The Earth King’s Bounty

C
opyright
© 2016 by Cordova Skye

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of erotic fiction intended for adults. All participants are over the age of 18. No similarities to persons living or dead is intended.

N
inia spread her arms
, holding her body as still as she could while the priestesses bathed her. Gentle hands wielded rough cloths, dripped warm, perfumed water down her flesh; the water cooled quickly in the pre-dawn air of the temple, pebbling her skin and the pink buds of her nipples. She felt herself flush at the tightness, and had to resist the foolish urge to cover herself against the eyes of the priestesses. They had already seen her, all this past week, their keen eyes and deft fingers examining every inch of her body, ensuring that she was pure and unmarred.

It would not do to offer the Earth King, god of the fields, keeper of the fertility of both crops and beasts, a less than perfect sacrifice.

She tried not to dwell upon that overmuch as the priestesses finished their ministrations and helped her from the bath. Thick towels wrapped around her body, warming her pale skin and soaking the water from her long dark hair. Covered, shielded from the eyes of the older women, Ninia tried to ease her breathing. Her gaze rose to the temple's high-set windows as the priestesses began to divide and comb out the heavy length of her hair. The barest hint of light filtered through the eastmost windows, the stained glass spilling blue light upon the walls, giving the room a watery cast.

It would be hours, still, before the procession began winding through the streets of the city. Only a few hours, too long and not long enough. The ceremony itself would have already begun, workers going down to the sacred field, ensuring all of the previous year's deadfall was removed, turning the earth and clearing rocks away. The priests would follow, blessing the land, their chants and songs imploring the attention of the gods while Ninia was carried through the streets to be seen and witnessed by the entire city before the procession finally wound its way to the field, and the fresh turned bed of sanctified earth.

The bed of earth where Ninia would be lain, naked save for wreaths of dried flowers, for the Earth King to take as his bride.

It made her shiver in spite of the warm towels, her flesh rising and nipples crinkling tight as if once again exposed to the chill of the air. Sacrifice to the Earth King was a great honor, one she was fortunate to have been chosen for; she told herself that, as her mother had told her over and over on the day the priests came to their village and made their selection. If the god accepted her, it would do more than ensure the year's harvest, it would ease the weight of the church's tithes on her family and neighbors. Ninia shut her eyes, remembering the looks of hope and gratitude as she had been taken. She would do this, for them, and she...

She did not know, truly, what would become of her. She had heard tales, both those told by the church and the darker stories whispered among the elders. The church claimed the brides grew to their full glory, filled by the god's power, nearly goddesses themselves in the cycle of their year. The whispered stories, though, spoke of souls burned away by the god's passions, women who faded and failed before their term was over, women the god would not come to at all.

Ninia prayed silently, for herself, for her family, that she would be one of the strong ones. One of the ones who would attract the god, win his pleasure, and grow in power until her place was taken by next spring's bride.

The light was brighter when she finally opened her eyes, her hair dressed in elaborate braids. The priestesses unwrapped the towel from around her, brisk hands rubbing oil into her flesh. Their touch brought color and warmth to her skin, pushed some of her dread away. She had been chosen, she was being prepared, and she would be pleasing to the Earth King. He would take her as his bride, and she would be strong for him, for her people, as her mother had always taught her to be strong. She was the daughter of farm folk, after all; strength ran in her blood, the earth in her very bones.

Ninia drew a deep breath, spreading her arms for the garlands to be twined around them.

It will be a good year
, she told herself.
I will see to it. It will be a good year.

She held that certainty to her as the room brightened, as the bells finally tolled to call her and the priestesses tending her outside. She faltered at the doorway, again aware of her nakedness as the early morning sun traced golden rays over her curves, her high breasts and full hips. Out here, her skin gleamed with the oils they had rubbed into her, as if the sun was offering her the first preview of the godhood that awaited.

Four strong men stood at the corner of the cushioned litter that awaited her, each representing one of the professions that fed and clothed the people. A farmer, of course, at the front, with a forester beside him; the ones that tilled the fields, and the ones who collected the natural bounty offered by the land. At the rear corners, a fisherman and a weaver. The men respectfully did not look at her, but she shivered at the idea they could, reminded that soon the entire city would have seen her bared flesh.

