Free By the Mountain Bound by Elizabeth Bear Page B

Strifbjorn covered Mingan’s hand with his own and made him change places.
    Mingan’s hair was vital, wiry, the silver coarser than the black, so it sprang out among the dark strands like spray leaping from a hard-running river. It was longer than Strifbjorn’s, and thicker. Strifbjorn had to make him stand again and kneel behind him to comb the ends, which brushed the tops of his boots when unbound.
    When Strifbjorn had it all combed to his satisfaction, the bits of twig and leaf picked out, the strands covered Mingan like his discarded cloak. Strifbjorn tossed the comb to one side and put his hands on his hips, the gray leather trousers as warm as living hide. Strifbjorn turned him. He tucked straying locks behind Strifbjorn’s ears.
    It’s harder to work someone else’s belt, but Strifbjorn fumbled Mingan’s open, pushed his trousers down and held him steady while he balanced against his shoulder to toe out of his boots. “Shirt,” Strifbjorn said, and Mingan stripped it off. His hair showered over Strifbjorn in disorder, mingling, brushing shoulders and arms. His scent enfolded Strifbjorn with it, pungent as musk.
    Mingan threaded his fingers through his gray locks and Strifbjorn’s light ones, knotted his hands, holding his head between his fists. Mingan tried to hurry Strifbjorn, to make it rough and sharp and quickly over. That was always his trick, his way of keeping his distance and keeping control. But sometimes Strifbjorn could coax him into being softer, and he needed more just then.
    Strifbjorn didn’t let Mingan control him this time. He tasted of salt and sex, and after a moment he stopped trying to manage Strifbjorn and let him do his will, though the grip of his hands didn’t ease. He shuddered and grunted through his teeth and Strifbjorn sucked him, though he gulped slippery bitterness. He kept at it while Mingan rocked against him, still hard, until he finally hauled Strifbjorn’s hair and his savagely enough that Strifbjorn let him pull away. “Lie down for me,” he whispered, harshly. Strifbjorn rubbed his face against his belly behind the coarse rasping veil of hair.
    Strifbjorn let go of Mingan’s hips and unlaced his own cuffs, shook Mingan’s hands from his head and pulled off the shirt. He stood and tossed boots and trousers atop Mingan’s, then kicked the bearskin cloak out flat for a bed. And as he had asked, Strifbjorn lay down and helped Mingan fuck him, naked under the cold mountain sky, the light from his eyes and the light dripping from his collar beading on their skin like a dew of sweat.
    The Wolf
    S ome time later, Strifbjorn lifts his head from my shoulder, grins at me. “Thou’rt the one who insisted we keep her chair on the dais.”
    My lip curls slightly. “It’s thee they’ll follow.”
    “I know.” Anger creeps into his voice. “This hiding demeans us.”
    “And they need thee.”
    Slowly, he nods. “When this is settled. When the Lady has her hands on the reins and we see that she’s fit to rule . . . I’m done. Six hundred years is enough to play war-leader.”
    “If thou dost admit to me, thou wilt be outcast.”
    “I don’t care.”
    I do.
    He reaches for the comb. “Come here. I’ll do a better job on your hair.”
     
    H e does, a ladder plait in five strands that hangs only to the small of my back. My heart is troubled, but my step is lighter when I return to the pack, at dusk. I know before I reach the clearing under the boughs of the copper beech that something’s wrong.
    The scent of the girl in the russet cloak hangs on still air. I skip a stride, stumbling into a run, but halt amid the big tree’s curtain of autumn-crisped leaves before I venture into the clearing. Cautious of ambush.
    She is backed up to the bole, the pale cub crouched laughing at her feet. The rest of the pack—farther away—sit, lie or pace about her. The red bitch sidles up to me and thrusts her cold nose against the palm of my hand. Strifbjorn’s scent does not