Witness of Gor (101 page)

"Be silent," said the pit master.

We tried to obey. I bit my lower lip, attempting to control its movement. My shoulders shook.

The side of my neck hurt, where the cord had burned it. The floor was sticky with blood.

Two of the black-tunicked men had not joined in the attack on the sleen. They had, in those sudden, unexpected, precipitate, grisly moments, stood back, perhaps fearing to act, perhaps unable to do so. The lieutenant slowly turned to regard them.

"There is no blood on your blades," he said. The men stepped back a little, looking at one another.

"Surrender your blades," said the lieutenant. The men looked at one another, uneasily. "I am now in command," said the lieutenant.

"I suggest," said the officer of Treve, "that you need every man you have.”

The two blades were surrendered to the lieutenant.

The lieutenant gestured to the two men who had surrendered their weapons.

"Hold them," said the lieutenant.

The two men were seized, each by two of their fellows.

"I do not advise this course of action," said the officer of Treve.

"There will be blood on your blades," said the lieutenant.

"No!" cried one of the two held men, struggling.

"Let us redeem ourselves!" cried the other.

"You would then be left with only four men," said the officer of Treve.

The lieutenant's eyes were cold. The blade was leveled for its thrust.

I closed my eyes that I might not see the blade, his own, pass between the ribs of the first of the two held men.

Then the lieutenant said, "Release them.”

Their fellows stepped away from them.

I expected the two men to turn about then, and run.

But they did not.

Rather they stood where they were. I then gathered something of the discipline of the black caste.

The blade was motionless steadied on the left forearm of the lieutenant, leveled with the first man's heart.

"Masters!" we heard "Masters!" It was Gito's voice. He was running toward us, coming from down the corridor. He was distraught. gasping. He ran through the blood, spattering it about.

"He is ahead!" he cried. "I saw him! He is ahead!”

"In this passage?" asked a man.

"Yes, yes!" cried Gito, pointing backward.

"Why did he not kill you?" asked a man.

"He is my friend," said Gito. "He is ahead! Hurry! You can kill him!”

The lieutenant did not lower his poised blade. He had not even looked back at Gito.

"Where does this passage lead?" asked the lieutenant.

"To the urt pool," said the pit master, reluctantly.

"And there is an interposed gate?”

"Yes," said the pit master.

"Then we have him!" cried a man.

The lieutenant did not take his eyes from the fellow before him.

The fellow, he at whose heart the steel was poised, trembled, but he did not break and run.

"If you would take him, I suggest dispatch," said the officer of Treve.

The lieutenant then turned to one side and thrust the blade deeply into the body of one of the dead sleen, that closest to him, the larger of the two animals. He then returned the blade to the black-tunicked man. The lieutenant then took the other man's blade, which he had held in his left hand, and did with it the same, returning it also to its owner.

"Your blades are bloodied," said the lieutenant.

"Hurry! Hurry!" urged Gito.

Again the lieutenant regarded the pit master.

"Sleen are erratic beasts," said the pit master.

"Form the sluts in front," said the lieutenant. "Set your bows.”

We were thrust a little down the passageway, the first group, that "cord" of five in front, the second group, the second "cord" of five, in which I was one, behind, and in the interstices of the first group. In a moment the bows were set, six of them.

"May I have the first shot?" inquired one of the black-tunicked men.

"Granted," said the lieutenant.

"When the command 'Down!' is heard," said a man to us, "you will fling yourselves to your belly instantly. When the command 'Up!' is heard, you will stand, instantly, arranging yourselves as you are now.”

"Yes, Master," we said.

There is a common command, familiar to all female slaves, "Belly,”

which brings us instantly to our bellies before he who commands us. This particular command expression, however, was not used in this context. I speculate that this was because the context of the two commands, and certainly their connotations, was so different. It is one thing, for example, to aesthetically and beautifully signify submission by bellying, perhaps on the furs at the foot of the couch, we being permitted upon them, and quite another to fling oneself down so that quarrels may be suddenly fired from behind one. Too, normally in a "belly command" one orients oneself toward he who commands, not away from him.

Gito hung back.

The lieutenant took him by the scruff of the neck and threw him some feet down the passageway, before us.

"Proceed," he said.

Gito hurried a few feet down the passageway. The blood was now viscous in places, half dried. In some places, where he had stepped, it was pulled up, like syrup, clinging to his sandals, exposing the floor of the passageway.

Gito turned about, and looked back.

He went a few feet further down the passageway.

He turned back, again.

"This way," he said. Then he said, "Let me behind the wall!”

"You are in no danger," said the lieutenant. "You are his friend." Gito moaned, and, looking over his shoulder frequently, reassuring himself of our continued presence, made his way down the passageway, staying close to the wall.

"We will pin him against the gate," said the man who had requested the first opportunity for fire.

Suddenly, from down the passageway, we saw, blazing in the reflected light of a lamp, two eyes.

"Sleen!" cried a man, alarmed.

We screamed, and tried to draw back, but were held in place.

"No," said the pit master. "It is an urt.”

It was crouched down, before us.

It was large, but not large for those I had seen in the pits. It probably weighed no more than twenty or thirty pounds. Most species of urts are small, weighing less than a pound. Some are tinier than mice.

Gito had fled back. He now hid behind us.

"What is it doing in the passage?" asked the lieutenant.

