Norman, John - Gor 08 - Hunters of Gor.txt

by Hunters of Gor [lit]

  to kiss and touch again in the shadow of the slave ring. Why this is I do not

  know. Beauty in a companion, of course, is not particularly important. Family

  and power are. In a house such as that of Bosk there are always beautiful slave

  girls, eager to please, each hoping to become first girl. But I dismissed

  Claudius Tentius Hinrabia. The Hinrabians, with the exception of herself, had

  been wiped out. Thus she was, for practical purposes, of a high name but without

  family.

  There were various jarls in Torvaldsland who had daughters, but these,

  generally, were ignorant, primitive women. Moreover, no one jarl held great

  power in Torvaldsland. It was not uncommon for the daughter of a jarl in that

  bleak place, upon the arrival of a suitor, to be called in from the pastures,

  where she would be tender her father’s verr.

  There were Ubars to the far south, I knew, but their countries were often small,

  and lay far inland. They exercised little political power beyond their own

  borders.

  It seemed clear that I should take unto myself as companion the daughter of some

  Ubar or Administrator, but few seemed appropriate. Too, many Ubars and

  Administrators might not wish to ally their house with that of a mere merchant.

  That thought irritated me.

  Gorean pride runs deep.

  Perhaps I should think of the daughter of Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos. She was

  the daughter of a Ubar. He would doubtless let her go if the Companionship Price

  were sufficiently attractive.

  The ideal, of course, would have been if Marlenus of Ar, the greatest of the

  Ubars, had had a daughter. But he had no daughter. She had been disowned.

  The daughter of Lurius of Jad was a possibility. I could probably buy her.

  But perhaps it was too early for me to think of Companionship.

  I could wait. I was patient.

  I was furious!

  I had failed to rescue Talena! She had been disowned! I and my men had fallen to

  panther girls. We would have been raped and sold slave had we not been rescued

  by the incomparable Marlenus of Ar. It was to him that Verna and her girls had

  fallen. He had won her and conquered her, superbly, even insolently telling her

  when to place a talender in her hair. he hunted and amused himself while I and

  my men, his guests, partook of his hospitality at his camp, dining on his

  largesse. He had defeated me, devastatingly, in the game. And he, when it

  pleased him, would free Talena, and return her to Ar.

  And I, and my men, would return to our businesses, empty handed, our heads

  bearing the shaved degradation swath of panther girls. Why had we not been raped

  and sold? Because we had been saved by Marlenus, the great Ubar, the Ubar of

  Ubars!

  He had saved us.

  We returned, laughing stocks, empty handed, while he would go back to Ar as its

  victorious Ubar, again successful. We would have nothing. He would have his

  acclaims and his glories. Even the shame of Talena would not shame him, for he

  had cut her off from him. But, in his generosity, he would free her, and return

  her to Ar and permit her to live, sequestered in his palace.

  Noble, great Ubar!

  And who would remember Talena, and her shame, after Marlenus, astride a mighty

  tharlarion, would have his triumph in the streets of Ar, panther girls in tiny

  cages slung on poles carried by huntsmen, and walking beside his beast, naked

  and chained to his stirrup, their former leader, Verna, now only a slave.

  Marlenus, I asked myself, are you always victorious?

  How great a man he was. And how small he made me seem. I began to hate Marlenus,

  Ubar of Ar.

  There was little to do now but return to Port Kar. I was now near the Tesephone.

  Marlenus, it seemed, was always successful, always fortunate. He never, it

  seemed, miscalculated.

  He had not miscalculated Verna, and her band. She, and they, were his, female

  slaves. And who else might dare to be enemy of such a man? Who else had he to

  fear? Who else, as danger, might figure as worthy to be included in the

  calculations of such a warrior, such a Ubar?

  Marlenus never miscalculated.

  I began to look forward to my return to the Tesephone. My being alone in the

  forest, my thoughts fierce and angry within me, had been good.

  I would permit my men, for a time, to observe and laugh at my hair, joking with

  them, for otherwise it would be difficult for them, terribly difficult. Then,

  when their tension had been released, I would reassert my authority as captain.

  If there were any who cared to dispute it, we could debate the matter with

  steel.

  But none would care to dispute it. I knew this crew. They were picked men, and

  good men.

  I was interested in seeing again the delicious, quick-handed little Tina, Rim’s

  lovely slave, Cara, and in particular a former panther girl, a proud,

  sweet-bodied, dark-haired girl, who wore my collar, who had found herself

  helpless in my hands, whose name was Sheera.

  I was anxious to see again Thurnock, and Rim, who had returned to the Tesephone

  with Grenna, the girl I had captured in the forest, who had stood high in Hura’s

  band. At her arrival at the Tesephone she would have been branded and placed in

  my collar. Then her wound would have been tended, as a slave’s wound is tended,

  with effectiveness, but roughness. She had had good legs. I thought she would

  look well in a slave tunic. Perhaps I would give her to Arn, when he, with my

  other men, returned to the Tesephone the day after tomorrow, coming from the

  camp of Marlenus.

