Strongman (19 page)

He knew the basics of battlefield medicine, as most commanders did. There’d been some of his men who’d actually preferred his rough ministrations to that of the company’s healers. If there was no internal bleeding, surely Griff should be regaining consciousness by now? Between Fort’s palms, the other man’s skin was cool and clammy. A horrible greasy void opened up inside Fort, making his stomach heave and pitch.

This was what fear was, true gut-wrenching terror. Knowing he was helpless, knowing Griff’s life depended on him. He’d experienced nothing so acutely agonizing in his long career, save for the dark days Bekah had hovered between life and death, the babe come too tiny and too soon.

With every beat of his heart, panic battered his nerves, urging him to hurry, hurry.

Just fucking
hurry
!

Very, very gently, he settled Griff on the ground and rose, every muscle

complaining, his bad leg hurting like a bitch. The leg could bloody wait. Ruler, getting Griff to a real physician was all that was important. And putting as much distance between them and the fucking Hssrda as possible. He’d worry about the gashes and bruises later. The gods knew, he’d had worse.

Lufra bless her placid soul, his vran had returned to grazing, though she gave the fallen Hssrda a wide berth. Of Griff’s beast, there was no sign. Making clucking noises with his tongue, Fort grabbed a trailing rein and hauled her in. He rifled through the 102

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saddlebag for the bath sheet and unbuckled his belt. Then he folded the fabric into a long pad and sucked in a deep breath. Fuck, if he got this wrong—!

Limping over to Griff’s still body, he found the only way he could slip the bath sheet beneath the other man’s neck was by holding his skull cradled in one hand. Thank Lufra his palms were broad, his fingers long. After minutes of excruciating, sweaty effort, he got Griff’s neck braced with the towel, the pad held firmly in place with his belt.

And the tumbler’s pulse had steadied—hadn’t it?

Ignoring the blood dripping down his arm, Fort wrapped Griff’s body in his silken bedroll and booted the vran behind the knee to make her kneel. With a grumbling snort, she sank down. It took every particle of strength he had to maneuver the two of them into the saddle, Griff cradled securely against his heart. Fuck, the man was a dead weight! All that sleek muscle…

Holy Mother, he wished he had another choice, any choice. But there was none.

Griff needed a level of medical expertise that was beyond him to give and the vran was the only mode of transport available. All he could do was keep the tumbler’s head and neck as still as possible.

He’d never had a problem with taking calculated risks before, but shit, this one was a killer bitch.

Blinking hard, Fort swore under his breath, urging the vran into the rocking canter they could keep up for hours.

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Sun is set
,
Shadow too
.

Sleep
,
sweet babe
,
the dark night through
,

In Lufra
’
s arms and mine
,

In Lufra
’
s arms and mine
.

Feolin lullaby (trad
.
)

Fort had been aiming to hit the main track out of the Empty Lands before nightfall, but because he had to swing east to miss the Hssrda camp, he nearly missed it. As the Shadow caught the Sun and pulled it down over the horizon, the last rays caught one of the light-colored rocks that marked the trail. His heart thumped once, painfully hard.

Thank Lufra!

Griff lay ominously still, his head resting against Fort’s chest, braced by his cradling arm. In the fading light, Fort peered at his face, half-obscured by his disheveled hair.

When he smoothed it aside, the sword calluses on his palms caught on the silky strands.

A rush of some stupid feeling welled up in his throat. The tumbler’s color had improved in the last hour, his elegant mouth no longer quite so pale.

Fort swung the vran onto the trail in the lengthening shadows. He bent his head, burying his face in Griff’s hair. “C’mon, Griff. C’mon, damn you! Come back to me.”

A long shudder racked the body in his arms. Griff groaned and his eyes flew open.

“Hey.” Fort’s smile felt stiff.

Griff stared up at him, a frown creasing his brow. “Mam?” he whispered. He jerked. “No! Hurts— Don’t!” He began to thrash and the vran reared, her huge hooves striking the path with bone-jarring thuds.

Fort tightened his grip, the gash on his biceps burning with the effort. “Sshh, I’ve got you.”

Griff moaned and twisted, shockingly strong.

