IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMID, CHAPTER ELEVEN
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
I was standing, looking at the pyramids. Such a little time had passed, only a few weeks. And yet, so much, so very much, had changed.
I looked down from the shining white, pristine forms to the land around them, around me.
Men, horses, chariots, spears. I was upon a small hill, and still they stretched out in all directions as far as I could see. The Army of the Pharoah.
It had been two months since I had been rescued from the High Priest's prison. In that time, I had healed from the worst of my injuries (I still bore some discolorations on my body, they would linger for months or years, but the pains were gone, all but a bit of discomfort when I moved certain ways), and in that time, the machinations of the High Priest had gone from covert religious recruitments into his myriad of religions, each designed to tell a caste of workers that they were special, ordained from creation to be the foremost among the ranks of men, to an openly active, organized mob controlled by an oligarchy controlled by the High Priest. Learning that the All was merely one of these fabrications had hurt me a great deal, but I was better off, after all, belief in only a single God that created everything was contrary to all fact, nobody could possibly continue any belief in such a single, all-powerful, all-knowing deity. I had made propitiatory sacrifices to the major gods and felt at peace once more, following the faith of my people again.
But there were many others who were not reconciled as I was, and these had taken arms against our king-god and our government. The High Priest was now openly leading them in their rebellion, and had a frightening number of adherents. They were strongest in the southern reaches of the kingdom, and it was there that their armies had formed. I was part of the armies that the Pharoah and High Commander had formed in the north, and we had marched south to bring the southern country back under the Pharoah's rule and destroy these rebels. And by the twists of fate that sometimes happen, the places our armies came together was near the pyramids where I had spent so much of my adult life. We were among the pyramids, they were in the villages to the south, and we would meet, it was agreed very soon upon the deserts between us.
When I had arrived, I naturally sought out my father and Keotin, but the houses where the workers had lived were now empty. My father and dear Keotin were gone, presumably now members of the rebels. I had learned that the rebels had early gained adherents among the artisans (the reason they had kept to themselves so strongly before, with guards to keep them apart, why had nobody seen this for the incipient rebellion it was?) and Keotin was one of them. As they had sought me to the cult of the Great Architect, they had sought Keotin for the cult of the Great Artisan, and he had been swayed. I only hoped that I would not face him directly in the battle to come.
"Ho, Kephrin, there you are!" came the call. I looked down among the whirling maelstrom of men readying for war, the cacophony of sounds and clashes of metal and whinnying of horses being lashed into place. There was Meharin, the charioteer, my partner. My job was to run alongside him with my spear, to fend off anyone from harming Meharin, the archer/lancers he would ferry, and the horses. This was part of a practiced movement among the charioteers, and the combined force of our spears, the horses hooves shod to assist them in trampling, and the archers, safe behind the chariot to fire at near-point-blank range into the spots where the bolts would be of most benefit, so that the armies of the Pharaoh were fearsome. The rebels did not have our materials, our training (my own position as spear-carrier was the least-trained of the positions, my team-mates were all far better than I) and most important of all, the blessings of our gods. They had only their false belief in their all-powerful, solitary deity.
So I waved to Meharin and he bade me come down to them. Yes, it was time for me to go and do my part for my Pharaoh. I looked one last time at the pyramids, the newest only two-thirds done, a truncated triangular shape, one side higher than the other. Would the work of my many years, upon this one great work, ever see its completion? Would I ever become again a stone-cutter?
"Looking over your old life, eh?" Meharin said. He knew my life story, such as it was.
"Yes." I admitted. "We aimed at greatness here."
"You have succeeded." he told me. "Such a magnificent structure you were building, it will stand for an eternity."
"That is the purpose." I agreed. "But will we get to finish it?"
"When the war is done and our Pharaoh may again spare his men for such tasks, he will return you to the labor." Meharin agreed. "He needs men like me to guard his frontiers and men like you to build his abode for the next world. We shall be useful even after the rebellion is over."
"We will be useful if we live." I pointed out.
Meharin cocked a knowing eyebrow my way. "Are you having a faint spirit?" He raised a hand to cut me off. "It is not disloyal to fear what may happen, not in the moments before a battle. You'll fight the harder, knowing that if you don't, you may lose. So long as your fear doesn't carry you away, it is harmless."
"I am not fearful." I said. "I am just...displaced." That was true, I had lost all of my former life. I was now a soldier, but even I could see that this was not a condition that would remain for me, one way or the other. Meharin's life was the army, my own life was not. He could find a home here, but not me. I was...I was a stone-cutter of the Pharaoh. Yes, we must win! If not, I could not return here and resume my life's work!
