Hunters of Gor

16 I Find Some Tunics of Tyros

Mira, who was the lieutenant of Hura, rolled to her side. She slept fitfully. The march of the men of Tyros had become a rout. Even before I had come upon the column in the morning, I had found abandoned baggage strewn along the trail. I had found also the chains and leg irons that had been fastened on the left ankles of the male prisoners. They had been struck off that the column might move with greater speed. That meant that the male slaves now were fastened in their coffle only by their neck chains. Too, of course, their hands were manacles behind their back.

It had been necessary to slow the column down, so I had done so.

Eight men of Tyros I felled near the front of the column.

There had been no flankers, no points set. The panther girls were apparently now terrified to leave the column. And the men of Tyros were unwilling to do so. I had heard fierce words being exchanged between them.

In my teeth I held two slender lengths of binding fiber. In my right hand I held a heavy wadding of fur. Looped loosely about my right wrist, so that it would fall when my hand was held downwards, was a thick, wide strip of panther skin, twisted in its center.

The arrows which had struck the men of Tyros had been those of panther girls, taken from their captures. The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura did not know the nature nor the number of their stalkers. The first man, felled at the conquest circle, had been felled with a pile arrow from the great bow. The others had fallen to the arrows of panther girls, of which I had acquired a great number.

Mira had first betrayed Verna. She had been betrayed Marlenus of Ar. Her treacheries were not yet completed.

I approached her with the stealth of a warrior. She lay in her own small shelter. Other girls lay about. I did not touch them in my passage. After I had felled the eight men at the beginning of the column I had withdrawn to the forest, where I slept for an Ahn. Then, refreshed, I had returned to the column. It had begun to move again. I felled men much as I pleased, in particular those who would dare to hold the whips to encourage the slaves in speed. Soon none would hold the whips.

The men of Ar, led by Marlenus, begin to sing in the coffle, a song of glorious Ar. They now marched, at their own pace, their heads high, with pride. Angry the men of Tyros demanded that they stop, but they did not do so. Even the panther girls in charge of the coffle of captive females struck them less now with the switch.

Vera now, in the coffle, walked well. Even though she wore slave silk, and lipstick and earrings, she walked well. There might not even have been slave bells on her ankle. I marveled at her. Her ears had been pierced. That is regarded, in Gorean eyes, as an almost ultimate degradation of a female. Yet her head was high, her gaze proud and fearless. The large, delicate golden rings in her ears were stunning. How beautiful a woman is in earrings! I could tell that she was no longer ashamed of them, but proud of them. Not only do earrings enhance a woman’s beauty, but they speak, openly to all, both men and women, regardless of social pressures and repercussions, of the pride and pleasure she takes in her womanhood. Verna was no longer a pretend man, or a pretend nothing. She was now full and perfect in what she was, in her own right, a human female, a woman. She walked well. She might have been a tatrix. Indeed, she was, though braceleted and collared, a tatrix of the forests.

The panther girls with the switches looked about themselves fearfully. They struck the girls in the coffle less frequently now. They only wished to hurry, to leave the forest, as soon as possible, to escape. As yet, they knew, none of the arrows had felled one of their number. Yet they did not seem reassured. They suspected perhaps, in terror, that another fate might be theirs.

Mira, the lieutenant of Hura, stirred again, turning from her left to her right side. Her head was on her arms. Her blond hair was unbound. She wore her skins. Her legs, particularly the right one, was drawn up.

There had been few fires in the camp. The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura had feared the light. There had been only two guards, and they were quite close to the camp. I had slipped between them. It was important that they suspect nothing.

In the day, through the morning and long afternoon, from cover, I had struck, again and again.

Answering quarrels from crossbows, meaningless, sometimes fell among the branches and leaves. They had no target.

In desperation, to my pleasure, some fifteen men of Tyros entered the forest. In all, throughout the day, the great bow had spoken forty-one times, and forty-one men of Tyros now lay scattered along the trail and in the forest, feed for prowling sleen.

I lay behind Mira in the darkness. Her back was to me. She lay on her right side, her head on her right arm. She twisted in her sleep. She was restless. I was patient.

She rolled over on her back, and extended her legs, her head turned from side to side. Then her head was still. She was now mine.

I knelt across her body, one leg on either side of her, pinning her, confining her movements.

