Soldier On

by N. J. Lysk

  Soldier On

  Copyright 2015 N.J. Lysk

  Smashwords edition

  Soldier On

  The old man looked at me with pity in his eyes. I glared at him. I had no use for pity. He wasn’t gonna spare me, was he? So what good was it to feel sorry for it? I knew the rules as good as any other soldier, just coz I was young it didn’t mean the rules didn’t go for me. The rules of the land were clear: you got captured, you had to take defeat. I knew why the old man felt sorry for me. I looked younger than I was; he thought I wasn’t gonna make it, not like I was anyway, that once was all it was gonna take. I squared my shoulders and kept my head high. I was his prisoner but I had blood on my weapons and my clothes; I was no coward to go looking down because things were hard.

  He sighed, shook his head and waved at me to get on with it. So I did. I turned my back to him and braced my arms on the wall. He came closer and nudged my legs apart with his knee till I opened up enough for his taste. No complaints; I had been ready to die, I wasn’t going to say nothing about a little pain. He unlaced my trousers with a tug and they went right down, they were too big on me even with the muscles the training had put on my skinny frame. They had belonged to my brother before… But I stopped that thought; there was no place for Jemiah in that room. Jemiah was brave. Jemiah wouldn’t be having to make fists to stay in place if he took defeat.

  Then I heard his belt unbuckling, of course he had a belt! A fancy rich lord like him couldn’t carry a sword, he needed a sheath and for a sheath you need a belt. He wasn’t too fancy to spit on his hand before he started getting it ready. It sounded the same as when I did it, or one of my brothers in the dark when they thought I was asleep. He didn’t say a thing to me, just pushed between my shoulders till my bum was sticking out and then ran his hand down my spine. That seemed too soft and I wanted to tell him not to coddle me, but I knew I had to keep quiet about that if I wanted to keep quiet about all the rest. He put his fingers between my buttocks and pulled them apart. It must have looked so stupid but it felt… the air shouldn’t have been there. It wasn’t meant to. Only it was, it was the rules of the land. Still, I couldn’t help but clench, my body wanted to get away and I had to lock my knees to make it stay in place. He pushed against it and it didn’t matter how much I clenched, I couldn’t keep it out. I bit my tongue and closed my eyes, trying to think of the blood. I opened my eyes, tried to look down my shirt, where some had dried but at that moment he moved his finger inside me and my eyes clenched shut. It didn’t hurt, just felt weird, like something was where it had no business being. And it was, my body knew it, but that didn’t mean nothing. I couldn’t stop it. All I could do by trying to stop it was shame myself, it wasn’t going to change what was going to happen one bit. Enemy soldiers pay defeat or they lose their heads, and that’s it. I wasn’t stupid enough to die just to avoid a little pain. He put another finger in, well, he tried anyway.

  Then he told me, “Relax, boy. I can’t just shove it in you.”

  I swallowed, and then I let the air I had been holding out. It sounded too loud, and loud breathing was almost like noise, almost like I cared so I said, “There.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s better,” he agreed and the finger that had been stuck slid right in. It felt rough and too big to be where it was, but I forgot about that because as soon as it was in he started to move them both, twisting and pushing till, locked knees or no locked knees, I started trying to twist my hips. Not away, just to make it a little less strange. It kinda worked, maybe coz at least I got to do something. I had been happy to die, if it meant keeping my people safe and money enough for my mother and little sisters to make it to summer. But now I thought that dying was easy. Most dying, for one, was over pretty fast, soldiers knew how to get their job done and nobody had no time to be playing games in a battlefield. I hadn’t had a thought for getting captured. You can’t, the officers tell you in training, if you think like that you are jinxing yourself. So I didn’t, and now…

  “Ok,” he said and I felt his breath on my neck, warm and sticky. And then… I felt it. Something bigger than his fingers nudging at my left buttock, then between them, next to the fingers. He pulled the fingers as far apart as they would go, leaving me open and exposed, like someone could look down and see inside me if they wanted. And then he put his cock against my hole and gave a hard push. I couldn’t help it, all the air left my lungs in a grunt of pain. It felt like he had shoved it right in.

