by Robert Adams
She recalled struggling with him for something held in one of his hands, then he hurt her. Seemingly of their own volition, her fingers sought out her right breast under the covering of stinking hide, finding it still sore to the touch. And, after that, there was no memory, nothing.
"But my name, I must have one." Unknowingly, she spoke aloud.
Immediately, there was a rustling in the far corner of the room. Shortly, a skinny, misshapen female shuffled across the floor of packed earth to squat before the woman on the hide mattress. The newcomer stank far worse than the rotted hides. Parting her lips to disclose gapped rows of discolored teeth, she began to speak.
"Looks like you'll live. Heh heh. I 'uz b'ginnin' to hope you'd die, 'r Long Willy'd git impatshunt and slice your gullet. Heh'heh. Been right long sincet thishere bunch et a woman, and I be right fond o' some cuts o' female, I be. Heh heh." The harridan poked a stubby, stained finger into the swell of the bosom under the hair-shedding hide coverlet.
Then the stringy-haired creature arose, saying, "Bes' I gits Long Willy. Heh heh. Don'tchew go 'way, Ahrmnee gel, heah? The man who came back in with the stunted female was tall; his shaggy head brushed the thatch. Without a spoken word, he bent and stripped back the covering hide from the nameless woman. He kicked off a pair of shapeless rawhide brogans, propped the sheathed longsword he had carried in the near corner, then shucked his dirt-shiny shirt to bare muscular arms and body as hairy as an ape's except where old scars and several pus-oozing sores peeked through.
As he unbuckled a scuffed belt which supported one large and three smaller knives, he spoke his first words. "You feed 'er yet, Lizzie?" When the flat-chested creature indicated the negative, he went on, "Wai, soon's I'm done fuckin' 'er, you stir your scrawny stumps and git 'er a bowla stew."
After he had pulled two broad, stubby knives from their sheaths under the hides cross-gartered to his lower legs, he untied the length of rope holding up his pair of once-fine trousers and threw himself upon the naked, defenseless body of the captive woman.
A bony knee forced her thighs apart. His entry was immediate and violent, a series of short, powerful thrusts which drove his engorged organ relentlessly inward, deep into her dry, unresponsive vagina. She screamed in pain, tried desperately to push his bulk off her, but she was still too weak. He was ready for the fingernails she drove at his eyes, laughingly pinioning her two hands with but one of his own, while the other went about mauling her breasts.
He never tried to kiss her, rather held his head high up from her, his eyes tightly closed throughout his protracted use of her body, ignoring her screams, her gasps, her moans and, finally, her pitiful sobs.
When, after eternities of endless time, he was done with her, had dressed and left, the nasty, cackling Lizzie returned. In one hand she bore a wooden bowl, and in the other a horn spoon. Despite the shock and pain of the abuse she had just been forced to endure, the nameless woman found the smell of the steaming fish broth mouthwatering, irresistible, after who knew how long without food. And no sooner had she swallowed the last drops in the bowl than she sank back on the rough mattress, oblivious to all that went on around her.
And much went on in the camp of Long Willy's bunch that night. As the captive's ravished body sank into sleep in the rude cabin, he who had so cruelly raped her sat in an old and scarred and oft-repaired seat that once had been a large and intricately carven chair; his longsword lay across his lap, and one of his hands held the shiny firestick that had been slung diagonally across the woman's back when she had been found by Kevin and Joe-Bob.
Long Willy was ambitious. He was determined to learn how to make one of the metal-and-wood devices spurt out the noise and the killing fire. Armed with so witchy a weapon, he knew that he could gather a much larger bunch, a bunch so large that the fearsome Buhbuh, even, would hesitate to try to force deference or a percentage of hard-won loot Perhaps with a firestick he might even be able to slay the huge Kleesahk and thus take over ultimate command of all the bunches.
But previous experiments with captured firesticks had ranged from fruitless to disastrous. The first one, captured on the dawn when they had tried to attack the camp of the strangers, had seemed to be out of fire (actually, the trooper had emptied the weapon at the oncoming Ganiks before he had been slain), so torches had been applied to it at every single conceivable place, resulting in nothing but scorched wood and metal so hot that it burned Long Willy's hands.
