The River Divide
A story in which a young lion’s
understanding of his world is challenged.
~By Cynical Green Eyes
Chapter 1 - Change
The fire in the middle of the camp flickered in the faint forest breeze,
casting moving shadows behind trees, among their boughs and in the undergrowth.
To the heightened senses of the nomadic tribe of lions camped there, the
trickery of the light played merry-hell with their nerves. They were eager to
depart from there. The rain had started early in the evening, and had been an
unwelcome companion throughout the night as they travelled, a line of red and
burgundy caravans and wagons laden with goods to trade along the way. Now off
the road and camped, some slept in their caravans and dug deeper into their
blankets and rugs against the hissing of the leaves in the wind and the drone
of rain on their wooden homes. Some stayed awake on watch.
The males crowded around the fire, drunk on whatever spirits they had managed
to pilfer along the way. The females were out among the trees, scouting for any
unwelcome visitors. Some made their income from robbing seemingly-vulnerable
trade caravans. The lions roared and hooted with laughter and merriment,
talking in muted tones of exploits, scores and feats of hunting prowess.
Traditionally, males did everything but take care of cubs and hunt, but at
times such as these they needed the females as scouts rather than hunters. The
males wore Egyptian-style wrap-around cloths, which flapped and darted in the
wind but managed to keep the important parts warm. As the night wore on, and
the alcohol began to dwindle, some retired to their beds where a different
leisure awaited.
Ra-Kai, an adolescent lion yet grow a full mane, huddled in against his den of
rugs and blankets, feeling the cold slip through like a knife against his warm
fur. He was half-asleep when he heard footsteps swagger up the stairs of his
small shelter-with-wheels. He lay still, knowing but dreading what was to come.
Males, while duty-bound to help the pack reproduce, they preferred male
bed-company. The females were perfectly happy with this as pregnancy was no
pleasure-cruise for them either. When some males got drunk, they decided to
look for a less-dominant male to...indulge them. Ra-Kai fitted the bill
perfectly. He curled up, counting the clicks of the
handle as it was opened, counting the seconds until it would all be over.
“What’s this?” The male said, slurring slightly. “A
near-grown lion wasting his time, just lying there?” The male, Dak-Kan
judging by the husky, rumbling voice, chuckled to himself. Ra-Kai said nothing.
It only made it worse. “Well, I know something you could do, and you could
still lie there...” he said, more quietly. The younger lion watched the surly
grin creep across the dominant-male’s muzzle. He lowered himself onto
all-fours, the moonlight from the window reflecting off his sleek, dark fur and
his feline-eyes. The predator-instincts had awakened inside him, and he wasn’t
going to leave any time soon. His thick muscles rippled as he prowled forward
and sunk into the covers with Ra-Kai. Despite circumstances, Ra-Kai felt his
member swell, slipping out of the creamy foreskin where had sheltered from the
cold. The sight of the sleek muscles beneath Dak-Kan’s smooth pelt, down the
abdominal rifts and valleys of his flexing six-pack made Ra-Kai more excited
than he wanted Dak-Kan to see. His ‘excitement’ lifted the blankets around his
crotch like a tent. He was almost disappointed when his eyes reached the
barrier of Dak-Kan’s loincloth.
Dak-Kan saw the lump in the sheets rise, and chuckled
his perverse chuckle. “So he likes it, does he? Well, you can see more, if you
do a little something for me...” he said softly. He reached out, taking the
younger-males smaller paw in his and guided it to his abdomen, and around the
tie of his loin-cloth. Then he jerked Ra-Kai’s hand, ripping the cover off. The
firm navel continued down in a ‘V’ shape where, nestled in the adult-males
thick, dark ‘second-mane’ was an ebony erection. Dak-Kan’s testicles, lowered
slowly in the new warmth. Again, Dak-Kan pressed the younger-male’s paw down,
through the course, thick hair and along his shaft, then wrapped Ra-Kai’s
golden-yellow paw around his balls. They were warm, soft and heavy in his hand.
He knew the adult male was buttering him up for something painful, but it felt
so good. “Keep ‘em warm or this’ll hurt even more.”
Dak-Kan’s strong paws wrapped themselves around Ra-Kai’s wiry thighs and held
the younger-lion’s back against his chest. Ra-Kai felt the other male’s dark
member against his back. He relished the sensation of warmth, because it would
be downhill from here. Dak-Kan adjusted his hips, pausing as his ebony
lion-hood throbbed against the younger-lion’s entrance, then
slid in. The pain flashed like lightening, and renewed with every thrust until
the sensation was exhausted and all he could feel was the pressure of the
older-lion’s warm shaft inside. His muscles twitched and twinged, but he was
careful not to let his hand on the older-male’s testicles move. If he hurt him,
Dak-Kan would make him hurt three times more. He felt them roll and slide
inside the pouch of silky fur. Despite the pain, Ra-Kai’s own member stood
straight up, waving up and down with the thrusts.
