Work Text:
Sigismund’s camp is populated only by corpses and the flies buzzing noisily around them as Henry makes his way through it, eyes tracking any and all movement – pennants snapping in the wind, the curling smoke of dead cookfires. The rasp of a whetstone in the distance, coming from the motte; a horse, caparisoned all in white – Erik’s mount; it had to be – chews placidly at the scrubby grass, raising its head only to appraise him as he swings a leg over his own mount and drops to the ground, grip flexing around the hilt of his sword. Henry rolls his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension of apprehension in his limbs. That whetstone continues, slow, rhythmic, as he climbs the steps toward the open gate.
He sees him there, framed by the great wooden gateposts like an artist’s fresco; an avenging angel, snow-white armour pristine. Henry can appreciate, looking at him like this, Ištván’s fondness for Erik. He sits there, serene, lovingly sharpening his sword; beautiful and dangerous in equal measure. What a strange pair they made, he and his master; Ištván short and dark as a jackdaw, and as full of pricking, needling chatter, Erik elegant and fair and silent, a mute swan. Always letting his blade do the talking. Henry’s ribs throb, the remembered ache of a warhammer to the chest. Thank God he’d been wearing borrowed plate, cushioned by extra layers to make it fit. Had he not been, Erik would never have got the chance to issue this challenge, and the Jews of Kuttenberg would have been embroiled in yet another catastrophe.
As Henry approaches, the soft clink of his armour plate announcing his presence, Erik slowly raises his head. His fair skin is clean and clear, free of the blood and grime splashed over Henry’s own cheeks and jaw; his eyes – grey as the sky, glittering with emotions Henry recognises in himself: grief, fury, curiosity, pleasure. Erik rises to his feet, towering; truly an avenging angel of the Lord. Henry feels a frisson of excitement shoot down his spine, his heart thumping behind the steel of his cuirass. He bares his teeth in a grin, an animal issuing his own challenge; the muscle in Erik’s jaw twitches, his eyes narrowing, and he levels his sword at Henry’s throat.
‘I see your comrade delivered the message.’ The calm of his voice is belied by the trembling of his hand, the flashing of those ethereal grey eyes; Henry feels his stomach clench, his mouth going dry. He nods, his smile mocking.
‘I wouldn’t dream of missing such a meeting.’
Erik bares his teeth. ‘So. The bastard has honour after all. I’m glad to see it. I swore on Ištván’s grave that I’d kill you, and here you are, a lamb to the slaughter.’
Henry laughs, and Erik’s eyes narrow, advancing a step towards him. His sword still extended, levelled at the tender, vulnerable skin of Henry’s throat, unprotected by a bascinet or even a coif. His eyes flash, lightning in an overcast sky, and Henry flexes his grip on his sword once more, feigning indifference. His eyes don’t leave Erik’s face, that muscle in his jaw twitching as he fights to maintain the façade of a man not falling apart at the seams. Henry no longer empathises. Erik is twisted up in his loss, a man at the centre of a labyrinth of pain. Convinced that vengeance will bring him the relief he seeks. Henry knows better.
‘I made a promise to the same man,’ he growls. ‘Before I threw him out the window. Swore to him he would be first, and you next. Markvart, Sigismund, every fucker I can get my hands on.’
‘You think you’re better than me?’ Erik snarls. His voice trembles now, shaking with rage and grief. Henry’s shots are well-aimed, barbs landing in old wounds, ripping them open to bleed anew. ‘You bastard. I’ll make sure you die in agony. You’ll suffer like the mangy fucking mutt you are!’
Henry raises his own sword, settling into the guard position. Tensed, coiled, readying himself for the first brutal swing. He’s met with Erik before; he remembers the crushing power of those blows, the sheer brute force behind every move. His arms had shook trying to withstand them when he parried. Erik’s fury is a spark to the match; the fire in his belly blazes, his prick stiffening in his braies. Henry tries not to think too hard about that; about how the thought of causing Erik pain, of watching blood well around the weak points of his spotless armour as Henry cuts him down to size, makes the blood rush south and his heart thunder in his chest. Perhaps Erik is right. They’re two sides of the same coin after all; brutal, bloodthirsty, twisted.
Christ. If Henry’s not cemented his place in Hell by now, surely this will be enough.
‘Come on, then,’ Henry taunts, his eyes on Erik’s through the slit in the other man’s visor. ‘Or are you a coward, just like your lover? He died like a dog.’
Erik screams, an inarticulate yell of rage, and swings at Henry’s head. Henry shifts to block, splinters flying as Erik’s sword bites into Henry’s shield with a woody thunk. They are tinder, the pair of them; sparks fly and, like gunpowder, they ignite. Henry turns Erik’s blade away, again and again, breathing hard as he strains to maintain the artifice of effortlessness, as if he’s merely toying with Erik. The other’s blows are relentless, brutal, forcing Henry to retreat; Erik presses his advantage and advances, a flurry of blows that have Henry’s arms shaking.
