FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

(Length warning: this story is over 16,000 words.)

(Content warning: rather than being a "pious fiction", this is an "impious fiction". If you are very religious, you might not like it.)

The Stonecarver

Damar was awakened in the middle of the night by a shout. Since he was too comfortable in his down-feather bed to move, he decided it was another merchant breaking curfew, and tried to go back to sleep. But the lone voice slowly was joined by others, and slowly a chrous emerged. Growls, screams of females, and howls of pain began carrying through the night -- and they drew closer.

The lion got up out of bed, threw on his robe, and wished King Madhi had never made his decree of ten days ago that the hyenas were blood enemies. He crept across the dark bedroom, knowing every inch of the house he had designed himself, went down the hall, and into his workshop. Only here did he fumble around for a candle and a flint, finding only the tools he had laid out to finish his ten foot statue of the King.

But before he could find anything resembling a weapon, two pairs of heavy boots rushed in the front door. Instead of the candle, he grabbed a seven inch chisel, which he hoped would be sharp enough, and hid it behind his back, just as the marauders tromped in the room.

Two hyenas, covered from the tips of their ears to the pads of their feet in armor plate, both growled at him with viciuos looks. Both were young, differing primarily in their height, and wielded heavy, stone hammers. With nothing more than a look at each other, one locked his eyes on Damar and barred his teeth, while the other drew an empty sack from his chest plate and started walking toward the showcase of Damar's work.

Damar tried to keep an eye on them both, deciding what to do as his hand clenched the pick's handle. When the first solider passed over the stone works, bronze statuettes, and settled on his prize collection of pottery, Damar jumped without thinking.

Before Damar could even lunge the 5 feet, the hyena's partner in crime shouted, "turn!"

To Damar's astonishment, the hyena spun, and in one swift motion, dodged Damar's poor jab, knocked the weapon out of his hand, and smashed his steel gauntlet into the lion's temple, making him go blind in his right eye. Before he could even cry out in pain and surprise, the hyena added a kick to the stomach, taking the wind out of him, and sending him to the floor crumpled, riddled with pain, and silent.

As he tried to breathe again, his stomach almost unable to take a breath in, he felt his his shoulders jerked backwards, and his wrists being tied. "He must be the one," grunted the one standing guard with a mischevous smirk, "we shall get a reward for this."

Once he was bound, both of the robbers looted whatever they wanted, including -- to his surprise -- his set of generally worthless tools. They were high quality, but didn't expect them to sell for much. As he was then pulled to his feet by his ear -- his body finding a way to feel still more, sharp pain in the midst of his aching chest -- he was marched outside.

The streets, he found, were in complete disarray. The hyenas methodically went into every single dwelling, two at a time, and came out with a full sack and its former occupants. Each pair seemed to believe their prizes would do them well, and all used similarly painful means of keeping everyone in line, from males half his age to toothless elders.

Even as the town guards were being rounded up, without spilling but a few drips of blood to Damar's astonishment, a tall, greying hyena in highly decorated armor, whiceh seemed to be the most battle-worn of all, eyed the civilians he had captured.

Damar closed his eyes and prayed to his protector, the almighty and invisible one, the one who had always kept his ancestors from harm. The one who would issue in a final justice in the last days, and bring upon these heathens all of their own torments a hundred fold. He asked for help; he asked for revenge; he asked for anything to stop the pain.

But his whispering soon drew attention. "Silence!" barked a voice, and Damar was punched in the nose.

It was enough to make him shut up, as it refocused his attention on pain, and the forming bruises on his face.

"Name!" snarled the voice, which he found attached to the eldermost dog.

Damar tried to ignore him, and refocus on his prayers, but the voice shouted in his ear to make it ring. "Your name!" it barked again, shattering any hope he had of concentration.

"Damar!" he blurted in surprise, as he opened his eyes to see the commander towering over him.

As he looked back at the short, black snout, mottled visage, and furious eyes of his captor, he realized his life was over. This heathen would surely torture him for information, and then butcher him for meat to feed his troops. He channeled his entire soul into the hands of his divine protector, and tried one last time to die with honor.

"Kill me!" he shouted in definace, remembering all of the dedication, patience, and virtue he had accumulated over his life.

But the commander laughed, in the stuttering, growling way of his kind. "you'll have to do that yourself!" he replied, before moving on to obtain other names in a similarly frigthening manner.

Damar heard most of the town reply: the tiger who dealt in goods; the quartermaster for the King; the three largest landowners; the priests and monks of the church. And for each one, a sentence was announced: the strong males would be set free; all of the prettiest females were to be taken to a faraway land, with only one possible way to avoid starvation; the two priests were humiliated by being made to bow down and worship the commander; and one member of the group was selected for a ransom demand to the King.

Only when he was once again compelled to stand by his ear being pulled did he realize the victim of the last was himself. The sharp pain of his ear so contrasted with the smoldering of his wounds that it made him stand up without even thinking about it. As his nose bled down his throat, a spear prodded his back, and as he watched the troops form up around him, he was marched away from the city walls and out into the forest.

As he stumbled away from the only life he had ever known, into the thick darkness which shrouded the familiar night stars, he didn't like what he heard on Earth.

"What shall we set the ransom?" he heard one of the soliders ask the commander.

He mischeviously replied, "his weight in gold. For a master craftsman, King Madhi will surely pay that."

The lion considered himself lucky to have his legs unharmed. For what seemed like almost an hour, Damar was marched on an agonizing journey. Every time he stumbled and fell, he was pulled slowly to his feet by the same right ear which made him obey them. No matter how much pain he found himself in, no matter how much his legs burned or his chest begged him for breath, the speartip touching him kept him taking step after step.

"Give me a way out," he panted to his invisible deity, "please."

He heard another laugh from the well-decorated hyena.

"Take my soul," continued Damar, ignoring him, "please, end this torment."

"No one can hear you but us!" gloated the solider, "give up!"

But Damar wouldn't give up. He recited every prayer he had memorized, marching in time to the words as his legs began to wobble and weaken. The chant kept his feet moving, and it seemed to be the best he could do. But as the forest became darker and denser, it was ever more harder to navigate. Damar wished he could use those stars to return from whence they came, but had no such skill, since Madhi Arabia was mostly inland from the ocean.

The reverent, tormented haze did not lift until he saw a great light. Dozens of torches which he somehow did not see until they were standing right before the camp suddenly blazed into view. Several hundred warriors, most in armor, all male, and all well-built though varied in stature, inhabited the rings within rings of tents spaning several hundred feet.

They were organized around a bonfire in the center burning a blinding orange. Ever single one of them seemed voracious and primitive; some sparred, some ate, some laughed and told stories of the character he thought would shock even sailors. Even sleep seemed like an exercise: those whose eyes were closed tossed and turned on the ground.

As the troops came marching in, suddenly forming into three neat rows, the sentries on the edge of the camp rushed to the largest of six large tents near the center.

"They have returned, Kain!" called the sentry from inside.

Out strutted a tall, aged hyena with deep eyes and a sunken face. Rather than armor, he wore a dingy robe, which Damar guessed used to be white, several necklaces of polished stones, and intricately ornamented bracers of forged bronze.

"Show me the spoils!" he commanded, his eyes lit by the reflection from the bonfire, showing a bountiful glee.

The decorated captor bent to one knee and bounced back to his feet, causing his troops to do the same in a wave carrying down behind him. And then, one at a time, bags were passed forward, hand over hand, to the commander.

But before Kain accepted even one from the commander, he growled, "and who is this?"

His eyes shifted to study Damar, who could do nothing but stand there defiantly, assuming this to be the master of the theives' den.

"He is Damar," replied the commander, "on your knees before Kain!"

As he spoke the words, one of the soliders broke ranks to kick Damar in the back of the kneecaps, making his balance falter, and drop to his knees.

Damar looked up at the visage of Kain, filled with revulsion by such a creature who could order the ransacking of everything he held dear. The hyena, after looking him over, bent down, and most strangely, sniffed the top of his mane, like a wild animal examining a carcass.

"I see," Kain growled, "and what is he for?"

"He is a master crafstman to be ransomed to King Madhi," replied the commander proudly, "I would suggest his weight in gold."

Damar was at least glad to see the plan was going to be straight forward. Kain looked him over again and thought a moment, scratching his jaw and making his ears twitch.

When his itch was satisifed, however, he asked in a mocking tone, "do you think he can afford it after the losses he has just suffered?"

An evil grin slowly spread over Kain's face as the commander replied, "I hope not. He shall be far more valuable to us than to that wretched ruler and his book of sprit magic!"

Damar grit his teeth at hearing The Holy Book so described. It was easy, he supposed, for those who could not trust the invisible to make all magical forces look alike.

Turning to the sentry who had brought him out and was now standing by his side, Kain ordered, "you will send Madhi word tomorrow."

He nodded, knelt, and bounced back to his feet.

"And perhaps I should ask," he added to Damar, turning back sudently toward the lion, "do you follow the book?"

"Yes," he defiantly answered.

"Then you must be abused of that notion," he advised, reaching down and running a black-furred hand through Damar's mane. "Tie him to the tree, and teach him how impious he can be."

The commander got a look of great zeal and excitement on his face as he replied, "certainly."

