17

At the feast before the second night of hunting, Remy threw a fit.

‘They should be in the stables,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t want the champions of other contenders housed near me! Especially not foreigners.’ He spat that last word with venom, scowling at Micah in particular.

The chaos of the first night had almost halved the number of warriors in the hunt, and thus the contenders. Bertrand’s bloc of ten was down to eight. Adeline had her tiny bloc of three, perhaps four. There were another six who were loosely independent, though Feilan could guess bribes had made a small network among them, if not a formal alliance. He could also guess that most were going to do their best to sit out the rest of the hunt, and would take the field tonight merely to fulfil the terms of their mercenary contract. The bonus for bringing in the head was not worth fighting the two alliances over.

The exodus of disqualified contenders had begun that morning, leaving rooms vacant, while the surviving champions had demanded the same privilege Feilan and Torben possessed – an escape from the open bunks of the warrior stables into safe rooms with latching, defensible, doors. It was Uncle Bertrand’s gracious capitulation to this unified demand that had prompted Remy’s outburst.

For a moment, Feilan was puzzled. Remy had seemed committed to the newly-brokered alliance, which had quickly become common knowledge among the other surviving champions. He’d even already managed to have a quiet word to Adeline – or perhaps Prince Afzal’s attendance at Remy and Adeline’s afternoon visit earlier had been a mere happy coincidence, albeit one under the firm supervision of Micah’s bane, Darya, and four of her ever-present bodyguards, dressed in light blue robes fastened with sashes, unsheathed swords hanging showily at their waists.

Feilan had stridden into the foyer after his daily errand, skirted past the tensing bodyguards, delivered a firm kiss to the top of his flustered husband’s head and a polite demurral to an amused Adeline, and gone on to their room to keep out of the way.

Remy hadn’t followed; he’d avoided Feilan since the pool that morning, in a way Feilan recognised this time as his habitual withdrawal while he was thinking things over. That was, he assumed, in response to Feilan accusing him of starting an argument with Torben he wasn’t prepared to finish, which had been, in retrospect, and indeed in the very moment, unfair.

Therefore, when Remy acted the spoilt young royal just as Adeline was meant to if she couldn’t get her way through empty-headed coquetry, Feilan at first assumed he was trying to make things difficult in a way that surprised him in its pettiness. Remy was prickly and awkward and lonely; he didn’t seem petty.

Then he saw the undercurrents, and understood.

Within moments, Uncle Bertrand, with a good-natured chuckle at Remy’s expense, offered Micah and Noura rooms in Third Hill East.

Darya, meanwhile, smiled to herself as she sipped her wine, Prince Afzal silently pushing limp green beans around his plate beside her, a different boy to the animated child chatting to Adeline that afternoon. Darya knew Micah had an alliance; she thought Remy, the contender overseeing it, was thoughtlessly sabotaging it with a blanket prejudice that would stop proud Micah seeking anything further from him. She would not, now, find Adeline’s friendship with her ward as suspicious as she might have if Adeline’s favourite uncle had been at all welcoming towards Micah.

Remy sat in suitably sullen silence, all dramatically thwarted pout, for the rest of the meal. Feilan, taking his leave to go out to the field, kissed his cheek and murmured, ‘Well played, Uncle Remy,’ in his ear.

Remy flushed, violently. Feilan smiled to himself. Remy’s siblings were going to think he’d whispered something filthy.

He led his little gang of warriors to the same outcrop where he and Torben had waited the night before, moving slowly until their eyes adjusted to the dim skyglow. The mist was thicker tonight, and higher. Yestereve, they’d been above the white blanket smothering the great bowl of the hunting ground, but now it swirled about their feet and turned everything more than a few handspans away into shadow. Feilan, even ice-bred as he was, was glad for the warmth of the leather jerkin.

Once again, the occasional sound, even more muffled than the previous night, rose to their position – the call of livestock, yes, but also the ring of blade on blade, and the thuds and grunts of ambush. The uncle’s bloc was on the hunt again, still not discriminating between monster and unlucky lone champion. It was, Feilan, mused, entirely unnecessary – those men were merely bored.

