Comes to bring us good harvest!
Slowly, gracefully Ariadne rose from the bier. Head high, round full breasts with their red and swollen nipples pressed together in offering, she approached the godman. The two maenads moved back as the Bride of Dionysos knelt at his side, her breasts pressed against his right thigh.
Fisting her thick golden red hair he twisted it. Hard.
Ah! She whimpered, neck arching, head fell back, lips partly open. Bending his head the godman devoured her mouth in a deep intoxicating kiss.
Breaking the kiss with a lingering smack the godman pushed the Bride’s face down to his turgid staff. With one hand she grasped his stiff cock, rubbing and tugging. With the other she rolled and lightly squeezed his seed sacs.
She kissed the broad mushroom head, licking and sucking his erection. The Bacchae went wild.
Evoi - YAH!
Evoi - YAH!
The God cometh unto the Bride!
Fertilize the Goddess!
Bring good harvest!
Leaning over the godman’s thigh, his bride arched her back, raising her ass in offer as she licked and sucked Dionysos’ phallus. The godman lifted her long ruffled skirt to reveal her shivering ivory globes.
Trailing his fingers along her upper thighs, he rubbed and caressed her globes, gradually dipping and pushing his fingers deeper into her hot wet folds. She moaned, pumping and sucking his sex extravagantly.
With a resounding Smack! he slapped her shining pale globes. Slid his fingers down to caress her slick folds, pushing a languorous finger into her warm mouth of desire. Removing his finger he gazed at the dripping juices, then lazily licked and sucked his digit.
A low feral growl emerged from deep within Dionysos’ throat. He pushed his fingers through those hot lips of desire again, stimulating her heat, her lust.
Fist wrapped in her red-gold hair, he repeatedly forced her head up and down over his hot cock. She lapped and tongued him passionately, hungrily.
Evoi - YAH!
Evoi - YAH!
The God cometh!
He comes unto the Goddess!
Fertilize the Great Mother!
Smack! Smack! The godman spanked the Bride’s bare quivering ass again and again. Followed by deep stroking and rubbing. Her cries erotic, intoxicating.
The drumbeat picked up, resounding, pounding the ground and all around. Dionysos’ head lolled back as Ariadne brought him to the edge of ecstasy, sucking and pumping his godhood.
She climbed onto his lap, legs straddling him. Grasping his engorged phallus she rubbed the smooth, wet mushroom head over her yoni. He released a low feral groan of raw primal lust.
Grasping her hips, he pulled her against his loins, easing his godly staff into her sacred passage. Backs arched, undulating against each other’s bodies, they faced each other like mating serpents, coiling and uncoiling.
Sava had no doubt that if a babe should come from this mating it would be considered a divine child sired by Dionysos. The child would be raised under the strict tutelage of the boukolos.
If a boy it would be considered a legitimate claimant to the throne of Agathyrsia and thus a competitor to any sons Prince Carnos might have by his wedded wife. An excellent method to infiltrate and ultimately dominate the royal house.
Evoi - YAH!
Fertilize the Goddess!
Bring good harvest!
The Bride’s back arched in thrilling shudders of ecstasy. She let her head fall back over the godman’s knees. His thumb rubbed slow circles over her pearl, their mutual juices lubricating the pathway.
Undulating in Dionysos’ lap, Ariadne brought her head back up to look directly in his eyes. Pulling her hips close, he thrust deep.
Moaning her ecstasy, she ground her hips against his loins. The godman cupped her ass, pulling, stretching her globes to bring his phallus to its deepest piercing. They both groaned from the pleasure.
He thrust a finger into her swollen pink rosette, swirling and pumping. The Bride rolled her hips brushing her pearl over his belly squeezing her channel to draw out his seed.
The Godman and the Bride of Earth cried out, connected, holding each other tight, shuddering as One.
Evoi - YAH!
Evoi - YAH!
Bring the fertilizing rain!
Fertilize the Goddess!
The Bride pulled away. A maenad held a vessel under Dionysos’ dripping cock. His seed would be mixed with sacred blood from the sacrifices and sprinkled on the fields. Not one precious drop wasted.
