“Tonight, let us praise our God, the Great Eater! Glory to Yog!”
The night was filled with the sound of drumming, drunken singing, and the cries of slave girls. We were in grove of young olive trees that was now a playground for a giant party. Bonfires were scattered about it, the long shadows of dancing men orbited them. Slave girls hung from branches bound by their wrists, swaying. Up above, the night was clear. Uncounted stars had been pressed into the sky. Some broke loose and fell, shooting stars and landing beasts arcing down to earth.
I sat around a bonfire with Fogrim, Juskar, Gorol, and some of the other Darfuri militia. We sat on mats of woven reeds, and sheets of tent cloth. Behind us was a fig tree with nine slave girls still hanging from its branches, hanging by bound wrists. Each bonfire had been allotted twenty girls - originally. From the very start of the evening there had been slave-stealing shenanigans between bonfires. Two Mazgar yelled at each other, playing tug of war with a tiny Shemite woman who I thought would come apart. Their friends cheered them on and threw beer at them. Two militamen returned to our own fire, one with a struggling blonde over his shoulder, the other with a dark-haired Shang. They threw the girls down under the tree. The Shang immediately got on all fours and licked her captor’s foot, looking up at him as she arched her back downwards to push her buttocks up. The blond, the brand on her thigh raw, tried to crawl away. Her captor laughed, grabbed her ankles, and dragged her back.
Cut down and set to work around our fire, were twelve girls. Two, naked, Armanean brunettes turned a pig on a spit. The others knelt among us, offering us meat on skewers, bowls of beer, or themselves.
Kneeling by me in a row, all three hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder, were my slaves. Their wrists were cuffed behind their backs and a chain hung from one girl’s collar to the next’s. Each girl’s throat was ringed with yellow ochre. Haley and Naya looked about, eyes filled with interest at the goings on around them. They exchanged glances and peered together at the Mazgar groups especially, at the other fires. Naya kept rising on her knees and shifting. Her toes clenched and she bit her lip.
I reached between her thighs and ran my finger along her vagina. It was warm, wet. She smiled at me as I kept running my finger up and down, my palm against her thigh. I checked Haley with the same finger - my Siberian rose on her knees to assist me. She too, was wet.
“You two are like rutting animals, you know that?”
They giggled.
“Yes, Master,” said Naya.
“Will you have us, Master?” asked Haley, her eyes shining. I wanted to choke that long, lovely, white throat.
“Maybe,” I took a sip of wine. “Maybe I will trade you for the night with the next fire, for two of theirs.”
Neither girl raised an objections. Cock-hungry whores!
The third girl, turning to look about sharply, was Yarina. She kept her knees clasped together tight, and tried to look down. Laughter erupted from the next fire; she turned to look, eyes wide.
“Oh!”
She gasped as I pushed my hand between her thighs. I felt up her cunt: it protruded slightly, fleshy, wet, and quite warm.
“Spread them,” I commanded.
“Yes, Master,” she said in a small voice. She parted her thighs.
“Wider, Slave.”
She obeyed. Her clit was well bared. A Darfuri noticed and nodded in appreciation. Yarina blushed and looked away.
Fear had heightened her arousal. I would do well to use her again, tonight: it was her first day in the collar.
I unchained her collar and removed her cuffs.
“Thank you, Master,” She rubbed her wrists. “Shall I please you?”
“You are not good enough to please a dead dog’s erection. Go about the fire,” I gripped her shoulder and forced her forward on to her hands and knees, “and crawl to each mat. If there is semen on it, you will lick it up and eat it. Do you understand?”
She stared back at me in horror.
“I said, do you understand?”
“Yes, Master!”
“Good Slave. If any man though says you have left his seed on the mat, I will have to string you up by your feet, and tell these poor drunken men may use your mouth as a toilet to piss in. Do you understand, Slave?”
“Yes, Master! I will not fail!”
“Good Slave. This is your task for the rest of the night.”
Yarina began.
“This is a good system,” said Juskar at the next mat. He was using a dark-haired slave girl, doggy-style, “to hold all the girls in common like this. Something we can learn from the Mazgar.”
Slap-slap-slap. He did steady, easy strokes. He gripped the dark-haired slave by her hips. She rolled her eyes and gasped, lowering her head as she orgasmed. Juskar kept going, slap-slap-slap. Yarina crawled to the edge of his mat and waited, crouched against the ground.
“There are many things we can learn from the Mazgar,” said Fogrim, sitting back against a barrel. Before him, a dark-skinned, Darfuri slave girl was facing a pale brunette. The two beauties knelt so close together their knees interlocked, each with one knee pressed against the others crotch. They looked to Fogrim, large eyes mixed with eagerness and caution. “Though what you see here is an illusion. When they return to their shores, these women will be divided.”
