Please see original story (www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/historical/the-heathens/) for warnings and copyright. Highlights: All fiction. All rights reserved. Includes sex between young-adult and adult men. Go away if any of that is against your local rules. Practice safer sex than my characters. Write if you like, but flamers end up in the nasty bits of future stories. Donate to Nifty TODAY at donate.nifty.org/donate.html to keep the cum coming.
He pulled me to him in a brutal hug and whispered, "Today you have more than earned the right to call me whatever you will, my Dasqas, my jewel." Then something happened that simply shook my entire world, from foundation to firmament. Harcos began to cry silently into my hair as he clutched me to him. I longed to comfort him, my Aldus, my salvation. But there was nothing I could do. I seized his arms in my small hands and wrenched them tighter, willing every pore of my skin to exude healing and love. I started the deepest of my Soothings, and cried as my Aldus, my Harcos, my Master, my universe slowly drifted into dreamless sleep.
The Heathens 16: The Boy and the Ox
By Bear Pup
Note on names: Folks have commented that people keep changing names. Yep. In the time in which this story is set, people frequently adopted nicknames or descriptive names at various points throughout their lives. For the lowest, the servants and slaves, names were changed by masters at a whim. Even in the top levels of the aristocracy, family names were not usually used outside politics, and even then, the names changed. If you ask someone to name ten Roman Emperors, you are unlikely to find more than two who ruled under a birth name.
When I woke, it was again to find Harcos awake, but this time he was lying, starting at me, face blank, cheeks streaked with tears. I made a move toward his crotch and he pulled my face up. "Do you see my weakness, now, my own shame?"
My voice was small but firm. "No. I see my Aldus, my salvation, and a man who cares so deeply that he mourns even the need to kill the vermin who come to do him harm. I see no shame, only a goodness beneath a barbarian mask, and strength within to match and surpass the strength he shows the world. That is was I see, my Aldus."
He pulled in into him. "My Dasqas, my jewel, is wise and kind and good beyond his years. You are truly a gift of many gods." He held me tightly and rocked me a bit, until I started to squirm.
I squeaked, "What I will see soon is a very wet Aldus is he does not loosen his grip, especially around the bladder area." With a huge guffaw, he let me go and ruffled my hair. I was on his cock in an instant, taking his piss but lingering, slowly and carefully, over his raging wood as I teased him toward passion.
I smiled around his dick as he started to moan and hunch desperately, wanting completion. But I learned well the morning before, and brought my master to the very edge of paradise three times. His hands were gripped upon my shoulder tightly enough to bruise and I loved it. I could tell he was about to lose his mind when I finally brought him to bellowing eruption. Before disaster struck, I was out of the tent and fountaining my piss over the landscape.
Harcos was in a camp-shirt when I returned and I donned my own before kindling the fire and putting the water on to boil. Apparently, the bellow of pleasure I'd ripped from Harcos had effected others as well. A series of long, loud grunts echoed from Pameten's tent, first in his deep and penetrating voice, then in the slightly-higher one of Zajak. That high, ecstatic keening and low, passionate growls from the third tent added to the lovely symphony of the morning.
When they emerged and we gathered around the fire, I realised I had never seen six happier people together at once. The water still had some time to boil. Zajak broke the silence with a serious note in his voice.
"New-friend-Pyrkagia, why do you hide who you are?"
Five pairs of wide eyes went to him. The voice of the tall, dark man answered. "That is a strange question, young one. Why would anyone think--"
Zajak shocked me motionless as he actually cut across the warrior's words. "I am a slow person, and not bright like the five of you. But with that comes another thing. Since I am not smart, I am hard to fool." He turned back to Pyrkagia, "You are a man of many, many summers. And much power, and much intelligence. Why pretend to be a timid boy?"
Well, a light breeze could have knocked me over. I looked and saw that Harcos and Pameten were equally stunned, and the tall warrior was upset and worried. Pyrkagia never lost his smile and simply tilted his head. Pam actually yelped and jumped back when a gravelly bass voice, deeper than any of the warriors' present, came from the small boy.
"Well done. How?"
"Your shout yesterday before you cast your spell. No one else who knew the warrior's tongue was behind us, yet that was the language I heard. It is possible that a boy with the summers you pretend might have the cock and balls of a pony, but not that voice."
