Back home, Xango unceremoniously ripped the handkerchief off Oba's head. There was her mutilated ear. He clutched his stomach, knowing now what he had eaten. Thoroughly disgusted, he stormed out of the house.
Oba remained Xango's official wife, but he never again cohabited with her. But the scheming Oshun did not profit much either, perhaps because of her complicity. Instead, her sister, Oya, patroness of fire, Oggun's wife, became Xango's favorite mistress. Subsequently it was Oya whom Oshun had to outwit by arousing the lust of a skeleton, as Ester had already informed me.
"Now just a minute," I said. The truth is, I was burning with godlike lust, completely aroused by the force of her dancing narrative, and I was no skeleton. But there was something else. I approached her and put my hands to the sides of her head, pushing back the hair that covered her ears. I thought I had seen—but it could have been my imagination, stimulated by the pantomime. She had a cauliflower ear. Evidently it had been bashed once, perhaps by a jealous lover. She, like the Oba she portrayed, had sacrificed one ear to a man. And would probably give everything to have that man back again. No wonder she had put so much feeling into the story!
And do you know, that only redoubled my passion? "A goddess should not go unloved," I said, certain now that it had been her need for fulfillment that had motivated her, at least subconsciously. Probably her boyfriend was a martial artist, or at least a strong, brawling man, and she had recognized certain similar qualities in me and been drawn in. At any rate, she was some girl. I have never seen anyone else dance like that.
She met me as she had before, with matching passion. Maybe her dancing catalyzed her as it had me, arousing her desire for the things she had represented. There is a technique of acting, called Method, in which the actor becomes his part, living it fully while on the stage. The mortal Oba had become the goddess Oba—and I had become Xango.
We kissed and kissed again, deeply. Then my mouth slid down over her neck. Her blouse fell open and I ran my lips and tongue over her firm free breast, fruit of a goddess. And she leaned over, clutching me to her, climbing me, biting and sucking at the base of my neck, and say, wasn't that stimulating! I got my hands down around her thighs, cupping her buttocks under the skirt, snaking in between panties and flesh, kneading those masses feverishly. She was burning hot down there, and those dancer's muscles flexed under my grip like living things—which of course they were.
Her hands also were busy. One clutched my shoulder, digging in almost painfully; the other got hold of my Fundoshi and twisted it around a bit to the side, uncovering what threatened to burst out anyway. She grasped my swelling member and kneaded it in rhythm with my pressure on her buttocks and mouthing of her breast. Suddenly my urgency became incipient; if I didn't act quickly, I would spurt into space.
But there was no bed in that room, and no time to fool around with clothing; the need was too imperative. I put my two hands under her arms, my thumbs pressing into the sides of her breasts, and lifted her bodily. Her legs spread wide and hooked behind me as her hot cleavage came down on my rigidity. I leaned back, supporting her whole weight, shoving aside her panties, setting her down directly on my member so that gravity forced the deepest penetration as my piston slid into that hot oiled cylinder. Then I slid my hands behind her back, pulling her upper torso in to me, burying my face in her fragrant mass of hair.
I believe the position is known as "The Tree" with the trunk of the man supporting the limbs of the woman as he stands erect in more ways than one. But for me it was more like a diesel, the maximum compression triggering the explosion.
Our climax was painful in its violence. On the one hand I had the feeling that my member, supporting her full weight, would break off; on the other, I pictured her flying up to the ceiling, propelled by my irresistible jets. It was the most intense sexual experience I ever had, yet not the most pleasant, because of the muscle-deadening exertions required.
I sank back to the floor, bending my knees to do a judo breakfall, such was my momentary exhaustion. But Oba clung to me, following me down as it were in makikomi, maintaining the hold by utilizing both her limber torso and her dancer's thigh muscles. It was possible, I discovered, for a woman to clasp a man without using her limbs.
