Page 43 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

TOBI

T obi looks at Lymok in horror. “You meant for this to happen? You were bringing me here? To give me to them?”

“I am sorry, kushir,” says Lymok in Artemian, not looking sorry at all, but extremely satisfied.

“I was planning to join the Exceli. I have been for some time. I have long sought a pact with the Exceli to bring peace to the forest. When Harok refused to listen to me and removed me from his council, I decided to see if I could arrange things more directly. And I thought when I left, I ought to bring you with me. As an offering to the great cause of overthrowing the heretic Irgo.”

Tobi stares at Lymok. “I thought you wanted to go back to Azuria. Find your family?”

“Perhaps I will. But not as some beggar fleeing Urynwud. If I do return to Azuria it will be as Irgo of the Amber Forest.”

Tobi looks at the faces all around him. Each one is crossed with an X in red paint. He makes himself swallow down his fear. “You hurt me. Irgo Harok kill you,” he says in Ambolk.

Lymok laughs. The others join in. He is surrounded by laughing leering faces in the dark. Salizi says something in Ambolk that Lymok translates, “No, kushir, Harok will die when we take Urynwud for Diazuul.”

Tobi responds with more Ambolk. “You no take Urynwud. You no take for twenty years.”

Lymok smiles. In Artemian, he says, “But now we have a strength we never had. We have the strength of the Azurian Empire behind us now.”

“The Empire is aiding you?” Tobi says in a soft whisper. And suddenly he wonders if he has got this all wrong. Did his father send help? His father must have sent Lymok to rescue him, working with the Exceli. “Do they know who I am?” Tobi says. “Have you told them I am a Darek?”

“Oh, yes,” says Lymok. “I told them. It is well known that Harok’s kushir is of Azurian blood, has Darek blood.”

“And you have arranged this with my father? With the Rose Court?”

Lymok smiles nastily. “Oh, kushir. The Rose Court? Did you really think you were the first person to tell me who my mother was? Do you really think I had never asked anyone about Alyse before I met you? The Empire has long had its eyes on me. One of its own in Urynwud. I have been speaking to the Thousand Eyes about the ways of the forest for many years.”

“Vindar? You have been in contact with Vindar?”

“Of course I have. And as soon as you arrived in Urynwud, I realised that you could be a useful tool. I sent a message to Vindar, I suggested that he could aid the Exceli in our fight in return for you.” Lymok pauses, “but he made me a different offer. ”

Tobi looks around at the Exceli, staring at him in the firelight. “If not my rescue, then what?”

Lymok leans closer, he looks very pleased with himself. “Vindar’s instruction was to make sure you never returned to Azuria alive. And for that, we would be helped by the empire in our fight to take Urynwud. With steel and more.”

Tobi stares at Lymok. Surely this is a lie.

But even as he thinks that, another thought, sour and sharp, settles on him. It is no lie. The empire does not want him back, was, in fact, glad to see a way of disposing of him.

Why would the empire help him? The same empire that had not saved Damon.

The same empire that had not protected Lukas.

Of course no one is coming for him. Of course his father does not care what happens to him.

When he was sixteen he had to beg his father on his knees for the means to pay for his mother’s care with the Brides of Zai, so they would not become destitute.

The last time he saw his father, the only time he was ever allowed inside the Ivory Palace, was to humble himself out of desperation before the frozen face of the Azurian Empire that sired him.

Cyrus was right. The Imperial Army was never coming for him. It was simply a comforting lie he told himself. Another act. One he performed for himself to hide the truth. No one comes for him. No one helps him. He is alone. He must face everything in his life alone.

Including this.

“We kill this kushir,” Salizi grunts in Ambolk. “Leave him outside Urynwud. Message for the heretic Irgo.”

Lymok leans close to Tobi. “It’s all worked out quite perfectly. We will be well rewarded by Azuria for killing you and Harok will be shamed and weakened. There is no greater way to destroy an Irgo than to take his kushir.”

Someone standing behind Tobi puts their hands on Tobi’s waist. A mouth close to his ear says in Ambolk, “We fuck kushir and kill kushir.”

Tobi looks around and spits back at them. “You die.”

Another man behind Tobi pulls him backwards, out of the grip that holds him and so his ass is held against the man’s groin. He can feel a partly roused cock through his alit. A voice snarls, “Fuck kushessa .”

“Don’t call me that,” Tobi snaps in Artemian.

Lymok steps forward. He touches Tobi on the cheek. “You know, I heard you used to be a whore with the circus.”