Pyrkagia turned to shaking and terrified Stelio, "We spoke of this, my son. You trust these fellow warriors as much as I do, and these lads have wisdom." He turned to the rest of us with that rumbling voice, still shocking to see coming from that tiny frame. The water had come to boil, completely forgotten.
"He is right. I have at thirty-two summers. The Romans came to our island six years ago and we, unwisely, fought to the man. As expected, the Romans, defied and bloodied, offered no quarter. When our leaders fled, so did we. I have always been small, even amongst my own, and never had the thick fur of barba... pardon me, of great warriors like your esteemed selves. It was a matter of minutes to remove all trace of the sparse hair below my chin. I put a boy's breechclout on and a barefoot child stepped into the street where a man had been.
"A young and foolish warrior," he smiled indulgently at the tall man and put his hand on the bony knee, "had rushed ahead of the main force to pillage the choicer morsels. As I emerged, he threw me over his shoulder, claiming me, and ransacked my house. I meekly helped him find and secure the best of my possessions, even carrying his booty, throughout playing the shy, terrified and not terribly bright boy." A long slow smile came to him and Stelio spoke.
"He was so strong for a young boy, but I thought nothing of it. I was barely a man myself, in my sixteenth summer and just joined to the Legion. He was, as you can still see, beautiful beyond words. I was punished for my rash charge, but allowed to keep half my plunder while other warriors killed the men and had their way with the others. Part of what I was allowed to keep was the tiny, useless boy.
"As I was young and new, I was bunked in one of the large tents with five others, each of whom had claimed his spoils. I was far too embarrassed of my not-so-masculine body. That and my utter inexperience in any form a sex prevented me from joining in that night as four of the other five tested their new slaves." The tall warrior blushed and dropped his eye for a moment and Pyrkagia took over.
"There was a stir amongst the new servant-slaves when a fastboat came the next morning with orders that all but a single Century return at once to the mainland. My new master was one that was to stay. His Centurion was a surprisingly kind man, and his Optio was efficient and effective. He soon billeted all of the warriors in local homes left empty by the fighting and subsequent retribution.
"In a truly hysterical jest from the gods, he assigned my warrior and one of his mates to my very own house! I slept on my own pillows the very night after I went from man to boy and from citizen to slave, and served my master and his compatriot meals from my own larder. When the door closed that evening, my great and powerful boy-warrior was shaking so badly I thought he'd die."
"Well, of course I was! I was newly a man and from a family that forbade the sexual play my peers explored. My new slave, still not having said a word to me, pulled me to the cushions and I stood as he undressed me. Every touch was sensual. Some part of him would caress my cock or ass or nipples 'accidentally' with each movement. When he reached my loincloth, I panicked."
"He did, too. He was trying to push my hands away. What he didn't know, couldn't know, was that I was a lifelong lover of men." Harcos turned to Pameten with wide eyes. Such an admission was unheard-of in the Roman world, much less the Legions! The look did not go unnoticed. "In the world of my island home, this was neither uncommon nor cause for shame. Since we trust you with our great secret, there is no reason to hide that as well. When I finally divested my warrior of his last protection, I gasped in wonder."
"Well, wonder he says now. I thought it was appalled horror. I was so ashamed at my rampant and desperate condition I wanted to die! And with a single lunge, my sexless world was shattered. This tiny, diminutive boy literally knocked my knees from under me and was on my manhood like a starved beast as I lay on the cushions, stunned. At first, by all the gods, I thought he was about to take revenge on all Romans by chewing off parts that I have always been quite fond of!"
"Oh, I chewed. My child-man of a Roman warrior had a dick that was perfectly formed, like a Narcissus or an Adonis..."
"What he means is tiny." This got a huge laugh from the two other warriors. Self-depreciation sells as well as braggadocio for fighting men.
"No, what I mean is the perfect size to suckle on for hours, which I preceded to do. I had never been so aroused as by his smell, though. I was coating the inside of my breechclout with slick. And with every lick of my tongue, his voice went up in pitch. Higher and higher, each moan was longer and longer until it was a steady keen and he blew like nothing I'd ever felt or tasted."
