Floating World Bitten Peach Ch. 05

Far away from the tent Shun was hunting for Niu so diligently that he belatedly heard the frightened cries rising above the usual hubbub of a military camp coming awake and packing up for a march. He thus wasn't aware of the horsemen of the raiding party from the army of the Chu until they were upon him.

He was of no concern to them; they were making a wild dash for the center of the encampment, for the imperial tents. But Shun stumbled in the way of one of the horsemen who, in irritation, raised his sword and brought it down on Shun's back. Shun went down in a heap. Behind the horsemen, in a wedge, were foot soldiers of the Chu army moving resolutely through the parting panicked crowd before them.

A fiercely angry Niu, naked except for the sword in his hand, swept the damask drapes of the imperial bed open just as the first horsemen ripped the side of the tent with his sword and rode into the center of the space within. Niu stood protectively over the vulnerable and prone body of the king, slow to react only because he was so besotted with sword work of an entirely different variety.

Niu and the horseman exchanged parries of their swords as another horseman was working his way into the tent. The King of Wu's men had recovered from the shock of the attack, though, and were also rushing under the canvas, swords raised.

Having run the first horseman through with the king's sword and turning toward the second one, Niu stood his ground over the torso of the king.

* * * *

Months later, as the forces of Wu and Chu feinted and parried in skirmishes back and forth across the border separating their territories, the attention of Wu was turned toward one of its border prefectures. The anger and determination of Jili, King of Wu, was almost palpable as he unleashed his cavalry, war chariots, and bronze and iron weapons—all battlefield levelers that his enemies had never before encountered—on the rebel town of Anyi, which had switched allegiance to the kingdom of Chu. Within hours of receiving the message that the Lord of Anyi would not send tribute and yield in the season of homage, Jili and his loyal servant and trusted chamberlain, Niu, obedient servant to the king everywhere but in the confines of the royal bed, riding three strides to his rear, galloped out of his encampment on the opposite banks of the river Xi, which separated Wu from Chu. Jili's forces had already been inside Chu territory when Anyi, at his army's rear, across the river, had defected. That the forces of Anyi put up a stout defense at the imperial army's recrossing of the Xi only added to Jili's indignation and anger.

The Lord of Anyi, Zhu Xin Yi by personal name, would need to be taught a lesson that none of the other vassals to Jili's building empire would forget for the ages.

Once across the Xi, and sweeping the army of Anyi aside like a misting of spring insects, the forces of Jili descended on the city of Anyi, attacking from four directions, the foot infantry from the southwest, double-horsed chariots from the northwest and southeast, and Jili at the head of his vaunted cavalry from the northeast, where the Lord of Anyi had planned a retreat, if that proved necessary, into the surrounding hills.

Jili wanted to seize the seasoned men of the ruling family of the Lord of Anyi alive and thus had taken command of the rising hills that his spies within Anyi had told him the family of the Lord of Anyi would attempt to flee into if the battle went against them.

The King of Wu had put out the order that Anyi was to be leveled and every tenth man, woman, and child within it put to the sword as a warning to any others thinking of holding out on Jili's drive to unify the Chinese empire. But he had given strict orders that Zhu Xin Yi and any sons not killed in battle were to be captured alive and delivered to him at the temple of the tiger atop Taiyuan Shan, the Lord of Anyi's sacred spot.

And so it was.

By design, Jili had ridden out to the temple with the royal hostages of all his vassal states that were being held to ensure the loyalty of every other vassal lord. He wanted them to see what happened to those who rebelled. As Jili, the King of Wu, cruelly spurred his battle stallion, panting and foaming at the mouth from five hours of fast gallop and three hours of close-in combat, up the slope toward the Taiyuan Shan temple, he turned and scowled at Niu, who had fallen to five strides behind him instead of the required three.

"Keep up, servant—or . . ."

Niu was panting and ragged of breath as they reached the summit. He had fought hard—harder than Jili, because it had been Niu at every close engagement with the enemy who had shielded Jili from all sides, making the aging king look like an invincible warrior. As tired as Niu was, he strode forward to the required three strides behind his master—close enough to throw himself from his steed at the moment of realization that Jili wanted to dismount, so he could fling his body, prostate, in the mud at the side of Jili's stallion, in time to provide a stepping stone for his master's dismount.

