By Rudy

Disclaimer: The auther does not own the characters from Hercules: the Legendary Journeys. Those characters belong to MCA/Universal and were used without permission. No copyright infringement intended and no money was made.

The gathered warriors waited, the dancing firelight gilding their hard, eager features.

The battle had been glorious, their victory complete. Ares would reward them.

A lone drum sounded, a slow, steady beat. Another beat joined it, throbbing in a seductive counterpoint. Another, then another. Sweat gleamed on the drummer's bodies, their heads flung back, their eyes closed in ecstasy, as they taunted one another, rhythm competing with rhythm, twining, parting. Point, counterpoint, a heady rush of sound. Ten drummers, glistening, straining. An avalanche of sound, sending the heated blood pounding through the veins of the listeners.

The warriors swayed to the deafening beat, melting into groups and pairs, hot mouths and hard limbs, writhing, joining.

Victory!

A lone figure slipped away from the exulting masses, gliding silently into the darkness, to stop and rest against the gnarled bole of a tree.

He could smell blood, everywhere. The blood he had shed. The dying eyes of his erstwhile enemies haunted him. The sound of the drums tormented him, mocking echoes of the heartbeats that he had stilled, forever.

He lay against the earth, burned by visions of the men who now lay beneath it. Friends, who had died in his service. Enemies, who had died at his hands.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his ears, but the drumming was a part of him. Ripping at him, pulsing through him, jostling his bones within his shrinking skin.

A burst of light. He was surrounded by a half circle of torches, balefully beating at the night's black shroud.

A hand touched his chest, pushing his leather jerkin aside. Slowly, a figure materialized next to him, as his nipples were roughly tweaked.

"Ah, my sweet Iphicles. You've done well," Ares bent and traced his tongue along Iphicles' lush mouth, teasing inside.

"Ares. I'm honored," Irony darkened Iphicles' voice to a black rumble, "Come to feast on the corpses?"

"I've come to feast, King Iphicles, but not on corpses. You offer a much more tempting banquet."

Ares' tongue snaked over Iphicles' cheekbone, scraping at the dried blood which decorated it. The god of war moaned with pleasure at the metallic tang.

"Mmmm. My favorite vintage. How thoughtful of you, not to bathe after the battle. Allow me to help you clean up."

He suited action to words, his hot, wet tongue laving Iphicles' gore-streaked face and throat, lapping at the blood, his breathing harsh and labored. Impatiently, he stripped the king's clothing away, deaf to the sounds of rent leather. He jabbed his tongue into Iphicles' navel, keeping time with the relentless drums, and licked a salty trail up to savor the crusted blood staining the king's chest, then sawed at one dark nipple with savage teeth. He lapped and suckled at the bright blood that followed his brutal ministrations, smiling redly as Iphicles moaned, and arched into his touch.

The god's clothing disappeared, as he roughly filled his hands with Iphicles' buttocks, pulling the mortal's hips up, and chewing at the tender flesh of his inner thighs. Iphicles' cock hardened, his fingers clawing at the dirt.

"Yes!" Iphicles' guttural scream briefly dominated the song of the drums, as Ares sank strong teeth into his aching shaft. A brutal finger stabbed along his cleft, driving into his anus, twisting, jabbing, "Yes!"

Ares abandoned Iphicles' cock, guiding the mortal's head to his groin.

Iphicles swallowed Ares' shaft, too hungry for preliminaries. His head bobbed between Ares' thighs, keeping time with the pounding drums, one hand steadying the base of the god's thick cock, the other reaching for his own. Ares grabbed that wandering hand, and twisted the arm painfully behind Iphicles' back, laughing when the king twisted and grunted with pain. He watched avidly as the mortal continued to pleasure him, thrusting his jumping cock past Iphicles' swollen lips, hotly noting the gouts of blood dried in clumps throughout his hair. He knotted his hand in that matted hair, pulling Iphicles off of his cock, and throwing him face down.

He yanked the mortal's hips up, driving past clutching, protesting muscles, burying his cock in Iphicles' ass. He planted a heavy hand between Iphicles' shoulder blades, forcing his face into the dirt, and fucked him until they were both screaming hoarsely, their joined cries slicing through the sound of the drums, firing the writhing troops into a frenzy of dark lust. Ares' howl of completion ripped the night, his seed burning its way through Iphicles' body, scarring his soul.

Ares pulled out and lay heavily on his back, silencing Iphicles' needy moans with one withering glance. The king lay perfectly still, his weeping erection throbbing against the dirt, until hard hands grasped his hips again, until he was taken, filled, savaged again. And, abandoned again, sick with the need for completion.

The third time Ares twisted, grunting, into Iphicles' dripping, throbbing anus, his hand snaked around the mortal's trembling body, capturing his burning cock and milking it, almost lazily, riding the resulting shivers and contractions, a beatific smile lighting his dark eyes. Iphicles' eyes showed white as he came, convulsing wildly, too overcome to utter a sound. Ares allowed the mortal's release to carry him over the crest, and pulled out, pumping his seed along the beckoning crevice of Iphicles' muscular ass.

The heat of the morning sun flared against Iphicles' eyelids, awakening him. He opened his eyes, squinting in the pitiless glare, gazing up at the tree that offered him meager shelter from the burning storm of light. A dead, decaying shell of a tree. Mistletoe twined about it, feeding off of the corpse that its embrace had created. Its soft, green leaves glowed in the sunlight, clusters of berries gleaming whitely, like drops of semen flung amongst the vines.

Iphicles smiled, wryly. How disgustingly appropriate.

He rose slowly, cataloguing his injuries as he pulled his tattered clothing over his protesting limbs. The burning ache in his anus, the bruises marring his flesh. A perfect outline of Ares' teeth surrounded one savaged nipple, still sluggishly bleeding.

He dressed, and broke off a sprig of mistletoe, heavy with white berries. He thrust it into his hair, to nestle above one ear, before joining his slumbering, victorious troops.

THE END