Masters Of The Arches Chapter 2
Mandil Mandil

 


Masters of the Arches
by Mandil



Chapter 2




That night he dreamed about the mysterious girl that had saved his life. In his dream he saw her voluptuous breasts and her shoulder length hair as she walked on her long slim legs with her pubic area being covered only by a piece of animal skin. He wasn't able to see all of the details of her face in his dream but he knew that she was exceedingly beautiful.

Vincent got up at nine the following morning. He prepared himself a generous breakfast made up of eggs and bacon then he undertook the preparations for his third visit to the mysterious world of the arch.

After taking his knapsack out of the closet, he began putting in it the things that he would need for a trip of a few days. Since he had no dehydrated food in the house, - which would have been perfect for such a trip - he had to make do with half a dozen cans of foodstuff and two bags of dry biscuits that were in the cupboard.

Next he filled a large plastic bottle with water and this along with his hunting knife, he added to the content of his knapsack. With the experienced he already had with outside living, he knew that he was going to need matched also, and this as well as a box of 303 cartridges he also added to his back bag. Folding his sleeping bag in a tight roll, he then attached it on top of it all.

At ten, he left the house with the knapsack in one hand and his riffle with telescopic eyesight in the other hand. Dressed in jeans and a gray windbreaker he crawled through the tight hole then he walked straight to the transmission plate. He didn't even hesitated a second, he stepped on it as soon as he was in front of it.

This time he made the trip as if it was the most natural of things, a minute later he was emerging out of the cave with complete confidence in himself. It was early morning on this beautiful world. He had a riffle in his hand, a few days of food in reserve and more important still, it was a long time indeed that he hadn't fell as good as he was feeling at that moment.

He immediately undertook the decent down to the foot of the mountain and as soon as he was there he began walked toward the river. The minute that he reached the exact same spot he had been the previous day, he proceeded to look for the footmarks of the woman. They were still there very visible in the clay. But further ahead, downstream, he saw other prints of the woman and these were leading toward the forest.

Once he reached the limit of the dense forest ahead of him, he came upon a well-used trail that went curving in-between the tall trees. He followed the trail for half an hour and while he did so he noticed that some of the trees, like the spruces and pines were familiar to him, - although they would be considered giant of their kind on Earth - others were complete new to him. Even the underbrush looked very different from what he was used to see, the great variety and abundance of fruits that were growing there was stunning.

Then ahead of him, the trail separated in two different directions. Not knowing which branch of the trail to take, he took the opportunity to rest and eat a little since he had been walking for close to four hours since leaving the cave. Of course, he was too much of an expert hunter to know better than to stop and rest in the middle of a trail. It would have been like stopping his car in a middle of a well used road. After all, he was completely ignorant of the fauna that had been responsible for the creation of the trail and he was awared that there could be many dangers involved in stopping right in the middle of it. Vincent still had in mind the incident of the previous day when he had just barely escaped from such an unknown animal.

He thus turned on his left and got off the trail. After walking a couple hundred yards he found a spot under a tree with low branches. He sad comfortably on the grass and he proceeded to open a can of meat balls. He ate his food cold of course since making a fire would imply smoke and he didn't want to attract any attention to his being in the forest right now.

He was able to identify a few more different plants as he ate but the great majority of the flora that he could see was completely new to him. Even the grass he was sitting on was thick and soft and very different from what he was used to see on his world.

All of a sudden, he heard a series of low noises that he coundn't identify. A few seconds later, he was able to tell that it was the noises made by approaching feet on the hard soil as well as that of small branches being broken. He immediately threw himself flat on the grass after reaching for his riffle. He Next heard deep voices, but he couldn't really identify the language or even it they were males or females voices.

As he quietly remained stretched there at a safe distance from the trail, he congratulated himself for the precaution he had taken in getting off the trail. He was well hidden where he was and completely invisible from the trail.

His eyes were focuses on the spot where he knew the trail to be. Then all of a sudden he saw four ugly creatures coming out from the left fork, the branch of the trail that was closest to him.

They were humanoid in general appearance, but human they were definitely not. They were over seven feet tall and each of them must have weight at least three hundred pounds. Their long and thick arms were hanging at their side and they all held a long pointed spear in one hand. As they got closer, he noticed that their body was covered with thick black hair with only a small portion of their face being hairless.

They were creatures out of a nightmare. With their low forehead, which came down to the bridge of their flat nose, they were a most fearsome sight indeed. They were wearing no clothing whatsoever and as they approached closer to him, he began to smell them. A foul odor of unwashed fur and rotten meat assailed his nostrils.

But the thing that attracted his attention the most as they got closer to him, was the bundle that the two in the middle were carrying. On their shoulders was a thick pole from which hung a human female, the pole had been placed along the length of her back and while both of her hand and feet were tied to the pole, she was hanging with her face toward the ground.

