The Dragon Engine (13 page)

“Aye?”

“It has all those metal bands down the shaft. I've never seen that before.”

“That's because you're used to woodcutters' axes, boy. Mine is a weapon of war.” He saw Jael frown. “What I mean is, a woodcutter does not have somebody swinging a sword at him. The metal bands are called langets. They make it more difficult for an enemy warrior to cut the shaft during battle.”

“Ah. I see. Because an axe with no shaft…”

“Is a lump of useless steel, lad.” Beetrax grinned. “I'll tell you something else. A good axe-maker uses his skill to carbon-edge the blades. You can sharpen them a lot keener, then. Makes a proper mess of a mud-orc's neck.”

“Or a forest bandit.”

“Yes.”

He settled back yet more, and took another long draught of wine. He sighed, and scratched his ginger beard.

“Were you in many battles?” asked Jael, voice gentle, eyes shining in the light of the fire. Demon fireflies sparkled, as if surging upwards, attempting to be free of the killing jar.

“Too many.”

“Poets used to come to our village all the time; they would recite ballads about… you.”

“Yes, well, I hope your Elders stoned the bastards. I fucking hate poetry.”

“Beetrax?”

“Hmm?”

“You are not like what I imagined.”

“And what did you imagine? Now, be honest boy?”

“Somebody more… polite. Noble. With good manners. Somebody who did not drink and fight so much.”

“Well, that's heroes for you. All of them a shower of horseshit, in my humble opinion. Noble? Ha! I wouldn't know noble if it bit me on the arse. And neither would the nobles!” He roared with laughter, slapping his leg at his own comedy.

“You still laughing at your own jokes, Beetrax?”

Lillith stood in the doorway, like a ghost. Her dark hair framed her soft, gleaming olive skin. Her eyes were hidden. Silver charms glittered on her wrists in the firelight. Her form was alluring, without meaning to be so.

“Always,” said the axeman, without looking round.

“Could I speak with you?”

“I thought that's what we were doing.” He lounged back, glancing at her, as if he didn't have a care in the world. Which they both knew was a lie.

“In private.”

Beetrax sighed, and looked at Jael. “Better get a move on, lad.” He nudged him.

Jael stood, wincing, hand on his broken ribs, then disappeared down a short corridor to his chosen room.

Lillith came forward, and sat opposite Beetrax.

“You require my counsel, lady?”

“I was thinking.”

Beetrax opened his mouth to make some smart retort, but some primitive instinct took over, some spark kicked his mind into sobriety and he recognised this meeting was subtly different. This was no fireside banter. It had become, worryingly, serious.

“Yes?” He took another drink. A mote of apprehension drifted into his mind; a sliver of excitement pushed into his breast. Suddenly, the bitter wine tasted sweet. The acrid fire-smoke was perfume. The very fucking air was a drug.

“I… I feel I very much wronged you. When we were betrothed, all those years ago. We were so close. And then I finished it, and I devastated you. I realise that. And, truly, I am sorry.”

Beetrax nodded. “It's fine, Lillith. I never deserved you.”

“Oh, you deserved me.”

Beetrax frowned. “I was a fighter, a drinker, uncouth and brash and vulgar. And you floated into my life like an angel. It was almost like we were opposites, Lillith. You love medicine and herbs, animals and people. To me, animals are something you eat, not rescue. People are bastards –
sorry
– who simply get in my way, and then I have to clear a path, usually with my axe. How did I deserve you? What gentle aspect of my soul brought you to me?” He gave a rumbling chuckle, and rubbed at his thick red beard.

“You undersell yourself.”

“Oh yeah? How's that, like?”

Lillith lifted her knees before her, and placed both hands around them, hugging herself. The fire crackled and popped, then settled into a glowing, humming hearth. Occasionally, a flame shivered upwards between the two, a dancing, flirting demon.

“You wish to dissect my mind?”

“Er. Yeah. If you like.”

“What would you like to know?”

“Why me?” Beetrax grinned, but his eyes were deadly serious.

