Hunters of Gor

18 The Shore of Thassa

“The sea! The sea!” cried the man. “The sea!”

He stumbled forth from the thickets, and, behind them, the lofty trees of the forest.

He stood alone, high on the beach, his sandals on its pebbles, a lonely figure. He was unshaven. The tunic of Tyros, once a bright yellow, was now stained and tattered.

He had then stumbled down the beach, falling twice, until he came to the shallows and the sand, among driftwood, stones and damp weed, washed ashore in the morning tide. He stumbled into the water, and then fell to his knees, in some six inches of water. In the morning wind, and the fresh cut of the salt smell, the water flowed back from him, leaving him on the smooth wet sand. He pressed the palms of his hands into the sand and pressed his lips to the wet sand. Then, as the water moved again, in the stirrings of Thassa, the sea, in its broad swirling sweep touching the beach, he lifted his head and stood upright, the water about his ankles.

He turned to face the Sardar, thousands of pasangs away. He did not see me, among the darkness of the trees. He lifted his hands to the Sardar, to the Priest-Kings of Gor. Then he fell again to his knees in the water and, lifting it with his hands, hurled it upward about him, and I saw the sun flash on the droplets.

He was laughing, haggard. And then he turned about, and, slowly, step by step, marking the drier sand with his wet sandals, made his way again back up the beach.

“The sea!” he cried into the forest. “The sea!”

He was a brave man, Sarus of Tyros, Captain of the Rhoda. He had himself advanced, alone, before his men.

And it had been he who had first glimpsed Thassa. The days and the nights of their terrible dream, he surmised, were now behind him.

They had come through to the sea.

I had permitted them to do so.

I scanned the breadth of the western horizon. Beyond the breakers, and the white caps, there was only the calm placid lines of gleaming Thassa, its vastness untroubled, meeting the bright, hard blue sky in a lonely plane, as unbroken and simples as the mark of a geometer’s straight edge.

There were no sails, no distant particles of yellow canvas, bespeaking the ships of Tyros, that cluttered that incredible vast margin, the meeting place of the great elements of the sky and the sea.

The horizon was empty.

Somewhere men strained at oars. Somewhere, how far away I knew not, the strike of the hammer of the keuleustes governed the stroke of those great sweeping levers, the oars of the Rhoda, and doubtless, not more than fifty yards abeam, those, too, of the light galley, the Tesephone, she of Port Kar.

These two ships would have rendezvous with Sarus and his men.

Yet on the trackless beaches, lining the western edge of the great northern forests for hundreds of pasangs, below the bleakness of Torvaldsland, it would not be easy to make rendezvous. There would have to be, I knew, a signal. “The sea!” cried others, now stumbling from the forests.

Sarus stood to one side, worn.

His men, fifty-five men of Tyros, some falling, made their way down the beach, across the stones, to the edge of the water.

They had not thought, many of them, to again see the sea.

They had come through the forest.

I had permitted them to do so.

I, too, had a rendezvous with the Rhoda and the Tesephone.

The Rhoda had been instrumental in my affairs, in ways that had not pleased me. And in the hold of the Tesephone were numbers of my men, captured at the camp on the Laurius River, due to the treachery of a tavern keeper of Laura, by name, Hesius, and four paga slaves. I recalled the girls, with momentary irritation, red-haired Vinca, the two other girls, and the slim, light-skinned, dark0haired Earth girl, she of Denver, Colorado, to whom I had given the slave name, Ilene. U was not pleased with her. She had not been completely open with me. Too, she was a lovely weakling, petty, timid and selfish, fir only to be the slave of men of Gor. I would have her sold in Port Kar.

Now, sullen, angry, at the edge of the forest, I saw a slave chain of twenty-one men. There were fastened together by the neck, and the hands of each were manacles behind his back. the neck chains and wrist manacles, now, however, had been changed to lock chains, that they might be separated, rechained, and regrouped in a matter of seconds, depending on what contingencies were encountered by their masters.

Seventy-five men had been abandoned in the forest, still wearing the chains that had been hammered about their necks and wrists. Sarus had not had them slain. Doubtless he had feared the great bow. His earlier attempt to slay slaves had been unsuccessful. No one, after I had felled the first who had dared to lift his sword to such a purpose, had dared to threaten a slave. On the other hand, on the orders of Sarus, the seventy-five men had been chained in a large circle, about some ten large trees. When I had come upon them, thought I had not made my presence known to them, I had seen that each still wore his neck chain, and that the hands of each were still manacled behind his back. the long set of chains and collars, securing them, had been fastened about several trees, in a great circle, They no longer wore ankle chains, of course. There had been struck off earlier in the march, that the entire column might move more quickly. They could not be freed, save by tools, for they did not wear lock bonds.

It was intelligently done by Sarus.

Abandoned in the forest they would die of thirst, or hunger, or of exposure or the attacks of beasts. To protect them, would, of course divert the forces of the enemy; to free them, should the enemy not possess heavy tools, which I did not, would be almost impossible. Either the chains must be broken or the trees cut. It was an excellent plan.

Sarus was not a fool.

