by Lee Benoit
He pulled Joh close, so close he was breathing through the humid thicket of Joh's pubic hair. Joh came almost silently, breath hissing through his teeth, but his hips went wild and Matti finally was obliged to move his hands to grip them tightly. He breathed past the delicious panic of being force-fed fluid and swallowed, swallowed.
As Joh's hips relaxed and his breath came in open-mouthed pants, Matti let the softening cock slip out of his mouth, pausing to kiss it on its way. He scooted over on the blanket to make room for Joh, who sat heavily beside him and regarded him with a slit-eyed smile. Joh raised his eyebrows interrogatively, casting a querying glance in the direction of his deflating penis.
"Very beautiful, as you say, and powerful. Not so strange after all," Matti conceded with a grin, and reached down to relieve his own insistent cock.
Gast! His cock may not have been as turgid as Joh's was a few moments before, but it was thicker than usual, hot and heavy against his thigh. His eyes flew to Joh's, which smiled down at him, or he imagined they did, so dark were they in the little reaching moonlight.
"Joh! I..."
"See, chavvie? Between you and me, we woke the sleeping dragon."
"Hardly," Matti snorted. Dragons were fierce and fiery and hard. His prick was none of those things, but it was awake. Awake in a way he'd thought lost to him.
"What else?" He hardly dared ask.
"This," Joh whispered, giving him a quick, hard kiss before sliding down between his legs. Matti tried hard not to clamp them shut, hide his shame. This was Joh, his friend, who had already seen, and made no mockery. Joh, who had already made him feel so good, and promised more. It was difficult, but Matti kept his legs apart.
"Such a beautiful boy you are, chavvie," Joh murmured this and other endearments and praises, keeping Matti from spinning out of control and into panic at what was happening. No one had touched him there since his castration.
Joh had brought oil, too. He used it to slide his fingers, all of them, it felt like, all over Matti's buttocks, between them, up and down the shallow trench, to finally dip, one at a time, into his hole like hummingbirds at nectar.
"Oh!" Matti gasped, startled, as Joh's fingers rubbed and rubbed the place where his balls used to hang. Something... inside... felt... Oh, it felt! "Inside, Joh!"
Joh seemed to understand it was both declaration and demand.
This was not the first time something had been in his ass. Ieppe, Gydha's partner, used to take him sometimes, but always with a furtive mien and guilty aftermath. Gydha had been reluctant to share her boy, but also loathe to see him, in her words, used like an animal.
This was nothing like that. Oh, it was animal, yes. But controlled, sinuous, intent on a goal other than rutting.
Joh's fingers had him trapped, within and without, and the stroking was driving him mad. Then, in a sudden raptor swoop, he was in Joh's mouth, and Joh's mouth was sucking hard and his fingers pressed and kneaded and thrust, and in a cataract of sensation, Matti was coming. It eclipsed any climax he could remember, for it was so deeply, grievously unexpected. He was spending! Modestly, in clear little trickles, but spending, and it seemed to go on and on. When it was over, Joh nuzzled and murmured into Matti's crotch until Matti tugged him up by his curly hair.
"Quite the sleight of hand," Matti said, and he would have defied anyone to tease him for weeping into Joh's neck.
"That's nothing," Joh grinned and took his mouth again, sealing lips and stealing breath. "Just the beginning."
And that was why, when Matti woke the next morning with strange Alperai standing over him with blades and arrow points trained on him and Joh, he greeted them with a smile.
Chapter 5
Redoubt
Inauspicious meeting notwithstanding, the Alperai made Devi and Adiún and their companions welcome, though they were by turns fascinated by Sauda, suspicious of Martiyyo, and delighted by Matti, being of a people so like them but from so far away.
In truth, it was easy to be charmed by Matti, glowing with excitement as he was.
Along their day-long trek to the Alperais' hidden encampment, Devi sought out his friend, his new -- or soon to be -- lover.
Arms linked as they walked, their packs lightened by the relief of finding their objective, Matti slid shy glances in Devi's direction. "I had no idea. He made me come, Devi."
