Print Edition of the Stag God Chronicles!

Hey, all.

So, I've decided that Ashlan deserves some space on my bookshelves. Though I originally thought about trying to find a publisher, I think the format is a little strange for most standard publishing venues - too short and choppy for novels, and too long for short story compilations.

Fortunately, we live in a time when those aren't our only options. :)

I'm in the process of putting together a Trade Paperback sized edition of the Stag God Chronicles. I'm also in contact with couple of artists, discussing how to get a cover and a couple of interior plates illustrating key scenes from each of the stories for the final book.

I'll keep you guys in the loop - you've been the best, sticking with me over the last four years and watching Ashlan and the world of Khernia grow in all of our minds (and sometimes, our pants ^_^ ). I'll let you folks know more as I have more info, including maybe posting one or two of the images here as I get them.

I'm also putting the proceeds from these sales toward a very good end; since this sort of endeavor will let me take time off from work occasionally without it impacting my finances, I'm going to occasionally take "Stag God Weekends," and spend time working on new tales for the Stag God Chronicles.

Right now, I'm working on a story called "The Archon," which is part of a new Stag God Chronicles trilogy called Light in the Forest:

"The Archon:" The assault and corruption of one of the Church's Patriarchs isn't something that its masters can take without answer. So, the hunt begins - the powers of the Lord of Light are out for blood...the blood of the Stag God, and they don't care who gets caught in the middle.

There's lots more on the horizon, including plans for a trilogy after Light in the Forest entitled The Smoke of War. :D Thanks for sticking with me, guys.

The Stag God Chronicles: The Archon, Chapter One

Hey, everyone.

This marks the beginning of a new series, a continuation of the Stag God Chronicles in the form of a new trilogy I'm calling "Light in the
Forest."

Come and chat with us about the new storyline, won't you? We've got some great guys on there, and I'd love to hear from anyone who's read
the series, old or new (hopefully both!).

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stag-god-cycle/

As usual, involves adult situations, with all that entails. You've been warned.

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This story is copyright The Oaken Satyr, 2008.

The Archon

- Part One of "Light in the Forest," a continuation of the Stag God Chronicles

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Chapter One: Initiation

The moon was dark overhead, its light long since expended for the month. Now, it was only a tiny silver sliver in the sky, like an eye drooping off to sleep. Likewise, eyes all through the small fishing community of Marushford closed and found slumber. The day came early this time of year, and the fish did not wait for laze-abouts to catch them.

But not everyone found sleep. The Pikewood nearby seemed to glow in the dim light, and occasionally an errant wind carried the sound of a drumbeat, or the smell of sweet burning pine resin to the people of the town. They weren't fools. Everyone knew what went on in those woods these days.

No one talked about it, of course. It was hardly a topic of conversation for good, wholesome folk. But the whispers were plain. Dark men gathered in the hidden places these days, and it is said they wore antlers strapped to their heads in emulation of the god they worshipped: a terrible demon-god, a creature of shame and perversion and filth.

Only the Church spoke openly of them, warning everyone about their influence. It is said they called men away from their proper roles under the eye of heaven. This orc-demon lured men away from their homes, wives and families, tempted them into wicked congress with one another so that they would not raise strong sons.

The wise in the Church and town knew enough to warn others that it was clearly intended to weaken the population of Mankind, that the savage and piggish orcfolk — who called themselves the Tribes of the Great Sow — might overrun them entirely, butchering babes, raping women and those men too weak and fearful to fight to the death.

Of course, that was the sort of thing that "those people" did. No one in town claimed to know anyone involved in the Cults of the Stag-God — it was scandalous to even suggest it.

And so it was that here and there, a small number of the menfolk of Marushford slipped away. The widower who'd lost his wife to
disease and simply sought solace in someone's arms. The husband who resented his family arranging his marriage, stolen away from hunting
trips and expeditions with his best friends as a youth, desiring memories of carefree adolescence before sex became something he had to
plead for, to be doled out to him as a reward, and withheld on a whim. The middle son who snuck out of the attic bedroom he shared with his
snoring brothers, seeking those who would not only welcome his shy overtures, but return them with confidence.

To all of these, came the call of the Stag-God.

Beneath the pine trees, in a clearing thick with the scent of pine resin, burnt in chunks from brass braziers hung from the strongest boughs, they came. Quietly, and clad in dark clothing, wearing blankets like cloaks and moving cautiously.

One of their number arrived with another in tow, a young man wearing a blindfold and led from behind. As they gathered in the grove, they encircled the young man, speaking lowly from lips to ear, in a circle, until they all knew who he was and why he was here.

"My brother's new helper around the mill," said Strenham, the miller's brother, a man whose ill-manners were wielded carefully to keep at arm's length the women whose touch he didn't desire. "He approached me last week, claiming that his sleeping pallet was too
hard and too cold. He is one of us. His name is Mathis."

The young man was thickly built, with broad shoulders and thick thighs. He was clearly on the verge of full adulthood, with the slight touch of baby fat to his face and soft, rounded buttocks, but the ample groin and dusting of light fur on his cheeks and chin. His lips were full and lush, his hair a reddish-copper mess atop his head and his blue eyes hidden by the blindfold.

Hands reached out to touch Mathis, to grope him, to caress him and pat him reassuringly. First one hand touched his shoulder, and slid down his back, over the slimming of his hips and the curve of his buttocks. Mathis breathed raggedly in little fearful, excited gasps, and another hand cupped his crotch, where the young man's cock strained against his breeches. Suddenly, there were hands all over him, touching, smoothing, mauling by turns. The first to touch his skin slid up from his ass and under his tunic, hot callused skin on the sweet, smooth skin of his side.

A man pressed up behind him, and suddenly Mathis was in someone's arms, his back against a broad chest, his ass shoved up against the hot length of someone's erection. Hands slid under his tunic, and kept traveling upward. The man behind him guided his arms
up over his head, and then he was bare-chested in the cold night air.

The breath of men — how many of them? They seemed to be everywhere — breathed on him, warming him, and someone's lips found his nipple, strong lips pushing into the flesh there, teeth clenching the nub there, tongue flicking that trapped nipple.

Mathis groaned and leaned back against the strong, tall figure behind him.

Hands continued to roam his body. He could hear their breathing, more and more urgent. The touch became stronger, too, more insistent. What began as simple caresses became clutching at his hips, his shoulders, his belly. Several hands strayed past the simple rope that held his breeches up, and another fumbled for a moment at the knot. Someone chuckled and whispered something teasingly — not to him, but to the one working at his belt, and in panting frustration Mathis slapped the hand away and untied it himself.

With a hissed intake of air through clenched teeth, his pants dropped. He didn't have time to notice the cold air on his naked flesh now before that flesh was covered, mauled by hands. Now it wasn't just hands — bodies pressed against him. He knew, on some level, that these were a multitude of bodies here: thin and lithe, densely muscled, barrel-chested and round-bellied. But they all felt like one moving being to him, a being of heat and sweat and lust.

"Gently, now," the deep voice said in his ear and he gasped. The lips beside his ear parted and a tongue ran lightly over the curve of his ear, and a whiskered face brushed up against his own as teeth captured his earlobe. The hands of the man behind him — the man whispering to him now — tightened around his body and began to pull him downward. His knees buckled, and he realized that this man had practically been holding him up.

His bare knees found contact with mounds of soft heather and clover covering the hardness of the forest floor beneath him. The man behind him knelt with him. Mathis whimpered, reaching up to remove the mask, but the man stopped him.

"Not yet. It is not time for that yet."

A hand on the back of his head pushed him forward as clothing rustled around him, and when he stopped, the thick head of some man's cock — pulsing in the heat and already drooling a slight smudge of precum — came to rest against his left cheek. Mathis turned, opening his mouth, and the cock bobbed away. Another cock, this one dramatically thick and meaty, slapped him in his opposite shoulder, and he turned to face that one while a third one...or was it the first one again?...played its stubby, hot head over his ear, down his neck and then rested in the hollow of his throat for a moment.

