Fifteen or sixteen non-females stepped out from their forest cover. Most of them were holding bows and arrows, ready to fire at the slightest provocation. Then, after an appropriately dramatic pause, the leader stepped out into the path directly in front of Sir William and Randall.
“A female,” muttered Sir William. “I've always hated irony.”
She was at least six feet tall, with an ugly scar that ran down her left cheek, crossed over her chin, went back up the other cheek, took a sharp turn to her nose, circled around one nostril, went down over her lips, did a figure eight where it intersected with the other part of the chin scar, then moved around her neck in a poorly-drawn smiley face.
“Make a move, we kill you,” she said.
“Thus explaining your reasoning behind having all these arrows pointed at us,” Randall observed.
Sir William started to tell him to shut up, but only got as far as “shu—” before something more important came to mind. “What do you want?” he asked.
“The princess,” the woman replied.
“You can't have her.”
“We've already got her.”
Randall looked around. The princess and her horse were gone without a trace. These people were efficient if nothing else.
“You will return her or face my wrath!” shouted Sir William.
“Oooh, I'm quaking in my bloodstained booties,” said the woman, trembling a bit to make sure the full brunt of her sarcasm reached him. “Maybe we'll give her back, maybe we won't. That all depends on you.”
“What do we have to do?” asked Sir William.
“For right now? Lose consciousness.”
The men who hadn't been holding bows began throwing rather large rocks, striking Sir William and Randall in the head and making the process of losing consciousness go by with very little effort.
Chapter 3
The First Big Fight Scene
RANDALL woke up from the recurring nightmare where he was in a public place wearing only a loincloth. Except this time the loincloth was replaced by poultry.
He was seated at the edge of a clearing, with both arms firmly chained to a tree. Sir William was seated next to him, also chained and still unconscious. At the other end of the clearing, maybe fifty feet away, Princess Janice kept with the chain motif on her own tree. She was awake, and gave Randall a frightened look that he was more than willing to return.
The men were standing around, discussing politics and the unfortunate depletion of natural resources. Their leader sat on a stump directly in the center of the clearing. She was holding a clear crystal the size of an apple. When she noticed that Randall was awake, she stood up, set the crystal down on the stump, and took a step forward.
“Somebody wake up the knight,” she ordered.
“Wake up, knight,” said one of the men.
Sir William woke up. “How dare you restrain me like this?” he shouted. “When I get free I'll kill the lot of you!”
The woman rolled her eyes and walked over to him. She smiled, then kicked Sir William in the chest, driving the breath from his lungs with a loud oooomph!
“What did you think about that?” she asked.
“I found it disturbingly pleasant,” Sir William admitted.
“Shut up.” She stepped away from him. “Let me introduce myself. People call me Scar.”
“Seems appropriate,” said Randall.
“It's short for Scarlet.”
“Obviously.”
“Now, pay close attention, because I'm going to explain the current situation to you. Your princess will be held for ransom. You two are going to be killed and dumped.” She thought for a moment. “Well, I guess you didn't have to pay that close of attention, it's a pretty simple situation, really.”
“Then why did you keep us alive this long?” demanded Randall.
“Here's the deal. We're starved for entertainment, and as a crew of bloodthirsty thieves, we like our entertainment to be violent.”
“All that violence will rot your brain,” said the princess.
Scar turned to face her. “That has yet to be proven in a reliable, unbiased study!” She returned her attention to Sir William and Randall. “Anyway, what I want is a good fight. One-on-one.”
“Fine!” said Sir William. “I'll fight any of you!”
“Not you. You'd kick my butt. I'm talking about your squire.”
Randall shifted uncomfortably. “I'm not much fun in fights. I tend to bleed all over the place and spoil it for everyone. How about you give Sir William a handicap? Tie one hand behind his back or something.”
“I've got an idea,” said one of the men. “We could say he has to hop on one foot during the whole fight!”
“Or we could spin him around a whole bunch of times, get him really dizzy first!” chimed in another.
“Make him stick out his tongue and balance a rock on it!”
“Make him sing a song that we choose, and whenever somebody shouts ‘New song!’ he has to start singing some other song that somebody else picks, but if he doesn't know the lyrics he has to do a somersault instead ... no, change that to playing a game of leapfrog with the squire.”
“Make him ... uhhhh...”
“Quiet!” shouted Scar. “Somebody unlock the squire.”
After about twenty minutes spent trying to figure out who had the key, the chains were removed and Randall was escorted to the center of the clearing. Scar and Randall stood a few feet away, facing each other. One of the men walked over, holding a wooden box.
“If you win,” Scar explained, “you get your precious princess back. If I win, your king is going to be giving up his entire fortune for her return. Now, pick your weapon.”
She gestured, and the man opened the box. Inside were four dead squirrels. “As the person being challenged, you get first selection,” Scar said.
Randall stared into the box, straining his eyes to make sure that the contents were indeed deceased squirrels. They were. He realized that Scar was no doubt aware of their presence in the box, but he still felt uncontrollably compelled to point it out.
“Those are dead squirrels,” he said.
“I know,” replied Scar.
“Oooh, can I see them?” asked Princess Janice, craning her neck.
“Forgive me if I seem a bit ... brain-dead,” said Randall, “but the idea I'm getting here is that you want us to engage in hand-to-hand combat with dead squirrels.”
“That's right. Live squirrels writhe too much,” explained Scar. “Now pick one.”
The man with the box leaned toward Randall. “I suggest the one on the left,” he whispered. “It's the freshest.”
Randall picked up the squirrel by the tail and lifted it out of the box. He swung it back and forth a few times, testing its weight. “I guess this one will do.”
“An excellent choice,” said Scar, taking a light brown squirrel from the box. The man holding the box replaced the lid and stepped out of the way.
The men on the sidelines began to applaud and cheer and whistle and make obnoxious nostril sounds and whoop and hiccup. Scar gave Randall an I'm-going-to-beat-you-to-a-gooshy-pulp-you-skinny-little-twerp-and-when-I'm-done-I'm-going-to-stomp-your-unappealing-face-eight-feet-into-the-dirt look. Randall suddenly wished he'd selected a different squirrel. This one felt like it was going to come apart.
“There's one rule,” said Scar. “Only squirrel contact is allowed. Aside from that, anything goes. We start ... NOW!”
Scar lunged forward and swung her squirrel. Randall cried out just as the squirrel smashed into his face. He staggered back a few steps, spitting out bits of fur. Scar rushed at him, striking him in the side of the head with incredible force. Randall dropped to the ground. The men roared with laughter.