Chapter 14
Damn his cub.
This raiding was fun.
They didn’t go every night, and they didn’t bring loot back into their own camp. Instead, on the nights they crossed to the Saxons, anything they made off with they brought back to the standing stone. Separated from the border camp by a few streams and a long ridge of land, the godstone gave them a place to be themselves and one sheltered from view, which allowed for a small fire. They could only get away while the northmen slept, but a few hours of his own sleep were a sacrifice Bedwyr was willing to make. On this night, he and Arthur sat on opposite sides of the campfire.
For now, anyway. They always ended their time on the same side.
From across the flames came the sound of Arthur’s whetstone, which sang—swick—down one edge of his sword. He followed it with a brush of cloth to clear any dust. “I think I’ve named my blade.”
Bedwyr, chewing on some indeterminate meat the Saxons had been curing over a low, smoky fire, looked up.
“Bitch’s Lament.”
Bedwyr stopped chewing.
Arthur lifted the blade. “You know, because it keeps Saxon dogs from coming home.”
Bedwyr stared at him a moment longer and then, because he couldn’t bite his tongue any harder, he snorted.
Arthur scowled through the flames. “What?” he hissed.
He looked so put out, Bedwyr laughed, then wheezed as he tried to keep it quiet.
“I don’t see what’s so amusing.”
“Why not Puppy Orphaner?”
“Arsehole,” Arthur grumbled. “I suppose you have a better idea?”
Bedwyr settled and wiped his eyes. He considered the blade. “I always thought it looked like clouds.”
“Clouds?” Arthur frowned at the gray metal. “What’s so intimidating about clouds?”
“A fair bit, if you’re camped under them. At their mercy.”
Arthur rocked the sword on his knees. Even from across the fire Bedwyr could see the ripples in the metal tumble, just like the clouds gathering overhead. They reminded him of a front rolling in. Arthur scraped the whetstone once more, slowly, then tested the blade’s sharpness. Watching his hands, Bedwyr was reminded of his cub’s grandfather, who had forged the blade. Arthur had grown up in his smithy, and the way he handled the thing… there was a certainty to his movements that never failed to stoke the fire in Bedwyr’s belly.
He looked up to find Arthur looking at him and realized he’d just said something.
“What?”
“I said, Storm’s Edge.”
“Storm’s Edge?”
Arthur held up his sword. “Because that’s what we are: only the beginning of the Saxons’ troubles.”
Gods, he loved his cub. “Is that so?”
Gripping the sword, Arthur rose and rounded the fire. He knelt between Bedwyr’s legs and lifted the blade to the tender skin of his throat.
The metal felt cool, but Arthur was heat. Backlit by the fire, his hair looked like flame made human. “I think you’re only the beginning of my troubles,” Bedwyr said.
Arthur’s teeth flashed. “What’ll you do about it?”
Bedwyr lunged and in the next moment had Arthur on his back, limbs splayed, sword thumping onto the dirt. Straddling his waist, Bedwyr bent low and spoke against his lips. “Chase the storm.”
Arthur surged up, and they tussled on the bare ground by the campfire. Eventually, they rolled to a stop in the wet grass at the base of the standing stone. Bedwyr still held the advantage. Arthur, prone beneath him, pushed his arse up into Bedwyr’s hard cock.
Sometimes Arthur asked with words. Many times, even after Bedwyr had begun, Arthur didn’t stop talking, gifting him a stream of pleas and commands, challenges and gratitude.
Often—as now—they didn’t speak. Didn’t need to as they moved with the same focus they shared on a battlefield, as if they owned between them one mind that held a singular thought. And so Bedwyr found himself above Arthur, both of them stripped to their knees, his blood-hard prick pressing slowly into the sweet, hot grip of Arthur’s body. Balanced on his hand, his short arm bracing Arthur’s haunch, he felt the tremors of his man’s body as he took Bedwyr inside him. Then his world was the crackling fire, the sight of Arthur’s harsh breaths rising to mist the night, the pressure of his striving up and back onto Bedwyr’s length.
This was life. And Arthur was right: winter was no reason to stop living.
When they’d spent and lay recovering, one atop the other, Bedwyr pulled Arthur’s fallen hair aside and nuzzled his ear.
“Storm’s Edge,” he said.
The broad shoulders beneath him stiffened. “What of it?”
“It’s a good name.”
Arthur rolled to face him. “You like it?”
Bedwyr growled, contented, and kissed him. “I do.”
They passed another half hour at the fire before extinguishing it to return to camp.