“I was not a whore,” Tobi protests as an arm wraps around him and slides under the alit to find his cock. “I was a beast tamer.”

Tobi swallows hard. He thinks of Baby, still on the cart. And somewhere in the dark he hears something. A familiar something that makes his heart leap. A low slow growl.

Baby. Baby is awake.

But what can she do? She is in a cage. And if the Exceli realise that she is there, under the sacking on Lymok’s cart, what would they do to her? Would they kill her? Sell her? Send her carcass to Attar as proof Tobi was dead?

But if she was out of her cage. She could defend him. Or she could run.

Tobi needs to get Baby free. With a grunt, he pulls out of the grip of the man holding him, who yelps in surprise. Suddenly, he is not being held. He only has a moment, a fraction of a moment, but he tears across the glade towards the cart.

Lymok drawls after Tobi, “What do you think you are doing kushir? You mean to run naked into the forest at night?”

But Tobi isn’t making for the forest. He reaches the cart, leaps up onto it and tears away the sacking.

Lymok, seeming to realise what Tobi is doing, calls out, “No! Stop him!” But his cry is swallowed up by Baby’s roar as she is revealed in the torchlight, rearing up, snarling.

“No,” Lymok shouts as Tobi senses the Exceli cowering away in fear. “She cannot be. I gave her sofi.”

“She’s a big beast, Lymok,” shouts Tobi. “How much did you give her?” thinking that Lymok was likely fool enough to only give her the dose that would have kept a man sleeping all night.

“The beast can’t get out of its cage,” shouts Salizi. “Get kushir away.”

Two of the Exceli race for the cart. Tobi knows he only has moments to free Baby. But his hands fumble on the bolts. They are stiff and his hands are cold. Baby is growling and snarling, sensing danger and growing more and more frenzied.

Hands grab hold of Tobi just as he starts to move one of the two bolts that hold the cage door closed. But he freezes as he hears a sickening sound. A familiar rush of air.

An arrow flies across the clearing. It sails through the bars of Baby’s cage, missing Baby by a hair and hitting the bars at the back. It drops onto the straw.

“Step back, kushir,” Lymok’s voice rings out in Artemian. “Get away from that cage or your beast will be shot dead before you.”

Tobi turns in the arms of the men holding him. He can see three Exceli archers with arrows nocked, ready to fire on Baby .

“Don’t hurt her,” Tobi says, voice shaky. “Please don’t hurt her. Don’t fire. I’ll do what you want.”

Then one of the men holding Tobi says in Ambolk. “We fuck kushir and beast too.” He laughs.

He’s a big man, meaty and strong. As big and muscled as Harok, but surely he would not be so stupid as to approach Baby in such a state.

He reaches around Tobi and sticks an arm through the bars of the cage to touch the snarling animal. “Fine beast,” he coos. But Baby is in no state to be played with.

“ Don’t! ” Tobi tries again. But too late.

Baby moves fast. With a snarl and a snap, her head turns and her jaws sink into the man’s arm.

The man screams and jerks his arm back. Blood flies everywhere, even torn flesh. The gore splashes onto Tobi’s alit. He sees the archers pull back their bowstrings.

“No,” Tobi yells in Ambolk. “No, no,” And then switching to Artemian. “He scared her. She is frightened.” He pulls free of the other man still holding him and stretches out his body to shield the cage.

The man with the bloodied arm is crouching on the ground, sobbing.

Tobi screws his eyes shut, waiting for arrows to pierce his flesh.

“Stop,” Salizi shouts. Tobi hears the Ambolk words in a jumble, but he picks out some of them. “No. Leave beast. Beast fetch good price. Bring kushir back.”

While the big man stays sobbing on the ground, Tobi is dragged down from the cart by more Exceli. He looks back at Baby, still growling and snarling with a blooded mouth, but trapped in her cage. At least she is unharmed.

Tobi is dragged back before Salizi and Lymok.

The man behind Tobi pulls him around, spinning him so they are face to face.

He is stout and bearded. He grins at Tobi with blackened teeth.

“What special about kushir? Why no other man get to touch?” he says in Ambolk and darts forward, pushing his lips against Tobi’s as he forces their bodies together.

The man tastes sour. Tobi fights back from the kiss and tries to struggle but there are more hands on him. Behind him, Lymok says, “Behave, kushir. Imagine you are back in Azuria, selling yourself to all.”

There are hands on Tobi’s skin, tugging at his alit, snaking under it to stroke his ass.

Tobi cries out as a finger finds his hole, but someone puts a hand over his mouth. He bites it and hears a yelp of pain as the hand is pulled away.