Dak-Kan, coming close to climax, slid his paws upward, along Ra-Kai’s shaft and
began pumping. Ra-Kai’s back arched, half in pain, half in ecstasy. The agony
of the older lion’s member inside of him merged with the growing pleasure
flowing up his shaft and into his abdomen. He felt the older lion’s thrusting
quicken, felt his own pleasuring heighten. Dak-Kan stiffened, his whole chest
flexing, and spurted liquid warmth into his forced-partner. He was breathing
heavily, his chest rising and falling as if he’d been running, then it slowed.
Ra-Kai could still feel the other lion’s heart beat like a war-drum against his
back. Almost as an after-thought, Dak-Kan thrust one more time, hitting the
boy-lion’s prostate, and pumping his cock one more time. This double assault
took him by surprise and his entire body stiffened as it sent his lion-hood
into spasms. Dak-Kan collected the younger lion’s seed like a pebble in his
paw, and ran his tongue up through the milky white puddle, and taking it into his
mouth.
“You’re
not a bad ride. Maybe I might come back sooner than I expected,” he chuckled,
standing up and wrapping his loin-cloth back around his waist. Without further
delay he simply swaggered out into the rain.
Ra-Kai, slammed his fists down on the floor, hit by a flood of self-hatred and
disappointment. He’d been taken advantage of again. He became aware of blood
running down the back of his thighs. He took no notice and huddled in the
corner, crying. The other pride members half-knew what the dominant-males got
up to, but didn’t care to invite trouble for themselves.
They held the ear of the Alpha-Lion, and so held some power. There was nothing
he could do but lie there and take whatever the dominant-males decided to force
on him. He hated how they did it without any second thoughts, and how they
secretly laughed about it (or so he suspected), but mostly...he hated himself
because they made a point of making him half-enjoy it. It was enough that they
played with his body, but it was just cruel to play with his mind.
The rain has softened the roads, making them prone to eating the wheels of some
unwary caravans, but the Alpha-Lion had decided they were to continue
regardless. The trading season was already half-over and they would be
hard-pressed to sell everything by the end as it was without stopping. They
trundled onward, pulled by any available male that could be found, aside from
the ones hung-over from the night before. They were lucky to even be awake. The
Alpha-Lion, Man-Shal, roared with anger every
time he found out there had been drunken males on watch-duty, but the rocking
and bumping of the caravans coupled with the sand-paper headache would be
punishment enough.
They moved continuously, sometimes through the night. They slept in rationed
shifts, catching a few minutes sleep where they could, but everyone was worn
and dazed from the lack of sleep. They passed fields of leaf-green hills
against ice-blue skies, bumping and scraping along the mountain paths. They
crossed rivers like solid tubes of water pushing against the foundations on the
questionable bridge they were forced to cross on. They passed through major
cities, selling a little here and there for the best price they could to save
them practically giving it away when they reached Imperial City Markets.
Ra-Kai made his ‘rent’ by selling paintings and drawings he made of the scenes
they passed. They usually sold well in the city centres where people had money
to buy something you couldn’t use, eat, drink or plant. He sold a passable
amount of his ink paintings in the small city, but needed so sell many more to
afford more paper and inks. He continued to record the scenes they passed,
rendering them in his remaining inks and paper, and hoped he could afford more
after they left
One night, the rain fell like the lake being dropped from the clouds. They were
passing through a risky mountain range to save time, and were less than an hour
away from shelter. Murky water gushed down the slope, forming a constant stream
around Lion-Tribe feet. All the colour of the land had been bleached away by
the curtains of rain, and the air was thick with the scent of mud and fear.
They fought with a fever to drag the caravan towards a sheltered underground
path ahead, feeling the solid Earth becoming viscous beneath their paws. They
were drained from lack of sleep, but fatigue had to be put aside until the
wagons and caravans were safe from the hungry mud. Ra-Kai pulled at his caravan
harder, seeing his fellow Lion-Tribesman pushing on ahead. The mud had caught
one of the wheels, and he strained and yanked against its grip, but to no
avail. Other caravans passed him by, sparing him nothing but a look of pity.
Rain and tears of exhaustion mingled with the torrential rain running like
rivers down his already sodden fur.
Finally, at the back of the procession as tradition dictated, Man-Shal was carried past in his carriage. The other males he’d
recruited to pull his home could have easily pulled Ra-Kai’s too, but made the
decision to leave the straggler behind rather than force the others to wait and
probably suffer the same fate. Ra-Kai let out a cry of anger, sadness and
horror as he watched his only family go on without him. Suddenly, a groan and
growl of moving earth echoed through the mountain path. He felt the ground run
like wet-paint down the side of the mountain. The very earth under him- as
solid and constant as it had been, now rolled and tumbled down the side of the
mountain. He fell to his feet and shaken and thrown by the new river of mud. He
was dragged under by a current, feeling mud flow like water into his lungs and
mouth. He resurfaced briefly, gagging, vomiting and coughing the gunk from his
system, only to be dragged back down. He caught glimpses of his home of 16
years become a skeleton of wood. His belongings disappeared into the murky
depths. He was suddenly seized by a powerful undertow and was swept forward.
His head snapped back as he hit a rock and he knew no more. The world went
black and fell heavily on top of him.