Chapter 1: 1

Far to the South, in the unforgiving, snow-blasted wastes of Yaavik, a mountain stood apart from the others. It brooked no rivals in its majesty or ferocity. It decried life upon its slopes. It brought only fear and death to those foolish enough to set foot upon it. The mountain gave nothing and took much. Here, long ago, upon crags and drifts that shifted with malevolent shrugs, a lowborn woman bore a child and died as its screams echoed even through the terrible gales that assaulted the sparse, empty space.

The child should have died, laying there between the nethers of his parent, but, as he would ever do so, the child defied the winds and the cold and the mountain that trembled and shook in fury at the impudence of an infant that dared to fight against all its hatred. Even a child as defiant as this could only last so long before succumbing to the frigid hands of Death. Had not an old warrior come upon the child and took him into strong arms.

It was not pity that caused the warrior to save the child, for, like his god, the warrior had no pity. He came upon the mewling child and saw only a waste. Any child that could wail at the mountain in such defiance deserved to live, though he would find no comfort in the warrior. No love. No compassion. He was a warrior of the Yaaviki and they loved only war. Found comfort only in the blood and the flesh of their enemies and, in this child, the warrior saw war.

From the day he could walk, the child knew only pain. From the moment he could grasp a weapon, he knew only training and exhaustion and agony. The warrior gave only counsel, beatings and tests, until the day the child stepped forth into his fourteenth Winter and slew his surrogate father. Only then did the old warrior smile, because he knew he had brought a great warrior into the world and that warrior would show the same pity to others as he had experienced himself.

None.

-+-

The hound howled for the third time and Barrin tensed once again. The sword, always within reach, came to his hand, only for the hand of another to gently push it back upon the cotton covers of the bed, a hushing coo falling from lips pressed against Barrin’s muscled chest. The lips kissed his skin, so light that Barrin could have thought it a breeze, and he allowed his fingers to release the sword’s well-worn, leather-covered grip.

He looked down to the tousled, curled hair of his lover and smoothed his calloused hand across the thick mat of curls. Lover. Once, Barrin would have scoffed at the thought. He had many encounters in his short, tumultuous life, but he had loved not a one of them. Not until he met this man. This man that could laugh at a breeze and cry at snowfall. A man that had brought feelings from Barrin that he had never known before. Feelings he had thought beaten out of him long ago.

Kahri. Even the name sent flutters to his heart and he could never understand why. Father had warned him against love. Love distracted. Love caused fears, not for oneself, but for others and an enemy could exploit those fears. Father had never allowed love to weaken him as Barrin had allowed it. He loved Kahri and he never knew, from one day to the next, whether that love would become a burden or a benefit. Kahri never cared. He gave his love to Barrin with no hesitation, no expectations, no fear.

Fingers curled into Barrin’s chest hair as Kahri sighed. A trail of a fingertip across one of the many scars upon Barrin’s body. Kahri did that, tracing the map of Barrin’s past, questioning each one, at one time or another, only falling silent when Barrin would state the origin of a scar from his father. They lay like this often. Sometimes without making love, others after they had exhausted themselves, falling spent back upon the rough bed.

Another howl rent the air outside and Barrin could not stop his hand falling back to the sword. He lifted his head, white hair tumbling over his shoulder to blanket his chest, only for Kahri to press him down once again with a gentle hand and pleasant whisper. It was always so. Father had taught Barrin to question the night and the wind and the creak of a stair. He had taught him to see the blade hidden in the shadows, the thoughts of betrayal in a friend’s mind, the inklings of sedition within the ranks of an army. He never failed to react to anything.

“Hush, my love. It is only a dog crying out for a mate to rut with.” Another kiss, higher up the chest. “Would that I could howl like that dog and perhaps I could receive love again this night.”

“The hound is wary.” Barrin’s fingers slipped from the grip once again and moved to circle an arm around Kahri. “Father always said to trust the instincts of beasts. They smell war before we even turn to arms.”

“And ‘Father’ always knew best.” The venom in Kahri’s words, especially as he mentioned Father, could have poisoned an entire legion. He raised his head, deep, dark brown eyes searching into Barrin’s green ones. “The war is over, my love. We lost. I know that eats at you to your very soul, but you cannot win every battle. Not alone.”

“I can try.” Barrin fought against his own instinct to snap at Kahri’s words. Father did not raise a failure.

The war had lasted for years, Barrin had lost count of how many. It wasn’t even his war, but one he had stumbled upon and took up arms to feast upon battle, as Father had burned into him. He had no care for why the two countries fought, nor for who had the greatest justification. It was war and Barrin lived for war. He craved war as he craved food. More so. Food, according to Father, only fuelled the body for battle. Yet, now he craved something else, more than he craved war. Someone else.

He had met Kahri in battle and could think of no better place to meet someone he could come to love. Tending to the injured and dying, Kahri could not have shown himself more different to Barrin. Where Barrin strode the battlefield in search of ever greater challenges, Kahri scuttled and skittered among the fallen, searching for, hoping for at least one man or woman he could save with his bandages, his ointments and his philtres. Kahri cared as much as Barrin did not. Barrin had felt a stirring in his loins instantly, though it took many days of searching to find Kahri again.