Then, of course, after having laid this impediment in the path of his pursuer or pursuers, he, with his choice male prisoners, Marlenus chief among them, and the twenty-four captured slave girls, including Cara, Grenna and Tina, continued their flight to the shores of gleaming Thassa and their projected rendezvous with the Rhoda and the Tesephone.

After having taken the majority of Hura’s girls, drugged at the camp, slave, I had not struck further at Sarus, and his me, or Hura, and her minions. She, with twenty-one girls left, including Mira, had come with Sarus to the sea. The men of Sarus had controlled the slave chain of prize male slaves; the girls of Hura had controlled the coffle of beauties, each with her wrists still in binding fiber confined behind her body, each still fastened to her sisters in bondage by the strong, supple linking of the binding fiber knotted about her throat. How easy it is, I thought, to control women. How simply they may be secured. Each, incidentally, following a standard Gorean slave-keeping procedure, under such circumstances, was tightly gagged at night. That way, of course, they may not chew through the biding fiber in the darkness.

In the morning, they are still as well secured as ever.

I heard the cries of gladness of Hura’s girls as they emerged through the trees and came to the beach.

In the brief skins of panther girls, they ran to the water and waded in it, the cold salt water coming to their calves.

They were laughing and crying out.

Now, behind them, led by bound, stripped Sheera, her body marked with scarlet stripes from the switch, came the coffle of enslaved women. I saw Cara behind her, in the bit of white wool still left her, and behind her, Tina, in the shreds of her simple garment of wool. Behind Tina was Grenna, also in the branch-lashed, white-woolen tatters of a slave garment, for she had been enslaved in my camp before her capture by the men of Tyros. Behind Grenna came the first of Verna’s women, still in their skins of panthers. The panther skins, of course, had stood well the strikings of branches and the tearing of the closely set thickets of their flight. In the midst of the panther girls, now futilely fighting her bonds, was Verna. The only remainder of the luscious slave silk in which she had been marched was a yellow tatter about her neck, caught in Marlenus’ collar, which still she wore. I recalled how superbly she had responded, a helpless female slave, to the masterful touch of the great Marlenus of Ar, the incredible Ubar of Ubars. Now, unable to free herself, she stood disconsolately in the coffle, fastened as helplessly in it as any other woman would be. She still wore large, golden earrings. Behind her came the balance of her girls, in panther skins, and behind them, concluding the coffle, slave girls who had belonged to Marlenus and had served him, and his men, in his camp. They belonged in the coffle simply as captured property.

It interested me that none of the twenty-four girls had been abandoned. But I was not surprised. The female slave, celebrated on Gore for her beauty, her skills and her delights is prize booty. Female slaves are almost never abandoned by Gorean men. He does not care to release such a prize. He keeps it. Mira went to the coffle of slave beauties and, about in its center, before Verna, seized the throat leather and pulled the girls in a “V” toward the shore. “Come, Slaves!” she ordered.

I gathered that Mira still stood high among the girls of Hura, that her part, or her knowing part, in the drugging of the large number of panther girls in the former camp was not understood.

I recalled that she had submitted herself to me as a slave girl. I saw her dragging the girls down the beach toward the water. I smiled. She belonged to me. Doubtless she hoped to escape. She would not.

“To the water,” ordered Sarus.

Marlenus straightened and, proudly, naked, a chain on his neck, his wrist manacled behind him, took his way down the beach toward the water. The other twenty men, Rim behind him, and then Arn, and then men of Marlenus, chained, followed him.

They no longer wore the chain which had been on their left ankle. It has been removed, that they might move more rapidly through the forest, eluding those who pursued the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura.

Further, that they might be more easily managed, and individuals removed from the chain, and perhaps abandoned, they were now fastened in lock chains. If necessary, all might have been, in a moment, abandoned, secured perhaps about trees or rocks, save Marlenus, their chief prize, the central object of their endeavors, their expedition of abduction. Sarus, was wise in the ways of slave control. No longer could I count on the slaves constituting for my enemy an impediment to his motions and strategies.

In the last two days, following the night of the drugging of many of Hura’s girls, I had not struck further at the men of Tyros with the swift arrows of the great bow.

I had not done so, and had deliberately not done so.

I wished them, once again, to grow confident.

They had not known the numbers or nature of the enemy that pursued them. Perhaps the enemy had been a group of slavers. There was reason for them to be of this opinion. None of the arrows had felled a woman. only men. And women, one by one, or in groups of twos and threes, had disappeared, quite possibly to find their fair limbs in the sudden, inflexible clasp of slave steel. The pattern of strikes had not been unlike that which might have distinguished the predations of slavers.

They probably believed their unseen antagonists to be slavers.

Mira, of course, knew better, but she could not speak without revealing her knowing role in the drugging of Hura’s women.

Her mouth was sealed. She wished to live.

Even Mira, by my intent, did not know the number of their stalkers. Doubtless she believed I worked with a band, perhaps a large one, of panther girls.

I watched my enemies from the thicket.

There were no signs of sails on the breadth of gleaming Thassa. The great circle of the horizon was empty. There were swift, white clouds in the sky. I heard the cry of sea birds, broad-winged gulls and the small, stick-legged tibits, pecking in the sand for tiny mollusks. There was a salt smell in the air, swift and bright in the wind. Thassa was beautiful.

