FOUNDLING: SAUDI DESERT ADVENTURE, END GAME

BY CHRISTOPHER TOILKIEN

[ part 58 ]

It’s a Male Thing

The sounds of celebration wafted from every window and doorway in the palace. Inside, he Emir held sway over a great banquet honoring his proud warriors for vanquishing the desert horror. To his right, in the position of honor, sat Bernard, his recovering men aligned by seniority to his own right.

"The sundered head of the beast mounted on a pike at the rooms nadir.

Male servants moved through the gathering of the areas famous and powerful. The finest foods and nonalcoholic drinks of the strict Islamic country on their serving platters and in their dispensing vessels. Musicians played as the most beautiful entertainers danced.

A sweat-drenched female in harem silks walked down a plain whitewashed corridor, towards the equally plain white room at is far end. Her stupendous young form, barely restrained by the near transparent silks of her attire.

"She slammed the solid wooden door behind her as she entered, plunking herself down on a cushion just inside.

"They are stuffing themselves and pouring gallons down their throats as we sit her starving" Becky Sue growled. "He dismissed me with an absent minded gesture, as if I were a common belly dancer"

"But to him, you are" Elisha replied. "It is the way of men, are we not taught so by our school?"

"Maybe, but most of them they are honoring were comatose or unable to fire a shot when we killed the Gargoyle" Cindy added.

"Should we not go out there and tell the true story?" Issis inquired.

"We would not be allowed to enter" Mritah said. "His bodyguards are at every corridor intersection"

"Then you too are starting to believe he will never let us go?" Becky Sue asked.

"It really is not my fault this time" A very petulant Malibu Barbie chirped up from the far corner. She just knew eventually her just being here would be perceived by all as the reason that this adventures never seemed to end.

"Sister B’s still functioning PDF is in her saddlebags" Cindy informed them. "If we can get to it, we can call the school and get out of here"

"I will try" Barbie said.

"I think I will have better results convincing the guards to let me pass" Becky Sue replied.

"Why?" Asked Barbie in pretend sweetly tones.

"Because my thirty-six watermelon’s make yours look like oranges" She laughed. "Males often pay no attention to my face at all" And strode back out of the room.

The seven girls still only dressed in the soiled Bhurka’s they had traveled in sat waiting for her return. They had not been fed since that morning, and that had just been a shallow bowl filled with table scraps.

Becky Sue cleaned herself up in the tiny European style washroom next door and setting her most prominent attributes at their viewing best walked back down the corridor. Just after she left, a relatively insignificant dirty white enshrouded figure slipped out of the room and into the washroom.

Becky Sue boldly walked past the two guards at the first intersection. Murmurs in Pharisee following her down the corridor. At the next she turned right, again low compliments came to her ears. But one guard was speaking into a comlink. Ahead an open archway led to the outside, but as she reached it, guards came from both sides, pinioning her arms.

"That way is not for you, dancer" A bearded guard informed her.

"But one of us requires something from our saddlebags" She replied.

"Tell us and we will fetch it sweet bodied one" He replied.

"It is a female requirement" She lied.

"Wait her, and we will summon a female servant to accompany you" He told a crestfallen Becky. "If you do not return promptly, it is your friends who will suffer the Emir’s wrath"

Becky Sue reluctantly waited in the shadow of the great doorway until a guard returned leading a bent figure in black.

"This old crone sweeping the floor was all I could find" He informed the guard post commander. "The rest are cooking in the great kitchen"

"She will do" He replied. "Old one take this new acquisition of your Emir to the storage rooms beside the main gate and retrieve what she requires from the pile of saddlebags that came off their camel’s, and return with it" He instructed. "If she attempts to escape, let her go, as the Emir will take it out on her friends still imprisoned within"

The old woman did not even lift her black cloth covered head, but shuffled on across the courtyard towards the main gate, Becky Sue reluctantly following. As she crossed behind the black figure, a line of dirty white shrouded figures moving back and forth from a side door to a truck. Being loaded with a bag or bale and hauling it back whence they came as two males in guard uniforms leaned on a pillar in the shade watching.

"Probably our intended future" Betty Sue surmised.

When they reached the storeroom, the old crone simply stood by while Becky Sue searched through the pile of leather saddlebags until she found sister B’s. Her hand felt the PDF, but her silken outfit had no place to conceal it"

"Stick it between those big tits of yours Becky" A melodious voice quietly said.

Becky turned to see Foundlings mother, Mavis standing there in full Valkyrie gear. She flew across the room to her and hugged her tight.

"I knew you would come for us eventually, but had to try for the comlink just in case" Becky Sue said breathlessly.

"Put it where I told you and fill a saddlebag with personal feminine items and lets get back before they send someone after us" Mavis informed the younger girl.

"Tell no one we are here, understand?" She continued" No one doubts your bravery, but Barbie is liable to bring the house down if you leave her to her own devices too long"

Mavis’s figure shimmered and the old crone reappeared. They walked back across the courtyard and when the pair reached the guard post the commander simply hooked a thumb in the direction of the way Becky had come and smiled as the sad faced girl reluctantly walked back into captivity.

"Get back to sweeping old one" He instructed.

Mavis was right.

Barbie climbed up on top of the washbasin reaching up and gripping the air conditioning outlet set in the wall high above it at the ceiling line. It had been just pushed into the ductwork end and was easily removed.

