Topping-The-Duke-06

This is an entirely fictional story that is licensed solely to Nifty for workshopping purposes. It may not be reproduced, distributed, or commercially exploited in any form without express written permission from its author.

This story is Historical Fantasy set in the Early Victorian Era and may be too slow burning for some folks. If you’re looking for a quick wank, this probably isn’t for you. But if you like action, intrigue, magic and character growth between sex scenes, then this is your cup of tea.

This story contains graphic M/M sex between teenagers, and between adults and teens. The sex is sometimes romantic, sometimes rough and/or non-consensual with an authoritarian, medical, or BDSM bent. Slavery, forced indenture, medical experimentation on the destitute and corporal punishment in schools were still common occurrences during this time period, so things may happen that should never occur in modern real life. Protect yourself and your health by using PReP and condoms and do not try these things at home, especially if they violate the laws of your locality.

If you are a minor, or think something in this story might bother or offend you, STOP HERE.

If you enjoy this sort of thing, read on, and feel free to email me with comments or encouragement at:

taxandros@protonmail.com

A big thank you to all you who have written to let me know how much you enjoy this story. Your kind words have inspired me to keep going. I don’t have any other stories posted anywhere else yet, but I plan to cobble some together, soon.

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Your humble author, Taz

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End of Last Chapter:

Finally, they drew close to the the dark, rounded humps that Charles hoped were not corpses. He counted five that were large enough to be men and gasped as the light pierced the veil of smoke around the victims. Naked from the waist up, their torsos glistened with blood from jagged wounds in their backs, as if they’d all been shot while fleeing. Their lips were blue. They weren’t breathing.

At least they all had their limbs attached.

Charles handed Goatsby the light. “I’ll fight the blaze while you two load the downed men onto the cart. They may revive with better air.”

“Aye, Your Grace,” they replied in unison, setting themselves to the task.

Charles ensured all the hose fittings were good and tight and continued forward, pumping the handle of his fire suppression device. He had tested it several times at home, but this would be the first time in an actual mine. The heat from the blaze was ferocious, searing through his clothing, and heating the wet cloth over his face so that it began to steam. His hair hung in hot, ashy straggles across his eyes, and he was very glad for his goggles.

He crept as near as he dared and turned the valve. A hissing jet of foamy liquid snaked out of the end of the brass wand, arcing into the army of flames like a volley of arrows. Steam billowed up, and then fell back, smothering the flames like a frothy blanket.

He laughed, elated, and moved further along the bank, working the pump and directing the stream into the fiercest heart of the blaze. “It works! It works! Even better than I had expected!”

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Topping the Duke (Chapter 6 -- Death and Life)

Bran’s limbs trembled as he struggled to help Nat Jones lift the last of the men onto the cart. It wasn’t from fatigue, so much as fright. He had mistaken the hissing of the duke’s contraption, combined with the angry crackle of the fire, for the roar of the dragon. It had sent a panic through him that would have made him bolt up the horseway, had there been any light in that direction, but he had tucked the glowing vial into the lantern hung on the hook above the cart. If he strayed from its protection into the gloom, the dragon would surely swallow him.

Despite how sweet the air tasted now that it was filtered through Duke Lacock’s wet neckcloth, Bran had been certain they would die there in that ominous gloom, gasping like hooked fish upon a riverbank. Perfumed water was no match for the killer known as after-damp. When the flames had consumed what made the air breathable, the poisonous air that remained was more lethal than the crushing weight of all the stone and earth between them and the surface. It was only after several surprised seconds of watching young Lacock douse the flames that he had realized the true source of the hissing, and gotten hold of himself. His arms and legs still remembered that bone deep terror.

At least it had given him a redoubled strength, making this last effort the easiest. Together, he and Nat dragged Jac Evans atop the others, making sure their heads were aligned. There was not over much blood from their wounds, and their bodies were still warm, so their may be hope, yet. Their spirits may not have strayed too far. With better air, they may yet survive.

