Neko

by P L Nunn

One

The neko's name was Dharsha, but no one had called him by it for more than a year. It was only boy, or you or slave or worse things that the string of humans who thought they owned him used to direct him. They thought him beneath them. They saw the ears and the tail and called him an animal, though how they could justify it was beyond him when the rest was the same. They belittled his people because they roamed nomadically through the lush forests of their homeland, because they had no standing army, because their wise men carried the history of their peoples instead of storing it in tomb upon tomb of paper filled books filled with incomprehensible marks. The neko was young, barely past adolescence, hairless save for the grey fur of his tail and that of his sensitive, cat-like ears. The hair that flowed around them was black as night, sleek and shining with youthful health. His eyes were pale blue, with irises that adapted to light or darkness. He was slim and light boned, lithe and agile as his far-distant feline cousins. It would be a decade or more before his bones and muscles gained the weight mass of an adult Neko male and even then some males stayed slight, never finding the ferocity of the pack protectors. He had an uncle that was a beta male, but his blood brother had already started gaining the broad shoulders and dense muscles of a fighter. At least he had a year ago the last time the young neko had seen him. Before he'd been snatched from the docks of the human settlement on the edges of Neko lands. Drugged and bound, he'd passed the ocean voyage in a daze of sickness that had not worn off until he was caged and collared in a human slave market. An exotic prize worth his weight in gold. So they thought. He was no easy conquest this young neko. No meek slave to go passively into the life they planned for him. He fought tooth and nail, despite the beatings and the threats. His first master hadn't the stomach to deal with him, and sold him to an acquaintance. That man called him an animal and caged him, so he acted the part, biting every hand that came near him, only succumbing to his master's attentions when he was bound hand and foot. The man got little pleasure from him. After four months he was put back on the block, in a human city three hundred miles from the coast that might have held some hope of him finding passage home. He was bought by another man, who caged him and starved him until he was too weak to fight back and then complained that his slave was listless as an old rag when he mounted an emaciated body too weak to do more than lie there and breath when he was taken. That abuse continued for several more months, until his master met an untimely end during a bar room brawl. Dharsha was sold again, this time for far, far less than his original price to a woman with a taste for exotic young things. Her name, he thought was Kathera, but he only ever called her Lady. She called him Neko and when he tied to tell her his name, she shushed him with a slim, painted finger and said that names were for people, not property. But she was gentle about it, and kind in her own way so he let it be, accepting the food she gave him, and the rest she allowed his body for recuperation. He might even have fallen halfway in love with her, while he healed in her house on the outskirts of the human city he found himself in. He sat in the small room she allowed him and gazed through the tiny window high up on the wall at distant mountains thick with forest and remembered wistfully the green forests of home.

The first time she called him to her chambers, he was amazed. For females were mysterious, wondrous things that he had little experience of, but had mused often enough about, as most young males did. And despite the fact that she was human with her small human ears and her tailless rear, she was beautiful, with gleaming red hair and lush round breasts. He fell into her when she beckoned and gloried in her body, gladly following her whims as she guided him down the paths to her greater pleasure. He was in love. And she crushed him, time after time, trampling his adoration under foot when she refused to treat him as anything other than a slave. When she brought a man to her bedroom, a merchant that she was dealing with, and summoned the neko for them both to play with, he rebelled in a fit of injured jealousy. Violence that he had not practiced since her purchase of him welled to the surface and he attacked the man who had coupled with her, until the Lady struck him down from behind. She was not hesitant in punishing him. She and her merchant lover strung him up and lashed him until he bled, then locked him in his cube of a room for two days without food or water. When she finally let him out, her spell was broken. His adolescent lust was gone, replaced by surly dissatisfaction with his lot. He would not strike her, as he might have a male master, but he gave her no easy satisfaction either. When she summoned him to her bed, his performance was less than enthusiastic and eventually she stopped summoning him. "You come from the forests, do you not?" the Lady asked one day and he glowered at her ears flicking backwards, and shrugged. "I'm for a day trip into the woodlands west of here," she said. "You may accompany me. If you wish." She smiled at him, lifting a brow and he stared, caught off guard by the offer of a choice. "Yes," he answered quietly, feeling a little stirring of the old adoration. He had never ridden a horse, only ever traveled in caravans, caged in barred wagons, or leashed and led along on foot behind a line of other slaves. He was not quite sure he liked horses and felt certain they held little affection for him. The animal the Lady offered him was fat and old and generally gentle, the lady assured him, but the beast still flicked her ears unhappily at his scent, and cast him malicious stares from large, white rimmed brown eyes. He mounted only because the lady sat staring down from her own, much younger, much fancier mount, waiting on him. He tried to find a comfortable position on the saddle, the best way to curl his tail, the best method to steer the beast without it twisting its blunt toothed muzzle around to try and bit at his bare shin. He finally settled for not steering at all, but dropping the reins and letting his horse follow in the footsteps of the one the lady rode. It was a long morning, and they stopped once at the side of a small pond surrounded by mosscovered rocks to quench their thirst. After another hour or two, they dismounted and walked the horses a ways, before the lady stopped to tie the reins of her mount to a young tree and signaled Dharsha to do the same. "We'll walk a ways from here, slave," she said. He frowned, picking his way silently through the mulch along the trail. "Where are we going?" he asked, looking up at the tall, straight trees, their foliage sparse and deep green and near the upper half. "It's not a slave's place to ask," she said, not bothering to look back at him.

Which only served to ignite a spark of rebellion. "I'm not a slave," he said, had said too many times to recall, to too many human's that thought he was nothing more than property to barter. "Just because you steal something, doesn't make it yours." She did half turn to look at him. "Wisdom from the mouths of the ignorant. Anyone who stole you, my boy is far, far removed from here and I paid good gold for your disobedient hide. Now hush." He glared at her back, and could not quite help his gaze traveling down to the swell of her hips. As he was watching the gentle sway, mind half forming images of her naked buttocks, his sharp hearing picked up sounds discordant with the song of nature. He cast a subtle glance around and saw a shadow in the trees. Two shadows. No more. The movement of men in the trees. "Lady," he sidled up to her. "We're not alone." She stopped, one hand on a shapely hip. "I know. Hello, gentlemen." Figures melted out of the woods. Big men in heavy pants and thick-soled boots, unshaven or bearded, their broad faces were hard and grim. Some of them held axes, others simply had belt knives at their sides. There were five of them, two sets that could have been brothers, one hawk-nosed black haired man that grinned ear to ear as he approached. "Well met, good foresters," the Lady said, seemingly unconcerned as they surrounded them. The neko turned, ears flattening, tail twitching in nervousness. The sense of danger here raced up his spine like cold breeze. He started, as one of them lifted an axe to his shoulder. A bald man with a beard and small, speculative eyes. "Lady," this man said, even as a hand gripped Dharsha's arm from behind, and another curled around his neck as he started to protest. Two men, both half again his weight held him fast, twisting his arms behind him when he tried to wriggle away. "As I promised, I've a neko slave to sell." "No! You bitch!" Dharsha cried, betrayed, furious, aghast. How could she after sharing her body with him? After teaching him the wonders of sex? "Let's see what we're buying," one of them said, pulling Dharsha's tunic open and wrestling it off him with the help of the two holding his arms. "Get your hands off me!" he cried, frantically bucking to dislodge them. "Gag the little bitch," someone growled and a thick wad of cloth was stuffed into his mouth before a strip of cloth was tied around it and fastened at the back of his head. They bound his wrists behind him, wrenching his arms as they did, half pulling him off his feet. "Nice," one of the bald brothers commented. This one had a large belly overhanging his belt and thick hair poked out of his collar where his shirt was open. He ran a big hand down Dharsha's belly, while someone else lifted his loincloth, revealing his dangling genitals. "Look at that little cock he's sporting. And smooth as a baby's bottom." A hand rubbed the skin above his cock, before cupping his shrinking balls. He hissed through the gag. "He's disobedient and willful and needs a strong hand teach him what it means to be a proper slave."

The older seeming, flat-bellied bald man was counting out coins into the Lady's palm. "No shortage of strong hands here, lady." "It seems the poor creature does not understand that his kind are no better than the animals his ancestors bred with. I've had about as much of his defiance as I can handle." The dark haired man caught hold of the neko's face, forcing his head back, tilting it side to side. "Pretty little thing. We've need of a toy like him back at camp. This little cat will learn his place quickly enough." The Lady leaned in, her slim fingers trailing down Dharsha's chest, her full pink lips curved into a smile that held nothing of sweetness or humor. "See what things come to when you don't know your place? You'll wish you still had my gentle woman's touch after these fine men have tutored you in what its like to be a man's bitch." Then she straightened, smoothing her skirts and waggled her fingers at him. "Good riddance." And she was gone, striding back down the path towards the horses, her full purse jangling at her hip. Dharsha stared after her in dismay, until he was jerked around, strong hands on his upper arms propelling him between two of the woodsmen down the path opposite the way the lady had gone. Deeper into this mountainous wood with its strange straight boled trees which covered the ground with the long, narrow needle-like leaves they shed. They passed a clearing where a great many of the trees had been felled, their stumps in various stages of bleeding the last of their lives out in sap. A good ways further a small collection of rough wood structures came into view. A cabin with a large black dog asleep on the covered porch, a small stable with an empty corral, a woodshed, a smokehouse. Trees had been cleared away around it enough to allow enough sunlight in for grass to grow upon the knoll where the cabin perched, but it only survived in patches surrounded by dirt and mud. As they passed the stable, Dharsha saw a line of dangling animal feet. Deer, fowl, something large enough to be a bear. The side of the house and the shed was decorated with the skulls of their kills, mostly the antlers of hoofed beasts, but some less obvious of origin. The death masks gave Dharsha little optimism about the nature of this place and he shivered, digging his heels in a little as they urged him up the incline to the cabin. They twisted his arms and forced him the remaining distance, pausing on the weatherworn porch to strip him of the loincloth, leaving him completely naked. One of the younger ones, with reddish brown hair and a thick, prominent brow brought out a leather collar three fingers wide with a tarnished silver bell on the front and a sturdy iron loop behind the buckle. They fitted it around his neck and he growled behind the gag, having worn collars before and having no love for them. Into the cabin, a cluttered space with one big room that contained kitchen and hearth and a small alcove to one side where double bunks could be seen. There was a wooden table with benches, a counter with cupboards above it. An antique stove. Chests, tools and odds and ends were stacked against the walls. The only clear space was before the hearth where a brown bear skin rug lay, with five chairs at its edges. There was an animal cage, no more than three foot tall and four long that they led him towards. The elder bald one opened the door while one of the others untied Dharsha's hands, then grasped him by the hair and shoved him into the cage headfirst. His feet were kicked in after him and the door slammed shut and locked. He crouched there, the bars of the bottom biting into his knees and struggled to unfasten the gag. He spat out the wad of cloth they'd stuffed into his mouth and spun to grasp the bars of the door, glaring out at them. A dozen different profanities trembled on the tip of his tongue, and stilled as he watched them lay their axes and their saws upon the kitchen table, then sit down to clean them. He shrank back in the cage, pulling his knees up to his chest, listening to the sound of grindstones on blade edges, wondering what sort of men he had been sold into the hands of. The tools were stowed finally, cleaned of sap and sawdust, and one of them pulled out what looked to be a slop bucket and ladled a meaty, gristly sort of gruel into two large bowls. One he took out onto the porch, whistling for the dog. The other they put inside Dharsha's cage. He shrank back from it, glaring out at them in disgust. It smelled horrible, and looked worse, chopped bits of animal innards, mixed up with scraps of what

might have been dinners from days past. The dog outside lapped it up eagerly. Dharsha tried not to gag at the sight of it. "If you don't eat now, you'll get nothing else till tomorrow." The big bald man stared down at him, cold eyed and shrewd, the stray grey hair or two beginning to show in his beard. Dharsha grasped the bars of his cage and glared up. "I'm not an animal, you bastard. I don't eat out of a bowl on the floor." The man canted his head, while the others drifted up to stand about the cage. Two bald men with beards, one hard with corded muscle, the other broad with a bulging gut. Two almost identical younger men with red-brown hair, small eyes and overhanging brows, and a broad shouldered, crooknosed raven haired man with unnaturally large hands. "Did you hear that, Karl, he says he's not an animal?" the fat one sneered. Karl lifted a brow, and crouched down, eye level with Dharsha. "That tail and those ears speak differently. Your mama or your mama's mama rutted with some long tailed cat. That makes you no bettern' a beast in my book. Its time you learned an animal's place in the world of decent, human men." Dharsha hissed at him, he couldn't help it, and Karl stepped back to let one of the others unlock the cage door. Hands reached in and grasped whatever limbs they could to drag him out, him kicking and biting the whole way. A fist landed in his gut and the air went out of him. When he doubled over they slammed him down to the floor, grabbing his arms and twisting them up behind him, tying them painfully tight wrist to elbow. He still tried to fight them, kicking out while they tried to get control of his feet. He caught someone a blow in the face, before they tied his ankles together. They caught hold of his thrashing tail and used it to haul him onto his knees where he lay trembling in fury, face to the floor, ass in the air. "Now ain't that a fine little piece of ass, just waitin' for attention?" the fat one said. "Let's warm it up for him." They took a switch to him, thumb thick and still fresh enough to have some give. One of them gripped his tail, keeping his rear high and vulnerable to the beating. He screamed and cursed the first half dozen blows, then sobbed as it didn't stop and his ass became one large burning center of pain. The man who wielded the switch left nothing untouched, from his lower thighs to his balls, to the cleft of his ass. The blows halted finally as he was begging incoherently, and the bowl of meaty gruel was pushed in front of his face. He could barely focus on it through the tears. Karl pulled his head up by the hair, slid the bowl under his nose and shoved his face into it. "Eat it bitch!" Dharsha lifted his face, gasping, having inhaled a few chunks of liquid gruel. Karl didn't give him the chance to fully catch his breath, before his boot came down upon his neck, plunging his face back into the contents of the bowl. The neko sputtered and gasped into the mush, drowning in bloody gruel. The switch slashed into his buttocks again while he suffocated. He heard them laughing, distantly as consciousness started to waver in a haze of tight constricting pain around his chest. Heard them egging on the man lashing his bottom. "Make him bleed, Sven. Stripe those balls and that tight little fuck-hole, too."

The pressure on his neck let up. A hand grasped his hair and pulled his head out of the bowl. Bloody bits of meat and rancid food dripped from his face, dripping out of his nose as he gasped, struggling to blow chunks out and clear his airway. Sven let him cough it up, let him catch enough breath to ease the ache in his chest, then crouched down and said softly. "Now eat it, bitch. Every last bit." And he did. Shocked past defiance, he buried his face in the bowl and sucked up the rancid stuff, swallowing chunks of gristle and fat whole in efforts to get it down in the least amount of time possible. They made him lick the bowl and the floor around it where the gruel had overflowed. It was spotless when he'd finished. One of them, the black haired one, wiped his face with a damp cloth afterward, then picked him up and deposited him back in the cage, still bound. He lay curled on his side, ass throbbing, stomach threatening nausea in rebellion of what filled it. He felt the slow trickle of blood from a dozen welts. His balls felt hot and swollen. He shut his eyes and listened to the woodsmen fix their supper. Their conversation was a dull buzz outside his focus. There was a scraping of the bench as they rose from table, the clatter as they put the dishes in the sink, the slosh of water as they washed them, then put them in the cupboard. Footsteps, heavy and ominous. Maybe if he pretended to sleep, they'd go away and leave him alone. "Time for you to start earning your keep, slave." They grasped his bound ankles and pulled him out, dragging him like bagged game to the rug before the hearth, where the left him momentarily as they shed boots and shirts, the two twins shucking their pants as well and crouching next to him as naked as he was. They untied his arms and ankles, but with five of them, all of them half again his size and weight, there was little enough he could do fight them off. He was too exhausted and in too much pain from the switching to give it much of an effort. He'd been used before by men sexually and it was no unknown horror. They got him on his hands and knees on the rug, hands on his wrists and legs holding him still while the fat one pressed his crotch close to his face, his thick, apparently never washed cock head nudging against Dharsha's lips. "Open wide and take it, hole," The fat man encouraged, grabbing a handful of hair and tilting the neko's head backwards to better jab at his mouth with his cock. "You'll break his jaw with that thick thing, Stein," One of the twin's predicted with a laugh. "It'll fit. These neko slaves are flexible little bitches." "Open it." Karl who was kneeling at his side, snaked a hand up under his jaw, fingers pressing into the hinge of a jaw and forcing his mouth open. Stein's cock forced its way in, the girth of his cock making Dharsha's jaw pop alarmingly. It jabbed the back of his throat painfully, stopped from going further by Dharsha's constricting throat muscles. Inquisitive hands spread his smarting buttocks and he felt fingers probe at his opening. "Look how small and tight his ass hole is," someone remarked. "Don't look like nothing bigger than a finger been up there for a month of Enddays." And to prove the point a finger slid in dry. Dharsha gasped, and gagged as Stein's cock shoved past his tense muscles and wedged down his spasming throat. Big balls slapped him in the chin and the overhanging belly pressed tight against his forehead. He couldn't breath with it clogging his throat and his eyes bulged in panic as suffocation started in, but Stein pulled back, just enough to let him get a trickle of air, then slammed back down, cock stretching the neko's throat.

The finger in his ass withdrew and came back with cool slickness. It plunged in once, then smeared itself around his opening. A big body moved between his legs, forcing his thighs wider and hands gripped his hips and held him steady while the head of a cock butted against his clenched asshole. Someone else leaned in over his back, helpfully digging fingers into his buttocks and spreading them painfully taut. The cock centered itself on target and jammed its way in past screaming muscle. The neko would have squealed if his mouth hadn't been stuffed full. Now that he was securely spitted from both ends the other hands relaxed their grips, shifting to roam over his body, pinching nipples, twisting his dangling balls. He whimpered, body rocked back and forth from the twin rhythms of the men invading him. All he could see was the thick hair and the flabby flesh around the crotch of the man in his mouth. Small noises issued from his throat, whimpering sobs that got lost in the slap of flesh against his face, against his thighs as the man behind him slammed into him time after time. "Damn, but he's so tight, it almost hurts," The one behind him ground out. "Not for long," Another one laughed and, "come on boys, spill your loads so we can have a go." Another eager cock slapped him across the cheek, the other twin sidling up and rubbing it against his face. Stein grasped his ears and pulled his face up close to his crotch, straining to snake his cock all the way down Dharsha's throat as he came, shooting stream after stream of hot, acrid jism. He pulled out and the neko could barely close his aching jaw before his face was grasped and another thick cock shoved between his lips. The man came in his ass, leaving a hot squishy mess in his bowels. Karl moved to take his place, parting Dharsha's cheeks with his thumbs before plunging in, but he went easier, Dharsha's hole slicked with come and blood. The dark-haired one, Sven he thought he'd heard him called, wriggled under him and lifted his head so he could get Dharsha's nipple in his mouth. He suckled the one, pulling and teasing with his teeth while he worked the other with his fingers. The neko's arms trembled, strength depleted. One gave out and the twin at his head held him up by the hair, then slowly knelt, never breaking his rhythm in Dharsha's mouth, letting the neko's upper body settle onto Sven beneath him. Sven moaned approval, mouth fastened to one swollen nipple, sucking so hard that it seemed as if it might burst. Karl stretched him, long as well as thick and masterful with his strokes. He came finally, pulling out to spew on Darsha's back. Since Sven was preoccupied with the neko's nipple's Stein worked himself back to hardness and took his brother's place at Dharsha's rear. He didn't last long, coming after a few dozen quick thrusts. One of the twins, young and easily aroused even after so recently coming, felt it wrong to leave Dharsha's ass unattended and took a second ride. "He's loose now, ain't he Olaf," the twin at his mouth laughed and Olaf, the one buried in his ass, wiggled a finger into Dharsha's ass next to his cock, stretching the swollen mouth so it gaped a little around the thick base of his member. He laughed, and Karl canted his head, a slow smile crossing his lips. Karl sidled up close to Olaf and squeezing his own big finger up the neko's ass alongside Olaf's cock. He slid another finger in and pulled, stretching the mouth of Dharsha's anus an inch out from Olaf's cock. It felt as if he was tearing, as if fragile skin would rip like so much paper under the pressure. Karl crouched down, canting his head close to peer up into the darkened nook. "Gotta lot of room in there now," he observed. "Bet this little slut can take a lot more than a cock up his shoot." "Bet so," Olaf gasped as Karl withdrew his fingers and he recommenced his thrusts. "We keep this little bitch filled, so he don't forget what he is. A living breathin' hole. No bettern' garbage, hear that?" Karl slapped the neko's switch striped ass. He grabbed the neko by the hair,

pulling him backwards off of Bo's cock, while Olaf shifted a little to accommodate his fucking of him now that he was on his knees, back arched and neck twisted in Karl's grip. "Repeat it," Karl growled in his ear, near to pulling hair out by the root. "Let me hear you say you ain't worth nothing except for a hole for us to use. That you're lowern' garbage. Say it!" "I - -;I'm - - gasp - - gasp - - a hole for you to use. Ahhh - - I'm - - garbage. Lower than - - garbage." Karl shoved him back down and Olaf cried out, his cock spitting into Dharsha's ass. When he'd finished and his shrinking cock slipped out of the neko's slick ass, Olaf shoved him over onto his side, where the neko lay gasping, half conscious. It's over. It's over. The thought kept looping his head, himself limp and aching on the floor, only barely aware of them moving in the cabin around him, the squeak of a chair as someone settled into it by the fire, the sweet smell of pipe tobacco burning. Hands turned him onto his back and he blinked up dazedly at a man leaning over him, snaking an arm under his knee and lifting his hips enough to slide his cock between his buttocks and find an opening too abused to even put up a ghost of resistance. It didn't mean it didn't hurt. Sven slid in, pushing Dharsha's knees towards his chest and pounding down with short, powerful strokes, while Dharsha sobbed and shuddered, exhausted. Shattered. A hole. Garbage. They played with him through the night, in the flickering light of the fire, in ones or twos as their stamina returned enough to regain erections. He heard them say it had been a season since any of them had gotten sex other than the five-finger variety. They'd built up a head of steam and depleted it vigorously inside the neko's body. He was unconscious through a great deal of the later night, coming to in spurts of pain or imminent suffocation. They finished with him when he was too loose to appease their pleasure and stuffed him back into the cage where he fell into sleep where he lay. Deep, dreamless dark that was more unconsciousness than real slumber.

Chapter two

Dharsha woke to a boot prodding his leg. Hard. And stared blurrily up at the face of one of his master's looking down at him through the top of his cage. The door was open and there was a bowl of gruel on the floor outside. "Breakfast, bitch." Olaf said. Dharsha moaned, the bone deep aches beginning to make themselves known. Even without movement, his ass throbbed with pulsing pain. His jaw felt as if he'd taken several fists to it. "I said move." Dharsha tried, pushing himself up on trembling arms, groaning at the stiff limbs and the ache of lying on the grill bottom of the cage. He whimpered at the burn in his ass, at the scrape of dried, crusty residue between raw cheeks. He made it halfway out the cage to the bowl, which was filled with marginally less disgusting contents than yesterday. The remains of their breakfast. He hadn't the strength to fight it this morning, his mind still half in fog. His arms barely had the strength to hold him up as he lowered his face to the bowl and began to lap the lumpy gruel up.

"Gotta pee? Shit?" Olaf asked and Dharsha realized that part of the pain in his gut was an overfull bladder. He nodded numbly, and the red haired woodsman nodded, taking leather leash from the wall above the cage and attaching it to the ring in the neko's collar. Dharsha looked up at him, not quite understanding, never in his year of slavery having been forced quite so thoroughly into the role of animal, even though his masters had accused him of being one. "On all fours, bitch, until you learn your place among men." Sven, who was the only other woodsman in the cabin moved a few steps closer, crossing his brawny arms and adding his threatening stare to Olaf's. Olaf yanked on the leash, and the neko hadn't a choice but to follow, painfully, on hands and knees. Out onto the porch and down the steps, which were hard to navigate on all fours and harder still with his body crying out at each elongated movement. The others were out there, with their lumberjack equipment and sacks that probably contained their lunches, ready to head off into the woods for a day's work. Which would mean leaving him alone, the notion of which flooded him with relief. "Go on. Piss." Olaf instructed and made him do on all fours, without reaching back and touching his cock, which resulted in pee spattering on his legs and arms as well as the ground beneath him. It burned a little coming out, no doubt due to their rough handling of his cock and balls last night. The dog padded over while the last of the urine leaked out, and sniffed around, growling a little deep in its throat. "That's right, King." Karl strode up and patted the dog on its broad head. "You keep a close eye on this little cat. Watch, you hear?" The dog growled some more, eyeing Dharsha balefully, before it stuck its big nose between his legs, inhaling his scent. The neko, while not particularly afraid of dogs, having only met a few in his young life, was not however prepared for the tongue of one lapping across his genitals. He started, trying to scoot away, and got a boot in the ribs for his efforts. He dropped down, gasping, holding his side, lying in the grass in his own pee while Olaf kicked apart his legs and encouraged King to investigate thoroughly. King's tongue squirmed between his buttocks, eagerly licking clean last night's leavings. Crusted come and blood and fresh urine. The neko sobbed quietly, shutting his eyes against the humiliation. "Damn, but ol' King's got a boner for the cat." Olaf exclaimed, apparently delighted by this discovery. "King's gets a boner from most anything." Sven laughed. "Come on, boys." Karl said. "Put the bitch back in his cage. We got work to do." Olaf tugged on the leash, and Dharsha pushed himself up to hands and knees, crawling after as fast as his battered body would allow. Back in the cage and Olaf locked it and pocketed the small key. King padded into the cabin and settled down by the heath, the door shut and the woodsmen were gone. Dharsha sat for a long time, huddled in a knot against the back of the cage, then tentatively he crept forward, testing the door. It was solid. The whole pen was built to handle an animal much stronger than him. When he rattled the door too hard, King bounded up, stalking over with short fur stiff on his back, growling warning. Under the dogs floppy jowls were very long, sharp teeth. On hands and knees, the neko's shoulders were a good hands width shorter than the big dog's. He backed to the far side of his pen, drawing his legs up, pressing his face to his knees in misery. Eventually, the dog circled and lay down, outside the cage, a wary eye on the neko's movements inside it.

The fire had guttered out and the cabin grown cool with late evening by the time the woodsmen returned home. They had put in a grueling day and it showed in the slow movements as they cleaned their tools and pulled boots off aching feet. Their talk was muted, only gaining a degree of animation once they'd brewed coffee and relaxed for a meal of pan bread and onions fried with smoked strips of meat. Dharsha sat in his cage and watched them balefully, having regained a good deal of his spirit as the worst of the aches faded from his body. King got the best of the scrapes and then scratched at the door to be let out. Dharsha got the remnants of the pan bread that had scorched a little on the bottom of the skillet. It was the best meal he'd gotten yet, here, so he cleaned the bowl without gagging and slurped water from the dish they'd put down next to it. He had to pee again, and worse yet, after a day and a half, he had other bodily waste to expel. He asked, sullenly to be allowed, and Olaf who seemed to enjoy walking him like beast leashed him once again and led him outside. He was led further away from the cabin this time, towards the back where there were numerous piles of dogshit in various stages of decomposition. It was hard to see in the dark of early night where it was safe to crawl and where not. King trotted around to investigate the invasion of his own personal territory, sticking his nose under Dharsha's tail again and rooting around before Olaf shooed him off and ordered Dharsha to get on with it. He was made stay on all fours like before. Peeing was easy. Olaf's and King's observation made it harder and much more embarrassing to do the other. But the cramp in his belly from almost two days not having voided his bowels was too insistent to ignore. He spread his legs wider to keep from dirtying them, crouched back, strained and finally managed to defecate. King immediately had his nose to it, sniffing furiously. He growled a little, then circled round and lifted his leg, peeing on Dharsha's leg. Dharsha gasped, ears flat with indignation, even as Olaf laughed uproariously. "Look at him marking his territory. Ain't no question which one o' you is the Alpha male, huh, bitch?" Then he yanked on the leash and got Dharsha crawling back around to the front of the cabin. "Stop there, you filthy bitch." Olaf ordered, dropping the leash and the neko did, hanging his head, mortally shamed. His brother Bo and Sven had come out onto the porch and leaned against the railing to smoke. King padded around and stuck his nose in Dharsha's ass again and he dug his fingers into the grass in impotent fury, skin flinching in revulsion as the big tongue rasped across his dangling balls. "Peed all over himself again." Olaf explained to his friends, and Bo stubbed his smoke out on the porch rain and padded down the steps to join his brother. Olaf got a bucket of water from a rainwater trough at the edge of the cabin, and unceremoniously dumped the cold stuff onto the neko's back. His tail thrashed about and his ears flattened. Another bucket over his head and shoulders and he sputtered in indignation. The twins took scrub brushes to his skin, hard bristles rasping across sensitive flesh and they left no crevice unscrubbed. Between his legs, under his arms, his cock and balls, the soles of his feet, all of him was thoroughly and brutally cleansed until his skin was pink and inflamed from their attentions. They toweled him off and made him crawl back up the steps and inside. All the way to the bearskin rug he was led, then Olaf dropped the leash next to him and stepped back, leaving the neko on all fours in the middle of the rug, the central focus of five sets of hungry eyes. He stared at the fur between his hands, ears flat and tail twitching nervously, waiting for whatever was to come. He didn't know if he could survive another ordeal like last night. "Neko." A soft, deep voice called, and he looked up at Karl sitting across from him, big finger crooked in summons. He glanced around quickly to see where the others were. Some were sitting, some standing, all intent on him. Karl leaned forward when he didn't move immediately and asked. "Do you want the switch to your ass again, neko?"

"No." he mouthed the word. "Then you jump when you're told to, understand?" He understood that he was tired and that he couldn't fight them all. There might be a chance at escape, but this wasn't it. He crawled forward, between Karl's spread knees and Karl unfastened his trousers and pulled out his half hard cock. It was already thick and long and not even yet fully engorged. Karl pushed his pants down far enough to free his large balls, then rested his hands on the arms of the chair and inclined his head to Dharsha. "Make it good." Dharsha edged closer, lips trembling, and opened his mouth to take the tip of it. A little pearl of precome smeared on his tongue, but he'd swallowed enough of it last night that the taste was unremarkable. He swished his tongue across the underside of Karl's cock and felt it swell considerably in his mouth. He took a few more inches into his mouth, and the tip brushed the back of his throat. He backed off, gagging a little and sucked on the fat head. "No," Karl said. "Learn to take it all or suffocate, little hole." He grasped Dharsha's soft furred ears and dragged his face into his crotch. The cock slid down his spasming throat and into his esophagus, he choked, panic making his throat tighten down, and Karl gasped in pleasure as his cock was squeezed tight in the oral channel. He let Dharsha back off, till the tip of it was just tickling his tonsils, then shoved it back down. Dharsha struggled to relax his throat, to draw in precious air though his nose. He hardly noted the man positioning himself at his back until his buttocks were being pried open and a fat cock lubed with nothing more than pre-come and spit nudged at his rear opening. Karl pressed his face tight against his hairy crotch as the man behind him punched through the protesting ring of muscle at his ass, burying himself deep in one cruel stroke while Dharsha made muffled little squealing sounds against Karl's belly. Karl let him have a little air, let him suck on the head for a minute or two, directing how he liked it done, where he wanted Dharsha's tongue, all the while a man he couldn't see was bruising his insides from the other end. Karl pulled him down again and the cock slid into his throat a little easier this time, as Dharsha's focus began to blur a little. The man behind him finished before Karl did, filling his bowels with hot come, and another moved in to take his place and Dharsha moaned and sucked and they made jokes about what a little slut he was, and how much he liked it, when all that was really happening was that he was dying a little inside. Karl's nuts tightened under his chin, the man's fingers hurting his ears as his hands fisted, pressing Dharsha's face into his crisp pubic hair. His cock began spasming, throbbing in the neko's throat as it shot load after load of salty come into his stomach. When Karl was done, whatever man was behind him pulled him backwards by the hips, cock still buried deep inside him. Dharsha rested his face on the fur, glassy eyed, gap mouthed, a tiny trickle of white trickling over his bottom lip. More cream gathered in his bowels, leaking out as the man withdrew and dribbling down his balls, a warm, sticky trail. The other two had him, but were quick about it, exhausted by their long day's labor. No one had seconds, and he was allowed back in his cage afterwards. He lay exhausted and trembling, body throbbing, but it had not been as torturous ordeal as the night before. They had not wrung every ounce of endurance from him, leaving him mindless and limp as before.

After they had retired to their bunks, and their snores filled the cabin, he lay awake, seething. Imagining violent deaths for them all at his hands or at the very least, imagining himself well free of them and his own master again. Eventually as the fire guttered, sleep took him.

Chapter three

"Wake up, bitch!" The boot kicked him in the spine and sleep slid away like a sheet, leaving him vulnerable to the harsh light of morning. He drew back his lips, hissing a little in reflex, blinking of up one of the twins, he wasn't quite sure which, still sleep befuddled as he was. The boot nudged his bowl of 'breakfast' outside the cage. It was less savory looking by far than what he'd had for dinner. It looked as if they'd boiled some leftover part of a kill, given the less reprehensible parts to King and mashed up the rest for him. His stomach turned over at the sight of it. Feeling considerably better than he had the previous morning, he decided he'd starve before he crouched like a dog before the hideous stuff and lapped it up. He turned his face away from it, his mouth set in a stubborn line. The boot tapped, waiting. "You deaf, bitch?" Dharsha swung his head around to peer up narrowly at the woodcutter. It was Bo, he was almost certain. "You eat it," He suggested sullenly and both Bo's red brows shot up in surprise a moment before Bo's big fist slammed into the side of Dharsha's face. Dharsha rocked back into the cage, head spinning, tasting blood inside his mouth where cheek had torn on teeth. Before he could quite clear his head, he was being dragged out of the cage by an ankle, Bo yelling at him. "What did you say? Did you hear what the little cunt said to me?" Bo let go his leg and kicked him, a solid connection of boot tip to balls that made lights explode behind the neko's eyes. Pain shot out from his groin to each and every point of his body. He curled around injured testicles, gasping, tears streaming down his cheeks and into his mouth. "He thinks he's too fucking good for what we give him," Bo was still yelling. Hands yanked him up, twisting his arms back, grasping his face, biting into his jaw and forcing his mouth open. Big fingers thrust into his mouth from behind, four on each side pulling his mouth open and stretching his lips wide. "Don't want your slop, then we'll fill your belly with something else." He looked up frantically at Bo unzipping his pants, pulling out his limp dick and shoving the head into Dharsha's mouth. A warm stream of piss hit his tongue. Acrid and bitter it flowed down his throat and he gagged, wide-eyed and disbelieving. Bo stood there, rocking his hips very slightly as he massaged the base of his cock, milking the last drop of piss from it, then wiping the tip upon the neko's taut lips. His brother took his place, and Dharsha bucked against the hands holding him, but the grips were too strong to break. Olaf peed a good long stream, pulling out at the last moment to spatter the remaining drops upon Dharsha's face. And when they were sure he'd swallowed it all, they let him sprawl. He crawled to his knees, wiping the pee from his face, so furious that he could hardly hear past the rush of blood in his ears.

