IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMID, CHAPTER TWELVE
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
I could tell you in detail of the battle that we had that day, between the men of the Army of the Pharaoh and the Army of the rebellious High Priest, for much of it is branded moment-by-moment in my mind, but those details would only bore you. The battle went on and on, and the only thing that kept it from being as boring to me as a telling of it would be to you was the fact that my life depended upon each moment of this battle. I was fighting for my life, and my team, and the struggle was difficult, frightening, and horrible. With my long spear, most of what I did was block those who would approach us, I waited for that moment when I would have to kill a man opposing me, yet that moment never came. Yet there was killing, much of it, all about me, and I never knew from moment to moment when that death-dealing would find its way to me.
My job was defense, so I was spared the direct act of blood upon my hands, yet there were a half-dozen times when the man in front of me, trying to lay at me or at the horses, died from the archer's bow or a strike by another fighter, for the chariots were interlaced with men with shorter spears, ones designed not for the defense I was wielding, but for attack.
The dust of the battle was fearsome, I felt as if I had left the world behind and entered some nightmare place filled only with death and ferocity and death and the cries of murdered men, murdered horses, crashing chariots.
Yet the Army of the Pharoah carried the day, for no reason I could see from my own vantage point, I know only that a trumpet blast held forth and the rebels broke and attempted to retreat, yet they were many of them cut down as they ran, for a man in flight is an easy target for the archers, and many fighters, blood-lust pounding in their brains, chased and slaughtered the rebels as they ran. Of those who were taken prisoner, the Commander of the Armies ordered them all to be killed, and their bodies destroyed so that they would not be able to resurrect themselves in the next world.
The next day, I was ordered to go out onto the field of the battle, and to there salvage such weapons and other items, such as gold ornaments, to be taken to the Pharaoh. As the officer giving me the order told all of us so selected, an army is an expensive thing, and no reason not to make the rebels pay as they could to help support it, whether alive or dead. Another group was to gather the dead, so they could be disposed of as had the executed prisoners.
By the end of that second day, I went back out onto the battlefield, not to scavenge any more, but because I needed to think and somehow, the battlefield was where I felt I could best think. Among the shattered chariots, the dead horses, the detritus of damaged items of war, I felt that there I could make some sense of it all.
There is a quietness to the field of a battle, after the injured have been removed. The only sound was a few vultures that were feasting upon the dead horses and since there was plenty for all of them, they didn't fight among each other at all. Why should they, among all this bounty?
What now? I at least had the question in my mind settled. What now, that so many had died, and the Pharaoh was secure upon his throne once more, and the retribution would now go out to the villages that had supported the rebels, they would be forced to pay heavy tribute for years, their freedoms curtailed, many punishments imposed. My own village was to be part of this punishment, my family that I had left behind so long ago, they would feel the wrath of their king-god.
So my question wasn't final after all. It wasn't "what now" but rather, "what now for me?" What was I to do. Had I not been a part of this religion, a part of the conspiracy? I differed from the others only in that I had learned in time of the subterfuge. Others, whose only crime was not learning the true nature of the cults beforehand, they would pay a harsh penalty, but I...I could resume my normal life, if I chose. I could even expect, given the many who had worked on the pyramid who had fallen in with the cults, to be given a promotion. I might even become a Master Stonecutter, one who guided the labors of others, while I lived in relative comfort and ease beneath the hot sun.
Could I accept this as my due, or refuse it in shame for what had happened? I looked back at the pyramids, at the unfinished pyramid upon which I had labored for many years. My life was there...could I return to it?
"Well, Kephrin, you are not an overlooked body after all." came a voice behind me.
I looked behind me, stood up in respect. "Anamaton." For it was the Master Stonecutter himself, the one I had warned about the attempt upon his life, the one whom I had spent a night upon the edge of the desert with as the minions of the Cult of the All had sought him through the streets of the village near the pyramids in which we had both lived.
"Why are you out here?" he asked me. "Why aren't you in the village or the army encampment with the rest? Tonight is a night of celebration of the victory!" The men had been too tired the night before, and the labors of the day had delayed the celebration until now. Now the men had their reward from their officers, for they shared in the booty which had been gathered from the battlefield, and much like the vultures, entrepeneurs from the nearby villages had flocked with their wares to sell, wine, fine meats, some even brought their daughters to sell for wives to the victorious men of the army...or to sell their women's bodies' uses for a short time.
"I wanted to think." I said.
"Out here?" He pointed out. He sat, so I sat again where I had been before.
"I shrugged. "Anamaton? You are from our village. How do you feel about what is going to happen to our cousins who we left behind? They are to be punished, yet you and I will be rewarded. What of that?"
