A cry of anguish rang across the valley, silencing the dawn chorus of creature chatter.
"No! Another bloodmoon! I am cursed. Useless, seedless, dry-humping men!"
The outburst stirred awake those villagers still sleeping. Men looked up from their steaming cook pots and animal pens, then dropped their heads again, making themselves as inconspicuous as possible. Women either went back to sleep in their huts, or carried on preparing for the day's hunt. Some shared looks of resignation.
Chief Jaboo, her voluminous lungs the source of the yelling, emerged from the high cave; ebony face wearing a thunderous expression. She shook her fist at the sky and flicked menstrual blood from her fingers in disgust.
"Where's my fucking club?" White teeth flashed in an angry snarl. She kicked the remnants of last night's dinner into the fire pit and brushed thick dreadlocks from her face, scanning the debris for her weapon.
Zeeba looked up from where she sat cross-legged, weaving a cloak of softflax.
Here we go again, she thought, before placing her work to one side and standing. Only twelve hands tall at most, her head would reach Jaboo's chest. But what she lacked in height, she made up for in diplomacy— and she'd have to call on that skill now, to save a poor man from a thorough beating.
The Chief found her club and strode down the slope in front of the cave, swinging it into an open palm. It made a very satisfying thwack, as polished wood does on flesh. Big bare breasts bounced with each stride. Powerful thighs rippled, trickles of blood running down the inside of them, unnoticed. The only item of clothing, a skirt of river reeds, swished around her wide hips in time with the thwacking of the club.
Zeeba met her before she reached the man's cage. She drew herself up— and still found she was only addressing one of her hot-headed chief's nipples.
"Look, I know you're angry, Jaboo, but you can't go whacking him around. We'll swap him, okay? I'll go with Sulon to the slave markets. But if you beat him up, we won't get a good swap."
"That's what you said last time, Zeeba!" The chief stared into the face of her Weaver. "I'm thinking you'd be best sticking to your knitting. And what does idiot Sulon know about men? She thought he was handsome. Ha!" Jaboo waved her club at the cage behind Zeeba. "Mother god I hate these useless men." She looked to the sky again. "Why oh why did you give them the babyseed Mother?"
"I'm sure the Mother knew what she was doing," Zeeba consoled. "Look, you go back and rest, you know the bloodmoon makes you tired. Sulon and I will take this one back to the market. If we leave now, we could be back by sundown."
The Chief calmed, but not before spitting at the pathetic male cowering in the corner of his cage. "Yes well, okay. There's no hurry, anyway. No use me fucking another one until after this bloodmoon. But for Mother's sake bring me back a seeder this time. Don't just go by the size of the cock, or how pleasing Sulon thinks they look. Find out if they've seeded before, at least. And don't let those crafty bitches rip you off again. Hmm…maybe I should go myself."
"Remember what happened last time you went to the markets? But anyway, a Chief of your standing shouldn't have to demean themselves by haggling," Zeeba said. She didn't mention that even the most aggressive of negotiations shouldn't end up with the buyer threatening to cut the seller's tits off.
Chief Jaboo grunted and strode up the slope to her cave, swinging her club and cursing under her breath.
Zeeba sighed and packed her weaving work into her hut. She summoned her slave to find Sulon the Hunter.
The smell of breakfast wafted through the village as the men finished their cooking and presented it to the Women. Most huts enjoyed toasted ashcakes of sourdough bread, dipped in thick barley porridge, sweetened with fruits; or some variant thereof. The short, plump cook Dilha had trained everyone's slave well, and this morning she didn't have to administer a single cuff around the ear for burned bread. Zeeba and Sulon grabbed a quick bite and treated their slaves to the leftovers.
The two headed off. Zeeba in her softflax tunic and a light feather shawl. Sulon in her rabbit-hide Hunter's garb; a small stone axe on one hip and their waterskin on the other. They towed the naked, ungelded but infertile slave behind them, his hands bound tight. A loose length of flax connecting his ankles, allowing only small strides. Should he try to run, or fight, he'd make a poor show of it.
Sulon, tall, lean and muscular from running on the hunts, seemed excited. Once they'd turned a few corners of the forest trail, she whispered to Zeeba.
"When we stop for a rest, I'll have him. You keep watch, okay? And then you can have a turn."
"Sulon! You know that's forbidden. What if his seed takes root inside you? The first baby of the tenyear will be yours, not the Chief's, or even one of the Breeders. The next thing I weave will be your funeral cloak!"
"His seed's no good, remember! The Chief had him every day for a month. And still she got the bloodmoon. And anyway, dummy, I'll just get off him before he spits his seed in me. It's easy if you know how."
"Listen to you, the expert on men now, eh?" Zeeba chuckled. "Just how many men have you had, anyway? Should we call you Sulon the Breeder!"
As a Hunter, Sulon outranked Zeeba, but it was a grey area. Zeeba was twice her age of twenty winters. So, the two traded barbs in relative comfort.
