Banner by Girlpire

Seget

By Inca

The Union

The Great War had been fought for years, in towns and cities over the entire country. The Union Regiment had been created in Alla City, one of the largest coastal cities, a fat greedy docking metropolis that had been thriving on crime and luxury under rule of Governor Nest. The Union was an army. It employed the men of Alla City, from the smartest businessmen, to the lowest delinquents and it paid them well. Nearly everyone in Alla City had joined at its
inception.

The regiment had taken the cities closest to Alla and then the smaller towns in between, it had recruited more men for the cause and it had spread. Sacking cities from coast to coast, offering the resident’s recruitment or death, the Union Regiment was a fire. Nest grew more powerful, and the Regiment marched on.

The first wave of opposition came from the higher cities, furthest away from Alla City, up in the mountains. They gathered their own troops from the mountain villages, and made a stand. The Union was fought back in the battle, but soon it conquered, wounded but living strong.

The second wave was stronger than the first, lower down, below Alla City, in the cold climates of the Unchartered. It was said that the Regiment had been driven back and had suffered a loss so great they hadn’t tried to take the Unchartered lands again.

But the Union lived on, spreading its reign across the country.

*

The morning sun was rising behind the forest that surrounded most of the small mountain township of Seget, bright rays of yellow light seeping through the thick foliage to lighten yet another day in a countless string of days. It rose and lit the world, oblivious to the hardships of its peoples, or what was happening on the green surface, it rose and sank every day and would continue to do so until the end of time.

Liam sat barefoot on the thick wooden fence he and his father had built almost twelve years before, and swept the water stone along the ugly length of heavy steel that rested across his thighs. Seget was his home. It was his home before he had memories, he grew up in the forests that bound it and he had lived in the villagers homes just as the other towns children had always come to his own. Everyone knew everybody else. It was a family, more than a town. No last names. Not big enough for last names. No need for them in Seget.

He loved it. He was a much a part of Seget as the many fields, the mountains or the River Menna that ran through the middle of the land, ending in a humble lake at the foot of the highlands. The heavy wooden bridge lead the way to town, it had been rebuilt by the townsfolk when Liam was twelve years, he’d watched them labour for days, horses pulling the weight of the larger logs that tied together over River Menna to create a way in. Not that foreigners often came to Seget. It was owned and run by the villagers. But sometimes new people settled, come from the larger cities for safety in the mountains. More lately.

He could smell the dew in the forest from where he perched, the damp bark and pine needles filled his nose familiarly as he watched his sheep in his paddocks, little puffs of white already up and meandering along in the enclosures. They baaed minutely and Liam smiled, comforted by them, watching them with the same adoring eye that he’d always watched them, since they became his own. He knew them, knew where they would be when he had to go searching for them in the bigger outer paddocks and he knew they’d be ambling about in their quiet slow way, thinking of nothing but grass and food and sleep.

Normally it comforted him in the face of anything but today Liam itched. He’d worn the same sort of simple cotton pants for years now, but today they scratched him like they were filled with nettle barbs. The long rough cotton tunic over top made him sweat in the early morning briskness. He wasn’t a fighter.

His troubled thoughts were interrupted by the soft quick padding of small feet across wet crunchy grass and he sighed, resigned to the conversation he knew was about to happen. He slipped off the fence, his pants catching a little on the weather worn wood and faced the girl running up behind him.

His sister pulled up short when she saw him turn, her coltish fawn legs poking from the knee length hem of her dyed blue shapeless tunic. Her hair was not done, messy and fluffy, awry from bed. She’d just woken, she had sleep in her eyes but they were bright anyway. He guessed she had heard him sharpening the sword.

“Don and Mara are gone,” Kat said, naming their closest neighbours, watching him closely with hard eyes, “They left during the night, I know, because they’re paddocks are open. To let the horses run free.”

Liam closed his eyes. Seget was a part of him, but Don and Mara had simply come for shelter. They hadn’t breathed Seget every day of their lives, or drunk and eaten it since they were born. It was a shelter, and shelters could be abandoned.

His silence set her ablaze. “You knew?” She cried indignantly.

“I had a feeling that they might,” Liam answered.

“Why are we staying?!” Kat cried, running up to the fence between them and looking at him with big hurt dark eyes. “We should go!”

“You aren’t staying,” Liam said firmly.

Her dark eyes narrowed. “If you’re staying, I am.”

“Kat-“

“No!” She said, stomping her bare foot against the dewed grass, “Liam!”

“I have to do what I think is right,” he said gently.

Kat’s face screwed up in anger. “Mother and Father went to do the right thing, and they never came back,” her face softened as soon as she said it. “Are you going to disappear too? And leave me only a sword to remember you by?”

Liam averted his eyes, looking down at the sword resting strangely in his hand. His father’s sword. Years ago their parents had travelled down to Palso City, to fight in the first wave of the Union interference. Palso City had been swamped easily, and his father’s sword was all that had returned to Seget. His father had believed in standing up to the Union Regiment, he’d died trying to protect them fully from it. But Seget hadn’t been taken in the first wave. Or the second. Seget was a tiny mountain town of no use to anybody. They thought they’d been safe. But the Union was greedy. They wanted it all and now they were planning to take it.

Liam didn’t answer his sister’s question, couldn’t give voice to the lie she wanted him to say to keep her innocent in the darkest times she’d ever seen. He pressed his lips together and she cried out, tears springing to her eyes as she leapt over the fence, balling her sixteen year old fists up and slamming them uselessly against his chest, over and over, cursing him with words he hadn’t known she’d learnt, screaming and crying against him until he could smell the salt on her cheeks. Her loud shouts disturbed their sheep, making them baa in wary confusion at the noise and wander over the large paddock to find a quieter eating place.

“Don’t…” She cried brokenly, clasping her hands around him, “please! I know what the Union does to people who… please don’t.”

“Seget is my home.”

“It’s my home too,” she cried, rearing back to stare into his eyes, “I understand why you want to stand.”

“I can’t let them take it. Not without a sound.”

“You’re stupid!” she spat, tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping off her pointed chin, “They’ll … they’ll…”

“I have to stand against them,” he said, in the same gentle tone he’d said everything else.

Kat flew at him again, her fingers in claws that scraped at anything they could reach as they dragged him into her sobbing arms. Her fingers curled into his loose shoulder length hair, tightly and tugging, hurting his scalp like she almost wanted to inflict pain on him as she cried against his chest, wetting the cotton with her tears. He held on as the storm of emotions battered through her.

She whimpered cries against his chest, the wailing wrecking her body was more passionate and painful than any tears she’d shed since he’d set her on his lap as a little girl and explained to her their parents weren’t returning. He knew how to handle her. He’d practically raised her. Kat was a tempest, her emotions ruled her; they batted her to and fro like pollen on the breeze and he could only hold her until the emotion passed.

Quick heavy footsteps across the grass behind them both made Liam raise his head in a frown. There shouldn’t be any callers today. Everyone in town should be locked away, preparing, saying goodbye to children. They shouldn’t be here.

He turned around to see Miko and Sar, vegetable farmers from the next cottage beyond Don and Mara’s, riding up beside his and Kat’s small home on their horses. His stomach turned to cold frigid lake water as he realised they were dressed in their leather armours. He looked at Miko; her long dark hair hung down around her pale face as she stared wide eyed at him from behind her husband’s shoulder. Her dark unseeing eyes bored into him and left imprints behind his eyelids.

He knew what Sar would say before he even opened his mouth. He imagined he could hear the sound of a hundred horses hoof beats marching in time. The trees whispered it to him.

“They’re here,” Sar said, his usually happy face leaked of all it’s emotion.

Liam shook his head furiously as Kat started shivering with fear next to him, her hand clawing around his waist to hold him tighter. “No! No, they were heading to Vara Town first!” he said, vainly trying to make it true, “We heard that only three days ago!”

Sar looked back at him, resignation on his face. “Everyone is meeting in the village square. Now.”

Miko slapped her horse’s haunches and rode out onto the dirt road that connected the left side of the town to the inner centre. Liam watched them go, blankly for a second, before resting a hand on the rough fence he remembered building and leaping over it.

“Liam!” Kat cried.

“Open the paddocks, Kat, let the sheep out!” he ordered, running back to the small cottage as Kat nodded fearfully and run down the hill, her hair flowing insanely behind her.

He slammed into the hut, ducking down under the bundled stick roof, his bare feet heavy on the hard packed earth floor. He grabbed his leather armours off the small eating table, tying the strings up with shock clumsy fingers, around his biceps and thighs and chest, feeling the still damp wetness of Kat’s tears on his skin. He quickly tied his hair, itching all over now, as he slammed his feet into his thick sandals. With one last look at the house he took his sword in hand and ran out the back again, seeing Kat running up the hill in front of him and awkwardly stepping over the fence, the open paddocks behind her.

He knew he wouldn’t be coming back today, not without a miracle. He didn’t want his sheep dying, not after he’d cared for them for so many years, didn’t want them trapped and waiting for him to tend and feed them. Now they’d find their own way out for food, when they needed it. They grazed, little white puffs on his fields. He spared them a glance as he grabbed Kat’s hand and pulled her around the front of the house.

He picked her thin body up and pushed her onto her horse, Milly before slipping up on top of Hoof, the dark confection he’d bought from Mara only a year ago. They rode away from their home at the edge of Seget and along the dusty dirt road that served the farms, galloping past Don’s and Miko’s cottages, dead and empty as they sat skeletal on the side of the trail. There was no life in them now, they were ghostly. Kat’s tears dried on her cheeks in the cool morning breeze.
They galloped as the cottages started to draw closer together, the plots of land getting smaller as they got closer to the village centre. Finally they arrived, the entire town turned out and waiting uncertainly clumped around the old town well that marked the beginnings of Seget. The inn was closed up tight and the few bartering stores were empty and unlit.

Del, an old friend of Liam’s, turned to see him dismounting Hoof and smiled weakly. “You decided to come?”

A few people around Del twittered with nervous laughter. “Last one here,” Liam said with a tense lipped smile, grabbing Del in a quick embrace before being startled by the sudden booming voice of Bem, the holy man.

“We are all here!” he cried, standing up on the side of the well. “We stand together to protect our right to live and our right of choice! We will triumph this day, with the mountains to watch over us, because we are the heart of Seget, and we have righteousness on our side!”

Liam swallowed, ignoring the preacher’s words of false comfort to those that needed to hear them. He searched the crowd, looking for his last salvation and grinned widely when he saw her, edging through the crowd with her pregnant belly.

