Try to create a diversion and steal the food

“I suppose we could create a diversion, and when they are distracted, we can steal the food and make haste to depart from here,” says Felixia, thoughtfully.

“That sounds good to me,” agrees Duncan, readily. “What do you propose?”

“I propose you return to the horses and keep an eye on them, and be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. I shall take care of the thievery.”

“Return to the horses? Would it not be better if I assist in this?”

“Trust me, Spareling. You do not want to risk being captured by this lot. Dwarves are notorious for capturing human females and having their way with them, and those from the Lower Griphon Valley are even worse.”

“Dwarves having sex with humans?” Duncan asks in disgust, looking at the filthy, unsightly creatures around the campfire. “That is repulsive!”

“I agree,” says Felixia, shuddering, “but remember that dwarves have essentially no standards whatsoever. They’re even worse than humans in that respect. They’ll copulate with anything — even something as disgusting as a human!”

“That is not what I meant....”

Felixia continues on, uninterrupted. “I remember this dwarf back where I grew up who would have public sex with a Giantess Mountain Spirit! It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic! We’d all stand around with telescopes, watching this tiny speck of a thing trying to hump a crevice in a boulder that was ten stories up! It looked like a woodpecker, perched upside down, trying to drill a hole in the side of a massive marbke statue!”

“Please do not distracted, Felixia! I am famished! But you forget what we did with Horace.... Should these filthy things get their hands on me, I will just feign to have some horrid venerial disease again, and they dare not **** me.”

“That’s a lovely plan, Your Highness, except for one small detail.... Dwarves are immune to venerial diseases. That’s one reason they’ll rut with anything that has a pulse — or had a pulse within the past 7-10 days. It’s a side effect of living and working in dirt all the time: they ward off all kinds of nasty bugs. If you tell them you have some horrid disease, they just interpret that as flirting. No, you’ll be better off with the horses.”

“Very well, but please hurry!”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Princeling. If this is going to work, I need to get to the other side of them, and I’m going to have to be extremely stealthy. Ordinarily, not a problem with my normal form, but as a human, I not only am hindered by big feet but by this godforsaken smell! I may be a while, so don’t get your tail in a knot.”

With that, Felixia departs. Duncan decides to remain where he is for a short time, just to make sure the dwarves have not noticed his companion’s movements. As he waits, he listens in on their conversation.

“I tell you, it has been far too long since I have had a good lay! Next time we go off on a journey like this, we need to take some female companionship along. I’m about ready to nail your hairy ass, Bodkin!”

“Bodkin’s hairy ass is about as fine a thing as you’re likely to get, Gnerble! In case you haven’t looked in a mirror lately, let me break the news to you that the years have not been overly kind!”

A third voice speaks up. “In case anyone is curious, my hairy ass — and a fine thing it is, by the way — is not available, to Gnerble or any of you!”

The first voice, evidently Gnerble’s, says, “That’s not what it says on the walls of the outhouse at Clifford’s Forge: ‘Call Bodkin any time, day or night: free parking in the rear.’”

Duncan hears three appreciative laughs, followed by Bodkin’s voice. “Well, even so, if you’re gonna see any action, it will be with that well-calloused hand. Or you might go into Ravenclaw. I hear there’s a one-eyed whore there with a glass eye. For half a shilling, she’ll take out her eye and wink you off.”

This time it is Gnerble who remains silent as the other three laugh.

A fourth voice speaks up and says, “Gnerble makes a good point, though. My loins are gonna burst if I don’t find some gal to bless with my Sword of Sensuality.”

The second voice says, “‘Sword of Sensuality’? Don’t you mean the ‘Sliver of Shorty-Short-Short’?”

“Oh, that’s hilarious, Meurgo! Your mother never complained about my size!”

Duncan has had enough of the juvenile banter and is about to return to the horses when he hears a voice in the distance, on the far side of the dwarves. It is the unmistakable voice of Felixia, crying out, “Oh, woe is me! Here I am, a beautiful, naked female dwarf, cursed by nymphomania and an extra vagina, and here I am, alone, helpless, without transportation, and with no hope whatsoever of being satiated by four unkempt, smelly, and generally deplorable-but-horny dwarves with Lower Griphon Valley accents, thus suggesting low morals, single-digit IQ’s, and unmet sexual desire!”

Duncan rolled his eyes and brought his palm to his forehead in disbelief. “Only the thickest of all morons would hear that and think for a moment it was anything other than a ruse!”

“Did you hear that, Gents? It sounds as if our prayers have been answered!” says Gnerble, who scrambles to his feet and rushes off in the direction of the voice, with the other three close on his heels.

Duncan stares at the running dwarves in disbelief. Evidently Felixia knows her dwarves better than he does.

Once satisfied they are out of earshot, Duncan dashes into the camp and retrieves the roasting meat from the fire before making a mad dash back to the horses. Once there, he quickly devours one of the morsels, not caring it is so hot that it burns his tongue.

Carefully wrapping up the other piece of meat, he stows it in Felixia’s saddlebag and makes the horses ready to depart immediately upon his companion’s return.

He waits. And waits. And waits.

Duncan jerks himself awake and realizes with a start that he has dozed off. The exertions of the day and a full belly have made him quite sleepy. He has no idea how long he has been there, and there is no sign of Felixia. He grows worried. Is it possible she was apprehended by the horny dwarves?

Felixia was quite clear about staying with the horses, but Duncan wonders if he should go looking for her.