It was maddening, being surrounded by them like this!

Suddenly, strong arms grasped him from behind again, and Mathis whimpered. The man behind him had disrobed, and now pulled him up against his naked, hard body, skin to hot skin. Mathis sighed a ragged sigh and leaned fully against the man.

"Now is the time," he said, and tickled Mathis' ear again with his whiskers. "You have found your way to us, but you are not of us. Will you take the oath, and become one of the Stag-born?"

Mathis' heart leapt to his throat and he trembled. He could feel the stillness and closeness around him, as they all waited to hear his response.

"I will."

Suddenly the man behind him grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head back, while hands in front of him invaded his lips. The fingers wormed their way into his mouth, and once he opened his jaw, they were replaced by a fat, hot cockhead, which stretched his mouth further.

All was heat and passion as the man behind him trapped him, grasping him in a tight bearhug, pulling him up against his body, and the man in front of his fed him cock. Mathis choked first, and the cock with drew and then immediately invaded his mouth again. This time, however, the young man was ready for it.

"That's it, boy," a whispered voice from off to his right said huskily. "Open your mouth wide."

The man in front of him shoved his cock into Mathis' mouth, and Mathis yawned wide to take it. The member wasn't too thick, but it was very hard and quite long, with a slender head on it. Mathis closed his mouth around its width and slid his head up and down as the man stepped forward with a sigh.

Mathis' hands reached up and cupped the buttocks of the man in front of him. They were thin and muscled, slightly furry. He ran his hands up and down, from lower back to the man's calves, reveling in the heat the man put off while deepthroating the man's cock as best he could. The man had a slender but muscled build.

Suddenly, the cock withdrew, trailing a thick line of spittle over Mathis' lips and down his chin. The man behind him pulled him tight and reached around, wiping his hand across the new initiate's mouth. He came away with the saliva, and the man whispered in his ear:

"Consecrated in spittle, you are."

The man's hand wrote a symbol of some kind, simple and curving on his chest in his own saliva.

Then, all the men were pressing close, each demanding his cock sucked with only strident slaps of their cocks against his jaw and face. Mathis quickly surged forward, swallowed one thick member to the hilt, opening his jaws `til they ached, before being pulled away and force-fed another fat member faster than he could keep track of. Their grunt, sighs and moans sounded like a chorus of animals.

This was unlike anything he'd ever known, and his breathing was ragged and desperate. Fingers touched him, hands pressed at him and thick, warm bodies pressed close in the cold night.

Then it happened —the man behind him, who'd held him close this whole time, reached down, his fingers coated with some sort of unguent. Slick and teasing, they touched the crack of his ass with the backs of knuckles, and then slid neatly and perfectly into the hollow between
the globes of his buttocks and found his hole.

Mathis very nearly screamed his urgency; only the thick, meaty cock in his mouth prevented it. Even so, he moaned around the member in pleasure, and the man he serviced groaned his appreciation at the sudden sensation around his cock. The fingers teased and prodded at his hole, and Mathis leaned forward to give the man behind him better access to his nethers. The men around him accepted his forward movement gratefully, taking him into their arms with kisses, licks, nibbles and sucking bites.

"This is the gate," the man behind him said, his voice equal parts teasing passion and pure reverence. "By this gate comes Ashlan into our lives, and through this gate we learn what passion truly is. To be owned by Him, to be claimed by Him as the hunter claims his prey — these are good, holy things, and through this gate we claim others and allow others to claim us in return. In His name."

"In his name," the men around them intoned and Mathis gave himself over to their caresses as the speaker's fingers invaded his hole, silken smooth and warm. Mathis glanced to his left and found Strenham's smiling face. The two of them had been intimate, but Mathis had never surrendered himself this way to the millhand. Yes, Mathis had come begging for a place in the older man's bed, but it was his randy cock that was sucked, and Strenham who received the young man's thick cock in his ass during the cold nights.

Strenham surged forward as Mathis pulled his face away from yet another cock, and caught the young man's jaw. The two men kissed, then, and Strenham straightened, presenting his stubby but thickly swollen cock to the younger man. With a smile, Mathis first kissed the
head of his thick, blunt prick, smearing his lips with the precum there, and then swallowed his lover and sponsor to the cult of the
Stag-God to the root.

The first finger in Mathis' ass had been joined by a second at some point, and Mathis felt a tingling in his hole. The man behind him slipped a third finger in and pushed all of them as far in as he could, splaying his thumb and little finger against the young man's muscled buttocks with the effort. Mathis groaned and pulled his mouth off of Strenham's piton-like cock.

"What...what is that...unguent?"

"A cult secret, seeker," the man behind him said, and rendered his buttocks a firm slap with his free hand. "You'll learn of it soon enough."

Mathis started to reach for Strenham's cock again when the others pushed him upright, back into the arms of the man behind him, who kept his fingers lodged in his nethers, pistoning them in and out rapidly, widening and slicking his hole. Mathis looked up and saw one of them
hand Strenham a thin blade. Without missing a beat, Strenham etched a tiny little cut just above his groin, and the blood concentrated there
pooled out thickly in a small, red bead.

The older man smiled, and handed the blade away into the darkness and then reached down and gathered the droplet of blood with his thumb. Then, with the blood, he marked Mathis' chest with the same sigil earlier marked in the boy's own spittle.

"Consecrated in blood, you are," the man behind him whispered menacingly as he widened the young man's hole further. Mathis gasped as the man slid a fourth finger in, and then suddenly fell forward, released by those holding him up. The motion put him on his hands and knees, and then everyone was kneeling.

Strong arms held him down, and a slight panic started to rise in him. He struggled a little, to no avail. They were too strong, and he was
in too awkward of a position to fight himself free, and then he felt it.

The thick head of what felt like a massive cock pushing at the slick entry of his asshole. His breathing sped up and he whimpered, and
fought the arms some more.

"Calm yourself," the man behind him said, and Mathis felt cooling calm settle in over his head. He leaned forward, resting his head on his
forearms, his shapely ass angled upward in the air. "You knew this was coming. You've known this was coming for the whole of your life, boy,
even if you could never admit it to yourself."

Mathis whimpered and nodded. Taking his cock in hand, the man behind him began to press against Mathis' hole, edging it slowly in by making circles, smaller and smaller, against the slick skin of his asshole. Then, it popped it and Mathis' head shot up, hissing in pain.

Suddenly his head was in Strenham's arms, and he nearly collapsed, leaning into the older millhand.

"Oh, it hurts, Stren," the young man gasped. "It hurts so damned much."

"Shhhhh," the older, gruff man said, with a tenderness in his voice that was strange to hear for those who knew him. "It always does, Mathis. It is growth of a kind, and a little like dying."

"Yes, ahhh!" Mathis nearly howled as the man behind him began to work his cock in a little deeper. The young man felt nearly split in half,
but his assailant showed no sign of being fully within him yet. "Oh, god. He's killing me."

"Hush, there, hush," Stren crooned to him, and kissed him. "He's not. It just feels that way. He's the Stag to your doe, Mathis, and there
is always a little violence in His love, just as there is always a little love to His violence. To Him there is no difference between prey and beloved: they are the same. They are you, sweet boy. Give yourself to Him without reservation."

Mathis raised his head and kissed Strenham and settled his head down into the older man's lap. He took a deep breath, and relaxed. Immediately, the pain lessened, and the burning of the pain transubstantiated into a more urgent burning: one of need. The boy writhed, impaled on the thick cock, until finally he pushed himself back, ever so slightly.

Sweet pleasure exploded behind his eyes, and he nearly lost his breath from the intensity. He gasped, and buried his face in Strenham's crotch.

"There, you see?" the man behind him said, and Mathis could hear the smile in his voice. "To fight your urges brings only pain and
suffering in this world. Surrender to them — surrender to the gifts of the Stag-God — and your pain will become holy pleasure."

Mathis pushed back further, and took Strenham's cock in his mouth, sucking ferociously. Strong hands grasped the young man's hips, and
with a blissful shove forward, the man buried himself to the hilt in the new initiate.