Drugged, satiated and exhausted, the godman's head lolled back showing the whites of his eyes.
The Archiboukolos Komkizo lifted the ram’s horn to his lips and blew an echoing, haunting blast.
“Time for the oracle. Bring forth Glykon!”
Four boukolos emerged from the cave carrying a huge python, its golden scales marked by black diamonds. They laid the upper part of the snake across the godman’s shoulders so that the serpent’s neck and head rested on his right shoulder near his ear.
That drakon has the face of a man! Transfixed, Sava stared at the big snake.
“Hail Glykon! Oracle of The God Below. Any who desire an oracle – Come Forth. Now!”
Sava caught Dodona’s eye. She closed her eyes once in silent acknowledgement and came forward. When her turn came, the slave girl dropped to her knees, palms pressed to earth in supplication.
“Glykon, Sacred Oracle of The God Below – Will King Darius conquer Skythia?”
The godman inclined his ear closer to the oracle serpent. Its forked tongue flickered in and out, as if whispering into his ear.
Sava blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the drakon’s face. Is IT a man with the body of a serpent? Or a serpent with the head of a man? Is it real or an illusion? It even has a crest of human hair.
For a moment his eyes saw a cloth bag skillfully painted with a human-like face over the snake’s head. The eyes were cut out and there was a hole for its forked tongue to flicker through. But Sava’s vision was so distorted, everything waving and rippling that he could tell nothing for sure.
The godman groaned and threw back his head. A deep rasping Voice resounded:
I say to you –
The strength of bulls and lions cannot stop this foe.
The Under World Serpent will BURN the lower worlds.
The bloody War God shall cause great strongholds to fall.
Flee thou wretched ones!
Stay thou not here for the host to arrive!
At this grim oracle the ebullient mood of the Bacchae shrank away. But the dire prophecy could not long repress the intoxicating atmosphere of the Dionysia. The godman rose and pointed to a raised platform the height of a man stationed opposite the wine god’s idol.
“The God has come! He has entered into his sacrifices! He has become One with his victims. Partake of the blood and flesh of The God and YOU too shall be as the Gods!”
To the renewed thunder of drums, four priests brandishing long glittering knives led the garlanded white bulls up a ramp onto the platform.
Chapter 17 - Spargamos
We fled to escape being torn to pieces
By the Bacchae
But they, with hands that bore no weapon
Attacked our cattle…
They rent the heifers limb from limb
Hurling ribs and hoofs this way and that
Strips of flesh all blood-bedabbled
Dripped from the pine branches –
Euripides, Bacchae
Fat, glossy, flower-wreathed bulls were led to a ramp. Boukolos wielding goads repeatedly struck the two bellowing, recalcitrant animals forcing them up to a crude wooden platform. Immediately upon reaching the top, the bulls’ front and back legs were tightly bound. At the same time the fervent worshippers rushed to get under the platform.
Evoi Yah! Evoi Yah!
The GOD has come!
The God is here NOW.
Wash in the blood of the God
So that you may be cleansed!
Drink the blood of the God
So that you may be as the Gods!
The boukolos stabbed the white bulls in the neck, slashing the carotid artery. The animals groaned in agony as their legs crumpled under them.
Blood, buckets of blood fountained out, spilling through the slatted floor of the platform. Underneath the frenzied Bacchae bathed in the bloody shower and caught it in vessels to drink.
The Archiboukolos announced in a great voice -
The GOD has come!
The God is here NOW!
DRINK! Drink the GOD’s divine power!
EAT! Eat The God!
EAT and you will become the GOD!
As if possessed by demons the Bacchae attacked the young animals staked in the clearing. Holding the sacrifices down with their feet, they seemed possessed of superhuman strength, tearing off the victim’s legs with their bare hands.
Gnawing like bloodthirsty predators, the wine god’s devotees ripped and gouged the young skin and flesh with fingernails become claws. Biting, clamping down on furry necks. Hungrily drinking the blood as it poured out of the crying and screaming young calves, goats, fox, bear and wolf cubs.
