"CHAP-26" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jerome Bigge - Warlady 3 - The Queen Of Swords)THE QUEEN OF SWORDS! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Twenty Six I watched the mountains moving back there below and on ei- ther side as I flew between them, the air thin, cold, making the heavy cloak I wore a comfort even with the plane's heater going. The sky that incredible deep azure blue that only a pilot sees. I saw a Lorr saucer whisk on by me, a gleaming silvery disc. My mother had told me of Leith, of that hidden Lorr base far below. She had seemed "preoccupied", a woman carrying some great secret. Far ahead beyond the mountains towering up around me the dry dusty plains, the territory claimed by the Nevadas. People much like the Indians of the Eighteenth Century in many ways, I felt. Barbarians by the cultural standards of my own society, but yet a people proud of their land, of what they had done with it. I yet remembered their oldest Prince, Serak of the Nevadas, who had by some "magic" I didn't understand "touched" me in a way no other man had ever done. With him I could be "nothing" but a "woman". I recalled him there at the truce grounds, tall, strong, ever so "masculine". His black hair blowing in the wind, his eyes like a pair of dark coals burning into mine. He was not a "white man", but such mattered little to me as it might have to say Lorraine. He had worn the buckskin of his people, and feathers in his hair. A "proud" man, with "traditions" that went back before the "white man" ever "discovered" America. Proud of his "heritage", his own "People". A true "barbarian", quite unable to either read or write! I had then at that time heeded Tara's advice that he was "nothing" but a "barbarian" and quite "unfit" to be my "Prince- Consort"! Now I "wondered" if she had spoken "truly" to me then? Had she feared what such an "alliance" between the Empire and the Nevadas might "become"? Perhaps a danger to her own ambitions??? And such a man, I felt, would be a proper father to my daughter!! To the daughter not yet born, but yet the same I had buried only a couple days ago there in an unmarked grave on Lorraine's lands! I was clear of the mountains now, the sun well above me. I had at Lorraine's suggestion, allowed plenty of time for flying. For finding a place to land there in Vegas without wrecking the plane. Beneath me now the wastelands where few lived but nomadic Nevadas very much like the plains Indians of eight centuries ago. Warmer now, I stripped down to the beautiful golden dress that my own daughter had once worn over five centuries ago. I had her sword there in its sheath at my hip. I wore her ornaments. I had "felt" that she would have wished it. She had loved me much. That had been in her words she had left perhaps for me to "read". I think that in a way she "understood" that she came from another time, from another era. From some "future Earth" then unknown. There is of course still considerable "pain" knowing what I do. I can't alter "what is to be". I am glad that she had good memories of me. Perhaps she did because I loved her so "knowing" what I did. No doubt she took the name "Domino Tremaine" as a name more fitting the era in which she lived, if she did "remem- ber" the name that I will give her. She did remember that I had a husband, although her memories of him were not "clear" enough to allow her to do more than just state that she had a "father". While flying along, minding my own business, I noticed ahead of me movement there below, moving dots like a herd of animals, but not moving in any pattern that you'd expect animals to do!!! Dropping down, I saw that there was a group of riders cir- cling an apparently "pinned down" smaller force of men in a group of trees, the scene much reminding me of descriptions Lorraine has given me of Indians circling a defensive circle of wagons back some seven centuries ago. Feeling that sense of "invulnera- bility" that had once brought near disaster to Lorraine and would soon to me, I circled lower, seeing that the circling force was composed of Montanas far from their northern homelands and that the defenders were Nevadas. Both sides staring up at me in awe as I flew over them, the airplane no doubt striking terror into their barbarian hearts! The thought going through my mind just then that with Lorraine's airplane I could do more than just ter- rify them! A whole lot more! Perhaps even now drive them off!!! Pushing the throttle all the way in, the roar of the engine ringing in my ears, I came down in a screaming dive, the airspeed well over two hundred knots, nearly two fifty as I leveled out no more than twenty to thirty feet above the ground just above them! Pulling the wheel well back, I banked the plane almost straight up, doing what Lorraine would have called a "barn- stormer", although I doubt that she would have "approved" of my flying tactics very much, having said that the plane wasn't built to stand such "tricks"! Letting the plane fall off on a wing, I came screaming back down at them, my fingers tight on the wheel! The Montanas scattering in terror, unable to control their own horned mounts. Such "tactics" had been used against my own forces by the