Arms of Steel: The Lost Crusade
by Esperanto Grrl
“How I wish the muscled Saxon was not a Christian,” the Princess Erzhad said in her flawless Greek to her riding companion. “For then I could worship him like a god.” The Princess did everything but lick her chops. She stared off at nothing in particular as if her mind was elsewhere.
“Tis improper for me to speak this way of a man, but with him it is like I become a carnivore. I have a weakness for big arms. I could cover his biceps with kisses. He laughed when I left drool from the side of my mouth on his muscles, such was my ardor. He arms pop like a volcano, becoming twice their ordinary size with a twitch. When he flexes his boulder biceps, they snap and burst the iron ring-links of his sleeve’s chain mail, sending the broken links flying like a pebble from a slingshot. When he holds his arm straight, his his triceps flex behind his arm as much as his biceps do in front.”
“What a delight to be held by Sir Athelstane’s huge, hard arms!” She said. “I feel so safe. He hugs me so tightly it hurts a bit, like an immobile vice of iron covering my whole body, smothering me with heat. And his height! To see the Saxon fill an entire doorway of my father the Maharaja’s palace, turning to the side to permit entry of his wide torso and shoulders...” The Princess spoke methodically with controlled heat like a purring cat. She spoke with enthusiasm. “Not even Lord Hanuman is as strong as he.”
Princess Erzhad urged her reddish-brown mare into a gallop as quick as a stone falling from a great height, its hooves so light they barely touched the ground. She reached over her shoulder with her firm arm to grasp an arrow from her quiver and nock it to her great black bow. With her firm, lengthy and elastic haunches alone, she steered the horse without hands, all the while as she pressed the arrow back with a creak. There was a sound like a twang as the arrow was released and zipped to its target as true as the word of a good Knight, the iron head sunk into the deep red of a target center.
Princess Erzhad’s hip-length, straight, midnight black hair whooshed behind her as she furiously rode with the horse an extension of her body. Her exotic Indian skin was the color of cinnamon, her lips thick and plush like ripe fruit, her feminine, almost unreal face with the high cheekbones and strong chin of the thousand Maharajas whose blood she had in her veins. The Princess’s eyes were an exotic sea-green, lined with cosmetics that made her black eyelashes inch-long butterflies. Between her eyes was a jeweled Bindi. Her neck was long, elegant and graceful. To her companion, Sir Sigurd, she looked like a great, wild warrior-goddess of the hunt.
Unlike most Eastern girls, the Princess had a voluptuous, hourglassed, and buxom silhouette, with thick, hard thighs and a bubbly, slappable ass far from flattened by her time in the saddle, which looked as if it followed her around, expanding out of her tiny waist with a shape like a sideways happy face. Her ass’s great, firm weight made her sit down when she meant to stand up and stand when she means to sit. Not only were her womanly hips child-bearing, they could probably squeeze out a baby like a greased cannon shell.
Her petite body was wiry, athletic and muscular, though not large, with an economy like a panther.
The Princess’s clothes were tight, woolen and sporty, a midriff revealing strapless ring-top over her pneumatic breasts. When she arched her back in a curve, her cup-busting breasts, each a generous firm globe, thrusted out, her stiff nipples pointing like the nose of a pinscher. With the trotting of her horse they shook and shifted in her top hypnotically in defiance of gravity with a sound like the shifting and churning of fluid. The Princess’s extra chestmeat was like an awning, casting a shadow below.
The Princess’s waist was tight, firm, tapered like the tip of a funnel, and hard, flat, and fit, golden-toned the way only a nineteen year old girl’s can be, her tomboy abs cut like bricks. Her small little navel was surrounded by permanent henna tattoos in a ring, with precious gems glued amongst the designs.
Sir Sigurd, sometimes laughed at the over-the-top chivalric romances he read. But looking at the Princess Erzhad, he could fight and die for her honor. Her voice was deep, a husky whisper, demure, breathless and throaty as if everything she said was an invitation to sex. Her smell was a spicy Arabian perfume. She put the girls of Denmark to shame. It was easy to see wars fought over Erzhad.
Sir Sigurd felt his erection solidify under his wool innerclothes, hose, and chain shirt, to the point where he became crosseyed and could barely see-straight. His dick was so hot it hissed steam like a sword from the forge. The powerful jostling of his huge black Frankish war horse wasn’t helping to calm the situation, its great muscles shook and powerfully charged as if the Dane was riding a thunderbolt.
The Princess twirled herself on top of her speeding horse like a circus equestrian acrobat, until she straddled the mare again, and gazed behind her at young Sir Sigurd, whose black horse snorted at the dust kicked up by the hooves of Erzhad’s horse. “Prithee, what’s this, sirrah? The honor of Christendom be shamed!” She laughed in such a way her nose crinkled.
“Od’s Blood, I’m no match for your horsemanship, Princess. That horse of yours slips as quick as a greased priest. And, as embarrassing as it is for a Dane like me to say, your Greek is far better than mine.”
“I suppose then it is all Greek to you?” The both of them laughed together. It was the first or second time in history anyone ever told that joke.
“Deft wordplay. We in the upper caste of Rupalistan have spoken and read it since the days Alexander the Great wandered close to the Himalayas. How awesome your Sir Athelstane is – the second such to reach our tiny kingdom. No small pilgrimage, that! What is it he seeks here, I wonder?”
“I should think for a woman as beautiful as you, any’d go further than a Christian’s gone before, my Diana.” Princess Erzhad smiled at the use of the name the Dane had given her. The last part Sir Sigurd had to croak out and his voice went high, his light skin turned a flushed, enflamed crimson, his eyes averted and downcast, his lips formed into a shy smile.
A malicious, mischievous light flashed in the Princess’s well-deep green eyes. “Won’t tell me, eh?” Gracefully as an Amazon Queen, she drew an arrow eyeblink’s time an arrow and fired it, the head sliced Sir Sigurd’s saddle straps like a razor, without touching the black hide of the monster horse and speeding past it. The saddle flipped to the opposite side, and the Danish Knight tumbled off from the great height of the tall horse like a mobile desert weed as he slammed into the ground. The regal, internal, close-mouthed laughter of the Princess reached his ears.
Sir Sigurd squeezed his sore arm. “Fie, fie! Hell’s bells! The true Diana was ne’er as cruel as you.” He said with a grin.
“I suppose I must bore you with my constant talk of Sir Athelstane, that handsome strongman. But the truth is...he saved me. Rescued me – just like in a story! Before he arrived in Rupalistan, my father the Maharaja meant to marry me off to his friend, the Brahma-Rishi.” Here, she shuddered. “By Ganesha, I’d rather be dead than press his dried flesh against mine. Such a man is your Saxon Chief!”
“No need to hold your tongue, Princess, for I tell you, as much as you admire him, I admire him more. He is easily the strongest man in the world, stronger than the next five strongest combined. In heathen lands his name is unknown, but in Christendom, from Novgorod to Abyssinia, he is a legend. It is said that he was a part of the first Crusade to take Jerusalem, alongside Godfroi de Bullion, my namesake Sigurd Jerusafar the Jerusalem-Bound, King of Norway, Hugh de Payen, who founded the Knights Templar, and Andre de Montbard, who was St. Bernard’s uncle. Sir Athelstane the Saxon was so skilled at fighting the Infidel Turks said battling him was like being a worm in the claws of a huge eagle. He once tore a tree and swung it like a club, killing fourteen in a single stroke.”
“That was centuries ago. And he still lives. Some say he is part devil, like the Knights Templar.” Here Sir Sigurd’s voice became a whisper. “It is said – and I know as little of this as anyone else – that at the taking of Jerusalem, Sir Athelstane found something in the Temple of Solomon. It could be the Holy Grail, the Spear of Longinus, the treasure of Solomon, something he refused to divulge even with us, his close friends.” He said. “But I will tell you this: I have personally seen him drink two barrels of mead, and require five women a night to be satisfied. And now he comes here, beyond the edge of all knowledge, to see your honorable sire, the Maharaja Amaluk of Rupalistan.”
“Incredible. If all you say is so.” Erzhad said, breathlessly, clinging to his every word. “I wish him to be the first to touch my virgin body.” The Princess said.
“You mean he hasn’t...” The surprise lit up Sir Sigurd’s face.
“Nay. It could be he will not before the wedding day, since he is most pious. Yet, also, he is a very haunted, mysterious man that prefers to sleep alone.”
“Od’s blood, you said truth, Your Majesty. He reminds me not a little of Prince Hamlet, who my Grandsire met once at Castle Elsinore. Of the great Saxon there are chambers in him even we – the dozen Bandemanna, his Oath-Bound Men, may not enter.”
