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Beretun paused outside the tent and allowed himself a moment to just breathe before he entered. He had no idea why he was here, and fear sat thick and heavy in his gut.
Foot soldiers, axemen and swordsmen and sometimes even pikemen, might sometimes be summoned by Prince Thor if he had noticed some particular act of bravery. The Prince was a kind commander and believed in rewarding courage, and his words of praise were valued highly by his men, as important in keeping their loyalty as the gold they were paid, or the prestige they might win.
Cavalrymen too, though horse combat had never really caught on in Asgard. Still, every army had a few, and at least one of them had made the proud walk from the stables to Prince Thor’s tent in this campaign.
Archers did not get summoned. Archers were invisible, tucked away on the flanks of battle with few opportunities for glory, and even if they weren't, the clean and distant efficiency of well trained archers ill-suited Asgardian ideas of heroism. An archer who engaged in a death or glory struggle with a single enemy had failed in the most important part of his job.
And besides that, it was not Thor's tent before him. It was not the golden prince who had summoned him but the silver, and he had no idea what to expect.
His fellows had joked, when the summons came, that he was being called to service a sorcerers unnatural lusts, but Beretun thought that unlikely. It was common gossip that Loki Silvertongue took men to his bed, but if he had done so during this campaign he had done it uncommonly discreetly, and such things rarely remained secrets for long on campaign, in Beretun’s experience. No one gossiped like soldiers far from home.
He breathed deep and dismissed his fears - he would find out the purpose of this visit soon enough. Best to get it over and done with. Steeling himself, he knocked smartly on one of the wooden supports of the Prince’s green and blue tent, and when a voice bid him enter he did as he was told, pushing aside the heavy canvas flap and stepping inside.
Inside the tent he found cool darkness, broken by a single lantern, set on a trestle table and illuminating a neatly stacked heap of scrolls. Apparently even in the field, the younger Prince’s love of books persisted. Or perhaps they were maps, strategies, messages from the city. Prince Thor might be their commander, but everyone with half a brain knew that they owed their success as much to Prince Loki’s talents for forward planning as to Prince Thor’s skill in arms. One man could rarely turn the tide of a battle alone, but well fed and supplied troops were already halfway to victory before they started, especially against an enemy as poor and ill-disciplined at Jotunheim.
Prince Loki himself was seated on the edge of his low camp bed, his dark clothes rendering him almost invisible in the darkness, his pale features obscured by shadow.
Beretun bowed low, then stood straight, hands clasped behind his back as much to give him something to do with them as to show respect. He felt awkward and clumsy, and the languidly elegant way Prince Loki moved outside of battle wasn’t helping. (Inside of a battle, he was a whirlwind of steel, never in one place for more than a second, always appearing just where the enemy least expected him. Beretun tried not to watch him too closely, lest he be hypnotised by the elegant brutality of it.)
"You are Beretun, the archer known as the Hawk," Prince Loki said, making to move to rise. "You serve in Harald Ironhand's unit."
"Yessir."
"They say you are a fair archer."
Beretun should let that slide, speaking up to superior officers never lead anywhere good, and officers didn’t get much more superior than a god-prince, but his pride would not allow it. "Nosir, they say I am the best archer."
"In all the realms?"
That sounded like a trap. "Don't know, sir. Haven't seen them all yet."
"But do you think it likely that there is anyone who can best you?"
"Hard to say sir. They say the elves are passing good archers, but the dark elves are lost and the light elves have been at peace with Asgard for a thousand years, so I'm not likely to find out. For now, I am the best in your highness's army. That's enough for me."
"It is not my army," the Prince muttered, so low Beretun did not think the was supposed to hear it. "A very politic answer, especially for one who has never stepped into the court. And for your information, I have seen both light and dark elves shoot, and none of them ever matched you for skill."
"You have been watching me," Beretun said dumbly. He couldn’t imagine why. He was good, true, but he was still just an archer.
"Most soldiers look to their unit commanders for orders,” the Prince said, thoughtfully. “Some of the more ambitious or desperate for glory look to my brother. But you look to me, every battle. Why?"
Shit, he should have known he'd get caught. "Prince Thor concerns himself with the main press of the battle, sir. He is not a fighter used to seeing from a distance. I assume that is why takes your council on where to position my unit."
"You have sharp eyes, to see that. Your orders still come from my brother."
"But always after he has spoken to you, sir." It was true. He’d spotted it on only their third day out of Asgard. Prince Thor positioned the foot soldiers with absolute confidence, but he looked to his brother before sending any commands down to the archers.
Prince Loki looked at him in silence for a long time, as though weighing up his words, and Beretun had to fight down the urge to shift around. He had stood his ground against Jotun, and Bilgesnipe and the Ironhand with a hangover. He could cope with one little god-prince.
"I spoke of you to the Ironhand. He said you are a good soldier, but not always an obedient one."
Beretun shrugged. "Sometimes I can see something he can't. The job of the officer is to pick the target. The job of the archer is to ensure the arrow hits it. Should the archer not have choice as to how he does it, since he knows his own skills and weapons best? Begging your pardon, sir," he added quickly, realising he had spoken out of turn.
