Hunters of Gor coc-8 Page 13

  I swiftly leaped in pursuit.

  In moments I had come to the place whence the arrow had been loosed. I saw the marks on the leaves and grass where the attacker had stood.

  I scanned the woods.

  A bent leaf, a dislodged stone, guided me.

  The attacker kept well ahead of me, for more than an Ahn. Yet there was little time to adequately conceal a trail. My pursuit was quick, and hot, and I was close. The attacker, much of the time, fled. It was not them difficult to follow. Crushed leaves, broken twigs, turned stones, bent grass, footprints, all spelled the trail clearly to the detecting eye.

  Twice more arrows sped from the underbrush, passing beside me, losing themselves in the greenery behind me.

  Often I heard the running from me.

  I followed swiftly, not rapidly closing the ground between us.

  My bow was strung. At the hemp string, whipped with silk, was a temwood arrow, piled with steel, fletched with the feathers of the Vosk gull.

  The attacker, at all costs, must not be permitted to make contact with others. Another arrow struck near me, with a quick, hard sound, followed by the tight vibrating of the arrow.

  I lowered my head, bending over. I no longer heard running.

  There was no movement in the brush ahead.

  I smiled. The attacker was at bay. The attacker was concealed in the thicket ahead, waiting.

  Excellent, I thought, excellent.

  But it was now the most dangerous portion of the chase. The attacker waited, invisible in the greenery, not moving, bow ready.

  I listened, not moving, to the birds, intently.

  I lifted my head to the trees in the thicket ahead, the tangles of brush and undergrowth. I noted where the birds moved, and where they did not. I did not draw my bow. I would not immediately enter the thicket. I would wait. I studied the shadows for a quarter of an Ahn.

  I surmised that the attacker, aware of my hot pursuit, would have turned within the thicket, and would have waited, bow drawn.

  It is very painful to hold a bow drawn for more than an Ehn or two. But to ease the bow is to move, and it is to be unready to fire.

  Birds moved about, above me.

  I listened, patient, to the drone of insects. I continued to study the shadows, and parts of shadows.

  Perhaps I had gone ahead, perhaps I had evaded the thicker, perhaps I had turned back.

  I waited, as a Gorean warrior waits.

  Then, at last, I saw the slight movement, almost imperceptible, for which I had been waiting.

  I smiled.

  I carefully fitted the black, steel-piled temwood shaft to the string. I lifted the great bow of yellow Ka-la-na, from the wine trees of Gor.

  There was a sudden cry of pain from the green and the sunlight and shadows. I had her!

  I sped forward.

  In almost an instant I was on her.

  She had been pinned to a tree by the shoulder. Her eyes were glazed. She had her hand at her shoulder. When she saw me, she clutched, with her right hand, at the sleen knife in her belt. She was blond, blue-eyed. There was blood on her hair. I knocked the sleen knife from her hand and rudely jerked her hands together before her body, securing them there with slave bracelets. She was gasping. Some six inches of the arrow, five inches feathered, protruded from her shoulder. I cut away the halter she wore and improvised a gag, that she might not cry out. With a length of binding fiber, taken from her own pouch, I tied the slave bracelets tight against her belly. I stepped back. This panther girl would warn no others. She would not interfere with the plans of Bosk, of Port Kar. She faced me, in pain, gagged, her fists in slave bracelets, held at her belly. I stripped her of her skins, and pouch and weapons. She was mine. I noted that she was comely.

  I strode to her and, as her eyes cried out with pain, snapped off the arrow. I lifted her from the cruel pinion. She fell to her knees. Now, the arrow gone, her two wounds began to bleed. She shuddered. I would permit some blood to wash from the wound, cleaning it.

  I snapped of the rest of the arrow, and, with a knife, shaved it to the tree, that it might not attract attention. The girl’s pouch, its contents, and her weapons, I threw into the brush.

  Then I knelt beside her and, with those skins I had taken from her, bound her wound.

  With my foot I skuffed dirt over the stains on the ground, where she had bled. I then lifter her lightly in my arms and carried her, gagged and bound, down our back trail, for some quarter of an Ahn.