Without a word, the solider still behind Damar then suddenly produced a knife from somewhere, and sliced Damar's tunic right down the back, and pulled it off him.

The lion was quite shocked by the rush of the cool night air against his suddenly exposed form, gritting his teeth both in modesty and shock. A roar of laughter broke out from the troops as Kain returned to his large tent and disappeared, flashing one last grin at the lion before closing the flap.

"We have done well," the commander told his troops, "we shall have much to trade in three days!"

"Hail the great Than!" shouted one, afterwhich they all joined in for three cheers, and then all broke ranks.

Damar knew that something bad would happen to him when the heathens decided to tie him to the trunk of the tree instead of a branch, forcing him to sit with his back to it.

As darkness fell, the camp seemed perfectly divided. Several of the hyenas seemed to get more energy; many woke up, cooked food on the bonfire, started arguments and their own sparring matches. The rest, mainly those wounded and worn from pillaging, laid down or went to get their wounds treated by one particular hyena who wore hides and many necklaces.

Damar cringed at the pain, wishing he could get his bruises healed, but dared not say anything to appear weak. He was glad that either his body had decided to start repairing them, or at the very least, made them go numb to save him the agony.

However, as Damar tried to take his mind off his suituation, looking to the shadows of the trees that dwarfed him and struggled to find the Lord, Than finished his meal and walked over to him with a sadistic grin on his face.

"If you are looking for your sky spirit, he won't find you out here."

Damar tried ignoring him, focusing on counting the branches on the tree he was beneath instead. But the number flew out of his head when two hyena fingers suddenly pinched his wounded nose.

"Listen to me!" snarled Than, as Damar called out in pain on top of pain. "Your sky spirit has forsaken you!" Than's eyes lit up like fury and his ears turned backward in anger, as Damar's bound wrists struggled to get to his nose to no avail.

Damar reflexively turned his head upward and let his mouth droop, as he tried to mitigate the extreme discomfort, trying to go somewhere else, anywhere else, at least in his mind.

"Do you understand!?" the commander snarled, dragging him back to the situation, "your sky spririt has forsaken you! Say it!"

Damar was crying so much, he repeated the sounds without really processing them. "Ny sy spiri haf forfaken meh," he sobbed with his blocked nose.

Only after this did the hyena let go of the lion's nose, leaving Damar to catch his breath and sob some more as quietly as he could.

"If you don't kill yourself in the morning," he added as he walked back toward the fire, "you'll do more for us than He ever did for you."

Damar tried to ignore the comment, knowing that it was the grace of the Lord that allowed him to wield a chisel.

After some long length of time, Damar didn't know when, the waning moon rose to its full height. Damar could not see it for the tree above him, but saw the glow and shadows that came from its light. For the first time Damar had seen, Than and all the others took off their armor, except for a few dozen who marched out of camp.

Damar was astonished at the complexity. It turned out to be interlinked metal pieces, almost a dozen in number; even the boots had a heel and toe piece. Since there was also padding on the underside, it appeared to allow them great dexterity without sacrificing protection except at a few tiny points.

The wild dogs seemed to have no qualms whatsoever about having nothing on, not even a loin cloth. Every one of their spots, as well as their short tails and private parts, was fully exposed. It only served to make Damar uncomfortable all over again about being stripped before Kain.

As they finally settled down, and snuffed out the bonfire at last, Damar concluded he could try to get some sleep, something his body insisted upon now that he didn't feel in imminent danger. He managed to close his eyes, whispering one more prayer of forgiveness in case the Lord was listening.

Before no time had passed at all, however, he felt his face get slapped. "Wake!" quietly growled a voice.

Damar slowly opened his eyes to find Than squatting in front of him with a strange, hungry look in his eyes. Instead of pinching his nose, his fingers hooked into the nostrils and pulled up. When Damar raised his head without thinking, the hyena stood to his full height, to show off a rock hard six inches of prick.

Damar knew exactly what he was going to have to do for this heathen, in violation of all he had been taught. He squirmed and closed his eyes, but left his mouth open. Than took the opportunity and put it straight in, not too deep.

Releasing his nose and grasping his skull with both hands, Than snarled, "now start sucking."

Damar, trying to forget the instructions of the Lord, ran his tongue once over the pink, furless end. It tasted terrible and musky, but got a grunt out of Than, and he knew that was the point. So, he licked again, and again, and again. He was rewarded by having the earthy-smelling fur of Than's pelvis moved closer to his head, as if to make him put more in his mouth.

When Than started to put out beads of precum, he took over. He grabbed his own dick, and pressed the lion's muzzle around it using control of Damar's head. Damar struggled to breathe through his throbbing nose, as the down-like fur of the cock slide by his lips, in, and then out, and then in again. He considered biting down, thus probably ending his life, but some instinct within him refused to let him commit suicide in such a manner.

Before long, the cock started dripping more precum, and then as Than snarled and thrusted his hips several times in a row, started pumping out his seed. Since he then kept Damar's head right next to his pelvis, the length almost choking the lion, Damar was forced to swallow the bitter, sticky fluid and Than whimpered and sighed, a look of peace coming over his face that Damar had also never seen in a hyena before.

It didn't last long; without another word, he withdrew, wiped himself up on Damar's mane, and returned to his tent. Damar thought it was awful, but knew the Lord would forigve him; he was compelled to act in such a disgusting manner. He did his best to return to sleep.

But he couldn't. Almost before his eyes had shut, he was slapped again, the time by a slightly younger hyena with an equally hard cock. Not wanting to feel the agony of his nose a third time, he just opened his mouth, and let the hyena insert himself. He came far quicker than Than did, but just like his elder, pushed himself in fully, tipped Damar's head back, and made him swallow it all.

When he settled down, another woke up, and demanded the same thing. And once he was satisfied, another male was waiting. And after him, more awoke. Damar's neck was tiring, and his sense of taste was blurring, but more worrysome than that, there was an inkling of enjoyment in the back of his mind he got whenever he saw one of them come. His half-alseep mind started to find, after the tenth blowjob, the look of serene pleasure was something he couldn't help but empathize with.

Even as he drank, again and again, he prayed for forgiveness and guidance. He begged to know how to restrain himself, how he should follow the laws he had been given; but more often, he found himself begging for sleep. As the moon sunk from the sky, and he finished his fourteenth male, no answers came to him, and the pace did not let up. He found it harder and harder to pull himself from his sleep, just even to open his mouth or roll his sore neck.

Two more followed, which he barely managed to swallow, and then he was allowed to collapse into a comatose sleep at last.

***

Damar next felt another slap, and opened his eyes to find broad daylight, and winced.

"Get up!" snarled Than.

Being used to acting in half-awakened states, he opened his mouth without thinking, but that didn't seem to be what the hyena wanted.

"I said, get up!" he repeated, as Damar -- to his astonishment -- felt his wrists being untied.

He was grabbed from behind, this time by his shoulders, and pulled to his feet as the ropes fell away from his wrists. In fact, to his surprise, he had water poured down his throat, despite an uncomfortably full stomach. Nearly choking on it managed to get him back awake fairly quickly.

"Since your sky spirit has not smited you," Than commanded wryly, as the water was taken away, "you shall now abandon him, and make us more powerful than you can imagine."

Whoever was behind him, probably another solider, pushed Damar's newly freed wrists uncomfortably into the small of his back, and marched him toward the center of the camp. He walked, still not sure what they were going to do; perhaps make him part of their heathen rituals? He had been taught that if he did not believe in their power, nothing could happen to him. But then, he had also been taught that those males that lay down with males ough to be put to death.

He was stopped in frnot of a large, flat stone, the base where the bon fire was propped up. All the hyenas had assembled, clubs at the ready, and for a moment, Damar was convinced he would be sacrificed. But instead, at Than's command, his wrists were released, and a large, cerimonial mace was placed on the block. The double-rounded head had many symbols of precious metal, winding curves and looping shapes.

The ring of hyenas surrounded him completely, gaps filling to make them all shoulder to shoulder, leaning forward with anticipation of some event. And then, a series of his clay models -- for statues he would build -- were put upon the block, along with at least a dozen pottery jars of fine quality, probably from Madhi's palace.

"Destroy them!" Than commanded.

Damar assumed this was just another way to cut him down to size: make him destroy his own works. To him, they were quite valuable -- models whose detail consumed a great deal of his time -- but he knew that the six-foot versions still stood in the town for others to admire.

The lion slowly picked up the massive hammer, and for a split second, considered crushing in Than's skull wih it. But with a glance around at the warriors assembled, who seemed to be growing impatient, he realized he was outnumbered hundreds to one, and would never survive.

So, Damar drew together what strength he could, raised the hammer mightly, and let it land on a tall jar. With the defening clang of the hammer ringing against the rock, the sound of the pottery shatterning was minescule. Even before the dust had settled, in a wave, all of them rushed forward with a cacophany of growls and howls of battle, as if the pottery here assembled were an enemy army.

Those neaest to Damar shoved him out of the way scrambling for it, as others began pounding the remains with their own clubs. Within seconds, there was nothing but dust on the stone and in the air, as chips were flying in a frenzy. The lion was kicked repeatedly by the shuffling feet, several times in the stomach, and could do nothing but lie there and protect his head from the hammers and rock chips.

