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  Prologue

  Devi's Dream

  In his dream, Devi was fucking Adiún, frantic and free, on the riverbank outside Keoded short days after his emancipation.

  Adiún's damp hair coiled around Devi's wrists, twined with his fingers. In Devi thrust, and in and in, with nothing more than spit and river water to ease the way. He knew he was hurting Adiún, and he knew Adiún wanted it.

  Heat fizzed up his spine and raced along every nerve until even his fingers and toes felt about to burst apart with orgasm. "With me, Adi-love," he whispered fiercely in the beloved ear. He hadn't been brave enough to use the endearment in the waking world, not since he'd been rescued from the slave camp. But in his dream, he was brave, not broken. He thrust again, courageously, wild with love and gratitude and the jagged shards of desperate regret and terror.

  It was too much. The hair around his wrists tightened, solidified until it wasn't Adiún's hair at all, but strong hands grinding the bones in his wrists together. His thrusts into Adiún's willing body became hopeless bids to free himself from a heavy, careless man with the face of any and all of the men who'd fucked him in the brothel. He'd never screamed in the brothel, hadn't fought once; the procurer had beaten it out of him. He'd never hurled invective or ridicule. But here, in his dream, he twisted and hollered and tried to kick. Hard hands held him down, and a hard prick sought, then won, entry.

  "No, no! Tides, please! I am not for you, not yours! Please!"

  He came awake still begging. Sauda's face above him was indistinguishable from the dark of the tent only by the brightness of her eyes. Adiún's arms were around him, not restraining him but catching him instead, easing him out of the nightmare with soft words and gentle caresses.

  "All right, love?" Adiún's voice, sleep-slurred and warm, murmured from under his ear, tempting him to relax back into their blankets instead of letting his panic send him crawling to Sauda. He wasn't alone anymore, and neither was she; they no longer needed to be each other's everything as they had been in the brothel or slave coffle. That truth, welcome as it was in daylight, was difficult to remember in the dark.

  He laid his head on Adiún's shoulder and succumbed to the petting of his shamefully short hair, which even after weeks of freedom reached only to his chin.

  Matti's gentle voice reached him as the light in the shelter began to grey into morning. "We have you," he said softly.

  Devi nodded, hoping the others could see him do it. He didn't trust his voice yet. Trusting anything but the nightmare took effort, no matter how much evidence of his new truth, his new friends, and his old love, presented itself.

  His world was a tidal sink, and he'd forgotten where the solid land lay.

  Chapter 1

  Hunting

  "The two of you are such brutes!" Devi knew he sounded pettish, but Adiún and Matti had their bows out and were comparing ways to kill different animals with such mannish glee he knew Sauda was only moments away from joining in. To his knowledge Sauda had never killed any animal but men, and he had no desire to hear her thoughts on the best and most decisive methods. Better to cut the discussion off at the knees and endure his friends' fond derision.

  The four of them -- Devi, Sauda, Adiún, and Matti -- had remained outside the delta city of Keoded after bidding a bitter farewell to Gydha and their norvander friends. More farewells had followed, as a few days later their remaining troupe companions, the siblings Kino and Joh and Mari, had outfitted themselves for a return to Dinas hoping to make a claim for Kino's lover, who was trapped in a brothel there. Devi didn't like their chances of getting the boy free of his brothel, but he kept quiet on the matter. Too often since his reunion with Adiún, he had brought dark words and anger. That knowledge held his tongue now. Matti and Adiún were going hunting, and Devi had a bad feeling.

  "We need food and goods to trade, if we are going to make a go of it in the city." Devi startled.

  Sauda's voice came as a surprise. She was the only person who could sneak up on him, so vigilant had he learned to be since leaving home.

  "I know," he sighed. "I just..."

  "Fret like an old woman," Sauda finished for him. But there was no rancor in her voice, only the rough affection he had come to rely on in the brothel and later as slaves awaiting transportation to parts distant and unknown.

  "They're being insufferable," he groused.

  "Tell them so, if that will help you let them go."

  "You're always so reasonable, tiba," Devi answered, using the name for each other Sauda had taught him from her mother tongue. It meant "dear one," and she was, though he still found her frightening sometimes.