He poured olive oil from a jar on to the brunette’s back, and then the dark-skinned girl. It gleamed as it spilled slowly down their backs. He started rubbing it over their backs, their necks, down to their buttocks. He did it with a casual, easy, tenderness. They giggled and bared themselves for his hands. It was a beautiful sight.
“Well it is a good they do not divide them till then,” said Juskar. The dark-haired slave began whining, fingers clawing the mat, back arching. Her jaw dropped and she let out a loud moan. He reached over, and cuffed her; she moaned again. A few strokes later he pulled her against him and sighed as he came. When he was done, he shoved her off, and straddled her. Semen dripped on to the mat.
Yarina crawled forward. She held her long hair aside and licked the semen, like a cat cleaning its bowl. Then, she crawled to the next mat.
A tall, kneeling, Shang girl watched, a few links from a severed chain hanging from her collar. Juskar regarded her - her eyes grew wide.
He snapped his fingers.
The Shang crawled over to him on her hands and knees. Her pale body was magnificent, toned and elegant. She had long, curling hair. Juskar pushed it out of her face, enjoying the feel of it in his fingers. Then, he bound her wrists behind her back.
He regarded the dark-haired girl. She lay on the ground, panting, looking back at him. Semen gleamed between her legs, dripping down her thigh.
He rolled her on to her back and spread her legs apart.
“Come,” he snapped his fingers again.
On her knees, the Shang shuffled between the dark-haired girl’s legs.
Juskar forced her head down to the other slave’s vagina. Unprompted, the Shang began to lick and eat the semen. Juskar held her head down - her face squeezed between thighs, she dug and scooped with her tongue.
“When and when not to divide slaves is not all we can learn from them,” Fogrim said, eyes on his two girls. They ran their hands over their bodies, spreading the oil. Their skins glittered - the oil was infused with chips of mica. ‘Dancing oil,’ I had heard it called. Fogrim took the brunette’s hand and planted it firmly on the Darfuri girl’s breast. He pushed the Darfuri girl’s hand between the brunette’s thighs. They looked to him for permission, and he nodded.
The girls giggled and stared into each other’s eyes. The brunette fondled the Darfuri girl’s breast. Her eyes widened and she smiled as the Darfuri reached in deeper, and began strumming.
“Are you sure?” said Juskar. “It is they who copy our tactics.”
“They are people with single purpose,” Fogrim packed a pipe and lit it. A sweet smell like jasmine spread. “While we are divided: rich against poor, city competing against city. All the while, our enemies mass to strike us. This was no Darfuri victory here, Juskar. This was two jackals fighting over who would get the lamb.”
Men began to stare with interest as Fogrim’s girls began to grope and kiss each other. It was a powerful sight: two, oiled, beauties rubbing against each other, eyes closed, hungry. I wanted them both!
It did not last long. As they lay down on their mat, kissing and licking each other, a militiaman grabbed the Darfuri girl by her legs and dragged her to him. She cried out and clutched at the sand as he spread her legs wide and entered her. He gagged her with her own, long hair, lay down on top of her, and got to work.
The brunette watched, lying on her back. She propped herself up on her elbows, panting. Fogrim set his pipe aside and squatted over her chest. He shoved his penis into her mouth and began thrusting. He pressed in deep - the slave choked, but he kept pressing. Only when he was done did he let up, shaking out the last drops onto her face. She coughed and gasped, her chest heaving, hand going to her throat.
Fogrim seized her wrists and held them behind her head with one hand. He gripped her jaw with the other, forcing her mouth open. Semen spilled out, running down her cheek.
He spat into her mouth, and forced it shut. He pinched her nostrils but she had already swallowed; she opened her mouth wide proudly to show him. Fogrim smiled and stroked her hair from her face. Still squatting over her chest, he took an amphora of wine and removed the stopper. Slowly, forcing her mouth open, he started pouring in the wine.
Yarina crept forward, licked drops of Fogrim’s seed off his mat, and moved on. She paused to look back at him a moment, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
“I am a long way,” he wiped his penis across the brunette’s eyes, “from being done with this one.”
“You speak as if you think we would not win against them,” said Gorol. He stood under the fig tree facing a mixed race girl with skin like milky tea. The brand on her thigh was still raw. She twisted on her rope, looking back at him with alarmed eyes. Gorol tested his whip, drew it back, and brought it slashing down her back. The slave girl shrieked. “Are you so impressed by one legion, Fogrim? Our people outnumber theirs, five times.”
“That was in the time of our grandfathers,” Fogrim replied. “No priest king has levied tribute from them in thirty years. Akingin said they we only number three, for every one of theirs.”
“So?” Gorol struck the slave again. She howled, swaying back and forth. “they are barbarians.”
“Does every man in our empire know the use of the spear or the bow?”
“Not every man in our empire needs to.”
“Hmmm.”
The discussion ended when Gorol put away his whip, lifted the whipped slave’s legs apart, and began using her right there as she hung from the branch. Her face became strained and she made little cries as he thrusted. He did not come though, and kept pounding her. Her cries became sharp squeals and she clasped her legs around his back. Only after she orgasmed did he allow himself to come. Then, he stepped back and began whipping her again.