Sarus and his men, pressed by my relentless pursuit, had moved much more swiftly to the sea than doubtless he had intended. I counted, accordingly, on his being early for his rendezvous with the Rhoda and Tesephone.

Doubtless Sarus and his men, not attacked since the night of the girl’s druggings, were convinced that the “slavers” who had harried them at last were satisfied. Surely they had left behind, scattered, sprawled in helpless stupor, enough beauty to satisfy the Harl rings of almost any slaver’s chain. What would it matter to Sarus that more than eighty of his fair allies might even now, in chains, in a slaver’s camp, be screaming to the iron’s kiss. He, with his men, and Marlenus of Ar, had escaped. Indeed, doubtless even Hura was not dissatisfied with the bargain. What did she care if most, or all, of her girls fell slave, as long as it was not she who found the bracelets locked on her wrists, as long as it was not she who must now live cowering as a collared girl subject to a man’s pleasure, to his touch, and to the steel of his chains and the leather of his whip.

Sarus and Hura had come safely to the sea.

And it the “slavers” who had pursued them wished more plunder, they had left them seventy-five strong male slaves, helpless for their harvesting to their own chains.

Surely that would be enough to satisfy any slaver.

Sarus had reasoned well.

Only I was not a slaver.

I looked down to the beach.

My enemies, and their prisoners, stood at the water’s edge.

Sarus and Hura had come safely to the sea.

I smiled.

Marlenus in his chains, with Rim and Arn, and the others, stood ankle deep in the water. They were looking out to sea. I saw the fists of the great Ubar clench in his manacles. He stood before the glaring, sunlit waters. He stood facing in the direction in which would lie Tyros. Again those massive fists clenched.

Under the orders of Mira, the twenty-four slave girls in their coffle knelt on the sand, near the water’s edge, in the position of pleasure slaves. They, too, in their bonds, faced toward Tyros.

The men in the tunics of Tyros threw their yellow caps into the air and cheered, and splashed water on one another, laughing. The forest was behind them. They had come safely to the sea. In the darkness of the forest, I smiled. During the afternoon I observed the slave girls, tied in pairs, by the neck, each pair under the guard of a man of Tyros, and a panther girl, gathering driftwood and, from the forest’s edge, broken branches.

They placed this wood at a point on the beach some twenty yards above the line of high tide, forming with it a great beacon.

Lit, this beacon would constitute the prearranged signal to the ships. I noted that Cara and Tina were tied together, forming one pair of slave girls. Sheera and Grenna, both former panther girls, formed another pair. Two men of Tyros watched that pair. Sheera was obviously regarded as a troublemaker. Two men also guarded the pair that contained Verna. I saw that her slave bells had been removed. I was pleased with the way the pairs were determined. It accorded with my plans.

Meanwhile, in good order, with confidence, several men of Tyros entered the forest and cut large numbers of stout saplings. I did not interfere with them. These cuttings they sharpened at both ends. One end they forced into the ground high on the beach, among the stones. The other end stood exposed as a defensive point. In this fashion, sapling by sapling, a rude semicircular palisade, of some one hundred feet in length, swiftly took form. It shielded them from the forest. Across the open side, wood was gathered for animal fires, facing the beach. This shelter would protect them from arrows, should they come, from the forest, and, by means of the fires, should discourage the too close approach of either panthers or sleen, which animals, in any case, seldom leave the forest, seldom prowl on the beach. It was growing dark. It was doubtless for that reason that the palisade was not closed.

Leading from the open side of the palisade to the great beacon was a column of pairs of fires.

By means of these, protected by their flames, in case animals should approach too closely, the great beacon could be fed.

I could not well fire into the palisade without approaching near the water, without leaving the shelter of the forest. Moreover, I was not interested in doing so.

“Light the beacon!” called Sarus. There was a great cheer as, in the falling darkness, the torch thrust down into the oil-soaked wood.

I was not much observed, standing in the background, wearing the yellow of Tyros.

In a moment, like a wind-torn explosion, flame leaped in a breadth of a dozen feet on the still shores, on that lonely beach, of Thassa. The men of Tyros were hundreds of pasangs from civilization, but the flames of that blaze brought pleasure to them. It was their beacon to the Rhoda and Tesephone. The men of Tyros began to sing, standing near it. In the back of the semicircular stockade, miserable, chained, lay Marlenus and Rim and Arn, and the other male slaves. They lay on their stomachs. The manacles on the wrists of slaves, thus, may be easily checked by a guard, with a torch, as he makes his rounds. Further, their heads faced toward the wall of the stockade. The less that a slave can know or see the more easily controlled he is. Lastly, for the night, their ankles were crossed and lashed together with binding fiber. There were quite helpless. Similar precautions were taken with the female slaves. Each now, it being night, was tightly gagged. Further, they were alternated, the ankles of one being crossed and bound, and fastened to the throat of the next. This makes it impossible for the girls to rise to their feet. Their wrists, of course, were still secured, with Gorean perfection, behind their backs. I would have no allies within the stockade.