Something clattered onto the floor in front of him. A broom. He stared at it with red-tinged vision. "Today you work while we're gone," Karl said. "There're chores that need doing and you'll see to them daily or suffer for it. King'll stay here an make sure you don't wonder off. He can take down bears, so one little neko slut won't be much of a bother for him. Over here is the scrub brush and the soap - -" Karl moved off to the indicate the cabinet where the cleaning supplies were kept, telling Dharsha what they expected accomplished. Dharsha heard almost none of it, eyes focused on the broom and the open doorway. His hands circled the wooden shaft. There was one woodsman between him and the outside. Dharsha snarled, neko agility allowing him to bound up, crack the wooden shaft of the broom upside Bo's head and leap over his doubled form before the others quite knew what he was about. He hit the porch on the other side, leaped over the steps entirely, while Sven who was in the yard looked up in surprise. Sven made a dash at him, but the neko avoided it, sprinting for the woods. Before he quite got there the dog rushed out from behind the shed, fur bristling, lips pulled back to reveal a mouthful of deadly teeth. Dharsha skidded to a halt, his own ears flattening in instinctual fear of a more dangerous predator. He glanced left, right, looking for sure way past the dog. Something heavy and hard impacted against his right shoulder, knocking the breath out of his lungs, sending him sprawling as his back and arm went numb from impact. A chunk of firewood tumbled to the ground next to him, hurled with great accuracy by Sven, who was pelting towards him with the others on his heels. They fell upon him, as if he were about to get up and flee instead of lying there gasping for stolen breath. Knees in his back, hands against his neck and head, pressing his face into the dirt. "Little bitch. Goddamned stinking piece of shit, you'll pay for that. You'll wish you were dead." "String the little bastard up!" They were yelling at him, Bo's voice the most strident, but all their hands and their faces unforgiving, red with anger as they caught hold of his legs and arms and hauled him up. They got to the porch and slammed him onto the boards on his belly, twisting his arms behind him and binding them wrist to elbow. They looped rope about each ankle and two of them perched on the porch railing and drew the ends of the rope up through bolt holes on either side of the steps, then jumped down and hauled him up by the ankles until he hung over the edge of the steps, head dangling a foot from the top of the porch, legs spread wide. They said nothing then, no curses, no crude talk about the might of their sexual organs or how low he was compared to decent human men. They circled, breathing hard with rage at the disregard of their authority. Karl unbuckled his belt first, sliding it out of the loops of his pants, and slowly the others followed suit. Dharsha twisted his head, trying to see where they all were, cold, hard panic knotting his stomach. "No. No. It was a mistake. I'm sorry - -" And the first blow hit, smacking him across the chest with a sound like a thunder clap. Dharsha gasped, and tried to curl upward into the stinging burn of leather kissed skin. Another savage blow upon his back, and another almost simultaneously across his dangling genitalia. He screamed. And they beat him, circling and slashing at his exposed body with the supple leather of their belts. Each and every blow was a new and exquisite pain and his body danced under the assault, jerking to and fro. He had stopped screaming by the time they stopped, voice broken and reduced to helpless sobs. They took him down and he whimpered at the touch of their hands on his abused flesh. They lay him down

on the porch and bent each leg at the knee so that the heel of each foot pressed tightly against the back of his thighs, then they bound his legs that way tightly. Olaf came out of the cabin with a look on his face that was less than pleasant. He held a piece of whittled wood up before the neko's pain glazed eyes. It was carved in the shape of a severely bent penis, with a wide flared end that was shaped like a ball the size of a lemon. Two leather straps had been attached the ball. He grasped Dharsha by the hair and lifted his head, mashing the end of the thing against his lips, forcing it between his teeth and into his mouth. It was just long enough to start to curve down the back of his throat and the ball wedged behind his teeth, jamming his jaw painfully wide. Olaf fastened the straps around the back of Dharsha's head then let it drop back to the porch. Dharsha gagged, throat trying to expel a solid object that was going nowhere. He tried to relax, to breath through his nose and let his neck muscles expand, just like when they slid their cocks down his throat. He could breath with it there, it wasn't blocking the entirety of his air passage, it just wouldn't be comfortable. He heard the clomp of boots on the steps and could just see Sven struggling up them with something heavy in his arms. A large section of tree trunk. He dropped it with a force that made the porch boards shudder, and scooted it over to rest in front of one of the railings. "We made something for you last night. Just in case you were bad." Karl crouched down next to him, lifting his upper body so that he could better see what Sven had brought up. The section of wood itself still had bark clinging to its surface and was perhaps big enough that a large man could just circle it with his arms. It was what protruded from the top that made the neko's eyes widen in terror. They had carved a phallus, a monstrous, bulbous protrusion that jutted perhaps twelve inches above the flat surface of the log. It consisted of three bulging sections. The topmost the size of a small woman's fist. The middle swelling to grapefruit size then tapering off before it swelled to something half again that size. It was crudely carved, not quite smoothed out yet, since they had not had the time to perfect their art before they found themselves using it. Dharsha began to struggle, pitiful muffled noises caught in his throat behind the insidious gag. Karl and Stein lifted him between them, each taking a trussed leg and spreading his knees wide, while Sven poured a ladleful of cooking oil over the top of the phallus, smoothing it over the length of it with both hands before Karl and his brother positioned the neko's quivering asshole over the blunt tip of it. They lowered him down upon it, Sven crouching low and shifting his position slightly so that it rested directly against the mouth of his anus. They balanced him there, and he wailed behind the gag, the entirety of his weight resting on the tender bud of his asshole. He screamed and writhed and Karl reached one hand under him, lifting him up just enough to poke a finger into his bruised hole. "Let's open the bitch up a little," he suggested and Stein shifted his hold on Dharsha's other leg in order to slide his own thick hand under his ass and squeeze his finger in alongside his brothers'. They stretched the mouth of his hole open, getting two fingers in each and pulling him wide, and guiding him back over the tip of the phallus, this time with them holding him open, the tip went in. they pulled their fingers out and the lips of his asshole clenched around the thick bulb invading it. Once the top was it, his body settled down upon the rest of it easily enough and came up short upon the larger midsection. They pushed him down, twisting his body and working him down upon it mercilessly. This was bigger by far than their cocks and he felt the lips of his asshole stretch impossibly thin as his body descended over the swell of the second bulb. They released their support when he had swallowed the second and come to a rest against the unbearable flare of the last one. They pulled his legs wide, fastening his knees to the porch railings, with just enough give in the rope to allow him to slide down an extra five inches when his body weight finally forced him down over that last bulb. They fastened his collar to the porch rail to keep him upright and stood back watching him sweat and twitch. "Y'know, I'm not sure that last bit is gonna fit up in him," Olaf said crouching and bending his head to get a good look at the stretched lips of the neko's asshole.

"He'll take it," Karl seemed positive. "That hole gets stretched wide enough and he'll slide down, slick as spit." As if to prove the point Karl strode over and put a hand on the neko's shoulder, applying pressure that inched his body down onto the flare of the melon sized base of the phallus. Something gave. Dharsha felt his sphincter muscle tear and with a slow scrape of abused flesh he felt himself take the width of the base and settle, ass resting on the hard surface of the log, rectum filled, stretched beyond capacity. His body cramped as things were compressed that shouldn't be compressed, as bowels were stretched and stuffed full of uncompromising wood. "See," Karl said, satisfied. They put a rope about his waist, looped it several times under his rips and around the belly and lower abdomen, drawing it tight and tying it off to the rail post behind his back, so that he was pressed from the outside as well as the in. He moaned, rolling his eyes in gut deep pain. "Got one more thing to do, before we leave." Sven knelt before him, pinching his nipples, pulling and twisting until he had them aching with a pain all their own. He pulled them out taut from the neko's chest and tied a thin piece of catgut string around the base, making little fleshy balls of the pink part of the tit. He flicked them once, then leaned in to take each one in his mouth, almost caressingly. "Nothing I like better than fat tits and by the time we get back this evening these'll be red and swollen." They rose, moving down the steps, shouldering axes and saws. "You just relax there, little cat," Karl said over his shoulder. "Since you don't want to work. We'll be late getting home tonight since you put late getting out to work, but ol' King'll keep watch on you. Make sure no critter comes up to the porch and tries to make you its supper. You be good now." And he was left there, ass stretched beyond belief, throat filled with the head of a wooden cock, unable to move even a little. He couldn't even tilt his head down, when the dog came and started sniffing and licking at the blood and oil pooling under his balls, where his ass met the log, because it pressed the curve of wood against the inside of his throat painfully and cut off his air. He just sat there and whimpered, tears streaming down his face, in utter agony and waited. After all there was nothing else he could do.

Chapter Four

It wasn't actual sleep, his body was in too much discomfort for restful slumber, but he did grey out, loosing passages of time. It was dark when he woke to a tearing pain in his right nipple and squealed very much like a dying pig might in his shock, the sound wheezing its way out from his plugged mouth. Sven crouched before him, fingers still twisting, squeezing his tortured tit. He heard the clomp of other boots on the porch, the grumbling of men back from a long day's work. "Ah, look how red and swollen they are." Sven pinched a large swell of flesh surrounding one red nipple, making the bound, cherry sized numb of flesh protrude even further. Dharsha moaned helplessly, eyes rolling back. The Sven rose, chuckling, and followed his fellows into the cabin. The neko heard them moving about, heard the faint talk as they stoked the fire and clattered about in the kitchen and Dharsha feared they would simply leave him out here all the night, a nightmare beyond him imagining since every second he remained on their punishment log was sheerest agony, his lower body a mixture of dead numbness

and nerve searing pain. He cried again, amazed that his body still had enough moisture to shed more tears having shed a great deal already during the day and that after a day and night without water. But, eventually, they came back out onto the porch, stretching after their supper, most of them shirtless or in undershirts, their boots off and their pants loosened. Karl ambled over and looked down at him, no hint of mercy in his face. The neko stared up, afraid to look away. Eventually, Karl reached behind his head and unfastened the strap holding the gag, then slid it out of his mouth. Dharsha coughed as it left his mouth, a jaw wedged open all the long day almost locked into place now that the gag was gone. Drool dribbled out of his mouth, past slack lips. Karl tossed the gag on the porch and continued to stare down. Finally he asked softly. "What are you?" It took effort to force his mouth to move, but he tried, desperately tried to answer Karl's question. "A slave," he croaked. "What else?" "A hole." "Who's hole?" Karl lifted a dark brow. "Your hole. Theirs," the neko sobbed. "What are you?" Karl repeated, crouching, those small, cruel eyes of his boring into the neko's pain filled gaze. "Garbage," he sobbed. Then. "An animal. An animal." And at that moment he believed it. Karl nodded, satisfied, and signaled to the others to release him. They unfastened the ropes securing him to the porch railings, and then Karl and Olaf took hold of him and lifted him off of the punishment log. He did not come easily and they had to work him up off of the bottom bulge of the phallus, but then the rest slipped out of him easily enough and his body felt strangely numb and lightweight - utterly empty and gaping- - with it gone. His back hit the floor and he lay numb and dazed where they'd dropped him, staring up with spinning vision at the distorted faces of his masters as they gathered to stand over him. "Looks like the little bitch is just worn out,' someone said. "He'll come to life and perform like a good slave if he knows what's good for him," another of them laughed. A boot nudged him in the ribs. And Karl's voice - - oh, but he knew Karl's voice even in the spinning mire of exhaustion - - said. "Spread those cheeks, so we can get a look and see what a day on the log did to your fuckhole, bitch." His body moved to comply of its own will, desperate not to offend. He rolled painfully onto his knees, reaching back to his bruised rear, digging his own fingers into his buttocks and spreading them. He felt air where it shouldn't be, a trickle of cool breeze from the open doorway tickle the raw walls of his rectum. The lips of his asshole were too loose and torn to even twitch, even though other parts of his body shivered.

They crouched down around him, their hands on his body, knocking his own hands away as they divided his buttocks themselves, leaning close to stare past the puffy, battered lips of his anus into the depths of his body. "Damn, look how big it is," Stein observed in amazement, big fingers pressing into the torn edge of his hole. "Ain't never seen one that big, before." "You can see all the way to his insides. He's all gushy and pink up there, like raw meat." One of the twins remarked. Fingers slid inside him, pressing against the walls of his rectum. Four fingers, then a thumb and a fist slipped inside him with little effort, but burning pain. They laughed over that, whoever had his arm inside the neko's ass grasping his balls with the other hand and using them as an anchor to shove his arm deeper. "Ram it in deep, Karl. Pound the little bitch's innards." Someone jeered and Karl complied, slamming his fist in to mid arm, rocking the neko's body forward, then pulling out and punching it back in again. He lost his breath, engulfed in pain. Blackness teetered around the edges of his vision. He was murmuring, whimpering incoherently for it to stop. But it didn't. Even when he blacked out, he came back with someone else's fist up his ass, someone else's fingers clawing at his insides, remarking with delight how warm and squishy he was inside his skin. Someone grasped his ears and his head was lifted onto a lap, a cock prodding against his lips. He opened wide to receive it, his world narrowed to what Karl had made him admit that he was. A hole for their pleasure. He phased out, riding a rocking wave of hurt, and came back against someone's chest, legs sprawled out, pale naked things before him, a big brown hand playing with his cock, pulling at the foreskin, stretching it out. "Fucking animal's not even cut." Olaf remarked, it being Olaf's fingers that were toying with him. "And look how tiny his little prick is, even when I stretch it out." Olaf demonstrated, pulling hard. "Little bitch hasn't gotten a boner since we got him," Bo remarked. "Don't think he likes us." "He ain't here to enjoy himself," Karl said, having moved at some point to his chair by the fire. "If he starts to get randy, starts to jerk off with that little cock of his, I'll geld him, just like I would any animal that ain't got no use for breeding." Stein laughed ominously, walking over and prodding the neko's nutsack with his toe. "Wouldn't mind seeing him crawling around with nothing but that little prick dangling down and no wrinkled sack next to the hole I'm plowing." Dharsha closed his eyes, quaking in terror, and Olaf twisted his cock, laughing. "We got the little bitch scared. He's shaking like a drenched cat." "Maybe later. We'll see how he behaves from now on." Karl took a drag from his pipe. "Give him here, will you, Olaf." Sven asked and Olaf shrugged, passing the neko's limp body over to Sven who lay him on his back on the rug and began loosening the string around his nipples. "Ah, look at that," Sven sighed in pleasure as one fat nipple sprang free of its restraint. Blood rushed in to fill it, swelling it even more, a stinging center of pain on the neko's chest. He screamed, arching up, as Sven lowered his mouth, covering the distorted pellet of flesh and sucking greedily, drawing the blood forth even quicker. The neko dug his fingers into the carpet, sobbing past the pain.

"Damn, but I do love big nips," Sven said, raising up to release the other nipple. "And look how fat his are now. I work on 'em every day, I can stretch 'em like this permanent. Bigger even." Sven went back to his suckling, mouth brutally ravishing one nipple while his fingers worked on the other. The others laughed, ribbing Sven about his obsession with tits. Sven told them to all fuck off past a mouthful of bruised, spit slick flesh. But eventually he tired and gave one protruding nipple a hard flick with his forefinger, then rose, leaving the neko sprawled alone and insensible on the rug. They conversed for a while, some of them smoking and then finally rose, seemingly ready to prepare for bed. A hand grasped his ankle, jerking him across the floor. Off the softness of the bearskin and onto hard wooden planks. They opened the door and dragged him out onto the porch and he couldn't gain his feet, or prevent his body and his head bouncing off the steps as he was dragged down to the hard. He gasped for air at the bottom, bruised ribs throbbing from the impact of the edges of the steps. Olaf, who had him by the ankle paused, lifting his leg higher, exposing his battered, swollen asshole to the dog, who trotted up to sniff curiously. A tongue lapped out and lapped at dribbling mucus and blood. "Filthy animal," Olaf laughed and the neko didn't think he was talking about the dog. "You earn the right to sleep inside." Then he dragged the neko towards the small bard, with his brother and Stein following, carrying rope and long wooden stakes. They placed him on his hands and knees, kicking his thighs painfully wide, then driving stakes deep into the ground next to his ankles and knees. Rope around his ankles and thighs above the knee secured him firmly in place. They spread his hands and repeated the process with stakes next to his wrists. Then to assure he got no whisper of relief, they threw a rope over the wooden arm protruding from the front of the barn and fastened it to the ring in his collar, pulling is head up taut, keeping his back straight and arched painfully. Already his stretched muscles began to spasm in discomfort. They rose, grinning to each other, examining their handiwork, told the dog to keep watch of him tonight, and strode back inside the warmth of the cabin, closing the door and leaving the neko shivering painfully in the cool of a mountain night. He tested the strength of the stakes, straining to pull them out of the hard earth, but they were driven too deep and his strength was depleted. He exhausted himself trying though, and worked up sheen of sweat over his body that turned to ice when he stopped exerting himself and the wind began licking at his skin. He shivered uncontrollably, sobbing. Eventually he stopped, having no more tears, and knelt there, head hanging as much as it was able without cutting off his air, listening to the sounds of the surrounding forest. His limbs trembled, muscles past their limits, and once they gave out he was collapse and perhaps strangle, which might not be a bad thing. It would release him from this at the very least. His mind dwelled on that possibility, finding it morbidly attractive, but his body still fought for life and that instinct was stronger than whim, so he fought through the pain and weakness to keep his arms under him. He heard the rustle of leaves and flinched, ears flattening as something moved towards him out of the darkness. He feared some sort of forest predator, stalking helpless prey, but when the nose nudged under his tail sniffing his ass, he knew it was the dog, back from whatever rounds he had been making. The nose shuffled down to smell his balls, jostling them with curiosity, then the tongue lapped across them, and up the cleft of his ass, squirming in between his cheeks to get to his asshole while the dog made excited little growling whines in his throat. The neko shut his eyes and tried to squeeze close his buttocks, but with his thighs spread so far, it was hard to restrict entry. The dog circled around him, sniffing him all over, growling close to his face and showing teeth a little, then sniffing back down his body to his rear again, which seemed to hold the most interest. More sniffing and licking and then the broad chest pressed against his ass and the

dog was mounting, its considerable weight bearing down on the neko's trembling back, its hips pumping at his buttocks, while something moist and blunt slid across his ass. "No. No." he hissed, and tried to buck his body, tried to wriggle his hips and dislodge the beast, but the front legs clasped around his waist, claws raking his skin as the beast pulled itself closer, the heat of his belly warming the neko's backside, the slick head of the dog's cock half way out of its sheath and searching blindly for the neko's hole. It got between the cleft of his ass, and found its mark and the hours the neko had spent out here had gone some way to revitalizing the anal ring, for he managed to keep it out for a few powerful thrusts, before the dog pounded its way in with repeated, energetic shoves. It was a big dog and though the cock felt no bigger around than a man's, smaller perhaps than some, it was long and oddly slimy and it hurt miserably as it snaked its way inside him, rasping against the abraded walls of his rectum. He cried out, choking on nausea fueled by repulsion, gagging on the vomit that rose in his throat. His body rocked with the rapid thrusts of the animal as it worked its cock all the way inside him, so that its hairy ball sack slammed against his own dangling scrotum. It had no rhythm other than the instinct of a beast to procreate and King did so with single-minded determination, growling and whining, spilling drool onto the neko's shoulders. Something large and solid began to pound against his throbbing asshole, something that had slipped out of the dog's sheath and didn't belong at the base of a cock. Not a human one at any rate. The dog's knot, the reservoir for its sperm that it instinctually locked inside its bitch to keep her from breaking free before he spilled his seed. Nature's way of assuring the survival of a species. King fought to get it inside the neko and the neko sobbed and gasped, trying to keep it out, but the dog out weighed him, and was determined and dug its back legs into the dirt, and with a might thrust the knot slipped past and the mouth of the neko's anus clamped back down around it, his body swallowing it up, his eyes widening in shock as it began to swell inside him, almost doubling in size. King began to frantically hump him then, and he felt the first hot gush of liquid in his bowels. Minutes passed, perhaps ten or twenty, interspaced with his own small sobbing cries, with the grunts of the dog. King slowed down, the knot no smaller and lay across the neko's back panting. His hips began to hump again with less power. He stopped and tried to back off and couldn't, his knot still locked inside the neko's ass. He twisted, lifting his back leg and managing to turn around so that they were ass to ass, pulling to get free, but all that happened was that the neko's abused anus stretched outwards, turned inside out, lips thin against the rim of the knot, but not releasing it, making the neko cry and moan in misery. The dog relented and humped a while more backwards, releasing a bit more sperm from its embedded cock. They stayed that way, King rocking back into the neko off and on for almost a half hour before the knot shrunk to a point that a sudden jerk from the dog tore it lose and he trotted off, exhausted and satisfied, to lick the residue from the neko's insides off his shrinking cock. The neko hung there, debased, humiliated, disgusted and helpless to stop the dribble of dog come that leaked out of his ass and down his thigh. The stars moved in the sky. Sleep would not come to his tortured body and the neko fell deeper and deeper into depression. Before the first light of morning quite topped the trees, the dog showed interest in him again and having learned that the neko needed no particular prompting or subduing, mounted with keen dog urgency and humped him happily, while the neko endured with slack mouth and drooping head. It went faster this time, the knot getting inside him after a few dozen thrusts and draining itself rather quickly, letting the dog pull out before he had to resort to twisting around and really putting his strength behind the escape. There was a whistle of appreciation from the porch, a hoot of malicious enjoyment and the neko looked up tiredly to see the woodcutters lined up against the rail, witnessing the hind end of his rape by their dog. He shut his eyes and hung his head again, quivering helplessly.

"Told you he was a bitch," Stein laughed. "You see ol' King go at that ass? The old boy have never looked so happy." "How'd you like that dog cock, eh, Hole?" They were walking out to inspect him, pulling one ass cheek aside to see his dripping hole. "Sure got enough of his jism up inside you. If you was a bitch for real, you'd be dropping pups come winter." Two fingers jammed inside him, and pulled out coated with King's come. Bo came around and pulled his head back by the hair, pressing the fingers against his lips. He opened his mouth, no more fight in him, and let Bo wipe the come off inside his mouth. "Suck it all off," Bo suggested and the neko did, getting every last smear. "He likes it," Bo declared, holding up his clean hand for the others to see. "Guess the bitch will have one more cock filling his hole from now on." They thought that was uproarious and speculated about him and the dog whole they washed him down. He was allowed water from the bucket and led inside by his leash, cringing each time his abused knees dragged across the wood floor. He hurt so much, back, legs, shoulders, ass, he wanted nothing so much as to tumble onto the floor and sleep. But they had no mercy for him, no shred of understanding or care about the depths of his exhaustion, and he was too beaten, mentally and physically to dare complain. They led him to his bowl, Bo amusing himself by jerking on the leash now and then with a sharp 'heel' and making the neko crawl close to his leg. What was in the bowl was very likely from the meal he'd refused yesterday morning. Flies fed in it, buzzing away reluctantly when he was led to it. He dropped his face to eat it with out being told, swallowing the rancid stuff like any half-starved, beaten animal, the horror at the taste and texture and thought of the stuff a distant little twang at the back of his broken mind. When the bowl was clean, Stein shuffled over, unfastening his pants and pulling out a flaccid, flabby cock. "Top it off with a little drink, bitch and don't spill a drop." And the neko obediently lifted his head, opening his lips to receive Stein's smelly cock, swallowing as rapidly as he could the hot, acrid piss that filled his mouth. He drank from the rest of them, mind sinking deeper and deeper into the oblivion of defeat. His stomach churned, heavy gurgling with the rotten food and a belly full of piss. They led him to the fur rug and tested his docility, using his body to sate their pleasure, positioning him for their greatest ease, filling mouth and ass with their come, amusing themselves with small and not so small cruelties as they twisted his nipples and cock and balls, pinched his skin and bent his limbs as if he were a doll they had taken issue with. His every little moan and cry and sob seemed to fuel their satisfaction. His screams sent them into gales of mirth. He endured and strove to please. "The little bitch is tame now." "And he takes cock like it's his mama's tit." "Hole's tightened up real good." "Neko's are like that. Durable. Flexible." They wasted time with him well into the morning, and reluctantly left him for their work, depositing him unbound in his cage, even so kind as to throw a tattered blanket in with him, which he hardly had the strength to lay out under him to shield his body from the grill bottom of the cage. He slept then, oblivious to the passing of time.

They came back from their day's labor and the neko stirred, making himself rise despite aching muscles as they opened the door of his cage and put the bowl of his usual slop down for him to eat. He did so immediately and sat afterwards in a submissive position he had learned from his second master, bowed over his knees, head down, hands held loosely behind his back, waiting for their pleasure. Boots approached, and he dared not look up. A hand slapped the back of his head lightly and Sven's voice said, "Ass up." The neko lowered his head to the floor, jutting his ass into the air. Sven lifted his tail and he felt the tip of something hard against his opening. Sven forced it in with a twist. It felt as if it had been greased and was not much larger than an orange at the largest point, so it went in without a great deal of struggle on Sven's part and minimal pain on his. He felt the flat edge of its end resting outside his hole, pressing against his cheeks, while his rectum adjusted to the feel of the solid object inside. His hole was stretched perhaps the width of the smallest of their cocks and would stay that way as long as the thing was inside him. "You'll wear that from now on, or something like it." Bo told him. "'cept when you're shitting or we're fucking your hole. You ever touch it, or try and pull it out on your own and you'll think yesterday was a holiday." He said nothing, face to the floor. "Now," Sven said. "It rained today and there's mud on the porch and the floor. You get off your lazy ass and crawl out to the trough and fetch a bucket of water, then set to scrubbing the floorboards clean, while we make our supper." Sven kicked him in the back of the thigh to get him moving. He crawled tentatively around their legs as they gathered in the kitchen, had his fingers stepped on more than once and not by accident, had hands reach down and smack his ass, and prod at the base of the plug nestled snug between his cheeks. It felt odd and uncomfortable crawling with the thing inside him. He found the bucket in the kitchen and the scrub brush and hesitated trying to figure out how to carry it and walk on all fours at the same time. "Carry it in your mouth, bitch." Someone suggested and blushing, some small bit of pride intact enough to be mortified, he took the empty bucket between his teeth and crawled towards the door. One of them opened it for him and let him and the dog out. Down the steps and to the trough, where he filled the bucket and found out just how much more difficult it was to carry a full bucket than an empty one. He scrubbed the porch, with the dog milling about him, nose in his ass more frequently than not. He bit his lip casting miserably looks under his shoulder at the red tip of the dog's excited cock bouncing from the hairy sheath and tried not to cry and fling the scrub brush at the beast to drive it away. His knees were bruised and scraped by the time he'd worked his way from the porch into the cabin. Supper was over and the woodsmen were relaxing by the fire. The neko diligently worked at the floor, hoping the task took all night, that they'd tire and go to bed leaving him unmolested, save by the solid presence of the plug in his ass. But Bo rose, when he'd finished with the small kitchen area and approached with the leash, and the neko bowed his head to let Bo attach it to the collar, then docily followed, trying to heel as best he could as Bo walked him outside. It was a relief, to relieve his bladder and his bowels when Bo pulled the plug out, though he had to work at the later, his rectum and sphincter loose from the plug. Bo led him back, pausing by the trough to douse the neko with water and clean between his legs. Dripping and shivering, he crawled back inside to find the others waiting for him, naked and stroking their cocks to life.

As he had the night before, he serviced them docily, bending to their every whim, their animal to use and abuse. This time when they'd finished, they made him press his face against the floor and kneel, ass up, while they called the dog in and worked him into a frenzy with rough play that the beast seemed to enjoy. Intermittently the dog would trot over and sniff the neko's ass, licking the dribbling come from his thighs and he would tremble and shut his eyes and sink deeper into himself. Eventually when they'd worked the dog into enough of a frenzy, they set him on the trembling neko. "Get him boy." They ordered, someone slapping the neko's ass hard and hovering near him as the dog pounced, growling and snarling, trained to attack and destroy. Claws bit into the neko's legs and teeth raked the skin of his hip before they pulled King back by his thick collar, laughing, while the neko whimpered in terror. They kicked him onto his back, kicked his legs apart and his arms wide so that his shrinking genitals were fair game and his own collared throat unprotected. "Don't move," Karl suggested softly and they set the dog on him again. King raced at him, claws biting into his stomach, raking welts in flesh, jaws bearing down on his neck. "Hold," Karl ordered. And the teeth pressed down, the jaws easily encircling his neck, but did not pierce flesh. Merely held him there, while the dog snarled and drooled onto him. He was too terrified to sob. They continued the lesson, teaching the dog the neko's place in their hierarchy, instilling a paralyzing fear of the dog into the neko. "Suck his cock," Karl said, while Olaf held the dog back from him by the collar. The neko stared dumbly, not understanding exactly whose cock he was to service. The back of Karl's hand slammed into the side of his face, toppling him, shredding the inside of his cheek. He cowered, swallowing blood. "King." Karl clarified. "Suck that dog cock out of the sheath and get it hard enough to shove up your filthy ass, bitch. Move!" The neko flinched and moved, crawling timidly towards the snarling dog, crouching under his belly and twisting his head up awkwardly to reach the thick sheath. King growled ominously. The tip of the dog's cock was already out, blunt and glistening. He pressed his face against the hot thinly furred belly and covered it with his mouth. The taste was musky and stronger by far that the taste of a man's cock. The texture of it made him gag a little. He sucked at it regardless, too traumatized to disobey. It grew in his mouth and he took what he could of it, in the position he was in. "Work those big balls with your hand," Bo suggested, and he lifted one hand to massage King's oversized sack. The dog's growling snarls had turned into whines and pants, and the animal shifted its hindquarters the drive to kill changed to the drive to mate. The neko kept sucking, using his tongue to stroke the slimy underside of the long cock in his mouth as he might have a man's, mind gone blank of everything but following their instructions. "That's enough. Get into position, bitch so he can mount." The neko let the cock slide from his mouth and saw for the first time that it was mottled with black spots and leaking pre-cum. It was blunt and thick and glistening with its own natural lubrication as well as his saliva. He waited on hands and knees, legs spread wide, and it took no urging at all for King to mount, wrapping his front legs around the neko's already claw marked belly to hold him in place while he furiously searched for the neko's hole. He found it in short order and happily began thrusting. The woodsmen were greatly entertained by this. Taking bets among themselves as to how long King might last. They cheered the dog on when he forced his knot into the neko's ass and really began pounding away. The neko knelt there, grunting softly with each thrust, eyes blank, mouth slack. He only cried a little when the dog tried to get the knot out and it wouldn't come and he dragged the neko around the room a little ways by the tender lips of his clinging anus.

They thought that hilarious and smacked whatever portion of the neko's body they could reach from their chairs as he was hauled about. When king finally popped out, Karl was fast to grab the plug and twist it into the neko's gaping hole, stopping the leakage of dog and human come from his bowels. "Keep that dog splooge inside you all night," Karl sneered. "That way you can remember who's bitch you are while you feel it sloshing around up your shitter. Lower than a damned dog, right Hole? Say it?" The neko could barely work the words out past his clattering teeth. "I'm lower than a dog." He got a foot in his ribs, knocking the air out of him. "Lower than a dog, what?" "Lower than a dog, master." "What's your name?" "Hole. Bitch." "That's right. Now get your ass in your cage. We're done with you tonight." He crawled into his cage and they locked the door. He tried to find a comfortable position to sleep with the plug stretching his insides, desperate for the release of sleep. After all, with morning, it would all start over again.

Chapter five

In the morning the ritual of taking the cat out to relieve himself was repeated. Dharsha went docilely, relieving himself while Bo amused himself by jerking on the leash, pulling the neko off his balance during crucial moments. He was washed down by the trough and went back inside to perform oral sex on any woodsman who required it, which were four out of the five. Sven spent a few minutes plumping the neko's nipples, and then circling the swollen nubs with thin nooses attached to rocks the size of large eggs. The weights, when dangling, pulled the strings painfully tight around the blushing buds and stretched the whole tit downward. "I'll know," Sven said ominously. "If you take these off and you'll spend the night hanging by your tits and your balls. Got it?" Dharsha nodded immediately, eyes submissively focused on the floor between Sven's boots. Sven grunted, flicking one of the weights and making it swing before rising. They left for work, with King lying by the fire to watchdog him. The neko waited for a while, on all fours by the door, listening to the sounds of their departure. Then finally, when all sounds of them dissipated, he dropped his head and let himself breath, then pushed himself stiffly to his feet, knees aching from all the crawling about. It felt so good to be standing. It made him feel human again. He stretched, arching his back and instantly gasped, feeling the orange sized plug press against his rectum. He shifted uncomfortably, reaching back and touching the protruding base of it. He withdrew his fingers, not yet willing to rebel. He took a step into the cabin, towards the fire to take the chill from his body, then froze as King lifted his head and growled at him.

He stepped back behind the fragile cover of the table, hands trembling, going over in his mind the list of chores they'd made for him to finish today. He cleaned the cupboards first, with a strong lye soap, then the countertops. He swept the floor he'd scrubbed last night, and found that five active lumberjacks and a dog quickly tracked in dirt and mud. He scrubbed the spots that the broom couldn't clean. He carefully worked his way around King's dozing bulk and dumped the dirt in the ash pale, then scooped out the charred ash at the edge of the hearth and added that as well. Cleaning the stones around the hearth was the next job to tackle and that required water. So he took the ash pale to dump and prepared to go outside. King was at the door before he'd opened it, growling up at him. Dharsha took his hand off the knob and carefully backed a few steps away, trying to figure out how to get past a dog that his masters had spent a good deal of time convincing he was Dharsha's own personal guard. The fear they'd installed in him of the dog prevented him from simply bluffing his way past. He sat the ash bucket on the floor and backed to the table and sat upon the bench and immediately found that to be uncomfortable with the plug up his ass and the big base of it protruding outside it. Perhaps they'd designed it that way, so that he was unable to even sit like a normal person. He rested his hip against the table and tried to reason with the dog. "I just need to dump this and fetch some water so I can finish my work," he said, "They've given me a list, you know and they'll be angry if its not finished and I really, truly don't want them angry at me. So please can't you calm down and let me open the door. I won't run away. I know very well that you can stop me if I try, since you're stronger and your teeth are longer and your claws sharper. So there's no worry, really. And you haven't been out to do your business since this morning and you're probably in need. So am I, come to think of it." He found he was babbling. Perhaps it was the simple pleasure of speaking coherent sentences that did not involve admitting to his degradation. It felt good to talk, even if it was to a dog that probably saw him as one of two things; livestock which the dog hadn't yet decided whether to guard or to hunt, or a bitch to mount and relieve its biological urges. Dharsha wasn't sure which of those two he found more appalling. However, when he edged toward the door this time and pushed it open King didn't break into a chorus of barking, instead rising and pushing past the neko and out into the yard. It felt good to be outside, to feel the sunlight on his skin, and the grass between his toes. The weather was cooling, a sure sign that autumn was on the way. His own land - - and Dharsha had to stop and concentrate to fully recapture the memories - - never had a cold season. Never had snow, which he was told was common here. He dumped the dirty water and drew clean from the trough, then moved to the corner of the yard where both he and the dog usually relieved themselves and peed. It was a small victory in itself, to pee standing up like a reasoning, free creature. It salved his pride somewhat and made him bold. There was a cramping in his gut that needed relieving and hours yet to go before the woodsmen came home. He would be in dire straits indeed if he waited till evening. And what they did not know would only serve to benefit him. And it wasn't as if King could tell. Still, despite his determination to rebel, he still went a little ways past the grass where fallen pine tags and mulch would cover the evidence, before he squatted and worked the plug out of his ass. It took effort to get it out, the ring of his anus having become comfortable with the gumball sized neck of the plug and protesting the passage of the much larger body of the thing. What a tremendous relief when it finally passed out of him, though. He squatted for a moment, cock twitching at the sensation. He rubbed himself until he was half hard, granting himself that stolen pleasure, that secret resistance. Gingerly he touched a swollen nipple and just the grazing of his thumb sent sharp little pangs through the flesh. Without them there to torment and degrade him, the stab of pain bordered on pleasure. He moaned, circling the swollen nub of flesh lightly, stroking his cock with the other hand, until his balls tightened and the knot that had built rapidly at the bottom of his gut released, sending spasms of pleasure though his body, spitting milky cum from the slit at the swollen head of his cock. He shut his

eyes and reveled in release that his body had been denied for all too long, until King padded up and started sticking his nose where Dharsha didn't want it, big tongue licking at his lap, and the sticky substance there. "Go away. There's nothing here for you. Bad dog." He tried to put authority into his voice and the dog bared his teeth. The neko winced and got his back against a tree, figuring that what the dog couldn't access, he would eventually lose interest in. When the dog trotted off to examine the edges of the yard for woodland intruders, Dharsha quickly took the chance to void his bowels, and then covered the evidence with leaves. He rinsed himself of evidence then took the plug and washed it off with water from the trough, before going inside. He sat it on the table, figuring he had a fair time of freedom from it before the woodsmen returned, but after a while, when every little sound made him start and stare guiltily towards the door, he took it and went to the fur to put it back in. It was no easy task, not with King nosing about him, growling and sniffing at his rear while he tried to work it back into his body. He ended up sitting it on the floor and squatting over it, biting his lip and mewling softly as he pushed himself down upon it. Finally when his body swallowed it and his opening sealed shut around the neck of it, Dharsha leaned forward on the rug and shuddered, allowing his breathing to slow, not caring for a few exhausted moments if King's nose was between his legs. As nice as it had felt to rebel, it was a tremendous relief to be safely back the way they had left him, free of the danger of punishment. At least for the crime of defying them over this particular cruel directive. The neko had finished his chores by the time he heard the voices of the woodcutters returning home with the dusk. He knelt like any good slave, head down in submission while they entered, waiting for direction. They looked for laziness on his part, the crueler of them hopeful for some reason to chastise him, but he had been thorough in his work and there was no fault it. They set him to cleaning dirty boots and beating the sawdust out of jackets on the porch rail outside. Dirty clothes where left in a pile that he was informed he would wash come the morrow. He was called in afterwards, while Bo and Olaf fixed stew and pan bread for dinner and the others took their leisure around the fire. Karl beckoned him over with the crooking of one finger, and the neko immediately moved before him, kneeling between his legs and quickly unbuttoning the woodcutter's long johns at the crotch and pulling out the soft cock. He took it in his mouth without hesitation working it to hardness with tongue and lips, shutting his eyes and focusing on the job at hand, even when someone one urged him up to hands and knees and spread his cheeks to pull out the plug. It came out with a plop and he kept sucking, taking the cock down his throat and pulling back to suckle the tip, then plunging back down upon it again. Fingers wiggled into his loosened asshole, squirming about inside him and he heard them laughing and commenting about his readiness for them. It was Stein behind him, he could feel the big gut pressing against his buttocks as the man urged his legs apart so he could kneel behind and poke his fat cock inside. He did it without lube and it would have hurt considerably more if not for the butt plug stretching his hole most of the day. It still took a while before pre-cum, a little blood and his own bodily fluids made the thrusts more bearable. Stein leaned down upon his back and Dharsha moaned at the weight, limbs shaking. The fat man pulled at the dangling weights on his nipples and the neko whimpered around his mouthful. Karl came buried down the neko's throat and he swallowed it all, not a drop leaking from his lips. He stayed with his face pressed against Karl's crotch with its moist, soft cock while Stein finished up. He crawled to Sven afterwards, with wetness dribbling down his thighs, and knelt with dubious gratefulness while his tits were unbound. He cried out as the blood rushed back. Sven had him work his cock to hardness with mouth and hands, then directed him to straddle him, sinking his loosened ass down upon Sven's big erection, giving Sven ample access to his swollen tits while the neko rode his cock.

