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The Price of Honour

The temple of Safek, the-snake-who-swallows-the-sun, stood bulky and unadorned at the very edge of the town in which it resided, Safekemhat. In imitation of their deity, the tenets of Safek called upon its disciples to internalise their light and purity, to be strong for the sake of strength, without expectation of praise or fanfare. And so their temple followed suit; simple and sturdy, acting as a bulwark against the flighty nature of the Great Sand Sea.

The naga warrior, Ananta, sat upon the steps of the temple, oiling his scimitar with idle-minded care. His eyes were more focused upon the horizon, where the Sea had grown ever more blusterous as the afternoon's Sun sent shadows sprawling and turned the sky a worrying orange-red. His bifurcated tongue flicked out to taste the air -- there was the must of the temple, of course, but also something else coursing beneath it, like the crackling of potential energy. Combined with the bloody sky and the far-off howling of the sandstorm, it was a bad omen. It had him on edge in a way that he hadn't experienced for a long time.

"Sword-Captain Ananta!"

He looked over to where Khufu was waving at him. His Second-Sword was stripped down to the waist, sporting nought but a ringed-leather harness around his well-muscled chest and long trousers -- much as Ananta himself wore. He was mightily proud of his naga brethren for they trained daily to achieve a strength of body in tandem with their strength of spirit. Through hard work and discipline they had sculpted themselves to physical perfection in honour of Safek, though it was not something they showed off outside of temple grounds.

"What is it, Khufu?"

Khufu grinned. He made a show of wiping some of the sweat from his brow, clearly having just come from the training grounds. It was a joke the two of them shared, a mock emphasis of effort given, one that Safek would surely forgive.

"The day is nearing its end, Sword-Captain, and our drills are finished. The other men and I were planning to... entertain ourselves before sundown. I just came to extend an offer for you to join us. I-- er, they, would love to see you demonstrate the results of your practice without the distraction of clothing."

His Second-Sword appraised him openly, a sly smirk playing upon his lips. Ananta eyed him in turn, traced the definition of his pectorals, the thickness of his arms. He adjusted his trousers and turned his face away.

"It is still three days until month's end, Khufu. You have not forgotten your oath?"

It was tradition for the disciples of Safek to release their impurities under the guidance of holy ritual at the end of each month -- this included their pent up seed, as they were otherwise intended to be bound to celibacy and abstinence. Even the priests, however, put little stock in these rituals, viewing them more as custom than law. As long as their disciples were not shaming themselves, none cared if they engaged in the pleasures of each other's flesh. Ananta, however, had remained steadfast in his abstinence, much to his subordinates frustration. They often tried to entice him, and sometimes to trick him, into spilling his seed before month's end, but they had yet to succeed. Their failure had not dissuaded them.

"Sword-Captain!" said Khufu, feigning offence, "I know not what it is you imply, of course. I am as devout as any Guardian. But let me return the question -- surely you have not forgotten your sacred duties to Safek?"

Ananta rolled his eyes at his jovial Second-Sword.

"Sacred duties are for priests and pharaohs, Khufu. I am but a humble guardian."

"Ah, so I shall tell the priests, then, that the watch-house is not to be manned tonight?"

Ananta placed his head in his hands and groaned. The watch-house was the most dreaded shift of all by the temple's guardians. It was poorly named, for it was less of a house and more of a cold stone box that sat on the very edge of the temple's grounds, bordering the road into town. It was, ostensibly, designed to both keep out undesirables and to provide passage to weary destitutes in need, but in practice it was simply a long night without company. Safekemhat had few in poverty, and even fewer criminals -- who would dare cause trouble in a town protected by the Guardians of Safek?

"You just had to remind me, didn't you?"

"Of course," replied Khufu, laughing, "it is my duty as Second-Sword to keep my Captain on the right path. You'll be pleased to know that I am guarding the Inner Sanctum tonight."

"I am pleased, Khufu. There is much honour in protecting the Sunshard, and I can think of none better suited for the purpose than you."

His Second-Sword blushed, rubbing sheepishly at his hood. The compliment had set him off guard, but that hadn't quite been Ananta's intention. He'd meant what he said; Khufu was generous of spirit and a master of the sword -- almost as good as himself.

