Aablar the Neanderthal Ch. 08

He had aged. His face bore the marks of time, his body bore the scars of many hunts and combats. His hair was iron gray with swathes of white, but his body was still powerful. He did not speak, but his eyes were warm and soft and spoke his delight at seeing her. She fell into his arms and he picked her up and carried her like a child back to a set of caves in the hillside where the rest of group awaited them.

Agnes was very old now and had gone completely blind. She was so delighted to see her that she began to cry, hot tears running out of her sightless eyes. She petted Vanessa’s shining ash blonde curls and felt her unlined face.

‘Ah, you are still a goddess come among us,’ she said with love in her voice. ‘You bring us love and luck.’

The old chief had died many years previously and the current chief was on his deathbed. Vanessa examined him and quickly discerned that he had suffered a stroke and there was considerable internal bleeding. There was nothing she could do. He would die soon, she hoped, for he was in great pain.

Jana had borne Raritar many children, but only two – daughter and a son survived. She herself was into her thirties and an old woman now. She marveled at Vanessa.’s youth.

‘Are you Amazon immortal?’ she asked in wonder. ‘You have not aged a day and the seasons have come and gone more than ten times since we were last together! We are all old, even mighty Raritar.’

‘No, we are not immortal’ said Vanessa kindly. ‘But we age more slowly than you for our lives are much easier than yours.’

Of course, Bradogun and Tuval did not recognize their mother. They knew that they mother was Amazon, but Jana was the only mother that they had ever known. They were awkward with this exotic Amazon scholaress, calling her ‘lady Amazon.’ They would not call her ‘mother.’

After the evening repast, Raritar took her aside.

“I shall be the new chief,’ he said. ‘I very much desire to perform the ceremony of accession this Spring. The Vernal Equinox falls the day after tomorrow.’

Vanessa knew about the ceremony from her previous stays with them.

‘Do you have a womb for your seed?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he indicated a young savage girl, still in her teens. ‘That is Dali, daughter of Anib, one of our old chiefs. Her mother wishes her to receive my seed.’

‘Oh,’ said Vanessa, uncertainly.

‘But you are and will always be the mistress of my heart. It would give me much joy if you would accept my seed one last time.’

Vanessa mind was a blur. She forgot her responsibilities, her throne, all the practicalities of her position.

‘Yes,’ she said fervently. ‘Yes, Raritar, my dearest love, I will accept the gift of your seed. Our son will be a king.’

Thus it was that Raritar sat on the ancient Vernal throne with Dali sucking on his cock to bring on a magnificent tumescence. And Vanessa impaled herself on it, her cunt still tight and gripping his shaft with clinging warmth. She felt the approach the appointed moment more than he. She bucked and threshed and gasped in his ear, ‘Now … my … lord! Now … you … must … impregnate … me!’

Dali gazed on in wonder as they climaxed together, gouts of his warm semen ejaculated into her womb as their climax engulfed them.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There was silence as the swing rocked back and forth. Vanessa was far away in the Cavern of Eternal Spring with her love.

‘Oh, Raritar, love of my life,’ she whispered. ‘I pinned the Order of Merit on the breast of Elizabetha Warren for striking you down in your old age. I watched two of our sons herded into the gas chamber. Soon Elizabetha Warren, will butcher our last son, our youngest son. I cannot carry the burden any longer! I cannot share in the joy of my sisters when my child falls to our invincible dominesses. For what chance have stone and bone against bullets and death-rays? No, I will abdicate and will weep, without fear of besmirching the honor of the Queen of the Amazon. For what is left for me but to weep?’

Charlotte was stunned. She faltered, ‘Then Aablar is … is your son.’

‘Charlotte,’ said Vanessa, gently. ‘I have known the love of a savage. I have known the love of a brave, honorable man. We Amazon have not known this love for over a thousand years. I wish you could know this love some day.’

The Queen composed herself and stood up.

‘Come, my dear,’ she said. ‘You have a princess to impregnate and an election to fight.’

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

4. Elizabetha rotated her free-fall to face the direction of the gale and ignited her power-chute. The sensation of deceleration was dramatic and the power-chute straps were jerked taut. The ignition activated the data feed from the power-chute and her altitude and ground proximity appeared on her visor. She carefully adjusted the power and nozzle directions on the pack until her read-out indicated that she was approaching the mass of the mountain at a slow and steady rate of descent.