"You don't feel you belong in our army." Meharin said, and it was not a question. "We have not welcomed you as much as we could. The reason is that we feel we don't know a man until he has fought alongside us in a battle." He was speaking of the fact that I had been unable to find a lover, even for a single tryst, among the rest of the men in my fighting team of four, my every importunity had been politely but firmly refused. But this was the first time I found out why I had been left to choose only among the men who had been drafted into temporary duty such as myself, a circumstance that left me feeling vaguely cheated, for the other three were obviously lovers upon a regular basis. The archer was off with my opposite number of the spear-carriers right now, in fact, presumably snatching a final bit of lovemaking before the battle began. They should have been here by now.
"Then today, if we are victorious, I shall be welcomed?" I said. I had tried more than once with Meharin, a large, strong, vibrant man, wide-built and broad-shouldered, a man who could perform astonishing feats of strength with the careless ease of a woman picking up a filled water jug. His hands upon the reins forced the horses to obey him, I could run alongside and know that I need have no fear of the horses beside me, they would not deviate from the course Meharin's hands bade them take.
"Come up into the chariot for a time." Meharin answered. "I want you to see the world from my eyes."
I did, puzzled. A chariot was not so high off the ground on its wheels, the view seemed to me to be the same even when I was alongside Meharin.
"I stand here, and these horses throw dust my way with their hooves." Meharin said. "The archer is nearby but if any in battle look at us, they see him and his arrows, not me, who only guides the reins. I guide the horses, I guide the battle about me, and if the arrows fly too thickly my way, I can duck down and let the chariot walls protect me. Try that, duck down and see how well protected you can be by merely going onto both knees."
I did and I saw that my head, arms and shoulders were all below the rail of the chariot. "I could indeed be as safe as anyone in a battle can be." I agreed.
"And with the archer behind you like I am behind you." Meharin continued. "See what the view of the battle is behind you."
I turned my head and I saw. "A most interesting view it is." I agreed.
Meharin had lifted his wrap aside and his cock was pointing itself at me. Wide as Meharin was, it was wider in girth than it was tall in girth, more oval than an egg, it reached out a distance of more than both my hands side-by-side with my fingers straight.
Meharin moved somewhat closer to me as I shifted myself around on my knees, closing the distance between us. "My view of the world can be limited." Meharin said. "But it is not without its advantages, you must agree." And he gave a soft sigh in satisfaction as I took his cock in my hand and guided it like a wine-skin spout to my mouth. The shape of his glans fit easily between my lips, and the soft skin slithered along my tongue as it slipped into my mouth. Meharin was as clean as any man could be, only a faint hint of sweat and man-musk remained upon that marvelous shaft, delicate as the nectar of a flower to its visiting bee, and I drank in the simple, small taste of Meharin's essence, and in that was that indefinable but unmistakable aura of a man who dealt closely with horses, such a man picks up a bit of the horse's oils when he does, and this gets rubbed about by his work until it is a part of him that no washing removes, he can be smelt and the smell itself advertises that, "I am a man who works with horses."
But that is not an unpleasant thing to feel upon a man, it bothered me no more than the same slight taste of rock-dust upon my lovers among the stone-cutters bothered me, it was a fact of life and to be relished rather than abhored.
So I tasted the man that was Meharin as I worked my saliva upon his dong, and as I worked upon Meharin, his morning cape and the walls of the chariot screened me from view of the myriad men around me. Not that any would have commented, save that I was yet untested in battle as Meharin said, yet this privacy gave my lovemaking a thrill it would not have otherwise had, I was loving Meharin furtively, secretly, and he was standing as any driver of a chariot would stand, confident, erect, his powerful body giving them no clue that I was at Meharin's feet and had my lips firmly attached to his manhood!
My own hand was attentive to my own needs, I was working my prick as well as I could within the narrow confines of my position, I felt my glans slap Meharin's leg more than once, and I took courage enough to deliberately rub my dong upon his lower leg, feel our flesh touching, his leg, my cockhead warming him and leaving a trail of slime behind it, and Meharin permitted me this staining of his flesh without complaint, and I gave it over and began to pound my cock in earnest, wishing us to join our passions if I could, and I felt sure that Meharin would not wish us to linger upon our lovemaking, not in this hour, at this time, with the men gathering and the lines forming and who knew how much longer we had, both to get ready, and to our lives upon this world?
