Elf-Boy and Friends
by George Gauthier
Chapter 11. Soldiers
Also aboard the riverboat Myrrh was a contingent of soldiers on their way to postings along the southeastern frontier. Trained as signalmen, they would join units scattered over the frontier to bolster communications between legionary fortresses, patrol bases and far flung observation posts. Along the way they kept in practice using their flags and solar telegraphs to signal naval vessels on the river and military installations along the banks.
The newly minted soldiers mostly kept to themselves, not much interested in mixing with the other passengers. Their standoffishness didn't mean that the soldiers did not have their eye on a certain lovely elf-boy as he ran around the ship stark naked, stirring the blood of anyone who fancies young males, these soldiers included. Unseasoned by combat, poorly supervised, and under lax discipline, they soon turned to mischief.
The third evening out Dahl made his way to the lower deck to visit Merry. As he walked past the cargo compartment where the soldiers were quartered the door slid open and strong arms grabbed him and dragged him inside, shoving him into the middle of a crowd of a dozen soldiers. Their commander was a sergeant, a man of only middle height but powerfully built, with close-cropped dark hair and and grey eyes. He sized up his captive, a hungry look in his eyes and a predatory smile on his face.
"Well, well, well. Is this a young demigod I see before me, incarnate in the guise of a beguiling and bewitchingly beautiful teenage boy?"
"Actually, sir. I am an elf-boy and certainly no demigod."
"Alas, Corporal Saxburn," the sergeant said with mock regret to the soldier standing next to him. "This vision of youthful male pulchritude is merely a mortal boy after all, albeit an exceedingly comely one."
"I agree, Llando, I peg him for a rich man's catamite, or maybe a professional joy boy. And one who likes his work, the way he wiggles his arse all the time on deck."
Dahl shook his head. He got that reaction a lot. Gracile and delicate looking and comelier than is seemly in a young male, he was no one's idea of masculinity. One glance at his slight build and impossibly pretty features and macho males like these soldiers marked him down as the worst sort of bum boy. Not just a servant or slave constrained to pleasure a master but a natural submissive who preferred the role of catamite or boy toy.
"Sirs, I will have you know that I am a free boy and serve no master. All right, I might have worked as a pleasure boy in the past, but always as a free agent. Anyway, those days are behind me."
"Oh Ho!" Corporal Saxburn chortled. "This lad is fair game after all. Let's have at him!"
Sergeant Llando look at Dahl almost apologetically, explaining.
"He is right, youngling. You candor does you credit, but now Saxburn and my men will have their way with you, after all. I am afraid I must let my men take their pleasure of you. The fact is that we have no reason to exercise restraint in your case. You are one of the lowly and powerless in this world -- just a small nude boy who has fallen into our clutches.
"Ironically it would be different if you weren't a public boy, meaning everyone's boy. If you were a man's private property, whether a kept boy or a catamite, then we would be violating another man's proprietary rights. In this world of ours, the privilege of fucking public boys who cross our path is one of the unofficial perquisites of soldiers on active duty."
"All of which is to say that your virtue is not at stake. There is no reason then why we should not all mount you. It is just that simple."
"Besides, this situation is in no small part your own doing, shameless boy that you are. As a so-called free boy it was your choice to run around stark naked. What are assertive males like us to think when we find a public boy like you at loose ends, your entire body on display for our delectation. Here you are so terribly cute and sexy with that impossibly pretty face and tight body and a pert rump that twitches fetchingly as you move about. And yet you pretend to shrink from the natural use that men make of boys of your sort. Well we know how to deal with cock teaser tactics like that."
"Soldiers of the Commonwealth, this wayward youth needs instruction in good manners. And you are the men to give it to him. So take him as you will, but remember, no rough stuff. The elf-boy here is just a little guy, so don't all pile on at once. Instead take turns, no more than two at a time."
"Two at a time?" Dahl squeaked.
"One at each orifice, of course. We don't have all evening, after all."
Dahl's temper kicked in just then. The hell with that kind of thinking. If he couldn't talk his way of this jam pretty damned soon, he was going to send for the cavalry. No way he was going to put up with another rape, and a gang bang at that. One telepathic shout to Merry would bring his friends running.
Dahl resented the outrageous assertion that this situation was largely his own fault, a fate that he had brought upon myself by his perpetual public nudity and enticing physical beauty. The charge amounted to nothing more than a tissue of rationalization for what they really wanted with him.
He had not deliberately teased the soldiers, no more than anyone else aboard. As for being cute and sexy, that was as nature had made him. Nothing was the result of artifice or primping or posturing -- no cosmetics, no jewelry, no suggestive clothing -- just good clean boy -- and the pheromones that healthy elf-boys exude quite naturally.