"You do me much honour, Sword-Captain," he said, bowing.

"You do yourself honour, Khufu. Now go," said Ananta, waving away his flustered comrade, "go have your fun and then get yourself cleaned up. You do not want to stink of sex and sweat upon the steps of the Inner Sanctum." He looked out into the horizon again, where the sandstorm continued to brew. Had it gotten darker already? "Prepare yourself, a storm is coming. I think it will be a long night."

***

The watch-house's flimsy wooden door rattled in its hinges, brought to its limits by the fury of the storm outside. It had come even sooner than expected, heralded almost perfectly by the last, retreating rays of the setting sun. Ananta sat on the watch-house's single pallet, his tail tucked beneath him, his sword laid out upon his knees. The well-polished steel of the scimitar caught the flickering light of the building's single candle, sent it scattering towards the ceiling, forming a halo.

Logically, the night called for rest. Not a single soul would be caught willingly out in this storm, in need or otherwise, and if they were there was nothing he could do to help them anyway. He should take the opportunity to sleep, or meditate, or at least do some sword drills to stave off boredom. But the seed of dread he'd felt earlier had settled in his stomach, taken root. Ananta couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, that danger lay in wait, a viper poised just around the next corner. It's not that sandstorms were so uncommon, even bad ones like this, but there was something more to it. That taste in the air...

The wind howled even louder, whistling through a crack in the door and sending a gust of chill night air blustering inside. It blasted so strongly that the candle guttered and went out, plunging the room into darkness. Ananta sighed. He was halfway across the room when he heard it; a sound like ripping fabric, there and then gone, swallowed by the wind. The naga guardian stood at alert, hood flared and ears open, straining to pick the sound up again. A full minute passed, a minute of howling winds and the continual battering of sand against wood. Perhaps it had been nothing; his imagination. Ananta picked the candle up and was in the midst of re-lighting it when he heard a new sound -- a scream.

The Sword-Captain kicked the door open and leapt out into the storm. Sand buffeted him so fiercely that he could not race through as he wished. He was so assaulted, so blinded, that it was only through his many years of familiarity with the temple of Safek that he knew his feet took him towards its steps. He prayed that it was enough, prayed he would not be too late to stop whatever evil was about this night.

When he at last pierced through the storm, flesh battered and scales scrubbed raw, the dread that so gripped his heart only tightened. The doors to the temple were flung open, and sand was flying in, piling up along its square-cut halls. Ananta raced inside, hoping against hope that this was all a simple mistake, perhaps a result of drunken negligence. But it was not to be.

His breath seized as he saw them -- two Guardians, lying still on the floor, just past the corner from the entry hall. His first instinct was to check them for injuries, to see if they could be helped, but his duty called him onwards instead. Either they were already dead and beyond his help, or just wounded, but either way he had more important things to check on, to protect. They knew the potential dangers that came with being a Guardian, and if they died, then they died in honour. He whispered a prayer to Safek as he passed them by.

Much to Ananta's horror, that was not the end of this nightmare. The deeper into the temple he ran, the more of his brethren he found prostrate, defeated. Whatever assassin or group thereof that had assaulted them had been meticulous in their craft. No wounds could he see, no blood, no sign of conflict -- just the priests and acolytes of Safek, and his fellow Guardians, overcome.

It wasn't until he came upon the room of ritual that he at last slowed, allowed himself to take stock of the situation. And this delay was necessary, for what he saw baffled him . There, propped up against the base of the ceremonial pedestal and lit up by the nightly braziers, was the first of his naga Guardians he was able to give proper study. Rather than face down on the floor like the others, this Guardian -- Mshai, his name was -- sat upright and exposed. And exposed he was: his trousers pooled around his ankles and his codpiece was discard, and there from his slit, still stiff and twitching, was his shame. An exceptional amount of seed pooled upon his belly, dripped down his abdominal muscles, down his thighs, over his testicles. His hemipenes pulsed, spewing the occasional drop of cum, proving at the very least that he still lived.

Ananta approached with great care, his senses alert for any kind of trickery. He set his sword aside and took Mshai's head in his hands, turned it this way and that.

"Mshai, my brother, what sickness ails you?"

