by J. T. Edson
Advancing swiftly, the buxom woman did not trouble to draw her rentjong. Instead, she suddenly lunged and, as Charole made an ineffectual attempt to turn the lance on her, she caught hold of it with both hands. Giving a sharp and twisting heave, she wrenched it from its owner’s grasp.
Staggering a few steps from the force with which she had been disarmed, Charole contrived to remain—albeit uncertainly—upright.
It proved to be of no benefit to the Protectress!
Throwing the lance aside with a contemptuous gesture, Shushi followed as Charole came to a halt and endeavored to assume a defensive posture. It was to no avail. When close enough, the buxom woman pivoted on her left leg while snapping out the right in a fast yet power-packed kick.
The leather hard sole of the foot caught the Protectress in the solar plexus and, even if she had been in full possession of all her faculties, the impact would still have been more than her well-developed stomach muscles could withstand. Giving a strangled croak of torment as what little breath she had was driven from her lungs, she folded over at the waist and her legs began to buckle like candles near a flame. Before they collapsed completely under her, Shushi struck again. Not with the foot this time, but just as effectively. Folding its thumb across the palm, but keeping the fingers extended and together, the woman chopped the heel of her right hand viciously against the back of Charole’s neck. Everything went black for the already barely conscious Protectress and she fell face forward, as if she had been pole-axed, to sprawl motionless at her assailant’s feet.
‘Kill those gatahs,’ commanded the oldest of the men, who was a senior warlord of the Cara-Bunte nation. ‘You’ll stay here and start butchering them, Roshta, Muchkio. I’ll send some of the others to help you bring in the meat and the loot. Keep your hands off that until the Lady Shushi and I have looked it over and taken what we want.’
‘Yes, Lord Torisaki,’ the younger of the male archers assented and the girl gave a surly nod of concurrence.
‘Get something to lift her on so we can take her to the landing place, Goti!’ Shushi ordered, indicating Charole’s flaccid body, as Muchkio employed the arrow she had refrained from drawing to kill the Protectress’s banar-gatah. Then she turned to her husband and went on, ‘The Dragon God has smiled on us, Lord Torisaki, bringing this one to us so soon after we landed.’
‘Yes,’ the warlord agreed, thinking of certain ambitions he and his wife had frequently discussed in the privacy of their living quarters. The raid upon which they were engaged had been organized with their future plans in mind. Having been making what they had expected to be an unproductive reconnaissance, they had seen Elidor’s party taking up the ambush positions. While ordering his party to separate into two, each being able to deal with Mun-Gatahs, Charole had arrived and enabled them to approach with greater ease than if there had been no distraction. ‘There will be much honor in taking such a one as her back to Tansha-Bunte. Take care of her and tend her wounds, my lady. She won’t be able to walk for a while, but she’s not too badly hurt and we want her in the best of health so that she can put up a good fight when we put her into the arena before the Emperor.’
~*~
As the unconscious body of the Protectress of the Quagga God—bound hand and foot and suspended from a sapling cut for that purpose—was being lifted ready to be carried to the Cara-Buntes’ landing place, far to the southwest a struggle for domination between two magnificent looking females of different species was about to commence.
Having secured the isabelline mare to her in the Nemenuh fashion, Dawn Drummond-Clayton took hold of the reins. Starting to lead Isabel into the water, she experienced no greater reluctance than Shambulia had displayed over following Bunduki. Employing the Australopithecus’ language as fluently and effectively as her husband-to-be had, she coaxed the mare to follow her. She expected a similar response on mounting. Nor was she disappointed. However, from Isabel’s first reaction to the discovery that a living creature was sitting upon her, it was apparent that she intended to fight in a different fashion—though no less vigorously—to that of the big stallion. Being somewhat smaller and lighter than Shambulia, she did not place her reliance on the ‘bucking straight away’ which had formed his main line of defense. This in no way detracted from the spirited manner in which she carried out her efforts to dislodge the unwanted burden.
