Hunters of Gor (34 page)

The blond girl, weeping, seized up her burden, and stood straight in the coffle.

She carried the box on her head, in the fashion of the Gorean woman. She

balanced it with her right hand. She stood straight. She was, though in tears,

very graceful.

I regarded the coffle. Each beauty carried her burden, we would, at least in the

beginning, follow a parallel trail to that taken by my fleeing enemies. Later,

if their flight became more precipitate and less rational, we might simply make

their route ours. In this fashion the trail would be broken and clear and, if

anything of value had been discarded in the flight, we might, if we wished,

gather it up and, following, bring it with us.

I turned and strode toward the forest.

I heard the slap of the switch twice behind me, and cries of pain from panther

girls.

“Hurry, Slaves!” called the red-haired girl.

Ilene walked beside me. She took quick steps. Her head came only to my shoulder.

She looked up at me, and then looked down.

I regarded her sternly. Her hand lifted before her mouth. Fear showed suddenly

in her eyes. Would I have the red-haired girl beat her? “Forgive me, Master,”

she whispered.

She fled back two paces, and put her head down, trembling. The Gorean slave girl

does not dare walk beside a free man. She had forgotten. She had not been long

on Gor.

I turned away from her, and continued on. I hear her sob, following me.

She had not yet, even, fully, yielded to a man. I expected, however, that soon

she would be ready to do so. I had sensed in her body, and her head. She was a

pretty slave, the Earth girl. I expected some master would be much pleased with

her.

Helplessly yielded, she would be exquisite.

She had not been completely open with me. I would have her sold in Port Kar.

I continued on.

Behind me I could hear her quick, light steps, and, behind me, farther back, I

could hear the chain of the slave coffle. I would hear the chain, and then a

silence, and then the chain again. The left leg of each girl moved in unison,

the lovely left ankle of each locked in the clasp of the ankle ring, lifting and

carrying the chain that bound them.

I looked back. They were beautiful, the panther girls. They walked straight, and

they bore their burdens well. They were a splendid set of slaves.

The red-haired girl walked beside them, with her switch.

I stood on the branch of a tree, concealed in foliage. The slave chain of the

men of Tyros passed below me.

It was a long chain, containing ninety-six men. Each was double fastened, and

the hands of each were manacled behind his back. Each was chained by the left

ankle, and each too, by the throat. About the left ankle of each and the neck of

each had been hammered a band of iron, each band with two welded rings. At two

ends, then, of a given length of chain, links had been hammered shut again. In

this fashion, rude but effective, was formed the long slave chain.

Marlenus was first on the chain, followed by his men. Then came Rim, who had

been captured at the time of the raid on the Tesephone. Then came Arn, and the

other eight men of mine who had been in the camp of Marlenus when it had been

attacked.

Following the men came a coffle of twenty-four slave girls. They were tied

together by the neck, by binding fiber. Their wrists were bound behind their

body by slave bracelets.

Men of Tyros, and panther girls, flanked the lines of slaves.

Many supplies had been tied on the backs and shoulders of the male slaves.

Apparently the men of Tyros, and the panther girls, feared to free their hands.

I did not blame them in this matter, for the men they guarded were dangerous.

Some burdens were carried even by the men of Tyros. Others, lighter burdens,

were carried by certain of the panther girls.

Eight of the men of Tyros, with whips, struck the male slaves. Four panther

girls, with switches, hurried the lovely, tethered, braceleted bondswomen.

I looked down.

The slave girls now passed beneath me. Only Sheera had been stripped. I saw Cara

and Tina, still in their white wool slave tunics, save that they were now

dirtied and torn. To my surprise, also in a woolen slave tunic, in coffle, was

Grenna, whom I had captured in the forest. She had stood high in the band of

Hura. But they were keeping her slave. Panther girls have little patience for

those of their number who fall slave. Grenna’s neck knot was tied as tightly as

that of any of the other girls; her wrists were confined no less securely behind

her back. she was as much slave as they. Then there came six panther girls, who

had been of Verna’s band, in their skins, and then, still in lipstick and

earrings, still in her bit of slave silk, cam Verna, and then, following her,

came the other eight girls who had been of her band. I saw the girl behind her,

with her heel, kick at the back of Verna’s knee. She fell back, twisting,

strangling in the fiber. She struggled to her feet, muchly switched. One of the

switches cut the silk on her body. She tried to turn to face the girl who had

kicked her, but strangling, was pulled ahead by the girl in front of her. She

was then struck more with switches.

“Hurry, Slave,” cried one of the girls of Hura, striking her twice again with a

switch.

Verna hurried on, a slave girl under the switch.

It was no accident that Verna, garbed and adorned as she was, as a pleasure

slave, had been tied among panther girls. She even still wore slave bells at her

ankle. I suspected that, in the eyes of the men of Tyros, and those of the girls

of Hura, her position in the slave coffle was regarded as, and intended as, a

delicious cruelty. The remaining slave girls, who had been girls in Marlenus’

camp, brought north for the recreation of his men, were safely tied behind the

panther girls. They brought up the rear of the coffle.

I had seen, near the front of the march, Sarus, leader of the men of Tyros, and

near him, Hura, and her lieutenant, Mira, who had first betrayed Verna, and then

Marlenus. I smiled to myself. Mira would betray Hura as well. I would see to

that.

The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura had had scouts out, flanking their line

of march, panther girls.

Two, whom I had encountered, were nearby. They were bound and gagged. I had tied

them to a small Tur tree.

The last of the march passed beneath me. I would wait, for a time. Doubtless,

there would be rear points. They were not as far behind the main group as they

should have been. They were doubtless apprehensive, nervous. They were separated

by some fifty yards. I took them individually. It was not difficult in the heavy

brush. I left them bound hand and foot, and gagged, near the trail, where I

might get them later.

