THE QUEEN OF SWORDS!
A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN
By Jerome B. Bigge
Chapter Thirty Eight

     
"You are not `welcome' here," the King of the Montanas said
to me, "Not as long as `he' stands at your side, Imperial." I
smiled at his words, well aware of the fact that he was also ter-
rified enough of my Martian mother to "tolerate" me and Serak! A
woman with reddish hair sitting there beside him obviously from
Dularn. The rich leather of her clothing leaving little "doubt".
It being quite obvious now that the King had a "Dularnian" Queen!
     
"We come in `peace', not `war'," Serak spoke for me. "I am
my father's son, and his words speak through me. We do not wish
war with our brothers of the plains, but we will not allow anyone
to now take from us what has been always been rightfully ours."
Aurora stood quietly at me side, her golden hair gleaming in the
sun, her dark glasses that concealed her eyes and her silvery at-
tire leaving no doubts in anyone's mind that she was "from" Mars.
     
"We are not `fools'," the woman spoke, her voice level. She
was obviously a high born noblewoman of Dularn. A woman my age.
I faintly remembered her as a child so long ago now it seemed.
     
"But only fools fight for a losing cause," Serak smiled.
     
"`Yours' is the `losing cause'," she hotly retorted back.
     
"You lost your husband in battle against the Empire," I
spoke, remembering her now. He had been a high ranking officer.
Her children had died in a plague that had swept across Dularn.
Such things happen from time to time. Aurora says "mutations".
     
"We have a `better' Queen this time," she snapped back.
"One who will lead the peoples of the north to victory against
you of the south." I didn't much like the "implications" either!

     
"They are being used as `tools' by that damn Dularnian,"
Serak muttered as Aurora lifted the saucer from their encampment.
Obviously Maris or "someone else" had planned things carefully.
The "marriage" of the still youthful beautiful childless widow of
the Duke of Arsana to the King of the Montanas left little doubt.
I supposed he "contented" himself with his slave girls while she
in turn had her own slave girl to take "care" of her "needs" like
Lynn used to do with me. Such is not unknown here in this era.
     
"Lorraine was `right' all along about Maris," I answered,
sorry in a way to learn the "truth" about a woman I had "liked"
so well as I had. Maris having been a person that I had instant-
ly "liked" the very first time that we had met there last year!
     
"Like to do a little `exploring'?" Aurora asked, her eyes
glowing into mine. This had been the first time she had been
"free" since their revolution to spend some time with me. I knew
how "important" such was to her. I "understood" much now that I
had not before. She had "loved" me so much despite "everything".
     
"I'm in the `mood' to do a little `exploring'," I smiled.

     
"Have any idea of `where' we are?" Serak asked, the saucer
floating like an silvery cloud over an inland lake that drained
out into what the Ancients had called "Lake Michigan" six cen-
turies ago. The ship's computer had called the place "Muskegon",
although I wasn't too sure on just how it was pronounced or just
how "accurate" the computer itself was on data six centuries old!
     
"It's called `Muskegon' according to the ship," Aurora
smiled. "That is assuming the data was `recorded' accurately."
     
"Muskiegon?" Serak now smiled, that being what she had said.
     
"On the western coast of the `State of Michigan'," she ad-
ded, giving him a smile as she sat there at the disc's controls.
     
"Doesn't look like much," he observed. Chicago had been a
disappointment too. The effects of wind and weather, of time had
left little but crumbling ruins inhabited by skin-clad savages
completely "unaware" of "what" had floated over their heads.
"Sun's going down too," he remarked, the sun now orange red there
low in the west over low hills. The deep snow drifts there be-
neath reminding us both of the fact that it was still yet winter-
time while the lake itself was covered over with a thick sheet of
ice. This part of North America being even "colder" than Dularn!
     
"Cold too," Aurora observed, the exterior sensors giving her
a reading of just under freezing as she brought the saucer down
for a landing there in a small clearing next to some ruins, the
frozen over lake there a hundred yards away gleaming in the twi-
light. To the west a line of low hills, if such could be called
that, concealed the much larger body of water there to the west.
The body of water that Aurora had earlier called "Lake Michigan".
     
"Those ruins look rather `interesting'," Aurora said, get-
ting up from in front of the controls, her silvery attire being
"designed" I knew to "protect" her from extremes in temperature.
     
"I'm coming with you," I said, slipping a heavy cloak over
myself. I had worn tunic and hose for the "visit" to the Monta-
nas instead of my more "usual" golden attire. Serak in his buck-
skin looking much like some of the inhabitants of the ruined city
of Chicago as he threw a furred cloak over himself then in reply.
     