Cordy, his oldest friend, friends before there was a mental idea of friendship, hurried up to him in the peculiar waddling way she had begun to use with her body being so ready for her baby. She hugged him awkwardly around her tummy, holding him tightly around his waist and the back of his head. “Make your stand, Liam, then run. There’s no shame in running, okay?” She pulled away, eyes watering as she took Kat’s hand. “Meet us in Southbrook,” she smiled tensely, “you meet us there, alright?”

He kissed her cheek without answering and then bent to hug Kat as tightly as he could, whispering frenzied ‘I love you’s and ‘take care’s and every little shred of wisdom he’d tried to pick up during his years so he could pass them to her in a few moments. Cordy took her away, her lips trembling with emotion as her husband, Doyle, helped her up onto her horse. Kat jumped up on Milly, looking back at him with her face set and hard as Cordy led her and the children of Seget away, heading towards the mountains, taking the hidden back way out through a tiny cut in the woods. Liam watched them leave, kept his eyes glued unblinking to Kat and Cordy until they disappeared round the side of some cottages before he turned back, his body resigned and fearful of what was to come.

There was silence for a time, as they all stood gathered around the heart of the town, fidgeting, rocking on their heels as they waited for them. A deathly hush fell over the simple people as they heard a military horn not too far away. Then the sound of them. The sound of a hundred horses, and hundreds of feet, marching in time, clanking in rhythm, all part of one big terrifying mass of Union. Liam swallowed as the sound grew louder.

Townspeople activated, spreading out a little, not too much, only enough to let everyone’s axe or sword able to make a play. They stayed huddled together though. They couldn’t be more than a breath away from each other. He realised with delay that he was standing between Del and Miko. Del fidgeted as he waited, swinging his axe nervously from hand to hand, his face taut as it seemed everything connected to him stayed in constant movement. His skin seemed to be wriggling in his nervous waiting. Miko was still by contrast, apart from her fluttering eyelashes. Her long dark hair didn’t even move, stayed dispirited, hanging in hunks by her cheeks. She looked fearful, almost deathly fearful, her face white and her lips tense. He didn’t recognise her at first, she looked so different. It wasn’t Miko, not the Miko he knew, who had grown up from him two cottages over.

His brain suddenly pushed forward a memory, an old one, of he and Miko running around his father’s property when they were younger, when Kat was only a baby in a cradle. They’d been giggling about something, and she was resting her head against the fence, and when she’d gone to stand up, she’d cried out as her long dark hair became caught around the splintery nailed fence post. With a few tugs and some screeching from Miko, Liam had managed to pull her free, but he’d seen a hunk of that dark straight hair wound around the broken old fence, swaying in the breeze, as Miko had pouted and rubbed the back of her head.

She looked at him and he managed a smile, but she couldn’t even bring herself back for that, so distant and gone from her body that her eyelashes just fluttered nervously, frown deep in her forehead as she turned back to the entry to town.

The sound grew louder. Thump thump thump of metal feet, clip clop of hoofs all in a mangled rush of noise that violated Seget in its morning peace. And then suddenly, a row of silver suddenly shone above the hill into town and he heard a frightened whispered murmur run through his family in a gallop. Soldiers. Dressed head to toe in thick silver plates of armour that shone the glare of the bright sun back into their eyes like bright daggers. It made them squint as more and more soldiers appeared over the rise, flowing down in a metal river. The horses came, the men atop flying the flags of the Union high above their heads. Men’s voices carried on the breeze, laughter and joking as they marched towards the townspeople making their final stand.

Liam’s throat was dry. When he swallowed, the flesh inside caught against flesh, dry and scratchy and his tongue was stuck to the sides of his teeth.

Still more soldiers poured into the green lands of Seget, their silver bodies at odds with the quiet trees and grass. Their helmets were pointed over their mouths, and some of the marching men held up steel shields embedded with sharp looking metal spikes that jagged out from the surface. The men walked in formation and the absolute precision of it chilled Liam’s bones. Silver and swords and intimidating, they calmly marched towards them.

The Union suddenly halted, almost mid step, and it stopped all at once somehow, everything ceasing, the chatter and the footsteps and even the horses. They all obeyed the small signal Liam had missed and stopped only a few yards away.

A steel-armoured man on horseback rode forward from the line and halted halfway between Seget and the Union.

“People of Seget!” he cried through the silver beak of his helmet in his gruff Union accent, “Governor Nest, Lord of Union and the Union Regiment, has claimed this land as his own.”

This set up a quiet murmur from the braver townspeople.

“He invites you to live under Union law, and become one of the populace,” the man yelled into the still morning. “Do you accept?”

Del fidgeted beside Liam with barely contained rage. He twirled his axe in his rough hands.

“Never,” breathed Liam.

His mumble was taken by Del and passed along the line of Seget until one man, maybe Bem, yelled it out accusingly at the soldiers standing ready.

“If you do not accept the brotherhood offered by the Union Regiment, then you will be identified by Governor Nest as opposition and will be treated as such.”

Sar’s voice and words carried loudly in the quiet town, his voice an embodiment of the beliefs of Liam’s family, the reason they all stood opposing an army more than tripling their size: “Fuck Nest and fuck all of you!”

“Yeah!” Cried a woman’s voice behind Liam’s left somewhere.

Silence battered them for a moment, and Liam held his breath.

“So be it,” the announcing man said, almost bored.

It all happened so instantly that Liam was already a few steps behind. The Union soldiers caught another hidden cue and suddenly roared out, a noise so loud and deafening it paused the people of Seget for an instant, before they cried their own battle cry loudly into the sky and ran forward. Liam was swept up and he ran with them. He was crossing the empty grassy space between them and the soldiers and suddenly, he was there, his sword outstretched.

He slammed away the sword of the silver man in front of him and easily slipped his sword up his covered chest and under the pointed garish helmet, slamming the blade under the faceless man’s chin. Blood poured down and it shocked Liam still for an instant, the way it flowed so freely down his armoured chest, almost like it wanted to leave the man dead and hanging on the end of Liam’s sword, like it wanted to escape. Liam pushed him away, horrified by what he’d done, staring in wonder at the sword in his hand, what it could do, before he had to push aside his careening thoughts and stop a Union sword from slicing him in two. He was caught in swordplay for a moment with a new man, as Del whirled his axe beside him in a roar, slashing and matching the man’s thrusts. Liam was better than the soldier gave him credit for, and he caught him on the back of the neck, slicing him through, moving on to the next as his sword dripped red. He was jostled forward and suddenly in a new match with a different soldier, all alike, all trained the same way, all faceless and nameless and insanely symmetrical. He grabbed the beak of the man’s helmet, dotted with holes so the men could see through, and wrenched it aside, pulling the man off balance and baring his neck for the quick slice of Liam’s blade, his father’s teachings of defence a deep part of him, so simply he took to war and fighting.

He took another soldier down, turning just in time to catch the one about to slice his back and meeting his sword with a reverberating clang. He slipped his sword underneath the plated armour, sliding his blade into the softness beneath. A man on horseback suddenly appeared next to him and he cut at his knees, drawing him off the horse and pulling his helmet back to bare his throat. His knuckles were wet with blood now, but he couldn’t think about it, couldn’t stop, not with the roaring and the shriek of metal on metal and the stink of blood making it hard to breath.

He took another Unioner down and turned, seeing Miko, slashing down at the soldier on the ground, her teeth bared, her back to the silver ghost with a raised sword behind her. Liam opened his mouth to yell but it was too late, the soldier swung and his blade sunk through Miko’s neck as easily as if his friend were made of butter. Her long dark hair was hacked in two as her head suddenly wasn’t on top of her neck anymore. Liam froze, heart cold. Her body fell.

Liam roared, his vision clouded with tears as he swung and kicked his way through the fighting bleeding throng to the soldier, grabbing him and sliding his sword through his neck, leaving him to bleed next to the fallen body of his Miko. He turned, taking out a few more soldiers before he could even think, turning back to the bulk of the battle, seeing how few his Seget family was, how quickly they fell under the crushing force of trained steel. Every time a soldier fell another would take his place in an endless procession.

Liam swung wildly, losing focus in the unjustness of it all, roaring and water stinging in his eyes. He shoved at one man, his sweaty hair coming loose from its tie and hanging over his face as he engaged another soldier, this one more talented then the first wave, taking a lot longer than any of them had, catching Liam on the thigh with a tiny scratch that stung like a bee sting. He looked to see Del, hunched over, blood pouring from his mouth as his axe fell from stupid fingers, a Union soldier standing in front of him shoving his sword deeper into his gut, laughing with victory as Del cried out in bloodied pain. Liam hissed like a mountain cat and lost himself in his fury, tackling the man to the ground, his own body scraping up on sharp metal but he didn’t care. He roared and clambered on top of him, yanking his helmet off and punching him with as much power as he could muster, square on his nose. The soldier flailed beneath him as his nose burst into a bloody fountain and Liam raised his sword.

The battle around him faded in and out as he looked down at Del’s murderer. It was a man, a normal dark haired man, fairer skinned than anyone from Seget, but not by so much. He was only a few years younger than Liam and when he looked up he truly had fear in his light brown eyes, human fear, blood streaking his face from his ruined nose. Liam froze. It was human. He’d known it, but to actually see it. To think this man could…

“Please, no!” the soldier cried, demasked, and humanised and Liam couldn’t move. Couldn’t lower his sword, staring into the horribly normal eyes.

He’d have a mother, and a father. He would have played games when he was younger, with friends and who was –

Liam cried out in pain at the sudden violent burning in his shoulder. He looked up, the battle sounds swamping around him again, to see a soldier. Sword in his shoulder and it was running blood and the pain made him garble useless words as he broke into sweat. Soldier, covered head to toe in silver with a bright blue band around the forearm holding the sword that connected them both. It was all he could see in the pain.

The blue banded soldier suddenly kicked him brutally hard in the chest, dislodging him from the man’s chest and propelling him to the ground. The blue banded man held out a hand to help Del’s killer up. Liam fell back to the dirt, stunned and winded, staring up at the sunny blue sky for a moment before he rolled his head to the side, taking in the battle, or what was left of it.

The soldiers were pushing his few remaining people further back, and they were doing it easily. He wanted to scream but his voice wouldn’t work. Liam rolled to his belly and tried to stand, to join them, but a heavy steel booted foot pressed between his shoulder blades and pinned him to the ground like a fly in a spider’s web. He struggled but the blood he was losing to the ground was making him weak.

