Chapter 22: Rubina's First Hunt

"Today is your first hunt," said Ramzy El-Najjar when he woke Rubina, "Do you remember everything I told you?"

"Yes I remember," she said bitterly, thinking only of the penalty for failure "First they hunt me with elephant dogs, then they rape me, then they beat me, then I come back here."

"You forgot the sodomy," he said sardonically.

The conditions were perfect; there was a little wind which ameliorated the effects of the hot sun when the hunt met and the stirrup cup of port, in the true English tradition, went round. The hunt moved off and the Emir reflected how much easier it was to arrange outdoor events in Kobekistan than in England, as Kobekistani weather was usually fine and dry; the only variation was the occasional sandstorm in the summer and a week or two of fearsome rain in the spring and autumn.

Rubina, the quarry on her first outing, had left the meeting point at ten o'clock that morning, in accordance with the usual ritual, and the hunters were all ready to follow an hour later when the gun went off. How much easier it was for them than in England where hunting had been all but banned. He even wondered how easy it would be to import foxes and breed them to replace the lost tradition of England, and then charge English hunt enthusiasts a fortune to come on holiday here.

'That, ' he reminded himself, 'would be unkind to the men of Kobekistan, who had come to love the 'kill' of a human quarry on a broad divan under, and encompassing the fleshly swords of the huntsmen. A fox, killed by the hounds just wouldn't be the same.'

They would hunt the woman for up to two hours, and after that, if she was still uncaught, the gun would sound again and the hunt would be over; the uncaught quarry would then be free to go wherever she chose in the world, and a small pension would be paid to her for the rest of her life. If she was caught the hunters would use her in the traditional Kobekistani version of a 'kill'. Normal intercourse, fellatio and sodomy would be part of the use to which she would be put, and a certain amount of pain would also be inflicted by those hunters who felt so inclined, either by nature, or because they been too far away to be early in the queue for the cunt and arse rights. The Master of Quarry would also punish her formally with his riding crop for her failure to escape.

Rubina had followed a well thought out, predetermined plan, for the trail led up the main path to the ford where she crossed the stream and continued up the northern branch of the path behind some low hills before swinging east to a dead-end beside the northern swamp. Here it appeared that she had cut across the swamp where the horsemen and the dogs would not be able to follow her. The main body of the hunters rode along the southern edge of the swamp to the point where it met the low hills. Then some of them went one way and some the other, but quite soon the hounds gave tongue as they found her trail on the main path between the tunnel and the small swamp. The hounds took off along her trail up to the tunnel entrance.

From their combined experience of the hunt they decided she had then gone through the tunnel so they sent one young huntsman through the tunnel to flush her out if she was hiding in there, whilst the rest of the hunt cantered off round the mountain to the other end. When they got there the hounds again drew and took off down the narrow path behind the hills, but were brought up short where the trail veered south into the swamp again. Then the penny dropped that the hounds had been heeling and an hour had been wasted. The immediately reaction of the hunt was what it always was when half the time was gone and they had lost the scent, complete panic and confusion.

A small group of them rode off back to the ford and started working both banks of the river on foot with dogs. While they had several false alarms at spots where the dogs checked, the only firm scent found was the one they had already followed on the path between the swamp and the tunnel. When they reached the pool at the foot of the waterfall they turned back and retraced their steps, realising that more time had been wasted and they had no idea where she was. Then Ramzy El-Najjar decided to be a little more careful in his search for her trail and did something very unusual for ground running creatures such as dogs and humans; he looked for signs above his own head height.

As he checked all along the southern bank of the stream on foot, he saw some broken foliage and small branches about seven feet off the ground on two trees. Moving into the woods a little deeper, he followed a trail of recently damaged twigs indicating where, he hoped, the quarry had swung along in the trees. A human being is really quite heavy and the trees could not take the strain of an adult woman swinging like a monkey through the branches. He was almost through the trees and out to the southern path to the desert when a small movement caught his eye and he froze instantly, hoping she had not spotted him. Minutes passed and then the movement came again and he caught sight of her.

Calling "View," as loudly as he could he tried to climb up to her, but she swung across to another tree as he crashed to the ground when his efforts at climbing were rewarded by a branch breaking. She vanished through the foliage heading north-east. Running after her on the ground Ramzy El-Najjar just managed to catch up with her as she reached the edge of the plantation and started to run across a patch of very lush grass to the stream. At this point he knew he had her, and she knew she been spotted and would inevitably be caught unless she could outrun him.

What she had forgotten in her desperation was that this beautiful green meadow was, in fact, another swampy area. As she set out across it at a full sprint, one foot landed in a hollow in the ground where the grass was concealing only very soft mud. As she fell she saw her pursuer approaching her carefully, testing each foothold separately before committing his weight to it. When he came to where she was struggling to get up he did not try to help her, but just clipped a line to a toggle on the back of her suit. Carefully back tracking to the edge of the wood, he simply reeled her in by pulling on the cable. Almost at once she fell over and was dragged through the mud, gathering great clods of earth and scarring a deep furrow in the swamp. This almost drowned her, but Ramzy El-Najjar was not deterred. His only aim now was to get his hands on the all-important tag which would indicate his right to first use of her body in the 'kill' which would soon follow.

Once the quarry tag was removed from her camouflage suit a radio beacon was activated and the helicopter arrived, bringing the team of eunuchs who would set up the 'kill' and serve the food under the command of the Golden Palace Chief Eunuch. Quickly the divan was set up for the kill ceremony and the slaves turned to setting up the feast. Usually the quarry was willing to accept that exuberant sexual use of her body would follow as a matter of course. That way the whippings were minimised, and she could even enjoy the orgasms which inevitably came from the plentiful supply of engorged penises inserted into her every orifice. This quarry, on the other hand, struggled and screamed in some language which none of them understood, only being mastered by four eunuchs shackling her wrists and ankles to the divan. For her the humiliation was extreme because she was shackled on her back in such a way that her body was bent almost double with her ankles close to her shoulders. Thus her entrances were held wide open for all the hunters to see in intimate detail, and to use to their hearts' content. Her struggles served only to make this part of the hunt the more enjoyable for the sizeable group of huntsmen who took considerable delighted in the physical process of using and abusing a woman in public.