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FOUNDLING: SAUDI DESERT ADVENTURE [ part 57 ] As the ship landed and it's belly unfolded, the medical staff began loading the last of the students. Other school staff began unloading boxes, bales and bags, piling them up on a colorful rug they had laid first. Last came a small herd of goats and sheep, which promptly dispersed in all directions. "We will meet again Bernard, I hope under more favorable circumstances" Sister A said a shaking his hand. "I for one certainly hope so" Bernard replied. "But this adventure at least removed a great weight from my mind" He continued looking at Pet and her companion as they walked up into the strange ship. Those twelve flickering shadows came and went at the corner of his eyes indicating her Valkyrie were also departing with her. The ship then folded petal like into its self and was gone. "These Americans have quite wondrous technology" His senior warrior noted. "But we seem to get along quite well without it" "I agree" Bernard replied. And the two walked back to were the rest of the Saudi Desert Patrol he commanded were sitting around a huge campfire.
Contraband "We are in for it when they discover we are missing" Pilar said as four white enshrouded shapes stood up out of the pile of newly delivered supplies. "But we are almost fully recovered from the desert ordeal and Barbie will need us on the trip home" Mritah replied. "And that does not bother you?" Elisha inquired. "That we are playing hooky and will be punished severally when we finally return, or we recovered so fast, when everyone else are still bed ridden?" Ever practical Nestra inquired. "Never mind" Elisha sighed. "You four, get hauling those supplies into the new cooking tent we just setup" Becky Sue ordered, and without replying the four juniors jumped to the task assigned by the senior girl. The fact she did not blink an eye at seeing them did not occur to Elisha until they were hard at it. But when they were lugging bags past her a few minutes later saw her holding her PDF and tapping away at the tiny keyboard with her stylus. Of course the ever-watchful school security had quickly discovered their flight and correctly guessed their destination. The school sent the information to the senior girls PDF, indicating their arrival, ordering Becky Sue to handle their disposition. "Sister A sends her greetings" Becky Sue smiled on their next trip. "And has already put aside a place for your miscreant naked forms to hang by their wrists, ready for her whip upon your return" "Something to look forward to if we survive this heavy labor" Pilar frowned as she put a heavy satchel down. It took over an hour for the four girls to haul the newly arrived supplies to the tent were a very tired Barbie assisted by Cindy were trying to get organized. "Anyone know how to handle a small herd of goats and sheep?" Becky Sue inquired, as she arranged the boxes and bales by what each contains as the four went back for another trip. "I will give it a try" Cindy informed them and walked out of the tent. "I hope a few will survive her attempt" Barbie injected. As they processed flour and a touch of yeast into ready mixed measured amounts into zip lock bags, the sudden bleating of a goat came to their ears. "One down" Barbie snickered. They had processed the flour and checked the quality of the dried fruits were Cindy walked in dragging a dead goat behind her. "I just had to make an example and the rest fell into line" Cindy informed the surprised girls, excluding Barbie of course. Nestra walked over to where the goat's body lay; her eyes flew wide, seeing its neck had been literally torn out. She looked at the apparently very normal Cindy as she hauled the dead animal outside. But Cindy only smiled back ever so innocently. Which had the desired effect of annoying her very much. "Start a large fire and then dig a hole for the coals" Becky Sue ordered handing four juniors a folded entrenching shovel each. They looked at each other, knowing they would be doing the heavy labor jobs for the next while. A single day hanging by their wrist in the school gym, and a lunchtime switching. Were going to seem gentler punishment than the week or more of hard labor Becky had been instructed to subject them to during the camel riding trip back to the caravans starting point. Barbie and Cindy were busy mixing and cooking flat bread while Becky Sue worked on a salad, nuts and dates, too busy to paying attention to the workings of the juniors. Who with a great deal of effort finally got a great fire going and a