"Don't wander off too far," Aurora warned, the chill in the
air bringing back memories of my childhood in Dularn. I wondered
what this "Muskegon" had been like back in the time before The
War? The ruins we stood by were those of some sort of a large
manufacturing facility of some sort, although of what sort I had
little idea. (They landed by the S.D. WARREN on Lakeshore Drive)
     
"Wonder what sort of people live here?" Serak mused as he
stared about. I found his masculine presence "comforting" just
then too. There was something "forbidding" about these ruins! I
watched my mother disappear around a corner of the ruins. She
had a blaster pistol there on her hip. I had no doubts either as
to her abilities to use it, having seen her twice now in combat!
     
"I doubt that they would welcome `strangers'," I smiled
back. Most barbarian groups tended to view strangers as enemies.
Some even tended to "shoot first, ask questions later", I knew!
     
"Then it is `good' that I have you at my side," he smiled.
     
"Because I am a `Queen of Swords'?" I smiled back at him.
     
"Because you are my `Princess'," he laughed then in turn!

     
"These bones leave no `doubts'," Serak said to me. I could
tell that they were "human", but "more" than that was beyond me.
There was a skull, smashed open, and other bones scattered about.
The ashes of a fire. Some of the bones had been broken open for
the marrow. Broken open by means of "tools" of some sort too!!!
     
"Those who live here eat human flesh," Serak now said to me,
his words now bringing back vividly the horrors of another time.
     
Then suddenly to our surprise a slim fur covered figure
dashed out of the ruins to flee in terror towards us! A drawn
dagger in its hand! A half dozen yelling fur clad figures armed
with swords and crude spears suddenly dashing out of the ruins
behind it! Men with black faces, chasing a white skinned blonde!
     
"If they use those spears," Serak muttered, drawing his
sword, mine already in my hand. That long slim 33" blade that
had once belonged to another woman now dead for over five cen-
turies. The blade made of that metal that Lorr often used for
their own craft. The metal that is called "titanium". The edge
honed to a razor's sharpness. The point as keen as my skill with
a sharpening stone could make it. I am of the Warrioresses. I
know the value of keeping one's weapons in first class condition.
     
"Behind us!" I snapped to the woman, drawing Serak back with
me. The black men leaping to the attack, now voicing yells and
curses in some language that was like none I'd ever heard before!
     
"Careful! Azure Eyes!" Serak cried, his blade biting deep!
My keen point taking another in the throat, that "kill spot" that
Lorraine had taught me. My enemy's blade harmlessly deflected!!!
     
I noticed that the men we fought seemed "diseased" in some
way, although at the time I had little time to note such things!
In any case after we killed the first two, the other four were a
bit more "careful" in their attack, not just charging in on us!!!
     
"Jit 'ears!" the one of the four surviving black men said to
his companions, his speech almost like that of another language!
     
"They are going to use their spears!" the woman warned us!
     
"NO, THEY'RE NOT!" Serak cried, charging them, no doubt
"trusting" that I would "be there" at his side as a sword compan-
ion! Our blades flashing in the ruddy rays of the setting sun!
My foeman's defense poor as I drove in to kill! The blonde woman
leaped at another as he stepped back, thrusting with her dagger,
my blade going deep into his heart! Then only the dead laid be-
fore us! Scattered figures, bloody, there now staining the snow!
     
"Don't touch them!" the blonde warned as Serak bent down to
look more closely at one of our late foes. "They have DISEASE!!"
She had not withdrawn her own dagger from the one she'd struck!!!
     
"What are they?" I asked, it being obvious to me that these
men were obviously infected with some sort of a "wasting disease"
totally unknown to either me or my Nevada Prince. That they were
of the black race was obvious, although they appeared to be of a
"lower type" than those I'd seen back home in my own California!
     
"They `niggers'!" the woman answered back, standing there.
She was a beautiful woman, young, blue eyed, one that might make
even me feel just a bit "concerned" under other circumstances as
Serak does have an "eye" for beautiful women, especially blondes.
     
"Niggers?" I asked, wondering if that was the name of the
"tribe" from which they had come. Her use of the term indicating
however that she viewed them as a sub-human form of life like we
of California and the western plains viewed that which was "mu"!
     
"We `whites' kill `niggers' whenever we get the chance," she
said to me. Explaining that the "niggers" ate human flesh when-
ever they could get it. This was anyway what she believed that
they did, the "remains" we'd found earlier tending to confirm it.
     
"Does a beautiful woman like you have a name?" Serak asked.
     