Words tumbled out of Fort’s mouth, deep and urgent. “It’s me. Fort. Relax. You’re safe, I swear it.”

The tumbler’s eyes slid shut and his frantic movements eased. Fort blew out a breath of relief. He glanced up at the rising moon, panic sinking ugly claws into his heart. Shit, they were only a few hours into what was usually a two-day ride. He had no idea whether Griff’s delirium indicated something serious and no idea of what else to do. He’d reached the end of his resources.

Save one.

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His will. He’d lost count of the limp bodies he’d carried off battlefields, but this time he wasn’t giving up, not until Griff lay cold and stiff in his arms, and even then…

Thank Lufra the moon was nearly full, the trail marked. If he kept the vran to a steady pace, they could travel through the night. He could—

Griff arched, mumbling. He flung out an arm, striking Fort a glancing blow on the ear.

So he said it all again. “You’re safe, love. With me. You’re safe.”

The tumbler settled, but as soon as Fort fell silent, he became restless, moaning half-intelligible sentences, writhing in the big man’s arms.

Sweating, Fort began to talk. In fact, it didn’t matter what kind of noise he made, it seemed the only thing capable of soothing Griff was the sound of his deep voice.

When he found he was repeating his original reassurances, he said anything that came into his head. The miles passed under the plodding feet of the vran and Fort told stories of his mercenary days, describing battle after battle. So much blood, so many deaths. He began to feel a little ill.

The moon rose, an almost-disk white as bone, and the rocks by the side of the trail gleamed like the domes of half-buried skulls.

Fort tried jokes, though he wasn’t very good, or even passably funny. He kept forgetting the punch lines, but Griff didn’t seem to mind. How was it he knew so few of them anyway?

The other man tossed his head, calling a string of names, Fort’s among them.

Shit, what else? “Sshh,” he murmured. “Hush and I’ll tell you about the time I helped Father deliver a vran.” He’d been about ten and it had been a protracted, bloody battle. When he’d collapsed against the wall of the barn, the little animal in his arms, Sobriety McLaren had clapped him on the shoulder. “A good little bull,” he’d said, and Fort felt as though he’d been given a medal.

After that, the stories spilled out of him as though he’d pulled a plug. They floated on the night air, his audience the unconscious tumbler and the laboring vran.

Sometimes it was easy, the tale tripping off his tongue, but mostly he spoke slowly, searching for the words. Constance and her harp. Little Prue and the way she’d loved the puppies. All his womenfolk.

He paused to swig water and Griff muttered something garbled. Shit, he might as well go on, complete the whole tawdry tale of his wretched boyhood. The story of his rebellion didn’t sound any better out loud, and by the time he reached the end, his father stretched lifeless at his feet, he felt completely drained.

He inhaled. “And so I ran. All the way to Feolin. And that’s where I met Bekah.”

His lips curved. “Ah, Griff, you should have seen her. So pretty, so kind to a boy from the Straight Church.” His eyes stung. “She was good to me, more than I deserved.

Ruler, she even died for me, for our baby. I called the little one Constance. For my 105

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sister.” He pressed his lips to the tumbler’s forehead, drawing strength. “Before I buried them both in the same grave. It was fitting.”

His arms ached and his shoulders were killing him. By the feel of it, he had a bruise the size of a dinner plate on one hip and his wound burned. He needed food and rest, but the vran was worse off, beginning to stumble and blow. If he killed their mount, Griff was as good as dead. He looked down, brushed the hair off the other man’s cheek.

The moonlight limned the straight line of his nose, the hard line of his jaw, giving his features an unearthly purity. Fort shivered.

Griff slept.

Fort pulled the vran up in her tracks and she stopped with a whistle of distress.

When he slid down, Griff still in his arms, his legs refused to hold him and Fort finished up in an awkward crouch on the path, cursing. Finally, he struggled to his feet and got them under the trees. He laid the tumbler down and hobbled the vran. Then he curled his body around the other man’s and fell headlong into sleep.

Griff’s cry woke him with a start. Automatically, Fort pulled him closer, crooning nonsense, the way he did to nervous vranee. He glanced up at the moon. A couple of hours at best, but better than nothing. Still humming loudly, he filled his pockets with nuts and dried gaeta fruit from his saddlebag.

