Under the Mountain - Part 4

[bad_peppermint]

Masterpost

“Please don’t do this.”

Adam shook his head, kept his head down to avoid meeting Tommy’s eyes.

They were deep, deep down in the tunnels, where no one ever went. Tommy had kept silent the entire way down, but when Adam had stopped at one of the cast-iron rings in the ground and unbuckled a pair of chains that he threaded through it, Tommy’s resolve just seemed to crumble.

“You know I didn’t do it,” Tommy said.

Adam splayed his fingers across the other man's cheek, his thumb sealing Tommy's trembling lips. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, sliding closed the lock around one thin, pale wrist. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”



The agitation in the council hall had not cooled by the time Adam returned. Those who were not rushing aimlessly about, getting underfoot, appeared to be quite content to out-scream the others for their reasoning to be heard. It was disgraceful. They were a warrior people, and here they were, acting like a group of startled children.

“How would they even get inside?” Neil asked, cutting off Marcus mid-word. “We’ve always defended ourselves and our home in the past.”

“Perhaps, but it isn’t impossible to breach our walls,” Marcus shot back. “If you’re not careful, my boy, your attitude will lead to our downfall.”

It wasn’t until the king ordered anyone who wasn’t within his inner circle, including his sons, out of the hall that some semblance of order returned. Adam returned to his cavern, unwilling to face Neil after all this, and found himself confronted with Isaac, Monte and Allison instead.

“Is Tommy okay?” Allison asked immediately.

Adam nodded slowly and couldn’t help but notice the quiet breath that Monte let out at the news.

“Should he be?” Isaac asked. “The man did betray us.”

Adam didn’t reply.

He wasn’t surprised when Isaac understood. “You don’t think he betrayed us.”

Adam met his eyes, slowly. He didn’t have to say anything.

“Why are you so sure about that?” Isaac burst out. “You don’t know him.”

“I know him well enough,” Adam said. He deliberately unclenched his hands. “Why are you so sure he did?”

Isaac didn’t answer that, and eventually Adam rose to his feet. They had a battle to prepare for.



For two long days, the mountain was in an uproar. There were weapons to be sharpened, supplies to stash away, defenses to build. Their horses were sent into the forest, hopefully to be found again when everything was over. Monte and Adam, both strong, muscular men, were needed to move a boulder that would block the crevice that allowed entrance to their little garden. Stacy had taken possession of Allison, teaching her rudimentary fighting skills that would hopefully keep her alive.

Adam was in the lower corridors, searching for areas that could be used to set up traps, thinking that perhaps he could go see Tommy. He went twice a day, bringing food and water and stroking over Tommy’s increasingly matted hair, but he found himself wondering if a third time would truly hurt when Isaac came up behind him.

“What is it?” Adam asked once the hammering of his heart had slowed.

“Do you hear that?” Isaac asked, finger pointed upwards though the sound echoed towards them from below.

Adam did, and once he recognized the sound, his heart ached like someone had crushed it underneath the heel of a boot. “He’s singing,” he said.

Isaac’s eyes were lidded and dark, and Adam was sure that it was anger he saw glittering there.

“I would not have thought he would be so brazen.”

Adam shook his head. “It’s not that,” he said. He turned to give Isaac a look. “He’s alone in the dark, and everyone is against him. He’s terrified.”



It wasn’t much. It was probably stupid, even, but when Adam saw the once-white dog limping through the corridors, teased by several restless children, he had an idea. He swooped the dog into his arms, sending the children off with a few stern words, and headed into the dark, following the sound of the increasingly hoarse singing.

Tommy’s voice faltered when Adam was close enough for his footsteps to be heard.

“It’s only me,” he called, stomach clenching.

Tommy’s rusty laugh answered him, but when Adam came close enough to see, Tommy sat pressed against the wall but with a small smile on his face. A small furrow formed between his eyes when he caught sight of Adam’s cargo, but he didn’t ask.

“Here,” Adam said, crouching down and pressing the dog into Tommy’s arms. He didn’t know what else to say, how to undo the council’s angry words with a mangled pet and a smile, but Tommy curled his fingers into the matted fur. His gaze flicked from the dog to Adam, then back to the dog when it nosed against Tommy’s arm.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, and this time when he looked at Adam, the smile on his face was genuine.

Adam couldn’t help it; he leaned in and kissed it away. “You’ll be alright,” he promised once again when he pulled away. “I’ll make sure of that.”



The Greymen came towards nightfall, swords drawn and a battering ram at the ready. Neil paled next to Adam when the council received the news, but there was nothing to be done about it now. About any of it.

Their father the king looked down at his hands for a moment before he stood, hand resting on his sword. A moment later, their mother did the same.

“We’ve been preparing for this,” he said, voice even, though his hand shook before he clenched it around his weapon. “We’re ready for this, and we will fight.”

The council responded with a raggedy cheer that Adam couldn’t bring himself to utter. Instead, as soon as his father began issuing orders, he headed out of the hall with long, sweeping strides.

“Where are you going?” Isaac asked, falling in step next to him.

“To get Tommy,” Adam said. He didn’t have to see Isaac’s expression to know what the man wasn’t saying, and he couldn’t quite been the edge out of his tone. “On the off-chance that I’m right and they’re wrong, I’d rather he not be tied up and defenseless.”

Isaac slowed his pace. “I’ll be with Allison and Monte, then,” he said, and there was an accusation in his tone that Adam didn’t have time for.

Still, he turned to face his friend. “I’ll meet you,” he said. “When I have Tommy, I’ll meet you.”

Isaac nodded and whirled away, and Adam began walking again, faster even than before.

“Tommy,” he called, before he was even close enough. “Tommy!”

“Adam?” Tommy’s voice was high and breathy, his fingers white in the dog’s fur. “What’s going on?”

