Hunters of Gor (2 page)

to be slave girls, fall slave to women.”

The man glared at Samos. I could sense, again, that, in his manacles, behind his

back, his fists were clenched.

“I was once the slave of a woman,” I told the man.

He looked at me, startled.

“What is to be done with you?” asked Samos.

I could see the heavy metal collar hammered about the man’s neck, not uncommon

in a male slave. His head would have been placed across the anvil, and the metal

curved about his neck with great blows.

“Whatever you wish,” said the man, kneeling before us.

“How came you to be slave?” I asked.

“As you can see,” he said, “I fell to women.”

“How came it about?” I asked.

“They fell upon me in my sleep,” he said. “I wakened to a knife at my throat. I

was chained. They much sported with me. When they wearied of me, I was taken,

leashed and manacles, to a lonely beach, at the edge of Thassa, bordering on the

western edge of the forests.”

“It is a well-known rendezvous point,” said Samos. “It was there one of my ships

picked him up, and others.” He looked at the man. “Do you recall your price?”

“Two steel knives,” said the man, “and fifty steel arrow points.”

“And a stone of hard candies, from the kitchens of Ar,” said Samos.

“Yes,” said the man, through gritted teeth.

The slave girl laughed, and clapped her hands. Samos did not admonish her.

“What is to be your fate?” said Samos.

“Doubtless to be a galley slave,” he said.

The great merchant galleys of Port Kar, and Cos, and Tyros, and other maritime

powers, utilized thousands of such miserable wretches, fed on brews of peas and

black bread, chained in the rowing holds, under the whips of slave masters,

their lives measured by feedings and beatings, and the labor of the oar.

“What were you doing in the northern forests?” I asked him.

“I am an outlaw”, he said proudly.

“You are a slave,” said Samos.

“Yes,” said the man, “I am a slave.”

The slave girl, in her brief silk, stood, holding the two-handled bronze paga

vessel, that she might look down upon him.

“Few travelers journey through the northern forests,” I said.

“Commonly,” said he, “I plundered beyond the forests.” He looked at the slave

girl. “Sometimes,” said he, “I plundered within them.”

She reddened.

“At the time I was captured,” said he, looking again at Samos, “I was trying

chain luck.”

Samos smiled.

“I thought that it was I who was hunting women,” said he. “But it was they who

were hunting me.”

The girl laughed.

He looked down, angrily.

Then he lifted his head. “When am I to be sent to the galleys?” he asked.

“You are strong, and handsome,” said Samos. “I expect that a rich woman might

pay a good price for you.”

The man cried out in rage, trying to struggle to his feet, fighting his chains.

The guards, their hands in his hair, forced him back to his knees.

Samos turned to the girl. “What should be done with him?” he asked her.

“Sell him to a woman!” she laughed.

The man struggled in his chains.

“Are you familiar with the forests?” I asked.

“What man is familiar with the forests?” he asked.

I regarded him.

“I can live in the forests,” he said. “And hundreds of square pasangs, in the

south and west of the forest, I know.”

“A band of panther women captured you?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“What was the name of the leader of this band?” I asked.

“Verna,” said he.

Samos looked at me. I was satisfied. “You are free,” I told the man. I turned to

the guards. ”Remove his chains.”

The guards, with keys, bent to his manacles, and the double-chained iron clasps

securing his ankles.

He seemed stunned.

The slave girl was speechless, her eyes wide. She took a step backward,

clutching the two-handled paga vessel. She shook her head.

I drew forth a pouch of gold. I handed five pieces of gold to Samos, purchasing

the man.

He stood before us, without his chains. He rubbed his wrists. He looked at me,

wonderingly.

“I am Bosk,” I told him, “of the house of Bosk, of Port Kar. You are free. You

may now come and go as your wish. In the morning, from the house of Bosk, in the

far city, bordering the delta, I shall leave for the northern forests. If it

pleases you, wait upon me there, near the great canal gate.”

“Yes,” Captain,” said he.