  When I was satisfied that I had carried her sufficiently far, so far that I was confident that she would not be within earshot of any to whom she might wish to call, I set her down on the ground, leaning her against a tree.

  She was sick from her wound, and loss of blood. She had fainted as I had carried her. Now she was conscious, and sat, leaning against the tree, her eyes glazed, regarding me.

  I pulled down her gag, letting it hang about her neck.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Grenna,” she said.

  “Where is the camp and dancing circle of Verna, the panther girl?” I asked. She looked at me, sick, puzzled. “I do not know,” she whispered.

  Something in the girl’s manner convinced me that she spoke the truth. I was not much pleased.

  This portion of the forest was supposedly the territory of Verna, and her band. I gave the girl some food from my pouch. I gave her a swallow of water from the flask at my belt.

  “Are you not of Verna’s band?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Of whose band are you?” I asked.

  “Of Hura’s,” said she.

  “This portion of the forest,” I told her, “is the territory of Verna and her band.” “It will be ours,” she said.

  I withheld the water flask.

  “We have more than a hundred girls,” she said. “It will be ours.”

  I gave her another swallow of water.

  “It will be ours,” she said.

  I was puzzled. Normally panther girls move and hunt in small bands. That there should be more than a hundred of them in a single band, under a single leader, seemed incredible.

  I did not much understand this.

  “You are a scout?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How far are you in advance of your band?” I asked.

  “Pasangs,” she said.

  “What will be thought when you do not return to your band?” I asked. “Who knows what to think?” she said. “Sometimes a girl does not come back.” Her lips formed the word. I gave her more water. She had lost blood. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  “Be silent,” I said.

  It now seemed to me even more important to locate, as swiftly as possible, Verna’s camp or its dancing circle.

  Soon, perhaps within two or three days, more panther girls might be entering this portion of the forests.

  We must act quickly.

  I looked at the sun. it was low now, sunk among the trees.

  In another Ahn or two, it would be dark.

  I wished to find Verna’s camp, if possible, before nightfall.

  There was no time to carry this prisoner back to where Rim, and my men, and Arn, and his men, waited for me. It would be dark before I could do so, and return. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  I took the gag, from where I had pulled it down about her throat, and refixed it, securely.

  I then reknotted the binding fiber from where it was fastened, behind the small of her back, and also unknotted it, in front, from the chain of the slave bracelets. I put the binding fiber in my belt. I then unlocked the left slave bracelet.

  “Climb,” I told her, indicating a nearby tree.

  She stood, unsteadily. She shook her head. She was weak. She had lost blood. “Climb,” I told her, “or I shall bracelet you on the ground.” Slowly she climbed, branch by branch, I following her.

  “Keep climbing,” I told her.

>   At last she was more than thirty feet from the ground. She was frightened. “Edge out on the limb,” I told her, “and lie down upon it, your head to the trunk of the tree.” She hesitated.

  “Do so!” I told her.

  She lay, her back on the limb.

  “Farther out,” I told her.

  She edged, on her back, along the limb. Then she was more than five feet from the trunk.

  She shuddered.

  “Let your arms hang free,” I said.

  She did. The slave bracelets, one locked on her right wrist, dangled. I then relocked her left wrist in the slave bracelets. Her wrists were now locked under the branch and behind her. I then crossed her ankles and bound them to the branch. Then, with another length of binding fiber, taken from my own pouch, I bound her by the belly, tightly, to the branch.

  She looked back at me, over her shoulder, fear in her eyes.

  I climbed downward. The sleen is a burrowing animal. It seldom climbs. The panther can climb, but it is accustomed to take its hunting scents from the ground.

  I expected the girl would be safe. If she were not, I remembered, as a Gorean, that she had tried to kill me. If ought befell me, of course, it would not be well for her. She was gagged, braceleted, and bound. I was confident that she would wish me well in whatever enterprise I might be engaged. Though she was my enemy and prisoner, her desires would be most fervid for my success. The girl taken care of, I resumed my journey.