Commencing the proceedings by ‘chinning the moon’, and having it countered in the same manner as that of the stallion, the mare took off in a series of high and ‘fence-cornering’ xlii leaps. Despite entailing repeated changes of direction, to a rider of Dawn’s experience these presented no difficulties—beyond making sure they did not allow her mount to reach the shallow water. However, on taking off for the eighth time, having found that she had not succeeded in removing her burden by such methods, Isabel elected to ‘swap ends.’ Curving her body in mid-flight, she turned a complete half circle while in the air. Taken unprepared, the girl gave a howl of distress and, sliding sideways from the saddle, went head first into the lake.
Seeing Dawn being unseated, Joar-Fane let out a frightened squeal and At-Vee the Hunter gave vent to a string of Telonga obscenities he only very rarely employed in the presence of a woman.
While equally alarmed, Bunduki wasted no time in verbally expressing his concern. Instead, having already made preparations to render assistance if it should be required, he shook loose the noose of the lariat which At-Vee had brought from the tree-house’s corral and which Dawn had been holding during the conquest of Shambulia.
The blond giant appreciated that his wife-to-be was facing two major dangers. Even if her superbly tuned reflexes and rider’s instincts had not had time to take over, the water would lessen the impact of her fall. Although she would doubtless alight without injury, Isabel might turn upon her. Or, if the mare should make a distress signal, Shambulia’s feelings as a former manadero xliii might prompt him to dash to her rescue. So Bunduki was ready to deal with either, or both, threats to Dawn’s well-being.
The need did not arise!
Feeling herself relieved of the insidious burden, Isabel’s natural inclination was to put as much distance as possible between herself and whatever it had been. So, grunting with a mixture of alarm and relief, she went onwards for a couple more bounds.
Then the rope attached from Dawn’s waist to the saddle horn snapped tight!
Despite having been caught unawares, the girl justified Bunduki’s faith in her ability to fall without injury-aided by the Nemenuh method of water breaking which had proved equally efficacious on countless other occasions over the years—and was already starting to sit up when Isabel reached the end of the rope. Spitting out the liquid she had inadvertently swallowed Dawn was jerked under again.
Although the girl’s weight brought Isabel to a halt, she did not react as the blond giant had feared by either returning to the attack or signaling to the stallion that she required help. Instead, she did no more than swing around until she was facing Dawn. Shambulia was still exhausted and having received no request for assistance, he remained passive and did not attempt to pull free the lead-rope by which he was tethered to a bush. ‘Hey, expert!’ Bunduki called, relief plain on his face, watching the soaking and bedraggled girl rising. ‘That’s a fancy way of doing it!’
‘Yes,’ agreed At-Vee, his concern alleviated by the discovery that Dawn was unharmed. ‘But I thought you were supposed to be riding Isabel, not teaching her to swim.’
‘Don’t let those brutes mock you, sister,’ Joar-Fane encouraged, sharing the men’s sentiments, as the other girl glared towards the shore. ‘She can’t beat us!’
‘All right, Isabel,’ Dawn gritted, returning her attention to the mare. Taking the rope in both hands, but making sure she did not tug at it, she advanced slowly. As she moved, she continued to speak in a soft, soothing voice which was at odds with the content of the words she was uttering. ‘All right, you tricky something-or-other, so-and-so, something-else. I’m goi
ng to get back on and stay there until you something-well give up.’ xliv
As the language of the Australopithecus did not include obscenities, being limited to purposeful word-sounds, and sharing At-Vee’s feelings on the subject of profanity—even though it was possibly justifiable under the circumstances—the girl conducted her, as it proved, effective method of calming the mare in English.