He wasn’t concerned, however. The four of them together were unassailable, too risky even for all eight of the uncle’s bloc to attack. Despite Micah declining to formally accept an alliance – yet – he had agreed he would not turn on any of them, and so they could all take turns to watch for an assault coming out of the mist without also having to watch their backs. It quickly became tedious, of course, and they slowly relaxed enough to address a few remarks to each other in a mix of Midlands and Vaer. Feilan filled in the blanks in the rumours they’d gathered about the local political situation, confirming Great-Uncle Bertrand’s position as the enemy of Adeline and her favourite uncle.

‘Why,’ Micah enquired, and Feilan braced for a disdainful question about Remy, ‘are you so certain nothing will come of this monster hunt until next moon?’

‘Just a guess,’ Feilan said, not trying very hard to not look too innocent.

Micah folded his arms, wearing an expression of great scepticism. ‘I do suppose you have been told before that you are far too clever for your own good.’

‘All the serthing time, Sveltlar,’ Torben said. ‘Always with the bright ideas, this one.’

The eunuch swept him with heavy-eyed contempt before turning back to Feilan. ‘And you do have your mighty warrior under control?’

Feilan had to fight to keep from smiling at the accidental allusion to yet another Vaer kenning, but Torben crowed with boisterous laughter. It rang loud, but quickly fell as dead as the toll of a muffled bell in the blanketing mist. Noura, shaking her head, took a few steps away, alertness redoubled.

Torben grabbed his crotch. ‘Sure do.’

‘They are as children,’ Micah called to Noura. ‘Are you certain of your choice?’

‘Have to be, now,’ she said laconically over her shoulder, eyes raking their misty surrounds.

‘If you are arguing,’ Micah insisted, ‘which of you wins? Which of you issues the orders, and which obeys?’

Torben folded his arms, biceps bulging, forearms corded. ‘When it comes to the monster hunt, we all follow Feilan’s instructions, hear?’

‘Thanks, Thunder Bear,’ Feilan murmured.

‘That’s logic, that is,’ Torben said. ‘If we’re fighting the other champions, though, I’m in charge. Feilan doesn’t know a cursed thing about that.’

‘Knows all about fighting monsters, does he?’ Noura called.

Torben shrugged. ‘Probably not the actual fighting bit.’

‘I was raised Vaer,’ Feilan protested. ‘I can fight.’ To an outrageously dubious look from Torben, he added, ‘I can swing a sword, jolterhead.’

‘The fact you think it’s just swinging a sword—’

‘You must realise your incessant bickering does not inspire me with confidence in regards to the proffered alliance,’ Micah informed them.

Feilan shot his friend a nasty look. Torben snorted. ‘It’s just flirting. Like you and me.’

‘I am,’ Micah said, ‘appalled.’

‘So you say.’

Micah so abandoned his cool-eyed facade as to look to Feilan for assistance. Feilan obliged. ‘Torben, stop threatening the poor man with a good time. He’s not interested.’

Torben merely looked smugly complacent to this rebuke, in a way that abruptly reminded Feilan of his attitude in bed and made him itch to punch him, for all the good it would do.

‘’Ware,’ Noura called suddenly. ‘Movement.’

Torben instantly turned to face the direction of Noura’s point, hand to sword grip. ‘Get behind me, Little Wolf.’

Feilan indulged himself, smacking his friend solidly across the back of the head. Torben sounded serious enough, but he was just digging in on the Little-Wolf-can’t-fight jape. His chuckle confirmed it, even as he swung a meaty arm back and pushed Feilan off-balance far too easily.

The shadowy figures approaching out of the mist resolved into the uncle’s bloc. They had the sweaty, blood-splattered look of men who’d been engaged in fierce fighting, but there were still eight of them.

Feilan expected them to turn when they realised they come up on the other major alliance, but their leader paused, and eyed them.

Flanked by Noura and Micah, Torben said, ‘You can’t take us. Don’t mind if you try, though.’

‘Don’t have to kill all of you,’ the leader said.

His gaze flicked to Feilan, just once, and that was enough to tell Feilan he had been very mistaken when he had assumed the eight wouldn’t risk attacking the four. They would – if they could score the clever one’s head.

He wasn’t used to thinking of himself as a visible threat.