“Samos,” said I, “may I request the hospitality of your house for this man?”

Samos nodded.

“He will require food, clothing, what weapons he chooses, a room, drink.” I

looked at the man, and smiled. The stink of the pens was still upon him. “And,

too, I suggest,” said I, “a warm bath, and suitable oils.”

I turned to the man.

“What is your name?” I asked him. He now had a name, for he was free.

“Rim,” he said proudly.

I did not ask him his city, for he was outlaw. Outlaws do not care to reveal

their city.

He slave girl had now stepped back two or three more paces, edging away. She was

frightened.

“Stay!” I said to her sharply. She cowered.

She was very beautiful in the bit of slave silk. I noted the bells locked on her

left ankle. She was slender, dark-haired, dark-eyed. Her eyes were wide. She had

exciting legs, well revealed by the slave-height of her brief silk.

“What do you want for her?” I asked Samos.

He shrugged. “Four pieces of gold,” he said.

“I will buy here,” I said. I placed four pieces of gild in Samos’ hand.

She looked at me, terrified.

One of the guards fetched Rim a tunic, and he drew it on his body. He belted the

broad belt, with its large buckle. He shook his shaggy black hair.

He looked at the girl.

She looked at me, her eyes pleading.

My eyes were hard, and Gorean. She shook her head, trembling.

I gestured with my head towards Rim. “You are his,” I told her.

“No! No!” she cried and threw herself to my feet, weeping, her head to my

sandals. “Please, Master! Please, Master!”

When she looked up, she saw my eyes, and read in them the inflexibility of a

Gorean male.

Her lower lip trembled. She put her head down.

“What is her name?” I asked Samos.

“She will take whatever name I give her,” said Rim.

She whimpered with anguish, bereft of a name. The Gorean slave, in the eyes of

Gorean law, is an animal, with no legal title to a name.

“In what room shall we lodge this man?” asked one of the two helmeted guards.

“Take him,” said Samos, “to one of the large rooms, well appointed, in which we

lodge slavers of high rank, of distant cities.”

“The Torian room?” asked the guard.

Samos nodded. Tor is an opulent city of the desert, well known for its

splendors, its comforts and pleasures.

Rim lifted the girl to the feet by the hair, twisting her head and bending her

body. “Go to the Torian room,” he said, “and prepare me a bath, and foods and

wines, and gather together whatever you might need, bells and cosmetics, and

such, to please my senses.”

“Yes, Master,” said the girl.

He twisted her hair more. She winced, her back bent painfully. “Do you wish me

to submit to you now?” she begged.

“Do so,” said he.

She fell to her knees before him, and lifted her head to regard him. “I will be

your slave,” she said. Then, she knelt back on her heels, lowered her head, and

lifted and extended her arms, wrists crossed, as though for binding. She was

very beautiful. “I am your slave,” she said, “ – Master.”

“Hasten to the Torian room,” said Rim, “In its privacy, I will have use for my

slave.”

“May I not beg a name?” she asked.

He looked at her. “Cara,” he said.

She had been named.

“Go, Cara,” said he.

“Yes,” she whispered, “Master.” She leaped to her feet and, weeping, fled from

the room.

“Captain,” said Rim, regarding me. “I thank you for the wench.”

I nodded my head.

“And no, noble Samos,” said Rim, boldly, “I would appreciate the arousal of one

in your employ, a metal worker, to remove this collar.”

Samos nodded.

“Further,” said Rim, “I would appreciate your sending me the key to Lady Cara’s

collar, that I may remove it, and providing another.”

“Very well,” said Samos. “How shall it be inscribed?”

“Let is say,” suggested Rim, “I am the slave Cara. I belong to Rim, the Outlaw.”

“Very well,” said Samos.

“And, too,” said Rim, “prior to my retiring to the Torian room, I would

appreciate a sword, with sheath, a knife, and a bow, the great bow, with

arrows.”

Rim wished to be armed.

“Were you once of the warriors?” I inquired.

He smiled at me. “Perhaps,” he said.