  “Aren’t you glad I prepared you now?” he asked, voice rough but still patient, like he thought I was a kid and didn’t know how good I had it.

  I was about to curse him. I had to take defeat and I was no coward to beg, but I didn’t have to take lip from an old man who only got to do it to me because he owned all the cavalry and thought he was so tough because he could come and take our land then act like it was all fair. But I couldn’t talk because I was wrong, he hadn’t shoved it right in; there was more. He pushed again and again and I curled my nails into the brick of the cell wall and held on, teeth set on my lip to keep quiet even though he probably couldn’t hear me, the way he was panting with every thrust. It burned, like a muscle that’s gone the wrong way, only it burned every time. And then it didn’t burn so much, it was more like hard work, sore and itchy but nothing I couldn’t ignore. So I did. I thought about the blood. I thought about the rest of our troops breaking into this camp and killing all the bastards in their sleep. And then, he did something different. He must have been leaking because he was moving faster but it didn’t pull at my skin like it wanted to take my insides with it every time he pulled it half out of me. He pushed in all the way again, hard and fast and it was like he was trying to push through me, like being run through with a sword. But I was too fast for the swords, and I hadn’t been fast enough to escape this: How could I not have seen that shield that knocked me out? Why had I let this happen? I tensed against the pain, tasting blood in my mouth. I had bitten through my lip, I thought, and I thought I would throw up from swallowing the blood and the sounds. He couldn’t see my mouth so something else must have given me away because he slowed his pace, gentled it, circling his hips instead of pushing forward. And suddenly, through the discomfort came something worse: It felt good. I raised my forehead from the wall in surprise. It was like something pulling on my cock, but from inside me. If he hadn’t been leaning his head against my neck it wouldn’t have mattered but because he was, my movement bothered him and he got a hand off my hip and pulled my hair till I tilted my head sideways. Like I was a rebellious horse that he had to force to go his way. I grunted and pulled again, even though it hurt me more than it could bother him. But it helped distract me from the way it felt when he slid his other hand down to take hold of my cock and we both noticed it was half hard already. He huffed on my neck and pushed our hips flush together, forcing me to step forward and support my whole body against the wall, only his hand protecting my groin from the harshness of the brick every time his thrusts grinded me into it.

  And still, I took it. It was the first time I had taken defeat and I didn’t know how much he could really do in the name of getting it done but I wasn’t going to complain about my cock not getting rubbed against a brick wall, for one. There’s proud and there’s stupid. Maybe he can’t do it, I thought, maybe that’s why he’s distracting me. But it didn’t help nothing, my prick wasn’t dry anymore, it couldn’t be, what with the way he was touching me hard and a little tight. And I thought, why is he making it good? I want… I wanted it all gone. And if I couldn’t make it go right then, I wanted to forget it all tomorrow. Get real drunk, maybe, and then go find a maidy who was impressed with soldiers and… He gave a deep thrust in me and my seed splattered on the wall of the cell. My legs wobbled and he caught me, letting go of my co
ck to take me by the waist and hoist me higher, put his prick deeper into me. Then I made the first sound, too out of it to stop, because it felt good still but it also hurt now. I had clenched tighter than a nun’s cunt around him. For a crazy moment I thought, what if he can’t get it out?

  But he did, he took it out halfway and pushed it back in, keeping his arm locked around me like he thought I was gonna make a run for it. I thought I might have, because it hurt a lot now, I was so tight it felt like was splitting me open every time. When I felt his thrusts speeding up, I gave in and closed my eyes. It only made it worse because it made me feel weak and weak was what I was most afraid of being. Too young to get through this. Of course it didn’t help, it’s not like I could see him, see his cock splitting me open, going so deep it could change me forever. And it wasn’t like it was just in my head: I was older than I looked, but sometimes men with wives got caught and got made. And everybody knew the younger you were the worst your chances, the more your body could get turned around and think a grown man putting his seed in you was because we had no more females and we needed to make some to survive. He grunted, his grip getting hard enough to hurt. I felt it start, the suddenly easy slide in and out, the warm liquid he was filling me with till I could feel it dripping between my legs every time he pulled out. It was a weakness but I didn’t open my eyes, I gritted my teeth and kept my mouth shut. I couldn’t stop the fear but I was damned if I was gonna show it. Finally, he slowed down and stopped, leaning heavily on me for a few breaths that seemed to burn the back of my neck. Even more come slipped out when he stepped back and it took it out of me. It stung enough to make me shudder but I didn’t mess up; I was quiet.