He fell back immediately, expecting the others to do the same so they could position themselves for the battle. He was taken by surprise by Torben’s headlong charge into their midst. Noura lunged after him, protecting his offside as stoutly as any Vaer bersverdr. Micah sighed delicately and strolled up to his own first opponent, weapon not even visible yet.

Feilan followed them in, drawing his borrowed sword. As was his general experience, the fight was short and brutal. Torben might mock him for describing wielding an edged blade as merely swinging a sword, but it was apt enough in this instance. He just had to swing it harder and faster than the scarred mercenary facing him, while blocking or batting aside his attempts to do the same. He hadn’t performed so well in his first raid; he’d been competent in defence of Freyja in the years since.

But it had been a while, and the mercenary was more than competent, as befitted a sellsword who’d survived long enough for grey hair. Luckily, he tended to give away his intentions by subtle cues of body and gaze an observant man could exploit, so Feilan held him at bay long enough for a roaring Torben to barrel into him and knock him down. Torben skewered him right between the shoulder blades, the longsword buried halfway into the soil by the force of the blow.

Feilan stepped to his back, ready to defend him while he tugged his sword loose, and assessed the current situation, twitching his head to clear the flood of blue from his eyes.

Noura kicked a bleeding mercenary aside and struck a wicked blow at her next opponent, who dodged and almost tripped over the body of the first man Torben had killed, the leader. Micah fought with his long knives, the blades narrow and almost triangular, weaving his way sinuously past the reaches of the two men he faced to sink the needle points home repeatedly; it must have felt like trying to strike a swarm of bees.

The final pair were sensibly hanging back. Even as Feilan stepped up to one of Micah’s foes, the rest of them – leader lost, bersverdr on the rampage, his companions putting up a fierce fight – saw sense and rapidly withdrew into the fog. Torben, still bellowing, made to chase them, and Feilan grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to a stop.

Micah wiped his twin blades on the trailing end of his sash and vanished them under it. He was wearing his coolly impassive expression, so his quick step up into Torben’s face took both Vaer by surprise.

‘You rushed in because your lover was under threat.’

Only the fact that he had very conspicuously put his knives away saved him from Torben’s full reaction. As it was, Torben, all a-bristle from the brief but ferocious fight, spread a large hand over Micah’s throat, his freed sword lax in his other hand. He wasn’t squeezing, not yet, and he didn’t push Micah away. He stared down at him, silent. The battle-rage was still pumping too hard through his blood for him to remember words.

The Vaer called it the gift of the bear-god, His blessing. He was said to be working through the bear-warriors, flooding them with divine strength, sweeping them into battle against awful odds and washing them out the other side victorious. Feilan was surprised – shocked, almost – He’d come for such a minor skirmish.

Micah wrapped long fingers around the thick wrist of the hand at his throat and began to twist. ‘Your impulsive behaviour put both my own self and Noura Alikarmi in more danger than necessary. This is unacceptable.’

The eunuch could not know the risk he was running; or perhaps he did, and chose to take it. Still, Torben merely stared, unaffected by the pressure Micah was asserting against his wrist. Then his grip on Micah’s throat slowly began to tighten. Micah, swallowing against it, reached for his sash with his free hand.

Feilan kicked Torben in the ankle.

The big man turned, snarling, and backhanded him across the face, hard enough to knock him sideways. While Noura grabbed Micah by the shoulders and dragged him away, not without a suspiciously maternal shake, Feilan backed up, watching as Torben came shambling after him, sword hanging loosely in one hand, his other hand a fist.

‘Come on, Thunder Bear,’ he said softly. ‘You didn’t really go on the offensive so abruptly just because their boss-man looked at me once, did you?’

Torben spat to one side. His glazed, intent stare shifted, and he blinked a few times. His god was leaving him.

‘You did not,’ Feilan said, smiling, but keeping the same careful space between them. ‘You were bored, you wanted a fight. You got a fight, and now you want a fuck. Right?’

Torben came to a stop. ‘Yeah,’ he said gruffly.

‘Yes, you want a fuck.’

‘Yes, I attacked that bugger for looking at you.’

‘There you go, being surprisingly sweet again,’ Feilan said. When Torben closed the space between them, he risked holding still, and earned himself a short and rib-creaking hug. ‘I was fine, you jolterhead.’