"Someone must have left the panels open," said the pit master.

"Look," said a man. "There is another behind it.”

"There seems much carelessness in the management of the pits," said the lieutenant.

"You have had us dismiss the guards," said the pit master.

"The prisoner must have opened the panels," said a man.

"But the beasts are here, beyond the gate," said a man.

"The gate, it seems, was not locked," said the pit master.

"That would seem an unfortunate oversight," said the lieutenant.

"Yes," said the pit master, "it would seem so.”

"Doubtless it was lifted by the prisoner," said a man.

"Doubtless," said another.

"Will the urt charge?" asked the lieutenant.

"I do not know," said the pit master. "I would not approach it too closely.”

"It is dangerous?”

"Quite.”

"Kill it," said the lieutenant.

"Perhaps your colleague, Gito, can turn it," suggested the pit master.

"No, no!" said Gito.

But the urt did turn then, of its own accord, and scampered back down the passageway. The other, which had been behind it, hesitated for a moment, and then followed it.

"Advance," said the lieutenant.

I felt the butt of a crossbow prod me.

We continued down the passageway. We came, in a moment, to a turning.

"The lamps are out," said a man.

"He must be ahead," said a man.

"He must be trapped," said another.

"Take lamps from the passage," said the lieutenant.

Two of the men went back and fetched the nearest lamps.

"Will you truly walk down this passage, carrying light?" asked the officer of Treve.

"Free slaves, that they may do so," said one of the black-tunicked men.

"They are the shield," said a man.

"You," said the lieutenant to the officer of Treve, "will do so.”

"I think not," he said.

"Prepare then to die," said the lieutenant, angrily.

"The pit guard will be reporting in soon," said the pit master.

"You will dismiss them, as before," said the lieutenant.

"They may be looking for us now. I doubt that they would be pleased to learn that you had slain a captain of Treve. Too, perhaps your men would like to leave the depths alive.”

The black-tunicked men exchanged glances.

"You will dismiss them," said the lieutenant.

"That is difficult to do until they have reported," said the pit master.

But at that moment we heard, from down the passage, in the darkness, a hideous, but unmistakable human cry, which was followed, almost instantly, by a violent squealing of urts.

"Urts!" cried a man.

"They have him!" cried another.

"Our work is done for us!" cried another, elatedly.

The lieutenant, followed by his six men, thrust about us, and between us, pushing us to the side, lifting the rope on our necks. Gito remained behind us. The officer of Treve and the pit master followed the black-tunicked men in their rush forward. "Hurry!”

said Fina, dragging her group forward. Ours, perhaps fearing to be separated in this place, we helpless, urts about, hurried behind. I could see the two lamps flickering down the passage.

Also, in a moment, I could see a mound of twisting, squealing urts, clambering over and about something, biting at it. Some scampered about the edge of the group, as though seeking some avenue of approach, some entrance into that heap of squirming, frenzied animals, some ingress into that broiling tumult of glistening fur and slashing fangs, that they, too, might feast. The peasant, I assumed, from the horrifying cry I had heard, must be beneath that terrible living hill of beasts. Behind them I could see the bars of the gate. The gate was down. The darkness of the walk ringing the urt pool was behind. I also became aware, vaguely now, of a woman's screaming. That must be the Lady Ilene, whom I had met in the chamber of the commercial praetor, kept now, I knew, pending the arrival of her ransom, in the tiny cage suspended over the urt pool, that cage which had been for some time the residence of the Lady Constanzia, that cage which could be opened at the tug of a cord.

The lieutenant, the six men, two with lamps, stood back from the pile of frenzied urts. The fur of some of them was bloodied, they apparently having been, crowding in and about, in the haste and excitement of the feeding, bitten by their fellows. "Pull them off," said the lieutenant, to one of the men who had not attacked the sleen.

The woman was screaming, from within, over the urt pool.

The man put aside his bow and reached into the pile of animals, seizing one after another and throwing it to the side. I thought this took great courage. To be sure the animals seemed on the whole hardly aware of him. Some did twist about to tear at him, as might have fighting dogs. As soon as he would fling one to the side it would turn about and try to thrust its snout back into the pack.

The two men with the lamps lifted them higher.

The smell of blood was strong in the passageway. The passageway, too, was loud with the squealing of the beasts. From within, over the urt pool, we could still hear the screaming of the woman.

"It is a dead urt!" said a man, suddenly.

"We heard a cry," said another. "It was human.”

The fellow who had been pulling the urts aside now stood back. His hands and forearms were covered with blood, but much of it, I am sure, was from the fur and jaws of the urts. He had been bitten at least twice. His left sleeve was in shreds. The urts now dragged the body of the dead urt, now half eaten, its bones about, to the wall, where they continued their feeding.

"He must have been attacked on the other side of the gate," said a man.

One of the black-tunicked fellows went to the bars of the gate, peering through, into the darkness. "Bring a lamp," he said.

"How did the urt die?" asked a man.

Urts seldom attack their own kind unless their fellow behaves in an erratic fashion, as it might if injured or ill.

"What difference does it make?" asked a man.

"What do you see?" asked the lieutenant of the fellow by the bars. He now seemed to be gripping them with great tightness. Indeed, he seemed to have pulled himself closely to them, even pressing himself against them. Too, oddly, he seemed taller now, as though he might have stood on his toes.