"No," I said, realizing that she expected more of me than was humanly possible. But, still joined, she found my lips with hers and kissed me with all the passion of the first time. And to my amazement, my hardness remained. Now she rode me like a horse, bouncing on me so vigorously I was afraid she would come loose and land on me crushingly. But she had excellent control. And slowly she brought me to a second climax, longer and harder but no less powerful than the first.
God, I thought. Never get involved with a goddess—or a dancer! I was prostrate on the hard floor.
Yet even now she did not relent. She continued to move on me, pressing me from outside and inside. "It's impossible!" I gasped. "This is worse than Mirabal's torture!"
I was wrong. It seemed to take a thousand years, and may actually have been half an hour, but in time her persistent stimulation roused me to a third performance. Actually I was almost completely acquiescent now; she did the lovemaking, drawing from my gut the last dregs of my potential. It was slow, slow, slow, like a quiet tide rising, yet in the end the volume of sensation was as great as the prior peaks.
At last she was satisfied. Yet even now she did not actually let me go. She settled on top of me, retaining my battered member within her, and we both sank into a kind of placid trance. I'll never forget the love of Oba, but I hope never to experience it again. I'm not getting any younger, and that sort of thing takes incredible stamina. I'd rather do fifty pullups, one-handed. It was days before I was able to raise another erection; she had emptied me.
But what a way to go!
Chapter 9
Animation of the Curse
The Black Castle was on a rise in the middle of a roundish swampy plain within an almost circular mountain valley. There was an unnatural look about the area, as if it were a moon crater overgrown by the jungle. Few trees grew here; most of the valley was open except for low brush. In the center, in contrast, was a cluster of enormous trees, and it was within this island forest that the castle was taking shape. As yet the ramparts were hardly visible above the trees. Thus it could not readily be spotted from the air. Fu Antos looked out from the highest battlement. He had won the battle but not the campaign, as he knew; he had a few of the modern weapons, but they were only one factor, and his ninjas were not yet conversant with their use.
It had been a job rescuing those supplies from their assorted booby-traps, but ninjas had much expertise at that sort of thing. One of the boxes had contained the severed head of Candelaria, the girl who had delivered the bees to Costa of Petrobas. Unfortunate, but it showed how quick Mirabal had been to make the connection between that assassination and the ninjas.
At any rate, the ninjas now had fifty to a hundred M-3 submachine guns, fairly simple to operate: merely point and squeeze the trigger, and the guns would squirt bullets. Also a fair number of hand grenades, and some C-4 plastic explosive: white, odorless, crumbly, like dry cream cheese. The plastic had already been specially positioned, and they had only imperfect notions how to use the other devices, preferring their primitive weapons. So they were still at a disadvantage. These few ninjas could not hope to stand for long against the might of the Brazilian army. So long as Mirabal lived, the Black Castle was not secure.
Yet Fu Antos had resources. If he could trick Mirabal into committing his full force into the fray...
He had not long to wait. The colonel had not bothered to trace the tedious hidden road to the castle; he had sent his troops sloughing through the marshes in such numbers that the jungle animals had been routed. Human-sea tactics, suffering many casualties even before contact with the enemy. No finesse, just raw power. He had expected better of Mirabal.
Then he looked again. These were not government troops, these were Indians! Had they joined
their enemies? No, now he saw the army men. Their guns were trained on the Indians. The Indians were from several pacified villages, evidently rounded up by force; they had to attack the Black Castle or be shot from behind. They were armed only with bows, knives, spears and similar native weapons, no guns.
Poor Indians! They had believed the promises of the government for a better life if they adopted the ways of the white man. Now they had been rounded up like cattle and driven to the slaughter, men, women and children. The warriors were first, followed by their families; the warriors knew that if they did not attack the castle, their families would be shot down from behind. And if they attacked, the ninjas would either have to slaughter their friends or allow the Black Castle to be swamped. Very nice ploy. Only a ruthless genius would have set this up, and only a more ruthless genius would be able to nullify it.
