Marika Imprisoned, Part 3
by John Barker, IV
 


Copyright:  John Barker, IV
                 2005
 
Marika needs a ship to escape to Europe.  But there are several men
between her and that objective.
 
Marika followed the road down the hill from the castle, now far in the
wake of the other riders attired in the same uniform she now wore.  She
knew she had to get out of this heathen country, and there was only one
way to do that: by boat.
 
Her own boat, of course, had sailed with her own trusted crew back for
more ransom demanded by the recently deceased faithless emir, earlier
that day.  The fair breeze promised that they were already far out to
sea.  It could be several weeks before they returned.
That meant Marika would have to commandeer a new boat to make her
escape.  But a boat required a crew.  She could not work it alone. 
 
The source of a crew had already occurred to her.  There were Christian
slaves penned up in a stockade near the harbor.  These were slaves whose
boats were not currently in use by their Moslem captors.  Now all she had
to do was liberate the slaves, steal a boat, and she would be en route to
the nearest Christian land.  In liberating some of the Christian slaves,
she would be fulfilling, in part, the diplomatic mission that sent her to
treat with the emir in the first place.
 
That was a tall order, of course, but Marika, a woman who had raided the
North Sea and Baltic ports, carved out a kingdom for herself, and was an
equal to kings and princes, was used to challenges.   Marika was
confident in her power and skill, but understood the enormity of the
challenge.  She did not estimate her chances of success at better than
1-in-8.  But her chances of living a long life here, after just breaking
out of the emir's castle and killing him with her bare hands, were nil.
 
She rode up to the edge of the town without catching sight of the other
riders of her patrol.  But on the road just ahead, she could see two of
the emir's men-at-arms holding a position.  Obviously, they were there to
stop any passersby.
 
"Let's hope this works!"
 
She continued without slackening her pace.  As she approached, she could
see the two sentries converging from opposite sides of the road.  One was
on each side of the horse.
 
"What's wrong with you?  Why are you so late?"
 
"Any fresh news from the castle?  What is going on?"
 
Marika would have liked to know the answer to that question herself. 
 
Her hand was on the scimitar's hilt.
 
In an instant, she had whipped its blade across the throat of the sentry
on her right.  His head nearly severed, he choked for a second on his own
blood, and dropped, never to rise again.
 
Before the other sentry could do more than raise his lance, Marika was
out of the saddle and on him. 
 
Given her descent from horseback, she was easily able to bear him to the
ground.  Her strong left hand was clamped over his mouth, so that he
could not raise a cry.  With thumb and forefinger, she pinched his nose
closed too, so that he could not draw breath at all. 
 
Panic seized him, and he tried to belabor her with the shaft of his spear
(they were obviously at too close quarters for him to draw it back and
stab).  Angily, Marika let the sword dangle from the cord about her wrist
and wrenched the spear from his hand.
 
She maneuvered the spear, and brought it down heavily across his throat,
and pressed down with great might.
 
After pressing down a few seconds, she released his mouth and nose, and
gripped the spear shaft in both hands, pressing down against the sentry's
throat. 
 
She made a great push with both hands, and his windpipe  was crushed. 
Gurgling sounds came from him, but nothing more.
 
Soon, there was a "Ccccrrruunnnccchh!"  The power of her two-handed
thrust with the shaft crushed the vertebrae of his neck.  The desperate
efforts to escape her ceased, and another enemy died at her hands.
 
"No time to total 'em up." 
 
She lifted the body of the one whose neck she had crushed over one
shoulder, and that of the first sentry over the other.  As if they
weighed no more than a small bag of flour each, she carried them well off
the road, and deposited them in thick undergrowth. 
 
Marika then remounted the horse, and resumed her journey towards town.
 
She was up to the first buildings when she ventured a glance back to be
certain she was not being followed.  She was not.
 
Now that she was in the town, she must head for the waterfront.  She was
unsure of the maze of streets, but she followed her nose in the general
direction of where she remembered the port to be.  Shortly, the smell of
the sea was strong in her nostrils and she was certain she was not far
off.
 
"Any sight of her?"
 