  “Get some rest,” the lord said and walked out. The guards locked the door behind him and I suddenly remembered them stories about guards and I looked at them, careful they didn’t see me looking. One was standing there next to the cell door, but what could I do anyway? If he wanted to come in and do what his lord had done I could fight him, but he was armed and I had nothing. Not even clothes. I pulled my trousers up, pretending it didn’t bother me any to feel the lord’s liquid all over my arse, and I lay down on the straw. It was the rule of the camp, when you got nothing to do; eat and sleep. Because when you got something to do, you got no time for that.

  I knew something was no good before I opened my eyes. The light was all wrong. It wasn’t the sun getting through the badly made roof of our hutch; it was a torch. I blinked, turning to look at the man holding it: it was the lord. I had thought it was the armour making him look big but he was still big now, and he was looking at me. I sat up, alarmed and confused. A lowly soldier like me getting a visit from the lord could not be good news. Moving was not a good idea, though, because it pulled, the seed in my trousers… and inside me had dried on my skin. I turned my grimace into a scowl. “What’s you wanting now?”

  He watched me with serious eyes, his eyes were light, witch eyes, and he was paying me real close attention, like I was some complicated problem, not a man woken in the middle of the night. He had gone to visit a prisoner in his own dungeons and now he looked all worried about it. I snorted, fuck him, I thought, and lay back down. He could do all the watching he liked, I wasn’t going to look back at him like it mattered to me any.

  “You are unchanged?” he asked my back. And that made me mad. He had no right come and ask me that, like it was no him making it so maybe I was changed. Like it was all an accident that he had invaded us and I had ended up getting captured.

  “What the fuck do you care?” I snapped.

  “Conception sometimes takes place with the change,” he explained and I rolled over just so I could glare at him. Wasn’t it enough what he had done to me? Now he was here using fancy words to make me feel like a fool? I didn’t ask him what it was, just stared at his face, making it real clear what I thought of him and his words. “Getting with child,” he added. I couldn’t keep the shock off my face. Getting with child? I had never heard nothing about getting with child when a man changed. That was after, that’s why a lot of the men killed themselves. I couldn’t blame them much, even if it was the coward’s way.

  “But you are unchanged, so that’s out of the question now.”

  “Then why the fuck are you telling me?” I growled.

  “You did ask me why I should care,” the old man replied in the same even tone. It was like nothing I say… It was like he didn’t care a thing about what I said, which was a fact anyway, I suppose.

  After he left the guards came in with some bread and water. I didn’t even look to see if they stayed, I was so desperate I fell upon the drink and food like a beast and some minutes later I had a full belly ache thanks to my haste. It didn’t matter, it was better than the dryness in my mouth had been. And no way I could sleep after what the lord had told me. I didn’t believe him, I decided, he was my enemy and he wanted to take what was ours from us. But the idea was too much, the change was bad enough. I knew some boys that had gone to be brides in the city because their parents needed the money to keep the family going. And then there was Kieran. Kieran had been my best friend when I was a little midget, six or seven. We had ran around and swam and chased dogs, all the things boys do after their mothers get tired of them being underfoot. But then that winter Kieran had caught a bad cold, bad enough he almost died. Dying might’ve been better, Kieran had told me, because after that he could not play outside much. He tried, but the fancy doctor his father got for him was right: running would set him coughing so bad he would end up laid up in bed for days. I liked Kieran so I went into his house to tell him tales of town and about the critters we had found in the lake. Kieran’s mum had not been pleased when I had brought him some of the baby frogs to see. But Kieran had loved them. You could see it right on his face; he missed the outside something awful. He begged his mum to let him draw the frogs before I took them, and she let him. It was sad to watch, like he was trying to save them up in his head by looking at them so close. Next year, Kieran’s mum had another baby, a boy. Kieran’s dad got drunk in the tavern and thanked the gods he had a son again. Jemiah was there and he told me later. I think Kieran didn’t know because he didn’t see nobody that wasn’t his mum and dad and brother and sister. But I think it made no difference, next time I saw him he was low in spirits, like somebody had gone and died. I didn’t have no frogs for him so I could only sit and talk, but that didn’t help. Kieran let me talk and talk, but I could tell he wasn’t listening. And then I stopped to breath and he said it, “My father says I am to be married.”