“It is of that I wish to speak to you of, Sir Sigurd.” The princess lowered her voice and brought her perfect lips beside the Dane’s, close enough that he could feel her hot breath. “Tis not for riding alone I called you. If you value your life, keep your face close. Pretend to love me.”
“Aye. Pretend.” At the nearness of her flawless caramel brown skin’s warmth, his nose filled with her perfume, Sir Sigurd felt his big snake solidify to a numb super-stiffness so hard that by swinging it, he could slap nails into wood.
“One of you, one of Sir Athelstane’s twelve Oath-Bound Men, is a traitor.”
“Are you certain? To Sir Athelstane we have sworn our allegiance.”
“By Lord Shiva, I swear it! I was walking in one of the secret tunnels of the palace when I heard the Brahma-Rishi speak to a stranger in Greek, with a voice I could not identify. He promised to kill Sir Athelstane for him.”
“Christ’s Wounds! Were you seen, girl? I fear more for you; no man alive, certainly not one of us Oathbound, can defeat Sir Athelstane.” He protectively placed his hands to the princess’s firm, athletic brown shoulder, and before he realized what he had done he noticed that she did not wince away.
“I hope they did not see me, though it is said the Brahma-Rishi has the Third Eye. As for Sir Athelstane, I pray to Vishnu what you say is so. But the Brahma-Rishi has great allies in the Dreamtime.”
“What is the Dreamtime?” Sir Sigurd asked. He had heard the term used a few times since entering Rupalistan.
“It is improper to speak of it openly.” The Princess said with a shudder. Her vulnerability only made Sir Sigurd ache to hold her. “You alone Sir Sigurd, the Knight of Bees, are beyond suspicion. Of all of them, you are incorruptible.”
When the Princess’s pleading green eyes hit him, the Dane felt as if he could float as well as a fakir.
At the sound of hooves, Sir Sigurd leaped and with a rasp drew his great Frankish blade in defense of the Maharaja’s daughter. Racing up the Himalayan mountain valley’s yak-trails was another wearing the yellow and black striped cloak of the Bandemanna, which gave them the name ‘Knights of the Bees.’
A sneer crossed the black point-bearded man’s lips. “Ah, the Dane! There you are. Sir Athelstane sent me to bring you. He wishes to speak with you of a matter of most unusual urgency. Personally and private.”
Sir Sigurd was vexed. Never before had Sir Athelstane personally asked to see him alone, the most junior of the Oath-Bound Men.
“Incidentally, after your meeting, my armor and shield are in need of polishing.” The Norman Knight, Sir Caudiér said.
“Aye, sir.” Sir Sigurd said.
The three took the yak-road in the valley between the mountain peaks, which stretched for dizzying heights before reaching the minarets and colored banners of Bhopala, the capital city of Rupalistan. The mountain peasants averted their eyes at the presence of the Princess Erzhad. They believed her to be literally divine, a living goddess and incarnation of Parvati.
Princess Erzhad wondered what it would be like to roughly lick Sir Sigurd’s red happy trail.
Her thoughts passed to the handsome, shy young Dane Sir Sigurd. She found she preferred talking to him over Sir Athelstane, who never laughed. She loved Sir Sigurd’s rust-colored hair, his light skin and nose surrounded by freckles, his girlishly beautiful face, his slim, strong body that reminded her of statues of Mercury, or Krishna, only his body was covered in reddish hair on the chest like a virile animal. She loved his wiry biceps, his arm collected in a small ball the size of a tangerine; she loved his dancer’s thighs and his thick calves.
When Sir Sigurd smiled his shy smile and looked away, she felt herself melt, and she wanted him to be inside her so badly that her bones were in pain.
She knew it would be poor karma to think such thoughts of another man apart from her betrothed, but Princess Erzhad could not help it. Two white Christians arrived in her father’s kingdom, and she loved both of them. Perhaps it was because they were both neither cringing, beaten serfs that averted their eyes in her presence.
If only the two could be the same man, or Sir Sigurd’s spirit in Sir Athelstane’s body...
Sir Sigurd the Dane ran with haste on the lush carpets of the palace, up to the pagoda the Maharaja’s hospitality granted the leader of the Knights. It had silk pillows and a single half-full gold chalice of Eastern wine with perspiration on the metal that made it look as if it was still chill. Though Sir Sigurd had fought beside the mighty Saxon Sir Athelstane from Cyprus to Persia, being in his physical presence was an unreal sensation that made him frightened and astonished at the same time.
The first feature one always noticed was Sir Athelstane’s huge legs, that rolled with skintight white hose clinging to each deep crevice of his surface anatomy, both out of proportion to the rest of his body. Sir Athelstane’s great barrel-thick, teardrop shaped thighs, when pressed against each other, were only slightly less thick around than his shoulders, striated with teardrop-shaped muscles that made his knees appear sunken and threatened to snap his hose. Sir Athelstane’s calves were powerhouse cows an inch less wide than most men’s waists that caused his boots to strain as much as his biceps did his sleeves. They looked like a bowling ball had been stuffed behind his shin. This gave the Saxon superwarrior’s legs the shape of a chicken leg.
The Dane had seen firsthand the power of these legs. He had seen Sir Athelstane knock down armored men with an earthquake stomp that spread like a shockwave. Sir Sigurd had seen these legs crush a stone column to ground dust with a scissor-squeeze.
Sir Athelstane’s skin was an even, flawless polished brass beach-tan that practically glowed. His heroic, clefted-chinned, lantern-jawed face was handsome as Adonis. The legendary Saxon had a well-trimmed, short blond goatee; his hair was a flaxen and golden, coming to his shoulders like the mane of a lion, which contrasted against his dark tan skin. Sir Athelstane’s eyes were steel gray and had an unsettling gaze that seemed a little too intense, like the look of an eagle.
Sir Athelstane’s height was dominating and immense; even tall men came up to the top of his hard abs. The top of most doorways only reached his neck, and his big, wide globe shoulders needed to be turned to the side in cramped places. The great Knight’s v-shaped back was wide like the wingspan of a great bird, with striated muscles like rolling hills under his bronze skin, each cut like armor plates.
The Saxon’s arms were iron battering rams that weighed fifty pounds each by themselves, with horseshoe-shaped triceps in back and a prominent bicep in front the size of a boulder that by itself came a centimeter short of his wrist when flexed.
His abs were eight square, hard bricks separated by half inch-deep furroughs.
“Come in, Sir Sigurd.” Sir Athelstane said in French, the official language of England. He spoke with his deep, earthshaking bass voice. “I called you here for a reason.” He paced about the room on his mighty legs like a caged wolf, the earth shaking under his great size with each step. He opened drawers and pushed aside peach-colored gossamer curtains.
“Good, we are alone. Sir Sigurd, it is important you hear what I have to say. It occurs to me I might have been a bit distant from you at times. For that I’m sorry. Soon, I will die, and I must pass on the greatest secret of my life.”
“Die, sir? But – “
“Let me finish.” He said. “I am a fraud. I am not really the original Sir Athelstane at all.” He paused for a minute to let that sink in.
“My real name is Pierre du Auvergne. I was a varlet, a crooked confidence man. I sold twelve faulty ships during the Second Crusade. All of them sank to the bottom, with all hands aboard. This was a single sample of my thousand wicked deeds. In the Holy Land, I went to rob Sir Athelstane, whom I heard had King Solomon’s treasure. However, all I discovered was this ring.” He raised his enormous bronzed hand, in proportion to his huge body. On one finger was an unornamented, simple ring made of white platinum, with a diamond gem in the center that looked as if it was made of glass.
“The moment I put it on and touched the white gem, I found I was in Sir Athelstane’s body. I do not even know if the man I took the ring from had been the original Sir Athelstane himself! But it is this ring that is the treasure he discovered at King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. I was strong, handsome and powerful! I could crush any man like a piece of parchment. At first I meant to make mischief and crime in my powerful body. But then, when others revered Sir Athelstane – me - for courage and chivalry, I felt shame. I saw I could redeem now my criminal deeds and atone before God.”
Sir Sigurd gawked and could say nothing. At last he understood why Sir Athelstane could be immortal, why he spoke little of himself, and why his moods were always dark and moody: he was penitent. “My Liege, w-why do you tell me this?”
“Because, Dane, I am going to die! The Brahma-Rishi somehow poisoned me.” He pointed at the half-swallowed cup of wine on the table. “That vile foe gave me enough to kill five elephants. He thought he could without me noticing and steal the ring from my cold corpse...for what does a chivalrous knight know of poisons?” Here Sir Athelstane laughed bitterly. “But a varlet and crook knows how a poison works. The Brahma-Rishi, he knew what the ring was, the moment we entered Rupalistan, and coveted it. I believe it was from here that Solomon acquired the ring.”
