This story is 23 chapters. Let me know if you would like me to post the rest by emailing gayauthor@hushmail.com.
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Chapter 1 The day that changed the world.
A scream tore through the palace at Aegae and rolled on like thunder as voice after voice joined the cry. King Philip pitched forward, blood from the assassin's blade spraying in a wide arc around him as he fell.
The crowd surged forward to catch a glimpse, then recoiled in horror and panic. Here and there individuals turned and moved away, then the whole crowd began to flee. Mothers grabbed children, panic setting in,
the scream turning to shouting and wild alarm.
The only ones to move towards the horror were Philip's bodyguards and Alexander. The guards chased the fleeing assassin as Alexander rushed to his father. Blood covered both men as Alexander tried to staunch the flow, pressing hard against the torn wound.
Overhead a buzzard caught a thermal and circled higher and higher. Below, Philip's body looked like a stone thrown into a pond, as shockwaves pulsed outwards and the crowd scattered.
It was a shockwave that would change the world.
At this very moment, however, far up in the Macedonian hills, for one small Greek boy it seemed the world would never change.
The goats he herded were still the same stubborn bastards, stripping leaves from thorn bushes with their leathery lips and wandering off and causing him headaches. The brown shimmering hills were a backdrop that never changed, the cicadas sang an unchanging melody and the sun, today like every other summers day, was fierce and unforgiving in a crystal blue sky.
Leonnatus lay naked on his favourite rock. The rock was perfectly comfy for his twelve year old body. On top it was smooth and slightly indented so that it formed a sort of hammock. At one end his head was raised high enough for him to keep an eye on the scraggy goats, whilst at the other end his feet were raised in a way that allowed him to waggle his toes in the breeze that drifted up the mountainside. The added bonus was a large olive tree that cast its fragrant shade over him. Were it not for the goats, he could spend all day cradled there among the rocks and goat tracks with his day dreams.
Leonnatus closed his eyes and watched the dizzying red patterns of the sunlight through his eyelids. Below the rock he could hear the tinkling of the goat-bells, still close enough not to worry him. Around him the wind whispered through the olive tree.
He drifted into a dream in which he ran back to the house. The goats were nowhere to be seen, nor were his mother or father. Their house was a simple one, with a ground floor for the animals and for cooking and an upper floor for their bed. In one corner of the upper floor, under a loose curtain, was his father's armour, shield and sword. Somehow it had magically shrunk to his size and he dressed himself for battle.
Before taking up the sword he lifted the helmet onto his head. Usually his head rattled around inside it like a clanger in a bell, but the shrunken version fitted like a glove. Fully armed, like Achilles, he scaled down the ladder and stood in the earthy basement. Outside he could hear a strange noise. A metallic beating, rhythmic, loud.
Pulling aside the door and stepping out into the bright sunshine, in front of his humble house the entire Greek army were drawn up in ceremonial formation, beating their shields with their swords in honour of the mighty,
the invincible, the heroic, the magnificent, the unbeatable, the beautiful,
the ultimate L-E-O-N-N-A-T-U-S!
He awoke with a start. It was his mother in the valley below, ringing the triangle calling him home for supper and his evening chores.
He swung his lithe brown body over the lip of the rock and landed on his feet. He picked up his wooden staff where he had left it and whistled to the goats. Time to go.
From the door of their house Leonnatus' mother watched her boy skipping down the path towards her, driving the goats. The gods had blessed him with hair as blond as straw, unusual for a Greek boy. She had heard that prince Alexander was strikingly blond too, so she took it as a sign of blessing. Leo's body was strong and lithe for a boy his age. He was shorter than some of the other boys in the hills, but didn't have an ounce of puppy fat. His legs were strong from his days on the mountains with the goats and although he was too young to have clearly defined muscles, he was clearly fit and strong. As she watched him approach she thanked the gods for him. For his beauty and for his health. She wondered how many hearts he would break and prayed he wouldn't break her own.
As he approached he flashed her his smile which melted her heart. He smiled not just with his cheeky grin but with his sparkling green eyes and the combination made his whole brown face light up.
"Be quick," she said, "your father has caught a rabbit today and after supper he has to speak to you."
"Before we chop wood?"
"Yes now hurry along."
Leonnatus was intrigued. His mother didn't usually announce that his father would be speaking to him.
