"THE WARLADY OF DULARN"
2567 A.D.!
By Jerome Bigge
Chapter Thirteen
"Be still!" the shadowed figure hissed, Maris' terrified eyes looking up into hers as she pressed the sharpened stick down against the feminine softness of the Dularnian Queen's throat! San-sha smiling to herself as she see the woman's obvious terror! Her last mistress had been "blonde" much like this "Dulie" bitch!
"We have them all, San-sha," another spoke. The Dularnian Warrioresses had been "easy pickings", San-sha mused to herself! The former slave girl smiling to herself as she regarded the now terrified "white woman" she had taken captive. To her kind there was but little "difference" between an Imperial and a Dularnian! The woman's slave girl a woman of her own race, San-sha noticed! San-sha thought to herself that it might be nice to make a slave out of this golden haired bitch, make her see what it was "like"! Put a few welts on that lovely back just to teach her a "lesson"!
"I am San-sha, Leaderess of the `Free Women'," she spoke to Maris, the Queen nodding, her voice only a weak terrified croak! It was pitch dark too, Maris' face only a pale shadow before her, the Dularnians having "known better" than to build a fire "here"! San-sha having united a number of the bands of runaway slave girls under her own command, the remains of Sandi's now the last.
"Maris of Dularn," the Queen answered, regaining her voice.
"The Imperials would pay `highly' for you," San-sha smiled.
"Do so if it pleases you to see me a slave," Maris retorted.
"We share a `common enemy'," San-sha smiled back. "We are thus `friends' by the `codes' of my people," the Nevada explained to the Queen, withdrawing her sharpened stick from Maris' throat. *****************************************************************
"Bring her up into the wind, come about!" I heard Valerie Dunn snap, still staring through her telescope at something on shore. Carol and I having been allowed the "freedom" of the deck instead of being chained as slaves usually are in the hold below. We were, I thought, perhaps a quarter mile or so off the cove. I could see the cliffs, almost the little campsite there above it. The tall trees of the forest that overlooked the sea there below. The sea was "choppy", the wind a bit "brisk" from the north too. We had been forced to "tack" back and forth, slowing our travels.
"Bring those two!" she snapped, pointing at Carol and me! "Have the longboat swung out, ready the ballistae and catapults!"
"We're going to land?" Lady Tirana ventured, perhaps a bit nervously, the longboat leaping wildly in the swells, the Corsica perhaps a furlong from shore, as close in now as Valerie dared to take her in. The ship anchored fore and aft, the catapults wound up, the ballistae readied, Corsica's awesome armament aimed di- rectly over our heads at the top of the cliffs towering up there before us! I thought of "Captain Hornblower". Of other stories I had read of naval adventures in the 18th Century. If there was anyone at the top of those cliffs, we'd be "easy pickings" too!!! Keri had stayed aboard the ship, not wishing to come with us now.
"Signal them to fire," Valerie snapped, ignoring Tirana's question for the moment, the young girl now acting as signals midshipman giving the signal. I heard the heavy thumps as the ship's catapults fired, the hundreds of darts from the ballistae like dark arrows overhead against the azure blue of the sky. I understood what Valerie was doing, and smiled at the very thought of what perhaps "others" in another century would have thought!!!
"Covering fire," I whispered to Carol, who nodded, not per- haps "understanding" such things. I saw smoke rise up above the trees, a thick dark oily smoke from the jugs of lamp oil that the ship had fired. Gallons of such flammable liquid having been fired! The "firepower" of these "primitive" weapons impressive!
"My `greetings' to your Dularnian friends," Valerie suddenly spoke to us, her eyes burning into ours. I understood much then!
"Remove your dress," Valerie said to Carol as she stood be- fore her there on the quarterdeck of the Corsica, the smoke still rising from the burning trees there at the top of the cliff. My wife did so, standing there naked before the Corsica's captain as Lady Tirana looked on, a puzzled expression there on her face!
"You will note the tan marks, the fact that her nipples are pierced, recall that she did once wear the neck chain of a wife," Valerie said, Tirana nodding as my wife stood there, the sun bright in the sky overhead. The ship rolling in the swell. "I do believe now that she is from the time she says she is, but how long were they `living' in our time before they were captured?" Tirana nodded doubtfully, a puzzled expression now on her face.
Pacing the quarterdeck, Valerie continued, "Darlanis was wise enough to `see' these things, but even she did not `realize' they could have been living for months aboard the North Star as `guests' of Queen Maris before she landed them up there on those cliffs in an attempt to deceive us," Valerie Dunn continued. Her eyes burning into mine as I shook my head in the negative, al- though I knew that it would do little good against her "logic"!!!
"You mean they actually are from the `past'!" Tirana spoke, the very tone of her voice revealing the emotions that she felt! Keri smiling to herself, perhaps delighted at Valerie's findings! She was an "educated woman", one of the Caste of Scribes, a "Teacher" actually before her grandmother had asked her to become the major domo there on Lorraine's own vast spreading estates.
"Lorraine flew through a `Gateway', and I think it possible that they perhaps did the same, and were picked up by the North Star," Valerie continued. "And knowing what we do about Maris, I think it likely she convinced them that Dularn was `America' and that we were now but the `enemies' of everything they held dear!" Valerie continuing on to say that it was a known fact that others beside Lorraine had passed through these "Gateways", and that it was the most likely explanation for our presence here in 2567 AD! *****************************************************************
"Forest too `green' to burn for long," San-sha breathed, her own emotional state speaking much of how she felt. Had it not been for Maris' telescope, for the Queen's quick wit, they would have been caught in the Corsica's first broadside. Maris having had a pretty good idea of what was in store for them when she saw the ship now being readied for firing broadsides into the forest!