substantial hole dug. "Do you smell something burning?" Cindy inquired. "Besides your flat bread?" Barbie replied. "Those idiots set the fire up wind of our tent" Becky Sue said jumping up and running outside. Sure enough, embers from the fire had started a guy rope smoldering, but handfuls of sand soon had it out. A few of the warriors strode up to see what the fuss was about, stood their and smiled as the females rushed about in haste dousing tiny smoldering bits of rope or tent. But actually seeing there was no real danger of setting either the camp or their own tent on fire walked off. "Well we certainly made quite a fool of ourselves with that trick" Pilar stated. "This is what we will do to make them forget it" Barbie said, pulling the four to were Cindy and Becky Sue stood, and started giving orders.
A leader of Warriors due Bernard sat at the head of a crescent of his proud desert warriors, running the nights events through his mind. After two weeks of sedentary rest, tomorrow they would head back to their home base. Just then a murmur from his men lifted his head up to see a diminutive form enshrouded in white approach holding a great tray over her head. She walked around the fire, knelt presenting the tray of sweets to him. In the background, unknown Arabic musicians began to play and a taller shape, also enshrouded in white walked around the fire and stood before him. He reached out to take a portion of the Hoshab; a mix of chopped bananas, figs and raisins, seeped in honey. The taller girl dropped her robe to reveal a gorgeous blond beauty in harem silks. As he looked up to place this delicacy in his mouth, the late teenage girl began to dance, tiny bells on her costume at sensuous hip and slim ankle keeping rhythm with the music. A sigh escaped the lips of his men as the dancer bobbed and weaves to the music around the campfire. This one had the skill to entice a response from a rock, and it was growing obvious her dance, though it was seen by all, was focussed on him. "This is my elder soul mate Becky Sue's way of thanking you" Barbie whispered to Bernard as she knelt before him. Another shrouded form was making her way around the crescent of men, offering each in turn a choice from the tray she carried. "She is fabulous" Bernard whispered back. "Wait until you bed her" Barbie replied. "She is as adept on her back as she is on her feet, especially if you punish her first" "Punish her first?" He inquired. "We sex slaves perform better after a thrashing" She continued. "Sex slaves?" He quizzically replied. "I thought you attended a strict finishing school" "Yes, a finishing school to turn girls into sex slaves for the powerful wealthy" Barbie said. With a resounding crescendo from the musicians, the dancer leapt over the fire, landing supine before the warrior's leader. "Show off" Chortled Barbie to Becky Sue panting beside her. "You stole that fire jumping ending from Foundlings pet Melissa" "But they don't know that" Becky Sue replied, sweat drenched face pressed into her heaving thirty-six plus bosom. "I told him you perform better in bed after a good flogging" Barbie continued. "I will thank you properly when I get my hands on you later" Becky threatened. "Then Bernard reached down and pulled Becky's chin up. "Await me in my tent" He ordered in Arabic. His men smiled knowingly and exchanged a few words as the beautiful dancer retrieved her enveloping attire and walked out of the firelight. Then two more females in white Burka came offering hot sweet tea and small pieces of deep fried fish served in red pepper sauce. Another pair brought flat bread and salads. "They just might not want to let you all go" Bernard whispered to Barbie, as he leaned towards her choosing a piece of flat bread and scooping more of the sweet mix up with it. "We have been rescued from worse before" Barbie whispered back. "Did not our Mistress reveal her Valkyrie to you?" "Yes, but I only saw one, and maybe a dozen other flickering shapes" He replied. "They were the ones who killed all the one hundred professional bodyguards of that Bahrain Prince earlier this year to rescue only two of her students" Barbie informed him. The silence that followed indicating he knew his few were severely outmatched.