Dharsha moaned and writhed, trapped in Sven's thick arms, Sven's mouth and teeth sucking and gnawing upon his tortured nipples. The twins had dinner ready before Sven had quite finished, and the Neko was ordered to pick up the pace. Using the chair arms for leverage, he began pushing himself rapidly up and down Sven's erection, while Sven lay his head back and grunted, grabbing and twisting both the neko's nipples savagely when he finally came. He sat, for a few precious moments of relief, body free of binding or device, while they ate. They gave King his dinner and the neko his own bowl of scraps when they had finished, then he was set to wash up the dishes while they took their mugs of ale to the fire to relax. When the kitchen was tidy, they called him over for the twins, who had not had their go at him. Bo thought it amusing to smack the neko's buttocks and leave the red imprint of his hand. His brother took up the game and they knelt on either side of him, while he pressed his face to the furs and waved his ass in the air while they spanked him by turns. He moaned and endured, fingers curling in the fur, even when they took to using paddles to save their hands the abuse. When they'd finished, his buttocks and the backs of his thighs were cherry red and burning. They fucked him, Bo first, then Olaf and enthused about the heat of his body, so thoroughly tenderized for their pleasure. Bo took him out afterwards, leashed and on all fours. It hurt to crawl, his rear smarted so. He peed, but did not have to do more and feared Bo would suspect that he had already relieved himself. But after a few moments of waiting Bo simply commented that he'd have to hold anything more till morning, and led the neko to the through to rinse down. They played with him a while longer, throwing one of King's chew toys and making the neko fetch and bring it back in his mouth. That game lasted only until King took offense and pounced upon the hapless Neko, ripping the rawhide from him and abusing the notion of taking it again by a jaw full of sharp teeth hovering around the neko's throat. They thought that high humor, but the night was late and they were early risers, so they put him in his cage and he trembled, utterly grateful for the lack of the plug, terrified that they would realize the lack and remedy the oversight. But it was to be a peaceful night and all in all it had been a good day. Better than he had had in many a week. He had his small rebellion to invigorate his dreams, to bolster his pride and he slept well until a boot prodded him through the bars of his cage and he jerked up warily, at the body pressed against the bars of it, pants undone and a half-hard cock hanging through the bars. "Milk the snake, bitch." It was Olaf and he was shirtless and newly risen, probably driven out of bed by a morning erection. If it had been Karl, or even Sven, Dharsha would have jumped to do their bidding. But Olaf was less of a nightmare for him than the others and the neko was testy having been kicked awake and yesterday's rebellion had him feeling resentful of his indignities. He glared up and said without thinking. "Milk it yourself." Olaf's eyes widened and almost immediately Dharsha's mind caught up with his mouth and his grew round with dread. "No? NO?" Olaf growled and the neko lurched up, wanting to remedy the mistake. "I'm sorry." Closing his mouth around the cock protruding into his cage spoke louder than words. He sucked flaccid flesh into his mouth eagerly, holding onto the bars on either side of Olaf's hips to pull himself up and swallow as much of it as the cage would allow.

"Did you hear what the little slut said?" Olaf was complaining and Dharsha groaned, desperately trying to use every skill and trick they'd drilled into him to make it right. "Little bitch still thinks he's better'n us. Still think's he's more than a dirty animal." That was Stein moving up to the cage to stand next to Olaf. Karl stood behind them, silent and foreboding and the neko shivered in terror. Olaf pulled away without completion, more excited by the prospect of punishing the offense than the culmination of the oral pleasure. Olaf's fist caught Dharsha against the side of the head as soon as he'd yanked him free of the cage, and the neko staggered against someone else's legs. His head was spinning too much to see or think to protect himself against the follow up boot that smashed into his genitals. He howled and tried to curl in upon himself, but hands caught him by the upper arms and jerked him up and the boot came in again, catching him just behind the balls with jarring impact. He was jerked forward then across a hard knee, ass up and face almost touching the floor. Something thin and hard descended upon his hips. A stripped switch most likely, that bit into his skin with lancing pain. He wriggled, trying to escape it, and a firm hand pressed down upon his neck and two more gripped his thrashing ankles, holding him immobile while his back and buttocks and the backs of his legs were switched raw. He was sobbing incoherently, hardly able to breath through the hysteria and the tears when two of them caught him under the shoulders and began to drag him towards the door. He was sobbing apology, begging for forgiveness, promising anything as they hauled him along, thinking they meant to put him on the log with the punishment phallus again, but they dragged him down the steps of the porch and out beyond the shed where they had their woodworking area. There was a felled tree, a pine with thick, rough bark still intact resting upon a pair of sturdy saw horses, awaiting their attentions. They flung him onto it, back down and he cried out as the rough bark cut into the torn, agitated flesh of his back. His wrists and then his ankles were tied to the saw horses supporting it, forcing his back to arch painfully, the tautness of the bonds and his own weight grinding the bark into his flesh. One of them moved between his legs, he couldn't see who from his head down position. All he could see was an upside down view of the woods and the sparse grass. He could lift his head, but even then he could not see over the exaggerated arch of his chest and belly. His throbbing balls were took roughly in hand, yanked down while a cord was tied around the base, then looped around the middle, separating the nuts. The cord was then wrapped around his cringing cock, doubling it over and tying it off until it felt as if they had bound it into a little ball of tortured flesh. It was flicked savagely, after the knot had been tied and he cried out. Then the hands parted the flesh of his buttocks and the hard head of a cock stabbed up into him without preparation. He sobbed, seeing little red stars of pain as the thrusts rocked him marginally on the log. A crotch filled his vision and big hands unbuttoning a fly. Fingers urged his mouth open and the head snaked in. He gurgled under the multiple assaults, pain striking from so many points that the causes began to blur. He felt the man filling his mouth began to stretch and roll his nipples and guessed that it was Sven. Even with his body stretched out upon the log, they still protruded from his chest a little from all the weeks of abuse. It was easy enough for Sven to pinch them into nubs fleshy enough to catch in the teeth of strong clamps. Sven came in his mouth and the neko hadn't the wherewithal to think and swallow, so the come dribbled past his slack lips and onto his cheeks. Someone else replaced Sven and eventually another man filled his ass. "Have your breakfast." Olaf sneered, as he came in the neko's mouth, then stood for a moment while his cock was softening and began to pee. Some of it went down the neko's throat, most of it spilled down his face, running into his nose and burning his eyes. The last man to fuck him followed Olaf's queue and emptied his bladder into the neko's bowels, then pulled out and quickly jammed the orange sized plug into his ass to trap the fluids. They tied it into place just to make sure he didn't force it out and loose the precious gifts they'd left inside him during the course of the day, then left him secured

across the log, genitals cruelly bound, raw flesh screaming in pain, muscles beginning already to cramp and stiffen from the awkward position. They left King outside, just in case some woodland predator came along and found unguarded prey staked out for the taking, and then they left for their days work. The insects explored him, the flies and the mosquitoes and the other woodland parasites attracted by the scent of sweat and blood. He could do no more than twitch to fight them off and soon was in so much misery that he hardly bothered to do that. The rain when it came was as much relief from the insects as it was a torment. It was cold and hard and choked him more times than he could count as it ran into his nose. King watched from the shelter of the shed, dry and warm in his short, thick coat. Vigilant as ever, watching over the livestock that his master's had left in his care. At least nothing would come out of the wood to attack the Neko as he lay in misery, exposed and helpless. As the day wore on, that became cold comfort indeed.

Chapter six

They came home early because of the weather, but aside from Sven detouring around the shed to check on him, they left him there, while they went into the cabin and changed out of wet clothing, stoked the fire and went about preparing an early supper. When they finally came out to fetch him, it was dark and he was delirious with exhaustion and pain. He could no more walk than he could form a coherent sentence, and was slung over a broad shoulder and hauled back inside like a bag of grain. Their voices were like distant murmurs to him, their hands upon him remote things. They lay him by the fire and perhaps having a care for the permanent scarring of their property, they picked out the bits of wood from the worst of the lacerations on his back and cleaned the flesh. The warmth and the gentle treatment lulled him, brought him back somewhat to himself. Enough that when Karl knelt and caught him by the chin, forcing him to look up and meet his eyes, the neko was able to focus. "We thought you well heeled, but we were wrong. You pretend when it suits you to know your place, but you're still an uppity little bitch on the inside. That's gonna change. We're gonna crush that notion out of you. Hurt you and break you until there's nothing inside that head of yours but an animal's need to please." Dharsha blinked up at him, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Karl nodded to one of the others and hands grasped the neko's ankles, bound them tight and he was dragged backwards a little on his belly, his feet caught between the strong knees of Stein. "Animals don't walk upright," Karl told him. "And you won't again for a long time, understand. Not for anything. Not to sweep or mop the floor or clean the dishes. Always on your knees, no matter what the need. But see, I don't trust you to do that when we're gone, so we're gonna make sure you stay on all fours like a good bitch." Something touched the sole of his foot. Pain that at first didn't register as heat, until the neko smelled the burning flesh. He screamed and began struggling, but Karl slipped a leg over the back of his neck and sat on him while Stein systematically laid the poker, glowing hot from the fire across the bottom of the neko's feet. He screamed into the fur of the rug. Screamed and screamed and screamed while Stein took his time about the crippling. And when it was finished and the fat man released his legs he

lay there whimpering until Karl lifted his leg off the neko's neck and pulled the neko a little forward until his tear drenched, pale face was in Karl's crotch. "Now show me how much you appreciate your lesson by sucking my cock dry." The neko made a croaking, dazed sound in his throat, mind still white and blank with pain. Karl helped him out, unbuttoning his fly and guiding his hard cock between the neko's flaccid lips. He took the delicate ears in hand and used them to drive the neko's mouth up and down his shaft. He was vaguely aware of them all hovering, all of them excited past endurance at his torment. One of them knelt between his legs, spreading his limp thighs wide and squeezing between his buttocks, driving inside him, groaning in satisfaction, bristly body hair scraping against the wounds of the neko's back and thighs. His feet were two vibrant points of agony that took up the majority of his focus. They beat him no more that night, but they fucked him raw, and put him in his cage with the plug up his ass. He lay on his stomach on the thin blanket they provided, with his legs sticking out the bars of the cage, the pain from the burns on his feet not seeming to fade at all with the hours. He'd looked at them, expecting horrible wounds, but the branding had been neatly done, even marks where the poker had been laid across skin and allowed to burn past the top layers, but not too deeply into flesh. It would heal in time, he thought, and not hinder his ability to walk, but not quickly and especially not if he walked upon them now. He lay on the thin blanket and sobbed silently, in too much pain to find sleep. The weave of the blanket scratched the abrasions on his belly and the bars at the bottom of the cage poked into his bones. His ass where they'd fucked him long and mercilessly without benefit of lubrication ached and stung around the mouth of the plug. The pain and the various causes spiraled around in his head for hours it seemed, finally plunging him into a restless semi-sleep that gave his body little real rest. When they woke him in the morning he could barely move, he ached so badly, but they had little compassion for his stiffness and goaded and kicked him into motion. They lay a bowl of disgusting gruel before him and after a day without food and the very vibrant fear of displeasing them further, he forced himself to gulp it down. They took him out afterwards, Bo jerking on the lead when the neko crawled behind him slower than normal. He whimpered when the plug was yanked out, and could not even squat to defecate because of his wounded feet. Bo and his brother spoke together while the neko went about the distasteful task and when he'd finished, they seemed to have come to some conclusion, for they were smiling a little and seemed pleased with themselves. After they dumped water over him to rinse him off, Bo ordered him to crawl over to the front steps and heel. The neko did so and remained there, shivering and dripping while the twins walked around him. Karl came out onto the porch with coffee in hand. "Every morning till we feel you know your place, you'll get your ass striped nice and hard to make you remember what it means to get uppity with real men." The neko groaned and shut his eyes, steeling his aching body for more abuse. Bo unfastened his belt and doubled it over, while his brother grasped the end of the neko's tail and held it up out of the way. He held up stoically, until the ninth or tenth blow, then the pain became too much and he howled, struggling to escape the punishment. Olaf dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around the neko's upper body and holding him fast while Bo continued to deliver strikes with the belt. When they were done, the neko curled in the wet grass, shuddering, until a harsh jerk on his collar pulled him into his back and towards the steps. "Get moving, bitch. We ain't got all day to cater to you, lazy slave." It was either be dragged up the steps or make his trembling limps move and crawl painfully up after Bo.

"Wait a minute there, lads," Karl said, strolling in behind them. "You forgot something." He held up the plug, and with a faint smile, made the neko spread his throbbing buttocks while Karl bent over and twisted the thing back into him. "You've got the same chores as last time, plus washing the clothes you didn't get to yesterday," Karl told him. "And one more thing. Since ol' king is earning his keep standing guard over an untrustworthy neko slut, he ought to get his fair share. So every day, you're to work up that old boner of his, take out your ass-plug and let the old boy plow your little hole good. And just to make sure you're doing your job, you get that plug back in quick so's all that dog jism stays inside you so we can check and make sure you did as you were told. We pull that plug out at night and there's no dog juice dripping from inside your hole and you don't wanna know the hell that'll come down on you. Understand, bitch?" The neko's ears were flat against his head and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, but he nodded all the same, afraid to disagree to even such a humiliating task. And that was his life for the next several weeks. Pain and discomfort were his constant companions. Daily beatings, so that his skin was so bruised and sensitive that even the brush of a cool breeze made him twitch in pain. His knees hurt so badly that it was a practice in willpower not to scream as he dutifully crawled across the hardwood floor to carry out his chores. Every day the dog mounted him, even if some of those days the beast held little interest and had to be brought around to the task by the neko's hands or mouth on his uninterested genitals. A hateful task, but Karl's threats loomed in the neko's mind and he was in no wise willing to annoy the woodcutters more, because true to their word, one of them did check each night when they took him out to relieve himself. Karl and Sven were a little picky about sticking their own cocks into an ass tainted with dog come, so Sven came up with a method of rinsing out the neko's bowels with a tube and a bucket of cold water out by the trough, that eventually the neko learned to do himself, before he crawled back into the cabin to service them for the night. There was no end to their abuses and their rough treatment. They beat him into submission, clouding his sense of identity, destroying his pride and his free will, forbidding him to speak for weeks on end in anything but a whine or a growl or other animal sounds that amused them. It was a game with them, the utter destruction of his rational self. His degradation aroused them. His pain was a constant source of entertainment. And he did what they demanded of him without hesitation or thought, reacting in the ways a well-broken animal might. They had many creatively cruel games they played with him to entertain themselves at night. The simple use of his ass and his mouth were forgone conclusions and so commonplace by now that they sought out more interesting uses for him. One of their favorites was 'poke the pig'. The neko would kneel, face to the fur while they sat around him in their respective chairs, drinking and smoking and joking amidst themselves while they took turns with a long pole that they had fitted with a thumb-sized, cock-shaped head. The neko would reach back and spread his cheeks so they could see the target and each would try to spear it into his asshole in one thrust. It was not an easy task, for they worked at a distance and inevitably they would hit below or above, leaving a sprinkling of bruises in their wake. Of course if they missed they would blame it on him, and the loser would take a switch to his backside a few times, which amused the other players to no ends. Or sometimes, if he were in the mood, Ol' King would trot over and interrupt the fun and mount his bitch, since the position was a familiar one. They would laugh at that too and declare the dog the winner of the night's tournament. This particular night though, Karl had won three rounds straight and the others had given up, sated from earlier bouts with their slave and retreated to lounging in their bunks or smoking by the fire. Karl had gone though a few smokes, rocking idly in his chair while he lazily moved the poker in and out of the neko's hole. The neko had almost gotten comfortable, face and shoulders on the rug, fingers pulling the cheeks of his buttocks apart so that Karl could see the lips of his anus move in and out

with the movement of the pig-sticker. It was lulling almost, to have no other thought but that he was pleasing one of his masters, and the poker was small enough not to hurt him and the motion of it had become rhythmic in Karl's lassitude. It began to feel good as nothing had felt really good since he'd come here. It touched something inside him that triggered feelings low in his crotch that he hardly remember being capable of. The neko's balls tightened up and fingers of pleasure traveled up his belly, making his swollen nipples twinge. His cock began to swell, darkening and hanging down below his belly. The urge to slide his hands down to touch it was strong, but not so strong as his conditioning to keep whatever position they set him to. Almost of their own accord his hips began to move a little, grinding against the hard little intruder in his ass and his cock twitched leaking clear liquid from its blushing tip. Abruptly the motion of pig-sticker stopped and the tip was jerked out of him. He heard the low sound of Karl's curse a moment before the thud of feet across the floor alerted him to Karl's approach. He was grasped by the hair and thrown backwards, sprawling back down at Karl's feet, his erection bobbing against his tummy. He stared up in shock at Karl's livid face, not understanding the source of his rage, until the big man reached down and grasped his hard cock, twisting brutally. "What the fuck is this?" Karl screamed at him. "Did I tell you what would happen if I caught you with a stiff prick, you little slut?" "No. No!" The Neko cried, panic beginning to set in as Karl hauled him up by the hold on his quickly softening cock. "Stein, hold this little bitch." Karl thrust him into Stein's thick arms and Stein wrestled him over to the table and held him pressed against it wrapped in his thick arms. Karl took his now limp cock and laid it across the tabletop while Stein leaned against him, pressing his hips against the edge. When Karl took off his belt the Neko began to whimper. The first strike of stiff leather against the pliant flesh of his cock was like molten lead injected into his veins. He screamed and jerked back against Stein's immovable weight. The second stole breath and vision. By the third and fourth he'd lost count mouth filled with blood from biting his own tongue, body on fire with the pain as Karl lashed his cock like it was a slab of tough meat he was trying to tenderize. When Karl stopped and the Neko's wavering vision cleared enough to look down in horror at what was left of his maleness, it was purple and red with bruises, welts and bleeding cuts. Blood leaked from the tip along with a trickle of stinging urine. Karl reached down and grasped his shrinking nuts, wrenching them down painfully. With them still twisted in his grip he leaned in close and warned. "If I ever see you with a stiff cock again, I'll rip these off and make you eat them, understand?" The neko nodded, shaky and desperate. Karl nodded to Stein and when the big man released him he slid to his knees between them. "Now you thank me for not taking them now, filthy animal." Karl thrust his crotch close to the Neko's face and with shaky fingers he unfastened the pants and took the hard cock in mouth. His throbbing cock dangled between his thighs, a pulsing source of central pain that shot throughout his body with each beat of his heart. It felt huge and hot and he wanted badly to touch it - - to hold and protect it. He dared not. The pain would not go away and with each blinding spasm his jaw would clench and teeth grazed Karl's cock. He bit down once in reflexive reaction to agony and Karl growled and pushed him backwards, kicking him twice in the shoulder and hip before he yanked him onto his knees and sated his lusts within the neko's ass. It was the final blow that led to his undoing. What spirit he had left to him vanished, eroded away by pain and fear. The reasoning, rational part of his mind retreated and what remained was a cowering, broken animal obedient and submissive. He whimpered and writhed under their cruel games, but

crawled none the less without hesitation towards the implements of his torture. For a very long time, he became an animal, acting out of reflex and self-preservation, having no individual thought of his own, only acting on the express wishes of his masters. Weeks went by that he had no active memory of, weeks of pain and degradation and servitude. King had more free will. He wore the marks of their punishments constantly, stripes across his skin, the marks of rough fingers in his flesh, the adornments they fixed to his body. He wore rings through his nipples, thick heavy metal no smaller in diameter than his pinky finger that weighed heavily on the flesh supporting them. The piercing had been painful and slow, Sven enjoying the puncture of pliable skin with a blunt tipped needle. They had similarly pierced the flesh between his legs, threading thick rings through the underside of his cock and through the loose skin of his balls as well as the firm bit of muscle and flesh between the base of his balls and his asshole. They would hang weights from the rings during the day, which would dangle and swing as he went about his chores, always pulling painfully upon his genitals. The fall and winter passed in a blur, and the snow stayed for months, never seeming to decrease. One evening, after a light snow had laid powder atop the older firmament of crusty snow and ice, a horse and rider made their way up the path towards the cabin. The neko paid no heed, as the younger woodsmen moved outside to the porch to watch the approach. Karl's cock was fitted snugly down his throat and there was no task outside the working of that thick bit of flesh that occupied the neko's narrowed attention. But the sound of voices raised in greeting outside did snare Karl's curiosity and he slapped the neko against the forehead and shoved him off his still hard cock before rising to see who had come to their doorstep. Bo and Olaf thumped in, grinning ear to ear and behind them a slender, fur hooded figure entered on the arm of Sven. A scent that hinted at familiarity reached the neko's nose and for the first time in a very long time a memory of something other than the here and now of animal intellect assaulted him. It was the lady, who he had almost loved back when he had had a name. It took effort to recall that name now, his life before this was such a dark blur. Easier not to try, because all memory would cause him was suffering and regret. Unless - - unless she had come to take him back. Something foreign and unfamiliar surged in his breast. A small spark of hope that stirred that human part of him that had been in hibernation for so long. It made his heart beat rapidly in his breast and he knelt before Karl's empty chair while the woodsmen made greetings to the fur clad lady, her smooth voice a lilting melody among their gruff tones. He crawled out of the way when they moved as a group towards the fire, the woodsmen pulling up the best-cushioned chair for the lady to sit close to the warmth. The neko crouched near the end of the hearth, next to the ash bucket and the stack of firewood and watched her avidly from beneath long lashes. She was beautiful, her hair long and curling and beaded here and there with decoration. She laughed and spoke with her hosts easily, accepting a mug of warmed ale. When finally her eyes did happen upon the neko, she simply cocked her head and cast a curious glance towards Karl. "Was it gold well spent?" Karl's mouth quirked and he motioned to Bo, who jumped up eagerly and hauled the neko to the center of the rug. The neko knelt submissively between Bo's legs, waiting for instruction. Bo hooked two fingers in the neko's nostrils and pulled his head back, then fitted a massively heavy iron weighted wood barbell between his teeth. It was a stamina game they played with him, seeing how long he could support it, head held high. Bo let him go and he strained to keep his head back, on knees and fingertips, neck muscles straining under the weight, jaw aching already.

"He tamed right nicely. See how eager he is to please," Karl remarked and they all laughed, conversing with her about various highpoints in his training while he crouched on the rug struggling to keep position. Their conversation became of buzz of nonsense in his ears, overpowered by the rush of blood and the trembling strain of muscles. He could hold the barbell no longer and it fell from his mouth, landing on the rug with a thump. He cringed, knowing they would punish him for it, but they seemed more interested in the lady. So he got off easy. He knelt, head lowered, staring through his hair at the creamy flesh of her cleavage above a low cut bodice. He had hated her for so long for leaving him to this hell, but to look at her now, at her woman's flesh, at her soft hair and her full lips - - to think that she might have come to release him - - for that he could almost love her again. His body responded in a way it hadn't since that day Karl had beat his cock so bad he'd peed blood for two weeks. He was terrified at the reaction and moved his hands to overtly cover the erection. "What's this?" Olaf cried, amused, and jumped up to grab the neko's wrists and pull his hands away from his lap. The neko's cock immediately bobbed up, the three metal rings along its underside weighing it down just enough to keep it from bouncing against his belly. It pointed instead, like a guilty finger, towards the lady, who lifted a brow in interest. "What a pretty picture," she drawled and instead of the rage the neko expected of him, Karl laughed. "Look at this little boner," Bo chortled, hooking a finger through the ring under the head of the neko's cock and pulling on it. "He don't ever get hard for us." "Looks like the cat's in heat," Stein laughed. Bo flicked the tip of the deflating erection . "Ol' King can take care of that for him," Karl said. "Bring the old boy out and let the neko put on a show for the lady. Show her how nice you and the dog play, bitch. Suck him till he's hard." The neko groaned inwardly. There was no more mortifying thing they could have him do in front of her than to serve as King's bitch. After seeing him service the dog, she would want no part of him. But when they brought out the big dog, he made no hesitation in crawling over and twisting his head under king's belly like a calf seeking to suckle its mother. The dog was completely soft, and the neko had to work the hairy sheath with his mouth, plying the entrance with his tongue and sucking until he pulled the slimy tip of King's cock into his mouth. He licked and sucked until the length of it slid out. "Pull it behind him so you can get to it good," Karl directed and the Neko took hold of the thick, slick member and pulled it between King's back legs, where he knelt and began to deep throat. He bobbed his head up and down the length, holding onto the base above the swollen balls. "Clean his ass," Stein told him and he shuddered, but let the cock slid from his lips and rose up to run his tongue across the dog's puckered asshole. "Stick that tongue up there good," someone suggested and he pressed his mouth close and drove his tongue into the hairy orifice. King found this disconcerting and shifted, pulling away, much to the neko's relief. The dog was fully erect now and wanting release and he turned and snapped at the neko, growling for his bitch to assume the position. The neko knew well what was expected of him, and how to best ease King's path inside. He crouched, shoulders against the floor and reached back to part his cheeks as the dog mounted him. It took a few stabs to hit the mark, but soon the slick cock head wedged its way inside and the length of the cock followed in a few rapid thrusts.

The neko moaned and braced himself for the inevitable entry of the knot. King was pumping furiously, and with each inward thrust the neko loosened a little more and the big knot came that much closer to locking inside him. It squeezed in with a painful stretching of muscle and once inside the neko shut his eyes in a moment of relief, the heavy ball stretching his anus, the thick, hot cock snaking up into his bowels and all of it locked into place, inseparable for however many minutes it took the dog to empty his supply of seed into the neko's body. "Get over here," Karl said and patted his crotch. "Finish what you started." The neko looked up, glazed eyed at Karl sitting with knees spread wide to accommodate him. The lady sat next to him, her eyes glittered and glued to the bizarre scene of dog desperately fucking neko. He looked away from her. He had to, mortified and feeling shame he'd had no notion he was still capable of feeling. He began to crawl, pulling king with him the few feet towards Karl's waiting crotch. King's weight was too heavy to support without his hands and knees firmly planted on the floor, so he sought after the head of Karl's cock with lips alone and sucked it into his mouth. Karl helped, pulling his head down by the ears and setting up a pace to his liking. With king pounding him from behind and Karl brutally shoving his cock down the neko's throat to the root the breath was beaten out of him and he desperately fought for the tiny bits of air afforded him when Karl lifted his head up to the tip of his cock in preparation for ramming it back down again. "Listen to those odd little sounds he's making," the lady remarked. "Like he can't get enough." "He's quite the little cum-slut," Sven said. "Eats it morning noon and night. Dog. Man. He ain't picky. He'd rather eat jism than his gruel and we keep his belly full. And he's so good at sucking it out, like he was born for it. He's gotten so good he can take cock and balls in his mouth, even old King's monster dick. Takes two up the ass real nice, too. Other things, too. That hole can stretch so wide, we can fit 'bout anything up there and he's glad to have it." "How wonderful. I knew he had talent. It only took the proper training." It was one of those nights that King had difficultly emptying his sack. Perhaps it was the distraction of five woodsmen going out of their way to entertain a lady that had him off his game, but he lasted through a round of oral sex, hobbling along behind the neko as he crawled around the circle of chairs to bury his face in each man's crotch and suck them to release. The neko was raw and bleeding from the constant friction by the time King finally spilled enough seed inside him to slip free and a great deal of that warm liquid dribbled down the neko's thighs, leaking from his gaping hole. But all the neko could dwell on, was had he been good enough. Had he been obedient enough and pleased all his masters enough to impress the lady? Proving to her that he was a proper slave, that he had learned his place seemed vitally important, if she were to take him back. That's why she'd come, wasn't it? Hadn't she said - - so long ago, he could barely recall - - that he needed to learn his place? And he had. Oh, if he dared to speak human words, he would have assured her of that. But a good slave wouldn't dare. A good slave would kneel, in a position of submission, forehead against the floor, hands clasped loosely at the small of his back, waiting for command, while his betters spoke softly among themselves. Almost he dozed, but the shuffling of feet roused him and he cast a glance from the side of his eye at the passing of feet.

I'm amazed at what you've done with him," he heard the lady's sweet voice, and saw her small feet in the company of the forester's larger ones move across the floor. "If ever I have other unruly slaves, I shall bring them to you to temper." She hesitated, stepping close to the neko, and he felt the touch of her small, cool fingers on the back of his neck. "Perhaps next time I stop by, you'll have learned some new, entertaining trick," she whispered. It occurred to him, with those words that she was not here to take him away at all. That she was leaving, and he was trapped here, in a hell no neko wise woman could have ever imagined in her fireside stories to frighten young nekos into obedience. "No," he whimpered, voice hoarse from disuse. He reached out and snagged her ankle, encased in soft kid-leather. He pressed his face against her foot, kissing the top of her boot in desperation. "Please, please take me back. I'll be good. I'll do anything - -" There was a moment of silence, the foresters quietly observing, the lady looking down upon him. Then he felt her hand on his head, small fingers gently pulling him up by the hair until she bent to look down at him. "Oh, you are so very sweet now, aren't you? So willing to please." She lowered her head and brushed her lips across his, mindless of where his mouth had recently been. "But not this time. Perhaps next season, when I pass by, I might have a use for you and these fine men will have tired of you enough to part with you." She rose, turning away from him as if he were of no consequence at all. She touched Karl's arm and exchanged a warm word and then she left, the foresters trailing out onto the porch to see her off. Leaving the Neko alone in the cabin, save for King, who dozed by the fire, belly up, one big back leg twitching as he dreamed. Something warm and wet trailed down the neko's cheek. Another season here. Another year. And maybe even then, even if she came and took him away, there would be no hope for him. Another year under the care of these men and there'd be nothing left of him to care what master he served.

Chapter Seven

It had been a week since the Lady's departure, and the woodsmen were still not quite satisfied with the extent of the neko's punishment. They'd waited for the lady to be well gone, before they'd exacted the first castigation, and the sting of it had lingered for days. They spent their evenings teaching him the error of his desperate plea for succor, contending among themselves for new and inventive ways of torment. Sven, the inventor among them had carved a new method of punishment. "Put it in," Sven said, presenting his toy to the neko, thick lips curved into one of his cruel smiles. The neko stared in dismay at the huge wooden phallus on the floor between his knees. It was as long as his arm from wrist to elbow, but it was the width of it that was daunting. The carved phallus on the punishment seat was only marginally thicker than the bottom bulge of Sven's newest creation. The head of the thing was the size of a child's balled fist, and there were two increasingly larger bulges

before the last one that was the size of a small melon and had leather straps attached to the flat bottom. "Go on. Shove it up your ass, bitch," Karl sneered, sprawled in his chair by the fire, mug of newly brewed beer in his hand. Olaf and Stein pulled their own chairs up, circling the neko sprawled on the bearskin before the fire. Olaf cracked his knuckles, the anticipation of a discipline gleaming in his eyes. "Here." Sven tossed the small jar of grease at the neko and he caught with shaking hands. "Slick your hole and get to it. Five seconds or I make you do it without the lube." The neko shuddered, having thoroughly learned that these men boasted no threat that they would not carry out ten fold. He unstoppered the jar and dug out a glob of grease, reaching under his leg to smear it around his hole. He wiped the rest off his hand on the head of the phallus and tail thrashing anxiously, he bent forward over his knees, struggling to position the tip of the thing between the cleft of his ass. It was no easy task, as long as the phallus was, as unwilling as his body was to accept it. He had to brace the end of it with his feet while he spread his buttocks, grinding backwards while his fingers spread the mouth of his anus. They leered down, wide, unshaven faces backlit by the fire, most of them with hands down the front of their trousers as he labored with Sven's toy. Sweat beaded his brow at the effort, at the pain of self-inflicted forced entry. He pushed back with a moan and the head of it slipped inside. He heard one of them sigh with satisfaction, but was not certain which one, so fractured was his own concentration. He shut his eyes, jaw clenched in tension, rocking back and forth in an attempt to force the second bulge into his body. "Squat down on it," Karl suggested and the neko blinked up at the eldest brother with clattering teeth. No one, least of all him, disavowed a suggestion from Karl. He pushed himself up, got a foot under him, then another, squatting like a woman about to drop a cub. The end of the phallus pressed against the floor. "Move that ass," Sven said. "Grind it around like you're riding a big cock," Stein laughed. The neko took a breath and shifted his hips, rotating his ass, pressing down upon the unforgiving wooden phallus. The second bulge slipped in and his asshole stretched wide to take the third, his weight and his motion driving him inexplicably down upon it. His decent slowed on the third, biggest one and he whimpered, fighting to keep up the rotation of his hips, fighting not to lean forward and cease the insertion. But they'd punish him if he did. They'd make him wish for the entirety of this wooden phallus by the time they'd finished and then shove it into him anyway, after all was said and done. He reached down and pulled his ass cheeks wide, and with a searing tear of stretched flesh the last of it sank inside him and he crouched, shivering with ass resting flat on the fur of the bearskin. A boot between his shoulder blades shoved him forward, and he caught himself before his face hit the rug, and crouched there, ass in the air and shoulders and chest brushing the floor. Sven, he thought it was Sven, knelt behind him, drawing the leather straps between his legs and around his hips and securing them tightly, assuring the phallus would neither slip out on its own nor be pushed out by him. Sven slapped him once, hard on the ass before laughing and rising to go refill his mug. "Over here, bitch," Karl said, rubbing the straining bulge in his pants. The neko pushed himself up, drawing a startled breath at the feel of the huge wooden thing in his guts as he moved. He crawled towards Karl, who spread his legs to give him room to kneel between them. With trembling fingers, the neko unfastened the belt that had marked his flesh more than once and unfastened the trousers, letting the heavy slab of Karl's erection free. He knew what Karl liked, and immediately took it between his lips, trying to relax his throat as he took the length of it down his throat. The bristly hair of Karl's crotch tickled his nose and the softer flesh of the big man's balls pressed into his chin. He

shut his eyes and concentrated on breathing past the overlarge cock stretching his throat and stayed that way until Karl's big fingers slipped down to feel the bulge his cock made in the neko's throat. Karl patted his shoulder and that was signal to begin to move, and he did, head bobbing up and down the length of Karl's big cock, pressing his lips tight across his teeth to keep from scraping. He shut his eyes and concentrated on the motion, vaguely aware of Karl sipping beer from the mug while he worked, of the others talking and smoking while they waited their turns, of the chunk of wood inside his body, heavy and solid as it pressed against things in his gut, of the blood trickling down the back of his thigh from the stretched, torn mouth of his asshole. Karl grabbed him by the ears and pulled him against his crotch as he was about to come, held him there while he shot load after load of come down the neko's throat. He held him until his cock had started to soften, then shoved him backwards and the neko fell, choking on a throat full of semen, desperately trying to swallow to clear his airway. "Get your ass over here," Olaf ordered, and the neko crawled painfully to his knees and crept over to service the red haired woodsman. The phallus inside didn't hurt as much if he knelt on all fours, and the rug was not so harsh on his knees as the wooden floor. Olaf liked hands on with his oral sex, liked to have his balls fondled and sucked upon. It was more pleasant than having a twelve-inch cock shoved down his throat, and the neko often tried to draw out Olaf's pleasure, since inevitably Stein would want him next. While he was suckling Olaf's balls, the door banged open with a gust of wintry wind and Bo stomped in with snow on his boots and jacket, and King on his heels. "Getting pretty bad out there," Bo announced, moving about, shedding winter coat and gloves. "Might be snowed in for a few days." "That's no goddamned good," Karl said. "Don't like to loose days worth of work when the demand down south is so strong." The other's concurred, irritated at the weather and Neko tried to hold back the nausea in his gut at the thought of them all penned up inside the cabin for days on end with nothing to do but entertain themselves with him. He felt a cold wet nose against his ass as he was sucking on the head of Olaf's cock, and the warm slap of King's tongue as the dog lapped up the blood leaking from the mouth of his asshole. The wet nose and big tongue jostled his balls, then butted against the blunt end of the phallus stretching his asshole, curious no doubt as to the what it was doing there. The big dog settled down, as always overly interested in the neko's nether regions since the woodsmen had gone to lengths to train the animal that mounting him was not only acceptable but encouraged. Olaf spurted in his mouth, then pulled back to spatter the last ropes of come upon his face. "Lick it off, kitty." Olaf leaned forward grinning, watching as the neko lifted a hand to wipe the globs of come off his face and lick the acrid substance from his fingers as he did. "Do Bo next," Karl said. " Warm him up some after being in the snow." Bo had settled in a chair next to Karl by the fire, a mug of beer in his hands, his nose still red from the cold. The neko carefully maneuvered around King, trying not to flinch as the dog growled at him in passing, and crawled towards Bo. "Boots," Karl said. "Clean his boots first." The neko looked down at the muddy, wet boots and shuddered a little, before crouching down and wiping his tongue across the top of one. Melting snow and grit filled his mouth. He swallowed it down, and kept licking, cleaning the wet leather of mud, even the grooved soles until they were mostly dry and clean and he felt sick from the accumulated sand and dirt that lay heavy in his stomach. He rose up at Bo's urging and began to suck on his cold cock until it was hot and pulsing in his mouth. Another