"I lost my mind, completely and utterly. What he was doing to me was beyond my imagining. I had heard of such acts, but only in whispers. And this tiny little boy knew so much, had such skills, that I wanted to die of shame. And then he really started."
A sly smile invaded that amazingly-low voice, "I had been terrified the day before, certain of death, then certain of horrible slavery at the hands of our unstoppable enemy. But in that moment, I was smitten. Let us say that I opened his eyes so wide that night, that he had trouble opening them at all the next morning."
Pameten couldn't resist the opening, "Just his eyes, honoured Pyrkagia?" Harcos roared and Zajak and I just stared, but Pyrkagia smiled.
"That is a tale, or a tail, for another time, my new friends.
"And by the morning, he knew that I was not what I seemed. I could not disguise my excitement throughout that long and wondrous night, and my own moans were certainly not those of a small-stoned boy. We spoke through the night... well, in between." Everyone was smiling now.
"And over the next week, I hid in the rooms he was assigned, as did virtually all the new slaves and servants. My Stelio got a lot of ribbing from his mate over how loud he'd made the little boy squeal and how much fun he must have been having from the low grunts and groans. I soothed him in, well, several ways. And we discussed my problem, and my skills."
"You're a sorcerer." This was Zajak, and Pyrkagia rolled his head.
"I guess that depends. I use the knowledge of my ancestors to create certain powders that have some... interesting effects, like what you saw yesterday. But do I invoke magic, gods, demons, unknowable forces? No. Just ingredients. It is a craft, not an art."
I spoke for the first time. "And can you teach this craft?" Pyrkagia turned his gaze on me and for the first time I felt the intelligence behind the beauty.
"You ask the wrong question, new-friend-Kucuk. You ask 'can' when you mean 'will'. Yes, I can. No, I will not. My craft dies with me.
"But I had fallen for my captor, and knew the fate of young men in the armies of Rome. We arrange this ruse, me a tiny boy who never reached manhood, him an invincible warrior who doted on his slave. We could protect each other in ways no one could possibly imagine. And it worked. It worked until... until you, young man. So what happens now?"
Harcos' rumbling voice rolled out, "We welcome this savage warrior and his diminutive, mute and beautiful child-slave into our cohort."
"Like that? Why?" This was from a shocked Stelio.
Pam answered, "Because you are both brave and fought with honour and compassion. If you are agreeable, Harcos and I will settle with the Optiones of both our Century and yours. There will be no trouble." He said this which such confidence that everyone but Harcos was shocked.
"We are more than agreeable. We lost many our close friends over the last five encounters and would welcome a new Century within the Legion. On a condition, one that involves you, friend Pameten."
Pam nodded gravely as Pyrkagia continued. "I have watched your 'hare' face down your enemies without taking a single step away. I watched him closely as I spun." Zajak's eyes went wide and fell to the ground. "He was terrified, as any real man would be, but he did not waver and prepared to defend your goods with his life. His has, if you will excuse my impertinence, outgrown his name."
"It is a condition already granted." Zajak spun his head so fast he kinked it and winced in pain. Pam laughed and put his hand on the young man's head. "You are Zajak no more. I will give you a name that pleases you, but it would please me if you like the one I offer to you now. I would like to call you my Volot. Would you like to be Volot?"
Zajak rolled the sound in his mouth and smiled, shyly, nodding and bending to kiss Pam's hand. He looked up with his wide eyes and asked, "Is it a word with meaning, or a pleasant sound, my Pameten."
"I was going to tell you in private, but with what we have just heard, there is no reason for there to a secret. In my mother tongue, Volot is the massive, male draft animal that, in our shared tongue, would be called the Ox."
Zajak-now-Volot stared in shocked silence and I erupted with mirth, laughing so hard and rolling about in the dust that I am not surprised that Harcos worried I'd been taking in a fit. He scooped me into his arm like a feather until I could speak. "Oh, my friend!" I giggled again, speaking our local language. "Oh, my Okor, my bull-ox, you-you-you have re-earned your own n-n-n-n-" and I dissolved again.
