"I don't understand it, Sir!"
The young recruit exclaimed as he looked out over the desolation of the battle field,
littered as it was with the bodies of the dead and dying who had but recently fallen there.
A lone warrior had managed to struggle to her feet and was still making an attempt to advance upon their position.
It seemed to the private that it was something akin to reluctance that the sergeant at last raised his musket
and put a ball into the bosom of the woman as she staggered forward.
She stood straight up and then toppled and fell before the sergeant lowered his gun and responded to the private's observation.
Rue Morgue
"What don't you understand, Private?" his sergeant asked, knowing full-well what troubled his raw recruit.
"They are an army of untrained rabble and yet they will neither yield nor flee!"
Rue Morgue
Both men watched as the warrior writhed in her death agony and the sergeant considered giving her another round ...
But his shot had been well-placed and he knew from his considerable experience that she would expire
some time before he could reload and prime his weapon.
"Rabble, you call them, Private?
They are Amazon Warriors!
And a more proud and fierce fighting force you may never hope to meet!
However, otherwise you are quite correct ..."
Rue Morgue
"About what, Sir?" The private asked hoping to redeem himself to some extent in the eyes of his superior.
"Never do the Amazons turn tail and run from a fight!
At least I have never been a witness to it if they have!"
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"But will they not lay down their arms in surrender, Sir?"
"Not in recent memory that I know of, Private!"
"Do you mean to say that the Amazon finds a ball to her breast or a bayonet thrust through her belly
in some way preferable to being taken captive?" The private was incredulous.
Rue Morgue
"It would seem so, Private!
Now keep your eyes on the field!"
"Yessir!
But I see nothing moving out there now, Sir!"
"Keep a sharp eye open all the same, Private!"
"Should I go out there to inspect the field, Sir?"
Rue Morgue
"You wish perhaps to fondle their bodies, Private?"
"But only to see whether any remain alive, Sir!"
"Go ahead if you like, Private!"
"Yessir!" the private jumped up eagerly.
"But, Private!
Again I caution you!
Keep your bayonet at the ready ...
And if you see any sign of life ...
Do not hesitate to use it!
These females will kill you with their dying breath!"
"Yessir!
I'll be careful, Sir!
Thank you, Sir!"
"Raw recruits!" the sergeant muttered as the private advanced into the field
where the bodies of the Amazons lay as though tossed about like so much cordwood.
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"The lad may learn if he survives the afternoon!
Who knows?
Maybe he'll be one of the lucky ones who doesn't get his liver cut from a swipe delivered by a dying warrior!"
The private had taken him at his word apparently, for now he was busily engaged in rolling
each of the fallen warriors over on her back and thrusting his bayonet into her belly.
A grisly business it was too, but one in which a number of the men in his command seemed to take a rare pleasure.
The sergeant enjoyed viewing the expanse of a woman's broad bosom certainly as much as any other man - perhaps even more so ...
But he infinitely prefered to admire them while they were yet alive and breathing -
which was something that was rather difficult to do when the woman in question was an Amazon Warrior.
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It was a shame, too, because they were such truly magnificent creatures.
It was a pity that you couldn't take them captive and sell them on the slave market or something.
He had tried that once back during his days as a soldier of fortune before enlisting in the regular army.
Now there was one helluva woman!
My God!
As he remembered, she must have put at least a full twenty men out of action before she herself was taken down ...
From behind by saber-slash ...
And even that had come about very much as a fluke!
The sergeant found himself wondering what might have become of her?
Very likely dead by this time like all these laying here before him ...
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"Private!" the sergeant suddenly leaped to his feet when he saw what his soldier was about to do.
"Sir?"
"We will have none of that!
Not while you are under my command!"
"But, Sir?
She is already dead, Sir!"
"I recognize that fact, Private!
But I condone no such acts of barbarity!
A thrust of your steel through bosom or belly is quite sufficient!
But you are otherwise to leave the body intact!
You are to leave the heads on their shoulders!
Show them some respect!
That's an order, Soldier!"
"Yes, Sir!"
The private was confused.
Why did it matter to the sergeant whether he decapitated a few of the women just for the sake of variety?
And what on earth was this talk of respect?
For who?
These small heaps of dead female flesh?
The private shook his head in wonder and then dragged the body of a particularly lush female and lay her down
so that she arched over the thighs of another warrior.
The dead woman's gut pulled away so that her ribcage and breasts swelled up at him.
Even in death her nipples stood at silent attention and the private began to see the sergeant's point
in not mutilating these fallen warriors unnecessarily.
He wondered about the location of the wound and he bent to the corpse the better to inspect it more closely.
Oh, yes!
Here it was after all!
The way her body was arched with her head thrown back as it was,
it was difficult to see the hole where the bullet had entered at the base of her throat.
Other than that her body appeared unblemished.
If he didn't stab her but left her for the sergeant to inspect, would it put him back in good stead?
It was worth taking the risk so the private left the woman as she was.
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"He's not such a bad lad!"
The sergeant mused as he saw that the recruit had left a fine speciman laying unmolested directly in his line of sight.
