3.
 The fleet-footed, virginal huntress made a face and pinched her nose. "Pee-yoo-ee! What kind of aftershave?" Still rumpling her nose, she reached for her bow, which hung on a small branch beside her, and slowly, deliberately, extracted an arrow from the quiver on her back—just in case.
“Don’t move. He mustn’t hear us,” Mars whispered.
The creature was now only a few yards away, grunting heavily with each step. It had a near-human face, heavily matted. Its hair was flecked with foam where Mars guessed its mouth must be. Mars, the warrior, nodded respectfully at the size of the creature, which seemed capable of standing, when fully erect on its hind legs, six feet tall.
Suddenly the oak tree groaned long and loudly. Mars cringed, half-closing his eyes.
The creature below rendered a scarlet-tonsiled bellow of challenge and swung fully erect, waving a twisted length of flattened bronze.
At the same moment, the branch holding Diana was—with a final reproving, loud belch from the sad-faced tree—ejected from among the camouflaging leaves.
Even while Diana hung for just a moment, suspended in mid-air before falling, Mars noticed something else out of sync. Floating at his level about 10 meters away was an object that was clearly not of this world, nor of any that Mars recalled. It was roughly square, and of uncertain dark color. It looked somewhat like a bread-box with its lid open. Its opening faced alternately toward Mars and Diana, like someone shaking his head in disapproval.
Diana shrieked, diverting Mars’s attention to herself as she plummeted downward.
The hairy beast roared and blindly waved his sword over his head while the air filled with twirling leaves. Diana landed hard on the ground and sat there, too numb to reach for her bow.
At this point Mars knew what must be done. Drawing his short knife, he jumped. He landed squarely on the person’s shoulders. The Briton abruptly sat down with a labored grunt. The helmet slid over his eyes, obscuring his vision, and the massive sword. remained half-raised like a many-angled exclamation mark.
Mars hopped from side to side, tossing his knife from one hand to the other, challenging the fellow. The Briton ignored him stared for a long time at Diana. When Mars began taunting him in pidgin Anglo-Saxon, the Briton shoved his broadsword point-blank into the pit of Mars's stomach. The blow registered, sending Mars head over heels backwards, but the blade was so dull that it didn’t even cut Mars’ skin.
The hirsute warrior roared again, rose to full standing height, and swung his sword in circles over his head.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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