A crashing in the bushes had him whirling into a defensive crouch, sword in hand, only to sag with relief when he heard the greeting call of another vran. Griff’s mount blundered out of the undergrowth to rub necks with Fort’s mare. It didn’t even notice when he tied the rein to his saddle horn. A change of mounts.
Thank you
,
Holy Lufra
.

One saddlebag had disappeared, the other banged loosely against the animal’s neck. As he refastened it, Fort considered lashing Griff across the saddle, but he dismissed it immediately. No, it wasn’t really feasible. Besides, when Griff opened his eyes Fort knew he wanted his face to be the first thing the other man saw.

Shit
,
why wouldn
’
t he wake
?

His guts a solid, icy lump, he gathered the tumbler close to his chest and climbed back into the saddle.

When the incoherent mutters began again, he was ready. For hours, he croaked and rumbled his way through every song he knew, though it only took him five minutes to conclude Griff must be tone-deaf. His repertoire was severely limited, ranging only from filthy barrack room ditties to pious Straight Church hymns. He’d murdered all of them at least a dozen times before he remembered Bekah sitting in the sun sewing some tiny garment, her belly swollen with his child. She’d been singing a simple catchy melody. A Feolin lullaby, that was it.

He began hesitantly, feeling like a fool.

Sun is set
,
Shadow too
.

Sleep
,
sweet babe
,
the dark night through
…

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A long sigh left Griff’s lips and his fingers slid over Fort’s forearm. The next note came out cracked.

In Lufra
’
s arms and mine
,

In Lufra
’
s arms and mine
.

As the vranee cantered toward the dawn, he lost count of the number of times he sang it, Bekah’s gentle, merry spirit a ghostly presence in his mind.

The rage and grief ambushed him as they breasted the last of the rolling hills and he stared down over the plain that led to the sea and to Valaressa. In the cool light, the tumbler’s face was peaceful, as though the part that gave him life had absented itself.

Fort had seen that look before. On men about to die.

“Damn you, Griff!” His fingers bit into the other man’s shoulders. “Don’t do this, you hear?” He hugged the limp body closer, cradling Griff’s cheeks in his big hands. He shoved his face into the other man’s and glared. “Wake up, you stupid little shit! Don’t do this to me!”

Griff’s gold-brown lashes lay across his cheeks, his eyelids so pale, Fort could see the fine blue veins under the skin. He brushed his thumbs over the tumbler’s brows and his voice dropped to an agonized whisper. “Not now, not when I’ve only just found you.”

After the day they’d spent together in the hidden valley, his memories should have been overwhelmingly carnal, but instead, he retained the oddest fragments. Griff’s embarrassed flush as he lowered his blades, his crooked tooth when he smiled, his intent expression as he said, “
You love beautiful things
,
don
’
t you
?”

Gods yes, he did.

What had he said in reply?
Things of value last a long
,
long time
. A lifetime.

Fort choked.

Viciously, he kicked the vran in the ribs and it sprang forward with a startled honk.

They thundered across the plain, the wind of their passage whipping Fort’s hair, chilling the tears that leaked from his eyes. He bent his head over Griff’s and held him tight against his heart, banded with arms of iron. The two vranee settled into a flat-out gallop, racing shoulder to shoulder down the rutted track.

“I don’t know what it is.” The other man’s quiet face yanked the words out of Fort.

“Do you hear me, Griff? I don’t bloody
know
!” The thud of hooves almost drowned out his voice. Griff’s smooth brow corrugated, the very slightest hint of movement.

“It’s not about the fucking.” The ghost of a wild smile stretched Fort’s lips. “Though Lufra knows I had no idea Crookedness could be so fine.” He let the reins slacken, trusting the surefootedness of the vran, while he thought about it. “Haven’t talked so bloody much in years.” Who did he have to listen?

He’d talked to Bekah though, so long ago in Feolin. How could he have forgotten?

Nights when they lay after lovemaking, squeezed together in the narrow bed, pleasantly loose and sweaty. Not that he’d said much. That had never been his way. But 107

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she’d always listened, her dark shining eyes fixed on his face, her fingers petting the hair on his chest. As though Fort was her whole world.