“Young Sir Sigurd, when the poison reaches my mighty heart and I die, you must take the ring and become Sir Athelstane yourself and keep it from the Brahma-Rishi.”
“Why me, sir?”
“Because though you are the youngest, you are incorruptible, the most virtuous. But mostly because you love the Princess Erzhad.”
Sir Sigurd felt as if he had just been caught masturbating.
“No, no! You must protect her. The Brahma-Rishi means to marry her himself. Swear you will do this. She is the only thing in my vile, misbegotten life I ever loved.”
“My Liege, I swear it.”
“Fall to your knees.”
Sir Sigurd did so. Sir Athelstane unsheathed from his spear his great black sword, Witchslayer, which it was said he obtained in Jerusalem. It had silver Hebrew characters along the black palm-thick iron flat of the sword, which read “Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live.” Sir Athelstane placed the sword on either of the Dane’s shoulders.
“Do you swear to always protect all women, the needy, and the weak? Do you swear to smite all demons, warlocks, and serpents of sin? Do you swear to be a good Christian Knight, and always keep your word, even to spiders and worms?”
“I swear.”
“Then rise.” At this, the great sword Witchslayer clanged to the ground. Sir Athelstane’s mighty, perfect body shook and collapsed like a cut down tree. Sir Sigurd rushed close.
“My Liege, I have served with you for three years. Not once have I ever asked ‘why’ for anything, even when we went East to explore. But...Sir, tell me, please, why are we here? Od’s Blood, we must be halfway to Cathay or the Japans. I am not an uneducated man, but I must confess I had never even heard of Rupalistan ‘ere now.”
Sir Athelstane shut his eyes and winced with pain. “Of course, that’s the beauty of it. Rupalistan, tiny, quiet mountain kingdom. But it is in fact the most important little country on the face of the earth. For Rupalistan alone contains secret passageways to the Dreamtime.”
“I have heard the Princess Erzhad speak of it. My Liege, what IS the Dreamtime?”
“The Dreamtime is the home of the Beast-Gods. They are lands not on any mortal map, but accessible if one knows secret passages. It is called many names: White Cathay, Avalon, Prester John’s Kingdom.”
“But of all its names, the ‘Dreamtime’ suits it best, because it is both the ancient past...and yet, it is also a place that can be visited today.”
Sir Sigurd shook his head in confusion.
The eyelids of the great warrior Sir Athelstane shook and his mouth opened, exhaling. He did not inhale back again. Sir Sigurd could not believe that this magnificent body full of strength and life, could ever die and be home to worms and crawling creatures.
“Farewell, Sir Athelstane. You were born a criminal, but you did not die one.” Sir Sigurd shut the eyes, and removed the platinum ring and placed it on his own hand.
A turbaned mameluke came in with a tray of dates, that he nearly dropped. “By Vishnu! Sir Athelstane, is he poisoned?”
“Nay! Nay! Give a moment, sirrah.” The Knight said, pushing him aside.
When he was certain the mameluke had left, Sir Athelstane shut his eyes, and he touched the great white diamond on the ring.
Sir Sigurd felt a jangling and a jolt. When his eyes opened, he saw the room entirely from a different angle and position. When he rose to stand up, it was as if he kept on standing and standing and didn’t stop. He looked down at the room as if he stood on top of a large crate, his head brushed the ceiling. He felt his heavy, dangling arms press into his wide torso’s swell; he had to hold them out slightly. He felt his center of gravity change, his torso was a top with huge shoulders and a big chest atop a much smaller waist.
Sir Sigurd’s body felt so heavy, yet also moved so effortless and fast, like the coiling of springs.
Sir Sigurd looked down and could not see below his gigantic pec shelves, their huge clifflike break and deep trenchlike line of separation visible in his tunic and chain mail. He flexed one mighty pec, that almost burst through his clothing like a charging bull against a barn; then the other side in a rhythm.
What a satisfying grin and a laugh, Sir Sigurd flexed his brass colored, enormous arms. What size his giant monster pythons had! He felt the muscles move under his skin, bounce and collect; he could feel his mighty heart pumping blood through his veins. He took a deep breath and found he took in three times more, inside lungs that were each the size of a gallon jug. He felt the room shake with a deep voice that was not his own, until a vase nearly collapsed off a table.
Sir Sigurd placed his hands together and with a swinging blow whose rattlesnake-leap speed frightened even him, he playfully smashed his macelike hands against a giant palace column. The column’s marble broke against his blow into cracked pebbles as if it was as thin as cracker, sending chunks of it the size of a human head flying across the room, utterly split in twain.
Sir Sigurd stomped the ground playfully like a bad Cossack dancer and his movements were rewarded with a quake of the ground.
Sir Sigurd never before felt so powerful. The strongmen of the past, Hercules or his namesake, Sigurd or Siegfried, must have been midget weaklings in comparison to Sir Athelstane’s – his – power! He squeezed his arm and the surface of his muscle felt like touching a warm statue; even his hand could not entirely cup his bicep.
When he bowleggedly bent his horselike legs to either side, Sigurd, the new Sir Athelstane, felt something dangle as heavy as three lead weights. He raised his tunic and mail and opened the waistband of his hose to look on his enormous genitals. His penis was a big club, and he could feel the pinball-like ping and splink of his virile, swimming seed in between his legs, the fruit of his groin. His testes each were the size of chicken eggs. And touching his spheres was like holding a ball of brass. He could feel his set of big he-man balls swell his body with courage, filling his body with muscle-building hormones; if anything was the secret of Sir Athelstane’s growth and strength, they were it.
Sir Athelstane’s arms possessed an impressive reach; he could touch either side of the walls of his room if he stretched his arms. With a snap of his hand he swooped and grabbed the Witchslayer and pulled it free from its sheath with a satisfied slither. The metal itself hummed when he sliced air with it, even the slightest turn of the weapon released a hiss. Though the blade was leaf-shaped and thick and sliced the curve-shaped swords of the Turks during the First Crusade, to Sir Athelstane’s arms, the fifty-pound blade was light as a child’s balsawood toy, and he wielded the giant lethal implement as if it was a thin rapier or a flyswatter.
Sir Athelstane started to laugh loudly and mockingly. “Come, Brahma-Rishi, I have your ring...will you not try to claim it?” He flexed his arms together with an intimidating crab flex that was scary enough to cause most men’s testicles to withdraw into their bodies, and make a charging rabid rhino snort and run the opposite direction.
Sir Athelstane sheathed the Witchslayer again. If only his libido could likewise be sheathed; his brawny muscles began to heat up at the thought of the Princess, and his club dick stretched and fattened with ardor, and the bubbling ocean of his powerful blood that filled his penis. The blood loss to fill his oversized member made him dizzy.
The Princess! He remembered his vow to his friend, Sir Athelstane, (Pierre du Auvergne) to protect the Princess, the woman they both loved. He sheathed his sword. If only his great club could be sheathed as easily.
Rushing through the palace with a burst of thoroughbred speed, Sir Athelstane grasped the knob of the princess’s door and pulled the door hinges, which gave way like melted cheese. He tossed the huge piece of cedarwood aside like rubbish. The Princess Erzhad’s opulent boudoir was filled with silk sheets and scented pillows. On the walls were fierce-pointed implements of war and the hunt, spears and maces, shields and bows of all kinds. The merger of the two elements seemed fitting for the Princess Erzhad’s character. Sir Athelstane paused in mid-stride.
The Princess reclined on a couch, her nubile petite body flexible as a yawning cat as she smoked from a hookah and read the Vedas on plates. She wore a gold-embroidered vermillion sari and gold colored armlets. She hid her startled face coyly like a harem girl.
“Why, Sir Athelstane! Whatever has gotten into you?”
“You! Love for you. Oh, how I burn for you, my Diana...” The Saxon’s power prick stiffly extended out his lower tabard tented in a shape like a pyramid. The length quivered and shook when pumped with blood. It looked as if he had a third thigh between the other two that was held straight out, which gradually stretched like a telescope.
The Princess rose from her pillows. Her warm little hands clutched at the sides of the big stud, her face right in the middle of his ridged abs. Sir Athelstane, in a frenzy, removed his white and red cross Crusader tunic and shucked to the side of the room his hooded chain mail, which on his upper body felt as light as rice paper. His erect phallus burst to full size.
The princess Erzhad gazed at the wriggling tree trunk in his hose with awe, and when it was revealed she felt as if she had been dealt a physical blow and became dizzy. She nearly fell down as if the ground below her had become ice.
