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The Noble and the Beasts

Chapter 2: An Elf’s Place

By Gideon Kalve Jarvis

Commissioned by Kalenidus

This was simply intolerable! His own young master, the one he’d raised from birth, fed and changed and tutored as best he could in every discipline, whose questions he’d answered with as close to honesty as he was allowed, dragonbranded!

Heraclitus wasn’t the sort of minotaur to show emotions; he was, after all, a professional, and he owed the late Master Eaglardian a great deal. This unpaid debt of honor, of course, was the reason he served as a virtual slave, his only pay the room and board allowed to him by the yet-living heads and heirs of that noble house. Even so, honor could be taken too far sometimes. Times like this, for instance, where not only was Heraclitus in the midst of reeling under the gradual realization of the full implications of young Master Beinion’s new state as one of the dragonbranded, coupled with the necessity of hiding the young master’s excursion of the previous day from his kin, but he was also required to engage in double duty to provide proper accommodations for the human delegates, several of whom had arrived several days early.

Fortunately, at least not all the children of the delegates had arrived, only three of them, in two carriages. The princesses Everlynn and Adia had long been best friends, despite the distance between the former’s northern forest home and the bright southern veldt of the latter’s, and since Everlynn’s mother was a stickler for punctuality, and Adia was visiting at the time, they had arrived together. That and, naturally, there was a very real possibility that Beinion might end up betrothed to Everlynn (her mother being the more aggressive at forming such unions), whether he knew and consented to it or not.

Prince Tapan, meanwhile, was an ambitious sort, a youth of the southeastern deserts who’d always excelled at anything he’d undertaken. The apple of his father’s eye, and master in his own mind of all he surveyed, Tapan didn’t like to wait, and was ever eager for new experiences, hence his swift and sudden arrival only an hour after the two young princesses. Even if he was slightly younger than Beinion himself, the southlands prince carried himself with all the confidence of someone of far greater experience and ability. Heraclitus supposed that this was the natural result of the culture of machismo that ran strong and hot among the menfolk of that sun-baked land. It was a culture that had only met its match a handful of times, which only enhanced Tapan’s inherent pride all the more.

Naturally, since one of those times had been during the invasion of his own people, many human generations past, before they’d fallen under the Curse of the Bull, Heraclitus did his best not to bring up old bad memories. After all, one of the worst things you could do to a boy of such burgeoning pride was to deflate him too rapidly.

“I am not accustomed to being led about by servants,” Tapan exclaimed from behind Heraclitus as the neatly-dressed bull butler guided the prince toward his quarters, the cocky young man resplendent in gold and fine white silk, though slightly travel-stained from his rapid journey. “Especially not of the sub-human sort. Where is the master of this house? I was told that the great elven lord Valdaglerion made his abode in this place, and I am eager to meet him.”

“Sadly, Master Valdaglerion has left already to meet with the royal delegations,” Heraclitus replied quite calmly, considering the strain he was already under, completing a work of preparation in mere hours that should have taken several days at least; if he didn’t keep such a tightly-managed house at all times, the two princesses whom he’d already shown to their rooms would have been met with bare floors and unmade beds! “Mistress Adlanniel is also in the process of completing her preparations for the same journey, and should be leaving within the next few hours, I am afraid. However, the whole of house Eaglardian’s hospitality is open to you, o prince, to provide you with whatever comforts we can to make your stay a true home away from home. You have merely to ask, and we shall put all effort into providing you with what you require.”

“Hardly a way to make an impression on the intended groom of your daughter,” huffed the prince, mostly to himself (since Heraclitus, being a beastman as well as a servant, was hardly fit for conversation) running a hand through his artfully feathered brown hair as he looked around the sun-dappled causeway.

“You are referring to the young Mistress Vanya, I presume?” the onyx-furred minotaur queried with only a slight arch to his eyebrow. “Do forgive me for bearing ill news, but I am afraid that she is betrothed to another.”

“Hah!” Tapan said with full weight of the surety of youth. “A betrothal is a precursor to an event that hasn’t happened yet. When I lay my suit before the lord Valdaglerion regarding the advantages to be gained by allying with my father’s realm, I am assured that he will acknowledge that his sister becoming my first wife will bring this house a far better arrangement than uniting with some demihuman upstart.”

“As it pleases the prince,” Heraclitus answered without looking back, doing his best not to show the pained expression that so wanted to creep onto his face; Urúvion, the “upstart” in question, had spent the night, along with most of the other elven guests, and was likely still at the breakfast table at which Heraclitus was sure the young human man would soon be dining. Needless to say, he was not looking forward to having any part in an international incident due to this boy’s ambitions to marry into political influence among the elves.

“What pleases the prince,” Tapan stated, coming to a sudden stop right at the end of the vaulted causeway, folding his arms in determination, “is to have someone of some importance show him around. I have no intention of being led about by some calf-headed near-human when there is a single proper person in this place to do the job instead!”

If Heraclitus had any less self-control, he might have rolled his eyes. As it was, he had to blink several times to keep the ruby red orbs from seeking the heavens, with or without his consent. Turning, only a little stiffly, he gave the young prince a polite bow.

“As it pleases the prince,” he said calmly instead. “I shall fetch Master Beinion shortly. As he is about your age, I imagine he will make a better guide in any case. Please be seated,” he indicated one of the comfortable cushioned sofas that were expertly arranged about the interior of the estate, ready at any need. “I shall send one of the staff along shortly with breakfast, since I am sure the prince is famished from his long journey.”

Rather than replying, Prince Tapan waved a hand imperiously, not even bothering to look in Heraclitus’ direction as he found his spot on the couch. This time, despite all his efforts to the contrary, the minotaur did finally roll his eyes as he strode down the corridor leading to Beinion’s chambers. Ah well, at least he’d set the timetable back on that pending international incident by subtly arranging for Tapan to breakfast away from Urúvion. A temporary fix, naturally, but every little victory mattered for something.

Along the way, Heraclitus noticed one of the many kobolds that made their abode around the estate. “Plump,” he believed this one was called, and it was fairly obvious why the little dragon-lizard had been given the name: was indeed somewhat paunchy, though not morbidly so. Actually, the slight tummy on the little male only made the brown-speckled, green-scaled creature look somehow more endearing, along with his eyes, which were large and expressive, as was typical of a kobold (all the better to see in the darkness of the caves where they normally dwelt), and very soulful, as was typical for Plump.

At least a few kobolds, actually, could be found in most elven households these days, though especially in house Eaglardian. They were cleaner than goblins, and tended to be quite a bit smarter as well, making them fairly easy to train in the duties of household staff. Back in the old days, they’d been the typical minions of dragons, and so they were quite used to serving others; good at it, too! With the slaying of the Great Dragons who’d served the forces of Evil at the turning point in the final battles that had spelled the end of the war, and the withdrawal of most other dragons, Great or otherwise, into obscurity, many tribes of the fine-scaled little lizard-things had been left unemployed. And being unemployed when you were the smallest and physically weakest race of the beastfolk, especially when you made your homes in the labyrinths of the underground, was just shy of being a death sentence.

Master Eaglardian, as was often the case with the great elven lord, had led the way by accepting kobolds into his own service. That they’d been the kobold servants of a dragon that he had slain personally seemed to matter little to him, so long as they were willing to swear him fealty, and mean it. So a lot of the menial work around the Eaglardian manse’s interior (they disliked working out-of-doors) was tended to by a host of nearly silent scaly feet, which padded their way about when nobody was looking, and made sure every room was in perfect condition, serving under the watchful eyes of Heraclitus in his role as chamberlain. They tended to the plumbing of the estate as well, though in that task, sadly, they weren’t nearly as adept as the rat goblins who made their homes in the sewers beneath the great cities, and earned the right to keep these traditional homes by keeping things rolling along.

“Plump,” Heraclitus addressed the little green dragon-lizard, who squeaked in startlement, so caught up in sweeping up the corners of the hallway had he been, before he turned to look up at the towering black bull with eyes that reminded Heraclitus of something halfway between those of a puppy and the slit-eyed orbs of a kitten. Needless to say, he kept his tone gentle when addressing the brown-speckled creature. “There is a human down that way,” he pointed, “who has not had breakfast yet. He is a guest of the estate. Will you please go and get him some food from the kitchen? Human food,” he clarified. “The cooks will know what to do. All you have to do is bring it to him. Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes, great master minotaur!” exclaimed the little male, tugging up the baggy breeches he was wearing, and which seemed to be perpetually sliding down. “Plump will get food for human! Right away!”

Feeling steadily more dubious about his choice of proxy in this matter, Heraclitus watched the pudgy kobold flap his way enthusiastically toward the estate’s kitchens, holding up his pants with both stubby-fingered hands, and still somehow managing to show off more than a little “cheek” in the process. Ah well, at least he was heading in the right direction, and seemed to know where he was supposed to go, and very possibly what he was supposed to do when he got there. For now, Heraclitus had other matters that required his attention. Matters such as waking poor Master Beinion, and ensuring that nobody saw the new decoration gracing his otherwise flawless buttock.

*

Groaning softly, Beinion opened his eyes, blinking. For a moment he considered the stray shaft of light that had somehow made its way through a gap in the curtains, and was playing across the middle of his bed. It wasn’t quite on his face, but its mere presence was enough to remind his body of the day’s coming, and its many requirements.

Shucking the sheets slowly, Beinion groaned again. He ached all over! Standing and arching his back in a slow stretch, the silver-haired elfboy knew perfectly well that, were it not for his elven healing, as well as the magical salves Heraclitus had applied the night before, he certainly would have been covered in bruises and scratches and possibly worse from the events of the previous day. Those beastmen had been rough! Lucky for him that elves didn’t scar…

Wait, what was that? Naked, Beinion ran a hand down his bottom, giving a soft gasp as his fingers touched the strange marking that had been stamped there by the bronze-skinned minotaur’s branding iron. The scar from that brand hadn’t healed. In fact, it felt…well…lasting. Walking to the full-length mirror near his chest of drawers, Beinion spent an unconscious moment admiring his supple, youthful body, with his trim, toned chest and belly showing the slight bumps of his hard exercise. His was a body built for agility and flexibility and speed, the skills needed most in a fencing match.

Speaking of fencing, Beinion couldn’t resist spending a little longer looking at his penis. Had it actually grown since yesterday? He hadn’t thought such a thing was possible without magic, but, well, it looked larger, even tucked up and flaccid as it was, along with his flawlessly ivory-smooth sac, from the slight chill of the room. All the same, his was an elven penis, long and slender, a piece of living art, much like the rest of him. All of him, that is, except for…ah!

Before he’d turned, Beinion had touched the brand again with his hand. This time, the touch made his whole body go rigid, his eyes widening as he saw himself differently. There was a strange feeling that came over him, a sense of an alien presence peering through his eyes and seeing him, not as he saw himself, but as an outsider would view him. His body was beautiful, an alabaster prize, a perfect mix of soft and firm. A prize well worth having, well worth killing for. But not worth dying for, no: if you did that, then you couldn’t enjoy the obvious pleasures a body like this sweet young elfling’s had to offer.