bird-women of Talon a dozen years ago, and I had no doubt that the airplane was even more "terrifying" than a Tarl!!! A spent arrow slapping up against the windshield proof that those below, at least some of them, had the courage to "fight back" against this new and them doubtlessly utterly terrifying "foe"! As the bows used by the peoples of the plains are not very power- ful, I really wasn't that "worried" as I didn't really think they could penetrate the skin of the airplane even if one did hit it! I could see swords being waved in salute by the Nevadas, who may have had some idea of who the airplane actually belonged to, the famous silver double barred Cross of Lorraine my Warlady uses be- ing rather well known now over most of western North America by now. The Montanas having all they could do to control their own mounts now, which allowed the besieged Nevadas the chance to "do" something on their own, their own arrows finding several targets! Although Lorraine had "mentioned" it to me, I didn't stop to think just then about trade between Dularn and the Montanas, and that some of them just might happen to have Dularnian crossbows!! Nor did I notice the vulture there circling in the sky waiting to feast on the dead below, the fight having gone on for some time. On my next pass over the Montana commander must have gotten control of his men well enough to direct crossbow fire at me. My first "inkling" of such being when I saw a crossbow bolt half sticking out a wing, a mist of alcohol behind the wing now leav- ing no doubt that the fuel tank had been punctured by the missile from the men below! I was losing fuel! The thought driving me to seek altitude, where I might consider what my "options" now were! The vulture that circled over the scene of battle now com- pletely forgotten about! I WASN'T WATCHING WHERE I WAS GOING!!! It was "sudden" when it happened. One second I was flying peacefully along, the next the bird was right there in front of me, the impact plastering my windshield with blood and feathers, the terrible shuddering of the engine leaving no doubt as to the damage that had been done! The propeller ruined! And here where I had no hope of repair! And with hostile Montanas below me too! I brought the plane around in a long shallow turn, cursing the loss of altitude as it settled down towards the ground below. My only hope was with the Nevadas, but could I reach them now??? My thoughts being that Lorraine was going to be really "pissed" this time at the "loss" of her beloved airplane! The only one in the entire world so far as I knew. Black Lady was doomed now!!! I held the plane in as flat a glide as I dared, aware that my rate of descent was faster than I would have liked. The Mon- tanas of course being well aware by now that something was wrong. Their forces scattering as Black Lady settled in among them, the plane bouncing roughly over the bumpy ground as I fought to keep it from crashing. Men scattering on both sides of me as I rolled along between them, the Montana unicorns no doubt uncontrollable! "Hey!" I cried, leaping from the airplane, my powerful com- pound bow in my hand, one of my arrows passing completely through a Montana to drive deep into the side of another! My bow being quite capable of punching through any armor known in my own era! The weapon being one of the new "Lorraine" type, using a twenty four inch arrow drawn back on a "shelf" and drawing seventy five pounds! The maximum range being well over three hundred yards! I got off several more arrows into the milling mass before they could finally turn their attention to me and make me look to my laurels as a "Queen of Swords"! My blade the same one Domino Tremaine had once held! Thirty three inches of keen titanium! Then the attack came, the Montanas swarming over me, my swift blade fending away their sabers, the airplane at my back as I dealt death with my keen point. With the long slim blade that had once been carried by the last Leaderess of Earth! A blood- red haze of battle-lust now before my eyes as I knew the sort of a fate that awaited a woman like myself in their hands. My blade meeting theirs, and dealing out death with nearly every thrust I made. I was determined that they would win for themselves only a bloody corpse for their pains. I had "tasted" slavery with Tara. In my left hand the long keen fighting dagger of the Warrioress! Suddenly the Montanas facing me found themselves facing oth- er foes, the Nevadas having come to my rescue just in time! Now the fighting was general, and I had a hard time telling friend from foe, although the Montanas had no doubts about whose "side" I was on and made me look to my laurels as a swordswoman several times before they finally got tired of the fighting and took to their mounts, yelling threats of what they would do "next time"! "Ah, as I yet live and breathe, its `Azure Eyes' herself!" I suddenly heard a remembered voice exclaim as a tall and bloody Nevada warrior pushed his way through the men surrounding now me! "Darlanis Marden, Empress of California, at your service," I smiled back, greeting the very Prince I had flown so far to see! "You're wounded," Serak observed. I had not parried one thrust in time. The blood was staining my lovely golden attire. THE QUEEN OF SWORDS! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Twenty Six I watched the mountains moving back there below and on ei- ther side as I flew between them, the air thin, cold, making the heavy cloak I wore a comfort even with the plane's heater going. The sky that incredible deep azure blue that only a pilot sees. I saw a Lorr saucer whisk on by me, a gleaming silvery disc. My mother had told me of Leith, of that hidden Lorr base far below. She had seemed "preoccupied", a woman carrying some great secret. Far ahead beyond the mountains towering up around me the dry dusty plains, the territory claimed by the Nevadas. People much like the Indians of the Eighteenth Century in many ways, I felt. Barbarians by the cultural standards of my own society, but yet a people proud of their land, of what they had done with it. I yet remembered their oldest Prince, Serak of the Nevadas, who had by some "magic" I didn't understand "touched" me in a way no other man had ever done. With him I could be "nothing" but a "woman". I recalled him there at the truce grounds, tall, strong, ever so "masculine". His black hair blowing in the wind, his eyes like a pair of dark coals burning into mine. He was not a "white man", but such mattered little to me as it might have to say Lorraine. He had worn the buckskin of his people, and feathers in his hair. A "proud" man, with "traditions" that went back before the "white man" ever "discovered" America. Proud of his "heritage", his own "People". A true "barbarian", quite unable to either read or write! I had then at that time heeded Tara's advice that he was "nothing" but a "barbarian" and quite "unfit" to be my "Prince- Consort"! Now I "wondered" if she had spoken "truly" to me then? Had she feared what such an "alliance" between the Empire and the Nevadas might "become"? Perhaps a danger to her own ambitions??? And such a man, I felt, would be a proper father to my daughter!! To the daughter not yet born, but yet the same I had buried only a couple days ago there in an unmarked grave on Lorraine's lands! I was clear of the mountains now, the sun well above me. I had at Lorraine's suggestion, allowed plenty of time for flying. For finding a place to land there in Vegas without wrecking the plane. Beneath me now the wastelands where few lived but nomadic Nevadas very much like the plains Indians of eight centuries ago. Warmer now, I stripped down to the beautiful golden dress that my own daughter had once worn over five centuries ago. I had her sword there in its sheath at my hip. I wore her ornaments. I had "felt" that she would have wished it. She had loved me much. That had been in her words she had left perhaps for me to "read". I think that in a way she "understood" that she came from another time, from another era. From some "future Earth" then unknown. There is of course still considerable "pain" knowing what I do. I can't alter "what is to be". I am glad that she had good memories of me. Perhaps she did because I loved her so "knowing" what I did. No doubt she took the name "Domino Tremaine" as a name more fitting the era in which she lived, if she did "remem- ber" the name that I will give her. She did remember that I had a husband, although her memories of him were not "clear" enough to allow her to do more than just state that she had a "father". While flying along, minding my own business, I noticed ahead of me movement there below, moving dots like a herd of animals, but not moving in any pattern that you'd expect animals to do!!! Dropping down, I saw that there was a group of riders cir- cling an apparently "pinned down" smaller force of men in a group of trees, the scene much reminding me of descriptions Lorraine has given me of Indians circling a defensive circle of wagons back some seven centuries ago. Feeling that sense of "invulnera- bility" that had once brought near disaster to Lorraine and would soon to me, I circled lower, seeing that the circling force was composed of Montanas far from their northern homelands and that the defenders were Nevadas. Both sides staring up at me in awe as I flew over them, the airplane no doubt striking terror into their barbarian hearts! The thought going through my mind just then that with Lorraine's airplane I could do more than just ter- rify them! A whole lot more! Perhaps even now drive them off!!! Pushing the throttle all the way in, the roar of the engine ringing in my ears, I came down in a screaming dive, the airspeed well over two hundred knots, nearly two fifty as I leveled out no more than twenty to thirty feet above the ground just above them! Pulling the wheel well back, I banked the plane almost straight up, doing what Lorraine would have called a "barn- stormer", although I doubt that she would have "approved" of my flying tactics very much, having said that the plane wasn't built to stand such "tricks"! Letting the plane fall off on a wing, I came screaming back down at them, my fingers tight on the wheel! The Montanas scattering in terror, unable to control their own horned mounts. Such "tactics" had been used against my own forces by the bird-women of Talon a dozen years ago, and I had no doubt that the airplane was even