The war had ended in blood, as many wars did, but not how Barrin would have liked. He cared nothing for the cause, for the reasonings. Nor did he care, as such, for falling on the wrong side of defeat. Kahri was right, in one way, you cannot win every battle, but, if you had to lose, you lost due to the superiority of your enemy, not the stupidity of your leaders. Barrin had known crossing the Lamaya river was a mistake, but none had listened. The defeat had ground like sand between teeth ever since.

“What was his name?” Kahri sat upright, his hand trailing from Barrin’s chest, and reached across for a cup and the jug of water. “Your father? You’ve never said. I know! I understand! Talking does not come naturally to you, my love. I’m just curious and wondered what he was called.”

“Father.” He didn’t resent the question, not from Kahri, but it wasn’t something he thought mattered. “I only knew him as ‘Father’.”

Father was not inattentive. He spoke. He spent time with Barrin. He taught Barrin many things, not limited to the warrior arts. He taught him how to read and to write, in several of the local languages. He would, at night, read epic poems from dusty old tomes that looked as though someone had written them centuries before. Father had taught him how to hunt, how to prepare their catch and how to cook it. From his father, Barrin had learned of the fluid nature of politics and the staid nature of customs and traditions. Father had taught much more than even those.

Barrin had never considered himself lonely. Nor had he thought himself neglected. Father only had more important things to consider. He did not teach Barrin how to read and write for pleasure, but because, in war, communication was key. He did not teach Barrin how to hunt to survive out in the wilds, but to impart how animals would run, or hide, or turn to face their hunter. All lessons comparative to actions in war. And he had taught Barrin politics because wars always began due to politics and, on rare occasions, ended due to politics.

His father had a single mind, a single intent. War. War was everything. And, in Barrin, Father had seen war personified. To them, Father and Barrin, and to their god, Shtuur, war was a sacred endeavour. Pity had no place in war. Compassion had no place in war. Empathy had no place in war. War encompassed and threaded through everything. It seeped into the soil and the rocks. It infused the seas and oceans. War lingered in the air. War was war. It defined itself and created itself, justified itself and ended itself. Barrin wanted nothing but war.

Until Kahri. His lover had slipped from the bed and peered through the strings of cloth that wafted in the cold air that drifted in through the window, shutters opened wide. Moonlight flickered through those strings, catching the smooth turns and curves of Kahri’s skin, looking golden, or bronzed, at one moment, then highlighted in bright, almost white strips that made his skin look even darker. Kahri leaned against the frame, taking a sip from the cup as he peered out through the strings.

“I never knew my father.” He turned, grinning, and shrugged his shoulders before turning back to gaze out the window once more. “Of course, I told you that before. What I haven’t told you is that I still feel love for him. It’s strange, but my mother would talk of him and it gave me a picture in my mind. You don’t, do you? You don’t love your father.”

“Love is meaningless.” Barrin clamped his mouth closed. His father’s words springing from his own tongue. “No. I have no love for him. Nor do I have hate for him. He raised me and I am thankful for that. There is no need for any other thoughts.”

Kahri didn’t react to Barrin’s words, not about how meaningless love was. He knew Barrin didn’t think that, not about him, at least. Or Barrin hoped he knew he didn’t count Kahri in that sentiment. To others, for others? Yes, love meant nothing. To Barrin, for and about Kahri, it meant everything. In fact, it looked as though Kahri hadn’t heard a word of what Barrin had said. The cup placed to the side, Kahri had separated some of the cloth strings and peered out into the moonlit night.

“You’ve lived in Khaddush some time now, yes?” He said it as a question, but Kahri knew full well that Barrin had lived there for almost as long as the war had lasted. “Have you ever seen a fog like this before?”

The sword appeared in Barrin’s hand as he leapt from the bed. He knew the hound had foreseen something, but he had ignored it, as any other would ignore it. A dog howling in the night was not unexpected, but Barrin had sensed it as the hound had sensed it. Towering over his lover, he bent almost double to look out upon the streets below and saw the billowing, thick fog rolling along. It seeped into alleys and side streets. Poured over window frames and under doors. A bloated, white miasma that looked, for all intents and purposes, as though alive. Searching for something.

“Sorcery!” Barrin reached down, grabbing a pile of clothing and thrusting it toward Kahri. “Do not waste time dressing. We must run.”

“Run? Run where?” Kahri still stood by window even as Barrin almost ripped the door of the room open. “And sorcery? It’s only ...”

He fell. Crumpled. One moment as awake and as alive as at any other time, the next he lay in a heap, immobile, and Barrin couldn’t even tell whether he still breathed. And there, creeping over the sill of the window, fingers of fog began to tumble down, blanketing the unmoving form of Kahri and then continuing to roll across the floor. Toward Barrin.

Barrin had his sword. He needed nothing else. He could run, outpace the malignant fog that now reached for him. At any other time, any other person, he would not even have hesitated. Even so, he could not help Kahri if he, too, succumbed. He had to run, whether he wanted to or not. Except he couldn’t. He felt a sluggish weight form upon his legs as he looked down. He had hesitated too long and the fog had reached him.

He fought, as he had always fought. As he had fought when he had arrived into a cold, cruel, uncaring world. Yet even he could not fight long enough or hard enough against this. His last thought, to crawl to his love, the only person he had ever loved.

No! His last thought was of vengeance. Whoever caused this, whoever had brought him and his love so low, would pay. He swore it to Shtuur, but Shtuur did not answer and never would. Shtuur didn’t care about love. Shtuur cared about blood and war and brutality. And war. Always war.