The question from out of the dark in Arabic surprised her.  Deepening her
voice, she replied, "No.  Not yet.  But she will turn up."
 
"Of course she will turn up.  How could a 6-foot tall blonde woman hide
here?  What kind of idiot are you?"
 
"Get fucked!"  Her conversational Arabic had been learned for this
mission, and hung heavy about her tongue.
 
With that she left her unwelcome interlocutor behind.  She dismounted,
and continued along in search of, first a boat, then a crew. 
 
The boat was the easy part.
 
There was a sleek galley, the emir's own in fact, tied up at a dock, with
several guards.  It looked as if it would require a crew of 80 rowers at
least.  She had seen this very ship being provisioned just 2 days before
on her arrival.  She carefully noted the placement of the visible guards
and watch, both on the dock, and on the ship.
 
Six men guarded the galley, and they did not seem to be particularly
alert.
 
In fact, they were not just guarding the galley, but undertaking the
usual tasks of a watch in a ship moored to the dock.  One man was in the
heads relieving himself.  The officer of the watch was standing near the
stern, watching the progress of clouds past the moon.  Two crewmen were
dicing near the mast.  From the sounds, two others seemed to be engaged
in some sort of sexual activity with each other just above the heads.
 
Marika slipped unobserved into the water a hundred yards from the galley,
and quietly swam towards it. 
 
She reached the stern, and quietly began climbing. 
 
She ventured a peek over the rail, and saw that the officer of the watch,
probably a mate, was still moon gazing.  Everyone else remained engaged
as before.
 
The officer of the watch was the only one remotely alert, and needed to
go first, and silently.
 
Marika did not like the scimitar blade.  It was difficult to use, being
curved.  Her own sword was a heavy straight-bladed affair, but that was
locked deep in the emir's castle, gone for good.
 
She crept silently behind the officer, unobserved by everyone else. 
Simultaneously, a powerful hand clamped over his mouth, and a sharp blade
slit his throat.  She waited a second or two as the blood spurted out,
and then gently eased the corpse to the deck.
 
The next targets were the dicing pair.  They were using a box as their
table, and were sitting side-by-side, with their legs crossed.  That made
Marika's job easier.
 
Before they had any inkling that anything was amiss, each felt a
powerfully muscled arm encircle his neck, and mighty pressure from
bulging biceps that cut off and effort to yell. Yellow hair dangled down
between them, and each could see, from the corner of their darting eyes,
massive cleavage that had thrust its way between them.
 
But they did not enjoy the sight for long.  Because both powerful
forearms were levering against the pressure of the huge flexing biceps. 
And their necks were between thick forearms and mighty biceps, their
chins being forced up at an awkward angle.
 
Both tried to call out, and found that they could draw no air.
 
Both brought both hands up to try to pry off the forearms that held them.
 
Both quickly realized that nothing they could do would break the grip
that held them fast, silenced them, and was killing them.
 
Both felt, briefly, great pressure as the thickly sinuous forearms pulled
inexorably up against their chins.
 
First the weaker, then the stronger a few seconds later, heard a
"Sssnnaapp!" and felt a great pain as his neck broke.
 
Both then eased into silent quiet from which they would never emerge.
 
Marika let the two bodies down easily.
 
"Next."
 
The two buggering each other above the heads were the more dangerous (as
there were two of them).  They were also the easier to get to.  But they
were noisily busy.  And their noise might cover her attack on the man in
the heads.
 
She slipped over the side again, and felt her way along to the bow.  She
looked up, and could see that the man still had his robes pulled up
around his waist.  He was chuckling at the sounds coming from his friends
above him. 
 
Silently, Marika emerged from the drink, and climbed up behind the
defecating man.  He was reaching for a rope end with his left hand, when
a hand clamped over his mouth and chin, and gave his head a violent
wrench to the right. 
 
His neck was broken before he even understood that he was in fatal
trouble.
 
"Not exactly a noble way to die, but what do you expect when you serve
paynim dogs?"
 
The noise from the pair buggering each other continued.  They had not
noticed that all their collegues were dead.
 
