"2565-60" - читать интересную книгу автора (Warlady 1 - 2565 Ad Book 2)2565 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN By Jerome B. Bigge Book Two Chapter Seventeen "You promised that you'd let Gayle go!" I begged as Tara's men staked me out there next to the fire. I recalled what Lady Tirana had done to the crossbowman. Tara had a reputation for such things that made strong men shudder. I had no doubt that she wanted the secret of NAPALM. Doubtlessly the secrets to all the other weapons of the 20th Century that one could make here in the much more barbaric and primitive 26th Century! Gunpowder, nitroglycerin, dynamite. All the devices Mankind has developed to better kill his fellow man. No doubt Tara wanted them all! I suspected that she would obtain the information that she desired! I remembered the crossbowman. How he had screamed and pleaded! "I fear it is a promise that I cannot keep unless you `co- operate' with me, `Lady Lorraine'," Tara snapped back, her accent on "co-operate" and "Lady Lorraine" leaving no doubt as to how she planned to obtain the "information" that she wished from me! "Stake her brat out alongside her," the Princess ordered her men! "Lorraine," Gayle breathed, turning her head. Her lovely lightly tanned body now tightly bound to the four stakes that held her there beside me. Like me she was now completely nude. Tara sat on a log regarding us, her eyes glittering in the fire- light, and played with the gleaming dagger she held there in her hand. There was the deer hanging from a nearby tree. Their kill. I wondered if Tara realized the dangers of letting the scent of blood waft off into the air. The Princess was careless. "She is a beautiful girl, Lorraine," Tara said to me, get- ting up, standing over us. She wore a black silk dress, leather boots with high heels, the latest Californian "fashion". She was veiled and wore a broad brimmed hat as is now common. Tara is a beautiful woman, but with a beauty that reminds me of some snake! Of something "evil" in a way that that is almost "unearthly" too! "It would be a crime to destroy that beautiful body, that lovely young face. Burn out those beautiful azure eyes," Tara smiled, looking down at Gayle. Gayle's expression now one of ut- ter terror as she regarded that loathsome horrid Bajan Princess! "Princess," one of the men muttered, looking sick. I sus- pected that even the outlaws in her employ were sickened by her! Tara would enjoy torturing Gayle. Hearing her scream, beg for mercy, even the mercy of death. I had heard stories about Tara. "And you, my dear Lorraine," Tara said, turning. "Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a fire built down there between your legs?" I felt a shudder go through me at the very thought. I remembered the screams of the crossbowman as Lady Tirana had held the blazing torch between his legs. I felt sick. One does not die swiftly when Princess Tara does the torturing! I watched one of Tara's men staggering off into the forest. Obviously his stomach had been revolted by her words. The other two smiled to themselves, leering down at Gayle's nakedness there before them. One muttered something to the other that it was a "waste of good pussy". Obviously Gayle wouldn't be "good" for anything after Tara got done with her! I knew I had no "choice". "I'll tell you what you want to know," I told the Princess. "I thought you might be `reasonable'," Tara smiled back, her dark eyes now glowing down into mine like dark pools of hellfire. "Where's Jake?" one of Tara's two remaining men asked, the Princess carefully writing down everything I told her. Gayle was sobbing softly to herself beside me. Tara had promised me that she would spare her life, but that she would take Gayle with her. I did not think Tara would allow me to live after she learned what she wanted from me. It didn't matter that much to me now. I wondered what had happened to Sa-she-ra. That puzzled me too. "Who gives a damm!" Tara growled, squatting there beside me. Suddenly there was a blurred streak there in the darkness and one of the men suddenly clutched at an arrow half buried in his chest! Tara leaping to her feet, drawing her sword. Sa-she-ra was here! I heard Tara curse, saw the second man fall! "Stand and face me!" Tara screamed, the fear showing in her voice. Her sword gleaming there in the flickering firelight as she stood there. I waited for Sa-she-ra's third arrow to put an end to her evil career! Rid the world of the "Princess of Dark- ness"! I wondered why Sa-she-ra had held her fire now? I re- called Tais saying that what was to be would be. I wondered too if The Queen of Darkness was already here on Earth, living inside the soul of this evil woman! Waiting for the day that She might be able to pierce the barrier that separated us from HELL! Dar- lanis had once told me that Tara had been extremely interested in what is commonly called "witchcraft" here in this era. Could it be possible too that this was why the Priestesses so opposed the practice of hypnosis, anything to do with the "paranormal" here? "I'm sorry I got `lost' in the