The foot stayed there, keeping him down and he closed his eyes as the last man from Seget, the inn keeper, fell, resulting in a high spirit cheer that rolled through the silver demons standing on the battlefield.

And that was it. It was done.

Seget had fallen within minutes.

Liam’s face was in the dirt but he didn’t care.

“Sack it,” the man pinning him down roared, his foot pressing into Liam’s back a little firmer as he leant forward.

A flurry of activity followed the order, the soldiers kicking open the door to the inn and disappearing inside, only to slip back out in a procession, their arms filled with kegs and hard breads and cheeses. They stormed through the small town, breaking into the barter stores, stealing anything of use from within, cheering and hooting as they went.

Liam watched them with blurry eyes as they ransacked his town, throwing trophies of wine to each other as they walked over the blood strewn dirt. One soldier tore his helmet off and grabbed the bucket in the well, hauling it up and drinking the water from the wood.

Liam heard the crackle of fire and couldn’t bear to see what he knew would happen next. He closed his eyes and pressed his face to the ground as the soldiers laughed tiredly and passed torches along. It was what the Union did. They burned the smaller townships to the ground, preferring to build over the ashes, than keep the heart of what they had taken.

The soldiers cheered suddenly and Liam closed his eyes even tighter, blood and dirt in his nostrils. His stomach ached from where the blue banded man had kicked him and his shoulder was hot with pain. A few silent tears were all he allowed himself.

Armoured feet ran up clanking. “General,” a Union soldier said, “We have finished.”

“Survivors?” The man who held him pinned down asked.

“A few can be mended, but ain’t in no condition to cause a problem on the way back.”

“Well that’s just... great,” the man pinning him down said, amused. “Put them away, don’t take anyone who’s going to cause any noise.”

The foot suddenly lifted and Liam rolled over onto his arse, blood sticking his cotton pants to him, preferring to face his death with a level eye. He glared through his emotionless mask up at the blue banded man, the General. The pointed helmet looked down at him impassively. The General suddenly knelt beside him and Liam jerked away in surprise, his shoulder flaring up with bites of pain. The General’s hand grabbed his shoulder firmly, and Liam saw that each of his fingers were covered with plates of tied on steel as well, flecked with blood, looking so much like claws that Liam’s stomach rolled.

“It’s clean,” he told Liam in his rough amused Union accent, “it’ll heal.”

Liam stared back at him, emotionless apart from a detached anger. He could see a glimpse of the man’s blue eyes through the sight punctures in his helmet. The General held on to his shoulder with a firm hand and Liam jerked himself away from the touch. The General laughed, entertained by him.

“Feisty, are we?”

“Kill me then,” Liam challenged, hot from the fight, “I’m not afraid of you.”

The General’s guise gazed at him. “No, I won’t be killing you,” he said in the same annoyingly amused voice.

Liam paused and watched the General make a strange hand gesture, confused for a moment before he was suddenly hauled up, two soldiers gripping him by his upper arms. He yelled, mostly in pain as his wound was stretched, but also in anger, mindlessly kicking out at the General as he was hauled away.

He kicked the soldiers as they dragged him, fighting the entire way, not knowing what was happening, refusing to give them an inch. They hauled him out of Seget and he fisted his hands and jabbed them angrily into the men’s steel plated sides.

“Awright,” said the soldier on his left, a little exasperated at the constant flurry of kicks and hits, “Just calm down now.”

Liam twisted and turned like a snake, slippery in their grasp, actually getting his arm away from one for a moment and trying to run, causing them both to tackle him to the ground in agitation, crushing him under steel.

“Now, we told you,” a cruel kick in his belly made him groan out in gurgling pain, “Calm down.”

They picked him up and he struggled weakly, feeling like he was going to vomit, his stomach sore. They hauled him over the town bridge and towards a fleet of horses and carriages and carts that had stayed behind the battle. Liam struggled to get away from the men again, howling and cursing and wriggling as they fought to keep him contained. Another soldier came over and picked up his legs, catching a heel on the chin that knocked him backwards onto his arse on the thick grass. Liam tried to shake the hard grips on his arms.

More soldiers came over, standing around them to watch the spectacle, laughing a little at the two men that were trying to take him along. Liam managed to throw one to the ground, kicking the other in the stomach, running from them only to be caught again by more laughing soldiers.

“Can’t even keep a wounded pig farmer under control ?” One of the soldiers that caught him said, taunting the others. “What kind of Union is this?”

“You take him then!” One of the first soldiers yelled, hauling himself up off the ground, and tearing his helmet off in embarrassed anger, “He’s like a fucking spitfire!”

The soldier holding his arm, ripped off his own helmet. He was light eyed and sallow, a smirk on thin red lips.

“You gotta learn to put them in their place,” he said calmly. He slammed his helmet across Liam’s face, knocking him to the ground in a whirl of stars.

A roar of laughter encircled him as his vision split multiplied blurrily. He could smell the smoke of Seget burning as he lay stunned on the ground.

“We should just kill him,” another soldier said, taking his helmet off too, revealing sandy coloured curls and freckles over a stub nose, “he’s just gonna cause trouble. I know his type.”

“Nah,” the original man called, “General Spike wanted this one.”

The group of soldiers all looked at him. “Oh,” said one with a smirk. “He’s not a prisoner. He’s spoils.”

“Don’t you think General Spike has earned his pick of the spoils?” a smooth voice at odds with the rest of the rough accents asked.

All the men suddenly stood up straighter, turning towards the voice respectfully and lowering their heads. A thin soldier stood there, helmet under his red banded arm, watching the rest with a cool expression.

“Yessir Commander.”

The red banded commander walked over to him and peered down at his face. Liam met his gaze evenly, not scared of him at all. There was nothing left to be scared of.

The man smirked and looked at the other soldiers. “Put him in the cart. Get some cuffs on him too, then at least he’ll stop hitting all of you.”

Men grabbed his arms again and Liam started cursing, already trying to pull away as the men forced his wrists together and slapped long steel cuffs around them, both wrists connected with a short fat chain. About six of them lifted him bodily up and carried him as he twisted in their grasps, finally pushing him into a steel meshed cart, already loaded up with people. They slammed the door closed behind him, locking it up and laughing as they walked away. Liam rattled the door obstinately. He could see clouds of thick black smoke clouding the sky and rested limply against the steel skeleton bars as Seget burned.

The acrid smell of it burned his nostrils, and the cheers from outside made him limp with failure. He slumped to the floor of the large cart, on his knees, shoulder burning; stomach aching and his heart a pile of dried ash in his chest. It had all gone so fast. He wanted to scream but he didn’t have the energy.

A hand on his shoulder made him turn in alarm, ready to fight as he whirled, stopping when he saw the elderly man rear back in fear. The man smiled at him, blinking sadly, his blue-coloured tunic and pants covered in dried blood and dirt.

“You put up a good fight son, no one can take that from you,” he croaked as the other members of the cart, men and women equally dirty and morose watched him warily with big dark scared sheep eyes.

Liam couldn’t answer, his throat was filled with hard smoke and he turned to watch the remains of Seget billow into the sky. He rested his head against the bars again, unaware of the scared murmuring behind him or the soldiers milling around in front of him. He couldn’t even feel the pain in his shoulder.

*

Spike slipped up into the saddle, watching the tiny village of Seget burn. His soldiers ran to and fro, collecting things in a rush, looking for survivors amongst their own men, tending to them as they lay on the battlefield. Spike never understood why the farmers didn’t just accept the rule. It was inevitable; it was what was going to happen. Why would sixty filthy farmers waving pitchforks think they could take on an entire fleet of the Union’s trained armoured soldiers? They knew they were going to get thrashed, they had to know.

They were stupid bloody creatures. Stupid as the animals they farmed.

Take that dark haired one. He’d taken down a dozen soldiers in the few minutes the battle raged. They could use someone with that kind of talent in the regiment, but no, he had to go on stubbornly defending a lost cause.
Spike snorted.

Pretty though. Too pretty to be on a farm in the middle of a village. Pretty as he’d glared up through his dirt streaked sharp face. They were all the same, though, standing against them with righteous fury one day, but you show the dirty faced boor’s some shiny trinkets or some finely tailored clothes and they were wet thighed and ready for bed. People were greedy, that’s all there was to it.

Lieutenant Jec came marching up, a huge bruise on his chin, looking up at Spike on the horse as he stood at attention, looking rather flustered. “Sir, do you really think it’s wise to keep prisoners that … you know will become a problem?”

“Jec, I’m a higher rank than you, aren’t I?” Spike sighed, turning his horse, Cab, around with a flick of his wrists.

“Yes sir.”

“Then shut up and do as I say.”

Jec’s lips tightened. “Yes sir.”

“Good soldier. Now go on, march away.”

Jec nodded jerkily and, indeed, marched away. Spike, with nothing left to do, trotted his horse through the men getting ready to roll and wandered over to the cart full of human takings from the various cities. Once the people had identified themselves as enemies of the Union, the regiments were free to do with them as they wished. The Commander had decided to take the surviving enemies back to Alla City for redistribution around the surrounding towns, for use in farming or as servants to the Union. The other Generals liked to use the carts as sorts of brothels on wheels as they made their way through the country.

Spike made a mental note to take his own spoils out of the cart before any of the other Generals got horny and saw the dark haired stallion he’d managed to protect in the battle.

The man in question was sitting on his knees against the bars, his face slack of expression, the fire in his eyes extinguished as he slumped on the bars. He was covered in dirt and blood and his long dark hair was half tied back, half crazily awry. He was staring at nothing.

Spike trotted Cab slowly past him, and he didn’t notice, unseeing. Lightly kicking Cab’s haunch he galloped over to the Commander who was sitting on a stool next to his carriage, his light haired head bowed over the map of Unionised towns on his lap.

“We moving out?” Spike said, yanking Cab to a stop.

The Commander didn’t look up. “Always so impatient, General. I wonder why that is.”

“There’s no need to be here. Let’s move on to the next one.”

“We’ll move, when I see the time is fit.” He paused in his ministrations and looked up at Spike, “Be patient,” he smiled, “we’ll leave soon. As it is… enjoy the sights and smells of the mountains.”

“We’ve been in the mountains for weeks. I want to enjoy the sights of Alla City sometime soon.”

“And we will. Just be patient.”

