Book I of III: The Swords of the Sultan (27 page)

After he cleared a twenty-foot perimeter with
his saber, he set up a small campfire, ate his dinner and then laid
himself down to sleep, exhausted.

Sometime during the night when the waxing
moon had just begun to descend, while the waning red moon had risen
to about halfway up, he awoke to these painfully stinging
sensations in about a dozen different areas throughout his body,
including one on his forehead. From nearby, he could hear Valuspo
snorting in irritation, as well.

With his eyes still closed, he slapped at the
one on his left arm as it hurt the worst, thinking that it was just
a mosquito. But his hand discovered a small bump that was both
slimy and cold. He opened his eyes and looked at the spot. Though
his campfire was already out, he could see a dark and wormy
creatures sitting on his skin, due to the moons’ light.

He tried to pull it off, but this only caused
more pain. “Ouch!” Baltor cried.

Again, he tried to pull it off, which only
produced the same painful result—Baltor snapped, “Damn it!”

He stood up and working through the dizzy
spells. He retrieved a branch, stuck it in the embers of the
campfire until it was hot. He then took the end of the stick and
pressed it into the leech.

It let go of his skin, and he flung it off.
It took several more minutes for him to remove the remaining eight
leeches, and then he began to work on removing the dozens of
leeches attached to Valuspo.

Once done, he extinguished out the flames,
hopped on his camel, and they continued to ride until the foliage
had cleared out, which took until the next morning.

After the sun had arisen, Baltor first
examined his wounds more carefully, and noticed a small stream of
blood that had already dried up from each of his wounds.
Fortunately, none looked infected.

He next looked up, observing an incredibly
large prairie that lay ahead. Scattered throughout the hundreds of
tall patches of prairie grass were large boulders chaotically
stacked upon one another. Circling around this five mile or so long
prairie, he could only see more jungle trees.

Interestingly enough, he saw to the north,
about a half of a mile down, there was a pack of black and white
striped horses grazing … perhaps thirty of them.

After he had pulled out some dried jerky, as
well his map, he began to nibble as he glanced at the map. However,
there was no indication of this prairie being there, so he had no
way of knowing where he was at, or if he was even going the right
way.

For the first time since beginning his quest,
Baltor got frustrated enough that he actually contemplated throwing
away this useless map, but changed his mind in the next second
because of the runes listed on it that may ultimately prove to be
crucial to the success of his mission. He put it away in the
saddlebag.

He next spurred on Valuspo, and the two began
to cross the prairie. Halfway through, however, Baltor began to get
a funny feeling that they were being watched.

He stood in the saddle and looked all around
for a minute, but there was no indication of a threat. It wasn’t
until they were three quarters of the way through the prairie that
his sharp eyes first detected—and for only a second—some type of
black creature rapidly running between two huge patches of tall
grass to his south, about a hundred and fifty feet away.

Although he pondered using his bow and
arrows, he also observed he would only get one shot or two before
the creature would arrive and attack!

Therefore, he sat back down and snapped hard
on Valuspo’s reins in order to get his camel running at top speed.
He chose to have his saber ready to strike, just in case there were
more of those sneaky creatures around here. In his mind, he
formulated an additional plan of defense. He figured that maybe he
could use the horses as a distraction. That is, if he could get
near enough.

He snapped the reins yet again as he screamed
out, “Hey!”

All of the horses stopped eating—now looking
in his direction.

Again, Baltor peripherally spotted the
creature darting between a different patch of prairie grass and a
stacked group of boulders, this time much closer at eighty feet
away. This time, he saw and knew exactly what it was, as he had
seen them a couple of times before and always in cages. But this
panther wasn’t in a cage!

As he snapped on the reins to get Valuspo
going still faster, he yelled out, “Hey you!”

By now, most of the horses were looking over
at the intruder: Several started to prance around in order to warn
away this new threat.

Baltor had gotten his camel seven-eighths of
the way through, but observed that the panther was now directly
chasing behind them on their path, about forty feet away, and
drawing closer by the second!

“Hey you—yeah. I’m talking to you! You better
start running!”

The horses had had enough—they began to run
away, though the wrong way from Baltor’s current position.

Still, the distraction worked for a second as
the panther slowed its pace to look over.

In the next second, this predator decided
that it would get its next meal from these two closer preys, and
immediately quickened its pace back to full stride.

A few moments later, the panther thought it
was near enough, so it lunged at the galloping camel. However, it
was wrong as its claws missed Valuspo’s rear legs by only a few
inches.

Upon seeing this, Baltor realized that the
only way to get rid of this panther was to get off the camel and
fight it on foot—so he did. He lunged out of the saddle with saber
in hand. When his hands hit the ground, he instantly rolled himself
over into a defensive crouched position.

Surprised by the unexpected action from this
prey, the panther slid to a complete stop in its tracks—only a foot
and a half away from an unmoving Baltor! For five seconds, the two
looked each other squarely in the eyes.

On the sixth second, however, hunger took
over and with a growl, the panther threw a swipe of its paws and
claws figuring to quickly finish off its prey, only to painfully
discover that Baltor’s saber had just sliced its arm in two!

As it roared out the excruciating pain,
another painfully ripping sensation occurred as that saber quickly
tore through its abdominal muscles and ripped all the way up to its
throat. The panther died on the eighth second.

Once the battle was over, Baltor looked all
around until he saw Valuspo, who had stopped about a hundred and
fifty feet away, and whistled for him. He then sheathed his
saber.

When his camel cautiously came back a minute
later, he climbed back into the saddle—they rode east to the border
of the trees.

About three minutes later, he discovered a
very tiny path that was barely travelable with his camel’s lengthy
stride. The path loosely wound itself around thick barrages of
interwoven roots that sprang out of the ground from gigantic
trees—some trees were more than forty feet thick.