Around them, the others fell into one anothers' arms, all touching, pressing up against and in contact with Mathis, Strenham and the initiator, but they sought their own pleasures now. Blissful sighs filled the forest clearing, and the sounds of sex between men echoed in Mathis' ears and mind.

Slowly, the man behind him sped his pace, slamming his cock in and out of Mathis' hole, which burned with a slow pleasurable heat that the
young man wanted to never end. The man was stoking a fire in his nethers that he was sure would never go out, no matter how many lovers
he took afterwards. Mathis knew instinctively that every lover after this one that he took would build the fire only hotter and higher within him.

Finally, the sounds of passion around them grew and grew, as the man behind Mathis pummeled his ass mercilessly, pulling his fat, long cock
nearly completely out, stretching wide the young man's terribly stretched hole, only to slam it home again, causing Mathis to shudder
in ecstasy each time.

"Ah, Horned One," someone uttered, and then groaned, and the smell of semen assaulted all their nostrils. The groans became a chorus, and
Mathis opened his eyes to see groups of men reaching climax: one man pulled his cock from another's lips and shot thick rope after rope of
jism on the other's face, while another pulled his slick and quiveringly hard cock from another's ass and spewed his seed all over the man's belly.

The last of them to cum was the man behind him — his initiator, Mathis knew — and when the time came, the man yanked his already-spasming cock from Mathis sore, heated, sloppy hole while Strenham flipped the boy over to lay on his back on the ground.

The man behind him was an incredible specimen of masculine beauty, with thick muscled shoulders, tawny fur covering his pectorals that
trickled slowly down to the perfectly cut V-shape at his groin. He clutched in his rough hand a massive cudgel of a cock, so thick he couldn't even truly wrap his formidable grip around it.

Mathis adjudged that it had to be at least as long as his forearm, and possibly longer, and it quivered a deep, angry purple-red and then showered him with thick white strands of the man's seed, ropes of which reached as high as Mathis' face, coating his brow and lips with
the viscous strands of seed. Jet after jet of the stuff burst from the man's impressive cock, and Mathis glanced upward to see the man's face
— attractive, with the weathered skin of an outdoorsman and a coppery beard — twisted in exquisite pleasure as he emptied his large balls
again and again all over Mathis.

The man collapsed over Mathis, breathily heavily, and held himself up over the young man by his strong arms. He reached down and kissed the younger millhand and then straightened. With one finger he reached out and scooped up some of the seed he'd just sprayed Mathis with, and etched the symbol from before on the young man's chest, this time in semen.

"Consecrated in seed, you are."

Mathis watched as the others around them did likewise, each taking a thumbful of their ejaculate and tracing over the sigil on his chest,
echoing the words their leader spoke and then kissing the young man. Finally, when the last of them had done so, the big-cocked leader
reached down and helped Mathis to rise to his knees, and kissed him again.

"Welcome to the Brotherhood, my friend," he said and kissed him again.

* * *

A short time later, they all sat, in various states of undress, reclining against one another around a small crackling fire. Simple food and good rich ale and wine passed around the circle, from hand to hand, the simple camaraderie palpable. Mathis leaned against Strenham as they shared a small heel of good dark bread and a rich cheese to go with it, occasionally taking sips of sweet pale wine from the skin nearby.

The leader of the cult, a grizzled woodsman named Olusku reclined nearby, occasionally reaching out to caress the newest initiate. Mathis smiled at him and offered him a bit of wine, and the huntsman accepted, without taking his eyes off Mathis.

"Why do you stare at me that way?" the young man said teasingly, reaching out with his foot to shove slightly at Olusku's
still-naked thigh. Olusku caught the young man's leg, and planted a kiss on the top of his foot, his ankle, his calf, his knee and then
his thigh, slowly moving up nearer, crawling up Mathis' leg until he could rest his head on the young man's muscled thigh.

"You remind me of someone dear," he said simply, and reached out to fondle Mathis' cock and balls familiarly, playfully. The older man glanced up at Mathis. "My former apprentice, actually, though he was fair where you are dark."

"Your apprentice in...worship of the Stag God?" Mathis said. His throat still caught even saying it, though Olusku didn't
seem to notice. The huntsman chuckled.

"No, no," Olusku chuckled. "As a woodsman, nothing more, in a small town leagues from here along the border. On the other side of the Ultannah Hills, actually. It was through my own experience with the Stag God that he found the Stag God, mind you, but he — like I —
was brought to His worship directly."

Mathis stared at the huntsman, staring at him intently.

He took another sip of wine, and then looked away, glancing back once or twice as though something bothered him.

"Go ahead. Ask," Strenham whispered to him, knowing what he was thinking. Mathis looked at him and smiled, and then looked at Olusku again.

"Is it true what they say about the Stag God?"

"They say many things about Him, Mathis. So many things, in fact, that it is impossible for all of it to be true; so much of it is contradictory."

"Is he terrifying?" Mathis' eyes gleamed with too much alcohol, and what was clearly fear. Olusku smiled.

"Oh, like little other I've ever encountered. He is terribly tall, and His antlers pierce the sky above Him. He has the air of a predator about Him, and He is always on the hunt. He is more thickly muscled than any man I've seen and his endowment...obscene, it is, in its length and girth."

Mathis furrowed his brow at that.

"Bigger...bigger than yours?"

Olusku chuckled and pushed the bit of blanket currently covering his groin aside. His cock had already begun to swell at talk of the Stag
God, and he hefted it with one hand, raising it to slap against his furry, muscled belly.

"Oh, yes. Unhesitatingly." The older man grinned at Mathis' doubting look. "In truth, though, my cock wasn't always this size. It used to be...well, smaller."

"Really?"

"Yes. It's apparently one of the side effects of taking the seed of the Stag God directly."

"Truly?" Mathis grinned wickedly. "Amazing."

"It's not just the Stag God's seed that does it," Strenham grinned, shifting so he could lay hands on Olusku's huge fistful of cock. He leaned against the huntsman and smiled back at Mathis, who fondled his own cock watching the two. "Aye, those who take the seed of those who've taken His seed see growth as well."

"Indeed," Olusku smiled, and gently played with Strenham's hair as the big man opened his mouth and lapped at the bulbous tip of the huntsman's cock before swallowing half of it. Olusku smiled and leaned back, enjoying it. There was none of the immediacy that often accompanied such oral ministrations — this was comfort and affection, rather than the need to climax.

"So, those who have been...touched by the Stag God..." Mathis began, hesitantly. Olusku opened his eyes and smiled at him.

"Fucked," he corrected, bluntly. "Those who have been fucked by Him, Mathis. Let's not mince words — there is no shame in it among us."

"Fucked, then. Those who've been fucked by Him — are you the only ones who run the cults?"

"Not run the cults, no. That happens among you all. We are simply the initiators. We tend to travel from place to place, overseeing the growth of His worship, and bringing new men to the fold." He groaned then, and laid his head back, before looking down playfully at Strenham. "My gods, man, you do that well. I might just have to take you with me on the road."

Strenham chuckled and renewed his oral assault on Olusku's fat cock.

"There are many of them, then?" Mathis asked, smiling as the huntsman lapped at his cock once, twice and on the third time took the whole of his member into his mouth. Mathis groaned and smiled, running his hands through the older man's copper hair, which was frosted with the occasional bit of grey-white now that he could see it closer.

"More than a dozen I am responsible for," the huntsman smiled, lifting his head from the young man's lap, trailing a thin gleaming line of spittle from his suck-swollen lips. "There are at least a score of us, and most of them are responsible for at least as many small groups as that. None of them are very large...indeed, this is the largest among them."

Mathis hesitated.

"And...the Church?" he asked. He hadn't meant for his question to be such a fearful whisper, but it was. Olusku looked up at the young man, sudden realization in his face.

