Elf-Boy's Friends 22
Stalwarts
by George Gauthier
[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']
Chapter 1. The Capital Intelligencer
"You know Drew, when the paper took me on more than a year ago, I loved to be called a `cub reporter', but I like it a lot less these days. I think that by now I have proved myself enough for our editor to drop the cub part. After all, I am eighteen and a winner of the Writers' Prize for my book on the Lightning War."
"Tell me about it! Believe me Corwin I feel your pain. I stayed a cub reporter for a year after my first Writers' Prize and the war against the centaurs in what is now New Varangia. I was only seventeen, but I didn't get that plum job just from favoritism, because my editor and publisher were my brother and father. They both knew that any correspondent they sent to a war zone had to be able to protect himself. And as a fetcher powerful enough to lift a brontothere into the sky, I could do just that."
"You always put it that way, Drew, but have you ever actually lifted a brontothere into the sky?"
"Yes, I have. Several times in fact as the twins, Sir Willet, Axel and many others could bear witness."
"Hmm. You won't mind then if I ask Axel about it when he comes by to pick me up after work? We are heading over to Twinkle Town for some fun and frolic.
"Go ahead. Just don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Merely following in your footsteps. You took up with Axel long before I ever came on the scene."
"He's a great kid, isn't he?"
"Anyway do you think you could talk with your brother Heflin, ask him to see things my way. He brushed me off when I tried to raise the issue with him."
"I'd like to help you, Corwin, and I really do agree with your position, but this is one battle you are going to have to fight by yourself. Our boss is not only our editor, he is my older brother. That makes me a younger brother with all that subordinate status implies. Heflin keeps his own counsel on personnel matters and even his star reporter gets no say. And before you ask, no I cannot go over his head to our father the publisher. Sorry."
"I understand about family dynamics, so no hard feelings, Drew. I guess I will just have to be patient. Or maybe bring him such a terrific scoop he finally see things my way. The trouble is that he keeps rotating me through various humdrum assignments: crime beat, obituaries, public events, municipal affairs, even the shipping news, so I have not developed my authorial voice."
"You can develop your voice in books just as I have done in mine. Heflin wants the Intelligencer to speak with a single reportorial voice and I don't mean his own. The Voice of Reason and Common Sense is what he calls it. As a journalistic ideal that isn't so bad, is it? And despite your misgivings about those prosaic beats they are helping you learn the news-paper business from the ground up. That foundation will serve you well in your later career."
"So don't worry about Heflin. I happen to know that he thinks highly of your work, even if he doesn't come right out and say so."
"If he doesn't say so how do you know ?"
"Simple. How much blue pencil does he take to your copy?"
"Uh, these days not very much, not since my first six months on staff."
"Exactly!"
"I see what you mean. Thanks Drew."
Corwin Klarendes was the "cub" reporter on the staff of the Capital Intelligencer, living his dream of becoming a journalist for one of the big city papers. He had made his name with his scoop on the Lightning War published by his first news-paper, the Dalnot Ledger.
Corwin had himself served in the militia in that latest war on the Eastern Plains wielding ball lightning against the eastern barbarians trying to seize the strategic tunnel through the mountains. For his courage in rescuing a platoon of cavalrymen he had been awarded the Military Cross for Valor. His exploits lead to his scoop and later his prize winning book and eventually an offer of a job at the Intelligencer.
Blond, short, and slight of build Corwin's clean limbed frame stood maybe four inches over five feet. Blond, exceedingly cute, and with fine-boned features that evidenced a considerable admixture of elfin blood in his ancestry, Corwin was the nephew of Count Taitos Klarendes, Count of the Eastern March. His mother and Klarendes' late wife had been sisters. Though born ten years apart they looked enough alike to be twins. Which was why Corwin himself looked so very much like Taitos' younger son Eborn.
A while later their editor signaled Drew to come into their father's office. Both men had strange looks on their faces. His father started off saying:
"You must have heard that Lord Zaldor and Marshall Urqaart have been recalled to the capital, having handed over their duties to a new team out west. Zaldor, Urqaart, the First Despot Twm Glyn Dwr [pronounced Tom Glen Dower] and their General Ifans are being hailed across the continent as the Peacemakers Four."
"Today they spoke to the chief editors and publishers here in the capital. They revealed that it was your mission years ago to the Far West which changed the course of history, and very much for the better. Zaldor and Urqaart revealed that they seized on an opportunity you and your friends presented which made their great accomplishments possible. You four, Finn Ragnarson, the twins, and you were the catalysts for the secret deal with the Despotate which put the old elites out there in a squeeze play to bring about the profound reforms of recent years."
"Marshall Urqaart called you the Young Peacemakers Four saying that Finn took the lead in the negotiations with the Despotate. The twins had an insight into the longstanding problem of low agricultural yields which lead to perpetual class struggle between feudal landlords and the serfs and tenant farmers they exploited mercilessly. You yourself saw that the way to increase yields and take pressure off the farmers was to construct iron roads to ship the phosphate rock from the drylands of the Despotate to river ports and from there throughout the West. That tied them together economically and gave them all a stake in a general peace, which lead to the profound social political and economic changes of recent years."
"The four of you broke the vicious cycle of poverty, low productivity, class warfare, and oppression, and thereby averted bloody insurrections and ruinous wars between the revolutionaries of the Despotate of Dzungaria and our allies out west, which threatened destruction and loss of life on a scale I don't even want to think about."
"Now we have long been proud of you for your work not just as a journalist and author but also as a soldier in the wars against the centaurs and the trolls and for your rescue work during natural disasters. When I heard what Lord Zaldor has to say about you and the twins and Finn Ragnarson I thought I would just burst with pride."
"Well father, that is very gratifying but we four were just the catalysts for the changes. Zaldor and the others were the statesman who had the courage to stick their necks out and blaze a path to peace and prosperity for all their peoples. They are very great men indeed, and I admire them unreservedly."
"Well don't think your role will be overlooked. Zaldor tells me that you four are being put in for recognition as Stalwarts of the Commonwealth. It the greatest civil honor the state can bestow."
"Wow! I guess we all expected a medal of some sort when our part in all this came out but not that."
"There is just one thing, son, and here I must put on my publisher hat and talk to you as your boss. It pains me to realize that you have been sitting on a blockbuster story for years now, the story about what really happened during your reconnaissance of the Flatlands a decade ago and all that has come of it. So now that the secret is out, why did you not tell us earlier?"
"The explanation is simple enough. What we did out there wasn't just a military secret, it was a state secret. So I kept my mouth shut."
"Even from us?" Heflin asked.
"Especially from you two." Drew said then added stubbornly: "If you are looking for an apology, you won't get it from me. I was doing my duty as a soldier and a citizen."
Heflin turned to his father and asked:
"We raised him right, didn't we father?"
"Indeed we did."