Marlenus and the other male slaves lay closest to the back wall of the stockade. Then, on the other side of them, closer to the sea, lay the gagged, helplessly thonged slave girls; then came the blankets and supplies of Hura’s twenty-one women’ them came the equipment of the fifty-five men of Tyros, almost at the margin of the animal fires.

Again and again the men of Tyros and their fair allies, the women of Hura, cheered.

I slipped back, unnoticed, into the darkness. I must make rendezvous with the Rhoda and Tesephone before Sarus.

I would need, however, help for my plan to succeed. I would see that I had such help.

Now I must be patient. And I would, for some Ahn, sleep.

I awaken after some two or three Ahn, judging by the flight of the moons. I washed with a bit of water from a stream, ate some tabuk strips from my wallet, and went again to the edge of the forest. The tunic of Tyros, in a tight roll, was tied across my back. I wore green, now black in the darkness, and moved with stealth, as a warrior moves who hunts men, mixing with the shadows, one darkness among others, a movement and a silence.

To my satisfaction I saw that the great beacon was burning low. It would need replenishment.

It was not long that I waited in the shadows before I heard, from within the stockade, commands and the piteous remonstrances of pleading slave girls. I then heard, again and again, the fierce, snapping crack of the slave lash. It fell again and again on the vulnerable, secured bodies of girls in bondage. Its searing cruelty would teach them, and swiftly, that no choice was theirs but immediate complete and abject obedience. I heard no screaming. A girl cannot scream under the lash. She can scarcely breathe. She can scarcely whisper, hoarsely, piteously, begging for mercy. In Port Kar I had seem the fingernails of girls torn to the quick as they scratched at stones against which they were tied. If she is bound against a wall her entire body may be injured, wiped with abrasions, as she tried to escape the whip. For this reason a girl to be whipped is often suspended from a ring or a pole.

In a few minutes as I had expected, I saw some pairs of slave girls, three pairs, each pair tied together by the neck, brutally driven, stumbling, crying out, from the palisade. A man of Tyros, with a whip, followed each pair. I noted that, as I would have supposed, and had been anticipating, that the girls driven forth now to gather wood, and were isolated in the slave line between Sheera and Grenna, both panther girls. The other two pairs, whimpering, were girls from Marlenus’ camp. All of these girls were terrified of the forest. None of hem, presumably, could survive alone in it. It was natural that the pairs had been arranged as they had, particularly that of Cara and Tina, given their location in the coffle. I needed Tina, and I preferred to have Cara, too, though, for my plan, another girl might do as well. If Cara had not been tied with Tina I should still have done what I did. I needed the pair which contained Tina. I had suspected, as long ago as Lydius, that that fantastic little wench might prove of great utility to my enterprises. I had not, however, expected to apply her as I now intended.

The men of Tyros, following the weeping girls with their whips, did not care to enter the forest.

“Gather wood, quickly, and return!” cried the fellow guarding Cara and Tina. “Do not drive us into the forest!” begged Cara. She knelt and put her head to his feet.

“Come with us,” wept Tina. “Please, Master!” she knelt before him, holding his ankle, her lips pressed to his foot.

For answer the slave lash fell twice.

Weeping, the two girls sprang to their feet and ran to the edge of the forest and, trying not to enter into its shadows, rapidly, weeping, began to break branches and gather wood.

“Hurry! Hurry!” called their guard.

He snapped the whip.

The two girls in bondage knew well the sound of the whip. They cried out with misery.

They had already been beaten, too, in the stockade. Their delicate flesh, like that of any slave girl, was terrified of the lash. The only woman, slave or free, who does not cringe before the lash is she who had not felt it. But, too, they feared the forest, the darkness, the animals. There were girls of civilized cities. The forest at night, with its sounds, its perils, the teeth and claws of its predators, was a nightmare of terror for them.

They carried two armloads of branches, and fell to their knees before the guard. “Let it be enough,” they wept.

They wished to return, and promptly, to the light of the animal fires. They looked up at him, pleading.

“Gather more wood, Girls,” said he to them.

“Yes, Master,” they said.

“And deeper in the forest,” said he.

“Please!’ they wept.

He lifted the whip.

“I obey!” cried Cara.

“I obey!” wept Tina.

From far off, in the forest, came the snarling of a panther.

The girls looked at one another.

The man gestured with the whip.

They fled to the darkness of the trees and began to break and gather wood. In a few minutes, each with an armload of sticks and branches, they emerged. They knelt before the figure in the yellow of Tyros who stood with the whip, waiting for them, on the beach.

“Is it enough?” begged Cara, looking down.

“It is quite enough,” I told them.

They looked up, startled.

“Be silent!” I warned them.

“You!” breathed Cara.

“Master,” whispered Tina, her eyes wide.

“Where is the guard?” asked Tina.

“He stumbled and fell,” I told them. “It seems he struck his head upon a stone.” I did not expect he would awaken for several hours.

“I see,” said Cara, smiling.

He had not expected danger from the seaward side of the beach. There were many large, flattish, rounded stones on the beach. He had encountered one. “There is great danger here for you, Master,” said Tina.:You had best flee.” I looked across the beach, some two hundred yards, to the palisade. I wiped sand from my right hand on the woolen tunic of Tyros.

