Chapter 12: Lust: Ashes By The Water(18+)

Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Lust: Ashes By The Water(18+)

Night settled over the ruined River camp like a heavy hide.

Fires that had belonged to the enemy now burned under Tribunal control.

The surviving River people women, children, and the few wounded men who had thrown down their weapons huddled under guard near the water’s edge.

The dead lay where they had fallen, waiting for morning and the fire pits.

Korr sat on a flat stone near one of the larger fires, the new cut on his side cleaned and packed with moss.

The bandage was already dark in places. He ate slowly from a share of roasted meat, axe resting across his knees.

Around him the first band spoke in low voices, counting their own dead and the trophies taken.

Vara moved through the camp with the calm authority of a woman who had just expanded her territory by force.

She stopped beside Korr, looked down at the bandage, and then at his face.

"You will still be able to run tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Good. We leave at first light.

The captives who swear will come with us. The rest feed the fires.

I will not leave a seed of this war band behind to grow again."

She rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment public, possessive then continued on to speak with the guards watching the prisoners.

Elka appeared out of the smoke a short time later.

She carried a waterskin and a strip of dried meat.

She tossed the meat to Korr and sat on the stone opposite him without invitation.

"You fight like a man who intends to keep living," she said.

"That is rarer than it should be."

Korr tore off a piece of the meat.

"Is this another offer, Elka?"

"It is an observation."

She drank from the skin, then held it out. When he took it their fingers brushed.

"Vara has made you the face of this victory. The tribe will sing your name louder than ever when we return.

Songs are useful.

They are also heavy.

Some men break under the weight.

Some learn to carry it differently."

She leaned forward slightly, voice dropping. "I do not want your cock tonight, gladiator.

I want you to remember that when the cheering fades and the real counting of cost begins, there will be more than one set of hands willing to steady you.

Think on that while you sleep under her claim."

She rose and walked away before he could answer, disappearing between the fires.

Later, when the camp had quieted and the watches were set, Vara came for him.

She led him away from the main fires to a low shelter of hides that had once belonged to a River family. Inside, the air still smelled of strangers.

She closed the flap and turned.

"Elka spoke to you again."

"Yes."

"And still you are here."

"Yes."

Vara’s mouth curved, fierce and satisfied. She pushed him down onto the borrowed furs, careful of the wound in his side, and straddled his hips.

She freed him from the loincloth, guided him into her, and sank down with a slow, deliberate breath.

The heat of her closed around him.

She began to move, rolling her hips in deep, controlled strokes, hands braced on his chest.

"This is what the river could not take," she murmured.

"This is what the night knives could not cut. Remember it."

Korr’s hands settled on her waist, then slid up to cup the heavy weight of her breasts. He met her rhythm from below, the pull of the wound a distant burn beneath the sharper pleasure.

Outside, the river murmured and the guards paced.

Inside the shelter the only sounds were the soft wet joining of their bodies and the low, rough sounds Vara made as she took what she wanted.

She came first, thighs tightening, a sharp cry bitten off against his shoulder.

The clench of her pulled him after her.

He spilled deep while she kept moving through it, milking every pulse, the bone necklace clicking softly between them.

Afterward she stayed seated on him, forehead resting against his, breathing slowing together.

"Tomorrow we return," she said.

"The tribe will see the captives and the trophies and the man who walked out of another River bloodletting still standing.

Elka will watch. Gron will watch.

The songs will grow louder.

And somewhere in the dark the next knife is already being sharpened whether it comes from the water or from inside our own caves."

Korr’s hand stroked slowly down the curve of her back.

"Then we meet it the same way we met this one."

She lifted her head and looked at him for a long moment.

Something almost like real warmth moved behind the Matron’s usual calculation.

"Yes," she said. "We do."

She finally lifted off him and settled against his uninjured side.

They slept in short stretches, waking to the changing of the watch and the distant cry of a night bird.

Before true dawn Vara rose, dressed, and left to begin the work of the morning.

The return march began under a pale sky. The captives who had sworn were bound in a line and driven ahead.

The rest were left for the fire.

Tribunal fighters carried what trophies they wanted spears, clubs, necklaces of fish teeth and bone.

The wounded leaned on stronger men.

Korr walked near the front of the first band, side throbbing, axe in hand, the taste of the previous night still on his tongue.

Elka’s band took the rear, watching for any River survivors who might try to shadow them.

Twice she drifted close enough to Korr’s group that their eyes met across the moving column.

Each time she gave him the same thin, knowing smile.

By the time the caves of the Tribunal Kingdom came into view the sun was low again.

The tribe poured out to meet them with drums and shouts.

Children ran alongside the column.

Women ululated.

The sight of the captives and the blood-stained fighters sent a fresh wave of noise through the valley.

Vara climbed the arena ledge and raised her arms. When silence fell she spoke.

"The River war band is broken.

Their camp is ash.

Those who swore now walk under Tribunal law. Those who refused feed the crows.

The eastern grounds remain ours.

The man who led the first band into their fires still stands among us."

She looked down at Korr.

The entire tribe followed her gaze.

"Let the songs remember that."

The roar that answered shook dust from the high stone.

That night the caves filled with the sounds of a second, harder victory feast.

Meat roasted. Fermented drink flowed. Couples claimed each other near the fires with less restraint than before.

The presence of the new captives some of them young River women with painted faces and wary eyes added another layer of tension and hunger to the air.

Vara kept Korr close on the platform.

Her hand rested on his thigh in open possession.

Elka watched from her seat with the patience of a woman who knew how to wait. Gron said little, but his eyes moved constantly, measuring the mood of the tribe and the growing weight of the gladiator’s name.

When the feast was at its peak Vara leaned close to Korr’s ear.

"Come. I want the smell of the river still on you when I take my victory again."