And why not? she asked herself, squaring her shoulders and stepping forward at the urgings of the priestesses behind her. I am to be the bride of a god. What god hides himself away? What god knows shame before the sight of a mortal?

Behind her, she heard the low voice of a priestess, her words clearly meant for other ears than Ninia's. "This is a good one, this is. Ripe for Him. Feel it in my bones. She's got the marks of a bride already, before He's even touched her."

Emboldened by the overheard whisper, Ninia stepped onto the litter. The central platform was slightly raised to allow her to recline comfortably and still be visible to the people they passed, but it also had a rail at the front, which she could grasp to assist her balance if she chose to stand.

Ninia stood, proud, head high, only her tight grip on the rail betraying the remains of her anxiety. She had thought on this even less than on what the god would do to her. She was a virgin, but also a farm girl, raised among the breeding of livestock. She knew - on however basic a level - what would be expected of her when the Earth King took her in their earthen bed. She had not known, nor wanted to consider, how it would feel to have eyes other than her mother's or sisters' on her bare flesh. Being nude before the priestesses, feeling their hands on her, had been hard enough; she had feared that if she thought too hard on the procession, she would not be able to go through with the sacrifice at all.

This morning was different, or perhaps she was different. The litter rose smoothly to the shoulders of the men, and they began to walk; they must have practiced long for this honor, for the litter barely swayed beneath her feet. The motion was soothing, nearly hypnotic, and Ninia's hands slowly relaxed on the polished wood of the rail as they approached the great gate that led from the church grounds into the city.

The sheer number of people, packed to the sides of the road, waiting to see her, shocked her. More than in her entire village; more even than when her village and its neighbors gathered into a great mass to celebrate the end of the harvest. Too many for her to see them as individuals, as eyes to concern her. Instead, they were a force, pressure against her skin, warming her. She reveled in their disembodied touch, felt it pour heat through her, winding under her skin and pulsing through her core.

Without realizing it, Ninia raised her arms, the carefully arranged garlands, falling in graceful streamers around her. In welcome, in exultation, she revealed herself to the watching crowd. I am the bride, her body proclaimed, and heard joyous cries in answer. The force of the watchers built within her, a power in itself, a power she drank in deeply and held in trust to be shared with her god, her king.

Her husband, for this season if no other.

She barely noticed when the procession reached the outer edges of the city, when the crowd itself fell away and they stepped from streets to paths, from between buildings into open space. The force of them followed her, pulsed in her veins, pooled between her thighs. She had no doubts, now, no need to prove herself. Only a need to fulfill her destined purpose.

She was the Bride, and she would bear this year's harvest in her belly.

The litter slowed, stopped, and eased gently to the ground. For the first time, Ninia saw the bed of fresh turned earth that she had so dreaded at dawn, sun warmed and gleaming a deep, rich, life-giving brown. She laughed at her own folly, the sound rich, bearing a power of its own, and stepped down, feeling the ground sink and steady beneath her steps.

"Come to me, Earth King!" she called, with a flirtatiousness in her voice she had never heard before. The ritual words were suddenly imbued with a force and meaning they had not carried when she learned them, drilled into her mind as if, at the appointed time, she might forget, as if they were not the most natural thing in the world. "Come to me, my husband! Come know your bride!"

Power gathered around her, invisible, powerful as a gale wind but gentle as the early spring breeze that caressed her bare skin. Ninia stood, arms outstretched, waiting, soaking in the weak warmth of the sun and the deeper, more certain heat that radiated from the ground and through the soles of her bare feet. Doubt nibbled at the edge of her mind as she waited, the four litter bearers shifting and murmuring off to the side, not quite forgotten.

Ruthlessly, Ninia pushed the doubts aside. He would come. She could feel him gathering himself, feel him in the fertile warmth of the turned earth she stood upon.
Come to me
, she thought, the words humming unspoken in her throat, pulsing through her body like the heat of desire.
Come to me.