The Prince waved a hand, as though dismissing Beretun’s concerns. "If I did not wish to hear your thoughts, I would not ask you questions. The purpose of this interview is to come to know you, and so you must speak your mind if it is to serve any purpose.
"I have been looking for a man of skill and discretion to take as my... assistant. You know what I can do."
It was not phrased as a question, but Beretun nodded all the same. Everyone knew of Prince Loki's magics. There were many unkind words said about them, about how they were the tools of women and cowards, but Beretun was an archer. He appreciated a quick clean kill, and Prince Loki delivered that with far more regularly than his brother. Not that Prince Thor wasn’t a great warrior, Beretun added mentally, just in case the stories about the All-Father reading the minds of his subjects were true. Both great warriors, all credit to their parents.
Loki tilted his head to one side, and Beretun could feel the weight of his gaze on him, pinning him down. "You understand then that I will sometimes see things others to not, find solutions which may elude those with... different skills."
Again Beretun nodded.
Prince Loki smiled, a quick flash of teeth in the candle-light. "I require a man sharp enough to track me on the field of battle even when I wear a shape other than my own, loyal enough to follow my every order, and yet quick enough to think for himself when problems arise. Does that sound like you?"
It sounded like a job Beretun had been training for all his life without knowing. Perhaps he had - perhaps whatever work Prince Loki had for him was part of whatever small destiny the Norns had assigned to him. "Yessir."
"And you would obey me and only me?” Prince Loki asked, leaning forward a little as thought to drive home his words. “Even if my orders contravene those of my brother? Or my father?"
Beretun shivered. This was a little too like his dreams, and the Prince's superficial resemblance to the he called master in those dreams was not helping his composure. He needed to get a grip on himself - he could not go around getting aroused every time tall pale dark-haired men gave him orders. "Yessir."
"Then it is a bargain," Prince Loki said, rising to his feet and stepping into the light.
Perhaps he had meant for them to shake on the bargain like equals, perhaps he had simply tired of sitting. Beretun would never know, because as soon as he saw the Prince's face clearly his knees tried to give way and his heart started to pound as though it might burst out of his chest. He took a shaky step backward, away from the apparition before him, and then another. "What have you done to me?!" he demanded, breathless. "You have bewitched me!"
The Prince raised an eyebrow. "I have no idea what you are blathering about, man. I have done nothing to you."
Yet, Beretun’s mind added, and he shivered again. "You're the man from my dreams!"
The prince looked unimpressed. "If this is supposed to be a seduction, it is a singularly clumsy one."
"No, that's not..." Beretun steeled himself and stepped forward, examining the Prince more closely. The nose was familiar, right down the slight unevenness of an old break, so small that it would take a lifetime of study to even notice it. The variations of colour in the eyes, the shape of chin and brow. Everything was just as he remembered it, as he had seen it for a thousand nights, only some of the marks of age missing. And the eyes lacked that burn of desire so intense it was a sort of madness, but he was sure it could be there, that he could inspire it. He just wasn't sure he wanted to. "I have been seeing you in my dreams, for a decade. And yet I never saw your face until today." He met the Prince's eyes, pleading with him to explain this madness. "How can this be?"
For a long moment, they stared at one another, the archer pleading, the Prince unmoved. Then Loki spoke.
"And what do I do, in these dreams of yours?" Loki asked (there was no title attached to the name in Beretun’s mind, and that felt right somehow). He sounded amused, perhaps a little bored. But Beretun (somehow, impossibly) knew him too well to be fooled. He could see the eagerness, the fascination with this new puzzle, and he felt a rush of fondness he was not sure was his own.
“Speak, Beretun,” Loki ordered, a hint of sharpness in his tone that made something dark in Beretun’s soul ache with desire and arousal. He could no more have ignored the command than he could have shot an arrow into one of the moons.
"Terrible things, sir," he breathed, watching Loki watching him. "Brutal degrading things." A shadow passed over Loki's features, but it was chased away when Beretun added, "I love them all."
Loki stepped closer, so Beretun could feel that he radiated cold like other men do heat, but that too felt right. He wanted to bury himself in it, wanted to take the cold inside himself, so he could feel the pulse of ice in his gut with every breathe.
"What else do I do?" the Prince asked, his breath ghosting over Beretun’s lips and making the archer shiver with desperate desire. He had never wanted men, hadn't enjoyed it all that much when the advent of his strange dreams had led him to seek out such company, but in that moment he couldn’t imagine wanting anything more than he wanted Loki to fuck him.
"You kill me, sir," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "And I thank you for it." The first time he had had that dream he had vomited. The second time he had brought himself to desperate climax. The third time he had wept, because he knew he would never feel as perfectly content and at peace as he did in that dream.
And then Loki kissed him, deep and hard, and that perfection suddenly didn't seem so impossible after all, because Loki tasted of fire and ice, life and death, everything Beretun wanted and everything he never knew he needed.
"Gods but I've missed you," he breathed when they parted, making Loki snort.
"We have never met before his moment, Beretun," he reminded him. He paused, holding himself statue still for a moment, and then added softly. "All the same, I think I have missed you too."