The rear of the march was now open to me. I would later use the flanks.

I carried with me four of the seven quivers of arrows taken from panther girls.

Their arrows, their bows being smaller, are not as long as the common sheaf

arrow of the long bow, but they would be satisfactory. The bow need not be fully

drawn to effect a considerable penetration.

Sixteen men of Tyros, in single file, brought up the rear of the march.

One begins with the last man, and then the next to the last, and so on.

I expected that men would now hesitate to bring up the rear of the march.

I returned and picked up the girls I had taken, the day’s catch. I unbound their

ankles, tied them together by the neck, and, with a switch, hurried them to the

camp. There the dark-haired girl and the blond girl, two of my paga slaves,

stripped the new prisoners and I, with Harl rings, part of the freight carried

by the panther girls, not speaking, fastened them in the slave chain.

There were twenty-five girls now in the chain.

They fed from bowls of slave meal, mixed with water. Too, I cut each of them a

piece of the dried, salted meat taken from the abandoned camp of Tyros and the

girls of Hura.

“What if the food is poisoned?” asked the blond girl, in her ankle ring.

“Eat,” I told her.

She looked at me.

“Eat, Slave,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

Looking at me apprehensive, she chewed and swallowed.

“Quickly,” I told her.

“Yes, Maser,” she said.

Swiftly, frightened, she finished the bowl of slave mean and the piece of

salted, dried meat.

I observed her. She suffered no ill effects. The food had not been poisoned.

Later, when the moons were high, the paga slaves and I partook of it as well. I

was pleased that we had this food, much of it, because I did not wish to be

distracted by the need to seek out supplies.

In the forest I was hunting game other than tabuk.

The loose end of the slave chain, attached to the front of the first girl’s

ankle ring, I took from her wrist. I fastened it about a small tree, thus

tethering the entire chain of girls to the tree.

“Lie down,” I told the girls. “Closely together.”

They did so.

I then, with the aid of the paga slaves, covered them with the tarpaulin and

pegged it down.

I lay awake, looking up at the moons.

I turned my head to one side, and saw, some yards away, at the edge of the camp,

in her yellow silks, Ilene. She was standing with her back against the trunk of

a tree, her hands behind her back. Her head was turned toward me. Her hair was

long and dark. She was very lightly complexioned. She was slender.

I rose and went to her.

“You are of Earth,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“The others are asleep,” she said. “I must talk to you.”

“Speak,” I said.

“Not here,” she said, “surely.”

“Precede me,” I told her.

She turned and, I following her, walked some distance from the camp.

Then, in a small clearing, she turned to face me. Her fists were clenched.

“Return me to Earth,” she said.

“There is no escape for a Gorean slave girl,” I said.

“I will not accept being a Gorean slave girl!” she said.

“You have not been long on Gor,” I said.

“No,” she cried.

I shrugged and went to turn away.

“I am not a slave girl!” she said.

I turned and faced her. “How did you come to this world?” I asked.

She looked down. “I awakened one night. I found myself bound and gagged. My

hands were tied behind my back. my ankles were tied to the bedposts. I could not

free myself. I had been stripped. For an hour I struggled, helpless. Then, at

two A.M. by the clock on my dresser, a dark, disklike shape, not more than five

feet in thickness and eight feet in width, black, appeared before the window. It

was a small ship. A man emerged in strange garb. The window lock was, from the

outside, disengaged, perhaps magnetically or electronically. The window slide

upward. The man swiftly used me. He then hooded me. I felt my ankles released

and then crossed and bound together. I then felt myself being lifted through the

window and thrust into the small ship. I felt a needle being entered in my back.

I lost consciousness, and I remember nothing more until I awakened. I do not

know how much later, in a Gorean slave pen.”

“How were you sold?” I asked.

“I was sold privately to Hesius of Laura,” she said, “I then served his

customers in his paga tavern”

“How is it,” I asked, “that you think you are free?”

“Is it not clear from my story?” she asked angrily. “I am a free woman of

Earth!”

“Once, perhaps,” I said. “Then you were taken by Gorean slavers.”

“I was taken by force,” she said.

“All slaves are taken by force,” I told her.

She looked at me, angrily.

“How were you brought to this world?” I asked.

“As a slave,” she said.

“Where did you awaken?” I asked.

“In a slave pen,” she said.

“Are you branded?” I asked.

“In the pen,” she said. “I was branded.”

“I see that you wear a collar,” I said. She wore the collar of Hesius of Laura,

a tavern keeper in that city.

She tried to tear the collar from her throat. She could not, of course, do so.

It remained fixed upon her, snug, beautiful, gleaming.

She threw back her head, haughtily. “It means nothing,” she said.

I smiled.

“A slave collar,” she said, lightly, “Might be snapped on the throat of any

pretty girl.”

“That is true,” I said.

She reacted as if struck.

“You do not understand,” she said.

“What is it that I do not understand?” I asked.

“Gorean girls,” she hissed, “may be slaves! Not the women of Earth! Earth women

are different! They are better, finer, nobler, more refined, more delicate! You

cannot make them common slaves!”

“You regard yourself as better than Gorean girls?” I asked.

She looked at me, astonished. “Of course,” she said.

“That is interesting,” I said. “To me you seem less worthy, more slavish.”

“You needn’t play games with me,” she said. “The others are asleep. We can speak

frankly. We are compatriots of Earth. If you wish, for your vanity, I shall play

the role of a slave girl when they are about, but I assure you that I am not a

slave. I am not a slave! I am a free woman of Earth, different from them, and