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“We’ll have a hell of a time tracking
them here,” Larra commented, looking at the hard desert pavement that
stretched ahead of them. They
had left the dunes behind and were in an area of stony
desert. The heating and cooling
of the rock had resulted in a surface strewn with broken bits of
stone.
“Yes,” Al-Majiid
agreed. “They have traveled
into a region that is unknown to me.
I am not sure of the motive of the
slavers. It is a direction that
I would not have taken.”
Larra gazed off into the
distance. The waves of heat rising
from the desert floor obscured distance objects, but at the edge of her vision
she could just make out a line of hills.
“If they want water those hills are the best
bet.”
“I agree,” said the sheik, “but
you are taking a chance if you head that direction
alone. The desert is not a forgiving
place.”
“I don’t have much choice,”
Larra replied. “I can’t
just give up on my friends.”
Al-Majiid
nodded. It had already been agreed
that he and his men would not accompany Larra and Melissa any
further. He was at the very edge
of the territory he regarded as his
domain. Much as she would have
liked to remain with the intriguing woman who had stumbled into his life,
he had obligations to his people, and he wanted to keep an eye on the Italian
expedition that he had once supported.
They parted without
fanfare. The sheik had made sure
that the two women were well supplied.
With care they had enough food to last a month and enough water to
last a week, perhaps more if they rationed
it. He had given them two of
his best camels. Larra had promised
to repay him, but the sheik declined her
offer. One did not accept payment
from a lover and he and Larra had been at least that during the last few
days. As Al-Majiid watched the
two women move off into the desert wastes he shook his
head. What a wife she would have
made! He
smiled. At least he had the one
week of memories. He hoped it
would not spoil him for his other wives.
Larra did not look
back. She knew that Al-Majiid
would watch her until she was out of
sight. He was an interesting
man, one she would have liked to know better, but her cultural background
and his were too different. It
had been an interesting experience, and one she did not regret, but it was
behind her now. She had a more
important goal to focus on, the rescue of her
friends.
She and Melissa used the distant range of
hills as their guide. A day of
travel brought them seemingly no closer.
But there was one bright spot.
It was Melissa who saw it.
Two rocks piled one on top of the
other. It looked inconspicuous
enough in the jumble of rock covering the desert floor, but it was not a
natural formation. As Melissa
put it, “Rocks don’t jump on top of one another on a flat
surface.” The limber teen
had jumped off her camel to investigate.
What she found gave them hope.
Scratched into the rock was a series of numbers: ‘40 07 17,’
followed by a tiny arrow.
“So,” mused Larra, “they were
here yesterday. Probably scratched
the date during a water break.”
They searched the area for more signs, but found
nothing. However, they changed
their course to the direction indicated by the
arrow. They kept their eyes open
for more clues, but did not see anything
more. Apparently, the chance
to leave more signs did not come again.
Larra and Melissa supposed that the captives were probably closely
watched.
As much as possible they tried to stay on
the course that the arrow had directed
them. It was not easy in a landscape
that was a featureless as the trackless
desert. Both women found the
direction they were going to be puzzling.
It would have made much more sense for the slavers to have stayed
on one of the main desert tracks; that way they would have been able to find
water much more easily. The way
the slavers were going now they would have to greatly increase the amount
of water they were forced to carry.
It made no sense unless they were so afraid of pursuit or running
into British patrols that they were deliberately heading into the least inhabited
part of the desert.
“Maybe,” suggested Melissa, “they
know something no one else does.
Perhaps they are heading for someplace we don’t know
about.”
Larra
shrugged. “Perhaps,”
she agreed. “It doesn’t
really matter. Whichever way
they have chosen to go we will go.
If we want to rescue our friends we have no
choice. Let’s just hope
that they haven’t been too badly treated.”
The first hour of the morning after her brutal
gang rape was one of the worst periods of Katie’s
life. Barely able to move, and
in severe pain in the lower region of her body, she stumbled forward in some
sort of trance. She was barely
aware of her surroundings, conscious only of the fact that just ahead of
her was one of the Tuareg girls and behind her was the tall black warrior
she had humiliated. Doggedly,
she placed one foot in front of the other trying to keep pace and avoid the
encouragement provided by Jafari’s
whip. But eventually she began
to lag and the sting of the lash descended upon her
shoulders.
Rather than speeding her up, however, the
whip had the opposite effect. Katie
stumbled under the force of the blow and went down to her
knees. As the Tuareg girl in
front of her moved on, the chain connecting them tightened and she was jerked
forward, dropping onto her hands.