mouthful of come settled atop the filth from Bo's boots. And he had Stein yet to go and no matter how thoroughly he licked the fat mans' cock clean it always seemed to be choked with acrid, sickening headcheese the next time it he took it between his lips. Stein beckoned and he crawled over, cringing at the smell of sweat and the overlapping belly that pressed against his forehead when he nestled his face in to swallow the thick cock. "Ah, ah, clean it first," Stein slapped him lightly on the side of the head. The neko suppressed a gag and pulled back, using his tongue to dig out the crud lodged in the folds of the man's cock, licking sweaty, hairy balls until they glistened and only then commencing to bob up and down the length of Stein's chubby erection. Sven was last and he sat back and hummed while the neko sucked his cock. He'd already come once, probably when the neko had been inserting his carved phallus, and the half dried come was crusty on his lower belly. It didn't take him long to come a second time and the neko pulled back, kneeling there with head down waiting for them to tell him what he was to do next. God, please let them simply put him in his cage. Please, please. But - - "Poor ol' King needs some attention," Olaf said, and the neko swung his head around dejectedly to look at the big dog, who had a leg up and was licking the red tip of his partially sheathed cock. "Get to it," Karl said, when the neko didn't immediately jump at the suggestion. He hated the dog. He hated the dog worse than anything, and they knew it. They took great pleasure in his disgust. "On your belly," Sven said when he'd approached the big dog and the neko let his knees slide out from under him, easing himself onto his stomach on the furs, his face right up against king's crotch. The dog canted his broad head and looked at the neko intently. The neko felt his ears flatten, pained from a stomach beginning to cramp from the phallus pressed against it, nausea from the thought of the dog cock in his mouth not helping. Somebody put a boot against his ass, pressing down on the flat end of the phallus. He lowered his mouth and took the slick dog cock between his lips and the touch of mouth made King twitch, made more of the prick slide out of its sheath and deeper into his mouth, the blunt tip of it grazing the back his throat. He pulled back so that he held only a few inches in his mouth, drawing breath, trying to stop the involuntary gagging at the feel of it on his tongue. "Go, on, do like we told you," Stein directed. "Work those big dog balls." The neko shifted to get his hands on the thick furry bulge of King's nuts and the dog whined and jerked its hips, one big leg kicking a little in pleasure, claws scraping against the neko's shoulder. No matter how much he hated it, there was no deceiving them with a halfhearted job. He sucked and licked the slimy cock as energetically as if his life depended upon it, bobbing his head down further and further with each stroke until the tip of it squeezed down his throat, then out again. King could stand being passive no longer and lurched to his feet, dragging the neko almost to his knees by his grip on the base of the big balls. He rose a little, pulling the big cock back through the dogs legs, hand around the hard little knot that had emerged from the sheath and continuing his attention of it from behind while the dog humped his mouth backwards. He almost wished they'd let the dog fuck him, filling his bowels instead of his throat with his jism. At least then it wouldn't sit in belly, a dreaded leaden weight so much more repulsive than the accumulated come of the men he'd serviced. But Sven had worked too hard on his phallus to remove it so soon, so they sat while the fire crackled and watched him suck King's never ending erection, until finally, the dog began to really start to pummel his mouth, and the knot slipped past his fingers and batted against his teeth wanting to lodge itself within his mouth and lock them in place. "Open wide and let it in," Someone said and he shuddered, relaxing his grip, straining his jaw wider to accept the large sized knot with its full load of come. It slipped in past his teeth and almost immediately began to swell, natures way of assuring that the bitch could not break away from the

stud and escape the puppy building sperm. He was trapped, his face pressed against King's ass, Kings ten inch cock jammed down his throat as the dog pumped load after load of come down his throat. It lasted forever, King dragging him a few paces then stopping to pump again, resting a bit then spurting some more and all the while the neko struggled to breath past the flood of acrid liquid and the slab of slick flesh filling his mouth and throat. They laughed at him, sprawling in King's wake as the dog lurched around the room, and praised King for a admirable load of jism and when maybe ten minutes had passed, the knot deflated enough to slip out of his mouth and King's retracting cock followed it, the dog loosing interest in the neko entirely now that his urges had been feed and moving away to lick the moisture away from his sheath. Somewhere during the time his attention had been focused on King, Sven had retrieved his weights and catgut twine and beckoned the neko over for his nightly attention to his nipples. He crawled over and knelt before the dark haired woodsman, bowing his head as big fingers pulled and pinched at his preternaturally swollen nipples. They were plump and distorted after weeks of Sven's training, fat, oversensitive points of flesh that protruded like the teats of a pre-teen girl from his otherwise flat chest. It was a shame he could hardly dwell upon, the alteration of his body. The rapes and the abuses and the humiliations were transient, fading once his body had recovered from the torment, but his nipples - - gods, his nipples were stretched and large and hideous and likely to stay that way for a long time to come, altered by tight bindings and heavy weights stretching flesh to the point of permanency. Sven was not gentle in his preparation. His fingers bruised tender flesh, mashing the fat numbs hard, rolling and pulling and plumping until they were rosy with bruising. "Stretch it out," He directed when the first was abused to his satisfaction and the neko reluctantly lifted a hand and grasped his throbbing nipple, pulling it out taut from his chest. Sven wrapped a thin piece of cord around the base, pulling it tight, so that the nipple swelled to a firm gum balled sized piece of trapped flesh above the knotted cord. Then he took the tiny little clamp he had fashioned and screwed it tight into the nub, the jaws of it biting into tortured flesh. The clamp was attached to a string that held a fist-sized chunk of rock and the weight of it dragged on the neko's nipple. He knelt there, shivering while the same process was repeated to the other teat. "No cage tonight, slave," Sven said. I want those tits dangling all night so they're sweet and plump for me tomorrow." Sven rose, and pulled the neko up by the collar, marching him over to one set of double bunks. He twisted one arm behind him and attached it to the leather manacle already fastened to one side of the upper bunk support, then brought the other arm up and secured it to the other side of the bunk, a position which forced the neko to bend over. His legs were then kicked wide and each ankle fastened to the legs of the bottom bunk, his body at an angle to the floor, the weights dangling freely and his nipples pulled taut, straight down from his chest. His body weight on his arms was excruciating and it would become more so as time passed. A month ago he'd dislocated a shoulder spending the night like this, but his body was so much more durable than a human man's, so much more flexible and capable of sustaining prolonged abuse. He'd survive it and they'd gain pleasure from his pain. Sven left him there and went back to the fire to join his fellows. They spoke into the night, talking of the snowstorm and the extra work for them after it passed to catch up on their logging. Finally the first of them staggered to bed, and then the others followed. Bo grasped his balls as he passed, giving them a solid twist and wrench that caused the neko to whimper, which seemed to be what Bo had been aiming for. Sven set the weights on his tits to swinging before he climbed into his bunk, and finally Karl padded towards his bunk and the neko shuddered at what he might do, for Karl could be the cruelest when the mood hit. But he did nothing, simply stood for a moment staring, then went on his way. The neko couldn't sleep. The ache in his shoulders was a sharp pain that warred with dominance with the cramp in his belly from the huge wooden phallus tucked deep within his bowels. His nipples were a

minor irritation compared to the other, gone numb eventually from lack of proper circulation. King came up during the night and nuzzled his dangling cock and balls and the neko bit his lip, whimpering in fear that the dog would simply grab hold with his teeth and rip the flesh off. Eventually the dog lay down between his spread legs and went to sleep. The neko hung his head and leaked silent tears. Almost he couldn't remember being free. Sometimes they broke him so badly that all he knew was being a beast. A slave with no name and no life other than misery and no hope other than surviving the latest torture they concocted for him. Sometimes he did recall the land of his birth and his people, carefree and proud, but lately, those memories were fading in the overwhelming face of despair. More and more days went by, weeks even that he knew no other name for himself than bitch or slave. That he could not even recall a life before this or imagine one after. He came awake of a sudden, lurching for balance as support left him floundering, his wrists free and nothing but the thick arm of one of his masters to catch him before he hit the floor. Bo hefted him to his side, a meaty arm around his middle, the neko's arms and legs long numb and useless. He was half carried to the door, which Bo pulled open one handed and stepped out onto a porch covered with snow. There was more snow on the ground. More than the neko had ever seen. With a laugh, Bo tossed him off the side of the porch and into a drift that was hip high. The neko gasped, sleep numb body thrown into shock at the sudden impact of cold. Bo stomped out after him, grasping his tail and yanking him ass up by it. The neko floundered, head down in the snow, while Bo unfastened the leather harness keeping the phallus in place and yanked it out much, much faster than the neko's body wanted to expand to expel it. The neko cried out, reflexively trying to wriggle away, while Bo pulled. Bo let him go as the phallus came out with a wet plop, and a fair amount of stopped up waste came out after it, trailing down the neko's leg. A bucket of barely thawed water was tossed upon him, and shivering so badly he could hardly walk a straight line, he was allowed back up onto the porch. "Wait," Bo said cheerfully, breath frosting in the air. "Bend over and grab the porch rail and let ol' King finish cleaning the shit offa you, bitch." Which task King found imminently exciting, trotting out of the cabin and eagerly licking the neko's legs and ass, burying his big nose in the cleft of the neko's ass and squirming his long tongue easily into the flaccid opening of his asshole. He was allowed back into the cabin finally, arms clenched close to his body, genitals so cold that it felt like they had retreated up inside his body. Huddling by the fire would have been heaven, but he was ordered instead to attend to his breakfast chores. Which meant scooting under the table while the woodsmen settled in to drink coffee and eat oatmeal, and suck cock. He was marginally warmed, their legs pressed close against his naked body, by the time he had finished the rounds. He crawled out from under the table and they put his bowl of gruel down on the floor for him to break his own fast. Watered down oatmeal, their leftovers. He was not allowed a spoon, but forced to lap up his food like an animal. He had gotten rather adept at it, over the months. Usually they got their lumbering gear and left for work after breakfast, leaving him with ol' King for unwanted company the day long, a list of chores to accomplish on risk of their wraith upon their return. It was not to be today. Sven having time on his hands took the neko over to his bunk to release his nipples from their bindings. He lingered over the work, pressing and kneading flesh that screamed bloody murder as the blood flowed back. The neko sat and quivered, curling his hands in the bed sheets as Sven pushed him back and half lay atop him, taking first one nipple, then the other into his mouth and suckling them mercilessly. One big hand slipped between their bodies while Sven worshipped his handiwork, fingers sliding behind the neko's balls to explore the still loosened mouth of his asshole. He touched split flesh and the neko flinched. Sven chuckled around his mouthful of swollen nipple and probed deeper, digging three fingers into the neko's hole, nails scraping against the tender meat inside. He lay, ears flattened, little pitiful sounds issuing from his throat. "Getting him all hot, Sven?" Stein had come and stood beside the bunk, looking down, one hand gently rubbing the sagging protrusion of his gut.

Sven chuckled around a mouthful of nipple, then bit down hard on the teat before pulling his lips away. "There's two tits, if you want one, big man," Sven offered generously, flicking the nipple he hadn't been gnawing on hard enough to make the neko cry out at the stinging pain. "Tits are your thing, Sven. I'd rather have me a piece of ass, or his tongue up the slit of my cock. But what I come over for is we're for a game of cards. You want in?" Sven sat up, shrugging. "Why not? Looks like it's going to be a long day." The neko lay there afterwards in the warmth of the bunk. He didn't know what they expected of him. Whether he ought to start his daily chores as if they were not here, or if he ought to wait for their instruction and their pleasure as he did on Endsday, the one day of the week that they did not go out into the forest to work. He made himself move finally, regretfully leaving the comfort of the mattress, in fear that if he loitered too long they would punish him for it. He crept over to the corner where the broom was kept and began sweeping the floor. They were absorbed in their game and said nothing while he worked. King slept by the fire, oblivious. The tension in the neko's gut began to loosen. With the dirt swept up, he took the mop bucket and hurried outside to fill it with snow. His toes curled in misery at the cold. The winters of his own land were faded memories, but he instinctually knew that they were mild and that snow never fell over the forests. His body was not made to tolerate the bitter cold. He shivered, swollen nipples gone hard and pebbly around the distended teats. He sat the bucket on the still warm stove to melt and went about wiping down the table and putting away what they had left out in their preparation of breakfast. When enough of the snow had melted he began to wash the dishes. He would scrub the floor with the remainder, and might normally have cleaned the hearth of ashes and soot, but today decided to forgo that since the woodsmen were gathered about the fire. Karl won the latest hand of whatever they were playing, for he hooted with mirth while the others jeered and complained jovially. "Time for me to collect my winnings," Karl chortled, slapping his brother, Stein on the shoulder as he rose. "Come here, bitch." The neko froze, on his hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floorboards when Karl called. Carefully the neko put the scrub brush in the bucket and rose, approaching Karl warily, head down, ears struggling to stay partially up. The neko stood there, looking intently at Karl's boots while Karl pondered. "Come on, you won the bitch for the day, what're you going to do with him?" Olaf wanted to know. "I'm thinking," Karl said, waving a big hand. "give me a moment to get creative, will you?" They all laughed at that, Stein, Sven and Bo settling back in their chairs to wait for the entertainment while Olaf shifted on his feet, restless and eager with anticipation. Sven was the most creative in designing his little toys, but Karl always came up with the cruelest punishments. Finally Karl nodded, as though concreting an idea in his own head, and told Olaf to get the ropes since he was hovering anyway. The neko he took by the arm and led to the recently cleared and cleaned kitchen table. He pushed him backwards onto it, onto his back with his legs and tail hanging off the end of it. With the rope Olaf brought he tied his wrists together and drew him over his head, securing the rope to the supports under the table. He slid the neko down a little so that his hips overhung the side by a few inches, then corded rope around one knee and drew that leg up, pressing the knee to the table top by the neko's shoulder, bending his body double. He tossed the rope under the table and Olaf caught it on the other side, understanding the position Karl wanted the neko bound in. Olaf forced the other leg into the same contortionist position and tightened the rope around his knee. He laid there, hands

stretched over his head, knees roped to the tabletop on either side of his chest, ass entirely vulnerable to whatever plans Karl had for it. His feet twitched nervously, toes curling in fearful anticipation. The hard wood of the table bore into his curved spine. Karl ran a callused hand up the curve of his ass to the back of his thigh, then across his balls and limp cock. He leaned forward, staring down into the neko's face, the rough cloth of his trousers rubbing against his spread ass cheeks. If he was simply going to fuck him, then the neko's fears were unfounded. Being tied up and fucked was no great abuse in the greater scheme of things. Being tied up and fucked was something to rather look forward to if it replaced other things they might do to him. Karl reached a hand back and his fingers circled the puckered lips of the neko's still swollen anus. A twinge of fear shivered across his skin, regardless of Karl's intentions, fear that they had ground into him, fear that showed in his eyes and maybe that was what Karl was looking for, that white-rimmed rolling of terror in his gaze that let the man know he was quivering inside. Karl pushed himself back, and reached into his shirt pocket for one of his hand rolled smokes. He lit it up and went outside while his brother and his cousins and Sven loitered in their chairs by the fire, half heartedly playing with the cards while they waited for Karl to get to whatever it was he was working towards. The cold air from the open door wafted across the neko's naked skin, making little goose pimples rise, causing the nubs of his nipples harden again, making his genitals shrink even more than they already were. Finally, Karl came back in with a fresh bucket of snow, which he sat down on one of the benches by the table. He took a candle from the cupboard, even though there was enough light coming in from the windows and from the fire to see plainly. He lit with the hot end of his smoke and sat in a battered brass holder, which he placed on the end of the table by the neko's hips. A bench he dragged around to the same end of the table and settled himself down upon it, as his cronies rose to gather behind him, a rapt audience. He took the candle and the neko lost sight of what he did with it, but he felt the heat of the flame close, oh so close to his cringing asshole. He felt the brief searing of flesh as the flame touched his skin and he cried out. Again, a brief passing of candle flame across the puckered skin of his anus and pain spiraled out from that point. And kept pulsing in radiating waves as burns tended to do. Then more scalding heat, this time liquid as the candle was tipped and hot wax dribbled down across his asshole. He moaned and twitched, clenching and unclenching the muscles of his buttocks in a vain effort to escape the heat and the pain. Karl waited for the wax to cool and harden, before he flaked it off with a nail. Then the candle flame passed across scalded skin again and he cried at the renewed burn. Relief came unexpectedly. A packed ball of snow was pressed against his ass, so shockingly cold after the heat that for a moment he lost his rhythm of breath. Karl pressed it against his pulsing anus until the heat drained away in favor of frigid numbness, then took it away, and the heat came back, more wax flooding down the stretched cleft of his ass to his swollen hole, sudden heat thawing the icy numb to the extreme. He screamed, yanking desperately at the rope securing his arms, but the table was solid and he was securely bound with little room for movement. There was no escaping the torment. Karl molded another ball of snow into hard-packed ice, and pressed it against the neko's ass, this time applying pressure, forcing the ice ball past the damaged lips of his anus and up into his body. No amount of cold on the outside of his body could have prepared him for the shock of the ice nestled with in. He whimpered, writhing on the table as Karl fashioned another ice ball and inserted it in after the first, then spent some time packing snow and ice into the neko's ass until he was stuffed full of it, slowly beginning to numb from the inside out even as the melting ice dribbled out of his asshole, down the cleft of his ass to the floor. When he was satisfied that he'd filled the neko to capacity Karl rose, taking the candle with him and began to dribble wax onto his nipples. Sven sat down on the bench on the other side of the table, entranced at the molten lumps of wax that formed around the neko's plump teats. When they were fully coated with a thick layer of wax, Karl plucked it off and pressed ice against the rosy nipples, playing the same game he had with the neko's asshole. Numb the flesh with cold then bring it

screaming life with burning heat. The neko was thrashing, sobbing incoherently by the time the ice had mostly melted and leaked out of his asshole. Karl sat what was left of the candle in a pool of still soft wax between the neko's pectorals, where it continued to slowly shed globs of hot wax onto his skin. He released his heavy cock and without preamble or more lubrication than the cool water dribbling from the neko's asshole, drove it into the neko's body. Still lingering numbness veiled most of the initial pain, and the warmth of Karl's big cock pressing against his frozen insides was a welcome intrusion. It actually felt good, a living source of warmth in his bowels and he moaned and arched up, more animal reflex than anything else, wanting it deeper. Karl grasped his thighs and grinned up at the other rapt woodsmen. "Little bitch is colder than a witch's tit inside. Tightened up right nice, too." "Ice up his chute will do that," Bo said, as if he'd known the properties of ice combined with a stretched asshole all the time and just hadn't thought to mention it before this. Karl took his time fucking him, using the slow, hard thrusts he preferred. By the time he'd finished, the neko almost felt as if his insides had thawed, though shivers still racked his body. Karl slid out and the neko's anus closed up after the departing cock, the burns on the puckered lips sending shooting pulses of pain up his body. Olaf was dying to feel the grip of a iced ass around his own cock, and begged Karl for a go and having a whole day to kill, Karl obliged, packing the neko's ass with snow and ice again to prepare him for the younger woodsmen. While the ice was melting he started in on the neko's cock and balls with the flame and the wax. By this time, the neko barely had the strength left to scream or thrash about, so he lay there twitching limply, sobbing while Karl singed the sensitive flesh at the end of his cock with the pass of a candle flame, then sealed the burn with hot wax, then did the same with his balls. Olaf fucking him was a distant sensation, barely reaching him through the numb shock in which his body drifted. They tired of this eventually, having achieved as many erections as they were capable of in their boredom. The neko was released with a slap across his smarting buttocks and told to clean up the mess they'd made of the tabletop and the floor around it. Burns throbbing in agony, he slowly went about the chore, mopping up water and spilled bodily fluids, then scraping globs of hardened wax from floor the tabletop. Sexual urges satiated, the woodsmen were content to sit by the fire, or doze through the remainder of the afternoon. With four out of the group, Karl included, napping, the neko was left to his daily chores in peace. He crept about the tasks, as quietly as he could, afraid of rousing one or more of the woodsmen. When those were done, he retreated silently to the corner with his cage and huddled, weight upon one hip in attempts to avoid pressure on the sensitive, singed flesh of his ass. It was perhaps, a hour till the dusk that came so early this time of year, when King roused from his place by the fire, the fur on the back of his neck on end, and growling low in his throat as he padded towards the door of the cabin. The woodsmen rose, wary by nature of the sort of threat the forest had to offer in the dead of winter. There came a knock on the door and the neko, curled in his cage felt a surge of hope, imagining it might be the Lady, with a change of heart, come back to take him back into her service after all. He peered between the bars of his cage, ears perked forward despite the dull ache in his body and watched as Karl opened the door, the twins flanking him. King crowded at their legs, still growling.

It was hard to see beyond the bulk of their bodies, but the neko glimpsed enough for his heart to fall. For it was certainly no lady standing outside the door. He might even have thought, from the sliver of the glimpse he had, that it was some animal out of the deep woods, standing upright and waiting on the doorstop, for the figure was well covered in furs, from head to foot. Then he heard the low murmur of voices, heard the threat in Karl's towards a stranger on his doorstep and the low return of an unfamiliar tone. Some agreement must have been reached, because Karl spoke sharply to the twins and jerked his head at Sven, and they shrugged on coats and accompanied Karl outside, while Stein waited inside by the door, stroking King's thick neck, while the dog whined to get out. Soon they returned inside, arms full of furs. Luxurious skins of dark sable and rich fox and other fine furs. Karl was grinning, well pleased and in their wake came the stranger, who stopped at the door stoop and stomped snow off his boots before he entered, even if the woodsmen themselves showed no such tendency. "He's down from the high country," Karl told his Stein. "A trapper come to trade his wares, but his horse took an injury and for a night or two of shelter in our stable while she mends, he's traded us some of his stock." "Ah," Stein fingered a sable fur and grinned. The neko did not know for sure, but he recalled the lady paying a great deal for such furs and thought that the trapper had overpaid for a night or two spent in the woodsmen's stable. "If you'll be sharing our table and sleeping in our barn, I'd ask for a name, stranger?" Karl asked, dumping his newly acquired furs on his bunk. The trapper pulled off the thick fur cap, revealing a head of lank, shoulder length hair of unremarkable color and a face half covered in sparse beard. His eyes though, were rather more noteworthy, a splash of blue that no amount of grime or unwashed hair could camouflage. They darted about the cabin, a wary man examining unfamiliar surroundings, before they fixed back on Karl. "Caled," the trapper said, low soft tones, like he wasn't used to speaking out loud. "My name is Caled. Your hospitality is appreciated, but if you'd find the liniment we bartered for, I'd take care of my animals before embracing your offer of supper."

Chapter eight

Supper was a tense affair with men touchy in the presence of a stranger that had little inclination to talk. The trapper - - Caled - - took his supper, a bowl of cooling stew and yesterdays bread and ate it silently at the table, while the woodsmen looked on, occasionally asking him a question which he declined to answer with more than a grunted yes or no, or the very shortest of explanations. And those explanations only came when they inquired about things like the weather rolling down from the mountains and the severity of the snow in the high country. He did accept a mug of ale afterwards though, and the lure of drinking it by the fire. The neko crept from his cage, to clean the remnants of supper, hoping they would be too focused on their guest to worry him. There was no leftover stew tonight, which meant his own supper would consist of bread heels, but his appetite of late had been a weak thing.

When he'd dried the last dish and put it away, careful not to make a clatter that would draw attention, he hoped to sink down in corner of the kitchen and stay there, out of notice, but it was not to be. Stein noted his inactivity and called him over. The neko padded across the room without hesitation. They'd let him walk on two feet again, satisfied at the state of his submission this last month of winter. He dropped to his knees though, by ingrained reflex before Stein, head lowered, shoulders hunched, waiting for command. They laughed, asking the trapper if he'd ever seen a cat like this in the highlands. A hand grasped the neko's tail and pulled and he bit his lip, always sensitive to sharp pressure applied there. The trapper said nothing, but the neko felt his eyes upon him, a more penetrating gaze than any of the woodsmen possessed. The neko was afraid to look up, for meeting the eyes of his betters was a punishable offense. As if they needed reason. Stein patted his fat crotch and the neko reached up to unfasten the lacings of his trousers, immediately taking the head of Stein's cock in his mouth as it popped free. He shut his eyes and began to lick the head, like Stein liked, hands massaging big balls as he worked. Stein hummed, pleased and the one sided conversation, which had lulled somewhat as the other woodsmen eyed their comrade's servicing, began up again. "Being up in the highlands all by your lonesome, you probably haven't had much in the way of a proper lay, eh?" Sven asked slyly. If the trapper answered, the neko didn't hear it. "This little cat is well trained. For a pelt or two, he can satisfy all your needs." Stein grasped the neko's ears and shoved the length of his fat cock down the neko's throat as he came, gasping, "There's your stew, tonight, little bitch." And not a drop was spilled. The neko waited for further instruction. Usually Karl wanted his turn first, but tonight, the eldest woodsman seemed reluctant to be serviced with strange company watching. The twins were not so shy though and the neko moved on to them. From the corner of his eye, he saw the trapper looking away, towards the fire, in no wise possessing the keen interest the lady had in observing the neko's subjugation. Before the neko had finished with the second twin, the trapper put down is empty mug and rose, thanking Karl for the drink and the chance to thaw, but claiming the need to get back to his animals and bed down for the night. "It'll be cold out there, sleeping by yourself," Karl said. "Sure you don't want the slave to warm your bedroll. That one little fox pelt would get you the night with him. His mouth ain't got nothing on his ass. " The trapper hesitated, glancing back with disinterested blue eyes at the kneeling neko. The neko felt his ears flatten of their own accord, feeling the sting of embarrassment that had not had the strength to warm him in what seemed ages. "Throw in a loaf of bread and chunk of cheese and the pelt's yours," the trapper said finally. Karl thought it over, and finally shrugged. "Done. Do what you like to him, long as you don't cripple him." The trapper nodded and left, not waiting for the neko or his bartered food.

Karl caught the neko's arm while Olaf was slicing off a hunk of cheese and wrapping it up with more of the old bread. "Do what you're told, hear? See that he's pleased enough to want to buy your miserable little ass tomorrow night as well, understand, hole?" The neko nodded emphatically and Karl thrust him towards the door. He took the little package of bread and cheese and steeled himself for the cold. He had no shoes and only the loincloth for clothing. His trips outside to relieve himself and wash were torture in this frigid winter weather. It would be a quicker trip to the barn though, if he ran. His feet were still numb from cold by the time he slipped past the barn door. He shivered, skin feeling like ice from the brief foray though the snow. The trapper looked up at his entrance, crouching by the front leg of a brown horse. A second, smaller horse shifted nearby, and a long legged, grey dog rose, growling, before the trapper shushed it with a motion of his hand. Blue eyes traveled over him, then the trapper frowned, muttering something under his breath. He rose and the neko detected a hitch in his movements and a slight wince that the man tried to cover. Perhaps the horse wasn't the only lame one. If the animal had taken a fall with the man atop, the man might have suffered injuries as well. The neko leaned with his back against the barn door, clutching the package to his chest, unsure of this stranger and what he would demand of him. "Do you know horses?" the man asked. The neko blinked and slowly shook his head. He'd only ridden the once with the lady and his service to her had not extended to the stables. The trapper frowned again, irritated, then beckoned. The neko was too well trained to hesitate and he approached, offering the package. The trapper took it and tossed it aside, onto the pile of his gear that sat by the bundled furs. In its place, the trapper shoved a heavy rag into the neko's hands. "It's no science. Take the cloth and rub her down. Follow the grain of the coat or she'll take a bite out of you. Don't stand behind her or she'll do worse." The trapper indicated the smaller animal, which was worrying at a pile of old straw looking for edible strands. The trapper crouched again, and began rubbing the liniment he'd gotten from the woodsmen into the leg of the larger horse. His hands were narrow and long fingered, oddly clean for a man who lived in the wilderness to make his ends meat. The neko tentatively took the cloth to the horse, placing his other hand on the coarse winter hair of her shoulder. A muscle twitched under his touch, but otherwise the mare seemed disinclined to turn and bite him. He began the process, stroking down the line of her back and she shifted, blowing a gust of air out her nostrils in an equine sigh of content. The trapper watched for a while, to make sure his animal was being properly tended, then wiped the liniment off his hands and rose with another quiet grunt to approach his gear. He rolled out his bedroll atop a pile of relatively clean straw and settled down, cross-legged upon it. He shrugged off the his coat, a thick affair made of a mismatched array of pelts, then rooted around in his pack for a square of black stone, which he proceeded to use to sharpen the large knife he wore at his side. The neko cast a nervous, sideways glance at the long blade. The woodsmen had beat, branded and pierced him, but they had never taken a blade to his skin. He feared of a sudden what a stranger, who made his livelihood killing and skinning animals might do.

"You're far from the forests of your homeland." The trapper surprised the neko by commenting. His voice was low and smooth when he wasn't giving short, terse answers. It hadn't exactly been a question and the woodsmen had gone to some effort to dissuade the neko from speaking out as a man might, so he said nothing in response. He continued diligently on the pack mare. "That's enough for her. Do the same for the gelding," the trapper said, past the slow, grinding strokes of blade against sharpening stone. The neko moved to the larger horse, more confident now in his task. The horses were warm , steady things that demanded nothing of him save he respect the boundaries of their own skittishness'. He was careful around the leg where the fur still gleamed damply from the application of liniment. He ran his fingers over the upper leg lightly and felt a greater heat and the gentle fullness of swollen flesh. The horse swung its big head around to look at him, and the neko made a sympathetic sound and scratched the thick neck under the fall of bristly mane. "Good enough," the trapper said. "That's all the use I have for you. You can return to the house." The neko gaped, surprised at the dismissal. Had this man not paid for the full use of him tonight and with it a night away from the pleasures of the five woodcutters? Disappointment unexpectedly rose. The neko had been more than willing to risk the perversions of a stranger who killed for a living to escape the attentions of his masters. But rebellion was a distant thing, drummed out of him with meticulous cruelty and he nodded numbly, ears flat, hands trembling as he put down the curry cloth and moved to the barn door. "What's your name?" the trapper asked, unexpectedly. The neko blinked, taken unawares at the question. For a long moment his mind blanked, no answer rising to the surface. Bitch. Hole. Slave. Slut. A bevy of other things they used for him came to mind, but the name he'd been given at birth had been so long unused that almost it escaped him. "Dhar - - Dharsha," he whispered, his voice rough from neglect. He looked back, almost afraid to meet the trapper's eyes, because no one had ever cared enough to ask since he'd been taken. Not the slavers who'd kidnapped him or the merchants who'd sold him like so much dry goods, or even the Lady. The trapper - - Caled was his name, the neko recalled - - canted his head, blue eyes narrowed in thought. "Were you taken in payment for an owed debt? Or for the commission of a crime?" The neko stared, not understanding. "Those," Caled said. "Are the legitimate reasons a man might be sold into servitude, when war is not an issue. Are you a debtor or a criminal?" The neko shook his head slowly. Caled settled back, eyeing the neko with a frown that hinted at distaste. "I'm ill-used to sleeping with strangers at my back, but stay if you'd rather the company of horses over the company of your masters." It was not an offer the neko felt inclined to refuse. He moved back into the barn, shivering a little from the gust of cold air that seeped in through the cracks in the barn door.

"There are furs enough for warmth," the trapper said and reached for one of the bundles of pelts, then winced, gasping a little in pain at the stretch, before he pressed his lips to cover it. The neko crouched and pushed a bundle towards the trapper, eyes down to give the man the time to collect himself. Caled unfastened the cords binding the tightly wrapped collection and offered a few luxurious sections to the neko. Just holding them in his arms made the neko sigh in pleasure he hadn't known for longer than he could recall. He curled in the straw a few yards away from the trapper, settling the warmth over his bare legs and torso, sighing at the feeling of ease that seeped over him, the looming threat of rape, degradation, pain and shame across the yard and inside the cabin for the night. He listened to the trapper grunt in discomfort as he sought to find an easy position. And perhaps it was his own sense of ease - - a feeling long absent - - that prompted him to tentatively speak. "The liniment they lent you works as well to sooth the aches of man as it does of beast." He'd seen the woodsmen use the pungent stuff upon themselves when aches and pains tormented them, though they'd never thought to offer any to the neko for the hurts they inflicted. The trapper cast him a dark look, displeased with the offer or perhaps simply unsettled that the neko suspected his injury. Certainly no lone man or neko roaming alone in his respective world would eagerly display weakness when in the company of strangers. The neko flinched a little at the glare though, the worry that he'd overstepped his bounds churning like acid in his stomach, until the trapper turned back around, attempting to settle again. For a long while, there were only the sounds of the horses shifting or rooting in the straw, or that of the trapper turning occasional seeking after comfort and not finding it. The neko roamed closer to sleep. But the movement of the trapper roused him, and he watched warily through slitted eyes as the man pushed himself up with effort. "All right," Caled said gruffly, as if it some bitter brew had passed his lips. The neko rose, crawling over as the trapper found the bottle of liniment and a somewhat clean scrap of cloth. He handed them over with something of the look a man might use when handing over a weapon hilt first and not knowing if it might be turned against him, then he turned his back to the neko and lifted his shirt. There was a large purpling bruise along the man's back and left side that radiated heat when the neko tentatively touched it with liniment slick fingers. The man's torso was surprisingly lean under the bulk of his clothing, skin a pale gold a shade or two lighter than the exposed flesh of his face and hands. And clean. The neko was used to the flesh of the woodsmen, who during the winter months only bathed occasionally and often smelled worse than old King. This man smelled - - good. Like evergreen and leather and the clean scent of man who had a care for his own grooming. To a neko, who's sense of smell was far more sensitive than that of a human man, it was a pleasing change. "How old are you, Dharsha?" the trapper asked softly, enduring the working of strong liniment into his bruised flesh. Dharsha. That was his name. So strange to hear it spoken. How old was he? He wasn't entirely sure anymore. He had been barely out of the care of his sisters when he'd been taken. Too young to have found his place in the family - - too young to discover what maturity would bring him - - acceptance

into the ranks of the wise men and artisans or cycles of outcast as a young warrior male seeking to make a name for himself, before the family took him back. He felt something lodge in his throat thinking of what might have been - - thinking of home and family and warmth. "Sixteen - - when I was taken. I don't - - I don't know how long I have been here in your lands. Many seasons, I think." The trapper said nothing, sitting cross-legged, with shoulders hunched as he let the neko - let Dharsha - - tend to bruised flesh. Almost, Dharsha was reluctant to move his hands away, the trapper's unthreatening quiet, the smooth feel of a body more eloquently put together than those he was used to seeing, stirring something more like regret than longing, within. In a day when this stranger was gone, Dharsha would remember and it would make life all the more terrible. He wiped his hands in the straw, careful not to transfer liniment to valuable pelts, then shuffled back to the little nest he had made for himself. Caled watched him for a moment, startling blue eyes under a dark fringe of lashes, then he settled into his own bedding without further word. This time around, sleep came harder for the neko. Dharsha had never before fantasized about a man - oh, he'd had nightmares about them, about the terrible things these human men might do to him that might make the things already done seem mild - - but never had he lain awake and dwelled upon how it might feel to lay under the weight of a man not intent on hurting him. How he might like willingly opening the trousers of this particular man and taking what lay beneath in his hands and mouth. He felt certain, that like the rest of him, it would be clean and well proportioned. He would very much like to hear this man's moans and grunts of pleasure as he took relief in Dharsha's body. His cock, which had been quiescent for so very long, hardly even rising of its own accord anymore at the cusp of sleep and wakefulness, stirred. He stilled in shock, afraid to move and encourage it to greater attention. Perhaps the fantasizing was made more vivid by the very fact that the trapper held no interest in using him that way and Dharsha felt his cheeks color marginally as he shifted uncomfortably in his furs, in embarrassment over his own unprecedented emotions the resulting physical response. He took long breathes, reminding himself of Karl's dire threat of castration should he catch the neko in the act of self-pleasure. It was enough to make the swelling recede and once again his organ lay soft and small along his thigh. He shut his eyes and pressed his face into the soft fur of a pelt, shuddering and trying to force sleep. If he got no rest tonight, tomorrow would be a long day, for most certainly the woodsmen would expect more of him to sate desires that had gone unquenched tonight.

Chapter Nine

The barking of the dog woke Dharsha.