"No, no," Olusku whispered to him, and took the young man in his arms. "I won't tell you that you have nothing to worry about. The Church despises us as demonolaters and heretics, yes. But word of Ashlan's power grows in the city of men, and the Church is impotent to do anything about it. We are strong, and our numbers growing, and we never abandon one another. Those who feel His call in their veins are
answering it, and there is nothing they can do."

"You see?" Strenham smiled, and moved up to embrace Mathis as well. Mathis couldn't help but feel safe and secure, embraced as tightly as he was by these two strong men. "I know you have to leave soon, to return to your family for a while. That's why I wanted you to be initiated here; it's why I sent word for Olusku. I don't want you to feel you're alone, ever. We're all around you, Mathis, and we're all brethren."

"He's right," Olusku said, kissing the young man on the cheek reassuringly, an almost paternal gesture rather than the action of a lover. "We'll teach you the signs before the night is out. They are only the most basic ones; you have to be among us for a while before you learn the advanced ones, but they'll be enough to tell others who belong to other cults that you're one of us. Wherever you find yourself, simply find the inn or tavern where huntsman, woodsmen and other outdoor-folk congregate. We'll find you."

Mathis smiled, and kissed Olusku back.

The Stag God's Disciple, Chapter One

The cloaked and hooded figure drew no notice as he wound his way
through the crowds of people. It was a market day, so the town was
a-bustle with activity -- farmers from all the outlying villages and
farms were here with wagons full of produce, merchants were here with
empty wagons to carry away the goods they bought for a pittance and
sell them for a good deal more than that in the city. Entertainers of
all stripes wandered hither and yon, juggling, singing, dancing for
their suppers, while the children ran among the ruckus, laughing and
chasing one another.

It was, the figure noted, practically the essence of the human
experience, reflected here. He smiled then and found a large stone
used to hitch horses to when the market square wasn't as filled as it
was now. With a strong stride and a short jump, he was atop it, and
some of the people near him looked up at him curiously.

It was they who gasped when he threw back his hood.

Habra of the Tines gave time for the silence to settle among them, the
way it always did. He knew that his appearance was shocking: it wasn't
very often at all that humans had the chance to see an orc who wasn't
a token of war, after all. His long black hair was braided and pulled
into a bundle at his neck, around which he wore a clattering, clanking
necklace made of pieces of cast-off stag antler. His chest was bare
above soft leather breeches and high-laced boots, and the flesh of his
torso was decorated: two lines rose from beneath his belt, climbing up
his muscled belly to fork just below his rib cage, seeming to blossom
into a stylized design that was reminiscent of nothing more than the
tines of some impossibly great stag's antlers.

He bore no weapon, though some of those around him quickly drew
theirs. He smiled at them, and let the silence build, as the shock of
their neighbors drew the attention of more and more people toward him,
like a ripple in a pond where a stone had been dropped. When it had
spread as far as his voice was likely to carry, he spoke.

"Hail," he said, in accented but easily understood human speech. "I
come peacefully, bearing neither arms nor ill-intent. Understand why I
come, placing myself into such danger. I come to speak to you the
words of the Stag God, the God of Seven Tines, whose breath is the
quickening of your pulse and whose miracle is found in the ecstasy of
the flesh."

He let his intention seep into them at that point, and he smiled,
black lips around smallish tusks. The buzzing always began then, as
people reacted in disbelief. Some pressed closer to hear what he had
to say, some fled. These towns along the borders to the orc lands had
all heard of the Stag God, though the lore they knew was untrue, for
the church elders warned them of a horned demon that prowled the orc
forests at night.

"I know you have heard stories," he said, raising his voice in order
to be heard over the din. Quiet eventually settled quickly, with
people shushing those around him. Habra glanced down to see an older
man, wearing the leathers of a hunter, draw near. He was accompanied
by a youth of sixteen winters or so, and both bore large packs of furs
to sell here. Habra smiled and nodded to the man.

"You have all heard stories of the Stag God of Seven Tines, but you do
not know the whole of Him. I have known him, though, in the flesh, and
received his sacrament.

"Once, when I had only just received the rites of manhood from my
tribe, I was assigned to a patrol of scouts at the edge of my tribe's
territory. That night, as I watched from the circle of firelight that
I thought protected me from the forest, the forest claimed me. The
forest, which is the Stag God.

"The Stag God was tall and mighty, with long hair and a mighty set of
antlers, seven tines in all, crowning his brow. Within but a moment,
he snatched me up and carried me away. But I do not come here to tell
you my story. I am here to tell you yours." The people around him
looked confused then. They always did. The hunter seemed to know
something of what he was going to say, though, for he nodded his head
slightly -- he knew that confirmation of stories he'd been hearing for
years was at hand.

"It is your story because the Stag God is like none of the Beast Gods
of my tribe!"

"Demons, you mean!" someone from the crowd yelled.

"Demons, yes!" Habra shouted back at them, shushing the crowd that did
not expect this response. After all, one did not expect someone to
agree when one called his gods demons. "The gods of one people are
often the demons of another. Do you not think that orcish children
grow up hearing frightening tales of the wicked demon god humans
worship, whose evil is too great to look upon?"

The crowd began buzzing angrily then, for that was a misappropriation
of the human god's attributes; he was a god of light and justice, of
civilization, invention and humans. No mortal could gaze upon him, for
his radiant holiness was too much for mortal eyes to bear.

"Do you understand, then, what it means that I come now before you?
For there are many tribes among my people who fear the Stag God
because he wears the face of a human!" This last he yelled at the top
of his lungs, and utter silence met his pronouncement, as did stunned
looks. "Yes, a human. He is not some strange orc demon-god, come to
wage war with humans. He is a god of the orcs who comes from among
humans. Because we are the same! He is the good, red blood beneath the
surface of all our skins. He is the passion that quickens our breath,
the desire to fight to protect those we love. He is the urge that
makes you seize your husband or your wife on the cold winter night, to
bring warmth and love and new life into the world!"

Many of the people around him were staring at him, transfixed. Habra
smiled, then. Here were more willing to hear him.

Unfortunately, he could not see the Keepers ride up to the edge of the
market throng behind him. The hunter did, as did his apprentice. The
boy turned to the older man, who shushed him. This was not the time.

The orc continued to speak while the captain fitted a sling stone in
his sling. The hunter drew his apprentice away from the orc, just as
the high-pitched whine of a sling sounded. Habra turned, too late,
just in time to see the Keeper release the slingstone. It sailed true,
and make a cracking sound at it impacted the orc. The tall, impressive
figure twitched once, his hand darting up to his temple where the
stone struck, before falling from the large stone and into
unconsciousness.

The silence that followed was deafening. The Keepers -- the Great
Church's chosen templars and holy warriors -- were there, and everyone
had been caught listening to basest heresy. A cry of indignation, or
perhaps fear, went up, and several members of the crowd seized up the
fallen orc, intending on tearing him apart to prove their piety.

"Hold!" The Lord Keeper Yosun, the captain of the Keepers, raised his
gauntleted hand, and everyone froze.

"I understand your wrath, good townsfolk," he said, his voice
suggesting that those who'd not reacted with anger and violence to the
heresy they'd just witnessed perhaps had best rethink their curiosity.
"But stay your righteous hands, I beg of you. Patriarch Gerel must
speak with this one."

The crowd began to slowly disperse as the Lord Keeper Yosun waves his
men forward, and the massive mounts threatened to stomp on any who got
in their way. In short order, the market was cleared, and the Lord
Keeper waved two of his men forward.

"Bind it. I have heard enough."

The hunter and his apprentice watched them leave, dragging the
unconscious orc behind them, bound for the holy keep of the local
church, the Hall of Glory.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The clean-shaven jaw of the church patriarch never unclenched while he
prayed. The god of men was not a weak god, and prayer was serious
business. Men had been struck dead while praying, for not following
the proper forms. It was why the church needed priests: strong men
confident in their piety and faith, who could pray to their great
nameless god, and bear the risk to their lives and souls that weaker
men could not.

