The Queen's Day!
Indeed! Such a high sounding appellation for what amounted to nothing more than yet another Ritual Murder!
And it seemed highly improbable that either the King nor any of the King's Men
would ever grow weary of this continual slaughter of the females of their own species!
Why did they so steadfastly refuse to recognize the fact that what they were doing would eventually lead to their own extinction!
And what was more ...
On the Queen's Day it was the life of his own Queen that was to be forfeit!
Hers!
Still and all she couldn't very well complain ...
Now that was not precisely correct for she certainly could complain!
And what was more, she had every right to do so ...
It was simply that it would do her no good at all ...
She had made her pact and His Majesty the King had lived up to his end of their bargain ...
And so now it was time that she lived up to hers!
In its essence the pre-nuptual agreement with her King stated
that the lives of no fewer than one thousand women were to be forfeit
ere the Queen herself had her Day ...
Verily! In the beginning it had seemed to be such a ridiculously high and utterly unattainable number!
But that had been ...
Was it five?
No ...
Six years ago almost ...
She had been younger then of course ...
And to the young the future always seems to be so far off in the unimaginable distance!
Until at last she had come to this pass ...
And now of course it seemed that it had taken no time at all!
She had been a Queen after all!
But then ...
What was she doing to even so much as think of herself in the past tense?
She was still the reigning Queen, after all!
And she would continue to be so until ...
Until ...
She would rather not think about it!
But of course she had been thinking of little else of late ...
And would continue to do so ...
The Great King Necropolis chosen her to be his Queen!
She of all the women who were available to him ...
She alone had been his choice!
She had taken great pride on that fact!
And Oh!
But how she had gloried in the reprieve her betrothal to the King had given her!
It had taken a bit of time ...
And not all that much when she came to consider it ...
But she had even come to look forward to and to actually enjoy these entertainments,
as His Majesty the King Necropolis called them!
A strange thing, that!
For even as the number of victims mounted inexhorably higher ...
Still the Queen had relished sitting at his side ...
Basking herself in the cries of anguish as well as the blood that spurted from the bodies of the fallen women!
Why - on certain State Occasions it had even been her privilege to dispatch a number of the mortally wounded contestants!
At those times the Queen had not only basked in the blood of the dying woman ...
She had literally bathed herself in it as well!
It delighted her Lord and Master, the Great King Necropolis so very much
that this Queen should enter so whole-heartedly into the Spirit of the Entertainment ...
That on occasion the King even went so far as to make provision
that His Queen should be allowed to participate as the Principal Perpetrator!
This circumstance was entirely without precedent as far as anyone knew ...
For never in the entire history of the Realm had any Queen ever participated in any of these ceremonies ...
Until at last she herself was the subject upon who all eyes were focused ...
When after the thousandth victim went down to her death ...
The Queen's Time Had Come and she was sent to her own demise on what had come to be know as The Queen's Day!
To be completely honest the Queen had quite lost count of the number of her victims
or of the ones in which she had been a mere bystander as the women went to their deaths ...
And by rights - those shouldn't count! Should they?
Well - yes - they did count ...
And what's more the Queen knew very well that they did ...
Because that had been the orginal terms of the Prenuptual Agreement ...
King Necropolis had no real idea at the time that his Queen would ever reach the point of killing any of the other women herself ...
No Queen of his ever had ...
And he had no idea if the present once could bring herself to do it ...
All that was in their agreement was that the Queen was to be in attendance as each of the killings took place ...
And yes ...
At first the Queen had kept a running tally ...
But then as she came to look forward to the next entertainment somehow it seemed that she had lost count.
But someone else had not lost count ...
Oh, no!
Most definitely not!
Could it have been King Necropolis himself who had kept the score?
It very well may have been!
But - and this much was to his credit -
if he had - then he had never taunted her with the statistic ...
But now as she sat by her the side of her Lord and Master,
she realized that someone had not only kept count
but had made it a matter of public information besides!
The Queen watched as a massive nubian warrior thrust her sword into the belly of her rather petite opponent ...
It had been a most thoroughly lop-sided affair from the first - so entirely miss-matched were this pair!
But then these were for the King's entertainment were they not?
And as such the elements of any sort of a contest were in no way a prerequisite ...
The youngster was dying with a thrust to her navel - of course ...
Again ...
Always and ever it seemed desirable to thrust one thing or another into a woman's navel!
And perhaps it was ...
Ah! But then there was the second killing thrust!
And this was to the chest ...
That the Queen always looked forward to!
There had been the day of course when the Queen had preferred to see a woman take a shaft through the breast ...
Or beneath the sternum ...
Yes!
There was something truly majestic about a woman
as she arches in her last moments of life on earth
with the shaft of an arrow bristling in her chest!
It seemed that an arrow driven into her chest offered the woman
some measure of the respect to which she was entitled!
Ah ...
But then ...
Who was she to argue with how the men derivied their pleasure?
The Queen did not imagine that a blade thrust through one's navel was any more or less painful
than any number of other places into which a knife or sword might be inserted ...