A Night of living Nightmare A few minutes later, Bernard rose and with a swirl of his cape, and huzzah's from his men as he passed, was gone to claim his prize. Barbie rose right after him, circling to his right, offering to his men in descending succession of rank, what he had left on the great platter she had brought out and served to him personally. When she had passed all the way around, she bowed and backed out of the crescent of warriors. Minutes later, they too began to breakup and head for their tents. Except the two who held the first shift of the night watch. By the time Barbie had retreated to the cooking tent, the rest had cleaned up all the cookware except for her prize fry pan. Even Cindy would not risk Barbie's wrath by daring to touch it. Barbie sat, in the lotus position carefully cleaning it with clean sand and then wiping it with a soft cloth damped with some of her own water ration, before slipping it back into its leather backpack. "Who carved hose symbols on your backpack" Elisha asked in a wondering tone. "Do you know what they mean?" "The caveman who rescued us carved them into my backpack with his fingernail when he returned it to me outside the Gargoyle's realm" Barbie replied. "I do not know what they mean, thought" "The first is that you are under his protection" She replied wonderingly. "The second means anywhere, and the third he indicates you will both be around forever" "Comforting, considering how formidable the Gargoyle was" Barbie said. "You must tell me of this adventure you experienced without your soul mate, especially of the Gargoyle" Cindy asked. "That nightmare tale will be easier to tell in the light of day" Barbie replied. Within the hour all the girls except Becky Sue were bedded down around the damped down to coals fire. A very body sore Becky Sue making her way back to their tent around four hours later. Bernard had taken Barbie's advice and strung Becky up by her wrists from his tent pole and delivered a full body thrashing with his ever-present horsewhip before staking her out for a really good fucking. Then he had released her and spent the next two hours just talking to her before actually just seducing her as any normal date might. The first part of her night had gone as innumerable others had before. A little BD/SM followed by, on her part at least, submissive sex. It was the next part that had her puzzled. No one had every just sat her down unbound and just talked to her. No one had ever asked her about her past life or how she arrived at her present life, then listened to her tale of torture and abuse under her uncle's hand. Actually at her school it was a student body rule among themselves that girls were forbidden from inquiring into a fellow students past unless she volunteered it. Many choose never to do so. And when he started to seduce her as if she actually had a choice whether to submit to sex with him, well she simply had no experience in that style of sex at all. Bernard seemed to understand; wordlessly guiding her through with gentle hands and soft caresses leading to the first climax she had ever had unbound in her life. She had actually kissed him on the lips as they parted something she had never voluntarily done with someone she had sex with in her entire life before. Just as Becky arrived at her tent an inhuman scream, mixed with a human one came from behind her. Then the sound of a gun on automatic fire followed by another human scream. A frightened Becky literally dove into her tent as an arc of bullet impacts hit its upper peak. "And here I thought you were really good in bed" Barbie joked, she always did when terrified, as they huddled together. "But it appears you really pissed him off enough for him to try and kill us all" "I am holding myself back from strangling the life out of you for telling him I perform better after a good whipping already, Barbie dearest, so just shut up already" Becky Sue told her as scrams and gunfire erupted all around them. Elise was saying. "I think we should get out of here!" When suddenly the bloodied body of one of the Arabic warriors was hurtled into their tent, landing just in front of them. The girls screamed and bolted from the tent when they saw the badly torn up headless corpse. "The Gargoyle has tracked me here," A now almost frantic Barbie cried out. "Run away from the gunfire" Becky Sue ordered and herded the terrified younger girls ahead of her towards the lines of hobbled camels. "You four get saddling them up" She told the Arabic girls, and reached out to grab a frenzied Barbie as she started to run back towards their tent screaming. "Were is Cindy?" Barbie tried to break away but Becky Sue's grip was iron as she lifted her up by her Bhurka. "I am as immortal, self-repairing and was always already physically stronger than you, Barbie dear" She told her. "So calm down and apply that incredibly intelligent brain you were genetically given" "The