Coming alongside Isabel without having aroused a display of hostility, Dawn unhurriedly returned to the saddle. Pacific as the mare had been until that happened, she started to exhibit her objections almost as soon as the girl was settled on her back. Showing speed rather than strength, she intermingled ‘swapping ends’ with ‘chinning the moon, ‘sunfishing’, xlv ‘crawfishing’, xlvi but without the murderously effective ‘pinwheeling’, xlvii and never in the same order, and put her rider through a long and grueling struggle. At last, however, hampered by the water—which she had been continually prevented from quitting—and countered by Dawn’s superlative exhibition of equestrianism, she too was finally driven to a state of exhausted submission.
Even as the tired, but delighted, girl was returning to join them, the congratulations of her husband-to-be and friends were brought to an abrupt end.
Bunduki was the first of the party to notice that two boats filled with people and propelled by sails were turning from the river into the mouth of the lake. Long, narrow, carvel-built xlviii and somewhat spoon-shaped, they reminded him of the ghe ca vom river craft he had seen in and around Saigon while on an expedition which his adoptive father had been carrying out for the International Union for Conservation and Natural Resources. The resemblance even extended to the fact that the single mast was stepped well forward and carried what looked like an oblong combination of an Oriental gaff xlix and lugsail. l There was a small bamboo deckhouse to shelter at least some of the dozen or so crewmembers; and the rudder, mounted on the sternpost, curved gracefully beneath the hull so as to offer a greater purchase, control and maneuverability on restricted water-ways. Oculus, eye-like, insignia decorated the bows, but the remainder was unpainted.
Not only had the blond giant never heard of the Telongas operating such boats, although he knew they used canoes on the rivers, but he found something else disconcerting. The occupants had the same skin pigmentation of facial characteristics as his jungle-dwelling hosts, but all but one of the men were completely hairless, and their clothing was made from animal skins of various kinds. Even the women amongst them carried weapons.
While the Telonga hunters went armed—although their weapons were more in the nature of tools for hunting—the same did not apply to the male non-hunting members of their communities. Nor, apart from Joar-Fane—who had recently adopted the practice—did any of the women carry weapons.
All of these details presented possibilities for which Bunduki did not care. Watching the boats approaching with all the facility for maneuvering offered by the archaic-looking rigging, he sent his right hand flashing to the hilt of the bowie knife he had retrieved from At-Vee.
‘Get back to the house, girls!’ the blond giant ordered, wishing that he had thought to bring his bow and arrows as they would have been far more adequate than the knife for repelling what he believed to be an alien invasion. ‘We’ll try to stop them landing.’
Chapter Nine – I Can Make Thunder and Lightning
‘Come on, you cowardly, cringing old Mun-Gatah bitch!’ ordered the sullen Cara-Bunte girl called Muchkio, stirring the Protectress of the Quagga God’s recumbent body with a bare foot. When this failed to elicit any response, she bent and, digging her fingers into the short black hair, went on in a mocking tone as she began to haul upwards, ‘Stir yourself. The Lord Torisaki wants to question you.’
In spite of the fact that Charole had apparently been subdued for several hours, such treatment proved ill advised.
On regaining consciousness, which was not until she had been transported to the raiding party’s camp, the Protectress’s first thought—it was, in fact, produced by a subconscious reaction resulting from her last cohesive recollection—had been to try and struggle. Although she was no longer bound, having been released from the pole so that she could be revived and bathed in the stream upon the shores of which the Cara-Buntes had established their base, she had learned that this was not a wise move in her present weakened state.
Shushi having been supervising the cleansing and reviving, so as to administer treatment to the captive’s wounds, had rammed a knee into her stomach and pinned her down. Then the buxom woman’s right hand, which had a grip like the closing jaws of a bear-trap, took hold of and began to crush Charole’s naked left breast. Such was the agony induced by the grinding fingers that she had almost fainted. So, realizing that resistance was futile until she had recovered at least some of her strength, she had laid passive and been released. Satisfied that she had cowed the Protectress, Shushi had applied an ointment to the abrasions acquired while fighting Elidor. From its stinging sensation, Charole had decided it was similar to the medication her nation used and hoped it had the same quick acting qualities.