Drew had to blink tears away. The respect of his father and older brother meant a lot to him. After composing himself he went on to say:
"Now as to the details of what happened, Helfin you always say that you can read faster than I can talk. So you will be happy to learn that I have written everything down in a series of articles on the coming of peace to the Far West. I was only waiting for the right moment to hand them over to you. That moment is now."
"I have also written a short book on our roles as peacemakers. It will be a relief to finally send it in for publication. I have kept both the series of articles and a copy of my manuscript in a safe place and can retrieve them and have them on your desk within the hour."
"Now that's more like it!" the father said "We'll scoop the continent with the secret story of peace in our time."
And so they did. Needless to say Drew's book about the Far West was another best seller and eventual winner of his fifth Writers' Prize.
The revelation that for years the looming conflict out west had been so much shadow boxing, no more real than exhibition wrestling, was a news sensation. And no news-paper had a better handle on the story than the Capital Intelligencer thanks to its star reporter, Drew Altair one of the key participants in the historic events.
Everyone talked about how fortuitous it had been that those four young men had been at the right place at the right time with the insight into and a solution for the long standing problems of oppression, poverty, class struggles, and internecine warfare in those lands. Thanks in good part to what they set in motion both the Confederation and the Despotate had been admitted as associated states of the Commonwealth.
In a solemn ceremony with the highest personages in the land in attendance, the Young Peacemakers Four were designated as Stalwarts of the Commonwealth. Lord Zaldor himself pinned the medals on their army uniforms.
The award came with an official pass authorizing them to travel by public means for their own private purposes anytime anywhere and as often as they liked. That meant by naval vessels, riverboats, transports, iron roads, and mail coaches. Of course they always traveled at public expense while on official duty as a Dread Hand of the Commonwealth in Finn's case or when their reserve commissions in the Army were activated in the case of Drew and the twins.
For Finn, the twins, and Drew, regardless of recognition or perquisites, bringing peace to the West was the proudest achievement of their lives. They had been instrumental in heading off ruinous wars and lifting millions of people out of poverty, people who were now their fellow citizens of the Commonwealth. And soon the West would throw its weight into the struggle to liberate Amazonia and all of Valentia from the genocidal trolls.
As they talked about it afterwards, the young Stalwarts recalled that the Far West was not their only venture in peace making. For hadn't they helped make friends with the brontotheres in the Barren Lands and just recently with the Medkari in the Hot Lands? This might be their true calling, to act as catalysts for the resolution of conflicting interests and the easing of enmity between feuding peoples.
Which did not mean that the four of them would not rally to the colors when called upon to fight foes like centaurs and trolls who simply could not be reasoned with, who could not or would not even talk with you.
Chapter 2. Friends
Finn Ragnarson woke up late one morning and propped himself up on an elbow to admire Drew's nude physique in the light streaming through the window of Drew's bedchamber. The couple had been up late, first going over in Twinkle Town for drinks and dancing and then in Drew's bed making love, likely their last chance to do so quite a while. Finn would be heading back that day to New Varangia, taking a street car to the river port to catch a southward bound riverboat. His stay had been fun, but he now had to return to Flensborg and take up his duties again as a Dread Hand of the Commonwealth.
During a late breakfast they sat around the table with Drew's roommate and lover Axel Wilde and their neighbors down the hall the twins Jemsen and Karel plus Corwin Klarendes who had spent the night with Axel. Drew's and Axel's third roommate the war wizard Liam was on duty with the fleet aboard the frigate Petrel with his good friend Nathan Lathrop, though they were expected to return to the capital in the near future. Drew started the conversation by saying:
"I'd really like to tour New Varangia and see all the changes since we were all together there during our exploration of the Barren Lands."
Finn nodded then said:
"These days we are calling that area South Varangia. It is barren no longer, not with so many settlers moving in and laying out farms and villages. The settlers are mostly Frost Giants of course but a considerable portion are our fellow citizens among the other races: humans, elves, and dwarves."
"The population of South Varangia has risen to forty thousand, which combined with those dwelling in the former lands of the centaurs gives us a total of four hundred fifteen thousand, not so far short of the half-million mark we have been aiming at. Centaurs and trolls be damned. Now no force on the planet could ever dislodge us from our new homeland. Especially since we would not stand alone but with the rest of the Commonwealth at our side."
"We still call the southern coast the Barren Coast, since it is all low cliffs without decent harbors. The only truly barren part of the country is the area swept clean by the gigantic wave raised by our water wizards to smash the colony and military base the trolls were trying to plant there."
"And what about those execrable roads westward from the escarpment across the Flatlands?" Karel asked.
"Gone. In their place are three modern Commonwealth highways, giving us a solid land link east and west all the way across to Cymru and the maritime republic of Jenova member states of the Confederation hence part of the Greater Commonwealth."
"And likely to get still greater once we conquer Amazonia." Karel pointed out.
"Not conquer, liberate. And then repopulate it with our own citizens since the trolls have exterminated the original populace of those lands." Jemsen pointed out. "Just as we already have done with the Ashokan Archipelago in the southern reaches of the the Great Inland Freshwater Sea."
"And the Scilly Isles which are now not just a naval base, but a prefecture with a growing civilian population of fishermen, sponge collectors, and specialty farmers. The soil on the islands is amazingly well suited to huckleberries. And thanks to ice lockers, they can be shipped fresh almost anywhere."
"Yet another use for the ice business: shipping fresh foods great distances, especially out of season when they fetch premium prices." Axel pointed out. "Berries are very popular these days particularly as ingredients in home made iced-cream. Of course the tastiest iced-cream is made with strawberries."
The twins shook their heads. "Blueberries!" Karel opined.
"Wrong! Raspberries." Jemsen corrected.
"Cherries!" Drew offered.
Corwin Klarendes objected that the cherry was not a berry at all but a stone fruit, that is one with a pit like olives, peaches, and plums. His choice was the blackberry. Drew countered, pointing out that although botanically speaking aggregate fruits like raspberries and strawberries, and blackberries were not true berries, at least they were called berries, which was more than you could say for the cherry.
"Aha!" Karel cried triumphantly. "Then I win, for blueberries are not only called berries, they are in fact true berries, neither aggregates nor fruits with pits."
"Gentlemen" Finn intoned in his deep bass voice, "I must now invoke my authority both as a Dread Hand of the Commonwealth and as a Frost Giant to overrule you mere humans and your misguided preferences. I speak also as the avatar of Thor, the Thunder God of the Norse, the remote ancestors of us Frost Giants."
"It was we Frost Giants who invented iced-cream in the first place. So, no my friends, forget the technicalities of botany and your personal preferences. The best of the berry flavors is unquestionably boysenberry."
"It is all a matter of taste, isn't it?" Axel suggested placatingly.
"Indeed," Finn rumbled in an authoritative tone which brooked no contradiction. "And it is boysenberries which taste best. So let it be written, so let it be known," he intoned, more than half seriously for Finn was indeed inordinately fond of boysenberries, and for him that was that.