As a result, the Lord Keeper Yosun was careful to never disturb any of
the priests in prayer -- to do so could be fatal. During his time as an
acolyte, he'd seen another boy throw a rock and strike a praying
brother in the shoulder. The brother fell into convulsions and lapsed
into unconsciousness. When the priest awoke, he was blind, his
eyesight blasted from him for his disrespect to the god they served.
That was, of course, nothing compared to the punishment the acolyte
received.

Patriarch Gerel finally extinguished the gold-hued candle before him
and touched the sanctified salt to his tongue, reminding him of his
humble station as a mere mortal. It was symbolic of mortality, a
recognition of the fact that though he'd just been in spiritual
communion with the great god, he was still destined to die one day.
Patriarch Gerel glanced sideways as Yosun strode up, extending a hand
to help the church elder up.

"There is no one there to help me when I am in the presence of the
god, Yosun," Gerel scowled at the hand, ignoring it and rising to his
feet easily. "Why would I accept help any other time? What is so
trying in the world that can compare with communion with the Great
One?"

"It was just a hand up, Patriarch," Yosun chuckled.

"Yosun, when the day comes that I need help rising from prayer, my
corpse will have fed the graveyard years before that," Gerel chuckled
in return. Yosun had to admit, the patriarch was strong. All the
priests were, of course -- it was tremendously taxing, physically, to
be in the spiritual presence of the Great God. A task for great men,
not the old or weak.

The Patriarch Gerel was certainly not that. His black hair was kept
closely shorn, and he was quite fit. Though he didn't have the muscled
physique that Yosun bore from a lifetime of combat training and
wearing armor, Gerel's youth spent doing taxing menial labor in a
monastery and standing in one place for hours on end, holding the
Glorious Canon of the Great God at arm's length while he chanted his
prayers had all contributed to his strength.

"Tell me," the patriarch said suddenly, his blue eyes fixing the gaze
of the Lord Keeper. "Tell me of the heretic."

Yosun nodded and the two bowed to the altar and backed away the
required thirty steps, then turned and made their way toward the Great
Rectory, where the patriarch's chambers were.

"It is an orc, just as the scouts said," Yosun said. "Moreover, they
were correct -- he was preaching of that stag-god of the orcs. However,
he was saying that it was of human visage. He also spoke in
particularly lustful terms. Apparently, rutting is part of its
so-called sacraments."

The silence from the patriarch was profound. He clearly didn't know
what to make of this. Finally, he turned to look at the Lord Keeper,
his eyes cold.

"Take me to see it."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The ice-cold water woke Habra with a gasp. The only reason he did not
leap to his feet was because he was incapable. The upper half of his
body lay against some kind of table, the top surface of which was
tilted at perhaps a 45 degree angle from the floor. His arms were
spread out to the side and chained to the rough wooden surface by
thick iron manacles, with a set of leather straps binding his upper
arms. Likewise, his torso, now stripped of his cloak and pack, was
bound to the table's surface by a thick belt.

The device forced Habra to bend at the waist and remain standing on
his feet, which were likewise bound up to posts set in the stone
ground. Unfortunately, his feet were widely placed, forcing him to
stand with legs spread wide apart, without the ability to rest his
weight exclusively on one foot or the other -- an exhausting pose. When
he sagged a little, he was forced to bear the weight on his shoulders
and arms, which felt like they might be wrenched out of their sockets
if continued for too long.

He groaned as they buckled his last foot in place. His boots were
gone, as was his cloak. They'd left him only in his leather breeches.
He looked around, trying to ignore the throbbing at his temple where
the sling stone had struck him.

At the bottom of the staircase into the room stood Lord Keeper Yosun,
with four of his men. The men he'd chosen were not knighted Keepers --
these were the ruffians and sadists who might have ordinarily found no
place in an enlightened society. Fortunately, the Great Church
acknowledged that not all men could be gentle lambs -- expecting them
to be so was folly. The way to a righteous society was to find a way
to channel the basest in men towards godly aims.

Movement above them drew his attention. The quick look upward blurred
his vision and made his head spin. With some effort, his vision
cleared and fell on the staircase that led down into the room. It was
large and wide, L-shaped, with a landing where the steps doubled back
on themselves, rising. On that landing stood the robed form of a
Patriarch of the Great Church.

Habra closed his eyes, then, suddenly exhausted.

"Fuck," he muttered. Well, he'd always known the dangers; he'd simply
become too sloppy. The reception he'd found in other villages had made
him lazy, simply assuming that the words he brought them would sway
them. Of course, he should have known better -- most of those did not
have a real church in their walls, and those that did saw only the
occasional traveling priest.

"Do you understand our speech?" the priest asked. Habra looked
derisively up at him. He wasn't going to dignify that question with an
answer -- if he couldn't speak the human tongue, he wouldn't even be
here. It's hard to preach heresy to people who don't understand you.

The priest smiled at his reaction to the question. Good. He'd intended
to let the thing know what he thought of him.

"Tell me of this demon you proclaim, orc." Habra glanced up at the
priest again and then sagged slightly in his bonds. He was suddenly
very, very tired. The priest spoke again. "Answer me, or things will
go quite the worse for you."

"I doubt things are going to end pleasantly, regardless of what I say,
priest," Habra said, rising his eyes again to the priest. "So why
would I say anything to the likes of you? My message isn't for you."

"Oh," he said, curiosity creeping into your voice. "Who is it for?"

"The living," chuckled Habra. "People who haven't dedicated themselves
to the most evil and degraded faith in all the world."

"You dare!" bellowed the Lord Keeper, taking a step forward, raising
his gauntlet. The sound that followed was sickly, the solid impact of
a metal-wrapped fist solidly striking a face.

"Hold, Lord Keeper," the priest said, in a bored voice. "You call me
evil? I, who adhere to the faith of the Great God, who elevates men
beyond their base urges, towards justice and righteousness? What is
evil in that?"

"They deny what they are in their attempt to be what you want them to
be," Habra said, as though he were explaining a simple idea to a slow
child. "My message is for those who follow your faith, but are still
creatures of this world. People who despair because they will never
live up to your ideals the way you do. After all, they cannot afford
the luxury of giving up breeding to a faith that tells them that the
holiest work their bodies do is evil. They do not have the riches you
do, and so must work in the world where people sweat and piss and shit
and fuck, not locked away in your fine white towers, mumbling your
prayers to a capricious god."

The priest paled then, and Habra smiled. He knew that his end was
near. Let his end be glorious, then.

"My god is the Stag of Seven Tines, priest, and he is the people's
god. When two people find one another, and kiss one another, he is the
hot breath on sweaty skin, he is the pounding of blood that sings
through the veins of the passionate, he is the exquisite death of the
civilized, thinking creature that comes with every orgasm, in every
man and woman. He is these things, and unlike your god, he is come to
tell them that their lives are not disgusting, base, wicked things
that they must rise above. He is come to tell them that their lives
are beautiful and precious and sacred. He is here to tell them that
their lives are not something they must endure while they wait to be
judged by your god -- their lives are the miracle of their existences,
and the highest of holies is in their immersion in that. He tells them
to laugh loudly, to sing boldly, to love without shame and to live
their lives to the fullest they are capable. Those are the words of my
god, priest."

As Habra spoke, his words transformed all who listened. The priest
grew only paler; when Habra was finished speaking, the patriarch was
clutching the railing of the landing, as though it were the only thing
keeping him from falling. The Lord Keeper's visage was a mask of
barely contained terror and hate, and the men who stood around him
shifted from foot to foot, looking at the empty corners of the room.
They wanted to look on the orc, to see the creature that spoke these
words, but were afraid of their reactions.

"Is your god a man?"

"My god is a Beast God of the orcs, human. But like you, he was born,
pink and mewling, to a human woman, sired by a human man. He grew up a
human child, as you did, but he became one of our gods. The antlers
sprout mighty from his brow, marking his divinity, and his stride is
powerful. He shakes the world with his might, little priest, and he is
coming for you. He is coming to set all of your people free, and there
is nothing you can do to stop him."