The Guardian did not respond. Ananta blew on his face and thumbed back his heavy eyelids. What he saw there unnerved him; though they did not have the glassy pall of death, those eyes were simply empty, vacant, as if his mind was somewhere far, far away. The Sword-Captain recoiled as if from a venomous adder. He backed away from Mshai and picked up his scimitar.

"Sorcery," he spat, and then his eyes widened in panic, "the Sunshard!"

The prospect of black magic was one truly terrifying to ponder, but even worse was the thought of what such obvious evil could do with the power of the Sunshard. Such a holy relic, intended to promote purity and strength of purpose, could just as easily be turned to darkness. While ruminating, he also remembered something else: Khufu was guarding the Inner Sanctum.

"Please, my Second, be well. I am coming." Ananta's words came out as whispers, for he dared not tempt fate to prove his fears true.

***

Sword-Captain Ananta skidded to a halt at the centre of the hall just before the Inner Sanctum, scimitar in hand. Bodies were strewn about the room, each and every one lying listless in various states of mindless lust, some of them still groaning in the throes of orgasm, thrusting their hips into the air and coating themselves in seed. Ananta had eyes for only one body, however.

"Khufu!" His cry was hoarse, ripped from a throat parched and dry from desert sand.

There upon the highest step, just before the door that led to the Inner Sanctum, Khufu was locked in combat with a shadowy figure. But even as Ananta approached, he realised that Khufu had already lost and his sword was still gripped only through the muscle memory imparted by many years training. His Second's sculpted body was slathered with sweat and heaved with an effort to resist something Ananta couldn't see. His trousers were loose but hung on just barely, kept aloft by twin erections which jutted out prominently from beneath the fabric.

"Release him, demon, or I shall split you in twain."

Ananta hissed, fury at such profane desecration bubbling within his chest, threatening to overwhelm the sense of calm that was necessary of any master swordsman. He took a threatening step forward, but the black creature raised a hand to forestall him.

"Ah, at last the famous Sword-Captain Ananta arrives in the flesh. Your underlings spoke quite highly of you right up until the moment I felled them. Actually, they spoke highly of you after that, too, though perhaps for different reasons than they initially professed... do you know how many of them moaned your name as they came, how many wished nothing but to indulge in your virility?"

"You speak filth, demon! Prepare to die!"

Ananta leaped forward, but again was halted, for the creature slipped behind Khufu, pulled free a knife and pressed it firmly to his neck. Khufu, eyes half-lidded, didn't even seem to notice.

"Ah-ah-ah, I suggest caution with your next moves, Sword-Captain, for the life of your Second-Sword depends on them. And I am no demon, merely a... traveller with an interest in matters of the divine. You may call me Kem."

Kem. Black. It was an apt name: upon further study Ananta realised this outsider was not just clad in darkness, but appeared to embody the very shadows themselves. His outline shifted and rolled like smoke, billowing outwards and downwards, only to be reabsorbed into the void. He stood of roughly similar height to Ananta, with a slighter build, and two symmetrical shapes that protruded from his head -- ears, perhaps, or horns? -- but his form was otherwise indecipherable.

"Kem," replied the naga, spitting on the floor, "what is it you wish? Cooperate and I may show some mercy, but know that Safek will not."

"What do I wish?" Kem feigned consideration, running the flat of his blade idly along Khufu's neck. As he did so, his other arm wrapped around the entranced naga's chest, his hand sliding down, down to follow the angle of his pelvis. He dipped it into the loosely-held trousers to grab one of the cocks they contained. Khufu shuddered. A moan slipped from his lips as Kem masturbated him. "Merely to prove a point, I suppose," he continued, as if he wasn't in the midst of such a disgusting display.

Ananta's cheeks heated and he swallowed; he had longed to engage in similar behaviour with his Second for quite a while now; a flaming desire that Khufu had taken frequent pleasure in fanning. But not like this...

"You defile his purity! Release him at once!"

"Behind me stands the door to the Inner Sanctum, which holds the fabled Sunshard," said Kem, ignoring Ananta as if he were a child, "and I happen to know it is protected by a charm. Simple, but strong. It requires a special phrase to open, one which only the Sword-Captain knows. You ask what it is I wish? It is this: give me the phrase. That is all I desire, and then I will leave you and your delightful comrades to their shame. Refuse, and I shall indulge them past the point of no return. It is your choice."

