Hunters of Gor (4 page)

The girls cried out with fury.

“Five for each,” said Rim.

“These women could be sold in Ar,” cried Arn, “for ten gold pieces each!”

“Perhaps,” said Rim, “but we are not in Ar.”

“I refuse to sell for less than eight gold pieces each,” said Arn.

“Perhaps you could take them to Lydius, and sell them there,” suggested Rim.

I smiled.

“Or perhaps to Laura?”

Rim was shrewd. There would be much danger in taking such women to these places.

Arn, outlaw, well knew this. We might easily sell such women in Laura, or, more

likely, in Lydius, bit it would not be an easy matter for an outlaw to do so.

Rim, followed by Cara, and myself, began to walk back down the beach, toward the

Tesephone.

Arn, angrily, followed him.

“Five each!” exploded Arn. “It is my lowest price!”

“I trust,” said Rim, “that many ships will pass the exchange point, and that you

will find your buyer.”

This time of year, Rim had told me, not too many ships pass the exchange point.

The early spring is the favored time, in order to have the girls partially

trained and to market prior to the spring and summer festivals in many cities.

It was already the middle of summer.

“I will trade them for this female,” said Arn, gesturing to Cara.

Rim regarded Cara. She carried the wind, and cups. She stood there, the sand to

her ankles, in the brief, white, woolen, sleeveless tunic, her hair bound back

with the white woolen fillet.

Her wishes were unimportant.

Her eyes were filled with fear; her lower lip trembled.

Would he choose to exchange her?

“Go to the ship,” said Rim.

Cara turned, stumbling in the sand, weeping, and wading to the Tesephone.

Thurnock took the wine and cups from her, and lifted her on board.

She was trembling.

Rim and I entered the water, and began to wade toward the Tesephone.

“Two pieces of gold each!” cried Arn.

Rim turned in the water. “Five copper tarn disks each,” he said.

“I have much gold!” cried Arn. “You insult me!”

“Your purse was stolen in Lydius,” Rim reminded him, “by a little notch-eared

wench named Tina.”

Arn’s men laughed uproariously on the beach. He turned to glare at them. They

struggled to contain their mirth. Then Arn turned to face Rim, and laughed.

“What then do you truly offer?” he demanded.

Rim grinned. “A silver tarsk each,” said he.

“The females are yours,” laughed Arn. One of his men unbound the girl’s necks

from the branch, and, a hand in the hair of each, brought them a foot or two

into the water.

I took two silver tarsks from the pouch I wore at the belt of the tunic and

threw them to Arn.

Rim, from the outlaw who held them, took the girls by the hair, and waded with

them, their hands bound behind their back, toward the ship.

I seized Thurnock’s lowered hand, and scrambled on board.

Rim now had the two girls at the side of the ship. “You will never break us!”

hissed one of them to him.

Rim held their heads under water, for better than an Ehn. When he pulled their

heads from the water, they were wild-eyed, sputtering and gasping, their lungs

shrieking for air.

There was little fight in them as they were lifted on board.

“Chain them to the deck,” I told Thurnock.

“This one,” said the panther girl, jabbing the suspended figure with a knife,

“is interesting – he afforded us much pleasure, before we wearied of him.”

It was the afternoon following our transaction with Arn, the outlaw.

We had come north, along the western shore of Thassa, the forests on our right.

We were a mere ten pasangs from the exchange point where we had, the preceding

day, obtained two panther girls.

Male and female outlaws do not much bother one another at the exchange points.

They keep their own markets. I cannot recall a case of females being enslaved at

an exchange point, as they bargained with their wares, nor of males being

enslaved at their exchange points, when displaying and merchandising their

captures. If the exchange points became unsafe for either male or female

outlaws, because of the others, the system of exchange points would be largely

valueless. The permanency of the point, and is security, seems essential to the

trade.

“He should bring a high price from a soft, rich woman,” the girl advised us.

“Yes,” granted Rim,” “he seems sturdy, and handsome.”