Adam dropped to the ground and undid the lock with easy, practiced movements. “Greymen,” he said. “They’re here.”

Tommy hitched a breath, but Adam didn’t have time, sliding a hand under Tommy’s arm and pulling him to his feet.

“Can you walk?” he asked. “It’s not safe here.”

Tommy pulled the dog into his arms. “I’ll try,” he said. His feet were unsteady under him for a few moments but then he picked up the pace, keeping even with Adam’s long strides.

“We’ll head-“ Adam began when there was suddenly a Greyman in the corridor in front of them, weapon drawn and ready.

Tommy took a hasty step backwards, hampered by his grip on the dog, and Adam had to throw himself forward to block a swipe at Tommy’s side with his own sword. The Greyman feinted right and swung at Adam’s left, but Adam was trained now, prepared, and the force of his blow sent the other man’s sword skittering aside before he regained control and attacked again. Adam parried and blocked, but the corridor was narrow and multiple times he had to avoid Tommy skittering behind him, and it was luck more than anything when he managed a thrust that penetrated the leather covering the Greyman’s chest.

He pulled Tommy away from the dying man and into a short, dead-end corridor. There was a large crevice around chest height, and Adam nodded towards it. “The dog will be fine in there,” he said.

He gestured for the animal, frowning when Tommy clutched it even more tightly to his chest.

“He’ll be fine,” he said. “I promise. Certainly safer than with you.”

“How will he be fine in there?” Tommy asked stubbornly.

They didn’t have time for this. Adam pulled Tommy against his chest, almost crushing the dog between them, and brought his lips to Tommy’s ear. “Where do you think our children are?” he asked.

Tommy gazed at the hole, understanding dawning in his eyes, and Adam nodded, once. He held out his arms and Tommy handed the dog over this time, biting his lip as Adam lifted it into the crevice and pushed it forward.

“Go on,” he said, and the dog whined but disappeared.

Tommy watched it go for a moment before he shook himself, grew hard. “Let’s go,” he said.

They walked quickly upwards, startling every time they heard a noise echoing from somewhere. After the second time, Adam remembered to hand Tommy one of his knives. He had grown so used to the other man being armed that he had not thought about the fact that he been stripped of all weapons when the council had branded him traitor.

The knife came in useful when they came across three Greymen that had cornered Sasha and Jeremy. Adam got one from the back, jerking the heavy body into the blade with an arm around the neck. Tommy wounded one, tossed the knife to Sasha so she could take him down while Adam took care of the third.

Sasha took a heavy breath, wiped the blade on her thigh. “We heard some of the children were in trouble,” she said. “That’s where we’re going.”

Adam hesitated. “I have to go find my friends,” he said. “Neil. My parents.”

Tommy nodded. “I’ll go with them.” His fingers found Adam’s arm and squeezed. “Go.”

With one last look over his shoulder, Adam went, sword at the ready. Up here, the fighting was evident. Blood stained the ground. He had to step over several bodies, less than half of them clad in Greymen garb, to reach one of their main corridors. He burst into a room where several Greymen held a struggling Monte and cut one down, Monte striking down another, the two of them circling back to back to take care of the rest.

They found a solitary Greyman and took him down as well, moved past four or five of their own, lifeless on the ground. Adam made sure not to look, but he recognized a head of hair here, a tunic there, and it made his stomach clench.

Mara and one of the older boys, Laurent, had just taken down a Greyman when they reached them. A girl around Dale’s age but much too tall for the tunnels in the walls sat on the ground with a bleeding leg, and Adam had just reached down to help her up when he heard Monte shout. A blow to the head and he tipped forward, stunned, and when he had blinked the stars from his eyes his sword was gone and another aimed at his chest, the other four just as helpless as he.

The Greymen that had come in took great joy in pulling and shoving them towards the council hall where a small group of others waited. Adam saw Neil there, Allison, Marcus, huddled in a cluster against one of the walls. He hoped there were so few because no one else had been found yet, because the other option was too horrible to consider and his head throbbed in time with his footsteps.

The Greymen that remained in the hall with them watched them closely but didn’t try to harm them, and Adam spoke to those around him, ensuring everyone was alright. Every once in a while, others would be brought in, alone or in pairs, some bleeding, others cradling broken bones. Stacy had her arm snapped in front of them when she tried to punch one of her handlers, and Adam winced with her, but she refused to make a sound.

Tommy was shoved in by himself. The skin around his mouth and nose was stained red, and that was undoubtedly a bruise forming at his hairline, but Adam kept his mouth tightly closed. Making his feelings on the matter known was unlikely to help anyone. He wanted to call out to Tommy, to scream at them to stop touching him, but he knew better than to allow them to find out his private attachments.

Instead, he had to settle for stepping aside when Tommy was shoved into their small group of people, immediately sealing the gap after him, his broad shoulders hiding the other man from view.

There was a commotion at the entrance, Greymen moving aside to let someone through, and then a man appeared in their midst, two big, burly Greymen flanking him.

Adam felt more than heard Tommy’s breath quicken behind him. A moment later, Tommy’s forehead came to rest between his shoulder blades, damp air ghosting against the fabric of Adam’s shirt in a rapid, uneven pattern.

He reached behind him, found Tommy’s thigh and gave it a small squeeze.

“My name is Olivier,” the man said, as though that was the only explanation needed. Maybe it was.

He wasn’t a particularly tall man. Not many men looked tall to Adam, even fewer women, but this one was maybe a few fingers’ width taller than Tommy. But he had broad, strong shoulders, noticeable despite the dark cloak he wore, and a full head and beard of grey-black hair. Adam guessed him to be about his father’s age, same wrinkles forming along his eyes, but he also had a long, thick scar along one cheekbone, cleanly healed but wicked.