I tossed him the pouch of gold, from which I had drawn the coins to purchase his

freedom, and the arrogant, slender, red-silked girl for him, to be his slave.

He caught the purse, and smiled, and threw it to Samos, who caught it.

He turned away. “Lead me to your armory,” said he, to one of the guards. “I

require weapons.”

He left, following the guards, not looking back.

Samos weighed the gold in his hand. “He pays well for his lodging,” said Samos.

I shrugged. “Generosity,” I said, “is the prerogative of the free man.”

Gold had been nothing to Rim. I suspected then, he might once have been of the

warriors.

The torches burned.

Samos and I looked down upon the board, with its hundred squares of red and

yellow, the weighted, carved pieces.

“Ubar to Ubar Nine,” said Samos. He looked at me.

I had planned well. “Ubar to Ubar Two,” I said, and turned, robes swirling, and

strode to the portal, whence I might leave the hall.

At the broad, bronze-linteled portal I turned.

Samos stood behind the board. He looked up at me, and spread his hands. “The

game is yours,” he said.

I regarded him.

“You will not reconsider?” he asked.

“No,” I told him.

2
     
I Gather Information

“There!” said Rim, pointing off the starboard bow. ”High on the beach!”

His slave, Cara, in a brief woolen tunic, one-piece, woven of the wool of the

Hurt, sleeveless, barefoot on the deck, graced by his collar, stood behind him

and to his left.

I shaded my eyes. “Glass of the Builders,” I said.

Thurnock, of the Peasants, standing by me, handed me the glass.

I opened it, and surveyed the beach.

High on the beach, I saw two pairs of sloping beams. They were high, large and

heavy structures. The feet of the beams were planted widely, deeply, in the

sand; at the top, where they sloped together, they had been joined and pegged.

They were rather like the English letter “A”, though lacking the crossbar.

Within each “A”, her wrists bound by wrapped and taut leather to heavy rings set

in the sloping sides, there hung a girl, her full weight on her wrists. Each

were panther girls, captured. Their heads were down, their blond hair falling

forward. Their ankles had been tied rather widely apart, each fastened by

leather to iron rings further down the beams.

It was an exchange point.

It is thus that outlaws, to passing ships, display their wares.

We were fifty pasangs north of Lydius, which port lies at the mouth of the

Laurius River. Far above the beach we could see the green margins of the great

northern forests.

They were very beautiful.

“Heave to,” said I to Thurnock.

“Heave to!” cried he to my men.

Men scrambled on the long yard of the lateen-rigged light galley, a small, swift

ram-ship of Port Kar. Others, on the deck, hauled on the long brail ropes.

Slowly, billow by billow, the sails were furled. We would not remove them from

the yard. The yard itself was then swung about, parallel to the ship and, foot

by foot, lowered. We did not lower the mast. It remained deep in its placement

blocks. We were not intending battle. The oars were now inboard, and the galley,

of its own accord, swung into the wind.

“There is a man on the beach,” I said.

He had his hand lifted. He, too, wore skins. His hair was long and shaggy. There

was a steel sword at his side.

I handed the glass of the Builders to Rim, who stood by the rail at my side.

He grinned. “I know him,” he said, “He is Arn.”

“Of what city?” I asked.

“Of the forests,” said Rim.

I laughed.

Rim, too, laughed.

Only too obviously the man was outlaw.

Now, behind him, similarly clad in skins, their hair bound back with tawny

strips of panther hide, were four or five other men, men doubtless of his band.

Some carried bows, two carried spears.

The man whom Rim had identified as Arn, an Outlaw, now came forward, passing

before the two frames, closer down to the beach’s edge.

He made the universal gesture for trading, gesturing as though he were taking

something from us, and then giving us something in return.

One of the girls in the frame lifted her head, and, miserable, surveyed our

ship, off shore, on the green waters of Thassa.

Cara looked at the girls tied helpless in the frames, and at the man coming down

to the shore, and at the others, high on the beach, behind him, behind the

frames.