Love as a Form of Binding Ch. 16

"It was my failing that we were far from you when you needed us the most. It was my doing that led us all into our disgrace and forced us to become the same thing as thieves and common bandits, losing the last of our honor."

She didn't see it, but he shook his head. "Whatever you stole, whoever you stole it from, it was more than likely stolen at least three times already. No one in the upper hells deals fairly, so I discount what you call a crime. Let any who feel themselves to be ill-used make their complaints to me, and I will steal the rest of what they have, before I kill them with a thought.

And Honor?" he asked, "Honor among demons. It is something which almost all of our kind know nothing of, never having had any. Billions of them wouldn't know of it if it bit them. Yet these ones here know of it quite well, Brin. And why would that be?

Wait! I know," he smiled, "it is because the idea of it lies at the heart of the discipline that they all know. They know it because it is what drives them to a common purpose. They know that they need it. They must have it, for without that, they'd have been the same as the other legions who fight for their own lords only out of their fear of them. But the thousands here do not fear their lord, Brin. They love him. That is why they did not disband and turn into what all of the others are.

No, they did not disband and disperse. They chose to remain under the leadership of the one who caused them to have the life that they love. It made them hunger to follow that one, to search for what had been stolen from them -- for that is the way that they all saw it. They hungered to find their lost lord and then to wait for the wild chance that he might be freed one day -- or night, as the case may be."

She wondered at the name that he'd used for her. He'd almost never even stooped to calling her 'Brinack' before.

He turned from her to his legions. "Legates! " he shouted, "To me!"

There was a bit of a shuffle and then twenty-two commanding demons ran up to him. Most were male, about two-thirds, and the rest female. He knew every one of them to be a fearless fighter in their own right. Brinack wondered if they were to be the ones who were to kill her, so that his hands might remain unsoiled from his brush with her failure.

"Why did you choose to follow your general?"

They looked as though they didn't understand the question for a moment. Finally, one of them spoke, "We followed because we love her, as we love you, Lord. We knew that we had the best chance to survive together that way." Behind him, the rest of them nodded their agreement.

"We knew that she would always lead us to you," one of the females shouted, "She would never give up. We knew that, and so we stayed with her."

Kerry smiled a little. "And do you feel as though you have lost something? Your honor perhaps, because you followed her even after she was deceived?"

"No Appolyon," another female said in a clear voice, "Our general gave us our honor in the first place. As long as we have her, we keep our honor. She has never led us wrongly."

"All of you," he called out to his host, "Do you feel as though you have lost your honor?"

It took a few moments before the roar died away. Kerry smiled as he laid his hand on Brinack's shoulder. "I think that we have dealt with the issue of their honor to their satisfaction. Please forgive me, General, but if one of our leaders were to commit an offense, it is custom to give them a tribunal. You see now that they need you, as do I." He sighed a little loudly, "and so, I am afraid that you will have to stay."

Brinack began to sob again.

"You committed one error, and that was to believe the word of a high lord," Kerry said, "I believe that the consequences for that have already been paid by you in the way that you have tortured yourself over it. As for me, I begin to think that it had to have happened. I do not think that I would have looked on it all the same then, and most certainly not in the right way. Our legions, yours as much as mine, for that is what they are, have never faulted you for it, and I forgive you, knowing that you acted in your belief correctly at that time.

At the moment, the only thing that I think that you do incorrectly is to look at the floor. If I am your lord, then at least I would like for you to look at least straight ahead if you think that you cannot look me in the eyes."

Brinack didn't think that she could, and so she did her best to look straight ahead, as she had before. The problem with that was that her gaze now held his manhood, a little different from what she remembered. It was almost all that she could see.

The number of times that she'd wanted only to touch that when he'd grown old enough at last -- to caress it just for a moment. To have had the chance to kiss it and more had been the stuff of her night-time thoughts forever, but that was where she'd always kept them.

