Chapter 9: Throats In The Pit…

Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Throats In The Pit...

The tribe packed the ledges and the ground-level circle, still thick with the leftover energy of the feast.

Drums beat a slower, heavier rhythm today less celebration, more judgment.

Three River warriors knelt in the center of the pit, hands bound behind their backs with rawhide, ankles hobbled.

Blue and white paint still clung in cracked patches to their skin.

One had a deep spear wound in the thigh that had been left to fester.

Another’s face was swollen from a club blow.

The third, the youngest, stared straight ahead with flat, defiant eyes.

Korr stood a few paces in front of them, axe in hand, chest bare except for the fresh bandage across his ribs.

The tribe’s eyes moved between him and the prisoners like a living thing.

Matron Vara sat on the high ledge with Elka and Gron, the finger-bone necklace resting between her breasts.

She had not needed to speak the order aloud.

Everyone already knew who would open the first throat.

Vara raised one hand.

The drums stopped.

"These three came with the canoes," she called, voice carrying clean across the stone.

"They lived when better men died.

The Tribunal offers them the pit’s mercy. Korr of the First Band will give it."

A low roar of approval rolled through the crowd.

Korr stepped to the first prisoner the one with the festering thigh.

The man tried to spit at his feet.

Korr grabbed a handful of the man’s hair, yanked the head back, and drew the flint edge across the throat in one clean, deep pull.

Blood sprayed hot across the sand and across Korr’s forearm.

The body jerked once and sagged.

The second man died the same way.

Quick. Efficient. No speech.

When Korr reached the third the young one with the defiant eyes he paused.

The prisoner lifted his chin.

"Your Matron’s cunt will not keep you alive forever," the River man said in heavily accented words.

"The water remembers. We will come again."

Korr’s expression did not change.

He opened the throat anyway.

The body fell beside the others.

Blood soaked into the packed earth in dark, spreading pools.

The tribe shouted Korr’s name until the stone walls threw it back.

Vara stood and nodded once, the public seal of approval.

Elka’s smile was thin and bright. Gron simply watched, as always.

The bodies were dragged away toward the fire pits.

The sand was left stained.

The message had been delivered.

Later, when the crowd thinned and the afternoon heat pressed down, Elka found Korr near the water skins at the edge of the arena.

She moved with the easy confidence of a woman who had killed as many as any man in the kingdom.

The red ochre streak still marked her cheekbone.

"You kill cleanly," she said.

"Almost as cleanly as you fuck, from what the night carried."

Korr rinsed the last of the blood from his hands and arms.

"Is there a point to this, Elka?"

"There is always a point."

She stepped closer, close enough that he could smell the oil on her skin sharper, more resinous than Vara’s berry scent.

"Vara holds you tightly.

She makes sure the tribe sees it.

But a Matron’s claim is only as strong as the man who accepts it.

Some men grow restless under one set of furs."

Her eyes dropped openly to his mouth, then lower. "I have furs of my own.

And I do not share power the same way she does. Think on it, gladiator.

The river will come again.

When it does, a man might want more than one strong hand at his back."

She turned and walked away before he could answer, hips rolling with deliberate invitation. Korr watched her go, gray eyes unreadable.

The offer was clear. So was the danger in it.

That night the Tribunal met in the deep council cave, away from the tribe’s eyes. Only the three rulers and Korr still marked as Vara’s claimed were present.

A single oil lamp burned, throwing long shadows across the painted walls.

Gron spoke first, unusual enough that both women looked at him.

"The River Tribe will not send canoes next time.

They will send knives in the dark, or poison in the water skins, or a larger force that does not announce itself.

Pride has been wounded twice.

Wounded pride becomes cunning."

Vara sat with one hand resting on Korr’s knee, possessive even here.

"Then we strengthen the eastern scouts and rotate the fighting bands more often.

Korr remains with the first line."

Elka leaned forward, firelight catching the sharp planes of her face.

"Korr remains wherever you put him, Matron.

The tribe already sings his name louder than some who have fought longer.

That song can be useful.

It can also become a problem if the singer forgets who first put the axe in his hand."

Vara’s fingers tightened on Korr’s knee.

"He has not forgotten.

Neither have I."

Gron’s cracked voice cut across the tension. "Enough. The boy is a weapon. Weapons are pointed, not argued over.

Point him at the river.

Keep the internal knives sheathed until the external ones are dealt with.

Or we will bleed from both sides at once."

Silence held for a long moment.

Then Vara inclined her head a fraction.

"As the elder says. For now."

The meeting ended.

Elka left first, brushing past Korr close enough that her shoulder touched his.

The contact lingered a heartbeat longer than necessary.

Gron followed, silent again.

Vara remained seated until they were gone.

She looked up at Korr.

"She offered herself to you."

It was not a question.

"She did."

"And?"

"I am still in your furs."

Something fierce and pleased moved through Vara’s eyes.

She stood, stepped into him, and kissed him hard enough to taste blood where her teeth caught his lip.

When she pulled back, her voice was low and rough.

"Come. I want the smell of the pit still on your skin when I take you."

They returned to her chamber.

This time she pushed him down onto the furs and straddled his face first, grinding against his mouth until she came with a sharp, shaking cry, thighs locked around his head.

Only then did she sink onto his cock and ride him with the same fierce possession she showed the tribe hands braced on his chest, hips rolling, the bone necklace swinging between them.

"You are mine," she panted.

"Say it while you fill me."

"Yours," Korr growled, thrusting up hard, the wound in his side pulling but ignored.

He came deep inside her moments after she clenched around him again, the two of them locked together in the firelight while the kingdom outside settled into uneasy sleep.

Afterward Vara lay against him, fingers tracing the edge of the bandage.

"Elka will not stop," she said quietly.

"Gron is right about the river.

The next blood may not wait for the pit or the open crossing.

Stay sharp, Korr.

I have grown used to the weight of you in these furs. I do not intend to lose it."