty in his heart, had been very clearly at odds. He’d have bet his life that Deathclaw was dead and the discovery that he wasn’t, didn’t lighten Yhalen’s heart in the slightest. Misuse of magic or no, he’d very much wished that particular ogre no longer numbered among the living. He wasn’t certain if responding as such out loud was the wisest of ideas. Bloodraven was calm now, but with prompting, he might cease to be.

Despite the permeating pain that dwelled within his body, spreading out from wounds gone too long without treatment, as well as the frustration of the chains and the cell and the humiliation of being caged at all by the hands of humans, Bloodraven had enough rationality left to know that he’d not handled the first few days of his captivity well. That he’d acted the beast—or to be honest, the ogre—and the humans had goaded him and starved him into a state that they could deal with as a result.

When they’d brought his human down he’d been very far from his right mind. It had only been afterwards when they’d left him alone with bowls of water and gruel, shoved across the dirty floor within his reach, that he started to get a hold of himself and reason things out. He’d die here if he didn’t practice reason. And reason said that he wouldn’t be alive at all if they didn’t want something of him.

To want was a two edged sword. There were things he wanted, as well. Things other than a soft-skinned little human slave, things that had only been musings and contemplations before this. The fact that they had given him Yhalen without hesitation, simply for the promise of his cooperation, told him many things. One, that they were hard, these human lords, and not to be taken lightly—for if they so willingly gave up one of their own, they’d have no hesitation betraying one not of their race. For another, they either didn’t value their shamans highly, didn’t realize they had one in their midst, or considered Yhalen inept enough to barter without incident. Bloodraven rather thought the latter possibility to be true, considering Yhalen’s inability to strike back at his own prompting.

Regardless, they had been willing to sacrifice Yhalen’s life for a shred of cooperation from Bloodraven, for they couldn’t have known what reception the boy would receive once within Bloodraven’s reach. He’d given them no reason to think he’d gently welcome his slave back after his first reaction at seeing him again, days before. Yhalen himself had certainly thought as much, from the fear he’d exhibited upon being thrust into the cell. He’d shown considerable courage, however, despite the threat of allowing himself within Bloodraven’s reach. If had been a few days before, he might not have survived the experience, but a few days here had calmed Bloodraven’s frenzy a good deal.

It was amazing that Yhalen’s injuries had faded so completely. The last Bloodraven had seen of him, he’d been weak and broken, barely able to keep his own feet. He ran a hand idly down the arm that the dog had snapped, then under the loose tunic where traces of welts from the whipping should still have lingered. There was nothing but smooth skin. Even Bloodraven’s brand, though visible, seemed like a mark of old—not one barely a week old. Yhalen shuddered, breath shaky and scared against Bloodraven’s skin, as if the boy expected more harm. He saw no reason to reassure him, having lost enough face himself because of this little human. A little unfounded fear on Yhalen’s part was only due.

80

With Bloodraven’s capture, his party would make its way back north, if they could. If Icehand could retain his authority as Bloodraven’s second. But even weakened, Deathclaw would poison the minds of Bloodraven’s following, spewing tales of the black magic Bloodraven had brought amongst them—conveniently forgetting that it had been Deathclaw himself that had dragged that magic to Bloodraven’s tent—reminding them of Bloodraven’s tainted blood and of his dishonor at being taken by puny humans.

Bloodraven would be hard pressed to regain his place, even if he did escape from human clutches.

The stigma would cling to him and word of it would travel among the clans. His place as war leader was effectively squashed, as was his voice amongst the clan chieftains. He wouldn’t be the only one to suffer for it. The hopes of others had ridden on his success, and now that success was shattered. All, if one wanted to try and place a portion of blame, because of a human slave he should have used and discarded the first night he’d had him.

He cursed in the ogre tongue and pulled Yhalen back from him far enough to see the human’s face.

“You’ve caused me more trouble than you know.”

Yhalen blinked at him, hands braced on his stomach, slim body a warm weight between his legs.

Perhaps there was some magic at work after all, some subtle curse that even in the clutches of his enemies and chained in their dirty cell under the earth, made him think of things other than breaking Yhalen’s neck and having done with it. He shifted, lifting Yhalen bodily across his leg and placing the boy between himself and the wall, preventing easy retreat and distancing Yhalen from the too easy to rouse monster in his pants. There would be no dalliance here, where the enemy lurked and spied no doubt, and where there was nothing at hand to ease the way. He would not destroy his possessions out of hand.

“You blame me?” Yhalen said softly, resting his back against the wall next to Bloodraven’s. His head was level with Bloodraven’s shoulder. “Aren’t there other heads that deserve it more?”