Gargoyle can see in the dark as well as we can in the daylight" Barbie said, calming down. "If we set tents alight it will confuse her" "Then do it to the ones right behind us" Becky Sue ordered her. Barbie ran into the first tent and pulled down the main tent pole, kicking the coals of the heating fire around on the collapsing tent as she exited. As the one behind burst into flame she ran to the next, repeating the dump and spread routine through four tents before she thought enough were ablaze to spread to the rest. It was then she saw in the almost daylight the white enshrouded form lying halfway between her and the camels. Standing with its back to her was the black terror of the Gargoyle with Cindy in wolfen form darting in and out trying to keep it at bay. Barbie started forward, but realized she had no weapon, and rushed back to their nearby tent, retrieving the machinegun from the headless corpse and after fumbling with the release, swapped the back to back magazine for one from the leather pouch he had been wearing with it. Hauling both heavy items back towards the Gargoyle. Cindy was still holding the Gargoyle at bay, but a great wound on her left shoulder indicated she was loosing the combat. Barbie wondered were the Arabic warriors were until four shapes in white came forward each from a different direction waving nothing more than torches as they advanced towards the Gargoyle. In the light of the blazing tents, Barbie saw the great rents in its wings, and it still limping and favoring its arm damaged from its previous battles with them. "Here I am" Yelled Barbie, holding the machinegun behind her. The Gargoyle turned in an instant and walked purposefully back towards Barbie. Seeing her possible death coming straight for her, Barbie stood her ground, knowing the closer it got to her the further it got from the body of Becky Sue and the already badly hurt Cindy. "This appears to be our triumvirates last stand," Barbie said to herself. `Certainly a much sooner one than I expected" When the horror was within grabbing distance with those razor sharp claws, Barbie withdrew the gun from behind her back and aiming it at the Gargoyles snarling face and pulled the trigger. The gun went off in full automatic, most of the magazine going into the direction of Gargoyles head and face, but the recoil popped it out of Barbie's control and the fore stock bounced up striking Barbie right in the middle of the forehead, knocking her out cold.
Now the fun begins Something cold on her forehead brought Barbie back to consciousness. And she immediately wished it had not. Her head hurt her shoulder and back hurt as well as her ass, the rest she could not even feel. Barbie opened her eyes to see Mritah's worried face looking down at her. "It is very gratifying to see you are back with us" Bernard's voice came from out of her sight. None of the rest of these girls appears to be able to cook as well as you" "So I was just brought back from the dead because I am the only one who can cook?" A still half-awake Barbie inquired. "Well it was not for your satirical whit, nor under developed body" Becky Sue's voice informed her. "Or newly developed suicidal tendency to take on monsters all alone" Cindy's came from her other side. "Your both alive!" Barbie croaked, attempting to roll over and crawl towards Cindy's voice, but found her body would not move. "Your entire body is mummified in an attempt to get you to lie still while it heals" Elisha's voice told her. "How many of us are left?" She inquired. Six of my men, all badly cut up, the four Arabic girls, only slightly so, Becky Sue and Cindy wrapped up and as in as bad condition as you" Bernard informed her. "And you?" Barbie inquired. "It will be a long time before I can use my left arm as the Gargoyle threw me at my men when I climbed up on her back" Bernard replied. "He is blind" Mritah whispered to Barbie. "And the Gargoyle" She finally asked. "Gone into the desert" Cindy told her. After you filled is upper body and head with bullets at close range and the fires had half the tents ablaze. Its night vision was useless" "We saw it crawling back towards its domain" Pilar said. "And thought about going after it, but everybody else was either dead or badly hurt" "Can you at least sit me up" Barbie pleaded. Pilar and Nestra propped Barbie up with a pile of saddlebags, and went around doing the same to the rest of the invalids. Barbie saw Cindy propped up to her left and Becky to her right. Across the tent Bernard was sitting up drinking from a tin cup and beyond him Elisha and Mritah were administering