Then I looked down at Tina.

“There are more than fifty men of Tyros here,” said Tina.

“There are fifty-five, excluding Sarus of Tyros, their leader,” I told her. She looked at me.

“It was you who followed us,” said Cara.

“You must flee,” whispered Tina, “there is danger here for you.”

“I think,” said Cara, smiling, “there is danger her, too, for those of Tyros.” I looked up at the moons.

It was near the twentieth hour, the Gorean midnight. I must hurry.

“Follow me,” I told the two slaves.

They leaped to their feet and, still tied together by the neck, in their tattered woolen tunics, followed me along the beach.

Behind us we heard men calling out the name of another man, doubtless that of the guard, his struck unexpectedly by the blow of a stone. Doubtless he would conjecture that the girls had managed to sneak behind him and strike him, thus making good their escape. There would be wonderment at that, of course, for the girls had been only girls of the civilized city, thought to be terrified of the forest night.

We saw torches far behind us, the search for the guard.

I lengthened my stride. The girls, tied together, stumbling, struggled to match my pace.

The wood we left behind us on the beach. The men of Tyros might use it for their fires, and their beacon.

I did not begrudge them its use. It would do them little good.

I looked up at the sun. it was near the tenth hour, the Gorean noon. I snapped off a large branch, extending from a fallen tree, with the flat of my foot.

I then dragged it down to the beach and threw it on the great pile of wood which I, and Cara and Tina, had accumulated.

I had freed them of the neck tether, and they had worked tirelessly, and with ardor. They had worked as might have free persons. It had not been necessary to use the whip, stolen from the guard, on them.

Their zeal puzzled me. They were only female slaves.

“We are ready,” I told them.

We surveyed the great construction of dried branches and gathered driftwood. We had done well.

We had trekked during the night and into the morning. Then we had not stopped to rest, but had begun to gather wood.

I surveyed our great accumulation of driftwood and branches. We had done well. Being slaves they had dared not inquire of me the intention of our efforts. I was not displeased that they had not done so. I had no wish to beat them. It would have cost me time.

The piles of branches and driftwood was some twenty pasangs south of the camp of the men of Tyros.

The girls smiled at me, they were weary.

“To the edge of the forest, Slaves,” I told them.

At the fringe of the forest, overlooking the sloping beach, covered with its stones, and, lower, with its sand. I found a strong, slender tree, with an outjutting branch some five feet from the ground, the branch facing away from the water.

“You will have the first watch,” I told Tina. “You are to alert me to the presence of a sail or sails on the horizon.” “Yes, Master,” said Tina.

I shoved her back against the tree.

“Put your arms over your head,” I told her. “Now bend your elbows.” I tied each wrist separately, tightly, again the tree, lopping the binding fiber about the tree twice, and twice over the outjutting branch. She stood, thus, facing the sea, her wrists tied back, against each side of the tree. With another length of binding fiber I jerked her belly back against the tree, tying it there, tightly.

“If you fall asleep,” I told her, “I will cut your throat.”

She looked at me. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

I thrust some strips of tabuk meat from my walled into her mouth.

“Eat,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I also gave her some water from the guard’s canteen.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

I looked at Cara.

“It will not be necessary to bind me,” said Cara.

“Lie on your stomach,” I told her, “and cross your wrists, behind your back, and your ankles.” “Yes, Master,” she said.

I also secured her by the neck, by means of a thong, to a nearby tree. I turned her over. “Open your mouth,” I told her.

She did so.

I thrust some strips of tabuk meat into her mouth.

“Eat,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

When she was finished, I lifted her in my left arm, giving her to drink from the canteen.

“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

I recalled how she had looked in the compartments of Samos, so long ago, when he and I had addressed our attentions to the board of the game, and while Rim, then a slave, chained, had watched.

I looked at Tina, tied, back against the tree, my slave. How long ago it seemed she had cut my purse in a street along the wharves of Lydius.

Both had been swept up, helpless slaves, both beautiful, in the harsh games of men.

But it was unimportant. They were only slaves.

I fed from the tabuk strips in my wallet, looking out to sea, and then drank from the canteen of the guard.

I was weary.

I returned to where Cara lay bound. She was helpless, and beautiful. She was slave. Already she was asleep.

I lay down on the leaves to rest.

I looked up at the branches, and the leaves and then I, too, almost immediately fell asleep.

I awakened only once before nightfall, to change the position of Tina and Cara. I wished Tina to be fresh. She was asleep even before I had thonged her neck to the tree.

At nightfall I arose. I freed both Cara and Tina. I looked up at the moons. They rubbed their wrists, where my binding fiber had bitten into them.

I looked out to sea, across the vast, placid waters of Thassa, now bright with oblique moonlight. We three stood together on the beach, on the sands, among the stones, and observed Thassa, the murmuring, gleaming, elemental vastness, Thassa the Sea, said in the myths to be without a farther shore.

It seemed to me not unlikely that this would be the night.

“How beautiful it is,” said Cara.

I saw no sails on the horizon, against the fast-graying sky.

I took water from the canteen, and ate strips of tabuk meat from my wallet. The girls regarded me. They, too, were hungry and thirsty.