Another panther girl, behind the man, struck him suddenly, unexpectedly, with a

whip.

He cried out in pain.

His head, a strip from the forehead to the back of his neck, had been freshly

shaved.

The girls had set two poles in the sand, and lashed a high crossbar to them. The

man’s wrists, widely apart, were, by leather binding fiber, fastened to this

bar. He was nude. He hung about a foot from the ground. His legs had been widely

spread and tied to the side poles.

Behind this frame, and to one side, there was another frame. In it, too, hung a

miserable wretch, put up for sale by panther girls.

His head, too, was shaved, in the shame badge.

“This was the exchange point,” said Rim to me, “where I myself was sold.”

The panther girl, Sheera, who was leader of this band, sat down in the warm

sand.

“Let us bargain,” she said.

She sat cross-legged, like a man. Her girls formed a semi-circle behind her.

Sheera was a strong, black-haired wench, with a necklace of claws and golden

chains wrapped about her neck. There were twisted, golden armlets on her bronzed

arms. About her left ankle, threaded, was an anklet of shells. At her belt she

wore a knife sheath. The knife was in her hand, and, as she spoke, she played

with it, and drew in the sand.

“Serve wine,” said Rim, to Cara.

Rim and I, as we had with Arn, and his men, sat down with Sheera, and her girls.

Cara, the slave girl, just as she had done with Arn and the men, served wine.

The girls, no more than the men, noticed her. For she was slave.

It interested me that the panther girls showed her no more respect, nor

attention, than they did. But they did not acknowledge their sisterhood with

such animals as she.

I was not interested in the purchase of men, but I was interested in whatever

information I might be able to gather from panther girls. And these girls were

free. Who knew what they might know?

“Wine, Slave,” said Sheera.

“Yes, Mistress,” whispered Cara, and filled her cup.

Sheera regarded her with contempt. Head down, Cara crept back.

Panther girls are arrogant. They live by themselves in the northern forests, by

hunting, and slaving and outlawry. They have little respect for anyone, or

anything, saving themselves and, undeniably, the beasts they hunt, the tawny

forest panthers, the swift, sinuous sleen.

I can understand why it is that such woman hate men, but it is less clear to me

why they hold such enmity to women. Indeed, they accord more respect to men, who

hunt them, and whom they hunt, as worthy foes, than they do to women other than

themselves. They regard, it seems, all women, slave or free, as soft, worthless

creatures, so unlike themselves. Perhaps most of all they despise beautiful

female slaves, and surely Cara was such. I am not sure why they hold this great

hatred for other members of their own sex. I suspect it may be because, in their

hearts, they hate themselves, and their femaleness. Perhaps they wish to be men;

I do not know. It seems they fear, terribly, to be females, and perhaps, they

fear most that they, by the hands of a strong man, will be taught their

womanhood. It is said that panther girls, conquered, make incredible slaves. I

do not much understand these things.

Sheera fastened her two, fierce black eyes on me. She jabbed with her knife in

the sand. She was a sturdy bodied wench, exciting. She sat cross-legged, like a

man. About her throat was a necklace of claws and golden chains. About her left

ankle, threaded, the anklet of pierced shells. “What am I bid for these two

slaves?” she demanded.

“I had expected to be met by Verna, the Outlaw Girl,” said I, “at this point. Is

it not true that she sells from this point?’

“I am the enemy of Verna,” said Sheera. She jabbed down with the knife into the

sand.

“Oh,” I said.

“Many girls sell from this point,” said Sheera. “Verna is not selling today.

Sheera is selling. How much am I bid?”

“I had hoped to meet Verna,” I said.

“Verna I have heard,” volunteered Rim, “sells by far the best merchandise.”

I smiled. I recalled that it had been Verna and her band that Rim had been sold.

Rim, for an outlaw, was not a bad sort.

“We sell what we catch,” said Sheera. “Sometimes chain luck is with Verna,

sometimes it is not.” She looked at me. “What am I bid for the two slaves?” she

asked.