Ananta faltered. Kem's demand had undone him, had pierced to the very core of his values and laid bare his insecurities like an unsheathed blade. He knelt on the temple floor and prayed for Safek's guidance. How Kem had came upon this secret knowledge was beyond him, but that made it no less true. He knew the phrase and could open the door with it -- nb Safek, Dua Netjer en ek -- but to do so, to fail in this his most sacred of tasks, was a great shame before Safek, and dangerous besides.

But there was more than just his own honour at stake here. He watched the trembling form of Second-Sword Khufu, watched Kem fish free from his trousers his left cock, turgid and pink. The flesh pulsed beneath the stranger's attentions, a steady supply of pre-cum drooling from its spaded tip and interlocking with deftly stroking fingers. Khufu's knot was swollen and angry, and so sensitive that it made his entire shaft twitch violently whenever Kem's fingers so much as brushed it. His Second-Sword was clearly on the edge of release already, perhaps already past it, and the thought sent a terrible rush of surging lust to Ananta's own loins. He tried desperately to ignore it.

Should he let Kem carry on with this debauchery, cast the minds of the priests and Guardians of Safek into a void of lust, it might bring such shame upon them as to tarnish their very souls, the light which Safek so coveted. Should he give Kem the phrase, the Sunshard would surely be stolen, but the shame would be his and his alone. If he could spare his men such injustice, would it be worth the cost?

"Sword...Captain..."

Khufu's eyes were unfocused, but his voice, though barely more than a gasp, rung with awareness.

"Khufu!"

Ananta surged back to his feet, sword in hand. He tried once more to approach but Kem re-iterated his danger with a flourish of his knife, all without slowing his forced masturbation of Khufu's drooling length.

"You mustn't... Captain... the Sunshard... my duty... I am sorry, Captain, I have failed..."

Second-Sword Khufu's breath rattled and his eyes rolled back into his head. His legs trembled and gave way, collapsing him even as he came. Half of his seed spurted free in tremendous ropes, flung thick and far. The rest was caught within his trousers, his cum staining them from the inside with such volume that it began to seep through, dribble down the leg of the fabric. Ananta watched in horror.

"And so another Guardian falls. I expected more from you lot," sneered Kem, wiping his hand clean on Khufu's body.

Ananta bared his fangs and hissed, hood flared and blade bared. He had never felt such wild anger in his life.

"You will pay for this desecration with your life, Sorcerer!"

He yelled as he ran forward and his blood boiled with righteous fury. He leaped over his fallen comrades, bodies splattered with their own cum, and up the steps to the Inner Sanctum. Kem did not turn aside, but rather met his charge readily. Ananta's scimitar flashed like a cobra, catching Kem by the neck and slicing clean through it. But his eyes widened for his sword slipped through without resistance, and his momentum carried him forward and into the sorcerer's body. The shadows dispersed, turned to smoke and surrounded him. The Sword-Captain coughed and blinked rapidly watering eyes. He was surrounded by smoke and darkness on all sides; he could see nothing, hear nothing. And then, just as quickly, the moment passed.

"Fool, you had your chance to give me the phrase, but now we shall do it the hard way."

Kem's voice dripped with contempt, but Ananta was having trouble focusing on them. His head felt heavy and his scales were flushed with an unnatural warmth. His sword, blessed by the priests of Safek, the one with which is skill was unmatched, dropped from his fingers, forgotten.

"What... have you done to me?" he asked, turning to face Kem, who had appeared behind him.

"Nothing that you wouldn't do yourself, really. I am merely encouraging your inner desires, Sword-Captain. Now be still."

Ananta trembled, his entire body quivering like a struck gong, caught between the need to resist and an insidious desire to obey. But he was too slow-headed to fight it, too caught up in the heat that was building behind his eyes, sinking down his chest to pool in his loins. He did not try to stop Kem as his groin was cupped, did not -- or could not -- do anything as he pulled loose the binding sash. His pants fell to the floor, leaving him in nothing but his harness and the leather pouch that held his genitals. It was becoming more and more uncomfortably tight by the second.