“I’m so glad we’re all here together,” the man said, smiling, as if they were friends. “I am Olivier, and these,” toward his legion of grey-clad henchmen, “are my men. I’m sure you’ve been acquainted.”

He chuckled at his own words, raising an eyebrow when no one else appeared to find them funny. “So dull,” Adam heard him murmur.

Olivier walked along their group slowly, meeting each face before dismissing it and moving on. His eyes hesitated on Tommy, narrowing, and Tommy’s breath caught, but then Olivier’s eyes flickered over to Adam. There was a fire in them, a mad fire that unsettled even Adam. Blood thirst, he could deal with. This was something else.

Olivier stroked his fingers slowly over his chin. “You are Prince Adam?”

Adam nodded stiffly.

The other man smiled at him, slowly, mean satisfaction in his eyes. “Congratulations. You are now prince regent.”

For a moment, the man’s words barely even registered. Then understanding curled thick and heavy in Adam’s belly, clawing at his insides and threatening to spill out of his mouth. His eyes cut to Neil across the room, saw his brother’s face turned ashen. The king and queen were dead, then, slaughtered by Greymen for no reason beyond greed and villainy. For a deranged man’s entertainment.

Only Tommy’s hot breath, barely noticeable but there between his shoulder blades, kept Adam from doing something he might regret. He was Prince, King of the Mountain now. His people needed him to stay calm.

“Why do this?” he asked, though he wanted nothing more than to rip this man’s throat out with his hands. “What do we have that you can’t ask for peacefully?”

Grinning broadly, Olivier gestured in the air. “There is a rumor,” he said. “Hearsay, you might argue. A rumor that the people of the mountain own a map; one that tells you how to cross the ridge without falling prey to the many treacherous things that await a caravan traveling along the pass.”

“A rumor, yes,” Adam said.

The man turned to give him a scathing look. “Don’t take me for a fool, Prince Adam,” he said. “I have gone through a lot of trouble to ensure that these rumors have a grain of truth to them, and I intend to discover that grain and use it to cross these mountains.”

Adam could hardly believe the man’s words. “All this,” he said, waving a hand to encompass his bleeding, dying people. “All this for passage across the mountain? Why not just ask a mountain runner?”

“Ah, yes.” Olivier pursed his lips. “The mountain runners. As it turns out, they can be quite difficult, and tend to turn down perfectly valid offers for passage for no apparent reason.”

“This,” Adam said, gesturing at the bloody, beaten people around him, “is a damn good reason. We won’t cooperate.”

“Is that so?” Olivier’s pleased tone had Adam shifting uneasily.

Olivier leveled a look towards them, smirking lightly. “You see, not so long ago, a little bird told me something interesting about these tunnels. The tunnels in the walls.”

Adam knew his eyes were wide with horror. He tried hard not to let it show, but then Olivier gestured for a torch and held it close to one of the safety tunnel’s entrance. “So, let’s try this again: Tell me where the map is, or every one of your children dies.”

“We will never give you what you want,” Adam said, but then Tommy pushed past him, arm brushing against Adam’s elbow, and took a stance before the group despite the three Greymen that immediately crowded close.

“I know where it is,” he said.

Instead of outraged cries, Adam’s people fell silent. Try as he might, Adam couldn’t get his own mouth to even move. Tommy certainly noticed, shifting on his feet, but he didn’t take back his betrayal.

Olivier’s face lit up in delight. “Tommy,” he said, holding out his hand with a mocking little bow. “My darling. I knew you’d come to your senses.”

Although Adam didn’t mean to, he felt his body stiffen. This… no. But there was only one explanation for Olivier knowing Tommy’s name, speaking it so casually, and that was that they already knew each other. He felt Isaac’s eyes boring into his back. And how very convenient that only minutes after Tommy had learned of their children’s hide-out, Olivier knew of it too, right after Tommy had left Adam’s sight.

Adam couldn’t help but remember the other things that the council had mentioned and he had refused to believe; his tendency to disappear whenever he went into town, often for hours, the fact that Greymen had begun sniffing around just after Tommy had come into their midst.
It was just all so mightily convenient for Tommy, and Adam had to fight to keep his hands clenched in the fabric of his pants.

"Adam, please." Tommy's words were soft, breathed back over his shoulder. "You have to trust me."

“Trust what?” Adam asked, nothing more than a murmur between the two of them. “That I was wrong about you after all?”

Tommy’s breath hitched, but a moment later, he took another step forward and fixed the impatiently waiting Olivier with a proud look. “Shall we?” he asked.

“Of course,” Olivier all but crowed, and within moments, he and two of his group had ushered Tommy into one of the dark corridors, but not before turning back to his men. “Smoke them out anyway,” he said, and Adam felt his insides turn to ice.

Isaac tried to knock out one of the Greymen while he was distracted but it only ended with Isaac moaning brokenly on the floor. The others among Olivier’s posse began to crowd Adam’s people together into a corner, and after a last, helpless look at Monte, Adam and Neil were dragged off in a different direction.

Adam should have perhaps been more surprised that they weren’t simply run through with knives, but instead, ironically, they were taken to where Tommy had been only hours before, pushed into a narrow cavern and chained to a ring in the ground, a lock around each of their wrists.

Neil was shaky and pale, still, but as soon as they were alone, Adam couldn’t help but sort through their options. No matter how angry he was, he wanted out.

There wasn’t much. Nothing to pick the lock was in sight, and even then, the chains would have still been heavy and difficult to wrench open. It was doubtful that anyone pleasant would burst through the walkway to the corridor. There was a crack in the rock around waist-height, one of the shafts that their children had hid in, were likely now dying in. It was small, and an adult would never fit through it.