  We would then follow the current down river, lay in at Laura, then proceed to

  Lydius, remain at Lydius for two days, for the pleasure of the men, and then

  return to Port Kar.

  I smiled to myself. I recalled that there should be, at my camp, four paga

  slaves. I had had Rim rent them in Laura. He had rented them from a tavern

  keeper in Laura, a man named Hesius. Rim had said the girls were beauties. I had

  not yet seem them. My steps quickened. I was anxious to do so.

  As I strode toward the camp, my hand held the great bow. Over my left shoulder,

  slung was sword and scabbard. At my belt was a sleen knife; at my hip, in a

  verr-skin quiver, temwood sheaf arrows, nineteen of them, piled with steel,

  winged with the feathers of the vosk gull.

  Paga slaves are usually lovely girls I recalled Tana, a paga slave I had met in

  Lydius. She was a lovely girl, a beautiful example, belled and silked, of such a

  slave.

  Strangely Hesius had asked for no deposit on his girls, as a surety for their

  return. This only now struck me as unusual. Surely we were not known to him.

  Further, now, as I thought of such matters, I recalled his rent price had seemed

  very low, particularly for fine girls, as Rim had assured me these were. Prices

  were supposedly low in Laura. I was prepared to believe that. Yet were prices

  that low? Could they be that low? Suddenly my hand went white on the great bow.

  I stopped and strung it. I removed an arrow from the quiver. I set the arrow to

  the string. I felt very cold and hard, and yet in a rage. We had been fools. I

  recalled, with savage understanding, w
ith an understanding as sudden and

  terrible, as that of a lightning flash over Torvaldsland, that this Hesius, this

  tavern keeper of Laura, had, free of charge, as a gesture of good will, included

  wine with the shipment of girls to my camp.

  Inwardly I howled with rage.

  The men of Tyros!’

  I, like a fool, obsessed with the pursuit of Talena, blind to all, had forgotten

  them.

  I approached the camp of the Tesephone with great caution. One shadow among

  others, silent, from between branches, observed the camp.

  The wall which had been built about the camp had been broken and thrown down.

  Here and there there were the ashes of campfires. There was debris on the

  campsite. The sand, in many places, was torn, as though there might have been

  struggles. There was, deep in the sand, the impression of a keel, leading to the

  water.

  My men, the slaves, the Tesephone, were gone. I clenched my fist, and put my

  forehead to the green branch behind which I stood.

  13 I Re-Enter the Forest

  I unclenched my fist. I lifted my head from the branch, against which I had

  placed it.

  I, Bosk of Port Kar, was not pleased.

  Doubtless there would be some men of Tyros about, waiting for anyone who might

  return to the camp.

  I decided I would wish to meet these men. I did not care to leave them behind

  me.

  I sat down on the leaves, and waited.

  In the late afternoon I saw the, eleven of them, coming toward the camp on the

  shore side, from downriver, as thought from Laura.

  They came rather boldly. They were fools.

  I had approached the camp of the Tesephone with great caution. I had been one

  shadow among others, silent. They had had no guards posted.

  One of them carried a bottle.

  They knew little of the forests. It was their misfortune. With them, I noted,

  grimly, were four girls. They were in throat coffle, their wrists behind them,

  bound. The girls were laughing and joking with them. They wore yellow silk. They

  were doubtless the paga slaves from Laura.

  They had been instrumental in the surprise and taking of my camp. Doubtless they

  had been told to see that all males in the camp partook of the wine which had

  been sent upriver with them. They would have understood the plot. They would

  have been partner to it. Now, charmingly, they, bound, teased and jested with

  the men of Tyros. They were lovely slaves.

  I would meet those men of Tyros. I strode forth to the camp, and stood and faced

  them.

  They were struck for a moment, seeing me, standing some hundred and fifty yards

  from them, regarding them.

  The girls were thrust to one side.

  The men drew their blades and rushed forward, charging me. They were fools.

  At point-blank range the temwood shaft can be fired completely through a

  four-inch beam at two hundred yards it can pin a man to a wall; at four hundred

  yards it can kill the huge shambling, bosk; it fires nineteen arrows in a Gorean

  Ehn, some eighty Earth seconds; a skilled bowman, and not an unusual one, is

  expected to be able to put these nineteen arrows in an Ehn into a man-sized

  target consecutively, each a mortal hit, at some two hundred and fifty yards.

  Shouting the war cry of Tyros, blades drawn, they ran toward me across the sand

  and pebbles of the northern shore of the Laurius.

  These men knew only the crossbow.

  They ran toward me as I had wanted them to, near the edge of the river, in the

  shortest line, away from the trees.

  Their cries drifted toward me, their order to surrender. They did not understand

  who it was who hunted.

  My feet were spread; my heels were aligned with the target; my feet and body

  were at right angles to the target line; my head was turned sharply to the left;

  the first sheaf arrow was drawn to its pile; the three half feathers of the vosk

  gull were at my jawbone.

