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A very tired Sir Archibald staggered through
the forest. He had nearly drowned
when he and Jia Li had dropped into the
river. Fortunately, he had removed
his chain mail armor before plunging into the river or else he would have
gone straight to the bottom. He
had only managed to save himself from the rushing water when good fortune
had swept him near to the bank and he had been able to grab hold of a tree
root. But he had not eaten for
hours and was almost at the end of his
strength. Even worse, he had
no idea where Jia Li was. It
was quite possible that she had been swept to her death in the cold water
of the river. That was a thought
he did not want to contemplate.
He sat down under the tree. He
would stop and rest awhile. There
was one thing in his favour. He
knew where he was. He had ridden
down this trail many times on various missions for the
king. He estimated that he was
no more than a few hours from New Wessex.
Suddenly a noise up the trail disturbed his
reverie. He scrambled to his
feet and moved into the trees. He
could distinctly hear the sound of two
voices.
Women’s
voices. He peeked out
between the leaves of the bush that concealed him and his eyes
widened. Walking toward him was
an extraordinarily beautiful woman.
She had the whitest skin and the most beautiful golden blonde hair
he had ever seen. Even more
incredible was the fact that she was dressed in what appeared to be strips
of leaves tied together with bits of
vine. His eyes widened even more
when he saw who walked next to her.
It was a girl in her late teens, dressed in similar
attire. Without further ado,
Sir Archibald stepped into the forest
path.
“Princess Marilyn,” he said bowing from the waist, “we feared
you had been lost.”
Both women started at his sudden
appearance. The blonde beauty
took up what could only be considered a defensive stance, pushing the girl
behind her. For a few seconds
the girl merely stared at him uncomprehending, and then she
smiled. “Sir Archibald!”
she exclaimed. She was clearly
surprised at his disheveled appearance.
“I was attacked by the Ullabomba, my lady,” he explained, “and
lost my horse and armor.”
Marilyn suddenly realized that the knight was staring at Katie with intense
interest, and that her new friend, had still not
completely relaxed her guard.
“This is my friend, Princess Katie.
She is a great warrior and
heroine. If not for her I would
have been murdered by the ape people.
I owe her my life.”
Sir Archibald bowed low before Katie.
“My Lady,” he said, “I am at your
service.”
The three of them walked together. Marilyn was returning to New Wessex, and
since Archibald had no idea where to find Jia Li, he went with
them. In any case, he needed
to re-equip himself before continuing.
As they walked, they exchanged information, Marilyn telling of her
rescue by Katie. Archibald’s
estimation of Marilyn’s companion
grew. There was more to this
blonde goddess than just beauty.
Then he told his story.
“Jia Li,” Katie interrupted.
“You were with Jia Li?”
“I regret to say that I bought her as a slave,” Archibald
replied. Then seeing Katie’s
face darken with anger, he quickly added: “But I soon released
her. I have never met a woman
like her. She was one of the
greatest warriors I have ever met.
I was honoured to be with
her.”
After that Katie seemed to relax and let him finish his
story. Archibald omitted only
his moments of passion with the Chinese
girl. When he was finished, Katie
looked at him curiously, almost as if she knew that he was holding something
back, but she said nothing.
“How long until
we reach New Wessex, sir
knight?” Katie asked at
length.
“We should be there in only about two hours my lady, provided we do
not meet up with trouble on the
road.” As if to emphasize
his last statement, he stopped, looking intently in the direction they were
going.
Katie heard it too. It was the
sound of horses. Quickly the
three of them stepped off the
road. Around the bend and
through the trees came a party on horseback; one man and four
women. Sir Archibald and Marilyn
ducked down. Katie stepped into
the middle of the trail.
“Amy, Steiner,” she
cried. “Am I glad to see
you. Do
you have any proper clothing?”
The party on horseback pulled up.
For a few seconds her friends just stared at her, not recognizing
the half-naked strangely dressed woman in front of
them. Then they smiled, and leapt
from the saddles, running to greet her.
“Katie,” shouted Amy giving her a big
hug. “Looks like you have
a story to tell.”
“And you too,” replied the blonde, as she looked at the three girls
accompanying Amy and Steiner. At
that point, Archibald and Marilyn stepped from the forest, having judged
it safe to do so.
“This just gets stranger and stranger,” said
Amy. “Now who are these
people?”
It took awhile to sort things out.
Amy and Steiner told their story, although Steiner failed to describe
his extra-curricular activity with Princess Clarissa and her ladies in
waiting. Katie in return told
of her adventures, while omitting the details of her rape by the ape
king.
While they talked, they kept moving, Amy and Steiner not wanting to remain
any closer to New Wessex than they had
to. Eventually, however, it became
clear that Princess Marilyn had no wish to escape from her
homeland. She was, after all,
the daughter of the king. Amy
and Steiner explained their predicament to the young
princess. Finally it was agreed
that they would escort her back to within sight of the
castle. Strangely enough, Sir
Archibald did not seem interested in joining Marilyn, but instead made it
clear that he wished to go with Amy and
Steiner. They wondered at this,
but all they could get out of the knight was that he was pledged to protect
Jia Li and had to help find her.
Since he seemed be a man of honour, they agreed to this once Marilyn
was seen safely back.
It turned out that they did not have to go all the way back to where they
could see the castle. As Amy
and Steiner had feared, a large party of knights met them only a short way
down the road. King Hugo himself
led the troop of over a hundred horsemen.