Whimpering, Beinion could almost feel the rough hands of this presence on him, forcing him around, his head turning to ensure he kept a constant view of his body in the mirror. Of course, this had to be his imagination, and yet it felt so real. His golden eyes raked down his supple back, noting the slight, almost feminine dimples above his perfect buttocks. And they were perfect buttocks, rounded and sleek and firm, but also yielding, just a little, in all the right ways. Beinion’s was a bottom that almost demanded that some brute seize it, spank it, maul it, then spread it wide and…

Wincing, Beinion pulled his hand away from where it had been covering the brand, though the action required an effort of will. Instantly the sense of alien eyes appraising him ceased, and he was able to inspect the mark more carefully. It wasn’t very large, a little less than the size of a copper coin in width, and it had already turned from a black sear-mark to a pink indentation on his otherwise flawless skin, a testament to the speed of his elven healing. To all but direct observation, it would be easy enough to overlook, and that, naturally, would require Beinion to be naked in the first place. But it was still there, and if that was the case, then it was now likely a permanent addition to his formerly flawless elven body, for even the most basic of healing salves would remove scars as fresh as the brand had been yesterday night, and a powerful unguent like the one Clitus had used would remove even the aged scars of a hardened veteran, to say nothing of curing all his hurts. The salve’s effects must have been potent indeed, if Beinion only felt a little soreness in his back after the hours of…activities he’d endured yesterday!

Obviously this was something magical, though Beinion had no idea what sort of magic it could be. Did the beastmen have magic still? He’d heard that they’d been banned from its use after the end of the Chaos Wars, finally concluded almost ten years back, when he’d still been a small boy (though, of course, this was just when the final peace treaty was signed; the actual end of the war proper had taken place a bit earlier than that). But there it was, stamped onto his otherwise smooth bum, almost unnoticeable, and yet still present, as he was gradually starting to realize it would be for probably all the rest of his life.

“Yes,” came a deep voice from the doorway to his chambers, and Beinion turned only just in time to see Heraclitus quietly shutting the door behind him; the massive black minotaur was so quiet, even Beinion’s elven senses wouldn’t have detected him if he hadn’t spoken. “You’ve been dragonbranded, I’m afraid. This rather changes your life situation.”

“Dragonbranded?” Beinion couldn’t help but ask the obvious question, even as he self-consciously covered his erect penis with his hands, his cheeks growing flushed for reasons he didn’t quite understand; after all, Heraclitus had raised him, and still saw the elfboy naked most mornings, and on those occasions when he helped Beinion dress for extra-formal occasions. “What did that minotaur do to me, Clitus?” The boy frowned a moment, pulling up his memories from the erotic blur that was yesterday. “I think his name was Vyrran.”

“One of the greatest smiths of the minotaurs,” Heraclitus responded immediately on hearing the name, even as he went to the chest of drawers and began selecting items to form Beinion’s wardrobe for that day. “He was preserved in magical living bronze by the dragons for whom he once worked, back in the days of the Chaos Wars, and before. The bronzing effect has made him essentially unaging, as well as nearly indestructible, and yet it is only a minor gift, compared to a dragon’s branding iron.”

“I thought you minotaurs were basically immortal anyway, Clitus,” Beinion commented, even as the towering dark figure went about his work in almost total silence, so unobtrusive at his work that the silver-haired boy had to focus hard just to keep the minotaur from slipping out of his conscious line of sight.

“Indeed,” agreed the bull, patently ignoring Beinion’s soft gasp as his hands began moving over the boy’s body, carefully avoiding actual contact with his skin in the process of swiftly, efficiently putting clothes onto his young charge. “I am equal to Vyrran in age. We served the same dragon, if I must be completely honest. When your father slew our former master, I chose to serve him instead, as did most of the kobolds, I because I saw your father’s greatness and honor, they because they saw his power, sufficient to best a dragon. Vyrran, on the other hand, chose to take on the role of a mercenary smith, forging weapons for both sides, though he bought his life from your father with masterful works, including your family’s ancestral sword, carried by Master Valdaglerion at this time, after the sword your father used to slay our former master melted in the Great Drake’s blood.”

“So it’s not actually made by elves like I was told,” Beinion said meditatively, his penis gradually softening just in time for Heraclitus to lace up his breeches, something the bigger male had saved for last. “Just like my own sword.” He smirked wryly. “Guess that’s just another example of elven hubris, huh?”

“That is not my place to say, Master Beinion,” answered the big black bull. “At this time, however, there are more pressing matters before I can spend the luxury of giving you a full explanation of what it means to be one of the dragonbranded: several of the human guests have arrived early, including the Princess Everlynn, to whom I believe you have a good chance of being betrothed in the diplomatic proceedings soon to take place. She is with her friend, the Princess Adia, and their bodyguard, a woman of the North whose name I was not given. However, at this time they are only an incidental concern.”

“Incidental!” exclaimed Beinion, shaking his head in stunned disbelief. “I’m going to get married to a girl I’ve never met before – a human, no less – and she’s only incidental!” Then he swiftly sobered as he realized the full implications of how serious the rest of the problem must be. “Who else is here?”

“Prince Tapan, of the Southeastern Courts,” replied Heraclitus. “Apparently he wants to displace the engagement between your sister, Vanya, and Urúvion. I have quartered his bodyguard, and so at least the complication of that watchful presence has been temporarily negated, but I fear that the young prince is very insistent.” Heraclitus’ face tightened to the slightest degree, such that only Beinion’s long experience with the old bull let him recognize the signs of annoyance. “About a great many things.”

“I’ve heard about Tapan,” Beinion nodded sympathetically, reaching out to pat his servant and friend’s shoulder (and involuntarily shuddering at the contact; why was this familiar male so distracting right now? And why was he so interested in seeing what Heraclitus looked like under his clothes…?). “I’ve heard he’s been spoiled rotten back home. Which I guess makes sense when your father is considered a mortal demigod, and you the heir to his divine investiture. And if he’s going after Vanya…” he shook his head. “I guess I ought to go and greet him, huh?”

“That would be ideal, Master Beinion,” replied Heraclitus. “If the young prince’s bodyguard is allowed to roam at will, I expect that he is acting as a spy for Prince Tapan’s father, and will likely create some disturbances, if not now, then certainly later when he provides a report to the Sultan. Simultaneously, while the young princesses are less unruly, their bodyguard strikes me as the sort to be…troublesome when bored. That, and it would reflect poorly upon your noble family if we were not to provide the princesses with all the hospitality due to their station, as well as that of a standard to be expected from House Eaglardian.”

“Sounds like everything’s on the edge of going nuts out there,” Beinion commented with a wince as he started to realize the full implications of what was going on in his household. “What about the other guests? Are they still on their projected schedule?”

“Initially they were,” replied Heraclitus, adopting the stoic aspect that Beinion knew he only wore when things were seriously going to Hell. “However reports are coming in constantly from Nostariel’s friends and companions in the Golden Guard, as well as some from the forest guardians, feeding their information through Thandiel, and they are not promising. We may have only a day, perhaps two, before more of the swifter among our potential guests arrive and begin to make their equally pressing demands on House Eaglardian’s hospitality.”

“What’s making everybody so eager to get here, Clitus?” asked Beinion, shaking his silver-haired head. “It just doesn’t make sense to me. I mean, traveling fast like that can’t be comfortable, especially when the diplomatic meetings don’t even get underway for at least another week.”

“According to what I have heard from your dear mother and brother,” Heraclitus began, and Beinion realized he was in for a pretty significant information dump, “this is a rather historic occasion. While the Chaos War has been finished for roughly a decade, it is only now that matters have finally been properly organized, and all the stray threads of violence and disorder have been brought under control by the Celestials and their mortal allies.”

“In other words, everybody, us elves included, have finally made the jump from a war footing to peacetime administration,” Beinion translated, all the better to make sense of what he was being told.

“Even so, good Master. In this time of raging peace, the various factions on the side of the Celestials and of Order are coming together, and they fully intend to properly divide up the many potential spoils left behind with the retreat of the forces of Evil into their distant realms and deep holes in the rocks.”

“Peace broke out, and now everybody wants a piece,” quipped the boy dryly, shaking his head. “And Tapan’s just ahead of the curve, wanting to get in good with a family whose near-mythical and deceased head was one of the most influential figures in the Celestials’ victory over the forces of Evil in the Chaos Wars.” Then his face took on a meditative quality. “I guess Everlynn is about the same, except in her case, at least I kind of knew it was coming, even if I didn’t know to whom. She might just be a pawn in greater games, like me, and figured she should at least meet her potential betrothed before the wedding, to see what she’s in for. Benefit of the doubt, you see,” he added with a shrug and sheepish smile at Heraclitus.

“A good attitude, I think,” the black bull agreed. “At present, however, I feel that the young ladies have more need of comforts derived from the help in order to properly settle in, while Prince Tapan...” Once more Beinion saw the slight tension around the minotaur’s mouth, and this time even caught a brief glimpse of a sharp canine (not something one expected in such a bovine face, naturally). “The prince requires more ‘official’ recognition to keep him properly entertained.”

“Okay, let me see if I’ve got what’s going on here,” Beinion began, frowning as he worked through the doublespeak of his most loyal servant and confidant; Heraclitus’ circumspect manner of speech could be puzzling to those unused to it, but Beinion regarded figuring it out as an exercise in subtle diplomacy, even if he’d never been so good at that level of subtlety himself. “What you’re going to go do is first organize the other servants to make sure the two princesses are comfortable and settled in right. Then you’re going to work at keeping everybody’s bodyguards either entertained or distracted, depending on the person and the exact situation; that’s gonna take your direct touch, I’m sure.”

“Most certainly,” agreed Heraclitus promptly.

“So that leaves me to go make nice with Tapan,” Beinion finished with a slightly sour expression, though he soon sighed and rolled his shoulders, the physical action a mirror of the internal resolution he’d made. “Guess there’s no getting around it if things are as bad as you say, huh?” he finished with a hopeful smile at his older friend.

“Sadly, that is correct, Master Beinion.”

“Well,” Beinion straightened and started walking toward the door, putting on all the formal bearing expected of an elven noble, or at least doing the best he could. “I suppose I’d better get to it, then.”

“Very good, dear Master,” Heraclitus replied, holding the door open for Beinion, even though the elfboy hadn’t really noticed the big bull moving from next to the wardrobe over to the door.

*

“Give me that, you incompetent fool!” snapped Tapan, snatching the sloshing goblet out of the chubby green kobold’s tiny, clawed hands only mere instants before it spilled. A second later, the kobold gave an almost canine yelp as his well-rounded bottom, still only barely covered by his ill-fitting trousers, received a swift kick, sending him tumbling onto all-fours on the smooth marble floor of the well-appointed hallway.

“Plump is sorry!” whimpered the kobold, covering his eyes with both hands, bottom and stubby, spike-backed tail thrust in the air as he pushed his head down as far as possible; being a kobold, it was only natural to assume that displeasing the one you were supposed to be serving would result in near-instant death…if you were lucky! If you weren’t so lucky (and Plump knew perfectly well that he wasn’t), that inevitable demise could take a while. “Please no eat Plump!”

“Oh get up,” growled the prince, though somewhat less vehemently than before, rolling his eyes as he lounged on the conveniently-placed loveseat against one wall of the passage, set there with the specific intention of providing comfort to the more impatient sort of visitors who didn’t want to wait in one of the plush side rooms designed for just that purpose, but rather to linger in the more visible areas where they couldn’t be so easily ignored. “I just can’t stand incompetent help. Why, it’s almost as though these elves couldn’t be bothered to show the proper respect for a guest of my station and…”

“What’re you cowering down there for, Plump?” came a pleasant, lightly masculine tenor. “Did you trip again?”

“Hello Master,” said Plump, daring to uncover one eye, in the hope that his imminent demise might be postponed somewhat; elves, after all, weren’t known for eating their servants…well, at least not as far as Plump was aware; then again, perhaps they did, and nobody had lived to see it! “Plump…made a mistake,” he admitted, glancing toward the spilled crockery and cracked crystal lying where it had been hastily swept behind the loveseat.