Jili trampled heavily and with muddied hide-covered boots on his chamberlain's back as he dismounted and strode into the temple, with Niu scrambling to take up the required three paces in his wake, followed closely behind by the quivering hostages from the other lands where Jili held sway.

At Niu's side was the young prince, Jiayi, Jili's third son, who the King of Wu had brought on campaign to start toughening up the young man, barely in his majority. Jili hadn't brought his first two sons, because they could not be put in jeopardy while the king was on the battlefield. As the third son, Jiayi barely mattered. That didn't keep the young man from carefully assessing everything he saw for opportunity. What he often was assessing since coming on campaign, though, was the muscular and arousing body of the chamberlain, Niu. Jiayi had never lain with a man before—which rumor had it would be enticing to Niu—although it was more because Jiayi wanted a worthy sexual master than that he had an aversion to having a male lover. He could not help but wonder about Niu, so subservient to the king in public but yet rumored to be the king's master in private. Sometime on this campaign Jiayi was determined to test out the legends of Niu's yang chu—and of his desires to conquer virgin channels.

The cavalry outriders who had captured and brought Zhu Xin Yi and his four surviving sons to the temple stood guard around the five cowering prisoners. They had been beaten, but, with the exception of Zhu Xin Yi himself, who was bleeding profusely and whose right arm had been almost severed in battle, four of the five men of the House of Anyi were alive enough. Zhu Xin Yi stood, bent painfully but defiant, alongside his only slightly wounded eldest son, who glowered at Jili menacingly as the conqueror strode into the temple's central chamber. The room they occupied was a stone, vaulted-ceiling space adorned only by a vermillion-painted altar standing in the very center under an open skylight, which cast the rays of the noonday sun directly down on the House of Anyi's ceremonial sacred heart, it's ancestral altar. Off to the sides were alcoves draped with cloth, where the priests of the temple were said to deflower their initiates.

This was why the Jili had chosen this temple for this ceremony—from a perverse amusement of the knowledge of how the priests here recruited into their ranks.

Zhu Xin Yi's youngest surviving son, merely a boy, whimpered slightly, no doubt at the sounds of carnage and sight of the rising smoke from the doomed capital city of Anyi below the mountain slope, but his sobs subsided at a sharp look from his father's eyes. The two middle sons clung to each other as they huddled on the floor, but the difference between them was noticeable. One, the second son, a sword gash laying open a wound on his forehead, had his eyes closed and his face buried into the bosom of the third son, who, blood-covered but largely unmarked himself, looked out at the approaching Jili more in curiosity than anything else.

"Has the Lord of Anyi agreed to yield?" Jili bellowed. Everyone in the confines of the temple shuddered noticeably at the master's declaration, even Zhu Xin Yi. Although advanced in age, Jili was a magnificent figure, perfectly formed, heavily muscled, astonishingly handsome, and carrying himself with grace and supreme confidence as the unifier of kingdoms that he was slowly bonding into one through his own determination and talent—and on the strength of his modern weaponry.

"Majesty . . ." the captain of the cavalry began in a voice edged with fear and dread. He could neither lie nor tell the truth. Zhu Xin Yi had turned to stone in his recalcitrance. The cavalry officer knew that anything he said at this point was sure to bring down the wrath of his master.

Jili saved him the indignity. The cavalry captain was a good soldier. Jili could not spare him.

"No matter," he said with a sneer. "Once disloyal is one time too many and it cannot be mended. The Lord of Anyi is no more. I must have a new lord. One of the sons must do. But which one? And all must know of my suzerainty over him." At the mouthing of the word "all," Jili let his gaze cover all of those gathered, ensuring that the "representatives" of the other vassal lords were fully aware of the gravity and symbolism of what was about to happen.

Jili snapped his fingers, and his faithful drudge in public, Niu, bent almost double and eyes firmly planted on the ground, stepped up into Jili's peripheral vision. "Yes, master?"

"You know what I require."

"Yes, master," Niu responded. "Not the eldest; he is as unmalleable as the father. He would rebel again as soon as we recrossed the Xi to pursue the King of Chu to his lair in Danyang. And not the youngest; he belongs with the women." At this, a gasp escaped the gathering of hostages standing at the edge of the temple behind Jili. All knew that the women of the House of Anyi had already gone to join his ancestors.