  An Ahn before darkness I found the camp.

  It was situated back from the bank of a small stream, one of the many tiny tributaries of the Laurius which interlace the forest.

  I eased myself upward into the branches of a tree, whence I might command a better view.

  It consisted of five huts, conical, of woven sapling and thatched, and was surrounded by a small palisade of sharpened saplings. A rough gate, fastened with vines, gave entrance into the camp. In the center of the camp there was a cooking hole, banked with a circle of flat stones. On a wooden spit, set on sticks, grease dropping into the fire and flaming, was a thigh of tabuk. It smelled good. The smoke, in a thin line, trickled upward into the sky. The thigh of tabuk was tended by a squatting panther girl, who, from time to time, picked bits of meat from it and thrust them in her mouth. She sucked her fingers clean. Over to one side another girl worked on a slave net, reworking and reknotting the weighted cords.

  Elsewhere two girls, sitting cross-legged, were playing a cat’s-cradle game, matching one another’s intricate patterns with the twine. There were skillful. This game is popular in the north, particularly in the villages. It is also played frequently in Torvaldsland.

  I saw, clearly, no other panther girls in or about the enclosure. I did see, however, a movement within one of the huts, and I supposed that to be another girl.

  I saw no evidence of Talena. She might, of course, lie chained within one of the dark huts. Perhaps the movement I had seen within the hut had been she. I did not know.

  One thing, however, seemed quite clear. Not all of Verna’s band was now within the enclosure.

  There was probably five or six girls there at the most.

  Her band, most reports agreed, consisted of some fifteen women.

  I looked at the girls in the enclosure. They did not know I regarded them. They did not realize their camp had been found. They did not know that soon, perhaps tomorrow, their camp would be stormed, and they would be captives, destined for the iron and the slave markets of the south.

  But we must move rapidly. I had learned from Grenna, my prisoner, that an unusually large band of panther girls, under a woman named Hura, was even now advancing toward these areas of the forests.

  I smiled.

  When Hura’s band arrived, ready to fight for these pasangs of forest, ready to drive Verna’s band out, they would meet no opposition.

  By that time Verna and her band would be my captives.

  Hura’s band would find only an empty camp, and perhaps some signs of struggle. But we must move swiftly.

  Additional members of panther girls, entering these countries of forests, might well confuse or complicate my plans.

  I must conclude my business before their arrival. It did not seem it would be difficult to do so. I wondered how it was that Hura had under her command so many girls. Such bands of girls scarcely ever number more than twenty. Yet, if Grenna was to be believed, following this Hura were a hundred or more armed women.

  I must not allow them to interfere with my plans.

  I looked down into the camp, at the girls. I regarded them as a Gorean. They had had their chance. They had refused to sell Talena to me. They had not dealt with me. That had been their mistake. The lesson they would be taught would be sharp. Let each of them, on the auction block, as the men bid upon them, consider how their affairs might have been better conducted.

  Two more girls arrived at the camp, and untied the gate, entered, and then retied it.

  I thought they would look well in slave chains.

  I looked again about the camp. I saw some poles behind the huts, on which, drying, were stretched the skins of four panthers. There were some boxes, some kegs, near one of the huts.

  There was not much else.

  I expected, by nightfall, all, or most, of Verna’s band would have returned to their slender stockade.

  I slipped down from my hiding place, and disappeared in the forest. “Take this captive,” I told Rim, “back to the Tesephone.” I thrust Grenna toward him. I had again put her wrists in slave bracelets, and bound them at her belly. She stumbled and fell to her knees, her head down, at Rim’s feet.

  She no longer wore her gag. It was not now necessary.

  “I would prefer,” said Rim, “to join in the attack on her band, who once enslaved me.” “I recall,” I said, “and I fear that you might be too precipitate.” Rim smiled. “Perhaps,” he said.

  It was now almost impossible to detect where the two-inch strip had been shaved on his head, from the forehead to the back of his neck.

  “I will accompany you,” said Arn.

  “Good,” I said.

