Read Online The Color Of Her Panties by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page B

that the dangers of the waking state could be almost as bad as those of dreams.
    She opened her eyes and looked at what had fallen beside her.  It was a fat luna-tick, ready to gorge itself on her blood.  Even now it was using its stubby legs to crawl toward her, hoping to bite her in an unseen place and get her blood without waking her.  It was about the size of her fist, and twice as ugly.  A nest of such ticks could drain a person's whole body during sleep, so that the victim never did wake up.
    Of course that meant that there was no more for the ticks to eat, and most of them died.  That was one reason they were called luna-ticks, they were crazy.
    But how had the tick come here?  Her eyes flicked to the sloping side of the impromptu tent, but there was no hole there.  So it hadn't dropped in from outside.  Since luna-ticks couldn't fly, it must have been thrown there.
    It was not true that ogres always blundered noisily when they moved, they could act quickly and silently when they had to.  They seldom had to, as it was normally easiest simply to bash something into oblivion.
    But Okra, being the least of ogres, had learned more of silence than was useful.  Her hand went soundlessly to her knapsack beside her and her fingers closed about the handle of her skinning knife.  But she didn't stab the tick; that was a minor pest.
    She wanted to be ready for the major one she knew had to be near.
    Then, carefully, she turned her head.  There was an awful figure standing over Mela's still form.  There was the smell of fresh blood.
    She had thought it was from the tick, but now she knew better.
    Okra recognized the figure.  It was a geek.  They were lesser humanoid monsters, smaller and weaker than ogres or trolls, but they made up for it by being nastier in personality.  No geek was ever up to any good, that was in the big book of monster rules.
    Okra's arm moved.  She threw the knife at the geek.  But the geek, with the evil cunning of its kind, turned to flee the blade.  He was too slow; the steel of it buried itself in his back.  But of course he didn't die; geeks had no hearts, so stabbing one in the heart wasn't properly effective.  But the puncture did cause some discomfort, and the creature fell out of the tent.
    Okra leaped to her feet to pursue him, for if she didn't finish him off he would only return for more mischief.  She strode out of the tent, and paused in dismay.  There was a slew and a half of geeks climbing all over her oxblood boat, and luna-ticks were trying to suck the ox blood from it.
    Outraged, Okra advanced on them.  She had forgotten to recover her knife, but her fists would do.  “You ridiculous geeks, what are you doing on my boat?” she demanded.
    They looked at her.  “We want to talk you into coming with us, of course,” one said.  Geeks were not the smartest of creatures; in fact some were rumored to be almost as stupid as ogres.  So it didn't occur to them not to answer a question.  “Once we have you, we will tie you up and hit you, for no reason at all, until your willpower is gone and we can start work on your won't power.  When you finally give us the pleasure of dying, we will feed your carcass to our hungriest luna-ticks.“ He had an oily, stinky voice and the smell of a dung beetle; those were his better aspects.
    “But you geeks don't know how to row a boat,” Okra protested, for the moment being almost as stupid as they.
    It was expected of an ogre, after all.
    “We will make you row it to our hideout, where there are many more of us.  We will take the merwoman along too; she looks luscious enough to give us some pleasure before we take all her blood.”
    Okra didn't know quite what he meant by that, but was sure it wasn't anything nice.  She had heard enough; it was time to act.  So she waded in, forming her best emulation of ham fists and knocking geeks every which way.  She was the smallest and weakest of ogres, but these were only geeks.