"What of it?" Anamaton said. "Such are the fortunes of the gods, they smile upon some and smite others, and it is their will."
I regarded him. "You are untroubled, because the Cult of the All did not touch you as it did me. I worshiped the All, and I believed as I worshiped."
"We won't tell the Pharaoh about that." Anamaton promised me.
"That settles all but my own conscience." I said with a sigh. "Yet I do thank you."
"You stepped away from the All when you learned its true nature." Anamaton said. "You should give yourself more credit. Did you not fight for the Pharaoh yesterday?"
I nodded.
"Then your loyalties are clear."
"And what of our cousins back in our home village?"
"They will have to make their own peace with the Pharaoh. They were led astray, and the punishment will not be so severe that they cannot survive, but it will instill in them a reluctance to repeat it. Is that not the essential nature of punishment, to deter further misbehavior?"
"Perhaps." I said. "But there was that about the Cult of the All that was so attractive. It told me that I was special and important and that I mattered to the cosmos. I cannot explain to you how wonderful it felt, to think that there was a Supreme Being who loved me."
"Well." Anamaton's hand fell kindly upon my shoulder. "You shall recover from that. You have plenty who love you, who are not gods. Their love should be enough for any reasonable man, for this world at least, and for the next world, there are the rituals to let you get there, and then you may build your life anew, the way you did when you came here."
"There is more." I said. I was only now beginning to admit it to myself in words instead of wordless fears. "There is Keotin, my beloved. I haven't seen him since I left the pyramids on my futile trip to the High Priest. Nearly four months now. I don't know if he is one who died this day, or one who has fled from the armies, or anything." My father was alive in the village, he was old enough to be useless as a warrior. Soon, the Pharoah would pension him off and send him back to our home village to live out the rest of his life. I, too, had looked forward to that as my own future...until the Cult of the All had entered my life and destroyed my future.
"Do you know if he was among the rebels?" Anamaton asked.
"I know nothing at all." I said miserably. "I tried to look at all who were killed before they were thrown upon the fires, but I couldn't, there were too many.... I pray he was not among them."
"Like our home village, he will have to make his own peace with the Pharaoh and the gods." Anamaton said. "And if he lives, there is a good chance he will escape further punishment, for the Pharaoh cannot punish by death all who were part of the rebellion, he must grant an amnesty to anyone he is not certain was part of the fighting against us. Your lover Keotin will manage as best he can, as you shall. You must not take on more guilt for yourself than you deserve. And I see very little guilt for you to bear honestly. I see a man who was fooled and betrayed, and did what he could to make things right when he learned better. I should be honored to call such a one as yourself my friend."
"How can we go back to what was?" I asked him. "How can we resume work on the pyramid and do so with the hearts filled with joy for our duty that the work once held for us?"
"You will find your heart restored, when the work resumes." Anamaton assured me. "You will find joy once again."
His hand was still upon my shoulder and I scooted forward on my knees so that I could rest my head upon his strong chest. I sought only comfort, as a child seeks his parent's breast, and that was what I was given by Anamaton...at first.
After a time, my heart calmed for a time, I looked up at him and saw the kindness in his eyes. I smiled in my gratitude, and he returned it, and when I reached up for a kiss, he gave it to me with the doting genteelness of a parent for a sick child.
And yet that gentle kiss stirred itself in me, and I reached for another, and this one held nothing of the child inside it. I had been filled for two days with the horrors of combat, I had lost in that horror a piece of my own soul, and the arms of Anamaton returned that piece to myself. Whole once again, my spirit and body craved a chance to celebrate the reunion, and that same desire that had caused the celebration I was ignoring back at the village was alive in me and it chose Anamaton for the renewal.
Anamaton sensed that in me and his arms tightened about me. In the midst of that battlefield, the sands stained with blood and the horses now only food for the carrion-eaters, in the midst of that scene where all had been death, we tasted the essence of life and birth. In that moment, in a way I had never known before, I realized that death could not end our spirits, we must survive in some way, for life is too powerful, death cannot carry it away, it can only make life sleep for a time before it awakens once again and rages to restore the light anew.
I felt Anamaton's hand slide up under my loin wrap and I groaned as I felt his strong hand upon my cock, for it surged and sang with my desire, and that hand made desire so much more attainable, for while pleasure rises to below the surface upon will alone, it takes the touch of another to bring it on up and break through into the world. Anamaton's hand pumped my pud and I grunted my delight into his mouth as we continued our kiss.
I could not take Anamaton's cock in my own hand in this position, it was at the small of my back, beneath any touch, I could only touch that broad chest of his, let my fingers dance over the large brown surface, feel the slickness of his body from the oils it exuded to fight off the heat of the sun. And we kissed until Anamaton let go of me and let me slide down to lie flat upon his lap, and then his cock kissed my back with the moist lips of its glans-tip, and I felt that salty dot upon my spine and I craved to taste it upon my lips.