At first he thought it was old King until he realized he was in the barn and not the house, snuggled warm and comfortable under furs. It was the trapper's long legged, bristle furred dog that was making the racket, stiff legged at the barn door. The neko started, awareness coming rapidly as soon as wakefulness was upon him. The light of morning seeped through the cracks between boards and his sensitive hearing picked up the crunch of footsteps outside, and the answering bark from within the house of the woodcutters dog. The trapper himself was marginally slower waking, a bundled form under his pelts, and Dharsha had shed his own borrowed furs and was at the door in expectation before the man had pushed himself up. The neko pushed carefully past the dog and opened the barn door stepping out into the frigid morning. He spoiled, no doubt, the fun of Sven and Bo, who'd tromped down from the house with the expectation of rudely rousing him. Perhaps they'd expected to catch the trapper using him. "Did you think you'd get out of morning chores, slut?" Sven snarled, somewhat put out by his aborted attempt at intrusion. "Get to the damned house." He thrust out an arm in that direction and Dharsha meekly crept by him towards the cabin. He heard the trapper behind him, quietly telling his dog to hush and Sven lingered to exchange a few words that Dharsha imagined consisted of leering comments and questions about his performance. He flattened his ears a little - - amazed that he could still feel embarrassment. Bo caught his arm before he could ascend the steps, swinging him about roughly. "Wash first, dirty cat. You think you're welcome in the house with the stench of a stranger on your skin?" He shoved Dharsha into the drift of snow by the porch. The water in the trough was frozen through and through, so there was nothing to do but scrub handfuls of snow across his skin. He didn't hesitate, shivering and numb by the time he'd finished. "Get between your legs real well," Sven directed, having come up to stand beside Bo to watch. He had, but he scooped up another handful and pressed it against his shrunken genitals. They laughed at that, at the blue tinge of his frozen sack, and though Dharsha didn't see, he felt in his gut that the trapper observed his ordeal from the barn. Sven pulled him up, finally and half dragged him up the steps. The neko's feet had no feeling, nor his hands. He stumbled to the floor and tried to draw his limbs in to conserve warmth, but a boot toe to the fleshy part of his buttocks propelled him forward. He crawled, prodded by the same boot into the room, where Karl was just pulling on socks and boots in his chair by the fire. Dharsha crawled to kneel at his feet, for Karl was always first to be serviced and waited for the signal. "Were you an obedient slave? Did you serve the trapper well?" Karl asked and the neko blinked, not used to being asked something that required a verbal response. He nodded, not meeting Karl's eyes. Karl did not like it when the neko met his eyes. "Good." Karl tapped his crotch and the neko leaned forward, unbuttoning trousers and pulling out the placid cock. He worked it to fullness soon enough, and knelt with his head buried between Karl's thighs, mouth full of Karl's thick organ, while the woodcutters went about morning rituals. They talked about the trapper and what a man likely down from a season alone in the mountains might have done to relieve sexual tensions. They speculated about the worth of his remaining furs, and what other riches he might have if he'd already sold a portion of his wares. There were a few trading posts, after all, between here and the highlands. The twins wanted the neko's ass, and he bent over the edge of his cage while they rigorously used it, one then the other in quick succession.

"Did you see any gold?" Sven asked later, while the neko sat on his lap, riding his thick cock. Sven's big fingers idly pulled and twisted the neko's nipples, mashing tender flesh between callused finger pads. The neko whimpered and shook his head. "He wouldn't leave it out where the little bitch could see." Olaf said. "If he's got it, it's hidden away." "Hell, the furs he traded us were the poorest of the lot. The pile he has is worth the gold we'd make in two seasons. There were mercelot pelts in his stock, did you see?" They contemplated the wealth in another man's possession while they whiled the morning away, entertaining themselves now and then with the neko's body or the neko's torment. The torments were not particularly creative though, given the distraction and Dharsha suffered them easily enough, inbetween his various daily chores. The trapper did not come to the cabin, though the neko saw him through the window standing with the dog beyond the barn, staring into the trees in the direction Dharsha thought the city he had come from with the lady lay. Karl and Sven went out once to speak with him in the afternoon and came back stomping snow and mud off their boots. Dharsha hurried to clean the floor after them, then scurried towards the fire when Karl beckoned to kneel before him and pull off the dirty boots. He did the same with Sven and slunk off to clean the boots before they could think of other tasks for him. They were preoccupied enough at the moment to ignore him. "He plans to leave come first light." Karl said. "And take his pelts and his gold with him." "We offer him our hospitality, our food, a hole to fuck and all we got was a few inferior pelts." Stein complained. They all nodded in agreement, indignant at the poor bargain, as though none of them recalled the praise from their very mouths about the quality of those same traded furs the day before. "It ain't right," one of the twins groused. "That much wealth in the hands of one backwoods trapper, when we go without." "It's not," His brother agreed, scowling. Karl smiled coldly. "There's none that would miss a man that only ventures down from the highlands once or twice a year." They considered, understanding dawning slowly on some of them, but meeting no resistance when it did. The neko shivered in his corner of the kitchen, hands clutching one bulky boot. They spoke of murder and theft as if it were their right. As if a man seeking help owed them his life and his profits for the generosity. The neko laid his ears flat and scrubbed furiously at the caked mud in the soles of Karl's boot. He sat the boots quietly by the door and huddled with the kitchen table between him and them as they spoke of murder and robbery in the night. The horses would come in handy, but the dog would have to go the way of her master. They spoke of stripping a body bear and dragged it upslope where the winter predators would strip it down to the bone in a matter of a night. They laughed, low and eager among themselves and the neko wondered if this were their first engagement with murder or if it were simply the enticement of riches that made them so gleeful about the prospect.

They sharpened their axes, a though human flesh might require a blade sharper than green wood, and as the afternoon wore on, their conversation grew less, their demeanor grimmer as light began to fall. They prepared for supper and Dharsha was sent outside to gather clean snow to melt for water. He clutched his bucket and crept out into the cold draped with the purple shadows of evening. He stared towards the barn, heart hammering in his chest, the lump in his throat so large he could barely swallow past it. It was not right, what they planned, and the trapper had been kind to him. Had called him by his name. Dharsha took a shuddery breath and trudged out into the fringe of the forest past where untrodden snow might be found. As soon as he was in the shadow of the trees however, he darted around the edge of the clearing towards the little assembly of outbuildings. There was the faint light of a lantern seeping out from the cracks of the barn, and when Dharsha skidded up to the smaller back door, he heard the patter of feet and the ominous growling of the dog. He hoped not so loud they heard up in the cabin. "Hello? Hello?" He whispered, shifting from foot, to cold numbed foot urgently in the snow. The neko's sharp hearing picked up the sound of a two-legged body moving up beside the dog. The unique scent of a particular man. "What do you want?" A low voice asked through the door. It remained latched from within. A wary man, that might not be wary enough. "They'll kill you tonight," Dharsha warned softly, past the fear that clogged his throat that made his knees tremble more than the cold, for if the trapper fled, they might suspect he had a hand in it. "Flee now, before they finish supper." The trapper said nothing for a moment, then the door creaked open a crack and narrow blue eyes stared out at him. There was the glint of a hunting knife in the man's hand. The grey hound thrust her head out, wet nose sniffing the neko's thigh. Dharsha stayed for a moment, searching for understanding in the trapper's eyes. When he found it, he darted back into the shelter of woods, running around the perimeter and scooping up what looked to be clean snow as he went. "What took you so long, bitch?" Stein latched hold of his sensitive ear as he reentered the cabin, twisting cruelly. The neko whimpered, twisting and half crouching to alleviate the pain. He gestured at his cloth-covered crotch and the big man snorted, giving his ear one final tug before releasing him. "Took a leak, did you, cat? Better not have been near the drinking water or I'll do more than box an ear." The neko cast his eyes down meekly, and crept with his bucketful of snow to the hearth, where he sat it upon the stones to melt. Old King wandered over, black nose working furiously. He prodded the neko's upper thigh, where the trapper's dog had pressed her nose. The big dog whined deep in its throat, picking up the scent of a bitch. Dharsha shut his eyes, not daring to push the dog away in plain view of the woodsmen, and sat there as King salivated on his leg. "Damn bitch outside has the old boy all excited." Sven remarked, from the kitchen. "What are you waiting for, slut, spread your cheeks and let the old dog take empty his sack in your belly." The others laughed, low and tense, distracted from the usual pleasure they'd take from the neko's humiliation by the prospect of what they planned for the trapper.

Dharsha crawled a little ways from the hearth, where the rug would cushion his knees. He spread his knees wide and pressed his face and shoulders to the floor so he could reach back and separate his buttocks for easier entry. Ol' King knew exactly what to do, the scent of the female dog putting an edge to his eagerness. Dharsha shut his eyes, grimacing at the scrape of claws on his back and upper arms as they dog mounted, at the slither of wet cock as it slid along his crack, prodding aimlessly until he reached and grasped it with his fingers and guided it to his cringing opening. A powerful stab and it slipped in, thick and blunt and pre-lubricated. The neko drew a gasping breath as it slid in, filling his bowls in one desperate stroke. It took a half dozen more before the knot wedged its way into him, locking them together, and then King was off, humping wildly, while his masters clattered about in the kitchen. All the neko could hear was the rushing of his own blood and the growling pants of the dog. Saliva dripped down his neck, the dog's teeth grazing skin now and then as he became over excited and latched on, as if he feared his bitch might try and slip away. The neko knew better. He simply braced himself on the carpet and tried to keep the dog's weight from crushing him to the floor. It didn't take long for King to finish up. Dharsha felt the heat of the dog's seed as it began to flood his bowels. A little bile rose in his throat, but he swallowed it back. When the dog pulled out, and padded off to lick his genitals clean, Dharsha carefully pushed himself up, come trickling warm and sticky down his legs. Three out of five sets of eyes were upon him, gleaming at the show, pants a little tented. He'd be under the table at supper servicing those soon enough. He crawled to his own cage for the time being, though, and used a scrap of rag to wipe leaking come away. Dharsha spent most of the time under the table, trying to keep the trembling at bay. He imagined the trapper long gone, and the woodcutters storming into an empty barn. Their anger would be formidable. Even if they didn't suspect his hand in the abrupt departure, he'd still feel the brunt of their frustration. He could hardly keep the scraps from supper down, contemplating it. The only bright spot was that they were too on edge to use him. When they finally did leave, axes in hand, faces taut with the looks of men off to precipitate bloodshed, they grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and forced him into his cage, locking him in, as if they expected he might interfere somehow or take the chance to flee into the cruel winter night while they were otherwise occupied. Whatever their reasoning, Dharsha huddled at the back of his cage, heart pounding so hard it hurt as they tromped out of the cabin and into the darkness. He doubted he'd have long to wait until they returned and one way or another, he feared they might have blood on their hands that night.

Chapter 10

The neko screamed, blood in his mouth from where the inside of his lips had been torn against the sharp edges of his teeth. The boot connected with his genitals again and there was nothing he could do to protect them, bound on the floor as he was, arms tied behind him, legs bent and ankles lashed tight against his thighs and those in turn bound to a sturdy pole they'd laid under him, keeping him spread wide and vulnerable and helpless to avoid their punishment.

They'd been furious when they'd stomped back in, frustrated at the flight of their victim and the loss of his riches. It had not taken long for them to turn their attention to Dharsha or place the blame at his feet. "You warned him, you little slut," they cried at him, dragging him out of his cage and delivering the first blows. He'd admitted to nothing. There was very little they could do to him that hadn't already been done and pain had become an old acquaintance. He'd just shook his head in denial, horrified at the axes still in some of their hands and the wild look in their eyes. They'd hit him then, trying to get the answer they wanted, fists in the face and the body, and then the unforgiving strike of heavy leather. They'd hung him from the rafters and laid waste to his torso and legs with their thick belts. The longest beating they'd ever given him, taking turns at striking his bruised flesh, and when he passed out they brought him back with ice water in the face, or sharp yanks on his testicles. With still no admission of guilt, they cut him down, a few of them using him roughly as he lay, half conscious on the floor, before they bound him. King came over, drawn by the smell of blood, but they chased him off, not in the mood to watch the dog satisfy itself when their own emotions boiled so hot. "What did he give you that you betrayed our confidence?" Karl asked, jerking the neko's head up off the floor by one ear. "Gold that you've hidden somewhere in the woods? Or was his cock so much more to your filthy tastes than ours that you felt the need to warn him?" Dharsha just stared up, dazed and hurting, shivering now and then with the expectation of worse. Karl slammed his head down and a few more stars joined the collection dancing around the edges of the neko's vision. Karl reached down and grasped the neko's smarting nuts, squeezing hard. "I think," Karl said. "It's time to get rid of these. Dharsha whimpered, new tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. "Sven, get me the pig cord." Karl barked and soon enough Sven brought him a long piece of elasticseeming cord with a loop and a slipknot. Karl knelt between the neko's spread thighs and hefted his shrinking testicles, pulling them out from his body and slipping the loop over and up close to the base and pulling the slipknot tight with a sudden, cruel jerk. He began winding the cord tightly around the base, and almost immediately Dharsha could feel the pressure of trapped blood tightening in his balls. "This is how we castrate pigs," Karl explained while he wound the cord. "Takes a few weeks, but soon enough your nuts will shrivel up and die and drop right off, what with no blood flow. Hurts like hell, I imagine." "No, no, no . . ." Dharsha whispered, blood and tears mixing in his mouth. Karl cocked his head. "What was that? I hear words out of your mouth, cat?" He reached out with a free hand and slapped the inside of Dharsha's left thigh. "Just as well we do take your balls, you're getting uppity and putting on muscle that no little cat-eared slave needs when mostly what he does is spread his legs and take cock up his hole. Yeah, it's the right time to get rid of your sack and stop those male juices from turning you ornery. It'll calm you down right nice, with nothing dangling down there but your poor little cock."

Karl tied off the knot, then slapped the neko's tight, reddened balls. Dharsha squealed at the intensified pain. "Now put the little bitch in his cage and let him think about what its cost him to betray us." Karl ordered. The twins picked him up, but Sven called for them to wait. "I don't want to hear him cryin' and complainin' all night," he said and forced one of the larger, curved, cock shaped wooden gags between Dharsha's teeth, fastening in securely with straps around his head. It stretched his mouth painfully wide. "One more," Sven said, and they bent him over the side of the cage, tender cock and balls pressed hard against the wire, while the twins unfastened the pole from his knees, but left his ankles lashed to his thighs. Sven worked another of his wooden carvings into the neko's ass. One of the ones he hadn't designed for easy entrance or exit, only for discomfort and pain on the neko's part. Without lubrication, it tore him on the way in, and sat terrible and heavy inside his body, the base stretching the stinging lips of his anus wide. They shoved him into the cage, and slammed the door shut, glaring down with resentment in their small eyes before kicking the cage and stomping off to join their comrades in lamenting the loss of the trapper and his riches. He lay whimpering, blood trickling down the back of his throat. He'd long ago learned how to breath through his nose, when his mouth and throat were close to filled with foreign objects, but the advent of hysterical fear made his breath come harsh and thin, and his vision spun with lack of air. Finally, half on the verge of a faint, he calmed enough to control his breaths. He shifted as much as he could, so that his bound arms were not trapped under the weight of his body and pressed painfully into the wire floor of the cage. His tightly bound testicles lay throbbing on his thigh, numb already, cinched as they were. He passed in and out of a pain-laced daze, roused one moment by the raised voice of a woodsmen, another by the shifting sputter of wood in the hearth. The cabin grew quiet, the woodsmen staggering to their beds on the heels of drinking away their bad fortune. Their snores rattled softly through the little house. The neko moaned around his gag, true sleep denied him by the virtue of misery-laced delirium. He drifted, until the sudden growl of the dog brought him back to the surface. Then Ol' King was scrambling from his place on the rug before the fire towards the door, barking urgently, nails scratching at the wood in his demands to get out. The woodsmen stirred and Dharsha heard them stumbling out of their bunks, cursing in sleep fuddled bewilderment at the frantic dog. In the darkness and from his awkward position in the cage, he could only dimly make out a glimpses of movement - then a man's voice crying out. "Fire. The barn's on fire!" They hastily pulled on boots and jackets over long winter underwear, but took the time for no more than that, flinging the cabin door wide and pelting out into the snowy night towards the faint roar of fire consuming aged wood. The neko could scent the smoke in the air now that the door was open and he was conscious enough to seek for it. He could hear the barking of ol' King and the yells of the woodsmen muffled through the walls of the cabin, distant past the rushing of blood in his own ears. It had been better when he'd been half asleep, the pain in his nuts, in his cruelly bound arms a more distant thing. It throbbed now, a towering wave of pain that crested and crested, yet refused to ebb. He wished the fire might spread to

the house and take him with it - - it would be preferable to remaining as he was - - to being less than he was even now, in a few weeks when what was left of his manhood shriveled up and dropped away. He sobbed, hopelessly, helplessly, too immersed in his own misery to catch the sliver of movement in the shadows of the darkened cabin. It wasn't until it loomed above his very cage that he realized he was no longer alone. He looked up numbly, thinking it nothing more than one of the woodcutters, come in to blame him for yet one more calamity. But it was no woodcutter that crouched before the door of his kennel, but the trapper, who by all rights should have been far removed from this place. Dharsha's eyes widened, pure animal desperation spearing through him as Calad used the heavy handle of his skinning knife to smash the lock off the wooden latch of the cage. He crouched, face shadowed in the darkness, but Dharsha heard a startled intake of breath as the man took in the bindings. He hesitated barely a breath though, before reaching in and slicing through the rope binding one ankle to one thigh. Then he cut the other and grasped Dharsha by the upper arm when he could not easily move himself and hauled him out. "Hestos," the trapper whispered, disgust lacing his voice, as he cut the ropes binding the neko's elbows and wrists and Dharsha's mind swimmingly connected the word to one of the human gods. He reached numbly for the dildo between his buttocks, mortified even in the midst of overwhelming pain, that Caled see the full extent of his punishment. Getting it out quickly was no easy feat, nor a pleasant one, and he tipped forward, balance entirely deserting him as he tried to reach around and dislodge it. The ring of muscle had grown accustomed to the narrower width at the mouth of the thing and did not easily stretch to accommodate the thicker bulge. Dharsha cried out against the trapper's thick fur coat and yanked it out with a tearing jolt of agony. There was no time, nor the light to easily unbind his balls, and the trapper was urging him to his feet, and towards the door, despite protest from Dharsha's aching body. Out the door and into the cold night. The darkness was lit by the fierce orange glow of the barn ablaze. Caled pulled him against the wall of the cabin and quickly edged along the porch in the shadow of it, then practically hurled Dharsha over the side rail and into the drifts of snow beyond. He followed, landing in a crouch, hustling Dharsha to his feet and half carrying, half dragging him into the shelter of the nearest trees. Dharsha's toes curled at the icy crunch of snow, his body, already so badly abused, shuddered, knees giving out every half dozen paces, teeth chattering audibly. The trapper paused, shoving Dharsha hard against the rough bole of a tree to keep him upright, reaching around him to unfasten the straps holding the gag in place and pulling it out, dropping it distastefully into the snow, before stripping off his coat and thrusting it hastily around the neko's trembling shoulders. "Hurry," he hissed. "They know these woods better than I, so I'd rather be long gone before they realize you're gone and start searching. Dharsha staggered in his wake, clutching the coat tightly closed across his chest. "You came back," he finally gathered the breath to croak. It was baffling, that this man had risked life and limb to come back for him - - for a slave, who was less than an animal to the men of this land. Caled said nothing, intent on getting the neko moving as fast as his aching body would allow. His bound nuts bounced against his thigh, painfully swollen, screaming for release. Stopping to fumble with tightly knotted twine now was out of the question. Slicing at it blindly in the darkness with a skinning knife was beyond terrifying.

They reached a little trampled clearing in the wood, where the dark shapes of two horses stood tethered to young trees. The trapper's long legged hound whined quietly, straining at her own tether as she sensed her master's approach. Caled slipped the rope from around the dog's neck and moved to untie the horses. "Up," he whispered urgently to Dharsha and it took the neko a moment to understand he meant for him to mount the horse. He didn't think he was capable, weak limbed as he was, feet going numb from the cold. He stood trembling, body refusing to even try, and the trapper cursed softly and came up next to him, urging him none too gently towards the horse, who cast a nervous, white-rimmed look back at him, sensing, no doubt, his panic. Dharsha grasped the saddle horn and heaved himself up with Caled's help. His balls slapped the hard leather of the saddle and high-pitched pain wove its way through duller, more permeating hurts. Caled rooted hastily through the packs on the second horse and came up with a pair of worn boots. He jerked them over the neko's frozen feet, quickly cinching them tight, before hauling on the lead of the horse Dharsha clung to and leading it and the pack animal that trailed deeper into the night. The dog padded ahead, shadow silent in the night. Dharsha clung to the saddle horn with one hand and futilely tried to pick at the twine around his balls with the other. But the knot was on the underside and not easily reached. There was no loosening it one handed by his self. He'd need Caled's help and the shame of that made him stifle a miserable moan. He cradled his cold, swollen testes as best he could from impact with the saddle and endured the ride. He'd endured worse at the hands of the woodcutters. Caled was moving as fast as he could through the dark wood, leading two horses on foot. Dharsha could hear the soft sound of his labored breathing, and remembered this man was sporting wounds of his own. If the woodsmen found them, they'd kill them both. At least Dharsha hoped they would, for the alternatives were terrible to consider. He thought, mind swimming from pain and cold, that if they caught them, if they tried to retake him, tried to hurt this man with his pale blue eyes, who had risked so much to come for him he would find in it himself to unsheathe claws they had always kept carefully blunted. If he could stay upright. If he could stop the world from swimming around him and the blackness from closing in. It was a losing battle. He swayed in the saddle and the snow rushed up. He didn't feel himself fall into its frigid embrace.

Chapter 11

Dharsha came awake at a sharp stab of pain. First instinct was to curl inward - - second was to remain motionless so as not to offend the hand that tormented him and make the punishment worse. So he stiffened, stifling a whimper and lay still, expecting the infliction of more hurt. "Calm," a low voice told him, and a hand patted his hip, warm skin, soft touch. "It'll take a blade to loosen that knot."

Dharsha drew a startled breath and opened his eyes. The trapper knelt over him, the both of them crowded in a small, dim space. A warm space, relatively, compared to the winter cold of outside. Warmer still from the presence of the dog curled against his feet, head on her paws in deceptively languid repose. But her eyes took in everything, a sharp, young dog, suspicious of the stranger her master had brought in out of the cold. They were in a sort of lean to, made of limbs and sticks, insulted by a piece of canvas stretched over top, with leaves and snow coating that. Hides and furs lined the ground and the body heat of two people and a dog crowded inside had edged out the frigid temperatures. Dharsha stared down where his pale, shrunken cock lay above the throbbing red of swollen testicles. At the trapper's long fingers gingerly lifting and prodding the tautness of the twine that Karl had wrapped around the base. Dharsha squeezed his eyes shut again in shame, fighting that urge to curl in upon himself again and hide the evidence of his abuse. "Dharsha," Caled's low, even voice edged through the pounding of blood in his ears. Don't move, or I'll finish their work for them. Understand?" There was silence; a distinct lack of motion and Dharsha realized that Caled was waiting for his acknowledgement. "Yes," he said, voice a thready whisper. His throat felt raw, as if he had been screaming long and loud. Perhaps it was blood running back down that had abrased the tissue, he could taste the flavor of it in his mouth and there were sore spots on his tongue and the inside of his cheeks as if he had bitten through. He didn't remember. Caled did not wait longer than it took for the neko to draw another breath, before placing the tip of his skinning blade to the base of Dharsha's balls, where the twine bit deeply into soft flesh. There was a prick, quick and barely perceptible past the throbbing pain that had centered at the core of the Neko's being. Then a moment of relief as the constriction eased, a long shuddery breath of freedom before the blood started rushing back and the real agony began. Dharsha howled, pain as terrible as anything the woodsmen had ever done to him flooding outwards from between his legs. The trapper cursed softly, lunging forward and clamping a hand down across Dharsha's mouth, body pressing him down into the furs. "Quiet, damn you." Caled hissed, close to his ear. Dharsha stilled under him, too well trained in the art of enduring pain not to accept that command. He trembled though, the hurt welling under his skin like boils eager to burst. He felt faint with it, but perhaps he'd already slept too long for darkness to come back and mercifully dull the torment. He laid there, under Caled's weight, hearing the harshness of the man's breath, the rapid beat of his heart. A frightened man, Dharsha thought of a sudden. A man that had taken a great risk rescuing a stranger not even of his own species and had five angry men out for both their blood because of it. Five angry men who knew this wood and had no qualms about getting blood on their hands. Dharsha nodded under the clamp of Caled's hand and clenched his jaw against the pulsing waves of pain as blood flowed freely back into formerly constricted flesh. Caled's hand eased and he rolled over, lying in the muted darkness next to the neko, making no noise save the sound of his breath. Dharsha shut his eyes and endured, distracting himself from the pain by listening to the sounds of the snow covered forest. He heard the quiet rustling of the trapper's animals. The occasional thump of

snow falling from trees onto the ground. The flap of distant wings as some night hunting bird sought prey. More distant still, the chatter of some small animal rustling in its burrow. He could track it to its home, if he wanted - - a game neko children played that honed the skills of the hunters they were all born to be. It had been a long time since he'd stretched his senses. A long time since he'd thought about home and the joys of adolescence. He'd still be in his mother's den now - - still able to engage in such games - - still a young male whose path in life was undecided. Whether he was to go the path of the intellect or the path of the warrior dependent on that spurt of growth that came with full maturity. If he were still home. If. Useless to dwell on what should have been. The pain gradually receded, no greater, or no worse than the other aches that dwelt bone deep in his body from the beating he'd gotten that evening. He drew a breath of relief, the air in the lean to strong with the smell of dog and leather and the subtle musky scent of the trapper. Caled lay warm and still beside him, breath deep and even in sleep, content it seemed to let the dog's sharper senses warn of anyone venturing too close to the little shelter. A neko hunter, well versed in his craft, would be equally well equipped to detect the subtle sounds of danger even during sleep. Dharsha had only just begun to go out into the vast green forests of home with his older cousins and learn the craft. He bit his lip, as the longing for home reared up again and tried to lay still, with the trapper on one side and the dog against his legs on the other. Eventually he slept again, and his vaunted neko senses, so long subdued into dormancy, did him no justice, for when he woke, the darkness had faded into wan filtered light, and both trapper and dog were absent from the lean to. Dharsha made to sit up, but his body resisted, a flurry of aches driving him back down into the warm furs. He groaned and lay there, staring up at the translucent places where the light shone through the canvas and snow covered lean to ceiling. He gingerly reached down and touched his testicles. There was some soreness around the loose skin of the base where the twine had bruised flesh, but his testicles seemed no worse for wear from near castration. His cock even twitched a little from the handling, as if it sensed there would be no repercussions from the act now that he was free of the woodsmen. He ran a tentative finger up the underside of his cock and shut his eyes at the shudder of sensation. At the rustle of movement in the snow outside he hastily yanked his hand away, an instinctive flash of fear making his heart thud. He struggled to his elbows as the trapper crawled in past the flap of the lean to. Caled nodded, a barely perceptible motion, seeing Dharsha awake. With his fur cap on and his big coat, the man seemed to take up so much more space than he did when he was just in trousers and shirt and stretched out still and quiet with exhaustion. "There's no sign of them venturing near, but with morning light they'll likely be more energetic in their search." He rummaged in one of the packs crowded in the small space and pulled out a pair of trousers. His own obviously. A valuable second set of clothing for a man alone most of the time in the wilderness. He offered them, grim faced, and Dharsha made haste shedding the makeshift boots and shrugging into the pants. They fit, surprisingly well. A little loose but then Dharsha had been living on scraps for a very long time. His tail was a problem.

Caled frowned, pale eyes narrow with annoyance and took a knife to the seam at the back, splitting it down to make room for Dharsha's tail, then hastily making eyeholes and lacing the edges back together above with a strip of thin rawhide. "I'm sorry," Dharsha said, fearing this man's displeasure almost as much as he feared the violence of the woodsmen. Caled flattened his lips and tied off the rawhide. He thrust a shirt, from the same pack at Dharsha and crawled out of the lean to. Not a pleased man at all then, at the inconvenience Dharsha had caused him. Dharsha pulled on the shirt hastily, wincing at the pain of a cracked rib. He refastened the fur boots and crawled outside. Caled was already sweeping the snow and leaves from the canvas topping the lean to and Dharsha helped, untying the canvas, shaking it out and folding it up while the trapper unhobbled his animals. The dog paced in the snow, as eager it seemed as her master to be on her way. "Up," Caled instructed when he'd fastened the last of his packs upon the smaller horse, a mountain of bundled furs and packs atop a sturdy legged little mare. "I can walk," Dharsha said softly, hating to ride when the trapper walked. Hating to be an inconvenience. "Get on the damned horse." Caled snapped, impatience making his voice sharp. Obedience was too ingrained a habit to ignore, when an order was given in such a tone. Dharsha ducked his head and scrambled up onto the waiting horse. She shifted under him, casting a look back with large, patient eyes. Caled started moving, leading the horses along before Dharsha had fully settled in the saddle. The neko clutched at the coarse black mane and clenched his thighs, searching out stirrups and awkwardly shoving thick fur covered feet into them for purchase. They headed north, following no path Dharsha could discern. It was the snow that confused him, concealing all the tiny details. It never snowed at home, the forests forever warm. But Caled knew the way, it seemed, for he seldom faltered in his stride. Nor did he seem inclined to talk, all his breath horded for the walk through sometimes knee-high snow. With the passage of hours, Dharsha began to hope that there would be no pursuit from the woodsmen. A warm feeling of freedom began to uncurl, loosening the despair that had knotted his insides for so very long. Or perhaps it was only the absence of pain. The throbbing in his genitals had dissipated and the bodily aches were the sort of distant numb that could easily be ignored. He nodded off, body picking up the rhythm of the horse, instinctively finding balance. Perhaps it was some lingering nightmare that roused him, or perhaps he was so used to interrupted sleep at the hands of the woodsmen, or it might be simply hypersensitive neko awareness that broke through his doze and made the hairs inside his ears twitch. He blinked, startled at the uneasy sensation and sat up straight trying to discern what it was that had roused him. The trapper walked ahead, shoulders slouched, head covered in a long flapped, fur cap. The horses seemed unconcerned. The dog was nowhere in sight. And yet there was something . . .

Dharsha canted his head, ears pricked and heard the faintest muffled rustling of movement in snow. The faintest musky smell of damp fur and earth tones. The scent, once he picked it up was so clear that almost he saw images in that area between nostril and eyes. Porcine he thought. "There's something," he hesitated to voice his discovery, thinking the presence of some forest grub eater might be of little interest to a man making all haste to cover ground. Caled hesitated, looking back at him, then scanning the direction Dharsha indicated, eyes like pale morning sky in the shadow of his hood. "Where?" "There," Dharsha started, then hastily grasped the mane of his mount as the horse tossed her head, as did the other pack animal, eyes suddenly white around the edges, ears twitching as they picked up finally the scent that Dharsha had already discovered. Caled's hand moved to the knife at his side, even as something small and dark trundled out from the brush far up the invisible trail they followed. Another small thing followed it, both their noses brushing the snow and Dharsha breathed a sigh of relief. There was no threat, for these were young animals. Similar looking to the forest pigs that lived at the edges of the woods at home, surviving on grubs and fungi and the tender grasses at the edge of woodland and field. Skittish, sky animals that presented no challenge for hunters. "Damn," Caled whispered under his breath, hand still on the hilt of his skinning knife. Dharsha looked to him, uncertain. The trapper's face was tense, his mouth tight. He whistled once, a short bird-like trill as he his eyes scanned the surrounding underbrush. The young pigs shuffled forward a few more paces, blunt snouts digging through snow, before one of them noticed their presence and squealed in fear. Caled swore softly and tugged on the horse lead, even as something much larger than the two piglets crashed through the brush. A mountain of bristly black fur broke through the bramble, small, red-rimmed eyes and sharp twisting tusks dominating a scarred face. There was some resemblance to the forest pigs of Dharsha's homeland, but the thing outsized them thrice over, standing as tall a man's ribs at its sloping shoulders. A mama boar perhaps, by its protective nature, and bristling mad at the threat to her young. The packhorse reared, whinnying in fear and its back legs slipped out from under it in its desperation to scramble away in the snow. It overbalanced the horse Dharsha rode, and the mare jostled for footing. Dharsha felt her going down and in fear of being trapped beneath her when she fell, launched himself from the saddle. He landed easily enough, crouching in the snow, hearing the shriek of the horses, the cries of the man, the mad bellowing of the boar as she charged, her gaze fixed on him, suddenly the closest target. He froze, suddenly helpless in the face of danger. For so very long the instinct to fight back, to defend himself against harm had been systematically beaten out of him - - so that now, with his very life threatened, he found he could not make his limbs move. Natural neko reflexes numbed by the ingrained conditioning of cruel men. Something slim and dark darted past him, yapping insistently. The hound, which bounded this way and that snarling and snapping at the startled boar. A loud, quick distraction that drew the mama boar's attention from Dharsha.

He stared, wide-eyed as the dog narrowly missed life-threatening gouges by those deadly tusks, the cacophony of noise swirling about him like a storm, with him, motionless at its center. His clan brother, by his father's first wife was a renowned hunter/warrior. Dharsha had seen him once, when he'd been a cub defeat a wyvern three times his size with nothing but claws and teeth. He curled his fingers, claws blunt against his palms. Filed claws, almost neutered - - he was nothing like those fierce neko hunters. He couldn't even make himself move while the dog danced around a bloodthirsty beast scant feet away. The dog yipped, flipped onto her back as the boar got in a lucky hit, and blood trailed in an arch between dog and tusk as the boar whirled, ready to tear into the closest remaining flesh. There was a clap of sound. A flare of light and the boar staggered, wheezing, one stout leg crumbling in the snow, the others following. It lay, dark and dead against the white, no blood leaking from its hide, just a singed hole in its shoulder. The smell of burnt flesh assaulted Dharsha, along with the faint acrid scent of sulfur. He turned, blinking, towards the source of the sound. Saw Caled standing spay-legged, breathing hard, with a dark metal tube in his hands, the likes of which Dharsha had never seen. Caled drew a breath, another, then hissed, and scrambled through the snow towards the dog. She struggled gamely to her feet, whining, tail thumping desperately, as if she were embarrassed about letting an oversized pig get the better of her. She had gash along her side, but it seemed shallow. "Go after the damned horses," Caled growled and Dharsha blinked again, the ability to move slowly returning to him, realizing that indeed neither of the two horses were in the immediate vicinity. Dharsha warily stared down at the metal tube wedged in the trapper's belt. It had a grip of sorts, molded to fit a man's hand and strange patterns engraved along the metal. "Move, damnit!" Caled had pulled a cloth from his pockets and was staunching the worst of the bleeding while the dog sat there, shivering and whining, impatient, Dharsha thought, to be prowling and sniffing around the boar's carcass. The two piglets had long disappeared. Dharsha flinched and pushed himself up. Forced to himself to focus on the horse scent and the sounds of horse bodies moving through snow muted forest. There were tracks of course, but the scent was easier to follow and they hadn't wandered far. They recognized him and his own smell when he approached, murmuring soft promises of meaning them no harm. They seemed no worse for wear, even the one who'd been lame only days past. He led them back, afraid to meet the trapper's eyes, ashamed and embarrassed at his cowardice. This man's goodwill meant everything and he had tarnished it. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, while the trapper rummaged in a pack and came out with a jar chalky paste. Caled snorted, angry still, and crouched to smear the thick residue across the gouge on the dog's side, then he patted her on her flank and released her from immobility. She sprang up and began sniffing about the brush, ignoring her pain, as animals tended to. The trapper moved to the boar, drawing his knife. He hacked off a haunch with practiced ease, and stuffed fresh meat into a weathered leather pouch. "Come," he said sharply, to either Dharsha or the dog, or both, and led the horses at a fast pace up the slope they'd been traveling. Both neko and canine followed obediently in his wake, Dharsha's ears flattening and pricking and flattening again in his shame.

But it was a different sort of shame than what he was used to. Not the sort that made him want to slit his wrists, but the sort that made him desperately want to do better. That made him desperately want to impress this man and prove his worth. They walked for a good ways, while the shadows began to lengthen and turn purple with evening. Finally, Caled spoke without turning his head to look back at Dharsha trailing behind in the trench made by the horse's passage. "It wasn't your fault." Dharsha said nothing, not entirely sure if a response was expected of him. Not entirely sure that he wasn't somehow at fault. "You heard them before the horses. No small feat," Caled continued. "Those ears of yours are for more than show, then." Dharsha supposed that compared to Caled's small pink ears, his own tall tufted ones were indeed more sensitive. He swallowed though, afraid that Caled, like the woodcutters would condemn him as no better than an animal because of them. Ears and tale and claws that made him different than the men of this land. "If your former masters were to close in upon us - - you would hear them from some distance as well, then?" Dharsha looked up in surprise and nodded. He had been able to hear those men through the walls of the log cabin, crashing through the forest on the way back home half an hour before they reached it. He would most certainly be able to pick them up in the wilds with nothing but snow and trees between them and him. Perhaps he had a use after all. "Then you listen out," Caled suggested. "If they were within a mile distance of us, they would have heard the sound of the gun." "Was - - was that what that was? The thing you used?" Dharsha hesitated to ask. Caled glanced back at him, blue eyes considering. "It was. I would suggest you never bring up its usage in casual conversation with strangers you meet. Some magics are - - less than favorably accepted among the masses." "Magic?" Dharsha's eyes grew round. Tales of western magics were told in whispered tones around the clan fires. The neko practiced none of their own. "The bastard child of it and techcraft." Caled shrugged, apparently not willing to go into detail. Then thought better of it and added. "Runerounds are few and far between. If you find yourself in the path of a predator again - - do us both the favor of running." Dharsha blushed in humiliation and nodded. Another hour and they reached a small structure that Dharsha never would have noted, had Caled not approached it. Sturdy limbs lashed together, the cracks stuffed with bramble and camouflaged with vines formed a more permanent lean-to shelter. The weathered quality of the wood suggested it had been here for many seasons. A welcome shelter perhaps, for travelers in the know, making the trek down from the mountains to the cities along the coast. The neko picked up the faint, lingering smell of dog and horse and man. Familiar scents belonging to Caled and his animals. They had stopped here then, on their way down.