“Plump made a lot of mistakes!” laughed Urúvion as he walked over to the scattered bits of wreckage, and then made an almost casual motion of his hands. Instantly, the various pieces slid back together, the mending spell a simple one, one of the earliest any good student of magic should know, and one that elves learned in their earliest days, as a matter of practicality. “There, no lasting harm done. Well,” he eyed the spilled wine and demolished breakfast cake crumbs still on the floor, “except for that, of course. Go and fetch a mop, Plump, and clean up the rest.”

“Yes Master!” Plump responded, and immediately scrambled forward, apparently forgetting for several minutes that he could walk on two legs in his eagerness to obey…and also forgetting to pull up his trousers as well, giving both boys a rather embarrassing glimpse of the kobold’s apple bottom, as well as the surprisingly sizable dangly bits between his legs.

“He’s got enthusiasm, at least,” Tapan commented as he watched the little lizard-thing scampering off, finally managing to get back onto his feet and tug up his pants in the same movement…which nearly proved too complex for him, as he almost immediately started stumbling forward, only narrowly catching himself at the last moment. “Pity it can’t be channeled into actual competence. But I suppose you get what you pay for when it comes to servants in other lands, where you don’t have the benefit of divine right to keep the staff in line.”

“Yeah, guess so,” agreed the lightly-freckled elf, running a casual hand through his upswept, flame-colored hair. “You get used to them, though. Lord Eaglardian figured they didn’t have anywhere else to go, so he took them on as staff. I think they work for room and board, pretty much like they did back in the times before the Chaos Wars, except here the room and board are a lot nicer than some dragon’s unused side chambers, the ones the fire-breathing lizards were too big to fit into. They know they’ve got a pretty good deal here, so they’re eager to please. Most of them are good at it, too, quick and quiet, so you don’t even notice them around most of the time. Plump, though…he’s ‘special.’”

“Simple-minded, you mean,” Tapan growled, though his ill humor was swiftly fading at having this pleasant young elf as a companion. Draining his glass and giving a slight cough as he found the wine within to be stronger than he’d expected, the dusky-skinned boy stood up and presented his hand to the freckle-skinned, fire-haired boy nearby. “Prince Tapan.”

“Urúvion,” answered the boy, taking Tapan’s hand in a friendly shake.

Blinking, Tapan was only just starting to realize the full import of the other boy’s name, and what this meant to what might have been, if not a friendship, at least a pleasant companionship, when stacked against his political ambitions, when another elven boy approached from down the hall, this one with almost metallic silver hair that shone in the morning sun, and the flawless, unblemished complexion most humans associated with elves, making his skin look almost like the smooth white marble beneath their feet.

“Prince Tapan?” asked the approaching boy, and once again Tapan found himself shaking hands as he nodded his acknowledgement of the greeting. “I’m Beinion, the other son of House Eaglardian. I understand that you wanted someone to give you the full tour?”

“What I really want right now,” Tapan said, his normally arrogant demeanor mollified now upon finally getting the proper treatment he felt he deserved, as well as the politeness of his host, and the pleasant company of someone he expected would become his enemy in the too-near future, “is some breakfast and a bath.” He gestured with the wine glass, before setting it on a nearby end table. “While fortifying, a glass of wine and a crust on the trail simply isn’t enough to properly dispel the dust of my travels.”

“I haven’t dined either,” admitted Beinion. “And I know I could use a good morning scrub as well.” Turning, the silver-haired elf gave a motion of his head as he seemed to lose a bit of his formality, replacing it instead with a sense of genial companionship. “C’mon, I’ll show you to the baths. I think there’s a crew in there, doing some routing maintenance, but it’s just kobolds: they won’t be a bother.”

“If you say so,” Tapan said dubiously, to which both elven boys laughed.

“They’re not all like Plump,” Urúvion said, giving Tapan a light clap on the back as he fell into step with the other two boys. “Though the little guy makes up for his mistakes with a big heart; other kobolds can get kind of sneaky, even when they’re doing the right thing, but with Plump, you always know he’ll try and follow his heart.”

“Or his stomach,” chimed in Beinion, making all three boys laugh at the joke.

*

What a day it was proving to be already, and it was only barely past breakfast time. At times like these, when everything seemed to be happening all at once, Bathes-in-Crescents was glad that all he had to do was manage a gang of kobolds. As head kobold on the Eaglardian estate, all he had to do was occasionally supervise, and not be afraid of getting dirty when the need demanded. After all, most kobolds suffered from a chronic terror of being messily devoured (old habits die hard, after all), so only this light touch was all that was typically required to keep his workers motivated. Heraclitus, on the other hand…the big black bull had to be running himself ragged, or so Cress imagined, since Heraclitus never let on that anything was amiss unless things were already beyond all recovery.

One of the veterans of the Chaos Wars, Bathes-in-Crescents (or just Cress to most, his name derived from his love for being around as much gold as possible, the crescent being one of the most common gilded denominations around) and Heraclitus had both served the same dragon, and had both done jobs that weren’t all that much different from their present occupations. Heraclitus had been a dragon’s major domo, and Cress had handled the teams assigned to menial tasks. The biggest difference, really, from then to now was that the kobolds had next to no casualties these days.

Elves really were too soft for their own good sometimes. Of course, dirty jobs were the lot of any kobold in service to someone, whether they were dragon or elf. Dirty jobs like clogged drains.

“Stupid pretty elf hair!” snarled Eats-Nails-For-Breakfast (Nails to everyone who bothered remembering a kobold’s name), his body stripped right down to his heavily-scarred black scales, as he gave a mighty grunt, and jerked another wad of comingled black-gold-red-silver hair from the open drain of the big marble bath where he and Best-Dressed-Dragon were laboring, handing it over to his partner-in-plumbing, who stuffed the wad of hair into a burlap sack. “Thick and shiny and so stupid dragon-dung hard to clean out of drains!”

Best, true to form, was still wearing his enchanted vest, a paisley-patterned, spidersilk fashion statement, something that had been intended for a very wealthy young gnome, if Cress’ crew hadn’t intercepted its shipment. The vest was magical, and thus immune to wear, tear, and grime, which was why the purple-scaled kobold didn’t have any concerns about getting his single article of clothing soiled or damaged, despite the work involved. Unlike the grumpy black kobold, the purple-scaled male had a casual demeanor, unruffled and calm, with a slight quirk to his mouth that hinted at the beginning of a true smile. While Cress was the leader of the Eaglardian-sworn kobolds, Best was their diplomat. Of course, it didn’t hurt that his ridged, purple penis that could pop into an internal, reptile-like sheath when he was naked, as opposed to Nails’ uncut, almost humanlike prick: knowing that you could tuck in your goodies in a pinch made a surprising amount of difference in social situations.

Wearing a loincloth himself, Cress freely admitted that he liked the “supervising” part of his job. Especially when it involved watching two attractive, healthy males working hard, their trim, tight muscles flexing beneath scales almost as fine as skin. Best’s build was more lithe than Nails’, but they both had their appeal, naturally, especially their rumps. Nails had a bottom that was firm, solid, masculine (if on a smaller scale than that of the big folk), while Best’s…mmm, it was almost too much for Cress to resist hopping into the bath and giving that perfect purple rump a good two-clawed squeeze. Knowing Best, he probably would have appreciated it, and knowing Nails, the taciturn kobold would probably have joined in, even if he’d also probably claim he was only doing it as a “team-building exercise.” Ah, but there was just too much to do right then to indulge in a kobold’s favorite pastime. So much work, and so little time to…

“Cress?” came the voice of Plump, followed shortly afterward by the pudgy kobold’s actual appearance. “Where the mops? Plump…um, Plump made a mistake.”

Rolling his eyes, Cress went to the nearest closet and pulled out a broom, a mop, a bucket, and several rags, passing them over to Plump in very careful fashion, making sure the other kobold had them all securely in hand, one-by-one, before reaching for the next one. Plump, like many of the more simple-minded kobolds, typically referred to himself in the third person. Unlike most kobolds, though, Plump was as sweet-natured a person as you could hope to find, and even if they didn’t share the innocent kobold’s outlook, the rest of his people didn’t have the heart to try and corrupt the brown-speckled green kobold any more than necessary; they were even gentle with him during their sex play. Plump was basically their mascot, since every kobold on the Eaglardian estate had a soft spot for the pudgy guy.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was almost as well-hung as Heraclitus. No wonder he was so clumsy, with a cock and set of plums like that always in the way!

“New human prince kick Plump,” Plump admitted as he started waddling his way toward the exit of the bath. “Don’t wanna get human prince mad again.”

Now that made Cress frown, even as he heard Nails’ triumphant roar (honestly more of a loud squeak, akin to that of a territorial chipmunk warding off similarly-sized interlopers) as he yanked out the last of the blockage in the bath, before he and Best scrambled for the edge and hauled themselves out, even as the water started pouring in, steaming hot, and soaking them both in the process, leaving their bare scales glistening. He didn’t have time to question Plump further, though, as the other kobold made his way out of the bathroom, cleaning supplies clutched carefully in his little talons, and Cress knew he’d have to turn his attention back to supervising.

“You both hot in wet scales,” Cress chuckled, patting his two closest comrades in the kobold corps on their rumps, before tugging lightly on their short tails with a slight sigh. “Pity we no have time for fun: lots of work to do. Plump already gotta go clean up halls around guest rooms, then get second bedroom ready for other human princess.”

“Humans always making things complicated,” grunted Nails. “C’mon, we go get more soap for elfies. Maybe we watch ‘em bathe,” he added with a slight smirk that made all the scars on the left side of his face crinkle.

As much as kobolds might have disliked the other races, most of that stemmed from the harsh reality that those other races had done their best to exterminate the kobolds as though they were common pests, back in the days before Master Eaglardian had taken them in. Truthfully, kobolds could recognize attractive members of other species, and enjoyed watching them as much as the next sapient race. Especially elves: all of them were hot!

Eaglardian had done a lot for race relations, actually, especially in a time when most people didn’t even bother to try and tell the difference between a kobold and a goblin. Not that it was that hard to figure out! After all, a kobold was anything small and scaly that could talk, while goblins were the furry ones. Kobolds tended to spend their time around dragons, and so they didn’t vary quite as much as goblins, who had a propensity for independence that kobolds didn’t have, and so while kobolds tended to be uniformly short and scaled, goblins had any number of sub-species, from the fairly common rat goblins to raccoons to foxes and coyotes or even spiders (though those last tended to be pretty rare), and their sizes could range almost as much, some of them actually human-sized. Kobolds did occasionally grow bigger, especially those who’d interbred directly with dragons, or sometimes the big races (human prisoners were a perpetual favorite in a kobold den), but such size was much more rare for them, mostly due to a lack of opportunity. Opportunities that were lacking primarily because dragons didn’t like to share.

Those opportunities hadn’t improved much, Cress mused, as he, Best, and Nails gathered up the various supplies needed for a good elven bath, while the background was filled with the noise of water rushing back into the big sunken marble bathtub they’d just unclogged. They were so close to elves these days, and yet more separated from them than they’d ever been from their dragon masters. At least a dragon would occasionally get the urge for some variety, and try out a kobold or six for the fun of it. Elves…bah! Elves were such intraspecies prudes! And humans? Well, humans liked to think of themselves as prudes. The truth, of course, was that they were the second sluttiest race Cress had ever met (dragons being number one, of course). And everybody knew it, too. Everybody, that is, except the humans themselves.

“Hmm, I admit,” came a voice, breaking into Cress’ inner monologue as he set another bar of soap next to the others in the bathside basket he was preparing, while Best gathered towels, and Nails an armful of sponges, “you elves make bathing facilities almost as magnificent as the ones in my father’s palace.”