more "terrifying" than a Tarl!!! A spent arrow slapping up against the windshield proof that those below, at least some of them, had the courage to "fight back" against this new and them doubtlessly utterly terrifying "foe"! As the bows used by the peoples of the plains are not very power- ful, I really wasn't that "worried" as I didn't really think they could penetrate the skin of the airplane even if one did hit it! I could see swords being waved in salute by the Nevadas, who may have had some idea of who the airplane actually belonged to, the famous silver double barred Cross of Lorraine my Warlady uses be- ing rather well known now over most of western North America by now. The Montanas having all they could do to control their own mounts now, which allowed the besieged Nevadas the chance to "do" something on their own, their own arrows finding several targets! Although Lorraine had "mentioned" it to me, I didn't stop to think just then about trade between Dularn and the Montanas, and that some of them just might happen to have Dularnian crossbows!! Nor did I notice the vulture there circling in the sky waiting to feast on the dead below, the fight having gone on for some time. On my next pass over the Montana commander must have gotten control of his men well enough to direct crossbow fire at me. My first "inkling" of such being when I saw a crossbow bolt half sticking out a wing, a mist of alcohol behind the wing now leav- ing no doubt that the fuel tank had been punctured by the missile from the men below! I was losing fuel! The thought driving me to seek altitude, where I might consider what my "options" now were! The vulture that circled over the scene of battle now com- pletely forgotten about! I WASN'T WATCHING WHERE I WAS GOING!!! It was "sudden" when it happened. One second I was flying peacefully along, the next the bird was right there in front of me, the impact plastering my windshield with blood and feathers, the terrible shuddering of the engine leaving no doubt as to the damage that had been done! The propeller ruined! And here where I had no hope of repair! And with hostile Montanas below me too! I brought the plane around in a long shallow turn, cursing the loss of altitude as it settled down towards the ground below. My only hope was with the Nevadas, but could I reach them now??? My thoughts being that Lorraine was going to be really "pissed" this time at the "loss" of her beloved airplane! The only one in the entire world so far as I knew. Black Lady was doomed now!!! I held the plane in as flat a glide as I dared, aware that my rate of descent was faster than I would have liked. The Mon- tanas of course being well aware by now that something was wrong. Their forces scattering as Black Lady settled in among them, the plane bouncing roughly over the bumpy ground as I fought to keep it from crashing. Men scattering on both sides of me as I rolled along between them, the Montana unicorns no doubt uncontrollable! "Hey!" I cried, leaping from the airplane, my powerful com- pound bow in my hand, one of my arrows passing completely through a Montana to drive deep into the side of another! My bow being quite capable of punching through any armor known in my own era! The weapon being one of the new "Lorraine" type, using a twenty four inch arrow drawn back on a "shelf" and drawing seventy five pounds! The maximum range being well over three hundred yards! I got off several more arrows into the milling mass before they could finally turn their attention to me and make me look to my laurels as a "Queen of Swords"! My blade the same one Domino Tremaine had once held! Thirty three inches of keen titanium! Then the attack came, the Montanas swarming over me, my swift blade fending away their sabers, the airplane at my back as I dealt death with my keen point. With the long slim blade that had once been carried by the last Leaderess of Earth! A blood- red haze of battle-lust now before my eyes as I knew the sort of a fate that awaited a woman like myself in their hands. My blade meeting theirs, and dealing out death with nearly every thrust I made. I was determined that they would win for themselves only a bloody corpse for their pains. I had "tasted" slavery with Tara. In my left hand the long keen fighting dagger of the Warrioress! Suddenly the Montanas facing me found themselves facing oth- er foes, the Nevadas having come to my rescue just in time! Now the fighting was general, and I had a hard time telling friend from foe, although the Montanas had no doubts about whose "side" I was on and made me look to my laurels as a swordswoman several times before they finally got tired of the fighting and took to their mounts, yelling threats of what they would do "next time"! "Ah, as I yet live and breathe, its `Azure Eyes' herself!" I suddenly heard a remembered voice exclaim as a tall and bloody Nevada warrior pushed his way through the men surrounding now me! "Darlanis Marden, Empress of California, at your service," I smiled back, greeting the very Prince I had flown so far to see! "You're wounded," Serak observed. I had not parried one thrust in time. The blood was staining my lovely golden attire. |
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