Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 44 YELLOW KNIFES COME TO COUNCIL ROCK

"Oh!" said Iwoso, wincing, as I pulled tight the knots on her wrists, fastening them back and on each side of the stout post.

"How dare you treat me like this?" asked Iwoso.

"Rejoice," I told her, "that you are not being bound in whipping position."

"Whipping position?" she said. "But I am a free woman!"

"It is not only slaves who may be whipped when their captors please," I told her.

She shrank back, her back against the post. To be sure, she was not tied with her belly against the post and her hands over her head, out of the way of the lash, or kneeling, her hands tied in front of her, about the post, common whipping positions.

I then crouched down and roped her ankles, closely, to the post.

"I am a free woman," she said. "It is undignified from me to be tied to a post."

"Hci has decided it," I said.

"Hci!" she cried. "What right has he to decide such things?"

"He is your captor," I said.

"Oh," she said, frightened. I suspect that there were frew things which the sly, clever Iwoso feared in this world, but, high among them, I had little doubt, were the scarred face and fierce heart of Hci, of the Isbu Kaiila.

I then stood up and unlooped some more rope.

There were two posts. They were wedged deeply in a fissure in the surface of Council Rock, near the brink of the escarpment. From the position of the posts one could see the prairie, hundreds of feet below, for pasangs about, particularly to the west. The posts, too, because of their position near the edge of the escarpment, commanded a fine view of the main, sloping trail leading up to the summit.

I then, looping rope about Iwoso's belly, twice, snugly, pulled her back against the post, roping her closely to it. There was a deep notch in the back of the post, into which the rope fitted, to prevent slippage.

"You might have permitted us clothing," said Iwoso.

"No," I said. Bloketu, naked, was already bound to the first post.

Not only would the girls command an excellent veiw of the prairie, especially to the west, and of the main trail to the summit, but those who might approach from this direction or ascend the trail should, similarly, be able to entertain an excellent view of the girls.

They were prominently displayed.

"As a free woman," said Iwoso, "I am not used to being exhibited naked."

"It has been decided," I said.

"By Hci, of course?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Of course," she said, bitterly.

I then unlooped some more rope.

"It is an excellent view," commented Iwoso, lightly.

"Yes," I said.

"To what do we owe this extrordinary privilege," she asked, "that we are permitted this view, this fresh air, that we have been relieved of our hoods and our bonds in the prison lodge?"

I looped the rope twice about her neck and then three times more under her chin and about the post, slipping in deeply into the notch in the back of the post whihc, like the lower notch, serves to prevent slippage.

"Today," I said, "you are to be judged."

"Judged!" she cried.

"Yes," I said. I then jerked tight the knot, the rope secure in its notch, behind the post. Iwoso's head, like Bloketu's was then roped back helplessly against the post.

"But I am an animal," cried Bloketu. "I am only a slave!"

"You will be freed prior to your judgment," I told her. "You may then, in full accountability, helplessness and vulnerability of the free women, face justice."

Bloketu moaned in misery.

Iwoso began to squirm madly in the ropes. I regarded her. "Struggle, free woman," I said. "It will do you no good."

Iwoso, irrationally, frenziedly, fought the ropes. Then, regarding me in misery and terror, she ceased her struggles. She was held, of course, as helpless as before.

"Bring me a kaiila," she whispered. "Help me escape. I will make you rich among the Yellow Knives!"

"What of her?" I asked, indicating Bloketu.

"She is only a slave," said Iwoso. "Leave her. Let her face justice."

Bloketu regarded her, piteously.

"Do not even dare to speak, Slave," said Iwoso.

"Forgive me, Mistress," said Bloketu. On her neck, thrust up, over the ropes holding her neck to the post, she still wore Iwoso's collar. Cuwignaka ahd not seen fit to remove it from her.

I regarded Iwoso. She stood before me, roped to the post, absolutely helpless in her bonds.

"I am sorry," I said. "My sympathies are with the Kaiila." I then turned away.

"Warrior," called Iwoso, ingrantiatingly.

I paused.

"Please come back," entreated Iwoso.

She had called me «Warrior» though I still wore Canka's collar, though I was still a slave. She meant, thus, to flatter me. Iwoso, I conjectured, did little without purpose.

I turned about. "Yes," I said.

"I am tied tightly," she said. "Can you not loosen my bonds, but a little?"

I looked at her.

"Please, please," she said.

"You are beautiful," I said.

"Roped and stripped as I am, handsome warrior," she said, "if I should indeed be beautiful I could never hope to conceal it from you."

"That is true," I said.

"Please," she wheeled.

"Perhaps," I said.

I crouched by her ankles. "Oh!" she said. I then stood up and attended to her wrists. "Oh, oh!" she said. I then attended to the rope at her belly and then to that on her neck. "Oh! Oh!" she said.

I then stood back.

"You have not loosened my bonds!" she said.

"No," I said. "I seem, rather, inadvertently doubtless, to have tightened them."

She looked at me, angrily. It was not easy for her to do so now, her head held back so closely against the post. "Beast! Sleen!" she said.

I turned away again.

"Oh, Warrior, Warrior!" she called, desperately, softly.

"Yes?" I said, returning to where she might see me, though, by intent, with some difficulty.

"How does the council go?" she asked.

"What council?" I asked.

"The great council of the Kaiila, of all the remnants of the Kaiila," she said. "of the Isbu, the Casmu, the Isanna, the Napoktan and Wismahi?"

"The council?" I asked.

"That being held now," she said.

"How did you know about the council?" I asked.

"You mentioned it," she said, "in the Yellow-Knife camp, in my lodge."

"Oh," I said.

"Too," she said, "do you not think I could see all the lodges when I was being brought to the post?"

"I suppose it does not make any difference that you know about it," I said, "as you are a prisoner. It would not do, of course, for beasts to learn of it, or the white soldiers of your people, the Yellow Knives, or the Kinyanpi."