In an instant the entire column came to a
halt. The whip came down across
her back again, but Katie could not get
up. Helpless and exhausted she
could do nothing but lie where she had fallen.
“Get up bitch,” Jafari screamed
in Arabic. His words needed no
translating. They were punctuated
by brutal use of the whip.
Katie gasped as she was flogged, but try as
she might, she could not move. Her
legs had no strength. Weeping
in frustration and pain, she was forced to accept the abuse heaped on her
by Jafari and the other slavers. At
that point Mudada, who had been in front of the column,
arrived. What might have happened
then she did not know, because powerful arms lifted her to her
feet. And then before she could
protest she was slung across the brawny shoulder of the black warrior who
was immediately behind her. Within
seconds the column was moving again.
Too weak to resist Katie closed her eyes, wondering as she did so
why the man she had disgraced in front of his friends would help
her.
“Another marker,” said Melissa,
dismounting to investigate a small rock sitting on top of
another. She knelt beside it
and picked up the top rock.
“We’re on course.
The arrow points in the same
direction.”
Larra looked off into the
distance. The hills were definitely
closer now. In the shimmering
heat they were still indistinct, but as she squinted her eyes she thought
she saw something. A darker shadow
in the bluish line of hills indicated a possible
break. It was exactly in the
direction designated by the crude arrow.
Melissa clambered back up onto her camel and
kneed the beast into motion.
“We need to get moving,” she
said. “I think something
is brewing up.”
Larra looked back the direction of Melissa’s
gaze. She
frowned. Behind them loomed a
line of dark clouds. “Another
sandstorm,” she murmured.
Didn’t the wind ever stop blowing in this awful
place? “We better find a
place to shelter,” she said, speaking louder.
“There isn’t one,” replied
Melissa. “We’ll have
to pitch the tent.”
“Let’s try for the hills,”
Larra said. “We might be
able to get there before the storm
does.” She kicked her camel
into a gallop and held on for dear life.
With Melissa in hot pursuit, Larra urged her
camel toward the range of hills.
Every now and then she looked back toward the encroaching
storm. It loomed ever closer,
but now she could see that the dark line in the hills was indeed a break,
probably the entrance to a canyon.
It would be a much better place to shelter than the open
desert. She gave her camel another
kick, trying to get the last bit of effort out of the protesting
beast.
By now the wind had picked up
considerably. Just ahead was
the mouth of the canyon, but dust and sand was already swirling around the
two riders. They only had minutes
before the full force of the storm
arrived.
The camels
slowed. The last half mile sloped
toward the high ground of the canyon entrance and the animals had about reached
the end of their endurance. Larra
and Melissa now found that once a camel decided it had run enough, there
was no way short of towing it that the stubborn animal could be induced to
go a step farther. Swearing under
her breath Larra jumped off and tugged on the
reins. “We’ll have
to walk the rest of the way.”
Dragging the camel with her, she started up the
incline.
Melissa emulated
her. In a few seconds she was
dripping sweat, but their goal was now only a few minutes away and she pushed
on. As she and Larra reached
the rock wall of the canyon she felt the first drop of
rain.
“Not a sandstorm after all,” said
Larra. “But we still better
find shelter.” Something
nagged at the back of her mind, but she was too concerned with getting as
far into the canyon as possible. It
was only when she and Melissa were sheltering under a large rock overhang
that she remembered what was bothering
her.
Rain in the desert was rare, but when it came
if was often heavy. And when
it came there was nothing to keep the water from running
off. It suddenly occurred to
her that sheltering at the bottom of a canyon was about the worst possible
place to be.
“We’ve got to move,” Larra
said. “We have to get to
higher ground as soon as possible.”
“In this deluge?” asked
Melissa. What had started out
as a few scattered drops was now coming down in
sheets.
“Either that or we drown,” replied
Larra. “And
hurry. We have to take the camels
with us.”
Muttering at the stupidity of having to plunge
into a downpour that had become a solid wall of water, Melissa followed Larra,
throwing her weight into hauling the camel with
her.
Camel hauling turned out to be the most difficult
part of gaining higher ground. The
recalcitrant animals fought them every step of the
way. Larra was fighting her way
up the canyon. Just ahead was
a broken ledge that led toward the top of the canyon
wall. It was tough
going. Water was pouring off
the ledge, making footing difficult.
Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, and the rain seemed to
intensify. And in the background
there was strange roaring sound. As
the two women battled their way up the ledge, the ground began to shake as
if from an earthquake and then around a bend in the canyon came a solid wall
of water at least fifteen feet high and moving with the speed of an express
train.