"This is so wrong!" the elf-boy declared emphatically. "Rape is rape, whatever the excuse, and I won't put up with it. Get outta my way."
But the soldiers blocked his attempted exit. Dahl back pedaled far enough to give himself room and dropped into a fighting stance, looking to somehow force his way into the clear.
Shaking his head the sergeant continued his discourse in a calm and even tone.
"You have grit, kid. I'll give you that, but no way one small naked youth can overcome a dozen professional soldiers. If we have to, we will bind you, but things will go easier if you submit to your fate. Anyway, a brothel boy like you should realize the futility of resistance. We are not going to do to you anything more than so many others have done in the past."
"Go to hell," Dahl shot back. Why couldn't they just leave him alone. He didn't want this.
The scowl on his face did nothing to discourage his suitors. If anything, it encouraged them.
"My oh my, he looks so pretty when he gets mad, standing there stiff legged, fists clenched, eyes flashing. Yum yum."
"Aye and trembling, but is it from fear, from anger, or from lust?"
"Heh, heh. I don't care which. Anyway, I like my boys with a bit of fight in them. So be reasonable, little elf-boy, and give it up or do we really have to do this the hard way?"
Dahl shook his head, wanting to fight but realizing that resistance was useless against so many. He lowered his fists
All right, he had tried to handle this himself, to talk himself out of trouble. Time to call Merry for help. So he did. The unicorn relayed his mayday to their friends. Meanwhile Dahl played along, to stall for time. He stood meekly, head hung, arms loose and at his sides as the sergeant felt him up with the sure touch of an expert in gauging boy flesh. The sergeant twirled his finger, the signal for Dahl to turn around slowly to give the men a good look to his back and his bum.
"Yes, little one. You are exactly what I fancy best. Yours is very much the hard body of the young male, not the soft round voluptuous body of the female. Hmm, such a slender boy too, yet your musculature is well-defined, with a corrugated belly and good shoulders. Yours is one of those tight builds that is more about quality than quantity. Like an acrobat or a maybe a dancer."
The sergeant then turned his attention to Dahl's face, cupping the chin in his strong right hand, rubbing the jaw line with his thumb and inserting his thumb into his mouth, the boy's cue to suck on the digit much as he would suck on a cock.
The frank sex talk and foreplay had its effect on Dahl. His pulse raced as blood rushed to his groin. With his ball sac pulled tight to the fork of his legs, his engorged cock jutted straight out, the purpled glans like an arrowhead fixed at the end of the shaft, drawing approving murmurs from the soldiers. They knew a well trained fuck toy when they saw one.
"Here now, little one, I want you to turn and present your ass to me, spread your legs, bend over, and grab your ankles."
Dahl scowled but did as he was commanded, presenting his ass for their use. Sergeant Llando started off with a chuckle and a smart slap to his rump then reached between his legs and tugged on the ball sac, using his other hand to stroke the turgid cock like a farmer milks the teat of a cow. Willy-nilly Dahl's body responded to the stimulation. After a bit, the sergeant hooked his thumbs into the anal ring and pulled it open, letting his men get a look at Dahl's secret delights.
"Ah, what an ass we have here: sun-bronzed on the outside, but pink and moist inside. I can't wait to plumb its depths."
Dahl blushed. Was there no end to the personal indignities the men would visit upon him?
Just then Balan and the others burst through the door, eyes blazing and weapons in hand, ready for mayhem.
"Release that boy!" the giant thundered, punctuating his command with a loud whack with his staff to the deck. The twins flanked him, their kukris held crosswise across their bodies. The minstrel in panther form leaped atop a table, unsheathed his claws, laid his ears back, and snarled menacingly at the soldiers.
With his men unarmed and in various stages of undress, the sergeant motioned for his men to release the elf-boy.
"All right, all right. No reason to spill blood. There's your precious elf-boy, safe and sound and none the worse for wear. Though I really don't know what you need him for when you already have those stunning blond twins. And keep that nasty cat off us, will you? We're not looking for a fight, though as soldiers we might give you good one."
"Not hardly." the giant answered coldly.
"Oh don't get so high and mighty with us. We are within our rights diddling any bum boy we find who is at loose ends. You have no authority over us. We answer only to our own officers."
Holding his right hand up and triggering a small magic, Balan let them seem the outline of a hand glowing in his palm."
"Soldier, everyone answers to a Hand of the Commonwealth."
