Lucifer’s troops — close to fifty divisions in strength — were going through their last paces of training. The reports indicated that the madman was contracting ships of all types to sail to the port of Ashara, formerly part of South Yemen. From there the armada would sail up the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal, and break out into the Med. At that point they would link up with their local allies and start a sweep across both the northern and southern shores of the sea. It was a campaign that would rival everyone from Alexander to Rommel.
“It’s strange,” Hunter said, looking at the transcripts. “Lucifer is not much of a military leader. He made mistakes during The Circle War. Letting his troops move out in the open, not sending critical messages in code. Things like that. They gave us the breaks we needed to defeat him.”
“As we figured before,” Sir Neil said, “he’s more of a cult leader than a battlefield general. Sending messages like these, uncoded — I take it as an act of arrogance. I’m sure he knows what we are up to, although he probably doesn’t know where we are or what our exact plans may be. And I’m sure he also is aware of what The Modern Knights are doing — his spies are everywhere, after all.”
“So what he’s doing is underestimating us,” Hunter said, hoping at the same time that the Saratoga’s small force actually had something to be underestimated about.
“Let’s hope so,” Sir Neil said with a wink. “One thing is for sure, Lucifer will be moving his troops within a few weeks. Once they are aboard those ships and sailing, nothing will stop them. That’s why it’s imperative that we beat him to the Suez. And that we have enough weapons to fight them with when we get there.”
Hunter and Giuseppe nodded. The race for the canal was on …
The two friends of Emma, Chloe and Claudia, reached the outskirts of Cagliari and began taking off their clothes. Below them, down the road about a quarter-mile away, they could see the city streets were lit up and decorated with banners, streamers, and thousands of multicolored balloons. It reminded Chloe of the Mardi Gras she had once attended in Rio.
Quickly both women discarded their overalls and donned a toga-like garment that they had sewn together from bedsheets. They wore sandal-like shoes on their feet. Each woman was also carrying a small derringer-like gun, loaded with three bullets, to be used only in emergency.
They both checked their garments. After judging them to be authentic enough, they embraced, kissed each other’s cheek for luck, then began to walk into the city.
It wasn’t long before they saw just what kind of celebration The Day of Kings was meant to be. They came upon a roadblock, manned by six men carrying M-16 rifles. But the sentries didn’t even bother to give Chloe and Claudia a second look. They were too busy having sex with six women they had conveniently tied down on tables inside the guardpost building.
Chloe and Claudia moved on, occasionally passing similar scenes along the way — soldiers having their way with young girls and women, some of whom were actually enjoying it.
But these isolated instances were nothing compared to what the two call girls saw inside the city itself.
“My God,” Claudia said after walking through the unguarded city gates. “It looks like—”
“Sodom and Gomorrah,” Chloe finished for her.
It was true. The city was in the throes of a lust frenzy. Everywhere — on street corners, in open houses, in small parks that lined the roads — there were people committing sexual acts on each other. Even two people as worldly as Chloe and Claudia couldn’t believe the extent and the intensity of the orgy-like goings-on.
They saw men screwing one, two, three women at once. Women making love to other women. Two men on one woman. The variations went on and on. Age didn’t seem to matter — and the wine was flowing as if from an endless supply.
They neared the center of town, trying to take everything in. An arena of some kind had been set up and bleacher-style seats erected around it. They wandered up to the side of one of the seating galleries and peered inside. It was like a gladiator’s ring, but with one important difference. There were sexual games going on in the arena. At that moment, one man, armed with a net and a length of rope, was attempting to lasso one of five screaming young girls who had been placed in the ring with him. As Chloe and Claudia watched, the man finally netted one of the girls and instantly tied her up like a calf caught in a rodeo.
The victim, just a teenager, was pleading with the man to let her go. But her captor only laughed. Each scream resulted in a great cheer from the crowd. More cheers erupted when the man ripped off his clothes and entered her, jamming her violently. The man was quickly spent. He stood up, raised his hands to the crowd for one last cheer, then slowly walked out of the arena. As soon as this happened, another man was let in to chase one of the four remaining girls.
Chloe and Claudia knew they had to move on. They walked around the side of the arena and toward the center of town. Here they saw the grandiose Roman-style structures the Holy Sardinians had built for themselves. Huge, pillar-supported affairs, all of white gleaming marble. In these buildings, and even on the buildings’ steps, they could hear and see people having sex. Occasionally they would come upon a still body — maybe dead, maybe just unconscious. But they never stopped to find out.
They were almost to the far edge of the town when the mob met them. There were about seventy men, walking toward the main celebration in the center of the city. They caught Chloe and Claudia unaware. The leader of the gang was a tall, burly, animal-like man wearing a long beard, a loin cloth, and nothing else.
“Ah, more pussy to join our party!” he said, grabbing Claudia. He instantly began stripping off her toga and fondling her breasts. Chloe was next. She was thrown into the crowd of men. Her clothes were also ripped off. Both women were then passed from man to man, each one fondling or sucking their breasts, or jamming their fingers into their privates. As soon as each man had had his due, he would rejoin the mob that was moving toward the center of the town.
Chloe felt as if she were in a dream. So many hands were on her at once, her senses were reeling. Most men tried to use their hands to penetrate every orifice, while some were trying to force her to her knees to perform oral sex on them. She was bouncing from man to man, and could see Claudia doing the same thing out of the corner of her eye.
It was absolute insanity. She wanted to cry, but at the same time she wanted to laugh. She was repulsed by the crude men, yet excited by the multitude of hands swarming all over her body. She felt as if something were going to explode inside her. Her head felt light, her eyes started to close, she gasped once, twice, then nearly fainted.
Then it was over. She and Claudia had passed through the crowd of men and now the crowd was gone. The women looked at each other in amazement for a few moments. They had never thought to use their small guns.
They quickly gathered up their clothes, what remained of them, and hurried out of town.
“Chloe!”
The young woman instantly recognized the voice as Hunter’s. She and Claudia had walked the mile and half from the city of Cagliari to the abandoned US air base and ammo depot. Now she knew that Hunter and a strike force from the Saratoga were hiding nearby, ready for the second phase of their operation to begin.
Hunter emerged from a large, long hedgerow and quickly embraced her. Chloe was Emma’s best friend, so Hunter felt a special attachment to her.