The Unforgiven

Five thousand years ago a great rock fell from the skies into the oceans of Earth. Waves the size of mountains crashed down on the shores of civilization, destroying the world men had made. From the ashes of destruction, New Earth arose…a brutal, hostile land…

******************

Verik walked down the narrow cobblestone alley of the noisy market, ignoring the way men looked at him from the corner of their eyes. 

“Fresh vegetables. Best in town!”

Merchants hawked their goods in a singsong shout, holding up their wares to the passing crowd in the bright sunshine.

“Fresh bread. Best prices!”

Wooden stalls crammed close to the ancient black stone walls on both sides of the alley, barely leaving room for men to squeeze by. 

Verik looked into all the stalls, savoring his first day of freedom. After five summers behind dull grey walls, the bright colors splashed across his eyes like a blast of ice cold water. Slabs of raw meat hung from hooks; fruits and vegetables filled the stalls with raging color - red, yellow, green. In the stalls, men in coarse sleeveless tunics and heavy cotton trousers haggled over goods, shouting at merchants. 

A man cooked succulent lamb on skewers over open fire. The delicious smell of roast meat barely hid the sharp odor of the unwashed men crowded into the small market in the afternoon heat. 

Anyone could tell the merchants weren’t locals. They wore fine silks, had soft, clean hands. No man wore silk in a mining town like Nequir. The grime of the mines clung to the men in the market like a light soot. Hard labor in unrelenting heat deep under the earth, where one misstep could send a man plummeting to his death, had toughened the men of Nequir; made them harsh and unforgiving like the mines they worked. 

The miners walked through the market, men made hard by a ruthless underworld, swords at their side, looking at Verik with wary eyes. A path cleared for the gladiator as men moved out of his way, trying not to stare at the perfect black circle on his forehead. Even the miners, infamous for their fierce ways, wanted no trouble with Verik the Scythe.

The tattoo on his forehead was a final parting gift of the Prison Council, condemning him to life among the lowest caste – the Unforgiven, or caijeen, murderer. No one would dare call him caijeen to his face though; unless they thought it was a good day to die.

Five summers he’d served for killing a worthless coward who cheated him over dice. He’d do it again in the blink of an eye. But he’d bury the body deeper next time.

When they sentenced him they gave him two choices – ten summers in the rock quarries where men died slow, lingering deaths or five summers in the arena as gladiator where men died swift, hard deaths. He’d chosen the arena and risen to the top fast, a vicious warrior who slit the throats of countless men without a second thought, cheered on by roaring crowds.

“Spare a copper for a poor man Sir.”

A beggar shoved a wooden cup at Verik. The man had one eye covered with a white, milky film. Men close by watched, pretending to bargain for goods. Only a blind man would beg Verik for anything. 

“A silver token my friend,” Verik said, dropping the heavy coin into the beggar’s cup. His victories in the arena had made him a rich man. “Mind you guard it well. Thieves are all around,” Verik said loud enough for the men watching to hear.

“Thank you Sir. Bright blessings,” the beggar said.

“Only his kind would steal from a beggar,” a man close by said.

“You say something friend?” Verik said, turning on him with dark, empty eyes that froze the man’s heart.

“You’re mistaken,” the man said, not looking at him. He paid the merchant. “No one wants trouble with you gladiator.”

“Blessings to you then,” Verik said, walking on.

“Murdering scum should be in prison, bringing gold to our town,” Verik heard the miner say.

“He could have killed you fool,” the rug seller said. He was one of the few locals in the market.

Verik wasn’t in the mood to kill anyone. He could have challenged the man to a death duel for insulting his honor. Even caijeen had the right to that. He let it go. 

When this is done, I’m buying me a virgin bitch. That thought had been his driving obsessesion in prison. Sweating through hours of grueling training under summer’s hot sun, he’d thought of nothing else. Every time he used a prison whore, he thought of the temple virgins. He’d waited a long time. By night fall he would own the tightest virgin slave ass the temple had.

He stopped in a stall near the end of the market selling tunics. His tunic was old and stained with blood. The tall thin merchant stood beside his stall, outside his house. 

Emir the cloth merchant looked at the black mark on Verik’s forehead. No matter. Silver from a gladiator would put just as much food on his table as silver from a brother of the temple.

Kali, Emir’s beautiful slaveboy, looked up at Verik instead of dropping his eyes decently. The boy took in his sensual lips, his cruel black eyes, the way Verik’s sweaty tunic clung to his hard, muscled chest.