Superficially it was just a silly wrangle over nothing, but Corwin realized it was a bit more than that. Jokes and pointless arguments were among the ways young males bonded with one another. This business about berries would likely turn up again in jokes and remarks. Just another aspect of the life experience shared by those in the same circle of friends, a circle Corwin considered himself privileged to be a member of.
"To change the subject. it is likely most of us will reunite for the campaign in Amazonia." Drew noted. "I understand that the first wave will be drawn from the armed forces of the Commonwealth itself. Later waves, under the command of Marshall Urqaart, will be drawn from the armies of the Despotate and the Confederation plus mercenaries recruited for occupational duty and as escorts for supply convoys and trains. The campaign will take several years, with regiments rotating out to rest and refit. No regiment will be committed more than twice so that the risks will be shared by all the field armies plus the naval infantry. The army is training more flyers too."
"What about the druids and their portals?" Axel asked.
"Just what I asked Liam the last time I saw him." Finn said. "Liam told me that the druids had already trained some of the war wizards to create portals though it turned out that the skill does not come easily to all of them. Liam himself can open a portal only for himself or a very small group but not long enough for a column of troops. In time he expects to fully master the skill."
"Meanwhile a team of druids and war wizards has returned from an expedition to the homeland of the trolls with the aim of forever removing trolls as a threat to civilization. The powers of the wizards allowed their ship to approach their oceanic archipelago unseen under a Concealment, stopping at half a dozen islands. We won't have to worry about successive waves of invaders from their archipelago in the Southern Ocean."
"I am not sure how moral it is to unleash a plague on anyone, even trolls." Axel ventured.
"The infectious agent the druids have created won't actually kill anyone. It is a disease aimed at the fertility of troll males, reducing their fecundity below the levels necessary to maintain their population. It propagates with no discernible symptoms which might signal its spread which means that it will be years before the trolls realize their plight. And without healing magic or a knowledge of natural medicine beyond what prevails anywhere on Haven today, they can do nothing about it."
"After several centuries their population should stabilize at perhaps a tenth of the current level, if that much. You understand some trolls will have a natural resistance to the infection, so we are not contemplating actual genocide of a race of sentient beings."
"I realize that Karel. I just hope the surviving trolls will someday have a change of heart and abandon their fanatically murderous religion which impels them to slay anyone with the potential for magic. Else they will forever remain exiles, quarantined on their remote islands as too dangerous for contact with civilized races of beings."
"Even fanatics eventually have to face reality, especially when it kicks them in the face as it soon will. I don't think any faith can survive the defeats which we and the druids are about to inflict on them. Who can continue to believe that the gods are on their side when we destroy them militarily in Valentia while their population plummets in their homeland? Perhaps some new prophet will arise among them and proclaim those afflictions as condign punishment for their earlier presumption in believing the gods were against magic."
"Let's hope so, but their own lack of magic will always make them jealous of those who can wield it and susceptible to extreme views on magic itself."
Chapter 3. Axel
The cute copper topped youngster paced another youth, a pretty blond boy taller by a hand, as they ran along the cross-country trail at the army proving grounds. Unusually for youths of the Commonwealth they were not entirely in the nude but only bared to the waist or rather the hips, dressed as they were in the trews of their Army greens with thick-soled moccasins on their feet.
Their legs scissored metronomically propelling their slender bodies along the deserted trail at a pace of a mile a minute, much faster than should have been humanly possible, which was why they were also wearing the same goggles flyers wore. These two were humans whose vitality had been enhanced by druidic healing magic, a gift that gave them double the strength, stamina, and reflexes of ordinary humans, not to mention longevity, prolonged youth, and superior powers of resistance to disease and recuperation from injuries.
The brush to either side of the narrow trail shook as they ran past --- not from the turbulence of their wake but from the jet of air that pushed them along much as a sail propels a ship. Thanks to the boy with the close cropped blond hair who was the air wizard Karel, the pair literally ran like the wind. Karel and Axel were practicing running shoulder to shoulder. It took coordination to keep a single narrow jet of air pushing at the backs of both runners as they practically flew along with five yard strides.
Short, fair, with hair the color of copper, extremely boyish looking, the boy with the heart-melting dimples and the boy with corn silk blond hair were friends, lovers, neighbors, and sometime soldiers and comrades in arms. They were training for the day they would again be called to the colors, most likely to fight the genocidal trolls in Amazonia. Karel held a reserve commission as a captain the Army of the Commonwealth while Axel was in the active Army with the rank of warrant officer in his capacity as aide to the war wizard Sir Willet Hanford at the Institute for Wizardry and Magic in the capital.
Sir Willet stood atop a watch tower at one end of the straightaway at the end of the trail timing them with a pendulum. He found that the runners had indeed maintained a speed of a mile a minute or sixty miles in an hour for a half hour. Even as they crossed the finished line and trotted past to cool off, they were not obviously winded, but gave every sign that they might have run for some time yet.
"Congratulations you two. You have proved your point Karel, that runners don't necessarily need the psychic link you have with your twin to keep coordinated. It can be done by anyone with a druidically enhanced constitution. You should put your heads together and write this up for Drew's journal `Magic'. It's about time someone else around here got a byline."
"You are so right, sir!" Axel enthused. "Let's show our auburn-haired journalist friend that he is not the only one who can string words together into cogent sentences."
"What about asking Corwin for help? He does write for a living" Karel asked, but Axel shook his head.
"Much as I love the guy, we don't need a ghost writer."
"Only one thing, Sir Willet," Karel started to say, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "you too should try pacing me the way Axel has. As one of the magically enhanced yourself, you should be able to maintain the pace, despite the fact that you were already a man of middle years when the druids changed you."
"Young man I'll have you know that I don't need the help of a jet of wind to keep up with the likes of you. You forget that as a fetcher I can fly faster than you can run, wind or no wind."
"But doesn't soaring into the air make you a target not only for arrows which you might fend off with your Missile Shield, but for hostile magic?"
"Who says I have to fly high and make myself a target? Haven't you heard of the nap-of-the-earth technique where a flyer stays low to the ground and flies around terrain features instead of over them? Why I could easily fly down that trail no higher off the ground than you were, only twice as fast and without working up a sweat. Not bad for a man of middle years, is it my young friend?"
Karel conceded the point with a nod and a rueful smile. He had really walked into that one.
He should have remembered that Sir Willet could engage his telekinetic powers to push on the short wooden yoke built into his leather armor to let him fly as freely as a bird. He could even take Axel along with him, with his feet in the drop-down stirrups attached to the armor.
Jemsen was also at the proving ground that day, honing his skills with earth magic, in particular creating defenses against cavalry attack. Gopher holes were notorious for breaking the legs of horses, so a belt of artificial ones could easily disrupt a charge, tripping up the horses and throwing their riders, who might break their necks or be crushed by the weight of their mounts.
Jemsen had asked the older wizard for suggestions in camouflaging them, but Sir Willet had countered with a suggestion that he should forget about camouflage and create holes on the fly, while the enemy was actually charging at the friendlies.