All were now looking at me as if I had fallen mad. I looked at the puzzled faces around me. and mastered my voice, Volot utterly speechless still. "Pameten, my dear and wonderful warrior-friend and compatriot to my Harcos, you have just given your servant the name in your tongue that in ours is called Okor. HIS NAME was Okor. You have chosen the name he has lived under since childhood!" And I lost it again as the insanely-unlikely coincidence struck and delighted Pam.
Volot came suddenly to life and launched his not-inconsiderable frame into his unexpecting master, tumbling them to the dust. I could hear him whisper to Pam, almost a growl, and for the first time ever I think a boy made that mighty warrior blush. They basically dragged one another into their tent, not to be seen again that morning, but the noises were... educational.
Pyrkagia and Stelio stared at each other and I watched their silent language of glances which stayed in a mode that could only be complete bewilderment. Stelio turned to me, his role as speaker-for-both back in place.
"We don't understand. Is there a mythical significance? Is he a Mithraist? But that would make no sense! Mithras SLEW the great bull. And why would our own story mean that the telling would be appropriate?"
Harcos had obviously gotten some insight. "Describe for me the Bull Ox, my new brother."
"He is large and very strong, and I can see that to some extent in Zajak-now-Volot. The Ox is, well, slow and, um, not to be unkind, not very bright?"
"Go on, friend-Stelio. But you have described any draft animal. What else comes to mind for a Bull Ox?" Pyrkagia's eyes went wide and he curled into a silent, adorable little ball of mirth, then shared a look with the tall warrior, who suddenly gasped and blushed, then began to laugh with us.
We spent the morning in care for armour and weapons, a lesson that Volot would have to make up later, as with the breakfast he and his master forgot to eat. It was a calm respite after the horrors of the day before and the surprises around the breakfast fire. I found myself instantly back in learning mode, desperately crushed by a frown from Harcos and elated by a smile. When Pameten and Volot crawled out as we built a warm lunch, they looked much the worse for wear, and disgustingly happy about it.
A spirited discussion erupted over lunch between the... Volot and I were stumped on how to differentiate our group now. We decided to treat Stelio and Pyrkagia as 'one warrior' named Stelio, but still group Pyrkagia-in-kid-mode as a servant. Anyway, the 'three' warriors were discussing the plan. Winter Over was apparently a three- to five-day march with a major ridge between us and it. There were two notable notches where rivers had cut through that mountainous terrain.
The original plan was to continue east along the relatively-safe Roman Road, then cut south-westward to Winter Over, using the larger of the two passes. Pameten was arguing for us to go due south on dubious roads through the less-travelled pass, then turn due west when we cleared the ridge. The big issue was the continuing mud in the alluvial plains; heading west along the mountains guaranteed muddy delta after muddy delta, but the southern route was rough and unfamiliar.
Not surprisingly, it was the Stelio who asked the critical questions that brought both other warriors up short: How had the "safe road" worked for us so far? Which would actually take less time? Both were giant doglegs, but the due south route was a bit shorter if rougher. With a silent touch from Pyrkagia, Stelio turned to Volot and I. "Young ones, we seek your wisdom. You have listened. What are your thoughts?"
Volot was struck dumb by the idea that great warriors would even imagine that he had an opinion, much less solicit one. I looked to Harcos with much the same expression, but he had a thoughtful look and nodded to me.
"If we continue east, we will encounter either a river or mud-plain wherever a valley descends from the mountains. Going south, we will travel between or alongside rivers instead of crossing them. I beg leave to suggest that my Ma-- Harcos' plan may take much longer due to effects of the unexpected storm."
Harcos gave no indication of pleasure or displeasure and I blushed furiously, worried that my failure to agree with my master was disloyal. Pam looked at Volot and said, "Son, please speak you mind. This is a council where all must be heard. Your life is at stake as much as ours."
Eyes wide at speaking to such a group, Volot stuttered, "I-I-I-I, um, I like the s-s-safety of a r-road, but we were attacked on one anyway, and I am n-n-n-not sure how many more mud crossings I can survive." Pam chuckled. Harcos nodded once and I watched Pyrkagia and Stelio share a long and complicated glance.
"We prefer Pameten's plan to strike south. Harcos?" the tall man said.
"Actually," my master stared at me as if studying my innards, "I agree with Pameten now as well. South."
