We were approaching another forest, and the line was condensing to move along the narrower track. I leaned over and took his reins once more, easing him to a halt. When the last wagon passed us, I took him deeper into the concealment of the trees. I dismounted and led his horse toward a small stream, which was icy at the edges. He slid off and let his animal drink, as Xavier was doing, then took my face in his hands and inspected it. “Why is it still so bruised, Niko?”
“Because they hit me very hard.” I pulled him into my arms. “I’ve missed you.”
He smelled of horse and stale, unwashed uniform, and I had never smelled anything so good. I breathed him deeply. He was kissing my neck, where he could find skin that did not hurt me to be touched.Hisface had no damage, and so I took my fill of it: my lips on his eyes and cheeks and across the freckles on his nose. Our passion rose between us. I glanced around and pushed him back to a tree, grinding against him as we kissed. He closed his eyes. “Stop. I cannot afford to… My uniform….”
I separated our bodies, then whispered in his ear, “Good seed should be scattered upon the ground. Does not your Bible tell you so?”
He hissed at the blasphemy but did not object when I unlaced him and exposed his swollen member to the cold daylight. My mouth watered with need to taste him, but it was too dangerous. I worked him, gripping him tightly as I knew he would like. He groaned, pushing into my hand more. I returned my lips to his ear, nuzzling it, whispering things I suspect he had not heard before, for I felt his cock twitch higher and stiffen more. He was getting close. I moved my lips to his soft ones, and he opened his mouth to greet my tongue. As we touched there, he completed, crying out and staggering, his pent-up release sent high and long to fall as loud splashes upon the frozen leaves. I held him up, running my free hand through his hair, my other bringing him down gently. I was shocked to discover that he fell asleep standing up in my arms. I shook him gently awake and tucked him away. He slapped himself, angry that he was so tired.
His hand went to me, but I held him off. “Later. I wanted only to give you a moment’s pleasure away from the war. I can wait.”
“Thiswouldgive me pleasure.”
“Good. I will hold you to that, but we must go, or suspicions will be roused.”
He nodded reluctantly, and I was very glad that we acted as we did. As we were mounting the horses, one of the little runners found us with a message from the front of the line.
I had achieved what I wanted, though. Aleksey was relieved and happier, and when he returned to the front of the column, I saw him beckon to one of the captains.
He delegated.
CHAPTER 21
IDOnot know what is worse in battle, the fear that you are going to be killed or the fear that you are not.
As we thundered down off the ridgeline in perfect formation, pristine and gleaming in the sunshine, there was no fear at all. I was swollen with pride at being there in that fleeting moment of perfect glory.
As we engaged the enemy, I did not want to die. I was immortal, a god, with death my prerogative to unleash upon others.
As we entangled, however, and became ragged, mired in mud, with sight obscured in sweat-stung eyes, deafened by the screaming and shouting, I prayed death would come quickly if it did. I saw trampled men suffocate when they could not rise from the sucking mud. I saw horses with their eyes pierced and blinded, stumbling to find respite that would not come for them. I watched men hack at other men and inflict such injuries as would maim for life—teeth smashed, jaws detached, knees and elbows mashed to pulp.
I knew I would rather die than live a broken shadow of what I was.
The gunpowder failed to ignite. The captain charged with this critical task was never found. I do not think he quailed in the face of massed cavalry charging down upon him. Gunpowder had not lit for me once, and I believed him to be one of the trampled we found later. It was impossible to tell. No features remain upon a man who has been trampled by warhorses.
There was such momentum upon the ridgeline, such pent-up energy, that we charged anyway, pursuing the enemy as they approached our phantom lines. To our eyes the ruse looked so obvious that we were amazed they did not suspect it, but weknew—we saw only little boys, their arms barely poking from their sleeves, old men whose courage was not matched by their strength.
And the enemy then did see our army for what it was and knew they had been tricked, and they tried to turn, and then I saw them know their doom. A thousand warhorses descending upon them and they could not even turn their horses in time to face us. They created their own chaos, and we partook of it greedily.
Only the rear of their line met us face to face. The rest we ploughed into and took men down with pikes and swords to backs as they tried desperately to find room to turn, their horses sagging back onto collapsing legs and staggering, throwing riders who were swiftly trampled into the blood-soaked mud.
All battlefields turn to mud. Once the mud arrives to take its part in the destruction, a battleground is a very different place. No glory or honor in mud. No fine uniforms then. Mud turned the battlevisceralas I wheeled my exhausted horse, hooves mired then sucking free, hacking at face or neck.
I caused hearts to quail long before I raised my sword. I had painted my face, a fearful handprint of black across my broken features, and on my naked chest I had drawn ribs flared in red and white, as if my body were already split and spread—these sacrileges a challenge, a ward, a thing to quail even the bravest heart.
Hacking, stabbing, trampling, I lost sight of Aleksey in the first engagement. I trusted him to his God and concentrated on sending other men to theirs.
If I could bottle what comes over a man in battle and use it on people under my doctor’s knife, I would be a very rich man.
I didn’t feel the lance that pierced my side, although I watched as the blood-tinged point entered my naked flesh. I felt more the strain of muscle as I hacked off the arm that held the lance, my sword now bone-blunt so I had to chop and chop and scream with frustration until I was hoarse.
I didn’t feel the sword that tried to do the same to me—aiming to take my arm but slicing through my thigh. I saw a vast and instant well of blood but felt no pain and put the point of my sword through the throat of the man who had wounded me. He hung, wide-eyed and terrified and dying, inches from my face, but all I wanted was to disengage my sword so I could kill again, and again, and again.
There is no glory to be had in turning a man to mud.
I did not even feel the cold, despite my half-naked state. I heard the screams and cries as I had once heard gulls on a ride to the coast with Aleksey: as vague, unheeded accompaniment to the activity of killing.
The killing went on for a very long time.