They fed the animals then fed themselves. Leo watched his father eating.
Philotas was a hard man. In peace he farmed, having bought land with booty from a campaign fought in his youth. As well as the flock of goats they had an orchard of olive trees and a small vineyard. They could feed themselves and have a little left over to sell or barter. But Philotas had been at war more than he had been at peace. He had been a member of the elite shock troops of the Greek army. Philip himself had praised him for his part in a grinding assault on the city of Potidaea when he had leapt, with fifty others from a siege tower to create a bridgehead for the assault. Only five of the original fifty had survived.
As we'll as the stories, which he told his son when he had had too much to drink, he also had the scars to prove them. A deep gash across his chest and a spear wound that had left a nasty scar above his right hip.
He had thick strong forearms, a massive chest and thick thighs - a physique that was ideal for the usual role of the Vanguard which was to act as the anvil, allowing the cavalry to act as the hammer, driving the enemy onto their swords from the flank or rear as they, in turn, drove forward,
step by grinding step behind the protection of their interlocked shields and the merciless stabbing of their short swords.
After the meal, Philotas took young Leo by the shoulder and took him outside. The sun was low in the sky, bathing the hills in a red lazy glow. He put his arm around the shoulder of his son and walked him away from the hut.
"Leonnatus..." he never used the long version of Leo's name unless it was serious. "Have any of your friends been taken by their fathers to the sacred grove by lake Borboros?"
Leo was stumped. He had never even heard of the lake.
"No, I don't think so father."
"At your age, Leo, the gods give us the power to have children. It is a gift beyond measure and it is fitting that we repay the gods with sacrifice for it. No man knows the time the gift will be given. Some boys are given it at your age, others may have to wait a couple of years. But as soon as it is given, I have to take you to the sacred grove so that the priests can offer your first seed to the gods.
Do you masturbate, Leo?"
Leo was thankful for the darkness that hid his deep blush. "Erm, ...I..."
"Always speak plainly Leonnatus."
Father, mother and son shared the same bed except for some nights when his father told him to keep the goats company on the hay in the room below. Leo's masturbation was reserved for his special rock.
"Sometimes when I am watching the goats, father."
"Have you yet produced white fluid from your penis?"
"No father."
"One day you will. When that day comes you must tell us immediately.
Do you understand?"
"Yes father."
"When that day comes you must run home and tell us immediately."
"Yes father."
"That is all. You can go and chop wood now, before bed."
"Father, what happens in the grove with the priests?"
"That is between you, the priests and the gods."
Philotas massaged his naked son's shoulders. "I have been through it when I was your age, Leo. It is easy to bear. Have no fear."
Later that night, lying in the peaceful warmth of the bed, alongside his graceful mother, listening to the snores of his father, Leo had an erection that he prayed and prayed would go away.
Chapter 2 The Shadow of the rock.
Leo was up before dawn. His family usually kept rhythm with the sun,
but he could not sleep. His early morning duty was to walk the mule in its circle to raise the water from the well to irrigate the orchards,
but as long as he was back by daybreak he would be fine.
He splashed water in his face, then skipped and ran down the dry river bed - his bare feet finding their way from the pre-dawn pallor of the sky.
At this time of the morning the early dew made the land smell intensely,
of earth and herbs and olives, a smell that would remind him of home throughout his life.
Naked and free, Leo loved to run through the hills. His heart pounded as he pushed up the slopes and he whooped and held his arms out like wings as he plunged downward. The ground was hard earth and stones that he hardly noticed anymore except when one particularly large or sharp one made him wince. The stones in the river-bed were usually round and smooth which was why he kept to it as much as he could. He ran recklessly,
headlong, at times his heels almost bouncing off his naked butt.
His friend Lysimachus lived in the hut built into the side of the hill now above him. It was still not quite dawn so he and his mother would be in bed.
"Machers!"
"Machers!"
Nothing.
"Machers you lazy donky - get up!"
"Leo!" Lysimachus appeared in the doorway. The fourteen year old had a morning boner he didn't bother hiding. He stretched his arms above his tousled black hair and yawned. "It's bloody early!"
Leo's smile flashed in the gloom.
"Machers, come meet me with the goats today, on high-top."
"Oh by the gods! They'll get mixed up again."