Melissa stated in
amazement. Where had so much
water come from in the middle of one of the driest places on
earth? Larra answered her
question. “Flash flood,”
she screamed above the roar of the water.
Melissa didn’t have time to acknowledge
the brief explanation. She was
too busy scrambling up to the higher levels of safety on the
ledge. She barely made it, the
water thundering past just inches below her
toes. “We’ve got to
get higher,” Larra shouted in her
ear. This is going to get
worse.”
Larra’s words proved
prophetic. Even as she spoke,
the raging waters rose to Melissa’s
ankles. Quickly, the two women
scrambled higher, attempting to escape the watery
danger. But by now the narrow
ledge was itself a shallow stream as water cascaded from the upper edges
of the canyon. They had to lead
their camels through knee deep water that was rushing down the inclined ledge
at considerable speed.
Melissa found herself in a losing battle as
water surged to waist level. Try
as she might, her one hundred and thirty pounds could make no headway against
the powerful current and the water was rising ever higher.
Larra reached back toward
her. “Take my hand,”
she instructed. But at that moment
the wild torrent suddenly surged another foot higher, sweeping her and her
camel from the ledge.
As she lost her footing Melissa was swept
into and then under the raging flood.
She had time only for a quick
breath and then she was turned end over
end. Desperately, she tried to
fight her way back to the surface, but the swirling waters turned her head
over heels and within seconds she lost all sense of up and
down. Her lungs bursting, she
battled in the direction that seemed to be the brightest, reasoning that
the most light would be near the surface.
At that moment she smashed into something incredibly
solid. What little air she had
was driven from her body and she gulped in a lungful of
water. Unable to breathe and
battered against the bottom of the thundering waters, she knew she was
drowning. Her senses whirled
and darkened as she began to pass into unconsciousness and then suddenly
she was free.
Coughing and spluttering she found herself
lying on a bed of water washed rocks.
As her head cleared she was able to determine that she had been swept
completely out of the canyon. By
some miracle she had not been battered to bits on the rocks that littered
the terrain beyond the canyon
mouth. Coughing as if she
was having a fit she struggled to rid her lungs of the water she had
swallowed. After a time, she
was able to stand. Somehow in
the wild journey in the flash flood, her simple desert robe had been torn
from her body. She was completely
nude and now that it had stopped raining, was exposed to the burning sun
of the
Melissa took a step toward the dead animal
and was immediately aware that her body was covered in
bruises. Somehow she had not
been killed, but the waters of the flood had obviously whirled her around
in violent contact with the rocks of the stream bed.
She gritted her teeth and moved
toward the camel. Although the
supplies the animal had carried seemed to have been torn loose there was
still a strip of cloth attached to it where the saddle had
been. It was only thin cotton,
but it would do.
Tearing the cloth into suitably large pieces,
she was able to fashion a crude top and skirt for
herself. The top was not much
more than a simple halter that concealed and supported her breasts and there
was not enough material to cover her arms or
shoulders. Her long legs were
bare as well, but she retained a small strip of cloth to serve as a head
covering. It would give her minimal
protection from the blazing sun.
Now to look for Larra.
She had expected her friend and mentor to
show up, but there was no sign of her.
She suddenly felt very uneasy.
Larra should have found her by
now. It was most unlike her not
to come to the aid of one of her friends.
Taking a deep breath she started toward the
canyon. Something must have gone
wrong, and she had to find out what.
Larra watched horrified as her companion
disappeared into the wild waters.
She was standing a little farther up the ledge and as the water rose
it came only to her knees.
Helpless, she could only watch as Melissa and her camel were swept
down the canyon and out of sight.
She had to resist a strong urge to dive in after
them. Such an action would have
not only been useless, but probably would have guaranteed her
death. She could only hope that
Melissa could find some way to save
herself. In the meantime, she
had her own safety to attend to.
The water was still rising and she had to climb ever
higher.
Slowly she worked her way up the ledge, fighting
her way through the stream of water that swirled about her
knees. Eventually she reached
a point where the water no longer flowed and then she saw something
else. It was a large opening
in the canyon wall, easily big enough to accommodate her and the
camel. Glad to be out of the
pelting rain she stepped into it hauling the soaked and frightened camel
after her. Turning, she looked
back out at the thundering flash flood as it roared toward the mouth of the
canyon.
“Poor Melissa,” she
muttered. “I hope she is
alright.”
A slight noise behind her made the hairs on
the back of her head stand up.
Instinctively, she stepped to one side, but a terrible pain in the
back of her head told her that she was too
late. As she fell to her knees
she was aware of someone speaking in a strange language, and then everything
went black.
