At war’s end, Captain Harkut was returned home—though not, as one might well expect, at the head of a shining procession; that fine parade had long since passed. And not, as Harkut himself expected, as a corpse in a cheap coffin, for he had lived, against all odds and even his own better judgement, when every man beneath him perished. Duty called for his intestines; capture was a shameful thing, and the captain, manlier than most, was not afraid to bare his guts... but, just as he prepared to plunge the knife, a thing more sharp and terrible than any weapon struck his heart: aye, love, that constant obstacle to good sense. Northern maidens had a cold, dark beauty he was unaccustomed to, and sudden did it claim him; in a year’s time, Harkut had a hut upon a hill, a field of sheep, a wife. Who could’ve guessed that he, of all brutes, had a tender spot? That a crusty old bastard like him, more southern than most, might settle down at all was absurd, let alone in the savage north. But so did it come to pass—and so, as all things must, did it conclude. The army razed his homestead, slaughtered every animal therein, not least of all the bitch who begged (in broken Hedlish, gathering the words she’d heard him speak) they spare her for the baby in her belly. “Kill me!” Harkut pleaded with his captors—by that selfsame sword he’d sworn to set aside for good, he’d put down two before his leg was sliced—but they laughed, spat in his face, and worse; thus was the man made prisoner a second, final time.
“Sorry, old man,” the commanding soldier, half his age, replied—“fate’s got a special end in mind for one like you.”
It did indeed. The bloody gristmill of Arak-Hed’s fighting pits needed fed; war had diverted the city-state’s nigh-constant stream of able men towards a different slaughter, and any fool, one competent with steel or not, was welcome. But Harkut, having become himself one of the hated enemy, would not enter the ring as an upright Hedlishman—no, instead he was shackled and bound, led in chains to the place of his promised doom: King’s End, best of all the world’s arenas. Granted not the common courtesy of a bath, a clean white loincloth and a slick of oil to make the gladiator’s skin shine, Harkut, naked, caked with dirt and blood, held high his head nonetheless, bearing the curses (and other, fouler stuff besides) flung upon him from the vast, cacophonous audience. Here, now, at the utmost height of his life yet never closer to death, his was a sight to behold: tall, aye, though not so tall as some; well built, with veiny muscles bulging from his hairy arms and legs. Broad chest, a stout gut and a good, strong frame, made lean not just through practice, preparation, but by deprivation too, and age (near fifty summers soon, he guessed; he’d lost count). No, the body alone, plain as it was despite its power, was not sufficent to explain his draw. Nor did his face help; handsome none would call him, though his eyes were striking, and if women liked him it was not for prettiness but manly attributes alone—his massive genitals, for instance, laid bare and dangled before the crowd, like a prize cut of meat.
“You dog,” spat Harkut, freed now from his chains and gifted sword—the implement he’d use, he vowed now to the very gods, to slit that snake’s gut. It was long deserved; his cowardice had led to the deaths of dozens, but only the captain knew his crimes—and, what with Raklun being the son of a high magistrate, he knew full well the wheels of justice, mighty though they were, would never grind his like... but now they stood here, barefoot in the sand and wielding arms, that world beyond arena walls as fanciful and useless as a dream!
Young Raklun chuckled. Sweat was pouring from him, pungent; it was high noon, and the day, too hot already, rendered even stout men weak beneath its gaze. “I ought to say the same to you, Captain,” he said, wiping his brow to keep the sting from his eyes, though already he was forced to blink like mad to fight it off. He raised his sword, leveled it at Harkut’s breast. “If I had known you for a traitor then, I’d—”
“Don’t make me laugh, boy,” the old man snarled, stepping close enough for Raklun’s point to prod his hairy sternum. “You, kill me? That’s rich. We’ll see whose guts litter the dirt in due time, but before that, tell me: why trade a soldierin’ life fer the bloodsands, eh?”
