They came from the sea. Raiders with blades and fire, hunting for grain, gold and anything valuable. The rest? Anything they couldn't take, they burned. The flames burned high in the sky, the ash covering the land around as screams and yells of fighting flooded the monastery. Hundreds of years of knowledge and growth, silenced and vanquished at the will of foreigners and their heathen God's command to pillage.
Idris dragged Rigel by his shoulder, the teenager clutching a makeshift weapon as if that would have any effect on men twice his size. These were men built to fight. Trained from birth to feast on their defeated foes and to challenge any who hinted at being more powerful than themselves. A madness filled their eyes, slaughtering all in their path.
"Idris!"
"Hush," Idris said, yanking them down and out of the way as something went flying near them. An arrow? Possibly. The abbot was dead. Idris was one of a handful of people who knew where the tunnels started and ended. "We need to get the relics out, not fight a pointless battle."
The relics meant nothing to the heathens. There were wooden carvings that dated back to the rebirth of deities. Miracles happened to those around them, or people claimed that they did. Now, if ever was the time for miracles. He forced the grate open and stuffed Rigel inside before slipping in himself. Rigel fitted better than Idris. He would make it work. Rigel stalked ahead in case someone had stumbled on a different entrance. Most were hidden, but the usual things hiding them were likely aflame.
"Are you sure this is safe?"
"No safer than up there," Idris grimaced as they waded through unmentionables. "We need to move fast." Everything ached. His mouth was too dry. The weight of the relics around his neck almost dragged him down - not the physical weight but the responsibility. The abbot had pushed them into the tunnels before the brutes stormed the vaults.
Rigel wanted to talk. Idris didn't. It simmered in the air adding to the tension as the fights of fighting echoed against the stone. Smoke filled the top of the tunnels. Idris pulled his robes up higher to mask it. The world didn't like staying still. He had to keep moving. The exit inched closer as the water moved higher. Rigel moved closer, a comforting presence at his back as he stumbled. As they approached the exit, the world shifted from pitch dark to dim light, and the sea roared beyond.
The gate hung open.
A cold shiver went down Idris's back. He halted Rigel, pulling out his weapon. Unlike Rigel, it was a proper weapon. Idris trained for combat, one of a few allowed. Like himself, the axe paled in size to the things that the heathen wielded. A fraction of the size, but it would make someone bleed if needed.
The seawater numbed his feet from the cold. He stepped forward into the fresher air. A blade swung down; he blocked it. A demon beamed down at him, eyes hungry and face smeared with the blood of whoever else had the misfortune to cross his path.
A wave hit them both. Idris lost his footing, and the sea dragged him away from the tunnel. The brute followed, a battlecry ringing in Idris's ears as they fought. Metal sparked. The sea continued to wash over them as sand locked their ankles in place. The movement turned slow and bogged down. Neither could get enough power into their blows - the heathen's blows hit hard regardless.
Rigel yelled. Idris couldn't look. He blocked another attack. His knee crashed into the ground. Blood bloomed around him. Something hurt; the exact thing was a little confusing. He dodged a second attack. Something scratched against his chin. He punched upwards, using the butt of the axe. It collided with something.
More fighting, more dodging and everything blurred into an unholy mess. Eventually, they ended up bloody and continued fighting on the beach. It got harder. The better footing turned the heathen's attack stronger. Idris could dodge and weave around the and quicker.
The man grinned at him, blood dripping down his chin. His eyes were hungry. Idris forced himself not to react. No one had looked at him like that in a long time. His grip on the axe pulsed as he tried not to grip it too tightly. He stepped carefully as the water washed around them. He couldn't see much beyond the man. Looking away wasn't an opinion if he wanted to survive. The relic continued to weigh. Warmth spread over his chest as he panted. He wouldn't last much longer. The man knew it.
Some of his languages barked at him. Coaxing even as he dived forward for another attack. He went high. Idris went low. He tripped the man up, spinning out of the way of the blade.
They laughed.
Idris flinched back.
They jumped back to their feet, not bothering to pick up their weapon. He spat some blood to the side before saying something else. Idris kept his weapon, stepping back as the man walked forward with intent in his wake. His eyes were too wide, too wild. Idris's heart pounded in his ears - too loud.
Several things happened at once. The man leapt at him. Idris failed to keep his footing. The man kissed him. Idris bit his lip and rolled away. The man laughed again.