Then all of sudden the grayness surrounding her was replaced with a swirling, misty white froth. She had entered the cloud layer that lay below the altitude of the peak itself. Her temperature shield held and the whipping snow condensed on her skin as a fine warm spray. Then she emerged from the thick cloud cover into the raging blizzard.

She could see the thick miasma of snow-flakes, driven into seemingly chaotic patterns by the howling gale. Her ground proximity chimes began to go off, indicating that she was less than fifty feet from landfall.

She peered over her shoulder into the murk, but could see nothing. The chimes grew louder and proximity arrow indicated that the surface was just behind her. Finally, barely ten feet away, she glimpsed the black rocks of a cliff face. Gingerly she used her power nozzles to maneuver till she was able to place her left palm on the rock. Carefully setting her power for a controlled descent, she got both hands and feet on the cliff face and proceeded to work her way down the cliff face. The data distortion was very high now and only fuzzy and intermittent readings appeared on her visor. The cliff face became smoother and then she caught sight of a snow-covered level area below. Reaching it, she shut down her power and nimbly hopped on to the snow. Immediately, she sank down up to her armpits in a soft snowdrift!

She surveyed her position. The level area was actually a saddle in a ridge. Across from the cliff face she had descended, the mountain rose steeply into the clouds. However, to either side of her there seemed to be openness. Her instruments gave her no usable information. She decided to try and raise the ‘Andromeda’. But as Carol had warned her, she got nothing but static. When she tried to open a channel to Sophia, the outcome was the same. In addition to the heavy distortion caused by the minerals in the region, she was deep in the broadcast shadow of the surrounding cliffs.

She began slogging forward towards the openness in her field of vision. Even with her great strength, it was tough going through the deep snow with the heavy power-chute strapped to her back. The drift grew shallower until it was only knee deep. She rounded the cliff face she had descended and was now in the lee of the mountain, sheltered from the wind. All at once the howling dropped. She rested her power-chute on the black rock to catch her breath and let her own heavy breathing return to normal. Through heavy static, she could just make out an incoming communication.

‘Colonel Elizabetha … Lady Sophia … forward, due south of your position … beware … sheer drop …’. The voice faded out again. It sounded like Carol, but the static was so intense that it was hard to be sure. The compass reading on her visor spun wildly, so she shut it off in disgust and continued forward, stepping warily through ankle deep snow. Then she heard the unmistakable roar of a power-chute, very close. She stopped. A second later, her power-chute under controlled power, Sophia appeared before her, barely ten feet away. She had powered up another cliff face, a sheer drop just a few feet in front of Elizabetha position!

Sophia brought herself over the edge of the cliff and powered down her power-chute. ‘Two found, four to go,’ said Elizabetha, clapping Sophia cheerfully on the rump as they rubbed nipples.

‘I’ve been up and down this stretch of the mountain, Colonel,’ Sophia said. ‘There is no path from the ridge saddle this way. Then I got a garbled signal from Captain Carol guiding me up to this ridge saddle to you.’

‘The cavern we seek is on the north face of the Claw,’ agreed Elizabetha. ‘The path that leads to it must be on that side. Let’s wait here in the lee of the wind for the others. Captain Carol should be directing them to us.’

Elizabetha opened a communication channel to ‘Andromeda’ again. This time, through the hisses and clicks, she could discern a scattered pattern of words.

‘… two dominesses … closing … range two hundred yards …’

Obviously Carol was guiding the others to her as she had guided Sophia. Soon the roar of the power-chutes became audible and two tall dominesses joined them. They waited another twenty minutes. Elizabetha activated a light beacon from her pistol every few minutes to provide a quick fix on their position. Finally her patience wore out.

‘We’re still missing Seignora Melania Paulus and Chiara Henn,’ said Elizabetha testily. ‘Alex, try to raise Captain Carol and inform her that we are moving out along the north face. Ask her to convey my orders to Seignora Melania and Cara to return to the ‘Andromeda’.’

Sophia did as she was bid. ‘I sent the message, but I have no confirmation, Colonel,’ she said.