“Kneel,” I told them.

When I had satisfied my thirst, there was little left in the canteen. I threw it to Cara. She and Tina then finished the bit of water remaining. When I had satisfied my hunger on the tabuk strips, there was but one left. I tore it in two and threw half to each of the girls.

They were Gorean girls, and slaves. They did not complain. They knew that they had been fed earlier in the day. They knew that, if it were not my will, they would not be fed at all.

Access to food and water is a means of controlling and training slaves, as it is of any animal.

I looked upward. The moonlight would not last for more than an Ahn. I was pleased.

Clouds, like tarns from the north, swept in some stratospheric wind, were moving southward. Their flight was black and silent, concealing the stars, darkening the sky.

On the beach it was quiet, a calm night, in early summer.

What turbulence there was, was remote, seemingly far removed from us, a matter only of clouds, silently whipped in distant, unfelt winds, like rivers, invisible in the sky, breaking their banks, hurling and flooding in the night, carrying the intangible debris of darkness before them, soon to extinguish the fires of the stars, the swift lamps of the three Gorean moons.

The night was calm, a still evening in early summer, rather warm. Somewhere, abroad the Thassa, concealed by the bending of a world, moved the Rhoda and Tesephone.

But they must be near. They had a rendezvous to keep.

I looked out to sea.

Thassa seemed now an unbroken vastness, where a black sky met a blacker sea. We could hear her, restless.

“It is time,” I told the slaves.

Together we picked our way down the beach, across the stones, across the soft sands, until we came to the side of the great accumulation of branches and driftwood which we had earlier prepared.

From my wallet I took a small, smooth stone and a tiny, flat metal disk. I lighted a brand.

This brand I then thrust into the great pile of branches and driftwood. Gorean galleys do not commonly sail at night, and, often put into shore during darkness.

I expected, however, because of the dangers of the shores of Thassa, and the importance of their mission, the Rhoda and Tesephone, though they might like at anchor, would not make a beach camp. Had I been the commander of the two ships I would have laid to offshore, coming in only when necessary for water or game. I would also, however, following common Gorean naval custom, have remained within sight of, or in clear relation to, the shore. The Gorean galley, carvel built, long and of shallow draft, built for war and speed, is not built to withstand the frenzies of Thassa. The much smaller craft of the men of Torvaldsland, clinker built, with overlapping, bending planking, are more seaworthy. They must be, to survive in the bleak, fierce northern waters, wind-whipped and skerry-studded. They ship a great deal more water than the southern carvel-built ships, but they are stronger, in the sense that they are more elastic. They must be baled, frequently, and are, accordingly, not well suited for cargo. The men of Torsvaldland, however, do not find this limitation with respect to cargo a significant one, as they do not, generally, regard themselves as merchants or traders. They have other pursuits, in particular the seizure of riches and the enslavement of beautiful women.

Their sails, incidentally, are square, rather than triangular, like the lateen-rigged ships of the south. They cannot said as close to the wind as the southern ships with lateen rigging, but, on the other hand, the square sails makes it possible to do with a single sail, taking in and letting out canvas, as opposed to several sails, which are attached to and removed from the yard, which is raised and lowered, depending on weather conditions.

It might be mentioned too, that their ships hare, in effect a prow on each end. This makes it easier to beach them than would otherwise be the case. This is a valuable property in rough water close to shore, particularly where there is danger of rocks. Also, by changing their position on the thwarts, the rowers, facing the other direction, can, with full power, immediately reverse the direction of the ship. They need not wait for it to turn. There is a limitation her, of course, for the steering oar, on the starboard side of the ship, is most effective when the ship is moving in its standard “forward” direction. Nonetheless, this property to travel in either direction with some facility, is occasionally useful. It is, for example, extremely difficult to ram a ship of Torvaldsland. This is not simply because of their general size, with consequent maneuverability, and speed, a function of oarsmen, weight and lines, but also because of this aforementioned capacity to rapidly reverse direction. It is very difficult to take a ship in the side which, in effect, does not have to lose time in turning.

Their ships are seen as far to the south as Shendi and Bazi, as far to the north as the great frozen sea, and are known as far to the west as the cliffs of Tyros and the terraces of Cos. The men of Torvaldsland are rovers and fighters, and sometimes they turn their prows to the open sea with no thought in mind other than seeing what might lie beyond the gleaming horizon. In their own legends they think of themselves as poets, and lovers and warriors. They appear otherwise in the legends of others. In the legends of others they appear as blond giants, breathing fire, shattering doors, giants taller than trees, with pointed ears and eyes like fire and hands like great claws and hooks; they are seen as savages, as barbarians, as beasts blood-thirsty and mad with killing, with braided hair, clad in furs and leather, with bare chests, with great axes which, at a single stroke, can fell a tree or cut a man in two. It is said they appear as though from nowhere to pillage, and to burn and rape, and then, among the flames, as quickly, vanish to their swift ships, carrying their booty with them, whether it be bars of silver, or goblets of gold, or silken sheets, knotted and bulging with plate, and coins and gems, or merely women, bound, their clothing torn away, whose bodies they find pleasing.