I lifted my eyes to regard the two miserable wretches bound in the frames.

They had been much beaten, and long and heavily worked. The fierce women had

doubtless raped them many times.

They were not my purpose in coming to the exchange point, but I did not wish to

leave them at the mercy of the panther girls. I would bid for them.

Sheera was regarding Rim closely. She grinned. She jabbed at him with her knife.

“You,” she said, “have worn the chains of panther girls!”

“It is not impossible,” conceded Rim.

Sheera, and the girls, laughed.

“You are an interesting fellow,” said Sheera, to Rim. “It is fortunate for you,

that you are at the exchange point. Else we might be tempted to put our chains

on you.” She laughed. ”I think I might enjoy trying you,” she said.

“Are you any good?” asked one of the girls, of Rim.

“Men,” said Sheera, “make delightful slaves.”

“Panther girls,” said Rim, “do not make bad slaves either.”

Sheera’s eyes flashed. She jabbed the knife into the sand, to the hilt. “Panther

girls,” she hissed, “ do not make slaves!”

It did not seem opportune to mention to Sheera that, aboard the Tesephone, nude,

chained in the first hold, in gags and slave hoods, were two panther girls. I

had kept them below decks, secured, and in gags and slave hoods, that they not

be seen, nor heard to cry out, at the exchange point. I did not wish their

presence, nor an indication of their presence, to complicate our dealings at the

point. After I had interrogated them thoroughly, I would sell them in Lydius.

“You mentioned,” said I to Sheera, “that you are an enemy of Verna?”

“I am her enemy,” said Sheera.

“We are anxious to make her acquaintance,” said I, “Do you know perhaps where

she might be found?”

Sheera’s eyes narrowed. “Anywhere,” she said.

“I have heard,” I said, “that Verna and her band sometimes roam north of Laura.”

The momentary flash in the eyes of Sheera had told me what I wanted to know.

“Perhaps,” she said, shrugging.

The information about Verna’s band I had had from a girl who had been recently

slave in my house, a wench named Elinor. She now belonged to Rask of Treve.

The inadvertent response in Sheera’s eyes had confirmed this belief.

It was, of course, one thing to know this general manner of thing, and another

to find Verna’s band’s camp, or their dancing circle. Each band of panther girls

customarily had a semi-permanent camp, particularly in the winter, but, too,

each band, customarily, had its own dancing circle. Panther girls, when their

suppressed womanhood becomes sometimes too painful, repair to such places, there

to dance the frenzy of their needs. But, too, it is in such places, that the

enslavement of males is often consummated.

Rim had been captured by Verna and her band, but he had been chained, raped and

enslaved, not far from the very exchange point where he was sold, this very

point. He knew less than I of the normal habits of Verna and her band. We both

knew, of course, that she, with her girls, ranged widely.

“Verna’s camp,” I said to Sheera, matter-of-factly, “is not only north of Laura,

but to its west.”

She seemed startled. Again I read her eyes. What I had said had been mistaken.

Verna’s camp, then, lay to the north and east of Laura.

“So you wish to bid on the slaves or not?” asked Sheera.

I smiled.

“Yes,” I said.

I now had as much information as I had expected to obtain at the exchange point.

It was perhaps not wise to press for more. Sheera, a leader, a highly

intelligent woman, doubtless understood that she might have betrayed

information. Her knife was cutting at the sand. She was not looking at me. She

was only too obviously irritated, now intensely suspicious. More specific

information I expected to obtain from the captured panther girls on board the

ship. Panther girls generally know the usual territories of various bands. They

might even know, approximately, the locations of the various camps, and dancing

circles. I was not likely to obtain that information from free women. I expected

however, under interrogation, to be able to obtain it from the helpless girls,

at my mercy, on the Tesephone. Afterwards I would sell them. I had learned

enough at the exchange point to confirm my original information, to add to it

somewhat, and to be able, in the light of it, to evaluate the responses of my