The voice belonged to a human, that much Cress and his companions could tell immediately; an elven voice was always slightly higher in pitch than that of a human, and had a musical quality that came naturally, something no human throat could ever reproduce without the aid of magic. The three kobolds shared a look, all of them realizing that this human had to be the one that had kicked Plump. While they weren’t allowed to take direct action against a guest of the Eaglardian household, that didn’t mean that this visitor had to get their complete cooperation. Oh no, this human princeling was going to discover how difficult life could be when “the help” wasn’t there at your beck and call.

At least he would once there weren’t any elves around to see!

Mmm, and speaking of seeing elves, the eye candy quality of their masters was certainly a pretty good payoff for shifting work from dragons to elves. The three boys, two elves and the human, didn’t pay the kobolds the least bit of attention as they stepped into the antechamber where the kobolds were gathering bath supplies, and promptly started to strip down to their smooth, pretty skins. As they stepped into the magically-enchanted shower to drizzle off the lesser grime before they stepped into the bath proper, Cress, Nails, and Best all took the opportunity afforded by their social invisibility and small size to savor this moment, and properly enjoy the visual treat unwittingly presented to them.

Of immediate interest was the brown-skinned princeling, Tapan, or so Cress recalled Heraclitus mentioning at some point during the hurried orders of the day, shortly after the minotaur major domo had discovered that the main bath was clogged again. Even with water raining down on him, spattering his flawlessly-sculpted young body with droplets until it almost glowed like warm bronze, his brown hair stayed artfully feathery, probably the result of one of the many magical charms that were in vogue among the wealthy. His musculature was the trim, taut figure expected from one who practiced the two-scimitar manner of fighting common among Tapan’s people, where the practitioner would seldom enter battle with little more than a long robe and perhaps an armored turban. To that end, Tapan’s body had to be agile as well as strong, making him almost like an elf, except that his belly bulged more visibly with the cobblestone bumps of hard muscle, and his bottom was slightly more squared than the perfect, nearly feminine curves of an elven boy’s bottom. Also unlike an elf, Tapan’s penis was shorter than that of the typical elf (though not miniscule by any means), but a bit thicker, as well as circumcised, something only done quite rarely among elven boys who really wanted to demonstrate their uniqueness, often as a presage to genital piercings. He also had a light dusting of pubic fuzz, though he’d trimmed it fairly short, so that it wouldn’t get in the way on those occasions when the boy would wear chainmail into battle.

Speaking of elven boys, young lord Urúvion was quite a sight himself. Any casual observer, without the benefit of any comparison, would have considered the lightly freckled elf with the shock of fire red hair thrust almost straight up from his handsome head to be near the pinnacle of elven perfection. His limbs were long and supple, like the boughs of a tree, and his core had that smooth musculature sometimes seen among human women who engaged in especially heavy physical training, the hard muscle present, but not interfering with the artful beauty of the freckle-skinned elfboy. Ah, but compare him side-by-side with a human on one side and a pure elf on the other, the three of them happily chatting away about…something that didn’t really interest the kobolds, honestly, the difference could be immediately seen. Urúvion was indeed more blocky in body and visibly solid in musculature than Beinion, that was certain. A little taller, too, in fact taller than Tapan, with a penis that was longer than either of the other boys’, and thicker as well. The freckles on Urúvion’s body just made the paleness of his delicate skin stand out even more, especially on his taut buns, made strong from the ample running training all elves engaged in regularly, dodging and jumping and climbing through their beloved forests, but also left delightfully pale because of the short breeches he wore, even when the rest of his body was unclothed and bathed in sweat during a sun-dappled workout.

Ah, and then there was the prize jewel of the three: Beinion. Nails, especially, had a liking for the silver-haired beauty, and Cress admitted that he liked the youngest Eaglardian as well. The boy wasn’t the pushy sort, and he never seemed to mind even when he noticed the kobolds watching him taking a bath, which they did quite regularly (the start of their present occupation, in fact: it was just a habit Beinion had allowed to continue). His pretty silver hair was a bit of a pain to clean out from the drains, but nobody was perfect. Mmm, and that body of his was absolutely flawless, from exquisite elven face with its delicate, high cheeks and artful chin and wide, expressive golden eyes, down his smooth chest and artfully-muscled stomach, to his long and rapier-slender prick to his smooth and supple legs to his…

Cress’ eyes widened only a moment after Best’s and Nails’ did, as all three of them saw it at the same time: the mark on Beinion’s bottom. Almost perfectly healed over, so that it didn’t stand out by color, but only texture, less observant eyes, or those that didn’t desire to linger so long on beautiful elven boyflesh, wouldn’t have noticed it. Beinion’s companions certainly didn’t see it, and even if they had, there was little chance of them recognizing it. But the kobolds recognized it, and knew immediately what it meant: the young master Eaglardian was dragonbranded!

“What could I do?” laughed Tapan with the boys as he and Urúvion made their way toward the lightly steaming pool the kobolds had prepared for them, its waters now circulating once they’d reached their proper depth for a good soak, while retaining their perfect temperature thanks to the magic inherent in almost everything elves constructed. “I had to give the horse a medal!”

“Master Beinion?” Cress said in his most obsequious tones as he reached out to touch the alabaster-skinned elf’s hand, making him pause and turn to look at the copper-scaled kobold now looking up at him with bright-slitted eyes, their irises the color of new-minted coins. “You come with me, yes? Have,” he paused, obviously struggling for the right words, “important matters to discuss.”

“All right, Cress,” replied Beinion, his face betraying his obvious confusion as he let the kobold lead him into the side room where the kobolds kept the bathing supplies (and his remembering Bathes-in-Crescents’ nickname making the boss kobold feel just a little guilty at what he was about to do: Beinion was one of the few who always remembered the names of all the beastfolk on the estate). “What’s going on?”

“Well, master,” Cress said, rubbing the back of his horn-crested head a little self-consciously, looking around the room and the artfully-concealed panel that allowed entry into the tunnels below the estate, where the pipes could be directly accessed. “We saw…this.”

As he spoke, Cress reached out and pressed the tips of his blunted claws against the brand on Beinion’s perfect pink bottom. Instantly, Beinion’s whole body tensed, growing rigid. Almost as quickly, his penis started to harden, his flawless pale cheeks flushing with beautiful color.

“Cress?” asked the boy, looking down at the boss kobold, and then toward his companions, who now closed in around him, naked shafts hardening only slightly slower than his own. “Nails? Best? What…what are you…?”

“No talk,” Best said with all the honeyed sweetness his forked tongue could produce, even as he lightly caressed Beinion’s branded bottom. “Slave.”

Beinion opened his mouth, his eyes showing the most exquisite anguish at the word (even as his prick throbbed, precum already starting to bead at the tip), but from behind him Nails spoke a single word, his muzzle curling up in a sneer as he gave voice to one of the most harsh and guttural words in the draconic language: the word for ordering a slave to obey. Shuddering all over, Beinion sank to his knees, gasping for breath at the rush of sensations blasting through his young body.

“Long time since we had a slave of our own,” Cress said, not unkindly, as he stroked Beinion’s beautiful silver hair. “Too long. Not since we served dragons, and they gave us playthings to abuse. To…humble.”

Cress punctuated the last word by seizing hold of Beinion’s silver locks, pulling the boy forward. Beinion’s mouth opened to cry out, but Cress had already unbuckled his loincloth with the other claw, and eagerly stuffed the wadded-up garment into the exquisite Cupid’s bow of the elfboy’s mouth. Licking his chops, Nails circled around Beinion, and soon had the poor boy’s wrists cinched behind his back, and all the while the only thing Beinion could do was turn his head, looking at the muscular little lizard-things with desperate, pleading eyes.

“We take him to the lair?” asked Best, popping open the panel leading down, his ridged purple cock as achingly hard and throbbing as those of every other male in that little side room. “Take little elfie slave down, to special room, share him with all others?”

“Make little elfie squeal,” stated Nails, his voice deeper than that of the typical kobold, enough that the words came out as a sensual growl as he leaned close to Beinion’s delicately-pointed ear, making the boy whimper, his cock dripping now as the black-scaled kobold took his time slowly caressing his prisoner’s alabaster bottom. “He dragonbranded: everybody’s property.” His pointed, unforked tongue, more like that of a lizard than a snake, arched out, and he slowly dragged it across Beinion’s cheek, even as the elf closed his eyes, his head tilting toward the heavens as he visibly surrendered himself to his inevitable doom. “This what he deserves.”

“No be sad, Beinion,” said Cress, leaning in to lick the elfboy’s other cheek, his rough-scaled hands caressing the smooth elven chest, exploring its perfectly-sculpted, lean musculature. “You lucky: not all beastfolk slaves get dragonbranded. Only the ones who,” he visibly struggled to find the right words, “need it.”

“Good little elfie,” purred Best, padding over, his small hand wrapping around Beinion’s aching erection. “Sweet little elfie.”

“Tight little elfie!” chuckled Nails, making Beinion give a short, muffled cry as the kobold slipped a clawtip into Beinion’s anal ring, sending a short jet of precum splashing onto the floor between Best’s and Cress’ feet. “Elfies always tight!” He pressed his chest against Beinion’s back, little claws teasing the boy’s nipples, while his disproportionately heavy cock rubbed between Beinion’s flawless buns. “Nice little Beinion make very good slave; we make sure you enjoy new life down below. Forever.”

Of course Nails would know that; after all, he was the oldest kobold to serve the Eaglardian household, and certainly the one who’d seen the most active combat. For kobold to survive one combat, let alone as many as Nails had…well, when Nails spoke, it was wise to listen. And if he said that their good former master, Beinion, was good slave material, and would actually enjoy his life in their clutches, both the older kobold’s companions believed him, and suddenly all guilt at what they were doing evaporated.

Just in time, as it turned out.

“Beinion?” came Urúvion’s voice, before he appeared in the entryway to the small chamber, pulling aside its concealing curtain. “Beinion, where are you? I found this lovely wine chilling in one of the nooks around the tub, and Tapan and I can’t possibly…” The fire-haired elf stopped in mid-sentence, his jaw dropping as he saw three well-endowed and very aroused kobolds surrounding his friend, who was kneeling, naked, in the middle of the trio, bound, gagged, and obviously in great peril.

Instantly, Nails leapt for a nearby shelf, snagging a heavy burlap sack used for hauling laundry. Scrambling up almost to the top of the shelf, he then leapt down, and before Urúvion’s elven reflexes could kick in, he discovered that kobold reflexes were even faster, for he was quite suddenly hauled to the ground, the sack over his head, Cress stepping forward to help his comrade as the pair cinched the sack tight around Urúvion’s waist, his freckled bare bottom squirming in the air as Nails held the other elf’s head down, letting Cress loop another towel around Urúvion’s ankles.

“What’s going on here?” demanded Tapan, coming up behind the point where Urúvion had just been standing, his mouth similarly dropping open at what had to amount to a slave rebellion, at least as far as his understanding of such things was concerned. But if an elf couldn’t match the honed reflexes of a combat-quickened kobold, a human, even a young and healthy one like Tapan, didn’t have a chance.

Before Tapan had done more than start to turn his head, looking for some sort of weapon, eyes locking on the mop rack, Best stepped forward, tugging a little green pouch out of his spidersilk vest. Yanking the drawstrings open, the purple-scaled kobold grabbed a pinch of the stuff inside, then tossed it right in Tapan’s face. Instantly, the brown-skinned boy sneezed, then he rounded on the little lizard-thing, sneering in fury.

“You filthy little monster!” he snarled, making Best scramble back with a squeak of terror as the boy sought to bring down a heavy foot on a creature less than half his own height, and possibly a third his weight. “I’ll kill you for this! I’ll…I’ll…”

In the end, however, Tapan ended up doing nothing except slumping forward, saved just in time from a broken nose by Best’s quick thinking, as the fancy trapmaster (Best’s former role back in the dragon’s lair, and the reason that he was never without some fixings for a cunning device, like the stun powder) slipped a pillow from a low shelf beneath Tapan’s face. Lifting the helpless boy’s head by gripping his feathery hair, Best grinned at his prisoner, whose eyes were still open and glaring, even though the rest of his sculpted, naked body had gone limp.