As they neared the edge of it, however, instead of Gwalchmai’s faint owl-call signal, they heard the low, urgent tones of an argument. They stopped in their tracks, but then a voice—not Gwalchmai’s—spoke.
“I know you’re there. Show yourselves.”
They stepped closer and Bedwyr was able to make out the face of Jorri, Agravain’s second.
“I’m sorry,” Gwalchmai began, but Bedwyr raised a hand to hush him.
“What do you want?” he asked the other man.
“I know you’re raiding,” said Jorri.
“We go to the standing stone,” Bedwyr said as evenly as he could. “It’s the only peace we can find to speak to our gods.”
“I know about your standing stone as well.”
Bedwyr’s own stones ached.
“I walked there today,” Jorri said, “and found this.” He held up a jug—one of the distinctive sort the Saxons carried their sour ale in. “Among other things.”
This man could tell Agravain, and it would be over. They would have to pass the rest of the winter as virtual prisoners of this camp, never out of his northern cousin’s sight. “You want the jug? Take it.”
“I don’t want the jug,” Jorri said. “I want to raid. And so do some of the others.”
Slowly, trying to stay calm, Bedwyr turned to Arthur, whose eyes met his, bright in the dark. Now would have been a very good time to be able to speak without words.
“We don’t go two nights in a row,” Arthur said. “And we won’t take more than three others at a time. Talk to your men. We raid next at the new moon. Meet us at the godstone.”
They did, that night, and then another, and another, until fully half of Agravain’s men were involved, three at a time. They were quiet about it, though, and the others didn’t catch on. Everyone cached their finds at the godstone, content to collect them before they left in the spring. And while the secret of the thing felt dangerous in camp, in the daylight…
…the nights were different, for Bedwyr was seeing Elain’s prediction of the previous autumn come to fruition far sooner than he’d thought possible: that men would be drawn to Arthur. The northmen seemed drawn in this way, and while Agravain was no great leader, this went beyond a group of men rebelling against their lord. Bedwyr had the sense they would have followed Arthur even if Agravain had been generous or cheerful or even only benign.
It made Bedwyr uneasy. It made him jealous, too, though he couldn’t justify that when he himself was a willing victim to Arthur’s charms. In only one short year, he’d come to a point where he would lay down his life for Arthur.
Night by night, under the cold star-bright sky, Arthur was continuing to come into his own, as surely as he’d done on the past summer’s campaigns, and Bedwyr felt fortunate to witness it. More than fortunate. Proud, fiercely so.
And winter had a bit of life left in it yet.
~ ~ ~
Arthur looked down at the top of Bedwyr’s head and swallowed hard. “What’re you going to get this time?”
Bed did that thing with his tongue, the thing that made Arthur have to bite his own or wake everyone in camp, and then released Arthur’s stone with a wet sound. “Don’t know. What’re you hoping for?” And then he was down again.
Arthur squeezed his eyes shut, opened them to distract himself with the stars, then shook his head. There was no escaping this, and why would he want to? “A dagger, I think. Dagger’s always—fuck…” He fought to catch his breath. “Useful.”
“Goddadagger,” Bed said around Arthur’s stone. Letting it go, he rose and licked into Arthur’s mouth. “One of your design, so…”
“So why look for better?”
Bed grinned at him. “Why indeed?”
“They’re going to be here soon.”
“Then you’d best come soon.”
He did, thanks to some artful work by his shieldmate. As Arthur lay sprawled in the tall grass afterward, panting and tingling, Bedwyr nipped his ear.
“You owe me.”
“I owe you.”
“No forgetting this time.”
Arthur sat up, grinning. “When you suck all my brains out, I’m not accountable.”
Bed gave him a soft wallop on his empty head. “You’re always accountable, fool. Especially when it involves your mouth on my cock.”
“What about my tongue in—”
He broke off at voices down the path. Sorting his breeches, he stood and started pacing about. “What kept you?” he asked when the men stepped around the godstone and into the low light of their glowing coals.
“Agravain.”
“What about him?”
“Testier than usual. Needs a good fuck, that’s all.” Jorri waved it aside. “He was snoring when we left. What’s the scheme?”
They’d developed quite the array of raiding schemes over the past weeks. At first, he and Bedwyr had been able to cross the space between the camps and still avoid the lookouts posted by the Saxons. With more men raiding now, though, they split into pairs to skirt the enemy camp. Not every pair returned with something every time, so splitting up usually ensured they got something from a foray into the Saxon camp.