  “Married?” I had repeated all confused. Kieran was too young to be married, fourteen, maybe fifteen.

  “Father Khomas, from Irle. He… his wife passed away last year.” Irle was two parishes away, was the first thing I thought, too far to visit.

  “But… I don’t… Your father is rich!”

  Kieran continued to look at the carpet. That whole house was covered in carpets, maybe the richest house in town. Nobody needed to give his son away to be a bride less than Kieran’s father. Kieran spoke, voice so harsh it didn’t sound nothing like him, “The house is the place of women, a man in the house does no good…”

  The words were not like him, either, and then I got it: it was his father’s words. It was the reason. Kieran was too sick to work in the fields, too sick to manage his father’s land, and his father had a son again and didn’t need him no more. It would have been nice to say I never saw him again. Or nice for Kieran, anyway, because I always thought of him when I walked by his house. I hoped he was ok.

  But two years after he left, his mother got sick, so sick my ma said to say a prayer for her every night. My ma liked Kieran’s ma because she always said nice things about ma’s washing when she gave it back. And Kieran came to see her. There was a carriage and the reverend got out first, all in black, a tall thin man that looked a little angry for no reason I could see. The servants were all running to the carriage the moment the driver opened the door. I was right acro
ss, cleaning metal in the smithy; I shoulda looked the other way. But I didn’t, I was a boy and I was curious. The reverend turned and helped a lady out of the carriage. Only it was no lady, it was Kieran. He looked different, his hair was longer and he had a dress on and a mantle over his shoulders, like he still caught colds easy. But it was Kieran, I would know his eyes anywhere. The reverend took his arm to guide him, and Kieran looked up and around like he missed the place, and saw me. Our eyes met and he stopped dead, like he’d seen a ghost. Then he looked down and pulled the reverend with him to the house. And when they turned I saw something else: Kieran’s belly was round and full.

  The clank of the cell door woke me. The guards were coming in, three of them, dressed in riding leathers but not in armour. Not that it mattered much, they were all men grown strong with work and sword, all of them armed with daggers. And they were angry.

  “…if he does not like us to enjoy our own prize,” one of them was telling the others. There was laughter in response. For a moment I contemplated pretending sleep, but I had no time to close my eyes again before the bigger of them took my right arm and yanked me to my feet. I cried out, couldn’t help it, it felt like he had taken my arm off and I had no warning. He smiled a toothy smile at me, eyes sharp with the hunger of a cat looking at mice. He was young but two of his teeth were missing, dizzily, I wondered if he had lost them in fight or in sickness. I gritted my own teeth and kept quiet. I was all I could do, I had no words. I ached everywhere, from the battle and from taking defeat.

  “Now this one we can play free with no bride price to pay,” he told the others with satisfaction.

  “Get to it,” growled his companion from behind him. My eyes flickered behind them all, to the open cell door… if I could only get to it. But the man had not let go of my arm and the other two were watching me like hawks. They were waiting, I thought, and my arm was yanked behind me as I was pushed against the wall. Not the same wall, was my crazy thought, like that helped any, like that meant the same thing was not gonna happen. The lace on my breaches gave way when he pulled roughly at them. Then he let go of my arm to get to his own and I twisted around him, stepping out of my ruined pants in the process. And smacked straight into his tall companion. He caught me easy, like I was a baby stumbling about to his momma, and laughed when I struggled.