Adam would have liked to bury his head in his hands, but the chain was too short, and it wasn’t as if it would have made him feel better. Neil fidgeted next to him, shifting his hands in the metal locks, and Adam had to fight to keep from screaming at him.

“What is it?” he asked instead when he couldn’t take the constant movement anymore, and Neil stilled.

After a moment, he spoke again. “Adam, I have to tell you something.”

Adam sighed, bit his lip. “What is it?” he asked. He’d much rather figure out a way to get out of here, to get his people to safety before he returned to wring Tommy’s scrawny little neck, than to listen to Neil’s ill-timed confessions.

But all that faded when he turned to look at Neil, really look, because he knew that expression on Neil’s face. The regret, the bone-crushing guilt that had been missing in Tommy’s eyes were clear as day in his brother’s.

He had to fight not to recoil when Neil reached for his arm.

"I told Aileen." Neil's fingers were icy against Adam's skin. “I told my girl.”

“Told her what?” Adam asked, although he already knew.

“Everything.” Neil swallowed a gasp when Adam’s fingers bit into his arm. “I told her everything. Everything about us. And that man, the one with the scar - I saw them together once. She said he was her uncle.”

“I don’t believe this,” Adam said without thinking as understanding finally rushed through him. How could he have been so stupid?

“Please, Adam, I’m sorry,” Neil said, breath hitching.

“No,” Adam said, clutching Neil’s arm tighter between his fingers. “Tommy - I thought it was just another trick, that they were going off to reconvene, but he was just buying us time. He has no idea where the map is. When they figure it out, they’re going to tear him apart.”

“Shit.” Neil pressed his free hand, balled into a fist, against his forehead. “Adam-“

Adam shushed him, pulled him close and pressed a kiss into his hair. “I know.”

They had not sat like that for more than a moment when a nearby noise caused him to stiffen. For a brief second, he was convinced that the Greymen were returning, were back to finish what they had started, but this wasn’t the heavy thud of boots. It sounded more like rodents scuttling along the forest floor.

“What-?” Neil asked. He fell silent when Adam shook his head, once.

The noise grew louder, and louder, and finally Adam’s eyes were drawn up to the crack in the wall. It was small, and an adult would never fit through it.

But a child…

Sure enough, moments later, a dusty brown shock of hair appeared in the opening, a familiar grin in place. Tommy’s mangled mutt followed a moment later, pushing his nose through the gap between boy and rock. There was a hopeful little smile on the boy’s face, and Adam would have hugged him to his chest if he could.

“Dale,” he breathed instead.

“My Prince,” the boy said. He bit his lip. “I’m here to help.”

“Good,” Adam said. “That’s good. Do you know where the others are? Can you get a message to them?”

The boy nodded. “Uh-huh. But first…” And to Adam’s complete and utter disbelief, he pulled a ring of keys from his waistband and held it in the air, the metal clinking quietly.

“I can’t believe it,” Neil murmured when Dale slid down from the crevice and knelt down on the ground before them. “You’re alright.”

“Of course.” Dale jiggled the first key into the lock at Adam’s right wrist, then the second. “We’re not stupid. Jaynie and Tyler put out the torches, and the rest of us took down one of the guards. I got the keys,” he added, after a moment.

“And I’m very thankful you did,” Adam said. “The other children are well?”

“Ye-ah.” Dale chewed on his lip. He slipped another key into the lock, and this one fit. “The little ones are coughing a lot, but we’re all alive. They’re trying to distract the other guards so the grown-ups can get free.”

“Tell them to be careful,” Adam warned him.

“We will be.”

The first of Adam’s cuffs clicked open, and he used his still-chained hand to rub away the numbness in his fingers. “Thank you, Dale,” he said. “I mean it, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The boy hesitated. “I pledge my allegiance, my Lord,” he said with a hopeful glance upwards from underneath the fringe of his hair.

“I accept,” Adam said wholeheartedly. “Can you free the others? Take care of the Greymen?”

Dale nodded. “What are you going to do?” he asked as the second lock fell open.

Adam set his mouth into a thin line. “I’m going to right a few wrongs,” he said. He got to his feet. “Dale, once Neil is free, return to the others. Be careful. Neil, I want you to get these Greymen out of my halls.” He hesitated, one hand on the rough rock. “Whatever happens, Tommy stays unharmed, you understand?”

“I understand,” Neil said, meeting Adam’s gaze with wide eyes, and Adam nodded.

“All the best,” he said. He was striding down the hall before Neil had the chance to return the greeting. He had things to take care of.



Tracking Tommy wasn’t easy. He had little to go on, merely a single corridor Tommy had been lead down while Adam was dragged away, and he had to dodge patrolling guards more often than he liked, but he knew these caves better than any Greyman every would.

He followed scuff marks, bloody hand prints, tracked and backtracked, and in what seemed like forever and no time at all, he heard Olivier’s sweet, mocking voice echo towards him.

Moving forward carefully to avoid alerting them to the sound of his scuffing boots, Adam pressed himself to the wall and inched forward until he had a clear view of the situation, half-hidden behind a raggedy piece of rock.

There were four men present, and none of them seemed to notice him. Olivier stood back, apparently watching with interest as Tommy struggled. The slight man was on his back, half propped against the sloping wall. Each of the two guards Olivier had thought to bring had a heavy boot on one of Tommy’s arms, threatening to snap the bone if he struggled too much. Blood had seeped through the side of his tunic, staining the rock behind him. Tommy was breathing hard through gritted teeth, and pale, but none of that mattered because he was still alive, glaring at Olivier with a fire that warmed Adam to his core. No one struggling to take his last breaths could glare that way.

Now it was Adam’s task to make sure it stayed that way.

