The Sarthalian Horde

The Sarthalian horde descended upon the village in the light of dawn. Men upon horseback, warriors on foot, armed with sword and spear and bow. The villagers were taken by surprise, and were easily slaughtered or routed.

By mid morning any fugitive villagers had been rounded up, less those few who may have slipped away into the evergreen forests. Huts and fields were put to the torch. Sarthalian warriors gathered booty. Chickens and goats wandered astray.

The surviving villagers, most of them women and children, were lined up outside the village in the harsh grey light of the morning. These would be sold into slavery, or claimed for the households of ranking warriors. But first they must be inspected by the king.

Gulkor king of the Sarthalians approached on horseback. He dismounted, and stepped up to the line of shivering villagers. A tall strong man with grey hair, Gulkor passed down the line, pausing now and again to inspect one of the young women of the village. He would open a woman's mouth, inspect her teeth as if she were a horse; he would take her hands and look them over carefully. Gulkor selected several of the young women, and they were taken away to be added to the slaves of the king's household. These were a king's spoils of war.

That evening one of the young women Gulkor had selected was brought to him in his tent. She was tall and slender, with long black hair; she was young, she had perhaps not yet seen twenty summers. The king took her hands in his own, and once again he inspected her hands: fine long smooth strong hands, large hands, beautiful for hands hardened by hard work.

This young woman would learn the Sarthalian tongue in due time. But for now king Gulkor was reduced to teaching her by gesture and by pantomime. The king picked up the young woman's right hand. He held her large beautiful hand up to his face. And he pressed the palm of her hand firmly over his mouth.

The woman did not at first catch on. But with repeated lessons she came to understand that Gulkor wanted her to hold her hand over his mouth. He showed her. She learned to hold his mouth with her hand squeezed tightly in place. Gulkor twisted and turned his head, he made muffled noises from beneath her hand. "Mmmmmmmmh, mmmmmm, hmmmmmm mmmm hhmmmmm, mmmmm hmmmmm MMMMMHHHH!!" The look in the king's eyes was one of dreamy ecstasy.

When the young woman was slow to learn, Gulkor used his riding crop on her. She quickly understood that the king did not want her to let go of his mouth, not even when he reached up and tugged on her hand. "MMMMMMMMHH, HHHHHHMMM!" The woman trembled, she could not see why Gulkor wanted her to do these things to him. But she complied; it was easier than the riding crop. After an evening of these hand over mouth games, Gulkor pressed the woman down on the ground and had his way with her. Then he dismissed her to his guard.

The next day the Sarthalians gathered up their new found booty and slaves, and began their journey back home, back across the steppes to the fabled city of Saram Dar. They journeyed beneath a slate grey sky, and in the afternoon a few stray snowflakes fell. It was late in the season, time to be home and wintering in Saram Dar.

That evening when they pitched camp, Gulkor had another of the women he had selected brought to him in his tent. This was a thin slip of a young woman, with long russet hair and a thin hollow face, and big smooth strong unnaturally long hands. Gulkor taught her by pantomime how to hold her hand over his mouth, and he spent the evening writhing in pleasure, going "Mmmmmmmh, mmmmmhh hhhmmmmm" with her long smooth pale hand tight in place over his mouth, before he laid her on her back on the ground and had her, turning her back afterwards to his guard.

Another day of journeying, and the last night's camp before they came to Saram Dar. This evening the king was anxious in his tent, pacing to and fro, for during the day he had received a report from his men about one of the women he had chosen. Winter courts were soon to convene, and Gulkor had urgent need of a capable and presentable woman who could be trained by more than just pantomime.

The woman they had told him of entered his tent. She was one of the older women from the village, perhaps nearly thirty years old. But she was a fine specimen, beautiful, slender but big boned, broad shouldered, and with the most amazing large smooth strong beautiful gigantic oversized womanly hands...

"So," said Gulkor to her in Greek, "they tell me you speak the tongue of the Greek lands. How does a daughter of the Greeks come to be dwelling all the way up here in the wind swept steppes?"

The woman held her fine featured face up proudly. "My mother was a Greek woman, from the Greek cities down on the shores of the Euxine. She was traded up this way before I was born."

"Ho!" said the king. "Your Greek is better than mine! And do you read and write?"

"A little."

"Ho! A rare find! You shall find work in my royal court. Though my greatest need for you in my court has less to do with your tongue, and more to do with your hands."

The woman's lips twisted, as if she didn't know whether she dared say what came next. "I've... heard from the women about you and... and their hands."

"Well," said Gulkor, "that was for pleasure. This will be for pleasure -- for it will be a pleasure to have your beautiful hands over my mouth -- but it will also be for certain rites in our winter courts soon upcoming. I have need for a new woman who can learn these intricate rites accurately and quickly, and that means a woman who can understand me... when she doesn't have her hands over my mouth, of course."

The king took the woman's hands in his own, and he turned her hands over and inspected them. He felt of her hands, he looked at them close up. "Beautiful hands... such huge, soft, strong hands... and yet so wonderfully smooth. Tell me, how do you keep such hard working hands so smooth?"