darkness," Sa-she-ra spoke to me as she emerged from the woods, tossing towards Tara something bloody and horrible, it being the head of the man called "Jake"! Tara shrinking back from the horrid thing as it rolled across the ground towards her. The eyes horrible there in the fire light! "No! Sa-she-ra! Don't!" I cried as I saw Sa-she-ra fling aside her bow and draw the sword she had carried on her back. I knew that Princess Tara was a Queen of Swords! Only another like Darlanis or myself could face her and live! Sa-she-ra was good, but she wasn't a swordswoman in the same "class" as the Princess! "You're that `savage' of Lorraine's I've heard about," Tara hissed, her keen blade gleaming there in the firelight. I won- dered how much her injured wrist would handicap her swordsman- ship. I feared not enough for even my amazing Sa-she-ra's sake! "Lorraine is my `blood-sister'," Sa-she-ra answered. We had cut each other. Tasted of each other's blood just before I rode into the darkness of the forest. I wondered about the signifi- cance of that. I knew that to Sa-she-ra it meant a great deal. "You're a fool, you `painted savage', but your kind usually are," the Bajan snapped back, suddenly engaging Sa-she-ra without any warning. Only Sa-she-ra's incredible "quickness" keeping her from being run through by the Princess' sudden surprise thrust! "Am I?" Sa-she-ra challenged back, meeting the Princess' at- tacks, which much to my surprise she managed to stand off with a skill that made me very proud of her. Tara was not up to her old levels of skill, I could tell, watching them fight with a eye to their swordsmanship. Tara outclassed Sa-she-ra a bit, but Sa-she-ra was quicker and had the advantage of being barefoot while Tara, like most high born Californian women, wore high heeled boots. Not the best things to fight a sword duel in! I did not know, however, if Sa-she-ra would be able to continue to hold off Tara. The Princess was bigger, stronger, and more skilled with the sword. Sa-she-ra was not a big woman. She was I would say about 5'3" tall and went perhaps a hundred and fif- teen. Tara is a couple inches shorter than me, and goes about one twenty five I would guess. I am five nine and go one thirty. "Stand still, you damm Injun!" Tara snapped, swinging wildly at the dodging painted figure there before her. Sa-she-ra coming in beneath her guard and pricking the enraged Princess in the hip! This absolutely infuriated Tara, who began actually chasing Sa-she-ra around the clearing, Sa-she-ra muchly enjoying herself! Suddenly there came a sound, a blood-curdling snarl from the woods and to our collective horror, something like out of the worst nightmare you can imagine stepped out into the fire light! "Lorraine!" I heard Gayle cry from beside me, even Tara and Sa-she-ra having paused in their battle before this new terror! The thing stood at least eight feet tall, and looked like some- thing out of one of those illustrations I've seen of the DEVIL! It was green and scaly. Horns grew from its forehead. I suppose if you crossed the genes of a Garth and a man and added a bit from mythology you might come up with something like that! I had no doubt that this was the creature that the Forester had seen. That Sanda Talen had said was just a bit of "imagination"! Princess Tara decided that "flight" was the better part of "valor"! She was in among the terrified prancing unicorns in a matter of seconds at the most. She took mine, it perhaps being the handiest. The others leaping and rearing up, snapping their tie-reins to follow as she galloped off into the darkness of the night as fast as my big white stallion could run under the condi- tions! I hoped she would break her neck on a low hanging limb! The horned scaly horror wasted no time in coming after us. Sa-she-ra jabbed it in the side with her sword, rolling out of the way as it swung a clawed forearm at her. Only her "quick- ness" saving her from having her head knocked off by the thing! Sa-she-ra yelled at it in her own language. I know enough of it to insult someone in it, but it is a hard language for a "pale-face" to learn. Many Nevadas do speak "English", however. The horror snarled and charged her, Sa-she-ra jumping out of the way like a matador facing a charging bull. She jabbed it once again with her point, although apparently it was too heavily armored for her to do it much damage. I wondered if her arrows would be any more effective. Her bow was extremely light, draw- ing only twenty eight pounds where as I draw one far "heavier" here. On the other hand she was a much better archer than I am. Sa-she-ra like nearly all Nevadas using a "pinch" draw that while it insured a high degree of accuracy, did not allow her to draw a bow of any great power. To her people, however, accuracy is of more importance than power or range. Their hunting style is quite different too, as they usually hunt from an ambush set up around a water hole or set up in a tree overlooking a game trail. To a Nevada there is little value in having a bow that shoots far if you can't "hit" with it because it is too