Just before he had turned around the bend
that would take him out of view of the prairie, Baltor looked back
one last time. He observed that there were now vultures slowly
hovering closer and closer onto their treat.

An hour later, he began to suspect that
something
was not right.

Though there was nothing to indicate
something wrong, neither were there any of the traditional jungle
noises.

Ten minutes later, he discovered that a
twelve-foot thick tree had long ago fallen about thirty feet away
and blocked his path and the view of what lay beyond the fallen
tree.

When he drew closer, however, he saw that it
wasn’t a dead tree at all, but actually many exposed roots
interwoven around each other, which sprang from one single living
tree—a colossal tree that was at least sixty-foot thick and two
hundred feet tall.

The nearest part of the trunk stood about
fifteen feet to the south of the path, while its roots gradually
extended and lowered themselves back into the ground, approximately
ten feet to the north of the path.

He observed another cluster of roots that
sprang in the southwestern direction, admitting, “Wow…I’ve never
seen a tree this big!”

After having chosen to go around the northern
end, he carefully steered his camel around all of the roots, which
took them about a minute to get beyond.

What he saw on the other side of the stump
caused his mouth to drop open in shock—for lying crumpled on the
ground about forty feet away was a four-foot-tall boy whose skin
color was black and whose attire considered solely of a grass skirt
and sandals.

As he drew closer, he noticed many new things
at once about this person, but not in this order. This was no boy,
but a midget who had blood still pouring from a large hole in his
hairy chest, dripping down the side of his body, and amassing into
the ground—he appeared to have only been killed within the last
hour by something or somebody!

Just as Baltor stopped his camel and drew out
his saber, he heard the soft sounds of crunching leaves to his
southeast; he looked up just in time to see several other short
black men running straight northbound. They were perhaps five
hundred feet away.

None drew near or even looked his direction,
and only a few seconds later, they disappeared back into the
recesses of the jungle, and then the crunching sounds of leaves
faded until the area returned to complete silence.

He scanned his immediate area more
thoroughly, and noticed two other corpses to the south, partially
hidden behind another large cluster of roots.

After lightly snapping his camel’s reins, the
two continued eastbound. All the while, he continued to listen for
any other sounds, besides the ones coming from Valuspo’s hoofs
stepping onto the ground—all the while, his saber remained ready to
strike.

A minute or so of silence passed, until, from
deeper within the jungle directly to his south, a loud bird cawed,
“Cee-cee-caw-caw!”

For a few more seconds, complete silence.
Until suddenly, he again heard the sounds of crunching leaves fast
approaching his current position. He first stopped his camel,
looking over just in time to see another midget black man also
running northbound, probably in chase of those other midget
men.

However, this man looked different from the
others in the fact that he had chalky-white stripes painted onto
his wicked-looking face—and the even more important trivia was that
he carried a just-as-wicked spear that had colorful feathers
attached underneath the spearhead! Additionally, he wore a few bone
necklaces.

Upon seeing Baltor for the first time, the
savage stopped in his tracks, and then he cawed using the same
exact bird sounds Baltor had just heard,
“Cee-cee-caw-caw-caw-cao-cao-cao!”

With his left hand, Baltor pulled Valuspo’s
reins to the left, so his camel would turn until his saber was
clearly within the midget’s sight, so as to intimidate him from
coming closer.

However, the savage didn’t appear to care
about the fact that this brown-skinned man was armed, for he began
to run straight for him, cawing progressively louder,
“Caw-caw-caw-cao-cao-cao!”

Once within throwing range a few seconds
later, he cocked his spear back with his left hand and thrust it
hard at Baltor.

Just before the spear could hit, Baltor’s
saber simply tapped the head of incoming spear, causing it to fly
harmlessly away. He then rapidly twirled his saber several times
more around in a circle, before stopping and assuming the ready
position.

The man screamed in extreme agitation, but
did not approach closer. Only moments later coming from out of the
woodwork all around him, dozens more face-painted midget men
came—almost all carried spears; quite a few carried foot-long
bamboo reeds. The tallest in the entire group was perhaps five feet
tall, while the shortest was about four feet tall: Most were in
between these two heights, so Baltor observed.

He quickly put his saber away in the sheath
and pulled out his bow and arrows. Before he was able to even notch
the first arrow, however, he already felt a sharp stinging
sensation in the back of his neck.

Instinctively, he reached with his free hand,
discovering a thin needle poking out of it. He quickly pulled it
out.

Seconds passed, but never did any of these
savages draw any closer. Instead, they began to “caw!”

Baltor’s head began to get dizzy, his vision
became blurred, and the number of midgets that were now nearing
tripled in number.

Two seconds later, he fell off his camel to
the ground—no longer conscious!

An unknown amount of time later, Baltor
returned with surprise to consciousness, before squinting open his
eyes. Prior to blacking out, he had worried that the poison from
the dart might be lethal. Even now his vision remained blurry, and
he had a headache.

Despite his partial blindness, he didn’t have
to move a single inch in order to figure out whether it was day or
night, as he could clearly distinguish that the skies above were
crystal clear blue, along with a hot and yellow sun hovering off to
the right side.

Nor did he have to move to figure out that he
was lying on the cold, hard and uncomfortable ground. What felt far
worse were the venoms still coursing through his veins, especially
around his neck area, feeling like a horde of scorpions had stung
him!

Through the intense pains, he reached his
left hand up to his neck to make sure the dart was gone. It was. He
slowly turned his head to the right, in order to start to figure
out his location.

As his blurry vision slowly but surely began
to clear up, he first observed with great relief that no one had
taken his golden arrowhead necklace, still firmly wrapped around
his neck.