Sir Athelstane held her up, his rough, huge hands on either side of her wide hips. The Princess clocked her hips from side to side like a gypsy dancer, as Sir Athelstane peeled the gossamer-thin fabric off, which took some doing with her wide, womanly hips. She wriggled and laughed like an eel. Sir Athelstane tore her top with a snatch, leaving her hard, small chocolate-colored nipples free.
Sir Athelstane’s calcified, stiff ultrawand slid and pressed against Erzhad’s skin like a cat hungry for warmth, its surface hot as a searing branding iron that rolled and teasingly traced the half-circle circumference of her tight young breasts.
With each new touch, the undersexed Princess’s body burned back as hot as a sun. With each new stroke, Erzhad shut her eyes, her back popped into an arch, and she alternated between hisses, pants, animal screeches, and throaty orgasmic moans. For the white Christian, foreplay was like playing a musical instrument that released different tones. All the virgin Princess’s held-back sexual want exploded volcanically to the surface. It was as if every single part of her body from head to toe was as sensitive and filled with nerve clusters as her pussy was. She flashed white hot between her legs in the groin.
The hunkish blond Saxon took a palace luxury ice cube from a wet dish and slid its cold surface over the Princess’s breasts, her inch-long nipples stiffened to glass-cutter gumdrops. He ran the it over her hard abs and pressed it with his finger against her quinny lips; in seconds the cube was lukewarm water that dripped between his fingers.
Sir Athelstane slipped his mast point-first between the princess’s pneumatic coffee-brown chest balloons, which swallowed his girder between them like a tossed pebble is swallowed by a lake. Her breasts trapped his staff pointfirst between them like six layers of clothing. The Saxon could feel the soft, nebulous surface of her deep cleavage envelop him totally. Erzhad felt a grape-sized dribble hit her on the breastbone like an airsoft gun pellet.
Erzhad then felt the entire length of the great knight’s pork prong shake with roaring volume of seed like a high-pressure water-pipe. Until at last his slit opened to the width of a coin and gushed like a faucet between her breasts with jet-intensity and voluminous splatter that hit her skin with a force like a punch, the rocket propulsion of which sent her flying out from him and sprawl on her back. Sir Athelstane stood above the Princess still, his dick so massive it cast a shadow on Erzhad that blocked out the light.
When he came, his penis recoiled and popped up and back with each peach-sized globule burst of magma-hot white slop, which slapped her and exploded against her cinnamon skin, occasionally a misfire would launch like a shell and smash vases. Sir Athelstane could feel his fist-sized sperm factories tighten, contract and shrink.
When he finally squirted the last streaming ribbon flicker from his elephant-endowment, the boudoir looked wet as if a flood had passed through, and the Princess herself lay on the ground in a disk shaped puddle, from her now wet black hair to her ankles, and looked like a fly caught in a water-droplet. The Princess grasped her drenched black hair and squeezed the hot white spunk from it like it was a used mop. Her body was covered with his man-ooze to the point where there were few places her brown skin could be seen. The Princess squeezed and pressed her firm, buxom breasts together to feel the sticky, tarlike cum between them.
Carelessly, the Saxon turned his naked, Herculean buck build around, and his excited, stiff trouser-stalactite slammed into the wall and broke the plaster, as well as caused a nearby tapestry to clatter to the ground.
The Saxon dropped to the ground in a crawl like a tiger, the tip of his meat hitting the ground even when crouched. He bent low to kiss her, but to his astonishment his lips met her pussy instead. The Princess was a trained contortionist, standing on her hands, and her entire body was bent in a U-shape. The Virgin Princess felt the warmth of his head bury itself inside her, pushing against it, his nose against her inner, sensitive skin. He could feel she was a virgin.
The Princess bent her muscled, plastic legs all the way back until her ankles were at the same level as her ears. Her knees were at his shoulder, and with a shove like an expanding spring made with surprising strength, she pushed him onto his back, with the Maharaja’s daughter above him.
She greedily and covetously slid her tongue down the length of the pole, and eyed it as if it was already her property. His massive column thrust toward the heavens like a tower. The Princess’s knees touching the ground, as she impulsively and uncontrollably impaled herself on his horn.
Erzhad let out a scream; his head burst through her maidenhead like a battering ram breaking through a screen door. She felt her walls shudder internally with the sudden, stingingly painful pop of her cherry. She became crosseyed as his great spike dug into her, shocking her entire body; it was like she was masturbating with a lightning bolt. The Princess felt as if she was being torn and wedged in half by his sheer mass. He could see where he was in her from the outside of her body, a great log-shaped roll on the surface on her otherwise flat belly. Her lower lips were stretched by the mug-thick mass that made her eyes go so wide that they nearly popped out of her sockets. Her kegels clamped down upon him with a vice grip and her body shook. She made no noise at her first orgasm; the pleasure was too intense for that.
Erzhad felt his monster pole drill, thrust and break into her insides with growing intensity that made her whole body shake and vibrate. When he pushed in her, it felt like the head of his was tickling her neck. When he was below her, he moved and bucked up and down with furious rhythm like a wild stallion and if not for the fact his steel girder was gripped inside the princess, he would have thrown her off. To Erzhad, she was tossed up and down as if adrift in a roaring crashing sea during a storm. Her body was slick with sweat that pooled over her mocha skin and acted as a lubricant.
The Princess Erzhad straddled his body, her voluminous ass slapped and paddled its great weight against his hips. Sir Athelstane was charitably five or six times her size, but her hard muscle ground against the Saxon. She crashed her small body into him angrily and violently, as if she was breaking in a particularly naughty horse. In the heat of the moment she slapped him on the lips with the back of her hand. Her legs constricted and squeezed his ab-covered waist like an anaconda squeezing an iron pillar. It flashed to Sir Athelstane briefly that if he were not in this powerful body, sex with Erzhad would make him walk a little funny for the rest of his life. It would probably be worth it.
Their bestial moans and wild-shut-eyed, hair tossing grunts grew louder and louder and merged with one another like a pair of mating alley cats. Undeniably, they could be heard from one end of the Maharaja’s palace to the other, and the earthquake-pounding of their coitus could no doubt be felt. The shake even caused some of the weapons in the Princess’s room to fall and strike the ground.
Sir Athelstane roared triumphantly and with finality. It was as if a vacuum pump had been connected to the middle of the Princess’s body, and started filling her up like a balloon. Her entire body twitched and shook with the twanging vibrations of his shooting anaconda as if exploding firecrackers had been placed in her midsection.
The Princess’s entire petite body’s muscles and joints locked and everything from her toes and fingers clenched, her nails biting into her palm, her teeth gnashed. Sir Athelstane unsheathed himself from her with a rough slide and a pop, but Princess Rupali could not move. She was swimming in pleasure; the room felt like it was spinning and she was on a crashing, plunging wave at the same time. Moving her head felt like moving a planet, but she looked down at herself and saw she could not see past her stuffed, oversized new gut filled with his seed, that rose surprisingly from her slim body like an inner tube. Her chest rose and fell, heaved as she gasped for breath.
Erzhad could feel Sir Athelstane’s arms wrap around her waist and hold her naked body to his. So, that was sex. She felt such joy that at any moment her heart could burst, and simultaneously she felt so emotional that she could cry. But as she was disgusted with her own vulnerability at times, she kept the tears inside.
When she had time to come down from her high, the Princess commanded the palace slaves and mamelukes to bring her dinner – only she would eat it off the White Christian’s naked body.
Erzhad read in her lascivious, horny breathy voice chapters from the Kama-Sutra, until his pole stuck out and rose like a unicorn’s horn. She would lick it with her lengthy, hot, wide tongue the endless seed that came from its fist-sized tip like a fountain.
Their discussions eventually veered away from sex onto food, classical Greek literature, and Sir Athelstane told jokes that made the Princess laugh. The Princess spoke with a quiet voice and occasional cough, as the lovemaking screaming had made her hoarse.
“Methinks chickpea paste tastes far better when licked off your hard stomach, Sir Sigurd.”
“Heh! I can’t imagine anything would make that taste good. I love the East, but what I would not give for some good pickled herring and porridge –“
“Aha! I called you Sir Sigurd! Your bad Greek was the first clue. Your humor, your demeanor, your jokes...you called me ‘My Diana’ when you entered my room.”
Sir Athelstane wanted to kick himself for thinking he was anything less than perfectly transparent to the Princess Erzhad. She was smarter than him. Fierce, and formidably intelligent. He heard she spoke sixteen languages.
“Aye! You have sniffed me out, my Diana.”