"No," she said, "for they might take you here, surprising you and surrounding you, you bing isolated in this place, you bing, for most practical purposes, trapped with little possibility of escape on Council Rock."

"It is doubtless well," I said, "that our gathering here, this council, is a closely guarded secret, that our enemies know nothing of it."

"Yes," she said, "else the work begun at the summer camp might for most proacitcal purposes be concluded here. The Kaiila might, for most pracitcal purposes, be wiped out."

"Fortunately," I said, "our enemies have no way of knowing where we are."

"We were days in our hoods," said Iwoso. "They were lifted only a bit, at irregular intivals, I think to permit the placing of food in our mouths, the holding of a wooden bowl of water to our lips. It was difficult to keep track of time."

"I understand," I said. The hood often tends to produce spatial and temproal disorientation. This is regarded by man as one of its values. Some slavers use hoods to considerably reduce a girl's taming time. Hoods, of course, have many values. One of them is to teach a girl that she is helpless and dependent. Another is punishment.

"Could you tell a poor free woman, one bound as helplessly as a slave, handsome warrior," she asked, "what is the day?"

"I suppose it could do no harm," I said.

"Please, handome warrior," she begged.

"It is the last day of Canwapegiwi," I said.

"Ah!" she cried, elated.

I smiled to myself. Had she not seen the dust as yet? It had been there, visibly, far off, in the west, for better than a quarter of an Ahn. The movements of the white soldiers and the Yellow Knives, even from the time they had crossed the Northern Kaiila, for days ago, had been under surveillance by our scouts.

"You seem pleased," I said.

"It is nothing," she said.

Did she truly think that it was a mere accident that she and Bloketu had been brought to the posts this morning, interestingly, on the last day of Canwapegiwi?

Without seeming to Iwoso then began to scan the terrain below, doubtless with some anxiety.

"Are you looking for something?" I asked.

"No," she said, quickly, "no!" She looked back at me.

"Oh," I said.

I then, turning away from the ledge, not facing the west, began to coil some rope which was lying about, one of several such lengths which seemed, purposelessly, to be scattered near the edge of the escarpment. When I was behind Iwoso I looked at her again. As I had thought, she had returned to her scrutiny of the surrounding plains. I wondered how long it would take her to detect the dust. I had seen it when I had first come to the edge of the escaprment but, to be sure, from the scouts. I had known where to look. It was obvious, but not dramatically so.

Then I suddenly saw her body move. She had then, I was sure, registered the dust.

"Are you sure you don't see someting out there?" I asked her, coming up behind her.

"no," she said, suddenly, "no!"

"I thought you might have seen something," I said.

"No!" she said.

"I wonder," I said, musingly, and looked out over the rairie, to the west.

"Am I not beautiful, handsome warrior?" she asked.

I turned to face her. I scrutinized her frankly, as she shrank back, as one may scrutinize a captive female or a slave.

"Yes," I said. I then made as though to turn back and again regard the prairie.

"Look upon me, handsome warrior," she suddenly begged.

I turned then to again regard her.

"I am only a captive woman," she said, poutingly, lowering her eyes, "one striped and roped to a post, one whom you can uncompromisingly veiw, one who cannot protect herself, one who is absolutely helpless before you."

"Yes," I said.

"You can do anything with me you want," she pouted.

"Yes," I said.

"No!" she said. "Please continue to look upon me!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Can you not tell?" she asked, smiling, as though chiding me with a gentle, embrassed reproach.

I shrugged.

"No!" she said. "Please continue to look upon me!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Look," she said. She thrust her body toward me, pressing it piteously, squirmingly, against the ropes that bound it to the post.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"Do not make me speak!" she said.

"Speak," I said.

"I am a woman," she said, "and I wish to be touched and loved."

"Oh?" I said.

"Yes!" she said.

"Surely you can speak more clearly," I said.

"I am a woman," she said, "and my body hunger cries out in my belly! My desire in much with me! My wants are much upon me!"

"Speak more clearly," I said.

"I am a woman," she said, "and my feminine needs, irresistible, overwhelming, clamoring, pleading, making me helpless and yours, porstrate me before you!"

"You speak like a slave," I said.

"And perhaps now," she said, "for the first time, I begin to understand something of the nature of those feelings which can so afflict those unfortunate women, making them so helpless, begging their masters for their touch."

"Is it my understanding," I asked, "that you wish to serve at the post, as a slave might, licking and kissing?"

"Yes!" she said. She then closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

"I shall call Hci," I said.

"Hci!" she cried, opening her eyes and regarding me wildly.

"Yes," I said. "He is your captor."

"Never!" she cried.

"Oh," I said, and turned again to the prairie.

"Yes!" she cried. "Call Hci!"

"You wish to lick and kiss your captor, as a slave might?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "Yes!"

"Very well," I said. "Hci!" I called.

Hci, interestingly, was not very far away and, in a moment or two, he was approaching Iwoso's post. I winked at Hci. "This woman," I said, "has begged to like and kiss her captor, as a slave, at the post."

"Well?" aske Hci. He stood quite close to Iwoso. She turned her head to the side, that her lips might not bursh his. She began to tremble. I think that, as a mature female, she had perhaps never been that close to a male, and certainly not in this fashion. Hci was stripped to the breechclout, and Iwoso shrank even further back as the handle of his knife, thrust in its sheath, touched her above the belly on the right.

"Well?" said Hci.

Timidly Iwoso turned her head to him and their lips, gently, touched. She then kissed him twice, timidly, on the check. He did not move. Iwoso, then, frightened, but more boldly, began to kiss him softly about the mouth and face.

These kisses, now, clearly, I saw, went beyond the feigned obedience ingredient in her strategem; some of these kisses were like quesitons, after which she would wait to see how he might react; others were like tiny explorations or experiments, testings or tastings, to satisfy her female curisoity; others were like small, tender placatory submissions; others were like gentle, moist offerings, hoping that he might be pleased. Iwoso, I saw, doubtless contrary to her origninal intentions, was actually kissing Hci.