After some time, the hyenas finally stopped. Damar was still aching and stunned from the trampling, too dazed to even try to understand the strange behavior before him. But he was given an explaination shortly. He was dragged from the ground and dropped onto the side of the block, his hands acting reflexively to keep his head from hitting it.

He then watched as the dust and ash that remained had water pourn on it, the very water from which he had drank earlier. "Now you will mold them," Than growled from behind him as his tray of tools was brought.

"Mold them what?" Damar could only ask dumbly, finally understanding he was about to do more pottery.

"Into our Tokens. Each is unique. Start with mine."

Than reached inside his chest plate, and carefully pulled a six-inch statue from somwhere inside it. The tiny hyena was in posed in a defensive fighting form, a sword in his right hand and a shield in his left. His eyes glared intently at the invisible target before him, his muzzle in a snarl and his teeth barred.

Unlike these warriors, however, he was completely naked -- or so it appeared, for an unfortunate chip in his form made it difficult to tell if he wore a loin cloth or not.

Than shoved it into Damar's palm. "Make me another, exactly like it," he instructed sharply, as he walked away and started organizing several warriors into a band.

Damar considered his craft to be something almost holy. It was his pride, his skill, and the main source of enjoyment in his life. Assuming they were worthless idols, he decided there would be no harm in creating one; especially if it meant he would be allowed to sleep at night.

He began examining the statue intently, as he folded the dust, ash, and water into each other as well as he could manage. It was the coursest clay he had ever worked with, and was convinced it wouldn't even hold together, but he knew he had to try. A further difficulty was to work on something so small; the six inches he had for height were half of the normal models he made. Since the original was not as well formed as it could have been, he decided to give himself the same leeway.

The more he stuided the tiny form, the more he wondered what it symbolized. If it were a deity, why would each have his own? But they were convinced it had some sort of power, at the very least. But he hold himself it did nothing: there was one true God, and that was why idols were to not be worshipped.

As he started working, hands shaping the general form without much thought, he watched what looked like a ritual fight. Two at a time sparred unarmed, swinging and dodging in almost a dance-like form, in total silence with nothing but grunts and pants of exertion. Blows were quick, and when they were landed, not so much as a whimper was uttered. The loser was the one who first whimpered, and often was defeated by being knocked off his feet, and then beaten until he yowled in pain.

What Damar found interesting was that the victor could be predicted by the precision of his Token. Winner and loser compared objects after the fight, everything from statuettes, to spears and helmets, to tiny pots which held no water and gems that didn't glitter. It wasn't the biggest object that won, but the most detailed. The winners showed off their prizes with admiration, as if they were diamonds, something Damar was quite baffled at.

His curiosity was interrupted, however, by an irritation which was becoming all too familiar to him.

"Are you done yet?" Than growled, once his warriors had been rounded up and ordered into a formation.

Feeling for the first time that he had power -- because he was doing something Than needed -- put great gravity into his voice. "Patience," cautioned Damar, as he had told King Madhi countless times, "perfection takes time."

"How long!?" the hyena snarled. Based on his genuine opinion, given the difficulty of the shield design and facial detail, he replied, "until sunset."

"Finish by the time the traders return, or you'll get no sleep!" he threatened. He then sent six hyenas out of camp, arms full of their plunder bags -- presumably the traders.

Damar did nothing else that day, except relieve himself once or twice and sneak drinks of water from the skin that had been left by him. The hyenas continued to spar, further establishing the pattern: the best token won, regardless of might, size, or concentration. A far more youthful male, who had been defeated, and walked away with his ears down, took pause to study the lion a moment.

He walked slowly toward Damar, more as if studying his work than looking for a meal or some other kind of satisfaction. Damar looked up and met his brown eyes for a fleeting moment, but the hyena seemed quiet interested in the tiny idol he was gently pressing detail into.

"You look like you need one of these," Damar remarked cautiously, as if talking to a wild animal who could bite his head off at any moment.

The hyena looked at him, almost nervously, and didn't say anything.

Damar decided to see what he could do to make a friend, possibly one who would let him escape, or at least could improve his treatment. He carefully studied the form of the hyena he was carving, fixed it into his mind, and then with a look right into the hyena's eyes, held out the damaged one.

"Take it," he whispered, adding a husky note to his voice, since that's how they seemed to interact.

The young male just looked down cautiously.

"Take it!" Damar repeated, grabbing his empty right hand and putting the statuette into it.

The hyena looked up at him, bent his knee momentarily, and bounced back to his feet, manipulating it in his free hand.

Damar watched in surprise as he then took a deep breath, flexed his muscles, and seemed to be imbued with great energy. He challenged the next duel's loser, and won quickly with a flurry of weaves and blows. He begged the Lord for an explaination: how could mere pieces of clay cause such a transformation? But none came to him.

"These creatures can never worship You unless they see your power," he whispered to try and whittle an answer out of the invisible deity, as he worked. "Do not let them succeed with these false idols."

But the young hyena continued to get yowls out of those both his elder and his younger.

To add to this injustice, Damar found another relevant question to his faith appear as he finished the legs of the tiny sculpture. He had considered it fortunate that the tail of his original model was hooked, a side effect of his agressive pose, and therefore he needed carve nothing but two curves for buttocks, with or without clothing. However, the opposite side of the statue was a problem: since the original was damaged, it required Damar's imagination to fill in.

The mere need to concentrate on such a thing he found revolting, for it made him think of his own strange feelings the night before. Telling himself that he would have a repeat of that experience if he failed to finish it, he tried to keep his mind on the ritual fight, and began filing the tiny hyena into a quite clear male.

It was as he was finishing this last detail that Than's pack of traders returned. Instead of sacks full of gold and silver, to Damar's surprise, the soliders struggled under the weight of wood, stone, iron and broze, thread, herbs, pottery of four sizes, and bushels of tools. These were mundane goods that anyone could buy in town fairly cheaply, and in fact, most of them seemed un-needed by a camp of soliders.

As he was brushing the dust off of his finalized statue, clay still moist, Than walked over to him and snatched it from his hands. He looked it over for not more than three seconds before concluding with his sinsiter smile, "it's a copy." He took it, and ordered a kiln built to fire it.

However, Damar got no rest. One of the returing hyenas immediately demanded, with Than's approval, "now make me one, a spear point. You have until nightfall."

Damar looked up into the sky, and knew that wasn't possible. "The sun is already setting!" growled Damar, more of a warning than a complaint.

"Do it, or you'll be punished!" added Than, his firey eyes and tone of voice indicated he would enjoy that punishment considerably.

The lion decided that he had better get to work in any case, and within ten minutes, had filed the rough set of edges down to six smooth, hexagonal ones.

But the tip was still deformed into a strange, bulbous shape by the time Kain gave the order to start the fire. Apparently, this marked the beginning of nightfall, for Than marched over and snapped, "it's not done!"

As he grabbed Damar's mane, and began to pull it and make Damar shout, a voice suddenly shouted, "Than!"

It was the younger hyena whom Damar had given the broken statuette. "Let him work!"

"He has not done what I told him!"

"You cannot demand the impossible!"

"He is a master craftsman, he can create anything!"

"Not in an hour, and you know it!"

Kain, however, was the one who stopped the argument. He lumbered over to them from the fire, and commanded, "enough!"

Than, who he looked right in the eye when he said it, folded swiftly to his knees submissively. He was the only one Damar ever saw to make his tormentor's ears and legs fold, and Damar couldn't help but enjoy observing it.

"Damar shall permanently be with us," he suddenly boomed, "I am told King Madhi has declined to accept the ransom."

As Damar's face melted into shock, the chieftan's took a look of joy.

"What does that mean?" the lion demanded hesitantly.

"It means," explained Kain sharply, "you are now one of us. And you," he snarled to Than, "shall have no more command over him!"

The shock was still making its way into the lion's awareness. He couldn't bring himself to believe that King Madhi would abandon him -- his last hope, and the one which all of his plans to escape had rested upon. But all the rest of the hyenas seemed to believe the news, and met it with general cheer.

"What does it mean to be one of you?" Damar finally asked, unable to hide the disdain in his voice.

"You are one of us," continued Kain, "which means you shall show loyalty and respect -- and shall be worthy of it," he added, looking sharply at Than.

Damar grit his teeth, not able to be loyal to these creatures who had kidnapped him, stolen from him, ransacked his beloved town, and drew the wrath of his king. As he was about to scorn them all, however, his defiance was drained from him with an accidental glance toward the young hyena who had won the ritual fight.

He was glaring at Damar, teeth clenched in anxiety, his fist held to his chestpiece, right over the trinket he had won his battles with. His eyes seemed to say it all: you helped me, so you must not think we're complete monsters.

This hesitation made Damar ask a question instead. "What standing do I have?"

"Your standing is as tall as your legs are," Kain replied, getting a laugh.

Damar assumed he didn't get the metaphor. "How can I be respected?" he rephrased.

"Be loyal to us, live with us, and mate with us," replied Kain with a tough but polite tone he had never before shown.

More and more eyes gathered to stare at Damar as he thought over his response. He found himself more and more struggling with the force who he also knew was watching, more powerful than all those pairs of eyes a million fold. It was He who was now the principle objector to striking any sort of arrangement with these creatures who did not worship him. He whispered for an answer, be it permission to acquesce, or inspiration to escape.