“Tell me the truth and leave not a bit out. Not a single detail.”
He did so. All Danes could do three things: fish, pilot a boat, and tell the truth.
“Lord Shiva...it is beyond my comprehension. But not beyond my imagination.” She said at the conclusion. “The poison wine was cold, you say? It meant that he was poisoned while the Norman went to get us. Sir Athelstane did not know how little time he actually had...” She said, wistfully.
“Then it could not have been the Norman. How I wish it was! He has treachery about him. He’s guilty of being a pompous ass if naught else.”
“Oh! I have already deduced the identity of the traitor. What’s more, I have a ruse that will draw the traitor out of hiding.” The Princess Erzhad told her lover her plan and the identity of the traitor. “But first I will need a thing from the palace smith.” The Princess kissed her husband hotly on the lips.
“I hope you shall return for the second round.” He said, and the Princess felt a hot knob tap her on the middle of her thigh.
“By the Vedas, love! If there were six of me you’d not be satisfied!”
“I only want one of you.” He said, and pressed his lips to her soft ones. Their mouths went concave from the suction power that almost threatened to take suck the entire Princess’s face into his mouth; the Saxon could taste the princess’s honeylike sweetness. His tongue filled her mouth. When the kiss broke, the Princess felt as if she could faint and leaned her arm against a drawer to keep from falling.
“That kiss will be enough to keep me going.” The Princess giggled and lurched out of the room as if intoxicated.
The sun had started to rise gold in the single tower window of the princess’s room. Sir Athelstane the Saxon was not tired, and started to flex his naked, brass-colored, Herculean body in the presence of a mirror, startled by the appearance of the shadows that appeared over cuts and full bulges. He could hardly believe it. He expected to awaken at any moment back as carrot-haired, ordinary Sir Sigurd.
He turned to the side and admired his thick, solid glutes, a tight bubble ass that rippled like a fish below water when he moved his legs. He placed a finger against its surface and saw it did not sink in no matter how hard he pressed.
Sir Athelstane grasped a huge iron-shafted spear from the Princess’s walls. It was heavy, balanced and steel all the way through. He slid the spear right in between his ass cheeks, and clenched his ass together, causing the two muscles to roll and collide like crashing boulders. When he pulled the spear shaft out, it was broken in half, the area in between his ass flat as a piece of parchment and moulded to the two cheeks on either side. The bottom part of the spear fell to the ground, snapped.
He grasped a wooden gada, or mace from the Princess’s wall next and bringing his arm back, he struck it against the hard serrated brick wall he called abs and tightened them like a bellydancer. He barely felt the blow, but the wooden mace was broken in half.
His reverie was interrupted by a smell of burning smoke, an explosion, screams, and a roar unlike that of any animal he had ever heard.
Sir Athelstane snapped like a cat with puma-quick reflexes and ran to the Princess’s tower window. The sun was blocked out by an enormous shadow that covered the city of Bhopala like a shadow. Sir Athelstane looked above him and his jaw dropped.
It was a floating city with spires and obelisks, pagodas, and muezzin and onion-domes as glorious and golden as El Dorado itself, which hovered over Bhopala. The Cyclopean-masonry walls that surrounded the city to the east were caught asleep, to be smashed under the floating city’s unassailable artillery and flaming arrows, that crashed and ignited the mountain people’s defenses. The Maharaja’s cavalry and war-elephants were trapped in by flaming walls to whinny and trumpet helplessly.
So this was what Princess Erzhad said when she mentioned that the Brahma-Rishi had allies in the Dreamtime!
Worse, Sir Athelstane saw pinpricks emerge from the city like tiny flashing meteors. Six of them streaked toward his open window and as they grew closer he saw what they were.
They were great winged white snow apes, seven feet in height. Their faces were like a baboon or mandrill, and they sported a tufted prehensile tail. Between the eyes in their sloping forehead was a glowing stone like a yellow opal. In one hand was a slim curved sword of the kind used by the Infidel Turks, and in the other was a Hindu punching-knife.
One of the monsters landed with a slam of its half-ton weight upon Sir Athelstane’s windowledge, and perched with its handlike feet. With surprising ferocity, Sir Athelstane charged the creature. His hand shot out and grasped the ape’s neck, and with one arm lifted its great bulk from the ground by a foot until its feet dangled in the air, and squeezed until the white of the creature’s face turned purple and his fingers crushed bone and windpipe under them with a satisfying crush. It was as helpless as a mouse in the paws of a huge cat. The creature’s pounding arms lashed against Sir Athelstane’s iron body with a helpless flail, before finally it went limp as a tentacle of a jellyfish. Sir Athelstane dropped the dead meat off the ledge like a sack of potatoes.
The mighty bulging-biceped Saxon looked up and saw five more of the flying creatures in a v-shape streaking to the window, all in iron breastplates. In a flash, he realized why they were so keen to target this tower: they believed the Princess was there. If the Brahma-Rishi had the Princess, he could force them into giving the ring. He had to find the Princess!
Sir Athelstane leaped back with a bounce of his powerful legs like a soap bubble, and from its great sheath, he drew Witchslayer. The Saxon slashed the black sword in a silver halfcircle crescent that broke and shattered the five blades of the five winged snow apes like a farmer’s scythe cuts through wheat stalks.
Sir Athelstane twisted his core with flexibility that meant the punching daggers of the ape-men hit only air. He leapt with a of his powerhouse legs like the uncoiling of a spring, a move shook the ground and took him to to the unprotected flank of an ape-creature. He extended his sword in mid-leap and struck the creature in the side, the blade popped the steel breastplate like a can-opener and moved almost a foot deep into the softer flesh below by a power blow. The point of the sword drove into the monster’s still-beating heart.
Sir Athelstane withdrew the sword, and using it like a parrying fan that deflected punching daggers, he brought up one of his enormous legs and kicked a creature in the chest and sent it flying as if it was a man made of straw, out the window.
Two of the apes drew giant spears from their backs and hurled them from their arms like living catapults at the blood-drenched Saxon superwarrior. They sped as inevitable as continental drift. Sir Athelstane extended one arm out and caught the spear along its wooden length, halting it in mid-flight. Sir Athelstane caught the other in the line of separation between his oversized pecs, the weapon’s point an inch from his sternum, the pole shaft sticking vertically out from his pecs. With a twitch and flex of his big chest, Sir Athelstane snapped the forearm-thick wood shaft of the spear like a straw.
The knight looked down and saw his massive tool had sprung to life and rose at a 45 degree angle until it slid between his abs and up to the underside of his pecs. This was giving him an erection!
Sir Athelstane felt a throbbing pulse on his hand. The gem on their foreheads...it is a slave-stone. It projects the will and rage of another into them. The big-armed stud shot his huge hands with blurring speed and snatched the rocks from the foreheads from the two apes. With a squeeze, he crushed the slave-stones into a fine yellow powder.
The rage of the creatures was replaced with a sudden look of confusion the instant the stone was pulled away from them. Sir Athelstane turned on his heel and ran with a speed that would leave a jackrabbit behind down the spiral staircase, the punch of his jet-powered legs crushed each of the stairs under his feet. He grasped his clothing on the way out. As he spun around to exit, his hard low-hanging stiffy slapped against the waist of an ape, and sent him sprawled on his back.
Sir Athelstane had to summon his willpower to calm down and squeeze his giant zucchini into his short pants.
How did I just know that about the stones? The ring somehow must be telling me. There’s more to it than even my predecessor knew.
The heroic knight leaped amongst the darkened city streets; from horizon to horizon, the sky was filled with the floating city above. He dashed to the Bhopala palace jeweler to see the princess, the cobblestones on the street sent up in a trail behind him, his feet slammed and pushed off the ground with such force that he lodged himself up to his ankles. Even a charging mustang could not match his speed.
“You are entirely too late, Christian.” An aged, wheezing voice sprang from behind him. It was the Brahma-Rishi himself, riding a tortoise the size of an elephant. “My slaves have already borne the Princess Rubali as my guest up to the Sky City. She is my prisoner and will be worse unless you demonstrate some patience and serenity.”
The Brahma-Rishi of Rupalistan’s skin ws dark, but his thick beard was pure snow-white. His head was bald as an egg, shrunken and small as the skull of a monkey. His eyes were coal-black and had a baleful gaze as malevolent as Satan himself. His voice was huge for such a tiny man. Between his eyes was painted the V-mark that indicated devotion to Vishnu, and above was a ruby red gem in place of the traditional Bindi, which indicated what Sir Athelstane somehow knew was the Relay Slave-Stone.
“I can see now why you’d covet the ring enough to kill a good man for it, you leathery cross between a reptile and a corpse.” Sir Sigurd sniffed dismissively.