"Unpack the horses," Caled told Dharsha. "There is cloth to rub them down and grain in the burlap sack there." Dharsha nodded wordlessly, relieved to have a task. The trapper gave the dog a command and she sat in the lee of the lean-to where the snow was a bare sprinkling on the ground and waited, then the man retreated into the wood, back the way they had come. Dharsha was not entirely sure if the dog had been directed to stay here to protect the campsite or to guard against him attempting to make off with the trappers horses and gear. For a moment, Dharsha listened to the muffled sounds of the trapper's careful movements in the forest, then he took a breath and began his assigned task. He stowed the packs inside the lean-to, portioned out grain for each of the horses before taking a cloth to their sweaty coats. They munched and twitched while he worked, great gusting horse sighs released into feeding sacks when he reached sensitive spots. They were appreciative of his efforts. The dog pushed her nose close when he was finished, perhaps looking for some bit of attention herself, and Dharsha stiffened, caught off guard by a sudden flash fear/revulsion. He had too many terrible memories of dogs - - of a dog - - nosing its way into his personal space with the expectation of things he had no desire to give. It was enough for a neko to form a permanent distaste for the species. But it hadn't been this dog - - who had put herself between him and a maddened mama boar and taken injury because of it. The dog bristled, showing the hint of teeth as she sensed his turmoil. He took a breath, blew it out and held out a hand for her to sniff. Her ears flicked, black nose twitching. "I understand," he said softly, somberly, carefully laying a hand on her head between her floppy ears. "That you are not responsible for the actions of your brethren." She canted her head, staring up at him with quizzical brown eyes. Her tongue lolled and her tail thumped twice against the ground. Forgiven then, for his sleight. She jerked her head out from under his hand, hearing the man's approach, even as Dharsha did. Caled trekked through the snow, obscuring his tracks as he came with an evergreen frond. "I've created a false track and hidden the true one," he said, discarding the branch as he moved to check the condition of his horses. "I think a small fire would be safe and I've a mind to take advantage of fresh pork." There was dry firewood inside the shelter and the fire was easily made. The warmth and the flickering orange flame in the shadows of evening were a welcome thing. Caled cut strips of meat with practiced ease, threaded several onto a sharpened stick to grill. The rest he portioned up and folded back up in his pouch. They sat on opposite sides of the little fire in silence, while water brewed in a small tin pot for tea, with meat sizzling over the flames. Even as a free neko youth Dharsha had never been much for idle chatter, but the quiet now was deafening. Caled seemed comfortable enough with it, though. Caled seemed very much at home with his own thoughts, as any man might, who lived his life bereft of company that shared the capacity for speech. Dharsha was adept at hiding his discomfort though, and quietly sat, observing the trapper in the growing darkness, neko vision well suited to picking out details in the dark.

There was a certain quality to man's face, under the growth of beard and the speckles of dirt that hinted at elegant growth of bone underneath. A young man, with smooth skin around the eyes and teeth that were white and healthy, even if they were blunt. The way he spoke - - when he spoke - was softly accented, more like the way the Lady formed her words, rather than the rough dialect of the woodsmen. "Why," he could no longer stand the silence and dared to venture a burning question. "Would you risk your life for me?" Caled's eyes shifted from the browning meat over the fire to Dharsha. Calm, blue speculation that made the hair on the neko's arms prickle. "I am occasionally known for rash decisions." A half smile, not quite self-deprecating curved the trapper's lips. "But there is slavery and then there is senseless cruelty and I've no taste for the latter. What they did to you - - there are laws that protect those sold into servitude against it." "Oh," Dharsha pulled his strip of meat out of the fire and picked at half cooked meat. The neko were not so many generations gone from preferring their meat bloody and still warm from the kill. The taste of it was wonderful, a moment of true bliss after so many months of surviving - - barely - - on the worst of the woodcutter's scraps. He shut his eyes to savor it, quelling the urge to gobble it down all at once. He was not an animal and did not wish to present that face to the man. "I don't make a habit of it," Caled qualified, breaking into Dharsha's silent savoring of the meat. "Of setting wrong's right when I stumble upon them." Dharsha swallowed heavily, nodding, wondering if Caled regretted his action. Hoping not. Desperately hoping not; this man's good will being as vital to him of a sudden as the air he breathed. He had failed in the most basic path to the respect of another male with his embarrassing and immobilizing fear in the face of the charging boar, but he knew another way. Had been taught another way to please a man that hard taught lessons had made him good at. One way or another, Dharsha would prove his worth to the trapper.

Chapter 12

There were too many thoughts crowding Dharsha's mind to allow easy sleep. Odd, that when he'd been under the woodsmen's care, only pain and discomfort had curbed his slumber. He had reverted very much to the state of mind of the animal they had thought he was, living from moment to moment with no inclination for deep thought. Now that he was free of them, he could not stop himself from dwelling on all manner of things. Troublesome things. Not least among them, fear that the trapper would abandon him as soon as they were far safe from the woodsmen's reach. And here in this snowy, mountainous land, Dharsha thought he would die. Granted, neko hunters were a solitary lot, but then Dharsha was not a neko hunter. Dharsha had never left the protection of the clan, other than that one fateful time, never gone through the rites of passage that would prove him a neko male capable of surviving on his own in the great wilds. Perhaps he never would have, always staying protected within the family, dedicating his life instead to clan based things like so many of the smaller, weaker males. No shame there. If a neko were not physically capable of competing with his fiercer brethren it was the way things were meant to be. He would not be reviled for it, simply shown another path. He had two brothers who were artisans and a

great uncle who was a clan taleteller of great repute. He'd heard his mother and his aunts discussing of him, the hope for a similar path. But he, as young cubs tended to wish for, had dreamed of becoming a hunter. A dominant male with claws longer and teeth sharper and mane fuller than any clan bound male that spent his life in the company of females. No neko hunter would have allowed himself to be subjected to the things Dharsha had endured, though. A neko hunter would have ripped the throats out and fed on the guts of those miserable human men with their blunt teeth and soft fingers. Dharsha had simply let it happen. And that was a shame almost greater than he could bear. That and the fear that this human hunter that had saved him, though blunt toothed and soft fingered, was still hunter enough to have little patience with the ineptness of a neko clan male. Dharsha listened to Caled's even breathing as he slept; to the dog's whimpers as she twitched by their feet, chasing dream game. The horses outside were quiet, shifting together to share warmth, just as Dharsha lay close to Caled under a shared fur in the same pursuit. There was silence beyond, snow muffled and huge. But beneath it lay the very subtle sounds of life. He concentrated and heard the rustling of some small forest animal, rooting in the snow. The flap of an owl's wings as it swooped down and proved itself the predominant hunter of night. The fall of the very snow itself, if he concentrated enough. Not a sound, he thought that even a neko hunter of great repute could claim to have heard, the warm jungles of home. He shut his eyes and breathed in the man's scent. Honest sweat mixed with the smell of dog and horse and leather. Pungent compared to the scent of a neko, but not unpleasant. Not the acrid stench that had wafted about the woodsmen. He shivered and buried closer and Caled murmured in his sleep, shifting to accommodate him. The dog lay dead to the world, limp and snoring and half draped across their legs. She was a better hunter than Dharsha. More of a benefit by far than he to the trapper as she'd proved with the mama boar. Dharsha was nothing but an impediment and soon enough Caled's patience would dwindle and then Dharsha would be alone. Abandoned. He had one skill though, and the woodsmen had instructed him well in it. A man alone in the mountains might appreciate him for it. A man alone in the mountains might have saved him with that reason in the back of his mind. As much as he might cringe at the thought of touching another living thing intimately - - or Spirit's forbid being touched by one again - - he was well used to swallowing disgust and making the sacrifice. And Caled was not so terrible to look at. Not so terrible to lie beside, as comforting even as a clanmate, when he was at rest. And Dharsha needed more than anything, the comfort of clan. He would do what needed doing, to ensure his welcome. Sleep eventually came, but it was fitful. He woke when the dog woke, momentarily frozen at the canine scent before he realized it was not the same scent as the dog at the cabin. He relaxed as she rose, slinking out of the shelter to do her business in the wood beyond. He heard the muffled sounds of her rustling through snow-covered brush afterwards, rooting about perhaps, for her breakfast. The light of early morning filtered through the hide and bramble of the lean-to and breath frosted faintly in the air before his face. But it was warm beneath the furs, close against the heat of Caled's body. He felt Caled stir, felt the quickening of his body as he drifted up out of sleep. There was beneath the furs the indication of early morning arousal. Dharsha was well used to the woodcutters drowsily summoning him to take care of similar occurrences. He pushed back the trickle of bile that came with

the memory of those occasions and reminded himself that this was a different man entirely. That this man's good will was something he craved as much as freedom itself. Already his hand lay upon the flat plane of Caled's stomach in the innocence of sleep. It was only a matter of sliding it down, beneath the folds of loosened trousers where warm flesh dwelled. Smooth flesh, with only a thin trail of hair leading down from the trapper's navel, to the thicker thatch that surrounded the base of his erection. And that was warm and solid under Dharsha's hand. A comfortable heft that throbbed with the beat of Caled's pulse. The trapper breathed out, a muttered moan escaping his lips and arched into Dharsha's touch. His hand moved down, covering Dharsha's from the outside of his trousers, pressing the length of his cock against his belly. Dharsha swallowed, feeling the ghost of his own organ stirring, surprised that it could after the recent punishment to that area. Surprised that it could, considering - - everything. But Caled stiffened before that ghost could become a whisper, hand stilling, breath catching as awareness chased away sleep. "Gods - - " he hissed, and jerked his hand away, jerked his body, scooting backwards as much as a man could under the tangle of covers in the cramped space of a tiny shelter. "What are you - -? Gods - -" The trapper thrust furs away, face reddening, crawling outside into morning chill, evidence of arousal still straining his pants. He stomped into the snow, muttering under his breath and Dharsha cringed, drowning in the sudden realization of his terrible mistake. He'd thought - - he'd truly thought - - that this would be expected of him. That this might be appreciated. That it had not was apparent and he rather wanted to melt away in the snow. The embarrassment he felt at that moment was greater than any he'd felt for any of the awful things he had been made to endure - - to perform - - for the woodsmen. Or at least, in the here and now of the moment, shame fresh and hot upon his skin, it felt that way. He raked hands through his hair, tugging at flattened ears, trying through will alone to turn back time and erase the blunder. But of course, time trudged on, Dharsha holding no such power. There was nothing to do, but venture outside. Cowering here like a cub still nursing at his mother's tit would gain him no advantage. He took a breath, forced his ears up, and crawled out into the snow. Whiteness momentarily blinded him and he squinted a moment while his pupils contracted and vision adjusted. The horses stood where they'd tethered them, a dusting of snow on thick pelts, the both of them eyeing Dharsha with patient equine expectancy. Caled was nowhere in sight, but Dharsha heard him in the woods not far away, heard the dog's more energetic movements. He took another breath, a cloud of mist forming before his mouth as he exhaled and sat about clearing new snow off the cold remains of last night's fire. He gathered fresh kindling and had the beginnings of a fire crackling by the time the trapper returned to camp, the dog on his heels. Caled stopped, bare hand on the powder-dusted bark of a young tree, clearly uncertain. Dharsha had never seen uncertainty on this particular man's face and he cast his attention firmly on the feeding of the fire, ears wanting very dearly to flatten against his skull. The dog, having no care for the discomfiture between neko and human, trotted into the camp, nosing Dharsha briefly, before she went to inspect the horses, both of which seemed well used to the guardianship of a dog. Caled moved towards them as well, retrieving packs suspended safely from tree limbs and portioning out grain for the both of them.

The silence was torturous and Dharsha had no stomach for it. He clenched his fists and whispered. "I'm sorry. I thought - -" "You thought wrong," Caled snapped not turning, fingers digging into the horse's thick winter pelt. Dharsha flinched as though struck. It felt as if a blow had hit. But, the trapper sighed then, a heavy sound, a put upon one, thick lashes flush against cheeks pale with cold as he turned. "I expect no payment from you," he said finally, choosing his words, looking up at Dharsha with those very blue eyes. "Not of that sort. Just don't hinder me and that will be thanks enough." Dharsha stared, trying to comprehend this man's generosity, when every other human he'd encountered in this land had expected more of him than he'd ever been willing to freely give. He nodded silently, warily. "We'll speak no more of it." Caled said, nodding to himself as if he needed to confirm the decision to himself. He was true to his word, going about the making of breakfast as if no mortifying mistake had been made. Melted snow heated for bitter tea and thin strips of boar roasted over Dharsha's fire. They cleaned up in silence afterwards. Caled instructing Dharsha to cover the fire pit with snow while he sat about bundling supplies and preparing the horses. He handed Dharsha the reins and set him in a direction, while he obscured trace of their passage in the snow, wiping their tracks away with a leafy branch. The silence continued as they walked heading always higher, into the mountains. Caled led the way, tromping through snow that sometimes drifted thigh high, while Dharsha trailed behind, taking advantage of the path cut by man and beast. Even through the boots Caled had fashioned for him, his feet numbed with cold. He thought he might hate snow. They stopped near noon, drinking frigid water from a small running brook. Caled passed him a strip of cold meat, cooked that morning and they leaned against trees, chewing silently. They finished and too soon, were on the trail again. Or whatever path Caled followed, for Dharsha saw no trail to speak of. But then, the snow obscured everything save tracks freshly made. "When does the snow go away?" he broke the morning long silence, finally, desperate to know the answer, and hoping that it was not 'never'. Caled walked for a while without answering, and Dharsha feared that he wouldn't, holding grudges that he'd promised not to, but eventually he asked a question of his own. "It's summer year long in your land, no?" Dharsha thought about that. There were hot seasons and then there were hotter seasons and then hot seasons when it rained non-stop it seemed. Things bloomed year round. There was never the need for heavy coats and gloves and boots to keep one's extremities from freezing off. "Its never cold. Sometimes the nights are cool after the rains come. Comfortable cool. Not this. When I came here - - on the ship - - it was warm too."

Caled was silent for a while, then he ventured. "You landed in Albarak, I'd imagine, and that's far enough south to enjoy warmer climates than these parts. This is a vast land, far larger than your own, if one can trust the maps. Warm lands to the south, cooler climes to the north. Beyond these very mountains lie deserts and beyond those endless plains lands." "You've traveled all of that?" Dharsha asked in awe, only ever having heard of such a thing as a 'desert' in the tales of travelers. "No. But there was a time when I indulged in a great deal of reading." Caled sounded wistful, and it had the edge of bitterness to it. It was hard to see his face past the hood of his jacket. Dharsha stopped trying when the man hunched his shoulders, burrowing himself deeper in the folds of his coat. He fell back, where the walking was easier through already trodden snow, thinking about books and wondering that a man might grieve the loss of them. The neko had very little need for written language; histories handed down on the tongues of taletellers. The Lady had had books. She had spent hours reading, eyes darting over tiny scribbled symbols that had no meaning to him, as lost to the world they told as neko children around the fire under the spell of a particuarly adept taleteller. He frowned, ears flattening of their own accord as he recalled her callous disregard. The distant interest in her eyes as she'd watched his abuse at the hands of the woodsmen that last time. He curled his fingers, stretching claws, and something strange curled in his gut that he had never before felt. A taut yearning for the taste of warm blood. For the feel of prey going down beneath him. The packhorse shied away a little, eyeing him with white-rimmed eyes and he stumbled, coming back to himself. He stood for a moment, heart pounding, blood rushing in a way that felt good for a change, in a way that had nothing to do with fear, then moved to catch up.

Chapter 13

They came to a trading post, after several days travel, high amidst the slopes of some nameless mountain. Caled seemed well familiar with it, and trudged through unbroken snow with renewed vigor as the small collection of buildings came into view. Not much to speak of, just a cabin, maybe twice the size of the one the woodcutter's lived in, a stable and a small outbuilding. It smelled of wood smoke and horse and something brewing though and the dog galloped forward, leaping and bounding through chest high snow. Caled paused before they'd cleared the tree line though, frowning through his light beard. "Here." He dug through his pack and came out with a hat lined with short fur, with flaps that came down on either side of the face. "Keep this on, and stuff your tail down the side of your pants. The market for rumor out here is as good as for furs, and there's no reason to spread tales about a neko traveling the highlands." Dharsha did as he was bid. Dropping his trousers and sliding his tail down the inside leg. The coat covered the hole in the back of the pants, but confined, his tail tended to twitch of its own accord and there was no help for it. He followed Caled up the trail the dog had made, and they tethered the horses in a recently cleared area outside the small stable. A man stomped out onto the covered porch as they were about it, generous belly and full grey peppered beard. "What, you back already?"

"Aye," Caled pulled off a glove and ran a bare hand through his hair. "Thought I might try Chesna instead." The trader's eyes traveled to Dharsha curiously, and Dharsha hunched his shoulders a little, huddling deeper in his coat. He had a reason to beware human men. Caled stepped forward, heading towards the porch steps, drawing the man's attention back to him and the pelts he taken from the packs. "I've a full load still and there's a fox fur or two that I'd trade to top off my supplies and buy dinner and a real bed for the night." The trader nodded, the merchant in him overtaking the curiosity. "Stable your horses then. There's stew warming and day old bread." Caled gestured to Dharsha to do just that. And Dharsha gladly enough took charge of the animals while Caled went inside the post to barter with the trader. The dog preceded him into the stable, taking stock of all the scents. Horse and mule and goat, though the mule scent was old and fading. There was one horse in a stall and a pair of nanny goats that the trader probably used for milk. A few hens peered down at him from the loft, softly clucking at the disturbance. There were a handful of empty stalls, and he unburdened the animals and did what he'd been taught, rubbing them down, before portioning out grain and leaving them in their stalls. He hesitated going into the trading post proper, his tail thumping nervously inside his pant leg at the prospect. But Caled was in there and he did not wish to make the man come out seeking him, so he steeled his nerves and climbed the steps to the post. He stomped snow off his boots before trying the door. It swung inwards into a room crammed with things. Baskets and blankets and beads and carvings, sacks of this and that, leather both raw and formed into gear. Furs and clothing and all manner of other things stuffed onto rough shelving or overflowing barrels. There was a counter upon which sat a pair of brass scales, and an assortment of other things. Behind it was a wall stocked with glass and ceramic bottles of liquid. There was a doorway behind the counter, from which the smell of something savory came. Caled stood on one side of the counter talking to the trader on the other. They both glanced at Dharsha when he entered. They were speaking of weather and passable trails. "The animal stays in the barn," the trader said sternly and for a fearful moment, Dharsha thought he was speaking of him, before he realized the dog had slipped in with him and stood with ears down at his side, as if she realized that she was due a night with no company but horses and goats. "Fair enough." Caled nodded at Dharsha and he reached down and patted the dog's head consolingly before opening the door and shooing her out. Caled beckoned him afterwards, and he followed the trapper through the door behind the counter to a small room that served as kitchen and dining room. There was hearth with a cast iron kettle hanging over it, and a battered wooden table. And leading off from that, a set of doors. Caled had apparently made use of this place before, for he seemed to know his way about. He ladled out two bowls of the stew and motioned Dharsha to a seat at the table. It was a foreign courtesy and likely the first time anyone in these human lands had invited him to sit and eat as a man might sharing the same table. Careful of his awkwardly positioned tail, he sat and hunched over the bowl. It was more meat than vegetable and even over cooked as it was, it was the best meal he'd had in memory. The trader came in with a ceramic jug and a set of scuffed mugs. He poured a clear, pungent smelling liquid into each, including one for himself. Caled downed a sip of his and winced, baring his blunt teeth. "Fresh from the still, Franc?" "What, too much of a bite for you?" The trapper chortled and downed all of his in one gulp without so much as a shudder.

Just the scent of the stuff made Dharsha's ears twitch under his hat. The flash of a grin touched Caled's lips, and he lifted the mug and took a healthy second swallow. "You not man enough to swig home brew, boy?" The trader, Franc, asked Dharsha and Caled gave him a look and shrug. Dharsha lifted the mug, and the liquid barely touched the back of his throat before he hissed softly and coughed, choking on the foul stuff. It was worse than some of the things the woodcutters had forced down his throat. He pushed the offensive stuff away, to the amusement of the two men. Caled drew the mug over, not prepared, apparently to let the stuff go to waste. "Take the bottle," Franc offered, heading back to the front of the post. "You know the drill, Cal and I'll trust you to leave the room as tidy as you found it come morning." Caled nodded, and sat for a while after, staring at the fire, Dharsha's mug between his fingers. Finally he rose, and nodded to Dharsha. "Come on." He pulled his coat back on, and Dharsha did the same, following him out to the stable, where they collected the packs and the dog and headed to the back of the post where a small outbuilding sat against the back of the main one. There was an oil lantern just inside the door and a little box of matches. Caled struck one against the doorframe and it flared to life. He lit the lantern and its warm glow showed a small, functional one room space. The dog pushed past, exploring everything as they shuffled in. There was a low wooden bed with a bare mattress. A roughly made cabinet. A table with a basin, a woodstove next to which sat a pile of tinder and split logs. One little window, the panes of which were frosted over. Dharsha dumped the packs, while Caled hurried over to light the woodstove. Dry tinder was fast to blaze and soon a cheerful fire crackled. "There's bedding in the chest." Caled directed, and sure enough there was. Well-worn sheets and thick blankets and pillows, protected from vermin and pests by cedar shelving and tight fitting doors. Caled piled snow in a large cast iron pot and placed it atop the stove to melt and warm while Dharsha made the bed. It was a small space and it did not take long for the heat from the stove to warm the air. Dharsha freed his tail and his ears and sat on the edge of the bed, idly petting the dog, while Caled rustled in his packs. "So - - you head to - - Chesna, now?" Dharsha asked. He had no idea where this place was and could only hope that Caled had no intention of abandoning him here to go there alone. "Good a place as any." Caled pulled out a leather bound kit. He poured the warmed water into the basin and put more on to melt. Then soaked a rag and began washing face and neck. He sighed, as if the washing were some great relief to him, and cast off his shirt to rinse his torso. In the light of the oil lantern, his skin seemed deep golden and marked with shifting shadow as muscle moved under skin. He had the fine, lean musculature of a man who indulged in a great deal of physical activity and yet ate sparingly. Caled took a swig from the bottle he'd brought with them from the main cabin, and let his fingers drift over a thin gleaming blade in a pouch in the kit. He made some decision finally, for he soaked his face again and took out the blade, scraping it along the coarse beard under his jaw. It was fascinating to watch. Though Dharsha had paid little enough heed to the Woodcutters sparse grooming habits, usually being forcefully occupied otherwise, watching Caled shave the hair from his skin was a reminder of how different their two races were. Neko bodies were covered in a fine, soft layer of fur. Sometimes so translucent that it was hard to differentiate with human skin. Sometimes,

as males grew into mature adulthood, the pelt might grow thicker and fuller. Most certainly manes would thicken, fine and luxurious and never would a blade touch them. The hair on Dharsha's body was the fine, thin growth of an adolescent, a pale golden coat that lay flat and soft against his skin. His mane was no fuller yet than any human man with a full head of hair, but it would grow and thicken as time passed. Perhaps never so full as his alpha male brethren, but even a clan bound male took pride in a fine mane. Caled finished with his shaving, wiping his face afterwards with the wet rag. He cleaned the razor and placed it back in the pouch, ever careful with his belongings. Even drenched in shadow, his face was considerably leaner without the scruff of beard. Dharsha made a point not to stare, and crouched by the woodstove with the dog while the trapper took a final swig from the bottle and snuffed the lamp flame. Dharsha's eyes were quick to adjust to the darkness. Quicker than the dog, whose tail thumped softly against the floorboards. It was warm enough by the stove and this dog better company by far than the last he'd shared residence with. He had no problem sleeping there, and allowing Caled the bed. The embarrassment of that morning some few days back and his terrible mistake still stung. Perhaps Caled sensed the root of his hesitation, for his voice came, soft and weary from the shadows of the bed. "Shared warmth is a more valuable commodity than preserving bruised pride." Dharsha drew breath, then another, then rose and crept towards the bed. The slats under the mattress creaked a little when he slipped in and he lay close to the edge, under the covers, afraid almost to move. "I've never paid for sex, or taken it against a partner's will," Caled said softly, the slightest of slurs in his voice, the slightest scent of that potent home brewed liquor on his breath. "And with you, with any man or woman forced to endure what you - - well, how could it be otherwise?" Dharsha was not entirely sure Caled expected a response. He had no notion what to say if he did. What he had endured - - it seemed some nightmarish thing that lurked always at the edges of his mind now. It crept up on him unawares during sleep or even wakefulness when he let his thought wonder. Caled did not repulse him. Far from it, really. But still, when the man brushed past unexpectedly, he could not control the flinch. The instinctive lurch of fear. So perhaps Caled's words were not so far from truth. "There was a time," Caled murmured, on to other topics. "That I slept nightly in beds far more hospitable than this, though admittedly never with so exotic a bedmate - -" he trailed off, turning on his side, his weak human eyes struggling in the dark to make out Dharsha. Weak human eyes, weak human sense of smell, blunt human teeth and nails, limited human durability. All of these things and still they managed to instill fear in their adversaries. One on one, there was little reason for a healthy neko to fear a human man. Dharsha turned his head to study Caled's smooth shaven face. "I'm sorry," Caled said and Dharsha had no idea for what. "It's not, you know, that I abhor the thought of a man in my bed - - for I don't - -" He was intoxicated. The woodcutters had often babbled when they were deep in their cups, admitting things they might regret later, and take out upon a hapless audience. Even the Lady had grown maudlin when she'd had one too many glasses of the sweet wine she liked to drink. "It's all right," Dharsha said softly. Caled sighed, and Dharsha noted that the smell of the liquor smelled sweeter on his breath than straight from the bottle.

"Why did you leave those comforts for this life?" He could not leave well enough alone, and it was rare for Caled to speak so much, or admit such personal truths. The trapper laughed. "There are many things that drive a man into the wilds. Many things." Not much of an answer. There were some personal truths that even liquor could not spur. Dharsha thought of his own people and the banishing of certain young males who did not have the sense to bow to clan hierarchy. "There are those of my people who lose themselves in the deep forests. Younger brothers or sons who seek to usurp the clan males. They can't help themselves when the urges hit sometimes, and become outcasts because of it." Caled threw an arm over his face and made a strangled sound, a laugh maybe. Hard to tell with the muffling of flesh and bone. "Then your people and mine are not so different after all." He finally said and buried his head in the pillow after, letting out a gust of air and falling, finally, into slumber.

Chapter 14

Dharsha woke early from habit. There was no in-between drowsiness for him, no moment of sleep washed confusion. That weakness had been driven from him at the hands of the woodsmen, who too often had taken pleasure in startling him out of slumber with cruel pranks. Awareness of his surroundings came in a quick moment of recognition. The trader's guest cabin. The smell of dog and human man. Caled's solid warmth next to him, parts of his body brushing Dharsha's beneath the covers, making his skin tingle. The faint sounds of the animals in the neighboring stable and the more distant ones of forest life. It was a good talent for a hunter to possess, he thought and surprised himself with the notion. A hunter. Him. He'd never held much hope for it, honestly. Nor had his mother or aunts, Dharsha being small and shy and tending towards more creative things as a child. At home, competing against more robust brethren, he might certainly have shied from that path, but here - Here, even young as he was, not fully matured, he was stronger and faster and keener of senses than human men. At least when he was properly fed and not beaten into submission. It was not so far fetched that a small neko might become a proficient hunter in the lands of men. His ears perked, lips twitching in a smile that had not touched them in a very long time. As long as it had been since he allowed himself to dream. The dog whined softly at him, poking her nose over the edge of the bed, then padding to the door expectantly. He slipped carefully out from beneath the covers and cracked the door to let her out to attend to nature's call. He felt the need himself and pulled the coat Caled had given him over his shoulders before slinking out himself. Handling himself to urinate brought no pain with it, the soreness having finally left his private parts. A fleeting wash of shame shuddered through him, remembering the morning ritual imposed upon him by the woodsmen. The humiliation of relieving himself as an animal might while they stood and laughed and urged that more hated dog to subjugate him as it would. He shook off the memory with a flick of his ears and hurried back inside the cabin, feet already numb from the snow. He put more wood in the stove. Slinking back to the warmth of the bed was a luxury that he hesitated to allow himself. Despite Caled's apparent dismissal of the embarrassing incident a

few mornings' past, Dharsha could not quite erase it from mind. And he found he liked, more than he ought, the feel of the man's smooth, hairless skin. A confusing thing and a dangerous one. So better he find other distractions. Better to putter about the tiny cabin, gathering snow to melt atop the woodstove and rummaging about the pack for the little pouches of tea and pungent coffee. He dressed while the water heated, carefully hiding his tail and ears, then went to restock the wood they had used from the snow covered stack outside, then to the stable to see that the horses got their morning measure of grain. The dog returned inside with him afterwards, body twitching, tail thumping, nose cold as snow itself when she shoved it under his palm. A friendly dog, with no issues of dominance. He hesitantly patted her head and her tail thumped all the faster. She abandoned him quickly enough, though, for her master, trotting to the low bed and shoving her nose under the covers. That roused Caled readily enough; wet, cold dog nose a startling jolt to snug comfort. A soft curse, aimed at the eager dog issued from beneath the covers and eventually a sigh and a moving back of furs. Caled blinked warily about the small room, no pleasant look upon his face. Dharsha well knew the foul temper of men who had partaken too much of drink the night before. He waited warily, recalling no few times when he'd been the victim of hangover induced cruelty. But Caled only scrubbed a hand across his face, fingers lingering to press against his temples, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. He smelled he scent of brewing coffee, Dharsha could tell, the moment he looked out from under his palm towards the woodstove, nostrils flaring. He took in other things. Dharsha's fully dressed form. The restocked wood. "Aren't you just damned chipper," Caled grumbled, no doubt feeling none of it himself. Dharsha found he did not take offense. Something even warmed a little inside him, a curl of amusement he'd not known he was capable of any more. "Will we break fast with the trader or shall I fix something from our own stock?" Caled glared blearily at him, jaw working, then shut his eyes and drew a deep breath. Calming stomach or nerves. "I've a mind for fresh bread. Go see if he has a loaf. Butter would be nice if he has it. And don't let him see your ears. I'm not in a mood to explain you." Dharsha nodded, grabbing his hat and pulling it down carefully over his ears. He tromped back out into the snow, the dog on his heels, and up the front porch of the trading post. He rapped politely on the door and entered at the bellow from inside. The trader rustled about in the back, in thick, wellpatched winter underwear and unlaced, fur-lined boots. Indeed he had bread from yesterday and butter, as well as a wheel of sharp cheese that he sliced a wedge from. All to be added to Caled's tab, he proclaimed, and gave Dharsha the bundle of wrapped food with a brown-toothed grin. When he got back, Caled was at the basin, in trousers and shirt and boots, hair a little wet from the water he'd splashed on his face. He'd already poured himself a tin of coffee and it sat, half consumed on the table next to him. They consumed the plain fare, Caled's appetite less than hearty, and wrapped the leftovers for dinner. Dharsha sat afterwards, waiting. His patience, he found had become a fine honed thing. "Ka Lamar is 10 days travel to the northwest," Calad finally said, having come to some decision. "The fur trade is not so good as Ponvar, but - - " he trailed off, thoughts drawing him inward. "I thought - -" Dharsha ventured. "You said Chesna?"

Caled's blue eyes flicked up. "If they come asking, that's what he'll tell them." Dharsha nodded once, understanding. Caled was still covering their tracks. They left before the sun was full high in the sky. Caled bargaining with the trader for a few more items to round out their supplies. Then it was back onto the trail, heading in the direction of Chesna, until they were well beyond the trading post. Then Caled took them off the trail, picking his way through dense woods. The dog romped easily across snow covered obstacles, but it was slow going for the horses, both Caled and Dharsha walking ahead of each, to uncover hidden pitfalls that might tangle with a horse leg and send an animal down. Dharsha found that the cold was not so uncomfortable now as it had been. Not so foreign as those wintry days when he'd been forced out into it naked, at the whim of cruel masters. Properly clothed and in better company, he discovered a beauty in these cold forests, no less poignant than that of the lush greenery of home. He hesitated to admit the feeling of light heartedness that crept over him as they traveled, for fear that it might be snatched away. But it wasn't, as the day progressed, and he even ventured to ask Caled about this or that in regards to these northern forests and Caled answered agreeably enough. They ate bread on the trail, and hard cheese, washing it down with mouthfuls of clean snow. The dog caught a large rodent and came back with a blood spattered muzzle and a happily wagging tail. The blood smell sent little tingles of some primal excitement racing under Dharsha's skin. The idea of the hunt was appealing, though strangely enough he'd never felt those prickly urges before, when he'd been younger in the forests of home. A sign of onrushing maturity, perhaps. He did not know, having no mother and aunts to explain it. They reached what might have been a game trail for some fleet footed mountain creature, come evening. A narrow path along the concave edge of a ravine that Caled wanted safely across before darkness fell. The trail to Ka Lamar, he said, lay a day's walk on the other side and the place itself another six days lying well within the foothills. It was blanketed with snow and uncertain footing for the horses, so Caled instructed Dharsha to wait with the animals, while he took a stout stick and tested the way first. Dharsha leaned against the shoulder of the docile pack animal while the trapper carefully made his way around the curving trail, testing for the edge with the stick, dislodging snow and ice as he went. The dog sat with Dharsha, unmindful of the snow as she bent to the task of scratching behind one ear. A muffled creaking made Dharsha's ears prick, and a moment later Caled cried out the white under his feet crumbling. He made a frantic grab for the cliff as his footing slipped away, but there was nothing to grab. He fell and only just caught at some outcropping of rock at the very edge, cutting the plunge short and leaving him dangling by one gloved hand off the edge of the trail. It was no solid grip and even as Dharsha moved towards the trail to help, the man's gloved fingers slipped on ice crusted rock. There was no time for anything but the most drastic of efforts. Twenty-five across the chasm. A neko in his prime might make the leap. Dharsha had no time to consider his chances. He simply bolted for the edge, bunched his muscles and launched himself into the air. The face of the cliff loomed up, a narrow, uncertain snow covered landing did. He might have landed better if his tail had been free to act as a balancer, as it was, one foot landed solidly, the other slipped, but only marginally as he extended a hand and dug his claws into Caled's coat as the man lost his grip. Dharsha forced his weight backwards, dragging Caled with him. The man was not so heavy that Dharsha found it impossible to drag him up over the edge one handed. They toppled backwards, against the rock wall, and lay entangled afterwards, breath coming hard and fast.

"Claws," Caled gasped after a moment and Dharsha realized his hand still gripped the trapper's forearm, claws biting deep through thick rawhide and fur and into the flesh beneath. Gingerly he relaxed his hand and the faint scent of blood tainted cold air. Caled let out a breath and closed his eyes, dropping his forehead onto Dharsha's shoulder while his pulse slowed. Dharsha's own blood still beat harshly under his skin, stirred by the fear and his feat and very likely the scent of blood and waning human fear. Caled's scent, period. Clean and musky and unique. Compelling. The closeness was compelling in a way that it had not been before, when Dharsha had been willing to endure for the sake of shelter. He felt a tingling now in his nether parts that had nothing to do with sacrifice and everything to do with the heat of honest desire. Or perhaps it was merely the exhilaration trilling in his veins. "Clet's blood," Caled breathed, pushing himself up finally, to look over his shoulder across the chasm that Dharsha had leapt. "You leapt from there to here?" Dharsha shrugged, feeling an odd lack of humility. "It seemed the thing to do." Caled shook his head, giving the crumbled edge where he'd fallen a dark look. "I think we'd best look for a safer route as this one appears unreliable." He pushed himself up, back to the wall and held out a hand for Dharsha. Dharsha took it and let the trapper help haul him up. "Thank you," Caled said softly when they'd returned to the horses and had solid ground under them. "I've often enough envisioned a lonely death up here, the highlands holding little in way of mercy for man, and I would have met it today, if not for you." If not for him, Caled would never have been on this trail heading to a destination not of his choosing, but Dharsha refrained from saying it, knowing well enough that Caled was aware. He nodded. "It would have been easier with my tail." Caled lifted a brow questioningly and Dharsha explained. "It helps with the landings. Among other things. Walking with it stuffed down my pant leg is - disconcerting." "By all means, take it out then. They'll be few enough travelers till the foothills to take notice. And none past that on the lookout for runaway slaves." Dharsha nodded, grateful and did just that.

Chapter 14

The gates to Ka Lamar looked the same they had when last Caled had passed through them. A decade past at the very least, but the imposing stone archway over the main city entrance had weathered no less stoically than the mountainous granite that it had been hewn from. Caled himself was much changed from the boy he had been when he'd left Ka Lamar for the last time, the human body far less immune to the passage of time than stone. But that was no small favor, since none would be likely to connect a stubbled, grim eyed trapper from the highlands to the oh so different young man he had been.