‘I’ll show you who’s better!’ he snarls, as Henry once more falls back, aware of the palisade wall feet away. Thinking he’s got Henry cornered, Erik swings again wildly. Henry continues to bat him aside, baiting him; again, he’s struck by how similar they are. Erik, like Henry, has anger as both his greatest weapon and his Achilles’ heel. It’s a little strange to find himself on the opposite side, finding ways to turn that brute rage against him. Žižka’s advice had been sound; provoking Erik to the point of forgetting technique in favour of raw power allows him to use those split seconds of respite between overextensions to get his own blows in. He retaliates with a swing towards Erik’s head, the flat of his blade ringing against the steel of Erik’s helmet like a church bell on the Sabbath. Erik staggers, cursing.
‘I’ll carve Ištván’s name into your face for that!’
Henry lashes out at Erik’s knee with his foot, and the man staggers again. The delicate balance of the duel shifts, Erik now placed squarely on the defensive against the storm of blows from Henry. He thrusts at Erik’s chest, the tip of the blade leaving a rent in the white waffenrock, the steel beneath gouged. Erik roars, aiming the heavy pommel of his sword hilt at Henry’s head, intending to stave it in like an eggshell. Henry ducks, sliding to the side, avoiding that crushing blow only by merit of neat footwork. He retaliates with a thrust at Erik’s groin, slashing his thigh; the chausses tear, blood flowing down the blond’s leg, darkening the scarlet leather to crimson. Henry follows with a thrust to the gut, finding the edge of his cuirass and driving his blade up and under it, winding him as the blade bit through the linked rings of Erik’s mail hauberk.
Erik grunts, pained; Henry batters his chest with the shield, the blow knocking the air from Erik’s lungs and sending him sprawling. He struggles to his feet as Henry chases him down; slashing at the straps fastening his schynbalds around his strong calves. The leather splits like butter under a hot knife, the metal falling away to rattle against the rocky ground. Henry kicks him in the ribs, his sabatons producing a ringing clamour against Erik’s cuirass. He collapses to the ground again, arms shaking as he tries to push himself up onto his hands and knees. Henry feels his prick twitch, straining against his chausses, as Erik groans and rocks, fighting to catch his breath; there on his hands and knees in the dirt, he resembles nothing so much as a bitch in heat presenting to a dog; the ghost of Ištván Tóth smirks in Henry’s memory, his dark eyes flashing.
Henry drives the point of his sword into the back of Erik’s unprotected knee. Erik screams, his fists contracting on the ground in agony; he throws back his head, breathless with pain, shoving up the visor of his hounskull. Henry drops to his knees between Erik’s spread legs, discarding his sword in favour of drawing his dagger from his belt. He tears off the other man’s bascinet, and the blond sobs, his pale face as white as his armour and sweating with pain and exertion. His eyes roll in his head. Henry feels a terrible, vicious pleasure at seeing him reduced so, the severed tendons in the back of his leg preventing any attempt at escape.
‘Yield,’ he grits out, his chest flush against Erik’s back. If they pressed any closer together, the other man would likely feel the thick, hard shape of him against his arse. Erik coughs, spitting blood into the dust.
‘Fuck you, bastard.’
‘Come on, Erik. Your master taught you nothing, did he?’ Henry hisses. Part of him is surprised that Erik isn’t putting up more of a fight, attempting to escape; perhaps he is simply in too much pain. Or perhaps – and this, Henry feels, is more likely – this is how Ištván Tóth brought the boy into his service after murdering his parents, holding him down amongst the blood and smoke and mounting him like a dog mounts a bitch. He brings his dagger from Erik’s throat to his hips, shoving the hauberk and brigandine aside to expose the linen braies beneath. He slits them right up the back, gusset to belt, and yanks them open, exposing a milk-white arse to the weak sunlight. Erik moans, but he’s not fighting it; Henry can see through the gaping slit in his braies, the blond’s own prick, hanging thick and heavy between his thighs. He reaches for it, half-hard in his fist; his strokes are rough, too tight, squeezing, and yet Erik moans – a soft, breathy noise, unbearably, exhilaratingly gorgeous – and lets his head hang as he bites his tongue.
The shame in his grey eyes is intoxicating, the way he yields to Henry’s tight fist on his prick. It feels like, if not like Heaven, then like divine justice. Henry kneeling between his legs, leaning over the profane altar of his back, as he damns himself once more. There are flames licking his thighs, the heat in his belly rising to burn him alive. The pleasure burns hotter still; they have come full circle from Vranik. It is Erik’s turn to be prostrate on his knees, Henry towering over him like the avenging angel.
Henry smirks.