It must have been very uncomfortable for her he thought, since her weight was pulling her shoulders together at her back. Was it possible thought Vincent, that they had chosen that position to tie her so as to make her suffer? They probably had done this on purpose, he told himself.

As soon as they were on the section of the trail that was the closest to where he was, he recognized the woman. She was the same one that had save his life the previous day.

At least her general body features were that of the same woman and so was the color of her hair. Hanging the way she was with her hands and feet tied to the stick, her breasts were pointing down, furthermore she had lost the only piece of clothing she had been wearing the previous day. She was completely naked now and even though she must have been in terrible pain Vincent didn't hear her make a single sound as she was roughly being carried on.

He couldn't wait any longer; he had to save her. So taking aim at the first of the creatures, the one that was ahead of the group, he fired. The noise of his shot was extremely loud in the forest, and long after the echo had died down, he saw the giant begin to fall to the ground on the side of the trail.

It did remind him of a tall tree that was being cut as gravity slowly had its effect on it. Before the giant had completely felt on the ground, the two that had been carrying the woman, dropped her on the spot and they went to investigate what was happening to their companion who was still in the process of falling.

Riffle in hand, Vincent got up and he advanced toward the remaining three.

"Release her at once." He said to them as he pointed his riffle in the general direction of the trio.

His boldness seemed to surprise them, it was also evident that they were now scared of him after having witnessed what had happened to their dead comrade. They remained motionless for a few seconds as if their slow brain was trying to process the information that their senses were registering.

Suddenly one of them began to rush toward Vincent. As soon as he was twenty feet from him, he threw his spear at him. It missed Vincent only by a couple of inches and the stone tips got imbedded in the bark of the tree next to him. The strength behind the spear must have been great indeed since Vincent saw that the stone tip had disappeared at least two inches into the bark of the tree.

Once again, the forest resounded with the noise of his riffle and the daring creature felt to the ground with a large hole between its eyes. The third one also came rushing down toward Vincent and he went down like the two previous one. Next Vincent looked in the direction of the last ugly creature and he began walking toward him. The hairy beast simply turned around grunting angrily and he ran away in the direction from which they had just come.

Before going to investigate to see if the girl was safe, Vincent waited a few minutes. He looked in every direction so as to make sure that there were no more of these smelling brutes coming on the trail. He next went to his packsack and he took out his knife. Then he slowly walked toward the girl who was now lying on her side with the pole still along the length of her back.

She was staring at him, but he could tell that she was not afraid. She had probably recognize him and by now she knew that he was her friend. He cut the leather strips that were binding her hands and feet to the pole. She had a lot of trouble to stand on her legs and Vincent could tell that moving her legs and arms was causing her a lot of pain. He did help her to stand on her feet and he then had his first good chance to examin her. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen; her facial features were perfect, he supposed that she was twenty at the most. The fact that she was completely naked was making him nervous and he couldn't prevent his eye from looking once in a while at her perfect breasts as well as at her triangle of brown hair.

All of a sudden, as if an invisible signal had been giver, she began to talk in a strange language. Of course, he couldn't understand a single word that she was saying and he reacted exactly as she had done when he had first spoken to her. He just stared at her, but as he did so, he couldn't prevent himself from admiring her beauty as well as her voluptuous body.

Here breasts, even though they would have been considered size C on his world, were high on her chest and not in the least sagging. As she stood there completely naked in front of him it didn't seem to bother her in any way.

She was trying to tell him something but there was no way for him to understand what she met. When she realized that she was getting nowhere with her talking to him, she took Vincent hand in her own hand and she began to pull him off the trail.

She led him in a perpendicular direction to the trail, and soon they were deep in the forest and not a sign of any trail could be seen. Vincent was not too worried about getting lost since he could still see - whenever the forest was not to dense - the mountain peek from where he had appear in this world.

They walked in the same direction for the rest of the afternoon and as they did so he had plenty of time to examine her. Her face was very exotic and exceedingly beautiful and he knew that on his world she would be considered a very beautiful woman indeed. She had large green eyes and high cheekbones. Her complexion was light and her long brown hair gave here the poise of an egyptian queen as she walked very straight next to him. She was almost as tall as he was and while he held her hand, he tried to imagine how people from Montcalm would react if they could see him now walking hand in hand with this naked beauty.

Once, she did turn her head toward him, as soon as she realized that his eyes were on her breasts, she smiled teasingly at him.

She was still leading him when they came out of the forest and found themselves over rocky land covered with very little grass and a few smaller trees here and there. There were large boulders everywhere to be seen and the trees became less frequent as they moved ahead. The further they went the higher were the boulders, some could even be considered as small mountain peaks.