"Devise a standard pattern of holes in a rectangle of convenient size. Target the first zone then repeat as needed to cover the entire area in front of and even under the hoofs of the enemy cavalry. They won't see anything amiss since the holes won't be there till they are too!"
"Clever!"
"Here's another trick, Jemsen. From your classes in tactics you know about a feigned retreat, which is when your own forces pretend to flee in order to lure the enemy into an incautious pursuit. Once our own forces ride past an agreed upon line, dig a trench six yards wide and at least half as deep just in front of the enemy charge. The front ranks will fall into it and break the horses' legs and hopefully their riders' necks."
"With all the dust thrown up by our false retreat and by the front ranks of the enemy, many of those riding behind won't see the danger till it is too late and will fall in and pile onto the first bunch. Maybe half will rein in, but that is a good thing too, depriving their charge of the impetus that makes it effective. Meanwhile our own cavalry will have swung wide around the ends of the trench to hit the enemy from both sides at once while they are milling around in confusion."
"Fiendish!"
"More positively, trenches could help the civil authorities deal with floods. You could create channels to divert or drain flood waters or to redirect a meandering river back to its original channel."
That was more like it. Sure Jemsen was a part-time soldier, but he had also embraced his role as a Young Peacemaker. So he was always on the lookout for ways to use his new powers constructively.
"As Jemsen joined the group Axel asked "Speaking of channels, why don't we go for a swim in that brook over there. It looks so inviting."
"Gentlemen, this is an army proving ground, not a public park."
"So?" Karel asked. "What is un-military about three army officers practicing survival swimming at a proving ground? Come on you two. Race you over."
Karel took off, running with the wind at his back, leaving his brother and Axel to catch up the old fashioned way. Axel shouted after him.
"Hey! No powers!"
Karel just waved him off. Jemsen was no help either; he just shrugged.
Sir Willet wouldn't have minded a swim himself, but he figured those three would want to be alone. They probably had something more on their minds than just swimming.
Oh the boys did strip off and swim for a while at a wide spot in the brook. The water was invitingly cool thanks to the inflow from a spring. Soon though straight-forward swimming gave way to the grab ass games nude youths are all too prone to engage in while ostensibly swimming, which lead to foreplay, which lead to more intimate forms of interaction.
Their hard tanned bodies intertwined in all the ways randy youths were capable of when consummating their physical passions. First the twins paired off with Axel one at a time. After a pause they double-teamed him, plugging him at both ends. Axel was in heaven, impaled on the cocks of two of the boys he loved most in the world. Their enhanced vitality conferred on them a degree of sexual potency beyond the norm. It was a long time before they were spent and lapsed into a pleasant post-coital lassitude.
But with them lovemaking was not just recreational sex, it also a physical reaffirmation of the romantic love they all felt for each other. And it was not only those three. Ever since Liam and Drew had brought them into their circle of friends, Axel had come out of his shell. The twins had taken a shine to the engaging wizard's aide. Smart, cute, and a truly gentle person, there was a lot to like about him, including his physical beauty.
And now young Corwin Klarendes had joined their circle. Corwin now spent almost as many nights in Axel's bed chamber as he did at the Klarendes townhouse. And of course he was Drew's colleague at the Capital Intelligencer.
All of them could look forward to centuries of youth and heath and vigor, whether from druidical life magic or the admixture of elven blood in their heritage. Thanks to druidic magic Axel would always be an extremely boyish-looking eighteen year old, whatever the count of years marked by the calendar. Similarly the twins were nineteen and would stay so for the next five centuries. Same for Drew who hardly looked seventeen going on eighteen. As a Klarendes, Corwin was nearly half elf and looked much the same.
The passing years would give all of them valuable life experience, but no evidence of it would show in their faces or bodies. Druidical healing magic was a gift that kept on giving.
Chapter 4. Taken
Axel came to his senses, his mind starting to clear from the drug someone had slipped into his drink while he was watching the twins dance at one of their favorite spots in Twinkle Town.
The light was weak but he could see well enough to take in his predicament. The room was dank and cool; condensation trickled down its stone walls. That meant he was underground, which was only fitting for the dungeon he found himself in. His clothes were gone and he could feel an emptiness in his bottom and a slickness around his hole that told him that he had been prepared for penetration.
He was bound in a steel contraption, a rack screwed into a stout table. His body was on knees and elbows with iron bands fastened around wrists and ankles, and at his elbows and knees. With his neck in a steel color fixed to a post he was held in nine point bondage.
"Ah, there you are, little one. Awake and aware at last. It really is no fun tormenting and raping a boy too drugged to know what is happening to him. My name is Dolan, and you are my captive."
Bleary-eyed, Axel found himself looking over at a huge man of middle years with a hairy body, his build still powerful though running now to fat. Axel's captor was dressed in leathers, a bizarre costume that left much of his body bare. Leather bands encircled his wrists and biceps. Leather chaps, boots, a mask, and leather shorts completed his ensemble.
"Forgive the theatrical garb, but it is traditional. Actually I don't much like the feel of leather on my skin, but as a member of the brotherhood I must keep up appearances."
"Now a word of warning. We know that you can kill a man by calling light and englobing his head to scramble his brains. But consider your situation. You cannot get free of your bonds, nor out of this dungeon. The locks open only from the outside, and you can be sure the guards will never open the doors for you. One more thing, I am wearing one of those rare ensorcelled amulets that keeps anyone from directing their magic against me. So just in case you were feeling suicidal, don't bother trying to attack me. You will just give yourself a headache."
"As you can feel, we have prepared your body for our ministrations. I say our, for my friends will join us after I break you in. For now though you are mine. Now unlike some, I prefer to break a boy's mind and will rather than punish his body. So though you will feel the kiss of the cat of nine tails on your back and butt and in time learn to love it, your flesh will not be ripped by bits of lead sewn into the tips of the lashes. No, any damage inflicted by the cat or the cane or the riding crop will be superficial, welts and stripes and bruises. Your daily existence will be marked by rope burns and whippings and endless mountings. That will be painful true, but you will get used to pain and come to accept it, to eroticize it and even to crave it. Eventually you will find that you cannot orgasm without the pain and bondage and degradation you will endure at our hands."
Axel shuddered, frightened to the core by his helplessness, his bondage, and the terrible things this monster had promised were in store for him, body and soul.
"Why?" he asked. "And why me?"
"Why indeed. For pleasure of course, beyond what you can conceive. Also this is our revenge for the death and disgrace of one of our most prominent members, the war wizard Sir Janus, foully slain by the druid Lord Dahlderon."
"I was a there. I saw what happened. Dahl acted in self-defense."
"Only in a technical sense. The druid deliberately provoked Sir Janus' attack with white fire after invading his mind and scanning his memories."
"Memories of how he took boys and young men captive and tormented them, raped them, and finally killed them. He was the worst sort of criminal." Axel challenged.