EAT!
Eat The God!
Hurry!
Eat while The God still lives in his sacrifice!
The shock of the sight pierced Sava’s drugged mind. The grim reality of Spargapeithes’ words coming back to haunt him – ‘The Bacchae practice Spargamos and Omophagia’.
They dismember and eat their victims Alive!
A sharp stab of fear carved a deep hole in his pounding heart. And he knew – I will soon be caught.
The boukolos were vigilant. At any moment they would notice that he was not participating in this sick slaughter. He was a marked man.
They can read minds. One look in my eyes and they will see my revulsion. They will see me for what I am - a spy. The shout will go up and these maddened, frenzied Bacchae will turn on me like a pack of howling wolves.
Eyes swiveling in his head, body frozen in the middle of the bloody melee, the nomad scanned the murky surroundings for any way to escape. He tried to move closer to the thick forest encircling the ritual area but the delirious crowd was too tightly packed around him. They were all rushing in to lick, bite and tear bloody hunks out of the victims while they still shuddered and struggled to live.
At the same time the living serpents on the devotees’ heads glared suspiciously at him.
The God IS here. The vampir demons have completely possessed their MINDS. He knew he must keep his head down. Avoid eye contact. Appear as an avid participant in this bloody, screaming chaos.
He knelt near some other Bacchae who were ripping the legs off a shrieking, howling wolf cub. In the horror of the moment Sava realized that sometime during the melee his ram mask had fallen off. Ironically, as long as he had been unaware that he had no mask to hide his identity, no one else noticed either.
But the instant he realized his mask was gone, his whole demeanor changed to guilt and furtiveness. The sharp eyes of the boukolos were sure to pick him out. His life was now forfeit.
Hating himself, Sava knelt over the quivering wolf cub. He pretended to tear and eat of the writhing entrails as they were ripped out of the cub’s belly. One of the cub’s legs had been thrown to one side. He picked the leg up and scuttled away as if hoarding it to himself.
Crouching near the dense forest edge Sava cast around, frantically searching for a way out. At that moment he caught the eye of a boukolos standing next to the Dionysos idol.
It was Archiboukolos Komkizo. One look said it all. Komkizo recognized him instantly. Doubtless the high priest looked forward to finding a usurper at every rite. Just the excuse they needed for a human sacrifice to the wine god. The sorcerer aimed his thyrsus at Sava.
“Look there! A spy! GET HIM. Show him the power of The God!”
As One the frenzied Bacchae raised their heads, mouths dripping blood. Glazed eyes fixed on Sava like a pack of feral animals with One mind – that of a ravenous predator.
Eyes silently pleading, Sava sought out Dodona's face in the crowd - and found her. She made the slightest gesture with her chin, pointing straight behind him and gave a tiny nod. It was enough.
Dropping the wolf cub’s leg, Sava turned and dove blindly into the thick green curtain of pines. With a howling roar, the blood-smeared mob rose in pursuit. Arm raised to shield his face against slapping branches, Sava hurled himself through the dark evergreen forest.
But it was impossible to run fast through the thick undergrowth. In moments the crazed pack of howling demons would be on him, gouging, biting, ripping, tearing.
He had only one option. Climb. Panting with the fear of an animal hunted for its flesh, he began scrabbling up a tall pine tree.
Forty feet up, Sava worked his way out on a thick bouncing branch. It shivered, swaying under his weight. Barely balanced on the narrow swaying branch, he prayed with his whole heart as he had never prayed in all his life.
JIVAN - God of Life – I call upon you – I beg you! Save me! Deliver me! Hear me Jivan! Save me this one time and I will never forget you!
The nomad experienced a strange, subtle sensation then, as if an invisible, ephemeral presence was descending over him, covering him. And there was no more fear.
He launched, diving through air. Everything seemed to slow. He stretched out his arms to grab the branch of the nearest tree. His fingers closed over the end of a branch as he fell. The springy bough bent as he dropped to the forest floor, breaking his fall.
He hit the ground hard, but was on his feet, running like a deer. Bounding as if a great hand was lifting him with every step.