In Gorean legends the Priest-Kings are said to have formed man from the mud of the earth and the blood of tarns. In the legends of Torvaldsland, man has a different origin. Gods, meeting in council, decided to form a slave for themselves, for they were all gods, and had no slaves. They took a hoe, an instrument for working the soil, and put it among them. They then sprinkled water upon this implement and rubbed upon it sweat from their bodies. From this hoe was formed most men. On the other hand, that night, one of the gods, curious, or perhaps careless, or perhaps driven from the hall and angry, threw down upon the ground his own great ax, and upon this ax he poured paga and his own blood, and the ax laughed and leaped up, and ran away. The god, and all the gods, could not catch it, and it became, it is said, the father of the men of Torvaldsland.

There was, of course, another reason why the commander of the Rhoda and Tesephone would keep within sight of the shore.

He had a signal to observe. He must not miss the beacon, which, somewhere along this lonely, sandy shore, in its hundred of pasangs, would mark the position of Sarus and his men, Hura, and her women, and their captive slaves.

Even if he lay to, if he held his ships within ten or more pasangs, he would see our marker, that great blaze in the darkness of the night. And, seeing it, he would doubtless take it fore the beacon of Sarus.

I looked at Tina. One side of her body was red in the reflected light of the great fire.

“Can you be attractive to men?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Keep the fire high,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” said the exciting little wench.

“Come with me,” I told Cara.

I took Cara into the woods, some hundred yards from the forest’s edge. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

I tied her wrists together behind her back, about a small tree. Then I tore off the tatters of her white woolen slave garment, ripping it into strips. I gagged her, tightly.

She looked at me, her eyes wild over the gag.

Then I left her.

I returned to the edge of the forest. Dimly, far off, across the water, I could see two lanterns.

I was satisfied.

I called to Tina, softly, from the shadows of the forest. She turned about and, unsuspecting, walked back to me.

In the darkness I took her, suddenly, by the arms and thrust her rudely up against a tree. She gasped.

“What is the duty of a slave girl?” I inquired.

“Absolute obedience,” she said, frightened.

“What are you?” I inquired.

“A slave girl,” she said.

“What is your duty?” I asked.

“Absolute obedience,” she cried out.

I looked out to sea. The two lanterns were now closer.

“Kneel,” I told Tina.

She did so immediately, frightened, her head to the ground.

Some four hundred yards away from shore, by my conjecture, the two lanterns stopped. There was then a third lantern, lower that the other two.

I took the slave whip from my belt and touched Tina on the shoulder with it. She looked up, frightened.

“Please do not beat me,” she whispered.

I held the whip before her. “Kiss the whip,” I told her.

She did so, and looked up at me, pleading.

“Absolute obedience,” I told her.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered, terrified. “Absolute obedience.”

“Here are your instruction,” I said.

“Ho there,” cried the fellow leaping from the long boar, “it is only a wench.” “Protect me, Masters!” wept Tina. She had torn her tunic away from her left shoulder and ripped it to her waist on the left side.

She emerged from the darkness, and fell to her knees in the wet sand before the man in yellow who had leaped from the longboat. He held an exposed sword. Others left the boat, too, and looked about. They stood warily. Men remained at alternate pairs of oars. There were, altogether, sixteen men of Tyros, including him who held the tiller.

“Protect me, Master!” wept Tina. She knelt in the sand, her head down, trembling.

With the blade of his sword the fellow lifted her head, and turned it from side to side.

Tina was beautiful.

He sheathed his sword and, by the hair, pulled her to her feet and faced her to the fire. He rudely read her collar. “A wench of Bosk of Port Kar,” he laughed. He thrust her from him, a yard or so, and examined her. “Bosk of Port Kar,” he said, “had a good eye for slave flesh.” “Stand straight, Girl,” said another man.

Tina did so, and was examined by them, with the candidness accorded a female slave.

“I was stolen from Bosk of Port Kar,” wept Tina, “by the terrible Sarus of Tyros.” The men looked at one another, exchanging amusements, glances. Tina did not seem to understand their tacit communication.

“I fled from him,” she wept. “But there were sleen, panthers, in the forest. I was pursued. I barely escaped with my life.” Again she fell to the sand at their feet, and pressed her lips to the foot of their leader. “I cannot live in the forest,” she wept. “Take a miserable slave with you! Please, Masters!” “Leave her here to die,” laughed one of the men.

The girl trembled.

“Did you build this beacon?” asked another.

“Yes, Maser,” wept the girl.:I wished to attract the attention of any passing ship.” “Better the bracelets of a master than the teeth of a sleen?” asked one of the men of Tyros.

Tina kept her head down.

“Protect me!” wept Tina.

“Perhaps,” said their leader.

“Only do not return me to the terrible Sarus,” she wept. She raised her head. “You do not know him, do you?” she begged.

“Who is he?” inquired the leader, himself in the yellow of Tyros. The men behind him smiled.

“I am fortunate,” breathed Tina, “to have fallen in with you.”

The men laughed, not pleasantly.

Tina shook with fright.