"Bah, Janus was one of us, even if I disagreed with his penchant for damaging and disfiguring the bodies of the young males he took captive. I never knew how he could destroy the kind of beauty that excites men like me, beauty such as yours, young Axel Wilde."
"We could kill you, but that would be too easy on both you and your friends. No, we will break you, turn you into an abject sex slave who can be satisfied only by bondage, humiliation, degradation in a regime of daily torments, and rape. In time we might even set you free knowing that you could never really return to your prior life. You would be haunted by your experiences, unable to resist the dark cravings we will instill in you. Indeed eventually you will come crawling back to us, seeking the dark pleasures that only we can provide."
"The distress which your downfall produces in your friends will be a permanent reminder to them not to challenge us again."
What Dolan did not tell his captive was that his own gift was projective empathy which could induce emotions in other people. With his gift he would play on the boy's emotions, arousing his lusts even as he was being tormented, training his mind to eroticize humiliation and pain, making him believe that his body was responding to dark and shameful desires he never realized lurked in his heart.
"Enough talk for now. This ball gag I am fastening in your mouth will prevent you from talking but not block either your respiration or the screams and sobs and whimpers that are so much music to my ears. On those occasions when I do give you leave to speak you should address me as Sir, as you should all of those in our brotherhood."
"A word of warning, think before you speak. Do not try our patience with words of defiance. It is so tiresome to listen to a captive boy tell us that we `won't get away with it', the phrase they almost always use as if they were reading from a script. The fact is that we will get away with it, as we have done so many times before. And do not put your hopes in the constabulary, for our the brotherhood has infiltrated that service. And yes, I know your friends are powerful in magic, but it would take a miracle for them to ever track you here."
With that the man forced Axel's mouth open wide enough to shove a rubber ball behind his teeth and tie it securely in place. He then showed the captive boy steel spheres as big as peaches and hung them from a leather thong tied around his balls. Their weight stretched his scrotum and pulled his nuts into a hard knot at the bottom. Axel gasped as he set them in motion like a pendulum. Even after they stopped swinging, their weight brought a dull ache to his belly.
Dolan shook out the cat of nine tails and laid it over Axel's back letting him get the feel of it. He drew it slowly off the boy's body. Axel trembled with a frisson of terror.
"I just love this part when I introduce a boy to the kiss of the cat. And it is so much more exciting this time with someone like yourself, with a body enhanced by druidical healing magic. Your skin is soft and silky like a baby's, and is entirely glabrous not from elven depilatories but from a complete suppression of hair growth in the follicles themselves. And you will heal quickly between sessions, providing me with a fresh canvas time and time again. I am really looking forward to the coming months."
Axel's heart fell. Months? Bound and helpless, he could do nothing but endure the torments and the sexual degradation these fiends had in mind for him.
The whipping started slowly with pauses between each strike. Soon though Dolan picked up the pace. He worked the whip everywhere on Axel's bound form, back and rump, thighs and arms, front and back, even the chest which he could reach with an underhand flip of the cat. The worst was when the lashes struck his cock or his balls and set the steel spheres to swinging again.
Once the whipping had softened him up, Dolan walked around to where the boy could see his erection. Long and thick and gnarled with angry veins it throbbed menacingly just in front of his face. Going back around again, Dolan used his thumbs to stretch Axel's ring wide before thrusting inside, driving his cock all the way with a sudden total penetration.
Axel fainted, which drew a frown from his tormentor, since he did not want his victim to miss anything. He gave a grunt of satisfaction as Axel came back to his senses. Dolan thrust away rhythmically for a long while, long dicking the boy, till with a triumphant shout, he gave a final thrust and filled the boy's quim with his spunk. Dolan then laid his body over Axel's his wiry chest and belly hair scraping the boy's soft skin as he caught his breath. Pulling the boy's head up by his hair he told him.
"That's it boy. Go ahead and cry. There is no shame in it, no need for you to hold anything back, not someone so unmanly as yourself, a girly boy born to be fucked by real men."
The boy's sobs and tears excited Dolan all the more. He hardened while still up the boy's quim.
Over the next few days Dolan introduced Axel to further torments. With his wrists locked into cuffs dangling from an overhead beam, Dolan and his assistant raised Axel's legs and spread them like a wishbone locking his ankles to the same beam. That left his body positioned with his rump less than three feet above the flagstone floor.
The assistant fucked Axel from behind, thrusting into him, opening him up in preparation for a double penetration. Axel's eyes widened as he saw Dolan approach him from the front, his rampant cock lubricated and aching to join the one already up his ass. The hapless youth shook his head and begged to be spared, but his master ignored the pleas muffled by the ball gag and put the head of his cock to the boy's anus. Slowly and carefully, he slid it in alongside his assistant filling him completely.
Poor Axel had never endured anything so painful or degrading as being fucked by two males at once. For these men, sex was all take and no give. His boyish body was just a sex toy to them, something for them to fuck and torment and degrade.
The next day Axel found himself with his wrists strung up above his head, his legs spread as wide as they could go and kept that way with cords tied around his ankle and to rings in the floor.
"This the very best way to whip a boy, when he is bound from above in the middle of the room so he can be seen and lashed from every angle. Nothing gets in the way of the cat or the single tail or the riding crop. No walls or frames or crosses. And stretched out as you are every part of your body is accessible to my ministrations."
"You know the reason that I vary the rhythm of my strokes is to keep the boy wondering when the next will strike his flesh. The anticipation induces such abject fear it induces the pleading and blubbering which are so much music to my ears. And soon the boy's butt cheeks are trembling as if he were shivering from the cold."
"Shivering?" Axel asked.
"Shivering is when your muscles contract involuntarily to generate extra body heat against the cold. Since you have spent your whole life in the tropics you would have no idea about the physiological effects of the cold; goosebumps, trembling, shivering, and chattering of teeth, much less the potential for damage from frostbite."
"I know what shivering is, sir. I just never thought it would happen to me."
"Come to think of it, it is time that we constructed a small ice-house on the premises. I'd like to see you trembling from both cold and the fear of the whip. Now we don't actually want to bring on frost bite, so you should probably stand on a wooden plank. And we would monitor your condition. We wouldn't want frostbite on your extremities, especially those extremities I love so much to torment, if you take my meaning. No, that would not do at all."
"Heh, heh, heh."
The fear of the unknown and Dolan's evil laugh unnerved poor Axel. He struggled, twisting his body, straining at his bonds, but succeeding only in providing an erotic show for his captor who loved to watch a nude boy as he writhed in vain trying to free himself.
Two days later Dolan introduced Axel to the cross. Shaped like an X but with a pivot in the middle to vary the angle at which the crossbars met, its feet ran in a track on the floor so it could be adjusted and locked in place. Mounted in its center was a huge cock made of leather formed over a wood core. The shaft was not a smooth tube but flared out into a large ball near the base, like the cock of a canine, knot and all.