Spike tensed his lips and, eyes on the Commander in snarling fake happiness; he galloped off, hoping to find something to interest him, to quench the thick boredom that pressurised his mind. Cab galloped, his hoofs thudding against the grassy ground in a wonderful mind numbing rhythm, it sang, as he headed along the trees that seemed to run around the entire large town. There were animals spreading out across the large number of paddocks and further up the mountainside, horses and sheep and chickens, all wandering around as he rode, pushing Cab faster and faster, the wind whipping past and cooling his hot body underneath his heavy armour, battering his face as he raced it, the swirls of air sliding up into his short hair and making it slip from the wax he’d put in to make it lie flat. He smiled at the jolting speeding feeling and yelled out in pleasure as Cab thundered along the tall forest, his black coat gleaming in the sun. He guided him along the outskirts of the mountain village, coming across a lake at the base of the valley and dismounting. It was silent out here, apart from the sounds of Cab’s heavy horse breathing and the slight swish swish of the water lapping along in the breeze. The smell of smoke was distant here; the wind was blowing from the lake back along the town, sweeping the smoke away from him.

Out into the lake there was an old finger dock made of dark wood. Spike tied Cab to a small errant tree near the water’s edge, leaving him to drink as he wandered around to the dock. He jumped up in a clatter of steel and heard the boards squeak and tremble underneath his weight. He smiled, striding slowly out on top of the water, his footsteps echoing under the wood. There was a small rough seat at the end of the dock, wide enough for two and he rested on it, gazing down into the slowly moving water at his own reflection. He couldn’t make out his features but his white blond shock of hair was vibrant in the mirror image, the white trimmed Union short. He ran his fingers through the errant strands, his hair catching on the plates of the hand armour he still had tied around his palms and fingers.

Gazing back at Cab as he sat on the edge of the dock, feeling like he was sitting on nothing but the water itself, he slowly untied his armour, letting it clunk to the weary boards underneath his feet. It was heavy, and he’d sweated against the cloth interior. He slid the chest plate off, groaning loudly as the weight of it finally slid from his body, and leaned back against the hard chair.

The water lapped. Spike mused, toying with the blue band of his General’s position wound tightly around his forearm plates with his freed fingers. The trees bordered the lake, the River Manna flowed into the lake and it was peaceful here, in it’s nothingness. It was nowhere and it was tranquil because of it, if you discounted the burning smell.

He grudgingly admitted he didn’t mind it here, out in the sun. He slipped off the metal covered boots and wriggled his bare toes in the crisp air. But he’d get bored. How did villagers put up with the dreary repose every day? There were no flippant stores to look in, only one inn to drown yourself at, no plays to see, no bustling hawking noise to close you in.

Spike had grown up in Alla City, a stinking, busy and noisy docking merchant city. The streets were paved and the stores all showed the latest fashions and somebody was trying to sell you something every five paces. Did they even have money up here? Was it a foreign concept to them? Did they understand that the world, the real world, ran on money?
Spike was the son of a sly tailor who’d taught Spike at five years how to pick the pockets of their customers when they took off their jackets for measurements. His father had joined up with the Union Regiment at its first conception when Spike was young, and when Spike had grown to fourteen, he’d urged his son to do the same, to join the ones who had the power. Power and money.

And because of his father’s wise advice he had progressed through the ranks in his years of service, gained status and now had a large enough estate on one of the taken towns outside Alla City, not too far away from the paved heart of it, he had to be near it, it was his lifeblood, but far enough away for the homes not to be cramped together in struggling confinement. One of the outer farming towns they’d taken. He even had horses on his grounds that were bred for Union use, and paid for with good money.

He’d been placed on the mountain town campaign along with six other generals’, twenty lieutenants and around two hundred foot soldiers. Not to mention the rest of the keepers and horses, and back up men. They made an impressive entourage. The were taking the border towns now, just little towns on the outskirts of life that had no impression on anything, just taking them so the Union could own it all. There were a few well-equipped coastal towns, across the country from Alla City that still held resistance, but Spike didn’t care, he hadn’t been assigned to them.

He stood; gathering up his armours and walking back along the dock boards, letting the steel fall in a mangled heap at Cab’s hoofs. He slipped out of the remains of his armour, and then unbuttoned the thick pants he wore, letting them slip along his thighs and calves and pool to the ground. He stripped, sliding the leather jerkin and shirt off over his head and stretching, free of cumbersome skirmish clothes, reaching his pale arms up to the smoky sky and rolling his back to make his spine pop into place. He sighed, and patted Cab’s snout before running into the freezing lake water, cursing himself blue as the clean crisp water shrunk his balls and turned his teeth to ice in his mouth, laughing and ducking under the frigid water only to emerge in a splash of more colourful curses. It was freezing but he loved it, ducking under again.

Couldn’t swim in Alla, all the waterways were grimy and stagnant and filled with rubbish, apart from the main river that emptied to the ocean, but Lord Nest had long been guarding that heavily, keeping it clean for his people. He slid under, feeling the cleanliness of the water as he scrubbed himself, his toes scraping along the gravelly soil base. His nipples were constricted tight and pebbled, almost painfully hardened on his chest and he rubbed them absently as he rolled under the water again, like a sprite, smooth and languid motions. He ducked under the dark water and scrubbed his oily hair, sluicing the dirt and sweat and ash from it. He hadn’t had time for a proper bath for a little while, so he welcomed the respite. He splashed through the water, spooking Cab a little as he drew near, reluctantly tumbling out of the water as the tips of his fingers turned blue. Water sloshed down his body and the wind chilled him cruelly, making him shiver naked on the shores of the little lake, shaking with loss of body heat as he pulled his clothes back on with frozen hands.

“Let’s go back, yeah?” he whispered to Cab, stroking a gentle hand down the horse’s wide silky cheek. He piled his armour back on and climbed up on the broad saddled back.

They galloped back, Spike’s armour clinking with every dull pound of hoof on ground. His skin was chilled as the wind whipped past him, his face feeling blue with cold, his lips chafed.

When he arrived back he saw the men almost finished pacing up. It was getting past noon and they weren’t staying here for the night, obviously. The blaze of the village was hot on his face and cold skin and ash was falling from the sky as he returned. A group of soldiers he trotted past were drunk off the inn’s spoils as they dragged the bodies of the townspeople into the flames. Helped prevent disease, burning them before they could rot. It smelled something hideous though, made Spike’s stomach revolt for days after he’d smelt burning flesh. Sickly rancid smell as the skin of the bubbled and popped, drawing back to leave the flesh underneath to cook in the flames.

A young village boy of maybe fifteen years, neck slashed, leather armour too wide for his thin frame, was carried past him in the arms of his soldiers towards the heat of the fire. His head dropped back and flopped like a dead fish, the death wound in his neck gaping open, as his dark eyes were glassy and wide staring ahead. Spike looked away from him, hearing the men grunt as they tossed him into the fire.

He eased Cab’s pace up a little and left the town, riding towards his own covered carriage and dropping from Cab’s back onto the grass.

A soldier hurried past him, holding a heavy hessian bag of supplies and Spike grabbed his arm, halting him. The nameless soldier looked up at him with wide blue eyes. “Where we off to then?” Spike grunted.

“Commander says we’re heading to Vara Town, making camp along the way.”

Spike let him go and curled his hand around Cab’s reigns, leading him along. Spike looked disinterestedly around at the action, the packing and yelling, things being thrown to other men as the soldiers obeyed orders. Three armoured men were hitching horses to the prisoner carts, tying each creature to its partner so they’d stay in a tight line. A few of the horses were skittish with the noise; some never got used to it, swishing their manes as they were tied in.

Cab snorted impatiently, bored with the sounds, wanting to move. Spike absently stroked his neck, “I hear you,” he murmured.

The prisoner carts rolled out and the sudden rush of people mounting horses followed. Spike stayed still for a moment, eyes half seeing the steel carts roll out in front, slowly, as mounted soldiers cantered past them. Spike’s eyes honed in on the dark haired townsman, his feisty one, sitting slumped against the front of the cart, strong broad face closed off and without light, his cuffed hand wound loosely around one of the steel struts. His wide shoulder was red with blood and his fallen gaze didn’t move from the floor as the cart trundled past, hauled by neighing horses.

“General,” one of the Lieutenants called to him.

Spike jerked his gaze away from the man suddenly, brows drawing together in a frown as his hand tightened on Cab’s reigns. “What?” he snapped at the sandy haired man.

“We’re on the move.”

Spike stared at him and then obviously around at the regiment moving it’s noisy mass around him. “Thank you,” he said with wide-eyed sarcasm, sneering as he set one foot in a stirrup and swung his leg over Cab’s back.

He slapped Cab’s black haunch and galloped through the marching men and supplies carriages, turning his head only as he passed the prisoner carts. The dark haired man looked up as he raced past and Spike caught a glimpse of his dark burning eyes before he turned back, resting his cheek against the steel side on his enclosure looking limp again. Spike
could sense the fire burning inside him.

Spike shook his head, and galloped past, to the front of the lines, as the Union moved away from the decimated village of Seget.


Prize

Chatter buzzed around, filling the air like a swarm of flies on a rotting animal carcass. The words and language faded into a vibration of noise, in Liam’s eardrums, whirring in his nasal passages with the hum of it. The steel ribcaged cart he was in swayed slowly from side to side as it rolled behind the chain of tightly harnessed horses. Liam watched limply as they moved across the ground, tracing the steps he’d stepped so many times, when he’d had to get more back up feed for his sheep from Vara Town when Seget’s barter shops were out. It took about a little over a day for Liam to get there, but the pace the clanking mass travelled at seemed to be slower.

His cheek was starting to hurt from resting it against the jolting steel so he turned, facing the other sitting men and women in the cart behind him. He rested his spine against the steel, feeling it dig into the soft flesh beside his bones and not really caring. He cast flittering glances at the other fifteen or so inhabitants of the cattle cart. They all mimicked his pose, resting against the steel, forcing it to hold them up, the energy evaporated from their limpet bones. They wore thick rings of steel around each of their necks, a band that rested around their throats and brushed their collarbones, the diameter not big enough to get around their heads and the steel not thin enough to break or snap.

A fluffy haired girl sat with her thin freckled face on her scrunched up knees; a man’s scratched up arm around her shoulders. The elderly man who had talked to him tapped his bony fingers against the creaking floorboards, eyes staring sightlessly out of the steel bones. Another woman with long straight dark hair gave Liam’ mind flickers of Miko when his eyes blurred, startling him every time into focus and resignation when her features became a stranger’s face.