Apparently, his lofty thoughts bled into his eyes, for after looking up to the sky for some time, the aged hyena who had treated wounds came forward. "Fear no one but you," he advised, "and pray to no one but you."

He made it sound like he had already gone from prisoner to tribesman, in a few seconds of silence, and everyone had accepted it but him. And when the lion heard the voice, he looked around to find most of the eyes suddenly pensive instead of angry.

"What else can you want," insisted Than, "no power is greater than you!"

"Yes He is!" replied Damar, one of his buttons pushed, "The Lord is greater than all of us!"

But when he pointed up, and the mass of eyes followed, they seemed to see nothing but the tops of trees. The young hyena got a frustrated look on his face, as if he made a decision. Damar then watched with emotional pain he could not deny as the look spread. The looks on their faces were as if they had somehow been tricked.

But before Damar could even consider doing anything else, a tall male stepped past Than and grabbed Damar.

"You are a brother!" he shouted.

"No I'm not!" shouted Damar, afterwhich he was pushed against a tree. He struggled with the hyena, but he was far stronger than the lion, as he heard more footsteps converging on him.

But rather than the punishment he was most terrified of, Damar was punched in the back. Then he was smacked in the shoulders, making him yell. Following these were more blows, all over his back; punches in the middle, kicks to his buttocks and legs, making him scream.

He was crying after only two minutes, begging them to stop. But they didn't, as he screamed and cried, their blows only hurt more, not less. He lost consciousness from the pain before anything else could happen, hearing one shout above them all. "Why," demanded the youthful voice, "why!"

***

Damar awoke to a cold feeling in the middle of his back, and severe soreness everywhere else below his neck. He found himself on his stomach, staring at the base of a familiar tree, almost unable to move. When he tried to even turn his shoulders to shift his weight, several points in his back erupted in pain. He groaned reflexively, even as he felt a hand appear on the back of his neck.

"Easy," reassured the voice of a hyena he did not immediately recognize.

The beating he had endured was quite serious, he realized, as he gently let himself down back into the dirt. He didn't even want to think about how horrible his skin must look. "I am Kaemau. Just relax."

Damar groaned and winced as the cold sensation, caused by some sort of thick goo that he felt being spread by the hands along his back.

"If only your stomach were beaten," Kaemau advised, "I would suggest you get mated to feel better."

"Females are for mating," groaned Damar, "and you don't have any."

"Since you are in a camp of war, not a tribal villiage, you had best find joy in your brothers."

"I'm no one's brother," he whimpered definantly, finding the Lord's direction very easy not to break.

"Yes you are," corrected the voice gently, as a father explaining the ways of the world to a child. "You said you aren't, we said you are, we fought you, and you lost."

So that was the way they looked at his savage beating, Damar realized.

"Can you move your hands?" the voice asked before the lion could come up with a reply.

Damar looked down at his arms, which were sore, but not nearly as badly bruised as his legs felt. His hands and arms had escaped unscathed.

This motion in the process of examination was what the hyena wanted. "Good, for you have more clay to form."

Working in this condition seemed rediculous, to say the least. "Do I have to?" Damar asked arduously, wishing to do nothing but rest -- having had nearly none since he had been captured.

"You are a slave no longer," sagely replied his caretaker, "but it would be better to have friends around you than enemies."

"The only friend I need is the Lord," whispered Damar defiantly, trying to gather up what strength he had to fight the pain.

"And I want your jaw fur," replied Kumar.

"My mane?" Damar repeated, struggling to turn his head and see Kumar's face.

"I wish to braid it and make thread."

"No," snarled Damar, feeling he had lost enough.

"I don't think you can fight me," pointed out the hyena, "I would win."

It was as Damar closed his eyes and prepared for yet another humimliation that the hyena added, "but I won't take it."

Since there was obviously pause left for it, Damar dumbly asked, "why not?"

"Because I cannot afford to keep enemies. For keeping you as a friend, you can keep your jaw hair." He got to his feet and began to walk off.

"Where are you going!?" whined Damar, terrified of being left unguarded by someone in his vulnerable state.

"I shall return with food," the voice replied kindly, as the feet continued to carry it away.

Deciding he had been given a reprieve for a moment, Damar tried to ignore his pains, put his head down carefully in the dirt, and closed his eyes. He silently prayed for strength, an end to the pain, and a plan of escape. All he wanted was to return to the life he had known; his home, his tools, and a king with a taste for statues that would keep him employed until he was too weak to lift a hammer.

Using the strength he began to feel, perhaps a gift from the Lord, he managed to slowly crawl in a circle, going from staring at a tree into managing to look toward the center of the camp. It was excruciating, but motivated by the fact he wanted to see anyone about to attack him further in some way. What he saw, however, was not a good sight.

Most of the camp was preparing to fight; armor was being donned, idols were being put into chestplates, and hyenas were shadow-dancing their attack moves. He also saw the young hyena to whom he had given the old stattuette brooding, staring at the ashes with an angry look.

Before Damar could determining what was happening, however, the hyena reappeared by his side with a piece of raw meat, probably once the body of a rabbit based on its size. This time, he sat in front of Damar, revealing his aged frame, fading fur, yellowed teeth, necklaces, and robes.

"Here," he offered, the blood still on the piece of meat, "eat."

Damar was quite hungry, not having eaten in over a day, but couldn't bring himself to even look at it, much less open his mouth.

"Can't you cook it first?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Very well, but it will take longer."

The healer got up, poked his head into Kain's tent, said something, got an answer, and then started digging in the dirt nearby. Damar just watched pateiently, trying to reassure his pained stomach that it would be satisifed soon.

The healer gathered sticks, squatted down by the fire, and used a jagged piece of stone, with many sharp clean laticies, to scratch another and create a spark. Blowing on it, the fire slowly began to smolder, and then burned. Using some of the unburned wood obtained from the trade, he got a fire going in about ten minutes.

He grabbed a spearhead, stabbed the meat, and used it as a spit. He put it on the fire, and watched it cook. As the meat smoked, however, the smell began to draw noses. Several hyenas walked by the fire and sniffed before leaving camp, finishing their armor, or going into and out of their tents.

Just as Damar was preparing to sink his teeth into it, however, a rather tall male about the middle of the age group reached over, grabbed the meat off the spear, and gulped it into his mouth.

The healer stood and glared, but he growled at him ferociously.

"It's not mine," replied the aged hyena, "it's his. I would make it up to him if you want a token carved."

The hyena looked quite surprised, and then embarassed, and then looked the lion straight in the eye with his ears folded back. Only now did Damar realize the power he had, and the respect, perhaps, he could command.

"Come here," he demanded loudly, strengthening his voice despite his crippled position lying on the ground.

The hyena seemed to respond to the former rather than the latter, and with ears back, he came over and knelt beside the lion.

"I do apologize," he whispered, "how can I make it up to you?"

Damar answered without really thinking about it, the simplest way he could. "Quite simply," he replied, maintaining his imperial tone, "get me some food!"

The hyena bounced to his knee and back, put on his arm plates, took the spearhead, and walked out of camp.

It took Damar a moment to realize what he had just done. As he was scolding himself for not teaching the creature a lesson -- perhaps the only kind of lesson these savages would understand -- the aging sage piped up.

"Perhaps you are learning to live with us after all," he commented.

However, Damar was still in his old pattern of thinking. "I should have taught him a lesson," he grumbled, "a rare opportunity to do so."

The sage, however, tsked at him. "You know how much he would enjoy a lesson. He has paid you a debt, and believe me, that is quite punishment enough. He need not learn anything."

"He needs to learn not to take food," corrected Damar, "that's stealing."

"Stealing is when you take and do not pay back. If he sees food, and is hungry, he takes it. If he gives you new food, what have you lost?"

"I would be eating now," replied the lion, wishing he could just end the argument.

"I am sure he will give you more food than before to make up the difference," replied the sage with a yawn and a stretch.

At the mention of stealing, however, the irony of a people whose survival depended on immorality lecturing him dawned upon him. "For someone who does nothing but steal, you seem to have quite a sense of justice," he pointedly pointed out.

"But we don't steal."

"And what would you call me being kidnapped and ransomed?" snarled Damar.

The sage, for the first time, seemed to conceed the point. "You are a rare exception. Most of the time, we take only what we need to surivive, and give it back."

"You seemed to take a lot more than me when you went pillaging!" Damar found remembering the subject to raise his blood pressure, and made his wounds throb slightly through the numbness of the goo.

Despite the lion's anger, the healer remained calm. "How many people have you ever seen killed by a hyena?" he asked.

"Dozens!" replied Damar.

"Really? Or have you just seem them beaten?"

"I have seen unconscious bodies in the streets!"

"But how many of them have actually died?"

"I do not know!"

"That makes all the difference. We beat only when you resist. We do not kill."

"No," Damar continued ahead, "you just steal!"

"How many times have you had your prizes stolen, and returned to you?"

"I was lucky," insisted Damar, "I bought them back from -- someone who can buy anything." He didn't want to tip the hand of the Tiger whom he now realized had been spared.

"Do you know anyone else who has not had their goods returned?"

Seeing it was a similar type of question to whether they had killed anyone, Damar decided to think more carefully before answering to avoid being led into the same trap. The kind had his palace ransacked, but managed to return everything to order; he knew of merchants whose inventory disappeared, but they replaced it quite quickly.

