#27 - You Traitorous Cur

As Yolend and Pelahir neared the door of the cell they heard slow, monotonous  cursing.  “Scorch and damn and burn you, mutt!  Why don’t you bite me?  Drown you! Scorch you! Come back here you traitorous cur!”  Sure trotted out of the door to the hallway and down toward the stairs, but stopped half way down the hall and lay down, whining, staring back at the cell.

Pel looked at Yolend and she grimaced.  When they entered the hall, now filled with Limyé’s paintings, they found Ahrimaz kneeling naked in the middle of his cell, teeth set into his own arm, eyes clenched shut as he shuddered but could not manage to climax, though the two could tell he was in agony, trembling on the edge of it.

Yolend nodded at Pel who whispered, barely audible, “Come. Taste that delicious pain. You are lonely.”

It was enough.  Groaning Ahrimaz fell forward, blood on his arm, blood on his teeth, curled protectively around his genitals as he climaxed.

Yolend eased out and a moment later “Hello, Sure!  Who’s a good dog then?” echoed outside.  Ahrimaz jerked as if he’d been shot, scrambled forward into the bed covered to the eyebrows as Yolend came in, bringing Sure with her.  “Good evening, Ahrimaz!  Are you ill?”  She and Pel sat down on the chairs under the lamp.

“Go away, both of you.”

“Oh?” Pel crossed his arms across his chest.  “You’d have to get out of bed naked to make us leave you realize.”

“Curse you, I shit in your heart, drown you, burn you, I’ll fuck the front row at your funeral, scorch you, flay you, I eat your heart—“

“After you’ve shit in it?” Yolend said, raising her eyebrows.  “I think that would taste bad.”

“Damn you, woman you interrupted a perfectly good tongue lashing of this one-eye’d, split-tongued Cylak!”

“Ahrimaz, were you trying to get the dog to bite you just now?”  Sure hadn’t squeezed through the bars but sat, with her head pressed against Pel’s thigh.  Ahrimaz lowered the edge of the feather quilt.  The two were both wearing light cotton clothing, as if for bed, if he didn’t know that they slept naked.

“What if I did?” He sat up, dropping the bedclothes to his waist.  “She’s just a cur.”

“Why?”  Yolend rose and stood just outside the door.

“None of your business, you cunt-mothering witch!” Ahrimaz’s hands curled into fists as she opened the latch with a click that echoed in his head, the terror roaring through him. He choked silent as she stepped in and pulled the desk chair over next to his bed.

He sat, rigid as a statue as she took his arm and turned it over to look at the crusted and bleeding wound on his forearm.  “It’s only the one arm, now,” he gritted.  “The other one’s healed up.”  He thrust the other arm out violently to show the darkened scar tissue next to the wound.

“Ahrimaz,” Pel had followed Yolend into the cell.  For the first time both of them were inside, with him.  “You don’t need to hurt yourself or anything else to get sexual release.”

Ahrimaz wrenched his  arm out of Yolend’s  too tender grip and flung his back to them both. “Go away, just go away.  Let me rot here, you don’t want to like me, shadow-copy of your lover, smeared with blood and shit and injury.  You don’t want this breathing corpse to get anywhere near you.”

“It’s not your responsibility, really,” she said quietly and laid her hand on the back of his head, while Pel took hold of his calf through the featherbed.  “We will like who we like and…”

“I don’t want your pity!” Ahrimaz shouted at them but his face was buried in a pillow and though he twitched with the force of his shout, he didn’t try and throw off their hands.

“You need to listen to Limyé when he says that the next step in your healing is learning to be gentle with yourself.”  She pulled the bedclothes down and touched an old scar on Ahrimaz’s back.  He bit the pillow and choked as Pel reached under and laid a hand on his bare skin.  They sat for a long moment before Ahrimaz began shaking.

“You don’t want to do this,” he said, finally.  “I want to tear you two to shreds.”

“Then try,” she said.  “We can look after ourselves.  It’s not for you to say.”

Ahrimaz lunged out of bed, striking for her face quick as a viper.  She moved to match his speed, easing her face out of the way and Ahrimaz snapped his fist back just in time for Pel to bundle him in the bedding and the two of them rolled him onto the floor.  By the time he’d untangled himself, roaring with rage, they were already out in the hallway, and Yolend spun the chairs into his way as she dashed out the door after Pel, Sure scrabbling all four sets of claws on the stone to run ahead.

Ahrimaz scrambled after them, screaming, but his long sedentary hours had cut into his phenomenal speed, and they made it to the stairs up to the salle with him half way down the hallway.  On the stairs he somehow found his wind and rhythm, ceased raging and chased them silently. Yolend darted through the salle door first and Ahrimaz was within arm’s reach of Pel’s back when the Cylak ducked under that reaching arm, flung an arm around the Innéan and spun them both into and across the room, straight into the roaring stream.

It devolved into a splashing, ducking, swinging, struggle because kicks were too slow and Yolend would disappear into the foam and suddenly her hands would find his ankles and yank him under.  Pel would haul him up, duck or block a strike and then dump them both under.  Neither tried to strike back, but in the tumble Ahrimaz lost his balance and smacked up against a boulder and breathed in a lung full of water.

A hand grabbed his hair, another his beard under his chin and hauled him up to blessed air where he vomited and then fought to just stand on his own two feet and breathe.  Sure danced on the artificial bank and barked.

When he’d coughed up what felt like half the river he found himself clinging to the two, standing in the circle of their arms.  He stared down into her face and for a fleeting moment considered biting her, found himself kissing her. Bile and river and her sweet, sweet mouth.

He tore his head up, looked around wildly.  “I must not. I must…”

“Come on, Shit-Head,” Pel said kindly.  “Let’s get you dry and talk.”