Liam closed his eyes. His mind felt swamped. He couldn’t accept what had happened.

They’d been travelling for hours, so long that the sun was setting, oblivious to the years that had passed in one simple day. So much had happened, Liam’s whole life had changed, yet the sun set as normal, and would rise again in the next day’s morning. Everything was different now, Miko and Del and the rest of the villagers were dead. His last shred of family was gone. Seget had been burned and left as ash, his tiny heart-filled town was gone. Like when the first leaves turn brown from cold and drop to the ground and you knew that the cold seasons are coming, unstoppable, all you could do was gather wood for the stoves and wrap yourself in furs and wait.

The smell of smoke and the rough foul stink of burning flesh had long since faded and Liam’s heart felt unbearably wet and heavy in his chest. He’d removed his leather armours; they lay beside his knees discarded. Tense worry filled his lungs and made them hot stones in his chest next to his sodden heart. He didn’t know what was going to happen to him. Everything wasn’t how it was supposed to be. And Kat. Kat. Where was she? Was she alright? Was Cordy alright? Did the Union find them? Would they make it?

He stared at the cart inhabitants blankly. He had no way of knowing. He’d never know. He’d thought he would die, and now he wasn’t dead. And his shoulders were heavy with everything he was carrying in his mind. What would happen? Why had they kept him? It set his bones grinding against each other painfully; he was filled with apprehension. He’d heard the stories of what the Union did to people. But even though his worry was pumping instead of blood in his veins, everything seemed half-real. Like it couldn’t be real. Like he was dreaming, maybe, or maybe he was dead. Real or not he felt fairly dead anyhow.

They trundled on. Soldiers wandered past them, peering at them like they were displays at a fair. A few of the silver men slammed their shields or swords against the bars as they walked past, to shock them with the loud screech of metal on metal, never letting them drift away from themselves for too long. And the soldiers would laugh with each other as the prisoners jerked and looked up with wary wide eyes, before wandering on, losing interest in the little cruelty.

No one in the cart tried to talk. There were soft murmurs every now and then, but even they were soon silenced. Just quick little spatters of whisper. Every person had a look of quiet fearful anxiety plastered across their features. Eyes were shiny in the dimness. The woman with the man’s wounded arm protectively around her shoulders was the only one that let tears come, she cried a few times during the journey. Gentle heartbreaking trickles of tears that spilled down her freckled cheeks as she tried to stifle the noise of sobs that crackled in her chest. The man who held onto her shoulders clutched her closely until she stopped and settled and stared blankly again.

Liam wondered what they were to each other. A couple? Maybe friends… maybe even related. Cousins or siblings even. She looked quite young. Maybe around sixteen or seventeen. Old as Kat. He looked a little older. Still young though, pink lips and rounded child cheeks.

The coach rocked over a particularly large bump, knocking the contents about, and her big dark eyes flicked up, catching Liam staring at her. He averted his gaze like he’d been burnt, and felt awkward as she pressed further into her companion’s grasp.

With a start he realised the elderly man had moved next to him. He hadn’t noticed until the man’s voice spoke quietly in his ear, and he wondered how he could have missed it.

“What’s your name, son?”

The man’s skin was blue in the evening light, his eyes black in the dim. His hair was a white canvas for the coloured light and he had a soft grandfatherly look about him. His frail body shivered a little after the question. It was starting to cool, and Liam’s arms prickled in sympathy.

“Liam,” he answered in a whisper, uncertainly, like he wasn’t sure.

“Liam. My name’s Sid,” he said, the collar of metal resting against the top of his blue coloured tunic.

Liam nodded.

Sid smiled. “Seget’s lovely,” he continued, “My wife’s family came from there, back when I was younger. It’s a good town.”

“It was,” Liam whispered bitterly, hot tears suddenly rising in his throat.

“I come from Rollet.”

Liam nodded, forcing the emotion down, edging himself back into half real territory. He knew of Rollet. “Just below Palso City,” he said croakily.

“Uh huh. In the mountains there,” Sid smiled almost cheerily. “Lovely place that. Originally came from Palso City actually, but my family moved for the work.”

Liam gazed at him, mouth stuck shut.

“I’m a tailor,” Sid persisted. “Same as my father and my aunt. What about you?”

Liam looked down at the discarded armour on the floor of the prisoner cart. He almost didn’t answer, but after a long moment his voice unstuck and whispered through his lips. “I raised sheep.”

“Ah, a herder were you?”

Liam nodded, his throat tight.

“My uncle was Rollet’s wiseman,” Sid said, using the old term for a holy man, “herder’s just agreed with him. Said they were good people. Had to be, otherwise the animals would run, or starve themselves or just plain die early and taste bad.”

Liam watched the old man’s contemplative face. A small smile curved his wizened lips. “Your father a herder?”

Liam nodded. “I took over his lands when he went down to Palso City.”

Sid understood the meaning behind that comment, knew that his father had been one of the first to fight. He nodded again and breathed out heavily through his nose.

The cart suddenly halted, rolling Liam into Sid’s shoulder as his body carried the momentum. He made sure he hadn’t hurt the man before looking about warily. “We stopped.”

“Camping for the night,” Sid supplied.

The soldiers armour gleamed brightly in the birth of the evening as they started hurrying about and dismounting. Liam’s fellow prisoners watched with absent interest, obviously having seen al this before. Their unmoved expressions calmed him a little, even though the young woman buried her face in her companion’s chest.

“Is everyone from Rollet?” Liam asked Sid after a moment of watching the soldiers unpacking long tents.

Sid snorted. “Naw, not everyone. Quite a few are from the Grey Mountains, the towns up there. From what I can figure, the Union came up through the Grey Mountains and sacked the towns along the ranges, coming up near the Palso Mountains to take our villages.” He sighed. “We’re headed to Vara Town next, I heard some of those motherless son’s talking about it. I wish we could tell them.”

“They know,” Liam said quietly. “We knew.”

Sid didn’t comment on that.

Liam watched the soldiers setting up the beige hessian tents. He could see a large fire being fed in the middle of the clearing they were stopped in, metal clad men standing around, hauling meat joints out of bags, joking and laughing with each other. The sight of the food made his stomach roil violently. Sid took his expression the wrong way.

“Don’t worry son, we get fed. Not a lot, but enough.”

Liam slammed his eyes shut. He sook his head a little, feeling like he was going to vomit up the thin substance of his stomach. He never wanted to eat again.

He sat in silence as the shiny beasts ate; almost thankful Sid sat next to him silently, feeling a thin thread of control he was sure was linked to the calm old man who breathed heavily beside him. Sid was accepting the change like a leaf accepting the whirling breeze; not minding as it was battered in updrafts. How could he talk so easily? How could… Liam’s mind was dead. But he liked Sid there. He wondered sadly how the battle in Rollet had gone.

The soldiers ate noisily, sprawling around the grass and flames like fat shiny spiders as they toasted their beer and milled wine and heartily devoured their food. Liam’s insides broiled with anger as he watched the many men eat breads and cheeses and wondered if that food had been stolen from Seget. Some of it must. How could they?

The soldiers finished quickly and some set about unrolling bedrolls next to the large fire, undoing their armours before sliding into the blankets. Others wandered in milling packs, talking to more, walking past the caged prisoners without batting an eye, savages in human skins.

Liam looked around the cart and realised with some confusion that the people had now edged off the sides and had all crowded around the centre, resting languidly against each others shoulders in a frayed circle, others lying in the centre.

“Come on Liam,” Sid whispered, jerking his head as he stood up, stretched and popped for a moment before settling back down in the circle, on the outside.

Liam followed, confused, and sat down next to Sid and some other dark haired man who looked at him with empty eyes.

“What are we doing?” Liam asked in a hushed voice.

Sid wrinkled his nose. “The Union like to use the carts as amusement for the nights,” he whispered. “Some of the soldiers wander past and take their pickings. We found if we sort of… shelter the ladies from their sight, they can’t find something they like here. As often, at least.”

Sid suddenly narrowed his eyes at Liam, his gaze sliding up his face. “Actually, maybe it’s best you sit back a touch, let my old face be the one they see.” He smiled a little, trying to ease him. “Been a long time since anyone’s picked me out of a crowd.”

Liam’s brows drew together in confusion and he shook his head slightly. “What do you mean?”

Sid’s lips twisted with an emotion Liam couldn’t read and the man stood up, making Liam shift back from the bars that faced the bulk of the soldiers so Sid’s skinny backside could sit back down. “Keep your head down,” Sid smiled. “Go to sleep.”

Sleep? How could he sleep? He looked at Sid like he was touched in the head.

Sid’s smile grew, softer and gentler. “Tomorrow will come. Days will come, and that’s what it amounts to. Just days and living. Have to look at it that way or you won’t keep your mind.”

The entire cage suddenly hushed as three steel plated men wandered over, helmets off their light coloured haired heads, bright small eyes peering through the bars. Liam noted the yellow bands on their forearms as they searched the place with their raking gaze. They were pale, like their skins weren’t used to the sun, they looked sickly.

They talked about something in their rough accents before one wandered away, walking off to the other carts that sat around clearing. The two remaining, a tall one with round puffy features and one who was thin looking headed to the door of the cart. Sid tensed beside him.

Liam started suddenly as he heard a woman yelp in fear, her voice coming from the belly of one of the other cages. Liam moved to get up instinctually, to see if he could help, but Sid grabbed his knee in bony fingers and pulled him back down, affecting a sleepy pose and leaning back against the girls who were curled on the floor behind them.

The two men entered the metal-ribbed gut of the carrier and looked around. The taller ones gaze rested on Liam like a rag on a hook and didn’t look away, his green eyed gaze on his face while the shorter one swept into the carriage like a shadow, coming closer to the huddle of humans in the middle of it.

The tall one wandered closer and toed Liam’s leg roughly. “You’re new.”

Liam glared up at him. The man’s thick lips twisted and he didn’t take his strangely predatory gaze off Liam. He looked like the wolves that sometimes prowled around his sheep, hungrily watching for a stray.

The other soldier grabbed one of the prisoner’s shirts and hauled him away from the group. Sid sagged beside him but stayed silent. Liam looked behind him to see what was happening.

“I knew you were here,” the shorter man said gleefully, and his hand snapped out, grabbing the young freckled girl’s fluffy brown hair in his fist and hauling her up with a high pig pitched squeal. She grabbed at his large hand, her feet pedalling along the floor, her young face squinched up in pain.