"The storehouses!" he exclaimed angrily as it dawned upon him, "are plundered every time without return!"

"And every time, shortly thereafter, your kingly cat also immediately gives you work."

Damar didn't see the connection. "So?"

"He often 'finds' the gold to pay you within a week. So: we do not kill, and we repay what we steal. It would seem to me we are more just than the king, who leaves beggars in the street he has not seen fit to feed."

The story was hard to deny, but Damar found it still harder to believe; honor among thieves, he knew, was always short-lived.

Just as Damar was about to argue with the plausibility, however, the lawless thief who had stolen nothing more than his meal returned. Instead of a rabbit, however, he carried the carcass of a large deer.

This made several other hyenas gather around with their noses, but he raised his bloody spearhead to all of them. "This meal is payment!" He had the same angry glare, and grit teeth, that he tried to intimidate the sage with, and he was strong enough that both young and old drew no closer. All, however, watched from a distance, waiting to see what scraps would be left when Damar finished.

The lion was quite astonished at the size of the new catch.

"You see?" emphaisezed the sage as the hyena began cutting up the corpse, "we pay our debts with intrest."

Determined now to win the argument more than his belly was to be full, Damar decided to return to that exception. "But what about me?" he insisted, "I was stolen from my house, and --"

"The plan, remember," interrupted the sage, face remaining calm, but voice beginning to show some strain. "was to ransom you; to give you back in exchange for gold. If your King did not want you back, it is not our choice."

Damar scoffed. "What about my wonderful abode, my works of the past --"

"You have your tools, and you have yourself. Wishing for more is vanity. Do you not enjoy creating new things?"

"So that I and others can enjoy them, not so they can be stolen by a pack of wild hyenas!" he snapped, pain renewing as he wished once again to feel his soft bed instead of the dirt he now lay in.

"Who appreciates a statue to Madhi except Madhi himself?" rhetorically asked Kaemau. "And when he is dead, who will weep for him?"

Damar knew the panther was of only modest popularity, and feared the sage's implicit opinion might have a reasonable chance of being true. But as the argument kept getting more and more personal, Damar became homesick. "The king gave me my house, my workshop, my tools, my furance --" He stopped short of adding the bed, merely imagining the soft fabric against his fur -- one of the simplest and most sublime comforts of his former life.

"Things, things, things," sighed, Kaemau. "It is clear to me you need to learn to live a full life without them. Perhaps it is better Kain has decided to make you one of us."

Damar resented the notion still, but as he was about to argue, Kain exited his tent, and gave a loud order: "everybody move!"

The moment most with their armor on had been waiting for seemed to have come. Most formed rows -- instead of columns -- while others like the debt payer and the sage began scrambing around. Damar hoped he would be left here, but since everyone believed him important, such was not his luck. In addition to one hyena with a broken leg, he was gently picked up by his wrists and ankles and laid on a folded tent.

Once the modest fire was stamped out, the deer had only partially been cooked, it was the debt payer who also chose to carry a corner of the tent. Damar's wounded travelling companion gave one look at him of mild puzzlement and disdain, and then closed his eyes in relaxation.

As they began to move, he realized that another of the hyenas who had silently volunteered to carry the the tent was the one to whom he had given the Token. Only as they walked, marching in time to songs sung by the sage, treating him as a burned worth carrying, did Damar realize that he was in fact a member of the tribe.

***

Damar had no idea how far they walked. They sought the edge of the forest, and upon finding that, stayed with it. The sage led, watching the signs of nature for direction. They did not seem to be looking for anything in particular, except perhaps staying within sight of a curving river which soon appeared, but they kept moving, breaks only every hour by Damar's estimate, throughout most of the day.

This gave Damar time to reflect further upon his new life -- a new life, especially as they got further and further from his former home, that he was beginning to realize would become permanent.

Closing his eyes, to feign sleep, he prayed yet again for guidance. His prayers for inspiration always seemed to work, when he stared at nothing but a chunk of stone; guidance, however, never did. But now, being surrounded by a foreign people, he felt the need for guidance more than ever. How could he be faithful to the Lord, just as his people had centuries earlier in a captivity far greater than his own?

His meditations were interrupted, however, by the smell of meat when they stopped for the third time. He could feel something being hung over his nose, and assumed it was someone's attempt to tease him. He tried to remain in his false comatose state, but his stomach responded beyond his control by tightening and panging more strongly.

Deciding that perhaps he could outwit the trickster, he waited until the object went by him one more time, and without opening his eyes, snapped his jaws upon it in a split second.

"Ah, not sleeping after all," cooed Kaemau, "want some more?"

"If it isn't a trick," he mumbled.

"Of course not, it's your debt payment. I need friends, remember?"

Not wanting to be fed like a child, he moved his shoulders carefully -- which thanks to the salve could be moved with only a minor ache -- and carefully picked through a somewhat shredded pile of leg meat the hyena had managed to cook.

"I hope it will satisfy," he heard from the cook behind him, "for I'm afraid I know little about food except how to eat it."

Damar was hungry enough, however, he didn't answer. Kaemau picked up on this. "It seems your friend is giving you his answer right now," Damar heard him say, the lion eating faster than he had in a long time -- having never been without food for more than a day in that same long time.

"It astonishes me," mused Kaemau, "that gluttony is a sin to one who eats like that."

Only did this break Damar from his meal. Food still in his mouth, he replied, "it is not excess when I have not eaten in two days." He did not count the intake of his night torture as food, despite its tempoary hunger-quashing effect.

"Don't argue with me," deferred the sage as Damar polished off the pound of meat, "I see no problem with a good meal, a good fight, or a good mating. It's your sky spirit who demands asceticism."

Rather than arguing that gluttony is eating more than you need, and he needed all of it, the lion just ignored him and closed his eyes as the march resumed.

The food in his stomach made his mind seem to relax; his satisfied body seemed to pacify his worries about the questions of morality. For now, he decided to just enjoy the ride, the very opposite of his forced march.

But reality gave him no reprieve. The hyena laying next to him, their shoulders and sides divided only by a fold in the fabric, began panting jostlig and panting in a strange pattern. Finding the jostling particularly annoying, without opening his eyes, he mumbled, "stop it."

"Why?" growled the voice to his right.

"Because I'm trying to sleep," he lied.

"If you promise me payment later," he replied.

"Very well," yawned Damar, assuming he could make another Token and have it done with.

As his mind quieted, he did his best to ignore his surroundings. The only thing he managed to hear was from a voice he didn't recognize from one of the corners. "Poor Rosch," it teased, "stuck with a broken leg and a broken hear--"

"Quiet," he snapped, "or you pay me second, and double!"

Damar wasn't sure the hyena could enforce that with a broken leg, but wasn't worried about him; he was worried, in fact, about very little, except sleep.

While he didn't remember falling asleep, he found himself awakening when they were no longer moving. "It's time," he heard a growl next to him.

"Time?" Damar yawned dumbly.

"Time for you to do as you promised."

The lion opened his eyes to find their canvas laying at the bank of a river in a thin strip of grassland bridging the water's edge and a forest about 100 feet away. He could see the camp peeking from behind the nearest tree, for several hyenas were wrapped in each other out of view of their peers, and another was digging another garbage hole across from them.

"Oh," Damar remembered as he turned away from the two dogs who held each other as males should not, "certainly. What form would you like? I need my tools," he added.

But when he finally looked at the hyena laying next to him, he realized he wouldn't be needing his tools. His eyes, a moment before they displayed puzzlement over tools, had the same hungry look the brothers had when he had first been brought in. Damar could also not help but notice, since he was laying on his back to keep his leg stiff at a 45 degree bend, he had a very prominent erection.

"Perhaps I should explain," Damar bacakpedaled as he looked once again at the intense brown eyes, "I would gladly compensate you by creating a Token for you --"

"I wish to be mated," growled the hyena, "and will accept nothing else."

This time, through his own personal disgust, Damar found the moral indignation of the Lord once again. "I cannot mate with a male," he replied coldly, "I'm sorry."

"Then push me from this world with your hands," he growled, shifting his weight to his elbows and wagging his tail anxiously.

Damar had the feeling this metaphor did not mean to kill him, for it made his erection taller. "Do what?" he asked incredulously.

"Break me free," he repeated, clenching his fists and spreading his legs, "from right under the tail. You need use only your hands."

The lion found this request incredibly strange, but decided it was certainly not a form of mating. He slowly brought himself up to his hands and knees through great effort and mild pain in his back, and clambered around to the wounded solider's bottom half. Unable to bring himself to touch the hyena's body -- especially in such a flity patch of fur as that one appeared to be -- he used his misshapen speartip instead, and touched the ring of pink, furless flesh.

The hyena's entire body seemed to convulse, and he took a sharp breath. "Wet it, please," he whimpered.

Damar took his skin of water, which was barely within arm's reach, and doused the smooth clay piece. He then touched the hyena again, this time making him tense but not convulse.

"Now push it in," he whimpered, seeming to fear the experience as much as enjoy it.

Damar slowly pressed the bulbous tip into the ring, which barely fit as the hyena moaned and panted. Damar could feel him tense and push back against him, but following directions, he kept sliding it deeper.