He'd kept his distance out of a healthy sense of self-preservation these past years, but it seemed of late that he'd reached some turning point, for he'd taken more risks these past weeks than he had since the unfortunate events that had cast him upon his current life. The neko seemed to bring it out in him. The neko with his bruised eyes and his soft mouth, and the fascinating texture of skin covered in a silken coat of fur so fine it was almost imperceptible as such. The neko with his feline grace and his shy earnestness and his oh so great need not to be cast upon the cruel mercy of 'civilized' human men. Dharsha followed him now, tail tucked back into his trousers, ears hidden under his cap, trusting. Not knowing what folly Caled committed coming within a dozen miles of Ka Lamar. And Caled led him here, knowing full well and - - not caring. Perhaps he'd simply lost the fear of death, living so long alone in the wilderness. Whatever the reason, he passed under the stone arch, by the casual gaze of the gate guardsmen and into the mining city of Ka Lamar. The main avenue was broad and cobbled with large flats of stone. The houses were of similar sturdy construction, the roofs tiled with tin or copper, gleaming in the sun. The buildings rose towards the city center, tall and blocky. It was not a graceful city, not compared to Genair at the coast or the Imperial city at Tri-river. But it was rich and it was ruled by the most powerful of the mercantile families. The mining and export of metals, both precious and industrial was a lucrative business. The tents of merchants lined the streets, hawking wares. The smell of a hundred different foods permeated the air as well as the fouler odor of the smelts drifting in from the east where the factories lay. The neko walked beside him, wide eyed, nostrils flaring as he took in sight and sound and smell. Even had he shown ears and tail, he'd have been safer here than he'd been at the coastal city where he'd entered into the human world. Slavery was not frowned upon here, but it was of a different nature. The hard labor kind. Slaves and bondsmen worked the mines, but few if any were used for the purposes Dharsha had been bought and sold for. There were plenty enough free men and women who practiced that trade here. A man or woman sold into slavery for debt or crimes against the city might work their way to freedom. Hard work, yes, but not the surrendering of all dignity. A man that paid his debt might hold his head high for the doing of it. Caled found a vendor of fine furs and leathers and bartered for the sale of his remaining stock. Furs were not in short supply here, as they were closer to the coast, but he had trapped very high and had no few exceedingly fine pieces. They came to an agreement of price, while Dharsha and Pell wondered the stalls outside the furrier, the dog on a leash to keep her well out of trouble that might attract more notice than Caled wished. He pocketed his profits and left with two unburdened horses. Dharsha found him quickly enough, nervous at being left to his own devices among so many human folk. Almost, Caled considered heading right back out the city gates and back to the mountains, but his hackles rose a little at the thought of letting fear of decade old transgression chase him from a city he'd known inside and out, once upon a time. The folks that knew him were unlikely to happen upon him in a lowtown tavern and even if they had, they'd likely not spare the 'new' him a second glance. He'd a craving for a real bath, not one taken at a basin or in haste at an ice-cold stream. And the neko would benefit from a pair of boots crafted to fit his feet instead of those strung together from scraps and rawhide. It was the least he could do to buy a pair, in repayment for his life. So they stopped at a boot maker along Tailor's Row. Dharsha blinked, and Caled imagined his ears flattening under the cap, when he realized they'd made the trip for him. He was reluctant to sit down and let the boot maker unwrap his homemade boots to measure his feet for new ones and he perched, entirely uneasy as the man did so. He kept casting Caled uncertain glances, and Caled, unrefined in the art of overcoming the timidness of chance traveling companions, turned his attention to a display of fine leather belts and left Dharsha to deal with the discomfort on his own. The elderly boot smith was hardly intimidating and a pair of boots no particularly extravagant gift. Simply a practical one.

The neko had long, slightly odd shaped feet. Narrow at the heel, but wide at the ball of the foot, with long toes. The better for heroic leaps and landings, Caled thought, but not so much for the buying of off the rack boots that would fit comfortably. The boot smith would most certainly make a pair, since Caled was offering good silver, but they would not be ready till the following morning. It was excuse enough to ignore common sense and linger in the city. But then he'd never had much common sense when the influences of Ka Lamar were upon him. They left the boot smith's and he looked longingly south, where the buildings rose taller, and gleamed with more than copper at their rooftops. Where wealth flowed like mountain streams in the summer and the pleasures to be had were limitless, for those with the monies to purchase them and the influence to spark creativity. He turned his gaze away with an effort, heading east instead, towards the taverns and shops and hostels that catered to the working class. No self-respecting South sider would be caught slumming there. He found a hostel. One that boasted of in room tubs and running water. It was a temptation Caled could not pass by. He'd gone too many winters without, banished to the cold highlands, to ever pass up the chance at a warm bath when it came his way. Dharsha was unimpressed by the large copper tub when they unlocked their room, but he was intrigued by the water that appeared from pipes to fill it with a turn of knob. He watched that with ears pricked forward and head cocked. Caled smiled at it, moved despite himself at the simple fascination of modern luxuries. Dharsha's 'innocence' despite his time as a slave was a rare, precious thing. A dangerous thing in the world of men. Caled rather thought he'd been born lacking the quality, but then most likely that trait had been bred out of his own family line generations ago. He took first bath, not generous enough to forgo pristine warm water when hot water would not be limitless in a place like this. Dharsha hardly seemed to mind, finding things to occupy himself with the window over looking the street. A busy street no doubt with the evening shifts from the smelteries letting out. He rose to step out and caught the neko looking his way, quick assessment from under thick lashes, before he jerked his gaze back to the window. Caled remembered, as he'd remembered no few times since the incident, Dharsha's warm hand on his dick and the firm press of his body. A man who'd spent the winter alone in the highlands damned sure hadn't the presence of mind to forget such things, fine intentions or no. Perhaps he might find a willing body tonight, one that might not rouse feelings of guilt from the partaking, to quench those desires. "Take your turn while the water's warm," he suggested. He'd already shown Dharsha the workings of the plumbing, so turned his attention to dressing. Just leathers and his finest shirt, the one only patched thrice over, and his belt with the knife he never went willingly without nowadays and his pouch of coin. He felt naked, almost, heading out with so little. He'd been in the mountains too long. "I'll be out for a while. Go downstairs for supper and have it charged to the room. If you have scraps, take them to the stable for the dog, so she doesn't whine the night through." The neko nodded silently, large solemn eyes fixed on his face. It made him shiver a little, the looks Dharsha gave him sometimes. Grateful looks. Hopeful ones. Yearning ones. Sometimes wary, as if he feared Caled might abandon him to continue on with the life the neko had interrupted. He might have, when he'd been younger and still angry at the world. He might have now, should have by all rights, save for the damned niggling little feeling of empathy. Of connection. He retreated from the inn, pushing Dharsha from his mind, intent on finding thorough diversion. He knew where to find it. The scarlet district hadn't changed an iota since he'd last visited it. Same whores, different faces. He just wasn't in the position to visit the most exclusive houses now. Even if he'd had the means, there would be those who'd recognize his face, even with ten years weathering.

The scarlet district was sprawling though, filled with more than just houses of ill repute, and busy at this time of evening. He walked the cheap end, avoiding the unsavory brothels, the darker, smaller ones where a man might leave with more than he came with, or the one's where he might not leave at all. There were moderate houses with moderate whores. Clean places where a man might find girl or a boy, depending on mood. He found he was rather in the mood for a boy, but the one's hawking their wares were less than alluring. Hard expressions beneath contrived innocence. Consummate actors, these. Not nearly so appealing as . . . he frowned, realizing where his subconscious had taken him. What subtle comparisons he was making and with whom. He shook his head, passing the young men by and looking for a woman. Soft breasts and round hips would take his mind off things he'd rather not dwell on. He found a clean little house, and the girls presented themselves under the watchful eye of the mistress and the beefy slab of muscle lounging in the corner, who served as house protection. He might have come in straight from the mountains, filthy and bearded and they'd have accepted him with a smile, for silver was silver, no matter whose hand it came from. But he was fresh from a bath and with clean hair, the glints of red and gold shown through, and only a stubble of beard darkened his jaw. There'd been a time he'd been no small bit vain of his looks and with good enough reason. Ten years hadn't changed him that much. The smiles directed at him were genuine. The girl he picked had dark hair and large, high breasts, dark nipples showing through the thin gauze she wore draped across her body. Soft belly, round hips, long legs. She would do. She took his hand and led him upstairs to the private rooms. Foreplay wasn't required here, nor was he inclined to practice it with a woman who probably serviced half a dozen men or more in a night. He stripped the gauzy tunic off and palmed the heavy breasts, thumbs circling the big nipples. She pressed against him, moaning and it might have been contrived, probably was, because he'd been too long without a woman to be particularly clever in his handling of her. They fell upon the bed, and she opened her thighs in welcome, her fingers expertly loosening the lacing of his trousers. Her hand slipped inside, fingers firm and knowing on his cock. He drew in a hissing breath, shutting his eyes as sensation rushed outward from the center. She breathed the ritual words at him, how big he was, how long, how much she wanted him inside her. Part of it might have even been true. Most of it was sheer flattery. He wasn't 'that' big and he wasn't 'that' long, but as wet as she was between her legs, she was eager to have him. He shifted, shoving his trousers down enough to accommodate her, and a weight clamped down on his shoulder - - fingers biting into material and flesh and flinging him backwards. He heard the whore let out a squeal of surprise, a split second before he impacted with the wall between door and basin stand. The pitcher rattled, threatening to fall. Caled blinked away the bright lights at the corner of his vision and reached for the knife in his boot, even as the big man approached him. The muscle from downstairs. Broad, grim face, big clenched fists and damned if Caled had a clue what had happened to trigger the attack. Houses weren't in the habit of assaulting paying customers. Bad for business. "Jorjie," the girl complained. "Get out," the muscle snapped, waving a thick arm. She scooted off the bed, not bothering to retrieve her wrap and retreated from the room. "What the hell," Caled snarled, pulling out the blade, trying to get his wits together enough to push himself up off the floor. The muscle kicked out, not doubt well used to dealing with unruly, armed men, and the toe of his boot deflected off Caled's wrist. It hurt. The knife flew from his fingers, skidding across the wood floor. "You don't remember me? I remember you, Se Lamar," the man snarled and Caled felt a sinking nausea in the pit of his stomach.

"You've got me confused with someone else, you sot headed bastard," Caled growled back, no hard task to force offended dignity onto his face. "See if I ever spend my coin at this house again." "You smug little prick." The muscle was damned quick for a big man, and down on the floor straddling Caled, big hands tangled in his shirt before Caled could convince himself to move. Stale breath, indeed soured by alcohol warmed his face as the man pulled him close. "Think a few years would be enough to make me forget your pretty face? What, you don't remember mine?" "You're damned well mistaken. Get off me." In all honestly he didn't recall the man, which meant nothing, really, for there had been no few men and women that had labored under the employ of his family. The big man snarled something incoherent, fists tightening in Caled's shirt a moment before he snatched him away from the wall and then slammed him back into it. Hard. Hard enough for plaster to crumble and pain to explode in Caled's skull. Hard enough to send him plummeting into red laced darkness.

He came awake when he hit the ground. Dirt, not floorboards, and rolled instinctively, instincts honed by life in the highlands where a slow man might meet his death a hundred different ways. The muscle, Jorjie, loomed over him, dark silhouette against evening shadows. A boot lashed out, caught him low in the side, between hipbone and kidney. Another and it caught him full on the hip. It hurt and he rolled, desperately trying to place the face. He couldn't. He'd never paid that much heed to family retainers. If that was what this man had been. "What the fuck do you think I did to you?" he gasped, fingers itching to grasp a knife that wasn't there. He might have been oblivious to the hired help, but he'd never been cruel. Not knowingly. "You don't remember me," the man crowed again, angry, maybe having held onto anger a long time. A damned long time. "I lost everything because of you and you don't even remember. " Another blow and Caled curled, coming up sharp against what might have been a tool shed in the small, enclosed yard behind the House. "Then tell me, if you're so damned certain I wronged you." The man jerked him up, one hand around his throat, the other tangled in his hair, and pressed him back against the rough wall of the shed. Barrel chest leaning into him, cutting of breath almost as efficiently as the hand around Caled's throat. Damned big man. Damned strong one. The type of burly physique that a wealthy patron might employ as security. It hit Caled then, a vague recognition. A fist very much like a block of stone slammed into his side and again before the man spat. "I guarded your steps for close to a year before your brother disowned you - - banished you. Did you know that every one of your confidants, your servants any one to do with you felt the wrath of the Kir Lamar? Did you care that we lost our positions and any chance at gaining any other decent posts? Do you care I spent a week in the dungeon, the skin striped from my back before they were satisfied that I wasn't a part of the plot. Black listed and tortured all because you weren't satisfied with the lot of a second son?" The man's fingers bit deep, cutting off Caled's air and he shoved against the weight pressing him back, clawing at the thick fingers around his throat.

"I had a woman set to marry me, but not once I was reduced to working brothel security because of you." The man was snarling now, full of righteous anger that had been simmering for close to a decade. Caled stopped trying to force his fingers loose and went for the eyes instead, digging his thumbs in. It might have been the only vulnerable spot on this man, for he howled and thrashed backwards. Caled shoved him back, gasping for breath, grasped the closest thing at hand, the handle of a garden rake and slammed it, two handed upside the man's thick head. It shattered, sent Jorjie to his knees, and Caled held the broken end, survival instinct telling him to plunge the jagged thing through the man's bruised eye and save himself the trouble of having to deal with him again later. He couldn't. He'd killed before, and suffered damned little conscious because of it - - but he did recall this man now, and though he'd been a silent shadow, a nameless bodyguard for a scion of the founding family, he'd been efficient and loyal enough and he'd suffered for Caled's mistake. Probably suffered a great deal, if Caled knew his brother and he did. Tered Se Lamar - - no Kir Lamar now, that he was head of the family, had never much been one for mercy. To anyone. Caled knew that well enough also. Jorjie hadn't been the only one to suffer consequences for a failed coup. Jorjie just hadn't more than likely had the honor of the Kir Lamar's personal hand in the matter. Caled still had nightmares from the memories of that. Maybe even it was the reason he'd been so quick to jump to a hapless neko's rescue. Caled might not have had much mercy back then, eighteen and naive enough to believe he was clever enough to take the place of an elder brother with their father on the brink of death, but he'd gained it somewhere along the way since. He swung the stick again, and it connected solidly with the big man's temple. The burly body crumpled and Caled took a painful breath, dropping the broken shaft and lifting a hand to his throat. Gods, but he hurt all over. A broken rib or two, deep bruising for certain. A head that pounded like drums in a Founder's day celebration. He staggered through the dilapidated wooden gate that led to the alley running beside the building. Out onto the street where no one noticed one more staggering body. The swell of the evening crowd ate him up and he was grateful for it. Whether Jorjie would go to the Family with the news Caled was in town or not, he couldn't take the chance. Tered had promised death if he showed his face again, and for a little while there, Caled had forgotten to take the threat seriously. He was back in his right mind now. Albeit a mind screaming with the pain of one too many hard blows to the skull. Back to the inn, and no one paid him any heed, even wavering as he was. Up the stairs and he pounded on the door to the rented room. Stood there with his forehead pressed against it the few moments that it took for Dharsha to open it from within. Dharsha took a look at him and breathed a word Caled wasn't familiar with, a neko curse perhaps. "Gather the things," Caled said, took a step and the bruised hip finally had enough, sent shivers of pain down his leg, turning his knee to jelly. It gave way under him and Dharsha caught him, shoring him up, damned stronger than he looked as he took Caled's weight. "What happened?" the neko gasped, ears laid flat. Dead giveaway that he was no small bit upset. "Old acquaintance, " Caled almost laughed. His head was swimming. It was a wonder he'd made it back here. "We need to leave - -"

"I don't think you should." Dharsha hauled him over to the bed, got him down on it and everything swam disturbingly once he was horizontal. The neko sat on the edge next to him, eyes uncertain, fingers hesitating, before he took a breath and gingerly weeded them through Caled's hair, probing the edges of the multiple swelling at the back. When Dharsha pulled them back, they were smeared with red. The neko's ears twitched again, and his mouth thinned. He rose then and came back with a dampened cloth. He urged Caled onto his stomach and with some effort and help from the neko, Caled complied. He lay there afterwards, drifting while Dharsha tended him. Might even have drifted into sleep, for when he opened his eyes again, there was a pillow under his throbbing head, and he lay mostly undressed stretched out on his back on the bed. He searched the room for Dharsha, and found him by the window, looking out at the darkness beyond. At least he hadn't sleep away the night. Caled pushed himself up onto an elbow and regretted it. Still he had a goal. "We need to leave the city. Now." Dharsha looked towards him, the tip of his tail twitching. "Why? Who did this to you?" The question as well as the tone surprised Caled. He had never heard annoyance in the neko's voice before. Nor firm demand. It took him off his guard. "My own stupidity and someone who suffered because of it." It was hard work swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The dizziness was still there, along with a faint nausea. The neko moved towards him, and there was something in the gait that made the hackles on the back of Caled's neck stand up. It was a predator's gait, graceful and dangerous. Fascinating to observe the change. "I think it not wise," Dharsha offered quietly, and indicated the pillow where there were spots of fresh blood. Scalp wounds were hell. Caled knew that from experience. He took a breath, lifting hand to feel the robin's egg size lump at the back of his skill. It hurt like blazes, sending little spots of color dancing at the edges of his vision, when prodded. "Not wise to stay," he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut and willing away the pain. "Wait till morning light," the neko urged. "A few more hour's rest will only lend more healing." A few more hours rest would have him stiffer and sorer than he was now, and still in danger of his brother's wrath. He shook his head and grimaced. "If you fall in the dark of night, or loose consciousness, I'll not know the way. There are pitfalls in these mountains . . ." It was a valid point and he found he rather cared what happened to Dharsha, even if his own selfpreservation had worn thin. Uncomfortable admission. Dharsha was pushing him back down, before he'd even agreed, concern on his face. His eyes were large in the shadows, pupils huge and round. Pretty. So pretty. "I'll listen for trouble," Dharsha promised and Caled almost laughed, because the sort of trouble the Kir Lamar could send, would be more than two refugees from the highlands could deal with. He held his humor, to not offend Dharsha's earnest offer. The concern was - - disconcerting. Warming.

He lifted a hand to Dharsha's face, skimming his fingers across the down on one cheek. It had been a long time since anyone had taken care for him. A long time since anyone had cared if he lived or died. The neko's eyes widened, his breath caught in his throat, but he didn't pull away from the touch. Leaned forward instead and grazed his own soft cheek across Caled's. A feather caress that sent shivers of sensation through his body. "You don't have to," he was disconcerted enough that he hardly knew what he was replying to. "I want," Dharsha said softly, then on a breath that was almost a sob. "I need. Help me to forget." Ah, how was a man, regardless of condition, to ignore that plea? What a pair they were, bruised and damaged in more ways than one. What use in denying comfort when it was wanted and just might lend a hand in healing?

Chapter 16

Caled's fingers on his face tingled. Made the hairs stand on end from ear tips to toes. But not in fear. Not in revulsion.

When Caled pulled him down, hands lacing through Dharsha's hair, when his lips grazed Dharsha's jaw, and moved to his mouth, it was a singularly overwhelming experience. A tender closeness that he had never experienced. Kissing on the mouth was not an affection that neko's practiced and certainly the woodsmen had never initiated any such contact. The lady even, though encouraging his use of tongue and lips upon her body, had never deigned to press her mouth against his. It was nice, he thought, the warmth of Caled's soft lips, the strange feeling of his moist tongue intruding Dharsha's mouth. A weakness wormed through him, insidious and irresistible and when Caled pulled him down, onto the bed, it was as if the strength had melted from his limbs. For a moment, as Caled rolled on top of him, the weight of his body pressing Dharsha into the thin mattress, panic welled. Things flashing through his mind- - horrible things - - of so many times in the recent past that he had been trapped under the weight of a man with no recourse but to submit. Pain and degradation and rough faces leering down.

He shuddered, body stiffening, and Caled froze lifting himself up, bracing his body with his elbows as he looked down, concern and question in his fine blue eyes. Caled wasn't one of them. Caled was Caled. Unique and cherished and clan. A new clan, a tiny exclusive one that consisted of a neko a human, a dog and a pair of horses. A pitiful clan, but a clan nonetheless in Dharsha's mind. There was nothing to fear from clan, because clan protected one another. He weeded his fingers into Caled's hair before he could pull away, and drew him back down for more of the very interesting mouth-tomouth kissing. And Caled, being male and excited, if the feel of his swollen cock pressed against the inside of Dharsha's thigh was any indication, forgot easily enough fleeting concerns. Caled reached down between them and did another thing, the woodsmen had never seen fit to do, kneaded Dharsha's own stiffening erection through the buckskin breeches. Dharsha gasped into his mouth, arching upwards at the touch, a pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain - -a wonderful pain - - lancing through him. Then Caled's hands withdrew, and the loss was devastating. But Caled was working at the lacings of Dharsha's clothing, and it occurred to Dharsha that he ought to help precipitate the removal of it. He wriggled out of his shirt, without removing himself from beneath Caled's weight, but the pants proved more difficult and Caled rolled to his side with a grunt, and helped Dharsha strip the trousers off. Caled had seen Dharsha unclothed before, but perhaps never engorged, or in the full flush of health, for he stared, fingers grazing the smooth, unbroken line of Dharsha's cock. Thumb grazing the moist red tip that peeked out from beneath velvety sheath. Dharsha made a sound in his throat, a moan or a growl, hard to tell which. Hard to tell what he was feeling, the fervor so strong upon him. Still, he hesitated reaching for Caled's trousers, not so daring, though he knew many, many ways of pleasuring a man and for once ached to share them with a partner of his choosing. Caled was not so diffident, loosening the lacings of his own trousers until his swollen, pink cock sprang forth. He was cut, like the woodsmen had been, the head round and shiny and flushed. A thatch of curly

auburn hair surrounded the base, tapering off to a thin line that ended at his navel. A fine, clean appendage, compared to those he was used to servicing - - a shudder ran through him that notion - a terrible, uncontrollable flash of too many horrible things. Things he feared might stay with him forever. He felt the blood draining from his cock, sucked away by the ghost of the woodsmen. Caled's hand touched his chest, just below his heaving ribcage, palm flat and warm and soft on his skin. A calming touch, a reassuring one. "I understand." Low voice, placid tone despite the still very present erection between Caled's legs. The tip of it grazed Dharsha's thigh. "I want - - I can't - - get them out of my head," Dharsha sobbed, ears flattening to his skull in distress. He pressed against Caled, like he'd press into the sheltering embrace of another neko, sharing warmth, sharing scent, sharing life. Caled shivered once, his hardness trapped between them, his bruised ribs likely protesting Dharsha's arms wrapped about them. He made no complaint, simply lay there, fingers stroking Dharsha's hair, tracing the edges of his ears until they trembled and rose, enticed up by the pleasant touch. "Sorry. Sorry." Dharsha moaned against Caled's neck and Caled half laughed, an interesting vibration that Dharsha felt pressed so close to his chest. The thickness against Dharsha's thigh was receding. "I've had ruder interruptions by far . . ." Caled began, then stopped, when Dharsha trembled the more from shame. "No apologies," he said then, voice serious. "This is not of your making. The blame lies elsewhere. Dharsha felt a little twang of revulsion thinking of it, as he always did, but it was tinged with heat this time, with anger that they could affect him even with time and distance between them. He closed his eyes and inhaled. Caled's scent. Just Caled's scent here, clean and masculine and comforting. Caled's skin against him, Caled's hands that were warm like flame against his pelt.

Caled's erection was still a solid thing against his thigh, scalding were it pressed against his own softened cock and sack. He focused on that, on that primal sensation, like a hunter focusing on prey, tunnel vision, shifting his hips so that they rubbed together. Dharsha swiped the underside of Caled's jaw with his tongue. Caled groaned, fingers tightening. Dharsha moved again, sliding their erections together, his own stiffening with renewed interest. "Yes?" Caled breathed and Dharsha answered by ducking his head and licking the hollow at the base of Caled's neck. Caled reached between them, capturing both their cocks in a hand, grasping them firmly, a singular sensation to be sure. An intimate one. More than Dharsha could handle, body deprived of honest release for so very long. Barely a half dozen strokes and he spilled, slickening Caled's grip, soiling both their bellies. Overwhelming relief of a pressure he hadn't realized had built. It drained him. Caled didn't release him, his strokes milking more than Dharsha thought possible from his spasming cock. When he was depleted and soft and slipping from Caled's grip, Caled finished himself off with a series of rapid, jerks, creamy liquid spilling over the top of his hand as he circled the head of his cock. They lay afterwards on their backs, shoulders touching, simply breathing as they recovered. It had been sloppy and awkward, but Dharsha felt - - good. No shame. No pain. Just a spreading warmth that made him show his teeth in a grin that hadn't touched his face since - - since home. "I suppose," Caled finally stirred, lifting a hand from his chest. It was sticky with combined bodily fluids. "That washing up is in order. Another half hour here can't make much difference." Dharsha sprang up, full of a surprising amount of energy. He had mastered the working of the water while Caled was gone in the city. Caled pushed himself up more gingerly, wincing at the motion, one hand going to the back of his head as he sat on the edge of the bed, watching Dharsha wryly as he drew water.

Dharsha held a hand under the flow, testing the warmth, a task to occupy himself, when he could not think of words to fill the space. Were words needed after such a satisfying act? He knew not the niceties involved, never having engaged in sex with a partner of his own choosing. He was ashamed to admit how little he knew even of neko sexual practices. It had never been a subject brought up between himself and his mother and sisters and aunts while he'd dwelled within the female's domain. He supposed it was a thing a male learned on his own. Instinct. Caled walked over, moving stiffly, sorer now, perhaps than he'd been when he'd staggered in fresh from abuse. Dharsha held out the wet cloth, an offer more meaningful than useless words. Caled met his eyes, stare speculative, always thinking, things always going on behind those blue eyes that Dharsha could not fathom. He let out his breath, a half smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, a slight motion of his head, and proceeded to wipe down chest and belly where their combined leavings glistened. A fine, lean body, even if his skin were practically hairless. It had felt nice under Dharsha's fingers, the way Caled's muscles twitched beneath thin skin. Fragile skin, easy to bruise and break. Such skin would never have survived the attentions of the woodsmen, without telling scars. Other than the internal ones, Dharsha had none to show for his time under the woodsmen's care. He shivered and took another cloth and cleansed himself, rougher perhaps than need be, to wash away the unpleasant memory. "We should make haste. I've tested fate's good will long enough, simply being here," Caled said. "You have enemies here?" Dharsha asked. An obvious question, since Caled bore marks upon his body of the encounter of just such. But Caled did not tend to share if not pressed, and Dharsha felt bold enough at the moment, to do just that. Caled dried himself with a towel and shrugged. "My youth was misspent. The consequences still haunt me."

It was not a proper answer and Dharsha felt a prick of frustration. He pushed it back. He had no right to Caled's secrets. They dressed and gathered their packs, and went out into the waning darkness of predawn. The streets were eerily quiet in this twilight hour, the silence of a city distinctly different than that of a night drenched forest. The stable where they'd housed the horses was dark, but before they'd even reached the doors, the dog whined from within. She greeted them with soft, snuffling dog sounds as they moved past the stable boy nestled in his makeshift bed of straw. Dharsha untied her from the lead that kept her near the horses, while Caled gathered tack. He was as quiet and efficient in his movements as any neko hunter, and they led the animals outside without the snoring stable hand ever shifting in his sleep. Without the bulky packs full of furs, the packhorse made a fine mount for Dharsha. He swung up without the need for stirrups, and followed Caled down the darkened street towards the city gates. The gates were closed, but illuminated by torches in the darkness. A guard sat drowsing on a stool by the wall, and another, atop the walls, looked down with lazy eyes. There was no suspicion in them, no taut wariness as if they'd been expecting trouble. Caled's worries were for naught, it seemed and Dharsha breathed easier. "Early to be leaving," The guard atop the wall called down. Caled looked up placidly and shrugged. "Traps set before dawn, bring more game come morning." It seemed a reasonable excuse to the guard, for he yelled down to his sleeping compatriot. The man woke with a grunt and peered sourly at the travelers waiting to leave the city. "Damned trappers," he muttered and rose, ambling to the smaller door in the big gate, lifting the bar and swinging it open. It was just big enough for a man to lead a horse single file. They dismounted and did so, the dog slipping through between.

Then they were out, the massive darkness of mountains looming beyond the foothills within which the city nestled. The dirt road leading towards higher ground was smooth, so they kicked their horses into a canter heading towards distant trees, putting Caled's enemies behind them. It was only later, once true dawn began to cast light upon the stone of the city wall, that the gates opened once more, both great panels swinging wide to emit a great number of horsemen. They were armed with weapon and purpose, and urged their mounts to a fast pace in pursuit. Chapter 17

Dharsha sensed the pursuit before Caled had an inkling. First it was just twitching ears and looks over his shoulder as they rode, then a whispered declaration that sent shivers of unease across Caled's skin.

There are men behind us. Men in this mountainous wilderness were hard to come by. Two days since Ka Lamar and they'd passed the mining trails that might have explained the presence of men. Too coincidental, this time of year for men to cross paths up here, unless it were no coincidence. Unless it was nothing but ill luck. Caled knew the trails, he knew the ways to obscure a path, but fear of what was following - - of who - - urged simple flight. He'd had a promise made him, by a brother he'd betrayed, if betrayal were a thing possible with the devious ranks of the Lamar's, of what would happen if he stepped foot back within the walls of Ka Lamar. He'd forgotten for a time, but he recalled well enough now with the possibility of that selfsame brother on his heels. So he urged the horses to a faster pace, with Dharsha fast behind him and sought the pass that would take them across the ridgeline and into lands that held no trails at all, but those frequented by game. Lands that a man who'd lived in these woods for a third of his life might use to avoid notice by those who hadn't. But he misjudged the skill, or the determination of those who followed and half a day in Dharsha's keen hearing or his unnaturally

fine sense of smell had him jumping at shadows and softly warning of pursuit closing in. But still, they might make that pass and Caled held onto that hope, until nature, or the fates decided to hamper his progress with a narrow trail blocked by snow and fallen trees from the slopes above. He hissed and swung his horse around, taking to the lower slope at breakneck speed in hopes of working his way around and back up the other side. Dharsha called something to him from behind, a question, a warning maybe. Caled could not get the dark places beneath the estate in Ka Lamar out of his head for long enough to pay heed. Could not shake the whispered recollection of Tered's voice, soft and cool even when he was in the midst of bloodletting. Ever their father's son. He looked back to assure himself Dharsha was still behind him. The dog bounded somewhere in the shadows to his right. He saw the dark shape of a rider on the trail above, then another, and swore. **** Whatever drove Caled, it smelled of fear. Dharsha identified that scent from instinct alone, knew it for what it was, and still had no choice but to follow on the mad rush through snow covered forest. He heard the sounds of men and horses behind, had heard them, or scented their unique odors - - leather, horse sweat, human sweat for a day now - - relentless on their trail. Hunters. The pursuit Caled had feared. He felt a wash of guilt that perhaps if they had not dallied, and left when Caled had wanted, bleeding wound or no, they might have been well beyond the capacity of these men to track by now. He wondered if Caled regretted the same thing. There was no time to wonder, with the horse stumbling and sliding in the snow and the dark shapes of riders closing in. Caled cried out in front of him, struggling in his pack as he rode, bringing out that

fearful weapon that had taken down the mama boar with a flash of light and an ear splitting crack. The dog was a wraith in the woods, beyond Dharsha's ability to see or hear past the crashing of the horses. Dharsha urged his mount to close the distance, wanting nearer Caled, afraid of getting separated by snow dusted bramble and too close straight boled trees. He heard shouting from behind, and the high-pitched whiz of an arrow. It thunked into the trunk of a tree well to the side of him, but the firing of it made the hairs stand up on his skin. Caled twisted in his saddle and Dharsha could barely see the white of his clenched teeth as he lifted an arm and then Dharsha was staring at the muzzle of that terrible weapon and he flinched involuntarily, crouching in the saddle as the roar of it echoed in his ears. But it went well past him, towards the pursuing riders and whether it hit one of them or not, Dharsha did not know, too busy clinging to the mane of a horse shying from the unexpected sound. The animal fought for its head, veering into a tree and Dharsha barely missed being scraped off in the process. The horse rebounded, sliding in the snow, going down in a tangle of legs. Dharsha threw himself off, rolling clear in the snow, coming up dusted in white himself. Hat gone in the forced dismount and ears flattened in dismay as the muffled thunder of hooves in snow descended. He spun, snarling, barely avoiding the shoulder of a horse, flinching away from the kick aimed at his head by the boot of the rider. Faceless men, clad in dark armor. Only neko reflexes saved him from trampling, as the most of them passed him by, intent on Caled. A few others stayed, circling close, yelling at each other or him. He could hardly make it out, the blood pounded so loudly in his ears. A shot rang out. That he heard well enough, and horses started and men cried out, and Dharsha heard Caled screaming, 'Run. Run, you fool!' Another shot and past the dark shapes of the horses closest to him, Dharsha could see the others converged on Caled, who'd turned

back to meet them. There were no more shots then, men lunging off horses to take Caled from the saddle of his. The dog had raced out of the woods, regardless of the numbers against her and into that mass, snarling and growling, mindless in her defense of her master. Her growls broke off, punctuated by shrill yelp. Dharsha hissed, ducking out of the way as a man aimed the hilt of a sword at his head. He could be like that dog - -loyal and stupid and dying because of it - - or he could be the hunter and use his head. He could use what the ancestors had given him and flee the wrath of captors that might be no better than the ones he had left in that cabin on the other side of the mountains. He growled and lashed out with claws extended at the face of the closest horse. The animal shied back, ears back, white rimmed eyes, and lost its footing in the snow. Dharsha darted past, towards the darkest section of wood, towards snow-covered bramble and thick grown trees where a man on a horse could not follow. They called out for him to stop, and he heard the twap of a bowstring and the whistle of an arrow. He dodged to the left, away from the sound of its path and it passed by harmlessly, lost in the very tangle of wood he made for. He dove into the brush, wriggled like a ferret through the thickest part, scrambling under until he found the head room to run upright. They were after him, yelling and pounding through snow, forced by necessity to the paths wide enough for their horses to pass. This was different than the lush forests of home, frigid and stark in comparison, but it was still a forest and there were places enough to hide for a creature born of predators. He caught a low hanging limb and swung up, bounded from it to another, used his claws to aid in scrambling up to where the winter foliage would obscure him from riders below. Stayed there, hugging the rough bole, wondering if his heart was beating loud enough for them to hear it. But then, their senses were dull, these human men, and though he could hear them, clumsily tearing through the wood after him, calling to each other in query as to where he might have escaped, not a one of them bothered to simply look up.

One passed under to the right, and all Dharsha could see of him was a brown leather helm and dark cloak across armor-broadened shoulders. If he'd been fiercer of nature, like his uncles, he might have leaped down upon the man's shoulders, and ripped out his throat, silent as a leaf falling. But though he had the natural grace of a hunter, the will seemed lacking. He dug his claws into the bark of the tree and held his breath until the man passed. He strained his hearing, listening for the sound of Caled's voice, but he heard nothing but the stomp and rustle of many men and horses in the distance. No familiar voice, even raised in anger, of either man or dog. He shut his eyes then and despaired, for Caled had won his freedom a second time and this time, it had been at the cost of his own. Chapter 18

He fought them wildly, panic eating away at common sense, and they took him down, a tumble of men wresting him to the snow covered ground, twisting his arms behind him and keeping him down with rough hands and a knee to the back. The crunch of snow and he saw boots in his line of vision. Fingers curled in his hair and yanked his head back and he found himself looking up at a brother he hadn't seen in close to a decade. "Little brother," Tered said softly, clicking his tongue in reprimand, soft voiced, as always, when he was the most dangerous. That remained the same, the rest was much changed. Ten years had thinned his hair, and lined his face as if the weight of leading house Lamar had taken its toll. Gods knew father had aged before his time. Caled wondered why he'd ever coveted the position. "You amaze me, stepping foot within Ka Lamar, when you well knew the consequences." Tered crouched, canting his head to study him, reaching out one gloved hand and brushing damp hair from his face. "It was a mistake," Caled panted, hard to talk with a man's weight on his back and some gnarled root digging into his belly beneath the layer of crushed snow. "Let me go and I'll not make it again." Tered's thumb brushed a speck of dirt from his cheek. "No. I think not. I gave you your second chance years ago, I offer no third." He rose, motioning to his men. They bound Caled's arms behind him, then jerked him up. He caught sight of the dog's dark, still form in the snow, paid for her loyalty in death. She'd been a good companion and he felt a wetness at the corner of his eye. At least Dharsha had had the sense to flee from overwhelming odds. Caled hoped he ran and never stopped. He'd endured enough at the hands of men, without discovering the breadth of Tered Lamar's hospitality. It was close to full dark and no man with good sense would risk these trails at night and though Tered might be less than sane in some senses, he was practical. They found a sheltered place large enough for Tered's company and made camp. Horses tethered to trees and given over portions of grain, men

clearing snow for a fire pit, for bedrolls, while Tered sat on a stump and stared at Caled, who they'd secured to a tree. Tered's stare had ever been a thing to make a body cringe, when it was long and speculative, even when they'd been young. When mother had been alive, she'd proven a barrier that the elder brother never tested, but after her death, with only nurses and a father who paid little heed to sons when an dynasty demanded his attentions, even a younger brother felt the sting of his casual cruelties. Caled did not like to think on it, those dark years of childhood, before the arms masters had taught him the way of weaponry and Tered had, of necessity, learned to be more circumspect in his amusements. Until that fateful day that the dynasty had changed hands and Caled had made a desperate and youthfully nave bid for power . . . It had ended badly. Terribly, horribly badly. "Who is it, you travel with?" Caled blinked, drawn back to present by Tered's query. "No one. A traveler I met on the trail." "That you shared a room with?" "Coin is scarcer now than it used to be. Prudent to split the cost." "You were never prudent, Caled, nor so good a liar." "Times change. And I was never so good at fabrications as you." Tered rose, walked over to him, boots crunching in packed snow, and stood looking down. "So says the patricide." Caled stared at him, shocked. Though he had been full guilty of attempting to kill his brother, no accusation of father-killing had been leveled at him. It had not occurred to him at the time that the death had been anything but natural. "Murdered?" he asked. Tered lifted a brow. "Well you know, little brother. A holy seeress detected the traces of the curse through the very walls of his tomb, when she came to deliver blessings." "A curse?" No easy thing to accomplish, with the practice of witcheries outlawed by penalty of death. A pact made with a power dark enough to curse a man to death was no small thing. And though Caled had held a healthy interest in certain spelled items, he'd never researched or held congress with a practitioner of the blacker arts. Those sorts of interests seemed more in line with Tered's perversions. "If some dark power was aimed at him, it was not at my behest. You're the one who gained a dynasty." "And you're the one who plotted to take it from me."