Her eyes suddenly, startled, opened. She saw me. In terror, a reflex action, uncontrollable, her mouth, lips wild, opened. I thrust the heavy wadding deep in her mouth. She could utter not the smallest sound. As my right hand did this the loop of panther skin, twisted in its center, fell from my hand across her face. Swiftly, the twisted part deeply between her teeth, I knotted it with a warrior’s tightness behind the back of her neck. The wadding would not slip. I then turned her on her stomach and bound her wrists behind her back. Then I bent to her ankles, crossed them, and tied them together.

“Do not struggle,” I told her.

She felt the blade of the knife at her throat. Her eyes wild over her gag, she nodded her understanding.

“Do you understand what you are to do?” demanded Vinca.

“I can’t!” wept Mira. “I can’t!” Tears stained her cheeks from beneath the blindfold. I had fastened on her before bringing her to this predesignated clearing.

She could not see who it was who spoke to her. She knew only that she knelt, stripped, blindfolded and bound, before a harsh female interrogator, one whose uncompromising strictures and imperious tomes could only be interpreted as those of a leader of a large and important band of panther women.

Also, to her left and right, moving about, from time to time, were the other two paga slaves, those beside Vinca. Mira could have no way of knowing how many were present at her interrogation nor if those present were merely a delegation or smaller group drawn from a larger band. Indeed, she knew little more than that she was being severely addressed by one woman, and that there were others about. Ilene I had left with the other prisoners, chaining her, belly to a tree, by slave bracelets. Mira, kneeling blindfolded, interrogated, did not even know if I were still present.

Vinca, the red-haired girl, did her job well. From time to time, when not satisfied with an answer, or, sometimes, for no apparent reason at all, she would, unexpectedly, strike the blindfolded, bound, cowering Mira with the switch. Mira never knew when she would be struck. She wept. She would sometimes flinch from blows that had not even fallen.

“Please do not hit me again,” wept Mira.

“Very well,” said Vinca.

Mira lifter her head and, gasping, straightened her body.

Then suddenly the switch would fall again, with lashing ferocity.

Mira put down her head again, shuddering. I observed the fingers of her small, crossed, bound hands. I did not think it would take long now from Vinca to break her.

“Do you understand what you are to do?” demanded Vinca.

“I cannot!” wept Mira. “It is too dangerous! If I were found out, they would kill me! I cannot do it! I cannot do it!” I motioned to Vinca. No more blows fell.

“Very well,” said Vinca.

There was a long silence.

Mira lifted her head, unbelievingly. The ordeal was over. “Are you finished with me?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Vinca.

Mira’s head fell forward on her breast. Then she took a deep breath. She lifted her head.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

“You will find out,” said Vinca. Then Vinca gestured to the two other paga slaves, my girls, in the skins of panthers. They unbound Mira’s ankles and pulled her, still blindfolded, to her feet. One on each arm they conducted her through the forest until they came to a place we had agreed upon, in which we had places four stakes. I followed silently.

Mira was put on her back and her two ankles were bound, widely apart, to two stakes.

Then her wrists were unbound from behind her and they, too, were bound widely apart, to two stakes.

“What are you doing with me?” begged Mira.

“We are staking you out for sleen,” said Vinca.

“No! No!” cried Mira.

The last knot was fastened, she was secured. “Please no!” cried Mira. I handed the sleen knife to Vinca. Mira, blindfolded, felt the blade on her thigh. “No!” she cried.

Vinca handed the blade back to me, which I cleaned and replaced in my sheath. Mira, staked out, blindfolded, felt a woman’s strong hand take the blood from her thigh and smear it across her belly and about her body.

“Please!” wept Mira. “I am a woman!”

“I, too, “ said Vinca, “ am a woman.”

“Spare me!” cried Mira. “Keep me as your slave!”

“I do not want you,” said Vinca.

“Sell me to a man!” she cried. “I will make him a docile slave, a dutiful, obedient and beautiful slave!” “Are you a natural slave?” asked Vinca.

“Yes,” cried Mira, “yes! Sell me! Sell me!”

“Do you beg to be a slave?” she asked.

“Yes,” wept Mira, “yes!”

“Untie her,” said Vinca.

Weeping, still blindfolded, Mira was untied and thrown before me on her knees. “Submit,” said Vinca, sternly.

Before me Mira performed the gesture of submission. I held her crossed wrists. “I submit myself, Master,” she said.

She was now my slave.

I nodded to Vinca.

Mira was thrown back on the grass.

“Let the slave,” said Vinca, “be now staked out for sleen.”