“Why you?” She considered this, dark eyes glittering in the firelight. “Ask my core, my chemical makeup, my soul. You are smart and funny, strong and… honourable, despite your claims to the contrary. You make me feel like I'm the only person in the room. Nobody has ever made me feel like that before. Not ever.”

When Beetrax spoke, his words were low, and tender. “You are using the present tense,” he said.

“You think things have changed? You think I fell out of love with you, just because I refused to marry you?”

“You said you did. You stood there and
told me
you'd changed. Become a different person. Gone chasing education and medicine, helping people, and shit.”

“I had to say that. I had to break free. For both of us. Sometimes, the greater sacrifice is the only way it can be.”

Beetrax considered this. He shook his head. “Ha! You fuck up my mind, woman.”

“Beetrax?”

“Hm?”

“Come to me. Come to my room. Now.”

Beetrax stared at her. His hands were trembling. “Lillith, now you are truly making no sense.”

“Does it have to make sense?”

“You cast me aside, woman! And now you want me back in your bed? Why?”

“You're asking me to explain something I don't fully understand; but I will try. When I first met you, Beetrax, it was something I didn't ask for, something I didn't look for. I was studying hard. I was in love with medicine. And then you were there. I didn't ask for our connection, I didn't expect it or even want it. It was just
there
. And it was immediate. I'm not going to give you crazy similes. From the moment I first met you in Vagan Library, you looking all flustered and lost, like a big oaf, well, you accepted my help. And after you left, I knew you would be there again the next day; I couldn't wait to get back. I wrote you a letter, and you read it, and soaked up the words and the meanings, and I loved that. Loved this big brutal warrior who took the time to read my words. My bloody
words.
And up until the time I told you I was drawn to you, that you had affected me, that I believe we had connected, every moment apart from you was needles of pain in the centre of my brain.”

“Er. You never told me that before.”

“I'm telling you now.”

“Dissecting your brain?”

“Trying to explain.”

“Er. Wow.”

“I knew you'd say that. I knew you'd use that word.”

He frowned. “Well, you know me too well, then.”

They stared at one another across the fire. Lillith licked her lips, and the sensuous moment was not lost on Beetrax.

“You are mad,” he said, finally.

“Don't call me mad.”

“You're
fucking
mad.”

“Beetrax, that's worse!”

“I mean… because of your intensity. Because you never told me before. You waited all these years, until now, until this place, this time in our lives. Why?
Why
?”

“I feel self-conscious now.” She looked away, running her hand through her long, dark hair.

Beetrax stood, and moved around to her. He sat, close, and their legs touched.

“Don't do this,” he said. “For I am weak. And I am lost.”

“I have never been anything but honest with you.”

“I know. But you left a lot unsaid. For all those years. You ripped a hole in my heart when you left. I thought I would never be whole again.”

“I am sorry, Beetrax. Truly, I am.”

“What you just said to me, now, that was beautiful and touching. I might be as rough as you can get, but I appreciate your honesty; I appreciate you talking to me like this.” He reached out, and brushed a stray hair from Lillith's forehead. “I've missed you, you know? Missed our… intimacy.”

“I, also. For months I convinced myself I had done the right thing. Now, I wonder.”

“Why didn't you say something sooner? I told you, back in the forest how I felt. How I'd never let you go. How you were… in my heart.”

Lillith sighed. “I feel… vulnerable, where you're concerned.”

“Vulnerable? You hurt me!”

“And by doing so, hurt myself.”

“But now you're back?”

“Yes.”

“Horseshit. Anyway. You never answered my earlier question.”

“Which one?” Lillith appeared a little flustered, which was unlike her. She leant in closer to Beetrax, their arms applying pressure to one another.

“Why wait all this time? Why say these words
now
?”

Lillith turned her head, looked into Beetrax's eyes. “I believe this is our last mission together,” she said, words little more than warm, sweet breaths. “I believe we will die under the Karamakkos.”