difficult to draw! Scrambling dangerously close to the horrid mutant, Sa-she-ra grabbed her bow and nocking an arrow, drove it into the crea- ture's neck, making it snarl horribly as it started chasing her! Then suddenly there was a deeper, more powerful snarl, and out into the fire light stepped a Garth! Sa-she-ra between the two monsters! The mutant wisely backing off, the Garth an even more terrible beast than the horned and scaly mutant! Sa-she-ra wheeling and firing an arrow into the Garth's neck with a motion so swift that I had hardly seen her do it! She was a wonderful fighting woman. I was very proud of her. Of what she became! I must write here that she was killed taking the bullet meant for me when we rescued Queen Darlanis from the pirates and Princess Tara fired a flintlock pistol she had made right straight at me! As I was once told, one trouble in hunting Garths is that after you kill one you have to wait around for the Garth to get the message that it is dead and that it shouldn't be standing up anymore! They are stupid creatures, and take a lot of "killing"! I watched the Garth reach up and pull the arrow out of its neck, the blood dark against the green of its scaly body. They do look a lot like a small Tyrannous Rex, and while they appear to move slowly, actually they can run about as fast as a man can! The infuriated Garth charged Sa-she-ra, who dodged around a tree, the Nevada woman yelling something insulting at the reptile as it tried to keep up with her. I could see the blood running from its wound, although it didn't seem to bother it very much! "If it sees us...," Gayle whispered, her azure eyes glowing into mine. I merely nodded. I knew what Sa-she-ra was doing. I hoped she would succeed. She shot another arrow into the Garth. Almost into the same wound that the first one had made, I noted! Sa-she-ra tried for one of its eyes, not in the hope that she might drive an arrow into the brain, for that is impossible given the skull structure of the Garth, but more in the hopes I believe of trying to injure it further. To slow it down a bit! Her arrow merely bouncing harmlessly from its skull. I saw it pause, stop, stare at us! We were easier prey! Sa-she-ra shot it again. The Garth turning back towards her, charging her. I saw it stumble. Regain its feet. Stumble again. Fall! Thrash there on the ground as Sa-she-ra stepped close and with both hands drove her sword to the hilt into its tiny brain through an ear! Leaping back from the twisting thrashing body as it went through its death throes! She had single-handed killed a Garth! 2565 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN By Jerome B. Bigge Book Two Chapter Seventeen "You promised that you'd let Gayle go!" I begged as Tara's men staked me out there next to the fire. I recalled what Lady Tirana had done to the crossbowman. Tara had a reputation for such things that made strong men shudder. I had no doubt that she wanted the secret of NAPALM. Doubtlessly the secrets to all the other weapons of the 20th Century that one could make here in the much more barbaric and primitive 26th Century! Gunpowder, nitroglycerin, dynamite. All the devices Mankind has developed to better kill his fellow man. No doubt Tara wanted them all! I suspected that she would obtain the information that she desired! I remembered the crossbowman. How he had screamed and pleaded! "I fear it is a promise that I cannot keep unless you `co- operate' with me, `Lady Lorraine'," Tara snapped back, her accent on "co-operate" and "Lady Lorraine" leaving no doubt as to how she planned to obtain the "information" that she wished from me! "Stake her brat out alongside her," the Princess ordered her men! "Lorraine," Gayle breathed, turning her head. Her lovely lightly tanned body now tightly bound to the four stakes that held her there beside me. Like me she was now completely nude. Tara sat on a log regarding us, her eyes glittering in the fire- light, and played with the gleaming dagger she held there in her hand. There was the deer hanging from a nearby tree. Their kill. I wondered if Tara realized the dangers of letting the scent of blood waft off into the air. The Princess was careless. "She is a beautiful girl, Lorraine," Tara said to me, get- ting up, standing over us. She wore a black silk dress, leather boots with high heels, the latest Californian "fashion". She was veiled and wore a broad brimmed hat as is now common. Tara is a beautiful woman, but with a beauty that reminds me of some snake! Of something "evil" in a way that that is almost "unearthly" too! "It would be a crime to destroy that beautiful body, that lovely young face. Burn out those beautiful azure eyes," Tara smiled, looking down at Gayle. Gayle's expression now one of ut- ter terror as she regarded that loathsome horrid Bajan Princess! "Princess," one of the men muttered, looking sick. I sus- pected that even the outlaws in her employ were sickened by her! Tara would enjoy torturing Gayle. Hearing her scream, beg for mercy, even the mercy of death. I had heard stories about Tara. "And you, my dear Lorraine," Tara