Liam’s mouth fell open in fury and he stood at the same time as the girl’s companion, and rushed the soldier, pushing him with his cuffed hands against the bars, making him lose his grip on the girl’s hair as he slammed against the steel. She fell in a heap, her simple long tunic flipping high on her thighs as her bones cluttered against the hard floor. The girl’s companion shouted a string of curses at the outraged soldier and fell to his knees beside the young girl, hauling her into his arms.

Liam’s hair was suddenly grabbed in a handful and jerked, making his neck whip painfully backwards. He fell to his arse on the floor, the air huffing out of his lungs, his shoulder burning with pain again. A kick in his side winded him.
The other soldier hauled himself from the bars; his face red and embarrassed and he slammed a flurry of kicks into Liam’s vulnerable belly, making him grunt out in raspy pain. The taller one suddenly yanked him standing by his hair, and hauled him, hunched over and aching, to the door.

The flurry of activity stopped and Liam peered up, chest heaving with panting. Two more soldiers stood in front of him. “Oi,” one said, gesturing at Liam, “Where you taking that one?”

The man’s hold tightened in his hair, plucking a few too taunt strands from his skull painfully. “I thought I’d enjoy the spoils,” the man said, trying for calm.

“Thought wrong,” the soldier in front of them said, smirking at the one holding his hair tightly in his fist and refusing to let go, “that one’s been earmarked by General Spike.”

Liam’s mind raced as his chest heaved in and out of his lungs, past the swollen ache in his stomach. The name sounded familiar.

“Hand him over,” the other man blocking the way said, “We gotta wash him.”

The hand held tight in his hair, making Liam wince, twitches of pain running through his fingers. It let go. “Here,” the tall soldier said airily.

His arms were suddenly taken by the two other men and he was dragged out into the clearing, yelling out in sharp pain as they pulled at his cuffed arms, stretching his wound.

“Hey!” he heard Sid call from behind him; “he’s hurt! Show some respect!”

They dragged him through the camp and towards a strip of the River Manna, just out of the large clearing the Union was set up in. Soldiers were already washing themselves in and beside the freezing river, and they watched him with curious eyes as he was dragged bodily to the water, stripped of his grimy clothes, and pushed under with four hands. He yelped at the icy rush, feeling it slide up and sting his unprepared sinuses, floundering against the hands as he wiggled like a caught fish, his hands tied together making him feel like he couldn’t right himself ever again, scared under the black water, feeling with certainty that he was going to drown. They pulled him up and he gasped, his shoulder burning as the water rushed the wound. A wet rag was scrubbed across his face, his lips, burningly hard. The washer scrubbed his shoulders, and his lungs were weak with relief when they didn’t scrape the washer along his open wound, then the rough cleaning reddened his belly. He was pushed under again and one grabbed his ankle as he thrashed about, feeling like he couldn’t breath, his forehead down against the rocky riverbed for a moment before being hauled up. The washer slid between his thighs and he yelled out indignantly as it washed roughly across his balls and arse, and he reacted by furiously flailing and crazily slamming the top of his foot into someone’s neck.

He was hauled out of the water and slapped viciously, across his scrunched up wet face.

“Fucking animal,” the soldier muttered.

Liam felt tears sting threateningly at his eyes again, his thin wall between sanity and derangement almost completely torn. He stood naked on the banks of the river and shivered, shocked silent and glaring at everyone with wet eyes. A thin dry rag was shoved into his hands and he quickly tied it around himself, covering his modesty from hip to knee.

He was led, shuddering and wet and half-naked back through the swarm of soldiers and pushed into a wooden travelling carriage. His hair was cold, hanging in limp wet waves down to his shoulders and dripping icy river water on his chest and back. The soldiers who’d washed him quickly forced him down on his knees in the corner of the lit room and linked his wrist cuffs to a connection in the steel frame of the carriage.

“Have a good night,” one of the soldiers purred, his eyes narrowed into slits of cold flint, before slipping out and closing the door behind him and his friend.

Liam tugged furiously on the chains and when they didn’t budge let out a furious strangled roar that ripped his vocal cords and vibrated his chest. It felt good, a hoarse growl of hate in this hateful place but when it was gone it had sapped him of all the indignant fury that had been bubbling inside, leaving him limp and useless, chained on his knees in the corner of a carriage.

He tugged again, heart sinking when nothing happened. He tugged again and again, his lips quivering when his brain figured out he was stuck long before his heart did. He crouched awkwardly and kicked the wall, wanting to break it, wanting to lash out with all the fury and pain inside and just break something, anything, a wall, those soldier’s faces, wanted to light to whole thing on fire. And the fact that he couldn’t, that his useless body was chained to a wall, made his brain bubble in impotence. The world was upside down.

A burning tear slid down his cheek and he cried out angrily, scrubbing his hot face against his bicep to rid himself of the traitor.

He sat down and closed his eyes. He counted, gathering himself, making his racing heart slow down, making his lungs breathe normally as he quivered with chained power. He was too angry. He had to calm down. His skin was twitching and his eyes were trying to wet. He forced it back, the emotion, the fearful ripping emotion, feeling the tears he refused to cry swell up in his head and behind his eyes, making him bloated and puffy, a sharp headache thudding in his brain. He sniffled like a scolded child and the energy left him, leaving him an empty aching shell that lay limply against the wall, hand held awkwardly up by the cuffs around them.

The feeling of half real swept back, he almost felt asleep, when he realised he was truly a prisoner here.

He rested his head against the carriage and finally looked around exhausted, taking in his surroundings with weary eyes now that he wasn’t acting in a black rage.

Liam blinked.

He was chained in the corner next to a bed. A huge bed, not a thin solid bed like Liam was used to but a thick thing, feather filled, dipped a little in the middle, with thick furry blood red blankets pulled neatly over it and five pillows at the head of it. It was a Lord’s bed, that luxurious thing, the size of three of Liam’s bed across. Liam peered over the breadth of it to see a freestanding cupboard, and an oil lamp hung from the roof, burning sweetly and lighting up the cart. In the far corner near the door sat an open lacquered trunk with a pile of books inside it. Books.

He tried to stand up to look at them but the chain pulled taut halfway, so he could only manage to rise to a crouch.

He hadn’t seen that many books since he’d learned to read at Gee’s cottage, a wealthy woman who’d left work in Palso City to live out the rest of her days in Seget’s peace. She had books in her living room, storybooks, and she took it upon herself to teach the children to read. Books weren’t sold in Seget, or Vara Town. There used to be a small bookseller in Palso City, before the Union takeover at least, and his parents had bought back a new book each time they went there, but even then, Liam only had eleven all up.

He heard creaking footsteps climbing the steps to the door and slammed himself down on the floor, realising his skin was cold with damp and that the thin rough rag was sticking to him as it sucked the moisture from his hips and thighs. He felt bare and exposed, vulnerable with his wrists lashed to the wall, and he found himself hunching over, shoulders curling forward as the door opened like a scared dog.

He looked back over his shoulder warily as the man came through. It was a soldier, and he was young looking, but his short hair was almost white and it was slicked back against his scalp. Bright blue eyes under dark brows and his skin was practically as light as his hair, apart from his pink lips. His cheeks were hollows under his high cheekbones and the tip of his nose was slightly rounded, not sharp like Liam was used to, like his own, like the higher village people who were sharp all over and had thinner lips. He was softer and lighter, and his lips were fuller. Liam knew he wasn’t just taken from one of the villages, he was from Alla City. He didn’t look like a herder, didn’t look like he lived in a cottage. His pale skin reminded Liam of Bem’s spirit paintings on the walls of the temple, gentler looking with sharp vicious power coiling beneath ready to smite and create trouble. His pale skin didn’t look sickly like the other soldiers had, his skin seemed to breathe power, it fairly glowed with it.

Liam was instantly curling around himself more, frowning. His breath was heavy with worry.

The man closed the door behind himself, cocking his head and smiling a smirk at Liam. “Hello,” he said, and his voice was the blue banded soldier’s voice, the rough amused flowing sounding voice of the General who’d kicked him and held him down as Seget was defeated.

Fear forgotten for the moment at the sound of the voice, Liam shivered with anger, his body twisting with it as he glared at the General’s vivid blue eyes. The General moved closer, sitting easily on the end of the bed, a slight undercurrent of smart caution in his movements. He started to untie the steel armours from his body, letting them clunk to the floor in a metal clatter, his eyes fastened tight to Liam’s eyes the entire time. Strange energy fizzled between them and there was something darkened in the General’s blue gaze. Like fire, inside. Something concentrated and fierce.

“Are you hungry?” The Union man asked, his gaze slipping along Liam’s bare back. He slipped the leather under armour off, and Liam saw he wore a long sleeved black shirt underneath, but it was cut close to his body, made for his build. He had rough black pants on underneath that buttoned closed and held snug to his thighs.

Liam glared sullenly at the General, hating him with his entire being. The General’s dark eyebrow raised, and Liam could see a thin scar through it. He still looked amused, by Liam, like he was enjoying his glare.

“Do you understand me?” he smiled.

Liam’s eyes narrowed. He nodded his head jerkily.

“Then answer me. Are you hungry?”

“No,” Liam snarled through his teeth.

The General smiled sweetly. “What’s your name?”

Liam turned away and stared resolutely at the wall, baring his back to the General, which unnerved him, but disrespecting him was more important. A sharp steel-toed boot kick to his backside made him yelp and look around wild-eyed.

The General stood impassively behind him. “Answer me. Always answer me. Now, do you want me to kick you again or are you going to give me your name?”

Liam’s lips tightened as he furiously contemplated. “Liam,” he finally spat out.

“Liam? Well Liam, you’ll call me Spike. Don’t really bother with the General noise when I’m not doing General business.”

Spike.

Liam continued to glare unflinchingly at him over his shoulder. “Why am I here?” he asked.

Spike blinked his bright blue eyes for a second before sitting back down on the bed. “How’s your shoulder?”

Liam spared at glance at the wound. It was a thin clean gash in his shoulder, trying to knit itself closed, but still sticky with fresh blood. It stung like there was a huge irritating thorn in his flesh. “It’s fine,” he said shortly.

Spike sighed. “Lemme have a look.”

“I’m fine,” Liam reiterated, teeth clenched.

Spike stood and crossed the room, grabbing a small flat box from the floor beside the chest of books. He carried it over to the bed and tossed it down, flicking it open. Liam watched cagily, sparing a glance at the finely lacquered dark wood, laced with weaving curling cut patterns that showed the heart of the timber under the stain. He hadn’t seen something like that, nothing with that much work in it. It distracted him for a moment, and he wondered what was in it.