"That's right, little Axel, today we are going to start training your hole to take a dog cock. It is only wood and leather today, but you will soon be the star bitch of a dog show we shall put on for our members. "
The two men raised Axel's small body against the crossbars and let him slide down onto the leather cock which slipped into his loose hole easily until the knot reached the anal ring. Axel's eyes pleaded for mercy, but both men just stood there grinning while the boy's own weight forced him down, driving the knot into him and locking him in place. With his wrist and ankles cuffed to the crossbars, Axel was helpless. Thanks to the adjustment of the crossbars none of his weight was on his feet. His toes barely touched the floor.
With much of his weight on the support for the leather cock up his ass, it was not a true crucifixion where all the weight was on the victim's arms and shoulders. That could quickly lead to suffocation. Yet the posture made Axel's muscles cramp and spasm. He writhed on the cross much to the delight of his captor who loved to watch the play of the musculature of his boys as they struggled to adjust to the cross. Nothing displayed a boy's physique better than a spread-eagle posture like that or made him look more vulnerable, with manly parts so easily accessible.
"Today we teach two lessons in one. First, how to take a dog cock up your ass. It won't be long till we trade it for the real thing and display you to the membership as a true boy bitch, mounted and knotted by a Molossian hound twice your size."
"The second lesson of the day is about training your cock to erect and even ejaculate from the pain of heavy weights on your balls and sharp strokes of a riding crop on your gentials. Eventually you will come when we torment your cock and balls. That is when we will know we have truly broken you, for you cannot fake either an erection or an orgasm."
Dolan proceeded to strike at Axel's vulnerable cock and balls using short strokes with just his forearm and wrist behind the blows. Anything more would damage his organs.
Chapter 5. Rescue
After more than a week of this regime Axel was ready to give in to despair, but on the ninth night of his captivity he heard a voice in his head. It was the elf-boy cum druid Dahlderon reaching him with Mind Speech over the link established when the young druid had transformed the wizard's aide.
Dahl assured him that every effort was being made in his behalf. He himself had traveled from Elysion through a portal to reach the scene quickly and help with the search.
<How can you locate me, Dahl? I have no idea where I am though I believe that I am still in the capital. I am being held underground in a stone-built structure which must be of considerable size. I have been told that tomorrow I will put on a show for the members of this evil brotherhood in a small arena located elsewhere in the building.>
<Good, then we will be able catch all of them at once.>
<From what I have overhead, more than a few have strong magical gifts. They won't go quietly, Dahl.>
<That won't matter. We will crush any attempt at resistance with the powers of a druid, two war wizards, an air wizard, an earth wizard, a powerful fetcher, and an avatar of a thunder god. Oh and Corwin's ball lightning. Nathan Lathrop's delving powers will reveal the layout of the underground dungeon they are holding you in.>
<The Klarendes would have joined us, but they are scattered to the winds. Aodh is with the rangers tracking down poachers who kill brontotheres and cut off their horns for their supposed priapic properties. Artor is on assignment in the north while Taitos is out of touch traveling the road between the capital and Elysion.>
Dahl went on to explain that the twins had thought of a way to locate him. In the morning Liam, Sir Willet, and Finn would go to separate locations around the city and create thunderclaps in the sky. Dahl would cue Axel before each clash. Invoking his gift of Unerring Direction, Axel would tell Dahl the azimuth to the thunder. On a map the twins would plot the back azimuths from the locations of the thunderclaps to triangulate his location. It would likely take several tries to refine the triangle of intersection to a small enough area to search.
Axel pointed out.
<Hang in there, Axel. Help is on the way.>
Axel would still have to endure another night in captivity and on the morrow submit to being mounted by a dog in front of an audience, but now he had hope. Rescue was at hand.
Things went as planned. Triangulation with the first set of thunderclaps narrowed his location down to a district west of the river. After the second set, it was down to a particular neighborhood, and finally down to a single block. For the fourth and final round of thunderclaps, Dahl asked for both a horizontal azimuth and an angle of elevation. That pinpointed Axel's location precisely in a single large warehouse and below ground level. The constabulary cordoned off the area as Axel's friends converged to lend their powers to the rescue effort.
With Axel a captive inside the warehouse and perhaps others as well the rescuers couldn't invoke their full powers and simply destroy the lair of this evil brotherhood, something easily with the ability of most of them. Jemsen or Dahl could use earth magic to undermine or liquify the subsoil under the foundations and bring the whole structure crashing down. Sir Willet could raze the building with white fire. Drew could bombard it with huge stones while Karel could send jets of wind whistling through the building to scour its corridors and rooms of those lurking within. No the rescuers would have to exercise restraint and fight it out at close quarters, something for which their abilities were well suited.
The first obstacle was the rear gate of the warehouse which opened onto a loading area. Corwin Klarendes made short work of the lock and the steel bolts that held it shut, melting them into molten puddles with his ball lightning.
The four guards in the loading area were not a problem either. Liam and Drew Lifted them and hurled them down the street, dropping them none too gently at the feet of the waiting constabulary who took the guards into custody.
At the rear door an officious man tried to block their entry declaring that this was private property and that the notion of an underground dungeon in the structure was ridiculous. His claims fell on deaf ears because Nathan Lathrop's delving power had already revealed the underground layout including the hidden stairway to the arena. Finn hit the man with a left hook, which broke his jaw and laid him out. Then he kicked in the hidden door, and they all went down the stairs.
Meanwhile poor Axel was being bred by a gigantic Molossian hound to the delight of the audience of eighty or so. The hound sniffed at the boy's anus which had been spritzed with the juices of bitches. His dew claws scrapped Axel's back as he climb up and positioned his heavy body atop his much smaller human mate Then he thrust into the boy's hole. The hound worked away at Axel for a while till he gave a final shove and knotted the boy like a bitch. Axel could feel the hound's hot seed pumping into his innards.
He flushed with shame as he realized that his own body had betrayed him with a painfully strong erection. Axel thought nothing could be more humiliating than being mounted and bred by a dog, but worse was yet to come. It happened when the Molossian lifted a rear leg over the boy's back and turned around to the face the other way, so they stood rump to rump, still knotted together. Dogs often hold that position for twenty minutes.
For Axel his humiliation was complete when Dolan whistled and the dog trotted over to his master dragging the hapless boy by the knot up his ass, his limbs scrabbling ineffectively for purchase on the smooth floor.
It was onto this horrendous scene that the rescuers burst in.
"Hold!" Finn cried, his powerful voice filling the cavernous room. "Let that boy go."
The brotherhood were all men of wealth and power and position, and some had deadly magical gifts, and they numbered eighty against fewer than a dozen intruders so they were more angry than alarmed by this interruption.
"You have no authority here," one of the brotherhood challenged, flashing a badge. "I am the captain of the district watch. This is my territory, and I do not answer to you."
With that he motioned for the eight guards to confront the intruders.
Triggering the small magic which made his hand glow, Finn told him coldly:
"Captain, everyone answers to a Hand of the Commonwealth. You are all under arrest. Don't think you can get away. The premises are surrounded."