For awhile Amy and Steiner feared that they would have to resort to
shooting the king and a few of his knights, but that turned out to be
unnecessary. When the king discovered
that his daughter had been recovered from her captivity with the apes, and
that a strange white woman was responsible for her rescue, he changed his
attitude toward the strangers. He
could hardly make war on people who had just saved his daughter from a horrible
death.
So it was, that after an impromptu celebration,
Amy, Steiner, Katie, Sir Archibald, and the three girls continued their
journey. Marilyn went home with
her father and his knights.
And
meanwhile…
Larra, Jia Li, and Grey watched the German camp from the safety of the
trees. “Looks like German
ingenuity has triumphed once again,” said
Larra. Before her the enormous
cigar shape of the Ludendorff hung over the
trees. It appeared completely
undamaged. Below and in front
of the giant airship was a short airstrip that the Germans had cleared in
the forest. Parked on it were
several transport planes and lined along the side of the runway were a collection
of gas cylinders. The Germans
had found a way to re-supply the dirigible with a new supply of
hydrogen.
“It appears that the expedition that captured you is still on the move
somewhere,” Larra said to Grey and Jia
Li. “I suspect it is heading
for the Ullabomba city. However,
that means that there are not many men left with the
Zeppelin. At
least, not as many as before.
We might be able to take advantage of
that. Here is what I want to
do…”
Kranmer paced back and forth on the command deck of the
Ludendorff. He was uncertain
of what to do. Diels and his
expedition had been gone several days now and he had heard nothing of
him. He had a vague idea of where
he was heading, but it would probably be almost impossible to find him in
the dense rainforest. He had
no choice but to sit and wait, and hope that the wayward Gestapo officer
would either return or send word of where he
was.
He looked toward the horizon and the setting
sun. In a few minutes the swift
tropical night would descend upon them.
It was time to see to the posting of the
guards. He should have been able
to trust this job to one of his junior officers, but after the way that British
bitch had escaped, and the way she had broken into his camp, he had decided
to look after the job himself.
He strode to the exit door. A
wooden stairway had been rigged up to made entrance to and exit from the
gondola easy. It was thirty steps
to the ground. He called for
Leutnant Wesser. “Have the
guards been posted yet, Leutnant?”
“Yes, Herr Hauptmann. They
are all in position.”
“We will see.” Kranmer
set out on his nightly tour of the camp.
It took him half an hour. By
the time he returned to the Lundendorff, it was completely
dark. Climbing the stairs, he
entered the gondola. It was only
dimly lit in order to conserve fuel.
There was no telling how long it might be before he received word
from Diels. If
ever. It was entirely
likely that the expedition had run into some
misfortune. He had decided to
give Diels another week, and then he would shift the
Ludendorff. He would leave a
message in the camp and return in a week to check for Diels if he was not
found.
Kranmer stopped just inside the entrance to the
gondola. Something was not
right. Where were the guards
that should have been in the gondola?
He opened his mouth to call for Wesser and then froze as a powerful
hand was clamped over his mouth and cold steel pricked his
throat.
“Not yet, Hauptmann,
not yet.” It was the voice
of
Kranmer nodded. The calm, deadly
tone of Larra’s voice filled him with
dread. He stood absolutely still
as his arms were forced behind him and lashed
together. In the darkened cabin
he could not see how many people were in the room, but he knew there were
at least three. The powerful
man holding him, the British bitch, and a third person he had not yet seen,
but who had bound his hands behind him.
He was pulled into the centre of the
room. Now he could see what had
become of the three sentries who were supposed to be guarding the
gondola. One of them lay in a
pool of blood near the wall. The
other two were bound and gagged and lying near the stairway to the passenger
compartment.
“Listen carefully, Hauptmann,” said Larra
in perfect German. “I am
not going to repeat this and any deviation from the instructions I am going
to give you will result in your death.”
“In one minute Mr. Grey is going to escort you to the
door. Once there you will begin
to call in members of your expedition, one person at a
time. If you miss anyone or attempt
to warn any of them you will be killed.
Do you understand?’
Kranmer nodded. “Yes,”
he said weakly.
“Alright, we will begin. Start
with your senior officers and NCOs.”
Grey marched Kranmer to the door.
Too terrified to do anything but comply, he carried out Larra’s
instruction to the letter.
In half an hour very man in the camp lay on the
floor of the gondola, tied hand and
foot.
“Now,” said Larra.
“I understand this vehicle is
airworthy. You are going to pilot
it and we will be the crew. I
am going to send six of your men back out to release the mooring
lines. If they do their job properly,
we may return for them. If not
they will be left in the forest to
die.”
Larra smiled as the Ludendorff rose above the trees. Just prior to departure
Larra had exited the ship and disabled the transport aircraft along the airstrip.
Once they had started the dirigible's engines and gotten airborne, Jia Li
had untied the captured Germans one at a time and forced them to slide down
one of the mooring ropes. They kept just enough of the crew on board to operate
the huge airship, but got rid of all the
soldiers. Some of the men had
not been too keen on sliding down a rope into the darkness below, but faced
with the alternative of being thrown out the door by Grey, they had all
cooperated.
Running the airship at low speed, Larra had Kranmer pilot it in the direction
of the Ullabomba capital. It
was a bit hit or miss in the dark, so no real attempt was made to reach it
at night, instead the engines were turned over at low speed and the Ludendorff
moved at a speed of only one or two miles an hour over the
rainforest. In the morning they
could begin the search for the city in
earnest.
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