A MERCENARY'S LIFE
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
Bren stood panting heavily when the battle was done. The enemy was fleeing, but the order had come not to pursue them, just stand where they were, hold their ground. That suited Bren just fine, he didn't know if he could have stood for much longer, much less chase a running foe. He looked around, other peasants were falling down where they were, exhausted beyond all measure, they lay among the wounded and dying until it was near impossible to tell which were which. But Bren could still stand, and the reason for that was beside him, the mercenary warrior Cuthet. He owed his life to this mercenary, of that there was no doubt. But why him?
Whatever his reason, Cuthet had picked Bren out from among the other peasants the night before, while he'd been practicing at combat with the rake. His father had taken the family's only weapon, a small spear, his elder brother had seized the metal-bladed scythe, leaving Bren to select only between the hoe and the rake, unless he chose to go and cut a long, straight stick and use it as a stave. He'd taken the rake, as the hoe's handle was old and he feared it would break, but was now debating the wisdom of his choice as his friend Pell had been fending his strikes off handily and landing several of his own with the stave Bren had scorned. Then the heavy hand of Cuthet had come on his shoulder and he had turned to look up several inches into the large, friendly blue eyes.
"You're coming off the worse in this engagement, I see." Cuthet said. "Your rake is hardly a fearsome weapon to wield."
"I fear that is true." mourned Bren. "But with the battle on the morrow, what else can I do but the best I can?"
"Come with me. I have something you can use instead."
Bren eagerly followed the huge warrior. Cuthet was several inches taller than Bren's own five foot seven, with straight black hair that hung down to a few inches above his shoulders. His body was well-fed and powerfully muscled, brawny with copious black hair on his bare forearms and peering out of the neck of his shirt.
Back at Cuthet's tent, Bren saw the mercenary's possessions and gazed upon them in undisguised envy. Unlike Bren who wore only the cotton and woolen clothing that were all he had, Cuthet was outfitted with all a warrior needed to keep his body safe while he fought, a helmet, a sword, a shield, a breastplate, even thigh and shin guards. And Cuthet reached into this wealth and pulled out a dagger, but a dagger that was nearly a foot long, with a large handle. "Here." He said, handing the dagger to Bren. "This will save your life. And stand behind and to one side of me when the battle begins, you can dart out from behind me and lash at the foe and then retire behind me when the combat becomes too fierce."
Bren gazed gratefully at this, his mentor.
"You'll need to practice with that." Cuthet told him as he scooped up his own sword and shield. "Come, let's to the nearest fire and we'll give you the feel for this dagger of yours."
He and Bren fought for a half hour, and Bren found his body learning the way of this smaller blade quickly. Soon he even fetched a slight wound on Cuthet's forearm and while Cuthet winced at the strike, he grinned and said, "And now you're worthy to serve as my battle partner. I'll knock them down and you finish them off, eh?"
"Of a certainty." Bren agreed.
"Then let's have dinner and then to bed." Cuthet told him. "The battle will come all too early in the morning, you will see."
Bren shared the food and determined that if Cuthet offered him only a spot beside him in Cuthet's own bedroll, he would get into it and let what happen, happen. His very life was in this man's hand, and he deserved whatever recompense Cuthet would request of him.
But Cuthet gave him a blanket and he was left to make his own bedding of it, near Cuthet but not with him, next to the now-dying fire.
Horns had awakened him the next morning, a hasty breakfast of bread, and it was off to the battle.
Now the battle was done. Bren and Cuthet had brought down more than a dozen of the enemy soldiers, seven were serfs of one of the lords and little opposition. Cuthet would cut the man heavily and the man would fall and Bren could dart around and give the fellow serf a quick death. But once these shock troops had been spent, the lord's own guards had faced them, and it was dicier. Bren had to actually fight one of the soldiers while Cuthet dealt with two more, but then Cuthet turned to the one Bren was dodging desperately and cut him down. Bren then was able to finish him off and actually helped distract the other soldiers enough to let Cuthet complete the job.