“That's not possible,” smiled Beetrax, as they inched closer, and their lips brushed, and Beetrax closed his eyes, and her lips were warm and sweet and tender, and she kissed him, and he tasted her, and he remembered that taste like a dream, like a bad drug, like chains wrapping around his brain and heart and soul. It triggered a beating in his heart and in his core. He sank into her. He worshipped her. Their tongues entwined. Her hands came up and held his head. And then they were apart and Beetrax was breathing, cheeks flushed, and Lillith stood, a surprisingly fluid movement, her hips twisting, and she reached down and took his hand and led him past the fire.

Beetrax followed. Like a dog. Like a slave. He had no control. He had left that behind with his sanity.

It was cold away from the fire, and the shadows lengthened into black velvet as she led him through the darkness of the old barracks in the mountains. Despite the alcohol in his blood, or maybe because of it, Beetrax felt he was floating. Lillith moved before him, her hand reaching back, holding his large, solid, scarred and tattooed fingers. The walls around them were cobwebbed, ancient stone, and Beetrax breathed in their history like perfume, revelled in every image that stuttered before his panic-reeling brain. And then they were there, at the doorway leading to… her room.

“Come in,” she said, voice husky, pushing at the old timber door. It creaked open, and they stepped through the portal. Stepping behind him, she closed it again.

A single candle burned, its light flickering like a beacon.

Beetrax felt as if he moved through honey, a spectator watching his own dream. She moved to him, pressing herself against him, and he smelled her, and remembered the taste from inside her. It was sandalwood. She tasted of sandalwood. It drove him wild.

“Kiss me,” she instructed.

He kissed her.

“Hold me.”

His arms encircled her slim waist, edging up her shirt, connecting with her naked flesh, savouring her warm skin. Their lips brushed once more, and Beetrax gave a low groan, and Lillith bit his lip, her tongue sliding into his mouth, her arms around him now, her naked flesh under his fingers. They fell back to the bed, which creaked, and where the blankets smelled of her.

“You're in my room, now,” she said, voice husky.

“I am your slave,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“I am your prize,” he said.

“I know,” she said, and she undressed him, and he let her, for he had lost all his freewill, misplaced his control, and had ultimately fallen under her dark witchcraft spell – again. Or so he told himself. In reality, he allowed himself to be mesmerised. Welcomed the abuse, the pain, the pleasure, the guidance, the mastery.

They were naked together, and the room was cold, but neither felt the chill for their flesh was tingling, their minds spinning. They kissed, lying side by side, and her hand touched his chest, and travelled down, taking his cock, squeezing it gently, dropping down to his balls, and squeezing them as well.

“Tell me if I hurt you.”

“You won't hurt me,” he said.

And she kissed his lips, and kissed his neck, and kissed his chest, and dropped lower, taking him all in her mouth, taking him deep, and his hips pushed forward and his mind went bright as if fever had torn his mind free; her hair fell like a curtain onto his belly, and he reached down, pushing it to one side, so he could see her beautiful face, see the work of her lips and tongue upon him.

He came, suddenly, an explosion that ripped through him, and she swallowed him, drank him all down inside her, took every drop for herself. And then they lay together, and he stroked her breasts, stroked her belly, his hand dropping further, his fingers moving in slow circles. His fingers slid inside her, and he crawled down the blankets, and pushed his face into her quim, and worked on her with a delicate passion as she writhed beneath him, and he tasted sandalwood, just like before, and now it was his turn to drink her down, and these images, this passion, merged with what once had been; and he remembered, remembered it all as Lillith's passion rose before him, and his hand reached out, took her breast, squeezed the nipple, and she moaned and her fingers curled through his hair and he felt her shuddering, shuddering, vibrating like a tight-wound machine, lost in another world, a world of pleasure, and memories, and unity.

L
ater
, they fucked, and she lay beneath him, enraptured face framed by her dark hair, and they gazed into one another's eyes and joined together, worked together, came together. And everything focussed on a pinprick moment of absolute intensity; and she clutched him until it was over, and the stars died, and the world died, and finally, the sun went out.

T
hey lay under the blanket
, curled together, a perfect fit. It was near dawn, and cold light filtered through window shutters.