"It doesn't matter. And tell Drax to come too."
"What?!"
But Leo was off, like a little naked satyr disappearing fast back up the river bed.
On high-top, in the cup of Leo's rock the three boys sat together while their three herds got hopelessly mixed up on the slopes below.
All three were brown as berries. Draxus and Lysimachus sat back to back,
with Drax swinging his slender legs over the side as he kept an eye out for wolves. Leo lay back in his hollow. He was sucking on a straw. Drax was Leo's age, though skinny and wiry, where Leo was built like a young athelete.
"Do either of you cum yet?"
Drax looked round.
Machers smiled. "You prick! Is that why you dragged us up here?"
"Seriously, it's important. My father says when I cum I got to go to a grove and see the priests.
Drax said "What?!"
"Yup, and you will have to too, Drax. Gotta give back to the gods the gift they give you."
"What?!" Drax swung his legs up on to the rock and turned round.
"True," said Machers, "I been already."
"What!?" Now it was the two younger boys in unison.
"Last winter. My mum took me."
"You never told us! When?"
"Last winter, like I said."
"You liar."
"Suit yourself."
"Are you telling the truth?"
"I'm not saying another word."
Drax and Leo looked at each other to see if they believed him. Machers lay back, his arms behind his head, a big grin on his face.
"OK sheep dick, tell us what happened then..."
"Well, let me see."
He paused for ages, his eyes shut. Goat bells tinkled peacefully in the distance.
Leo tickled his foot with the straw.
"Gerroff!"
"Tell us!"
"Well the first thing is they make you lie on a table. Then the oldest priest comes in. He must be about 400 years old. He comes over and wanks you with his knobbly old fingers."
"You're lying!"
"Disgusting!"
"Yeah, and when you are fully hard another one comes over and pulls out all your pubes, one by one."
"What!?" Leo and Drax had both started to grow a very few hairs right at the base of their cocks. Drax's were visible because of the darkness of his hair, whereas Leo's were hardly noticeable.
"No lie. Then the old guy makes you suck his horrible wrinkly old todge,
while to other guy fucks you up the butt like a goat."
"You fucking liar!"
"All true."
Drax was laughing. "You had me going there, you sheep shagger."
"Well, it's all true."
"Oh right," said Leo, "so how come you can't even cum yet? You only go there when you can cum."
"I do cum, shit for brains."
"Prove it!"
"OK, hang onto your hats ladies."
Machers rubbed his penis with his open hand, rolling it around on his flat belly. Soon the slug was swelling.
Drax was sniggering. "Leo's getting a boner!"
"So are you dog-breath!"
Machers stretched out fully in the rock, his feet bumping against Leo and his head resting against Drax's thigh. He was biting his lower lip as he eased his foreskin back. Leo watched closely as the older boy pumped faster and faster. Leo was fiddling with his own knob without realising it.
"Damn, it isn't working. Drax give me a hand."
Drax slid down into the hollow alongside the fourteen year old. His thin brown arm reached out and he took the older boy's stiff cock in his small bony hand.
Leo's eyes were wide with disbelief. "Do you two...?" but he cut himself short.
"What do you want me to do?" asked Drax.
"I dunno, just wank it."
"I'll do it really fast." the skinny boy offered.
Machers splayed his legs apart, deliberately putting his foot in Leo's soft crotch, wiggling his toes against the boys small hard dick. As Drax's small hand went to work Machers groaned and rolled his head and,
with his foot and curling toes, masturbated Leo's twitching cock.
Leo looked down at his friend's foot in disbelief.
Leo had never been wanked by a boy his age before, even if this was an odd way to be doing it. Sometimes his father invited old war buddies to their hut for special meals at which he had to serve. On these occasions his mother cooked outside, leaving the men to the meal and their stories.
Leo would wear the Chiton, a short male dress, tied at the belt, covering his nakedness. Often at these meals the soldiers would put their hands on his thigh and rub upwards against his tiny balls. His father would laugh with the rest of them when one of them would fondle him to erection,
then lift up his skirt and say: "So, Philotas, are you trusting the future of your line to this little worm?"
Machers was going nuts, rolling his head from side to side as the twelve year old wanked furiously. Leo couldn't believe his eyes. Drax's little pecker was stiff and sticking out at an odd angle, Machers' was swollen like a goat's udder in Drax's firm grip, and his own was being rubbed crazy now with a heel, then with toes that tried to grip his stiff shaft.