"Lick, as well as kiss," said Hci.

Iwoso, softly, then, complied.

I was reminded of the girls at the training stakes in the pens of slavers, in the cities. One of the first things a girl is taught to do is to like and kiss under duress. One of the next things she is taught to do, in her training chains in a furre alcove, is to make love instantly, at so little as the snapping of fingers or the barking of a command.

"Here," said Hci, pointing to the hideous carring at the left side of his mouth.

Iwoso regarded him.

"A Yellow Knife did that," said Hci. "I killed him."

Softly, then, Iwoso began to lick and kiss at the rugged, whitish tissue at the side of Hci's face.

Then Hci drew back his head. He looked deeply into Iwsos's eyes. He was disturbed, I think, at what he saw there. They were wide, and deep, and tender and moist.

"You pretend well," said Hci, sneering.

Tears sprang into Iwoso's eyes.

"Slave lips," said Hci, angrily.

Iwoso looked at him puzzled.

"Purse your lips, as a white female slave," said Hci.

Iwoso did so.

"Now kiss," said Hci, angrily.

Iwoso did so, fully upon the lips, as a slave girl.

"I suggest that you do so more feverntly," said Hci.

Iwoso complied, pressing her lips more desperately, more helplessly, more fervently, to thos of Hci.

"Declare your love," said Hci, sneeringly.

"I love you," said Iwoso, frightened, not even seeming to understand the words she spoke.

"Again," said Hci.

"I love you," said Iwoso, numbly. "I love you."

"Speak the workd with more meaning," commanded Hci.

"I love you," said Iwoso, desperately. Then she looked deeply into Hci's eyes. Then, frightened, she looked away. Then, half choking and shuddering, she burst into tears.

"Well?" said Hci.

Iwoso looked again at Hci. Tears were running down her cheeks. It seemed she was terribly frightened. Then it seemed that something within her broke or gave way. "I love you!" she wept suddenly. "I love you!"

"Better," said Hci.

"No," she wept, plaintively, "I do love you!"

"Of course you do!" laughed Hci.

"I love you!" she said.

"Yellow-Knife slut!" cried Hci.

"I do love you!" she cried. "I do love you, truly!"

He then, with the flat of his hand, struck her a savage blow across the face, turning her head in the neck bonds, bringing blood to her lips and mouth.

"Lying slut!" he cried.

Iwoso, shuddering turned her head away, weeping.

"Cuwignaka!" he cried.

Cuwignaka came over to the post.

"Kiss him," ordered Hci, "fully upon the lips, as a slave, and declare your love for him."

Iwoso kissed Cuwignaka. "I love you," she said.

"Now kiss him," said Hci, indicating me, "similarly, and declare your love for him."

"I am a free woman!" she cried. "He is a slave!"

"Do so!" said Hci.

Iwoso pressed her lips to mine. "I love you," she said.

"More feverntly," said Hci, angrily, "with more meaning!"

"No!" said Iwoso.

Hci's knife whipped from its sheath. I feared he was going to disembowel her at the post. There was a spot of blood on her lower abdomen. Indeed, I think he might have done so had her compliance not been instantaneous and perfect.

"I obey!" she cried.

She pressed her lips deeply, desperately, frightened, to mine. "I love you!" she said, frightened. "I love you1"

"Behold the fickle slut," sneered Hci, "kissing and declaring her love upon command, like a slave!"

I regarded Iwoso. As she was a free woman it would not be necessary to whip her for having hesitated in obeying a command.

"I hate you!" said Iwoso, weeping to Hci. "I hate you!"

Hci sheathed his knife. "Excellent," he said.

"Sleen! Beast!" she cried to him.

"Now we see Iwoso as she truly is," said Hci, "the sly, vicious Yellow-Knife slut."

"Sleen!" she cried, weeping.

"You look well, Yellow-Knife slut," said he, "roped naked to a Kaiila post."

"Sleen!" she screamed.

"Yellow Knives!" we heard men cry about us. "Yellow Knives!" Men were rushing about. Each knew his position and his business. Over the past few days we had rehearsed this many times.

We looked down to the prairie, to the west. Now a pasang away, across the prairie, all attempt at concealment discarded, waves of Yellow Knives, feathers flying, dust billowing behind them, charged toward Council Rock.

"You are surprised!" cried Iwoso, wildly. "Now you will all die! Now you are lost! There is no escape for you! You will all be trapped on Council Rock!"

"It goes as we have planned," said Hci to Cuwignaka.

"Yes," said Cuwignaka.

"You cannot escape!" cried Iwoso, elatedly. "Now you are done, Kaiila sleen!"

At this point I could see only Yellow Knives but I did not doubt but what Alfred, the mercenary captain from Port Olni, with the remnants of his command, probably some three hundred cavalrymen, or so, following the engagement at the summer camp, was not far behind. Certainly, according to our scouts, he had been with the Yellow Knives at the time of the crossing of the Northern Kaiila. He would wish the Yellow Knives to make the first strike, doubtless, absorbing and presumably subduing the brunt of the resistance, thu sparing his own men. Similarly, in this fashion, if such matters entered his mind, there would presumably be fewer, if any, prisones to be concerned about. I did not think that the Yellow Knives would have disputed this plan. They would have been eager to be the first upon the Kaiila.

"They will soo be at the foot of the trail!" cried Iwoso. "Your escape is cut off!"

We saw Mahpiyasapa, civil chief of the Isbu, hurrying past. But a step behind him was the redoubtable Kahintokapa, of the Casmu, of the Yellow-Kaiila Riders.