Marika could not see them, and so did not know what position they were
in.  That made it difficult to plan her attack.
 
She was confident that she could take the two out no matter how she
attacked.  But, as she did not know if more crewmen were awake below
deck, she needed to do this quickly and quietly.
 
A glance above the head over the rail was in order.  But that was a great
risk, as there was a good chance she might be seen.
 
Not for the first time, she wished that her thick long hair was not
blonde, and therefore easily visible in the moonlight.  Not for the first
time, she wished that she had a darker complexion. 
Slowly, inch by inch, she eased her head up to, and over the rail.
 
The noisy activity continued without a change of sound. 
 
The perverts were too busy in their abominable activity to notice her. 
 
Finally, she could see them.  One's face was looking in her direction,
but his eyes were closed as his "friend" ("More like a fiend," Marika
thought) was busily sucking on his penis.
 
Disgust in its highest degree rose in Marika. She had always been
offended at male effeminacy.   And she remembered from her catechesis
that sodomy was one of the sins crying to Heaven for vengeance, and was
an abomination that had to be crushed from the heart of Israel. But she
repressed it and thought of the business at hand.
 
Time to be a soldier, not an avenging angel.  This was no time to attack
bull-headedly and without a clear plan.  The release of captives from
this hellish prison of a country depended on her effective actions.
 
A plan of attack formed quickly in her experienced mind. 
 
"Strength is good and makes things much easier.  Thank You, Lord.  Please
help this work."
 
She waited for the sucking to stop.
 
Then she sprang over the rail, and, grabbing each man by the scruff of
the neck, instantly brought their heads together with a sharp and audible
thud.
 
"I must be off my game.  Time was when that would have caved in both
skulls."
 
Both men were dazed, too much so to cry out.
 
She brought their skulls together again, harder, and this time, they both
were knocked out. 
Her blade was out of its sheath, and sliced across first one throat, then
the other. 
 
Now Marika was mistress of the deck.  But what was below?
 
She silently made her way to the steps, and quietly made her way down. 
 
There was only one other man on board, and he was dozing in a chair.
 
By his attire, and the whip that hung next to him, he was the task
master, the man in charge of getting every ounce of rowing power out of
the galley slaves.
 
An odious man.  And one who had to die.
 
The man was unaware of her presence, until he felt something biting into
his neck.
 
In a panic, he realized it was the cord of his own leather whip.
 
He tried pulling it off, but the hands that had wrapped it around his
neck and were tightening it he could not resist.  No matter how he tried
to pry a finger under the cord, he could not.
He reached behind him, and felt warm flesh, but hard muscles of wrist and
forearm with strength he knew he could not match, much less wrest the
whip from.
 
He could not breathe.
 
He could not call for help.
 
He could not break the hold.
 
He could not pry the whip from his throat and neck.
 
And with every second, the pressure of the leather around his neck
increased.
 
What had him, a gorilla?
 
He caught a glimpse of long blonde hair.
 
The barbarian woman who had come ashore so recently?
 
Was the life being strangled out of him by a woman?
 
"Oh Allah, preserve me!"
 
His thoughts became more random and disconnected, as Marika continued to
throttle him with his whip.
 
His tongue protruded from his mouth.  His eyes bulged from their
sockets.  Slowly his face tinged from the red of alarm, to the blue of
oxygen deprivation, to the purple of the strangled.
His efforts became weaker, and weaker, but his female(!) attacker seemed
to grow stronger and stronger.
 
Words in his ear that he did not understand:
 
"Does the whip not bite, taskmaster?"
 
Then he heard nothing more.  And never would.  His body tensed, quivered,
and slumped into an irreversible limpness.
 
Marika kept up the pressure for a minute more.  She had heard of hanged
men, once the noose was loosed, suddenly resuming breathing and
revivifying.
 
Not this guy.  Her biceps bulged as she increased the pressure.  Then,
turning him over and planting her knees in his back, she pulled back on
the whip, until she felt his spine break at the base of the neck.
 
"One more paynim sent to Hell."
 
Now Marika had a ship.  And she knew were to get a crew.  The only
question was how.