The Fifth Beast (ManxMan Chinese/Celtic Fantasy Story)

Chapter 19

Warning! A teenager's suicide attempt is described here, but it was unsuccessful and made in such a manner that is quite impossible to follow. However, if you have issues with scenes like that, you can skip this chapter without missing anything important in the plot. Although the scene is important for Niall and Sencha and their relationship.

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Of course, Niall didn't lie in the tent for a day or a week. Why, he didn't even stay for half an hour, although it was unpleasant and sometimes painful to move. As soon as the voices of the barbarians died down, he staggered out.

They had left him one horse of the three, the worst one; well, thanks anyway. One horse would be enough for both him and Sencha. Especially since there was no luggage. All the packs with clothes, tableware, food that he carried with him were turned inside out and looted. Spoils of war, oh yeah. He really should have left the silver cups to Сumal.

Niall looked around at the mess by the died-out fire, the rags and scraps trampled into the mud, and sighed. He needed to find more or less intact clothes, bring water and heat it, wash the clothes and clean himself. One hardly could go to Sliabh Mis Castle naked, covered in dried semen and blood. In the name of Danu, where was Senсha? Weeping somewhere under a bush, mourning his lost virginity? He had it harsh, of course, but his master wasn't much better off. Good thing Niall didn't take more servants. Where, after all, was the only servant he took with him?

What if the barbarian simply cut the boy's throat after having fun with him?

"Senсha!" he called, growing cold with fear, and turned around, looking in all directions, listening.

What was it, a cry, a sob? A twig snapped? Niall moved towards the sound and saw Sencha kneeling by a nearby tree. The boy, completely naked, raised his hands to his face, as if praying, his hair disheveled, his face distorted.

Niall's mind for a couple of moments couldn't make sense of the picture that opened up before his eyes. Then something clicked in his head, and he saw the speckled snake of a sash reaching for the brunch above Sencha's head, and realized that the boy's knees did not touch the ground, and his hands convulsively clung to the noose around his neck. It took another couple of precious moments to stop the reflex to accelerate with magic, to strike the noose with lightning. Then Niall, cursing up hill and down dale, ran up to Sencha, grabbed his thin waist with one hand and lifted him up, with the other hand untying the noose around his neck. The boy wheezed and begun to breath, shuddering all over, and his wheezing turned into hysterical, hoarse sobs.

The Lord of the Tuatha Dé Danann silently held the mortal youth close to him, letting him weep on his shoulder, stroking his tousled wheat-blond curls. Pine needles were stuck in Sencha's hair, his shoulders were covered with telltale hickeys. He closed his legs tightly and covered his groin with his palms, but the darkening bruises on the insides of his thighs were visible nonetheless. A sinister-looking crimson-blue bruise swelled across his throat.

Niall cradled him in his arms like a baby, feeling a piercing, smothering pity. He wanted so much to cry over his own crushed pride, but his eyes remained disgustingly dry. Even over the bitter fate of Sencha he could not shed a single tear.

"Does it hurt too much?" he asked as gently as he could, as the boy's wailing turned into occasional sobs. "May I take a look?" He remembered that he couldn't even stop the blood now, clenched his teeth and finished: "I will bring a Druid, if necessary."

Sencha shook his head and pressed his face harder into Niall's shoulder.

"Forgive me, my lord!" he said with difficulty. His teeth chattered. "Kill me with your own hands, please; I am not worthy to live!"

Niall rolled his eyes and gently shook him.

"Sencha! Stop this nonsense, it's not your fault! There was nothing you could do, that barbarian was nearly twice your size! Yes, he behaved like a beast, but other men will be gentler, sweeter with you."

"But he... didn't behave... like a beast... my lord," Sencha managed to utter between the sobs and started crying again.

Completely bewildered, Niall took a deep breath, lifted Sencha up in his arms and carried him into the tent, grimacing every time the extra burden made his legs and ass hurt. He returned, found and picked up the boy's clothes. Wow, nothing was torn — it seemed that the barbarian really wasn't particularly rough with him. But why then Sencha tried to hang himself, if not from pain and humiliation? Especially after his rapist had left?

Niall thought that he totally couldn't understand humans. Well, with rare exceptions. Faolan Three Swords, for example, was quite transparent to him.

Niall found his pants in the tent, all muddy from the fight, washed them in the stream and hung on a bush to dry. He brought water in a leather travelling cup, made Sencha drink, and the boy finally stopped crying.

Niall lay on his side, propped on his elbow, and looked reproachfully at his young servant.

"Now tell me why you decided to leave my service so quickly. And even without severance pay!"

Sencha lowered his head and in a barely audible voice said that he was no longer worthy to serve his lord. And that his lord had to turn him out from his service.

Niall really wanted to say that if everyone who had to take it up the ass without consenting first would hung themselves afterwards, then there would be no handsome young men left in Daire Mac Cormac's lands, and Niall himself would have put his neck into the noose that very morning. But he said something different: that it was he, Niall, to blame for not being able to protect his servant, and the dishonor was his alone.

Sencha blushed, and then turned pale, wringing his hands, unable to confess what was tormenting him.

"I betrayed you, my lord! Not only with my body, but also with my mind!" he blurted out at last, and Niall was so amazed, he couldn't say a word. "At first, I imagined that it was you who was taking me... and then... then I couldn't imagine you anymore, but..." He hung his head and said in a barely audible voice, "I liked it anyway. That barbarian, he is... he was... so..."

Sencha covered his face with his hands and seemed to be about to start crying again.

"Merciful Danu!" Niall groaned and slapped the boy on the back of his head. Cumal Mac Ruad's bad manners were terribly contagious. "And what about me, should I hang myself on a tree alongside you?"

Sencha's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. He seemed to have just realized why his master was walking around in a morning chill naked. The Lords of the Tuatha Dé Danann weren't shy about nudity, and Sencha had seen Niall naked more than once, but only now had he put two and two together.

"But, my lord... It's impossible that..." He timidly looked around the tent, apparently afraid to see some hard evidence of his master having been abused. "Even a barbarian wouldn't dare..."

"Oh, he did," Niall sighed. "Not just once. And it wasn't as bad as one might think. But, of course, I don't want a repetition, and basically, I won't be able to look at men for some time. Same as you, probably. So let's agree, my dear Sencha, to forget last night as if it has never happened at all. You will continue to serve me, and I swear that my opinion of you will not change in the slightest. Especially if you find us something to eat now."

Sencha squealed with happiness and rushed to kiss his lord's hands.