“How much?” Verik said to the merchant, fingering a linen tunic, looking at the boy.

“The tunic is thirty silver tokens. The bitch isn’t for rent,” Emir said.

“Why not?” It was common for merchants to rent out their slaveboys to earn extra silver. “He looked at me like a whore. I’ll be quick with his ass,” Verik said, rubbing his crotch, looking at the luscious red-haired boy. 

Emir slapped his boy’s face. “You looked at a man? Get inside you whore.”

“Why Sir?” Kali said, looking at Verik’s thick arms, tanned and hard with muscle. His big strong hands were made to grab a boy’s ass. “He’s caijeen. We pay and we can look at his kind every night.”

Emir backhanded his boy and sent him sprawling to the ground.

“Get inside you little fool,” he said. “Your ass will feel the whip tonight bitch.”

The slaveboy scrambled to his feet and ran inside. 

“I beg you to forgive the insult. He’s only a slaveboy. Anything I have is yours for the asking,” Emir said, spreading his shaking hands over his merchandise. The insult was enough to get him killed.

“Why whip him?” Verik said. “For saying what men don’t have the guts to say to me?”

“Some things are better left unsaid.”

“Like caijeen and murderer?” 

Suddenly five summers of pent up rage erupted in Verik. He banged his huge fist on the wooden table. Cloths and tunics scattered to the ground. Emir nearly jumped out of his skin, sure he was a dead man.

“Fucking mark’s going to make me kill someone.”

Kali rushed out of nowhere and fell to his knees.

“Please don’t hurt my Master Sir,” Emir’s boy said, kissing Verik’s feet. “It was my fault.”

The merchant swooped down on his boy, snatching him out of the gladiator’s reach.

“Get inside,” Emir said, but his slaveboy clung to him, crying.

Looking into the boy’s terrified eyes calmed Verik. There was no honor in frightening a harmless man and his slaveboy.

“Sorry I scared you boy,” he said, and turned his back on the merchant.

Verik walked on, making his way through the crowded street, turning his thoughts to the temple. The thought of virgin ass made his swelling cock hard under his rough trousers. He knew how it would be with the bitch. Back at the gladiator house, the whores all trembled when they came to his rooms. He’d grown used to taking slaveboys by force. He used their ass and sent them away, whimpering and crying. 

“Ease yourself with a whore Sir?” a boy’s soft voice said behind him.

The slaveboy backed away when he saw Verik’s black mark. He grabbed the whore’s red tunic, quick as a snake. 

“Come here bitch.”

The slaveboy looked up at him, and the gladiator was lost. The crowd melted away. He saw only the boy whore’s soft brown eyes filled with miserable shame. 

The helpless misery in the boy’s eyes seduced the darkness within Verik. Wicked lust gripped him like a fever. His swollen cock strained against his trousers. Suddenly he thought how fucking hot the bitch would look squirming under him, crying, begging for mercy.

“How much to ease my cock with your whore ass?”

The boy glanced back at the whorehouse, but there was no rescue, just another slaveboy who ran inside at the sight of Verik.

“One hundred silver,” the boy said, looking down at the big bulge in Verik’s trousers. 

He grabbed the boy’s face and ran his fingers over the whore’s ruby lips and caressed his soft, pink cheeks. His honey colored hair fell to his shoulders like the finest silk. Looking into the boy’s eyes, the temple seemed far away. 

A tall bald man, tanned and muscled, stood in the shady doorway of Slave’s Oasis, watching the gladiator with his whore. Now he knew he was cursed. Ajef spit in the dirt. Verik the Scythe showing up at his whorehouse – of all the luck.

“You’ll have to pay to use my property,” Ajef said.

“How much to use the bitch?” Verik said, pulling the whore close.

The boy was soft and smooth against Verik’s hard body. He slid his hand up under the whore’s tunic and fondled the boy’s pierced cock. He loved the feel of a slaveboy’s limp cock. It thrilled him to use a boy’s ass and know the bitch couldn’t come.

“Two hundred silver to use the whore,” Ajef said, hoping the gladiator would move on.

“The bitch said one hundred,” Verik said, rubbing his hard cock against the slave’s round ass. The pretty slaveboy trembled in his grip. Nothing new.

“Bring him inside,” Ajef said, backing down. He’d seen Verik’s work in the ring. “I’ll make you a deal.”

Like all places in Nequir, the inside of the whorehouse was dark, carved out of the black stone prisoners quarried. Without any windows, the torches spread around the small room cast shadowy light that hid more than it revealed.