Heat bloomed in his chest and on his arm - horror equally unravelling as a sharp realisation slammed into him. The man's grinning face equally faltered as the same sensations rocked through him. His hand rested on his chest as his expression twisted into confusion. A loose thread tugged. The sound of bells deafened his ears, and words in a new tongue spread into his awareness as two fates entangled together.
If the grin on the man's face had been hungry, the look was now starving. Idris's knees shook as he forced himself back to his feet. He refused to look at it.
"Well, this is a rather amusing development," the man smirked, pushing himself back to standing with far more ease than Idris. "May I have your name, little mouse?"
A fond nickname that wasn't meant to be insulting, despite Idris's gut telling him otherwise. Two pieces of information battled in his head, the cultural knowledge it was supposed to be gentle and his own knowledge that warriors didn't give nicknames to be nice. He tested his footing. The sand was too loose. He'd fall if the man tried to leap at him again.
"We don't offer our names unless one is offered first," Idris took a step to the side.
The man mirrored it.
"Arnulf, Battlechief of the Ramheads." Arnulf pounded his chest in a brutish salute. Battlechief stood high on the hierarchy of the heathens, not quite a King but close enough. Certainly nothing as low as Idris's standing in life. What had the divine dragged him into this time? "Now, yours."
"Idris, Priest of the Awakened."
"Your Priesthood means nothing to me." Arnulf laughed as he launched himself at Idris. True to Idris's predictions, he found himself pinned under the man, arms trapped above his head as the man's face loomed over his. "We do not demand tenants from those who are soulbound."
"To make an oath is to agree to ignore it." Not entirely true - a soulbound between priests could be allowed. To leave the priesthood for a civilian would be punished with death, for the civilian to join the priesthood could be accepted. That was not this situation.
"I will do no such thing."
For a horrible moment, Idris thought another kiss would be forced on him. Instead, Arnulf took a dagger from his gauntlets and slashed them to pieced, revealing his arm and his new bound soul mark to the world. The mark Idris's soul left on the brute skin appeared as a halo with an axe in the centre. His mouth dried. The divine demanded its right even on souls that complimented his own. Bile threatened to rise. Arnulf looked at it, tracing it with a thumb. The shadows masked his expression at having a holy symbol now gracing his skin - a heathen symbol for Arnulf.
"I heard that the Priests of the Awakened felt it was wrong to have soul marks, that the gift the Gods grant us was a distraction."
"Fuck you," Idris growled through clenched teeth, twisting and writhing under him like an eel. In Arnulf's words, there was a challenge that Idris ddidn'thave the energy to fight.
"Ah, little mouse, you don't have the skills to rope me, but you'rewelcome to try," Arnulf purred, shifting how to pin him.
Heat burned on Idris's cheeks. That image locked in his mind. Arnulf's purr deepened, not missing the alarmed look in Idris's eyes. His eyes turned darker, and his beam widened. No words came to retort. Everything was too much. Thick thighs entombed his slimmer torso, hands locked his arms above his head. Heat overwhelmed him. His breathing burned, and the taste of blood filled the back of his throat with every inhale.
"Let's take a look, shall we?"
Idris flailed weakly, all strength drained. The water crashed near them, and the little light left burned orange with the destruction of his home. Arnulf traced up his arm before ripping the robes down to expose the flesh.
A broken chain, the black ink whipped around his wrist almost mimicked the object it represented. It crisscrossed over the scars of IIdris'sprevious soul mark, encasing a bouquet of flowers in a prison with the two broken links letting the blooms free. Fingers traced the mark, flowers and chain a lie. Arnulf pressed a kiss to the flowers, greyed out showing the linked pperson'sdeath, before kissing his own. IIdris'schest fluttered. Dangerous, too dangerous, the last time hhe'dbeen granted, a soul mark had destroyed him and left him in shreds. This promised worse.
"Mine and mine alone," Arnulf promised.
"I belong to no one."
Arnulf didn't deem that with an answer. He crossed Idris's arms to tie them together. A wave crashed over them. The weight on him disappeared. Arms reached for him, but the water dragged him away into the ocean. Idris didn't fight it.
The pull of the relic around his neck followed the pull of the water. Idris took that as a sign.
His name called into the night. He closed his eyes and trusted the divine as saltwater pulled him down. He didn't want this, any of this.