From just behind came jubilant shrieks – “There he goes! Get him! Tear his body to pieces! Eat him! Drink his blood! The God commands it!”
Forcing his way through heavy undergrowth in pitch darkness, Sava rushed blindly, until he leapt off a precipice. Strangely unafraid he found himself falling through space. The mysterious force surrounding him, descending with him.
It was a long drop, maybe fifty feet. His feet struck water, his body arrowing down to the rocky bottom. Kicking up, he broke through to the surface, gasping.
The river. Thank you Jivan! I will never forget you. And he meant his vow in the most profound way.
Swimming silently Sava let the river carry him back toward the town. Furious screams echoed from above. Waving torches lined the top of the river bluff. The boukolos could not see him this far below. He relaxed and let the blessed dark waters carry him, body and soul.
As the first pale fingers of dawn struck a high barren cliff overhead, Sava saw a great craggy head. A face that time could not erase. The face of a noble king, eyes raised to the East. The king’s crown was a rocky crag. Or maybe the face had been there so long that his crown had eroded into a crag.
At the sight of this lonely face gazing eternally into the rising sun, Sava let his eyes drift shut. An overwhelming sense of gratitude filled his entire being. And at that moment he had a vision -
A vast host was on the move, an endless line stretching on into Time. A powerful people with wagons and herds of cattle, horses and sheep, unnumbered as the grains of sand along the Euxine Sea. Roaming free. His people –
Jivan has lifted the veil covering my soul’s eyesight. To achieve our rightful place among the races of the Sons of Man, we must resist Darius.
Like the serpent which continues to strike even after its head is lopped off, the Reptile People must fight on. We cannot die.
Chapter 18 - Revenge of the Massagetae
Boys throw stones at frogs for fun
But the frogs don’t die for fun
But rather in sober earnest –
Bion of Boryesthenes, former Skythian slave c. 300 BC
Still drugged, drunk, exhausted, cold, wet and in a state of shock, Sava should have staggered ashore and collapsed. Instead his feet carried him in light
- hearted joyful bounds.
I am still alive. ALIVE.
The nomad knelt on the river bank to thank God for his life. Kneeling there in the soft river sand, his heart filled with gratitude, Dodona’s face flowed into his mind – a lowly bath slave, used by everyone. He saw the welts on her back, yet admired the way she held herself, her very essence spoke of her indomitable grip on life.
Dodona had saved his life at the risk of her own. She was worthy of so much more than the harsh life of a pleasure slave with every man’s foot on her neck. I will give the last of my gold to buy Dodona’s freedom.
He would have to approach Spargapeithes on this matter, since all palace slaves belonged to the king. As he strode toward the palace, Sava’s mind was clicking.
We have to get out of Agathrysia. Now. Queen Barkida will soon be informed that I spied on the wine god’s secret rites. Komkiza will demand that I be punished.
The Archiboukolos had probably already sent a messenger to the queen, demanding severe punishment for the arrogant Sauromatian spy. Entering the palace through the kitchen, Sava headed swiftly down the hallway toward his quarters. He met his Neuri companions and Brata coming the other way.
One look into Sava’s haunted, bloodshot eyes revealed the truth about the Dionysia to his perceptive friends. In a flash they absorbed his wet, bedraggled appearance. His spiraling painted on tattoos were a mushy bluish mess. His artfully dyed and waved blue hair and the black horse tail hung lank and dripping.
“Lo, behold this strange river horse.” Borna observed with a raised sardonic brow. “What happened to the hot Agathrysi stud we saw last night?”
“We were just about to mount a search party for you.” Toxaris said, sizing him up.
“Right after we eat.” Vuk’s lips curved in thin smile. “I am hungry for more of that good Agathyrsi cooking.”
“Let me guess.” Lips quirked, Borna took in Sava’s condition. “You bribed that slave girl to slip you into the Dionysia. But the boukolos spotted you; so you put that long black tail between your legs and ran like a bat out of Haides. You had to jump into the river in order to escape with your ass intact. Is that your story?”
Wine God's Sorcery: The Horse Lords Page 9