"Keep going!"
"My arm hurts."
"You do it Leo, and Drax, you suck Leo."
"No way!" Drax protested. Wanking was one thing, sucking another thing entirely.
Leo had never wanked someone before, but in a daze he found himself swapping places with Drax. He propped himself up on one elbow and gingerly reached over and put his fingers round the older boy's meat.
It felt so strange. Hard and ribbed but sort of soft at the same time.
The foreskin slid easily as he pulled up and down. It reminded him of milking the goats. Leo jumped as, without warning, Drax started fondling him.
"Spit on your hand Leo, to make it slippy, then really go fast!"
Drax was gently wanking Leo more out of curiosity about his friend rather than in earnest, fondling and squeezing a cock he had never felt before.
While Leo tried to match the furious pace Drax had begun on Machers,
Drax calmly squeezed and rubbed, stopping to examine the fine blond pubes, then going back to a slow wank. The activity was making them all sweat, despite the shade from the tree, and soon their bodies were glistening.
"Leo's got an awesome cock, its almost as big as yours Machers."
"Well wank it for him then." said Machers.
"I am."
Leo used his left hand for a bit, because his arm was aching, then went back to his right. His fingers splayed out along the shaft, with his thumb behind, then he changed his grip to circle the older teenager's shaft.
"You wank good, Leo."
Leo gasped as Drax suddenly pulled his foreskin right back and rubbed his bony thumb over his exposed head. He copied the action on Machers.
"By the gods, it gonna happen!"
Drax and Leo sat upright to watch. Leo held back the foreskin and pointed the bright pink head towards the sky. He pumped the rod in his small brown hand.
The boy's cock swelled tightly and clenching his buttocks Machers shot a looping string of cum, high into the air.
"Oh!" the boys chimed.
"Told you!"
Machers lay spent on the rock, cum streaking his brown chest. Leo gingerly touched the cum with his little finger. "Yuck!"
Eventually Machers sat up and turned to look down at Leo's erection.
Drax still had his fingers wrapped round it.
"Keep doing that Drax till he cums."
"I can't cum."
"I'll show you a little trick."
Machers spat on his index finger. "Lift your knees up". Leo obeyed.
Drax said, "Oh yeah, he's done this to me before."
Leo felt the older boy search for his anus. He bit his lip as the finger found its mark and wiggled in. Machers pushed right in. "Feels good doesn't it."
Leo couldn't answer. Drax's fingers were magical playthings. Machers' finger was making him rock hard and he felt naked in a way he had never felt despite his whole life spent running naked in the hills.
Lying there against the rock, Leo's beautiful body looked like the work of some great sculptor who had carved the boy from the rock itself. Close to a boy's orgasm, every muscle in Leo's body was toned, his stomach smooth, his nipples erect, his soft neck strained in anticipation, young toes curled and cock harder than marble.
With his friends grinning like lunatics Leonnatus tensed, thinking of nothing, feeling only the finger inside him and the explosion building in his juvenile cock.
"Oh my..." His young body spasmed once, twice, three times. Machers pushed in as deep as he could as the spasms came. Drax let out a whoop at the top of his lungs
Suddenly all the tension was gone and Leo lay limp as a rag doll. Machers pulled his finger out with a plop.
"See, I just dry-cum." panted Leo.
"Oh yeah," said Drax. "then what's that?"
Leo propped himself up on his elbows and looked down. Drax was holding his foreskin back. At the tip were two tiny globs of white.
"You guys got to sort out the goats for me. I got to get home."
Chapter 3 Thebes
It had been a long campaign and it wasn't over yet.
They had chased down the Getae and the Triballians, and crushed them in the battle on the Ister river. The Celts had had more sense and surrendered to Alexander at the first opportunity. Some of them even joined the army and the troops marveled at their bravery and ferocious spirit. They claimed to be afraid of only one thing: that the sky might fall on their heads. This alien belief had several of the Vanguard looking skyward as they marched towards Thebes.
The Thebans had a reputation as elite warriors. They ruled their city by democracy and made no secret of their hatred of Alexander's "tyranny".