He would, unless distracted, alternate this way with her for the next few hours. It was an technique called the March of Joy and Fire; an exhaustion-based, breaking technique that used over-stimulation. The slave is put to ecstasy, and then pain, again and again for hours. When he finshed with her, she would find lying at his feet a blessed relief. He would pull her against him and keep her warm and protected, letting her sleep. She would mistake this for kindness and feel grateful towards him. Eager to thank him. Eager to please - and avoid being put to the whip, again.
I made a mental note to try it, myself.
The two brunettes turning the spit gleamed with sweat, their hair was pulled through bronze rings and done up in pony tails. Glittering, white paint had been marked around their eyes, in the Mazgar way. Their crotches had been painted in red ochre. They stopped turning the spit and began carving roasted meat.
Kneeling before them were three girls. They sat like dogs: backs straight and at a 45 degree angle, their palms planted on the sand between their knees. The spit girls put a piece of meat in each girl’s mouth. Then, the kneeling girls turned and crawled to men.
One came to me - a pale blonde, Siberian perhaps. Red ochre was finger-painted around her eyes, and forming the mark of Yog, on her belly. Her hair was long, thick, and pulled tight through a tube of black wood that was decorated with animal teeth. Her large breasts swung under her as she crawled to me, eyes hungry. Around her throat was a crude, iron, Mazgar collar.
I took the meat from between her teeth and tore into it. It was excellent; seasoned with salt, pepper, and something that tasted like cinnamon. She watched, hopeful, as I ate the meat.
“Good slave,” I held a scrap out for her in my open hand. She ate it off my it, kissing my palm and licking it clean. She sucked on my fingers, staring into my eyes as she did so.
Such a servile, beautiful, slave!
“Come here,” I gripped her by her collar and pulled her to me.
She squealed as I pulled her on to me like a sheet. Her body was warm and deliciously soft. I ran my hand up and down, feeling her curves, her muscles. She straddled me, large, perky breasts suddenly in my face. Erect nipples brushed my chin and lips. They were hazelnut brown. Cuneiform was tattooed around them in circles.
“Let’s see,” I gripped her by the tube that held her hair, and clutched at a breast. It yielded in my fingers as I tilted it to the firelight.
“It says my name, Master.”
Bite it read. I read her other nipple - it read Slap.
“Ah!” she cried as it bit one nipple. It sounded less than authentic.
Ah! AH!” she howled, her body jerking, she eyed with a mix of injured resentment and fear. Men around us laughed.
“Do not fake with your new masters, Slave,” I licked the nipple. “They will do more to punish you than bite harder.”
“Yes, Master!”
“Also, its not your name. And if it was, you don’t have a name anymore.”
She lowered her forehead to mine and we kissed. She was good at it; opening her mouth wide and exploring, stroking. Her lips were soft and full. It bit one and she squealed. I pulled away and she wrapped her arms around my neck, eyes glittering.
“Will you name me, Master?”
I noticed her collar was a Darfuri design, but it had been fused.
“It is better this way,” I touched the gleaming bronze in the lock. “Where you are going, your life will be very different.”
“Will you come too, Master? Will you own me?”
I gripped her by her throat and squeezed.
“Am I not your master right now?”
“You are my Master!”
The blonde maneuvered herself to mount my erect cock. She then began bouncing on my lap, her hair tossing, buttocks slapping against my thighs. I pulled her wrists behind her back and held them in place.
“You are Master!” she cried, “Name me, Master! Name your slave!”
I throttled her with my other hand. Her face turned red and she gasped for air, but she kept bouncing.
I came: I squeezed her against me as I filled her. When I was done, I pushed her off and she lay back on the mat. I took my cup of wine and poured it over her.
“Please, Master!” She turned to face me and crawled forward, her back and legs dripping red wine. “Please name me!”
I gripped the blonde by her hair and guiding her head to my penis. She ran her lips up and down the shaft, licking it clean. As she did I licked wine off her back - it tasted of her salt. That hallmark taste of an eager, healthy, energetic slut. I could write a book on how slaves tasted. Perhaps one day I would.
The blonde then kissed the tip and rolled the foreskin back with her lips. She licked me clean. A few drops fell to the mat - she lowered her head to eat it but I pulled her head back.
“No,” I shook my head and pointed behind her. “That is her job.”
Crouching behind the blonde was Yarina. The blonde moved to my side and we watched as the Yarina crawled up to me. She threw her hair to the side and lowered her head. She licked each spot several times; it was good to see that she was thorough. When she was done she began to crawl away.
“Hold on,” I caught her by her shapely ankle. “What do you say?”
“Thank you, Master,” she replied.
“Look at me and say it.”
She turned to face me.
“Thank you, Master!”
“Do you want to lick more seed off the mats, Slave?”