As she stood at the base of the sloping stone
ledge where she and Larra had sought refuge Melissa
frowned. There was no sign of
Larra. She and her camel seemed
to have completely disappeared.
Could it be that Larra had been swept from the ledge by the
flood? If so where was
she? On her walk back to the
mouth of the canyon, Melissa had seen no sign of
her. She looked up to the top
of the ledge. She would have
to check it out. First, however,
she needed a drink. There was
no shortage of water now. It
lay everywhere in both large and small
pools. She knelt to drink and
caught a glimpse of a wild woman reflected in the
water. She grinned ruefully at
her reflection. She was a
sight. What would her conservative
parents think of her now? She
resembled a naked savage, her shoulder length chestnut hair in complete disarray,
and a few scraps of cloth attempting without success to hide her considerable
physical charms. She tugged on
the makeshift halter trying to cover up a bit more of her left
breast. There was a bit more
skin showing there that she would have liked.
Then she
shrugged. She was almost 90%
nude. What did revealing a little
more skin here and there matter?
Anyway it didn’t really matter how she looked; she had to find
Larra. Cupping her hands she
drank from the pool and then started up the
slope.
She really did not expect to find any trace
of her mentor; Larra was clearly not waiting for her on the ledge, but it
was the last place she had seen her and so it was a place to
start. It was with some surprise
that she saw a dark opening near the top of the
ledge. A glimmer of hope arose
in her breast. Perhaps Larra
was waiting inside. It was a
desperate thought. If Larra was
still around she was hardly likely to be hiding inside the cave
opening.
As she thought, the cave was indeed
empty. But even in the dim light
she could tell that it had not always been that
way. A circle of blackened stones
on the cave floor showed that someone had frequently warmed themselves at
a fire. Melissa remembered that
there had been quite a lot of driftwood scattered about the canyon; probably
as the result of generations of flash floods bringing wood from farther up
the canyon. Over against one
wall was a neat pile of wood, stacked and ready for
burning. In a crude sconce on
the wall was a blackened torch and in a rack next to the sconce were two
other unburned torches.
She swept her eyes around the dark interior,
looking for some sign of Larra. She
found it in a pile of camel droppings.
Not in the pile exactly. It
was the droppings. It was proof
that Larra had been in the cave.
Carefully, she scanned the floor, looking for more
evidence. During her time with
Larra she had picked up a little bit of the ability to read
sign. She wasn’t very good
at it yet, but she could decipher fairly obvious tracks provided they were
not too confusing.
Near the entrance she found something
interesting. It was the footprints
of a pair of shoes, or perhaps sandals.
The important thing was the fact that they were not
Larra’s. These sandals had
hobnails driven through them to improve their traction and
durability. They were the sort
of sandals that had been worn in ancient times by
soldiers.
She searched a little longer and found another
set of prints. These were
Larra’s; or at least she was pretty sure that they
were. Careful not to disturb
the prints she tried to work out what had
happened. As far as she could
determine Larra had been standing near the cave entrance, no doubt sheltering
from the rain. Then the hobnailed
sandals had come up behind her.
After that she could not tell what had happened, but she could figure
it out. Larra had been ambushed
and probably taken prisoner. But
where had she been taken?
She gathered up a few pieces of firewood that
had been partly burned through.
Setting out the pieces of wood on the floor she took the two driest
pieces she could find. Taking
a long narrow stick she placed it on top of another piece of
wood. She had created a fire
drill, something that she had seen Larra do
once. Rapidly rotating the stick
between her palms she applied downward
pressure. To her delight a small
thread of smoke began to curl up from where the two pieces of wood made
contact. She kept on twirling
the stick for a few more seconds and then blew lightly at the base of the
plume of smoke, pushing a few dry fragments of wood into the slight glow
that was created. The wood caught,
and in a few seconds tiny flames
appeared. Carefully she fed larger
and larger pieces of wood onto the fire until she had a good sized
blaze. Then removing the torch
from its sconce, she held it in the open
flame.
Torch in hand she moved to the back of the
cave. As she had feared the cave
went much farther back into the mountain.
The sandal tracks she had discovered marched into a dark
tunnel. Whoever had captured
Larra no doubt had taken her this way.
With a sigh, Melissa returned to the
fire. Gathering up two more torches
she set off down the tunnel.
Larra’s head pounded in
agony. The pain she felt was
aggravated by the fact that she was being bounced up and
down. With a groan she tried
to move her arms and discovered that they were tightly bound behind her
back. That woke her up
completely. She was slung over
a muscular shoulder. She
couldn’t see much of her attacker except to determine that he was dark
skinned and seemed to be wearing some sort of leather
armour. She quickly determined
that in addition to her wrists, her legs were also bound at the ankles and
thighs. Rope had also been looped
about her torso above and below her breasts, binding her arms tightly to
her upper body. Whoever had captured
her had wanted to make damned sure that she was not going to
escape.