  "Sure you won't come, Sauda?" Matti asked. "Your knife will be welcome."

  Sauda waved him off. "I don't hunt. I am war maiden. Would you like to know what that means?"

  The grin she flashed was almost feral, and Adiún stepped up quickly, shaking his head and smiling. "I can imagine." His face hardened to deadly seriousness. "Sauda, keep Devi safe. If we didn't need food..."

  Hackles up, Devi interrupted, "Tides, Adiún! I can protect myself, or did you forget I kept myself alive without you for months?"

  Adiún's nostrils flared. Devi knew that look from their lovemaking, but hadn't gotten used to seeing it in anger. "I could say the same to you, all right? Keep each other safe, will you?" And with that Adiún planted a hard, possessive kiss on Devi's lips. Devi savored the tingle as he watched Adiún plant a quick peck on Sauda's scarred cheek. Matti offered gentle, shy embraces, and they were gone into the tangle of brush that abutted the road, Kibi the half-grown pup lolloping in their wake.

  They had made camp far from the thronging migrants seeking entrance into Keoded night and day. Their intention was to stay a few days, hunt or forage enough to ensure their passage into the city, and take up temporary residence there.

  Since the disintegration of Gydha's performing troupe, Matti's divination cards had been infuriatingly cryptic in their advice about what to do next. Jürn the juggler had taught Matti the trick of the cards, and helped him make his own deck, but Matti fretted that there was much he had yet to learn. Devi well understood the feeling.

  Sauda tugged at his arm. "Come, tiba, there's no reason we can't make ready to storm the city while the boys are off playing in the woods."

  Devi chuckled, a rusty sound he was only just trying out again after months lacking mirth. He looked over his shoulder to where his lover had disappeared into the wilderness. Then he followed his friend, cautiously hopeful about what the day might bring.

  ***

  Kibi stiffened at Matti's side. Up ahead, Adiún had stopped in mid-stride and raised a hand, signaling Matti that he'd seen something.

  Matti craned his head to see what his friend was staring at. It was a sounder of wild pigs, their little striped piglets rooting contentedly in the beech mast.

  Matti's bow was up and Adiún was reaching for his when Kibi broke away and barreled toward the circle of adults and their offspring. He was barking shrilly and his ears were flying so that their pink insides showed with each bound. A silvery old sow grunted loudly, and the darker heads of the other sows came round. They charged, and Matti and Adiún each loosed arrows.

  They jumped out of the way of the flying wedge of angry females, by some instinct heading in opposite directions. The females scattered, and Matti lost sight of Kibi. He turned, nocking another arrow as he did. The females, evidently believing they had run off the challengers to their feeding ground, turned their attention to their brood of little ones. Kibi, having capered into their midst, was surrounded, and Matti heard him yelp.

  "Adiún!" Matti crouched near the two pigs they had felled, an arrow nocked and pulled tense.

  One was clearly dead but, as Adiún approached, the other rolled s
uddenly to her side and onto her narrow hooves, swinging her snout wildly as she did so. One curved tusk caught Matti in the meat of his thigh, and he sprawled back, his arrow skittering ineffectually into the brush. Adiún raised his bow and shot, sinking a second arrow deep into the sow's shoulder. She went down twitching. The sounder gruntingly herded their youngsters deeper into the beeches.

  "Matti! Are you all right?" Adiún ran to where Matti sat, spraddle-legged and panting, leaning up on braced arms.

  Matti shook his head and chuckled darkly. The pain wasn't too great for embarrassment to make a showing. "Stupid of me! Gast! To get close when she was still moving. Out of practice." He tipped his head back between his flexed shoulders, exhaling loudly upward. Adiún didn't say anything, but pulled his shirt up over his head, balling it up and pressing it hard against Matti's bleeding thigh. The wound was seeping, not pumping, and they both breathed a little easier.

  "Hold that," Adiún said, and loped off to find Kibi. The puppy was whimpering and trying to walk on three legs. He favored a forepaw but Matti could see even at a distance it wasn't broken.