"Do you not know how it is tht they found you?" cried Iwoso, weeping. "It is my doing! I told them! In my lodge I overheard this foolish slave mention the place and time of the council! I tricked him into loosening my gag! I managed later, before being dragged from the Yellow-Knife camp, to rid myself of it! I then, in Yellow Knife, informed my people of your future whereabouts!"

"It was by intent and calculation that Tatankasa spoke of the council in your lodge," said Hci.

"Too," said Cuwignaka, "it was in accord with our plans that your gag be loosened."

"Do you truly think, woman," asked Hci, "that you would have been permitted a gag the perfection of which you could in the least diminish had it not pleased your captors to have it so?"

"I cried to my people," said Iwoso. "I told them about the council!"

"That, my pretty, naked, roped Yellow-Knife slut," said Hci, "was in accord with our plans."

"But even now I tricked you," she said, "by distracting you from seeing the approaching dust, by pretending to sexual need!"

"The dust," I said, "was visible long before you noticed it, before you initiated your clever, diversionary strategem."

"Knowing that," she said, "you let me behave as I did!"

"Yes," I said.

"It was pleasant seeing you pretend to sexual need, pretty Iwoso," said Hci.

She looked at him, aghast.

He took her chin and held her head. "You pretend well to sexual need, Iwoso," he said. I saw that she shuddered, Hci's hand controlling her. Then, angrily, he thrust her head, in its neck bonds, to the side.

"The Yellow Knives approach incautiously, anxiously," said Cuwignaka. "Doubtless they fear some might escape.

"Yes," I said.

"Things go well," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

"They are at the foot of the trail!" sobbed Iwoso, looking down, "You cannot escape! You are lost!"

The Yellow Knives now, to be sure, swirled about the foot of the trail, that leading to the summit of Council Rock. This trial ranges generally from about five feet to ten feet in width. Some were even now urging their kaiila upward, doubtless desiring to be the first to count coup. Others, jostling and milling about, in dust and feathers, pressing and gesticulating, fought for a position on the narrow upgrade.

"It was I who brought them here!" cried Iwoso.

I did not think it wise that the Yellow Knives were urging their kaiila so speedily upward, and in such numbers, on so narrow a trail. To be sure, they were eager. Also, of course, it is sometimes difficult to seperate the red savage from his kaiila. This sometimes renders his strategies somewhat inflexable. The tactical situation, in my opinion, called for anassult on foot. But the Yellow Knife would not be likely to think in such terms, at least not immediately. He, like most of the red savages, seemed to be a born cavalryman. They would learn, swiftly enought, of course, that the trail, here and there, abruptly narrowed. Indeed, in places, usually about blind turns, we had artificially narrowed it.

"You are finished now, Kaiila sleen!" cried Iwoso.

"Are you proud of yourself, and of your role in this?" asked Hci.

"Yes," she cried. "Yes!"

"Interesting," said Hci.

"Now you will all be killed!" cried Iwoso. "Now even your women and children will be killed!"

"There is not one woman or child in this camp," said Hci.

"What?" she asked.

"No," said Hci.

"All the lodges!" she cried.

"There are mostly empty," said Hci. "The women and children are elswhere, and safe."

"I do not understand," said Iwoso.

"This is a camp of warriors," said Hci.

"But the council!" cried Iwoso.

"There was never a council," said Hci.

"But what are you doing here?" asked Iwoso.

"Waiting for Yellow Knives," said Hci.

"We have had them under serveillance for four days," said Cuwignaka.

"I do not understand!" said Iwoso.

"You have played your role well," said Hci.

"My role?" she asked.

"Yes," said Hci, "Your part in our plans."

"I do not understand," she said.

"You have been manipulated," said Cuwignaka. "You ahve been tricked."

"Without understanding it," said Hci, "you have been as obedient and compliant as a slave."

"No!" she cried.

"Check her bonds," said Hci.

I did so. "She is well tied, and absolutely helpless," I said.

"I do not believe you!" she cried to Hci.

We heard the scream of a kaiila some two hundred feet below. Two kaiila, with their riders, slipping and scrambling, slid from the trail and then, unsupported, failing, turning in the air, the riders and thier mounts separating, they fell a hundred feet, struck some rocks, bounded out from the escarpment and feel the final two undred feet to the lower, sloping face of Council Rock, and then, a moment later, struck the prairie below.

"I do not believe you!" cried Iwoso to Hci. "It cannot be!"

"Check the bonds of her slave," said Hci.

"You are a liar!" screamed Iwoso.

"Why else do you think that you and your miserable slave have been brought forth and roped so prominently to these posts at the edge of the escarpment? That you may, as it amuses us, see what you have brought about!"

"No!" cried Iwoso.

"But your presence here serves another purpose, as well," said Hci. "It is to be expected that the Yellow Knives, seeing you, a high lady of their tribe, tied naked, as a slave, with a slave, will be incensed, that they will be outraged at this insult, that they will fight even more desperately, frenziedly and irrationally to free you, and thus, concomitantly, will be more susceptible to eerrors in judgment and tactics. Too, later, when they come to realize how they must have been tricked, how you brought them into this trap, perhaps they will see fit to riddle your pretty body, and that of your slave, with arrows."

Iwoso regarded Hci with horror.

"Oh!" cried Bloketu.

"This one, too, is now well secured," I said.

We heard the scream of another kaiila and saw it, and its rider, plunging downward.

"Neighter of you," said Hci, regarding the two women, "roped as you are, will make difficult targets."

"Please untie me," begged Iwoso.

"Please untie me, Cuwignaka!" begged Bloketu.

Cuwignaka, in fury, went to Bloketu and slapped her head, back and forth, in the neck bonds.

She regarded him startled, blood at her mouth.

"How do you dare, without permission, to so put the name of a free man on your slave lips?" asked Cuwignaka.

Bloketu looked at Cuwignaka, startled, disbelievingly. He was now a man who had punished her.

"I am sorry," she whispered.

His eyes were fierce. I think she scarcey understood that it could be Cuwignaka.

