Marika Imprisoned, Part 2  
by John Barker, IV
 

Copyright:  John Barker, IV
                 2005
 
Marika Is Out of the Cell, and Looking for An Escape Route From the
Saracen Castle
 
CopyrightThe walls of the castle appeared pretty sheer.  Only the road
some 60 feet below gave her hope.  But jumping to that road would surely
result in broken bones, at least.  She took a long look for possible
help, like handholds or footholds, or other windows. 
 
There was another window, some 20 feet away at a diagonal from hers. But
how to get there.  She looked at the stone wall above her, below her, and
to the sides.  She thought that she detected a pattern that might be
useful.  But it would be perilous. 
 
Beside her, there was a block jutting out 2 inches past the others
every 3 courses.  She could not see the jutting blocks below her, and so
assumed that they only started at the level of her window (which would be
roughly the 4th story).  If she could climb laterally, she would be above
the next window, and would then only need a lucky jump to land on its
sill. 
 
Carefully, ever so carefully, she began the move, only losing her footing
once for a second or two, and quickly regaining her balance.  When she
finished, she was about 8 feet above the window.  she had no idea what
would happen when she lighted onto the sill.  It would be hard to hold
there, so she would have to grip the bars immediately, if there were
any.  If she missed her footfall, she would probably die or be
recaptured.  Of course, her landing on the sill of what, for all she knew
could be the principal barrack room of the castle's garrison, or the
throne room, or the bedroom of the emir, or his harem, might cause an
alarm to be raised.  She could not guarantee the silence of her landing,
or that she would make it at all. 
 
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained..."
 
After another quick prayer, with as close to cat-like grace as a six foot
massively muscled woman could, she jumped for the sill.
 
Her booted feet firmly landed on the sill, and her hands reached into the
window to grab whatever she could to steady herself.
 
Fortunately for Marika, what her hands found was the horizontal bar
supporting the heavy window curtains of what appeared to be an ornate bed
chamber, a chamber lit with rushes, but apparently unoccupied.
 
She looked about the room, and found it superbly appointed.  Plush silks
and thick prayer rugs, pillows far beyond what she had seen in the
bedrooms of Western kings (she had enjoyed the interiors of more than one
king's bedroom in her time) The bed bore on its headboard the sign of the
emir.  His own bedroom!
 
As she was looking it, she heard a stir at the door, and voices.  She had
nowhere to go on the sill.  She could not see a way to climb further. 
She could hang from the sill by her hands, but she might be seen,
dangling off the window sill all night long. 
 
"Out of the frying pan..."
 
Marika quickly jumped into the room, and took refuge behind the heavy
curtain.  In the heavily scented air of the room, appropriate for an
effeminate oriental, but not for a northerner like Marika, she hoped that
the smell of the sweat caused by her exertions would not cause her to be
detected.
 
The emir entered the room, and bid his guards a good night.  The last 2
hours since the end of the dinner and his capture of the barbarian
"diplomat" he had spent pleasantly in his harem, enjoying the caresses of
an Italian girl as tall as Marika, though in no way her equal otherwise. 
This was by means of whetting his appetite, for he hoped to have Marika
brought to him as soon as she recovered, to break the huge, beautiful
barbarian woman into her new life as a highly prized member of his
harem. 
 
To Marika's great alarm, she could hear the emir walking towards the
window.  The curtain reached all the way to the floor, and she had made a
great effort to not be seen from its other side.  She could only guess,
but he must be inches away, gazing out the window. Or was he staring at
the curtain? 
 
The perfumed scent of his body and clothes told her he must be very
close, but she could not tell what he was doing.  She could not tell if
he was about to raise an alarm, seize the curtains, or just stare out
over his kingdom.  She also feared that at any minute, he might hear of
her escape, if a guard or courtier should happen to open the door to
check on her, and set the whole castle in motion to find her. 
 
The emir was a man of medium height and build, some 3 inches shorter than
Marika, with dark features and a small beard.  She had no idea how
proficient with weapons he might be, or whether he was armed. 
 
All she knew of him was that he was greedy, calculating, had seized
hundreds of Christians as slaves, and persecuted the Church in his
domains, while showing immense bad faith in negotiating with her, then
having her clobbered and locked in a cell. 
 
Marika leapt from behind the curtain, and collided with the emir (who
had, in fact, been gazing out the window, and had just begun to notice a
heavy and unusual smell of sweat near him) bearing him to the ground
instantly and almost silently with a hand clamped over his mouth.
 
The emir was unarmed, but so was Marika.
 
The emir's hands were both busy trying to pry Marika's strong left hand
from his mouth.  His legs were kicking at her, but so far to no avail. 
Her right hand formed a fist, which she brought down in a mighty blow to
the emir's temple, which knocked him out cold.
 
"What to do with this pagan liar?"
 
If she left him alive, he would continue as before.  She could not hope
for good faith from him, or a release of any of the captives whose ransom
she had brought.  If she killed him, any pursuit of her might be
disorganized.  Her understanding of the organization and sucession
arrangements for the Sultan's provinces was that the death of an emir or
pasha would begin a power struggle in which his officers and favorites
vied to take control, and the Sultan would accept whoever emerged on top
as his liegeman.
 