“No, Master,” she shook her head.
I slapped her - not hard, just enough to sting a fair bit.
“I said, do you want to lick more seed off the mats, Slave?”
“Yes, Master!”
“Well, if you want to, I suppose that’s alright then. Continue, Slave.”
“Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.”
She turned and crawled away.
“Master,” the blonde squeezed my knee. “Will you name me, Master?”
Why did she want this so badly?
“You are nameless,” I stroked her cheek and brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “Just branded livestock to be worked and handed around. Why would you have a name? You don’t need a name. For livestock, naming is a privilege.”
She looked down.
“It’s alright. Do not be sad. It is a good thing that you are not more than cattle. Are you not happy to be owned?”
“I am happy, Master,” she nodded. “But, I am afraid of the Mazgar.”
“Don’t be. They will only cull the weak, and those lacking servility. You are neither. You will only have one Mazgar master. He will not sell you to another.”
She brightened immediately.
“I will live to my fortieth year?”
She looked about twenty-two or twenty-three. I studied her clear, pale skin; it was the sort prized by vellum makers. She had long legs; the tendons there and in her back would make long bowstrings. She could not read. Anywhere on Hyperborea, if she survived her master’s whims, she only had another seventeen years to live.
“Yes,” I forced a smile. “You will make it to forty.”
She clapped her hands, eyes sparkling.
“Stop talking to the meat, you strange bastard!” yelled a Darfuri. Dumon was his name. “Fuck her, or let us fuck her!”
Other men laughed and cheered Dumon on. Someone threw a piece of crackling at his head.
“Go take that man some pork, will you?”
“Yes, Master!” she rushed to the task. A minute later, she was on her hands and knees as he mounted her, the pork between her teeth as a gag.
That would have been the pace and tone for the night; Haley, Naya, and Yarina would have been put to use before the sun came up - but this was an army’s party. Army’s love structure.
A drum started beating, a low, powerful sound. All around us, the Mazgar began cheering. Then, they began to move towards the drumming.
“What’s going on?” I stood up. “Everyone is leaving! Let’s steal their girls!”
“They are going to play games,” said Fogrim. “Come, you will want to see this.”
***
As it turns out I very much did.
The games were held adjoining the olive grove - in the open field that just a day ago had been strewn with the dead. There were no signs now, but for the turned earth and the odd, broken spear shaft.
Bonfires had been set up in a great ring. Each bonfire was to be the site of a game. In the center of the ring of bonfires, standing torches illuminated a large, wooden cage. Standing inside it were the prizes - slave girls. I recognized Molly, the Irish red headed beauty who had been put to the cross, in the morning. She stared at me, clutching at the bars. A Mazgar in white body paint whipped the side of the cage and she shrank back.
Any man who wished to take part in an event was permitted - and we in particular, were encouraged to. The Darfuri militiamen rose to the challenge. They could finally get some slaves - but more than that, I think they wanted to prove themselves to this foreign army that had delivered their land from an enemy. It was, I thought, a very gracious move by the Mazgar. I wondered if it had been Akingin’s idea.
The first event was a chase. Slave girls were promised freedom (a cruel lie) if they could reach the other end of the field without being captured. Lined up behind them with bolos, nets, and belt stuffed with binding rope, were the contestants. Umpires stood along the field, carrying burning brands.
The signal was given and the slave girls were released. They pounding through the mud as fast as they could. Five long seconds later, a horn sounded and the hunters bolted after them, hundreds of men cheering them on.
Even with a five second start, these were fast, fit pursuers, and the field was a long one. Girls cried out and fell as bolos caught and bound their legs. Others stumbled and fell, caught in nets. The hunters were upon then in seconds, quickly hogtying their catches, umpires running up to keep score. Then, they would jump and run after the next girl.
Panicked and untrained for running, the slave girls began to tire at the halfway mark. By the two thirds mark most lay in the dirt, struggling against their bonds. One, a Darfuri girl, almost made it to the end but the ground gave way beneath her as she fell into a nest of wood roaches. She hauled herself out to find herself surrounded by a ring of hunters. They drew lots, and the winner seized her and carried her back over his shoulder.
The winners were three quite unlikely-looking Mazgar - small made, wiry, they seemed taken aback at the attention. A beautiful slave from the prize cage was thrown at each of their feet, and they were given a bowls of yellow ochre to mark them.
For our representation, the home team did better than I’d hoped. One Darfuri won the javelin throwing contest (the targets were cultist corpses, mounted like scarecrows). Fogrim won the wrestling event - this caused quite the upset. He just smiled to quietly to himself and lead his prize away - a tall, perky-breasted, Shang beauty.
“She looks a lot like Yura,” I noted as the slave knelt between his feet, leashed and with her wrists bound behind her back. “You sure you don’t want to get her swapped for a different girl?”
“Not at all,” he pulled out his penis and the slave opened her mouth and took it. She looked at him as she began to bob her head. She was almost a dead ringer for that poor, dead woman. “I entered the event because she looks like her. I will name her Yura, too!”