"Well, he will be the lucky first," Sulon conceded and turned to look at their captive. He shuffled along behind them, head down, placing each footstep so as not to trip on the flax binding. "If I wasn't so good at hunting, I would have been a Breeder."
"You? With those skinny hips of yours? Ha! No, you wouldn't. If you weren't a Hunter, you'd be with me, weaving."
"I tried with my slave you know," Sulon said, ignoring the insult.
She stopped to hold an extra-thick branch to the side while the smaller Zeeba and the slave passed.
"But no balls, no club." Sulon clenched her fist and grabbed her forearm in the traditional sign of the Breeders. "Still worth a try though. Mosh told me that in the village she came from, they had a de-balled manslave whose cock could still go hard. Imagine!"
"Well, Mosh says a lot of things," Zeeba replied as they broke through the thicker vegetation and found the trail again. "We should call her Mosh the Storyteller. Hmm... you Hunters don't come this way much? The trail keeps disappearing."
"We take a fresh way every time. Otherwise, the animals would get wise."
Weaver, Hunter and ungelded man continued through the forest. The day grew humid and small insects buzzed them, attracted by their sweat. The man complained of thirst. At the next clearing, they stopped.
"They speak so weirdly," Sulon noted as she opened a waterskin and poured half into the man's open mouth. Too fast for him, so most spilled down his front. "He is handsome though." She admired the male as he tried to lick water droplets from his chin. "Skinny and tough looking, like me."
"He's skinny because we never feed them too much, lest they get strong. And he sounds weird because they're only taught the basics. You know it's forbidden to teach them more. Just as it's forbidden to fuck the Chief's manslave. Which is what I presume you're about to do?" Zeeba replied as Sulon pulled the slave's loincloth off him and shoved her own rabbit hide skirt up over her waist.
"He's not the Chief's though, because we're selling him, right?" she reasoned, pushing her quarry down to the ground with a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Yes, but we haven't sold him yet." Zeeba sighed and sat down against a tree. "So, don't hurt him, and for Mother's sake don't let him spit his seed in you."
"Yes, oh wise Weaver Zeeba." Sulon laughed. "Mosh says you have to play with them for a bit, you know, to get them hard."
"Is that right? Seems reasonable." Zeeba watched, somewhat interested, as Sulon leaned over the man and fiddled with his cock. He stared straight up, almost frozen. She wondered if he felt caught between fear and arousal. Sulon looked rather attractive. Her smooth black skin glistened with the perspiration of her own arousal. She arched her spine, almost as if offering pert young breasts and hardening nipples to the Mother herself. The man couldn't avert his eyes any longer— Zeeba found she couldn't avert hers either.
For a second, she felt sorry for him, and all men; but then she remembered the legends. Of times past, thousands of winters ago, when men had ruled with iron fists and destroyed the world. Until the Mother arrived and delivered the world from men's evil. It all sounded fanciful, but still scary. Everyone knew that men could gain a physical strength that surpassed Women, if left with their balls. There was a logic behind the legends. She couldn't imagine living in those ancient times though. Imagine men being able to overpower Women? What must life have been like? Horrible.
No, the only reason to risk a man gaining strength by leaving his balls attached, was to use him for breeding. First with the Chief, to ensure the Chiefdom line, and then with the tribe's Breeders. But after? Off with those evil balls! Gelded men became somewhat safe and useful. She liked her own slave. Apart from being a reasonable cook and hutkeeper, he was also adept at finding the best flax and vines for her weaving.
Sulon's grunting interrupted Zeeba's daydream and she looked over at her friend, squatted astride the man— his cock hard and buried between her lowlips. Sulon bounced herself up and down on it, her face contorted in pleasure. She paused her grunting to update Zeeba.
"I... got him… hard…" she gasped. "It feels… fantastic! Look, he even helps sometimes." She ran out of breath.
Zeeba looked. Sure enough, the manslave was doing his best to push his hips up against Sulon's butt cheeks.
"You're crazy, you know that?" Zeeba laughed.
Sulon reached down and rubbed her Motherspot. Her grunts grew louder and closer together.
"Just don't let him…" Zeeba warned, but was interrupted by the man crying out— something about how he would burst. And then his hips spasmed, once, and then again, like a rabbit's legs when you chop its head off.
"Oh, shit!" Sulon shouted. "Shit, shit shit! He spat seed inside me!" She hopped off him as if he were a hot firepit under her ass and jumped up and down. "Get out, get out, shit!" After a time, her efforts were rewarded by a small dribble of seed escaping from between her lowlips.
"How much seed do they spit? More than that?" she asked Zeeba, who watched the entire performance from the base of her tree with mild amusement.
"I don't know. Perhaps you should ask Mosh?" Zeeba couldn't resist the jibe. She had predicted this from the start.
Sulon spent until midsun trying to empty herself of man seed. She used their remaining water, rinsing between her legs. She also convinced Zeeba to look inside her, but light was dim this far under the tree canopy. Zeeba could only report that she didn't see much.
The man seemed dopier after that, and the going was tough through the thick forest. Sometime later they heard the coursing of a river, and the hustle and bustle of the slaver's market through the trees.