Devi blinked and spoke before he thought better of it. "You think he could teach me and Adiún?"
Rediscovering physical love for Adiún with Matti's help was one thing. Planning for a bond among the three of them, something lasting, well, the thought appealed to him, though he wasn't quite sure how to bring it about. Now he was suggesting a fourth partner join them? He shook his head. Being found by the Alperai must have rendered him giddier than he'd thought.
Matti laughed. "He's a very dedicated tutor."
To his grateful surprise, Devi was able to laugh, too.
The Alperai stronghold was nothing more than a series of shelters backed up against a natural redoubt above the tree line. The slope of the foothills was gentle enough that he hadn't even noticed he was climbing for days before the Alperai found them. Now, however, he could look out over what seemed an endless expanse of rolling hill.
"Now I see how they found us." Sauda had come up next to him, quiet as ocean swells. Devi cocked an eyebrow at her. They'd established long ago that her ability to read a landscape was superior to his, though she'd had to admit his reading of people was generally the better.
"You see? In the forest, we thought ourselves covered. But our smoke rose, and up here the view is unobstructed. Very clever." Devi wasn't certain whether she meant the Alperai, for choosing the location, or herself, for sussing out its strengths.
With a last squeeze around her waist -- really, what would he do without her? -- he stepped forward to join Adiún at the head of their little delegation. They had arrived.
***
With a sinking heart, Matti listened to the greeting the local mab rhi gave. Their escorts had been closemouthed but not aggressive on the day-long march to the redoubt, and Matti had hoped they would be welcomed as fellow refugees from the Norvander colonization. The head man, a hale, brash sort, dashed his hopes. They were not wanted here.
"You are welcome as guests, provided you contribute to our pots and cause no trouble." The man cast a narrow look in Martiyyo's direction, causing Kino to pull his skittish lover close, and Matti nearly to laugh out loud. Norvander he may be, but he'd wager Martiyyo posed the least threat of the eight of them to these Alperai in their mountain fastness.
"You may use our camp as a base to reprovision before you move on."
"Pardon," Adiún said, chin high and eyes steady, mab rhi to mab rhi, "but we had hopes of wintering among you. We bring more skills than simply food collecting."
Swallowing a snicker at the thought of what skills Kino and Joh could offer, Matti felt a swell of love for his friend. Food collecting was Adiún's only real skill, for all he'd learned a few tricks of performance with Gydha's troupe. Adiún was speaking on behalf of all of them, and doing a fine job, so Matti thought.
The head man gave a small, dismissive shrug, and switched to a dialect of the Alperai tongue, strange but close enough to Matti's milk tongue that Matti was the only one besides Adiún and Devi who understood what he said next. "And trouble in spades, I shouldn't wonder. Be welcome tonight. We have no guest house to offer, but we will feast you as best we may."
From the color in Adiún's cheeks, Matti guessed the code of hospitality among these inland Alperai was much like that of Adiún's coastal people, not too different from that among Matti's distant but related folk. He waited while his friend spoke again. "We ask nothing but safe harbor and the chance to make fair recompense, as befits honorable guests."
Looking grudgingly mollified, the mab rhi gave a curt nod. "When the moon is full, we'll speak again."
Matti glanced into the evening sky. The full moon was mere days away. Best set about p
roving our worth sooner rather than later, Matti thought with a grimness better suited to Adiún in the dark days before he found Devi than to Matti today, the day after Joh's great gift. Nevertheless, winter was coming, and the eight of them and Kibi would be hard pressed to survive on their own, having spent the summer in almost every activity but provisioning and building.
That evening Matti and his companions were feasted, and, by custom, expected to offer news or entertainment in exchange for their supper and night's shelter. News, they could offer in abundance, but one of the younger women of the redoubt had noticed Matti's hardan, and called for song. Matti half-expected Adiún to step forward, as he had during his days with Gydha's troupe, and offer his unaccompanied orasz, his song of praise and longing, for Devi. Instead, Kino held out his hand for the hardan, and Matti gave Adiún a grin across the hearth fire.