"— Master," she added.

On the trail below, only some twenty feet or so below the ledge, charging upward, Yellow Knives, four or five abreast, mounted on painted kaiila, swept toward the top of the trail, some hundred feet or so to our right.

But a moment before the fanguard of his charging force could attain the summit the high, heavy structure of timbers and sharpened stakes was thrust into place. The stakes, anchored by the timbers, were tied together like fierce wooden stars. Kaiila, screaming, unable to check their forward momentum, plunged onto the stakes. Impaled and torn, pressed from behind, filling the air with hideous noises, they reared and twisted, throwing riders and biting and clawing at one another. More kaiila rushed foreard, charging behind them, striking into the bloody, halted mass. Riders slipped down among the animals, screaming. More kaiila, from behind, pressed forward. Dozens of animals and may riders were forced from the trail, sliding and plummeting down the steep face of Council Rock.

I saw one of the war chiefs of the Yellow Knives, whom I remembered from the summer camp, in his kaiila slip over the ledge. Still more Yellow Knives, not clear on what was ahead, were trying to force their way upward on the narrow trail. Men fought to escape the edge, cuting at one another even with knives. But those at the edge, often, other Yellow Knives pressing forward, were thrust, even fought, from the trail.

The air was rent with screaming, that of beasts and men. Bodies, thos of kaiila and Yellow Knives, slipped from the edge, plummeting downward. Lances snapped against the stone and the barricade, halted in their charge, seeing the impossiblity of advance under the current conditons, were trying to back their beasts from the barricade. This forced other beasts and men from the trail. Others, wildly, fought to turn their beasts. Some of these, successful, began to try to force their way back down the trail.

There was much shouting as well as screaming. I saw the movement of battle staffs. Their visibility, of course, was minimal, given the twistings of the irregualr, tortuous trail. More efficient were the blasts of war whistles. The trial then, long and winding, visible in many of its lengths from the height of the escarpment, seemed choked with Yellow Knives. It was like an odd, upward-moving, arrested river of beasts and men, suddenly stopped, immobilized, in its flow. We could have even see many Yellow Knives, puzzled, milling about, near the foot of the trail, hundreds of feet below. The trail, within its narrow boundaries, the rock on one side, the fall on the other, consituted a suitable trap, or slaughter channel, for our paralyzed, bewildered, confined enemies.

"No!" screamed Iwoso. "No!"

Lodges, with their poles, were thrown back and men energed, dragging at the ropes of small travois, heavily laden with stones. Others, with their hands, and levers, began to roll larger stones, even boulders, toward the edge of the escarpment.

"No!" cried Iwoso.

"Shall we gag her?" asked Cuwignaka.

"no," I said. "Let her cries, if they will, distract our attackers."

To this point we had struck not a blow. Yet I think taht more than a hundred and fifty Yellow Knives might already have perished, victims of that steep, dreadful trail, crawded from it, driven from it, trampled upon it, and some even falling under the weapons of their own fellows, fighting for space on the rugged ascent. Then began the leathal hail of stones, hundreds flung from above, dozens rolled and toppled over the edge. These stones, striking down, could not fail to find marks. They plunged into the seething mass at different points on the trail. Some of the larger stones even did their work more than once, striking men or kaiila from the trail at one point and then, bounding downward, striking the face of the rock here and there, to shatter into yet more men at a lower point in the ascendant trail. Some finally plunged, rolling and bounding downward, into the Yellow Knives far below on the grass.

Yellow Knives raised their shields but this did little good for the potency of the stons lay primarily not in their capacity or cut or penetrate but to transmit their considerabl force, bluntly, crushingly, suddenly, to the trget surface. Arms were broken in the shield straps. Men were struck from the backs of kaiila. Animals, maddened, screaming, hissing, snorting, squealing, reared and bolted. Dozens of men and animals, buffeted, losing their footing, crowded from the edge, slipped, scratching and screaming, down the rock's steep face.

Iwoso regarded the scene of carnage with horror.

Frenzied blasts on war whistles, relayed to the bottom of the trail, finally had their effect. Slowly, with difficulty on the narrow trail, some backing down, some turning, some falling, the Yellow Knives on the lower lengths of the trail, pressing back among their fellows at the foot of Council Rock, freed the lower ascents, enabling their trapped fellows on the upper reaches of the trail, those so exposed to our pleasures, to begin their own laborious, tortuous descent. Their retreat was harried by the further flinging of stones and rolling boulders.

The baricade at the summit of the trail, with its sharpened wooden stakes, with their bloodied points, was even temporarily removed, to permit the rolling down the trail of a great boulder. This the rear guard of the Yellow Knives, packed against their retreating fellows, the rock on one side the drop on the other, their eyes wide with horror, must watch bounding inexorably toward them. Then it struck amongst them. It took perhaps a dozen men from the trail and then bounded down the rock face and, a few Ihn later, skipping and leaping almost like a pebble, possessing such terrible forces, yet seeming so small from this height, it caromed off the foot of the rock face and then landed, rolling and bounding, among scattering Yellow Knives on the grass below.

Iwoso looked at Hci. She was helpless in her ropes. He did not speak to her.

The stones had been gathered over a period of days and brought to the height of Council Rock. The girls, of course, would not have known this, for thy had been in their bonds and hoods in the prison lodge.

"The trail is cleaing," said Cuwignaka. "Do you think they will go away?"

"No," I said.

"Where are the soldiers?" asked Cuwignaka.

"They must be somewhere about," I said.

"Look," said Hci, pointing downward.

A single rider, a Yellow Knife, in breechclout and paint, and with a full bonnet of Herlit feathers, was urging his kaiila up the trial. In some places the upgrade on this trail was some forty-five degrees and the kaiil, scratching and scrambling, lunged and fought his way upward.

"That is a brave man," said Cuwignaka.

"He is probably looking for a coup," said Hci.