As soon as Verik sat at one of the dark wooden tables, the whore sat on his lap, spreading his legs across him so the heat of his ass pressed up against his swollen cock. The boy writhed on his lap, sliding his hands up under Verik’s tunic, caressing his smooth, muscled chest. “Let me pleasure you Sir,” the boy whore whispered into his ear, licking the sweat from Verik’s tanned body, running his fingers through the gladiator’s long, black hair. 

The feel of the slaveboy pressed so close was maddening. Verik grabbed the boy’s hips and pushed his naked ass down so his thick cock nestled in the crack of the boy’s ass. 

“You were always my favorite in the ring Verik. You’re welcome among us again,” Ajef said, looking uneasy. 

Verik saw the way the man’s eyes avoided the tattoo on his forehead. 

“Am I?” he said, looking into Ajef’s eyes.

Ajef was a pitiless loan shark who collected debts with a sword. He didn’t scare easy. But when Verik looked into his eyes, he knew death was forever a heartbeat away.

“You served your time. Justice is done,” Ajef said, sounding harsher than he meant to.

Verik ran his hands over the squirming slave’s smooth ass. The boy had lifted his tunic to lick the sweat off his chest.

“I’ll pay for the bitch now. How much for three hour glasses?”

If Verik stayed that long, Ajef would lose a whole afternoon of business. He chose his next words carefully, trying to sound casual. 

“I have a special room for a man like you. Let me show you,” Ajef said, turning to lead the way.

“A man like me?”

The barely controlled fury in Verik’s low voice stopped the whorehouse owner in his tracks. The slaveboy on Verik’s lap looked up, afraid. He Verik pressed the boy’s face back to his chest; he liked the whore’s hot tongue licking his sweat.

“I meant only a man who - ”

“You’re the third man to insult me since I left prison this morning. I let the first two live,” Verik said, looking up at Ajef in the flickering light. 

Ajef said nothing. He’d seen that look in Verik’s eyes in the arena. Just before he slit a man’s throat. 

The slaveboy slid to the floor and knelt between Verik’s open legs, massaging his hard cock, kissing him softly through his trousers, pressing close, intoxicated with his scent.

“You got something to say to me or can I pay for the whore?”

“Be reasonable Verik,” Ajef said, desperate. “I’ll lose customers the moment men see you. I have to eat and feed my whores. I’m just a poor businessman.”

“You’re a thief and a liar. At least you’re not a coward.”

For a moment, Ajef was sure the gladiator would pull his sword and slice through his guts. 

“Show me the room,” Verik said, coming to his feet.

He followed Ajef and the boy up narrow, twisting stone steps and down a low stone passage past dark wooden doors, deep into the rocky guts of the mountain behind the whorehouse. Ajef opened one of the doors, revealing a small room carved out of the wall. The inside was like a cave. A single torch hung on the rough walls, showing a high pile of fine, soft furs.

“This is my best room,” Ajef said. 

Verik walked past him, pulling the slaveboy behind.

“Here,” Verik said, reaching into the pouch at his waist. He paid for the whore.

Ajef took the silver. “Nahji is my hottest bitch. Enjoy him,” he said and left, leaving Nahji in the doorway, watching the darkness swallow his Master.

He turned to Verik, who was already naked in the furs, lying on his side. In the glowing torchlight, with his thick cock jutting up to his navel, his hard body, he looked like a merciless god, ready to demand sacrifice and suffering.

“Lock the door and get over here slut.” 

Nahji hurried to kneel in the furs beside Verik. Suddenly alone with the gladiator, Nahji couldn’t help but think of the hard feel of his cock when he sat on his lap. The boy prayed he would come in his mouth. But he didn’t think so. In the firelight, so close he felt his breath, he saw what a harsh man Verik was. It wasn’t just the way he looked, it was the arrogant hardness in his eyes – the way he was sure no one would dare say no to him. He dropped his eyes to the furs.

Verik ran his rough hands slowly over Nahji’s ivory skin, enjoying the feel of his young, slender body, so soft and afraid. Something about the boy begged a man to use him hard and hurt him bad.

“Look at me whore,” Verik said. 

Nahji raised his eyes - light brown and full of helpless suffering that drove Verik crazy with dark lust. 

“Use me for your pleasure Sir,” the boy said.

Looking into the slaveboy’s eyes, Verik knew even after he fucked the boy hard and made him scream, he would whimper at his feet, accepting his fate - serving the hard pleasures of wicked men.