That was when the brotherhood knew they had lost everything as a group though individuals might fight their way into the clear and get away. Those with strong magical gifts fought the intruders; others pulled weapons, while some turned to flee.
One of the evildoers threw lightning at the intruders bunched up at the bottom of the stairs, but Finn drew the bolts to his war hammer Mjolnir and sent them right back at his attacker along the electrically charged channel he himself had opened up. The bolts of lightning turned the man into a "crispy critter", soldier slang for a burnt corpse.
"Foolish mortal!" Finn sneered in a deprecating voice that carried throughout the room, "throwing lightning bolts at the avatar of a thunder god."
Standing eight feet tall and weighing six hundred pounds of bone and muscle, and with twice his natural strength, Finn did indeed seem the embodiment of Thor, thunder god of the Norse. Electricity crackled about his armor, numbing anyone who came in contact, and he was armed with his great war hammer Mjolnir, the Mountain Crusher. Thrown, it would return to his grasp when he called it back.
"I have to wonder my large friend" Sir Willet ventured, "if you aren't starting to take this avatar business too seriously."
"Not to worry, Will. My pose is purely tactical. An attack by a thunder god is about shock and awe. That's Thor all right: shock and awe!" he assured the war wizard, brandishing his war hammer for emphasis.
"If you say so, Finn... or should I call you Thor?" Sir Willet asked.
Finn grinned and gave him a broad wink
Humor was a way soldiers coped with the stress of combat and its grisly results.
A firecaster lobbed clinging balls of fire which Sir Willet snuffed out in mid-air. Instead of responding in kind the wizard gathered the heat from the dispersed fireballs and concentrated it in the firecaster's body, flash boiling the man's bodily fluids and making him explode messily, and very satisfactorily too as far as the war wizard was concerned. Sir Willet was furious at what these evil men had done to a boy he who had become a surrogate son to him.
The war wizard shook his head disdainfully.
"Amateurs! They always resort to fire because it is flashy and dramatic. They never think to call on their control of heat."
Two men ran toward a hallway leading away from the arena only to hit an invisible shield of hardened air. Though momentarily staggered, the man in the lead recovered quickly and threw lightning bolts at the shield which simply passed through it. It seemed that the shield did not stop lightnings. Unfortunately his attack also did not weaken the shield which was still blocking his escape. Only one thing to do. Kill whoever had raised the shield.
He spun around and spotted Karel gesturing at second shield he has created to block the exit on the other side of the arena. Grinning at catching his enemy off-guard the man threw a bolt at Karel, knowing it would kill him even if with a shield of hardened air around him.
Corwin blocked the bolt with a sphere of ball lightning which hummed louder and flashed blue as it absorbed the bolt. The crackling ball zipped over and engulfed the lightning caster, creating another crispy critter.
"Lightning bolts are all offense and no defense, whereas ball lightning is both shield and sword," he explained to Finn, who nodded approvingly.
"Corwin, you are a boy after my own heart."
The only disadvantage with ball lightning was that its spheres were at least three feet wide so, to prevent fratricide, Corwin had to keep them away from the melee and pick off enemies on the fringes of the fight.
A fetcher hurled a bunch of nails at the rescuers, but these were blocked by the Missile Shields held by Sir Willet, Liam, and Drew. Not waiting for them to sort out which one of the three would throw the nails back at the fetcher, Finn took matters into his own hands.
Mjolnir flew across the room and took the man's head off, leaving his headless body to stagger about for a moment, blood spraying out the torn arteries of his neck. Mjolnir embedded itself in a stone wall very briefly until Finn drew it back into his grasp with his control of the planetary magnetic field. The sight of the hammer flying back to the giant's hand dismayed his foes. They weren't safe from him even clear across the arena.
Still, to prevent fratricide in all the confusion, Finn soon had to leave off throwing Mjolnir and simply bash away at anyone within reach. The electricity crackling over his armor and buckler could numb anyone who got near enough for a jolt to jump the gap between them, and their swords and knives made excellent conductors.
A master of magnetism tried to yank Mjolnir from Finn's grasp, but Finn countered with both his physical strength and by locking the magnetic field of his war hammer to the planetary field. The man's gift might have been strong enough to drag Mjolnir or perhaps even Finn toward him but not the entire planet. And since magnetic attraction works both ways, the man found himself yanked toward the Frost Giant. When he got close enough Finn caved his head in with the edge of his buckler.
Three men worked a lever to open a trap door and scrambled down a ladder to an escape tunnel, but Jemsen collapsed it in on them with his earth magic. The tunnel became their tomb.
Meanwhile the guards and more than forty of the brotherhood without strong gifts had drawn personal weapons and closed with the intruders in a melee, thinking to overwhelm them, but those they attacked were not helpless drugged youths but trained soldiers and combat veterans with double their normal strength and twice normal speed and reflexes, something which came as a nasty surprise to their foes. Their kukris made short work of them.
The twins had left their bows behind for what they knew would be a fight at close quarters, but, as students of Balandur, they were just as deadly with their kukris, using bucklers on their left arms to fend off enemy blades. In close quarters their doubled strength and speed gave them an advantage as did their stamina. Fighting with hand held weapons was exhausting.
Lieutenant Nathan "Sparky" Lathrop cut down no less than seven foes with his naval cutlass. A scion of a military family, the young naval officer had grown up with a blade in his hand. Healing magic had regrown the portion of his left leg he had lost in combat to a troll axe, so his footwork was as good as ever. Sparky was the pet name Liam had given Nathan who could snap electrum sparks by the handful at his opponents distracting them with the nasty burns and jolts the sparks of static electricity delivered. He also used them to help his allies.
With their fetching powers Drew and Liam did not need bucklers for protection. They could just yank the blades out of the hands of their enemies and send them back point first. A favorite tactic was to wait for a foe to posture with a brandished blade then yank him forward onto the kukris they held out at arm's length. Its bent blade allowed for a straight arm thrust without a bend in the wrist putting more power into the blow. Before their foe could quite comprehend what had happened, the kukri had slashed downward spilling his guts on the ground. Or, if an ally was pressed by two foes at once, the fetchers could even the odds by yanking one of them backwards onto their blades.
In combat no stigma was attached to backstabbing. If the tactic worked, fine.
Another nasty trick of the fetchers was to yank a foe's eyeballs right out of their sockets. A blinded foe was easy to dispatch.
Endowed with quadruple the strength one might expect from his size Dahl was deadly with a quarterstaff. Its long reach easily countered the blades of the brotherhood while the ironwood caps at the ends crushed skulls and broke limbs. His uncanny speed and reflexes made him a virtual whirlwind of destruction. Those who came within its orbit died or were broken.
With all the rescuers else engaged with other foes Dolan saw his chance. Invoking his projective empathy he made the Molossian hound let go of Axel and dragged the boy onto his feet putting a blade to his neck threatening to kill his hostage if the rescuers did not back off and let him and his brothers go free.