The rider, tall on the kaiila, singing medicine, disdaining to lift his shield, rode past, below us.

"I recognize him," said Cuwignaka. "He is one of the war chiefs who delt with Watonka,"

"You are rigt," I said. There were three such chiefs. On had perished in the first attack.

Mahpiyasapa did not give the order to fire on the man. It was not merely that he respected his bravery. It was also that he was permitting the man to scout the position. A certain form of assault, it might seem, would be effective.

The man haulted his kaiila only yards from the barricade, with its terrible, bloody points.

Then he turned his kaiila about, not hurring.

"He is truly brave," said Cuwignaka, admiringly.

"He is a war chief," said Hci.

The man stopped his kaiila beneath us. He ceased singing his medicine and looked upward. He saw the two stakes, some twenty to twenty-five feet above him, and the naked, roped beauties who graced them.

"Do not speak," said Hci to Iwoso, "or you will be slain."

Iwoso was absolutely silent. Warriors of the Kaiila do not make idle threats.

The warrior, looking upward, scarcely noticed Bloketu. He did, however, for a time, regard Iwoso. His face was absolutely expressionless. Then, slowly, he resumed his descent, once more singing his medicine song.

"He is furious," said Hci. "Superb!" Then he turned to Iwoso. "They will fight fiercely to rescue you," he said.

Iwoso looked at him, frightened.

"But they will not be successful," he said.

Iwoso fought the ropes, futilely.

"You may speak now," said Hci, watching the retreat of the Yellow Knife.

Iwoso's lovely, curved body squirmed inside the confining ropes.

"Peraps you should speak now, whild you have the opportunity," said hci, "for later perhaps you would have to request permission to speak, and if men did not please to give it to you, then you might not speak."

Iwoso looked at Hci in anger. Her lips trembled. But she did not speak. She pressed her body once again, futilitly, against the ropes. Then she stood desdainfully at the post, roped helplessly to it.

"They are coming again," said Cuwignaka, "this time single file. They will not crowd themselves on the trail."

"They are still on kaiilaback," I said. "They learn their leassons hard."

"Kahintokapa will count fifty," said Hci. "He will then give the signal."

My count and that of Kahintokapa, near the trail summit, near the barricade, tallied exactly. When the first fifty riders had passed the chosen point on the trail the second barricade, bristling, too, with stakes, on ropes, was lowered to the trail, shutting off the upper segment of the trail as effectively as a gate. The first fifty riders, not realizing they were cut off, continued upward. The later riders stormed against the barricade, the successive riders piling up behind them, forced the first riders forward, onto the stakes, and several riders, as the file behind them doubled and then bulged, were forced from the trail. The second barricade was defended by a fusilade of arrows sped from the small bows of Kaiila warriors suddenly appering at the upper edge of the escarpment. Meanwhile, Kaiila bowmen, firing from behind the first barricade, and crawling over and through it, loosened war arrows inot the enemy. Disadvantaged were the Yellow Knives to be on kaiilaback in such close quarters. And as they lowered their shields to defend themselves against the almost point-blank fire of the Kaiila other Kaiila archers, from above, over the edge of the escarpment, fired down upon them. Some of the men afoot, with thier weight, throwing it against the beasts, even forced the beasts and their riders from the trail. Survivors, turning their kaiila about, fled back down the trail, there to encounter the second barricade. One man, with the downward momentum of the slope, managed to leap his kaiila over the lower barricade. Two others, on foot, crawling through the barricade, managed to escape. He who had lept his kaiila over the lower barricade was the second war chief of the Yellow Knives, he who had ascended the trail only Ehn earlier. It was a fine, agile beast.

"I do not think they will come again on kaiilaback," said Cuwignaka.

"I would think not," I said.

Cuwignaka's speculation, as it turned out, was sound.

In about an Ahn, in the vicinity of noon, we saw some three or four hundred Yellow Knives ascending the trail, on foot, slowly, conserving their energy.

"You are finished now!" said Iwoso. "You are finished!"

In the way of defenders we had only some two hundred men, what we had been able to gather of the remnants of the Kaiila bands after the battle of the summer camp. Stones would not be likely to be too effective against men on foot. The barricades, too, to men on foot, though they would surely constitue impediments to their advance, would scarcely constitue insuperable obstacles. Further, the Yellow Knives, like other red savages honed to warlike perfection over generations of intertribal conflict, were fine warriors. I did not doubt but what, man for man, they might be equvalent of the Kaiila. The delicat balances of tribal power would not have been sustained for generations, in my opinion, had radically disparate disributions of martial skills been involved.

"Already they are moving over and through your lower barricade!" cried Iwoso.

"Yes," said Hci. we had not chosen to defend it.

"In their numbers," cried Iwoso, elatedly, "they will storm your upper barricade, overwhelm the defenders and then be amongst you!"

"It is unlikely that one of them will reach the upper barricade," said Hci.

"What do you mean?" cried Iwoso. "What are you doing?" She struggled to see behind her but, because of the post and her neck bonds, could not do so but very imperfectly.

From the lodges near the edge of the escarpment men again drew forth travois. On these were great bundles of arrows, hundreds of arrows in a bundle. Many of these arrows were not fine arrows. Many lacked even points and were little more than featherless, sharpened sticks. Yet, impelled with force from the small,fierce bows of red savages at short range, they, too, would be dangerous. For days warriors, and women and children, had been making them.

"You must think not only in terms of numbers, Iwoso," I said, "but fire power, as well."

She looked, startled, at one of the huge sheafs of arrows being spilled near her.

"Sometimes," I said, "there is little to choose from between ten men, each with one arrow, and one man with ten arrows."

Hci and Cuwignaka fitted arrows to the strings of their bows.

"This strategy was once used," I said, "by a people named the Parhians, against a general named Crassus."

Iwoso looked at me, puzzled.

"It was long ago," I said, "and it was not even in the Barrens."