King Philip's work to unify Greece and turn against the common enemy of the Persian Empire would fail if his son could not bring the Thebans to heel. Their arrogance, mixed with their philosophy meant that despite the power of Alexanders army massed against them, they would not go down without a fight.
Xeon felt sweat trickling down the inside of his helmet. The sun was high in the sky. To his right and left his friends of the Phalanx, Cleitus and Polymedes shifted position slightly. The Vanguard of Alexander's army stood, shields locked, long spears held upright, butts on the ground.
Across the haze of the dusty plain ahead of him the Theban army stretched out in a long thick line. On the ramparts of Thebes women and children looked down and prayed in an eerie wailing.
The Phalanx commander shouted for silence. "We are going for the middle,
we will drive them against their own walls and cut them down. On my mark!"
Xeon gripped the shaft of his spear tightly.
"Lift!" The Spears rose as one. "Present". Down they came across the top of the sheilds. "Attack formation!"
The Vanguard shuffled forward so that their line became a series of "V" formations, like the teeth of a saw. Xeon was at the base of the funnel which was fine with him. The men at the tip of the v had the hardest job. By the time the enemy had got to his position they were being hacked at from all sides. The greatest danger was not from a sword or spear but from slipping on the blood and falling under the feet of your comrades.
"Advance!"
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the bright silver armour of Alexander himself on his horse Beucephalus and a thrill ran the length of his spine.
The shuffling step of the Phalanx had its own rhythm and sound. Once the forward movement began, it didn't stop. They prided themselves on being the most ruthless and effective killing machine in human history.
In the time it took them to cross the distance separating the two front lines Xeon had time to think. About his home in Thessaly, his mother,
the fishing village where they lived. He thought of his father who had survived his time in the Vanguard, only to be swallowed up by the sea. He thought of familiar things: of the house, the scrawny cats that ran the alley at the back and lolled about in the shade. He thought about the boat, his brothers who would be out at sea at that very moment.
But most of all he thought about his mother. Her kindness, her constant worrying for all of them, her tears at his leaving. He could see her face quite clearly.
But then it began. From thousands of men in the Vanguard the battle cry began: "Ailalalalaiiii". It went out like a shockwave before them.
The Thebans answered with their own shout. With the battle cry the men purged themselves of mothers and wives and children. It was all wiped away as men erased everything except for the point of spear and sword and the weight of their shields.
Xeon's shield did not protect himself, but the man to his left. He, in turn, was protected by the man to his right. This formation gave each man space for the sword arm to move freely, but it also symbolized the trust of a band of brothers. To move the shield to protect yourself would leave your comrade fatally exposed. It was a formation only possible to a troop with complete trust in one another, a trust forged on the training fields of home and welded by the battlefields of Greece into the Phalanx.
As they shuffled closer and closer Xeon could see the Thebans more clearly.
They wore antique helmets and their shields were embossed with Stags.
They looked tough. A fierceness burned in their eyes. Their spears were as long as their own. It was going to be bloody. It looked like their lines were deep, it would take one hell of a push to force them back.
A forest of spears on either side made contact. They drove forward.
Xeon could see men on both sides trying to avoid the sharp tips being leveled at them, but there was nowhere to go. The formations had to stay tight. The look on their faces as the spears drove into them was a mixture of horror and surprise. The battle cries were joined with shrill obscene screams.
The men behind Xeon leaned their shields against his back and the ones behind them did the same and the whole Phalanx now pushed against the solid wall of Thebans. The V formations were working but at a heavy price for the men at the tip. From behind men rushed to take their place as they fell, so that from the rear the Phalanx looked like so many hour- glasses with the sand funneling towards the tip of the Vs.
Xeon stabbed his first victim through the protective shield wall. He could feel precisely as the blade cut through hard leather then as it slid through softer flesh and cut against bone. His actions were quick.
A short stabbing motion had to be taught to new recruits. The instinct was to try to slice up your first victim until he was well and truly dead, to make sure of it. But one short stab was enough, there were plenty more men who needed to be dispatched and there was no time to waste. Better to cut and maim twenty than worry about finishing off one.
A Theban sword flashed over the top of the shield wall, but arced away before it could cut Xeon's throat.
The Phalanx never stopped, the weight of their attack was legendary.
But somehow the Thebans stopped it. Xeon had never known anything like it. They were at a standstill. The men in the Vs were in serious trouble.