said, turning. "Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a fire built down there between your legs?" I felt a shudder go through me at the very thought. I remembered the screams of the crossbowman as Lady Tirana had held the blazing torch between his legs. I felt sick. One does not die swiftly when Princess Tara does the torturing! I watched one of Tara's men staggering off into the forest. Obviously his stomach had been revolted by her words. The other two smiled to themselves, leering down at Gayle's nakedness there before them. One muttered something to the other that it was a "waste of good pussy". Obviously Gayle wouldn't be "good" for anything after Tara got done with her! I knew I had no "choice". "I'll tell you what you want to know," I told the Princess. "I thought you might be `reasonable'," Tara smiled back, her dark eyes now glowing down into mine like dark pools of hellfire. "Where's Jake?" one of Tara's two remaining men asked, the Princess carefully writing down everything I told her. Gayle was sobbing softly to herself beside me. Tara had promised me that she would spare her life, but that she would take Gayle with her. I did not think Tara would allow me to live after she learned what she wanted from me. It didn't matter that much to me now. I wondered what had happened to Sa-she-ra. That puzzled me too. "Who gives a damm!" Tara growled, squatting there beside me. Suddenly there was a blurred streak there in the darkness and one of the men suddenly clutched at an arrow half buried in his chest! Tara leaping to her feet, drawing her sword. Sa-she-ra was here! I heard Tara curse, saw the second man fall! "Stand and face me!" Tara screamed, the fear showing in her voice. Her sword gleaming there in the flickering firelight as she stood there. I waited for Sa-she-ra's third arrow to put an end to her evil career! Rid the world of the "Princess of Dark- ness"! I wondered why Sa-she-ra had held her fire now? I re- called Tais saying that what was to be would be. I wondered too if The Queen of Darkness was already here on Earth, living inside the soul of this evil woman! Waiting for the day that She might be able to pierce the barrier that separated us from HELL! Dar- lanis had once told me that Tara had been extremely interested in what is commonly called "witchcraft" here in this era. Could it be possible too that this was why the Priestesses so opposed the practice of hypnosis, anything to do with the "paranormal" here? "I'm sorry I got `lost' in the darkness," Sa-she-ra spoke to me as she emerged from the woods, tossing towards Tara something bloody and horrible, it being the head of the man called "Jake"! Tara shrinking back from the horrid thing as it rolled across the ground towards her. The eyes horrible there in the fire light! "No! Sa-she-ra! Don't!" I cried as I saw Sa-she-ra fling aside her bow and draw the sword she had carried on her back. I knew that Princess Tara was a Queen of Swords! Only another like Darlanis or myself could face her and live! Sa-she-ra was good, but she wasn't a swordswoman in the same "class" as the Princess! "You're that `savage' of Lorraine's I've heard about," Tara hissed, her keen blade gleaming there in the firelight. I won- dered how much her injured wrist would handicap her swordsman- ship. I feared not enough for even my amazing Sa-she-ra's sake! "Lorraine is my `blood-sister'," Sa-she-ra answered. We had cut each other. Tasted of each other's blood just before I rode into the darkness of the forest. I wondered about the signifi- cance of that. I knew that to Sa-she-ra it meant a great deal. "You're a fool, you `painted savage', but your kind usually are," the Bajan snapped back, suddenly engaging Sa-she-ra without any warning. Only Sa-she-ra's incredible "quickness" keeping her from being run through by the Princess' sudden surprise thrust! "Am I?" Sa-she-ra challenged back, meeting the Princess' at- tacks, which much to my surprise she managed to stand off with a skill that made me very proud of her. Tara was not up to her old levels of skill, I could tell, watching them fight with a eye to their swordsmanship. Tara outclassed Sa-she-ra a bit, but Sa-she-ra was quicker and had the advantage of being barefoot while Tara, like most high born Californian women, wore high heeled boots. Not the best things to fight a sword duel in! I did not know, however, if Sa-she-ra would be able to continue to hold off Tara. The Princess was bigger, stronger, and more skilled with the sword. Sa-she-ra was not a big woman. She was I would say about 5'3" tall and went perhaps a hundred and fif- teen. Tara is a couple inches shorter than me, and goes about one twenty five I would guess. I am five nine and go one thirty. "Stand still, you damm Injun!" Tara snapped, swinging wildly at the dodging painted figure there before her. Sa-she-ra coming in beneath her guard and pricking the enraged Princess in the hip! This absolutely infuriated Tara, who began actually chasing Sa-she-ra around the clearing, Sa-she-ra muchly enjoying herself! Suddenly there came a sound, a blood-curdling