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Carried along like a sack of potatoes, Jia
Li was transported for what seemed like
hours. Her diminutive captors
never stopped. Whenever one group
got tired of carrying her another took
over. Eventually, however, her
captors set her down. Still tangled
in the netting, Jia Li could do little more than try to look about
her.
She was in what appeared to be a typical African
village. All around her were
mud huts with thatched grass roofs.
There was nothing unusual about them except that they were built on
a scale that suited her captors.
She would have a hard time standing up in one of
them.
As the expedition carrying her entered the village, hundreds of shouting
women, children, and men swarmed about the returning
warriors. It was obvious that
Jia Li was considered a great prize simply from the numbers of villagers
that tried to touch her.
Fortunately, the net prevented any of them from becoming overly
familiar.
It was a different matter when she was set down,
however. The net was unraveled
and she was pulled from its folds.
Almost immediately dozens of hands reached out for her, but they got
a nasty surprise.
Jia Li was down, but she was not out.
Her weapons were gone, but she still had her martial arts
skills. With lightning speed
she struck out at those around her.
Bodies went flying in all
direction. Astounded, the crowd
fell back, but then like a human wave surged toward
her. Again and again her fists
and feet made contact, dropping one after the other of the surging villagers,
but there were simply too many of them.
With the same determination that had enabled them to capture her in
the first place they swarmed all over her, inundating her in a mass of
bodies. Sheer weight of numbers
bore her to the ground. Lengths
of rope were attached to each of her wrists and ankles, stretching her out
and preventing her from moving.
Then other pygmies moved in, and removed every item of her
clothing.
She was not stripped in a brutal manner.
Cloth seemed to be too valuable to these people for them to simply
tear it from her body. Instead
she was held immobile by the ropes attached to her body while a number of
women patiently removed everything she wore, even retying each arm and leg
so that her shirt, pants, and undergarments could be slipped off without
tearing or cutting them. She
soon found herself quite naked and staked out in the middle of the
village.
Jia Li had been led over to a pair of posts about eight feet tall that were
set in the ground about six feet apart.
Iron rings were attached to each post a foot from the top and a foot
from the bottom. The ropes attached
to her wrists and ankles were passed through these rings and fastened
securely. This left her spread-eagled
between the posts, her body in the shape of an
X. And there she stayed for the
rest of the day.
Deprived of food and water, the gorgeous Asian felt herself
weakening. Surely she had not
been captured simply to let her die of hunger and
thirst? It made no
sense.
It apparently made no sense to the pygmies
either. Near sundown a women
approached her carrying a basket filled with
fruit. Behind her was a boy carrying
a water-filled gourd.
By now, Jia Li was almost too weak to
stand. Only by using her arms
could she keep herself from sagging on the ropes, but her captors made no
effort to release her, preferring to have her eat and drink in her trussed
up position. The food and water
gave her strength, but she was still on the verge of collapse when she
finished.
She held up until after sundown, finally sagging against the
ropes. For another hour, her
captors let her hang there. Only
when it was quite obvious that she was too far-gone to offer any resistance
did anyone approach her. She
was not untied, but the ropes holding her wrists were loosened from the rings
so that she was able to sit on the
ground. They left her like that
all night, not bothering to even cover her with a
blanket. In addition, to make
sure she stayed put, additional ropes were tied about her neck and waist
and run through the bottom rings on the
post. Had she not been so exhausted
Jia Li might have tried to escape, but her weakened condition left her unable
to take advantage of the
situation.
Besides, four pygmies remained with her, keeping watch all
night. Seeing no chance of escape,
Jia Li closed her eyes and slept.
She awakened shivering. Although
not cold by the standards of more northerly regions, the night temperatures
dropped low enough to require some sort of blanket to keep
warm. Jia Li had been provided
with no such necessity and so was forced to endure the cold until the rising
sun put some warmth back in her body.
When the morning came she was in urgent need of some private
time. Her bladder was bursting
and she was also overcome by the urge to complete some even more personal
business. But she was to have
no relief from her bondage.
Instead, she was raised again to the spread-eagled position she had
occupied the previous day. It
was in this humiliating circumstance that she finally let her bladder and
bowels go. For the next few hours
she would stand there, surrounded by the stink of her own bodily
functions.
She was given food and water again, but no relief from her brutal
bondage. Eventually she collapsed
as she had before, and hung suspended by the bonds that held her
arms.
Now she had to endure a further trial.
She was completely exposed to the hot
sun. She had been glad of its
rays in the cool of the morning, but now she was
baking. She could feel her skin
blistering under its intense radiation.
If she did not get some relief soon, she would suffer sunstroke or
worse.
Overheated, degraded, and exhausted, she was hardly aware of the commotion
as the strange black man approached her.