“Can I keep the light?” Jones asked, moving to take the pony’s halter.

“No. I am needin’ it to find your tat and brother. Light a candle while I am tendin’ to the injured.”

Nat gave him a curious look, clearly doubting Bran’s medical ability. But he pulled a candle from his pocket. While he busied himself lighting it and swapping it with the vial, Bran stepped over Lacock’s bag, which had been removed from the cart to make way for the men, and took the duke’s fine topcoat from the pony’s head. He held it under the light and picked off one of the dried droplets of Beli Mawr’s seed. It was like a tiny glowing coin made of gold foil. He placed it on Mr. Evan’s tongue, and then repeated the process with each of the other men. It may not be of any help at all, but it was worth a try. Everybody knew the sun had healing properties.

When he finished with that, Bran laid the topcoat over the men’s heads, out of respect for the dead. “Trot them up to the pit bottom. You’ll find ‘elp there. Mr. Champness will likely be sendin’ down volunteers to aid the duke. ‘E was not wantin’ ‘Is Grace to come down at all.”

“I’ll be back, I will. As soon as I can.” Nat nodded and handed him the vial. “God bless and keep you, Bran Goatsby.”

The emotion, the gratitude in his voice gave Bran pause. He wasn’t used to that tone from any one, let alone one of the Jones brothers. He nodded and turned back towards the bank. It had grown much darker now that a good three-quarters of the blaze had been vanquished. There seemed to be more steam and less smoke because the vial cast a glowing, pearlescent globe of light around him. The roar of the fire had quieted enough that Bran could hear the pony’s hoofbeats receding up the track, as well as Duke Lacock’s happy exclamations. Bran admired his silhouette, feeling happy himself as he remembered what had happened in the cage.

After a few moments, he forced himself to look away. There were five men missing, and only Bran to find them.

He made a quick search of the debris field, feeling a sharp twinge as he found the poor canary dead in the twisted remains of its cage. He had always felt a kinship with that despondent little thing. A creature of sun and sky, so trapped and small, doomed to a life underground. As he neared the upper seam of the bank, he heard a sharp tapping sound. He froze at first, worried it was the toleath knocking a portent of his own death, but as he listened, he realized it was too irregular. The toleath always tapped in bursts of three. And hadn’t there been a side tunnel in that area?

“Your Grace!” He tucked the vial on a ledge of rock and scooped up a pick from the debris field. “I am thinkin’ I’ve found them!”

“Excellent! I’ll join you shortly!”

Bran steeled himself and swung with all his might. The impact sent a shock up his arms all the way to his shoulder sockets. He swung again, and again, his urgency growing as he felt a vibration in the soles of his feet. The dragon was on the move.

He attacked the rubble, desperately swinging until the wall of debris gave way. Chunks of anthracite spilled towards him like a black waterfall and he danced back, nimbly avoiding having his legs swept out from under him.

“Diolch dduw!” Rhys Libby cried out. His callused hand reached out of the darkness, widening the hole Bran had made until it was the diameter of a bucket. As he brought the light closer, Bran saw the faces of Mr. Libby, and Mr. Pwyl.

“Bran!” Mr. Libby exclaimed, clearly surprised by the identity of his rescuer. “God Bless you, boy!”

Mr. Pwyl seemed just as surprised and echoed Libby’s sentiments. Bran carefully scraped away more loose stone and ore from the opening, wary of another collapse. The trapped men clawed at the ore with bloody hands, helping Bran to widen the opening until, one by one, they crawled through. Their torsos and breeches were reddened from various wounds, but they had fared far better than their butties who had been caught in the blast.

“How many are you?” Duke Lacock came up behind Bran, shedding the strange contraption he had used to quench the fire.

“Just us two.” Mr. Libby shook his head and stifled a cough. “Air’s bad out ‘ere. The vent buckled above us, so we ‘ad fresh.” He motioned towards the hole they had emerged from. “Saved by the pillar, we were. Huw Moss died in the fall.”