Axel offered no resistance as he might have done with Dolan standing next to him and his own hands free, but Axel was in too much pain, too battered, exhausted, ashamed, and emotionally and magically cowed for anything like that.
"Your magics cannot touch me." Dolan crowed. "My amulet shields me."
Dolan however had not taken Dahl physical abilities into consideration. The young druid's quadrupled strength and fast reflexes may have had magical origins, but they were now simply a natural part of his body. With a sidearm motion he flung a throwing knife which buried itself to the hilt in Dolan's skull. The man went down like a marionette with its strings cut.
Dolan's death took the fight out of the brotherhood as they saw their last hope vanish. They threw down their weapons and surrendered, preferring to face the consequences later rather than right away.
Finn ran over and raised his hammer to kill the dog, but Axel held his hand up to stop him.
"No, Finn. This was not his fault. He was just doing what he was trained to do. As I was being trained," he added miserably then sobbed from the shame of it all.
Finn relented and spared the hound. Then he knelt down and comforted Axel, a massive arm thrown protectively over his friend's shoulders.
"Good throw, Dahl." Sir Willet said. "My instinct was to cut the fiend in half with white fire, but that would not have worked against his protective amulet."
"Wasn't he standing too close to Axel anyway?"
"I would have used a vertical cut." Sir Willet explained. "Anyway I thought you druids could not use steel blades. Your muscles would cramp up or some such thing." Sir Willet asked.
"That is correct, Will, but that blade is made of ironwood. It's as hard as steel but organic."
"You druids are just full of tricks, aren't you?"
Dahl smiled.
"I killed Dolan at that critical moment in a dramatic way to dishearten the others. I wanted them to surrender before any of us got hurt."
"I see. Anyway, enough shop talk. Let's check on Axel."
Sir Willet was dismayed at Axel's physical and psychological state. His boy had been through hell.
"Seeing what they did to Axel I really wish Sir Aodh had been here with us." Sir Willet said.
"I don't know about that, Will. Sure Aodh could have helped, but we didn't really need him."
"True, but right now I'd like to be standing here watching a dozen of these bastards writhing on the ground screaming themselves hoarse from the effects of Aodh's poison claws."
The poison Aodh delivered with his front paws was as potent as that in the spines of the dreaded stone fish and would induce the worst pain a living being could endure without dropping dead from shock. When it came to protecting those he loved, Sir Willet was fierce. No surprise there. He was, after all, a war wizard, not an aesthete, a healer, or a priest.
A Healer did come in to attend to Axel. She mended his hurts, his physical ones anyway. Corwin and the Healer helped Axel to the jakes where his innards were flushed of the seed the dog had planted in him. Axel was past embarrassment at a woman attending to his most intimate bodily parts and functions. Soap and scrub brushes removed all trace of the doggy sweat and smell he had picked up from their contact. Axel did not want the dog killed, but he did not want to smell like him either.
Another healer tended the wounds of the rescuers, none of which were serious. Jemsen had a scalp wound which bled freely as such wounds will, and Nathan had taken a nasty cut to the ribs which required stitches, while Karel had caught one of the fetcher's nails in his thigh. Pulling on the fabric of his silk trews let them extract it without further damage to the muscle. The healer let it bleed freely for a short while to flush the wound then disinfected it with fiery spirits and bound it up.
After the constabulary arrested the survivors a search of the premises turned up records of the organization and its chapters in three other cities plus a charnel house with the bones of earlier victims. A trophy room held souvenirs including sketches of their victims made before the brotherhood started working on them. The sketches showed the faces of young innocents as they looked the very day they had fallen into the clutches of the brutes who would go on to use them in appalling ways to gratify their bestial and perverted lusts.
Finn wrapped Axel in a sheet and carried him out to a patient transport cart, a modification of the pushcarts which Frost Giants had pioneered in Flensborg and which were more recently adapted to transport ice to subscribers' domestic ice-boxes. Axel reached for Corwin's hand and held it the whole way home where he was left in the care of his roommates and friends who included not only Corwin but also the twins, Drew, Liam, Nathan, and also Eike, the former castaway Nathan had befriended who now worked as an apprentice naval architect at the Bureau of Ships.
Two other boys were freed from the dungeon. Broken in mind and body, they had to be put into custodial care. It would be a good long while before they could rejoin society even with the help of empathic healing.
The entire brotherhood including those in the other cities was charged with capital crimes. To avoid making a public spectacle of the executions, the condemned were taken out after dark, weighted down with heavy chains, then pushed off a barge into the Long River and not fished back out till they were good and dead. It was a quicker death than they deserved.
The Capital Intelligencer published a memorial volume with the sketches and remembrances of the young victims. It was priced below cost.
The wealth of the members of the brotherhood was confiscated except for a portion that their families was allowed to keep to maintain themselves, though in much reduced circumstances. The proceeds were put to public purposes including compensation to the families of the victims and a memorial park dedicated to the youth of the Commonwealth.
Axel got a share himself, and the Institute itself received a generous addition to its endowment in recognition of its role in uncovering and thwarting the cabal. The remainder of the funds went to the public works department for maintenance of infrastructure.
Axel's friends made sure at least one of them was always with him at all times, physical reassurance that he was free, safe, and secure. He never slept alone though initially that was for companionship and reassurance. It was over a month before Axel would trust himself with actual sex, afraid that Dolan had so warped his libido that he would not enjoy normal healthy sex. At least Axel now understood that it was Dolan's projective empathy that had created the dark cravings in his mind which allowed him to take pleasure in helplessness, pain, and his own degradation.
Axel took a good while to come around, but eventually he responded to the love and care of his family and friends plus good food, sunshine, exercise, sports, and a resumption of what he always called the life of the mind, a dedication to serious intellectual pursuits, something he shared with close friends like Jemsen and Karel and Drew.
Axel would never be the same, never quite the gentle innocent he was before, but in his case his character was tempered by adversity, not twisted into something unwholesome. Axel came of good stock.
Two months later when Axel finally reported for duty he found all of his friends gathered at the institute. Sir Willet spoke for them.
"We all agree that you should have the protective amulet taken from the man you knew as Dolan. You earned it not just by your ordeal but by how well you have coped with it since."
Axel looked around at the faces of his friends, people he knew he could count on no matter what. Getting a grip on his emotions, he smiled and said simply:
"Thanks everyone. This amulet will do more than protect just me. It will let me protect all of you against enemies with magical gifts. And with my other abilities including doubled strength and the speed Karel can confer on me as we run with the wind, I can do that much more to protect the Commonwealth and the good people who live in it."
"Well put, Axel."
Sir Willet had never been prouder of his young protege.
Author's Note
This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead.
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This story is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon, elf-boy and druid, will appear in these stories in a supporting rather than starring role. Each story in the sequence stands on its own, with the focus on one or a few of the original characters.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy' and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section. The recent series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.
Comments and feedback welcome.