to the supine forms of his men. "What about calling for help?" Barbie asked. "My PDF was destroyed when the Gargoyle tried to stomp me into the sand" Becky Sue informed her." And Cindy's went up in flames with our sleeping tent" "We were not issued one yet," Elisha said before anyone could ask. "And our radio's will not work this far into the great dead quarter" Bernard added. "But if you want some good news" Elisha said to Barbie. " This probably saved your life" She held up the tattered remnant of her leather backpack Barbie kept her prize frying pan in. Its copper bottom showing through great rents. "The Gargoyle actually got a grip on you as you fired" Cindy told her. "Fortunately, with the flames behind you blinding its night vision, its claws gripped your backpack instead of your body" "Why did it let the prize it came so far, and risked so much to claim, go?" Barbie softly inquired. "Because a great wolf was gnawing at the back of its head" Cindy as softly replied. " I simply refuse to share you with anyone, my lifelong soul mate" "What of me?" Becky inquired. "I'm not about to share you either, big sister" Cindy laughed. "I was hurt defending your body from the Gargoyle, first remember" "All for one and one for all" Bernard interdicted. And everyone that could laughed. "We have gathered everything left in this tent" Elisha informed the rest. Most of the newly delivered food and supplies survived in the heavier cooking tent. I guess it was made from non-flammable materials" "Twenty of the camels, are still hobbled in the lines and more are attracted back to the waterhole every day" Pilar reported. "How long before we can leave, then?" Becky Sue asked. "We can be gone in a week" Elisha suggested. "Every night we remain" Bernard informed them. "The Gargoyle may return, we must go as soon as we can. We are down to ten serviceable AK 47's but still have plenty of ammunition for them. "Five days" Elisha suggested. "We will leave three mornings from now" Becky Sue ordered in a tone very reminiscent of Sister A. "Yes mistress" The four Arabic students bowed towards her and meekly replied. That night Becky Sue ordered the Arabic girls to release her from the wrappings and perch her up on a pile of saddlebags right in front of the tent with one of the warriors still functioning AK47's and a bag of full magazines. Another of the Arabic girls in turn patrolled around the tent in two-hour shifts similarly armed. Bernard strongly protested, but Becky Sue was in charge as far as the junior students were concerned, and Barbie and Cindy slept most of the time anyway. So he mollified his male ego by filling every magazine the only four ambulatory survivors could find in the field of battle that their tent lines had become last night. It was the next night, sometime just before dawn when the Gargoyle returned. It had at first inadvertently come across a camel stumbling around in the dark on that first night, absorbing its life force. A little recharged, it had stalked every other camel that was wandering around, or moving back towards the watering hole. It was not instantly self-repairing, that would take years, but was now at least no longer tired or hungry. But it was in great pain from last night's firefight, nearly blind from Barbie's close range fire, and quite insane. Becky Sue, almost dozing off, thought she saw something moving towards the debris field of the warrior's camp. Her elder had tasked Barbie's genetically supercharged brain with a problem of defense, and it had come up with stringing the bells from Becky Sue's costume on trip lines all around their tent, a hundred meters out into the surrounding remainders of the warriors tents. The sounds of her tinkling bells jarred her fully awake. It would be a few minutes before Nestra would arrive around the edge of the tent on her rounds so Becky Sue braced herself and fired towards the sounds of her bells. Abandoning her stealth approach, the Gargoyle's mind went right over the edge and simply crouched low on all four limbs and charged directly towards the direction of the incoming fire. One from off to her left and suddenly eight more weapons spat fire from under the tents lower edge joined it. Even wounded men and late teenaged, barely trained girls can still fire their weapons prone. But she dodged and weaved in the darkness, closing all the time until she loomed upright before Becky Sue, brushed her aside with the swipe of her right arm, and charged into the tent. With swipes of its long talon hands, it scattered like chaff before a windstorm, the four Arabic girls, and