The Brahma-Rishi let out a cracked, wheezing laugh like a teacher to a student’s dimwitted answer. “You haven’t the slightest inkling as to the ring’s true power, Christian. You think all it can do is a body-switch parlor trick? I tell you, it has powers beyond your boring imagination. It is one of two Master Rings, used to create humans and to exile the Beast-Gods to the Dreamtime...the other was lost ages ago. Either one is worth an empire – ten empires.”
“But then again,” the Rishi continued, “I wouldn’t expect your young race to know of it. The ‘secret wisdom’ kept in Rupalistan goes back to the age when the Greeks, Celts, and Indians were all one tribe, when the gods of Greece and India were allies before they became foes.”
Sir Athelstane for a moment remembered stories of the gods of Greece, how in the primeval darkness they battled another equally more powerful race, the Titans, some of whom, the Hetonchieres, were disntinguished because of their many arms and heads...
“Enough of this. You’re not worthy to touch the Princess, base varlet!” The mighty Saxon lifted his lethal sword with both huge hands and hammishly slashed downward in the manner of his Viking ancestors at the turtle and its rider. The blade moved through the turtle as if it was a cloud of smoke.
The Brahma-Rishi laughed his vile laugh, the turtle and its rider disappeared as if a mirage, with only the surprisingly deep voice of the holy man left behind. Sir Athelstane cursed himself for the loss of his composure.
“An Astral Projection, one of the mind-powers of the Brahmin of Rupalistan. See here, Christian: the Princess is my prisoner. I will trade her life for the ring. If you do not, I will kill her. Her death will be on your Karma, not mine.”
Sir Athelstane looked up and saw the sky city drifted away from Bhopala. The slave-stones on the foreheads of the winged snow apes started to glow, and the creatures abandoned their attacks as if a switch had been turned, and took to the air and soared to the floating city like a flock of migrating birds. The sky city flew up and vanished off the horizon.
The Herculean Knight heard a clomp of iron boots, the charge of Sir Athelstane’s Oathbound Men in their beelike black and yellow striped cloaks.
“My Liege!” One of the Bandemanna said. “We had to awaken and don our armor. The sky city emerged from nowhere, and was upon us before the warriors of the east wall could react. How fares the Princess?”
“The Princess has been captured. Gather the rest of the Oathbound Men.” The Dane was amazed at how naturally and easily Sir Athelstane’s ability to command came.
Before heading to meet with his men, Sir Athelstane ventured to the city’s forge, where he saw the men had completed work on what the Princess had asked them to make when she was seized. They handed it to him in a box. Sir Athelstane looked at it and smiled.
The Brahma-Rishi descended into the dungeons beneath the floating city. He was always revolted to enter such places and considered it beneath one of his caste to enter such an unclean place. Unlocking steel bars, he stood before the Princess Rupali, who was bound to the wall in her torn clothes with chains made of solid gold.
The Brahma-Rishi ran his finger along the Princess’s face. “Aye, you’re beautiful. More beautiful than Sita or Helen of Troy.” He spoke without hyperbole in his voice, his tone almost clinical.
The Princess rolled her head from his touch and bit his finger.
The Brahma-Rishi pulled back as if from a dangerous animal. “Have it your way.” The Brahma-Rishi hissed. “I know all about your skill as a contortionist, so I had my Dreamtime allies forge these gold chains. Struggle as you will. Only a person that is pure of heart can break them. And even if your view of human nature is not quite as cynical as mine, you must agree that is quite a minority.”
The eleven Oath-Bound Men assembled in their fortified pagoda waiting to be commanded. Sir Athelstane eyed them warily; for one among them had tried to kill “him.”
There was Sir Gavin of Kent, the hunchback who had armor molded for his unusual body. No stronger man was there than he save Sir Athelstane. There too, was Sir Bruge du Calaís, a veteran mercenary who loved Sir Athelstane for allowing him to fight for righteous causes instead of for greed. There too, was the pointed-bearded Norman, Sir Caudiér, and the virgin she-warrior Deidre von Eisenbach, who was called to the sword for religious purposes, and for her vow of lifelong chastity was called ‘the Iron Maiden.’
“Sire! Are we going to rescue the princess? By God! I wonder if we’ll be saving her from those Eastern devils, or saving the Eastern devils from her! She’s a fighting, snarling killer cat.” Sir Gavin the hunchback said. His face was normal, green-eyed, with chipmunk cheeks; handsome and endearing.
“I have yet to tell you what it is the Brahma-Rishi wants.” Sir Athelstane said.
The hunchback drew his sword out. “What does it matter? A beautiful woman is in need of rescue! And if I may say, there too’s the matter of little Sir Sigurd. I was rather fond of that Danish lad, the youngest and best of us.”
The Norman sniffed dismissively. “Listen to yourselves! What good is this talk when we do not even know where that devilish sky city is now, and we have no means to reach it.”
“Ahhh, but I do know where it is. You might be able to deduce too, if you were paying attention.” Sir Athelstane smiled.
“I say, good old Sir Athelstane! I see why he’s the leader.” The hunchback said.
“What is it the men want, in return for the Princess?” The Norman asked.
Sir Athelstane showed his platinum ring. “This ring.”
The hunchback laughed. “Just that trifle? Then why not give it to them?”
“That is precisely what I mean to do. The one trouble is, I cannot figure out a way to get to the sky city short of growing wings and flying. God, if only a great King from the past or future, Charlemagne or Arthur, could aid us now!”
The ring let out a buzz sound. Sir Athelstane instinctively covered his hand with his other hand to still the noise.
A scuffle and clamour could be heard outside. The fighting instincts of the veteran Oath-Bound Men, who warred from Esthonia to Persia, were raised. Sir Athelstane raised his immense cinderblock fist and with the power of his 28” arms behind it, he struck the huge oak pagoda door like a lightning bolt, shattering it in twain with a shower of wood sparks, his legs causing the ground to quake as he pounced through as agile as a panther.
In the hallway was a pair of Bhopala palace guards wrestling a big man with a square round head, and a pair of gold hoop spectacles over his eyes. He looked like a white Christian like themselves though his clothes were strange. “See here, sirs, most unsporting of you to take a man two to one! I warn you, I’m no slouch when it comes to gentleman’s fisticuffmanship!”
At this, the stranger wound a Sunday punch that drove into the guard’s plate, sending him flying. The other reached for the weapon at the stranger’s waist, a huge steel tube the size of a sword.
“Bolts and balderdash, son! Don’t be touching that –“
A loud noise like thunder shook the room and the man holding his weapon keeled over dead.
Sir Athelstane raised his shield instinctively. “Sir? Who in the name of St. Peter are you?”
The stranger let loose a huge toothy grin, and hiked up his palm-thick leather belt. “By Jove, lad, I’m the answer to your prayers! The ring called for help from the Dreamtime, and I answered, because I was spoiling for a good fight! You can call me Teddy. Teddy Roosevelt. With a little elbow-grease and good old fashioned American know-how, I say there’s nothing we can’t lick!”
“It’s a trick, my liege! Some phantom Halfling of the Brahma-Rishi sent to spy!” The Norman roared, his swordpoint drawn.
“Nay! As strange as it sounds, he speaks the truth.” Sir Athelstane looked down at his ring. “You are welcome among us, Sir Teddy of Roosevelt. The Princess of Rupalistan has been kidnapped. I am Sir Athelstane the Saxon, and we mean to rescue her. Will you be the twelfth of my Oath-Bound Men?”
“Why, of course! Rupalistan, you say? By gum! It does my old Knickerbocker heart good to be back here. It’s been years since I was big game hunting in the mountains.” Teddy Roosevelt made gestures with his iron tube-weapon.
“What a strange weapon, sir. Is it from the Dreamtime?” Sir Athelstane asked.
“Heavens no, son! Why, I daresay it’s little different from this sporting country’s fireworks.”
Sir Athelstane scratched his masculine, goldskinned and goateed lower face. He let out a great, deep, hearty laugh which startled the others like the laugh of a giant. “I have it! I know how we will reach the Sky City and save the Princess. Teddy, are certain you are fit to come with us?”
“Nonsense, my boy! Why, I feel as fit as a bull moose!”
“Then let us find Rupalistan’s kitemakers, for I have a special project for them. We too, will help them work. We’ll work all through the day and into the night. Then we’ll fly to the sky city and take the Princess back!”
“In the meantime, the Brahma Rishi might try to steal his ring back with his Dreamtime allies, who may have strange and devilish powers. He will believe I keep it on me at all times. In case I am captured, the ring falls into his hands. I intend to remove the ring, and place it in our weapons and supply room. None but us will know of this.” Sir Athelstane removed his ring and placed it among the other supplies the Knights kept in the pagoda.