She forced her gaze elsewhere. Above his genitals, she took in his flat belly and the ripples of his abdomen. True, he was no titan, but he'd grown into his body nicely and she just knew that he hadn't filled out fully yet. As sometimes happens, a stray thought can lead to an idea, and Brinack wanted to smile before her dark mood returned to her. Given half a chance, she thought, what she could grow out of that body with good food and a lot of hard work ...

Her eyes went to his hip next and she thought about how she'd dreamed of rubbing herself there while waiting for him to be ready once more during the times that she'd allowed herself the thought. On a male such as he was, she knew even then that she'd never have to wait for very long. His long thighs came to her view next and she wanted once again -- thousands of years later -- to nip and chew on the firmness of them.

And then her eyes went to his hooves, covered as they were with such long and lovely silken hair, the very same as her own.

She knew that they weren't the same -- not quite, anyway. But they were close enough.

In the human terms that she wasn't familiar with, she was a war mare, heavy in her musculature and with much power. He was a thoroughbred; thinner, lighter, and fast. But he'd always been the one that she'd wanted from the very first sight that she had of him, back when he was struggling to shed his coltishness. She groaned softly, knowing that she'd been absolutely correct all that time ago.

He'd grown into the male that she'd yearned and ached to hold to her forever.

He was the stallion that she would never have.

He spoke quietly to her for just a moment. "Please forgive me, Brin. I am only doing it this way because I know you to be one who has always insisted that anything serious between leaders be done this way. They are your rules, so I play by them. If it were up to me, I'd want to do this in private. You taught me that it was the wrong way to do it."

She nodded a little, "I know it, Lord. You act correctly here."

"Then there are the last two matters before us," he said loudly again, "and in this, I must insist that you raise your eyes to look at mine."

She was still sobbing, but she raised her head and her tears began to drip out of her face-shield. She almost cried out and began all over again to have to look at that face, though it wasn't quite as stern now.

He squatted down in front of her then. She saw his throat, shrouded on either side by his long dark mane as it hung over his shoulders, the finest throat that she could ever have imagined on anyone. She'd had long nights of only holding the one thought of how she longed to kiss and love that one part of him. The place where his collarbones came together and the little hollow there was still like an open invitation to her tongue.

She could see his face and in it, she saw the young demon boy that he'd been once, shaking and terrified of her while at the same time trying desperately to hide his childish arousal while she'd looked elsewhere, or smiled at him to tell him that she understood, and not to fret over something which he could not control. The young goatish eyes there, like her own, still held some of their newness, though one had to really look and know him to see it now. She wanted to smile at his beauty, but she didn't dare to anymore.

This was a trial if it was anything, and she was more than a little certain that the way that he'd swept her crimes aside to this point had been little more than a way to make her actions seem sensible right up to the one thing which would seal her fate.

Even so, Brinack admired his eyes and the way that the little forelock that he'd had as a boy had now become a longer one that could stir a female's heart if a breeze or his motions caused it to move only a little. Her eyes went from there to his nice ears standing there, and she had a thought of how much she longed to lick and nibble on them. She'd have shaken her head to clear the thoughts out of it, but it would have been seen badly here, and so she just tried to push the thoughts from her mind to focus on what was about to come to her.

But as soon as the thoughts left her, they were replaced by others as she looked at his gorgeous ram's horns, wanting nothing more than to be able to hold them tightly as she guided his lovely mouth to her most intimate parts.

But he was speaking again and so she listened to him for likely the last time in her long and miserable life of hopeless struggle.

"It was explained to me," he said, "while you were about to brawl like a common bar wench of the hells what this was all about. I am certain that the sort of tribunals which the humans hold for things such as this would never take the state of your heart into account, but I will."

He lowered his voice and it returned to the soft way of speaking that she'd known from him so long ago. "I am the one who must ask for forgiveness here, Brin. You were always proper with me before all of this. I know that you had to be then and I know why.