Positioned across the thighs of her sister, it looks for all the world as though the warrior
were laying down to offer herself to us, doesn't it?
It seemed rather a shame to him that few were known to have done so while yet alive!
And that brought him back to thoughts of the one Amazon he had taken captive.
That saber-slash had crippled her rather badly and so she could neither run nor stand and fight.
In any case it was apparent that the warrior fully expected to be slaughtered as she lay there.
but rather than make any futile attempts to crawl away or hide herself,
she had chosen to announce herself by howling at him in some barbaric tongue he had no hope to understand,
and then to glare up at him defiantly from where she lay on the ground.
His first impulse had been to run her through and be done with it -
which was nothing more or less than what the warrior herself expected.
But then to his own surprize and what must have been her utter amazement,
he had drawn back his military saber and thrust it into the sheath at his belt rather than into any part of her body.
Why?
At the time he had no real idea.
There was nothing about her to indicate that she would have any value at all as a captive or a slave.
Amazons would tell their captors nothing and few could understand them at any rate had any been inclined to do so.
As for slavery, no dealer that he knew would so much as take her off his hands -
much less pay him anything for the privilege of doing so.
"What you want to do," one dealer had told him,
"Is to take your knife, like this," the dealer continued, placing the tip of his own blade in the woman's navel.
"And then drive it to the hilt ...
Either quickly or slowly ...
The choice of course is yours ...
I would be more than happy to do it for you now, if you'd like?"
Catharsis Erotica
"I would rather prefer that you did not," he recalled speaking softly at the same time closing his hand over the other man's wrist
with a firmness that served to convince the slave dealer that he was serious in what he said.
The man relented and withdrew his knife.
"Even so," he declared,
"That is quite likely to be the only satisfaction you will receive from this woman, so keep it in mind, my friend!"
As it was, the demonstration, or more properly, his having prevented it from reaching its logical conclusion,
had served him in good stead after all.
The woman had exhaled audibly and then stared at him for a moment and smiled.
He had returned her smile, then with set features he had given his head a decisive nod as if to say,
"And that, my friend is how it is going to be!"
And she had gotten the message and had received it rather gladly he thought.
At any rate, he was soon relieved and yes, rather pleased to recognize the fact
that he no longer had to have eyes in the back of his head when he was around her.
He wished that there were something that he could do for her injury which was obviously going to be a permanent impairment.
In point of fact he found himself wishing that she had not been wounded in the first place,
but then perhaps it was just as well.
If she had not, he or someone would have been forced to shoot her.
Either that or she would have been laying among the bodies of her dead
waiting to have a bayonet thrust into her helpless breast by some other raw recruit ...
Much as his private was doing to the women who lay dead here today.
Good Lord!
How many of them were there, anyway?
The sergeant winced as the private angled the blade of his bayonet down into the gut of another of the women
who lay prostrate before him and the sergeant rose to his feet to offer the recruit a bit of instruction.
"Now you see, Private?
A bayonet thrust such as that is all well and good if what you are seeking is to add to her torment!"
"She was quite dead as it was, Sir!
I am certain that she felt no pain!"
The recruit remonstrated mildly perhaps in some small effort to excuse his technique
which his superior had apparently taken as being either unseemly or unsoldierly.
But at the moment the sergeant was not chastising him ...
In fact the sergeant was not regarding him at all
but was instead scanning the about the collection of still female forms that lay about them.
"Are you looking for someone in particular, Sir?"
He was and then again he wasn't and the sergeant was gratified to see
who had apparently not presented herself as a target this day.
"Is there something I can help you with, Sir?" the private urged.
And the sergeant shook himself mentally as he replied,
"I'm looking to see if there remains a relatively unblemished corpse among them!
You seem to have done a most thorough job, Private!"
"Yes, Sir!
Thank you, Sir!
Here is one, Sir!
May I roll her over for you, Sir?"
Rue Morgue
"Yes ...
But now in this have a care!
For if she be yet alive she may have some weapon hidden under her!"
The woman remained alive ...
A ball had taken her through the throat and it was all but a matter of time before she would drown in her own blood.
Other than that she bore them no unpleasant surprizes
and the private arranged her over the mid-section of another so that her breasts lent a prominently and admirable display.
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The private knew the personal tastes and preferences of his sergeant as well as any man alive ...
It was to his own best advantage that he align himself with his immediate superior in this man's army.
The private was not being especially devious in doing this ...
He was simply doing that which was expected of him.
In the sergeant he had gained a comrade-in-arms ...
A rather paternalistic one to be sure but a comrade all the same ...
And what was of equal importance - the private knew that he could count on the sergeant as his protector ...
Which he realized was an absolute necessity if he were to remain among the living to a ripe old age!
"Now, Private! Heed me if you will!
In dispatching a mortally wounded warrior,
the idea is that death should come as quickly as possible in order that the victim suffer no longer but be put out of their misery!"
The sergeant paused for a moment in his recitation as if to gather his thoughts.
If the truth be known, he had come to the point that he actually loathed himself for doing this ...