At the sound off her groan, the man carrying
her stopped. Gently he set her
down. A man carrying a torch
approached and held it a foot from her
head. By the flickering light
she was able to see that she was in a dark tunnel and that she was surrounded
by at least four men. They were
all dark-skinned, as she had already determined, but their most remarkable
feature was the fact that they were dressed in armour of a type that had
not been used for thousands of years.
“Nubians,” Larra
thought. The men looked like
and were dressed in the fashion of ancient Nubian
warriors.
The man holding the torch placed his hand
on her jaw and lifted her chin. He
muttered something in a language Larra did not understand, and then he
nodded. Without further ado,
she was once more hoisted over the shoulder of the man who had been carrying
her and the journey in the dark
continued. Larra made no attempt
to communicate with the men. She
doubted that they would understand her in any
case. Her head throbbed as she
was bounced through the dark tunnel.
She closed her eyes and tried to
relax. Although the men who had
captured her had not menaced her, she suspected that she was in for some
sort of ordeal before she got her
freedom. In her completely helpless
condition there was no sense in
struggling. It was better for
her to rest and try to rebuild her
strength. Deliberately, she slowed
her breathing and tried not to think of the pain between her
temples. Powerless she was carried
along, ever deeper into the darkness.
For the first hour, Melissa had no trouble
following the trail Larra’s captors had
left. The tunnel she was in seemed
to go straight back into the mountain.
But after an hour or so, she found that she was running low on torches,
soon she was down to the last one.
At that point, the tunnel divided.
Bending down she studied the tunnel
floor. But here she ran out of
luck. The floor of the tunnel
was hard stone, and apparently unmarked by any
feet. She would have to guess
at which trail the men she was pursuing had
taken.
It did not occur to her to turn
back. Larra was in trouble and
she had to save her. With a mental
coin toss she chose the right hand tunnel and moved
on. About forty minutes later
the tunnel divided again. This
time she went left, very aware of the fact that her last torch only had about
five minutes of burning left. A
few minutes later, as the torch sputtered out she found herself in total
darkness. Placing her hands on
the wall, she felt her way forward moving slowly to avoid dropping into an
unexpected hole. She went on
in this fashion for a long time.
Several times she came to places where the tunnel
branched. With no sense of which
way to go, sometimes she went left and sometimes
right. How many side tunnels
she passed in the dark she did not know.
She could only keep contact with one wall and may have walked right
by several branching tunnels without any idea they were
there. The darkness was never-ending
and she had no way of keeping track of
time. After what she was sure
was hours she stopped. She was
now desperate for water and because of the loss of her gear had been unable
to bring any with her into the cave.
Allowing herself to slide to the cave floor she sat with her back
against the wall. The sudden
realization struck her that if she had to go back the way she had come she
was not sure that she could find her way.
She was well and truly lost with no sure way of finding her way
out. She flicked her tongue over
her dry lips. Dying of thirst
in the complete darkness of the caves would not be a pleasant
experience.
She tried to think of what Larra would
do. She knew that her mentor
would not simply give up, but it seemed pointless simple to wander in the
dark without any sort of plan. But
she would have to do something soon.
Already she could feel the icy cool of the underground seeping into
her. Adrenaline and the effort
of her search had kept her oblivious to the much cooler underground temperatures,
but now she realized that there was more than one way for her to
die. If her body cooled off too
much she would not have to worry about lack of
water. The only remedy was to
keep moving and hope
that
luck would be with her.
However, it was a good idea to have some sort of
plan.
She stuck a finger in her mouth and then held
it up. The right side of her
finger cooled fastest. That might
mean that there was a slight flow of air in that direction.
Getting to her feet she moved
cautiously against the direction of the supposed air
flow. She walked slowly, fearful
of stepping into some hole. The
last thing she needed was to drop into some pitfall and end up with a broken
leg. That would mean almost certain
death. Every now and then she
stopped to test the air. She
wasn’t sure, but she thought she could detect a stronger
flow. Spurred on by that faint
hope, she stumbled through the dark for another hour or
so. By this time she was
certain. She could feel the flow
of air on her seminude body.
Unconsciously she began to move more quickly,
moving less carefully through the total
darkness. She was reminded of
her folly when her forehead slammed full into an immovable
object. The impact of her
forward momentum knocked her off her
feet. For a few seconds she lay
on the tunnel floor, too dazed to realize what had
happened. When her head cleared
she swore vigorously, using language she was sure that Larra would have found
highly inappropriate.