"Fire!" called Mahpiyasapa.

Torrents of arrows sped from the height of the escarpment. In moments the shields of the Yellow Knives bristled with arrows. Return fire, in the face of such unrelenting sheets of flighted wood, was almost unthinkable. The small shields of the Yellow Knives, too, provided them with little protection. They were not the large, oval shields of Turia, or the large rounded shields common to Gorean infantry in the north, behind which a warrior might crouch, hoping for a swift surcease to the storm of missiles. It did not take long for the assalted Yellow Knives to realize tht they were exposed to no ordinary rain of arrows, a shower soon finished, but something unnatural to them, something unprecedented in their experience. By now, surely, ordinary quivers would ahve been emptied a dozen times. One broke and ran and, by intent, he, and the next two, were permitted to flee. Thus encouraged the Yellow-Knife lines suddenly broke and the trail seemed suddenly to erupt with men intent only on escape. They make easy targets.

"See the Yellow Knives?" Hci asked Iwoso. "They flee like urts."

She looked away from him.

He then began to look at her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Looking at you, closely," he said.

"Please, don't," she said.

"You are rather pretty," he said, "for a Yellow Knife."

She tossed her head, angrily.

"I wonder if you would make a good slave," he mused.

"No!" she said.

"I wonder if I might find you of intrest," he said.

"Never," she said. "I would never be your slave! I would rather die!"

"There are the soldiers," said Cuwignaka, pointing out towards the prairie.

"Yes," I said. "Doubtless they delayed their arrival, assuming that, by now, the Yellow Knives would have completed their business here."

Hci joined us at the edge of the escarpment.

"You are hideous!" Iwoso called to Hci. "No woman could love you! I hate you! I hate you!"

"What do you think the Yellow Knives will do?" asked Cuwignaka.

"I think they will make camp, investing our position," I said.

"I think so," said Hci.

"I would die before I would be your slave," called Iwoso, sobbing, to Hci. "I would die first!"

"There" I said, pointing, "is Alfred, and his officers. Doubtless they are receiving full reports."

"Do you see any sign of the beasts?" asked Cuwignaka.

"They are probably in the rear, with the column," I said. "Their effect on the Yellow Knives is likely to be te more significant the more unfamiliar they are to them."

"Their commander, too," said Hci, "may favor holding them in reserve."

"That is probably true," I said.

"Pehaps they are not with the column," said Cuwignaka.

"Perhaps," I said.

"I hate you!" cried Iwoso.

"Look," I said.

"I see," said Cuwignaka.

"I hate you!" cried Iwoso. "I hate you!"

"Be quiet woman," said Hci. "We do not have time for you now."

"They are going to reconnoiter," I said. "It should have been done long ago."

Alfred, with his officers, and several Yellow Knives, began then, slowly, to ride south.

"They will scout us well," said Cuwignaka.

I nodded. In a few moments the riders bent eastward and began to circle our position. Alfred, a fine captain, would study it with great care.

"They Yellow Knives have sustained great losses," said Hci. "I fear they will withdraw."

"I do not think so," I said. "The soldiers are here now. Too, we must not discount their faith in the beasts."

"I have had reservations from the beginning," said Hci. "Of what value is a trap from which what is trapped may withdraw?"

"Withot others," said Cuwignaka, "we cannot spring the trap."

"They may not come," said Hci.

"That is true," said Cuwignaka.

"What are you talking about?" asked Iwoso.

I turned to face her. "We are not the trap," I said. "We are the bait."

"I do not understand," she said.

Hci walked over to stand near Iwoso. His arms were folded. She shrank back against the post.

"You are a Yellow Knife," said Hci. "Do you think the Yellow Knives will withdraw?"

"I do not know," she said.

"If they withdraw," said Hci, "you must abandon all hope of rescue."

She shuddered.

"It would then have to be decided what is to be done with you," he said.

"And what would be done with me?" she asked.

"You are rather pretty," he said.

"No," she said, "not that!"

"Perhaps," he said.

"Do not look at me like that!" she said. "I am a free woman!"

His eyes assessed her, speculatively, appraisingly. She squirmed in the ropes, helpless, unable to keep herself from being candidly viewed.

"Please," she said.

"Your body seems not unsuitable for that of a slave," said Hci.

"I will never be a slave!" she said. "I will never be a man's slave!"

"Surely such a woman should be a slave," said Hci.

"Perhaps," said Cuwignaka.

"Never!" cried Iwoso.

"She squirms nicely in the ropes," said Hci.

"Like a slave," said Cuwignaka.

"Perhaps she might be found of interest by some low man," said Hci.

"Perhaps," said Cuwignaka.

Iwoso regarded them with fury. Obviously they had overheard her conversation with Bloketu in the lodge.

"Don't you think you would make a good slave?" asked Hci.

"No, no!" said Iwoso.

"Perhaps you are right." said hci.

She looked at him, startled.

"You would probably make a poor slave," he said.

"Oh?" she said.

"Yes," he said.

"If I wanted to," she said, "I could be a superb slave."

"I doubt it," he said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you are fridid, like a free woman," he said.

"if I were made a slave," she said, "i would not be frigid. I could not be frigid. I would not be permitted to be frigid."

"I doubt that any man would find you of intrest," said Hci.

"That is not true," she said. "Man men would find me of intrest. They would be eager to buy me. I would bring many kaiila."

"Oh?" he asked.

"You yourself, but moments ago," she said, triumphantly, "were wondering if you might not find me of intrest!"

"Was I?" he asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"I was only wondering," he said.

"Imagine me as your slave," challenged Iwoso. "Do you not find that of intrest?"

"Perhaps," said Hci.

"At your feet, begging to serve and be touched."

"An interesting picture," admitted Hci.

"See!" she said.

"Would you like to be my slave?" asked Hci.

"You have tricked me," she said, suddenly, "making me speak like this!"

"Would you like to be my slave?" asked Hci.