The Oath-Bound Men cheered. During the work, Teddy Roosevelt predictably enough, dominated the conversation, with tales of his Rough Riders and San Juan Hill.
Late at night, the project was finished. Enormous kites with Oriental designs of dragon, lion, and carp. Below each was a bar with which a warrior would ride, and beside each were the queer, concentrated variety of firework only the men of the Himalayan Dragon Kingdom knew how to make.
“God be praised!” Diedre von Eisenbach, the Iron Maiden said. “Our work would not have been possible without you, Theodore. In your time, you must be a truly great King.”
The great, ruddy man blushed, his hand to the back of his head. “T’weren’t nothing, my dear! Just a couple lessons learned from my good friends Orville and Wilbur.”
Meanwhile, leather-boot clad feet walked on the stucco of the pagoda, and a dark figure crept through the window and dropped to the ground noiselessly. The figure pulled open a wood crate, unwrapped a leather satchel. Inside was Sir Athelstane’s platinum ring. The figure put the ring on his finger.
A massive form burst from the ceiling as soundlessly as a great bronze cloud. Sir Athelstane raised his immense arms. “Sir Caudiér the Norman! You traitor! You poisoned the original Sir Athelstane and tried to use me as your alibi!”
“Aye! Sir Sigurd, that’s you in there, isn’t it?”
“How obvious was it? You deliberately went to fetch me to establish your blamelessness. You didn’t kill him yourself, but you had a servant friend of yours in the palace do so. He slipped up, however, and asked if Sir Athelstane had been poisoned...before the cause of death was known!”
“Great speculation, and the last one you will ever make. With a touch of this gem, I will cast your spirit to Hell. Then I will be Sir Athelstane, and lead the other Oath-Bound Men into a trap. And then, I will keep the ring for myself, and the Knights Templar. Why give it to the Brahma-Rishi when I could enjoy the beautiful Princess of yours?” Sir Cadiér tapped the gem with his finger.
Nothing happened. Sir Cadiér tapped again. And again. He felt the shadow of Sir Athelstane’s immense body fall over him, the Saxon’s waist the same size as his arms, his eyes only reaching the underside of Sir Athelstane’s pecs. The Norman’s testicles withered into his body and his dick felt as if it was the size of a raisin. Sir Cadiér felt frail and small. He realized he had been tricked.
“The Princess had the palace smith make a false ring to decoy the traitor into stealing it and revealing his identity.”
The Norman drew his sword, and his arms shook in desperation like a cornered rat. Sir Athelstane drew his with a far deeper slither sound, and with a flick of his wrist twirled the pointy-bearded Norman’s sword from his hand and sent it flying pointfirst, where it buried into the wooden planks of the wall.
Sir Athelstane sheathed his sword. With a pantherlike lunge, he grasped both of Sir Caudiér’s wrists, the Saxon’s hands the size of the Templar’s forearms. Sir Athelstane lifted him three feet above the ground, the Norman’s legs kicked helplessly at the air below, held as helplessly as a mouse in the paws of a huge cat. With an effortless pull, Sir Athelstane ripped both of the Norman’s arms from their sockets as if they had been turkey legs. Sir Caudiér’s howl could be heard from one end of the city to the other. Sir Athelstane tossed both the twitching, red-blood covered arms aside. Sir Caudiér yielded to the pain and shut his eyes.
The great Saxon walked out from the pagoda and removed the true ring from his purse. The surrounding Oath-Bound Men gathered about him like a magnet.
“It will be dawn in a few moments. With the sun, we will fly out with the wings of Asia. Come, to the top of the palace! We will leap from the roof and fly for honor and to save the Princess!” The Oath-Bound raised their steel gauntleted fists up with a cheer.
“Bravo, lad! I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Teddy Roosevelt hammishly tried on his great yellow and orange shaped cloak, with an operatic flourish.
There was a rustle of paper as the Oath-Bound Men and Sir Athelstane carried their modified, enormous, unwieldy kites to the top of the Maharaja’s palace. The frosty white, craggy mountains rose to such heights they could see the clouds from the other side, covering thin greenish valleys.
“Sir, however are we to find the blasted floating sky city?” Sir Gavin the Hunchback asked.
“It’s quite simple, Sir Gavin. Remember how the sky city seemed to come from nowhere on the east city wall and left us unprepared and defenseless? How is it possible to hide a city of that size, no matter how fast it can move? It was morning on that day, and they came in from the East.”
“I do not follow you, my Liege.” The hunchback said.
“Don’t you see? That is how something as huge as the sky city comes and goes undetected: it follows a direct path from the sun and hides in it! So, by following the sun as it rises, it will take us directly to the sky city and the Princess Erzhad.”
The hunchback’s merry, handsome face grinned. “Truly, you are wise as well as strong, Sir Athelstane.”
Sir Athelstane wondered about this. It seems the longer he spent in this body, the more its capacities passed to him. He had Sir Athelstane’s skill with the sword, though it did not register because of the danger. And now it seems, his great intelligence was also his. He wondered what the Princess Erzhad would think of her Sir Sigurd as a lover that was her mental equal!
“Let us hope that is enough. For Chivalry! For Glory! For the Princess!” He cried as he ran and leaped off the roof clutching the iron bar between his hands.
He felt a lurch in his body, as the wind rushed over the surface of the kite and buoyantly pushed it upward and aloft. Sir Athelstane gazed below at the deep canyons made by Bhopala’s temples and watched as it all slipped before him, until the stone of the streets and the glow of torches became the dark frosty white fanglike surface of the mountains. With a grip on his bar, Sir Athelstane guided his kite to the gold sliver-glimmer that was the rising sun as true as an arrow.
He looked behind him. Teddy Roosevelt laughed, hooted and cheered, his giant grin never faded.
In time, the men could make out a dark shadow, a speck in the gold light. “It is the sky city! Light your fireworks!” Sir Athelstane shouted. He carefully brought a torch to either end of his kite. There was a loud pop, as a trail of sparkling, colored lights burst from each rocket, and the kite ascended, climbing yard by yard into the welkin until the enormous sky city lay before them with its spires, pagodas, and brass onion-domes. The firecracker-powered kites soared like a flock of giant birds between the canyons of its buildings.
There was a sickening sound like a smashing of wood and crushing of paper. Sir Athelstane turned and saw one of the kites had turned and collided against air as if it was a wall, only to dangle in flight, the men splayed and floated in mid-air, screaming for aid like a bug on a glass window.
Again and again, he saw another crackup and heard a scuttle and scratching sound like millions of insects. From the minarets and spires emerged giant tarantulas the size of horses. Sir Athelstane saw a thin, wispy, almost transparent strand before he too, crashed into air, his powerful limbs stuck like glue to thin strands, imprisoned in a spider’s web. And worse, he could feel the web strands shake with the great weight of the giant spider above him. He could see the spider’s hairy mandibles rub against each other; he could see its eight black eyes and the yellowish glow of the slave-stone between them. He could feel its spittle fall on his forehead.
Sir Athelstane tugged his arms against the web with all his strength, and with a strain and rise of his immense bicep that rose up like a mountain peal, with a loud plink he pulled his immense limb free. Grasping the torch he used to light the fireworks, he pressed it against the wire of the spider’s web. It took to flames as if it had been covered with gasoline. Sir Athelstane grabbed one strong wire and use it to swing his immense body acrobatically with the dexterity of a great ape in a half-circle arc, his feet landing on the top of an obelisk forty feet in the air over the city.
He saw not one of the Oath-Bound Men’s kites were still in the air. His plan had failed...and his men were to be food for the giant tarantulas. And it did not seem at all as if the Brahma-Rishi’s bag of tricks was anywhere near exhausted. Worse, without the kites, there was no way of leaving the Sky City.
Sir Athelstane heard a familiar series of curses below him. It was Teddy Roosevelt, who, with limbs immobile in the sticky web, spat his defiance at his captor straight in the eyes. Sir Athelstane raised Witchslayer above his head, and leapt down, the blade’s length slashed the wire below it as if it was cloth. With one arm, he wrenched Roosevelt free, and placed the big man’s mighty body on one of his brawny wide, bowling ball sized shoulders as if the President weighed as little as a toddler. He took a snapped web strand and slid down to the sky city’s streets. Teddy landed on his feet.