Carefully pushing and stopping so as not to cause the hyena too much distress, he managed to get it halfway in before he whined, "now out!"

Damar withdrew, much more quickly, and began to wonder what this experience must feel like; his best guess made him tense at merely the thought of being invaded by such a foreign object as this. But since the hyena asked for it, he pushed it back in again as his subject began writhing.

His mouth hung open and moaned, his eyes were clenched shut, his tail thrashed violently on occasion, and his hands were digging into the ground. And then, at the same point, Damar started drawing it out; and then pushing it back in. Each time was a bit faster than before, as Damar kept watching the hyena's face of incredible emotion, and seemed to want to get the experience over with.

As he pushed in, and then drew out, and then changed direction again, he seemed to find a pattern in the hyena's ecstacy. Unable to resist, he tried stopping it only part way in, and turning it a little bit. This got the hyena to start crying, tears starting to flow from his clenched eyes as he took even deeper breaths and gave throater groans.

Damar would surely have thought this painful were it doing no visible damage to his subject, and were his cock not throbbing and dribbling, as if it were the thing being stimulated. Damar found an almost sadistic sort of satisfaction in the sensations he was giving, and did his best to manipulate the unsharpened blades to press and touch him all over his insides.

The more he moved around, making the tip and sides touch everything he dared press them to, the deeper the hyena's hands dug into the soft dirt, and the more his cock throbbed. Damar only now saw this as a sense of power; perhaps in such an excited state, he could draw upon emotion to get these heathens to convert.

"Can you hear me," he growled in a low voice.

He thought he saw the craning neck whose head was still feeling the unfeelable, bob in affirmation.

"Do as I say," he intoned to paraphrase his holy book, "and through me, you shall have everlasting life."

"Take me now," whined the squirming dog.

Damar assumed he had not processed the message.

"Promise you shall do as I say," he commanded, "and you shall not want."

"I shall do anything," he whimpered, "if I may never return."

Damar decided to give up; as he gave a few quick jabs in succession, almost as a sort of punishment, he got a baleful, weak, long, high-pitched yowl, and the dick that had been leaking fluid now started pouring a thin stream of white. He concluded that the hyenas were unconvertable if this sensation was all they craved, and could imagine nothing so great as the glory of the Lord.

Damar finally removed the speahread altogether, taking a page from Than's book and wiping it on the hyena's good leg. He still panted for several minutes after the pleasure stopped, catching his breath, and seeming to lose all his energy into the ground.

"Thank you," he whispered, and promptly dropped off to sleep.

Only when he saw the peace in the hyena's posture, almost the quality of death did his chest not rise and fall, did Damar conclude he had done something worthwhile. He saw it as strange and disgusting, but could not help but be happy he had helped another find happiness.

"He was unconvertable," he whispered to the all-seeing invisible eye, "I did not change a mind which had no room to be changed to believe in You. I have done no wrong."

He then laid down to take a nap, as his subject did, repeating into the gentleness of sleep that he had tried his best, but failed for good reason.

***

He awoke to the voie of the sage. "I have brought you your tools," he offered, holding out the familiar tray.

As Damar sat up on the tarp, the sage came over with a gentle, knowing smile on his face. It was a look Damar didn't like, for he then expected to have his mood ruined once again.

"Fine," Damar snapped, "for whom shall I be carving idols this time?"

"You should enjoy this one," remarked the sage wryly, "for it is the image of a soldier in chains."

He put down the mass of clay in front of Damar, who tore off a piece big enough to mold. As Damar manipulated the wet clay in his hands, trying to feel the shape he was going to make between his fingers, he cautiously asked what he always asked of making statues.

"What does he wish to see in it?"

"The same as we all see," replied the sage, "that we are all prisoners of our own bodies, and wish to be free from its hells."

Even as Damar began with the shape of a hunched form, he mumbled, "you won't know what hell is until you die."

But Kaemau heard him. "It astonishes me that you can imagine a hell greater than that on Earth," he replied, "greater than a lifetime of pain, sickness, hunger, thirst, desire, humiliation, --"

"They are nothing compared to the tortures of hell!" Damar roared, trying to inspire fear with his voice, but did nothing but crush the head he was working on.

"But as I understand it," Kaemau replied socratically, "these things were the tortures of hell. What could they possibly do to you that has not already been done to you in life?"

"They do it on an unimaginable scale," replied Damar.

The sage, however, didn't miss a beat. "So what happens when you die in hell?"

"Die?" repeated Damar, trying to focus on shaping outlines of arms.

"All of the greatest pains here on Earth are fatal. Surely they must use them, but this agony is eternal; so what happens when your body would normally die?"

Damar did not have the answer, but decided to try emulating the sage. He gave a similar smile and replied, "ask a Priest. They have spent a great deal of time on these matters."

"I'm too busy worrying about this life," replied the hyena as he began examining several tall stalks of grass along the river, "for I am certain of this one. Besides, if as you say I am condemned to such torment, I had better enjoy myself."

Damar had never heard of someone resigning himself to hell at a moment's notice; there was instead denial of its existence, or struggling within one's self, but never just instantaneous abandonment. The lion could only conclude Kaemau could not -- or would not -- imagine the magnitude of it.

"You don't understand," Damar insisted as Kaemau wandered away, examining more grass.

"On the contrary," he interrupted, "I believe I do understand. We have all suffered every pain Sotan could possibly throw at us in hell --"

"Satan," corrected Damar with a growl.

"-- whoever he is. Destroying pain in myself and others is something I have dedicated my life to."

Kaemau chose one tall stalk of grass from the many, and then went hunting for another one. It seemed to have no distinction from the others; all were merely thin shafts with hundreds of tiny seeds at their tips.

"Perhaps even you have learned one of the secrets of pain in this life," added the sage as he began picking off the seeds, leaving a network of tiny, bare branches, "that some can take their pains and make them pleasures."

Damar, however, had not learned that lesson. "Rediculous," he replied.

"How would you like getting sodomized?" Kaemau growled with mock lust.

"No!" snarled Damar, a button pushed once again that had been lately leaned upon.

"And yet, he would." Damar looked again at the hyena next to him, pelvis still a sticky mess, and his penis lulled toward his belly. His face remained the picture of peace, or as close as Damar could imagine on one of these creatures. He was perfectly still, except for the rising and falling of his chest, and an involuntary twitch of his ears.

"I imagine Satan's job must be incredibly difficult," continued the hyena when Damar began to feel the peace vicariously, "for so many among us have learned find pleasure in the strangest places."

"He has all eternity," replied Damar coldly, "he'll find something."

But Damar could tell Kaemau still didn't believe him. "I wish him luck," he replied, "but for now, I would rather ask: how much are you enjoying this life?"

Damar refused to answer. There seemed no point in arguing a point upon which he could not very well win. He did his best to forget the entire thing and form out hands on the end of the arms, and then adding a face which resembled a dog. He used the hyena sprawled before him as a template of the form, right down to the private parts.

But as he was delicately putting the chains on the wrists, a familiar face brought him more meat. "The rest of your deer has been cooked," he announced, holding a rod of hanging meat in front of Damar.

The lion didn't really realize he was still hungry until the food was placed before him. Without really thinking, he put down his tools and began to partake of the flesh. He took the rod from the hyena, but he didn't leave; he simply watched Damar.

The lion, as he began working on the rump, found this more and more irritating. "Waiting to see what's left?" he asked pointedly.

"I am merely enjoying your meal," he replied.

The sentence, however, seemed to have the wrong prounouns in it to Damar. "what?"

"Since I have promised this meal for you, I merely wish to enjoy it with you."

Damar assumed this was referring to vicarous enjoyment, similar to the peace he had drawn from the slumbering dog next to him. But the hyena seemed to get far more into it, for Damar couldn't help but watch him from the corner of his eye. He saw him salavating so much that drool ran out of his mouth.

Finding the sight not worth looking at, the lion decided to fill his stomach quickly. When he had eaten a pound and a half, he decided instead to leave the rest of the carcass for the other animals with whom he would be spending his days.

He held up the rod and turned away. Sure enough, it was taken from him. "Enjoy it," he added, returning to his tools, and trying to ignore the quiet but ravenous sounds of consumption behind him.

"And what do I owe you?" he heard a different voice ask wryly.

He realized it was not the debtor who had taken the meat, but rather the wounded solider.

"Just some peace and quiet," Damar replied, assuming the common method of repayment was what he had brought himself to apply to the hyena previously.

***

After another day of carving, a helmet and and a detailed hyena head added to the clay to fire, he was allowed to sleep. It was also his first night disturbed by nothing more than the occasional motions and musings of the wounded solider next to him.

When he awoke, Damar found his back was mobile once again, if not healed. Silently, he gave the healer credit for knowledge in his domain; for the first time, he slowly stood and got only mild aches in three or four places. But as he walked toward the center of the camp from his tent, he found a sight which surprised him.

There were about a dozen dogs who, the moment they laid eyes upon him, seemed to focus their attention on him solely. Their eyes asked him for something as they drew out blobs of clay, and it was impossible for Damar to look away.

"I can only carve one at a time," he said to a cluster of five who had gathered together, "you'll have to be patient."

"I'm afraid they have no time," replied Than's voice behind him as the hyena exited his tent and stretched, "for your foolish King won't leave us alone. An army will be here in another day."