Bran’s gut wrenched at the news. Mr. Moss seemed to have been a kind father to Little Dee. “Where are the Joneses?”

“Deeper in. We ‘eard them shoutin’, but it’s stopped, it ‘as.”

“Probably out of air.” Pwyl added.

“Are you hale enough to dig them out?” Lacock picked the vial off the ledge and peered into the void. The light reflecting off the red glass of his goggles cast bright, ruby shards against the tunnel walls, revealing a closet-sized space. For some unfathomable reason, Bran felt a strong urge to reach for those shards, to capture them, somehow. He suppressed it.

“Who are you, sir?” Libby asked, between coughs. “And where is the rest of our butty? There were five others.”

“I’m Charles, Duke of Lacock. And your mates were injured in the explosion. They’ve been taken up to the cage. You should follow. You need better air, and your wounds tended.”

“But what about you?”

“We’re fine, I assure you. Move quickly, before you faint.”

They nodded at the duke’s command and trotted up the track.

While they had been speaking, Bran had crawled into the small pocket of safety the men had found themselves in. Deeper in, the light shone on a pool of blood leaking from under a broken beam. Two legs protruded from the rubble with the slackness of death. Bran shivered at the sight of Mr. Moss’ boots, but forced himself to crawl inside and over the body to the space above the beam.

In the gloom beyond, he saw a faint light, pulsing like a glow worm, only with an odd blue color. He heard a faint tapping sound.

It could be the toleath, knocking its fatal portent, while the fairy coblynau used their ghostly lights to lure Bran to his death.

Or it could be Mr. Jones and Marc trying to dig their way free from the collapsed tunnel. The lights could be poisonous air playing tricks on Bran’s eyes. He glanced back at the bright, silvery orb of light surrounding the duke, and then worked the tip of the pick into the space above the beam. A few large chunks fell down, squelching onto the dead man’s legs. A slight breeze ruffled Bran’s hair as fresh air from a buckled venting tunnel above the main one filled the space. It was too dim to see what was beyond, so he stood on the rubble and sent the handle of the pick through to feel out the area. He felt another vibration underfoot. The rubble shifted, and he lost his grip on the pick. He heard it fall into a cavity on the other side and winced.

The dragon was getting closer, and Mr. Champness would dock him for the price of the tool if he didn’t retrieve the pick. If that happened, Driscoll would beat him senseless.. Duke Lacock stepped up behind him and held the vial up over Bran’s shoulder, wincing at the squelch of blood under his boots. He murmured something in that church language that the Bran heard on Sundays, but could never be bothered to stay awake long enough to comprehend.

“You’re small. Can you get through, Goatsby?”

“Aye, Your Grace.” Bran swallowed hard, and scrambled onto the splintered beam. A breeze caught his hair from above as the buckled venting tunnel poured out its fresh air into his face. He closed his eyes against the fine coal dust it brought with it, amazed at how well Duke Lacock’s cloth kept the particles from reaching his nose and mouth. He wriggled through the gap on his belly, hands outstretched into the darkness. He swam blindly down the slope of rubble on the other side, like a fish navigating around boulders in a muddy creek.

As he reached the bottom, the light from the vial filled the opening behind him and cast a glistening shaft through the coal dust, illuminating the partially collapsed tunnel ahead. Bran took up the pick and began to dig away at the jumble of ore and stone, carefully working the broken boards out of the fall. The going was tight, as there was scarcely enough room to move the pick head more than a few inches either direction before the shaft wedged itself.

“Your Grace?!” Nat Jones called out from the horseway. “I’ve brought ‘elp, I ‘ave. ‘Ave you any more of those breathin’ cloths?”

“I’ll be back,” Lacock told Bran, leaving the vial atop the fallen beam and disappearing into the cavernous gloom of the main bank.

