“Enough about that slut. Eaglethorpe, show me the meaning of life. Show me that you truly are the greatest lover in all of Duaron.”
“Well, as you are twice over a queen,” said I. “I suppose I have no choice.”
Chapter Fifteen: Wherein I experience the highest and lowest points of my life and then another high point; perhaps not as high as the first high point, but high nevertheless.
When I woke, I felt more comfortable than I had ever felt before. It seemed that all was right with the world. Nothing could shake me from the feeling of well-being that now permeated me, which is to say ran throughout my body like a warm glow.
"Eaglethorpe, wake up!"
Nestled in the crook of my shoulder was a cute blond head.
"I am awake," said I.
"Well, get up. You have to hurry. They will be coming to get you soon."
"Don't worry about it."
"But they are going to kill you."
"I no longer care," said I.
"Well, I care. I want to do this again."
"I can die happy now. I have spent a night of passion with Queen Elleena of Aerithraine, the most beautiful and wonderful of all women."
"That's very sweet Eaglethorpe, but you simply must get up."
"You be quiet, Ellwood. I am still quite cross with you, which is to say mad."
"You're still mad, which is to say crazy," she replied. "I am both Elleena and Ellwood."
"Aha! There it is again. That is the very thing of which you deceived me for so long."
"Not this again. You are the most infuriating man!"
At that moment the door burst open and the guards rushed in.
"Are you all right, my queen?" the foremost asked.
"Take him away to the place of execution!"
“What?” I cried, as they dragged me from the room.
“No wait,” said Elleena/Ellwood. “Throw him in with the slaves.”
“What?” I cried.
“If you want to be angry about something,” she said, “I’ll give you something to be angry about. See how you feel when you’re six ounces lighter.”
“Two or three pounds, at least,” I protested, but by that time, I had already been dragged out of the room.
Within five minutes I had been escorted, still naked, outside the large building, through the town streets and out to a large pen at the edge of town. Here were the most pathetic and wretched group of individuals that I had ever seen. I say individuals because I’m afraid I can no longer call them men. At the other end of the pen was a shack where I am sure uncounted horrors had taken place, and it was here that I was dragged. Inside was a wooden table stained brown with old blood. I was thrown onto the table, on my back, and my arms and legs were tied down. Then the guards left.
I wasn’t alone for long—just long enough for sixteen prayers to fourteen different gods, including Amon-Re, Jupiter, and that other one, the one with the hippoleptimus head. Then a woman entered carrying a horrible-looking knife. Looking down at me, she smiled thinly.
“You don’t really want to do this,” said I.
She shrugged. “I don’t really care one way or the other.”
She slowly lowered the knife and cut the bonds holding down my arms and legs. Following her hand as she pointed to a corner, I found my clothing.
“Get dressed,” she ordered, and I quickly did as directed. “Go out through this door and mingle with the others. Act like it’s painful to walk. Keep your head down. One hundred yards beyond the fence is a tall tree with a red ribbon wrapped around its trunk. When you get there, duck off the trail to the right. Behind a boulder, you will find your weapons and gear, as well as some food and water.”
“Won’t the guards chase after me?” I wondered.
“There will be only one woman, and she will be leading the way. The men never run at this point.”
I looked at the woman for the first time really, as previously I had mostly been looking at her knife. She was a passably attractive woman, with long brown hair, though she did have a rather large scar on her left cheek.
“I thank you,” I said. “What is your name?”
“Ambivala,” she said, handing me a small bag.
“What is this?”
“The men have to give their bits to the woman at the gate as they leave. It is their final humiliation.”
“And what is in here?” I hefted it in my hand.
“A pickle and two radishes.”
“I don’t think this pickle is big enough,” I decided.
“I saw you naked,” she replied. “If anything, this is a generous pickle.”
“It was a frightening situation. You were not seeing me at my best.”
“I don’t really care,” said she.
So I shuffled out into the compound, keeping my head down the entire time. After a while, several Amazons began herding the wounded, former men out the gate. Like all the others, I handed my small package to the woman at the gate, and scuffled away into the jungle, on a worn dirt path, behind a single woman guard who was riding a horse.
Just as Ambivala had said, I spied the tree with the red ribbon about a hundred yards beyond the gate. Jumping off into the jungle, I was quickly away. Finding my gear was just as easy. Behind a boulder were my sword and scabbard, my belt, a water skin, and a sack filled with food. With a single salute to the ferocious Amazons and their pathetic victims, I plunged into the primeval forest, vowing never again to cross paths with the warrior women or their city.
Chapter Sixteen: Wherein I once again cross paths with the warrior women and their city.
I made my way as well as I could through the mucky, hot, and nasty swamps, dodging around bubbling mud pits; avoiding as much as possible pools filled with crocodiles, piranhas, and giant snakes, ever on the lookout for the gurgling horror known as the frog-bear. When evening came, I found a tree and climbed up into the branches, where the mosquitoes had a much easier time finding me and sucking my blood. I in turn, opened the sack left for me to find half a dozen flatbreads, a small round of cheese, a salami, and a small pouch of nuts. I ate them while the insects ate me.