There was something in the manner of the king's attention which made the woman tremble. "I... I always rub tallow into my hands to keep them soft and smooth... and in due season, honey."

"Beautiful hands... so large, so powerful, yet so soft and smooth... Show me what you can do with your hands!"

With only slight hesitation, the woman wrapped the palm of her right hand over Gulkor's mouth, and she squeezed his mouth tight, just as tight as she possibly could, with all the strength of her soft but work strengthened hand.

"MMMMMMMMMMHHH!! Mmmmmmhhh, hmmmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmh hhmmmmm! Mmmmmmhhh... mmmmmmmhhhh...... mmmmmmmmmmh..... MMMMMMMM, HMMMMM MMMMMMMHH!!!" King Gulkor twisted and writhed, he tried in vain to speak from behind the woman's unbelievably tight mouth hold. "Mmmmmmmmhh! Mmmmmmmhhh! MMMMMMH HMMMM WWWWMMMMMM!" Such incredible strength in her huge soft strong beautiful hand! Gulkor shuddered, his eyes rolled up into his skull, he tried to scream from beneath the iron tight grip of this woman's soft, powerful hand. "MMMMMMMMMMMMHHHH!!"

"Try it again," said the king, when at long last she took her hand away from his mouth. "Try it again, only this time use both hands, and hold your hands over my mouth just as tight as you possibly can, and don't let me go no matter how hard I try to get away!"

"MMMMMMMMHHH!! Mmmh, mmmmmm hmmmmm mmmmm mmmmm, MMMMMMMMMMM! Gh'mmmmmm mmmmmmmh, hhhmmm wwmmmm mmmm HHHHHMMMMM, mmmmm MMMMMH!!" Gulkor writhed and thrashed, his eyes blank in ecstatic bliss, he made meaningless stifled screaming noises as the woman kept both her gigantic smooth strong soft warm hands clamped super iron tight over the king's mouth. He reached up and tugged and pulled at her hands, her big smooth hands even larger than his own, but she kept her hands clamped tight over his mouth even when he tugged and pulled on them. "Mmmmmmhhhh... Mmmmmmmmhh! MMMMMMMMMHH!!"

The woman held her hands tight over the king's mouth for a long long time, and when she finally let him go, he took her in a mad lust and had sex with her on the hard packed dirt. Then he did not send her back to his guard, but kept her curled up with him beneath his sleeping furs.

"When we get back to Saram Dar," said Gulkor, "I will begin training you in your duties for the winter courts. Our last Queen of Silence was carried off in the plague. The court cannot proceed without a Queen of Silence. The rites are hard to learn, but quite impressive.

"Oh. And you are relieved from any duties of manual labor. Keep those pretty hands of yours soft and smooth! And... from now on you are never to pare your nails. Let all your fingernails grow out long, let them grow out just as long as they possibly can. In time your nails will grow so long that you will be unable to do much with your hands, except hold them over my mouth. But holding your hands over my mouth... that will be more than enough..."

Back in the fabled city of Saram Dar, far on the cold northern steppes, the woman (whose name was Sarela) assumed her duties in the court of Gulkor king of the Sarthalians. The winter courts, and the summer courts, and the lesser assizes... Let a few summers and winters pass, and if you were to come to court to have your case heard before the king, this is what you would behold:

There in the palace, Gulkor sits on his throne. To his right, a scribe to record the case. To his left, a guard with sharp iron sword. And standing right behind his throne, the beauteous Sarela, Queen of Silence. The supplicants await, kneeling before the throne. And the aged priest enters, carrying a knife and a piglet; he mutters the words that none might know, and then he sacrifices the piglet to the gods, cutting it with the knife, sprinkling piglet's blood on all present, chanting, "May the king speak, may the king be silent; and when the king is silenced all who speak, speak under oath before him!"

From behind the throne, Sarela Queen of Silence reaches around and clamps both of her huge smooth-backed beautiful hands tight over the king's mouth. She has both of her hands clamped hard over Gulkor's mouth, her left hand over her right hand over his mouth, her gigantic tallow-smoothed womanly hands, with ultra long curling fingernails grown out four inches long, her hands over his mouth tight, her thumbs crossed above his nose, her four-inch-long thumbnails curling like antelope horns across the king's forehead.

The king makes muffled sounds from behind the tight-gagging hands of the Queen of Silence, "Mmmmmmhh, MMMMMMMHH HHMMM MMMMMMMMH!!" And all in the king's courtroom tremble, for as long as he is reduced to meaningless noises, everyone else in the room is automatically under oath. When the king needs to speak, he motions, and the Queen of Silence holds her claw nailed hands far enough in front of his mouth -- still covering it -- that he is able to speak. Then when he is through speaking, she clamps her huge smooth strong feminine betaloned hands back tight over his mouth, and all tremble to be under oath before the blood spattered speechless mouth held king.

And Gulkor spends many hours in court every day, and more hours in his quarters every night, with Sarela's large smooth ultra-long-nailed hands iron-clamped over his mouth.