Explorers of Gor (58 page)

But I steeled myself against thoughts of mercy for the blond beauty. She was an enemy.

Her head was then turned to the side. She twisted restlessly in her sleep.

I waited until her head was back, and she lay upon her back, her arms at her side. Her small fists were clenched. She whimpered, needing a man.

She was indeed beautiful. I thought she would look well naked, on a slave block.

Swiftly I knelt across her body, pinning her down, pinning her arms to her sides. Almost instantly, frightened, she wakened. The trapped girl’s first impulse is to scream. This may be depended upon. As her mouth opened I, with my thumb, thrust the rolled-cloth wadding deep into it. In a moment I had lashed it in place. I then threw her to her stomach and tied her hands behind her back. I then put her again on her back. Her eyes were wild, terrified, over the gag. With my knife I cut the skins from her. “You will not be needing these,” I told her. I regarded her. Such women bring high prices. I took her in my arms. Her eyes were frightened. She shook her head fiercely, negatively. But her body, as though in sudden relief, desperately clasped me. She twisted her head to the side, and then, again, looked at me. She shook her head, negatively. But her body thrust itself against me, asking no quarter, piteously and helplessly soliciting its full impalement. “Very well,” I told her. She looked at me in fury. “Your eyes say, ‘No,’” I told her “but your body says ‘Yes.’” Her hips and thighs then began to move. She put back her head in misery on the mat. Then, in a moment, there were tears in her eyes, and she tried to lift her head and gagged mouth to touch me. When later I crouched over her she sat up, shuddering, and put her cheek to my left shoulder. I felt the lashings of the gag against my shoulder.

I thrust her to her back on the mat. “You are only bait,” I told her. I then tied her ankles together and, putting her over my shoulders, her head hanging down over my back, left the hut. I left by way of the stockade gate. I would leave an obvious trail.

46

The Balance Of The Talunas Have Now Been Captured; I Hear Of The Marchers

“There they are! We have them now!” cried the slender-legged, dark-haired girl.

I plunged through brush, dragging the bound, gagged blond girl, running and stumbling, bent over, by the hair at my side.

The talunas, more than forty of them, plunged after us, brandishing their weapons, in hot pursuit.

I turned when I heard their sudden cries of surprise, and then of rage, and then of fear.

I tied the blond girl by her hair to a slender palm and strode back to the nets.

Some of the talunas lay upon the ground, tangled in nets, the spear blades of the small men at their throats and bellies. More than twenty of them struggled, impeding one another’s movement, in a long vine net about them.

The first girl I pulled from a net was the slender-legged, dark-haired girl. I cuffed her, and then threw her on her belly and bound her hand and foot. I then drew forth another girl and treated her similarly. Then, in a row, lying on the jungle floor, there were forty-two captives. I then released the blond girl from the palm tree and, tying her ankles, threw her with the rest. I did not bother to ungag her.

“Release us,” said the dark-haired girl, squirming in her bonds.

“Be silent,” said the leader of the little men, jabbing his spear blade below her left shoulder blade.

The girl gritted her teeth, frightened, and was quiet.

“Remove their clothing and ornaments,” I told the little men.

This was done. The little men then tied a vine collar on the throat of each girl and, by the arms, dragged them, one by one, to a long-trunked, fallen tree. About this tree, encircling it, were a number of vine loopings. The little men then knelt each girl at one of the vine loopings. Pushing down their heads, they then, with pieces of vine rope, fastened both under the vine collars on the girls, tied down their heads, close to the trunk. The forty-three girls then knelt, naked, hands tied behind them, ankles crossed and bound, at the trunk of the fallen tree, their heads tied down over it. They could not slide themselves free sideways, moving the vine loopings, because of the roots of the tree at one end and its spreading branches at the other. They were well secured in place, their heads over the tree trunk. One of the little men then, with a heavy, rusted panga, probably obtained in a trade long ago, walked up and down near them. They shuddered. They knew that, if the little men wished, their heads might be swiftly cut from them.