She struggled to her feet, and felt tentatively
in front of her. Her hands contacted
an icicle-like projection hanging from the ceiling of the
tunnel. “God-damned
stalactite,” Melissa swore.
She rubbed the large bump on her
forehead. “My own bloody
fault for being in such a rush.”
Much more carefully now, she moved forward
again. She became aware of something
that gave her a surge of hope; it was the steady drip, drip, drip of
water. Holding her arms in front
of her she edged delicately forward.
She felt the angle of the floor
change. She was moving
downhill. She encountered no
more stalactites, but did come across the reverse variety, the
stalagmites. These she detected
with her feet except for a few of the stone pillars, which rose from the
floor in gigantic columns. How
high they went she had no idea, but more importantly, she encountered the
source of the stone formations. Drops of water splashed from
above. Opening her mouth under
one of these she stood patiently for ten minutes, until her thirst was
quenched. Probably there was
a pool of water somewhere in the darkness, but finding it was an impossible
task. She had to be content with
the droplets from the ceiling.
Now that her thirst was taken care of there
was the matter of discovering a way out of the maze of tunnels she had gotten
into. She knew that she was in
a large cavern, but exactly how large she had no
idea. Such underground cavities
could be gigantic. It was best
to return to her previous strategy.
She tried to detect the flow
of air again. To her relief she
soon picked it up. In the cavern
it seemed to be even stronger.
Slowly and carefully she moved in the direction of the source of air
flow. An hour later, but what
seemed like an age to Melissa she was still groping her way through the
cavern. Lost in the dark she
began to wonder if she would ever find her way back to the light
again. But she continued to move
doggedly forward, feeling her way with agonizing
slowness. She had no
choice. The only alternative
was death in the darkness.
Jia Li tried to calm
herself. She was more highly
trained than either Katie or Amy and felt a need to set an example for her
companions; even when they couldn’t see
her. The trouble was, she was
absolutely terrified. Katie’s
brutal rape had left her weak in the knees and the thought of being violated
by a band of thugs as filthy as the slavers who had captured her was a concept
so revolting it almost made her ill.
But she had not been given any choice in the
matter. After a hard day’s
march in debilitating heat, she had been escorted to Mudada’s
tent. She was now on her knees
in front of the leering slaver while he looked her
over. There was little she could
do about the situation. She had
been stripped naked and her arms had been tied behind her
back. A rope ran from her bound
ankles to her neck. It had been
pulled very tight, arching her back and forcing her breasts
forward. In addition a filthy
piece of cloth had been stuffed into her mouth and secured in place with
a short length of rope. Finally,
she had been blindfolded. She
could only wait in frightened apprehension while the greasy bandit decided
what to do to her.
Mudada licked his thick
lips. He circled the exotic female
kneeling before him. She was
wondrously beautiful. Her full,
ripe breasts were perfectly formed, like two golden peaches waiting to be
picked. Her waist was so narrow
that he could almost encircle it with his
hands. His mouth watered as he
anticipated taking those dark erect nipples in his mouth and spreading those
long shapely legs. First though,
she would have to be punished.
It gave him a sense of power to dominate such
a woman. She was the most dangerous
of the three. Several of his
men had been severely injured by her; two of them so badly that he had been
forced to leave them behind.
Breaking her would be difficult.
He recalled how she had refused to scream in pain when he flogged
her. However, the blindfold and
the gag would add to her fear. The
added uncertainty would help to break down that proud
veneer. Soon he would have her
screaming for mercy. He
had to be careful though. He
did not want to permanently damage her.
Intact she was worth a great deal of
money. Even though she was not
a virgin, a woman of such exotic beauty was worth a great deal in the slave
market. Properly trained, she
would make his buyers a wonderful
concubine.
He tapped a leather strap in the palm of his
hand. It was not a particularly
vicious instrument of torture but it would hurt, and she would never know
when to expect it. With a twisted
grin, he raised it high and brought it down across her
belly.
It struck with a satisfying crack, but to
his dismay the defenceless woman barely
flinched. Scowling he struck
again, this time at her prominent breasts, targeting the
nipples. As the leather made
contact she jumped, but uttered not a
sound. Gagged as she was, he
had not expected her to scream, but he had thought she would at least grunt
or moan. Frowning, he aimed for
her breasts again. Again she
jumped, but this time not as much.
Incredibly the golden-skinned bitch was actually adjusting to the
torture. With growing rage Mudada
swung harder. He would make her
grovel or skin her alive.