snarl from the woods and to our collective horror, something like out of the worst nightmare you can imagine stepped out into the fire light! "Lorraine!" I heard Gayle cry from beside me, even Tara and Sa-she-ra having paused in their battle before this new terror! The thing stood at least eight feet tall, and looked like some- thing out of one of those illustrations I've seen of the DEVIL! It was green and scaly. Horns grew from its forehead. I suppose if you crossed the genes of a Garth and a man and added a bit from mythology you might come up with something like that! I had no doubt that this was the creature that the Forester had seen. That Sanda Talen had said was just a bit of "imagination"! Princess Tara decided that "flight" was the better part of "valor"! She was in among the terrified prancing unicorns in a matter of seconds at the most. She took mine, it perhaps being the handiest. The others leaping and rearing up, snapping their tie-reins to follow as she galloped off into the darkness of the night as fast as my big white stallion could run under the condi- tions! I hoped she would break her neck on a low hanging limb! The horned scaly horror wasted no time in coming after us. Sa-she-ra jabbed it in the side with her sword, rolling out of the way as it swung a clawed forearm at her. Only her "quick- ness" saving her from having her head knocked off by the thing! Sa-she-ra yelled at it in her own language. I know enough of it to insult someone in it, but it is a hard language for a "pale-face" to learn. Many Nevadas do speak "English", however. The horror snarled and charged her, Sa-she-ra jumping out of the way like a matador facing a charging bull. She jabbed it once again with her point, although apparently it was too heavily armored for her to do it much damage. I wondered if her arrows would be any more effective. Her bow was extremely light, draw- ing only twenty eight pounds where as I draw one far "heavier" here. On the other hand she was a much better archer than I am. Sa-she-ra like nearly all Nevadas using a "pinch" draw that while it insured a high degree of accuracy, did not allow her to draw a bow of any great power. To her people, however, accuracy is of more importance than power or range. Their hunting style is quite different too, as they usually hunt from an ambush set up around a water hole or set up in a tree overlooking a game trail. To a Nevada there is little value in having a bow that shoots far if you can't "hit" with it because it is too difficult to draw! Scrambling dangerously close to the horrid mutant, Sa-she-ra grabbed her bow and nocking an arrow, drove it into the crea- ture's neck, making it snarl horribly as it started chasing her! Then suddenly there was a deeper, more powerful snarl, and out into the fire light stepped a Garth! Sa-she-ra between the two monsters! The mutant wisely backing off, the Garth an even more terrible beast than the horned and scaly mutant! Sa-she-ra wheeling and firing an arrow into the Garth's neck with a motion so swift that I had hardly seen her do it! She was a wonderful fighting woman. I was very proud of her. Of what she became! I must write here that she was killed taking the bullet meant for me when we rescued Queen Darlanis from the pirates and Princess Tara fired a flintlock pistol she had made right straight at me! As I was once told, one trouble in hunting Garths is that after you kill one you have to wait around for the Garth to get the message that it is dead and that it shouldn't be standing up anymore! They are stupid creatures, and take a lot of "killing"! I watched the Garth reach up and pull the arrow out of its neck, the blood dark against the green of its scaly body. They do look a lot like a small Tyrannous Rex, and while they appear to move slowly, actually they can run about as fast as a man can! The infuriated Garth charged Sa-she-ra, who dodged around a tree, the Nevada woman yelling something insulting at the reptile as it tried to keep up with her. I could see the blood running from its wound, although it didn't seem to bother it very much! "If it sees us...," Gayle whispered, her azure eyes glowing into mine. I merely nodded. I knew what Sa-she-ra was doing. I hoped she would succeed. She shot another arrow into the Garth. Almost into the same wound that the first one had made, I noted! Sa-she-ra tried for one of its eyes, not in the hope that she might drive an arrow into the brain, for that is impossible given the skull structure of the Garth, but more in the hopes I believe of trying to injure it further. To slow it down a bit! Her arrow merely bouncing harmlessly from its skull. I saw it pause, stop, stare at us! We were easier prey! Sa-she-ra shot it again. The Garth turning back towards her, charging her. I saw it stumble. Regain its feet. Stumble again. Fall! Thrash there on the ground as Sa-she-ra stepped close and with both hands drove her sword to the hilt into its tiny brain through an ear! Leaping back from the twisting thrashing body as it went through its death throes! She had single-handed killed a Garth! |
|
|