“The usual,” said Raklun. “Coin. Cunt. No one loves a blood-spattered champion when he’s just one amongst the cold, starving masses, fighting on the arse-end of the continent... but strip his battle-leathers, grease him up and give him to an audience? I make love every night, each maid more beautiful and willing than the last; I drink wine when I wake, eat the finest meats morning and night—and the scraps I toss to the hound at my feet are a better meal, mark my words, than you got for your last, if they fed you at all!”
He moved to run the so-called traitor through, but Harkut (despite suffering a permanent limp, thanks to the wound he’d endured in the course of capture) was frightfully quick on his toes, pure, honed reflex alone preventing defeat; twisting, he watched the blade slide by, swung with his own. Only Raklun too was keen, and all too quick—“Hah,” he panted, barely avoiding his own swift death.
“I’ve spilt a hundred men’s guts,” growled the young man, circling his foe, his blade drawn back as though an asp’s fangs waiting for the bite—“and what’re you? Another man, that’s all...”
Harkut, with slow, careful footsteps more akin to those of a dancer than a destroyer, circled in turn. Though he had not been oiled in the traditional fashion, a film of greasy sweat now clung to him, rendered his taut, hunched, hairy frame no less gleaming than any fighter what had ever trod there. Back, forth and back again, they traded quick blows, little goading jabs, more taunts than actual attempts; what’s more, they smiled as they did so—men become as boys again, do they not, when in the thick of it and all’s at stake? Even death-games are games, in the end, and here were two expert players; the audience, knowing this, thrilled at each moment, unsure which one of them might die—or maybe both would?—and waiting, white-knuckled, for the stab or swing that would finally do it...
But combat is rarely so swift. The youth, it turned out, drew first blood: a shallow but very red blow across Harkut’s breast, painting his ribs pink. Harkut was quick to return the gift: “Argh,” Raklun cried out, looking down to see the steel nick his flank. It must’ve been the sight, or rather perhaps the scent of their own raw gore which made the bout then take a sudden, grim turn. That boyish playfulness escaped them; suddenly the crowd screamed, for the men had rushed at one another, entering a death hug. There were grunts, groans; the lad made a pained face—only, soon enough, it came apparent that the one who suffered wasn’t him, but Captain Harkut, traitor to the south!
The old man reached down, felt the blade embedded in his waist. His ribs swelled, and so mightly his heart did beat, it made the cage twitch. Looking back up into the would-be killer’s eyes, he leaned closer, like a lover might if yearning for a kiss—and Raklun met him there, staring him down, hissing whispers into his gaped mouth: “There, aye... Feel that? You like it?”
Raklun fed still more to him, full half the blade now; Harkut’s lean, hairy body, bending even further over as he pushed, seemed visibly to tighten around the offending tool, as if willfully swallowing it. The nest of fur around his cock grew damp and crimson—and the cock itself, which had been fattening throughout the fight, now rose to dutiful attention like a proud young soldier, slick and glistening with blood. His whole life, combat-lust had been his close companion, as it was for not a few men in his ugly trade; full oft in battle’s wake had Harkut found his groin moist from the pleasure of his craft. But if he gave his seed now, that would only prove defeat, that he was spent already—no, instead, he would whiten the lad’s guts with it, pour his long, pearly ropes on the red mess of Raklun’s spilt insides, for all there to witness!
Harkut stumbled backward, spurting as he limped; the ground grew wet with what he’d lost. He’d grown woozy, and looked it, his otherwise leather-brown hide turned frightful pale. He could tell—even before pressing a palm to the hole, probing it with his fingers—that the wound was deep. Near the hip, low and left of his navel, the blow grazed his guts (he knew that sting well), but it hadn’t ravaged them; he’d live, if he could only fight a little longer. Betting that the audience—and Raklun—guessed the worsed, he loosed an awful moan, and made his eyes cross; falling on his knees dramatically, he let the blood pour freely down his taut thigh, darkening the sand beneath. “My guts,” he wailed—“you’ve defeated me!”
