Buck's Phototales

Having been constructed, occupied, and then for some unknown reason abandoned for some years prior to when they first arrived in the area, the castle was of no particular interest to the Amazons who had taken up residence in the surrounding woodlands.

Cold, dark, and forbidding in its aspect, the women were for the most part not impressed by those few comforts of civilization that the castle had to offer.

And so, other than as an object of occasional idle curiosity, the castle stood alone and untenated.

Abandoned it was to remain - until the advent of Queen Marvellus and her small group of adherents. Marvellus, who until only recently had been at the center of a controversy in the nearby city of Necropolis, had been advised by the Warlord Marcar to take leave of the city. It was the Warlord who, in his magnanimnity had suggested that Marvellus take up residence in the castle, which property the Warlord had inherited some years previously.

Lord Marcar was not one to be in the least bit squeamish in the shedding of a woman's blood! Now with his elder years rapidly approaching, he yet found stimulation at the sight of - as well as the sounds elicited from a woman as the blade slid into her breast!

But heretofore the Warlord had seen fit to satisfy his appetite with the sacrifice of an occasional slave or at most, a woman who had been taken as a spoil of war. It seemed that Marvellus, on the other hand, had somewhat more practical ends in view and it was rumored that it was she who had seen to the elimination of the High Priestess of the Blood Cult.

Now the Priestess of the Blood Cult had been both popular as well as a figure of note in an around the environs of Necropolis, and so this partucular murder created a great hue and cry amongst the citizenry. Voices of protest were raised and noised about among a populace that heretofore had been either cowed by, or indiferrent to the Warlord's various modes and methods of entertainment. Eventually the rumbling grew to such a pitch that Lord Marcar decided that Marvellus and her entourage should be placed under house arrest and stowed away somewhere for her safe keeping as well as for the good of all concerned. At any rate, this was the excuse that precipitated the relocation of Marvellus and her constituents and of their installation in the castle that was located at what was considered to be a safe distance outside of the city.

All was well for a time and after a while things quieted down and life returned to normal. But then the body of a young woman from among the Amazons of the surrounding woodland was discovered at no great distance outside the castle walls.

It was immediately evident that a knife had been thrust into her bosom and it was assumed that this act had been pepetrated somewhere within the castle walls. Queen Marvellus learned of this latest crime and was still lamenting the fact that the body of the victim had been discovered virtually on her doorstep when, to make matters worse, two representatives from the Woodland Amazon clan arrived on the scene to look into the matter.

Had she been able to keep cool and calm, Marvellus may well have been able to cast enough oil upon the water to keep things on an even keel and the situation in hand. But after some pointed questions, emotions began to run high and accusations were lodged whether they were fully justified or not. The Queen became flustered and seeing this one of her archers, who was perhaps better with her weapon than she was at thinking on her feet, quickly loosed a shaft that struck one of the Queen's astonished inquisitors almost directly through the middle of her chest.

Before her partner could so much as raise her voice in protest, a second arrow drove directly between her breasts.

And so in little more than the interval of a heartbeat, both of the Queen's Amazon visitors lay dead upon the castle floor.

Now as it happened, Queen Marvellus was not the least bit pleased at this latest turn of events. While she had more or less tacitly agreed to shoulder the blame for killing the High Priestess of the Blood Cult in order to take the pressure off the situation back in Necropolis, she had been assured by the Warlord that after no more than a brief respite in the country tempers would cool and she would be able to return to the city. So the Queen was of a mind to chastise her archers at the point of a pike. But at the same time she was becoming increasingly certain that she would soon have need of all the warriors she had at her command. And so, rather than inflict any physical damage, she gave her archers the rather unpleasant task of disposing of the two bodies, which they did at some distance from the castle.

But a corpse has a way of making its prescence known and when they were discovered a short time later, the local Amazons had no doubt whatever that this time their losses had indeed been perpetrated by the occupants of the castle.

Queen Marvellus and her constituents felt themselves secure in their refuge inside the castle for the simple reason that the Amazons were lacking in any engine of war that could penetrate the walls.

But securing adequate food and water for the defenders of the Queen and her castle soon became something of a problem. For any hunter who ventured outside the castle walls was quite apt to be left trying to drag herself back to safety with an arrow protruding from some part of her body ...

If indeed, she found herself in any condition to return at all.

Meanwhile, back in his sanctuary in Necropolis, the Warlord Marcar received an emmissary from Queen Marvellus whose message had disturbed him not a little. Such was the Warlord's distress that when the woman had been dismissed with the assurance that he would See to the Matter, he summoned the captain of his own contigent of Amazon warriors and gave her certain rather explicit instructions.

The Warlord Marcar hardly admitted even to himself that much of his success could be attributed to the secrecy of his ways.

The reader is asked to recall the fate of the High Priestess of the Blood Cult, whose untimely death lent impetus to our narrative.