“There are the mighty talunas,” I said.

Many of the little men leaped up and down, brandishing their spears and singing.

“At the stockade of the talunas,” I said, “there was a prison hut. Within it I heard the chains of a prisoner. The chains were heavy. It is probably a male. Women such as talunas sometimes keep a male slave or two. They are useful, for example, in performing draft labors. I would keep him chained until a determination can be made of his nature. He may be a brigand. I then suggest that the stockade be examined for any other slaves, or objects of interest or value. Then I would, if I were you, burn the stockade.”

“We will do these things,” grinned the leader of the small men.

“I now,” I said, “must address myself to the attempt to rescue those of my party.”

“We must move quickly,” said the leader of the small men, “for there is going to be war on the river.”

“War?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “a great force of men is coming up the river, and the peoples of the river are joining, that they may be stopped.” He looked up at me. “There will be great fighting,” he said, “like never before on the river.”

I nodded. I had thought that it would be only a matter of time until the peoples of the river would mass in an attempt to stop the advance of Bila Huruma. Apparently they were now on the brink of doing so.

“How many men may I have?” I asked.

“Two or three will be sufficient,” said the leader of the small men, “but because we are so fond of you, I, and nine others, will accompany you.”

“That is perhaps generous,” I said, “but how do you propose that the camp of the Mamba people be stormed with so few men?”

“We shall recruit allies,” said the small man. “‘They are nearby even now.”

“How many do you think you can recruit?” I asked.

“So high I cannot count,” he said.

“Can you not give me some impression?” I asked. I knew that the mathematics of these men, who had no written tradition, who had no complex cultural accumulation of intricate tallyings and abstract inventions, would be severely limited.

“They will be like the leaves on the trees, like the bits of sand at the shore,” he said.

“Many?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Do you jest with me?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “This is the time of the marchers.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Come with me,” he said.

47

The Attack Of The Marchers; We Conclude Our Business In The Village Of The Mamba People

Within the stockade of the Mamba people there was much light and noise. I could hear the sounds of their musical instruments, and the pounding of their drums. Within the stockade, too, we could hear the chanting of the people and the beating of sticks, carried in the hands of dancers.

I knew the stockade, for it was the same from which we had, earlier, stolen away in the night.

Two days ago the leader of the small people had led me into the jungle, leaving behind the clearing where we had secured the lovely talunas, their necks at the mercy of the panga.

We had trekked but a short way into the jungle when the leader of the small men held up his hand for silence. I had then heard, as I had once before, but had been unable to place the noise, the sound, that strange sound, as of a small wind moving leaves. I had heard it before on the edge of the lagoon, but had not understood it.

Soon, as we approached more closely, quietly, the sound became much louder. It was now clearly distinguishable as a quite audible rustling or stirring. But there was no wind.

“The marchers,” said the leader of the small men, pointing.

The hair on the back of my neck rose.

I saw now that the sound was the sound of millions upon millions of tiny feet, treading upon the leaves and fallen debris of the jungle floor. Too, there may have been, mixed in that sound, the almost infinitesimal sound, audible only in its cumulative effect, of the rubbings and clickings of the joints of tiny limbs and the shiftings and adjustments of tiny, black, shiny exoskeletons, those stiff casings of the segments of their tiny bodies.

“Do not go too close,” said the leader of the small men.

The column of the marchers was something like a yard wide. I did not know how long it might be. It extended ahead through the jungle and behind through the jungle farther than I could see in either direction. Such columns can be pasangs in length. It is difficult to conjecture the numbers that constitute such a march. Conservatively some dozens of millions might be involved. The column widens only when food is found; then it may spread as widely as five hundred feet in width. Do not try to wade through such a flood. The torrent of hurrying feeders leaves little but bones in its path.

“Let us go toward the head of the column,” said the little man.

