* * * * *
The giant flying lizard (or whatever it was) was gradually gaining on him and his horse. And, this time, it was not likely to miss. Lewis had to time his counter-move just right.
He initiated that counter-move just as the creatures's shadow had almost reached its maximum size.
Swiftly, he withdrew his right leg from its corresponding stirrup and swung it over his saddle! At the same time, he had drawn the Colt Army revolver in his right-hand holster while crooking his left arm around the saddle horn.
It was not easy, by any means. But, he thumbed and fired that revolver three times. And, three times, he hit his target. Wounding it in its left wing!
With a roar of pain, it crashed to the ground, where it once more changed shape. This time, assuming the form of a ten-foot tall giantess with golden-brown skin; long, fine black hair; and a wounded left arm that she tightly clutched with her right hand.
The ex-partisan ranger captain (having resumed his normal position in the saddle) was momentarily taken aback by the sight of this woman's height and beauty. He snapped back to reality, however, when she transformed yet again. This time, into a bumblebee the size of a small dog, while retaining the head of a human woman!
"ZZZZZZZecond round to you, Lewizzzzzzz. But, I shall claim you yet...for my zzzisterzzzzzzzzz!"
With that, she made a beeline for the northwest just as Tom Bigby came riding up from almost the same direction.
"Cap! Did I just see what I thought I saw?"
Lewis nodded. He then ordered Tom to help him check on Buck and Dutch. The latter pair turned out to be just fine. They had merely been winded.
Whereupon, he ordered them all back to town.
"I got some more questions for Father Cypriano."
The mysterious priest was saying a rosary in the town's nondenominational church when Lewis and the others burst in on him.
"On your feet, padre!"
"Que es...?"
The rest of his question was cut off by the leveling of four revolvers upon him.
"I forgot about it, at the time, because of my reaction to my brother getting shrunk. But, when Tom, here, found Hiram in the same condition, he was told this she-demon's name at least half an hour afore you showed up. And, now, she not only knows _my_ name. She claims she's got a sister! Now, what didn't you tell us during your oral report at the Oxbow?"
Father Cypriano stood up.
"Forgive me, senores! I did not mean to lie by omission. Yet, time was of the essence in my need to acquaint you with the basic facts concerning our immediate foe."
"Which is just another way of saying there are additional facts," countered Lewis: "So, I say it's time to disclose 'em!"
The good padre nodded: "Primero; there is considerably more to that Greek myth I told you about. Heraclitoris was not an only child. She was one of a set of triplets! Her sisters being known as Labia and Ovaria."
Collectively, these triplets had been called "the Melissae," by their native Rhodian worshippers (who had depicted them on their pottery as anthropocephalous bees).
"Individually?" the padre continued: "Heraclitoris was the warrior-high priestess of the trio; responsible for gathering female disciples for them. Labia was the personal bodyguard of the other two; responsible for training and leading their elite warrior-eunuchs. And, Ovaria? Their fertile queen; responsible for expanding their numbers through what the Bible calls...fruitful multiplication. She could not mate with just anyone, however. She could only mate with the perfect warrior."
He paused, before adding: "And, you, mi capitan, seem to have been deemed worthy of that title!"
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
An unexpected development.