He was surprised when Spike pulled out simple cloth bandages and some healing supplies. He kept his curative stuffs in a box like that? Spike saw him looking.

“Have a friend in Alla City who makes them. Nice?”

The mention of Alla City made Liam turn his head away. He heard Spike moving behind him and tensed up, casting a cautious side eyed look at the man.

“S’alright. Just turn,” Spike said gently, bandages and a small bottle of some fierce smelling oil in his hands. His cool fingertips swept Liam’s wet hair back over his shoulder, his fingers brushing against the nape of Liam’s neck intimately.

Liam jerked away from his touch, huddling into the corner standoffishly, seething angry glares back at him.

“Come on, it’ll only hurt a little.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Liam said calmly, levelling Spike’s amused glare, “You’re the one who wounded me.”

Spike laughed in his throat. He crouched down beside Liam’s body, still amused. “If that gets infected, your arm will have to be taken off,” Liam’s eyes flared a little at that, and he could smell Spike, smell his skin fresh and scented with sweet wood charcoal, “Now I respect you’re a man that likes his integrity, and that you think I’m your enemy… but is that worth losing your arm over?”

Liam knew nothing of sword wounds.

Spike’s voice was soft and luring as it continued. “I’ll just patch it up so nothing gets inside. It’s not that bad.”

Liam snorted derisively at his words, untrusting, “How do you know?”

“’Cause I didn’t want to hurt you too much,” he grabbed Liam’s thighs and pulled him away from the wall. Liam was about to spit out something about the indecent treatment, but the hands were already gone from his legs by the time he parted his lips to speak.

Liam’s hands were still chained together so Spike worked around them, cleaning the wound and lacing it with the strong oil, and then quickly darning the skin with a needle and thick black thread, crossing his skin in two short stinging lines. He was close, his pale head bent in front of Liam’s gaze, intense eyes on his work. He was quiet as he snipped the thread and tied it off, his eyes narrowed in concentration, face bowed, consumed by his work. His breath puffed out against Liam’s cool bare chest in hot exhales. The scent of the sweet charcoal scent Spike wore was stronger, tickling up Liam’s nose as sure fingertips pressed lightly against his skin, dancing around to hold the wound still and firm as he cleaned it with the efficiency and skill of a medic. He set bandages over it, smoothing his hand down Liam’s chest to make it lay flat, his palm brushing Liam’s nipple a few times as he did. Liam fidgeted at the touch and Spike smiled.

“There,” he said, making sure the bandage was taut with lingering fingers, “feel better?”

With dismay, Liam realised it did feel better, so he didn’t answer, staring at his chained hands instead. He felt Spike’s gaze on his face like a warm blanket. Pale fingers rose and reached out to his lips and Liam jerked back so fast the back of his head slammed against the wall with a heavy thunk.

Spike snorted. “You’ve got cuts on your face,” he sneered, grabbing a cloth and stroking along his chin, making Liam hiss as the cleansing oil cut a fiery line up past his mouth. He didn’t realise he’d been cut there. Spike’s cupped palm held his jaw in place, barely, Liam tensed with the position, wanting to be anywhere but inches away from this man that had burnt his home and acted like he was doing Liam favours.

The same intense concentrating look smothered his face as Spike was all-surrounded by his meditations. He rose up on his knees and cleansed another lightly stinging line above Liam’s eyebrow, near the hairline, a tiny thing that didn’t really need to be tended at all, his darkly lashed eyes unwavering as he breathed against Liam’s lips. Liam froze under the movement, not wanting to touch him, sliding out of his head for a moment and just concentrating on the fact all the dirty feeling pain was starting to slide away.

“Done,” Spike said after too long a while, pulling away from Liam, looking pleased, his face flushed lightly.

Liam sat smelling the cleansing oil on his face, watching Spike’s booted feet as he stood and closed up the fine medical case, setting it down on the floor. He peered at Liam speculatively.

“Bandage isn’t too tight?”

Liam frowned down at the floor in his coarse pile of limbs and shook his head, some wet locks of hair sliding in front of his shoulders again, tickling his dried skin with their coolness. The chains tying his hands to the wall clattered a little as he shifted himself, trying not to jostle his wound or the thin rag he had dashed across his hips.

Spike sat down on the bed again, this time toeing his heavy boots off and kicking them into the corner. He watched Liam watch the ground for a moment before rolling over the bed and grabbing something from underneath it. Liam refused to look up, already ashamed that he’d let this Spike, a Union General, make him feel better. He should have refused.

He heard Spike stand up on the bed, hearing the covers swish and condense as he walked and couldn’t help looking up, confused by what he was doing.

With one pale hand splayed across the wooden roof, he was sticking a tiny white paper roll into the oil lamp, setting it alight. He thumped back down onto his arse on the feather mattress and blew the tiny flame out so the stick smouldered red at the end. He stuck the unlit end between his lips and breathed the smoke in, making the tip glow.

Liam’s face twisted in confusion. “What are you doing?” he blurted.

Spike’s eyes slid to his. A dark eyebrow lifted sardonically. “Smoking.”

Liam blinked. “Smoking what?”

“Tobacco.”

Liam was even more confused. Tobacco water was used to keep insects off crops. “Why are you smoking tobacco?”

“Because I like it,” he said, running a palm over his chest like he was rubbing the smoke within, a strange happy smile on his face, “It’s mixed, makes me feel all peachy.”

Not for the first time, Liam wondered if the Union was made up of crazy men. He watched Spike warily. His fingers clamped around the stick of tobacco as it burnt and he bought it to his mouth, pinching it between his lips to inhale and then drawing the stick away to exhale a cloud of smoke in a long stream. Liam watched the strange performance, grossly curious.

“You do live the simplistic life,” Spike said, amused again for some reason, his voice almost edging into the tone which someone would use to talk to an animal, “don’t you?”

It was almost like he was poking him for amusement. Liam frowned and turned his back, wriggling closer to the wall. His chest and legs were starting to get tough with the remaining cold damp from the river. The hard wood floor and walls offered no warmth and his skin rose into hard little bumps. He could hear Spike breathing in his strange stick of tobacco behind him, but he wasn’t wary, not right now. He assumed if Spike was going to hurt him, he wouldn’t have bothered patching him up first. He wouldn’t have taken off all his armour… no, hurting Liam right now wasn’t part of his immediate plan. Although, the man was a soldier in the Union and he smoked something that even insects shied away from, he obviously wasn’t completely alright in the head.

Liam didn’t know why he was sitting in the carriage. Spike’s carriage, he assumed. It made his lungs tight, not being sure of what was next, being surrounded by these… swarming shiny locust-people that had desiccated his town.

Anger flared hotly in his chest and he tugged at the chains, grim determination setting his lips thin. He should never have talked to this one, this General. He yanked again.

“Oi,” Spike…The General, said grumpily, “don’t.”

Liam ignored him, tugging again, roughly, setting his feet against the wall, hauling himself off the ground and using his entire weight.

“Bloody hell,” the soldier sighed. “Don’t, you’ll hurt yourself. The entire frame of the coach is steel, and you’re strong, but you’re not that strong.”

Liam’s lips became white lines as he pressed them together in stubborn defiance, yanking and tugging at the chains, feeling his wrists slice against the unyielding cuff, ignoring the deterrence and presence of the sleek headed creature behind.

Another sigh and suddenly a thin wiry strong arm wrapped around his vulnerable chest, firmly pressing a strong smelling cloth over his mouth and nose. Liam yelled out in shock, breathing the fumes and instantly feeling light headed and weak. His struggling stopped and he fell limp, his back falling against Spike’s warm chest no matter how hard he tried to stay upright, furiously scared. His hand tried to pull Spike’s away, but the muscles wouldn’t work in his fingers, just resting numbly on Spike’s ridged knuckles for a second before falling uselessly away.

Spike’s arms curled around him smoothly, tightly, hand still pressing the cloth over his mouth as he feebly thrashed against the closeness. His head fell back on Spike’s shoulder. He looked up with blurry eyes to see Spike’s pale cruelly fine face gazing down at him with an unreadable expression.

A thin smirk curled his lips and Liam’s eyes fluttered closed as the irrepressible darkness swamped him.

*

Spike coiled himself around Liam’s cool fleshed body as he slipped under, his cock hard against the small of the herder’s broad back. He’d been swollen since he’d tended to the wounds on his chest and pretty face, seeing the look of barely constrained fear and fury that stayed in Liam’s eyes. Seeing the flare of nostrils as his hand had accidentally touched and palmed his taut dark nipples. Smelling him subtly as he’d leaned close to his face to clean the slight cuts, wanting to press a kiss to his mouth and fuck his tongue inside and only barely keeping his base urges constrained.

His body was flushed, and the ciggie hadn’t calmed him any. He was boiling inside and his skin felt hot against Liam’s bare coolness.

Spike drew the soaked rag away, the sleeping anointment greasy on his fingers. Feeling a bit lightheaded from the weakened fumes, he dropped it back into the small compartment in the medical supplies box. He shut it up cleanly and pushed it to the side, returning to his fallen herder where he rested, arms ungracefully tethered to the wall keeping him upright, dark head back at an uncomfortable angle and thighs yielding sweetly open. Spike’s mouth bled saliva.

He unfastened the strangely elegant wrists from the cuffs and his body collapsed to the floor, replete in his maleness, looking very attractive with his face lax and sleepy, eyes shut, lashes resting on the soft skin beneath.

Spike swept the drips of blood away from his wrists where the stubborn creature had cut his skin on the cuffs.
His skin was honeyed in the oil lamplight, and Spike could feel his belly tightening, innate responses firing his heart up, making his mouth wet as his cock made a tent from the heavy material of his pants.

He knelt down next to the sleeping idol and pressed his fingertips against the cool firmness of his belly, trailing them down past the thin rag he had tied around his slim hips, biting his lip in a wicked grin as he ran his petting along the inside of his thighs.

He stood.

Enough for now. Spike breathed heavily. It all smelled so sweet in here, heady, like a hot opium den and it was making his balls tight. But there was no sport in taking someone unconscious. Liam slept on, unaware of how fine he looked, or how generous his position, taunting Spike with his welcoming spread thighs, like his unprotected body wanted Spike to crawl between them.