I found this unsettling.
One event I found particularly outstanding was an insult fight. It was very free form: men stood by the bonfire and were challenged by others, and they took turns insulting each other. Crowd acclamation determined if a challenger replaced the man at the bonfire, or not.
Standing in a cage beside the bonfire was a delicate-made girl with mixed Caucasian and East Asian features. Her lips, earlobes, and nipples had been picked out in the white paint. Her body sparkled, rubbed down with a mix of oil and glittering mica. Black twine cords had been tied around her waist and ankles, and strung with ancient, worn, silver disks plundered from some dead Runa scholar’s table. They clinked as she moved.
We found Mong’s interpreter and dragged him over in the interests of international relations.
“Your deeds dishonor your ancestors so much, they return from hell to apologize to the living,” he relayed. In the center, the challenger backed away as the crowd erupted. The man at the center smiled and raised his arms.
“That’s not very good!” I frowned. “It’s alright - I guess.”
“Why don’t you go up?” Dumon clapped me on the back. The other Darfuri present, assented.
“Shut up.”
“You shut up! You never shut up! You have opinions about everything! Where you come from does everyone think they know everything? Go on! Lightning Shield Who Talks to Slaves Till He Bores Them!”
More hands than I felt I deserved, pushed me forward.
The Mazgar in the center regarded me and smiled. His teeth had been sharpened to points.
I smiled back.
He chattered at me in Mazgar, contorting his face as if in great pity. The crowd cheered.
“You are like child who is slow,” yelled the interpreter, “So much so, that even the meanest child in the village feels bad to taunt you for your brainlessness!”
“Really? That’s - really?”
All eyes were on me. What the fuck was I going to say?
“Your Momma is so fat, when she goes for a swim, whales turn up and try and have sex with her.”
The interpreter stared at me.
“Well, go on! Translate!”
“You - you insulted his mother!”
“You’re damn right I did. Now get on with it, or I’ll say shit about your momma, too.”
He glared at me, gave himself a moment, and then translated.
Pin drop silence.
Someone, somewhere in the audience, started laughing. It was a hyena’s laugh. Nobody wants to have the hyena’s support.
More hyena’s joined. (Thanks hyenas.)
I heard the interpreters words being repeated in the crowd. There were some normal laughs but they were politely cut short.
In the cage, the prize slave girl clutched the bars and peered at me, as if I was a freak at at circus.
My opponent crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
“You spoke ill of my mother,” he said in perfectly fluent Low Hyperborean.
“What’s the matter? Do you feel - insulted?”
He rattled off a long string of angry words. The crowd cheered, but they did not sound as hearty as they had before.
“When you were born, the stars fell from the sky rather than be sullied by having your eyes upon them,” he translated for me.
“Oh that is some weak tea, Buddy. Your Momma though - your Momma is so ugly, she has to wear meat around her neck to get the dog to play with her!”
My hyena brigade was loyal. There were more stifled laughs this time.
“Your slave girls beg passing men to show them their cocks, because they have forgotten what a cock looks like!”
“Your Momma is so ugly, the sight of her drove Great Cthulhu mad! Your Momma such a bitch, all the dogs in the village try to hump her! Your momma so old, I told her to act her age and she died!”
I could not be denied. The laughter swelled into a great wave. The shark-toothed Mazgar smiled and bowed to me, then stepped aside. Two umpires came forward, conferred, and then the older one announced the decision. There was another great cheer.
“See?” said Dumon, clapping. “I told you!”
One umpire handed me a set of irons. The other, opened the cage. The Eurasian girl stepped out, her oiled and glittered body, shining. She knelt before me, thighs wide apart, smiling up at me.
I bent down and studied her eyes. On the dark brown irises I could tiny specks that looked like braille dots, written in gold. They were a code - just like a bar or QR a code. She was Ansaru: a people from thousands of years beyond my own time, from what would become the jungle continent of Australia.
I collared and cuffed her. I pulled out my penis and she took it obediently into her mouth. She rocked her head, steady and unhurried, back and forth. I gripped her by the hair, keeping it clear of her face so she could look right into my eyes. When I came, I held her head in place with both hands. I did not let go till she had finished cleaning me.
“Thank you, Master!” hers was a wide, perfect, smile. She licked her lips clean and sat back on her heels.
“I have never heard such insults,” Shark Teeth approached - he had been holding back till I was done. “They are - they are magnificent.”
“Glad you liked them! You want me to teach you?”
“You would do that?”
“Absolutely.”
I transferred a dubious skill set from the 21st Century, to the to deep, geological past.
“There’s some we call ‘Dad Jokes,’ but maybe those are for another time.”
“You are wise and great man, Lightning Shield.”
“I don’t know about that,” I untied the coin belt my Ansaru wore, and retied it over her face, like a veil. I added nicely to her beauty.