The second had been taken from the garroted corpse of a trooper lassoed and lifted off his horse (although Long Willy, of course, had no way of knowing it, that had been a sniper rifle, the scope not in place, but still loaded with a single long-distance load). Long Willy's principal lieutenant, now deceased, had been covertly observing the strangers for some time and managed to convince his leader that he knew the way in which new fire was added to the sticks. So, holding the small end firmly against his flat belly, just over the navel, he had grasped it by the big, wooden end and held a blazing torch directly under the part that was of both wood and metal, intermixed.
So muffled had been the noise that those at any distance had been unaware of any untoward occurrence. Long Willy and his bunch had thrown the treacherous firestick away and then consumed most of their former comrade.
But Long Willy had learned from both episodes, being a trifle more intelligent than most of the degenerate folk he led. Thanks to his lieutenant's unintended sacrifice, Long Willy figured that he now knew just where to feed the fresh fire into the stick and knew, also, that the small, hollow end must be held away from the body, unless he who held it was desirous of becoming the main course at the bunch's next barbecue.
The next firestick captured (this one had contained one round chambered and three more in the magazine) he had placed with the big, wood end against his abdomen and, amid a circle of his followers, he had applied and held the flare of a torch to the central area, then waited for something to happen.
Something did happen. The chambered round cooked off, slamming the bronze-shod butt into Long Willy's belly with the force of a mule's kick, and the round thus fired blew off the head of the man so unfortunate as to be in line with the muzzle. Moreover, the recoil-activated mechanism chambered a second round, which the overheated metal of barrel and action fired off so close on the heels of the first that the two explosions of sound seemed but one, and this happened twice more, only ceasing when the magazine of the piece was empty.
In the close-packed throng of observers, all the bullets killed; one, which due to malfunction failed to explode, even killed two men, drilling through one, then the other, and speeding on to crease the rump of a pony. Even when Long Willy could at long last breathe almost normally, so fierce was the agony in his punished belly that he feared that he too would shortly die, to go onto the spits and into the stewpots.
The following day he gave an order that the next man bearing a firestick was to be captured alive if in any way possible. He had come to realize that he needed instruction from an expert in such esoteric devices.
But the expected man had turned out to be a woman, and now he was facing down the entire bunch and sat ready to violate bunch-law and bunch-tradition in order to gain his private ends.
Strong Tom stood before Long Willy, his face flushed with his anger, stamping his feet and shaking his knotty fists to add emphasis to his heated words.
"It be wrowng and you knows it, too! I tooked 'er and letchew fuck 'er fust, din't I? Thet's bunch-law. Now, me 'n't'othuh bullies gits to fuck 'er,'t'night. You gots to brang 'er outchere, damn you!"
"You done tawkin', Strong Tom?" Long Willy demanded coldly, and when only a glare answered him, continued, "Then you lissun tight, 'cause I ain' gonna say it but the once!
"Onlies' way thishere bunch is evuh gonna git eny powuh is thishere firestick." He raised and shook the rifle. "And we-awl done learnt—leas'-ways, I done learnt—the onlies' way eny part of the bunch is gonna learn how you puts the fire back in thishere stick, is one t
he folks whut done used 'em fer to show us, or show me, enyhow.
"Now all them mens, they got away fum us, but we got us thishere woman, the Ahrmnee, and sincet she 'uz a-carryin' a firestick, seems likely she'd know how fer to put the fire back in it. Now, don't it, Strong Tom?"
Aware deep-down that the smarter Long Willy was deviously arguing him down, and not for the first time, the powerful but slow-witted lieutenant half-whined, "But, by Plooshuhn's hairy balls, Long Willy, we don' aim fer to kill the Ahrmnee cunt, jes' fuck 'er a few times. Dammit, you did!"