It was news that tied Damar's stomach in a knot. It was his last hope of escape, and at the same time, his best attempt to help this tribe of warriors with whom he still felt inextricably linked.

"Rebuild the kiln!" Than barked to the standing masses. Without another word, toward the river they went, as others started a bon fire. None crept off into the woods on this morning, Damar noticed, and even Kain seemed nervous as he came out to supervise.

Deciding that he had turned invisible until he was needed, the lion returned back to the tarp upon which he had slept.

However, he was accousted. "I'll trade you for your Token," his young friend whispered.

"I don't have a token."

"Then I'll trade you for your blunt spear," he whispered, looking back toward the camp as if he were afraid of something.

"What for?" asked Damar.

"I wish to change my token, that's all," he hissed, "will you trade or not?"

Seeing no value except perhaps to redeem himself, Damar nodded, and they switched again. Upon reciept of the tiny stattuette, he did note how good his memory was when he carved the second one -- and that the form was similar in every proportion to how he had carved the shackled one.

He sat down on the tarp, and felt the eyes of the wounded solider upon him. "That seems an odd Token," he remarked as he crawled back from relieving himself.

"What's odd about it?" Damar asked.

"That you are not a hyena, and you seem not to desire us in the least."

"It's not my token. Do you want it?"

"I shall wait for you to carve mine," he replied with a curious innuendo.

At the same time, he heard the young hyena shout at a much larger group, and saw an argument about to turn into a fight. But rather than a fight, the group carried him off, out of the camp, held him agaist a tree, and made Damar wince once again. The group used the token on the poor whimpering dog the same way he had used it on the solider.

He realized now he had started something far larger than he had anticipated. He felt the eyes of the Lord upon him, and they were glaring; he had started a brand new tradition of hedonism.

"You had best work," advised the wounded solider next to him, "lest you get drawn in."

Damar decided that was a good idea. He replenished his supply of dust by crushing the damaged figurine, and resumed work.

As he was working up the clay for another request, he was interrupted by the group of five. "Alright," he growled, as he added more water to the clay, "what do you want made?"

"A spearhead," said one.

"But blunt," said another. The lion felt the eyes of the Lord upon him again.

"You mean like the one I first carved from stone?"

"Yes."

"Exactly like it."

"Maybe a bit longer, but yes."

That comment got laughter from the others, and got the commenter -- whose most oustanding feature was a badly torn left ear -- playfully pushed to the ground.

But Damar could not bring himself to make another like the first, for fear of the wrath of the Lord. "I will make you Tokens," he stated, speaking primarily to the One Invisible, "but I will not make you tools."

This did not strike the ears of those around him very well. "And why not?" snarled the tallest of them, his penis visibly erect, perhaps in anticiapation.

"Because he does not wish to offend his sky spirit," answered the voice of the sage from behind them.

The dogs turned to him, but their furvor was not quenched. "Have you not explained to him the way of the world?" snapped another.

"He is quite determined to do as he believes, and there is little I can do to change his mind."

Damar was pleasantly surprised to see the sage arguing for him instead of against him.

"Then we must show him why he should make the tool!" insisted the tallest, fire burning in his eyes.

"That would be very expensive," warned Kaemau, hinting at the rules Damar presumed they all knew well.

"But he must make tools for our survival!" insisted the one with the damaged ear. "We must have a decree from Kain!"

"I suspect you are less interested in our welfare than one particular tool," wryly remarked the sage, "but you may try."

Immeidately, they set off to do just that.

Feeling out of immediate physical danger, Damar couldn't help but sigh in relief. "Thank you," he sighed, working the clay on the tarp through a series of shapeless forms.

"Now I want repayment," instructed the sage, "come to the river with me and help harvest the mud for the new kiln."

Damar hoped his clay wouldn't solidify too much, and slowly got to his feet, being careful about which muscles in his back he used. The sage brought Damar's waterskin with them, and making sure Damar went first, waded in on the bank.

The water rolled by quickly, almost in a sheet, for the mud which was sought for the kiln covered the bottom with a smooth, but sticky goo.

The sage waded in until he was up to his waist, and stood a moment. Damar waited, resisting the water with his knees, to see what he would do. But the hyena did nothing, after his brief pause, but dip the skin into the river, and draw it up full.

He closed his eyes, poured it slowly back in, mumbled something, and then drew it full of water again. Only after this did he hand it to Damar, and directed, "drink it."

Damar sniffed it, found nothing wrong with the water compared to any other river, and gulped down several mouths full.

From the taste, he concluded it wasn't a trick; it was clean with no more than the usual acridity of naturally running water over rocks, and in this case, mud.

"What if I told you," the healer stated mischeviously, as the lion wiped his mouth, "that the water was cursed?"

Damar decided that the argument was part of what he owed the hyena in return for his safety, so replied with a smile, "what would have cursed it?"

"I performed a ritual just now, which might have cursed it. Do you believe me?"

"That didn't do anything," coldly replied Damar, even as an inkling of doubt made its way into his heart.

"So you believe it is not cursed?" confirmed Kaemau.

"No," sighed Damar, hiding his growing nervousness, sensing the point was coming.

But the hyena merely smiled. "You go and believe that, but you may wish to sit down before you drink anymore."

"What does that mean!?" demanded Damar in a sudden fit of terror.

But the hyena did not answer. He merely waded over to another dog, scraping the bottom with a shovel, and took over for him.

Since Damar did not wish to go any deeper, he returned to the shore, finding the gentle rare breeze to be quite cold upon his legs.

He knelt before his clay, and tried his best to work and forget the whole thing.

***

As he worked, Damar closed his eyes and prayed to ask the One who knew everything: what did Kaemau do to the water? A priest would know if curses were possible, but none were in the company of heathens.

"What's wrong?" asked the solider next to him.

"Nothing," snarled Damar, trying to improve his focus to make his message heard to the only incorporeal ears to whom it was directed.

"Nothing cannot inspire the fear I now see in you," he soothed, "please tell me. Perhaps I can help you."

"You cannot, unless you can speak to the Lord."

"Then I can make a suggestion," he carefully worded.

"What?" Damar glared.

"If he will not answer you, then behave as if he did not wish to."

"This is a very spiritual matter," rebuffed Damar, "I need Him."

"But surely, you cannot expect him to answer you always? What would you do if he told you 'figure it out yourself?'"

Damar picked up the clay again and started manipulating it. "I suppose I would have to figure out if he cursed it."

"Cursed?" repeated the dog quizically.

"Your infamous healer 'may have' cursed the water in this skin, which I don't believe."

"Then what's the problem?"

Damar didn't answer, and instead thoughtlessly formed the clay into a thin, tall shape; a swirling mass like a group of storm clouds.

"Did he mix anything into the water?" he heard the solider ask.

"Not that I could see, he just drew it from the river."

"Was he standing in the river in the time?"

Damar saw the question as singificant, for he had mentioned nothing about it, yet it arose. "Yes, he was," answered Damar with a sudden knot in his stomach.

"How deep was he?"

"About knee deep," he answered, but stopped listening to the solider. Damar squeezed the pouch, and felt something in the bottom. He decided that, if their Tokens could give them power, then Kaemau could use that pover best, and curse him.

He quietly made his decision as he threw down the formed clay and made it splatter. He marched right into the stream, goose-stepping when the water rose to his knees, right out to the spot where the aging hyena was pouring shovelfulls of mud from the bottom into a porus bag held by a much younger, stronger male.

Without even a word, and only with a fleeting glimpse into his eyes, Damar marched over to the sage and pushed him down.

Almost willingly, the hyena fell backwards into the water with a splash, much to the astonishment of his fellow excavator. But when the hyena tried to get to his feet, Damar grabbed his neck, and held him under.

Only now did the other male intervene, grabbing the lion's shoulders, and spinning him down into the water hard enough to make him let go. This allowed Kaemau to regain his footing and stand, while the younger warrior protected him from Damar's further attacks.

"You tricked me!" Damar shouted.

"That's right," panted the sage, still recovering from the shock.

"You did curse the water!" Damar shouted.

"I did nothing of the sort," growled the hyena.

Damar was taken off guard enough that his anger was paused. "What?" he demanded.

"Why did you think that token would curse it?" asked the hyena as he headed to the bank and the younger warrior resumed his shoveling. "Such things are only in the mind: warriors focus upon them to fight better. Did your sky spirit tell you they were cursed?"

"No, He didn't."

"But you did ask him, didn't you? How many other times has he ignored your prayers lately?"

"That doesn't matter," growled Damar as he tried to wring out his fur on the bank.

"Doesn't it? If you were fooled by me and these tokens, why could not others fool you into believing in sky sprirts?"

"Because He has inspired me," answered Damar, certain he could win this time. "I have stared at a block of stone, and prayed, and he answered my prayers."

"But he would not show you guidance in a time of need, such as now?"

Damar didn't answer, knowing that was his weak point.

"That would seem to me to be punishment," the hyena chortled. "He must think very lowly of you. In fact, it's perfect: afflict your mortal subjects with the agony of indecision. They shall never know your scorn, and still come crawling to you on their knees to have their prayers ignored."

Such cruel words were something Damar could not abide. "Take it back!" he yelled, and punched the aging hyena right in the snout. Damar saw his head recoil with the blow, accepted in a graceful arc of motion.