Olivier had obviously not expected to run into any trouble - his right side and back were left entirely undefended, both he and his cronies too focused on Tommy to pay much attention to their surroundings. It was stupid, and sloppy, but Adam was not one to complain.

“So, in summary,” Olivier said, voice light but eyes on fire, “you don’t know where the map is after all?”

Adam shifted on his feet, pressing himself closer to the wall when Olivier moved, but the man only took another step towards Tommy. “Still think your prince is going to save you?” he asked.

Tommy took a breath that sounded almost like a gasp, but he didn’t avert his eyes. “You’ll meet your end one way or another,” he spat.

The Greyman crouched down, away from Tommy’s curled fists. “Undoubtedly.” He reached out, caressing the short stubble where Tommy’s head had been shaved, tightened his fingers in the pale strands when Tommy tried to pull away. “But you won’t be there to see it. You little brat.”

“Why do this?” Tommy jerked his head to the side, wincing when several hairs were left between Olivier’s fingers.

Adam couldn’t help flinching with him.

“What’s so important here that you couldn’t have just gone to other runners, made them a deal?”

Olivier shook his head mournfully. “And I thought you were smart.”He gestured around him, along the bare walls, but it was clear he meant so much more than that. “This, all of this? This is all your doing.”

“This is your doing,” Tommy spat back. “I’ve never taken the life of another living person, and until you, I had never wanted to.”

“How precious.” Olivier moved to chuck Tommy under the chin, only pulling back at the last second when Tommy snapped at his fingers. The Greyman curled his hands into a protective fist. “You know, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t been such a stubborn little ass. You and your family. First refusing us passage across the mountain, and then your pretty little sister, and then you had to go and ruin what could have been such a glorious day.”

“No day will be more glorious than the day you die,” Tommy hissed.

“You tell yourself that, darling,” Olivier said easily. He pushed to his feet, brushed imaginary dirt from his knees. “But remember that you’re the one on the ground, bleeding, while I’m the one with the weapon.” He pulled a knife from its scabbard on his belt, metal singing, and smiled a little. “In fact, while we’re here, I think I’ll pay you back for what you did to my face.”

Tommy blanched, and the man laughed ruefully, fingers coming up to ghost over the distorted flesh. “Yes, you did quite a little bit of damage. But you also left me a present, and I have of course decided to keep it.” He reached into the neck of his tunic with his free hand, disregarding Tommy’s increased struggling, and pulled out a small, sharp arrow tip on a leather cord.

“This is yours, you know,” he said, turning the weapon over and over between his fingers. “I keep it with me, to remind me that even the innocent, pretty ones can become quite a little nuisance.” He let the arrow tip drop against his chest, took a sudden, agile step forward and grasped Tommy’s hair in his fingers again, jerking his head to the side.

He lifted the blade, let it hover over Tommy’s eye, both cronies grinning gleefully at the terror on Tommy’s face, and Adam had had enough.

It was almost insultingly easy. None of the four men was prepared for Adam to burst out of hiding, run first one, then the other guard through with his sword and, turning, backhand Olivier with such force that the man’s head collided with the wall with a sickening crack. He crumpled to the ground like a doll, aware but dazed, and stared up at Adam, breathing hard.

Adam kept his eyes and the tip of his sword on him as he reached down a hand, felt Tommy cling to it and almost lifted the other man to his feet. Tommy clutched his arm for a moment before he let go, swaying ever so slightly, but with a slight nod that Adam caught out of the corner of his eyes, Tommy let him know that he was fine.

He turned back to Olivier who thankfully kept his mouth shut, and lifted his sword. He hesitated when he felt Tommy’s fingers fist in the back of his shirt, but the man didn’t say anything. He merely stood behind him, breathing hard, every ragged gulp of air twisting Adam’s heart a little further.

“This should be you,” Adam said finally. His eyes never left the man lying in the dirt at his feet. “The man to do this, it should be you.”

“I don’t want to,” Tommy said.

Adam glanced over his shoulder, and Tommy smiled at him, strained and uncertain as it was.

“I don’t,” he insisted.

And, well, Adam wasn’t about to question this unexpected blessing.

It wasn’t hard, burying the blade of his sword in Olivier’s body. Usually, the hardest part of killing was convincing yourself to go through with it, convincing yourself that it was really necessary to take another being’s life. Here, now, the movement came easily, the man’s aborted gasp the only sign that Adam had just killed someone.

Tommy’s hand tightened against his back, and he kept his head held unnaturally high, but he didn’t utter a sound of protest, not even when Adam knelt and pulled the cord free of the man’s neck.

Then he pulled Tommy away, because while what was done was done, it didn’t mean that Tommy had to see it in all its gruesome detail. He turned, expression serious, although he couldn’t help but be glad that it was all over now, and then he remembered the spread of blood across Tommy’s side.

“What-?” he asked when Tommy took a shuddering breath. “Are you-?”

“I’m okay. Just a-“ He hissed, pressed his hand against his side. “Just a scratch.”

“That’s good.”

They stood there for a moment, breathless, eyes locked.

Adam was the first to break the silence. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”

“How could you do anything but.” Tommy smiled a little. “I’m sorry. I should have been honest with you.”

“You can be, still,” Adam said, offering a hand for Tommy to take. When the other man stepped closer, slid his fingers into Adam’s, he opened his other palm, revealing the arrow head on its leather cord.

“You should have this,” he said.

Tommy’s tongue snaked over his lips. After a moment, he nodded, head dropping forward to allow Adam to lay the cord around his neck. He didn’t resist when Adam kissed him, again and again, not even when Adam pressed him against the wall and slid a thigh between his legs.

They were still alive. Against all odds, despite everything, they were still alive. Adam had to swallow back tears and bile when he remembered how many others weren’t, but as painful as it was, that was natural. Normal, even. People were born, they lived, and then they died.