The trumpet sounded for flat formation and the Vs melted back into a straight line. Now it was a simple brutal hacking war of attrition as the two walls stood toe to toe.
Xeon stabbed and stabbed. He now had no idea what he was connecting with. He was close enough to smell the Thebans' foul breath, to see the strain on their faces, the wild fury in their eyes. It was mayhem.
His arm was sore. Sweat was pouring down his face, he was sliding all over the place in the blood. A sword smashed against his helmet leaving him stunned. Men fell to his left and right along the line, immediately replaced by those in the ranks behind who made superhuman efforts to push back and reform the line.
Another blast on the trumpet and Xeon's heart lept for joy. Don't fuck up now - he told himself. The maneuver was tricky to get right. When the short blast on the trumpet followed the whole Phalanx pushed forward as one, knocking the Thebans back in a wave. Immediately the Vanguard stepped away from the front line, opening up channels through the ranks,
allowing reinforcements to rush through to take up the fight. There was an audible deep groan from the Thebans who realised they were fighting fresh troops.
Xeon was now to the rear of the Phalanx. There was still a job to do,
leaning with his shield against the man in front. Cleitus beside him looked at him and spat out - "These are tough fuckers!"
Alexander's front line was now bent like a bow around the Theban army.
At the far right they were only a matter of fifty feet from the walls of the city. Theban reserves rushed out of a gate on that right side to reinforce their comrades, but on seeing the gate open Alexander's cavalry smashed into the right flank, allowing a Phalanx to break and run down to the gate. The Thebans at the gate made a desperate attempt to hold it, but failed. Alexander sent wave after wave of his reserves through the gate.
Below the walls the Theban troops were suddenly and dramatically aware of the fate of their city as women and children were thrown from the battlements, their broken bodies landing on top of the troops. A desperate cry went up. All discipline was lost, their formations crumbled and Xeon's troop reformed its Vs and now at a trot scythed down everyone in their path.
The Phallanx was in a hurry. There would be loot inside the city.
By nightfall Xeon was drunk. The euphoria of victory, of simply having survived, added to the deep fatigue, mixed with a few swigs of wine had done for him. He had removed his armour and plunged into a water tank behind a forge in the centre of the town. Only his head was above the water.
Around him were the terrible screams of women and children being raped and butchered. The order had come direct from Alexander, the town was to be obliterated. The whole of Greece had to know that the son of Philip was heir to his power and that no force on earth could stop him.
Xeon had looted what he could find. Terrified women had tried to conceal their family savings from him in the small houses he had kicked his way into. Other soldiers had slit their throats as he turned over furniture and smashed pots looking for it. It was rich pickings. More money in one night than he could have made in two years fishing.
They had express orders to kill every living thing, but Xeon could not do it. From under one bed he had pulled a terrified little boy, no more than ten years old. He reminded Xeon so much of his own little brother back home that he stood shocked for a while holding the boy by his arm,
simply staring at him.
"What have we here?!" said one of the troop rampaging through the house,
grabbing the terrified boy from Xeon's grip.
The boy's black eyes pleaded silently with Xeon as he was stripped of his thin tunic. The mother was screaming in a corner, pinned to the wall by another solider.
Xeon backed out of the doorway and out into the street.
Outside it was no better. Women and children running for their lives with no where to go. Bands of soldiers around every corner, in every house. Coming for you. Coming for your daughters and sons. Hard men made harder still by the thought that this slaughter would make countless cities surrender without a fight. For them to live through this campaign you had to die, you and your children. Easier to kill children in this town than face armed men outside the next.
Submerged in the water, dulled by the wine Xeon closed his eyes. In front of him he still saw the naked boy. Those dark eyes. The boy was whispering something. Hard to hear. He leaned forward. In the boy's trembling voice he heard something. What was it? A question? So hard to hear him above all this screaming! He opened his eyes and the boy dissolved like ripples in the water.
The town was on fire and lit up the sky so brightly it obliterated the stars.
If you like this story you may also like two short stories I will soon publish: "Santa's little helper" is good for a laugh, and "Boy on a beach" if you already miss your summer vacation.
Please email me to let me know if you liked this story, particularly if it made you cum. Reward me by recommending it to your buddy list, and/or by telling me a short story, perhaps from real life. gayauthor@hushmail.com