Then Marika could hear feet rapidly approaching the door.  Marika stood
up, and grabbed the emir by the upper protion of his robes, pulling him,
though out, to his feet in front of her. 
There was an excited pounding on the door.
 
"Eminence!  Eminence!  Urgent news!  The barbarian woman has escaped!"
 
Marika reached down with her left hand, and grabbed the emir through the
gap between his upper thighs.  She secured her grip on his neck with her
right hand, and effortlessly  hefted him off his feet. 
 
Then she lifted his 180 pounds over her head to the full extent of her
arms' reach.  He was certainly not weightless in her arms, but she could
have held him for a few more minutes.  The muscles of her mighty arms
stood out in relief at the effort, but she did not tremble with it.
 
"Eminence!  Are you awake?  Eminence?"
 
Marika lifted her knee and bent it to form a right angle with her body in
front of her.
 
With as much force as she could muster, she brought the emir's body down
so that the middle of his back hit her upraised knee, instantly
shattering several vertebrae with a loud "CCCRRRAAAACCCCCCKKKKK!!!!!!"
 
She had broken the faithless and wicked emir as easily as a child snaps a
twig. Now the chips could fall as they may. 
 
She tossed his lifeless body aside, and climbed back out the window to
stand outside on the sill.
 
"Eminence?  Are you alright?  May I come in?  What shall we do?"
 
Obviously, her noticed absence from the cell had raised an alarm even
before the emir was alerted. A troop of cavalry, 13 riders, thundered
down the road from the castle 24 feet below her, intent on setting up a
roadblock and patrolling for the escapee.
 
Then the last member of the troop, rider 14, came up behind his comrades,
delayed in the act of saddling, no doubt.
 
Marika saw her opportunity and seized it, just as the sound of keys in
the lock of the door to the room caused genuine alarm.
 
Aiming for the rider speeding to catch up with his troop, she leapt from
the sill head first with her hands spread before her.
 
She was true to her aim, and collided with the hapless rider with such
force that his ankle snapped in the stirrup and he was forced to the
ground instantly.  The collision and his body cushioned Marika's landing,
and she was unhurt.
 
The rider must have been experienced in falls, for he was stirring an
instant after hitting the ground.  But Marika was ready.
 
Her left hand grabbed his right hand as it sought the hilt of his sword. 
Her right hand was tightly gripping his throat before he could loose a
cry of alarm.  Now it was a struggle of arm strength, and Marika had won
many such contests.
 
Her mighty right hand was steadily, against all the resistance the
cavalryman could muster, closing off his supply of air. 
 
Meanwhile, her left hand was squeezing his right hand, and forcing it up
and away from the sword hilt.  The rider was wasting his efforts in
belaboring her head and torso with blows with his unengaged left hand.
 
As the inexorable choking pressure of her right hand increased, her
opponent changed tactics, kicking at her with his legs, and trying to pry
her hand from his throat.  But he might as well have tried to break the
grip of a 600 pound ape, or the bearhug of a brown bear as Marika's
single-hand deathgrip on his throat.  The kicks, delivered at great
disadvantage, were availing him nothing.  His bucking and wriggling in
her grip was equally useless.
 
Marika had been putting slightly more effort into preventing the hand
from reaching the sword than on choking the life out of him.  First
things first.  The squeezing pressure of her slightly weaker left hand
was itself awesome.  Steadily, the hand was forced to the ground beside
his head.  When it reached the ground, she poured on the power for a full
20 seconds, and was rewarded with a a loud wet cracking, "Crunch" as the
bones of his hand were shattered.
 
He would have screamed, had she not been depriving him of enough oxygen
for these last 30 seconds. 
 
His eyes, already bulging out of their sockets, protruded further.  His
face was a deep shade of red.  His tongue was protruding from his mouth. 
His chest was deperately trying to rise and fall to let in air, but she
had now completely closed off his windpipe with only her thumb and
forefinger.
 
She loosed her grip on the crushed and useless hand, and poured more
power into the one-handed stranglehold.
 
His face was now beginning to turn blue.  His tongue was far out of his
mouth, his eyes far out of their sockets, a look of complete terror on
his face. 
 
His kicking ceased. 
 
He was still trying to pry off her hand, but he was making no headway,
and his efforts grew weaker almost with every passing second.
 
Maintaining the killing pressure, Marika looked around to see that the
riderless horse had stopped about 50 feet up the road.
 
"Good."
 
Looking back at her opponent, she could see that his face had tinged from
blue to purple.  His efforts at pulling her choking hand away were almost
nonexistent.  Then his hand fell by his side. 
 
"Just die, you bastard, before someone else comes."
 
She poured on even more strength in her effort to squeeze the life out of
him. 
 
Five seconds. 
 
Ten. 
 
Fifteen. 
 
His body suddenly stiffened, and convulsed.
 
Then, finally, he went still and limp. That was the end.
 
Marika maintained the pressure a few more seconds, just to be sure, but
there was little question that she had strangled him with just one hand. 
 
She let him go, and quickly pulled his robe, headcovering, and sword belt
off, and threw them over her own clothes. 
 
Then, though not without difficulty, she persuaded the horse to allow her
to mount him, and rode off in the direction of the port.