"If they send a landing party we will be able to pick them off with our bows," Maris smiled, her own weapon ready at hand. There among the thick trees, in the smoke, the "advantages" would all be with the "defenders", the well trained Warrior Queen knew!
"You smart for `white woman'," San-sha smiled back in turn!
"Darlanis is your `enemy', not me," the Dularnian replied.
"My Prince `weak' like all men around a beautiful woman," San-sha laughed, "Especially one with yellow hair like yours is. Maybe `better' if women `runned things' like they did long ago." *****************************************************************
"It does seem pretty `logical' when you think about it," I said to Carol there in the darkness of the lower hold where Carol and I now laid chained. Valerie had ruined our "chances" of ever convincing anyone of this era that we were not on the side of the Dularnian Republic. That we did not "serve" the Queen of Dularn.
"This era reminds of me of `GOR'," Carol laughed back at me. My wife's amazing ability to "rebound" from everything amazed me. She was my "strength", and far more now to me than just a "wife".
"What do you `mean' by that?" I asked. She was but a paler shadow there in the darkness beside me. I could still smell the perfume she had been allowed to "use" earlier at Sanda's request. Fortunately no one knew that she was an exotic dancer, or I sup- pose Carol would have been forced to "dance" before men at night. Such "slave dances" (no free woman will do one) are commonplace. The wench is usually "auctioned off" afterwards to some warrior. "Trained" slaves like Kathi, Lorraine's Yvette, and others can do a number of these dances, although Carol is "better" than Kathi!
"All `strangers' are `enemies'," she laughed back, her hands "touching" me. Carol can be extremely "provocative" when she wishes to be. This was one of those times. I reached out, took her in my arms. Welcomed her darting raspy tongue in my mouth!
"I see you spent your time `pleasurably'," Lady Tirana said, her dark eyes burning into ours. I suppose it was "obvious" we had. There are certain "tell-tale" signs of such things, espe- cially if you are nude and your wife has just bitten your lip! Keri regarding Carol, my wife smiling back at the major domo. I suspected that she had "noticed" how Keri sometimes "looked" at me. I had no doubts now that Keri had become infatuated with me.
"This is a `fast' ship," I noted, giving Valerie Dunn a smile. The Corsica was that. All of Lorraine's big ones were.
"I hope to see the day soon when your Queen kneels naked be- fore me," captain Valerie Dunn said, her eyes burning into ours. *****************************************************************
"We do not have the `numbers' to do as you suggest," San-sha said, sitting there before the fire. The flames lighting up her coppery colored face. She was an attractive woman, although a bit on the "muscular" side, the sort of a "woman" Maris then thought to herself who perhaps sometimes wished she was "other" than what she was. Such was not "uncommon" among certain women. The brand new Dularnian dagger in its sheath at her hip and the bow of the same manufacture near by would doubtlessly be well put to "use" by a woman such as her, Queen Maris thought to herself. She had at one time or another learned the "three finger" draw as used by Californians instead of the "pinch" draw of the Nevadas.
"A surprise attack, at night," Maris spoke in reply. The guards would be few. Fire arrows could do a great deal of damage and spread terror among those who lived on the nearby estate. The same estate Maris mused, that she had once been a slave on! Then she could reach the slave shed, free those she had come for!
"Such would bring a Legion," San-sha answered. "The Warlady is not one to provoke." She spoke not of the Warlady of Trelan- dar, but "another". One that Maris herself had once "faced". A shudder going through the young Queen at the thought. Even with the odds in her favor, Maris had "lost" to that awesome Warlady! Her own beloved North Star "beaten" by an Imperial third rate!
"I will go then with my own women," Maris spoke, knowing as she spoke of the futility of such an action. Yet, she could not turn back now. She could not "disobey" the "orders" given her!
"You are brave, but a fool like many before you," San-sha said, her dark Indian eyes now meeting the green of the blonde's.
What "woke" Maris she knew not, the fire low, the woman on guard nowhere to be seen, a shimmering figure, a woman in white, blonde, standing over San-sha, touching her, a sort of pale light seeming to surround the woman. A woman, Maris knew with an icy cold hand of terror clutching at her heart, who was the same one who had come to her in her dreams! The one who had given her "orders" she could not disobey now even if they were to lead to her own death! Then suddenly the woman was just "gone" as if she had never been! "Has it all been a dream?" Maris "mused" softly! *****************************************************************
"There is a ship to be loaded, and every slave here will be required to `work'!" Cassie snapped, standing there, her whip in her hand. The slave girls beyond the line of us male slaves now glancing at each other, no doubt well aware that they too would be required this time to work up a good sweat at their labors! I saw Carol, naked but for a strip of cloth, now among them. Lady Tirana stood there behind Cassie, her features "veiled", a broad brimmed hat protecting her from the rays of the morning sun. Keri there beside her wearing a broad brimmed hat, blouse and her usual leather skirt, a long slim sword at her hip. I saw men, women, on guard, recalled the "rumors" I had heard of the North Star being once again in this area. The Corsica would return to- morrow to escort the ship to Sarn. I thought of Valerie Dunn. I hoped for Maris' sake that she did not cross paths with Valerie!