THE HUNT
Part 9
Once inside the territory of the Amazons, the predatory group began the task of locating their coveted prey. They knew that here they might meet a party of Amazons out hunting; the dense jungle in which they now found themselves were the ideal place for them to spot their prey, and at the same time provided them with multiple opportunities to wait in hiding and leap by surprise on the dangerous females.
For days they trod the secret trails silently seeking signs of the presence of their desired victims. At last, at a bend in the path, Nagal detected the unmistakable aroma of females, captured on the leaves of some liana hanging down from dense canopy: yes! One girl had been brushed by it, her richly abundant feminine aroma had left a trace!
Silently the group filed behind the tracker, advancing nimbly through the dense vegetation to close the distance between them and their target. Finally, the youngest and most agile of the boys climbed nimbly up from a huge tree, and from there he spied them. They were trecking up the trail a mile or so ahead of them. Nagal had been sniffing at the foliage, he had already detected from the distinctive scent of herbs that were only rubbed on Princesses’ bodies that they were behind a royal hunting party, made up of a Princess and her escort. That filled them with excitement, no quarry was more eagely sought than a member of the Amazon royalty.
Stalking the females closely, they began to plan their attack. They needed to exploit any weakness, since the escorts of the Princess outnumbered them, and moreover they knew the princess herself would be a fearsome adversary for any of them.
It was then that they fixed their attention on Eulalia. Her lithe body was vividly agile, she was moving through the thorny, tangled vegetation like a young hind, more swiftly even than her muscular companions, and her sharp eyes and intelligent expression showed the ever-watchful, eagerly alert qualities of a highly-trained handmaid. But alongside her sisters, she seemed slim, fragile, like a fresh stem springing among the sturier growth of the jungle. Clearly she was not a warrior, she lacked the fierceness that the others exuded. Observing her more closely as they followed, spotting the slave-collar around her slender neck, it became clear to them that she was the Princess’s personal slavegirl - and watching how attentive she was to her mistress, and how fondly the Princess kept glancing at her, they smiled and winked at one another – this was a closer relationship than would be expected between a Princess and her attendant!
There was the weak point they needed. Now the time had come to plan and carry out the attack.