Spike grinned; remembering the hateful glares Liam’s dark animal eyes had been burning. Spike wanted this fiery spitting creature all to his own, and needy, to lose all the heated uncouth stubbornness in the sensuous lines of his face. Spike wanted Liam to come to him. To need him. Wanted him to cry with desire when he wasn’t there.

Seeing Liam coiled with power and righteous anger made Spike want to harness the strength, like seeing a beautiful wild horse and wanting to ride it, to own the force. To bend it to his will.

He pushed Liam’s herder-long wet hair back from the sharp bones of his cheeks and jaw and ran his thumb along his dry lips. To have. To own it. He smiled widely. What a wonderful prize.


Enslaved

Spike awoke, his eyes opening slowly, and stared up at the wooden roof, the iron oil lap swaying a little from the centre of it. The realisation that he hadn’t had a good sleep immediately started wearing him down, a tired cliff face worn down by super hard fast waters. He hated not getting good sleep. It put him off for the remainder of the day, making the hours drudging and difficult until he fell into bed again. Spike was a creature that thrived on good rest.

He sat up grumpily and scrubbed at his whiskery face with his knuckles, yawning feebly. He turned his head, casting a fatigued glance at his captive sharing the bed, seeing he was still how Spike had tied him last night. Liam lay on his belly, long arms stretched over his head in the in the morning light slipping through the slitted high windows, his cuffed wrists tightly chained to the wall. His long fingers were curled gently around the chains in his repose, his dark head turned away from Spike, cheek on his bicep, looking uncomfortable. His body had subconsciously kicked the blankets down to his feet during the night and only a thin cotton sheet remained, draping across most of his back. He probably wasn’t used to so many blankets in the warm months, Spike thought belatedly, living up in the mountains as he did.

Wet black hair had dried into a somewhat messy mane, the ends of the locks curling sightly against his wide smooth shoulders. Spike reached out in his sleepiness and curled one dark lock around his index finger; his hair was nice, smooth and thick. He finger combed it, petting it out of its thrashed mess, trying to make it lie elegantly flat. It didn’t, ignoring Spike’s untangling, catching on other strands and trying to knot. Spike abandoned his attempts when he realised Liam’s hair was as stubborn as the actual man was.

He’d wash his hair with some hair cream, make it even smoother, and then he’d be able to comb through it with his fingers.

Liam slept on; oblivious in his drug induced sleep. Spike grudgingly realised that Liam would have had a wonderful sleep. He pouted a little.

Spike reached over Liam’s deeply slumbering body and grabbed the timepiece on the bedside, glancing at the time before groaning softly and sitting up. He pulled his clothes back on and then his chest armours, leaving his helmet discarded on the floor under his bed. He slapped the swell of Liam’s impudent arse through the cotton sheet and stood, stretching and pushing away the remnants of sleep and walking out through the carriage’s door, closing it firmly behind him and clambering happily down the stairs into the awoken camp.

The smell of eggs and bacon and meats sizzling on pans in the fire made his stomach swell with hunger. He walked past the large blaze, the soldiers cooking eggs after eggs and passing them along with hunks of hot bread and butter. Spike ignored the fire for a moment and sauntered through the carousing men, smelling the stink of some of them, body odour and sweaty hair. Some nodded to him in respect, all looked at him as he passed, quieting in case he had a job for them do, or an order to perform. He walked through them, hearing the noise pick up behind him like a ripple effect. He slipped along; finding the Commander seated in front of his large travelling carriage with a few scattered Generals.

A map splayed out in between them all and some were eating as they gazed down on it.

The Commander looked up, “General. Join us.”

Spike leaned against the carriage wall to listen.

“Vara Town is only an hour or so from here,” A general, General Markson said. He smiled at Spike in greeting, bright blue eyes flicking up. “As we know, the town sits in a line along the main street. The original plan was to cover both ends of the town… like bookends… to take the ones that flee. However, seeing as we now have word that Commander Heas is coming West with his company, they should be able to catch most of them, if they’re fleeing to the East. If they flee North, we can’t really track them into the higher mountains anyway. They’ll freeze and die.”

“Wonderful,” the Commander said.

“Sounds good to me,” Spike intoned, bored, “Sounds quick.”

General Skips looked up at him wryly. “Got something you’d rather be doing?”

The Commander looked at him, amused. Spike kept himself neutral. “Yeah, I want to be getting back to my home before the cold months hit these bloody mountains and freeze my bits off.”

A few of the generals snickered at that.

Spike waited until they all gathered their things and started to rise, before turning away and heading back to the smell of sizzling bacon. Footsteps hurried behind him and he looked over his shoulder to see Penn Markson, helmet under his arm, scurrying after him.

“Penn,” Spike sighed. The man acted like a shadow. Spike knew Penn was a bit wet thighed for him, with his big eyes and his mousy long hair. It was a well-known fact Penn enjoyed men more than women. Spike could go either way, really. It was all just different parts to play with, but Penn didn’t interest him. No fire. He was a rabbit birth; and he was the archetype of all people born in the months under the rabbit. The weakest and least interesting to Spike, of all the fourteen signs. Soft and agreeable. He’d prefer something with fangs any day.

Penn frowned a little, smiling. “You should call me General Markson in the vicinity of the troops,” he half admonished, half implored.

Penn had only been made General before this assignment, he was new to it, was enjoying the perks. Spike had known him since he was a First Lieutenant, but he had to say Penn had risen fast, playing the politics game.

Spike smiled patronisingly back at him. “Penn,” he said deliberately, “the troops don’t care.” He turned and headed towards the fire again.

Penn’s feet continued after him, in the silent bubble of quiet soldiers that they moved in. “I heard you got something.”

Spike grinned as he walked, toeing a sleeping pack out of his way. “And if I did?”

He slipped past the lined up men and grabbed two tin plates, shoving hot thick bread, eggs and bacon onto them with a nod to the cook.

“Who is he?” Penn needled, scurrying after him like a lap dog.

Spike shrugged, mouth wet from the smell of the food as he headed back towards his carriage. “Some herder from Seget village. No-one special.”

“Then why are you keeping him?” Penn pestered.

Spike set the plates on the steps to his travelling carriage and turned around. He gave Penn his full attention, raising his eyebrows and crossing his arms. Penn fidgeted under the close scrutiny. He was itching for some answers, itching with interest.

“Is…” Penn hesitated blinking big eyes, “is he an attractive one then?”

Spike smirked, amused. “What makes you think he’s anything exceptional?”

Penn stared at him, disappointment almost buried behind the curiosity. Almost. “Cause you’re bringing him breakfast.”

Spike looked back at the breakfast plates. He stepped forward, chuckling, guiding Penn away from the carriage. “I do that. I like to charm; I’m good at it. I like them falling to me.”

Penn frowned. “But why? If you want someone, just take them. Especially some uncivilised prisoner.”

Spike rolled his eyes, bored. “Any man can force themselves on someone. Power doesn’t come through cuffs and bars. It comes through submission,” he saw Penn’s eyes flare for a split instant and changed his smile to something teasing. He leant closer, leaning to his ear, toying with him; “Willing submission is what I like. It takes time. It’s the only thing I’m a patient man for.”

Penn chuckled nervously, his eyes flicking up to Spike’s, filled with longing. “Didn’t think you were patient for anything.” His face tipped up to Spike’s entreatingly.

“Rough and quick can be good too, but I find slow…” he breathed the words, rolling them over his tongue and enjoying the hopeful furtive look Penn gave him, “slow is better. For some things.”

“Is it?” Penn asked breathlessly, his hand unconsciously arcing forward, his fingers bumping against Spike’s own.

Spike grinned and pulled away, turning to grab the plates. “For some things.” He nodded goodbye and turned into his carriage, leaving Penn stranded outside, closing the door on his confused dashed look.

Liam was still a boneless lump in the covers. Spike moved over to him, setting the plates on a small clothes chest and sitting next to him on the bed. He poked his finger against Liam’s hip, moving his bulk but not waking him from the deep sleep, his breath was heavy and constant. Spike pouted, grabbing the medical chest and pulling a bottle of smelling salts from one of the small compartments.

Liam tried to wrench away from the strong smell when Spike shoved the bottled under his nose, jerking his arms against the chains, his face covered with beautiful confusion and alarm, hair unkempt. He couldn’t sit up, not with the chains over his head, so he lay on the bed on his belly, back arching lithely. Spike watched him as he remembered where he was, his strong arms pulling at the chains, trying to free himself Spike smiled, amused. It was interesting, watching the emotions dash across Liam’s features, watching him realise reality. People were always interesting to watch. Especially people like Liam. Intense people.

“Good Morning,” Spike said cheerily, watching him take in his surroundings with sleepy eyes, trying to thrust his body into alertness.

Liam looked at him almost dazedly, dry lips parted, devoid of strong expressions, his face a lot prettier when it wasn’t twisted with a scowl. He had sleep in his eyes and a trail of dried saliva on his cheek and he was lovely to Spike, in his own tumultuous way. He blinked rapidly.

“Like eggs?” Spike asked, capping the smelling salts and putting them away.

Liam dumbly looked around the cabin again. Spike leant forward, noting Liam’s quick jerk away when his hands reached for the chains. Dark eyes watched drowsily as Spike loosened the chains so he could turn over and sit up. He did, his movements clumsy because of the restraints, wincing in pain as feeling and blood ran back into his arms. He grunted out, looking sick, sitting with his hands in his lap and his head bowed as he tried to get fully awake in the midst of the pan and weariness. Spike enjoyed the show as Liam rubbed his face and eyes, stifling his yawns.

He looked into the corner where he’d been the previous night and then at the bed, slowly taking it in. His cuffed hands clutched coyly at the sheet, slowly, trying not to be discreet, pulling it further up his body and wrapping it around himself. He finally looked up at Spike’s face with sad, put upon eyes. Spike met his gaze serenely.

“Hungry?”

Liam looked at the plates stacked high with food. He slowly shook his head, looking down into his lap. Spike leant across to the plates, grabbing one and starting to eat, crunching on the bacon, feeling the taste explode saltily on his tongue, mopping some egg up with a hunk of bread. “You haven’t eaten since maybe… yesterday morning?” Spike said, his mouth full of hot food.

Liam stared at his hands and shook his head. “I’m not hungry,” he said firmly.

Spike swallowed, picking up a strip of salted bacon and chewing on it. “You gonna starve yourself?” he asked, amused. “Is that what you’re doing, luv?”

Liam’s eyes slowly met his again and Spike was delighted to see the burn within the brown. Like fire. “I don’t want to eat,” he said slowly, “anything… from