"Watch. You're not the only one with a flair for the tragic." Devi came and settled between Adiún's legs, and they both reached to draw Matti close, and wound their arms round each others' waists.
Kino played Gydha's hardan with considerable skill . The song he sang was very sad, and Matti shivered when Devi's warm breath carried a request for translation to his ear. Matti leaned his head in close, so Adiún and Devi both could hear. "It is a lament for Martiyyo that he wrote when he had to leave his love-boy in Dinas."
Adiún nodded and whispered into Devi's ear, "It was all we could do to keep him from turning back on the road."
Kino stopped singing after a chorus or two had set the mood, but continued to strum as Joh and Mari took the ring to dance. The lower halves of their faces were heavily veiled.
Matti had, of course, seen Joh and Mari perform this traditional dance from their southern homeland in Dinas and Qytet, and in many other places along their road with Gydha's troupe.
Everywhere else, it had been a playful seduction, all dipping hips and flashing feet to mimic the flight of a honeybee and its triumphant filling of a honeycomb. It was easy to forget Joh and Mari were brother and sister when they danced together. This time, the longing and despair of Kino's song was reflected in the dance, and Matti thought of Devi and Sauda and yes, even himself, of all that had been lost, and let a few slow tears slide down his face. Devi brushed them away and grasped his waist more snugly. Matti saw tears glistening on Adiún's face, too.
Devi worked his way free of Adiún and Matti's embrace, taking fortifying kisses on the way, to stand and lead the applause -- the universal signal that one wished to perform next. Adiún clamped his hand hard onto Matti's thigh. Devi hadn't told a story since his rescue; Matti had never heard him declaim. The mountain Alperai showed fair respect for the southerners, who bowed extravagantly before resuming their seats before the fire.
Matti held his breath as Devi stepped into the breach left by Joh and Mari's performance. He heard murmurs of "story-father" and "almost fully trained" and "you saw that hair... only on a story-elder." Evidently, these Alperai had certain expectations of Devi.
All cross-chat went dead as Devi closed his eyes, spread his arms, and began to speak in a measured, metered voice that was just this side of a chant.
"Longer ago than you can imagine, before our people came down to the shore, there was a boy.
He lived with his clan in the deep forest and tried diligently to learn all he would need to know to be strong and good and respected as a man.
"Among his age-mates each boy and girl could do something best. This one dyed flaxens and woolens with the brightest shades. That one made the sharpest arrowheads, over here was one who knew the secrets of the plants of the wood and meadow, and over there was a hunter so proficient he seemed to call the animals to him out of the very earth and air. The boy I tell of, one Edhyn, he was good where many were better. He did not become bitter, but tried harder. For this, a white owl named Nyja loved him.
"Edhyn went often to the deepest part of the forest to watch his friend hunt. She glowed like a second moon in the night, but was fierce and fast and killed cleanly. He admired her, and one night 'I wish I could fly like you do!' were the first words he said when she landed. The vole in her talons disappeared neatly into her mouth and she set about cleaning her pinions with her bright beak. Edhyn watched Nyja clean and oil and fluff her feathers, until she turned her great flat eyes to him. 'You are not strong enough yet.' 'I have no wings,' the boy pointed out practically. 'When you are stronger you shall have wings,' said the owl. Edhyn knew she wasn't being mysterious on purpose; this was the way all owls spoke when they spoke to boys. The boy forgot the conversation after a few days. The owl did not, though she did not speak of it again.
This also is the way of owls.
"After a few seasons' growth the boy had learned much and honed many skills. He was still not the best at anything, but he did not mind much. He was satisfied that he gave his best to all his endeavors. The owl noticed this, and loved him all the more. One spring night, as Edhyn sat on a flowery low branch of a pear tree, a swift bright beam separated itself from the slow wheeling of the stars and the slow rolling of the moon and Nyja landed next to him. Greenish-white pear blossoms shook and some petals fell, landing in Edhyn's hair. In her owlish way, Nyja skipped the pleasantries. 'You have become stronger. You shall fly tonight if you wish it.' 'Dearest Nyja, it pains me to say so, but strong I may be, yet I shall not fly. I have no wings, as you may have noticed.' Owl eyes look the same no matter how the owl is feeling, so Edhyn had learned over the years of their friendship to watch the tilt of Nyja's head for clues to her mood. In this moment she was almost angry, it seemed. 'You would refuse my gift?' 'Never, Nyja.'