They split again this night. Jorri took a man, Arthur another, and Bedwyr took Gwalchmai. Ranging wide, they set out to enter the Saxon camp on three different sides.
Arthur envied his raiding partner. He called himself Nurn, or something near that, and he was short. Being so close to the ground, he didn’t have to stoop as much as Arthur did. He didn’t speak Cymrish, and Arthur’s grasp of the northern tongue was still rudimentary, but they had worked out signals to communicate.
This night, they rounded the camp to dip into its northern edge. Dozens of men lay about, sleeping in huddled groups. Arthur and Nurn stilled for a long moment, listening, and then Nurn pointed to a tree. Hanging from a low branch was a roasted haunch of venison.
Arthur’s mouth watered. Food in their camp had been dire, even as patrol standards went. He’d been able to catch a few fish from the streams, but the sight and smell of the meat was a welcome one. He nodded, signaling for Nurn to hold, and then crept forward and cut loose the haunch.
They arrived back at the standing stone first and set the haunch on stones over the coals to warm it. Bed arrived next, and Gwalchmai raised a jug into the air with a wide grin.
“We’ll have a feast, then,” Arthur said, and Bedwyr smiled.
The start of their feast was delayed, however, by Jorri and his partner. The venison warmed through and began to sizzle, and the ale got nipped into more than was strictly fair, and the two northmen still hadn’t returned. They waited silently, listening for their footfalls and resisting the roasted meat.
Then they heard them, except that the sound was strange. Too loud and sustained for boots in grass.
“They’re dragging something,” Bed whispered.
When the men appeared in the ring of light, they were indeed dragging something—two of them. Heaving their burdens to the ground, Jorri walked straight to Arthur.
“They were pissing. We almost tripped over them. One of them had a dagger.” He held up his arm, revealing a long, narrow gash. “Not anymore.”
Arthur stared at the bodies. “They’re dead?”
Bed nudged one with a toe and looked at Arthur, his brow tight.
“Bit of a struggle,” Jorri said, “but yes.”
A growl sounded then, and Arthur thought it might be Nurn, but then he realized another man had stepped into the light.
Agravain scowled at the bodies and made a demand of Nurn. The man responded in their tongue, and Agravain looked around the low fire, his gaze snagging on Arthur and then Bedwyr. He barked something at Bed.
Gwalchmai stepped forward and began to speak. Agravain listened, his body coiling until Arthur was certain he was going to strike the lad. Swiftly, he stepped between them.
“It was me. I did it.”
“You killed them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They were near our camp.”
Agravain looked around. “This isn’t our camp. What is that?”
The venison. “We hunted.”
“And this?” He stepped past Arthur and lifted the ale jug. “This isn’t ours, nor yours. This is Saxon.”
Arthur glanced to Bedwyr, then said, “I’ve been raiding the Saxon camp.”
“We’ve been raiding it,” Bedwyr put in with a warning look at Arthur.
Agravain advanced on him. “You’re raiding the Saxons?”
Arthur stood his ground. “Yes.”
“And these two saw you?” He pointed to the dead men.
“Only Bedwyr and me.”
Agravain spun around and shot a question at Jorri, who hesitated briefly before answering with a tight jaw.
His leader turned back to Arthur. “What if more of them saw you?”
“They didn’t.”
“What if they had?”
Bedwyr stepped forward. “It was only these two.”
“Shut up, cousin. I’ll tell you what would have happened: you would have raised the entire Saxon camp against us, and we would have been unprepared.”
“You wouldn’t have fought anyway,” Bedwyr growled.
Agravain glared at him. “I would fight.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Lot ordered you not to.”
The northman’s fists shook. “Who told you that?” He scanned the assembled men, homing in on Gwalchmai. In two strides, he had the lad by the back of his shirt. He said something low to him, but Gwalchmai didn’t answer.
Agravain barked an order to his men. They glanced at Arthur and Bedwyr, hesitating, but then Nurn snagged the venison haunch and they turned for camp. When Agravain moved to follow them, Gwalchmai struggled. With a hard slap across the jaw, Agravain silenced him. He pointed to the dead bodies.
“I suggest you get rid of those.”
Arthur watched him go, Gwalchmai dragging from his fist.
When he was gone, Bedwyr said grimly, “No sense waiting.”
The ground was too hard to dig, and they didn’t have any sort of spade besides. In the end, they dragged the Saxons farther to the south. They traveled an hour before they dumped the bodies, then trudged the same hour and more back to their own camp.
When they arrived, it was empty.
The northmen were gone.