Jia Li struggled to
breath. She could barely get
enough air. The filthy gag the
slaver had stuffed into her mouth went halfway down her throat and her nose
was partly blocked off by the supplemental
gag. She tried to control her
breathing, using the techniques she had been taught in
Mudada kept up the beating for a good
hour. By the time he flung the
strap down he was exhausted, his clothing soaked through with
sweat. Unbelievably the stubborn
bitch had not made a sound even though he had covered her body with
welts. She was still kneeling
on the floor of the tent, her body still arched
uncomfortably.
The only sign of distress was the heaving of her splendid bosom and
a trembling in her limbs due to the strain of holding such an unnatural
position.
With a curse, he pulled off his heavy desert
robes. He was fully erect and
throbbing with anticipation. There
was more than one way to break such a stubborn
bitch.
It took all of Jia Li’s self control
not to scream into the gag as the bandit chieftain violated
her. More than anything else
she feared rape. It was the ultimate
degradation and she never got used to it.
It was especially mortifying to be raped by such a foul villain as
the bandit chief. His unwashed
body stank and he grunted like a pig as he thrust into
her. When he finally ejaculated
he sprayed his disgusting cream over her
body. Almost whimpering in pain
and humiliation, she waited for the next stage of her
ordeal.
As the hands of the other slavers seized her
she almost broke. Her ordeal
was a never-ending nightmare. As
the first of the slavers thrust into her swollen vagina she whimpered, but
the sound was lost in the gag. She
was still bound in the painfully awkward position that Mudada had tied her
in. Held upright by one of her
captors, she was forced to straddle another while her own body weight pushed
her down onto his waiting phallus.
He entered her deeply, impaling her fully on his swollen organ. She
tried to stand in order to remove the source of her agony, but Mudada had
tied her wrists to her ankles, and she was only able to rise a few
inches. Laughing, one of the
slavers leaned on her shoulders, thrusting her back
down. The man beneath her locked
his arms about her slender waist and pulling her down, pumped vigorously
into her.
Mudada left his tent to watch the golden-skinned
woman’s degradation. It
was almost as much fun to watch her splendid breasts bounce while his men
mounted her as it was to defile her
himself. Almost, but not
quite. She had been a splendid
ride. Even bound, gagged, and
blindfolded she had fought him, and she continued to fight now, fruitlessly
using her remaining strength to prevent further violation of her incredible
body. But it was a hopeless
mismatch. One after the other
each of his men took their turn, driving into her and spurting their seed
over her body. Tomorrow she would
smell like a pile of rotting fish.
It would serve as a reminder of her ordeal until she was strong enough
to pay him another visit.
Hunger was Melissa’s most serious concern
now, besides getting out of the Stygian blackness that had been her world
for what seemed like days. She
no longer needed water. In fact
she was sick of it. She had splashed
her way through countless underground pools in her search for a way
out. Sometimes the water came
up to her waist and once she even had to
swim. She kept moving against
the gentle breeze that blew through the caverns, but she was dog tired and
running out of energy. She needed
food, but there was none to be had in the lifeless underground
environment. She was also always
cold. Her efforts to find a way
out kept her warm, but her scant clothing never completely dried out and
just as she seemed to be getting comfortable she always came to another
subterranean pool.
“There’s got to be an end to
this,” she muttered. She
was talking to herself more and more.
Probably just to hear the sound of a human
voice. She came to the edge of
another pool. With any luck this
one would not be too deep. She
stepped gingerly into the water. It
was chillingly cold as usual, but only came up to her
knees. Quickly she started
across. Already she was shivering
from the effects of the cold water.
Suddenly she took a step and did not find
bottom. There was no gradual
change in depth.; it was as if she had stepped off
the edge of a cliff, and she plunged into water over her
head.
Spluttering and spitting, Melissa splashed
to the surface and struck out for what she hoped was the opposite
side. With luck the pool would
not be too far across. If it
was she would be in terrible danger, as exposure to the frigid water would
certainly drain the heat from her body.
She swam in what she hoped was a straight
line. One of the greatest fears
in these underground swims was that she would start to swim in circles and
never know she was doing it. If
she did she would drown or die from exposure before she ever hit the opposite
shore.
The swim seemed to go on forever, and Melissa
was almost completely exhausted when once again, to her overwhelming relief,
her foot touched bottom. Wading
ashore, she collapsed in the darkness and tried to catch her
breath. She knew that she could
not rest long. She had to keep
going to keep her blood circulating, but she was so
tired. Perhaps if she just closed
her eyes for a few moments…
Melissa’s eyes popped open with a
start. A thrill of fear ran through
her as she realized that she had almost fallen
asleep. Chilled as she was it
was very unlikely that she would ever have
awakened. She pushed herself
to her knees, and then realized what it was that had called her back from
the edge of sleep. It was the
sound of voices. Somewhere nearby
someone was talking. She could
hear them plainly.