The crowd exploded, rising from their seats to cheer the victor. Raklun, grinning, seemed surprised that the old man conceded so swiftly (as well that he should do) but took it and ran with it: raising his sword arm and spinning, smiling, showing himself to the whole arena; and indeed, how splendid he looked, wearing the gladiator’s badge of blood. But, tiring at last of this, he turned now to his beaten prey, for it dawned on him that the kill was incomplete, his win unfinished...
“Ah,” he muttered, “aye—you’re still here, breathing, aren’t you?”
Striding confidently to the bleeding brute, he stopped just inches from him, loomed, then hawked a long, fat string of spittle, silver in the sun, that fell and splattered in his face; the crowd laughed. “So,” said Raklun, running steel first along the beaten man’s balls and erection, his red crotch, then following slowly the fur-line that rose up his middle, “where next?” He lay, at last, the edge against Harkut’s pulsing throat, and waited.
“You have,” Harkut panted, “bested me, boy, and finely at that...”
The lad smirked.
“Indeed,” the old man huffed, “I must admit: you are the better man. Would you, sir, do me the very great honor of... no, forget it.”
“What? Say it.”
“I am shamed to admit it, but...” Harkut hung his head, then looked back up at him. “May I... taste it? Taste the seed of he who will destroy me?”
Raklun, believing this at first to be a joke, began to laugh out loud... but, soon enough, amidst his cackling, the humor fled, for he had realized that what his foe asked, however ridiculous on the face of it, excited him. Little different than any man who ends up fighting for sport, the former soldier was far from immune to fantasies of the arena—indeed, for years before setting foot in sand, he’d savored them, and the very best one of all was to dominate one’s beaten, bloodied enemy in the way that only men are able: cock in one hand, weapon in the other. “Very well,” he said at last, surprised indeed to hear these words come from his former mentor’s lips, and yet suddenly all too eager to feel the very same around his member. Very slowly—seductively, and not at all reluctantly—he slid his blood-flecked loincloth down around his shapely hips; exposed, a little bit at first, then all at once, the black bush covering his crotch. His penis sprang loose, throbbing, reddening; the semen, ripe to spurt already, wouldn’t take much effort to extract... but, as the victor arched his back and gave himself to the apparently defeated fighter, offering his body fully, Harkut swung his blade up, plunging it behind the fool’s balls—skwurtch!
Raklun made then a sound that cannot easily be committed to text; those eager to imagine it might call to mind a shrieking woman, or the squalling of a babe—no, something animal rather, primal, like the earth itself were rent and squealing. The man’s sword leapt from his fingers, fell to sand with a thump, for the greatest urge now was not to attack, but to grope—frantically, fruitlessly ultimately—at the great mess that burst, all at once, from his innermost places: the testicles, splayed loose, and cleaved cock thereafter, all blood and white sperm; his bladder, ripped open and loosing its hot piss; and the best part, that organ which all men (all men of their sort, at the least) were so eager to offer or claim in the course of a bout—his bowel, so tightly packed, it seemed, inside that slender waist of his that once old Harkut’s sword slid up and through the gleaming, golden abdomen from underneath, clear past the belly button, it exploded outward and unraveled with a vigor almost sexual in nature, so forcefully and totally that Raklun’s lungs expelled a great, bellowing grunt of effort in that gruesome moment, as though the man had, through an act of sheer will, forced his own innards out...
Now the lad was on his knees, and Harkut loomed.
Their audience fell silent.
Holding the ropes of his guts, Raklun shivered, leaned backward; his slim waist stretched, the wound splayed, and more stuff emerged, far more than anyone might guess a handsome frame like that could hold. Harkut, no longer able to contain himself, threw his sword aside and, spreading wide his feet, angled his rigid, red manhood over the mess; chin to chest, he lowed deep and gritted his teeth, watched the seed that he pumped from himself spurt and cover the blood-shiny, purple-pink bounty. The sight, the feeling of it, satisfied him, as it ought; the question now was, would they celebrate his deed, or send a second man to finish what the fool had started?
The crowd’s roar, which the aging warrior delighted in far more than he’d expected, told the answer.
Next: Harkut the Novice