Long Willy, however, just nodded, "I did fuck 'er, Strong Tom, and that's how I knows how weak she be. Whoever clubbed the bitch dang near busted opened her haid… and if I thought fer one minute it 'uz thet dim-witted Kevin and Joe-Bob almos' kilt a young, purty Ahrmnee woman, whut had her a firestick, I'd be a-chawin' their livers for breakfas'. "But, thet-all aside, she 'uz too damn weak to even fight me eny, Strong Tom, and you done seed your own sef the way them Ahrmnee gels is fer the firs' few weeks we has 'era. So, weak as she be and all, I'm afeared you and eight 'r nine othuhs gits to polin' 'er all night, way you does,-all she gonna be good fer come mornin's stewmeat. Then, who gonna tell us, show us how you puts the fire back in thishere?" He waved the firestick once more.
Seeing Strong Tom take a deep breath preparatory to more words, Long Willy forestalled him. "Strong Tom, I ain' sayin' you and the othuh bullies cain' nevuh fuck 'er, I'm jes' sayin' don' fuck 'er now, not till she's done got bettuh and, maybe, done showed me how fer to put the fire back in the firesticks. Cain' you git thet th'ough your thick haid?"
It was a faux pas of the first order to a man trying to avert violence in the camp, and Long Willy would never have been guilty of it had he not been tired, concerned for the safety of the captive and the precious secrets her mind held, and more peeved than usual at the stubborn Strong Tom. The subleader was a mountain of rolling muscles and a proven killer, but only his physical strength had elevated him to and retained him in the ranks of Long Willy's bullies. He knew that his wits were not as quick as most men's… and he had been known to kill or maim bunch members who made even the most lighthearted or innocuous reference to that lamentable fact. The big man's flush became lividity. Snarling, he hurled his bulk at his seated tormentor. But when he crashed into the chair, Long Willy was no longer in it. Before Strong Tom could even think of arising from the splintered wreck on which he lay, his leader had twice clubbed his pate with the rifle butt, swinging the weapon by the barrel, like a mace.
And that ended the evening's council and discourse; the other bullies and the common Ganiks wandered off to their various cabins, huts or shelters, leaving the recumbent Strong Tom where he lay. If dawn showed him to be dead, they would all have fresh meat for breakfast.
With the rising of the sun, Corbett and his men, all laden with filled waterskins, bypassed the stinking mess left by a night-long feast of scavengers at the mouth of the gap. They rode ponies up the eastern hill to a low point in the wall of the gap, then climbed down to the floor of the defile after lowering gear and water with ropes.
The horse-guarding detail was glad to see them, to flop down and get a little sleep after a long, noisy night. Their shouts and other noises they made had driven most of the wild beasts back to the mounds of corpses. The only animals that they had been forced to expend bullets on were a skinny bear and a huge mountain boar, which later gave all of the men a satisfying breakfast of grilled pork.
But there could be no thought of camping at the site of the battle. For one thing, the stench of so much putrefying man-flesh was already unbearable, despite the chill of the preceding night, and was increasing geometrically as the rising sun warmed the area. Also, Corbett was almost frantic that the smaller party, up ahead, would be caught and killed—or, even worse, captured alive—by the thirty or forty mounted Ganiks now surely in pursuit of them.
When all the men were stuffed with greasy pork—the fat most welcome after many days of game and pony—Corbett had each man empty out his cartridge pouches to find that among twenty-two riflemen there were only two hundred and forty-six rounds. Grimly, he allowed two five-round clips to each man, including himself, with a third clip to each of the four best sharpshooters. The pistols were at least a little better supplied. Only he, Cash and six others of this party bore them, and the ammo supply for them was large enough to give each of them enough to fill four seven-round magazines, after which he and Corporal Cash each took six of the remaining rounds.
All men who had, during the previous day's battle, proved adept at casting darts he ordered to garner a supply of the missiles from the large stock available. Although crudely tipped and most primitive in appearance, the stubby javelins could be deadly at close range, cast by knowing hands, as mutely attested by his two battle casualties, both slain by Ganik darts.
With the mounts watered and saddled, Corbett and his force set off in the wake of Gumpner and his party, the officer setting as fast a pace as he dared, having but the two remounts available to him. He might, of course, have had his men run as many ponies as he wished or they could have herded them over the shorter, rougher hill route to join the column at the southern end of the defile, but his experiences with the shaggy mounts abandoned by his Ganik foes had persuaded him not to do so.