“Mean shouty human have pretty hair,” Best stated with a wide grin, stroking Tapan’s artfully prepared locks with a gentle claw. “You make good sacrifice on altar of goat god.”

Moving quickly, to avoid any further interruptions, the three kobolds hauled the three boys to the edge of the open panel leading down into the pipework beneath Eaglardian manor, and from there to the interconnected system of tunnels and sewers that tied together every house from there to the big city. Nails went down first, to take each boy’s feet, while Best and Cress lowered them down to their black-scaled comrade. Then, while the other two stood watch, Cress hurried off for reinforcements. After all, this was obviously more than a three-kobold job.

When they finally closed the panel behind them, there was no trace left that any of the boys had ever been inside the bathing chamber.

*

Of course Beinion knew there were a lot more kobolds around the estate than he ever saw at one time. After all, they were a race that had survived for countless years in one of the most hostile locales in the world, simply on the basis of three adaptations: their ability to breed; their ability to work together; and their ability to be sneaky. Even so, the sheer number of kobolds that appeared almost out of the woodwork within mere minutes after he, Tapan, and Urúvion had been lowered down into the tunnels below the mansion was astounding!

That had been only…maybe ten minutes ago (time was hard for Beinion to judge underground), long enough for Cress to explain the situation to his fellow kobolds in their rapidfire, high-pitched language. Right now, Beinion was bare naked in the middle of a press of firm-muscled, scaly bodies, dangling from a pole as though he were a fresh-caught deer. In that position, everything was put out on full display, and the bad little dragon-lizards took full advantage, regularly leaning over to run small hands or astonishingly dexterous tongues over his belly, and his chest (paying special attention to his small pink nipples until they ached), and especially over his bottom. They just loved stroking and squeezing his brand, and poor Beinion’s cheeks couldn’t stop flushing at the way they kept laughing every time his cock throbbed with each touch to that tender spot, sometimes spitting jets of precum over his stomach, where the kobolds happily lapped it up. What they didn’t do, however, was touch either his anal hole, or his penis. They seemed to be saving those places for something special, and that thought was more than enough to make Beinion experience a significant amount of trepidation.

Obviously, the same limitations didn’t apply to poor Urúvion and Tapan. Each of the other boys was similarly dangling from poles, only a short distance above the ground as they swayed along, the kobolds happily chattering, laughing, and joking in their language (which Beinion couldn’t help but think of as “cute,” even in the present situation), and patently ignoring the vociferous protests of their other two prisoners. While Beinion spoke three human languages, two trade languages, and the dwarven court speech (the one they used for writing all their decorative runes and for diplomacy, even if it was now mostly a dead language), besides his native elven language, he’d never had anyone teach him the languages of the beastfolk, or even think they were important enough to mention in more than the most brief passing. Now he regretted it, because at least then he could find out what was being planned for him and his friends.

“Gah! Don’t touch me you…you filthy, ugly, vile salamander! When my father hears of this treatment, you’ll…ngh! S-stop that!”

“If you let us go now, I’ll be willing to put in a good word with you when you come up for trial. Really, there’s no need for…you…you can’t be serious! Now see here, that’s not…ah! Aah! Oooh!”

Well, at least he understood Tapan and Urúvion well enough.

“No worry about them,” said Best, walking along next to his head (which, naturally, was only barely above the tunnel floor: kobolds weren’t very tall), and also next to Nails, who was one of the kobolds holding the pole slipped through Beinion’s bound wrists, while Cress was one of those at his feet. “We no hurt you: you for big celebration at shrine of goat god. You sacrifices! Must take good care of you!”

“That doesn’t reassure me,” quipped Beinion dryly, before wincing once again as an indigo-scaled she-kobold (who could be told apart from the males because of the feminine curve of her hips, and the snug-looking indentation of her cunny) caressed Beinion’s branded bottom, before looking up to his face and giving him a saucy wink.

“You special offering for Hound,” Best continued. “He guardian of shrine. He need lots of pussy, or he cranky.” The purple-scaled kobold gave a shrug, making his perfectly-fitting vest shift on his shoulders. “Boy-pussy as good as girl-pussy, I guess, especially when pussy is dragonbranded. Shouty prince be virgin sacrifice on altar: he royalty, very special. Pretty Urúvion,” Best’s toothy grin was mirrored immediately by a score of others around Beinion. “He just unlucky. Or maybe really lucky. Big ritual: all kobolds have Urúvion until he no can walk!”

“He give many babies,” the indigo koboldette affirmed with a happy nod. “Long time since we had big folk to give us eggs.” She licked her chops, her naked belly scutes visibly darkening. “Elf eggs very pretty.”

“Males use him like a female, and females use him like a male,” snorted Nails, his big black cock bumping Beinion in the back of his head. “You more pretty, though, Beinion. Long time I wanted…”

The tunnels were almost pitch black then, keeping Beinion from seeing up ahead clearly as the procession came to a sudden halt. He recognized the sounds of gnollish voices, though, and couldn’t restrain a soft whimper: if kobolds were enthusiastic, gnolls were animals, as he’d found out for himself yesterday. They’d all be lucky if they survived a full-blown gnollish rape frenzy, without the alpha wolfwere Smoke or the clever and diplomatic kitsune Kohaku to rein them in.

As the kobolds fell back, Cress pulled the pole to which Beinion was tied forward, the copper-scaled kobold heading right to the front of the hesitant mob. Sure enough, Beinion could see the gnolls all right…gnolls, but also rat goblins! Beinion’s eyes were immediately drawn to the burly, wicked-looking rat who’d forced the poor elfboy to suck his cock yesterday, Nine by name. Judging from the even more wicked grin he gave Beinion once he noticed the boy staring, and the immediate erection he started to sport (he was, just like yesterday, only wearing a chain shirt, not bothering with anything to cover the sizable weight between his ratty jack-legs), he remembered the encounter as well.

Up front was where the action was, though, and Beinion forced himself to look away from Nine to focus instead on the two leaders who were even then conversing with Cress, all three of them shifting to elven, since it was a handy common language.

“I heard of that elf slut,” said the big, light grey-furred rat, who was even taller than Nine, and broad in the shoulders and chest, his body built like some stereotypical Northern barbarian. “That bronze minotaur branded him, didn’t he?”

“Dragonbranded,” amended the gnoll with the huge build, graying fur, and whited-out, obviously blind eyes. “Vyrran had one of those ancient artifacts. Stupid of him to use it so openly…”

“Hey, the kid was loving it, from all accounts,” the boss rat retorted, before turning to Cress, who was scowling up at them both. “Well, what’re you waiting for? Fork ‘em over. All of ‘em.”

“No,” replied Cress, setting the stance of his big floppy lizard’s feet nice and wide, for stability. “Not yours. We catch.”

“And we can take ‘em,” chuckled the boss rat, taking a step forward, though he blinked when Cress didn’t step back, as he’d obviously expected. “You like bein’ raped, kobby?”

“We taking offerings to goat god,” answered Cress, thrusting out his chest as he said it. “You no stop us.”

“Why you little…” the boss rat began, baring his sharp ratty teeth, but the blind gnoll placed a hand on the pale rat’s shoulder before violence could escalate further.

“Are you going to break the rules of neutrality?” asked the elder gnoll, cocking his head questioningly, while behind both leaders, their followers tensed, recognizing how much rested on such a simple question. “The goat god is the only one who’s still on our side, after all the others fell or fled in the Chaos Wars. Do you really want to offend him?”

Pausing for a long moment, the boss rat’s face showed his inner conflict. But it didn’t last long, as his furry face suddenly broke into a grin, and he stepped to the side, motioning for his followers to do the same.

“Hey, I’m as pious as the next guy,” he declared, perhaps a little too loudly and cheerfully. “In fact, me’n my peeps’ll escort you little guys to the shrine.”

“As will mine, Boss,” added the gnoll, fixing Boss with eyes that were surprisingly expressive despite their blindness.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, White Eyes,” chuckled Boss, turning to squeak out orders to his minions, making them immediately turn and scamper down the tunnels, many of them taking to all-fours to travel even faster.

“Much time has passed since we offered up someone who wasn’t one of our own,” White Eyes mused as he turned, not having to say anything to his followers as they quickly fell into step ahead of and around him, letting the kobolds, with their much shorter legs, take up the rear. “I hope the goat god doesn’t mind such…exotic offerings.”

*

All Beinion was certain of was that the chamber was vast, huge beyond words. There were fissures in the natural cavern, and he could hear the hiss of gasses escaping from deep within the planet, gasses that had been set alight, and which now gave off eerie, flickering flames, the only light in this strange, dark, frightening place. Those lights shone on the occasional wall painting, or even some statues, all of them weird, twisted, and yet many of them were strangely erotic as well.

“They tell story of whole world,” explained Cress in a soft murmur, glancing back at Beinion, even as the beastfolk all around them became reverently quiet; even Tapan grew still, though that might have derived from how the host around him had stopped molesting his naked body constantly. “Story as goat god sees it: sex and violence.”

Now the dangling elfboy could see what Cress meant, his eyes starting to adjust to the strange lights of that dark place. There, he saw a huge shape painted with strange dyes, horned and very male. All creatures worshiped this great horned god, who stood atop the swollen belly of the planet, an obvious reference to the ancient mother goddess that was still sometimes referenced by elven clergy and the druidic sects; this horned creature was apparently…her high priest? Her consort? Her partner? The relationship wasn’t quite clear.

What was clear, though, was the “goat god’s” role in the universe: he was a fertility god. The rites Beinion could see being played out in painting and statuary made him flush deeply, and he heard Urúvion gasp nearby, while Tapan muttered some blasphemy about the orgiastic rites depicted (his people, like many human cultures, had chosen to reject the carnal side of religion long ago in favor of the Celestials and their cool, passionless practices).

Then the paintings started to become more recent. Beinion realized from the tilt of his pole that they were going downward, though the slope was fairly gentle, and the further down they went, the more recent the paintings. Now he started to see the angels coming down from the heavens, and the demons coming up from beneath the earth (obviously symbolic representations, since everyone knew that angels and demons came from somewhere Else). The angels and the demons immediately began to fight the goat god and the mother goddess, to destroy the first, and enslave the second. From the perspective of the artist-priests who’d painted the scenes, neither of these two sides seemed any different, since their ultimate goals, as far as the goat god was concerned, were the same: imposing their version of rigid order. Many times the goat god would capture members of one side or the other, and Beinion was astonished to see angelic women and demonesses kneeling at the feet of the goat god, their bellies gravid with his offspring, while males of the respective factions writhed in erotic torment – or was it ecstasy? Beinion knew from personal experience that the boundary between the two could be very fine indeed – as they, like their women, were corrupted, turned to the ways of the goat god, the original god, the force of primal, chaotic nature, raw and unchained.

At first, the goat god and his followers succeeded, and civilization was kept from overrunning the world. But, eventually, mortals started to turn away from the old ways, choosing instead the ways of the cities and all their allure. Angels and demons, acting on behalf of their divine patrons, soon began to choose up sides, and before long all the world was in pandemonium. The forces of Order, of the angelic Celestials, were the first to break the balance, to turn elves and dwarves and humans to their side, and then to begin gobbling up the whole planet, slaying what would not submit to civilization. Initially, the beastfolk served the goat god and the old ways, but they were seen as “evil” no matter what they did, their old ways thought of as dangerous to civilization. If they stayed in their own lands, they were stalling progress, and needed to be removed. If they attacked the invaders, they were monsters to be wiped out. And so they began to turn from the old ways, from primordial chaos and the ways of the wild, and instead sought out the demons, who came offering power to overcome the onslaught of civilization. At a cost.

