When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
We band of brothers, we honored few…
Picking up his knife, he turned toward the village. In the distance, a cheer went up.
He started to run. He ran until he reached the back of the nearest hut. He worked his way alongside it. The girl was still seated by the fire, eating her grisly prize.
Others were still gathered around the main fire. One at a time, they broke away, each with a small portion of dripping flesh.
He saw no sign of Ruth. Perhaps she was kept in the darkness beyond the fires, perhaps inside a hut. Perhaps not here, at all.
A creature swung his way out of the crowd. He looked more like an ape than a man. A deformed ape, hunchbacked and legless. Though he had no feet of his own, he held a foot in his mouth. Nobody begged a bite of it, as they had begged the girl. Instead, they hurried out of his way. They seemed afraid of him. He propped himself backward against a hut, to free his hands, and began gnawing the foot.
Lander forced himself to look away from the man. He circled around to the rear of the hut, peeked to be sure nobody was nearby, then dashed across the dark space to the next one. After a quick check, he ran to the next. He crept along, staying close to it, and saw half a dozen figures gathered in front of the neighboring hut. They were seated in a circle, chattering in a language that sounded almost like German, and sharing a thigh. All but one. A girl lay on her belly between a man’s outstretched legs, her mouth latched onto his erection.
Backing off, Lander rushed into the trees. He worked his way past the group, staying hidden but close to the clearing, watching them until they were out of sight.
This seemed like a much safer way of searching for Ruth, so he stayed among the trees as he continued his passage around the village.
Soon, he was directly across from the main fire. The group there had diminished to a handful. A single man was squatting near the fire, cooking his morsel at the end of his spear. A few women—two obviously pregnant— knelt nearby, tearing at a heap of entrails. Lander hurried on.
Between two huts at the far end of the village, he found Ruth. She hung inside a tripod of tall, stout poles, suspended by one foot. Her left arm was broken backward at the elbow. As Lander approached, he watched her naked body turn slowly in the breeze.
“Oh you bastards,” he muttered. “Oh you fucking bastards.”
He touched Ruth’s face. His hand came away sticky and dripping.
He turned. Saw the bastards not far away, some sitting near fires, a few wandering about, one pair rutting in the dirt. He wanted to kill them, kill them all.
But not yet. First he would take Ruth away, and bury her.
Knife clamped in his teeth, he shinnied up one of the poles. The tripod wobbled. Ruth’s body swayed and turned. Her loose foot brushed across his back.
Lander slashed the cord that held her. She dropped. Her body thudded on the earth.
She groaned.
Lander let himself fall. “You’re alive!” he gasped.
“Lander?”
“Oh Jesus! Oh my God, you’re alive!”
Glancing around, he saw Krulls heading his way.
Three of them. Two males, one female. They approached Lander slowly, more with curiosity than alarm. All were armed: the woman and one man with knives, the other man with a hatchet. The weapons weren’t in their hands, though. The hatchet hung at the man’s side, the woman’s knife dangled in front of her bushy pubic mound, the other man’s knife was tucked into a belt at his waist.
Lander laughed.
It sounded properly maniacal.
He laughed again, turning his back to them, and began to fondle Ruth. In the darkness, naked and dirty, his face averted, perhaps he wouldn’t be recognized as a stranger.
He pushed his face against Ruth’s breasts. One hand stroked between her legs. The hair, usually crisp and springy, was matted with sticky wetness. She moaned in pain as he fingered the lips of her vagina. His other hand, hidden beneath her head, ached from its tight grip on the knife.
He climbed onto her, using his knees to spread her legs. His penis went soft. Just as well. He didn’t want to penetrate her, to hurt her more where she already hurt so much.
The semblance was enough.
He humped, grunting.
Someone stopped to his right. Squatted. Keeping his face in Ruth’s breasts, he glimpsed the man’s erection tilting skyward. He squeezed Ruth’s left breast, and pumped harder.
From the sounds, the others were all around him. He glanced to the left. The woman was crouched there, knees wide, knife hanging like a strange, steel cock.
“Bright boy,” she said. “Think you can put one over on us?”
Sick with panic, he flung out his left hand. His fist pounded the hilt of her knife. The blade jumped, pivoted on its thong, and vanished between her legs. Her quick shriek tore his ears. He lashed sideways with his own knife, ripping into the midsection of the crouching man—the one with the hatchet.
Scrambling off Ruth, he dived onto him. Slashed the cord. Grabbed the hatchet and hacked the shin of the standing man, who yelped and fell. Lander jumped onto him, swinging the hand ax. It chopped into the side of his head.
Lander looked back. Others were coming. He crouched over Ruth, pushed his arms beneath her, and lifted. He rammed a knee into her back, forcing her upward, tugging and jostling her until she fell over his shoulder. Arm wrapped around her legs, he knelt and grabbed the hatchet. Then he ran, hugging her legs to his chest. He ran for the trees.
He moved slowly under the weight. Like running in slow motion, running through deep water.
He heard the others behind him.
A club flew past his head, pounded a tree trunk and dropped.
Then he felt a shove. Ruth bucked. Sharpness pricked his back. Warm liquid spilled down his rump and legs. He felt another jab. Looked back.
The man behind them held a long spear forward like a vaulting pole. Its tip was buried in Ruth’s back. The man shoved, twisted, and the point again cut into Lander’s back.
Oh Jesus, it was stabbing him
Jabbed again, he jerked with pain. Ruth started to slide off his shoulder. He stumbled sideways. Ran into a tree. Dropped her. Turned to the man who was trying desperately to pull his spear out of Ruth, and split his head.
A dozen others were coming. Men and women. Howling, waving knives and spears.
He looked down at Ruth, a speared hump of darkness.
Then he ran.
He ran away into the trees. He ran until his lungs burned. Finally, he reached the stream. He splashed across it, scrambled up its other shore, and nearly bumped into a one-eyed man. Lander kneed him in the groin. With the hatchet, he pounded the man’s head to soft pulp.
He crouched over the body. The woods were silent. He’d left his pursuers behind, or they’d given up.
He had time.
He took the dead man’s knife. He stripped off the dead man’s leather vest, and held it to the moonlight.
A fancy design on the back. A naked woman, arms stretched out, a dark orb resting in each palm. The orbs, he realized, were nipples.
The vest was chest skin from a tattooed man.
With a shiver, he put it on.
Then he ran.