"Meet the Indians under a flag of truce," Fu Antos said. "Explain to them that we shall have to massacre them along with the soldiers if they come near the Black Castle. We do not wish to do this, for we regard them as our allies, and we know they are being forced to fight. But if they join us, we will help them overcome the soldiers, and many will survive."
The flag of truce was displayed, but snipers from Mirabal's side shot all the parties meeting under that flag. The ninja representative was unhurt, protected under his bullet-proof cloak, but it was obvious that no truce negotiations could take place. The Indians were obviously more frightened of the troops than of the ninjas. That was unfortunate, for it doomed them all.
Even half finished, the ramparts of the Black Castle were formidable. They could easily withstand the attack of the Indians.
But the tribespeople charged across the open portion of the valley. It was pathetic, for the men could run faster than the women and children, yet hesitated to leave their families isolated on the battlefield. It would be a terrible thing to slaughter these victims of circumstance, but that was what Mirabal was counting on. If the Indians were allowed to overrun the castle, the government troops would soon wipe out the ninjas, and probably the Indians too, who would then only be in the way.
Fu Antos did not waste either ancient or modern ammunition on the Indians. He let them get to the walls and attempt to scale them with the crude ropes and wooden ladders they carried. Then the waiting ninjas dumped pots of boiling water, oil and fecal matter on their heads, along with plain old rocks. It was just like old times.
Some ladders hooked over the ramparts, which as yet had not been built very high. The ninjas simply used special hooks of their own to shove the ladders off and over, to fall on the heads of those below. The few Indians who actually made it to the top were met by trained swordsmen. The Indians' crude knives, machetes, wooden clubs, and stone-tipped spears were no match for the weapons and expertise of the ninjas. One ninja used a kusarigama chained sickle that he hurled through the head of one Indian, stuck into the body of the next, drew him up close and dropped him over the wall, throttled a third with the chain, and bashed in the forehead of a fourth with the steel ball on the end of the chain. That was typical of the action; it was one-sided, and the ninjas did not lose a man.
There was, however, one injury. A crafty old Indian crept over the top, lay down, and used a blowgun. The dart caught a ninja in the left eye. It was not poisonous and did not kill him, but did cost the man that eye. The ninja struck the old man's arm between the wrist and elbow with a karate blow that splintered the bone, then made a shuto block to the neck, breaking it. The corpse rolled off the wall.
After that the Indian women and children came up the wall. Now the ninjas did not even bother to use their weapons. They attacked with bare hands and feet, parrying the feeble efforts of the Indians and heaving them off the wall. The ninjas took some more injuries in this hand-to-hand scuffle, for the children bit them and the women had claws like tigers, but their fingers poked out eyeballs, bashed in noses, and stunned nerve complexes with devastating effectiveness.
Fu Antos looked on from his turret, seemingly aloof, but seething inside. "Now we are killing women and babies," he murmured. "For this shame there must be a penalty. Loose the animals."
Signals were made. Suddenly cleverly concealed trapdoors opened near the edge of the valley and crazed animals charged out, into the pitched tents of the army camp. Bats flew into the tents, seeking darkness—but their bodies were coated with poison that rubbed off on whatever they touched. Dozens of capybaras, the world's largest rodents, scooted through with small torches tied to their tails, setting the tents afire. And large snakes slithered among the troops: anacondas up to thirty feet long, and boa constrictors up to fifteen feet. They did not actually hurt many soldiers, but they created a tremendous distraction that prevented effective dousing of the flaming tents. And vicious monkeys dropped from the trees: reddish howlers and spider monkeys, with poisoned teeth and feet. And from other cages came stubby-legged bush dogs with snub noses and short tails, standing only a foot tall at the shoulders, but crazed and vicious.
In short, the government troops were suffering the same sort of harassment as the ninjas. In due course all the animals were killed or driven off, but many soldiers had been wounded, the ranks were demoralized, and the tent camp was a smoking ruin. Mirabal looked on the devastation with an expression very like that of Fu Antos watching the dying Indians. Tit for tat!