Even the Lord Keeper had to look up at the priest then. The silence
had gone on for too long. There stood a man with a white face, his
lips gone ashen from lack of blood. His eyes stared at the orc as
though the priest were on the verge of madness, and his knuckles were
white from gripping the railing.

"Lord Keeper," he said after a terrible silence, tearing his gaze away
from the orc and narrowing his eyes in hate. Even the mighty warrior
shrank beneath the force of that gaze. "Teach him the truth of these
glories he espouses."

The Lord Keeper hesitated just a moment, and then nodded, and the
priest turned on his heel and practically fled the room. The Lord
Keeper drew his knife, then and walked slowly to where Habra was
bound.

"Your words inflame the senses," Lord Keeper Yosun whispered to him.
"That is, I suppose, a fine thing when you are building a heresy, but
down here? Where there are only terrible, cruel men at whose mercy you
rest? Perhaps that is not such a fine thing."
He lay the cold flat of the blade on Habra's bare, green skin,
pressing it into him. Then, with a furious motion, he grasped the
waist of the breeches, slipped his blade under the band there and tore
through the soft leather of them, down first one leg and then the
other, leaving small furrows of cut skin that welled thick red blood
where he'd dug too deep. He looked up then, and the men chuckled,
gathering near.

"No. Inflaming the passions of such men?" he said as he carefully
peeled back the frayed strips of leather, exposing Habra's finely
muscled legs, his strong lower back, and the sweet curve of his
buttocks. "Never a good thing."

He stood back, and with a snarl, the men were on him. Habra growled
his anger as the men began to rip the last bits of clothing from him.
One of them, a muscled brute of a man who stood taller than the
others, with a nasty scar down the side of his face, walked around to
the front of the contraption Habra was bound to, kicking a stool up in
front of it, and standing upon it.

"Now, you be nice, tusks," the man said, fishing his massive cock,
already starting to plump up, out of his breeches. "Or I'll break
those jaws of yours and fuck your mouth while it hangs there limp.
It's nicer when you can control it." He grabbed Habra's lower lip,
still somewhat swollen from the abuse earler, and pried his mouth
open, shoving the fat head into it. Habra choked then, not from the
man's cock, but from what was going on behind him.

The other three men, one a shaggy, bearded blonde man, the second a
fairly well-groomed man with a goatee and the third just barely a
youth, with no beard to speak of, had tossed a die to see who had
first shot at his ass -- after all none of them were going to fight the
tall brute for his face. The youth'd won, so he spat on two of his
fingers and dug them into Habra's ass, worming their slick way past
the pucker at his asshole, delving deep into the warm satin of the
orc's asshole.

The brute up front chuckled to see his friends abuse the orc so, and
slowly pumped his cock in and out of the orc's mouth, enjoying the
quick tongue and the slight scraping from the orc's tusks as he did
so.

"This is nice," the big one confided down to the orc at his mercy.
"You keep treating me this nice, and I might not have a shot at that
ass of yours. Might make you choke down some of my juice before I can
get around to it, there."

By that time, the young one was tired of fingering the orc's ass, so
he stepped up, slapped the meaty length of his cock into his palm and
spat, a thin, viscous thread of spittle that splattered over his meat.
He bent at the knees slightly, aligning his cockhead to the orc's
tight asshole, and pushed.

The young one grunted a little and then clenched his teeth, pressing
against the ass. He paused for a moment, spitting on his cock again,
as his fellows laughed and mocked him.

"Can't slip it in him, huh? This one's fucked a god, boy. I don't
reckon you measure up!" his friends crowed.

The boy lined his cock up again and thrust his hips forward, pushing
up against the orc's ass. For a moment, he thought that he'd fail
again, but the tight ring of muscle gave way, and his sloppy cock
slipped into the hot, glorious heat that was the orc's nethers.
Habra would have howled in agony at the invasion, but his mouth was
full of big, brutish, hard cock, so he could only gag, spraying the
brute's groin with a shower of spittle. The big man chuckled and
pumped his hips some more, sliding the slick cock out, giving Habra a
quick breath before plunging his cock back into Habra's mouth,
striking the back of his throat, before sliding it down the tight,
constricting, slimy length of the prisoner's throat.

The boy began pumping then, sliding his cock in and out, gasping at
the sensation. He stopped occasionally to spit, then kept pumping,
while his buddies cheered him on, slapping his ass to encourage him in
between pumps on their own cocks.

"God...god...he's...milking me, or something..." the boy panted, though no one
heard him. His breath grew more and more ragged, until he shoved
himself deep into the orc and stood there, quivering, his back arched
and standing on his tip-toes. Then, he gasped, and withdrew from the
orc's ass with a plop. A thin stream of semen connected the now-gaping
and swollen lips of the orc's asshole with the head of his violator's
cock.
His friends cheered him, and he smiled, pulling away from them.

"Oi, one of you," the brute said from up front, withdrawing his cock
from Habra's mouth completely, allowing the orc to take a deep, ragged
breath and spit out a mouthful of spit. "Come up here. I want a shot
at that orc's nethers, I do."

The big bearded one happily traded places with him, and shoved his
cock quite forcefully into Habra's mouth. He snarled, and slapped the
orc's face, warning him to watch the tusks. Habra could only choke and
cough in return, for the bearded one's cock wasn't as long as the
brute's, but it was significantly thicker, and the head lodged almost
perfectly in the hollow of his mouth just behind his tongue,
threatening to choke him.
"Hey, you've had your turn up front," the muscled, goateed one
complained of the brute when he pushed him out of the way. The brute
sneered at the smaller man, and then plunged his thick, veiny cock
deep into Habra's ass.

"Aaaah," the brute sighed. "I love a freshly fucked hole." He pumped
in and out of the hole, reveling in the sensation of the tight, hot
satin flesh around his massive cock, slickened by the boy's semen. The
goateed man glared at the brute's massive back and pumped his cock
again, glancing over at the youth as though he meant to ravage him
instead.

The young man, catching the glance, let his hand stray to his
knife-hilt and then finished lacing up his breeches, and walked back
over near the Lord Keeper, who watched the entire scene with disgust.
He glanced at the boy with such furious revilement that the boy looked
away, shame-faced and quickly retreat.

"Quit your bitching," the brute said to the man over his shoulder.
"Come here." The goateed man sidled up, only to be spun around. Soon,
though, he and the brute had worked him up along the edge of the
device, between the orc and the device proper. The goateed man faced
outward now, after loosening some of the straps slightly, so that he
and the orc were belly to belly. Then, spreading his legs, the brute
helped him spear his cock, which curved slightly upward anyway, up
into the orc's ass.

The brute stood back and watched as the goatee'd man's thick cock
forced the walls of the orc's ass open, emerging slimy with spit and
semen and ass juices, before slipping back in. The brute then pushed
himself up against the orc and leaned over him, until he was near the
orc's face.

"Know what's going to happen now, greenskin?"

Then, with his goatee'd friend's cock still in the orc's ass, the
brute lay the head of his cock up against the terribly stretched flesh
of the orc's hole, sliding it along the length of his buddy's cock.
Then, he pushed, bringing the head of his cock to a rest pressing up
against the already-tightened ring of muscle.

Habra gagged, spat out the bearded man's cock and howled then, as the
brute's cock slid into his ass alongside the goatee'd man's thick
cock. Both men stopped moving for a moment, so overwhelming was the
sensation of a second cock alongside theirs while in the hot, tight
confines of the ass.

Then, with a sound halfway between a growl and a chuckle, the brute
began hunching Habra's ass, driving his long, thick cock into the
orc's ass, over and over again, punching his hips forward and sinking
in as deeply as their positions would allow. In the meanwhile, the
bearded ruffian had reclaimed his place in Habra's mouth, fucking it
rapidly in long, plunging strokes, until his cock swelled and, nestled
in the hollow of Habra's throat, just behind the tongue, spat rope
after rope of cloying, thick semen down his gullet.