Bran used a piece of board to clear out some loose rubble, pushing it back against the pile of debris under the broken beam, until he had enough room to use the pick to more advantage against the heavier chunks of stone.

It felt like forever before Lacock’s goggled face appeared above the beam. “We’ve a crew of five moving the rubble and shoring up this end. Wait for us, lad. The way will be clear enough for us to join you shortly.”

Bran nodded. Already, he was drenched in sweat, his arm and shoulder muscles aching. He was a drammer, unaccustomed to digging. He should have been grateful for the respite, but an ominous vibration hummed in the ground beneath him, growing steadily. The fear rose up in him, filling his mouth with a sulfurous taste. The dragon was near, making the ground tremble as it clawed and hissed its way through the earth towards him. There was no time to waste.

He dug like a madman, as if his very life depended on it, because deep in his marrow, he knew that it did. At last, his pick pierced a spot of no resistance. He dropped the tool and used his hands to carefully pull out chunks of rock and coal, listening for the faint cracking sound that often foretold another collapse. He soon had an opening wide enough for his narrow shoulders, and moved forward to peer through. “Anyone there?”

A pained, guttural moan issued from the darkness.

Bran could see faint blue flickers dancing ahead, beckoning him. “Bendidd y Mamau,” he whispered to the faerie lights, hoping the reverent title might appease whatever taunted him with that glow. “Only tryin’ to save my butties, I am. Mr. Jones is a kind man.”

The faint lights stopped dancing, growing quite still. They pulsed brighter, and brighter, until Bran could make out three small, blue-bearded dwarves, their dusky, craggy faces turned towards him with curious interest. They were dressed all in red, and each carried a tiny blue-flamed lantern in one hand, and a pickaxe the size of Bran’s fist in the other. One had a beard that forked into two points. He smiled at Bran, and gave him a kindly nod. The coblynau lifted their lanterns as one, pointing their picks deeper into the tunnel.

Diolch yn fawr,” Bran murmured, as politely as he could. Best to stay on their good side, especially with a dragon moving their way. He crept forward, hoping these weren’t trickster coblynau, but the helpful kind. The dwarves moved ahead until the light from their lanterns pulsed in a feeble triangle, and then disappeared. Bran squirmed towards the spot, gasping aloud when his hand and forearm touched on warm flesh instead of cold stone.

He felt about, finding a shoe, a leg. He followed it up, clearing rubble away from the other leg, which was misshapen and wet with blood. Finally, his fingers closed on the hem of a shirt. He tugged and was rewarded with a low moan for his trouble.

“Jones!” he whispered, unsure whether he had hold of the father, or the son. He pulled a heavy rock from the fellow’s thigh, and the moan turned into an anguished shriek. A knee caught Bran in the ribs. A fist glanced off his temple.

Bran drew his arms close over his head, trying to protect it from the stones dislodged by Jones’ blind thrashing. He inched back and grabbed hold of the legs, dragging the injured fellow through the darkness. More rubble fell on them as they moved. A sharp rock the size of a terrier caught Bran in the left shoulder. Pain spiked through his neck, back and arm.

He gritted his teeth and carried on, until they reached the glowing, white shaft cast by the glowing vial. Bran saw Marc Jones in his grasp. The devil in Bran rejoiced at having returned all the pain Marc had caused him threefold, but the more Christian part of him felt sympathy for the lad’s injuries. He did not relish saving the bully who had delighted in tormenting him, but he did not wish him dead, either. The only person he wished dead was Driscoll, and that buggering rascal was safe up above in the sunshine.

“I’ve Marc Jones, I ‘ave,” he shouted.

“Well done!” Lacock removed the vial from the opening and stepped aside, holding the light up.

His clear tenor sounded like a bell in Bran’s ears. It filled him with pride and gave him extra strength to lift the injured boy up into the coal-black hands that appeared in the opening. They pulled, and Bran hoisted the boy through, holding tight around his legs to keep him from kicking the roof down around them.