  The toes were bloodied, probably trampled by a piggy hoof, and one ear had a ragged tear. But mostly the puppy looked as embarrassed as Matti felt. Adiún sighed and picked him up. "Not you, too," he grumbled. He helped Matti to the support of a leaf-lined bowl formed by two huge old beech roots. He set the puppy next to his friend, and set about cleaning their wounds.

  "In my pack," Matti said with a wave, "there's a packet of herbs." Adiún found it and handed it over. Matti rummaged around and found a greenish powder in a twist of waxed flaxen cloth.

  "Make a paste with water, then bandage us." He pulled out a second packet, more recognizable as leaves. "And we should have a tea of this. Our hurts won't slow us down too much. We'll need to dress out the kills anyway."

  Adiún nodded and, after careful bandaging of Kibi's two wounds and Matti's one with the cleanest parts of his shirt tail, set about making a small fire. Matti was grateful that his wound was shallow, though the gouge crossed both large muscles at the front of his thigh, and would be painful every time he moved. He admired his friend's economical movements as Adiún filled their clay cup with water and set it directly into the fire to heat. Cradling Kibi gently, he sat next to Matti. Matti, suddenly shy, busied himself by intently digging his fingers into the leaf mold around his seat.

  "Are you sure you're all right? Matti? Please look at me. There's no reason to be embarrassed, you know." Adiún laid his hand on Matti's uninjured leg. "I think you were very brave."

  Matti almost laughed at the note of concerned alarm in Adiún's voice, for his distraction wasn't due to shame, but to a discovery. His fingers curled around something in the damp leaves and stirred earth beside him. He pulled his hand out of the mess with a triumphant, "Ha!"

  He extended his open hand with a bright grin. "Truffles! Must be last winter's."

  He showed Adiún the three roundish black lumps, flaking and smelling muskily of earth. Adiún wrinkled his nose and shook his head. Matti laughed delightedly.

  "You eat them, ma keneil. This must be what the sows were digging for."

  Adiún shook his head again. "They look like turds."

  "But they taste like a lover's kiss." He looked up at Adiún and they both blushed. Neither expected it, so they blushed more deeply. Matti stretched his hand out to Adiún's bare shoulder, rubbing softly. "Thank you for looking after me."

  Adiún nodded and levered himself forward to check the tea, which was finally ready. They shared the cup, passing it back and forth, holding it wrapped in Adiún's bloodied shirt so they wouldn't burn their hands. Desire fizzed through Matti's blood. If he had not been mutilated -- first by the procurers into whose hands he had fallen, and now, thankfully temporarily, by the pig -- it would have been easier to know what to do. "Adiún..." he began, and then broke off.

  Matti turned carefully, keeping his leg as still as he could. He looked into Adiún's eyes and saw they were a warm, solid brown, like fertile earth. The sunlight fell on his sleek hair in its heavy club. It seemed his friend radiated warmth and comfort. Something of his impression must have shown in his eyes, for Adiún caressed his arm in long strokes, trailing his fingers over Matti's throat and hand. "We can want each other, Adiún, but perhaps it is better if we do not have each other, or not just yet. I have seen that Devi is jealous, and now there is Sauda."

  "And your Gydha is so recently gone." Adiún smiled ruefully, and Matti wondered why he didn't feel traitorous for having such feelings for his friend.

  Some bold spirit possessed him to say, "Perhaps we should not try so hard to talk ourselves out of loving each other." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss between Adiún's brows. Adiún tipped his head upward in a move he'd learned from Kibi, catching Matti's lips just as he was pulling back, flicking his tongue over them. Matti laughed softly and sat back. He ruffled the dark wisps of hair that had escaped Adiún's queue, tucking them behind his ears. "Can you drag those carcasses over here? I can help butcher them."

  "No, I'll hang them to drain. Then we can dig for more of your edible turds. The butchering can wait until you've rested a little." He eased Kibi closer to Matti and covered both of them with the shirt, grimacing a little at the smears of blood.

  Matti drifted in and out of a doze while he watched his friend work. With no rope, draining the carcasses was nasty, bloody work and required two greenwood tripods. Adiún was sweating and stank of the inside and outside of pig when he came to wash a bit and feed the fire. At least they would have fresh meat for their supper.

