We walked through the encampment and drew every eye from every person we passed. I noticed Lahn didn’t smile or nod his head.
I noticed Lahn had his hands on my ass, me on his back and a warrior at his side and that was his whole focus. The people we passed did not exist. He didn’t acknowledge them in any way.
So I did, smiling and nodding at anyone who caught my eye. And there were a lot of those too.
Lahn’s fingers tensed into my flesh and he turned his head and said something to me.
I didn’t understand, obviously, so I dropped my chin to his shoulder and whispered, “I don’t understand you, baby.”
His dark eyes caught mine and he said quietly, “Lahnahsahna Circe … okay?”
Oh man.
Yeah, I was okay. Okay with Lahn attempting to communicate with me in my own language.
Yeah, totally okay.
I closed my eyes and squeezed my arms then nodded, opened my eyes and whispered, “Okay.”
That got me another squeeze on my ass as Lahn looked forward again and his warrior said something to him.
I looked forward too, sighed, held tight and enjoyed the ride.
* * * * *
Okay, it was safe to say, the minute we entered the ginormous tent where the games were held, I knew I wasn’t going to like it.
This was because there were a lot of beefy men sitting around on benches, it smelled like man and booze and there were two men beating the crap out of each other in the middle of the circle of benches. And by that I meant, sweaty, bloody, grunting, beating the crap out of each other.
Very few eyes came to us such was the attention on the match.
But an entire bench was open at one side, the other warrior broke off from us and Lahn walked right to it, swung me off his back (jarring my shoulder as he did, the big guy was rough but I was getting the feeling he didn’t know it). He deposited me, feet to the ground, sat, opened his legs wide, grabbed my hand, tugged it so hard it jarred my shoulder again and my knees gave out so I sank to the stone ground. He hauled me between his legs; I did my best to get comfortable and looked around.
Lots of warriors, though I couldn’t find the one who claimed Narinda, not that I was sure I would remember what he looked like.
There were no women except the two scurrying around with jugs and filling the leather covered cups the men were guzzling from.
One scurried to Lahn, he took the full cup she offered, put it to his lips, gulped back a huge swallow then righted himself and his eyes locked on the fighters.
No beverage was offered to me before the woman scurried off.
Hmm. Apparently women weren’t provided with refreshments.
Figured.
To get comfortable, I scooted close between his legs and draped an arm on Lahn’s thigh. I didn’t know if that was all right but I figured if it wasn’t, I’d find out soon enough.
He didn’t remove it so I leaned into it and looked at the shouting, cheering, stamping warriors.
Man, they were eating this shit up. Nearly frenzied.
Then I looked at the fighters. One looked about to drop. This was good and bad. Good for me because it meant this match was nearly over. Bad for him because it was clear there were no technical knockouts in this game and he looked like he could use one.
I was right. Five minutes later he was down and out.
One minute later he was dragged unceremoniously across the stone ground as the other fighter beat his chest, threw out his ripped arms, stamped his tree trunk legs and shouted his triumph. Then he tore a leather cup from a passing waitress type person and downed most of it in one gulp and poured the rest of it over his body, shaking his big head, blood, sweat and booze flying everywhere and he shouted again.
Yikes.
“Lahnahsahna Circe,” I heard Lahn call my name and I leaned back to look up at him.
“Yeah?”
He brought the cup to my lips. “Gingoo,” he ordered and it didn’t take a linguistics master to know he meant drink.
I parted my lips, he tipped the cup and I noticed as he did he was watching with intense interest.
I expected a beer-like substance, seeing as we were at a sporting event.
It wasn’t a beer-like substance. It was a straight, raw, spirit and it burned my throat but it didn’t taste all that bad. He took the cup away and I grinned at him.
“Kay ahnay see,” I said, he stared at me a second, his bearded chin jerking back in surprise and then his entire head tilted back as he roared with laughter.
I didn’t know what was so funny.
His head tipped down, his eyes moved through the tent and his fist crashed against his chest before he shouted, “Kah Lahnahsahna ahnay see!” then he lifted the cup, spirit splashed out, I heard a roar of cheers and turned my head to see, belatedly, that all the warriors had their eyes on me. Some were stamping their feet. Some were clapping. All were smiling.
“Lahnahsahna hahla!” one warrior yelled and they all cheered again.