"Call it a bout of insanity, brought on by the notion of living under the your thumb with no higher power to curb your predilections. No doubt the estate staff and the domestic animals lament my failure." It was the wrong thing to say, especially in the hearing of Tered's men. He realized that the moment, Tered's face went taught and his pupils tiny in rage. A fist lashed out, caught Caled against the temple. Another that smashed his head back against the tree, that made pain explode behind his eyes. More blows might have rained, that blended into one large pain, before the cold of snow roused him. Himself flung full face in it, as men of Tered's loosed his hands long enough to strip him bare, before they tossed a rope over a limb and jerked him up between them. He fought them, then, desperately afraid of being strung up, helpless and naked and the focus of Tered's slow simmering rage. He'd been the target of that before and had nightmares still. But he was dizzy and going numb from the cold and outnumbered. They bound his wrists and yanked him up by them, till his toes dangled inches from the snow and his body swung to and fro, making the limb he hung from creak with his weight. They amused themselves with him, then, under Tered's smiling guidance, blows to the body that stole his breath and his vision. A man's thick leather belt applied judiciously, until even the cold could not stop his skin from burning. He screamed when they concentrated on his genitals, as he knew they eventually would, because Tered had a fascination for hurting a body in those most sensitive of places. And Tered stood close behind him, hands stroking his sides, holding his swaying body still, as a man of his came at him from the front with a burning ember and laid it lengthwise down the top of his flaccid cock. He screamed himself hoarse, sobbing for mercy Tered didn't have in him, while they seared him and Tered hummed and pressed his lips to the side of Caled's neck, biting gently while he shuddered. A gurgling, aborted scream that was not Caled's echoed in the night. Every man in the camp froze, staring out into the night. The horses shuffled, nervous and pulling at tethers and out beyond them, lay a dark shape in the snow. It was hard to see from Caled's vantage and his wavering vision, but it seemed to be a man they turned over. A man bleeding all over the snow, his eyes wide with shock, his throat torn out. One of theirs. They cried out amongst themselves, drawing weapons, nervous and scattering until Tered called them to order, and set them in pairs to search the wood. Four stayed to guard the camp along with Tered, and Caled hung naked from his limb, body throbbing, momentarily forgotten in the turmoil. Until Tered came at him, digging fingers in his hair and pressing a knife against his throat. "Your chance meeting did this," he snarled. No question. "Where is he?" Almost Caled laughed. If Dharsha had -- no one was more surprised than him. But then, he supposed it unlikely those lengthening claws and that inhuman strength and speed were for show only. His neko was a hunter born and a slave by misfortune only. The blade pressed deeper and Caled felt a trickle of blood. But he knew Tered wouldn't slit his throat. That would be quick and easy and this brutal play tonight was only the least of what his brother was capable of. He wouldn't deprive himself of lengthy 'conversations' in the privacy of the family dungeon. Caled said nothing, and after a moment, Tered hissed in annoyance and withdrew the blade. Tered's men trickled back, having found nothing in the forest, save that one set returned not at all. They set up guards then, watchful, angry men that cast Caled dark glances where he hung.

He thought Tered might as well have slit his throat, for if they left him naked much longer the cold would take him. Perhaps Tered realized the same thing, for he barked at men to cut Caled down, and when he fell this time, there was no strength at all in his limbs, and when they dressed him, they might as well have been dressing a doll, for all the ability he had to help in it. Beyond that, there was no kindness in his treatment. Arms bound tight behind him, elbow-to-elbow, wrist-to-wrist, ankles lashed and Tered himself stuffed a wad of cloth into his mouth and secured it tight. He lay there afterwards, one side of his clothing going slowly damp from contact with the snow, struggling to breathe around the gag, far enough away from the fire that its warmth was no comfort. He feared for Dharsha, strained his hearing, as Tered's men no doubt did, listening for sound of an intruder creeping about the campsite. But no sound issued forth. Nothing human ears could perceive at any rate. Foolish, foolish neko to strike at such a force of men. He'd end up as dead as the dog and it would be on Caled's shoulders, having brought him into this affair. He shut his eyes and swore silently. There'd been a reason he'd kept himself apart from humanity these past years, a man with a price on his head and the wrath of a great family to keep him from honest work in other civilized places. No reason to drag an innocent into a mess of his making. And yet he'd done just that. Hadn't been able to stop himself with Dharsha. Pity first, then outrage at treatment that brought back old nightmares, then something else, undefined and undeniable. His own damn fault. Dharsha was an innocent here, and Caled should have damned well known better.

Dharsha crouched motionless on a limb forty feet off the snowy ground, listening to the human men below try and tread silently through the wood. They failed. He could hear their breathing, the rustle of their clothing, the muffled beat of their hearts, so heightened were his senses. The taste of blood had done it. Had sent him over the edge from frightened scavenger to something else. He hadn't crept up to the camp with the intent of killing a man. Had only been drawn close by the sound of Caled's screams. But what he'd seen from his vantage, inspired cruelty of man against someone he deemed as clan, had sent his blood racing and his vision tunneling with red around the edges. There had been a man, lingering at the edges of the campsite, a guard, distracted by what they were doing at the center of it, a man with a grin on his face as he watched his comrades make another man scream. And something possessed Dharsha that had never possessed him before, the surging instinct of the predator. Body took over from mind, and he'd sprung forward, two silent bounds and the guard didn't even hear him set down, didn't realize he was there at all until he swung him around with one hand and tore out his throat with one swipe of the other. Half a scream and the prey was down, gurgling out his life's blood in the snow. Dharsha was gone before he hit, two-dozen feet into the wood before he took to the trees and left no trail for them to follow. And the blood on his claws had tasted - - heady, and made his own trill in his veins. He'd listened to their frantic search, saw their clumsy figures as they stomped through the wood seeking him and made a decision. Shed the heavy coat and the cap in the foliage and dropped down to snowy earth unencumbered, shadowing the closest of them with them none the wiser. The first had been an act of impulse, but now he trailed a pair of men with intent and even through the thud of bloodlust, fear tickled the back of his mind. Lunacy to hunt armed men, when he ought to know better. Men were cruel and vindictive and could make a body hurt so bad death was more attractive an option that life. Men were to be feared.

Except for Caled. Except for the one he'd torn the life out of. That man had never had the chance to draw his blade. That man had been too slow and deaf to defend his own life. The ones he followed, silent as a wraith, were too numb to the forest around them to realize they were being hunted. So perhaps a man was only dangerous when he had a body caged and bound and beaten into submission. Karl's face flashed before his eyes, cold and cruel, small eyes flashing amusement when he made a bound body squeal. The shadows of the others crowded round, and Dharsha hissed, extending his claws, surge of revulsion making his blood pound the harder. Never again. Not him. Not Caled. He saw his chance, one man trailing behind the other in the dark, surged forward and disposed of his prey. Silent and bloodless this time, neck broken with one sharp twist, the second man oblivious to the fate of his companion. Dharsha left him in the snow and continued on. Moved forward in the shadows as if he belonged there and when the other man turned, his eyes were too weak in the dark to tell friend from foe. "Ain't nothing out here this side of camp," was as much as he got out before Dharsha pounced, bore him back into the snow and ripped out his throat. This time the blood spattered his face and the warmth of it, the glassy horror in the prey's eyes as he died chased away some of the red circling his vision. Made him swallow and push himself back and off the man when some primitive instinct suggested that feeding off fresh killed meat might not be so bad a thing. But this was no wild pig, no fleet footed forest deer, but a man, who was close enough to a neko to be sacrosanct, at least as far as partaking of flesh went. He swallowed back bile and stared about the wood, spooked now by his own urges. He heard no sounds of other men and that was just as well, for the hunting fever had left him and now he was simply cold.

Chapter Nineteen

They put Caled onto a horse. Bound his wrists behind him and his feet to the stirrups and tied a lead to his mount as they made their way down the mountain trail. Slow going, for the night had frozen the melt of the day before and even sure footed horses used to mountain travel would be wary of the path. He hurt. Every jolt and sway of the horse made some ache or bruise spark with pain. His clothing rubbed the burns from then night before raw and he ground his teeth and refused to issue any sound of discomfort. Tered rode too near and Tered fed on such little things. He spoke occasionally to Caled as they rode, threats and promises of the welcome he'd receive, and then oddly enough as the morning wore on, of the city itself, the changes over the last years, and of the family estate. There was no accounting the sanity of a man that went from speaking of the darkest torture to the quality of the wine the son of the old wine master produced. Caled shut his eyes and endured, swaying with the motion of the horse. A winter hen fluttered in the woods, startled, and a flock of them rose, disquieting horses. Nervous men clutched weapons, peering into the shadows that persisted here even in the fullness of day. But it was only a gaggle of frightened fowl and they released breaths and loosened white knuckled grips on bows and swords. Until one looked back, then back again and raised the question.

"Where's Ulrik?" Then they all turned about to see, and take count of heads and sure enough there was a man and horse both missing. They backtracked and found the tracks of the horse leading into the wood, and soon thereafter the horse itself, standing near the body of a man, who had been raked across face and throat as if by the claws of some forest predator. Most certainly a predator, if last night and today were any indication. One that a man had to reevaluate, in the light of day, as not so nave and innocent as once thought. Caled shut his eyes and shifted to as close a comfortable position as he could, and let them panic around him, until he felt a horse shift near and fingers grasp his hair, jerking his head back and his body near off the back of the horse. "Damn you, what is it that shadows us? No man kills such. What alliances have you forged?" Tered spat at him and Tered's men mulled wild-eyed and scared around them, waiting for that answer. Suspicious the lot of them, and fearful of dark magics, which Tered had conveniently accused his long absent brother of practicing in regards to their father's death. Tered pulled his belt knife and pressed it hard against Caled's bared throat, and screamed at the forest. "Whoever you are - - whatever - - I'll kill him here and now, unless you show yourself." "He lies," Caled yelled. "That would be too quick for his liking." Tered hissed and slammed the pommel of the knife against his face. It split the skin of his cheek and blood trickled down, warm and slow. There was no movement from the surrounding wood, only snow muffled silence. Caled laughed. He couldn't help it. Though Tered's frustration and his men's fear would mean little good for him when they had the chance to stop and make him pay for it, it was balm now to his own aggravation. "It's a demon that follows him," a man muttered and the others whispered among themselves at the notion. "If I do hold congress with a dark power, I'd watch your backs if you cross me," Caled suggested. "Shut up!" Tered spat at him, raised a hand to strike, then thought better of it, and wheeled his horse around. "You and you, cover the body. We'll send men back for it once we've reached the city. The rest, push on." They looked uncertain, especially the two assigned to linger behind, but Tered was headed back to the trail and they had little choice but to follow his lead. They started at little things, though, and no innocent fall of melting snow, or flutter of bird's wing went unnoticed and unscrutinized. It was no comfortable band that made its way down the trail. And despite the pain, and knowledge of more to come, Caled found his spirits not so dark. It had been a very long time since anyone had gone out of their way to fight for him. Long before he'd left Ka Lamar, certainly, when friends had been few and far between, intimidated away by the insidious cruelty of an older brother who had a tendency to hold grudges. Tired and hurting, he laughed when men shied away when something small and furry darted away in the forest at the edge of the trail. The man who led his horse gave him a dark and frightened look. A

resentful man who'd followed his employer out here along with a dozen others, to overwhelm a single man, and whose life was now in jeopardy because of him. Caled laughed again at the irony, before his horse stumbled and jolted bruised bones and raw skin and he shut his eyes and groaned. Well past mid-day, they paused for a brief rest, men dismounting to stretch legs and relieve bladders. Caled was afforded no such luxury. They left him ahorse, but his legs were past cramping and gone to numb, so it was just as well. Devoid of the rocking of a horse navigating a treacherous mountain path, he dozed, until the shrill neigh of another man's mount made his own sidestep nervously. He blinked, looking up from under loose hair, as men cried out and rushed past to where horses had been tethered at the edge of the small clearing. Horses shied into each other, tearing at the reins that held them, some few breaking away and fleeing into the wood. "After them," Tered cried, shoving one man who hesitated to rush into the shadow of the forest in pursuit. He got a resentful, frightened look, before the man stomped through the trampled snow on the tail of a handful of others. They lost two horses to the winter wood and the others were less than happy. Five now, along with Tered, and even with the loss of two mounts, they had enough, from fallen comrades, that no man had to walk. Just as well, Caled thought, since that man would probably have been him and he wasn't sure his legs were up to it. Hours more ride and Caled began to regret sorely that they'd not let him down to relieve himself. When night finally made them stop, his bladder was full and aching. They left him ahorse while they set up camp, and finally when Tered motioned for men to loosen his legs and pull him down, he could hardly stand but for their hands upon him. "Secure him there," Tered ordered, jerking his head to a tree far enough from the fire that a man tethered to it would receive little benefit of its warmth. "I need to pee, damnit," Caled snarled, and Tered lifted a brow, not unaware in the least that a man tied to a horse all day might be mightily uncomfortable. Tered liked his little torments. But he shrugged and nodded to the two men at Caled's side. They led him to the edge of the clearing, and unbound his wrists so that he might see to handling himself in the task. He shut his eyes as he stood there, urine burning on its way out, but it was little enough cost to offset the simple pleasure of emptying his bladder. They secured him after that, to the spot Tered had chosen, and he sat forgotten as they rustled about preparing camp. They settled, as much as wary, nervous men might, about the fire, no one of them willing to take to their bedrolls when something hunted them out in the night. The smell of their tea and the stew they warmed made Caled's stomach rumble. He shut his eyes and tried to ignore it, tried to take his mind off the empty hunger by wondering what the neko was up to out in those dark woods. Was he out there now, at the edge of the camp, waiting for his chance to take yet another of them? Weeks ago, the predator had been buried so deep, beaten into such submission that Caled never would have believed it might surge to the surface. But the predator was here now and it had killed and Dharsha, if he survived this, would ever be changed for it. Snow crunched and Caled looked up warily. Tered approached, and crouched next to him, a tin cup in one hand. For a moment, he simply stared, studying Caled and Caled refused to flinch from his brother's gaze, unsettling though it was.

Finally Tered smiled, a tight little upturn of the lips that held little of good nature. He offered the cup, holding it to Caled's lips so that he might drink and Caled was not so prideful that he would refuse when he was so parched. He swallowed luke warm tea, jaw cringing a little at the sweetness. It had been a long time since he'd had the luxury of sugar added to trail tea and Tered had always had a sweet tooth. When Caled had finished, Tered wiped a dribble of tea from his chin with the back of his gloved finger, held on to Caled's chin afterward, turning his face this way and that. "You have her looks - - her mouth - -though the stubble hides it well enough." Caled stared unflinchingly, knowing Tered spoke of their mother, though Caled could hardly picture her face anymore himself. There'd been a painting in the great hall, commissioned before she'd died that Tered would have seen daily since, sitting at the head of the family table. Caled would have liked to have seen that portrait one more time, but he returned to Ka Lamar, he doubted he'd be treated to the upper levels of the estate. Tered stared a while longer, finger's beginning to bite into Caled's jaw with hurtful intensity, Gods knew what going through his mind - - Caled didn't want to know and shut his eyes finally to block out a gaze that had gone from speculative to brittle with that cold insanity he wore when his moods spiraled into blackness. Caled shuddered, steeling himself. "Do you want to die?" Caled asked softly, before Tered could raise a hand or speak himself. "Am I worth that to you?" Tered canted his head, caught off guard by the question. His eyes flickered beyond Caled to the shadowy forest, then back. "I told you what would happen if you stepped foot again in Ka Lamar." "You did and I was a fool," Caled fought for the edge of calm reason in his voice. "A sentimental fool. I longed to walk her streets one more time. A mistake. But look at me, brother. I'm no danger to you. No threat to your power. The family seat is beyond my reach even if you should meet your end. Look what I've become. A wanderer. Homeless. Nameless. That's punishment in itself. Let me go my way and you go yours and never will I set foot here again." "You've promised that before." He had. There was little argument there. "There are men's lives that you shall answer for." Tered promised. "Not my fault." Desperation crept in against his will, hard not to when they held this whispered debate in the dark, with Caled at such disadvantage. When Tered might decide the safest route might be simply slitting his throat here and now. "You came after me. Their lives or lack thereof are your responsibility." "What's out there? Not a man." Tered was back to that. He leaned in, one hand on Caled's shoulder, thumb pressing against the pulse in his neck. "Perhaps you'll find out tonight," Caled said and looked away, refusing more.

Chapter twenty

Dharsha crouched in the lee of an ancient tree and shivered. Not from the cold, his body had ceased to feel it, plunged into the hunter's mode as it was, nor even from the blood he'd spilled. After the first few men, the shock of bloodletting had become a numb echo at the back of his mind. Fear maybe, that it would all be for naught. That he'd be too late, that they'd kill Caled and leave him on the trail, a burden that Dharsha's hunt had made too costly to keep intact. But they hadn't yet, and they might not, Caled's kinsman seeming narrowly focused on taking him back to that walled city. Still, Dharsha imagined the likelihood and it chilled him, made his hands shake and his jaw clench, because with Caled dead, he'd be alone in this land of human men and that was no small terror. He hadn't slept and lack thereof likely made his envisioning that much more vivid. Less than a day, he thought, and they'd make the city. One more night to take Caled back and then he was lost, for in the forest, Dharsha had a chance, but within the stonework of a human city, he had none. He wasn't even sure he'd have the courage to venture through those gates again on his own. So tonight. Tonight was his last chance. Caled's last chance. A hoarse cry disturbed the silence of the dark wood and his ears canted forward. Not a human sound. A big cat, but different than the ones that roamed the forest of his home. A different tenor to its tone. A female he thought, warning off competition, either another big cat or some other mountain hunter. Reminder enough that he was not the only predator out tonight.

Men froze about the campfire, staring nervously into the surrounding darkness as the scream echoed through the trees. One that had already settled in sleeping bags, shifted, expecting the worse. Expecting Caled's avenging forest spirit to cut a bloody swath through their ranks, most of them city bred and not recognizing the cry for what it was. He'd heard them whispering, listened to their suspicions grow more and more far-fetched. Tered was in no wise happy with their fears, Tered had cast many a black look Caled's way before he'd settled into his own bedding, damned determined to show them that he shared not their fears. Not that they cared. They'd seen too many of their fellows fall victim to Caled's forest demon to be anything but terrified of the same fate befalling them. Three of them awake and sitting watch, taking turns patrolling the edge of the campsite with drawn weapons. One always remaining to watch him. That one edged closer as the forest settled back into silence and the men in their bedrolls, finally settled back into uneasy rest. There was something in the man's eyes that was more dangerous than the madness that Tered sometimes wore. The fearful desperation of a man out of his depths and likely to be unreasonable in his panic. "There's no human mercy in what's out there," Caled whispered, twisting numb hands in his bonds. The man froze, hand on the hilt of his belt knife, considering no doubt, ending his employer's madness here and now. "It will kill you all before daylight, if I die." The guard looked over his shoulder at the sleeping lumps of his fellows, then crouched down, wrapping a fist in Caled's collar. "I've a wife with child. I'll not leave her to fend for herself." "Fair enough," Caled whispered back, an adrenaline surge of hope making his skin tingle." Let me go. All it wants is my freedom and with it, you and the rest will be safe. It won't hunt these woods again, I promise you that. Return home to her - - all you have to do is loosen the ropes and turn your back. That's all - -"

The man hissed softly, knuckles biting into Caled's chest with the intensity of his grip, then he shoved him back, hard against the tree and stalked off a few paces. A frightened man. A confused one. Probably an honest one, that found himself treating with less than honest terms. Honesty was not a luxury that Caled had found cheap enough to practice these last years, banished as he had been. Tered would not be pleased with a man who let his oh so reviled, oh so cherished brother flee. Almost it would not be worth the cost of a life, if that life were made miserable. "He doesn't have to know," Caled whispered to the guard's back. "Give me a count and raise the alarm. Blame it on the demon that hunts you. Don't die for his vendetta." The man said nothing. Refused to turn again to face him and Caled swore himself, softly under his breath and shut his eyes, lamenting the lost opportunity. Frustration could not overcome exhaustion though, and he drifted, a restless sort of drowse - - - Until hands upon him shook him out of it. The guard's rough fingers, loosening ropes. The guard's white, tense face thrust into his. "Go. Go," the man hissed. "I'll not die for him." There was nothing to say to that, nothing but to gather his battered self, hands so numb as to be useless and slip around the back of the tree and out into the woods. And run. He was surprised he had it in him. Surprised his legs didn't give out on the first stumble, but hope - or fear - - gave him strength. He expected to hear pursuit in those first few staggering steps, but none came. Not after the first dozen. Not after the next and he was well into the pitch of the forest, running blind, when he heard the faint cries of men and knew alarm had finally been raised. And if his heart had been thudding painfully in his chest before, it thundered a chaotic tempo now and he imagined men rushing to horses, readying to rush into the forest in pursuit. And it was not long before he heard those sounds, the heavy thud of horse hooves in earth made soft by snow melt. He tasted the blood from being whipped across the face one too many times with winter bare branches, and all his hard-learned woodcraft seemed worn away by panic. His hands were scuffed raw from rebounding off tree trunks, from navigating by feel alone at times through a wood where scant moonlight often did not penetrate. He heard the closer call of a man, thought he recognized Tered's voice. Picked up his pace and barely smothered a cry as a shape rushed out at him from the darkness. Fighting instinct rushed to the fore, and he growled, swung blindly, fist glancing off solid flesh and eliciting a muffled grunt before arms wrapped around him, and a half familiar voice hissed his name. "Caled. Caled, it's me." Dharsha. The faint smell of damp leather and fur. The solid warmth of lithe body and strong arms. It took a second for the reality to sink in, then Caled shuddered, and dug his fingers into the leather of Dharsha's tunic while his knees wavered, gone to water of a sudden. He breathed, just breathed for a moment, desperate to catch lost breath. But Dharsha untangled him, not content to stand there and let Caled recover, gripping his arm tight instead and urging him to motion. The darkness hid his features, but Caled saw the silhouette of those great cat ears twitching nervously, hearing things so much clearer than Caled's dull human senses. Caled kept his feet, gathering strength, calling on reserved he didn't know he'd had and following in Dharsha's wake, down a bank and splashing through the cold wetness of a shallow creek a good ways, then up a muddy bank and Dharsha shoved him towards a small patch of pitch blackness, a cubby that seemed to almost have been dug out of the embankment. Barely large enough for two adult

males to curl up inside, the coldness of the earth insulated by a layer of pine tags and leaves, he lay there, gasping, while Dharsha pulled bramble across the opening, cutting out what faint light there was, plunging them into full darkness as he settled down, an awkward process, with another body filling the small space. An elbow here, a knee there, and Caled held back any sound of discomfort, having endured far worse lately to complain of Dharsha's accidentally inflicted pain. "Gods - -" he started to say, when Dharsha had settled, wrapped around him, warm and subtle smells and soft breath like a balm on pulsing wounds. But Dharsha shushed him, a bare whisper of a breath, and a moment later Caled knew why, as he heard the sounds of movement outside. The faint crunching of leaves, the jangle of tack, the soft blowing of horses and the creak of leather. The sound of men and horses crashing through the underbrush that grew closer and louder, and then passed by, without hesitation, withdrawing with distance. Caled let out his breath, lay there, forehead touching Dharsha's and let his breathing calm, let the tremors ease from his body. "Gods," he said softly, and this time Dharsha did not quiet him. And again. "Gods, what you did - -" "I'm sorry," Dharsha murmured. "They were your brethren - -" Caled laughed, painful, humorless sound. "No brethren of mine. You misunderstand - - What you did - for me - - I've no words. Thank you. Thank you." Dharsha lay there, silent, tail twitching ever so slightly against Caled's leg. Finally, he said. "You did no less for me. I will never forget. Be still and take what rest you can while they roam the woods. When they tire and retreat, we will move." Spoken like the hunter Dharsha hadn't been weeks past when he'd been newly freed from captivity, all his instincts dulled into hibernation. Dharsha had lamented being weak, lamented the notion that he might never turn into a fierce neko warrior. Caled was no expert on neko culture, or neko hunters more than what he'd seen from Dharsha, but he thought it a fine wager that no full-fledged neko alpha could have done better than his own misplaced young neko in a foreign land amidst a hostile people.

Dharsha sensed the change in the wood when the searchers had moved on. The utter quiet of wary animals shifted into a more natural rustle of nighttime foragers. He sighed, tension easing as the chance of conflict ebbed. Caled was a lax weight against him, having fallen into a drowse easily enough, despite the cramped position and the danger lurking outside. His hands, tucked in between their bodies, were warm now, but they had been chill, all of him had been chill when Dharsha had first found him. There were furs and other pilfered gear with the horses Dharsha had stolen and it was near time they left this little den and made their way to them. Caled, having no thin layer of fur, only thin virtually hairless skin had no protection against the cold. But he lay a moment longer, curious at the way Caled's breath on his neck made the fur stand on end, finding great pleasure in the feel of the man's lean body so close to his. Even the smell, strong with sweat and days of unwashed skin was no terrible thing. It was Caled's, therefore it was tolerable. Finally though, survival instinct made him shake Caled gently into wakefulness, and when the man started, disoriented, Dharsha whispered. "You're safe. Safe."

Caled drew in a shaky breath, another, then let it out in a long low exhalation. "Gods - - How long did I sleep?" "Not long. It's time to go." He shifted, untangling himself to back out of the little animal den he'd found and enlarged enough to house larger denizens. "West. They won't follow us far that way, the western side of this range is Elusian land and there is no love lost." Caled said, crawling out behind him, stiff in his movements. Sore from harsh handling. Dharsha well knew the feeling, remembering all too many mornings after when the body screamed in protest at the smallest movement. He shook off the memory with a low growl and offered Caled a hand up. "Horses first," Dharsha said and Caled looked to him with a light of hope. Dharsha shrugged, embarrassed. "I've been collecting." Caled grinned, one with honest humor this time, and white teeth through the stubble lit up his face. They made their way through a wood starting to grey as early morning light penetrated the winter foliage. Sore and stiff he might be, but Caled knew his woodcraft and moved almost as silently as a neko. Dharsha had hidden the horses, four of them including Caled's mare that he'd taken early on, in the lee of a rocky overhang and piled bramble and dry brush to hide their presence. Caled greeted that familiar horse with a scratch behind the ears and a hand along her flank, inspecting her for injury. There was pilfered grain in the saddlebag of one that had kept the lot of them content, and someone's extra gloves and hat and tunic, and a fur-lined bedroll that made a decent enough cloak for Caled. Caled pulled the extra tunic on over his own shirt, and wrapped the furs around him, while Dharsha donned his own coat, left with the other various gear. Caled looked over the array of loot, checking his own saddlebags, which were intact, including the rune weapon. He chewed on a stick of jerky while Dharsha saddled the horses and tied the leads of the two spares to the mounts they would ride. Dharsha felt his eyes upon him, silent and thoughtful and wished not for the first time that Caled were more of a nature to speak his thoughts, rather than hold them to himself. They rode then, straight west, bypassing trails for rougher terrain. Dharsha kept his ears peeled, listening for the faintest hint of searchers, and once, he did hear the far distant movement of something not forest bred. He held up a warning hand and they froze, waiting quietly until that distant sound passed beyond even Dharsha's keen hearing. Caled took the lead, knowing well these mountains, and only after dusk did he stop in a place that looked to provide some shelter. He sat his horse and looked to Dharsha grimly. "I'd ride the night through, but - -" he lifted a shaking hand. "- - but I fear I'll not stay ahorse much longer." "It's all right," Dharsha promised. "No one trails us and no one will venture close enough without my notice." He was certain of that, was certain of abilities he'd doubted himself possessed of not so long ago. Funny that when it had only been his own life, he'd let himself be beaten down, defeated, but when it came to protecting the life of another that was precious to him, the hunter burst forth. That was clan. They made a simple camp. Tethered the horses and portioned out grain. Caled feared a fire, so they ate dried jerky and sucked on clean snow to wash it down. Caled bid Dharsha retrieve his saddlebag and the collection of medicines therein, and sat in the darkness, lifting the hem of his shirt to reveal the darker marks of burns and bruises. Dharsha cringed, wincing as Caled prodded the edge of a burn,

wanting to offer assistance, wanting to do what a neko would for another neko and push him down and take his time licking clean each and every wound, but he was uncertain Caled's reaction to such an offering. Caled unstoppered a little jar of something that smelled of bell root and chamomile and dabbed it gingerly at a burn across his stomach, while he held his shirt with the other hand. Dharsha shivered with the need to help, shivered with the fear of rejection, then clenched his fists, figuring rejection was the least of the things he had to fear in this land. He shifted the distance between them, and laid a tentative hand on Caled's arm, felt the man twitch under his touch, and knew well the nerves that would be stretched taut after days of abuse. "Let me help," "I'm fine," Caled's instinctive answer, Caled who had had no one to care for him but himself for too many years. "You're not," Dharsha contradicted quietly and waited patiently for Caled to realize it. Felt the moment the man's muscles loosened and he gave in. He pushed him back onto the pilfered bedrolls he'd layered into a nest under a cover of bramble and vines, and unlaced the tunic ties, spreading it to reveal cold pimpled skin and the vivid marks of abuse that marred it. Marks that led below the top of his trousers. Claws came out reflexively in anger and Dharsha took a breath, relaxing. He dipped a finger tentatively into Caled's ointment and sniffed it. The smell was strong and not appealing. He would put it on, if Caled wished, but not until the wounds were clean. He wiped his finger of the furs and leaned down, swiping his tongue across an oblong burn below Caled's navel. Caled stiffened, hands bunching in the bedding. "Calm," Dharsha whispered against Caled's skin. "There is healing in this. Better than in your reeking gels." He spread his hands across Caled's cold skin, warm palms careful to avoid the sensitive wounds, worked his way down, and hesitated at the edge of the trousers, looked up to see if Caled had objection, but Caled's eyes were shut, and his face flushed. So no objection there. Dharsha loosened trouser laces and edged the pants down, feeling a surge and bloodlust at the time they'd spent dealing hurt between Caled's legs. He pushed it back. He'd shed enough of their blood and it was time for healing now. Burns or not, Caled's cock twitched, filling half-heartedly as Dharsha gingerly lapped his tongue across wounds only just beginning to scab. There was pain in the cleaning, but there was in neko saliva, he'd always been told, a certain potency that soothed aggravated flesh and sped the healing process. Not to disregard Caled's human practices, when he'd cleaned the wounds to his liking, Dharsha dabbed sparse amounts of the ointment on the worst of the places, before helping Caled relace trousers and shirt. He settled carefully next to Caled then, and arranged the top layer of furs, and lay listening to the wind in the branches, and the small movements of the horses, the mating song of crickets and winter warblers. "One of us should stay awake, listen for them," Caled said finally, voice heavy with exhaustion. "I'll hear," Dharsha murmured. "You sleep."

Dharsha drowsed lightly through the remainder of the night and into early morning, aware of the small sounds, and undisturbed by them, only rousing when something large rustled in the brush not far away. He woke in an instant, canting ears and testing the cold air. It was a heavy body, short and smelling of pork. A wild pig that leisurely made a wide circle around their little camp. No danger. He stretched careful not to disturb Caled, who slept soundly still, in their cocoon of blankets. Dharsha eased out from under, and stretched with more abandon once free of bedding and bedmate. His blood rushed, skin twitching in a way that had nothing to do with blood lust or fear, but with sheer exuberance for morning. For the sheer want of stretching his muscles and shedding the chill of morning. He cast a careful look at the sleeping lump that was Caled under the blankets, and the still drowsing horses, and grinned, sprinting into the wood with the silence that was as much ingrained as learned. Not far, did he run, only the perimeter of the area they camped, checking for signs that feet other than those belonging to animals had disturbed the earth. Listening here and there for the careless sounds men made, even when they attempted silence. There were none. He startled a flock, of winter fowl and leapt as they took to the air, knocking a fat hen out of the air with one swipe of distended claws. So they had breakfast and he even felt safe enough to build a small fire, knowing very well that Caled had no taste for raw meat. Dharsha returned to camp before Caled had stirred, and had started a small fire by the time the man shifted under the blankets. A dark tousled head appeared from under the covers and looked blearily out at the morning at large. Dharsha grinned, surrounding by feathers as he plucked the hen clean. "Breakfast," he said cheerily, feeling it. Caled rolled his eyes up at the branchy forest canopy. "Did it fall from the sky?" Dharsha grinned wider. "With a little help." Caled grunted, took a bracing breath and shoved to his feet. It took a moment for him to gather his balance, stiff and sore still from the look of him, then limped over to the far edge of their little spot to relieve himself. He gathered clean snow and put it in a pot to melt at the edge of the little fire while Dharsha spitted the bird and propped it over the flames. He dipped a rag in the melted water before even tea was made and sat on a log next to the crackling fire and ran it across face and neck. "I'd give much for a bath. Even a cold mountain stream would be welcome." "There's one that way." Dharsha pointed west. "Maybe a half day's ride." Caled canted his head, silent inquiry and Dharsha shrugged. "When the wind turns, I can smell it." Caled accepted that silently, did his share of breaking camp, despite aches and pains, while the hen roasted. When they sat down finally to consume it, along with tins of bitter tea, Dharsha asked. "What is this Western land like, that is the enemy of your homeland?" " Elusia?" Caled gnawed on a leg and considered. "A harsh land, so I've heart. West of these mountains, the lands are not fertile, but dry and arid. And the people secretive and fierce, abhorring

outsiders. I've never ventured there, the tales I'd heard quite enough. Very few from the east would voluntarily, I suppose." He fell silent after that, look drifting inward. They covered the fire pit and buried the bones of breakfast, then sat out, riding the back up mounts today and heading deeper west. Half a day's riding and they found the remnants of an ancient trail. An animal track that had once been that of man, if the patches of old stonework peeking out from under layers of dirt and crawling vine and roots was any indication. Caled climbed down once to wipe away dirt and creeping vines from a standing waystone and stare at incomprehensible markings carved into its surface. "What is it?" Dharsha asked. "A very long time ago, Elusia and Falwar - - the country this land used to be called before civil war split it up into the four kingdoms it is today - - used to be great trading partners. This is a waystone for merchants and travelers. Most of them were destroyed generations ago when treaties broke down and war broke out between them and the border kingdoms here." He shook his head, clearing it of whatever thoughts clouded his eyes, and pulled himself back onto the black gelding who led his mare. It was close to evening when they reached the summit of the trail they followed and in the purple light of a setting sun, a vast land spread out before them. Dharsha drew breath, never having seen so much of the horizon before, all his life spent in forest and woodland and mountainous environs, if one discounted the short time spent in the Lady's care in the city by the sea. Granted, there were a degree of sloping ridges and rocky foothills between the summit where they stood, but beyond that the land seemed to roll on forever. So immense that it made a body feel small in comparison. So flat and free of the fringe of woodland that even here he felt naked. Dharsha shivered, not sure if it were fear or excitement. "You don't have to stay with me," Caled said, voice soft, but growing stronger with determination. "Safer if you don't. I have powerful enemies on this side of the border and my company will only set them on you. And on the Elusian side - - gods know what danger's lurk. They're renowned for their distrust of outsiders of human ilk - - I know not what they'd make of you. "If you stay from the eastern coast and the slave trade there, you should find that your welcome is not altogether unpleasant. There are even places that will welcome such an exotic traveler. Perhaps those that might help arrange a way home for you. You've done enough for me. Risked enough." Dharsha stared at him, fur standing on end all along his back, tail beginning to thrash of its own accord. "No," he shook his head firmly. "I would stay with you." "Why?" Caled laughed bitterly. "For my warmth of character? My honed conversational skills? Why?" "Because you are clan," Dharsha said simply. "Alone we are nothing but outcasts. Together we are Clan." Caled stared at him, those bright blue eyes of his wide and dark in the evening light. Dharsha was not sure human thinking could understand the gravity of the concept of Clan. Of the loyalty, of the strength, of the bonds that it encompassed. Look what Caled's own clan had done to him, after all.

Then Caled shook his head, as if Dharsha were indeed beyond his keen, and said. "Your choice. Come on then. Truth to tell, I've had the craving for years now, to see the other side of these mountains, but never had the occasion or the right enemy on my heels to prod me to it. Now's as good a time as any."

End