My lips now had fully lubricated Meharin's vibrant tool, and I could move more easily now, my suckling making a slight, moist sound as the suction of my mouth upon his thick prod was created and exploded by the movement of my head, my lips popping as the air rushed back into them, and then I was lunging down once again and my cheeks billowed out and I had to let this air escape back to the outside once again to make room for Meharin's cock within me, and then I was pulling back and the vacuum again was created, my lips pulled tighter and tighter until they gave way again with a liquid "shhhhlupp!" sound.
Meharin groaned, a soft sound as he raised his head as though to look at the sky to see the weather for our battle. But the rainy season was far off, few if any clouds obscured our sky and would not for many days yet to come. In the fields our grains were ripening, a slow rising and expanding upon their stalks, much like the slow rising and expanding of Meharin's passion as I drew it from his body by my lavishments upon his prick, Meharin lowered his head again and his eyes were half-closed, his mouth half-opened, in the slackness of lust encroaching upon his body and his mind, the soul becoming lost within its delight until it swam about, aimlessly within the rich environment of passion's excitement, the pleasure buffeting him as the waves at the ocean can toss around a piece of driftwood, and that piece of wood is the spirit of the man, and it can be pitched about but it cannot be submerged entirely.
I felt my own passion increasing inside of me, a slowly rising, comfortable feeling of warmth that oozed about my body and made my balls tingle even as they clamped about my rod in readiness for their own invasion out of my body into the outer realm.
Meharin was grunting more urgently now, and I judged him close to his climax. He still kept those syllables of sexual sibilance silent as he could, he held his body the picture of the ready soldier, even though his mouth could not contain his groans entire, they slipped around his guards and fell upon me from overhead, and I was washed within his growing ecstasy and it bathed my cock, those sweat-slicked sounds, and I felt my own tenseness beginning; I was near, very near!
"Uh-hgh, uh-ghh!" Meharin said and I knew then that he was there, at the threshold of his deliverance, and that knowledge crashed upon me and I felt my own orgasm commencing then, and I could only close my eyes, control my lips to keep them occupied as they should be, and let the rest of my body do as it would.
"Huh, hgh-hgh-guh, nnh-huhhhhh!" came the soft whisper of lust above, and I gave in to my own climax and I vented, I ejaculated hard all over Meharin's legs, and I dazedly moved like an automaton upon his prick as I jismed, spraying my thick white cream upon those brown, sturdy legs.
"Nnnhhh, uhhh, nnnnhhh!" Meharin was yet holding back and I felt his body quivering as the ends of a bow quiver with the tension of the draw before the arrow is loosed, as if the tension increases the power, so did his withholding of his orgasm increased his ecstasy and then, when he gave way, it was less of a squirt and more of a stream of hot jizz pouring onto my tongue and down my throat.
I was still dazzled by my own climax, into that morass of sensations that drown the soul, leaving it lost and dizzy in the whirlpool of desire, and into this storm of my senses, the waterfall of Meharin's man-cream crashed into my gullet, flew down the stream-bed of my throat and into the pool of my stomach, foaming white and turbulent, and I reeled as I tasted him, tasted Meharin's come upon my tongue, steaming clumps of male seed that slid down my throat as I swallowed hard, sucking all the liquid off his cock that I could, taking all of it, taking it all!
With loud panting sounds, Meharin showed the first visible signs of his weakness from his climax, he gripped the edges of the chariot, leaned over me, gasping, he said, "There now! Now you are one of my team!"
I closed my eyes, and this time was not for passion, but to relish the words I had been given. Meharin accepted me as one of his group, truly one, not just a man attached to them to make their number whole, but a man who could fight and know that his comrades would guard his body as well as they could, as he would guard them from all that came their way from his portion of the conflict.
The horns blew, and I knew them for others than ours. The rebels used our own signals to call their men to arms, and my own side added their horn-blasts to the sounds, and I slipped out between Meharin's legs as fast as I could and onto the ground, snatched up my spear and took my place by the side of the horses. They would go at a fair clip, I could keep up with them for a short distance, and Meharin would not drive them as fast as he might so that I could stay near them, but I could only hope that my body was up for the ordeal to come.
The dust of the dunes nearest resolved itself into many separate darker pieces, the pieces were men, armed men, coming at us, and the horns blew a new signal and Meharin ordered us three, as did those others around him, "Forward now! Forward into battle!"
My fellow countrymen, my former workers and friends, my own family, even...these were my enemy now.
My spear ready, my resolve as firm as I could make it, I ran with my team and my army to face the foe. The desert sands were about to taste the blood of men once again...would some of it be mine?
THE END OF CHAPTER ELEVEN
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