"'Very well then, you shall have my wings.' The moment it was said, it was done. Nyja's wings disappeared from her body, leaving it resembling a fluffy egg. Edhyn gaped and reached out for her. As his fingers reached forward to stroke her breast, her own wings came forward around his shoulders. Their smooth thick feathers lay plushly all down his back and their points hung down past his bent knees. He flexed new muscles in his back and the wings opened with a lopsided flourish that flicked Nyja from the branch to plummet softly to the ground below the pear tree, a large light fruit blinking slowly with surprise but not reproach.
"'The wings are bigger for you,' she said. 'I did wonder.'
"The boy helped the owl to stand, then knelt beside her in the grass, opening the wings and closing them again, slowly at first, then faster. The breeze he created was enough to topple Nyja again. She blinked slowly at him, and this time one could not insist there was no reproach in her gaze. Edhyn's face warmed with a blush and he apologized with his eyes.
"'Take me in your arms and walk to the edge of the glen. I will teach you to fly."
"High at the ends of the deep valley there was a rock outcropping. Edhyn stood on it with Nyja's wingless back pressed to his breastbone, his arms crossed over her breast. She dug her talons into the flesh of his arm and by the blood she drew, he understood she was frightened.
"'Spread your wings and leap, dearest, and we will soar.
"And soar they did. Eventually. Nyja directed them with her beak since her wings and talons were busy and her fear stilled her voice. The giddy crawl in Edhyn's gut was only part fear, however. By far his strongest emotion was exhilaration. His soaring was bobbly and overbalanced at first, nothing like the elegant sweep of the clouds Nyja daily executed. But Nyja was patient, in the way of a fine hunter, and Edhyn improved. As he did, her vise-like clutching at his arm eased, and his blood flowed more freely, staining the fresh cream of her feathers.
"Nyja directed Edhyn to alight in a sturdy young oak where a lightning-struck burl offered some measure of protection for her.
"Saffron fingers of a summer's dawn tickled the horizon, and Nyja settled into her burl. Mottled as she was with Edhyn's dried blood, she was invisible to any eye not attuned to the amber glint of hers.
"'You may fly all day. You may show people your wings and how you fly. Only remember I am helpless here, and cannot hunt witho
ut the wings. You must return before the sun is down.'
Edhyn promised he would return. He kissed Nyja's glassy beak in thanks, then flew for the first time alone. He did not go directly to his village. He wanted to practice and he wanted the sun to be fully bright in the sky before he showed his age-mates something he could do best."
Devi's voice went quiet, and his head bowed. When he raised it again, he looked from face to face before the fire as if daring them to naysay him.
"Tides! He's going to make them wait!" Adiún fidgeted and hissed beside Matti.
"Surely they know the story?" Matti ventured.
Adiún looked him in the eye. "No one knows that story. Devi is truly story-father now, for he makes new stories." His voice was equal parts awed and proud.
All at once, Matti understood. Devi possessed a skill these Alperai refugees lacked entirely, and he was using it to buy all of his companions time they needed to win permission to stay the winter. He would spin the story out over precious days, perhaps until the full moon and the summit with the mab rhi. Matti was amazed at his shy friend's temerity.
The Alperai, indeed, even Kino and Mari and Joh, begged Devi to continue the tale, but he merely smiled a small, mysterious smile and beckoned Matti and Adiún and the others to the shelter they would share.
Chapter 6
New Rivers
"Today we will hunt for the village," Adiún said, and the way he said it implied that there were other reasons to hunt than meat and skins.
Devi felt a small, skirling thrill in his middle. He had seldom hunted with Adiún in their coastal village, though they had fished together with Melle often. No, as soon as they'd discovered uses for pricks besides pissing, "hunting" trips had become Adiún's code for trysts.
Devi started when Sauda, Joh, Mari, and Matti fell into step with them.