As soon as the way was clear, Duke Lacock’s blonde hair and goggled face appeared in the breach. “Have you found the elder Jones?”

“Not yet. Need to dig more, I do.”

“You’re injured, and your mask will expire soon. Come through. I’ll send another man in.”

“No time!” Bran turned back towards the rough tunnel he’d carved. “The dragon’s astir.”

“Goatsby! Bran! I command you! Come through!”

Bran ignored him. The duke had no understanding of the forces at work. If Bran did not act quickly, Mr. Jones would be lost, if he could be saved at all. He scrambled back to the spot he had found Marc, ignoring the pain goring his shoulder. The hissing of the dragon had grown so noticeable that the ground under him vibrated like the floor of the cotton mill when the looms gnashed away. In the pitch black, Bran saw the three faint lights of the coblynau pulse to his right. He crawled to the spot and used a broken board to shovel the rubble away.

“Bran!” Lacock shouted. “The way is too unstable. Return to me, this instant!”

“I’ve got him!” Bran replied as his board struck something both soft and solid. He scrabbled the dirt away, feeling out an arm, then a head and a knee. Jones must have had a second or two to go fetal before the collapse. Bran dug him out, feeling his face, searching for evidence of breath. He found none. But the flesh was warm, and he thought he may have felt a heart beat when he placed his hand on Mr. Jones’ chest. Desperate to save the only friend he had on the butty, he untied the neck cloth and wrapped it around Mr. Jones’ face, tying it with deft fingers. Without the breathing cloth, he immediately noticed how thick and bad the air was here. He needed to move fast.

He slapped Mr. Jones a few times, attempting to rouse him, then pressed up and down on his chest to induce him to breathe, the way he’d seen the matron at the mill revive a kitten who’d fallen in a washtub.

“Bran!” Lacock’s voice held both exasperation and concern.

“I’m bringing ‘im, I am!” Bran grabbed hold of Mr. Jones’ boots and dragged him along, tearing up his elbows and knees on the sharp rubble. At least he was used to that from the dramming. The dragon’s growl vibrated more rocks loose overhead. They pelted down, but none so big as that first vicious stone that had impacted him. Soon enough, he had reached the bright shaft of light cast by the vial in Lacock’s hand. It glistened through a cloud of coal dust stirred up by the men clearing the way behind Lacock. Despite the dust, Bran could breathe a bit easier, due to the fresh air moving through the vent above.

“Well done!” Lacock stepped back to let the colliers draw their fallen comrade through. Bran hefted Mr. Jones up with his good arm and helped to feed him into the gap. With only the legs and thighs to go. Bran felt a twitch in the man’s calves, and caught a boot in the chest as Jones coughed and thrashed.

“He’s alive!” Nat shouted. His relief warmed Bran to the core.

As soon as the opening was clear, Bran reached up and began to pull himself up. A callused hand grasped his wrist to aid him, and then the dragon unleashed its fury with a strange, shushing roar.

A heavy force grabbed hold of Bran’s legs and ripped him from the collier’s grasp. The world spun, and he found himself trapped in a ferocious jet of oily, brackish water that whisked him away from the light. It slammed him into the jagged roof of the tunnel, then spun him around, battering him with debris.

Dazed with anguish, he tried desperately to swim towards where he had last seen the light, but the torrent forced him up into the small venting tunnel overhead with enough violence to knock the breath out of him. It swept him along, shooting him down the dragon’s throat like a ball through a cannon. He clawed desperately at the walls around him, trying to break through to a larger tunnel that hadn’t flooded yet, but the current was too fierce. When he finally managed to inhale, salty, dirty liquid stung his nose and lungs. He coughed, but the inhale brought the same foul water. His body burned for air.

It was no use.

A strange calm came over him. He surrendered to the current, and was amazed at the flickering blue lights of the coblynau dancing around him. The irony of it all made him snicker, despite the pain: In all the ways he had feared the dragon would kill him, he never once thought it would be from drowning.