She pulled herself up, shoving herself forward with her powerful runner’s legs.

Soon she saw the first intersection and the two guards leaning against the wall from the vent overhead. The odor of food both caused her empty stomach to growl. And indicate either the direction of banquet or kitchen was down the left branching ductwork. Off she crawled, knees being rubbed raw by the duct’s dusty interior. Eventually after a few wrong turns, she saw male servants carrying platters of food out of a pair of swing doors. Crawling further until she found a store room slipped out and down into a pile of rice sacks, but her weight suddenly overbalanced it and sent her tumbling down into a metal rack of cans. She was just getting up when the door opened, and a male in chef’s outfit walked into the room.

"What are you doing here?" He inquired, as he advanced on her. "You local girls are just supposed to be hauling the supplies in"

"I was just piling the rice up when it fell back on me" Barbie replied, and fell back against the pile as he delivered a stinging slap to her face.

"Then you obviously did not do your job right" He said, slapping her again.

"Have you any cooking experience lazy wastrel" He asked, threatening another.

"I have assisted my mother in preparing meals here for years" Barbie meekly replied. "And the Emir has eaten our poor offerings, since he moved here to his new post"

"Pile it back up, and as you at least appear intelligent" He continued. "Wash your hands and give me a hand preparing my new Emir’s favorite shishkabob" He informed her. " I have brought my own people here" He continued, obviously full of himself as his knew post. " I probably dismissed your mother with the rest of the untrained locals I found hanging around"

So there was Barbie assisting an obviously rather mediocre chef to prepare a meal for the one who intended on adding her and her friends to his collection.

"Are you sure this will cook all together at the same time" He said as he watched Barbie’s little fingers fly. Transforming the seemingly endless bowls of ingredients onto stainless steel skewers and then into large deep stainless steel trays as fast as they disappeared out the door towards the banquet. Only after she had exhausted the entire cooking staff who tried, but failed to keep up with her. Did she stop. "You have certainly done this a few times" He begrudgingly complimented her.

"All my life, but the honors emanating from our Emir’s mouth will be yours master" She replied. Apparently well trained enough not to look into her betters eyes.

"If you do not know enough not to mix these together in a quick fry, then what happens will be on your head" She kept to herself.

As the large trays were carried out into the banquet hall for cooking over open charcoal pits right in front of the dinners, Barbie slipped away. Retreating into the storage room and up into the ductwork.

"And where have you been?" Cindy inquired as Barbie tried to slip back out of the duct into the washroom.

"Just touring the ductwork looking for a way out, Cindy dear" She replied climbing down after she replaced the grill. "Wasting your time"

"Becky Sue brought back Sister B’s PDF right through the guards tucked in between her melons" Cindy informed Barbie as the two returned to the room. "She has got through and help is enroute in about half an hour"

"That should be just right on time" Barbie thought to herself.

The Emir smiled at Bernard as he ate yet another of his knew chef’s delightful shishkasbobs. As soon as this banquet is done I will have that Englishman quietly shot" He thought to himself. "He has grown far to popular with my warriors"

Many were eating them as fast as they came off the coals, but the Englishman, said he was not feeling to well as it was and had limited himself to a few choice tidbits earlier on.

"Call for that new dancer I just acquired, and the rest of my stable" He ordered, and watched as the man to his right frowned." She is quite excellent and I have decided to treat her to my bed tonight"

A few minutes later, eight black clad female shapes walked into the room. They positioned them selves around the fire pits facing outwards, the first directly in front of the Emir.

The Emir raised his hand, let it drop, but no music came.

Instead the coverings dropped and seven armed females stood weapons raised covering the banquet hall full of men.

"Tell them not to move a muscle, or all that will be left will be human hamburger" Sister B informed him. Her Spatha pressed up against his jugular.

"My guards will kill you all and your friends" He threatened." But since the two dozen that were stationed in the halls had not appeared, knew it was an idle threat.

"These are the ones who easily disposed of a hundred better men in Bahrain, Emir" Bernard informed him. "And they at least were armed"

"I will never forget this" He threatened. "My uncle will see that you and yours pay dearly for this insult"

"Your Uncles chief wife, the Kings advisor on family affairs is currently seated discussing your future with my Head Mistress" Sister B informed him. "If you are really lucky, the ambassadorship to some backwater nowhere is you next assignment"

Then the stand off was resolved as the majority of the males in the room began heaving up everything they had eaten in the last twenty-four hours, eyes streaming tears from the stomach cramps and faces distorted from the discomfort and shame of the accompanying diarrhea.

"You should get your palace fumigated before you move in" Sister B said to Bernard as they walked out.

"My Palace?" He asked.

"As you are the new Emir in command of the Saudi southern desert patrols" Sister B informed him handing him a parchment roll. "It comes with it, and quite a nice harem of willing nubile females to while away the cold nights too"

"I just knew we had left Barbie way too long unattended" Sister B said as she walked over to where Mavis was holding her nose, and following the rest of the Valkyrie walking out of the room." Who else could manage to slip past corridors full of guards and inflict a really good dose of food poising so well"

"I told you so" Was all Mavis replied." She is a special OOPS natural"

"She is a pain in the ass to Sister A" Sister B replied.

"Not as much as she is to the ex-Emir" Bernard laughed, and they all joined in.