The sergeant blanched, suddenly afraid. The Hands were the chief trouble-shooters for the Commonwealth. As plenipotentiary agents of the state, their authority could override that of any civil official or military officer. The Hands were accountable for the actions only to the Chief Hand and the Ruling Council. They were reputed to be incorruptible, deadly, and decisive in removing any threat to the well-being of the state, whether it be a spy, a corrupt governor or a crime lord. No one cared to cross a Hand.
"You are a sorry excuse for a sergeant in the Commonwealth Army as I will be reporting to your commanding officer." Balan told the sergeant as he turned to escort the angry and shaken elf-boy to their quarters on the upper deck.
Dahl stayed angry for the longest time.
"Why couldn't they just take no for an answer? This is my body; it belongs to me. I'll decide who gets to play with it. Instead they treated me like a slave boy, a chattel rather than a person, a boy without any rights, without any claim to my own body. To them, all of us elf-boys are insatiable sluts, bum boys just panting for some man to use us, or better several men at once. They saw me as their rightful prey: small and powerless, naked and unarmed. Damn them!"
"I would have fought my way into the clear but there were too many of them. Two or three I might handle thanks to the skills Balan and Aodh have taught me, but not a dozen. Nothing for it but to submit."
Balan nodded.
"Fighting is easy. In time a man learns something much harder -- when not to fight, when to ignore his hot blood and to listen to his head. An important step toward manhood. More power to you Dahl."
Merry took a try at comforting the distraught boy.
<When you come into your druid powers, no man will be able to rape you, not when, with a thought, you can render him impotent, temporarily or even permanently.>
<Really!>
<The magic of Druids comes from the energy in all living things including, indeed especially, the generative faculties. And that is only one example. You will be able to kill a man just by stopping his heart, though that will exact a toll, using life magic for death. Most Druids avoid killing directly with magic, setting plants and animals against their foes or the elements like wind or rain or ice. If necessary druids use weapons that do not draw blood like the quarter staff you have trained with. Remember Druids, even small ones, have strength three or four times their size would indicate. The life magic also gives Druids control over animals. For instance, a druid might compel a herd of brontotheres to charge his foes, goring and trampling them to death.>
<I had no idea.>
Dahl looked to the young minstrel for support. You must know how I feel, Aodh. It's probably happened to you too. We are much the same aren't we, Aodh: slight of build and much too pretty for our own good."
The minstrel said nothing, keeping his own counsel though he did not agree at all with the elf-boy. True, superficially they were much alike, but Dahl was an elf. Feisty though he might be, he was still a pretty boy with a gentle soul and next thing to a vegetarian. Little wonder that a drunken gambler or randy soldiers would ignore his rights.
It was different for Aodh. As a wir-panther, Aodh was a human boy with the heart of a predator. More than once he had simply stared down men who thought to force him to serve. Often all it took was one look into his strange cat-eyes, slightly aslant above high cheekbones, to turn aside unwanted advances. The men might not quite realize why, but suddenly rape didn't seem like such a good idea. Put simply, Aodh was not and did not look like a victim. Dahl did.
Even without druidic powers Aodh had ways to discourage rapists. If he couldn't talk his way out of trouble or intimidate them with his eerie looks, then he could count on his skills in the martial arts to discourage overly aggressive suitors. Failing that, anyone who tried to force him would find that Aodh's claws could render a man impotent pretty damn quickly and pretty damn permanently.
<So, Balandur,> Merry sent, <You are a Hand of the Commonwealth, are you? You never said so, though I always suspected it. I take it then that your joining us when you did was not entirely fortuitous?>
"No. Did you unicorns really think the Commonwealth wouldn't notice your unusual activity. Our Watchers in divers lands reported that elf-boys and males of other races in company with unicorns and wizards were on the march from all points of the compass, traveling toward the Great Southern Forest. What could that be but an effort by the Druids there to bring in recruits to replenish their diminished numbers. When my Chief realized what was afoot he sent me to lend a hand, pun intended. And similarly with some other pairs."
"So, the Commonwealth has spies in foreign lands." Jemsen asked.
"Watchers not spies. Our Watchers are not into cloak and dagger. Their job is surveillance. They are men and not a few women who keep their eyes and ears open for the unusual and report what they see along with any loose talk they chance to overhear. They operate quite separately from us Hands."
"You Hands cannot all be giants." Karel ventured.
"Correct. Most of us are human. Understand we number only a score or so. No, we Hands pose as merchants and soldiers of fortune, itinerant priests and pilgrims, tinkers and circus folk, just about anyone with an excuse to travel about inconspicuously. Some occasionally pose as minstrels."
<We were lucky they sent you to us, old friend.>
Everyone nodded. The giant had been a pillar of strength and a good friend.
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