‘It’s the best we can do. We’ll leave our power-chutes here in the lee of the wind. Form up and follow me.’

The dominesses placed a light beacon on the site of the rocket packs. Then they followed Elizabetha in single file as she led them back across the level ridge saddle. Communication was now impossible in the howling gale. Their communicators worked by locking into the Amazon aerial net and bouncing on to the desired destination. So while they had very poor communication with the ‘Andromeda’, they had none at all with each other.

They waded into deeper and deeper snowdrifts. The snow got up to their necks but then began to get shallower – they could only move because of their temperature shields. The heavy snow continued to swirl around them. Elizabetha moved warily as the snow grew shallower – she suspected that the other side of the ridge saddle would be a sheer drop as well. When they came to the edge her suspicions were confirmed. However, a narrow path emerged from below along the cliff face to their left and continued along the cliff face to their right. If there were any tracks to be found, the heavy snow had eliminated them. She opened a channel to the ‘Andromeda’ bio-scanners and found a faint and flickering read-out on her visor with a scratchy and flickering directional arrow pointing RIGHT. Elizabetha pointed to the rising path to their right and led on towards it.

The path was slippery and was made more treacherous by the powerful winds that drove them into the cliff. About a hundred yards up the path, Elizabetha paused and peered ahead into the thickly falling flakes. Her keen sight picked out the faint outlines of a small cave mouth in the cliff. Elizabetha indicated it to the dominesses behind her. They approached it cautiously. Elizabetha made hand signals indicating that she was going to enter and for them to cover her. They all drew their pistols.

The entrance to the cave had low headroom and Elizabetha stooped to cross the threshold. It was pitch dark inside and it took her eyes a few moments to adapt, even from the dim light outside. It was not a large cave, perhaps twenty yards to the rear. Millennia of civilization had dulled the Amazon sense of smell, but even so Elizabetha’s nostrils curled from the strong animal scent. Then she saw the mass of fur at the rear of the cave. Even as she watched, one large shape stirred and a massive head became apparent – an ice bear! And there were several of them!

Over ten feet tall on average and with huge teeth and claws, ice bears were the graceful hunters at the top of the food chain in glacial north. The coming spring meant that their hibernation was due to end and they were slumbering fitfully. The one bear that had stirred rubbed his eyes and wrinkled his nostrils, catching the strange and strong smell that had roused him from a fitful slumber. He began to come to life and a deep coughing rumble came from his throat as he lumbered to his feet. The other bears began stirring as well.

Like all Amazon, Elizabetha loved beautiful wild predators and was loath to harm them. So she sheathed her pistol and cautiously backed toward the cave entrance. Suddenly the first bear lunged forward, displaying his huge yellowed teeth and uttering a loud snarl. It was too late to re-draw her pistol. Elizabetha took two quick backward steps, gracefully ducking under the cave’s low threshold and out on to the path. She was signaling her dominesses to back away from the cave mouth when her boot heel caught in a rocky crack on the path. She felt her balance going – she knew was going to fall over the precipice.

Elizabetha screamed, ‘Sophie!’, hoping her voice carried above the storm. As she began to fall backwards, she tossed her tendril rope curling out with amazing accuracy. Sophia was backing down the path in response to Elizabetha’s hand signal. She watched with horror as Elizabetha began to fall and then saw the emerging snout of the ice bear. She only dimly heard her name called. But Elizabetha’s shining tendril rope came almost directly into her hands.

She caught it with her free hand and quickly fed it back to the two Dominesss behind her. They worked like a well-oiled machine. Both holstered their pistols as they grasped the tendril rope. The third Dominess in line quickly wrapped the end of the tendril rope around her waist and braced herself as the anchor of the team. The second had both hands on the tendril rope and tensed her muscles to absorb the shock of Elizabetha’s falling weight. Trusting her two sisters-in-arms, Sophia flipped the cylinder to load a solid bullet in her pistol’s chamber and fired, hitting the bear just under its jawbone. There was a smell of burning fur. The bear reared back and roared in pain. She stood ready to fire again and at the same time braced herself to hold the tendril rope with her left hand.