The air turned to stillness, while the sense of power grew, prickling the skin of her arms. An ox-length away, the ground shifted, as if disturbed by some small burrowing animal, then, with no further warning, the tilled soil fountained upward, a geyser of earth that solidified into a pillar, then into the rough shape of a man.

Ninia watched, unable to look away, her heart quickening. The rough shape took form before her eyes, broad and tall, dwarfing every man she had ever laid eyes upon. Rough dirt softened into flesh, a few shades lighter than the ground which formed it. Eyes blinked open in the perfectly-formed face, deep and verdant green. Vines erupted from his bare scalp, falling down his back in a wild cascade that the elaborate braids on her own head poorly echoed. Between his thighs, a root protruded, reshaping itself into erect flesh, while around it tiny tendrils drew and coiled into tight curls.

At last, no pillar of earth stood before her, but a man. Ninia's eyes drank him in, beautiful and proudly erect, brimming with life-giving power, fully human in appearance for all that he was often depicted as half-beast. There was nothing of humanity in his eyes or the force crackling the air around him, though, and she was distantly aware of the litter bearers retreating.

"Bride." The Earth King's voice was a rumble, deep as mountain stones shifting together. "Come to me. Know my bounty. Let us usher the harvest in."

Ninia had not been drilled in this part; it was too obvious to need speaking of. The god would come; she would lie in the bed of earth and submit herself to him. But something had awakened in her under the eyes of the worshipful city, something that stirred fully to life in the presence of the god. She laughed, arms still outflung, dried flowers rustling as they swayed in their carefully-crafted display.

"Catch me," she called, and danced nymph-footed across the ground. She was a mare teasing her stallion, a vixen daring her fox to the chase, the life-bearer to his life-bringer, and if a god could feel surprise she saw it in his eyes then, in that split second before he threw back his head and laughed.

His strides were heavy, shaking the ground that she dashed lightly across. Half chase and half courtship dance, she led him around the field, held back to let him gain then darted away. Her careful braids came undone and fell, wild tangles across her back and shoulders that echoed his. Once, twice, three times he nearly caught her by the hanging ribbons of dried flowers; three times the chains broke, scattering living petals across the ground.

They came at last to the place where they had begun, the carefully tilled bed of earth, now trampled down beneath their running feet, scattered with flower petals and showing the first hint of growing tendrils. Ninia stopped there, breathing hard, blood pounding hot and fast through her sweat-slick body, and the god stopped as well.

Slowly, he knelt, god before mortal, and reached for her with his big hands. "Is it done?" he asked, a smile playing across his lips. "Are you caught, my queen?"

"Well caught," she breathed, his touch sending a jolt through her. Her heart pounded for another reason, now, and the pulse beating through her body centered in her belly and between her thighs. "Well caught, my king. I beg of you, let me know your bounty now."

"No queen should beg," he murmured. His hands closed, soft and dry, over her hips; his lips were soft as they pressed a kiss to her flat stomach. He inhaled deeply, as if she were the finest perfume. "Let us usher the harvest in."

She had thought she knew heat already but the touch of his mouth to the skin beneath her navel, the exhale of his breath, made something catch fire within her. Ninia's own labored breath caught in her lungs, a tremor shivering through her as a spark caught fire beneath her skin, deep inside of her. Eyes, deeper green than any mortal's and full of something ageless that she couldn't name, looked steadily up at her as the god settled back on his heels, leaning in to press another kiss to the crisp dark curls between her thighs.

The fire was melting her from the inside, her core pulsing warm and wet. The god's hands slid down to her thighs, urging her stance wider with the firm stroke of his thumbs against her skin, the heat of his breath stirring over her exposed flesh. Ninia trembled and for one moment the insecurities of the morning and all the days leading up to it rose up like a bubble inside her; she was mortal, untouched, unsure, and at the same time she was the Bride, burning and ready, caught on the cusp with her mortality fading and the goddess within her not quite realized. The god was watching her, eyes bright and burning, and she had only to look down between the frame of their bodies to see the heavy, erect curve of his desire for her, standing proud between his muscled thighs. Ninia touched her tongue to her lips, feeling the heat pulse within her, expectant and waiting as the god crouched at her feet. "I am ready, my king."