“She is a fine beast. I thought I’d win her!”
I regarded Shark Teeth - he was not an officer. There were no girls for him till he reached home.
“She’s something special.” I pointed to the Mazgar’s feet.
The slave nodded, crawled to Shark Teeth, and lowered her head to kiss his feet. He stared at her as if disbelieving his eyes.
“If you want her, you can have her. But, I would your help with something.”
“Of course!” his eyes were wide as saucers. “What do you need, Lightning Shield?”
“It’s a little complicated…”
***
Not all the feast was fun and games. Further off at the end of the field, press-ganged survivors had dug a large pit. At its bottom a giant bonfire had been built. Funneled by the pit walls, it was a beacon into space of orange-red light and long shadows.
I went over to see what it was about.
Around the bonfire pit, a ring of smaller bonfires burned. In front of each, iron poles had been rammed into the dirt and topped with skulls. At each pole was a naked slave girl. Each knelt with her back to a pole, her ankles and wrists chained behind it. Instead of collars they wore polished, hollow bones strung through black cords - just like the consecrated girls Gorol had brought. Yoggite priests - both Mazgar and Darfuri - went from girl to girl, checking their chains and painting them. Each girl was got white ochre around the eyes, and a thick, black, dripping mark of Yog on their bellies.
I recognized one of Gorol’s girls, the brunette I had spoken to when I mismated the slaves.
“What is going on here, Slave?”
“Master!” she was beaming. “Master, we will be given to Yog!”
“Oh no,” I stepped back, a chill around my heart. I did a quick count - thirty two slave girls were being prepared. I felt sick to my stomach. “Oh no. I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
“Master?” she looked confused.
A priest in white body paint with a bone club at his side, stepped up with a gourd of thick, white, liquid. It smelled like cinnamon. He put it to the brunette’s lips and made her take a long drink. Even before she was done, her eyes began to lose focus.
I waved my hand in front of her face. She did not respond. A rapt smile formed like that of a hermit who has found enlightenment.
I kissed the drugged girl on her forehead and stepped away. Hyperborea would take its course.
***
The games ended, and a large crowd formed around the great bonfire pit. It wasn’t just Mazgar - repentant, Darfuri worshippers, male and female, old and young, gathered for the ritual. Priests beat rhythms on large skin drums and chanted. Many in the crowd chanted back - call and answer.
I had departed to the ruins and was watching from some distance away, from the second floor of an old, stone building. I’d made my own little fire off the side: it warmed against the cool, pleasant, night air. I sat cross-legged on a large, coarse, blanket.
Haley and Naya crouched at my left, oiled and naked. I held their leash chain in one hand. On my right, I had used a wooden frame to stretch Yarina out on her back in an ‘X’, her wrists and ankles bound.
Haley crawled forward and licked my thigh.
“May I please you, Master?” she begged.
“Please each other,” I replied. “You know how.”
“Yes, Master.”
The slaves crawled in front of me, their leash chains clinking. Yarina raised her head to watch as they two lay on their sides, facing each other, one girl’s head at the other girl’s crotch. Their thighs lifted aside for me to see, they began licking each other out, 69-ing.
They had been dripping and horny all night - and it is seldom a master works quite as hard as a slave will, to please a slave. Naya moaned and closed her eyes. Haley giggled and stuck her tongue all they way out, running it up an down Naya’s vagina. Naya spat on her fingers and began massaging Haley’s cunt. Haley’s jaw dropped and she let out a cry.
I seized Yarina by her hair and jaw, and turned her head to make her watch.
At the great bonfire, the chanting came to a sudden stop. I looked up from playing with my toys - heavy-laden carts had been wheeled to the end of the bonfire pit. Men in black hoods tilted them downwards: Runa corpses tumbled into the fire. Soldiers still wore the armor they’d been killed in. Priestesses, their robes. Albino White was lead up to the pit, it brayed and waited, unbothered by the flames.
One cart unloaded something quite different - the dark body of the Mi-Go. It had curled in on itself like a cockroach. A clawed arm snagged the edge of the cart and the body stopped, swinging over the pit. A priest used a pitchfork to push it free. The corpse came loosed and fell, sparks rising up as it landed. The priest threw the pitchfork in, after it.
The carts wheeled away and chanting resumed. People surged forward carrying fistfuls of earth which they threw into the pit. The firelight became a haze from all the sand and dust going in. Haley and Naya paused, staring at it. I could smell burning meat even from where I was.
The great bonfire began to dim. The carts returned, this time dumping in huge loads of dirt and stone. The bonfire went out. The crowd fell back as Albino White came froward. With what seemed deliberate care and understanding, the mammoth flattened the earth over the mass grave. Then, it was lead away.
The chanting resumed. Priests gathered around the consecrated girls, the senior-most with a dagger drawn. One by one, each girl’s belly was slit open. The iron poles they were chained to were pulled out of the ground and suspended over the small bonfires. The sacrifices moved a bit, fidgeting in the fire against their chains, and then were forever still.