“No!’ cried Mira. “No!”

Swiftly Mira, blindfolded, found herself bound as before to the stakes, if anything more securely. Only now she lay there a bound slave.

“Leave her for the sleen,” said Vinca.

“Command me!’ cried Mira. “I will do anything for you! Anything! A slave begs to be commanded!” “It is too late,” said Vinca.

“I beg to serve you!” she wept. “I beg to serve you!”

“It is too late,” said Vinca.

“No!” cried Mira.

“Gag her,” said Vinca.

Again I thrust the heavy wadding of fur deep in Mira’s mouth, and tied it securely in place with the strip, twisted, of panther skin.

We then withdrew, leaving the slave Mira lashed helplessly between the stakes. We waited.

As we expected, it did not take long. Soon, prowling about in the brush, some yards away, was a sleen, drawn by the smell of fresh blood, her own, smeared on Mira’s slave body.

The sleen is a cautious animal. He circled her, several times.

I could smell the animal. So, too, doubtless could the others, and Mira. She seemed frozen in the lashings.

Movement will sometimes provoke the animal’s charge, if within a certain critical distance, which, for the sleen, is about four times the length of his body.

The sleen scratched about in the grass. It made small noises. Tiny hisses and growls. The prey did not move. It came closer. I could hear it sniffing. Then, puzzled, it was beside her. It thrust its snout against her body, and began to lick at the blood.

I removed a pile from one of the tem-wood arrows and capped the arrow with a wadding of fur.

Mira, blindfolded, helpless, threw back her head in terror. It would have been the scream of a bound slave, naked, staked out for sleen. But there was no sound for she had been gagged by a warrior. He had not even entitled her to utter a sound when the very jaws would be upon her. Her body pulled back, shuddering like that of a tethered tabuk set out by hunters for larls. First the sleen began to lick the blood from her body. Then it began to grow excited. Then it thrust forth its head and took her entire body, from her waist to the small of her back, in its jaws, and lifted it in the lashings.

I loosed the padded arrow. It struck the sleen on the side of the snout. Startled, it growled with rage, and leaped back, away from the prey. Then it stood over her, hissing, snarling, defending its find against another predator.

Then the two paga slaves other than Vinca came forward, dragging the carcass of a tabuk. I had felled it before seeking Mira in her camp. They threw the carcass to one side.

After much snarling and growling the sleen turned to the side, its snout still stinging, and seized up the tabuk and disappeared in the brush.

I found the arrow, removed the wadding and replaced the steel pile. Vinca and her girls had now unbound the lashings that fastened Mira. With difficulty they took from her mouth the heavy gag. They let the panther skin then hang about her neck and wound the wadding about it, that it might be soon replaced. They did not remove the blindfold. They put her on her knees and tied her hands behind her back.

“You know what you are to do, Slave?” asked Vinca.

Numbly, half in shock, Mira nodded her head.

She was to betray the panther girls of Hura’s band, in my camp, there were several bottles of wine, which had been taken originally from Verna’s camp by Marlenus, and then from his camp by the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura. It had been abandoned at their first campsite by the conquest circle. I had had my slaves, captured panther girls, bring it along, carrying it in our slave caravan. I had thought it might prove useful. I did not expect it would be drunk by all of the panther girls, but if I could deprive the men of Tyros of more of their dangerous, beautiful allies, it would be to my advantage.

“Tomorrow night,” said Vinca, “you are to give the wine to as many of the panther girls as is possible.” Mira, blindfolded, kneeling before the harshly spoken Vinca, put down her head. “Yes, Mistress,” she whispered.

Vinca put her hands in her hair and shook it. “We can pick you up again when we want you,” she said. “Do you understand?” Mira nodded, miserably.

“Are you a docile, obedient slave?” asked Verna.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Mira. “Yes!”

“Bring skins,” said Vinca, “that we may now disguise this slave as a panther girl.” Mira was unbound and helped into skins. They were the same which had been taken before from her.

Her wrists were then bound again behind her back and I regagged her. The bottles of wine, brought by one of the paga slaves, were slung, knotted, about her neck.

When we were close to her camp I removed the blindfold from her eyes. She looked at me, piteously. In her eyes there was still the fear of the sleen. “I shall show you where your guards are placed,” I said.

“Then, with your skills, you should be able to return undetected to your place in the camp.” She nodded, tears in her eyes.