“The Chaos Wars,” Beinion whispered softly, looking up toward the ceiling, where the greatest battle ever to rock the planet was depicted, not as he’d read about it, but rather from the perspective of an outsider watching the play of great events across the scrolls of history. Humans, some elves (who would become known as dark elves), and others, but mostly the bestial races, the orcs, the gnolls, the goblins and kobolds, and especially the dragons, they all rose up against the forces of civilization that had been pressing on their lands and lives for too long, backed by the raw might of the powers of Evil. Arrayed against them, from what Beinion could see shown in painted form, weren’t the forces of Good, as he’d been taught to that point, but rather of Order. Order versus Evil, while Good made occasional appearances, and Chaos tried simply to stay out of the way and survive as best it could. It was a war between the self-righteous who wanted to profit by despoiling things that didn’t belong to them, and the desperate who’d turned to darkness because of the power it had promised.

Letting his eyes play down the far wall, Beinion saw the end of the war in paint so fresh, it was almost still wet. The beastfolk, scattered and torn and weak and enslaved; the dark elves and dragons, retreated into the depths of the planet, or maneuvering to be a part of the new order that was dominating the world. And the goat god? What about him?

Beinion had his answer a moment later, when his eyes came naturally to a rest on a vast, dark statue dominating the far wall of the cavern, its horns curling upward in great spirals, its eyes alight with green fire, its penis – and this statue was very obviously male! – turgid, priapic, a weighty mass that demanded worship all on its own. Even in the weird light of that dark place, the art of the statue, its lifelike realism, was awe-inspiring, even for the spoiled prince Tapan, who simply gaped in silence, just like the two elfboys. They could all sense in their deepest, most instinctive places that they were in the presence of something far more than mortal.

Then Beinion’s eyes drifted lower still, to a point just above his exposed, erect, leaking penis…and his heart immediately caught in his chest. Something in the darkness moved, and what he’d at first thought were a pair of gleaming green flames…weren’t. Just below those blazing orbs, a jagged maw split wide, green light spilling out over terrible gnashing fangs and a long, slavering tongue, the spittle dripping to the cave floor in luminous, hissing droplets.

At last, Beinion was before the Hound!

“We no forget!” exclaimed Cress, lowering his side of the pole, letting Beinion slide down onto his knees before the vast, terrible, shaggy shape in the darkness. “We bring offering, Hound, all for you! Fresh, sweet elfboy!” One little talon reached out, and Beinion couldn’t restrain his cry or the spurt of precum that stained the cave floor in front of him almost to the length of his arm as the copper-scaled kobold turned him slightly, stroking his clawtips over the brand. “Dragonbranded elfboy!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Beinion saw that he wasn’t the only one who’d been freed from his pole. Urúvion was squirming in the grip of White Eyes, whose almost grotesquely massive black cock, glistening like slick obsidian in the light of the fires from below, he ground against the supple curve of the flame-haired boy’s bottom, leaving a patina of precum alongside the speckling of Urúvion’s freckled buns. Before him, a cruel sneer on his wickedly handsome face (and Boss was handsome, in a cruel, bestial way), Boss pinched down on Urúvion’s nipples until the helpless elf cried out, then seized firm hold of Urúvion’s upswept hair, forcing the boy’s head back, his face made to look straight into the red-reflected eyes of the thick-muscled ratman.

“You’re pretty hot, kid,” chuckled the big, bad rat, slowly stroking his bloated, uncut ratcock as he rubbed it against Urúvion’s comparatively much smaller erection, smearing his ugly, veiny shaft up and down with precum. “Too bad for you I just love wrecking beautiful things.”

“No!”

It was Tapan’s voice, and all eyes turned involuntarily to watch as the brown-skinned boy struggled in midair. He’d been freed from his bonds entirely, unlike Beinion and Urúvion, but his limbs were gripped tightly by the countless little hands of the kobolds holding him hoisted above them, his sleek, naked body writhing and thrashing ineffectually against their combined strength; there were simply too many of them for him to have any hope of escape.

“I’m the prince of the Shining Lands!” Tapan was almost screaming now, arrogance rapidly eroding as he began to realize how powerless he was, his eyes going wide in the start of panic as he saw the smooth altar before the statue of the goat god, contoured to fit the body of its intended victims. “You can’t do this to me! My father will have your heads!”

“Not before goat god has you,” laughed Best, and all the kobolds joined in with their high, tittering voices, before heaving him up onto the altar.

Beinion blinked in wonder as, before he even had a chance to do more than attempt to sit up, the kobolds swarmed over Tapan, pulling ropes from beneath the altar, lashing them swiftly around his thrashing wrists and ankles: the contours of the altar fit the human boy perfectly.

“You…you can’t…” Tapan continued, but now his voice sounded more like a whimper than a command as his desperate struggles came to an abrupt halt, his toned, sweat-slick body pulled as taut as a bowstring, his youthful muscles standing out clearly through his smooth tan skin, his circumcised shaft inexplicably erect despite his obvious fright. “You mustn’t…”

“No escape, little prince-boy,” chortled Cress in a tone Beinion had never heard the kobold leader use before, filled with all the wicked malice of one who has spent far too much of his life being bullied, and how is now about to have ample recompense. “No one save you. No one hear you scream for help. You…doomed.”

“Oh no…oh no…oh no,” sobbed Tapan, eyes wide and brimming with as-yet unshed tears as the kobolds began to close in around the altar. “Please! Please, I’m sorry! Spare me! Let me live! Don’t…don’t…”

Then all sound stopped as Cress leaped onto the altar, even Tapan’s begging for mercy. All eyes, Tapan’s included, looked up to the statue of the goat god. Beinion blinked: hadn’t it been looking up toward the ceiling before? It was looking down now, the searing green wells of its eyes streaming out light onto Tapan’s naked body. The touch of that light was palpable, for as soon as it touched Tapan’s gleaming skin, the boy cried out, his hips jerking spasmodically, erect cock spitting precum. Even Beinion, as far as he was from the altar, could feel the influence of those strange rays, his body stiffening, while his cock stiffened more, and Urúvion moaned a desperate plea to the gods of the elves as he shuddered between the wicked beast-leaders abusing him.

Before all their eyes, beneath the shadow of the statue’s powerful prick, the uncircumcised glans swelled with a bead of shining crystal fluid. Reflecting the light of the chamber in a kaleidoscope of shattered shards of refraction, the droplet fell…and splashed against Tapan’s belly and chest.

The boy screamed, his whole body thrashing against his bonds, jerking upward like a spawning salmon cresting a waterfall, his penis pointing straight upward as it throbbed…and erupted with ropes of thick white cum.

Again and again Tapan came, babbling now as he continued to try and beg for mercy, but his mind was no longer quite able to put coherent thoughts together. He came beyond the natural limits of any human, however gifted, the kobolds all around him gasping and murmuring in awe as their upturned faces received many drops of hot boyish cream.

The offering had been accepted.

Tapan had no sooner than stopped cumming than Cress turned, hands raised as he addressed his assembled people.

“The goat god has spoken!” he cried out in his high, squeaky voice. “Now we feast!”

“Feast! Feast! Feast!” squealed the kobolds in unison, and soon Tapan gave a squeal of his own as the scaly horde scrambled onto the altar, greedy hands grabbing at his cum- and sweat-soaked body, eager tongues already starting to lap at his bare skin.

Beinion didn’t have time to pay much attention to what happened to poor Tapan next. He didn’t even have time to pay attention to Urúvion. Oh no, right then, all that occupied his attention was his own fate, in the form of great slavering jaws, a jack-o-lantern’s ragged, sharp-toothed smile, spread wide before him as the vast, dark shape of the Hound descended upon him, engulfing him like the wings of a vulture come to stoop on its helpless prey.

The Hound was a doglike mass, dark and terrible, its gleaming green eyes filling up all of Beinion’s consciousness right then. He couldn’t think, couldn’t resist, couldn’t do anything but wail loudly as a searing green tongue lashed out, lapping up his body, over every last patch of smooth, naked elfskin. Huge paws held him up, surprisingly gentle despite their immense size – or at least they tried to be! – forcing his back to arch as that tongue lashed over his aching prick and plump, smooth sac, spurts of precum spattering the length of the creature’s tastebuds.

Then the Hound was rearing back, and Beinion’s eyes were wide, his body breathless, as he looked down the barrel of that glowing emerald, pointed penis, so much like that of a dog, but bigger, almost too big for Beinion to wrap his mind around. Of course the Hound didn’t care much about Beinion’s mind right then, as a vast paw gripped the back of his head, pulling him forward almost onto all-fours, while the Hound settled on his haunches, thrusting his hips upward, his immense penis pressing against and then swiftly filling up Beinion’s wide-open mouth. Green light spilling out around his lips, the silver-haired elfboy looked up at the Hound with a piteous, pleading expression, even as the Hound cut off his cries by pushing down on the boy’s head with a deep, throaty, wicked chuckle.

Right on the edge of being choked at any moment, poor Beinion felt so terribly exposed in his present position, head down, throat working around about a third of the Hound’s cock, heart-shaped swells of his flawless alabaster bottom thrust high. The shining shaft in his mouth was almost as thick as his fist! Would he be able to survive when, inevitably, the Hound decided he wanted Beinion’s other end?

Before these fearful thoughts were able to completely coalesce, however, Beinion suddenly felt a pair of small but very strong talons seize his upturned tush, squeezing and then spreading the firm, supple boyflesh. The Hound growled an objection to this use of his property, while Beinion risked a glance over his shoulder to see…Nails, the black-scaled, heavily-scarred kobold who’d been one of the team to originally abduct him and his friends!

“I do you favor, Hound!” Nails exclaimed before the Hound could take any punitive actions. “Look,” one clawtip pressed against Beinion’s ring, then slowly squeezed inside, accompanied by a loud-though-muffled cry from the boy as Tough-As-Nails easily found and rasped along his prostate. “He soooo tight! You shove big green buttsplitter in little elfboy, he pop! Maybe not even dragonbrand save him! I loosen him up, he be ready for you, nice and slick.”

Looking up at the Hound’s face, Beinion saw a clearly meditative expression on the deific beast’s muzzle, the sight of it so strange on such a savage being that it momentarily stunned the boy. Of course, the Hound precluded Beinion’s need to think by simply, casually, working his paw up and down, using poor Beinion’s mouth and throat like a cocksleeve, seemingly unconcerned about the pleading noises his tight little elftoy kept making, or how they increased in volume and sincerity the more eagerly those grabby little claws caressed and squeezed his bum.

Finally, with a magnanimous gesture of one paw, eerily similar to one that might be used by a far more anthropomorphic potentate, the Hound granted his permission. Instantly Nails gave a short squee of delight (such a strange sound from such a brutal-looking little veteran), before he plunged his muzzle forward, making Beinion’s whole body suddenly seize up as that astonishingly long, agile tongue slid into his hot depths. Eager, desperate to enjoy what he’d been given, Nails didn’t keep his tongue still, but kept thrusting it forward and back, then popping it free to lick up and down and around Beinion’s elfsmooth perineal region, smacking his lips and slurping his tongue as he did so with a host of lewd sounds that made the elfboy’s ears burn just to hear them.