But I learned from what I was told. An Appolyon is not supposed to be able to form will without a command. That is what I was told. I was also told of what had happened to any who had shown that they had will of their own.

But I have will, Brin. I always have had will.

Everyone expected so much of me, and yet I dared not show what was in me, so I hid everything away while still a boy under your care and teaching. As I grew, I was better able to hide it all inside. I am an Appolyon. I cannot be detected other than as a demon. What I am, I can hide.

Well I am tired of hiding.

What I did not know was that I had not been forsaken as I believed -- as it was told to me then. I have believed that I was lost and alone again, as I was before you began with me. I thought that I had done something to cause you to forsake me. I wept for years at a time over the loss of you in my life, and I blamed myself for it.

There were long centuries of nothing for me, and for a time, I forgot about everything. It was easier that way. When I was freed, I only wanted to believe that I might get out of my prison. I thought of nothing else and I thought that I was still alone but in the company of some well-meaning ones. When I was here, I found myself faced with beauty everywhere that I looked. I suddenly had others around me who cared for me, and I gave in to it. I wouldn't have if I'd only known that you were coming."

He raised his voice. "There is still the matter of your attempted departure without leave to do so. It is a crime punishable by death among us here, normally. But I will let the ones here decide your fate."

Though she now wondered over what he'd said, Brinack held her face as still as she could. If her fate was to be decided and handed to her now, she'd accept it with the stoic grimness of a long-time fighter. If they held their actions to what she'd taught them all for thousands of years, there could be only one thing that they'd say, and she'd get what she'd asked for -- what she deserved.

"Does the general live or die for her actions?" He called out. "All of you, 'life or death'?"

He grinned as he waited for the chanting shouts to end.

"General Brinack," he said as solemnly as he could, "In the matter of your crimes against our horde and against me, your rightful lord and Appolyon, I hereby sentence you to remove your helmet."

She blinked, and then, still wondering if she'd understood things correctly, she slowly unfastened her helmet and pulled it off. She wanted to be ready for the stroke that brought her the gift of her oblivion.

She set it down in front of her and raised her gaze to look at him again, wiping the tears from her face with her hands. She really didn't know what was going on at all anymore.

Kerry stared for a moment and then he smiled as he reached to hold her face in his hands. "I have never seen you without that thing on your head," he said with a quiet laugh, "I hereby further sentence you to perform all of your duties without that pot on your head. You may only wear it in battle or on inspection now. I've seen enough of it.

So, the horde has decided to hand you back your life. I give you leave to go, if that is what you truly wish. I will not hold you.

Yet that is what I long to do."

He looked into her wet eyes for a while, trying to commit what he saw to his memory. His eyes stung him as he thought of how she must feel. "I have no need or desire to hide anything anymore, especially from you. This horde needs you and I need you even more."

He looked down for a moment at the tears that he saw. "I have a hope that you need me somehow. It would be cruel to us both if there was no need left between us. Please stay, Brin."

He looked at her face in the insignia of his legions there on her breastplate. He couldn't think of how he'd manage anything without her, but he guessed that it could be done. To think of a life without her now was beyond imagining. He looked at her face again in a little shock over what came to him.

"I feel a fear in me. I have a dread that there will be no one for me, now that I am finally free, not like the one that I want for me, for there is no one like her anywhere. There must be something left in you for me, isn't there? Maezou told me that you love me.

I want you to know something, Brin, because it needs to be said between us. I have been in love with you since I peed all over the ground in front of you in fear. I was scared to death at first, and then scared to make a mistake in what you taught me after that. But I have always loved you. I just didn't dare to show it then for fear that I'd have been destroyed for it."

She blinked at him again, wondering what was wrong with her senses. She expected to be tried and found guilty for her actions. What she was hearing here sounded more like a declaration of his love for her. She was almost certain that she was having a little trouble separating her fantasy from the reality of this.