People died.



People die was a mantra Adam repeated to himself often over the next few days. There were so many bodies to drag out of the corridors, so much blood to mop up. Neil was the one to find their mother, and he insisted on carrying her out to the gravesite himself. Adam was the one to hold him that night as he rocked and shook and sobbed out his anger, his guilt and his frustration. And it was Tommy who kept Adam upright with light, easy touches, a hand in the small of his back, slim fingers in his, or a smile, a knowing look cast his way. Tommy had his own guilt to carry, but he knew where to assign the blame.

Still, when he wasn’t at Adam’s side, silently supportive, Tommy worked harder than three others put together. He dug graves, he shoveled them closed. The hearth had been smashed in the fighting and Tommy lifted beams longer than he was, to clear them away. One time he struggled, clearly not able to carry the wood by himself but unwilling to ask for help, and Adam was about to call for Cassidy when Isaac was there, one end of the log at his feet, hands open.

“Alright, man?” he asked Tommy.

A look passed between them, slow and steady, and then Isaac reached down to grasp the other end and they lifted it upright together.

Moments like those were what kept Adam sane. He’d known, rationally, that many of their number had died, but it was another matter to lift up one limp body after another. Men and women alike had been struck down fighting. A few of the children had fallen ill from the thick smoke that lingered in the cracks, four of them had died. And they were two competent hands short as it was, considering Adam had sent Monte and Sasha into town to find Aileen, Neil’s girl. Find her through whatever means necessary.

They returned from their trip to town at nightfall of the third day, tired, grimy, and empty-handed.

“Aileen has disappeared,” Monte reported. “No one has seen her since the day before the Greymen arrived here, although there are rumors that she eloped with a man with a scar on his face.”

Gareth the guard shook his head. “She wasn’t with them when they arrived here,” he said. “I would have remembered seeing a woman.”

Adam scanned the grim, determined faces of his war council, so much fewer than he was used to, and bit his lip. Monte met his eyes and nodded without so much as a frown. He would do whatever Adam asked, but the decision would have to be Adam’s own. Gareth looked ready to drop his pack and run down the mountain barefoot if that meant getting his hands on the girl responsible. Cassidy didn’t glance up from his stitching, though his forehead was pulled into a tight, unhappy frown.

Neil wasn’t among the scarce number of people crowded around Adam’s new throne. He was out digging graves, still, with Tommy, and he would until someone went out to fetch him. It was nearing the full moon, one of the few nights when being outside after sunset was not a death sentence, and there were only a handful of graves to fill up now. Whoever wasn’t with Adam would be out there, scattering dirt and seeds to disguise the site of the graves, as much out of tradition as precaution. A well-marked graveyard was too uncommon a site - it would become a marker, a means as an end to locate the entrance to the mountain, and they needed to be invisible, now more than ever.

“We’ll find her,” Adam said, after almost every pair of eyes in his council had found his. “It can be Neil’s penance.”

He rose to his feet before anyone could question his words. “We’ll reconvene in the morning,” he said. He couldn’t deal with this any longer. He wasn’t a king, he was just a prince thrust into horrible conditions, and he didn’t even have Neil to help him because no one trusted Neil, now.

He walked away at that, because even if he wasn’t, his people needed him to be king, and he could not let himself fall apart before their eyes.

He could hear hushed whispers at his back but no one dared follow him, and he was glad for it. He walked and walked, people scuttling out of his path once they saw the look on his face, until finally, he heard soft footsteps in his wake. Small, calloused fingers slid between his and squeezed.

“Saw you walking,” Tommy said, falling into step at his side. “Walking like the spirits were after you. Thought I’d say hello.”

Adam sighed, turned sharply into a small cavern and met Tommy’s concerned eyes and light smile.

“Why couldn’t Neil have just kept his goddamn mouth shut?” he asked.

Tommy tugged lightly on the fingers interlaced with his. He tilted his head and smiled. “Life doesn’t work that way, Adam, and you know it.”

He knew. That didn’t mean it was any easier to take.

He sat back when Tommy pushed him, slid down to rest against the cold stone. A moment later, Tommy climbed into his lap, soft yet darkly serious.

“I’d like to tell you something, if you don’t mind.”

Adam reached up and touched Tommy’s cheek. “Anything, you know that.”

Tommy nodded. Took a deep breath.“I wasn’t out hunting when my family was killed.”

“He remembered you,” Adam said.

Tommy nodded. “Life isn’t easy up there, you know?” he said. “We like it, the freedom, the opportunity, but we live with our parents, our siblings, sometimes our children, confined together so we won’t freeze to death in the winter. We hunt for meat and leather, sometimes we fell trees, but we don’t own things.”

He reached down to toy with one of Adam’s pendants, and Adam stroked slowly down his back, settled his hands on Tommy’s sharp hip bones.

“We don’t want for much, you have to believe me. Beads and colors and heavy cloaks, they’re nice, but they’re not necessary. We runners, we have our bodies, and when our bodies fail us, or become damaged, then our lives are over.” He glanced upwards, gaze held by Adam’s own. “Our body is all we have.”

He looked down at Adam’s hands closed over his hips, but he didn’t ask Adam to take them away and Adam didn’t offer.

Instead, Tommy wound his arms around Adam’s neck, fingers finding the short hairs above the collar of his tunic. “We were willing, you know,” he said. “We’re solitary people, we take care of our own. We don’t care much who makes it across the mountain and who doesn’t.”

Adam nodded. While he might disagree with the attitude, he could accept that for people who lived as Tommy’s family did, survival did not come easily. For them, life was about taking opportunities when they presented themselves, not about following a strict moral code.

Tommy smiled a little ruefully. “Olivier had learned that my parents had guided a group of mountain people across the overpass a few years ago. He came and made a deal: passage across for a sum and supplies. The negotiations were settled.”