"I am Serena Novak, Princess of Muskegon," she exclaimed!
     
"And `what's' going on here?" my mother suddenly challenged,
her hand on the grip of her blaster pistol as she stepped forth!
     
"A Martian!" Serena breathed, standing there, looking! Her
words coming as something of a surprise to me just then as I had
not considered her to be anything "more" than a simple barbarian!
     
"I'm Aurora, Leaderess of the Women," my mother smiled back.
     
"And I'm Prince Serak of the Nevadas, and this is my wife,
Darlanis, Empress of California," Serak then introduced us two.
     
"She is `white' and `blonde', while you are not `white',"
she said, looking at him. I didn't much like what she `implied'!
     
"Does `that' make a `difference'," Serak challenged her! I
had no doubt that he had "caught" the implications of her words!
     
"You are `First American'," she smiled, her eyes glowing
into his. "Your kind `friends' of my people," she smiled again.
     
"Africans," Aurora observed, squatting down by one of the
bodies. "The `disease' is unfamiliar to me, however," she added.
     
"It is called `AIDS' in the old books," Serena said to her.
Aurora almost jumping back from the bodies, the look on her face
leaving no doubts in my mind that she knew just what "AIDS" was!!
     
"Hey!" Serak breathed as half a dozen white men, armed with
bows, swords at their hips, now suddenly appeared on the scene!!!
     
"It would be best, Aurora, if you gave me that," Serena said
to my mother, having seen my mother's hand suddenly go to the
grip of her pistol. There being something in the "tone" of her
voice that made me suspect that it would be best now to obey her!
     
"Better do it, mother," I said, eying the men. Their bows
were much like those carried by the Nevadas. There were six of
them. The "look" in Serena's eyes puzzled me. She seemed almost
"desperate". As if she "needed" Aurora for something, but what?

     
"I am not without `resources'," Aurora whispered to me as we
walked with three of Serena's warriors on either side of us, the
men being armed with rather crude swords and bows much like the
sort used so effectively by the Nevadas. The thought going then
through my mind "HOW DID THEY KNOW THEIR PRINCESS NEEDED THEM"?
     
"We have our swords and they are only six," Serak noted in
low tones. Like me he was of a "fighting caste". On the other
hand Serena had Aurora's pistol. She had known what a "pistol"
was, which also meant that she might also be able to "use" it!!!
     
"We will wait and see what they `want'," I spoke softly. I
noticed that the sun was now down below the horizon. These peo-
ple would be "familiar" with the area. We would not be. There
was a small sickle of a Moon floating there in the sky to the
west. Venus bright above it. Around us the ruins of Muskegon.

     
"He has a serious infection," Aurora said, squatting down
beside the man there in the cavern like place that Serena and her
people lived in. I could see that myself even standing there! A
nearby fire giving off almost as much smoke as it did heat too!!!
     
"He is my father," Serena spoke, her eyes burning down into
the jade of Aurora. Aurora's pistol held there in Serena's hand.
I sensed the note of "desperation" there in Serena's voice. She
no doubt believed that Aurora possessed the means of healing him!
     
"There are medicines aboard my saucer," Aurora said, stand-
ing up, facing the Princess. She was young, perhaps only twenty.
Dressed in nothing more than a buckskin halter and a brief skirt.
Serak was "grinning" to himself despite the "seriousness" of our
situation. Serena was blonde, beautiful, blue eyed much like me!
     
"He will go fetch them," Serena said, pointing at Serak. I
wondered how "safe" that would be here in the darkness, especial-
ly if there were any more of these "niggers" roaming around now!
     
"Give him my pistol," Aurora spoke in level tones, no doubt
thinking the same "thoughts" that I had been thinking just then!
     
"Men will go with you, and if you betray us, I will kill
your `woman' with this," Serena said to Serak, her eyes icy cold,
motioning with Aurora's pistol. Serak nodding, glancing at me.

     
"Here is the medicine," Serak said, panting a bit, giving my
mother a "wink" that I suspected he had used the disc's radio to
send out an "S.O.S" or whatever is used by those like my mother!
     
"This should do the job," Aurora spoke, giving Serena's fa-
ther an injection. The medicine no doubt a wide-range antibiotic
similar to "those" often carried by those of my caste in warfare.
     
"I am sorry I had to do this," Serena said, suddenly handing
the pistol back to my mother, "But I feared that otherwise you'd
let my father die." Serena going on to say that those of Mars
often viewed those of her people like they did the "niggers" who
lived out in the forests like the savages that they'd now become!
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