Now, while it is admitted that Queen Marvellus would have been happy enough to sheath a blade in the bosom of her adversary, in all fairness it must be pointed out to the reader that in this case, it was not she who had weilded the knife on that fatal evening. t was the Warlord himself who had seen to the elimination of a woman who had been plotting against him. His wife, Marvellus, had been in on the plot from the first and the Warlord had been in a quandry in deciding just what to do about her. Eliminating a slave or prisoner now and then was unquestionably no one's business but his own; no one would question that. But what with the murder of the Priestess, if his spouse were to meet her end in a similar fashion,
more than eyebrows might be raised.

So the Warlord had set upon a plan to foment unrest amongst the members of the Amazons in the vicinity of the castle. The second murder had been perpetrated with the body left to be discovered in such a way that the Amazons could do nothing but suppose the victim had been slaughtered by someone from the household of Queen Marvellus.

All that remained now was to let Amazon Nature Take Her Course. And to that end Lord Marcar had sent his own warriors out to the castle to see to it that the desired ends were achieved. Queen Marvellus and her ladies had not been in residence at the castle long enough to discover its manifold secret panels, staircases and passageways.

Among other things there was a tunnel leading to a set of stairs that gained entrance to the interior of the castle. Unbeknownst to the Warlord's Captain, while she and her warriors were making their way into the castle, a significant number of representatives from the local Amazon clan was gathering outside the castle wall.

Not knowing precisely what awaited them at the head of the stairs, the Warlord's Captain and her warriors made their way up the staircase as quietly as they could. Even so, some noise was unavoidable which attracted the attention of the Queen's principle bodyguard. The archers were well prepared however, and so all that the servant got for her vigilance was an arrow that pierced the nipple of her left breast to plunge deep through the soft flesh to enter her heart.

The so-called secret passage had been no great secret after all ... For the flight of stairs leading to the avenue of escape had lead the Captain and her warriors directly to the roof of the castle. Anyone making even a cursory investigation would have discovered it. And it was apparent that Queen Marvellus had, for it was through the gate and down this flight of stairs that she and her body guard attempted to make their escape.

But the timing of the Captain's arrival proved most inopportune for the woman who would be Queen. For even as her guard went down, a second arrow struck Marvellus, piercing the fine bosom from which it was said that she had derived her name.

For all intents and purposes, with the death of Marvellus, the Captain's assignment had been carried out successfully. Just how many women there were in the Queen's entourage the Captain did not know ... And so she detailed several of her warriors to access their situation.

The warriors had only just got out of sight when cries were heard above the sound of running feet. "The Amazons! My Queen! The Amazons are here!"

A dishevelled looking young woman with whom no one was the least bit familiar came running up to them and stopped suddenly in her tracks.

"But you're not the Queen!" She stammered. "Who are you?"

In answer to this honest question a warrior drew back her sword, and at a nod from her Captain,
brought her arm forward thrusting a good twelve inches of cold steel into the full breast of the unfortunate young woman.

The warrior pulled her sword free and her victim collapsed to the ground.

"What was she prattling about?" She demanded of her Captain. "Aren't we Amazons? Are there others?"

"The woods are full of them!"

"I thought we cleaned them all out from around here years ago!"

In the meantime, while the Captain and her warriors were exchanging pleasantries, it may serve us well to check up upon the two members of her group who had been sent out to secure the surrounding area.

What they were looking for of course were others of the Queen's entourage. So far they had found nothing whatever.

"I haven't seen anything moving about! Have you?" One of the warriors asked the other.

"Me neither! Let's head back inside!"

It was not until they had gained the balcony that ran along the castle wall that they paused for a last look around.

"Wait a minute! What's your hurry? Let me catch my breath!"

"Yeah! Okay!"

"Except for climbing around this old rock pile, this was about the easiest gig the Warlord has tossed our way in quite a while, don't you think so?"

"Yeah! Almost too easy, if you were to ask me!"

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't know ... Nothing for sure ... But something doesn't seem quite right!"

"Nothing's ever quite right whenever our Warlord is concerned! Haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Hey! Wait a minute!"

"What?"

"I thought I saw something move out there!"

"Oh, g'wan! You're imagining things!"

"I'm not! I'm telling you! Let's get inside off this balcony! We're sitting ducks out here!"

The warrior moved to put her words into action, but her partner hung back for a last look around.
And it was then that a pair of arrows launched from somewhere above appeared suddenly to sprout from the top of the woman's chest.

With time for only the briefest of death wails,
the warrior pitched headlong over the balcony rail to fall crashing to the courtyard below.

Hardly had the first of the two warriors toppled from the castle wall when her partner,
who had lost no time in making what she hoped would be a dash for cover,
suddenly lurched back clutching desperately at the pair of shafts that bristled from the top of each of her breasts.