Still - it was something that had to be done ...
He really saw no alternative ...
And now that he had initiated this demonstration, there remained nothing for it but to see it through ...
"Take your hand, Private - and press your fingertips to the small hollow that forms directly beneath the sternum ...
There!
Just so!
Now - placing the tip of your blade in that hollow ...
and grasping the weapon - be it bayonet or saber -
so that the blade runs at an angle toward the head ...
You are then prepared to drive the blade into the chest cavity ...
Which most often strikes either the heart or lung ...
And in either event suffices to kill almost immediately ..."
And so saying, the sergeant completed his demonstration with a thrust of his own weapon
which plunged deep into the bosom of the woman as she lay before them.
A small geyser of blood spurted up spattering both the muzzle and woodwork of his musket.
The woman's body shuddered convulsively for a moment before she sagged back to repose quietly in death.
"Oh!
But that was well done, Sir!"
The private voiced his approval, and the sergeant, not quite trusting his own voice,
stood in silence for a moment before pulling his dripping blade from the woman's chest and nodding curtly.
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"Carry on, soldier!"
He growled severely and once again resumed his position on the sidelines.
A cold shiver ran along his spine and down his arms for in that single thrust of his blade
it seemed to him that he had suddenly realized what a veritable sin against nature he had commited in killing that woman.
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Putting aside any nebulous issue of morality, he knew ...
Somehow he simply knew that the life of a single fertile female was of far greater value than that of the male -
And the realization had shaken him.
The loss of one of his own fighting men cost him dearly in terms of labor and firepower.
But by extension, a man in the prime of his life could likely sire several hundred offspring during the course of a single year -
were he of course granted the opportunity ...
Yet how many new-born babes could a woman be expected to bring into the world?
How many lives could she in effect replace in a similar length of time?
Two or three at most and most often only one ...
And at that she was fortunate to survive the ordeals of the birthing herself!
How precious then in the sight of all that was Nature is the life of the females of our species!
Was mankind so bent on their own self-destruction that ...!
Ah, but then perhaps this is what had stayed his hand when he had taken the lone Amazon woman prisoner
rather than do what was expected of him and kill her as she lay helpless on the ground that day now so long ago.
Yes, he had gone the rounds of the slave dealers as if seeking to sell her ...
When in fact he had not the slightest intention of parting with her under those circumstances.
Though they shared no common spoken language, he was convinced that the single incident in which he stopped the slave dealer
as he offered to run his blade into her had served to bond their relationship.
She trusted him after that and it was not over long, as he remembered that he had seen fit to provide her with weapons of her own ...
A fact that appeared to astonish her at first.
Her wound healed to the extent that it would ... and she could get about ...
Although only with considerable difficulty ...
He recalled how genuinely delighted she was when he gave her the crutch he had fashioned as well as he was able using his knife
as his primary instrument ...
Her name was Mahariah and over time the two of them did learn to communicate to an extent,
although it was regrettably apparent that neither she and certainly not he was adept at learning a foreign tongue.
The sergeant occupied himself with cleaning his musket as his subordinate went about dragging, lifting,
and finally stabbing the women of the body pile he was constructing.
It had been Mahariah herself who tugged at his arm one day as he was attempting to tool a bit of harness
for one of the horses the mounted soldiers rode.
He had offered her the awl he held but it was the leather that the woman wanted.
He handed the straps to her and she sat on the ground immediately and began to wrap them around her damaged ankle.
Her first attempt was not especially effective but it had served to demonstrate what she wanted to do
and so he had gone about the camp scouting up bits of leather ...
And so between them they fashioned bindings with which to wrap her ankle.
Mahariah surprized him one evening by immersing her foot in the cook-pot and when the leather shrank as it dried
the effects of the support it lent to her ankle was a joy for both of them to see.
Never again would Mahariah be as fleet as the swift-footed deer ...
But what was as least as important was the fact that walk she would!
The sergeant found it more comforting to think of his old Amazon friend,
rather than to dwell overmuch on the plight and sight of those that lay outstretched on the ground before him ...
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It was not overly long after that when he came to recognize that which he supposed he had realized all along ...
And that was that in helping to heal her, he had to some degree lost her ...
And so it was that when Mahariah came to him one day
with the bow and a quiver of arrows she had made slung over her shoulder ...
He had taken both her hands in his - kissed her lightly - bade her farewell ...
And stood in watch to serve as her rear-guard as she had paced solemnly away ...
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"Private!
Leave off there, Man!
The hour grows late and the Gleaners are apt to grow restive!
Neither you nor I should have the least desire to happen upon any one of them!
Come now!
We shall return to the bivouac!"
The sergeant was somewhat gratified to see that the private appeared none too disappointed in being thus relieved of his task.
"A man does grow arm-weary after a while, doesn't he, Soldier?" he said resting his hand briefly on the lad's shoulder.
"Indeed he does, Sir!"
The sergeant nodded his understanding and together they headed back toward the camp for the night.
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"Ah, but for the day to come," the sergeant thought,
"When men and the women we call Amazons may at last come to terms and understand one another!"