"Now now, Ananta, I can see you are in distress. I can see how desperate you are to spill your seed, holy rituals be damned. Tell me what I need to know, and I will let you cum. It is that simple."

The naga guardian opened his mouth but he was not given a chance to reply. Kem had pressed himself close once more, his shadowy form billowing forward to envelop them both. Ananta could not see, but he could feel lips on his own, and a tongue that he did not bother resisting. It slipped passed his meagre defences to explore his mouth, to interlock with his own thinner tongue. Ananta could not help himself -- he moaned into that stolen kiss, nostrils flared, and drool dripped down his chin.

"You defile me!" he snarled. He tried to push the Sorcerer off, free himself from his midnight embrace, but he found he could not move his arms. They were bound behind his back, not by rope or manacles, but by some foul magic. It glowed purple and vibrant, a ring that hovered around each bicep, and his wrists too, keeping them contained.

Kem pulled back. A strand of saliva connected the two of them. From this close, Ananta could see just barely within the darkness of his veil, could see two glowing purple eyes which looked upon him with such contempt that he flinched.

"The Guardians of Safek defile themselves. Now kneel."

Ananta knelt. There was no thought behind it, no resistance, he was simply standing one second, and then kneeling the next. The suddenness of it forced his legs to splay out to the sides, to force his tail to support him. He blinked.

"I-."

Kem's cock lodged in his mouth the second he opened it. It was stiff and long, with a bulbous knot at its base, but aside from that he could not tell. He wanted to spit it out, bite down, anything, but his mind was adrift in a sea of fog.

"Now, as I make use of your impure mouth, from which has spewed endless lies and half-truths, you will think not of my cock, how it slides down your throat with alarming ease, but rather your own. I know this is what you have wanted all along, Ananta. You pretend to piety, to holiness, but this is what you've always dreamt of. Every time your fellow Guardians have asked you to join them in their fun, you have said no, but what you meant was 'YES!'."

The Sorcerer pulled his length free of Ananta's mouth, now coated in the naga's saliva. Ananta had a single second of clarity as he looked at it. He noticed that it was not wrapped in shadows but was instead a fleshy red, with a fur-bound reddish-brown sheathe. But the moment passed, and he was returned to lusty mindlessness. Kem ran his dripping cock over the dazed warrior's sensitive nares, forced him to inhale the heady scent of his sex.

Ananta could think of nothing but the heat building in his slit. It bulged with the effort to contain his quickly stiffening rods, the hypersensitive lips pushing outwards. Each minute brush against them brought another full-body shuddering, another spill of sexual fluids seeping down his thighs. His balls practically churned with the need for release, so pent up by his month's long abstinence, from the constant teasing of his comrades.

That's what stung most of all, what brought heat not just to his sex, but to his cheeks. Kem was right. He lusted powerfully after his fellow Guardians, after Khufu, and longed to join them in the pleasures of the flesh, to taste their sweat and marvel in the results of their training. He, too, had much to offer, and he knew it. Was it not a waste to keep his virility in check? Why shouldn't he spill his seed as he saw fit, use it as encouragement for his brethren to achieve their utmost potential? Surely Safek would not mind such methods.

Kem was behind him now, running black hands over his defined chest, groping his pectoral muscles and kissing up and along his neck. He flared his hood in a weak attempt to deflect, but that only gave the Sorcerer more surface to molest.

"You can feel it, can't you? Burning within you. You speak of discipline, but your words are as a drop of water before the desert. Safek be damned, you desire nothing but to climax, don't you?"

Ananta's lips parted and he breathed heavily. It was hard to even make out the words that were being said to him, let alone respond. His cocks had freed themselves from his slit, but were now bound painfully by his codpiece. His flesh was alight with the need for freedom, for release, and it pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Precum oozed within the binding leather, staining it right through and dribbling down to coat his heavy balls.

"I-... can't..."

How? How was he so close to the edge, without any direct stimulation? The month of chastity had made him feeble, susceptible to even the most minor of attentions. He was weak, weaker than his success as Sword-Captain had lead him to believe. To spill his seed upon the floor, over his companions, to taste that sweet, sweet relief, is all Ananta wanted. "I can't handle... this..."