“Shall we take her with us?” asked the leader, laughing, of his men. One of them, without warning, with a single rip that spun her fully about, tore her slave tunic away. She cried out in misery, her beauty revealed to them. “Perhaps,” said one of the men.

She stood on the sand, shuddering. Her beauty was drenched in the red of the flames.

“Stand proudly, Wench,” commanded one of the men.

Tina straightened herself.

“Protect me,” she begged.

“Our protection had a cost,” said their leader, “if beauty such as yours were torn to pieces by sleen.” Tina said nothing.

“I would rather,” said the leader, “tear it to pieces myself.”

Tina gasped.

“Lie in the sand before me, Slave,” said the leader. He unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it to the side.

Tina lay in the sand before him, one knee raised, her head turned to one side. “Each of us,” said their leader, “will try you out, to see if you are any good. Of any of us are dissatisfied, you will be left here for the sleen.” “A girl understands, Master,” she said.

“How will you perform?” he asked.

“Superbly, Master,” she whispered.

He pressed his lips to hers. And I saw her arms, as though eagerly, encircle his back.

The men laughed.

Few of them noticed, a log, some yards out in the water, move against the tide, out toward the dark shapes off shore.

My business on the Rhoda would not take long.

Within half of an Ahn I had left her again, lowering myself over the side. Again the men of Tyros on the beach, did not notice the log, perhaps from some island or jutting point, washing into shore, some yards from them.

Tina was now kneeling at the side of the leader of the men of Tyros. She was holding his leg with her hands, breathing deeply, her dark hair loosed over her shoulders, pressing her cheek against his thigh. She was looking up at him. “Did Tina please you?” she asked.

“How did you find her?” asked the leader of his men.

There were shouts of pleasure. Again Tina looked up, piteously, at the leader. “We shall take you with us, Slave,” said the leader.

Tina’s eyes shone. “Thank you, Maser!” she breathed.

“Your duties will be heavy,” he told her. “You will please us when it is our wish, and when it is not our wish, you will prepare food for slaves, which you will serve to them.” “Very well, Master,” said Tina.

“Do you regard yourself as fortunate?” asked the leader.

“Of course, Master,” said Tina.

“You served us with great zeal,” he said.

“Yes, Maser,” she said.

“We would have taken you with us,” said he, “even if you had not served us as pleasantly as you did.” “You tricked me!” she cried.

“Do you know who my captain is?” he inquired.

“No,” she said, apprehensively.

“It is Sarus of Tyros,” he said.

“No!’ she cried out in horror.

“Yes,” he laughed. “And you will be returned to him in one or two days.” She tried to leap to her feet and flee, but he caught her by the hair, and threw her to one of his men.

“Bind the slave,” he said.

Tina was thrown to her stomach in the sand, and bound hand and foot. She was then held by the arms before their leader.

“You are a runaway slave,” he said. “I do not envy you.”

She shuddered.

“Is this the first time you have attempted to escape?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,’ she whispered.

“Perhaps, then,” said he, “ you will not be hamstrung. Perhaps they you will be only lashed.” Tina moaned.

“Look forward to your lashing,” he said.

Tina regarded him with horror.

“Throw her in the boat,” he said.

The bound slave was thrown rudely into the boat.

“To the ship,” said the leader.

Several of the men thrust the longboat back out into the water. Then they, with the leader, lifted themselves into the boat.

As the longboat pulled away, moving back toward the Rhoda and Tesephone, it passed a log, floating in the water, drifting back to shore.

I saw the single lantern on the longboat growing smaller in the distance. I was not dissatisfied.

I slipped ashore, thrusting the log onto the sand, some two hundred yards away, among large rocks, concealed from the light of the beacon.

Tina had one night, perhaps two, to do her work.

From the shadows of the forest I observed the lanterns. The longboat reached the Rhoda. Its lantern was then extinguished. Then the two lanterns, too, both on the Rhoda, the Tesephone, dark, lying off her starboard bow, were extinguished. Tonight both ships would withdraw a pasang or two from shore. There they would lie to until morning. It would not be wise to coast a strange shore at night. Further I had heard they did not expect to make contact with Sarus for another day or two. Accordingly they were not hurried. Besides, I expect tonight there would be some cause for celebrating on the two ships, and that they might be drawn together by lines. They had been long at sea, not putting into land, save for supplies and water, and that in lonely places. It was long that the men of the Rhoda and Tesephone had been at sea. How long was it since they had held the naked, perfumed, collared, responding body of a female slave in their arms? Since the rough port of Laura? Since semi-civilized Lydius, at the mouth of the Laurius? How long would it have been since they had witnessed the swaying body of a chained girl in a paga tavern, perhaps even Ilene in the tavern of Hesius in Laura, or, say, one of the luscious, collared slaves of culturally mixed Lydius, at the mouth of the Laurius, perhaps one of the beauties of the Lydian tavern keeper, Sarpedon, perhaps the wench called Tana, once Elizabeth Caldwell of Earth, now only a belled paga slave. The men would be desperate to hold the softness of a naked woman in their arms, to feel her touch, the caress of her lips and tongue, to hear her cry out their manhood and her femaleness in a single wild cry of pleasure. The men had been long at sea. I had thrown Tina among them.

She knew what she must do.