"You are hideous," she said. "No woman could love you."

"Would you like to be my slave?" he asked.

"No!" she said.

"Truly?" he asked.

"Never," she said, "I would never be your slave! I would rather die!"

He reached his hand toward the side of her face.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed, drawing back.

"Before," said Hci, "I di dnot have time for you. Perhaps, now, I have time for you."

"Don't touch me!" she cried.

His hand puased, but an inch from her face.

She was drawn back, her head turned to the side, her eyes closed, tensed.

Then he lightly touched her cheek.

She shuddered, a movement that affected her entire body, moving suddenly within its ropes, from her head to her toes.

Outraged, she opened her eyes. She looked at Hci in fury. She then spat viciously into his face.

She then shrank back against the post, terrified, awed at the enormity of what she had done.

"Lick the spittle from my face, and swallow it," said Hci, quietly.

"Yes, my captor," she said, in a small voice.

She then, delicately and carefully, licked the spittle from Hci's face and, as she had been bidden, swallowed it.

"It is time to feed the women," said Hci.

Cuwignaka brought some pemmican and a small water bag from a nearby lodge.

"Do you beg food, Slave Girl?" he asked Bloketu.

She looked at him. If she did not beg, she would not be fed. "Yes, Master," she said.

He then thrust pieces of pemmican at once, her meal, into her mouth, to save time.

"Chew and swallow, Slave," he said.

Bloketu obeyed.

"Do you beg drink, Slave?" asked Cuwignaka.

"Yes, Master," she said.

He then gave her a draught from the water bag.

"Do you beg food, Free Woman," asked Hci.

"Yes, my captor," said Iwoso, humbly.

He then thrust pemmican into her mouth, as Cuwignaka had with Bloketu.

"Chew and swallow, Free Woman," he said.

Iwoso obeyed.

"Do you beg drink, Free Woman," asked Hci.

"Yes, my captor," whispered Iwoso.

In a moment, when Iwoso had finished, Hci stoppered the water bag. "You may now thank us for our food and drink," he said.

"Thank you for my food and drink, Master," said Bloketu to Cuwignaka.

"Thank you for my food and drink, my captor," said Iwoso to Hci. If a girl's thanks, in such circumstances, are not deemed sufficiently sincere, or profuse, it is not clear if, or when, she will again be fed.

Cuwignaka, Hci and I then sat cross-legged at the edge of the escarpment.

We divided the balance of the pemmican and water between us.

"Do you think the Yellow Knives will attack again, today?" asked Cuwignaka.

"I do not think so," I said.

From time to time I glanced back at Iwoso. It seemed she could not take her eyes from Hci. I had seen how she had shuddered at his touch. Too, it was by him that she had found herself dominated, and so effectively and suitably, at the post. I saw that she was his slave. I wondered if she knew that yet.

"There is the white officer," said Cuwignaka. "He has apparently completed his circuit of our position."

Far below we saw Alfred, and his party, returning to the Yellow-Knife camp.

"Has he found weaknesses in our position?" asked Cuwignaka.

"He will think that he has," I said. I myself, at close range and with impunity, had scouted our position. I had also souted it from a distance, from the presumed perspective of an enemy, from the grasslands below. From the surface of the prairie certain things, cleavages and fissures, certain irregularites in the rock face, appeared to be weaknesses. They were not.

"Let us hope that he is mistaken," said Cuwignaka.

"Aside from the main trail," I said, "there is no easy route, not even a narrow pathe, to the summit of Council Rock."

"It can be climed," said Hci. "Men have done so."

"Yes," I said, "but I think our enemies will find it difficult, costly and dangerous to do so, particularly in the face of determined defense."

We watched the sun beginning to set over the western prairie. The smells of cooking fires drifted up from the Yellow Knife camp.

"My captor," whispered Iwoso.

"Yes," said Hci.

"I am in pain," she said. "My body aches."

"Do you beg as a captive to be released from the post?" asked Hci.

"Yes, my captor," she said.

"Do you bet it as a humble captive?" he asked.

"Please do not make me so beg!" she said.

He looked out again over the prairie.

"Yes," she said, "I so beg it! I beg it as a humble captive!"

We stood up and turned about, regarding the girls.

Iwoso looked pleadingly at Hci.

"The proud Iwoso looks well clothed in humility," said Hci.

"It is all she is clothed in," said Cuwignaka.

Iwoso looked away, as nude as a slave.

"Bring their hoods," said Hci.

"Very well," I said.

In a few moments I returned with the hoods. The girls, in them, bound, would be returned to the prison lodge.

I freed the necks of Bloketu and Iwoso from the posts.

"You said that I was to be judged today," said Iwoso, "but you were wrong. I was not judged."

"That is thanks to the Yellow Knives," said Hci. "We had hoped that by now our business with them would ahve been concluded, but it has not been."

"When, then, am I to be judged?" she asked, lightly, as though scarcely interested.

"The business of battle is to be first concluded," he said. "Then, when you are totally within our power, when you are helplessly ours, when you are ours, fully, to do with as we please, then, and then only, will you be judged."

Her eyes widened with fear.

Then I drew the hood over her head and tied it under her chin. I then, similarly, hooded Bloketu. I then freed their hands from the post and, on either end of a common tether, I tied their hands together before their bodies. I then freed them from the posts and prepared to lead them to the prison lodge.

"Tie them well," said Hci.

"I shall," I said.

"In the morning," he said, "put them again, well roped, precisely as today, at the posts."

"I will," I said.

I then led them, hooded and stubling, by the common tether on their wrists, to the prison lodge.

After a time, after I had secured the girls, hooded and tied, wrists to ankles, in the prison lodge, I returned to the edge of the escarpment.

"The next attack will doubtless occur at dawn," said Hci.

"No," I said.

"When, then?" asked Hci.

"Tonight," I said.

"The soldiers?" asked Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.