Kem cooed in his ear. "Then let it end, Sword-Captain. Just speak the words, that is all you need to do."

The very last vestige of Ananta's sober self screamed at him to stop, urged him to protect his honour as a Guardian of Safek. But the screams became a muted hum, stifled by another surge of fire that poured into his chest and straight down to his abused hemipenes. Kem was cupping his pecs and abdominal muscles, sending his magic flowing into them. His every touch was as lightning, sending jolting demands of his sex to release, to cum, to breed.

"Please..." begged Ananta. He was far beyond the point of climax, but something was prohibiting it. It was a blockage that he could not sense or feel, except for the pressure in his cocks, the refusal to progress past the penultimate point of orgasm. The perpetual edging was an agony that he could not bare.

"Say it," growled Kem, running his tongue along the naga's sweat-lathered clavicle.

"I can't..." Ananta's cod-piece bulged to an obscene degree, so stretched by his aching rods that it hung on by a single strip of fabric. He'd never been this hard in his life, never seen his twin pillars so swollen, so riddled with visibly pulsing veins. The many sensitive barbs that ran their lengths were erect with arousal, and his knots had become the size of fists.

"SAY IT!" Kem's claws dug into his torso, drawing blood.

Ananta, Sword-Captain of the Guardians of Safek and protector of the Sunshard, famed in Safekemhat and beyond for his strength of will, cried out. He closed his eyes, and whispered: "nb Safek, Dua Netjer en ek"

He could not even muster anything more than a gasp as he came, the essence of his lust bursting free from the magical gates that had denied it. His hemipenes twitched so madly in the throes of his passion that his codpiece was flung free by their flailing. They sprung to complete stiffness, blasting rope after rope of hot seed across the floor, across his thighs, and even occasionally up over his chest. The naga's testicles clenched with each spurt, bouncing as if jostled by a wagon's passage. Ananta emptied his shame before him, emptied until it could empty himself no more. The ordeal so drained him that, when he at last finished, he collapsed forward into the puddle of his own making, exhausted.

The painful pleasure receded, and so too did the haze that afflicted him, leaving him with with nothing but a cold and miserable clarity. What had he done? What had he done!? Betrayed his morals and his people, and for what? For mere pleasures of the flesh? The shame hollowed him out, threatened to swallow him from the inside. This was too much a disgrace to bare for any Sword-Captain, and who was he if not the Sword-Captain of Safek? He turned his head to the side.

Kem breathed heavily, having just finished himself over Ananta's backside. He tucked his manhood back into the flowing darkness of his robes and then began to walk away. Away from the Inner Sanctum.

"What... are you doing? The Sunshard..."

The Sorcerer paused in his confident stride, turned back to Ananta, and flung his arms wide.

"The Sunshard?" he laughed, boisterous and loud, "What use have I for tainted trinkets? No, Sword-Captain Ananta, I told you -- I merely came to prove a point. Your gods, your people -- you are all of you, at your very cores, filled with rot. Your hypocrisy reeks so strongly that it is a wonder the whole city does not stink of it. But I, and others like me, see you for what you truly are..." The shadows coalesced around him, becoming a vortex of shadow that raised towards the ceiling and then, with a flourish, dispersed. Kem's final words haunted through the halls in a fading echo: "Farewell, Sword-Captain. You have fallen prey to your shame, and so too shall Safekemhat. We are coming..."

Lying there on the cold floor, covered in seed and with no strength even to lift an arm, Ananta was left to only the spiralling of his thoughts. There was intense shame there, of course, but also a slowly-hardening sliver of purpose, a flicker of hope for his tarnished soul. He thought back to that moment of clarity, to the canine-member of the Sorcerer, to the reddish-brown fur that framed his sheathe. Canines were uncommon this far north, and that flaming shade of fur even more so.

Ananta held onto that quivering flame as a parched wanderer would to his last drop of water. Kem thought him beaten, but he was not finished. His redemption hung upon the thin thread of those two clues, a thread that could lead to the saving of his people. The guardians fist clenched around the hilt of his sword. Kem might return, but next time Sword-Captain Ananta would be ready. He knew it to be so, by the grace of Safek, he knew it.