They went up a path between two large rock formations until they were standing in front of a small cave- like depression that went about fifteen feet into the rock. This half shelter had been used before since the floor was littered with bones of all kinds. Vincent sat on a rock in front of the wide entrance and he began to unpack food from his backpack while the girl went deeper within to clean a space for them.

Using his knife, he opened two cans of meatballs in sauce. He gave one of the cans to the girl and he began to eat from the other one with the help of his knife. She watched him eat for a few seconds then she examined the can in her hand. The metal of the can as well as the bright colors on the paper around the can seemed to fascinate her, she turned it around a couple of times, and she even tried to press it with both hands. But hunger won over her curiosity and soon she dipped two fingers inside and began to eat eagerly.

Vincent watched her eat while he finished eating the content of his own can. Judging by the rate at which she was shoving meat balls into her mouth, it was evident that this was her first meal in a long time. When both cans were empty, and the last trace of gravy had been licked from the cans, he took the bottle of water from his bag and he offered her a drink. It wasn't the first time that she was drinking from the transparent plastic bottle and once again she was fascinated to be able to see the water inside the bottle.

They then both sat on rocks nearby and he tried to communicate with her. He was able to learn by using his fingers and pointing at her, that her name was Nika. Then by mean of different sighs, she was able to make him understand that the ugly humanoids, of which he had killed three, were called Arons. He next taught her to pronounce his name and a few other English words.

Before they fully realized it, the sun was down and darkness was setting in. With the sun gone, Vincent could tell that it was getting much colder and since Nika was completely naked, he began to gather wood so as to built a fire. But the girl prevented him from doing this. He figured that she knew more about the dangers in this place that he did and he gave up on the idea of lighting a fire.

Since there was nothing else to do, he therefore proceeded to unroll his sleeping bag. After stretching it on the floor in the spot that she had cleaned previously, he tried to make her understand that he wanted her to get inside. But she refused to comply.

Finally in desperation, he removed his windbreaker and he placed it on her shoulders then he got himself inside the sleeping bag so as to show her what he was expecting of her. As soon as he was well inside the bag, Nika stretched herself near him and she did try to crawl next to him inside the sleeping bag.

Even though it was a one-place bag, he made room for her as best as he could and because of the fact that the girl was rather slim they were both able to cuddle inside. But Vincent did feel very uncomfortable since he felt her naked breasts pressing against his side. But they were both very tired and soon they they were both sleeping.

He was the first one to open his eyes the next morning. During the night they had moved and Nika was now lying half on top of him as he lay on his back. He couldn't recall having ever slept so soundly before, he felt rested and also very cozy at that moment. But he began to feel very embarrassed again, he had a huge erection and he knew that as soon as she was going to come out of her deep sleep she would notice this. Furthermore, even if his organ was inside his pants, it was being pressed in-between Nika's lower body and his own thigh.

The minute that he saw her opening her eyes, he made her understand that he wanted to get out of the sleeping bag. While he slipped pass her, he did see her examining the front of his pants and he knew that she couldn't fail but to notice the bulge there. It was an extremely ill at ease Vincent that walked toward the bushes nearby so as to relieve himself. But while he was emptying his bladder, Nika went next to him.

She was still completely naked, and after squatting there, she began to reliever herself without the least embarrassment. He could even hear her jet of piss as it hit the ground. When he looked at her, she once again smiled at him with that naughty look on her face.

Victor supposed that in her society, which was one of extreme closeness with nature, it was probably the most normal of things to do to be relieving onself in public like that. For her there was probably nothing to be ashamed in doing this. Beside she went about naked so why should she care if he did see her doing this most natural of things.

He gathered the few possessions that they had and they both prepared themselves to walk again. She wanted to continue in the same direction they had been going the previous day, but since it was almost in the opposite direction from the mountain, they were thus getting farther away from the only way back to his world.

He did try to make her understand that he wanted to go in the direction of the mountain toward the north, but each time she would take his hand and point southward in the direction they were already going. Vincent figured that she wanted to get as far away from the Arons as possible, that was probably why she insisted that they should move in a southeast direction.

They walked for a couple more hours. The ground was still covered with small rocks but the number of trees was increasing again. Nika stopped under a large tree and she picked up a fruit from one of the low branches.

It was the first time in his life that Vincent was seeing a fruit like that. It was the size of a grapefruit but it had a hard brown bark that could be pealed away quite easily. He watched her removing the peal completely then she proceeded to eat the inside.

When she realized that he was not eating, she picked another fruit from the same branch and she offered it to him. He did exactly as she had done and he removed the peal of the fruit. Then he took a small bite from it. It tasted delicious and soon he began to devour the sweet pink interior. The texture was that of an apple but the taste was like nothing he had eaten before.


( end of chapter 2 )

 

 

Copyright © 2001 Mandil Mandil
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