What followed was the feast I had taken pains to avoid.
I thought about the girl Fogrim had sacrificed; Yura - how I had wallowed in guilt at her death… But then, there was Tela from the search band. I had mounted her on the offering tree, myself. What was the difference? Why did I feel responsible for one, and not the other?
Perhaps because Hyperborea was a land of death; whether a farmer by a bandit’s blade, a slave by a priest’s, or a nation by a god. Could I save a life here and there? Yes. I saved many slaves back at Red River. But, could I save any given life, or all lives?
No. I had to accept that. No - that’s not true. I had to accept that I had already accepted that.
Maybe this is what it was to Hyperborean.
“Master?” Haley was looking up from Naya’s crotch. “Are you alright, Master?”
“Yes,” I smiled. “Come here!”
I pulled both girls to me by their leash chains. They crawled to me on all fours.
I kissed Haley. She closed her eyes and melted against me, her large, perky breasts brushing my chest, nipples hard. She put one hand down to stroke my penis, rolling back the foreskin and wetting her fingers.
Naya giggled and nestled between my thighs, like a warm, soft, fire. She took a testicle into her mouth and fondled it with her tongue.
I broke the kiss and forced Haley’s head down. Both girls began licking my penis, running their tongues up and down the shaft and looking at me, eyes filled with mischief. Their faces brushed together and I felt the warmth of their breath on my cock and balls.
Haley put her head over my penis, sliding down till the tip pressed the back of her throat.
I grabbed her by the back of the neck and held her in place. She stared as I pinched her nostrils shut with my other hand.
She tried to pull away but I held here there. She waiting a few moments then tried again. Again, I would not let her up, my fingers pinching her nose. She grunted and jerked, her face turning red. I kept her down for ten more seconds before yanking her head back.
She gasped for air, saliva mixed with semen hanging from her lips in thick strands. She coughed and gasped, and coughed again.
I pushed her head back down, and put her through another round of breath play. Then a third. By then she was trying to crawl away but I rolled her on to her back and pinned her. A fourth. A fifth. By the end of the sixth she was apologizing for whatever she thought she’d done wrong. A seventh. Eighth. By the Ninth she became limp, compliant, utterly obedient.
That’s what I wanted.
I pushed her off and rolled her over to lie on her belly. She gasped out loud for air, her face red. She pushed her hair out of her face and looked back at me.
I wrapped her leash chain around my hand, and got on top of her.
She moaned and threw her head back, eyes wide, as I entered her. She was so wet it almost felt like swimming. I pulled her up to her hands and knees and used her doggy-style.
She screamed out into the night as I pounded her, each thrust driving her more wild than the last. She clawed at the ground, turning her head back to look at me, bless me to the gods, tell me she loved me. Soon she couldn’t even do words anymore - only grunts. This was an animal! A hot, dirty animal to be kept in a cage!
Her whole body spasmed as orgasms surged through her in waves. She became limp, as soft as warm honey.
I ejaculated. It was a good, big load and the pleasure thoroughly satisfying.
She looked back at me with eyes filled with love.
“Livestock,” I stroked her hair and licked her face. “Pet.”
She giggled and kissed me.
“I love you, Master.”
“I know,” I spat in her face. She was only conditionally human.
Without missing a beat, she wiped it from her face and licked her fingers clean.
“Good Slave,” I got off her. “On your back, legs apart.”
“Yes, Master!” she obeyed. As she spread her legs, semen trickled out of her vagina.
I regarded Naya. The dark-haired beauty was staring at me, her hand down between her thighs.
“Come,” I dragged her to me by her chain.
I forced her head down between Haley’s legs.
“Suck it all out. All of it, do you understand?”
“Yes, Master!”
Naya held Haley by her thighs, and got to work. She probed with her tongue, scooping out milky grey and swallowing it. When she could get no more, she stopped.
“It is done, Master,” she said, stroking Haley’s thigh. Hayley sat up and kissed Naya on the neck, holding her hand. “I have licked her clean.”
“Completely?”
“Yes, Master!” she turne to face me, kneeling like a dog. “You - it is good to taste you, Master. The taste - it makes me happy. It makes me feel safe.”
Made sense.
“If there is any seed left inside, I will hang you by your wrists from that beam,” I pointed, “and punish you.”
“Yes, Master. There is no seed left. I have eaten it all.”
I went to Yarina.
She looked up at me and shuddered in arousal. I got down beside her, and ran my fingers gently up and down her belly.
She moaned and yanked at her bonds, her expression pained, teeth gritted.
“Why do you taunt me! Have me, have me how you had her!”
“I will have you, you filthy bitch,” she squealed as I pinched an erect nipple, “if you can taste my seed in her.”
“Yes, Master! Yes!”