But aside from her perception of a certain indignity -
any belly wound was going to leave the recipient with an inordinate length of time to wallow in agony before she died ...
And in addition to these cheerul reflections,
the Queen was convinced of one thing that was a near certainty ...
In no more than perhaps a matter of days ...
A week at the most ...
She was to be the woman laying dead with a blade or shaft protruding from her chest or navel!
This was no vague feminine premonition of dread!
She knew it would be so!
For had not such been inscribed in the text of her own Prenuptual Agreement?
And was this not a truly cheering reflection!
Ah! But then ...
Why spoil these last few days for herself?
A pleasingly plump contestant was in the process of having a ceremonial blade thrust its length into her belly ...
As it was preordained that she inevitably must ...
There now!
Did you see the thrust to the chest that girl just received!
Now to my mind that is the was that any woman worthy of the name should be dispatched!
But it mattered not now ...
For now she will fall to lay either dead or dying ...
It really didn't matter which to any great extent now that the Queen thought of it ...
For the ghouls who were to eventually drag away her corpse would take fiendish delight
in sheathing their knives in the abundance of her soft flesh!
And a fair number of times too - to judge by the breadth of the fallen woman's shoulders and the depth of her bosom ...
The more she thought about it - the more the Queen became reconciled to the notion
of having a dagger of some description plunged into her own swelling bosom!
Ah! But she should not dwell on that fallen one laying there!
For now here was another live one for the current champion to contend with!
And another fine strapping wench she was too!
From where did the King's Men manage to consistently locate such buxom women?
The Queen glanced sideways an her Lord and Master through eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Ah! But what real difference did it make to her after all?
And what difference did it make to this heavy-breasted woman performing in the arena before her?
The outcome of these mock battles were all predetermined, after all!
Under anything approaching normal circumstances,
the Queen would place her bet on this fine Amazon to win!
How could it very well be otherwise?
But no ...
The Queen knew very well that the Amazon who would have been her favorite
was very likely destined to have a pike thrust deep into her belly!
The Queen was surprized that an Amazon Warrior of any stripe would consent to such a thing!
But in all probability the woman was not truly an Amazon at all ...
But she certainly would have made a fine one if she were!
Hunn-naaugh!
Yes ...
Just as she had surmized,
the pike mounted atop the head of the war-axe wielded by her opponent
had at last made its way to the navel of the Amazon ...
And at any moment it would be probing the inner depths of her belly!
Uuuooo-nnnuaugh!
Ugh!
Ugh!
And now the pike was being driven deep ...
Deep into the woman's gut ...
With the victor lunging her weight forward ...
Driving her weapon into the belly of her opponent just as deeply as she possibly could ...
The pike had disappeared in the Amazon Warrior's gut ...
The axe-head was all that prevented it from going any further ...
And still the victor continued to lean against the axe-handle ...
As though she were attempting to push it still deeper into the woman's belly ...
And very likely she was ...
There was nothing quite like taking full advantage of every opportunity that presented itself ...
Because of course one never could be too sure ...
But in this case it was in all probability done to assure the winner
that the Amazon would lack the resources to rally herself once the pike was pulled from her belly ...
And true enough ...
As the victor pulled the pike from her victim's belly -
which made a wet slurping sound loud enough to be heard by everyone in attendance ...
True to form ...
The vanquished amazonian victim slid down with her back to the outer wall of the arena
where she came to a sitting position on the floor ...
There to get on with what was not her concern alone ...
The affairs of her death agony ...
The victor was approaching the throne with a self-satisfied expression on her face ...
She expects to receive her prize ...
To be honored in some way for her fine work this day ...
And of course she is to receive her reward in a manner of speaking ...
Just as the Queen could expect to receive her own in perhaps another day or two ...
A week now at most ...
nd what more could she expect to receive than to the singular honor of an arrow in the belly?
And ...
Yes ...
There it was ...
A mere flick of the wrist - and the snap of a bowstring ...
An arrow flies but a short distance ...
And now its shaft stands protruding from the girl's belly ...
Another victor has claimed her prize and received the only honor that she had any hope to expect from the hand of Lord Necros ...
Again the navel ...
Always the navel ...
The Queen found herself suddenly curious to know ...
Whether a race of men were to evolve ...
Such was hardly likely to occur in her own case ...
Still it presented an interesting point to ponder ...
And so now on the eve of her last the day on earth ...
The Queen is to be treated to a Grand Finale as it were ...
For her own sacrifice will be carried out in private ...
The Priestess in this ritual knows very well what is expected of her ...
She would be afforded the opportunity to ceremoniously slaughter her last victim ...
And a particularly fine one she is too, the Queen thought
as she gazed upon the still form of the young woman who lay stretched out on her back
atop the altar in the Throne Room of King Necropolis ...
This young woman possessed abundant breasts ...
Her Lord and Master did not skimp on that account ...
The Queen must credit him that ...