We trekked through the jungle for several hours, keeping parallel to the long column. Once we crossed a small stream. The marchers, forming living bridges of their own bodies, clinging and scrambling on one another, crossed it also. They, rustling and black, moved over fallen trees and about rocks and palms. They seemed tireless and relentless. Flankers marshaled the column. Through the green rain forest the column moved, like a governed, endless, whispering black snake.

“Do they march at night?” I asked,

“Often,” said the small man. “One must be careful where one sleeps.”

We had then advanced beyond the head of the column by some four hundred yards.

“It is going to rain,” I said. “Will that stop them?”

“For a time,” he said. “They will scatter and seek shelter, beneath leaves and twigs, under the debris of the forest, and then, summoned by their leaders, they will reform and again take up the march.”

Scarcely had he spoken but the skies opened up and, from the midst of the black, swirling clouds, while lightning cracked and shattered across the sky and branches lashed back and forth wildly in the wind, the driven, darkly silver sheets of a tropical rain storm descended upon us.

“Do they hunt?” I shouted to the small man.

“Not really,” he said. “They forage.”

“Can the column be guided?” I asked.

“Yes,” he grinned, rubbing the side of his nose. Then he and the others curled up to sleep. I looked up at the sky, at the sheets of rain, the lashing branches. Seldom had I been so pleased to be caught in such a storm.

Within the stockade of the Mamba people there was much light and noise. I could hear the sounds of their musical instruments, and the pounding of the drums. Too, we could hear, within, the sounds of chanting and the beatings of the sticks carried in the hands of the dancers.

It is not so much that the column is guided as it is that it is lured.

This morning, early, the small men, with their nets and spears, had killed a small tarsk.

“Look,” had said the leader of the small men this morning, “scouts.”

He had thrown to the forest floor a portion of the slain tarsk. I watched the black, segmented bodies of some fifteen or twenty ants, some two hundred yards in advance of the column, approach the meat. Their antennae were lifted. They had seemed tense, excited. They were some two inches in length. Their bite, and that of their fellows, is vicious and extremely painful, but it is not poisonous. There is no quick death for those who fail to escape the column. Several of these ants then formed a circle, their heads together, their antennae, quivering, touching one another. Then, almost instantly, the circle broke and they rushed back to the column.

“Watch,” had said the small man.

To my horror I had then seen the column turn toward the piece of tarsk flesh.

We had further encouraged the column during the day with additional blood and flesh, taken from further kills made by the small men with their nets and spears.

I looked up at the stockade. I remembered it, for it was the same from which we had, earlier, slipped away in the darkness of the night.

I rubbed tarsk blood on the palings. Behind me I could hear, yards away, a rustling.

“We will wait for you in the jungle,” said the leader of the little men.

“Very well,” I said.

The rustling was now nearer. Those inside the stockade, given their music and dancing, would not hear it. I stepped back. I saw the column, like a narrow black curtain, dark in the moonlight, ascend the palings.

I waited.

Inside the stockade, given the feast of the village, the column would widen, spreading to cover in its crowded millions every square inch of earth, scouring each stick, each piece of straw, hunting for each drop of grease, for each flake of flesh, even if it be no more than what might adhere to the shed hair of a hut urt.

When I heard the first scream I hurled my rope to the top of the stockade, catching one of the palings in its noose.

I heard a man cry out with pain.

I scrambled over the stockade wall. A woman, not even seeming to see me, crying out with pain, fled past me. She held a child in her arms.

There was now a horrified shouting in the camp. I saw torches being thrust to the ground. Men were irrationally thrusting at the ground with spears. Others tore palm leaves from the roofs of huts, striking about them.

I hoped there were no tethered animals in the camp. Between two huts I saw a man rolling on the ground in frenzied pain.

I felt a sharp painful bite at my foot. More ants poured over the palings. Now, near the rear wall and spreading toward the center of the village, it seemed there was a growing, lengthening, rustling, living carpet of insects. I slapped my arm and ran toward the hut in which originally, our party had been housed in this village. With my foot I broke through the sticks at its back.