‘The stronger dog fucks the bitches,’ he growls, licking the rim of Erik’s ear. Erik groans, his legs shaking as Henry grips him by the stones, feeling the pendulous weight of them in his palm. He’s hung like a stud, and Henry wants him. His cock throbs in his own braies, and he fumbles one-handed with the ties, yanking them down to pull his cock out. Erik moans again upon feeling the blunt, wet head slap against his arse; Henry grins, rutting his hips against Erik’s crease, moaning as the head catches on his rim. He tugs one of his gauntlets off with his teeth, biting the leather cuff to drag it down and off his hand. Sliding his dagger back into its sheath at his waist, Henry holds Erik’s cheeks apart with both hands, spitting on his hole and rubbing his bare thumb over it, working the moisture into the puckered skin. He leans his head against Erik’s shoulder as he pants and works his thumb into him, the hot clench of his hole around him making Henry’s prick twitch against Erik’s bare thigh.
He withdraws, shoving two fingers into Erik’s mouth. ‘Be a good bitch and lick, unless you want me to go in dry.’
Erik snarls, biting down, and Henry smacks his arse in retaliation, gripping his hair and yanking his head back.
‘Try that again and I’ll fucking gut you.’
Erik runs his tongue over the pads of Henry’s fingers, suckling at them, spit sliding down the length of them to pool in the space between. Henry groans, grinding against Erik’s arse; the dry friction of warm skin against his cock stoking his lust ever higher, his prick leaking demandingly over Erik’s tailbone. He pulls his hand out of the blond’s mouth with a groan, tangling the other in his short hair; pulling his head back, wanting to hear every noise his fingers worked free. Erik moans, loud and wanton in the still air – the chattering of jackdaws in the nearby trees and the screeching of hawks wheeling over their heads the only sounds bar their own laboured breathing – and cants his hips back against the two fingers pressing into him, the stretch burning despite the added lubricant of his own saliva.
Henry groans into Erik’s shoulder, working them deeper, crooking and scissoring them to open him wider. He shouldn’t care, of course; this is a man claiming his war prize, a hound fucking a bitch, not making love. He’s not with Hans at Suchdol; he’s here, in the dirt at Sigismund’s camp, with the man who wants both him and his lord dead. And yet, it’s not in Henry’s nature to be cruel unnecessarily. Erik whimpers, pressing back; Henry withdraws his fingers, and grips his prick to rub the head over Erik’s hole, spitting again to ease the way. Erik cants his hips again, the tip of Henry’s cock catching on his rim, making them both moan.
Henry grips Erik’s hair tight as he drives into him, hauling the blond back onto his cock, only stopping when his hips are flush with Erik’s arse and the blond is trembling and keening beneath him. Henry grins, savage, and licks the curve of Erik’s ear again. Snaps his hips, fucking him rough and hard, as he taunts: ‘How does the stronger dog feel, eh? Better than the last one?’
Erik groans, squirming and bucking underneath him; a half-hearted attempt to throw him off, his pride pricked by the insult to his dead lover. Still, as Henry angles his hips anew and shoves in again, he lets out a long, lowing moan like a bull as Henry slams that spot inside him that brings tears to his eyes. Henry pants hotly against his neck, grunting with each vicious thrust, riding him into the dirt. Erik is hot and tight around him, just a shade too dry; the friction is maddening, Erik’s whimpering even more so.
He can see, between Erik’s legs, the blond’s heavy, swollen cock swinging forward to slap against his brigandine with every thrust; Erik is trembling, his arms and legs shaking with the effort of holding himself up under the onslaught. Henry takes pity, reaching around to wrap his hand once more around Erik’s prick, stroking him in rough, short movements that wrench more hoarse, agonised cries from the blond’s throat. Henry grins, his breathing stuttering as his rhythm starts to falter, barrelling towards his climax. Erik sobs, wet mouth hanging open and drooling over his palms flat on the ground. Henry has ruined him, and all he can do is take it, truly a bitch being claimed by the stronger dog.
He comes with a deep groan, spurting over Henry’s fist; Henry milks him through it, his breathing harsh and laboured as Erik clenches around him. Henry presses his forehead to the burning heat of Erik’s cuirass. He follows him over the edge a few rough, slapdash thrusts later, shuddering and jerking against him as he spills deep inside. Erik moans again, guttural, as Henry slips out, a trickle of seed dribbling down his thigh to stain his hose beneath the studded chausses. Henry sighs satedly, breathless, and pats his haunch like a man settling a lathered horse as he pulls up his braies and fastens them.
Erik turns his head to protest as Henry climbs to his feet. ‘Where are you going? This isn’t finished!’
The sky is celestial blue above him, as clear and open as Hans’ eyes. There’s an almost ethereal calm washing over Henry as he closes his eyes, breathing deep. The fire is cooled, his heartbeat steady; nothing burns in him any longer. Instead, there is only an ache of pity as he opens his eyes to gaze at Erik’s prone body, breath still heaving in his chest, his angelic face showing confusion, grief, sadness. Henry never expected to feel thus for him: this strange, sharp sense of bereavement. Erik glares at him with hatred in his eyes, and Henry feels nothing so much as pity in return, to see someone so lost. Such a lonely, fathomless existence ahead of him.
He hopes Erik finds his peace.
‘You know where to find me,’ Henry says softly, reaching out once more to smooth a gentle hand over Erik’s sweat-soaked blond hair before he turns to leave. ‘If you find yourself in need of a strong dog again.’