Pam spoke, "Then I suggest we rig for rough travel and rest this day."
Harcos' rumbling voice had a smile in it. "Pameten, my dearest friend, you just want to make a longer meal of a certain side of beef, you lecherous dog. You would clearly have suggested the same had the decision gone the other way."
Pameten did not even blush but Volot was bright-red, sputtering and mortified. "Why, friend Harcos, I am shocked you would suggest such a thing, though the idea has merit. And, my faithful comrade, be careful with the term 'lecherous dog' when entire valleys have shaken with the howls of you and your puppy."
Harcos burst into side-splitting laughter as I joined the horrified-sputter-party with Volot. As it turned out, the repacking took much of the daylight anyway as everything had to change from compact to secure. We ate of fish again that day, smoked over a minty clover and retired at full-dark.
I'll admit Volot and I had pouted and fumed our way through the evening to the renewed amusement of the men. Harcos smiled as I pointedly turned away to undress and sat in a huff. He reached out and turned me by my shoulder. "My puppy's tail is not wagging tonight."
With every scrap of wounded dignity that I could muster, I pouted at him, "I do not wish to annoy you with my 'puppyish howling'."
He pulled me into his arms and no amount of effort on my part could make the least impression. He whispered in my ear, "Warriors like you and I jest constantly, my Dasqas, and relish even pleasure for tomorrow they may end forever. You will find this quickly, but for now, I have an idea of a way to make it up to you." I pulled my face back and took in the lecherous leer.
I suddenly felt something in my nether parts and made me jump and squeak, then steeled myself. By the One True God and every Saint, that was the last sound this heartless barbarian would get from ME this night!
Harcos laid me on the pelts and I swallowed an all-out scream as his mouth enveloped my balls and began to wash and roll them with his tongue. NO! I began to silently recite Biblical passages until a second finger joined the first and slithered deep inside me. I bit the inside of my cheek but a tiny squeaking squeal snuck through.
Suddenly, those two huge fingers began the snap back and forth, each downbeat thumping that magical place deep inside. I could not avoid making little hiccoughs, but swore that would be all. Until my Master's mouth left my balls and swallowed my manhood, tongue moving with wild abandon everywhere it could reach. My breath shortened as I realised Harcos had the very tip of my dick so deep that I could feel his throat contract as he swallowed around me. And he never slowed, driving me further and further from sanity.
I cannot describe the sound I made as a scream, or even a howl, but an explosion of every moan and whimper and groan I'd suppressed for the last few minutes, rolled into a soul-wrenching climax. I heard my Aldus as if from a great distance, "Howl for me my precious puppy!" as I continued to blow. I came to myself and heard a second, massive eruption of noise from the next tent in a deep and penetrating voice. Apparently, the same anti-pouting spell was being cast upon Volot.
It was then that I noticed Harcos had returned to suckle my hypersensitive cock and his fingers had moved from that rapid tattoo to round, hard-pressing rubs. Round and round and round. I pounded on his back but might as well have pounded on a hill for all the effect it had. I wonder if Harcos even felt my weak fists. But he did either feel or hear as my world flipped from torturous sensitivity to raging need.
This second round took far longer as Harcos teased and nibbled my dick and played a variety of tunes on my love button. I was still aware as I reached the second crescendo, and knew exactly what would please my Aldus most. As my balls pulled up, I took in a huge breath. "Ow, ow, owOO!" a very happy puppy-wolf howled into the night over and over. I felt Harcos laugh around my spurting seed. "OW, OW, OWOOOOOOOO!"
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Active storelines, all at www.nifty.org/nifty/gay... Canvas Hell: 23 chapters .../camping/canvas-hell/ Beaux Thibodaux: 14 chapters .../adult-youth/beaux-thibodaux/ The Heathens: 16 chapters .../historical/the-heathens/ Off the Magic Carpet: 9 chapters .../military/off-the-magic-carpet/ Lake Desolation: 8 chapters .../rural/lake-desolation/ Dear John Letter: 2 chapters .../military/dear-john-letter/ Brother Bear: 4 chapters .../incest/brother-bear Shark Reef: 2 chapters .../adult-friends/shark-reef