“Smashing, son! Simply grand! Why I haven’t had this excellent of a time since I was shooting big game in Africa. What strength you have! Why, we could have used you when we were building the Panama Canal, that’s for certain! You could haul a ship singlehanded!” Teddy Roosevelt raised his elephant gun, and fired a bullet that left a hole in between the eyes of the tarantula. It fell upside down on the ground, its eight hairy legs contracted and squeezed for several moments in the air. Teddy reloaded and removed a couple of shots from the bandoliers about his shoulders.
“I wish I shared your good humor, Teddy, but it seems the rescue attempt has failed. That villain has captured my men, we have no idea where the Princess is, and we have no way down.”
“Nonsense, my boy! There’s still the two of us. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Though I would love to see that sweet young petticoat, Dame Von Eisenbach, again.”
“And I my Princess Erzhad.” At that, Sir Athelstane could feel his ring buzz and glow. In some indefinable way, he could feel the ring cry ‘this way. This way. This way.’
“Come, Teddy – this way!” The blond hunk said, the ring on his finger moved almost by itself like a divining rod. The pair dashed through the sky city streets.
Their path was blocked by bald men with tattoos like those of Black Scorpions.
“The Brahma-Rishi’s Brahmin and Yogis! Quickly, Sir Teddy, the gems on their foreheads, they are slave-stones that keep them in thrall!”
Teddy Roosevelt and Sir Athelstane stood back pressed against back, the giant Sir Athelstane towering over him by two and a half feet, the pair looked like toy soldiers of two different scales. Sir Athelstane swung his sword Witchslayer, while Teddy’s elephant gun roared with belly-busting shells. Sir Athelstane’s giant blade whizzed as fast as a thin rapier, and acted as a shield of steel that blocked the black scorpion-tattoed men’s daggers. Witchslayer was true to its name: the slightest scratch or prick from it on the skin of the magic-users, and they collapsed to the ground deathly pale and dead.
The two great warriors were ankle deep in blood and knee-deep in corpses as they ran up a series of stairs to a giant gold-gilded roofed pagoda. All the while Teddy Roosevelt laughed his battle laugh.
A gate wide enough to permit four elephants barred their path. Sir Athelstane sheathed Witchslayer and grasped the bars of the gate. The metal oozed between his fist like squeezing a lump of wet clay; his barrel-thick forearms exploded, and his biceps flexed with a tear across his fragile sleeves, and caused his mail to become thin and rings to snap like weak chains. Sir Athelstane grunted and hoisted the entire thirty-foot wide gate above his head like a cutter ant holds a leaf many times its size. The Saxon ripped the gate free and hurled it with a smash that crushed the front of a building to the side. He could feel the blood trickle to his now-stiff dick that stretched down his thigh, its head at his knees.
For once, Teddy Roosevelt was stunned into silence. He needed to be nudged in order to run in.
The Brahma-Rishi’s baleful, satanic eyes greeted them, surrounded by jade statues of Eastern dragons. The Princess lay against a wall, chained with gold fetters. Propped up on the wall was an immense spear as thick as a column, three times the height of a tall man, its barbed point was covered with a substance that looked as if molten gold had been poured on its head and left to cool.
“Sir Athelstane!” The Princess cried.
“Good to see you in the flesh for the first time, Christian. I see you brought a great King from the Dreamtime to help you. But it will avail you naught. For I recovered from the Dreamtime the Zeus-Slayer Spear, which was used to stab Indra-Zeus when he rebelled against the gods of India. That gold you see on it is his blood. Now, at my command, the spear will tear through you with such force you would be destroyed as if by a nuclear blast, though I doubt you know what that is. The Mushroom Cloud would destroy this entire city, including your Princess Erzhad. I mean what I say when I want the ring. I believe in reincarnation, Sir Athelstane...do you?”
“Talk about walking softly and carry a big stick! He bluffs, Sir Athelstane. I say we charge him, the way my Rough Riders charged San Juan Hill!” Teddy Roosevelt said.
“No, he isn’t. The Brahma-Rishi is powerful enough I doubt he needs to bluff. My Oath-Bound Knights are your prisoners. Fine, Brahma-Rishi, you win.”
The princess rattled her chains. “Do not give it to him, Sir Athelstane! I would gladly die a million deaths than let him have it! I swear to you, Brahma-Rishi, if you harm my love, I will hunt you down through a thousand incarnations...”
Sir Athelstane removed the ring from his pocket. Sight unseen to the others, he held it to his wide back and bashed its diamond-head against one of the jade dragon statues until he had cracked a flaw in the glasslike gem. He extended his hand and gave the ring to the Brahma-Rishi, who snatched it up greedily.
“Soon, I will be invincible!” He donned the ring and tapped its gem. Light poured from its crack. A queer look entered the Brahma Rishi’s eye and he began to laugh, tossing his head back, his eyes unaware of his surroundings, drool frothing at the side of his mouth.
“Great heavens! The ring’s driven him mad!” Teddy cried.
The entire sky city spun like a top and Sir Athelstane and Teddy Roosevelt were flung against the wall with centrifugal force, the sheer iron mass of the Saxon’s body such that the wall cracked and shattered, his body unmarked without a bruise. The Brahma-Rishi stood in the center and cackled unmoving as the center spoke of a wheel.
Teddy Roosevelt reached with all his strength at his gun, his body pressed against the speeding walls. He was beginning to black out. His fingers touched his gun, and it a moment it was in his hand again. With a shot from the hip, it struck the gem on the Brahma-Rishi’s forehead and dislodged it. The motion of the city stopped, and Teddy and Sir Athelstane were tossed as if by an angry horse. Teddy reached and grabbed the stone, placing it to his own forehead.
“Teddy! Command the tarantulas to release the Oath-Bound Men.”
“In a jiffy! You sure did hornswaggle that villain with that trick, Sir Athelstane.” Teddy Roosevelt said.
“Aye. I thought to deliver this stroke in revenge, but instead I deliver it in mercy.” The Saxon swung Witchslayer and lightly pricked the side of the wizard’s face. It was enough to cause his eyes to roll back and his body to fall to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Sir Athelstane dashed to the feet of the Princess Erzhad. He wrapped his powerful arms around her tightly. The Princess wriggled and squealed in his grip.
“Please, I can hardly breathe!” She cried.
“My Diana, I love you. I wish to take you back to Europe with me. As my wife.” Sir Athelstane said, as he deeply kissed her, his huge strong tongue filled her mouth so completely that her gag reflex almost kicked in, the muscle wriggling inside, as if he was eating her. The Princess shuddered.
“I would like to see the world outside Rupalistan. Yes, yes I will! There’s still the matter of the chains that only one pure of heart can break.”
Sir Athelstane for a moment looked about for someone else, before grasping the gold metal. To his surprise the links severed and tore as easily as runny butter. The manacles on the Princess’s wrists evaporated as if they had been but wisps of smoke.
The Princess Erzhad extended her arms and wrapped her arms about Sir Athelstane’s huge shoulders. She kissed the Saxon’s enormous biceps, leaving dark lipstick all over their enormous rounded surface.
They were interrupted by the deep laughter of Teddy Roosevelt. “Reuniting the lovers together, this is the best part of all. Smashing, I say. Simply smashing!”
“Teddy, without you today would be lost. Will you not join us for the victory party?” Sir Athelstane said.
“Of course, good sir! But afterward, I regret to say I must return to the Dreamtime. Incidentally, this gem here controls the motion of the city. I think I’ll use it to take myself back to the...other world. One day I’ll be free, but not today.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
For those interested in a further account, it is believed that the Princess Erzhad returned with Sir Athelstane to Europe as his bride, where they built Castle Eichinger in modern Austria. The location gave the name to the family of von Eichinger, later shortened to Eichinger in the 19th Century. Supposedly immortal, one sensationalist account suggests Sir Athelstane died at the Viennese court in the mid-1400s, shortly after meeting a young Nostradamus. It was as if he passed just as the Middle Ages did. The broken ring, and the sword Witchslayer, were both possessions of the von Eichingers until the 1930s, when both were seized by the Nazis as “state property.”
Though Witchslayer was eventually returned, the broken ring was not, and its current whereabouts are unknown.
This manuscript was discovered in the walls at Castle Eichinger in the late 1920s, during a renovation. I’d like to give a special thanks to the current Count Eichinger for allowing this translation/interpretation, as well as the personal assistance of Laura Eichinger in Vienna. It is not a perfect translation, and has a great deal of anachronism to be comprehensible and interesting to the modern reader.
As for the nation of Rupalistan, the “Land of Dragons” is only now entering the modern world after decades of isolation, its primary industry being ecotourism. The Royal Palace at Bhopala was wired for internet access in 2006. Six of the ten tallest unclimbed mountains in the world are in Rupalistan.
SPECIAL THANKS to Funbird.