Although courageous and game enough, few of the weedy little beasts were in anything approaching good condition, the Ganiks apparently treating them as callously as they did their own kind. Nor did there seem to ever have been Ganik attempts to breed up the usual run of wild mountain ponies, such as had been done by the Broomtowners, the Ahrmehnee tribes and many another mountain race of folk, over the years.
But then, the appalling conditions of the ponies had also brought a measure of ease to Corbett's mind. The party of Ganiks that had ridden off to the west, apparently to track Gumpner's group, had had, he now recalled, only one mount per man, which would mean that if they tried to move too fast for very long, most of them would soon be afoot.
Unless… and that worrisome bit of unease continued to nibble at his mind, breeding fresh worry. Unless there were camps or villages of Ganiks ahead where the pursuers might expect to find fresh ponies and, God forbid, reinforcements. He just did not know all that much about these Ganiks. The captured Ganik, Jim-Beau, had been native to territory farther north and west of the place he had been taken prisoner, he had not seemed overly bright, and his knowledge of the overall numbers of the Ganik race and the size of the area they occupied had been hazy to nebulous. So, for all Corbett or any of his command knew, they could be riding into the very heartland of the savage cannibals.
Sergeant Gumpner might have relieved his officer's mind, somewhat. Although the track he and his group had been on since they had left the defile was fairly well defined, they had not seen any signs of a Ganik or any other human being.
Two of his best ponies had turned up lame, however, and following a brief consultation with Dr. Braun, the grim-faced noncom had kneed his mount over to Jim-Beau and ended the prisoner's life with his trusty battle axe. This sacrifice effectively replaced the two lost ponies.
That had taken place about the time that Corbett and his force had been stuffing themselves with broiled boar meat, the sergeant having kept his party moving throughout all of the preceding day, then all of the bright, moon-drenched night.
But Dr. Braun and some others of the wounded were suffering from the long, hard march, and that suffering was clearly weakening them; so Gumpner and the two men he bad sent out ahead, on point, were on constant lookout for a safe campsite. The party would have to halt, he knew, and soon.
At length, one of the point riders came back to guide them into a tightly twisting defile, barely wide enough along most of its length for even a single rider and steeply rising, with a couple or three inches of clear, running water filling it from wall to wall. At the top of the incline, Gumpner found himself on a tiny, grassy plateau. A spring-fed pool at its center was the genesis of the stream
that flowed down through the steep gap.
With the eye of military experience, Gumpner surveyed the location. If there were no more ways to get up to it, save the way he had come, he and his group should certainly be safe there for the couple of days it would take the mounts to exhaust the available forage. As high as the place was, fires would probably not be easily visible by night, especially on bright nights like that just past. And, if it came to that, two or three men would be able to hold that difficult defile against any conceivable number of the primitive Ganiks.
Nonetheless, cautious in every detail, as Major Corbett had taught him to be, Gumpner shepherded the column into the defile, through the thicket of stunted holly trees which hid the opening, then he, Sergeant Cabell and two other men carefully erased all visible sign of their passage, trying to give the appearance that the group had continued south, down the track.
That was precisely what the thirty-seven Ganiks, led by Bully Johnny Skinhead, Long Willy's eldest lieutenant, assumed when, some three hours later, they passed the clump of holly and splashed through the stream that cut across the track. Due to the fact that they had utilized shorter, though more difficult, cross-country routes rather than the main track, they would have come up to Gumpner's party a good hour before he had lucked onto his little hideaway had they not come across the body of Jim-Beau and stopped then and there for a meal.
Old Johnny was discouraged. That they had not caught their human quarry by this juncture meant, to his mind, that they likely would not ever catch them; for although his horse—lifted from a Kuhmbuhluhner steading, like most similar horses—seemed to be holding up well, few of the ponies were; some of the small equines were, indeed, tottering along, and there was no easy way to replace them. Not even the couple of hours of rest, while their riders had butchered and cooked and eaten the fresh-killed body of a strange Ganik, had done much toward restoring the fast-ebbing vitality of the ponies.