So now he felt a true warrior, as he limped wearily back to the tent with Cuthet. "We had a good battle, didn't we, Bren?" Cuthet said, laying a hearty backslap to Bren. Bren would have fallen had that hand not immediately come up and encircled his shoulders.
"Yes, we did." Bren agreed. "My Lord will be pleased."
"I hope enough to finish paying me what he owes, at least." Cuthet agreed, laughing. "Lords have been known to develop amnesia about such things when the battle is done."
"I shall remind him as needed." Bren said. "For I owe you my life today, I am certain."
"We saved each other's lives, you mean." Cuthet told him and the arm around Bren's shoulders drew him closer. "Come back to my fire and we shall celebrate our victory there together."
Bren joined Cuthet and his fellow mercenaries about the fire. They welcomed him as one of their own, and the food (real meat, not gruel and turnips) and ale flowed freely. Bren ate and drank and felt like a man, a real man, for the first time in his life. The life of a serf is sorely circumscribed and joyless, it is existence and nothing more. The Lord had denied him the right to marry, only his elder brother would be given that right some day. For him was only the labor in the fields and a place at his brother's table and having to be gracious and grateful for every bite he took despite his work in the fields. But here...tonight...he felt like a free man, and knew it for the heady mixture it was!
He was woozy when Cuthet, wearing now only a pair of black trousers and white loose shirt showing a thick mat of black chest hair between his ample breasts, stood over him and reach out both his hands to Bren. Bren reached for them, missed, and Cuthet laughed, caught Bren's flailing hands and lifted him to his feet. "Come back to my tent." Cuthet said softly to him.
Bren happily went with him. The tent was ample sized, and now he saw the bedroll of Cuthet was laid out along one side, his possessions shoved over to the other.
He happily laid down on the bedroll as Cuthet guided him there. He lay there, grinning foolishly, as Cuthet, smiling amiably, manhandled Bren's clothing off of him until he was naked as he had been on the day of his birth. Cuthet then stood and, standing on first one foot then the other, levered off his boots. His shirt was next, baring the broad, hairy chest and showing the massive pectorals, the huge shelf of his breasts, the rows of abdominal muscles below it. Then Cuthet's hands went to his trousers and he undid them and slid them down his waist, Bren seeing with bemusement that he wore no undergarments beneath it. Well, that hadn't been what he'd been wearing in the battle anyway. He'd dressed for the victory party and now was undressing, for Bren.
Cuthet's manhood was revealed as a large pale arc of flesh in the mass of his pubic hair, nestled like a swan in the reeds, head tucked down. Poor little swan! Bren smiled and sat up as Cuthet approached him, and he grasped the long flap of dong in one greedy hand.
Cuthet gasped and crouched down, and as he did, his cock grew and stiffened in Bren's grip. Bren feasted his eyes upon the growing organ as Cuthet moved from a squat into a kneeling position, and now he was right up next to Bren, his knees on the bedroll, and Bren only had to move his head several inches in order to capture that man-meat in his lips and suck the now-turgid prick into his mouth.
Cuthet let out a large sigh and threw his head back, his hair tossing carelessly away from his lust-softened face. As Bren moved back and forth upon the warrior's thick, uncut dong, Cuthet lowered his face again and, his lips parted and eyes liquid soft and nostrils flaring, he looked down at Bren and then one powerful arm reached out and found Bren's erect cock, grasped the slender but long prong, and the battle-calloused fingers stroked him in grateful redress for Bren's ministrations.
Bren grunted as he slurped on the majestic dong and Cuthet's groans soon overcame the valiant battle-hero, and he bent over and one knee lifted and the other pivoted, and he was soon on top of Bren's body, his knees on either side of Bren's head and Cuthet's own face was at Bren's tall organ, and Cuthet's warm mouth enclosed and engulfed Bren's manhood, and as Bren felt the heat of Cuthet's saliva washing over him, he groaned and his own actions sped up on Cuthet's own glory.
Cuthet became a demon on Bren's organ, he was grunting in deep, animal sounds as he moved in strong, potent motions that wrung every ounce of pleasure out of Bren's body, and Bren plied every ounce of his peasant-farmer energy into milking Cuthet's prong.