“You no be sorry, Hound!” Nails exclaimed between greedy slurps. “Make him, “sluck, “slick and wet and,” slurrrrp, “stretched for you. Mmm, wanted you, Beinion,” he added with a happy murmur, pausing a moment to lovingly cup the silver-haired elf’s smooth, pale penis in the palm of one hand, while he pressed his muzzle against the back of Beinion’s sac, kissing and then suckling on the sweet-tasting elf-flesh. “Wanted you for sooo long. You so beautiful, so perfect, and I…I all cut up and nasty and kobold-y.” His tongue arched out, curling with startling dexterity as it touched Beinion’s tiny anal ring, rimming him slickly as only a kobold could. “Please…you let me have you?” A light nudge, and the tongetip darted inside, making Beinion stiffen, his penis leaking precum onto the black-scaled kobold’s palm and fingers. “I…I no force you,” he added, lifting his head, and Beinion could see the earnestness on his face in his reflection in the eyes of the Hound towering over them. “I sorry I so ugly. So not-elfy.”

For an answer, Beinion thrust his taut hiney back toward Nails’ chest (that being where it was positioned at that moment, as he’d lifted himself slightly to make his final plea), turning his head as much as the glowcock in his mouth would allow. The Hound simply watched this exchange with an amused air, though one that was kindly disposed, his sizzling bright grin spreading wider as Nails squee’d again in happy excitement, hopping up onto Beinion’s heart-shaped backside with both little-but-broad ivory-nailed feet, his fully-erect and heavily-leaking uncut black kobbiecock bobbing with the action.

Grabbing a firm hold of Beinion’s bottom, settling his feet just below the boy’s gluteal creases, his hands just above, breathing hard in his excitement as he spurted copious jets of precum over the boy’s flawless rear, the contrast between his dark, marred scales and Beinion’s marble-smooth pale skin startlingly erotic, Nails forced himself to slow down, to take his time, to line up his sizable matte black erection properly, pressing the fat, shiny black tip of his uncircumcised glans right up against the elfboy’s tense bung, smearing copious precum all over and around, adding its slickness to his previous rimming. He wanted this to last, wanted to savor every moment, every sight, every sound, as he slowly – so very slooowly! – watched Beinion’s tiny anal ring start to spread open…and then to suddenly part, his cockhead popping inside.

“Yesssss,” hissed Nails, his muzzle tilting up, tongue curling out, eyes squeezing tight as he just held himself there, imprinting the memory of this exquisite feeling, of this moment of first penetration into the folds of his brain. His eyes opened to slits, then, as he looked down at where his big black kobbie cock was stretching this perfect elflie specimen, the one he’d lusted after for so long. And then he started to thrust.

Working his hips, his firm, round, tight scaly tush tense, stubby pointed tail raised, Nails gripped Beinion’s bottom in both hands, trying hard not to scratch up the boy’s skin with his sharp little nails as he held on as though his life depended on the contact. Maybe not his life, but certainly his happiness, as he continued to force himself to keep his thrusts slow and steady, his plump black sac bobbing forward and back, forward and back, sinking just a little lower each time, over and over.

Then, with a soft gasp, Nails’ balls papped gently against the back of Beinion’s, black-on-pink.

“Mmm!” moaned the elfboy, his head lifting slightly as he closed his eyes, his mouth still stuffed to capacity by glowing green dogcock, a spurt of his precum streaking the stone beneath him. His whole body was taut, belly muscles standing out firmly, sleek and strokable-looking, bottom visibly tensing and clenching as he actually did more than just brace himself – he actually thrust back into Nails’ hips, as though encouraging the scarred kobbie veteran to quit being so gentle!

Panting hard, little drops of saliva dripping from the tip of his extended tongue, Nails blinked as this realization gradually sank into his brain: Beinion was letting him do this. No: Beinion, that perfect, gorgeous, gentle, lovable elfboy he’d wanted ever since he first arrived at the Eaglardian estate wanted this, and maybe just as much as he did!

The thought drove him wild.

Completely forgetting all his reservations, all the “civilization” and manners and good behavior he’d worked so hard to develop now that he was working for elves instead of dragons, Nails gave a loud “Yiff!” cry as his stubby black tail swung down hard, the tip making an audible swish as it cut the air, giving his next thrust power and force as he pulled back, then plunged his glistening black cock all the way back in, right up to the hilt. Beinion’s balls swung forward at the impact of black kobbie sac against their rear, while his own smooth pink penis jetted another spurt while slapping loudly against his toned tummy, half of the shot hitting his navel.

Snarling, showing his many sharp little teeth, forgetting to even try to be gentle now, Nails started pounding Beinion’s buns, leaving a host of little scratches with his claws as he held on tight, his hips soon turning the elfboy’s backside a nice, bright red color. The little guy was frantic, desperate, his every movement driven with a wild combination of lust and need and instinct and maybe even a little bit of real love. Beinion could feel it all in each and every thrust, his golden eyes looking up to the eerie green orbs of the Hound, dazed and half-lidded at first, and then suddenly dilating as Nails found just the right spot for his thrusting, working his cock almost straight down now as he rasped the uncut organ over Beinion’s most sensitive inner places.

“MMMMMM!” Beinion tried to scream, even daring to lift his mouth from where the force of Nails’ thrusts had been force-feeding him thick mouthfuls of juicy green doggodcock, but the Hound casually pushed the poor boy’s head back down with an amused air, obviously greatly enjoying the show. And what a show it was! Just the sight of the expressions of Beinion and Tough-As-Nails would have been worth the price of admission: the boy’s cheeks flushed, his eyes glazed with the rush of mind-numbing pleasure, while Nails’ was open-mouthed, joyous, tongue lolling as he happily humped the elfboy, exclaiming loudly in his own language about how beautiful and perfect and warm and tight Beinion was…right up until his words were suddenly cut off with an ecstatic “YIFF!”

His whole world reeling now, Beinion trembled, cum gushing onto the smooth stone under his hands and knees; his cum, coaxed from his bouncing balls without anyone having to touch his penis. He’d really enjoyed that! This was the first time he’d actually chosen to let someone have sex with him without being coerced somehow (even if the circumstances were certainly edgy…and likely to get very wet and messy in the near future if the expression on the Hound’s face was any indicator), and the feeling was amazing. The thought of another black-colored male flashed into Beinion’s mind, and he immediately decided that he would be willingly offering himself once more in the very near future.

“That looks pretty fun,” came a rough, gutter-toughened voice, and as the Hound let Beinion’s head go, his mouth coming off that throbbing erection with an audible “pop,” he looked around, panting for breath, only to see the well-muscled Nine, still naked below the waist of that ragged chainmail shirt he always seemed to be wearing, though now his dripping cock looked even bigger than ever...and that was saying something! “Mind if I have a go with the elfboy, too, Houndie? That other one’s taken.”

As Nine said this, he jerked a thumb over toward where Urúvion was squirming on his back on a broad stone table, made from an immensely wide stalagmite that had been sheared off near its base, moaning and gasping as the blind gnollish leader White Eyes happily wagged his bushy hyena’s tail as he slurped and licked the snug space beneath the fire-haired elf’s sac. At the same time, Boss Rat casually teabagged the boy, squatting over his face while holding up Urúvion’s legs, his thick-muscled arms wrapped around them just below the knee, giving his fellow leader of bestial humanoids plenty of space in which to work, and effectively stopping poor Urúvion from doing a single thing to stop them from having their way with him. Both of the big bestial males had stripped down to their fur, their sheaths skinned back as well, exposing more than healthy lengths of dangerous-looking male meat.

Arching an eyebrow at the audacious rat, the Hound bent low, until his great, slavering jaws were just the length of one of his gleaming moonbeam whiskers away from Nine’s face. Then, with slow, deliberate motion, he curled back his lips, showing teeth big enough that even a big male like Nine wouldn’t be able to wrap his hand around the smallest of them.

“Hey, just askin’,” Nine declared, narrowly avoiding tripping over Nails as he backed away, the little black kobold lying on his back with his big eyes closed, his cock limp, and a happy smile on his scarred-up face. “Can’t blame a guy for going after the first prime boy pussy he sees,” he grumbled, turning away, a sour expression on his face.

For a moment, the dirty grey rat looked toward where Tapan was jerking and thrashing against the bonds holding him tight to the altar, kobolds still happily “eating” him. Then he glanced toward Urúvion again, as the two bosses got themselves into position to properly split the freckle-faced elfie between them. He didn’t even bother looking behind himself at Beinion, already hearing the Hound moving, getting ready to thoroughly enjoy his offering.

The other gnolls and goblin rats were obviously happy to wait their turns, as Nine confirmed with a glance, seeing them crowded around the big stone table, the hyenamen drooling from both muzzles and cocks, while the rats only did so from their cocks. Not Nine, though. No, not if things had changed like he was starting to suspect, and the smoothskins weren’t off-limits anymore. So, a resolution starting to gradually coalesce in his head, the burly rattish thug started off down the tunnels that led back to the Eaglardian estate, heavy cock bobbing out of its sheath, semi-flaccid between his legs. Let others have sloppy seconds and nasty ninths: he was going to go get something fresh.

Still blinking, dazed in the afterglow of his ejaculation, Beinion could only stay where he was, panting on all-fours, no thought of escape once entering his mind. Actually, nothing at all entered his mind, he was so blissed out by the lack of oxygen from his forced fellatio and the wonderful sensation of completely consensual anal sex. Had getting his throat stuffed just made his orgasm that much more intense? He believed it had, though the thought was only on the periphery of his subconscious for now.

Barely aware of the Hound turning him around with one big paw, then gripping his hips between the calloused soles of each appendage, Beinion gave a short gasp as something slid smoothly into his unprotected brain. Something old and powerful and so ridiculously charismatic, so oozing with sex appeal, the silver-haired elfboy was immediately erect again.

In his mind’s eye, Beinion was kneeling before a throne. On that throne was a figure, tall and commanding, with curling horns rising high above his head like an imperial crown. Lesser creatures crowded around the figure’s huge genitals, moaning as they lavished worshipful attention with mouths and hands on the swollen shaft, the full sac.

Daring to look up, somehow pulling his eyes from the sight of that majestic male organ, Beinion looked into the eyes of the Goat God.

“Thank you for bringing such a sweet sacrifice to me,” said the Goat God, though the words weren’t exactly spoken, not relying on something so crude as mere language, but rather entering directly into Beinion’s consciousness, so that there was no possibility for misunderstanding. “Far too much time has passed since I have enjoyed a human virgin, using my worshipers as my proxies in the mortal realm.”

“I…I didn’t really mean to do it,” admitted Beinion, blushing furiously as he received a very clear vision of Tapan no longer wailing, because his mouth had been stuffed by Best’s big purple cock, its underside showing a clearly-defined fleshy ridge that bumped against the tan-skinned boy’s chin with each inward thrust. Another three kobolds were tonguing the boy’s anal ring, and one was even working in a finger, making Tapan’s hips buck, his whole back arching from the sensations rushing through him, while still more kobolds happily slurped on his aching erection, taking turns sucking on the head, while others lapped and sucked on the sides, and on his plump boyish balls. “It all just…well, it just happened.”

“You don’t fully understand your role in the events that are about to take place, Beinion,” the Goat God said with a gentle smile, and Beinion suddenly became aware of Tapan in that mental space, his lips parted to their maximum capacity as he did his level best to suck on the massive horned divinity’s glans – the spiritual counterpart to the physical event. “The brand you bear was something stolen from me by draconic traitors in times now long past; stolen and perverted, when they chose to side with the demons. Initially it was a mark I placed on my most chosen ones, allowing me to follow their adventures, to influence events around them, and also to enhance their bodies, allowing them to endure far more than a mere mortal could hope to survive, all in the pursuit of divinely-appointed pleasure. The dragons added an element of submission to the brand, however, enhancing any such tendencies in the ones chosen to bear the brand. In your case, those submissive tendencies are…significant.”