I took her by the arm and, nearing the camp, by gesture, showed her the placement of the two guards. She nodded. We then went to a place from which, with care, she should have no difficulty in re-entering the camp.

We knelt together in the foliage. The wine was still tied about her neck. I knelt behind her. I unbound her hands. I removed from her mouth the heavy gag. I threw it into the brush.

She did not turn to look at me. “Was it to you,” she asked, “that I submitted in the forest? Is it you whose slave I am?” “Yes,” I said.

She turned to face me.

I suddenly removed her skins from her.

I took her in my arms, a slave girl.

I did not untie the wine from about her neck.

“Can you hear me?” cried the man of Tyros. “Can you hear me?”

I, of course, made no answer.

“If any man of Tyros falls,” he cried, “ten slaves will die!”

Scarcely had his words been uttered when he, himself, fell, an arrow from the great bow lost in the yellow of his tunic.

I had not accepted their terms.

“Then, Slaves,” cried a man, blade uplifted, “die!”

But he struck no one. The great bow did not permit him. When the chain moved again it took its way over his body. No longer was there the threat of slaying slaves. No man was willing to strike the first blow. Sarus, leader of the men of Tyros, ordered several but none would strike, not wishing themselves to fall. “Then strike them yourself!” shouted one of his insubordinate men.

Sarus slew the man himself, with his sword, but he, Sarus, did not then move to strike the slaves. Rather he looked angrily, anxiously, into the forest, and then turned away. “Faster!’ he cried. “March then faster!” The slave chain again moved.

Once more the men from Ar, led by Marlenus himself, their Ubar took up their song. It rang through the forests.

After the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, I slew no more, for I wished their confidence and their hope, to mount. Before the tenth hour I had felled fourteen. That morning, given the history of their march, was perhaps, by them, felt to be their darkest, their most helpless. That afternoon would be for them, by contrast, by my intention, one of gradually increasing elation, of growing, leaping hope, for that afternoon, and that evening, too, no more arrows strode forth, telling, from the green concealments of the leafed branches. Perhaps I was no longer with them. Perhaps their stalker had tired. Perhaps he had give up the chase, the hunt.

They marched long that day. It was late when they made their camp.

They were buoyant, and the mood was one of celebration. I watched my slave, Mira, smiling, jesting and pouring wine for many of the panther girls of Hura’s band.

The hour was late. It would be dawn in four Ahn. The drug was a strong one. It had been intended for the bodies of men, not the smaller bodies of women. I did not know the duration of its effect in a woman. Mira had, under Vinca’s strict questioning, told us that it would render a man unconscious for several Ahn, usually a half a day.

My own slave coffle, unknown to the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura, was camped not more than two pasangs away.

It might be necessary to waken some of Hura’s girls forcibly from the drug. We did not wish to lose too many hours.

I decided I would need sleep, and so left the vicinity of the camp of the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura.

In examining baggage discarded along the trail, abandoned in flight, I had found little of interest. It was mostly furs and clothing. Three furs I had brought back to Vinca and the other two paga slaves, that they might be comforted from the hard ground and protected from the cold forest nights. I brought no furs for Ilene or the other slaves. The panther girls, chained together, had one another for warmth, and the tarpaulin. Ilene had nothing. When she grew too miserable she would creep to my side for warmth. I would then use her. Her responses were becoming rapid, deep and organic, almost spontaneous. A slave girl is best either when she is often used, or when she has been deliberately, for some time, deprived. A free woman may go days or weeks without the touch of her companion. For a slave girl, who has learned her collar, this would be almost unspeakable misery. Two nights without a master’s touch would be agony for her. Slave pens are often filled with girls, second and third collar girls, begging to be sold. Sometimes their sales are even postponed that their desperation, piteous and supplicatory, their longing to surrender their small bodies, their softness, and beauty, to the hard, strong arms of a master, may be more evident on the block. It is interesting to note a woman, in the process of her vending, who attempts, out of self-hatred, or hatred of men, or pride, to conceal this deprivation, this need. In the hands of a skilled auctioneer she is forced to reveal, incontrovertibly, her passionate latencies, the suppressed pleadings of her womanhood for a master’s touch. Before the auctioneer closes his hand on a price for her, it will be clear to all in the market, including the woman, that her beauty is truly for sale, and fully. Also among the discarded baggage I had found some tunics of Tyros. I had selected one and taken it to my camp. I thought that perhaps, at some time, it might prove useful.