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Kinsa and his five companions stumbled
upon the two women quite by chance. They were on a raid to capture female
slaves and had been moving cautiously through the forest when the sound of
voices came to their ears.
They were in
Ansmara territory and it was best to be
cautious. The Ansmara were crude
barbarians but they could be dangerous in large numbers so it was best to
be watchful. And so the six raiders
melted back into the forest and waited.
After a minute it became obvious that the voices were not coming any
closer, but were emanating from one
place.
Kinsa signaled to his companions to remain behind while he scouted out the
situation. He crept down the
canyon toward the sound of female voices.
As he drew near he was able to determine that the language being spoken
was one that he had never heard.
The trail he was following opened out into a small
clearing. Peering through the
leaves of the dense undergrowth he was able to make out two strange women
setting up camp. He watched them
for quite a long time. Both women
were pale skinned. One of them
was a magnificent, golden-haired woman.
Although short by Kinsa’s standards, she was quite voluptuous,
and her gleaming hair was spectacularly
beautiful. The other woman
was about the same height, with long dark hair and a darker complexion, but
she too was beautifully proportioned.
Either woman would make a fine
addition to Kinsa’s tribe.
But more interesting from Kinsa’s point of view was the clothing that
the two women wore. In Kinsa’s
society it was the norm to go naked.
It made good sense in the hot and humid environment in which he and
his people lived. But these two
women were almost completely covered with some sort of
cloth. Even their heads were
covered.. Kinsa had never seen
anything like it. He had encountered
pale skinned people before, like the cannibalistic Ansmara but they always
went naked like the
Ullabomba,
which was what Kinsa and his people called
themselves.
What really amazed Kinsa was the amount of noise the two women
made. They chattered almost
constantly, as it there was no danger of discovery by any
enemy. Did they not understand
how dangerous it was to be caught alone in the part of the forest they were
visiting?
“Perhaps,” he thought, “They are just
foolish. But maybe they were
witches! Yes, that was a
possibility!”
He continued to observe them. The
dark-haired woman was taking something from a bag that she had been carrying
on her back. Kinsa could not
exactly see what it was, but suddenly there was a flash of fire and the woman
lit a small pile of wood she had
gathered. This was interesting
magic! The other woman was cutting
branches and building a crude shelter.
Most of the things the two women were doing were quite
routine, but Kinsa noticed that they carried an
assortment of strange devices with them
He guessed that these also had some magical purpose, but he was unable
to guess what it was. He watched
for a few minutes more, until it became apparent that the women were settling
down for the night, then silently he crept back to his waiting companions
and told them what he had seen.
The six men decided that the best plan of attack when dealing with such strange
adversaries was to take no chances.
They would wait until it was completely dark before dealing with the
two bizarre females. There would
be no moon tonight, and in the total darkness, Kinsa and his companions would
be almost undetectable.
Kinsa and his comrades had time to work out a safe plan while they waited
for complete darkness. They decided
that the best way to deal with the two women was to attack them from a distance
using the rope they had brought with them to bind the captives they had expected
to take. They would creep as
close as possible and then lasso the unsuspecting women before they had a
chance to react.
The plan worked even better than they had
hoped. When they approached the
camp they found that one of the women, the dark-haired
one, was
asleep. The other was tending
the fire, but Kinsa could tell from her posture that she was on the point
of dozing off, and so they waited a few minutes
more. Eventually, the golden-haired
woman’s head fell and she began to breathe
deeply. It was obvious that she
was no longer awake.
The six black warriors moved closer.
One of them, disturbed the brush as he moved, awakening the golden-haired
woman. It was time to
strike!
Kinsa threw his rope. It was
a perfect cast, settling over the golden-haired woman’s shoulders and
pinning her arms to her sides. She
arose with a shout, but a second rope thrown by Kinta dropped over her from
the other direction.
Almost instantly the lithe form of the dark-haired woman burst from the shelter,
but she did not see Kunda waiting for
her. As she dashed forward to
help her ensnared friend, Kunda struck her hard across the front of her legs
with the shaft of his spear. The
blow took her legs out from under her.
The dark-haired woman sprawled on the
ground. Before she could rise
Kunda finished her off with a blow to the back of her
head. After that, all of the
warriors closed in, and seizing the dazed and struggling females trussed
them up before they could recover.
“They might be witches,” shouted Kinsa triumphantly, but they are
our captives now!”
The two stunned women were roped
together. Kinsa and Kinta gathered
up the women’s possessions and then they marched them off into the
darkness.
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