Now, at last, Mirabal committed his own troops. The Indians seemed to have fully occupied the ninja defense, so that nothing could be spared for the fresh army. The troops charged across the marsh, not even bothering to fire their rifles.
The colonel had managed to carry in and emplace half a dozen mortars: fairly simple substitutes for cannon. Each unit was merely a tube. The shell was dropped in the muzzle, and fired itself when it struck the base inside. It lacked the range and precision of major artillery, so lobbed the shells high, like a catapult. But a comparatively small and light mortar could do the job of a howitzer if appropriately emplaced and operated.
Now these mortars were set up in a line at the base of the cliffs where there was a narrow but firm ledge. The region seemed to have been made for mortars, a fatal oversight on the ninja's part. They started lobbing shells at the castle, and each shell packed an awful punch.
The first one missed the castle, overshooting it. A plume of water and dirt appeared, pretty from a distance, awful from close up. This was not bad marksmanship, but the process of zeroing in. The first shell was normally fired long, the second short, and after that bracketing the third would be right on target.
"Earth," Fu Antos said, invoking the second of his four major defense elements. The first, Air, had been used with devastating effect on the besieged army column: the narcotic smoke. A ninja waved a black flag from another high turret, a signal to an unseen associate.
Another plume manifested, short of the castle. The mortars were zeroing in. Still Fu Antos stood on the battlements, waiting. Now a round of six mortars struck. Three missed to the side; two exploded in the castle's center court; one blasted a gaping gap in the outer wall. The stones jumped and toppled, falling on the few Indians still trying to scale that section, crushing them. But it was obvious that the castle could not withstand many more such strikes; there would be too many avenues of entry for the troops.
Now the mortar shells were pulverizing the castle with direct hits, collapsing the bunkers where the ninja women and children were sheltered. "Get to the ramparts!" one man cried in Japanese. "That's as safe as any other place, and you can fight there." So they moved out, as brave in their desperation as the families of the Indians, while the terrible shells slowly demolished the castle. Yet Fu Antos merely watched.
Then there was a muffled noise from the mountainside behind Mirabal's army. The entire cliff shuddered and collapsed. An avalanche formed, triggered by the carefully placed plastic explosives the ninjas had captured. Rocks and dirt and trees tumbled majestically down, onto the ledge where the mortars were emplaced. The earth had swallowed that portion of th
e army. Yet a single mortar escaped. It continued to bombard the castle, until a kite-flying ninja made a kamikaze dive at it, blowing it up with a hand grenade. Now the artillery was silent.
Still, the soldiers were committed. They plowed on toward the castle. The ninjas were now using catapults to lob grenades at the troops, but it was obvious that this was a mere nuisance to a force of this size. Once the soldier's firepower was brought to bear at close range, the men would be able to scale the half-built walls or ram through the gaps made by the mortars with virtual impunity, killing any ninjas who showed their faces.
"Fire," Fu Antos said. And now the ninjas manned huge polished-steel mirrors that caught the sun, focused it, and speared it at the oncoming troops. Like lasers, the fierce beams bathed the soldiers, and the men screamed, their clothing bursting into flame, their ammunition exploding on their bodies like firecrackers. Grenades, heated to spontaneous ignition, blasted holes in the advancing line, until the soldiers in the front ranks had to throw all their remaining explosives away. Some were only passingly touched by the beams; they fell clutching their faces, blinded, hair singed.
But Mirabal, watching closely with his powerful field glasses, gave orders. .75mm recoilless rifles were trained on the mirrors, which were necessarily exposed. Expert snipers fired at will. One mirror was hit directly; it blew up, the fragments raining down like shrapnel. Another was put out of commission when the legs of the ninja operator were struck; man and mirror crashed to the ground. After the first shock was over, the mirrors lost much of their effect.
Still, the troops had been decimated, and were in no fit condition to storm the castle. Now Mirabal committed his reserves. Another five hundred men charged over the bodies of their comrades toward the castle. The ninjas had little left with which to oppose these.