Habra thrashed then in the slightly loosened bonds and the brute
punch-fucked him several time, eliciting groans of pleasure from the
goateed man, whose knees began to quiver. In short order, his cock
erupted its seed deep into Habra's bowels, coating the brute's cock
with fresh hot semen. The brute then groaned on his own and picked up
speed, forcing the goatee'd man's cock from the orc's ass.

Then with a few final, brutal deep plunges of the orc's nethers, he
pressed up against the orc and groaned aloud, as his cock spat his
seed deep within. The brute groaned a second time as he withdrew his
cock, a stream of semen following, trickling out of the orc's badly
stretched ass.

The men gathered their clothes, while the Lord Keeper loosed the bonds
on the device. He then pulled Habra to his feet by his jaw and looked
at him. His brow furrowed when he saw the look of savage amusement on
the orc's face, just before Habra spat a mouthful of semen in the Lord
Keeper's face.

With an angry cry, the Lord Keeper punched the orc dead in the face,
his gauntleted fist making a horrible crunching noise as it came into
contact with the orc's nose. Blood exploded over the orc's face, and
he flew back a foot or so, and came to a rest against the wall. He
spat, and laughed.

"You...you were kind, gentlemen," the orc said as the Lord Keeper
thrashed about, trying to wipe the spittle and cum off his face and
out of his hair, while his ruffians looked on in confusion and fear.
"If you wish to punish me, I suggest you read me some of your priest's
sermons. You will never succeed at breaking me if you would use my own
god's ways. He treated me much more roughly than you ever can."

"Get him out of here!" the Lord Keeper bellowed, and the brute and
goatee'd man snatched the orc up, slamming his head into the wall for
good measure, and drug him away. His laughter echoed down the corridor
as he was dragged away.

The Stag & the Bear, Chapter One

The orc quietly moved toward the cavern entrance. Fear caused him to
worry at his lip and he turned to look down the path at the valley
that was the home of the Split Hoof tribe. He nearly retreated back
down that path but steeled himself, his hand straying without thought
to the bag around his neck. Crafted of the scrotum of a mighty stag
taken in sacred hunt and containing many of the fetishes and secret
emblems of his rank as a shaman, the bag did its work, calming him,
reminding him of his duties as a shaman.

He steeled himself, squaring his shoulders and walked towards the
cave, ignoring the groaning in his old bones. Now was not the time to
give in to aches.

"Lord?" he called as he neared the entrance, laying one of his meaty
paws, scarred by many winters of membership in the Split Hoof tribe,
on the side of the cave entrance. Scars from both mortal conflicts and
mighty battles with wicked forest devils and small gods who refused to
do as he willed marked his body, and each one of worth was dark
against his skin, rubbed with the ashes of his ancestors so that they
would always show. He glanced about the darkness of the cavern within.
"Ashlan?"

The deep growl that sounded from the depths of the cave, and Argith
froze, immediately dropping his gaze to the stone and dirt floor at
his feet.

"You know the price for coming to my cavern, old mystic. It is still
the Spring of the Stag God's cycle, and I must give my seed, or take
the seed of those who defeat me. Why is an old man here? You cannot
force yourself upon me, and I will not waste my seed upon you. Go from
here," the Stag God rumbled at him, still hidden within the darkness
of the cavern.

"I do know these things, lord. But I would ask that you hear me out."

There was an uncomfortable silence -- the god crouched within his cave,
lined with furs and scattered here and there with baskets of food,
while the shaman stood without, the sun beating down on his bald
tattooed head. He shifted from foot to foot.

"I don't know...I don't know if I can control it, shaman," the Stag God
said. His voice was no longer the rumbling basso of the tribe's
god-made-flesh. He sounded more like a little boy, terrified of the
things going on around him that he was helpless to control. "I want...I
want to just talk to someone. But that's not how it happens."

Movement sounded in the shaman's ears, and he moved back slightly,
away from the cave entrance. The figure that emerged was in terrible
pain, that much was obvious. His movements betrayed the pain of
muscles grown mighty too fast for his body to cope with. His face was
sprinkled with a dusting of coarse beard, and the new ring in his
septum -- a symbol of the tribal initiation the elders had given him, a
human, when he first arrived with news of his change, bearing the name
of Imbru as his token -- was healing well.

But it was the antlers that plainly hurt him. Even now, two antlers
had burst from his scalp, leaving the area around the base of the
antlers bloody and scabbed; the blood had trickled into his hair,
making it a matted mess. The antlers extended perhaps a double
hand-length above him and were already branching out. The shaman did a
quick count -- seven points, not yet fully developed, on each antler.

This was He. There was no denying this.

Ashlan crawled out of the cavern, dragging a fur with him and slumped
beside the entrance to the cavern. He pulled the fur around himself
and shivered, the chill of one in the grip of fever. His eyes,
half-mad with the spark of divinity, but also the eyes of a terrified
boy, looked up at the shaman.

"I think I'm dying," he whispered.

"You are dying," the shaman said to him, seating himself on the ground
just out of arm's reach of the boy-god. "The mortal is dying, yes, and
the god is being born within. That is the way of the god-made-flesh,
Ashlan."

Ashlan lowered his gaze away from the shaman, peering past him into
the throng of the orc village. He breathed deeply and then sighed,
closing his eyes, dark-ringed from exhaustion, and laid his head
against the cool stone of the cave entrance.

"Is it better out here?" the shaman asked him, offering him a small
bag with nuts and berries in it. Ashlan opened his eyes and looked at
the old orc. He reached out to take it. The shaman only noticed the
wince from using heavily exerted muscles because he knew what to look
for.

"It is," the horned one said around a mouthful of nuts and berries. He
paused, ate another handful and looked at the shaman. "It is better
out here. It doesn't smell as strongly out here. It smells like
fucking in there."

The shaman chuckled.

"With good reason, I imagine," he said, taking a mouthful of the sour
wine he kept in a skin at his belt. "If the complaints of the braves
is any indication, there has been a lot of fucking going on in there."

Ashlan grinned at him, that boyish-yet-predatory grin that he was known for.

"They come up to try and take me, you know. But not many of them can.
They used to be able to take me one at a time, some of them -- Barish,
Makal, Raphak. They used to be able to fight me well and claim me for
their own, but they can't do it anymore. Some of them have started
sneaking in several at a time, trying to breed me after they have all
beaten me." Ashlan just looked at the shaman, who nodded to him. This,
too, was not unexpected. It was the way of things.

"But they can't even all do that, anymore," Ashlan said, proud and
boasting. "I'm stronger now than I was a week ago. And I get stronger
every day. They are testing me, doing this to me. Not just their
fighting, but their seed, too, when they can give it to me. When they
can force it on me. Now, if they want some of me, it takes a group of
some of the strongest ones, and even that isn't assured."

The shaman nodded.

"As I suspected, then," he said, looking upon the physique of Ashlan.
The fur was thrown aside as he ate, and the shaman let his gaze wander
of the mighty body of the tribe's god -- thickly muscled, with a
dusting of chestnut colored fur upon his body. His arms were thick,
his shoulders broad, his belly well muscled. His loins were...

...they were rampant. And very, very large.

With a start, the shaman quickly glanced up at the face of Ashlan, who
was watching him look at his body. The smile on Ashlan's face was
plainly predatory -- he was on the verge of hunting in the way he was
being driven to hunt, and the only prey around was an old orcish
shaman.

"Ashlan!" the shaman nearly shouted his name, snapping his fingers.
Ashlan shook his head, almost as though he were in a daze.

"What are you here for, shaman?" he asked, his large hand straying
down to run his fingers through the reddish fur around his crotch, to
run his fingertips around the shaft of his cock, to stroke his
ballsac. "You know what it is like up here right now. Why are you
here, if not to try and take me to service you? Or would you rather we
skipped right to the part where I fuck you, without that bit where I
punch and kick you into submission?"

"I am here because it is time, Ashlan." The shaman stood, ready to
run. Ashlan scented the wind -- scented his fear and narrowed his eyes
with a deadly smile. No, this was going all wrong.