  Arn was eyeing Grenna appreciatively. She saw his eyes, and put down her head again, swiftly.

  I was pleased that Arn liked her. Perhaps I would later give her to him. “At the Tesephone,” I said, indicating Grenna with my foot, “brand her, and see that she is enslaved. After that, see to the wounds of the slave.” The girl moaned.

  “Yes, Captain,” said Rim. He reached down and lifted her up, lightly in his arms.

  How beautiful women are, I thought.

  Rim carried her from the small fire, and moved into the darkness.

  I looked about, at the nine men with me.

  “Let us sleep now,” I said. “We shall awaken two Ahn before dawn. We will then march on the camp of Verna.” “Good,” said Arn.

  I lay down on the leaves, within the ring of sharpened saplings we had set about our small camp.

  I closed my eyes. In the morning I would have Talena back. Who knew how high might be raised the chair of Bosk?

  Things were going well.

  I fell asleep.

  8 We Wait in the Camp of Verna

  There is a Gorean saying that free women, raised gently in the high cylinders, in their robes of concealment, unarmed, untrained in weapons, may, by the slaver, be plucked like flowers.

  There is no such saying pertaining to panther girls.

  Needless to say, there are various techniques for the acquisition of slaves, male and female. Much depends of course, on the number of slavers, the nature of their quarry, and the particulars of a given chase or hunt.

  The fact that we numbered ten, including myself, and that the girls of Verna’s band numbered some fifteen, and that they were skilled with their weapons, and dangerous, dictated the nature of our approach.

  I had not wished to bring a large number of men through the forest with me, for they would have been difficult to conceal. Further, I wish to leave a full
garrison at the Tesephone, to protect the ship should here be any danger at the river. It was my original intention to bring with me merely five, but, when Arn and his men arrived at the camp, I permitted them to join us. Outlaws move well in the forests, moving, like panther girls, with swiftness and stealth, and leaving little trace of their passage. With the element of surprise, and my plan of attack, I did not think we would need many men. Five, I had conjectured, would have been sufficient. I smiled to myself. Perhaps it was an arrogance of my Gorean blood that had led me to my decision. There is more glory to take more slaves with fewer men. It redounds to the skill and credit of the slaver. Too, Verna’s band, earlier in the forest, had irritated me. It would gratify me, and give them a most humiliating memory to carry with them into their slavery, that they, the entire band, had been taken by a mere handful of males. They might be panther girls, but they were only women. We would take them easily. We had weighed various modes of attack. One of the simplest and least dangerous we had immediately rejected, because of the time involved. It was to besiege the girls in their stockade, cutting them off from food and water, and merely wait until they, hungering and thirsting, following our orders, threw down their weapons, stripped themselves and emerged, one by one, as we called them forth, surrendering to our binding fiber. A similar plan, but swifter, requires setting fire to the camp and its encircling wall. This forces the girls into the forest where, theoretically, they maybe separately taken. There are many dangers here, however. The girls usually emerge armed and dangerous, rapidly scattering. It can be extremely perilous to attempt to capture such women. Further, in the confusion, girls may escape. Perhaps most to be dreaded is the spread of fire to the forest itself. This is something which, perhaps surprisingly to the mind of Earth, fills Goreans with great horror. It is not simply that there is great danger to the slaver themselves, in the shiftings and blazings of such a conflagration, but rather that the forest, the sheltering and beautiful forest, is felt as being injured. Goreans care for their world. They love the sky, the plains, the sea, the rain in the summer, the snow in the winter. They will sometimes stand and watch clouds. The movement of grass in the wind is very beautiful to them. More than one Gorean poet had sung of the leaf of a Tur tree. I have known warriors who cared for the beauty of small flowers. I personally would not care to be the man responsible for the destruction of a Gorean forest. It is not unknown for them to be hunted down and burned alive, their ashes scattered in expiation by mourning Goreans among the charred wood and blackened stumps. Sometimes it takes, according to the Goreans, a generation for the forest to forgive its injury, and return to men, gracious and forgiving, in all its beauty.