But then she felt his fingers in her hair and the way that his thumbs caressed her ears told her that this was reality. Brinack the fearsome beast gasped and sobbed at almost the same time, one following closely on the heels of the other. She felt her mouth begin to fall open.

"I fear nothing anymore but one thing now," he said, "Please, Brin, do not leave me. Not now.

Please tell me that you still love me," he said, "I long to hear it from you. Please, "he smiled, "if you can and if you want to, please now teach me all of the things that you never dared to teach. I think that after so much time, that I can now devote myself to a lifetime of such study."

Before she could answer, he kissed her. She was a little slow at it since she still wasn't sure that it was happening, but she melted finally and accepted it, throwing her arms around him.

The spell lasted a good long moment and then his legions began to cheer as loudly as they could as the two on their knees in front of them - the slayer and the destroyer - knelt in their first embrace. The hall rang for minutes on end and ninety-two thousand voices can make a lot of noise in a large cave. Kerry couldn't even hear the soft sounds of her words to him when she said it, but he saw it on her lips and in her shining eyes.

From the opening of the kitchens on the other side of the hall, Alecto and Tisiphone leaned on the sill as they watched with Megaera and Sharon. They all sighed. Tereth stood behind them, trying to see over their heads.

"Damn and blast," he scowled, "for a minute there, I thought that he was going order her to get the chop. But nothing happened."

Megaera stood up and backhanded him across the room. "Shut the fuck up, Tereth."

He groaned from where he'd landed in between the sacks of flour.

----------------------

They stood up eventually and Brinack nodded to her legates wanting at least some shred of normalcy here. "We stay here for a time. Get your sections squared away and bedded down. Set the usual night sentries, I leave the length of the watches to you."

They nodded, waiting for anything further.

She smiled at them all, "And thanks to you all for your words. You have no idea how it felt to hear them."

It took a while to get from where they'd been back to the place where she'd met Kerry earlier, but they found Mother, Racephet and the others there after wading through thousands of happy slayers.

"If you can manage to tear yourselves away from the adoration of your legions," Toby grinned, "there is a little place here that I know you will enjoy, Brinack. Kerry knows the way, and you'll find wine and food there for you."

His legions still cheered them, but they cheered the longest when their lord took the general's hand and they walked away together. In the kitchen, Tereth made a bit of a point of yawning loudly. But he cut it short and walked to where they'd told him he was to sleep after all four of them turned to him with daggers in their eyes.

----------------

He watched as she removed her armor a little slowly. Kerry actually felt a little silly for only standing there. He offered to help again, but she shook her head.

"No," she smiled, "I want to do this for you. I have not seen your body for so long until you were freed. Before that, I always saw your body, did I not? You were just young when we met, but I have always been able to look. The last years that we were together for your lessons were the best, since by then, you already had a body that was worth more than a few glances from one such as me.

If you loved me then as you say, then it was a little unfair, I think. I have always worn armor when we were together all of your life. You should see me. I worry a little, but fair is fair."

It made him smile then. "What makes you worry, Brin?"

She grew a little serious, "You have only seen my face outside of my hard hat for the first time this night. I hope that the rest of me is worth the sort of look that I saw when you saw my face."

He thought about it for a moment and decided that her logic was flawed, so he said so. She wanted to know why.

Kerry laughed, "You wore what you wore, Brin, but I hardly saw that. My little brain was kept spinning with my thoughts of how you looked under your armor. In my mind, you were as naked as I was the whole time."

"Oh," she said, thinking about it, "so then I should put all of this back on then?"

"Well no, ..." he said, and it made her laugh until the point when he gasped at her nakedness.

"I wish now that I had a better imagination," he said, "My poor daydreams were so hopelessly incorrect. You are so beautiful, Brin."

It wasn't the most suave line that she'd ever heard, she thought, but then, no one who had ever thrown her a better line had looked like this or had the slight uncertainty in his voice then as Kerry did. Any woman could see the difference, she smiled to herself.