“I’ll please you any way you want Sir,” Nahji said, twisting his tunic in his trembling fingers. “Just please tell my Master you enjoyed me or he’ll punish me bad.”

“How?”

The boy turned around, taking off his tunic. His back was a criss cross of scars. Verik sat up – running his fingers over the scars with the thrill of a man touching priceless diamonds. 

“Your Master did that?”

“If men don’t find me pleasing, my Master whips me while they watch,” the boy said, turning back to Verik. “Then he charges extra to rape my ass.”

Verik ran his fingers down the whore’s back, looking into his eyes, feeling the scars that twisted through his soft flesh. A boy like him was meant to have scars like that. Something in his eyes drew brutal men to him; the kind who would take pleasure with him while he screamed. He was irresistibly drawn to the boy. His pulse raced, his cock throbbed unbearably. A drop of liquid oozed from his swollen cock head.

“You ready to get fucked good and hard bitch?”

Nahji nodded, unable to take his eyes off Verik’s thick cock.

“Good,” Verik said gently, caressing the boy’s soft face, feeling how his tender body trembled. “First I’m reaming your whore ass, then I’m telling your Master to whip you real hard. I’ll pay double to rape you after he scars you up.”

“No, please,” Nahji said, crying. He grabbed Verik’s arm. “Anything you want. He likes to hurt me.” The boy’s pounding heart made his voice jagged with fear. “He uses me after those men leave.” 

“You’ll please me bitch?” Verik said, getting up.

Nahji nodded frantically. “Anything you want Sir.” 

“Get on your knees for me whore.”

Kneeling, looking up at Verik, Nahji felt like he was at the feet of a god. Verik’s swollen cock jutted out between his thick legs, sculpted with muscle. His flat belly was ridged and hard. Veins ran around his rigid cock. He had never wanted to suck cock so bad.

Verik saw the hunger in the whore’s eyes.

“You want my cock in your mouth bitch?”

“Oh Gods, yes,” Nahji said. He couldn’t hide it. He was desperate to service him.

Verik teased the whore, wiping his hard dick along the boy’s hungry lips.

“I’m going to fuck your ass long and hard,” Verik said, looking down into the boy’s eyes.

“I’ll take your cock Sir. I’ll please you,” Nahji said, licking the taste of Verik’s cock from his lips, unable to think of anything except how good his cock would feel pounding down his throat.

“I love knowing what they did to you,” Verik said, looking at the thick gold ring pierced through the center of the boy’s cock shaft. “I wish I had been the one to pierce you and make you into a pleasure bitch.”

The boy’s cheeks flushed red with shame.

“You’re always hungry for cock, like a whore, aren’t you?”

Verik pressed his hard dick against the boy’s smooth lips. Nahji opened his mouth wide, eyes closed, hot for his cock, ready to take his load. 

“Answer me boy,” Verik said, keeping his cock out of reach.

“I don’t get hard anymore Sir. But I still have needs,” the boy said, breathless with desire; ashamed of his need. He hated knowing that he would never come again.

Verik slapped the boy’s face hard. “Say it bitch. Tell me what you are.” 

“Look what he did to me,” the boy said, touching his limp cock. Tears slid down his cheeks. “I’m a serving whore. Men pay to use my ass. No matter how much they hurt me, I’m always desperate for more cock.” He looked up at his tormentor. “All I get is pain from men like you.”

The dull rage in the slaveboy’s eyes made Verik think how good the boy would look on all fours screaming when he took his ass. 

“That’s what you’re for slut. To give men like me pleasure with your screams.”

Verik pulled the whore by his hair, forcing the boy’s face into his crotch.

“Service me, you cock sucking bitch,” he said.

The moment Nahji opened his mouth, Verik yanked his head back and shoved his cock deep down the boy’s throat.

Before they pierced him, Nahji would have been rock hard servicing a man like Verik, with a big cock stretching his mouth. The boy knew he would rape him and make him scream. He still wanted his cock. He couldn’t help it.

Verik fucked Nahji’s mouth hard and fast, looking down at the whore’s soft red lips stretched tight around his driving cock. Being inside the boy’s hot mouth, seeing him on his knees, afraid, drove him wild with lust.

“Hot bitch mouth,” Verik said, throwing his head back, humping the boy’s face.

The sound of his hips slamming into the whore was loud in the darkness of the quiet room. Verik held the boy’s hair tight, fucking his face in a wild, sadistic rhythm, pounding the back of the boy’s throat. In the orange light of the single torch, he towered over the slaveboy, pumping his hips in long, hard strokes.