Here, Tommy fell silent, eyes dropping to his lap.“We honor our contracts, Adam, that you have to believe. We were ready to leave, waiting for his group to arrive, when he suddenly asked to make use of my sister.”

He glanced up when Adam’s hands tightened around him, probably leaving bruises. His face contorted into an expression that was possibly intended as a smile but never became more than a grimace.

“He thought we should be grateful for the offer he had made us. Hand my sister over like a piece of cattle because we owed him.”

He shook his head a little. “I can’t believe that, still,” he said, and Adam wanted so badly for Olivier to still be alive. To be alive so Adam could take it slow, this time.

Tommy’s fingers began gently petting Adam’s hair, though his eyes were far away. “After that… My father grew angry, my mother pulled her knives. They were both of them dead before I even realized what had happened.”

His fingers grew more insistent, almost painful, curling themselves tightly into Adam’s black shock of hair.

“Our parents were dead, and we were cornered, my sister and I. And he was going,” he hitched a breath, “to use her, and she was terrified, and she begged me, Adam, so I slit her throat before he could.”

Adam ran his palm slowly along Tommy’s spiny back while Tommy drew in a hitching breath and let it escape through almost closed lips.

“He was so angry. He cut me open,” one hand over the scar on his torso, “where he knew I would survive but be in agony every time I moved. And then he tied me down next to my parents’ broken bodies and the floor was sticky with my sister’s blood and he left me there to die of thirst or some predator, no matter how, as long as it was agonizingly painful.”

Tommy looked down at his open palms, clenched and unclenched his hands, before he turned his head to look at Adam. “Everything smelled of blood,” he said.

He leaned against Adam’s chest, apparently exhausted. After a moment, Adam rubbed his hand over Tommy’s back again.

“How did you survive?” he asked.

“I got loose,” Tommy murmured. “With a nail from the floorboards of our hut. I tracked them for days before I found them, and him, and I was going to put an arrow through the socket of his eye but he turned his head at the last minute and I only sliced open his cheek.”

His lips curved upwards, no more than a crook of his mouth. “I lost them after that. But I’ll never forget that look of horror on his face when he realized what had happened.”

He grinned, and Adam answered the expression with one of his own.

“I’m glad he’s out of our lives now,” he said.

Tommy inclined his head before laying it down to rest on Adam’s shoulder. Adam reached up to run his fingers through the hair tickling the skin at his collar, pushing it towards the crown of Tommy’s head only to watch it slowly droop back into form. Tommy grinned against his skin but didn’t attempt to stop him, and Adam took that as permission to wrap his arms around the slight body and draw patterns on the silky skin through his tunic with a fingernail.

"So tell me something," Tommy said after a moment.

Adam tightened his arms around him. "Anything," he said.

Tommy tilted his head at him. "Now that I'm properly one of the mountain people, and since I know perfectly well how to cross the mountain on my own," he said. "Where is that map, anyway?"

"That." Adam laughed. He pushed Tommy off his lap despite the protesting squawk and reached for the bottom hem of his shirt.

"What are you doing?" Tommy asked when Adam stripped the fabric from his body, but he fell silent when Adam turned around.

"That is. I can't even believe that," he said after a moment, and Adam grinned at him over his shoulder.

"Greymen would never think of something so simple," he said, and Tommy nodded, still speechless.

He took a hesitant step forward, then another, and laid his palm over the ink etched into the skin on Adam's back. "It's so simple," he said. "And yet so effective."

"No one has ever thought to look there," Adam agreed.

Tommy shook his head. "And to think we bathed together. Though looking back, I do recall you being oddly hesitant to turn your back to me."

"It pays to be cautious."

"That it does," Tommy agreed quietly. His forefinger trailed lightly along a long, thin line that Adam knew only from contorting his neck to peer over his own shoulder. "I can't believe this," he said again.

"I hope you don't mind," Adam said.

"Hardly." Tommy laughed. "You've seen the patterns on my arms. How could I complain about these few lines?"

“We all have them, you know,” Adam said over his shoulder. “Even Neil. I suppose that at least is a secret he managed to keep from his girl.”

Tommy didn’t respond, and Adam was about to say something more, anything really, when he felt Tommy’s body just inches from his own, and a pair of soft lips between his shoulder blades.

“Thank you,” Tommy said quietly. “For believing in me. For trusting me.”

Adam turned at that, caught Tommy’s hand in his when he tried to pull it away and sealed his lips over the pale skin at Tommy’s wrist.

“Will you trust me, in return?” he asked.

Tommy nodded, breath quickening, and allowed Adam to lead the way into the darkness of the mountain’s corridors.



The next full moon was not nearly as joyous an occasion as the last.

They buried the last of the dead that day, Greymen, thrown together in a hastily-dug grave to keep the animals from congregating so near to their home and travelers from noticing the felled bodies and alerting the townspeople. The last thing anyone wanted was more people encroaching on their already disturbed territory.

Adam dug until sweat stung his eyes despite the early winter chill. Despite everything, for the first time in days, he felt hope. They would lose no one else. The children had recovered, and anyone who would die of the wounds they had received while fighting had already done so.

Now, it was time to lay the past to rest. In a way, Adam was glad that it was full moon. Their feast was an opportunity to face what had happened, to bring back a degree of normalcy, to ring in a new chapter in their lives. It was a celebration, and mourning. They had to accept the loss of their dead and be thankful for those who had survived. It was time to move on, no matter how much it hurt.

And it hurt. Sometimes it hurt too much to breathe, when he turned and expected his father to stand behind him but he wasn’t there, when he thought of something to tell his mother before he remembered that he couldn’t, not ever again. The grief was palpable - they all felt it. Every member of his - his - kingdom had lost someone, a sibling or a friend or a child, and the loss had cut them deep.

