Sacrifice Pt. 01

"One thing I have learned over the centuries of dealing with men..." Grond had remarked "Is that the threat of death will lose it's potency with repetition. But pain, when applied judiciously and instantly, will make even the most recalcitrant creature quite docile after a time."

And he had indeed not spared the young mans legs and backside in the least when Andy had failed to grasp whatever lesson was presently being taught. Those first few days he always went to bed whimpering and sleeping on his stomach.

They began the lessons with simple things. Andy was taught that when his new master entered the room he was to get on his knees, hands on his thighs and eyes cast down to the floor. If he was wearing the leash that it was to be held up in the air for his masters hand. Outside of his cage he was not to wear any clothing except for his collar unless given special permission. He was to always address his master in terms of respect. His cage and his body were always to be clean. Those were the simple things.

Andy was given a simple map of the caverns. It only represented about a mile of the vast complex. At the ends of most of the tunnel drawings were big red X's to indicate the places that he must never ever venture past. Since dragons had no need of artificial light, most of the complex was kept in total darkness. The young man had to learn to navigate the parts he was allowed to go to in the dark, memorizing numbers of paces and turnings. He learned that the Dragons Tail was indeed an excellent memory enhancement tool.

Amazingly enough, the caverns contained a complete and well stocked kitchen and a vast cold room for a larder. His master explained that while he was a dragon, he preferred his food alive and wriggling, but in human form he hungered for the same type of food that ordinary men ate. Meats, cheeses, bread and fruit. Vegetables. He had a weakness for fruit pies. Andy remembered helping his Grandmother bake pies when he was younger and hoped that he would be able to produce something to make his master smile.

The food, Grond explained, came from another town north of the Spire which he also demanded tribute from. Once a month a wagon load of food was left in a certain place and he didn't bother them anymore. He'd been forced to eat their Mayor and fifteen of his bodyguards before they would stop shooting at him long enough to listen to his demands. Each time he mentioned eating somebody it always made Andy a bit sick to his stomach.

"Stop being a child, Andrew." he replied. "I am a dragon. It is what I do. I haven't even decided whether or not I am going to eat you, so quit being queasy about people you don't even know. Be more concerned about your own skin."

Even in human form Grond had a vast appetite and Andy was schooled in what his master preferred to eat and how to prepare it. Having come from a family of cooks, he thought that he would be able to accomplish the one meal a day that was demanded of him.

He was shown Grond's private chambers. A richly appointed room, lined floor to ceiling in expensive rugs and exquisite tapestries. Statues lined the walls mixed in here and there with bizarre and frightening pieces taken from dungeons and torture rooms all over the world. Stocks and pillories, whipping posts and horses, an iron maiden, a stretching rack. Here and there on the walls hung shackles and chains, whips, flails, floggers and tools made for tearing and rending, bending and breaking. They made the young man shiver and go pale with fright.

"It amuses me..." His master had remarked "That as frightening as I am, men still find ways to frighten each other even more. You would think that the threat of being eaten alive would be enough." He snorted in disgust. "And they call me cruel..."

The bed in the middle of the room was huge, as was fitting. It had obviously been taken from some barbarian castle or ancient stronghold. Easily large enough to hold thirty people, the frame was made of thick iron pillars intricately carved and shaped in weird designs of a type Andy had never seen before. Just thinking about climbing into that huge bed with the equally huge man who had taken him made his knees go weak and his belly turn to ice water. Yet at the same time it left him flushed and almost completely erect. Grond appeared to take no notice.

Indeed, after that first night, the man had not touched him with any affection at all. He had gotten little more than the occasional pat on the head or his behind and a "Good boy." Despite his fears and misgivings, Andy burned to have Grond take him in his arms again. It seemed that once the doors of his secret desires had been opened, he was loath to have them closed again.

So much so that on the third night he couldn't take it any more. When Grond had dismissed him to his cage for the evening (the cage door no longer being locked, dependent on the young man's good behavior) Andy threw himself to his knees and begged "Wait my lord, please!!"

The big man turned and cocked an eyebrow at him expectantly. "Was there something you wanted, boy?" The kneeling man looked at him with tears glistening in the corners of his eyes.