“Influence events?” Beinion asked, blinking and then shaking his head as he tried to comprehend what he’d just been told, his mind still slow and dazed from his recent pleasure. “You mean…you mean you’ve been causing all of this?”

“No,” the Goat God shook his head. “I only gave the kobolds cleaning your bathroom a little nudge, and I’ve been working to keep you from harm, such as touching Boss Rat and White Eyes back in the tunnels, gently reminding them of my power, keeping them from starting a fight that might have caused you injury and spoiled my plans. The kobolds chose to take your friends on their own, once they’d been emboldened by my initial suggestion: Urúvion and Tapan are delightful bonuses.”

“What are your plans?” asked Beinion, even as Tapan climbed the Goat God’s cock, positioning himself over it as he rested his hands on the shaggy, brown-furred chest. “What are you going to do?”

“Restore balance, of course,” answered the Goat God, his eyes turning to watch as the haughty prince, gritting his teeth with the effort, his youthful muscles standing out clearly beneath his smooth brown skin, pressed himself down on that broad, heavily-seeping cockhead, which slowly stretched his anal ring to a degree Beinion had thought was impossible. “Order fought Evil during the misnamed Chaos Wars, and finally won. Chaos was brutally suppressed by Order and cruelly subjugated by Evil, and Good…well, the power of Good has never been very forceful, since its entire point is to let people choose its ways on their own volition.

“Unchecked, the entire world will soon be rigidly controlled by the angels and their endless lists of rules and laws and commandments,” the Goat God continued, wincing slightly as Tapan gave a loud cry, his sphincter finally parting, his eyes going as wide as his mouth as he sank smoothly down onto the thick divine penis, already squirting cum as an orgasm hit, even as he began cumming in the “real world,” squirting semen into the greedy muzzles of the hungry little kobolds slurping on his prick. “Just another sort of Hell, to be honest. On the other hand, if I simply devastated Order with the force of Chaos, and seized power openly, the mortal world would suffer just as much under the brutality of anarchy, of the strong dominating the weak. While you’ve had fun with such treatment, and will many times to come, it can be horrific when it goes too far.”

Beinion tried not to be too distracted by the sight of Tapan panting hard as he pumped himself up and down on the immense dark-skinned shaft of the Goat God, resting his feet firmly on the broad furry thighs to get the leverage he needed for each squatting thrust. Instead Beinion remembered the vision he’d been shown by the wicked jackalwere, Morgrave, of himself abused, violated, tormented, and finally roasted alive for the amusement and culinary delight of the wicked rakshasas of the far eastern realms. The vision had tapped into Beinion’s deepest, darkest, innermost submissive fantasies, and while he’d found it intensely erotic, it had also disturbed him just as badly.

“Yes,” he agreed with the Goat God. “I…I know what you mean. But what are you proposing instead? Opposite forces always fight, that’s what I’ve always been taught. I guess it’s just their nature.”

“Conflict can be balanced, young Beinion,” the Goat God declared, smiling as he watched Tapan now eagerly bouncing on his mighty shaft, head thrown back, his face flushed, obviously drunk on pleasure, his smooth penis still erect and spurting copiously as he drew close to his next orgasm. “Sex is the great equalizer. Animal attraction crosses such pitiful boundaries as race and factions. Pleasure acts as an argument that is not easily countered, and seldom effectively. Especially not when the pleasure serves as a first step toward building something greater, more harmonious and beautiful than the stagnancy of the crystalline peace the angels intend to inflict on the world. I intend to take power, with your help,” he added with a soft grunt of surprise as Tapan visibly clenched his bottom, slowing down to better let the Goat God feel each of the human boy’s movements, rather than the more selfish thrusting Tapan had been enjoying before, giving as well as taking pleasure. “And then, when I have that power, I intend to give it away. Once, I was selfish, foolish, even cruel. But I have learned from my defeats, from my failures and humiliations of the past. I have learned that greatest of all truths, as young Tapan here is learning: the greatest pleasure comes from a balance. Play and work. Pleasure and pain. Give…and take.”

As he said this last, his great hands rested on Tapan’s hips, and he began a slow, steady motion, thrusting while helping Tapap’s own squatting thrusts. And as the two of them worked together, serving each other, Beinion saw them both cry out at the sudden rush of pleasure that engulfed them both, before Tapan’s human lips met thick caprine muzzle in a strange-yet-heady bestial kiss.

The vision suddenly shattered before Beinion’s view as he sank the full span of his hand down onto the pointed tip of the Hound’s searing green penis. For a moment he just hung there, mouth and eyes agape, arms and legs dangling limply as the mighty divine animal just held him pressed gently between its huge paws, looking down between his legs, where he could see that huge furry sac, and the gleaming green knot already bubbling to full size between the Hound’s legs, ready to be squeezed into his supernaturally tight and supernaturally resilient body. Then the Hound gave a mighty thrust, howling in delight as he smoothly knotted poor Beinion in a single mighty stroke, making the boy wail almost as loudly as the great canine as he started to squirt, cumming again as that knot swelled up. His former fellatio had already brought the big dog to the edge before, and now that it was inside of him, quickly growing to its full, engorged magnitude, it stimulated his entire insides in ways that he’d only had hinted at before in his encounter with the wolfweres among the other denizens of the tavern where he’d been deflowered. Now, though, it felt as though a burning ball of hot pleasure – and more than a little pain – had been lodged inside him, almost right up to his stomach!

Over on the altar, Tapan wasn’t tied down anymore. Instead, he was riding the gold kobold leader, Cress, willingly, his eyes heavily glazed with pleasure and the inebriation of the vision he was sharing with the Goat God as he was spiritually deflowered at the same time he gave up his physical virginity. In each hand he was rapidly stroking a fat kobbie cock, while she-bolds eagerly ground themselves against his thighs and shins, and one especially adventurous, pink-scaled kob-girl made the most adorable noises as he bounced on Tapan’s hips, letting his own enthusiastic pumping do most of the work for her as she squeaked and squealed in delight. Best-Dressed-Kobold had his legs hooked over Tapan’s shoulders, his tongue curled out in delight as Tapan sucked that big purple cock, no longer fighting it, but now a willing and eager participant, his enthusiasm more than making up for his lack of experience.

Urúvion wasn’t doing much better, if you saw sex as a sort of damage. The redheaded elfboy has a glazed look in his eyes as the big Boss Rat sat on his face, the cruel, wicked creature grinning savagely over his shoulder down at the weaker male.

“Ooh yeah,” he grunted softly at whatever it was Urúvion was doing with his mouth (though Beinion could guess). “You’re a nasty little elfie, ain’tcha?”

By answer, Urúvion’s cock shot another jet of precum into the air, which then splattered down on his trim belly when White Eyes smacked his hips against Urúvion’s groin, balls swinging as the blind gnollish leader plundered the boy missionary style, holding Urúvion’s legs up in a wide “V” as he spread his wide hyena’s maw in a snap-toothed grin.

“Only polite to return the favor, Boss Rat,” White Eyes panted out. “Besides, you know as well as I do how sweet elfboys taste.”

“Yeah, yeah,” chuckled Boss Rat in mock annoyance as he bent forward, one hand wrapping around Urúvion’s smooth shaft, holding the uncut pink length up as he lowered his muzzle, letting his whiskers tickle the achingly swollen tip. “You’re just lucky you’re right, White Eyes…mmm.”

All around Urúvion, the rat goblins (all sizes, from dwarfish to gargantuan, though with a tendency toward the shorter end of the spectrum) and gnolls (pretty much one really big size) watched with burning eyes, waiting their turn with lusty eagerness. Some of the gentler ones, the ones who were nice enough or smart enough to be polite about it, were even being allowed to join in the pile of kobolds waiting their turn to play with Tapan.

If they didn’t get some divine help from the Goat God, Beinion knew perfectly well that none of them were going to be walking for days. As for sitting down…yeah, probably better not to even think about that.

Then Beinion gasped, his attention drawn back to the immense bulge in his tummy. The Hound had moved! Looking over his shoulder in a sudden rush of shock, and more than a little fright, Beinion gave a soft whimper at the expression he saw on the mighty creature’s face, a grin of wicked mischief spread wide, highlighted in the searing green of the Hound’s inner muzzle. Frantic, he looked down, to where that swollen knot – it had only just fit inside him before it was fully hard! – was starting to stretch him to a point he hadn’t even known was possible. The Hound was pulling it out!

“No,” he begged, squirming between the divine guardian’s irresistible paws. “Please, don’t pull it out! You…you’ll tear me in half! I’ll never…oh! Oh! OOOOOOH!”

Another tug punctuated Beinion’s first cry, cutting off his words. Then a second. And finally a third long, slow terrifying pull, while Beinion’s wide golden eyes were fixed on the point where his tense little anal ring was stretched – surely to his limits! – with just barely less than half the Hound’s monumental knot cooling in the air of the firelit cave. Endorphins coursing through his whole body, Beinion knew that the Hound was toying with him, testing his limits like the unstoppable predator it was, showing him how completely he was in the Hound’s power. And, incidentally reminding him not to get distracted by other erotic scenes, when all his attention should instead be on his present master!

After all, he was the Hound’s sacrifice, the same way Tapan was the Goat God’s. Creatures like the Hound demanded respect!

Both Beinion and the Hound howled together when the Hound plowed his way right into the silver-haired boy, right up to the hilt, his fat furry balls smacking Beinion’s smooth pink ones loudly. With the knot inside Beinion, there was a little span of glowing green shaft left right behind the knot, and now the Hound started using that short span, humping his hips, faster now, and harder, while poor Beinion scrabbled desperately on the smooth floor for a moment…until the Hound rose up on his haunches, and started bucking his hips almost straight up! Bouncing frantically, like the ball on the end of some child’s slapping toy, Beinion didn’t know what sort of noises he made, he was too caught up in the moment to remember, but he knew they had to be obscene as he almost immediately started cumming, spraying semen in a wildly jerking arc. And still the Hound didn’t stop, didn’t even pause, his mighty thews hunching and humping as Beinion was used like a mere object, a cocksleeve to be stretched and abused as much as his new owner might desire.

Harder, and harder still, the Hound rutted Beinion until his entire world was filled with that green glow, until he was sure that pointed dogcock would come out his mouth! Then, only seconds before he was sure that he was about to pass out, the Hound gave a roar, unlike anything mortal that Beinion had ever heard before, and flooded Beinion’s body with his cum.

There was no way he was going to survive this! Surely this time he was going to break! He was going to pop like an overstuffed bladder!

But Beinion didn’t break…not this time, at least. Instead, there was a loud POP! As the pressure of glowing green cum inside him grew too great, and he went shooting forward, landing flat on his face a short distance from the Hound, while the mighty beast almost stood up (though the position was unnatural for it), continuing to coat Beinion’s upturned bottom and smooth back with still more of the shining stuff.

All eyes turned to the Hound, who heaved a long, satisfied sigh of ultimate contentment. He hadn’t had an orgasm like that in centuries! Smiling around, his eyes heavy, and obviously more than a little sleepy now that he’d had such welcome relief to the pressure in his aching balls, the Hound made a magnanimous gesture with one paw to the room at large, then turned and stalked back into the welcoming shadows of the vast cave, content to watch the fun, and perhaps doze for a decade or two, so long as duty didn’t demand more active attention.

Lifting his head slightly, hearing the cries of Tapan and Urúvion, his fellow erotic sufferers, from not far off, while the well-muscled beastmen surrounded him, closing the circle, kobolds and gnolls and rat goblins not caring about any sort of pecking orders as they simply let lust guide them, first cum, first serviced, crowding in close, hands already reaching for him.

Oh but he was going to feel this in the morning!

He just hoped Heraclitus could put him back together again when it was all over.