Cuthet's moans increased and he pounded his face at Bren's rod as he built in his climax. And when his energetic thrusts of his face onto and off of Bren was at its height, Cuthet gave out a single, guttural roar and he ejaculated heavily down into Bren's mouth.
Bren grunted, choked, and began to gulp at the hot white feast of Cuthet's orgasm, and then he thrust his own crotch up into Cuthet's moaning mouth and he sprayed his own love-juices up into Cuthet's own body. And Cuthet gripped and blew his breaths noisily out of his nostrils only, as he caught and held Bren's joy-fluid until his own climax released him, then he gave a hard sucking gulp and swallowed the copious spunk that filled his mouth to the brim.
As the two men sucked the last dregs of their male nectar from each other's cocks, there was only the sound of their panting breaths within the tent. The sounds from outside had diminished. From a further distance, Bren could hear the men celebrating still, the action had merely moved away from them. That pleased him well enough.
"You did very well in the battle." Cuthet told him as he moved around and settled down beside Bren. Bren happily snuggled into the warm arms that encircled him.
"I never thought I'd want a war to continue, but if it would let us stay together, I would wish it."
"So would I, because it would mean I would continue to get paid." Cuthet agreed. "But the Lord paid us for this one battle. I am told it means that the two Lords agreed to let the one day's combat decide the issue, whatever it was that caused them to fight...."
"They battled over the rights to a piece of land between their two fiefdoms." Bren supplied.
"Yes." Cuthet said after a pace. "So men lie dead and I gain a few gold pieces in my pouch, all for the piece of land. And now I must leave and find another place where my skills will be put to use."
"And I must return to the land, for the harvest will be ready very soon." Bren mourned.
"Could you not come with me instead?" Cuthet asked him.
"Would that I could." Bren said. "But my Lord would require recompense for the loss of one of his serfs. The Lord would want twenty pieces of gold to set me free. I had hoped when younger to raise the money for myself and buy my freedom, but I cannot see that day ever coming to me."
"Then give me this night." Cuthet said.
"Aye, and gladly." Bren agreed.
They slept, then roused to love, and slept and roused to love again. Bren gave his manly virginity to Cuthet's passionate embrace, and accepted Cuthet's own more experienced anus at their next embrace. Dawn came slowly but inexorably, and with it came the time for them to part.
Bren went with the other serfs to stand in a line, for the Lord had promised to reward them all if they carried the battle for him. He heard the grumbles at their bounty, for the Lord was paying the serfs each a mere twelve coppers for their blood and scars. And how many families would no longer have a man at their tables because of this battle and no coppers either. Still, his brother and father had both survived, and Bren cheered up at this much of a prospect, a widowed farmwife would need a husband to tend her fields, he may yet get permission to marry.
And then his turn at the end of the line came up and the Lord looked up at Bren. "Ah, young Bren, son of Sech, are you not?"
"I am." Bren replied.
"For you, I give you...your freedom."
"My freedom?" Bren answered numbly.
"Not by my hand, but another has paid your serf's fee. So I grant you your freedom and may you travel and fare well in this world without a fief of your own."
"But who paid...?" And Bren saw Cuthet stepping up to him. "Ah. Yes. Thank you, my Lord, and I accept my freedom with gratitude."
And Bren walked away with Cuthet and when out of earshot of the others, asked, "How did you raise the fee? Did the Lord pay you that much for the battle?"
"Not by half." Cuthet said ruefully. "But my troop all chipped in, and we raised the sum. We hope you will join us on our travels."
"Of a certainty I will." Bren said eagerly. "But why did your friends pay from their own pockets for this, if I may ask?"
"Of course you may." Cuthet said. "Where do you think mercenaries come from? We scout every battle for some likely young lad to add to our ranks, it is an investment in our troop's future to keep up our battle strength. So when we find one, everyone contributes to buy his freedom. A mercenary lives a hard life, but your days will be filled with adventure if you choose to join us."
"And my nights will no longer be lonely, I hope." Bren added.
"Of a certainty, nor will mine from now on." Cuthet agreed.
"Then a mercenary's life is the one for me." And together, Bren and Cuthet walked off into their future.
THE END
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