And so it was no surprise that the mood was somber when nightfall came. There was conversation and mead flowing freely, hushed laughter, but no one was dancing tonight. Not yet. Adam had no doubt that they would, eventually, but for now, he sat on the throne carved into the rock, watching the serious faces around him. The Greymen had left their mark, there could be no doubt about that.

But life went on. Sure enough, someone called for dancers, and more mead, and it was as if they had only been waiting to be asked. Within moments, a space had been cleared and once again filled with people. Tommy and Allison where among them, whirling hand in hand, hair flying wildly.

Adam felt a grin tug at the corner of his mouth. At least their moods would be good after tonight.

He felt more than saw Neil slide to his knees at Adam’s feet. He wore plain black tonight, a tunic, pants, and boots, and his cheeks were gaunt and his eyes hollow and sunken from several days of starving himself.

There were people, Adam knew, that thought Neil should be killed, or exiled. He, after all, had betrayed their secrets. His girl had merely done what she had to, to survive. But Adam knew it wasn’t Neil’s fault. He had made a mistake, and paid dearly for it, but it had been the Greymen who had slaughtered their parents and decimated their numbers. He had told Neil this, had made sure his brother understood that he held no grudge, but Neil was slower to forgive himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down at his knees. “Adam, I am. You have to believe me.”

Adam nodded. He carded his fingers through Neil’s hair, thick and black like his own but curled tidily where Adam’s was wild. “The dead are dead,” he said. “And the living go on living.”

Neil nodded without meeting his gaze. He had barely spoken a word since he had been tasked with finding his girl, with convincing her to return to the mountain with him where she would be scorned and hated but would not be able to betray them further, or else silence her forever. The choice was not a kind one, and yet Neil had knelt and reverently kissed Adam's fingertips.

It had been decided that Neil would set out at first light, long before Adam rose from his post-feast slumber. Adam suspected that most would relish in the opportunity to lay curled in their warm blankets for a little longer. He had spotted Isaac and Sophia kissing in a dark alcove earlier and not seen them since, and Allison’s exuberant gestures while she whirled among the dancers suggested that she, too, would appreciate a slow start in the morning.
Neil shifted on his knees, miserable, and Adam stroked his hand through his brother’s hair again. “Neil,” he said.

This time he waited until Neil met his gaze, until those dark, red-rimmed eyes settled on his.
“You do not go in shame. You go as Prince of the Mountain.”

Neil nodded, once. “May I take my leave, my King?” he asked, and turned when Adam waved him away.

Adam watched him go, the tense line of his shoulders, his head held high. Neil had made mistakes, yes. He knew that, and he would never be able to forget it. But Neil was his brother, his friend, his confidante, and Adam would still miss him.



He startled when Tommy suddenly fell into his arms, pushing away from the crowd of dancers.

“Hello,” Tommy said, grinning wildly.

“Hey,” Adam replied, stroking over Tommy’s cheek just to see that smile stretch into something wider, something genuinely pleased. “Having a good time?”

Tommy nodded. “But you’re not, are you?” he asked. “You’re thinking about Neil, aren’t you?”

“Neil, and his girl.” Adam shrugged. “Maybe he’ll bring her back.”

“Do you want him to?”

Adam shook his head, slowly. “I’m just tired of people dying.”

“You realize, of course, that her life will not be a pleasant one?” Tommy asked. He slid his arm around Adam’s neck and his legs over Adam’s lap. “No matter how she decides. Even if Neil convinces her to return with him, she’ll not have it easy here. She won’t be forgiven.”

“They’ll forget,” Adam said. “We move on. That’s what we do.” He smiled, even though the anger he felt burning through his veins at the thought of his parents’ pointless deaths made him a liar.

Tommy smiled, obviously not fooled in the slightest. “If you say so, my Lord.”

“I say so.” Expression fading, Adam let his palm rest lightly over Tommy’s side, where his playful tunic bunched over a thick layer of bandages.

Tommy’s lips curled into a smile. “I’m fine, my Prince,” he said. “As you well know.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Adam said, leaning in to press a kiss to the fabric before finding Tommy’s mouth as well.

Tommy grinned at him, short and full of life, before sliding down to lightly perch between Adam’s feet, leaning his back against one calf and curling his hands around the other. He turned his head to kiss the inside of Adam’s knee before his eyes found Adam’s once again.

“Comfortable, are you?” Adam asked him.

Tommy nodded.

Adam shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, I would assume you were staking your claim.”

Tommy shrugged. Then he grinned, no more than a flash of teeth, and sat up a little straighter. “Before I forget.”

Adam raised his eyebrows at him.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “I pledge my allegiance, my Lord,” he said, smiling impishly, before he turned his head and pressed another kiss to the fabric covering Adam’s thigh.

“I accept,” Adam said evenly, though his heart was beating so loud he was sure everyone could hear it even above the pounding of the drums.

Things had changed. In no more than a full circle of the moon, Adam had returned home, found a companion, lost his parents, and become the king of his people. Good people had died, and bad people had lived. His brother would be leaving him tomorrow, perhaps never to return.
But that was the way of the world. There was nothing unchanging, nothing static. Things lived and died and built up and fell apart.

But they were still alive. They were here, damaged and broken, but they had survived. They would keep on surviving. In the end, the attack had only made them stronger, and the spirits help the Greymen if they ever tried to face them down again.

They were stronger now. Adam was stronger now. He had his people, his advisors, his companion, and he had a brother out there who would not rest until he had brought everything to rights. He had the mountain at his back.

That was all that mattered. After all, everything was dependent on the trust of some, and the betrayal of others, and the goodwill of the mountain.

The End

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