The hyena was clearly in pain, but did not so much as blink, merely righting his head. "If you wish to sacrifice me to your spirit in anger," he groaned, "then I shall do my best to take your pain with me." He knelt, and looked up solemnly at the lion, grey fur near his mouth now smeared with a streak of his blood, and his teary eyes distant and empty.

Looking down at him, Damar couldn't bring himself to punch the creature again. He was too pained, too vulnerable; it would put him too deep in debt.

Instead, Damar returned the anger to where it started. "Tell him he's wrong!" he hollered to the heavens, "tell him!!"

But his words echoed off the trees and flew into the distant, cloudy sky.

"Tell him," he whispered, staring at a bank of clouds, "tell him he's wrong..."

But the eyes of the Lord did not rest upon him; only the eyes of the sage bent on one knee at his feet.

"Perhaps he is angry," suggested the hyena quietly, "about your tool."

He held up the piece of clay Damar had molded, the blunt spearhead that apparently had been taken from the group.

"Please," he heard a voice groan behind him, "don't hurt him. He cares very much for you."

He found the wounded solider had risen to his good leg, and was balancing on it with his face twisted in pain. Damar grabbed his shoulders without even thinking, and helped him back to the tarp, leaving the sage to clean up the blood Damar had drawn.

"I'm sorry about your sky spirit," he sympathetically reassured, as if speaking about the death of a good friend.

But Damar didn't answer. Instead, he returned to what could take his mind off the pain: sclupting. Working dilligently, he had hastily formed two dozen simple tokens by nightfall -- including ten blunt spearheads.

***

Night was a time of unrest for everyone. While some prepared for the combat which Damar thought inevitable, others simply stared at the stars, and still others seemed to find anyone who would run behind a tree with them.

Damar did what he always did to escape pain: his craft. He made more Tokens, and watched them bake slowly, wondering what the Lord thought of him. He cannot ask me to be as omniscient as He is, Damar told himself; if he will not tell me what to do, he cannot punish me for doing it wrong.

He saw nothing more than heat itself in the burning flame, almost entering a trace as he stared into the mouth of the kiln, ignoring the rising currents of heat out the sides.

"I would like to apoligize," said a familiar voice behind him, "for tricking you."

Damar couldn't help but smile as he replied with the sage's own advice. "I would rather have you as a friend than be angry," he said dreamily, staring into the fire rather than thinking about the event in question.

"I am glad. I am also glad you seem to be learning one of the secrets to happiness: find it in whatever you do."

"It is hard to be happy without my sky spirit," Damar sighed.

"If you look within yourself, you shall find something to replace him. Does creating your works not make you happy?"

"Yes."

"Even if they are so pointless as a statue of your King?"

Damar found no humor in his exile, however. "He will be getting no more statues from me," he grumbled.

"But it it is the making the things themselves that pleases you," the hyena pointed out. "It is the process, not the end result."

Damar clenched his teeth, as he imagined him adding, "and that's why you made those tools in spite of your convictions."

"So what if I do?" he snapped.

"So that means you are very wise," reassured Kaemau, "for happiness is best attained through skills. Like me, you have simply found one other than those chosen by most of us. They choose making war and making love."

Damar winced again as his least favorite subject came up. "Does no one value females?" he asked incredulously.

"Most everyone does, but we must make do with what we have. Besides, those who would fall under 'evil' in your book are highly sought after; they have developed skill far above the others."

"But how can anyone stand --?" whispered Damar as if he didn't want his sky spirit to hear them discussing the subject.

"How did you stand it your first night with us?"

Damar shuddered, more in fear than pain. "I don't know," he replied truthfully.

"Nor do you know how to sculpt a statue the first time you touch clay. It is a skill."

"Learning how to feel about something is a skill?" repeated Damar incredulously.

"The greatest of them all," replied Kaemau as he strode away.

As the night grew colder, and the activity around him calmed, Damar pondered the sage's words. Could he possibly learn to feel good about mating the Lord had forbidden, faced with no other alternative? He knew the touch of a female was far out of reach, but he had not had the time to feel the emptiness in his heart very much until this moment of calm, just as sleeplessness had blocked his desire for food.

As he finally removed his set of clay from the kiln, and the gaggle of five former males gathered, he knew it was time to ask. He handed out the Tokens, each accepting his with a drop to his knee and a return to his feet.

As he handed out the last one, he looked them all over, and tried to choose one. He concluded his intent must have been more obvious than he thought, for the one with the torn ear stretched, reaching for the sky; this had the effect of showing off all the muscles in his body, and put rising erection out in front.

Unfortunately, it was hard to choose; he saw no reason to select anyone, for what he had in mind required skills not evident by looking at any of them. But they all started streching, and sometimes flexing or folding their ears and begging with their eyes.

His obviousness was something he didn't like. "Alright, that's enough!" he growled. The all stood in a neat row once again, and looked at him intently.

"Who shall repay you first, then?" dared ask the one with the torn ear, a hint of impatience in his voice.

Since Damar concluded he would never decide, he chose one at random. "He will," he commanded, pointing to the shortest one -- who happened also to be the young hyena who he first helped with a new Token.

The rest left with a rare smile on their faces, and the young hyena seemed quite happy to be chosen. "I am glad you have finally come around to our ways," he panted, "you won't be disappointed."

Damar put another group of tokens into the kiln and left them to bake while he walked out of camp. Silently, as he found a tree which would obscure them from view, he asked his God one more time for guidance, strength, or simple proof he really was being watched and judged. But no inspiration came to him.

Instead he heard a much closer voice ask excitedly, "and what can I do to please you?"

"Just -- what I spent my first night among you doing," Damar replied, feeling quite embarassed and unable to even speak the name of the thing he wanted enough he was beginning to harden.

"Certainly," panted the hyena as he knelt before the standing lion, and gently touched his pelvis.

Damar flinched, since the hands seemed so unlike those that had grabbed his head that night, much softer and cleaner. They slowly began to handle his cock and balls, making Damar only more excited as he closed his eyes, and believed it was beautiful lioness knelt before him.

When he seemed to be as long as he would get, the fondling hands were supplimented with a couple breaths of air, and then a muzzle starting to surround Damar's most tender flesh. The lion failed to stifle a groan, and like those whom he had serviced, reflexively grabbed the head whose mouth was now licking his head with gusto.

Even already, it was worth it; like the pain inflicted upon him his first day, this pleasure made him forget all things divine and rational. All he wanted was for the tongue and muzzle not to stop, to keep covering his sensitive flesh in strokes.

He enforced his decsion by keeping the hyena's head against him, and the tongue and muzzle were more than happy to comply with his wishes. Before long, he was dribbling pre, and within a minute or two more, the pleasure build to its climax.

Damar moaned again as the tidal wave of pleasure seemed to rise up from within him and wash over his mind and body. As his hips thrust automatically, he tried to force his cock into the muzzle so as to keep it there and make him swallow. The young male didn't seem to object in the least as Damar pumped out his long-waiting seed, the licking barely slowing down at his unspoken request.

When he felt he stopped pumping, he let the hyena go, withdrew himself, and -- like they did to him -- wiped himself on his neck.

The hyena stood up, and standing very close to the lion, whispered, "feel better?"

Damar sighed, in a state he had so seldom been in, had forgotten its power. It was a state of unflappable contentment; he felt more at ease with himself than in a long time.

"I don't need my sky spirit anymore," he mused, "just me."

"I'm sure Kaemau will be pleased," replied the hyena.

He did so just as their commander yelled, "they're here!"

While Damar got nervous, his stomach didn't tighten; his state had a far better grip on him than any fear. He decided, however, that it would be wise to avoid the swords and spears about to be presented, and after the hyena, hurried back into camp.

But what he found was not a war, but a reunion. The commander -- adorned much like Than -- was talking respectfully to Kain as a large group of warriors was working to subdue lions, tigers, and panthers. Damar recognized the leopard who was leading the King's personal guard, and two or three others, who had apparently all come to fight the hyenas. But the hyena scouts who led them here double crossed them.

With the exception of those now in captivity, all others were joyful. With new bodies, mating proceeded rancorously, as did dueling and trading. Damar just watched in stunned silence, walking quickly behind a tent when the captives were lined up, so they did not see him. They were then presented by the new commander to Kain, who ordered them stripped and tied to trees for the night.

"If you survive to morning," growled Than just as he had to Damar, "then you shall be ransomed to your King."

Those that Damar knew, he expected to tragically kill themselves after what would happen tonight.

But he was surprised to hear himself mentioned. "We have one who has joined us and wishes to settle in a village," Kain told the commander. "He is not a native, but has gained our trust and respect."

Damar could feel the invisible eyes of his former townsmen seeking him out, glad they could not see him.

"I can bring him to Tuhein in ten days when I visit for supplies," replied the commander.

"It is agreed then," concluded Kain, as Damar heard some of the hyenas start their escapade with the pirsoners early.

Through the night, Damar did not sleep, listening as one at a time, the muffled sounds stopped. He wished he could have told them it wasn't worth dying.

The next morning, as they headed out -- Damar this time under his own power and volition -- he heard the song they sang. It was a ballad of joy and pride. Deciding he had finally become one of them, he joined in.

The End.

(version 1.0)