"P-please, sire! Don't... uh...Don't you..." Grond stepped closer and towered over Andy like a mountain, those dark brows knitted.

"What is it, boy? Spit it out!" Andy couldn't bear to look at him, partly from fear and partly from a bit of shame of what he was about to ask.

"D-don't you want me, sire?" he said in a very small voice.

The great dragon stared down at the trembling man at his feet for long seconds, his face hard as stone. Finally his expression softened slightly and a small sigh escaped his lips.

"Of course I want you, Andrew. You wouldn't have lived so long, otherwise." He sighed again. "Sometimes I forget how fleeting and immediate your lives are. What are mere moments to me could be your entire lifetime."

"I wanted to make sure that you would survive my training first. It would have irritated me no end to have had to start all over with another sacrifice."

"There is one last test you must pass, Andrew. The hardest one of all." One large rough hand reached down and cupped Andrew's chin and tilted his face up. He looked down at him for a moment, then slipped his hand down and curled a finger through the ring in the boy's collar and pulled him to his feet. As Andrew rose, Grond dipped his head and kissed him hard, almost bruising his lips against his teeth.

The dragons other hand went further down and gripped the redheads prick and started stroking him while Andrew groaned deep in his throat.

When the young man was completely hard and breaking out in a sweat, Grond suddenly released both his collar and his throbbing member and pushed him roughly back a step.

"That should allay your fears, boy. Know in your heart that your master desires you. And if you survive tomorrow then you will be mine in all ways and at all times." He pointed down to Andrew's hard upstanding cock and said "You are not allowed to pleasure yourself tonight. The next time you will climax will be in my bed. Or not at all."

"Now return to your cage, boy. The morning will come early."

Chapter Ten

Andrew waited in the dark, his eyes questing around in the pitch black, wondering what was coming next while his heart hammered in his breast like a wild thing trying to escape. Almost against his will, his wrists pulled at the shackles that bound his hands over his head to the iron pole. The way the sounds echoed in what must be a vast space under the ground gave him a bit of vertigo as he tried to orient himself. It felt like he was standing on the edge of a bottomless chasm.

Without even really noticing, he was whispering "Oh god oh god oh god..." over and over again.

Morning had indeed come early. Grond had entered his cage and locked the shackles around his wrists and clipped the leash to his collar and then merely said "Come." as he led him away into the darkness.

They walked for a long time in the pitch black. Occasionally the dragon took his arm to lead him past more difficult obstacles and once he had picked him up bodily and leaped over something before setting him wobbling back on his feet. Never once in the blackness did Grond allow him to stumble or even step on anything sharp while they walked. The young man was beginning to think that they would soon emerge in the center of the earth and be consumed in the fire.

After what seemed like hours Grond guided him up some rough stone steps then turned him around and pressed him backwards until his spine came in contact with what seemed to be an iron pole or support beam. It felt like it was about as wide as one of the lads thighs and warm to the touch. Grond grasped the chain between his shackled wrists and pulled them over his head and he heard a click as they were secured to the pole above him. A large rough hand grabbed his chin, startling a small squeak from his throat. He could see a green glow in front of his face that he realized were Grond's eyes, glowing in the darkness like a cats.

"Do not speak, Andrew. Not until you are spoken to. If I ask, you must answer or forfeit all. Think before you speak and answer from your heart. Do you understand?" Wordlessly, he nodded into his master's palm.

With one last gentle pat on his cheek, those eyes blinked and were gone. Darkness and absolute silence ruled. Andrew tried to still the frantic beating of his heart to no avail. He was, if it could be believed, even more frightened than the first time he had encountered the dragon in Laketown. His heart hammering in his chest sounded like it must be echoing throughout the entire cavern.

Just when he thought he could not stand the silence a moment longer, Andy heard a noise. One that he recognized well and made the breath catch in his throat. The only way he knew how to describe it would be like hearing lava solidify back into stone. The air in the dark cavern immediately got warmer and heavier.

His master had become the dragon again.