Cindy who rushed up guns blazing. At close range the Gargoyle was death incarnate. But as a now unwrapped Barbie standing propped up against the tent pole again saw her death approaching, a great shape thrust itself up from the sand in front of her. The hairy, Troglodyte, sand steaming from its body struck out with a great wooden club right between the red eyes of the Gargoyle, splitting its skull asunder, and kept pounding on it as the monster first slumped to its knees and then facedown at Barbie's feet. A great bellow came from its lungs; arms raised in the human sign of victory of a deadly foe as it stood astride its body. Then it stepped down, reached out and replaced the bronze charm on its bronze chain around her neck, kissed Barbie on the forehead and was gone. "He used you as bate for the Gargoyle" Bernard quietly said as a battered Pilar wrapped yet another strip of bandage around Cindy's head. "I set him up" Replied Barbie. "When I faced her the first time, knew that I had to set myself up as bait and hope he would get himself into position" "Then it was your idea all along to have us all set up in this tent as bate?" Bernard inquired. "No, we would not let her stake herself out as bait alone" Cindy and Becky Sue both replied." We ordered Elisha and the others to take you back, but they rebelled at leaving us alone" "She argued for all of us to ride out and leave her, but we would not leave our triumvirate sister alone" Becky Sue informed him. "Sister A would not have been amused if we had arrived back without her favorite miscreant student" "We will have to take its head back or no one will every believe us" Bernard said. We are still alive? Stench from the clouds of gun smoke filled the tent and groans came from everywhere. “We are still alive?” Nestra’s voice inquired. “As your body is pinning me over this very hard box and I can feel its corners sticking into my ribs, I would say yes” Pilar answered. ”Get off me” “Cindy?, Becky Sue? Barbie’s voice rang out. “Here my soul mate” Cindy’s voice came from behind her. “I now understand why Sister A calls you a danger magnet” Becky Sue added as she crawled back into the tent, another white bhurka torn and bloodied. “It was I who rescued Jessica and Nicole when I accidentally discovered them” Bernard suggested, as he set Barbie back up on her wobbly feet “Maybe the adventure magnet is me” “The Gargoyle had somehow found out about me and this whole adventure was planned and staged to deliver me into her hands” Barbie informed him. “An immortal, self repairing sex slave to abuse for all eternity” Barbie always remembered the surprise, wonder, and finally horror that came over Bernard’s face, as this secret was absorbed. But he never mentioned her secret to anyone, when he spun the tale of the Gargoyles attack on his camp. Bernard’s voice in Arabic went through the list if his men, most answered, but two more had died when the charging Gargoyle had stomped on them to get at Barbie. “Elisha, Mritah,” Becky Sue’s voice asked. “They are over hear, mistress”, Pilar replied. “But still unconscious from being bounced off each other when the Gargoyle threw Elisha at Mritah” It took a while, but eventually they cleared out the smoke from the tent and the Arabic warriors wrapped ropes around the heavy carcass of the Gargoyle, dragging it to the middle of the debris field. Most of Bernard’s remaining men limping, one or the other arm in a sling, the rest unable to even stand. They set everything that could burn all around it, dressed in their uniforms their dead companions, enshrouding them in tent canvas, lay their dead comrades out on top of it. When they lit it, the flames burned blast furnace hot and a pillar of black smoke rose unnaturally straight up. Normally the custom was to bury their dead. But all the way out here, some animal would desecrate their bodies eventually by digging it them up. So Bernard suggested this warriors funeral. “We saved its head, or no one would ever believe us” Bernard informed Becky Sue as they walked back from the fire when she called them to supper. Barbie and the ambulatory females had worked hard and cooked up a celebration meal. Serving Bernard and then the rest of his men, before eating themselves. They now apparently did not object to eating in the same tent as the females, having seen all of them fighting the Gargoyle. Bernard gestured for Barbie to crouch in front of him as she made her round filling the warriors cups with strong coffee. “He used you as bate for the Gargoyle” Bernard quietly said as a battered Pilar wrapped yet another