I slithered down, feet foremost, like a peculiar, two-headed snake might have moved, and I got my head down to Anamaton's lap and when only my neck was cradled upon one thigh did I turn, to find Anamaton stretching himself out, seeking out my manhood while presenting his own to me.
I took Anamaton's cock into my mouth, and it was the nectar of redemption that I was offered, and I felt shrived of all my incipient guilt, for Anamaton was right, I had done my best in a world beset by forces beyond my control, I had nothing to feed my conscience upon besides a wish I had done better, and who does not always wish that for themselves? Keotin lived or died, and neither of those states was my fault or my credit, it simply was, as Keotin had managed or not. The gods willing, we would be reunited; meanwhile, I had Anamaton here with me and I could take my pleasure with him, and for a time, let my fears stay behind me.
Our grunts were much like those of the murmuring voices of the village not so far away, we would celebrate here and then rejoin the others to continue our festivities for we were alive and that was worthy of happiness all by itself! Anamaton's talented mouth milked at me with a steady, marvelous pace, and I returned it as best I could, was rewarded by the kisses of his precome upon my tongue for it flowed freely from him. For myself, my cock was giving that peculiar tingle that said that it was building toward climax.
"Enough." I gasped after that tingle threatened to become more. I broke away from Anamaton with that word and he lay upon his back, somewhat surprised by this.
I smiled a denial of his fears. "No, I merely wish now to delight you even more." I said as I straddled him and lowered myself upon him. Anamaton's cock glowed with a silvery sheen from my saliva as the head touched my anus and that slick coating let it enter me with only the force of my weight being lowered to give it access. I felt the sturdy pud throb as it went up into me, and I knew that Anamaton would not last much longer.
Knowing that, I took a perverse pleasure in making him wait, I was torturously slow in my movements, I plunged to send the entire length of him into myself, and then would hold it there, even though he groaned and thrust beneath me, but I moved with his body and he could not move himself within me save as I granted it.
His face was gentle with his passion, his mouth was open with his ecstasy, his eyes were closed with his need, and his breath pulled and pushed his chest heavily, "No more, no more." he pleaded with me. "I must end this now, I must!"
"But I wish it to continue." I argued while I resumed my movements, and his grunts of pleasure became growls of passion, he made rumbles much like the sounds of a crocodile as it lunges at its prey, and he lunged at me with his cock's snout to bury itself in me and pull back the way the crocodile rolls with its captured meal to break it apart, and so Anamaton sought to break the barrier of his pleasure thus, and I took pity upon him, or perhaps it was my own cock's burning need making itself known, I pumped myself with one hand while I bounded up and down upon Anamaton's swollen prong, and Anamaton growled, he grunted, he grumbled and he roared, and when that roar burst forth, so did his passion, for he sprayed my insides with the bounty of his manhood, and he thrashed beneath me and my ass was sleek from the salty fluid of his climax and that slick soft, warm juice made his prod as smooth as butter to my bowels.
And as he purged himself into me, my hand pounded my cock and I revenged myself by spurting my own wads into the night air (for night had fallen as we had been locked in our congress of bodies, and in my delight I had scarcely noticed), and they jetted outwards like miniature comets, portending the fate that was to befall so many microscopic kingdoms in the sands below us, and I wondered if the beetles looked at my shining meteors of love with religious awe, and prayed to me to spare them if I should deign to do so.
Such was the liquor of my thoughts as I was besotted by my ejaculation, and I caught Anamaton's thighs in both of my hands to hold myself in place, and I panted and gasped and felt his hands stroke my sides, his cock still buried inside of me, still firmly rigid, still pulsing there.
I lay down upon the sand and he followed me so we were side-by-side, my back against his front, and his prong still firmly within me, and I sighed.
"Ah, would that we could spend our eternity like this." I murmured.
"It would not be the worst of resurrections to experience." Anamaton agreed. "But now that my other hunger is satiated, I admit I would like to get some of that goat they are roasting not far from here. Shall we join them now?"
I could smell it myself, now. The winds could carry such a smell surprisingly far, we were not that close to any celebrations. But the smell itself, that was unmistakable.
"Yes," I agreed with him. "Let's join the celebration."
But I found with our lovemaking over that my worries about Keotin had returned. Under the guise of celebration, I would take this chance to seek out news about him from the many groups. Perhaps someone had seen him, or knew of him, could help me return him with me to my father's house in the village in the shadow of the pyramids. Now that the rebellion was crushed, it was time for me to restore my family, make it whole once again.
THE END OF CHAPTER TWELVE
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