As a man, Grond could move with catlike silence which always startled his young charge. And even when he became a multi-ton monster he could sneak up on a mouse in the darkness. Even though there wasn't even a real sound, there was the sensation of a sound. Even moving in his stealthiest mode, Grond could not overcome the amount of air his great bulk displaced as he moved about the cavern.

Then came another sound. A sliding metallic noise like an avalanche of tiny nails offset now and then with a clear bright "Ting!" of something falling against the stone. Above the sound he heard the deep ground-vibrating rumble of the dragon making a purr of pleasure. Despite his fear, Andy wondered what it was that could make the master sound so pleased. He vowed, if he could, to make the man form of his lord and master make that sound.

The air in the cavern moved again as the dragon breathed in and he heard the rustling of those great wings. Suddenly a jet of fire lanced out, making him wince and close his eyes against the light, thinking he was going to be immolated in a second. Immediately he heard the crackling of wood burning and he opened his eyes carefully. Off to his left a pyramidal stack of logs big enough to roast an entire team of oxen had burst into flame, lighting the vast space.

Again and again the fire flew, setting more bonfires alight until there was a ring of eight blazes with the dragon in the center and the pole with the trembling awed man directly facing him dangling weakly from the shackles on his wrists.

As a child and even as a man, Andrew had heard legends of the great dragon hordes. They were never first hand accounts, of course. Never had he actually encountered someone who claimed to have seen one and lived to tell abut it. Dragons themselves, especially great ones like Grond, were rare in the world these days and those who survived meeting them even rarer still.

But nothing in those legends had prepared the young redhead for the sight before him lit by the blazing bonfires. There was a great stone circle, twice the height of a man, and twice the size of the dragon itself. The circle was made of huge standing stones, some plain and some carved with strange symbols the like of which had not been spoken aloud in the world in ages. Some of the stones, on closer inspection seemed to be stone tombs, ripped entire out of the earth and carried here, their thick stone doors hanging ajar. The tombs of kings and mighty sorcerers now merely an adjunct to the dragons horde.

Around the stone circle Grond had erected wooden stands and assembled there armor and helms and weapons. It appeared as if there was an army of ten thousand soldiers protecting his treasure, their faceless helms forever standing vigil against would-be thieves.

And inside the circle, piled almost to overflowing the great standing stones, was the main part of his treasure. Heaps and mounds of gold and silver and mithril and precious gems. Coins and crowns and cups, swords and shields and here and there great oaken chests tipped over and spilling their precious contents into the rest of the vast heap.

Atop all of this sat the dragon. If you could say that a dragons face could have an expression, Grond's face looked extremely pleased. One of his front claws raked slowly through the heap of coins and gems almost tenderly, as if caressing a lover. Then those green eyes glinted, as if remembering the young man's presence for the first time, and narrowed. The dragon rose up on his hind legs, wings spread wide and raised his head towards the ceiling of the cavern and let out a bellow so loud that it smote Andy's ears and he cringed in pain. The whole mountain shook and small bits of stone rained down from the ceiling.

"I AM GROND DUECALIOUS!!"That proclamation seemed to echo for long moments throughout the caves and caverns of the mountain. Once again it was loud enough to make Andy cringe in pain and he wondered if they could hear the echoes all the way down in Laketown.

When he opened his eyes again he gasped. The dragon had leaned forward and the tip of his nose was only feet away from Andy's face, those bright green eyes looking at him closely. A nimbus of blue fire played around the edges of its mouth until that long snakelike tongue played around the edges of his jaws and extinguished the flames. He could feel the creatures breath against his body.

"Not once in ten times ten thousand years has a mortal laid living eyes on my treasure." That great head pulled back a bit and he glanced to the side at the assembled suits of armor.

"A few have tried, of course. Tried and died. And now they guard my horde for eternity." Andy gulped and shivered where he hung from the chains.

"Tell me boy. What do you think of my treasure? Is it not magnificent?"

Andy remembered what Grond had told him as he chained him to the post. "It is greater than I ever imagined in my wildest dreams, O Lord Grond. I'm sure there has never been a greater treasure anywhere in the world." Those green eyes narrowed and the dragon snorted, rings of blue fire and smoke coming out of his nostrils to fade away in the darkness.