‘I could also use the fuck, if you’re offering,’ Torben said, pressing his face against the top of Feilan’s head in what could almost be a kiss, if Torben had ever once kissed him with that sort of affection in twenty-five years.

The other two cautiously approached. Torben let Feilan go. ‘Don’t come at me when I’m still in the battle,’ he told Micah.

‘That was…’ Micah narrowed his eyes at Feilan’s warning shake of the head and finished anyway. ‘Bear-Skin?’ He thought for a moment, and came up with the Vaer term. ‘Berserkr?’

‘That’s a very insulting word, No-Nuts,’ Torben said flatly.

‘I am of the opinion that an insulting word should apply to someone who came within a hair of throttling his ally.’

‘I don’t count you as brother till you clasp hands on Feilan’s alliance.’

‘I am unlikely to do so, if you are the quality of impulsive, bull-headed ally I can expect.’

Indifferent, Torben waved around at the two felled mercenaries. ‘And how many did you kill, assassin?’

He examined his blood- and dirt-splattered blade before setting to thoroughly cleaning it with cloth torn from dead men, while Micah crossed his arms and looked – there was no other word for it – petulant.

‘I wounded two of them,’ he said.

‘Not so easy when they’re awake and armed and facing you, is it?’

‘Torben,’ Feilan said.

Torben ignored the warning. ‘One hundred and seven ways, and all of them from behind.’ He gave a leer, somewhat lacklustre.

‘Oh, no, darling, I know more than a few face-to-face techniques.’

Micah stepped in close again, as he had so riskily done when Torben had been blessed by the bear-god. Torben smiled complacently at him, letting him push right up to his chest. Torben was holding the half-scrubbed longsword down and away; Micah was keeping his hands clear of his waist, where his dagger-spike weapons hid under his sash. Given that mutual care, it was nothing but a pissing contest.

For now.

‘Truce, boys,’ Feilan said, deliberately lilting the words as he put a hand on each chest and pushed them apart.

He earned a minor grimace of distaste from Torben, who pointedly strode off to finish polishing his sword, and a sweeping up-and-down look from Micah from beneath eyelashes that suddenly seemed outrageously long.

‘You’re as bad as each other,’ Feilan said, if under his breath.

‘They were after you,’ Noura announced, having sensibly elected to stand aside from the entirety of the cock-swinging. ‘Reason for that?’

‘I was probably too obvious in what I think of their employer,’ Feilan said. ‘I told you about him.’

The hand behind the throne was now more than ready to give it a good hard shove to tip the queen off, and further, had apparently and personally greatly disliked the look of recognition and challenge Feilan had levelled his way at the feast.

‘Too cracked smart,’ Noura said, ‘for your own good.’

‘Yes, I know it,’ Feilan said, smiling. ‘Too many bright ideas.’

When they walked in off the hunting ground, leaving the bodies, Remy once again greeted Feilan with a willing kiss and a fuss over the side of his face, which was swelling from Torben’s blow. But he untucked himself from under Feilan’s arm as soon as they were far enough down the arcade to be lost to the view of family, despite the risk of spies.

In their room, Remy, not meeting Feilan’s eyes, made him sit and unplugged a jar of salve that he retrieved from the silver tray by the aquamanile. The little ceramic jar had a stopper of crystal and gold, very much unlike the wax Remy used to seal the jars and vials he sent home with his visitors – he did take some very small prerogative as a minor prince of this minor kingdom, then.

The contents were different to the green and sky-blue paste Remy put on open cuts. This one smelled more yellow, a jaundiced tinge that made Feilan twist his face away from it. Remy seized his chin in one slender hand, assertive enough to give Feilan a frisson. His fingers were cool as he daubed the side of Feilan’s face with the salve.

Torben wasn’t the only one left het up after battles. Feilan wanted to push his husband down from where he stood between Feilan’s legs to tend him, push him down to his knees and make him tend to the part of him that was really aching. He touched his shoulder, half a caress, a question in it.

Remy pulled away. Quickly washing and changing into the linen shift he insisted on sleeping in, he subsided onto his side of the bed without a word.

Shaking his head, Feilan followed suit, prepared to wait the mood out, own mood not eased by the sounds of Torben getting his wished-for fuck from the room next door from some willing soul. He was too tired to lie awake long, however.