"Of the two remaining," Niu continued in a hesitant voice, "one will die anyway of that festering wound. The remaining one looks out at the world with curiosity, even in the present circumstances. He may be trainable."

"Ah, you have chosen wisely, I think, chamberlain. So it will be."

The third son, Jiayi thought, his mind soaring to the possibility that Niu was sending a message to him by picking the third son. And was this perhaps an omen of the future beyond the present circumstance? There were those at the court in Gusu, egged on by his own mother, who suggested Jiayi should be Jili's successor—and perhaps sooner rather than later.

While speaking, Jili unbuckled his belt and let it and his sword fall—into the hands of Niu, who dove for it, lest it hit the ground, although he had to sink to his knees to prevent it from doing so.

Carrying the sword while genuflecting, Niu backed away from the altar area. Guided by Jiayi's own helpful hand, he backed all the way into one of the alcoves, and Jiayi partially pulled the drapes to the opening together, so that the two of them were alone in the alcove but could still watch the proceedings through the slight opening in the drapes.

"Captain, the handsome one," the king commanded, clapping his hands. "The one with the curious eye. The ceremony of reclaimed suzerainty of the fallen enemy. Now!"

The captain motioned to the two heftiest of his men guarding the captives, who pulled the third son up and away from his mortally wounded brother. As they stripped the struggling captive, the remaining guards manhandled the father and eldest son into submission, holding them firmly, facing the altar.

At the captain's command, the two cavalrymen, one at each arm of the third son of the Lord of Anyi, pulled his naked body around to the side of the altar facing Jili and held him down, facing away from Jili, belly flat on the altar and face turned to his still-struggling and cursing elder brother and father.

In the alcove, Jiayi placed a hand on Niu's arm. He could feel that the man was trembling slightly. "You know what is about transpire, do you not?" Jiayi whispered to Niu.

"Yes, of course," was the stiff answer. Niu had been reserved with Jiayi ever since he had come into service with the king. He didn't fool Jiayi, though. Jiayi was sure that the reserve was because Niu wanted him.

"I have heard that the third son of the House of Anyi is a peach. Do you believe that is possible? He is so handsome and well formed, and certainly could have lain with a man if he had wanted to. Kings and princes do as they like. So, our king is about to bite into a very ripe peach. How do you feel about that?"

Jiayi smiled at the low growl he heard rising from deep inside Niu. He moved to in front of Niu, who towered over him, then he raised his robes from behind, took Niu's hands into his and laid them on the nakedness of his waist under the robes.

"I am a peach too, Niu. Ripe for the bite. And willing. In fact, as a prince of Wu, I command it."

Jiayi laughed a deep, throaty laugh, as he felt Niu's hands on his waist tremble—but, significantly, not withdraw at Jiayi's bold offer. One of Niu's hands went around Jiayi's waist and palmed the nakedness of his flat belly between robe and flesh. Jiayi felt Niu fumbling with the sash on his battle robe with the other hand, and then move his fingers between Jiayi's plump orbs. The eyes of both of them were still focused on what was happening on the altar. Jiayi sighed and leaned back into Niu's body, enjoying the tightening of his father's Chamberlain's palm on his belly and the invasion of the fingers.

At the altar Jili was also letting his battle robe fall open to reveal his magnificent body and a long, thick, and hardened phallus. As he approached the hind quarters of the young prince of Anyi, two other cavalrymen sprang forth to spread the young man's legs and to pull his buttocks cheeks away to reveal a pulsating rosebud of an anus.

Other servants came forward to anoint Jili's yang chu with perfumed oil.

With a cry of triumph and uttering the sacred creeds of the House of Wu, Jili then strode up to and between the Anyi prince's spread legs, positioned his bulging cock cap at the young man's hole with a steady hand, and then thrust hard and deep inside him.

The young prince of Anyi cried out in pain and violation and writhed, chest heaving and panting, face contorted in the taking, while Jili thrust in deep, searching motions inside him, seeking the resting of his heavy, quivering balls on top of his younger conquest's. And then thrusting, again and again.

Such was the attention riveted on the action at the altar that no one heard Jiayi's little cry of triumph as Niu thrust an even longer and thicker phallus than the king's up into the prince's channel from the rear. Jiayi arched his back to Niu and his knees got weak. But Niu held him fast with the big hand palming the young man's belly.