"What in the name of Hades is going on!" The Warlord's Captain exclaimed. "Someone is picking us off like flies!"
Before she could collect her wits sufficently to issue commands to her startled warriors,
one of them had dashed outside to the balcony.

"There she is! I see her!" she shouted, just as an arrow pierced her breast, and she too went down in her turn.

The third of the Amazons under the Captain's command went down.
But the Woodland Amazon who had pointed them out as targets for her archers arrows found that she had positioned
herself in the open for just a moment too long,
with the result that she too was struck down by a shaft that passed completely through her body.

In spite of this loss, or perhaps because of it,
the Amazons of the Woodland lost no time whatever in pressing forward in their attack upon the castle.

The author of this chronicle does not know whether this small band of women had any idea of just how badly they were outnumbered by the warriors who by now had regrouped and were waiting for them on the roof of that edifice of stone.

They may have stood momentarily aghast at what confronted them
for the trio found themselves faced with a force with what was at least a seven-to-one advantage.

But when they were commanded to lay down their weapons, one of them attempted to hurl her lance instead,
and then stood momentarily transfixed with an arrow through her breast.

The Amazon archer may have been having second thoughts about the advisability of launching an attack against such formidable odds, for she made no effort to raise her weapon, and it even appeared as though she were hanging back to a certain extent.

But once an action of almost any kind is initiated it is almost impossible to stop it in time.
And so it was only a matter of moments before the archer staggered back under the impact
of the pair of arrows that pierced her torso.

There was a brief lull in the action as the Warlord's archers took a moment to rearm their weapons and their Captain seized the opportunity to motion them to hold their fire.

"Now then," the Captain spoke to the last of the Amazons in a persuasive tone of voice. "You can see readily that your current situation is less than hopeless! Won't you be sensible and put down your weapon else you will end as have the others!"

The youngster looked at her fallen companions as they lay sprawled in ungainly postures upon the ground. Then she looked up, took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and uttering the familiar ululating cry of the Amazon warrior, made a motion to cast her spear at the Captain.

At that moment, an arrow whistled by the Captain's ear, and in less than a heartbeat the youngster was stopped in her tracks by the arrow that took her through the left breast.

The Captain gazed pensively for a moment at the bodies of the three warriors who now lay dead at her feet. Gladly she would have welcomed any or all of them into her own ranks. But rather than do that each of them had willfully chosen death as her only other option. The Captain shook her head ruefully, then shrugged her shoulders as if to put the matter behind her and turned her attention to her own warriors.

"All right, now Ladies! Listen up! Our work here is all but finished and you have done well! But we can't leave the Warlord Marcar's castle in a cluttered mess like this! So, Lucinda! Take your detail and gather enough dry wood for a Valkyrie Funeral! It's the least we can do for those who have fallen here today! Oh! And try not to stop a stray arrow yourself while you are about it! There has been more than enough killing here today, and you women don't grow on trees! As for the rest of you, start preparing these bodies for the pyre!"

"Captain?" One of her younger warriors spoke tentatively.
"What makes them do it? Are they all so much more brave than I myself can ever hope to be?"

"With the Amazons, I expect that it is more a matter of pride than of bravery, Tasha," the Captain spoke reassuringly.
"I expect that should the need arise you will prove to be fully as brave as you need to be!
But an excess of pride can lead a warrior to foolishness such as we have witnessed here today!
And so, as it has been written, Pride Goeth Before the Fall!"

"Do you think that the Warlord knew of this, Captain?"

"Do you mean, do I supect that Marcar sent us up here expecting that we would be slaughtered at the hands of these few woodland savages? To tell the truth, a similar thought had crossed my mind, and I certainly wouldn't put such a thing as being beyond his capacity to oversee! But in this case I tend to think not. We were sent to dispose of a woman who had made herself inconvenient. Had the Warlord wanted to have any one of us assassinated, he would not have sent us in force, but would have seen to it that we were few in number so that his intended victims would be easier to overpower!"

"All the same, if you will excuse me, Captain? I think that our Lord and Master has a bit of explaning to do!"

The story, when it became public, was that Queen Marvellis as well as the ladies of her court had been foully murdered by the local Amazons while sojourning at the castle outside of Necropolis. The Warlord Marcar had been left with little choice and so had sent his Captain and her warriors to take the matter in hand and to see that Justice Was Served.

The Captain's second in command was wont to raise some objection to the tale as in got around, but the Captain pressed a finger to her lips as if to seal them, and then reminded her comrade in arms that History Is Written By the Victorious.

Few if any Amazons roam the woodlands these days, and they give the castle a wide berth if they do. It has been said that the spirits of those slaughtered at this place still roam about from time to time and may be encountered when least expected.

So, in spite of what these people may tell you, as Paul Havey would be inclined to say,
"Now you know the Rest of the Story!"