A cowardly general surrendered his army of 4,000 to Taris, the Conqueror without a fight.His army was castrated and sent home. Ah, but what would they find in their occupied homeland ?

All persons, places, and events in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.

Though he feared what he might find and dreaded having to relate his tragic tale to his wife, Merko was glad to be approaching his native village. It had been a long walk from the battlefield, much of it in pain from the slowly healing burn between his thighs where he had been cauterised after castration.

Better it would have been to have died fighting against overwhelming odds than to surrender and forfeit manhood. But, the choice was not theirs. The decision had been made by General Glesper who believed that there was no shame in yielding to force majeur. Taris, the Conqueror, thought otherwise.

General Glesper had gone to Taris under a flag of truce to seek terms for an honourable surrender. Taris insisted on unconditional surrender. They would become his slaves to do with as he pleased. Instead of rejecting this like a man, Glesper accepted this dishonourable surrender. They should have fought to the death. At least they could have reduced Taris' forces by nearly one quarter and earned an honourable death.

Taris ordered the soldiers and, to his dismay General Glesper, disarmed and stripped naked. This done, their hands were tied behind their backs and the men were marched into the centre of a field to stand before their conqueror.

"General Glesper is evidently not aware of how I treat those who surrender rather than fight. His cowardice has delivered you into my power. This does not reflect ill upon your courage. You are brave men who have been betrayed. The disgrace and humiliation are his, for he has earned them.

Where is Hanno ?" A hulking giant of a man lumbered forward. "Remove your kilt, Hanno. Let the general and his men see why many have said that your father must have been a horse."

And, indeed, Hanno exposed a phallus the like of which none there had ever seen before on the body of a man. With a disdainful smirk, Taris ordered General Glesper "Bend over." His face picture of horror and disgust, General Glesper just stared at the conqueror.

"Bend him over, Hanno." said Taris. Hanno seized General Glesper's male glands and squeezed them very hard. General Glesper screamed and, of course, bent over

retching. Swiftly, Hanno stepped behind the disgraced general and rammed his horse's phallus into Glesper's heretofore virgin arse. If General Glesper screamed when his stones were squeezed, he made the very vault of Heaven ring when Hanno raped him.

Hanno knew exactly how to give a man being raped a most unwelcome orgasm. He began rubbing his monstrous phallus against General Glesper's prostate gland, which he could feel as a lump alongside the rectum. To his horror, dismay, and embarrassment, the general felt an erection rising under his belly. His men noticed it also, with growing disgust. Soon, he was struggling against an impending orgasm. General Glesper was beginning to tremble and breathe heavily. He could feel all of the familiar sensations which preceded ejaculation and tried, completely unsuccessfully, to suppress them.

Hanno suddenly poked the general's prostate hard. General Glesper cried out in what was obviously not pain and great streams of lumpy white semen bursted from his erect phallus. "You see now what kind of a man has been leading you." said Taris.

After Hanno withdrew from the general's behind, Taris pointed to the humiliated

officer and said "Geld him." General Glesper's scrotum was tied off with a strong silken cord, first in an overhand knot pulled tight by four men, the knot then being converted into a square knot and again pulled tight by four men.

All of Taris' men carried knives shaped like pruning hooks. Now their use became obvious as one of the four men placed the sharpened concave curve of his knifeblade behind the general's scrotum a finger's breadth below the knot and pulled the knife forward neatly severing the scrotum and its once precious contents from the cowardly general's body.

There was almost no bleeding. An old man, apparently a healer, applied an astringent paste to the wound and even that ceased. Glesper the Eunuch, unworthy of his former military title, fainted when shown his severed testicles.

Taris then addressed the 4000 naked disarmed prisoners. "It is my custom to geld all prisoners so that they will never bear arms against me again nor beget sons to oppose me. That you are prisoners is through no fault of your own. You are brave fighting men betrayed by a cowardly leader.

You will not be humiliated by being used as if you were women. However, you must resign yourselves to being gelded. It is fruitless to struggle, bound as you are. Nor can you escape, surrounded on all sides by your enemies who outnumber you four to one. So, while you can, be brave and accept your fate. When you are healed, you will be released rather than enslaved and may return to your homes."

The castrations were carried out with dispatch in the same manner as that done to

Glesper. No man of the 4000 cried out or wept as his manhood was taken from him.

Of such character were the men of Iastria. The skill of Taris' healers assured the survival of every one of the eunuchs created that day. Neither did infection or fever afflict any of them.

After seven days, they were deemed sufficiently healed to travel and were issued grey tunics [the traditional garb of eunuchs in Taris homeland]. Taris addressed them one last time. "Go now. You have no cause for shame. You defended your homeland as well as you were allowed to. Only your leader is disgraced and he will remain here as my slave. Farewell."

Of course, the opposition to Taris army having been overcome, his troops proceeded to occupy Iastria and take control of its government and economy. Merko returned to a defeated land, a province of Taris' vast empire.

There were few people in the streets and those mostly women. Merko was in no mood for casual chit-chat and hastened to his home. He knocked on the door and his wife opened it. Merko took her in his arms and kissed her. At least (actually at most) he could still do that. They were alone and Merko asked "Where are father and Ornil

?"

Sela sighed. "Your father died struggling with Taris' soldiers when they came to geld him. Ornil is now a eunuch and is out renting his behind to Taris' soldiers to earn a few coins for food. At thirteen, he is very pretty and he'll do anything they ask him to. He does well and the money is desperately needed for I can't earn enough doing the officers' laundry and I have saved my body for you."

Merko's eyes filled with tears as he said "Your fidelity has been in vain." He lifted the front of his tunic, displaying his ruin. "I am no more a man than Ornil or, I suppose any other former male in this town."

Sela wept and said "It is so. They gelded every male from infants in arms to dotards. They want us to die out. Then their people will move into this land. Taris prefers this to slaughtering the menfolk, we are told, because it is a point of honour to him never to slay an unarmed man."

"Yes," replied Merko. "I suppose that is the reason that he had us disarmed and then gelded us, but, at least, he did not defile our bodies or enslave us."

Just then the door opened and Ornil ran in. With a cry of delight he ran to his brother and kissed him. Merko could smell semen on the boy's breath. ("Oh, ye Gods ! " thought Merko. "They make him suck them off too.") Tactlessly, Ornil asked

"Are you still a man, Merko ?" Without a word, Merko lifted the front of his tunic again. Ornil sighed at the sight. "You, too." he said.

"Yes" replied Merko. "Four thousand of us; our general betrayed us. At least, now that I am here, you won't have to entertain Taris' soldiers any more."

"Oh, I don't mind" answered Ornil before he thought of how that would sound. Then he blushed. "I mean, I'm glad."

"Are there no men in Korota ?" asked Merko.

"In Korota ?" repeated Ornil. "From what I've heard the soldiers say, there are no men left in Iastria. It's a country of eunuchs and women and the soldiers are forbidden to mate with our women. That's why they turn to boys for their pleasure."

Merko sighed. A year ago boys of Ornil's age wouldn't even have known of such things. Well, it didn't really make much difference whether Ornil had been corrupted by serving the soldiers. He could never have a normal life anyway. They would have to get on with their lives somehow, lives which had no future and must finally end in the extinction of their people.