The next morning, I had just started off again, making my way west, by following the rising sun, when I came upon a group of people moving through the tall swamp grass. Using the powers of stealth that once made me the greatest hunter in Dewberry Hills, I followed them until I determined who they were. They turned out to be another hunting party of three Amazons, and just like the three who had captured me, they were dragging along a man. At first I didn’t recognize him, but then he cried out and I knew him from his voice. It was Percival Thorndyke.
I followed the group, waiting for them to make camp, figuring that when they did so, I would attack and rescue my friend. Unfortunately, long before it was time for anyone to stop for the day, I spied the spires of the Amazon city peaking above the landscape ahead of us. I had been going the wrong way when I had run across the women and their captive and now I was back where I started.
“Rises in the east. Sets in the west,” I reminded myself.
Well, there was nothing for it. I drew my sword and jumped out at the three Amazons. I had cut down one woman before they even knew that I was there. Mind you, I am not usually one to attack women. In fact all of Duaron knows that name Buxton and the name Eaglethorpe and knows that he is not one to harm children or ladies. But these women were no ladies and I was resolved in this case to do them harm before they did harm to my friend or myself. These were after all, Amazons and had no doubt cost many men, as Ellwood would say, their twigs and berries. The second woman was able to stab at me with a spear, but I dodged it and cut her down too. The third woman turned and ran, and having been raised in the jungle, got away before I could even attempt to chase after her.
“Come quickly,” said I, cutting Percival free of his bonds. “The Amazon city is just right over that way and she will no doubt come back quickly with reinforcements.”
“Thank you, Frie
nd Eaglethorpe,” he gasped, following me in the other direction, which is to say the direction opposite from the one in which the Amazon ran. “They were going to either turn me into a eunuch and sell me as a slave or kill me.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “While you might not have minded the latter, I assumed you wouldn’t want the former. So I decided to rescue you.”
“No, no,” he said.
“You do want the former?”
“No, of course not. I don’t want either one.”
“You don’t want to die?” I wondered. “Because it certainly seemed like you did in chapters one through nine.”
“No, I don’t want to die. I want to live. I am in love. I am in love with Bella and I have to rescue her.”
“Rescue her?” I asked. “Where is she? Did the centaurs capture her? If so, how did the two of you become separated?”
“No. She hasn’t been captured by the other centaurs!” he wailed in anguish, which is to say he sort of said it with a little bit of a moan and a little bit of a weep. “She has been captured by the monster!”
Chapter Seventeen: Wherein we rush to rescue Bella, the female centaur, from a horrible monster.
As Percival and I hurried through the swamps, attempting to get as far as humanly possible from the horrible, though quite attractive, Amazons, I questioned him about the events that had so upset him, which is to say Bella being captured by a monster.
“We were going just as fast as we could in an attempt to escape the centaur herd,” he said. “I was of course riding Susan and Bella was running at my side. We topped a hill and raced down into a valley. The centaurs stopped chasing us.”
“That was fortunate,” said I.
“So we thought at the time,” he continued. “We found ourselves in a wonderful valley, with lovely green grass, miniature trees, and a cool flowing brook. Many stones were lying around all over the place, ranging from the size of my fist to large boulders, and they were composed of solid gold. And everywhere you looked, diamonds and rubies twinkled from among the grass like stars in the sky.”
“What a wonderful place,” said I.
“It was wonderful for a moment. Then suddenly a great shape dropped from the sky, right on top of Bella. I didn’t even get a chance to see what it was, because Susan bolted in fright, taking me out of the little valley and into the swamps. She ran and ran and only stopped when she became mired in the quicksand at the edge of a pool. I climbed off and began gathering what I needed to pull her out, when I was caught in a net by those Amazons.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “That seems to be their primary occupation—catching men in nets.”
“Now I must go back and rescue my love from the monster.”
“Of course you do,” I once again agreed. “I will come along and help you. For it has never been said that Eaglethorpe Buxton would abandon a friend in need or leave a lovely but hapless female centaur in the clutches of a monster, be it a dragon or a manticore or that other one.”
“A sphinx?” he suggested.
“No, that one that’s all the other monsters put together.”
“A manticore?”
“I already said manticore. No, the one with the heads of a lion and a snake and a hippoleptimus.”
“A chimera,” Percival suggested.
“That will have to do,” said I.
We made our way across a vast boiling mud pool, by skipping from stone to stone. We avoided pools of piranhas by climbing into the trees and then swinging from vine to vine. We were forced to fight a monstrous crocodile, which we chased away, but not before it had eaten my bag of food. At last we fought our way through an extensive patch of swamp grass so high that it could have hidden two elephants, one standing upon the other’s back.
When we reached the other side and stepped out, there right before us stood Susan and Hysteria. Hysteria quickly spat something on the ground and covered it with her hoof.
“What is it that you have there?” I asked.
She looked away guiltily, but didn’t answer.
“Move your foot,” I ordered her, but she refused to comply.
Walking to her side, I bent down and clasping her about the ankle, lifted her hoof. There, stomped into the muddy ground in a hoof-shaped hole was a wad of brown leafy material.