Sir Archibald looked at the splendid Asian woman slumped in the ropes before
him. “Yes,” he said
to the tiny man beside him, “you have done well, but you have brutally
misused her.”
“Yes, my lord,” replied the pygmy, “but she is a
devil. She killed several of
my best warriors with a magic thunderbolt, and then injured many more with
her fists and feet. We dared
not let her loose.”
“And so you have almost killed her,” said
Archibald. “That will lower
her value.”
The little man beckoned to several of his
warriors. “Release the demon,
and see that she is given food and
water.”
“Yes, oh Chief,” the warriors
replied. With some trepidation
they moved to cut Jia Li down.
Archibald moved in for a better look.
He had never seen a woman like this one
before. She was pale-skinned,
but not completely white. And
very tall. He guessed about
five-foot-eight. Her physique
was remarkable. He had never
seen a more perfect body. She
had the muscle tone of a warrior and the face of some exotic
goddess. High perfect breasts
the size of small melons enhanced her tiny waist and flaring
hips. Her long legs flowed from
an exquisite bottom that was tiny but
muscular. But it was her
heart-shaped face that was most
remarkable. Her eyes were bright
green almonds, set in high cheekbones above a pert nose and a beautiful rosebud
mouth. Even the terrible hardships
she had obviously endured could not disguise the fact that she was the most
beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“Is she worth the price, Lord?” asked the little
chief. “I’m sure that
her injuries are slight and can be
cured.”
“Yes,” said Archibald. He
was a fair man. “I will
give you her weight in iron.”
“Oh thank you, Lord,” said the
chief. His people had no knowledge
of metal working and depended on trade with Archibald and his tribe in order
to obtain iron for their tools and
weapons. Without this trade they
would be reduced to a Stone Age society.
Jia Li was aroused from her semi-unconscious state by the activity about
her. She opened her eyes to see
a strange black warrior standing in front of
her. Or rather brown warrior,
as his skin was considerably lighter than that of the black people who had
taken her prisoner.
The brown-skinned warrior was tall and oddly dressed for an
African. His head was bare, but
his upper body was clad in a shining chain mail
jerkin. A long sword was belted
around his waist, and a spear was strapped to his
back. Behind him were several
other tall warriors dressed in a similar fashion and behind them were several
horses.
It was all very peculiar, but Jia Li was glad to simply be released from
her painful bondage. As the ropes
were removed from her wrists and ankles, the blood flowed back into her hands
and feet, bringing with it a sensation of great
pain. She could not
stand. She was too far-gone for
that, and so she was carried into the shade of one of the huts by a half
dozen of the tiny warriors who had taken her
prisoner.
In the shade of the hut, she was given water and attention was paid to her
sunburned body. The diminutive
women of the tribe smeared a sweet smelling ointment over
her. Almost immediately the pain
of her burns diminished.
Jia Li ate what she could and drank all of the water given to
her. Then, overcome by her ordeal,
her eyes closed and she fell asleep.
When she awoke it was night. This
time she found that she was covered by a crude blanket and lying on a straw
filled pallet. Her clothes were
lying in a neatly folded heap next to
her. She was also under guard,
but this time not by the pygmy-like people who had captured
her. A brown warrior sat watching
her only a few feet away. She
made no move to escape. She was
still too exhausted for that. She
did, however, get dressed, and then worn out from the
effort, she closed her eyes and slept soundly until
morning.
When dawn broke, Jia Li felt much better.
She sat up and looked about her.
That was when she discovered that an iron collar had been placed about
her neck. Attached to it was
a crude padlock and attached to the padlock was an iron
chain. On the other end of the
chain was the tall brown warrior she had first seen the previous
day.
The warrior said something, but Jia Li did not
understand. She shook her head,
signifying a lack of comprehension.
Then something clicked. She
recognized some of the words. With
a certain degree of shock Jia Li realized that the man was speaking English,
but it was a form of English that she was not familiar
with.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“And where am I?’
For a second the man looked as puzzled as she had
been. Then he smiled in
comprehension. “I am Sir
Archibald,” he said, “a knight of the
realm. And this is the
“What,” wondered Jia Li, “have
I gotten into this time?”
“You seem well enough to travel,” Archibald
said. “Fortunately, you
will not have to walk.” He
gestured to a man behind him and the man approached leading a brown
mare.
He helped Jia Li to mount the horse, as she was still a little debilitated
from her previous ordeal. A heavy
high-backed saddle was strapped to the back of the
horse. Once she was up and holding
on, Archibald locked the end of the chain he was holding to a ring set into
the leather of the saddle. Then
he mounted his own horse, a huge black stallion, and taking the reins of
her mount, led her out of the village.
Jia Li glanced behind her as the village
disappeared. This new form of
captivity seemed preferable to the first, but how long would she feel that
way? As the procession wound
its way through the forest, she wondered what the future had in store for
her.
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