  Adiún brought over some chunks of haunch, rousing Matti without waking Kibi. The puppy's velvet muzzle draped over Matti's arm, which glistened with puppy drool. Matti extracted it gently and felt an almost painful surge of love for them both.

  He speared chunks of pork on greenwood sticks and set them over the fire, and then searched for more truffles while they roasted. He had built a small pyramid of them by the time Adiún returned with more meat.

  Matti drifted to sleep, wondering at the new accord between him and Adiún, wondering what it would mean to Devi.

  The sun was setting when Matti and Kibi woke and stretched, each wincing so similarly when their injuries asserted themselves that Adiún laughed at them. He gave them each dripping roasted pork to eat, breaking up Kibi's into little pieces, but not chewing it for him. The puppy had grown past the need for it.

  "I made this for you," Adiún said, passing over a stout branch he'd whittled into a crutch for his friend.

  Matti smiled, unaccountably touched by the gift. "I must have slept longer than I thought."

  Matti withdrew his deck of magical cards from his pack, stirred and dealt them in what had become his habit upon waking. They'd been so eager to begin the hunt that morning he hadn't taken the time. While Adiún ate, he watched.

  "That one's new," he said with his mouth full, pointing at a card with two figures in an embrace, surrounded by other, vaguer figures. Their stance was such that you couldn't tell if their embrace was part of a loving or part of a fight. Two chalices flanked them.

  "It's the last one," Matti said softy, not breaking his attention from the spread of cards before him. "Two of chalices: connection, attraction. Truce." He did look up then, directly into Adiún's eyes. Adiún stared back, and Matti was trapped in his gaze for long moments.

  When he didn't say anything, Matti continued. "It looks very modest, doesn't it, the connection of two people alone? But it's actually quite powerful, just like the acts of two can sway... everything."

  Adiún nodded. Matti understood he was still nervous of the cards, especially since the two Matti had made to signify himself and Devi had played an inarguable role in reconciling them. Or beginning to reconcile them, Matti amended. Whatever happened between him and Adiún, he felt strongly that Adiún and Devi were a destined pair.

  He decided he'd rather discuss something besides the cards and their portents.


  "I was thinking how difficult it will be to get the meat back to the road. Perhaps you should run and bring Devi and Sauda back."

  Adiún fluttered his dark eyelashes, unperturbed by the change of subject. "And leave you helpless here with valuable goods? Every bandit from here to Keoded will be making off with pieces of our pigs. Not to mention your honor." He looked Matti up and down with an exaggerated leer.

  Matti laughed, but sobered quickly. "We must get as much meat off the bone as possible, so there's less to carry. Then we should go together. We won't make it by dark, will we?"

  "I don't think so. But if we get started before dawn tomorrow, we should be able to make it back to the delta before sunset." It was a shame Kibi wasn't older and trained to guard, or run messages, or any number of tasks that would have eased their predicament.

  They divided the labor so that Adiún did the heavier work and brought sections of the carcasses to Matti, who carved the meat from the bones and made them into tight bundles tied with strips of Adiún's ruined shirt. These he lay on Adiún's blanket -- his own was thicker and they would need it for sleeping. When the butchering was done, Adiún stripped two long branches and lashed them to the blanket in a vee-shaped travois. Both were filthy and exhausted by the time the job was done, and Matti felt alarmingly shaky.

  They ate cold roast pork for their supper. While more healing tea brewed in Adiún's clay cup, Matti speared the truffles from the ashes, sliced the black tubers thinly and wrapped them around bite-sized chunks of meat. He ate with trance-like relish, even though the specimens were desiccated remnants of last winter's crop. Adiún tried it, too, but decided truffles must be an acquired taste.

  While Matti sipped his tea, Adiún changed the dressing of his wound, tidying the ragged tear in Matti's trousers and tying a second bandage around the outside of them to prevent more dirt getting in.

  "You are kind, you know," Matti said. Adiún sat back on his heels and looked at Matti expectantly. "It would have been easier to tend my wound with my trousers off."