"Listen to me, Ashlan. If you ravage me, you will kill me. I will die
-- I cannot take that, not at my age. Your rutting is for strong braves
and for gods, not old shamans. I am here because it is time that you
went out to learn of the rest of your powers."

Ashlan stopped stroking himself and cocked his head, a nearly humorous
expression, thanks to his antlers. He looked at the shaman and sighed,
then looked about. He found his furs and quickly snatched them up,
covering himself.

"What do you mean?" he asked, annoyed.

"The might that you are developing is not all there is to your
heritage, Ashlan. The gifts of the gods are many, and your body is
just one of them. One of many."

"So, what do I need to do?" Ashlan asked. He narrowed his eyes -- how
could this orc know? He'd been feeling something inside of him,
something coiled and waiting to unravel and suffuse him, but he didn't
know how to touch it, or to unwind it, or what would happen if he did.
"And how do you know all of this?"

"In my youth, Ashlan, I was taken on a slave raid. I was taken in a
slave raid by the Thunderous Paws tribe, to the east of here. The
Thunderous Paws tribe worships a mighty bear-god, and while I was a
slave in service there, I got the chance to meet their god-made-flesh.
Until you were made, Ashlan, the orcish peoples feared that he was the
last of the gods-made-flesh -- though he is still the last of the
gods-made-flesh actually born to the orc-tribes.

"I not only met him, but was given to him as a sacrifice. Now, despite
what outsiders think, we don't kill those who are sacrificed -- the
word 'sacrifice' means 'to make sacred,' and those who are given as
sacrifices to the god-made-flesh are his to do with as they please.
Often they are simply slaves, usually serving in his bed.

"But the bear-god of the Thunderous Paws let me go after three years.
He grew bored with me, I think, but he was kind enough to let me go.
In my time there, I saw him work many amazing things, from changing
his shape to speaking in the tongue of plants and animals." The shaman
paused and Ashlan was obviously very intent on the story. Even his
monstrous erection had subsided, the shaman noted thankfully.

"He told me that when he underwent his change, he was sent to be with
the mighty bull-god of the Terrible Horns tribe. It was from him that
he learned all of the powers of truly being a god. He also said that
the day would come when another came to him, and he would pass on what
he knew.

"You must go to see the bear-god, Ashlan. He can teach you. You must
complete the journey into your destiny, lest it be wasted with fucking
and drinking. It is all too easy to allow oneself to rely on
instinctual urges, rather than what must be done. You must go and do
this, Ashlan."

The mighty stag-god sat back on his haunches and looked up into the
sky. He pondered for a while -- perhaps this bear-god might be able to
help him, after all. Ashlan looked upon the shaman and smiled.

"Very well. I will go and speak to this bear-god," he said and
returned to his contemplation. The shaman stood and smiled, leaving
the skin of wine and left. Ashlan took up the skin and drank deeply,
then returned to his cave.

A Stag God is Born, Chapter One

Madness. Chaos. Cold and wet, the sight of the moon against the night
sky, viewed through the close-set branches of oak and ash and thorne
grown wild and gnarled overhead. The feeling of running, full-tilt,
through the woods, branches whipping against his muscled legs and
naked loins. An erection so intense that it hurts, it aches. The urge
to mate, driving him on, furiously seeking to find the source of the
huuuuurn mating call of the stag-kind of these woods.

With a gasp and a sob, Ashlan awoke, tumbling himself out of bed.

For a few heartbeats, Ashlan wept, wrapped in his blankets on the
ground, his senses gradually growing more accustomed to the dark, dry
warmth of his room, limned in the dark red light shed by the dying
embers in his hearth. Slowly, he peeled the blankets away from his
body. They stuck slightly to his flesh, sticky with semen.

He sighed and gingerly touched the spot on his head where he'd struck
the hard floor in his fall. For another few heartbeats, he kept his
eyes closed as his senses returned to normal, the experience of
running rampant in the woods slowly fading from his mind -- fading more
slowly than any dream should. For a fifteen year old boy who had a
hard time remembering his dreams, it was terrifying that nighttime
visions should force their way into his senses that way. Indeed,
sometimes, if he started daydreaming during his lessons, those same
impulses flooded his brain. They were becoming stronger and harder to
fight.

He stood, tossing his blankets into the corner and threw on his robe.
He stretched and dried his eyes. His uncle had taken interest in his
dreams, even going so far as to consult a seer (who'd proven to be
nothing of the sort). His uncle had made him promise to tell him when
those dreams happened, so he straightened his robes and ran his
fingers through the shaggy mop of chestnut colored hair that was his
legacy from his mother, gods rest her soul.

He silently padded down the long corridor that separated the guest
wing of his uncle's manor from the master wing, where his uncle slept.
He strode past the lavish furnishings that were considered the due of
a merchant-prince such as his uncle Artemi Bayan, a merchant who got
his start in lumber and slaves. Ashlan had lived with his uncle Artemi
since he was a small boy, brought here after the death of his mother
and raised by a variety of tutors, nannies and even his bachelor uncle
when the influential man could spare the time. Uncle Artemi was an
upstanding, important man in the Barian League, looked up to and the
friend of many important nobles.

Ashlan stopped at the massive oak doors that opened into this uncle's
suite. He knocked once, then twice. He thought his uncle must be
sleeping deeply, so he pressed his ear to the door, listening for the
big man's distinctive snore -- and heard ... something else. It sounded
like the sounds of quiet violence: snarls and choking, the sound of
grappling and perhaps even sobbing. Quietly, he opened the door to his
uncle's room to make sure that everything was all right.

His uncle lay face down on his massive bed, his bearded face obscured
by the rich down comforters that lay thickly on the feather bed. Above
him, a massively muscled orc, his thick neck bound in the leather and
brass collars of his uncle's slave pens, drove a thick cock into his
uncle's ass, battering his sharp hip-bones against the rounded orbs of
Artemi's bruised asscheeks. The thick cock looked more like a cudgel
than the sexual equipment of a man. Drool trickled around the fierce
tusks and down the thick lips of the orc's face, dropping in viscous
threads onto his uncle's back as the orc used one meaty hand to hold
his uncle's face down on the bed and the other to grip his hips.

The orc's grip was strong and when he leaned forward to shove his fat
cock deep into his uncle's bowels, Artemi whimpered. Ashlan watched,
fascinated as the orc's face, a mask of cruelty and revenge for the
humiliation being a slave meant to one of the orcish folk, contorted
and he bared his tusks. His hips began hammering faster at his uncle's
rear, slamming his hard meat deep into the depths of his uncle's ass.

Uncle Artemi groaned again, and looked as though he were in pain,
being held down by the orc's firm grip. He moved and thrashed as the
orc's assault sped up and the orc shoved his weight forward, rising up
on his toes so that he buried the human beneath his bulk. This
position also gave him great leverage to continue pummeling the ass of
Ashlan's uncle.

Ashlan watched for a few moments. Then, the orc looked up suddenly and
noticed him. His tusked mouth broke into a grin.

Ashlan gasped. His uncle's head shot up and the orc fell back against
the headboard, his meaty cock pulling free from Artemi's hole with a
wet sound. Ashlan shrieked, turned on his heel and fled into the
darkness of the corridor outside.

"Guards! Guards!" he cried, running towards the barracks.

Two armed men in his uncle's livery came around the corridor, drawing
their weapons as they asked him what was wrong. Fearful tears
streaming down his face, he pointed them at the now-partially open
door to his uncle's chambers. The men quickly rushed into the room.
Ashlan stood, fearful, listening for sounds of violence.

After a short time, he crept closer, hearing voices -- including his
uncle's voice raised in anger. He peered in and saw the orc slave,
kneeling at the foot of Artemi's bed while his uncle pulled on a robe,
upbraiding the soldiers, who looked at the ground with something like
shame mixed with disgust. The orc looked at the boy and chuckled,
winking at the lad.

Uncle Artemi noticed and whirled on the boy, his face -- normally so
handsome and strong -- red with rage.

"Get out of my sight. Go to your room! Now!"

Ashlan turned and fled, confused and afraid.