strip of bandage around his head, he had to holding her steady as she did so. “And his mark is still in your forehead” “I set him up” Replied Barbie. “When I faced her the first time, knew that I had to set myself up as bait and hope he would get himself into position. Or I desperately hopped he would” “Then it was your idea all along to have us all set up in the tent as bate?” Bernard inquired. “She argued for all of us to ride out and leave her, but we would not leave our triumvirate sister alone” Becky Sue informed him, as she made the rounds offering sweet tea. “Sister A would not have been amused if we had arrived back without her favorite miscreant student” “None of us would let her stake herself out as bait alone either” Elisha added as she bent towards him, offering a bowl of dates.” Becky Sue, our senior ordered we four to take you back, but we rebelled at leaving them alone. Fellow students never abandon one another” “You have amassed a very dedicated following in this group, Barbie” He told her as she rose. “It is as Sister A instructs that all of her students look out for each other for the rest of our lives” Barbie replied. “Some longer than others” Elisha added, a bitter edge to her voice, as they walked back to the cooking tent. “Get over it” Barbie replied. “Or would you have decided to let us all die if it had up to you” “No, our last few days have shown me clearly the benefits of the bond our school forms between its expatriate students” Elisha replied. “And I will never see my family again anyway” “Were there not four of you?” Cindy inquired as she sat cleaning the pots and utensils with sand.” Her legs were still too sore from the Gargoyle’s claws to bear her upright. “No, Me, Elisha, Mritah, Pilar, and Nestra were first assigned to be translators and culture guides, then snuck back to help you all on the caravan back” Isis replied as she assisted. “Why?” “It must be I am still in a bit of shock from the battering my body took today” Cindy replied. ”For some reason I only remembered four of you” “I am the quiet one” Dark haired Isis’s bottomless eyes twinkled, ever so sweetly when she was lying. They had already decided it would be the next morning they would depart. And the girls had laboured well into the moonlight packing up everything ready to load up on the camels. Somehow the fact there were even moonlight and stars overhead, delighted the Arabic girls. “Simple pleasures for simple girls” Cindy quipped. “ But added before any of the others could scowl and snap back at her. “I always considered myself a simple girl at heart” It was Bernard’s own warriors that were the holdup the next morning. The baggage camels were packed and ready to go. Numerous water bags dispersed equally among their loads. All the females were mounted and waiting calmly to one side. But many of the warriors were unable to mount their camels. These proud men had fought a nightmare in the dark without question, charging in to save or protect an injured fellow warrior, knowing they were simply outclassed in close combat. Many could barely walk, most had at least one arm out of action and some both. They simply were not able to mount their camels or once mounted just fell off when it stood erect, never mind moved. Bernard, not much better off than his men, tried to help. Becky-Sue dismounted and strode to one who had just pitched forward over his mount’s neck as it stood. “May I adjust your saddlebags warrior?” She inquired of the still prone man as she lifted him up and sat him on to his saddle. “Thank you” She went on as she tied the shocked male onto his saddle. She repeated this all the way down the line, asking to borrow a sip of water, scratch their camel or request to borrow their spare whatever. Within fifteen minutes she had then all mounted and ready to go, walking back to where Cindy and Barbie sat waiting. “And I thought you two needed babysitting” She sighed. Barbie and Cindy sat on their camels, shocked at her display of strength, lifting an adult male right up off the ground, head-high, plunking him in his saddle and tying him in. “Maybe should listen harder next time she suggest we stop goofing off” Cindy suggested. “Naaahhh” Barbie replied. “If we did she would only get sulky, thinking we no longer needed her to keep us in line” “I heard that” Becky Sue injected. “You were supposed to chesty show-off” Both Cindy and Barbie replied. “Move out!” Becky ordered. “It is going to be a long trip back” Elisha sighed to her four companions. Riding just behind her, the girl who called herself Isis smiled. “Free at last” |