Standing stock still, she tried to make out
what they were saying, but it was in a language that she did not
recognize. Without a further
thought, she started out in the direction of the voices, moving cautiously
as before, her hands waving in front of her to avoid underground
obstacles. After about ten minutes
of such walking she realized that she could make out gray forms in the
darkness. She could have wept
with relief.
Light! After hours off
wandering blind she could see once more.
The light gradually increased as she
continued. In a few minutes it
was so bright that she had to stop to allow her eyes to
adjust. In actual fact it was
still quite dim, but Melissa had been without light for so long that even
a small amount seemed dazzling. She
could now see that she was near the mouth of an enormous cave, beyond which
she could clearly make out the brilliant brightness of the blue
sky.
Controlling her urge to shriek with joy she
went more cautiously now. She
could still hear the voices and they were very
near. Discretion was called
for. There was no guarantee that
the speakers would be friendly.
She kept to the high side of the cave, as
the partial collapse of the roof of the cavern had provided more cover
there. Moving from boulder to
boulder in a crouched position, she was able to gain the cave entrance without
being seen. The warmth of the
sun on her shivering body felt heavenly, but the discovery of the origin
of the voices sent chills down her spine.
Several hundred feet away, on the other side of the cave entrance
were a half dozen of the most frightening creatures she had ever
seen.
At first appearance she thought they were
men, but a second look sent a shudder through
her. Their heads were not those
of humans but of dogs; and lean and vicious looking dogs at
that. Melissa rubbed her
eyes. Surely she must be
dreaming. She looked again and
a flash of light reflecting off his head as one of the “dog” men
moved made her feel like a fool.
“I’ve been in the frigging dark too long,” she
muttered. They were men after
all, but men wearing some fort of headgear resembling dogs’
heads. It was just as well that
she had not approached then openly, especially as each of the dog men was
armed with a long sharp spear.
Bending double, she moved from the cave into
the bright sunlight, rejoicing as its welcome warmth washed over
her. The dog men appeared to
be sentinels guarding the cave entrance, but they had bunched up, leaving
a great deal of ground unguarded.
Still, where there was one group of sentinels there might be more
and Melissa took no chances. She
continued to move from boulder to boulder until the guards were out of sight
and kept a lookout for other sentries as
well. Finally, when she was well
clear of the cave mouth she stopped to take stock of her new
environment.
She was no longer in a desert, but in a richly
watered valley. At least that
is what it appeared to be. Before
her stretched a valley several miles wide and of indeterminate
length. Everywhere there was
greenery. After the stark wasteland
of the
She was standing on the edge of a grove of
trees, but a quick investigation revealed no edible
fruit. However, farther on she
could see trees of a slightly different shape and
colour. Her stomach growling
in anticipation, Melissa moved toward what she hoped might be an
orchard. This time she was not
disappointed. In carefully cultivated
rows were hundreds of banana plants.
Her mouth watering in anticipation, Melissa entered the shade of the
giant Musa x paradisiacaMusa x
paradisiaca, otherwise know
as seedless
bananas.
To
her sheer delight some of them were ripe.
Quickly, she wrenched one of the succulent fruits from its bunch and
literally ripped off the skin with her
teeth.
A half dozen bananas later she began to slow
down. After being so long without
food she did not want to put too much of strain on her
system. Tearing off another half
dozen bananas, she headed back toward the grove of trees she had first
entered. Her belly bulging with
bananas, and warmed by the sun, she suddenly felt very
sleepy. It was not surprising
considering her ordeal in the caves.
She wondered how long she had wandered in the
dark. It might have been hours
or perhaps a day or more. However
long it had been she now felt exhausted.
She needed to sleep, but also needed to find a place where she would
not be discovered. There were
the dog men and someone had planted those
bananas. She wished now that
she had been alert enough not to scatter the peels all over the ground, but
she was too tired to go back and clean up the
evidence. Instead she headed
for a thick clump of trees.
It was just what she needed. Numerous dead leaves provided a resting place in a dense thicket that would shield her from casual observation. In addition, if anyone did come looking for her the sound of the vegetation being forced apart would alert her to the danger. Gather up some of the leaves into a thick pile she lay down. She was almost instantly asleep. As she drifted off she thought about Larra and the others. Tomorrow she would have to try and find them.
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