“Are you chewing tobacco?” I demanded.
She knickered as if to say “I would never do such a thing, as tobacco is both an unhealthy and an expensive habit, especially for a horse.” But I didn’t believe her for one second.
“How could you do such a thing in front of such a young and impressionable horse as Susan?” I asked.
She tossed her head, as if to say “I am deeply ashamed and will never let it happen again.”
“Then we will talk no more of it,” I said.
I wanted to take off Hysteria’s saddle, give her a good rubdown, and check her for ticks, but Percival was already mounted upon Susan and starting away, so I had little choice but to follow. Once on horseback, it took us little time at all to be clear of the swamp and to again to find ourselves on the grassland. Once there, I tried to get Percival to slow down, give the mounts a rest, which is to say our horses Hysteria and Susan, and to take stock of our situation, but he would have none of it. We hurried on until we topped the little ridge that he and Bella had topped and descended into the little valley into which he and Bella had descended.
The place was just as described. It was a wonderful valley, with lovely green grass, miniature trees, and a cool flowing brook. Stones were lying around everywhere. Little stones, big stones, and medium-sized stones, even huge boulders, and whether they were little or big or medium-sized or huge, they were composed of solid gold. And the ground was covered with diamonds like the night sky is covered with stars. And there were many rubies—not so many as there were diamonds, but still a goodly amount. I hopped down and began filling my pockets.
“Come along, Eaglethorpe,” said Percival. “You can do that after we rescue Bella.”
I nodded and climbing back up to my saddle, followed him down into the valley. Though I kept careful watch, I failed to see any sign of a monster. Well down into the valley, just beyond a small wood of tiny miniature trees, we found a huge boulder made, like all the other boulders in the neighborhood, of solid gold. Lying beside this boulder, in apparent unconsciousness was the lovely Bella, my friend’s centaur love.
Rushing to her side, Percival gently lifted her head in his arms, gently brushed her cheek with his hand, and gently kissed her ruby red lips. She opened her eyes.
“Percival,” she said. “You have to leave.”
“I will never leave you,” he said. “As long as you are with me, I am the happiest man on earth and nothing can change that.”
And it was at that moment that a giant mouth reached down from on top of the golden boulder and bit off Percival’s head. And let that be a lesson to us all. One cannot simply go around tempting fate like that, because sure enough, one god or other will hear you, and it doesn’t matter if it’s Zeus or Cthulhu or Sacagawea or that other one with the hippoleptimus head, they will smack the crap right out of you.
Chapter Eighteen: Wherein I heroically avenge Percival Thorndyke and single-handedly rescue his girlfriend.
As I watched on in horror, the monster swallowed the head of Percival Thorndyke, and then raised itself up to its full height. It was about thirty feet tall, though standing up on that boulder, it looked considerably taller. It was reptilian and its skin was covered with shiny armored scales the same color as the golden rocks and boulders which were strewn around its home. I thought at first it was a dragon, for it had a long serpentine neck and an equally long serpentine tail. But when it flapped its wings, I saw that it was not a truly hexipedal beast, which is to say a beast with six limbs. It was a wyvern.
Dragons have four legs, two in the front and two in the back. In that way they are much like a cow or a lion, but very unlike an elephant. But dragons also have wings, which are
not on their front limbs, but instead grow out from their shoulders. Wyverns do not have wings growing out of their shoulders. They have wings in place of their front legs. In that way they are like bats or monkey-people, but are very unlike dragons.
While I was thus engaged in an examination of zoology, the wyvern’s tail whipped out of the air and struck me from my saddle. I rolled across the ground and in doing so, avoided another tail swipe. Jumping to my feet, I drew my sword. The beast reached down with its bloody maw, which is to say the same mouth that had so recently deprived Percival Thorndyke of his head, and tried to take a bite out of me. I dodged and swung my sword. The blade bounced off the monster’s armor with barely a mark to show for itself. And thus the battle continued. The wyvern tried to whip me with its tail, bite me with its mouth, and even lash out at me with the claws on its wings. I in turn, tried to stab it. We fought for eight or nine hours.
“Eight or nine hours?” said Percival Thorndyke. “Really Eaglethorpe, you are so out of shape that you could not have fought more than eight or nine minutes without collapsing.”
“You should be quiet,” said I. “You had your head bitten off a moment ago.”
“I hate to ruin a good story, Friend Eaglethorpe, but I am alive and right here fighting beside you.”
“No,” said I. “That is not how the story goes. At this point in the story Percival Thorndyke is already dead, and I am heroically fighting the wyvern alone.”
“Yes, well far be it from me to ruin a good lesson on tempting fate, but I must point out that this fight goes on only for about ten minutes before Bella saves the day.”
“Now I know you are not Percival Thorndyke, for Percival Thorndyke was a good and faithful and upright fellow who would never perpetrate the lie that I, Eaglethopre Buxton, needed to be saved by a female centaur. I will admit that I got the idea of how to defeat the wyvern from her.”
“As you wish,” said he, swinging ineffectively against the wyvern. “Go ahead and tell your story.”
Many Adventures of Eaglethorpe Buxton Page 23