  “Surrender!’ cried the leader, stopping some twenty feet from me. He was under

  my arrow. He knew I might kill him. ”There are too many,” he said. “Put down

  your weapon.”

  Instead I drew a bead on his heart.

  “No!” he cried. “Attack!” he cried to his men. “Kill him!”

  He turned again to face me. His face was white. In a line behind him, on the

  beach, his men scattered. Only one moved.

  In hunting one often fells the last of the attackers first, and then the second

  of the attackers, and so on. In this fashion, the easiest hits are saved for

  last, when there is less danger of losing a kill. Further, the lead animals are

  then unaware that others have fallen behind them. They are thus less aware of

  their danger. They regard as misses that way, in actuality, be hits on others,

  unknown to them.

  The man from Tyros was alone.

  White-faced, he threw down his sword.

  “Charge,” I told him.

  “No,” he said. “No!”

  “The sword?” I asked.

  “You are Bosk,” he whispered, “Bosk of Port Kar!”

  ‘”I am he,” I said.

  “No, not the sword,” said he, “No,”

  “The knife?” I asked.

  “No!’ he cried.

  “There is safety for you,” I said, gesturing across the Laurius with my head,

  “if you reach the other side.”

  “There are rive sharks,” he said. “Tharlarion!”

  I regarded him.

  He turned and fled to the water. I watched. Luck was not with him. I saw the

  distant churning in the water, and saw, far off, the narrow head of a river

  shark, lifting itself, water falling from it, and the dorsal fins, black and

  triangular, of four others.

  I turned and looked up the beach. The paga slaves were there. They stood in

  terror, barefoot in the sand, in the yellow silk, in throat coffle, their wrists

  bound behind their back, horrified with what they had seen.

  I strode toward them and, with screams, they turned stumbling about, attempting

  to flee.

  When I passed the one man of Tyros who had yet moved I noted that he now lay

  still.

  The girls had tangled themselves in the brush not twenty yards into the trees.

  By the binding fiber on their throat I pulled them loose and led them back to

  the beach.

  I took them to the point where the leader of the men of Tyros had entered the

  water.

  Sharks were still moving in the center of the river, feeding.

  “Kneel here,” I told them.

  They did so.

  I went and gathered my arrows from the fallen men of Tyros, and rolled their

  bodies into the Laurius. They were simple pile arrows and pulled cleanly from

  the body. I did not need, as with the broad arrow or the Tuchuk barbed arrow, to

  thrust the point through in order to free it.

  I cleaned the arrows and returned to the girls, placing the arrows in my quiver.

  They looked up at me in terror, captured slaves. They had been instrumental in

  the taking of my camp. They had been party to the plot. Without them it could

  not have been successful. Doubtless they knew much.

  They would tell me what they knew.

  “Speak to me,” I said, “of what took place in this camp, and tell
me what you

  know of the doings and intentions of the men of Tyros.”

  “We know nothing,” said one of the girls. ”We are only slaves.”

  In the pouring of paga, I knew, they would have heard much.

  “It is my wish,” I said, “that you speak.” My eyes were not pleasant.

  “We may not speak,” said one of the girls. “We may not speak.”

  “Do you expect the men of Tyros to protect you?” I asked.

  They looked at one another, apprehensively.

  Then, as they knelt very straight, I removed the pleasure silks from them. Then,

  to their astonishment, I unbound their wrists. I did not free them of the tether

  on their throat.

  “Stand,” I told them,

  They did so.

  I had unstrung the bow. I removed the sword from my sheath. I gestured toward

  the water with the blade.

  They looked at me with horror.

  “Into the water,” I told them. “Swim.”

  “No! No!” they screamed. They fell before me in the sand, their hair to my

  sandal.

  “We are women!” cried one. “We are women!”

  “Be merciful to us,” cried one. “We are women!”

  “Please, Master!” wept another. “We are only slaves!”

  “Submit,” I told them.

  They knelt before me, back on their heels, head down, arms lifted and extended,

  wrists crossed as though for binding.

  “I submit myself,” said each, in turn.

  They need not be bound. They need not be collared. They need not eve have

  spoken. The posture of submission itself, assumed by them before me, constituted

  them my slaves.

  They were now mine.

  “Slave,” said I to the first girl, dark-haired, “head to the sand, speak.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “We were the slaves of Hesius of Laura,” she wept. “We are paga slaves. Our

  master dealt with Sarus, Captain of the Rhoda, of Tyros. We were to be rented to

  the camp of Bosk of Port Kar. We were to serve wine. The men of Tyros, when the

  wine had been drunk, were to storm the camp.”

  “Be silent,” I told her. I gazed upon the second girl, a blond. “Head to the

  sand.” I said, “speak.”

  She plunged her lovely hair to the sand. “The plan went well,” she said. “We

  served wine to all, and, even, secretly, to the slave girls of the camp. Within

  the Ahn all were unconscious. The camp was ours.”

  “Enough,” I said. “You,” I said, to the third girl, a redhead, “speak.”