Naya stared, her expression uncertain, as I untied Yarina from the frame. The long-limbed beauty shuddered and threw herself around my legs, licking and biting. She cried out as I kicked her away. I grabbed her by her throat and dragged her to Haley.
“Taste!”
She lowered her head and pushed her tongue in, deep. Haley watched with interest, taking in the new girl who was between her legs.
“I can taste you,” Yarina pulled her head away and wiped her lips with her fingers. She sucked them clean. “I can taste you, Master.”
“She lies!” Naya cried out, her face an outraged storm. “The bitch lies, Master!”
I dragged Naya to her feet, and pushed her under the beam. She begged and whined as I bound her wrists together, and threw the rope over the beam. A quick tug and she was hoisted into the air, her legs flailing. I secured the end of the rope and stood back.
“You should not disappoint your Master,” I said, drawing my whip.
She howled as I struck her, a red mark forming along her thigh. I struck again. She winced and began to swing back and forth. I gave her five more strokes, each harder than the last. Her screams filled the night, red marks down her back, buttocks, and legs.
“Come here,” I reached for Yarina.
She stepped forward, slowly. I grabbed her hand and yanked her to me.
“Please her,” I took her hand and pressed it up between Naya’s thighs. I felt my fingers and hers inside the wet, warm, cunt.
“Keep them in there,” I pulled my hand free. “Pleasure her.”
“Yes, Master!”
Haley crawled to me and put her head against my thigh, as we watched Yarina work Naya. Yarina’s fingers knew their business - I wondered where she’d learned it. Probably in her father’s of brother’s bed chamber, sneaking in when they were out to marvel at some beautiful, young woman kept naked and waiting inside a cage.
Naya began crying out, moaning and twisting. Her cries became louder and she rubbed her feet up and down Yarina’s belly and breasts.
Yarina slipped her thumb into Naya’s anus.
Naya howled, howled again, then shuddered with orgasms. I counted: five waves.
“Good Slave,” I pulled Yarina away.
She knelt at my side, back straight, a proud smile on her face.
I drew my whip and began on Naya again.
Over the course of the next few hours, I whipped Naya and then brought her orgasm, repeatedly. This was the March of Joy and Fire! I made Yarina use her fingers and her tongue. Haley became powerfully aroused and kept trying to grab my cock. I got so annoyed I finally pushed her down on the mat and hogtied her. She pouted and looked sullen for the rest of the night.
Each time I used Yarina, the more delighted she was, the more eager to impress. It was heartening to see such simple, honest joy in beautiful, naked, collared woman. A collared woman I owned.
“Good Slave,” I said and patted her head.
“Thank you, Master!” She beamed.
“Kneel.”
She obeyed.
I got behind Naya, lifted up her legs, and lowered her on to my penis.
She cried out even as she slid down my shaft - her body hypersensitized by pain and orgasms. I began bouncing her up and down. She threw her head back and wailed, her vaginal muscles clenching around my cock.
I came inside her: I clutched her to me and she pressed her face against mine, eyes closed, lips parted.
“I love you, I love you Master more than life!” she managed, staring into my eyes.
I cut her down and she lay down at my feet, panting, disoriented. I wiped my cock with her long, dark hair. She looked up me as I did so and smiled.
“Good Slave,” I held her oval face. “Lie down beside Haley.”
“Yes, Master!” she crawled to Haley and lay down on her belly, beside her. She did not resist as I pulled her her wrists and ankles behind her back and hogtied her, as well.
“Yarina.”
“Master?”
“Lie by Naya.”
She looked surprised.
“You will not use me?”
“Go,” I scowled and gripped the whip.
She rushed to Naya’s side and lay down on her belly.
I hogtied her - she winced as I tugged to make the bonds more tight.
“You are a beautiful, healthy, young woman,” I said gently, my breath against her cheek. “I will have you, but not tonight.”
She cursed and glared at me, eyes like daggers.
I laughed. I wondered how much longer I would tease the her for.
Not long.
***
“I thought you’d changed your mind.”
The dawn sun was breaking. The sky threw down clouds like shredded cotton wool, in its path. The world lightened to darkest grey.
The Ansaru slave girl lay at my feet, her wrists and ankles bound. She eyed the approaching man, curious. He carried a something long over his shoulder, wrapped in cloth.
“It was difficult,” said Shark Teeth, “but men sleep well after a night of beer and slaves.”
He put the object down in front of me and unwrapped it.
The lightning gun was made of a coppery metal that had an oily, rainbow gleam. It looked more organic than machined, with roots and bulbs splitting off it, and others merging back with the gun’s body. I crouched beside it and the hairs on my arm stood on end. I touched it and there was a static spark. The metal was icy cold.
“Thank you for this,” I wrapped it back up.
“What will you do with it, Lightning Shield?”
I smiled and hefted it over my shoulder. It was as heavy as it looked.
“What can’t I do with it?”
He picked up the Ansaru girl and threw her over his shoulder. We said our farewells, and then I never saw either of them again.