Bringer of Winter- a M/M/M Epic Fantasy Romance

5- Curses and Poisons

*****Trigger warning?: torture. It's not drawn out, but it's intense. *****

KHIFF—

Olin's blood on my hands made me dry heave against the wall of the alley, trying to force out of my mind the look in his eyes as he pleaded with me, using the word "friend," as he motioned towards Ryker. But without any other thought than escaping from these men in my mind, I had killed him. The man that had, in his own way, protected me. I had killed the man who had bandaged me gently as I lay unconscious, who hadn't laid a finger on me when he knew I was helpless, who had taught me Nelek with a smile on his lips as I fumbled through the difficult foreign words. I had killed him.

And by all the gods, I would do it again. To protect Ryker, and bring him back to his clan, I would slaughter my way through every man, woman, and child in Pryn.

Paul and Eten conversed quietly in Nelek and I couldn't understand a word, no matter how hard I strained my ears. Ryker moved to me when Eten let me fall to my knees in the straw. I gripped my hand to my chest, where my wrist and two bones in my middle finger were broken. Ryker pried my hand from my chest and with no mercy in his eyes, he set the bones in my finger straight so they wouldn't heal crooked. Although I wanted to moan and cry, I had already done enough of that on this night. I silently bit my tunic in my mouth, felt silent tears drip from my eyes, and stayed silent, finding strength in Ryker's eyes.

I could hear Eten mutter something to Paul, almost in irritation, and then he was gone, leaving Paul to gather the sword and daggers, put them on his belt, and wait. Ryker gathered a pile of straw, placed the pieces all facing the same way, tied them together using a string torn from his tunic, and used it as a splint on my finger. He tore another piece of string from his tunic to tie the straw on my finger and then allowed me to tend to his chest injury, which had opened up again in the struggle. I took the bandage off, tore my trousers, and used them as a new bandage. Although the wound had healed nicely and no infection had set in due to the herbs I had used on his injury, it was now being bandaged by a dirty strip of cloth. If it didn't get infected now, I would eat my own liver.

"Eten doesn't think you're human now," Paul said, staring down at Olin's still form. "Talen told him lots of stories, and now he saw the two of you, with you not even making one noise as Ryker set your finger. He's thinking maybe he got into more than he could handle with the two of you."

I was silent, trying to ignore him as I tightened the cloth on Ryker's chest and flinching when Ryker didn't.

"And now I almost believe Talen," Paul continued on, not even checking to see if either Ryker or I were listening, as if he wasn't truly speaking to us but as a sort of eulogy to Olin's soul. "Olin liked you, you know. Said you reminded him of his kid. He even asked me one night, if maybe we could just let the two of you go. Said it didn't seem right to enslave two people who had fought so hard for their freedom as you two so obviously did on that battlefield. He loved your accent when you spoke Nelek, said it was cute.

"And you slit his throat. Without even flinching, or any hesitation, you slit the poor man's throat. Gods, I've never seen such brutality, even in a Northman."

His words sounded so much like the song the ache in my heart was screaming. I couldn't get Olin's face out of my head, his laughter as I butchered another Nelek verb, his gurgle as I butchered him.

"May his soul rest with Ioty, so that it doesn't haunt you," he whispered, crossing himself with the sign of the gods and finally turning away.

Ryker's hand on my arm was comforting, but Olin's spirit sang its vengeance in my ear until Eten came back into the alley with a group of men behind him and they began to take Talen and Olin's bodies away. It took four men to pull Olin's body from the alley, and somehow the sight compounded my guilt. And still, Ryker gripped my arm, trying to comfort me in the only way he knew how.