"Flattery. Humph. Like that has never been tried before." Those eyes narrowed again. "Did you come here hoping to steal my treasure, little manling?" Andy shook his head.

"No, Lord Grond, I did not."

"THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE, BOY?"

"To please you, my lord. And to save my town and my people."

"So you say."

"It is the truth, my lord. I live only to serve and please you."

"And to save your precious Captain." The young man sighed and shivered.

"And him too. Yes."

"You... Love him. You desire to be his."

"Yes, my lord. I do."

"Hmmm..." The rumble in the dragons throat was so deep it vibrated the entire cavern, sending small avalanches of coins sliding down the pile.

"Tell me, manling. Can you say you can look upon my treasure and swear that you do not desire it? That you don't wish in your heart you could slay me and take what is mine?"

"Yes and no, lord."

"Explain yourself. How can you say yes and no?"

"It is true I desire your treasure, O Grond. How could any man look upon it and not? Even the smallest share... the amount I could carry away in one armload, would make me a rich man and comfortable to the end of my days. If I had a small wagon load I could buy all of Laketown and be it's master."

"But...?"

"But... I do not wish for you to be slain, master. Not even for all of your treasure."

"And why is that, boy?"

"Even though you have been cruel to me and marked me with that awful tawse... Even though you have kept me chained and caged, making me your servant and little more than a slave to your whims... You have given me much pleasure and given me hope for more. You have helped me voice and realize my deepest dreams. Those that I have never until now spoken of aloud. Not even to myself."

"You have made me give myself to you, Lord Grond. And I am now yours until the end of my days."

"Hmmmm..." A giant claw arced through the air and with a casual flick, parted the chains between the young mans shackles. The sudden release of tension made him teeter for just a second before that huge paw wrapped tightly but gently about his body and lifted him high into the air.

"One last test, then." Andrew was lifted across the room and over the bonfires and placed gently on his feet atop the pile of massed gold and silver. He could see now that the center of the pile had been mashed flat by the dragons immense weight while he slept, curled up on his fortune like a cat by a hearth. The center was now an almost completely solid mass of gold and precious gems in roughly the shape of a dragon.

"Choose, boy."

"Your pardon, sire?"

"Choose what you want. And... boy?"

"Yes, my lord?"

"Choose wisely."

The young man looked down at his feet. Gold coins slithered between his toes and there atop his foot sat an emerald the size of his fist. Widening his gaze he saw coins and ingots and bars of precious metals. Crowns and jewels and finely wrought delicate things obviously crafted by the finest dwarfish or elven smiths. Things the like of have not been seen in this world in an age or more, the secrets to their making having been long lost. Finely crafted swords and jeweled breastplates, rings and necklaces fit for only the highest kings and queens of old. The glitter and shine of the horde reflected back the light of the bonfires and made him squint.

For a moment he was struck dumb and immobile by the vast wealth at his fingertips. Then he took in a sudden breath an shook himself, wresting his eyes away from the treasure.

With careful steps to keep his footing, Andy walked across the heaps of treasure, no longer paying any heed to the promise of riches. He walked up to the dragons foreleg, stepped between those huge razor sharp claws and wrapped his arms around the dragons leg, pressing his cheek and as much of his body tightly against that rough warm scaly hide as he could.

"What is this?" The dragon sounded slightly astonished.

"I have chosen what I want, my lord. I have chosen you."

There was a moment frozen in time for a heartbeat, then Andrew felt that scaly hide shift under his touch. The part he had his arms wrapped around shrunk and softened and cooled just slightly until he found that his master had once again become a man. Those intense green eyes stared down at him and the corners of Grond's mouth twitched and widened until he actually smiled for the first time since their initial meeting. Grond's arms opened and folded the smaller man tightly into his chest.

"Thank you, my pet."

Chapter Eleven

Andrew lay on his back, staring up into his masters face as they lay together in that huge bed. After kissing him until they were both sweating and hard in the horde chamber, Grond had picked him up in his arms like a child and strode quickly back to his chambers. He of course knew all of the secret ways and passages of his underground warren and felt no need to retrace the circuitous route they had taken to get there.