After the Protectress’s wounds had been tended, she was taken—dragged by the arms and legs as she was still in no state to walk—and dumped unceremoniously outside the sumptuous pavilion tent of War-Lord Torisaki. She had not been fastened in any way, but had known that the time was not ripe for an attempt to escape. Instead of expending energy in what she had known would be a pointless waste of it, she had devoted her attention to taking stock of the situation.
What Charole had seen warned her, although she had not really required the warning, that her position was very grave.
The first thing the Protectress had noticed, apart from the entirely expected fact that she was left without weapons, was that she was not allowed to dress. Instead, she was clad only in the brief black lace panties which were her underwear. The silver lamé halter, skirt, her greaves and sandals were nowhere to be seen.
Charole had not needed to ponder on the reason for the removal of her attire. It had not been done so that she could be assaulted sexually. Rape was carried out on very rare occasions, but the ‘Suppliers’ had implanted such a strong pride of race into the members of every nation that the thought of having sexual intercourse with a person of another race was generally considered abhorrent and was infrequently practiced. She had been stripped because the lack of garments would make her escape increasingly difficult and her recapture more certain.
Continuing her surreptitious observations, while allowing her depleted energy to be restored by the inactivity, Charole had discovered that the Cara-Buntes’ camp was in a valley between two sand dunes and within sight of the ‘Lake With Only One Shore’. It was comprised of the War-Lord’s pavilion encircled by twenty smaller tents. They were similar to the kind of temporary accommodation presented by the ‘Suppliers’ to the Mun-Gatah nation and gave shelter to the hundred or so male and female warriors who had accompanied Shushi and Torisaki on what was chiefly a food gathering expedition.
Down on the shore, drawn up above the high tide level, were a number of boats shaped like shallow oval baskets. Constructed on a framework of willow poles fastened together with rawhide lashings, they were covered with the hides of Defassa and Common waterbucks that were sewed together and whose natural water-resistant qualities were enhanced by a coating of melted fat from the species Kobus Defassa and K. Ellipsiprymnus mixed with earth and ashes. Like the so-called ‘bullboats’ made from the skins of bull bison and used by Indians and fur traders along the Missouri River, which they might have been patterned upon, they were very light and had a draught of less than ten inches. This and their exceptional carrying capacity li made it possible for each to transport a heavy load. So they were employed as a means of communicating between the sea-going vessels and the shore, or to carry back the loot when raiding along rivers.
For obvious reasons, the raiding party’s four ships had been left out at sea almost beyond visual distance. Each was
in the care of a small anchor watch and had had its sails furled and struck below to help make it even less noticeable. If they had been closer, Charole would have discovered that they were painted black and the leaping sailfish motif was reproduced in the natural colors on their extremely raked bows. Despite the need to prevent the vessels’ presence being noticed, thus giving warning that they were in the vicinity, a flag bearing an equally well depicted killer whale in all of Orcinus Orcas black and white majesty flew at each masthead to announce they were in the service of the War-Lord Torisaki and War-Lady Shushi of the Tansha clan.
In spite of the fact that the Cara-Buntes’ physical characteristics and weapons were suggestive of the Orient, the ships showed a distinctly Arabian influence in their lines and rigging. Single-masted, lateen-rigged, lii carvel built, they were of shallow draught and as sleekly sinister in appearance as any zaruk in which, until comparatively recent times, slavers, gun-runners and smugglers—of ivory in particular—had plied their nefarious trades across the length and breadth of the Red Sea. liii
Operated by a system of blocks and tackles, with the tiller-lines hanging over the side in a completely exposed fashion, the rudder extended well below the keel and, while offering greater control when steering, added several inches to the overall draught. Not only did the bows rake forward sharply, but the lines of the stern were equally acute. This made the already weatherly vessels particularly suitable for handling in a high following sea, or through the heavy surf around much of the coastline of their homeland. Attached to the sides, which were pierced for the large, heavy oars known as ‘sweeps’, were the davits whereby two ‘bullboats’ could be carried while the ships were in passage.