The young woman's heavy breasts lolled off to each side of her chest as she lay there upon the altar ...
And the Queen was suddenly taken with the notion that the Priestess should gather each of them ...
First one and then the other ...
And of thrusting the blade of the knife she held through each nipple and deep into her chest ...
But ...
That would in all probability create a furor ...
Which might not be such a bad thing ...
Except that it might go hard on her when it came to the manner of her own death ...
No ...
As much as she would have preferred to see the knife buried to the hilt in the chest of this final victim ...
No ...
She dare not make the request ...
The bells had only now ceased their tolling ...
Which was just as well as far as the Queen was concerned ...
The damned things never ceased to get on her nerves it seemed ...
The Queen sighed in resignation ...
She watched as the Priestess ceremoniously approached the altar ...
And holding the long slender blade of the knife almost horizontally ...
She slowly thrust the blade into the woman's navel -
running it at a long angle so that she could receive its entire length in her belly ...
Involuntarily, the youngster attempted to suck her already concave belly still farther away from the intruding blade ...
Which caused her chest to expand and swell upward ...
Which in turn was the cause of considerable delight to those who were in attendance ...
At least it was to judge by the sighs that emanated from the small gathering ...
The Queen somewhat ruefully that the swelling bosom of a dying woman was likely what contributed to the popularity of the blade thrust into her navel ...
Her life's work now completed, the Priestess stepped forward and stood before the altar - there to receive her own final reward ...
The bow was nocked ...
And the Queen idly wondered for a moment whether the Priestess was to be slain with the same shaft that had killed the victor in the arena yesterday ...
The arrow did not so much as possess any feathers to guide its flight ...
It really needed none, the Queen thought ...
It really has but a very short distance to flyaiiee-ungh!
The Priestess staggered back under the impact of the arrow as in struck her ...
She was aware of the altar as it struck the small of her back and stopped her fall ...
The woman toppled back ...
Her fine body arching magnificently in its own right over the body of the girl she had so recently slaughtered ...
The Priestess managed to look up between the valley that was formed by her own full and heaving breasts -
at the arrow whose featherless shaft was protruding from her own navel ...
So this is what if feels like ..., She thought.
She wondered if the girl laying beneath her were yet alive and whether she realized that the woman who had killed her now lay dying atop her ...
The Priestess gazed at her arrow as it's featherless shaft wavered with her breathing and she wondered how long it was likely to ttake her to die ...
But now there seemed to be someone looming above her ...
And a hand was laid gently upon her belly ...
Caressing her at a point beneath where the arrow had gone into her ...
Not my belly! Please! The Priestessn must have thought although no words came to her lips ...
And now the fingers of the hand seemed to be closing around the shaft in her navel ...
Not my navel!
No! Please!
My belly!
It hurts me so!
It ...Huug-nugh!
While the King was away for a time arranging for a suitably grandiose ceremony in which his Queen would be dispatched to her final reward,
the centerpiece of that ceremony was at the moment left to her own devices ...
"I can't do this! I simply cannot!" The Queen ranted to the empty room ...
But the walls issued no reply ...
Indeed, it was seldom if ever that they, being of stone and mortar, had anything to impart to anyone.
"I'll not be the centerpiece for a bunch of lewd, rude, crude, gawking individuals!
I'll be damned if I will be!
Now where is that knife?"
The knife that the Queen sought was neither sacred nor ceremonial,
but a utilitarian blade that her Lady-in-Waiting had secured from one of the Palace Guard.
Tearing off her gown, the Queen knelt on the floor of her chamber
and probed the depths of her navel with the tip of the knife's blade ...
"So this is what it must feel like ..." The Queen thought as she summoned the resolve to bury the blade in her own belly ...
And then - almost before she realized that she had done it -
The sharp blade of the knife had slipped into her navel and passed nearly three quarters of its length into her gut!
The pain, for some reason was not immediate ...
But when it struck, it hit her with an intensity like nothing she had ever experienced!
With one hand grasping the knife, her free hand went to her breast
and involuntarily she crushed the soft flesh as she clawed at the nipple.
Perhaps it was strange that at this point there was no blood ...
That would come later ...
And when it did, it came in a substantial amount,
for the Queen was discovered some time later where she had toppled forward in a darkening pool ...
Understandably the King was upset.
Not so mucn with the death of his Queen, but with the unseemly manner in which she had come to her demise.
Here he stood with a ceremony all prepared, an expectant crowd gathering and the centerpiece lying in a pool of blood!
What was he to do?
Well, what could he do other than to make a substitution ...
And so it was that the Queens own Lady-in-Waiting was elected to be
Queen For A Day ...
And though the lady was perhaps not as heavily endowed as were many of His Majesty's earlier victims ...
It was felt by all in attendance that she more than made of for it ...
By the enthusiasm with which her bosom swelled to take full measure of the blade's lethal stroke!
And so, Gentle Reader, the Queen's Day has come down to us through the countless ages
to be refurbished and rebaptized and known to us in the guise of a once-popular game show ...