As Jili stroked, symbolically forging his renewed mastery over the House of Anyi as well as enjoying himself immensely, the young prince slowly fell under the master taker's spell as well—so that before long, not long before he gave up his own seed against the vermillion flanks of the sacred House of Anyi family altar, the young prince was crying out for more and moving with the taking rather than against it.

If he was doing so more out of a survival instinct and cleverness than real enjoyment, he revealed none of this to his king.

Meanwhile Jiayi, the prince of Wu, gasped and sighed as his father's chamberlain spurted his seed once, twice, and then a third time deep inside Jiayi's belly.

"Again, again," the young prince murmured. But Niu was already extracting his yang chu and adjusting his robe. He turned the young prince to the side in the alcove, let him sink to the floor in a long moan, and then strode out to be near the altar when his king needed him. He was smiling to himself. It had been days since he'd been able to leave the king's side long enough to bite into a peach—and this one was a luscious one. A channel so tight and a peach so ready and willing that Niu had given up his seed almost immediately.

The highly vocal capitulation of the Anyi prince on the altar infuriated and demoralized the elder men of the House of Anyi more than if the young man had been ritually cut up into quarters on the altar. They knew the rituals of the House of Wu. They knew that the new Lord of Anyi had now been chosen and, having been brought under the control of Jili in both body and soul, would be trained to rule a rebuilt Anyi to his master's dictates. And, to the shame of the House of Anyi, they now could see that he would do so willingly and as the catamite of the evil emperor-to-be.

It was almost in relief and preference that, after Jili had spilled his possessing seed deep inside the new lord of Anyi, Zhu Xin Yi and his remaining sons were led out, through the ranks of the pale and sweating hostages, onto the steps of the temple, overlooking the dying city below them, to meet their public appointment with the avenging sword.

As they had been led out, the captain of the guard approached the King of Wu and whispered, "The youngest son, sire. He is very nubile. Perhaps as a reward to your bodyguards . . . before he is dispatched . . . or perhaps in the dispatching . . ."

"No, enough," the king declared with a wave of his hand. "Let him perish in dignity with the rest."

If it was a slight that, after Niu had prostrated himself beside Jili's waiting stallion again when the victory party descended the temple stairs, the new Lord of Anyi, sore but sporting a lopsided grin, was placed on a horse only one stride behind the master and two in front of Niu, the chamberlain made no sign of feeling it so.

Now Niu had a delicious secret of his own. While Jili was doing his duty to consolidate his power, Niu had been debauching his son.

Later that night, in the tent of the King of Wu on the banks of the River Xi, Niu stood in the shadows and in attendance to satisfy Jili's every whim as the new Lord of Anyi, in diaphanous leggings and burnished bared torso, danced to the tune of the lutes and thin, pitch-perfect voices of the singsong girls. The young man was well made. Lithe but well muscled. He obviously was clever and good with sword play, having survived the battle unscathed, and he evidenced this with the sensuousness of his movement to the music.

The prince Jiayi came up behind Niu, placed a hand on his buttocks, and raised his lips to first kiss Niu on the ear and then to whisper how he wanted Niu to visit his tent that night—that he wanted more of Niu's yang chu.

Niu turned his head and gave Jiayi an even stare and said, "I will be busy tonight. I have taken from you what I want. Perhaps if you were a king . . ."

Giving Niu a thunderous look, Jiayi turned and flounced out of the tent.

Niu turned his attention back to the light from the fire to watch as the heir to the House of Anyi danced closer and closer to Jili, who was propped up on pillows in the light of the lamps at the four corners of the central area of the tent marked by the maroon carpet intricately woven in the golds and blues of the House of Wu. Jili was draped in a robe of gold thread, but he was reclining on the pillows and his robe had fallen open, revealing a sword of prodigious length and width curving up from his belly and bobbing with the rhythm of the young man's dance. There was no doubt that he found his young captive enticing.

And for his part, the new Lord of Anyi was entranced. He had been taken with the master sword once, his first sheathing, and he could not take his eyes off it as he danced. Being clever enough to survive to this point, he wanted to convey that he could not wait to be pierced with it again and again.