Both events now happened simultaneously – the tendril rope jerked taut and the ice bear charged. Sophia felt her left arm would be torn out of its socket by the shock, but she leaned into the mountain and held on, knowing that the bulk of the weight was being borne by the dominesses behind her. At the same time, she flipped the cylinder on her pistol again, loading a hollow shot. She was focusing so hard that all she saw was the charging bear and all she felt was the burn in her left arm with the effort of steadying Elizabetha’s weight on the taut tendril rope. Her pistol barrel was steady as she squeezed the trigger. The shot was louder this time and the next moment there was loud pop and a fountain of blood as the bear’s head exploded. Its body continued forward on the path and came to rest at Sophia’s feet. She and the dominesses behind her were drenched in its blood.

They did not pause for an instant. Immediately they began hauling up on the tendril rope that they knew was cinched to Elizabetha’s belt. They had hauled two arm lengths when suddenly they felt the tendril rope go slack. Worried, they pulled the tendril rope up quickly. At the end of it hung Elizabetha’s broad leather belt with her holstered pistol and her sheathed sword. The belt’s waist clasp flapped open in the wind.

Sophia stared at Elizabetha’s belt, horror-struck. Her mind refused to accept the possibility that Elizabetha was dead.

‘Lady Sophia,’ said Erin, the tall dominess immediately behind her. ‘Shall we report to aircraft?’

‘No,’ said Sophia, decisively. ‘We cannot waste an instant. I will scale down immediately. If I am lost, the two of you must return immediately to aircraft and report the situation.’

They hammered in a piton and anchored Sophia’s tendril rope. Sophia used Elizabetha’s tendril rope as a safety line, belayed by Erin and her fellow dominess. She quickly lowered herself down the cliff face, oblivious to the swirling snow, mists and howling wind. Her mind was completely focused on her task, but deep inside she was frantic with worry.

She reached the end of her tendril rope and reached a rocky protrusion from the cliff face, covered with the brambles. The thorns on the brambles were wickedly sharp. She cursed aloud as one cut a gash in the tough fabric of her uniform, drawing blood. She worked her way back and forth along the cliff face, to either side of the brambles. Then she saw something that crystallized her fears. On the very end of one of the bramble branches, overhanging a sheer drop of thousands of feet was a shred of purple and green, a flickering point of color in the raging wind.

She swung herself out in a wide arc at the end of her tendril rope and snatched it up. Resting against the cliff face, she examined it closely. There was no doubt. It was a shred of field fabric. She remained suspended on the cliff face for many moments – time seemed to stand still. Then she tucked the shred of fabric in her bra and slowly pulled herself up, hand over hand, till Erin hauled her on to the path above. She sat on the path, physically tired, but mentally exhausted.

‘I am afraid that Colonel Elizabetha may be lost,’ she said, finally. ‘However, we cannot abandon our mission. We will continue. I will report the situation to Captain Carol.’

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

5. Elizabetha had fallen backwards and concentrating on tossing the tendril rope accurately to Sophia, her body began a head-first dive over the precipice. With her extraordinary body control, she spun herself around to fall feet first. She trusted that Sophia had caught and secured the tendril rope. Elizabetha looked down the cliff for holds or a landing spot. Everything was happening very quickly now and the swirling snow and poor visibility made her task virtually impossible. A jutting rock appeared out of the mists and she twisted her body to avoid it. In doing so she hit her side against the cliff face, knocking the wind out of her. She fell free for another few yards before landing on her stomach on another protrusion from the cliff face. This hard landing would have killed her except that her tendril rope was its length now and jerked tight, arresting her fall. The protrusion was rocky and covered with thick brambles that further broke her fall. Elizabetha was only semi-conscious and could not see her belt clasp catching in the brambles and snapping open. She felt rather than saw her belt pulled off her by the tendril rope and hauled up to the path far above by her sisters.

Through the fog of pain and fluctuating consciousness, she hung on to the bases of two thick bramble bushes. However, she felt her strength waning with her consciousness and the woody trunks began to slip out of her grasp. Her blaster slipped off her shoulder and fell into space. It was happening so fast! She felt herself falling again. But this time the fury of the storm suddenly ceased and after a short fall, she hit a soft, sandy floor. She forced herself to keep her consciousness for a few moments and felt her pulse. It was strong and steady. I’m alive, she thought dispassionately. Only then did she surrender and allow herself the blackness of unconsciousness to envelope her.