Hunters of Gor coc-8 Page 28
I looked at the slaves. They were a splendid lot.
I had had, before the morning, twenty-five girls, captured, in the coffle. That had left, by my count, not including Hura, seventy-nine panther girls. “It is an excellent catch,” said Vinca, looking down the long line. It was indeed.
Fifty-eight new slaves lay at the chain.
Mira had done her work well. We had taken them as easily as flowers. Hura had had, by my count, one hundred and four girls. She now retained twenty-one, including Mira. The remaining eighty-four could be accounted for by reference to the jewels fastened on the slave chain of Bosk, a merchant of Port Kar.
Sarus, leader of the men of Tyros, by my count, when the march had begun had had one hundred and twenty-five men. I had reduced that number, over several days, to fifty-six. Sarus himself, yesterday morning, had slain one. He now had fifty-five men.
I expected that he would soon begin to abandon slaves. I expected he would fear to slay them.
Doubtless his main concern would be to reach the sea, for his rendezvous with the Rhoda and the Tesephone. If necessary he might abandon all slaves with the exception of Marlenus of Ar.
I looked down the trail. It was time I visited, once more, the caravan of Sarus of Tyros.
“No! No! No! No!” I heard.
I looked back. One of the panther girls was on her feet, wild, hysterically trying to force the slave bracelet from her left wrist. The chain was moved, the bodies of other girls, still unconscious, like inanimate, beautiful weights, their left wrist imprisoned by the bracelet and chain, jerked to and fro. Instantly Vinca was on the girl with her switch, striking. “Kneel as a pleasure slave, head down, and be silent!” she cried.
“Yes, Mistress,” wept the girl. “Yes, Mistress!”
I saw other girls beginning to move about, to show signs of restlessness. Some had been disturbed by the crying of the hysterical panther girl, which had doubtless seemed to hem far off, and something having little to do with them. Other girls, shielded their eyes with their arms from the overhead sun, pouring down on them.
Another girl then began to scream and Vinca, too, was on her in an instant. Almost immediately she had her kneeling as a pleasure slave, with her head to the ground. Her hair was spread on the grass. She was shuddering, but silent. “The slaves have slept long enough,” I told Vinca. “Bring water and awaken them.” “Yes, Master,” said Vinca.
“Then follow as before,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” said Vinca.
I then left the chain, and took up again the trail of the men of Tyros, and that of the girls of Hura, who were now of the number of twenty-one.
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.
Ab
andoned 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.
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.