John Norman

by Time Slave

  She had then been briefly disciplined by the leash, taught its power to control her.

  Then she had stood again, facing him, and he had turned and walked toward the village. She, terrified, miserable, obedient now to the leather collar of her leash, followed him. She had no choice.

  Four times during the night had Tree used her body, once awakening her to his long, pounding thrusts.

  The fourth time, in spite of her stiffness, her soreness, to her astonishment, and fear, she had sensed the beginning of a strange sensation in her body; she did not know whether it was painful or pleasurable; it was very different from anything she had felt before; she was terrified of the sensation, rudimentary and inchoate, incipient, because she sensed that she might be swept helplessly away from herself before it, that it might, if unchecked, transform her from a human person with dignity, though abused, into a degraded, uncontrollable, spasmodically responding female animal. “I must never let them take me from myself,” she told herself. “I must always retain my control. I must always keep my dignity. I must always remain an intelligent, self-restrained, dignified human being, a true human person.” But she had feared that if the sensation had not been checked, she would have, had his touch continued, been literally forced to succumb to it, that it would have reached a point where she could not have helped herself, that it would have been entirely in his hands. She had sensed then that, had he wished to do so, he could have made her an animal, that animal she feared most to be, a beautiful, helpless, responding female beast, the uncontrollable, yielding prize of a greater, a stronger beast. She had closed her eyes, and turned her head to one side, and gritted her teeth, and fought the sensation, trying to keep her body inert, trying, desperately, not to feel. Then, when she sensed that she would lose the battle, and she wanted to cry out, “Don’t stop! Please don’t stop!” he had finished with her, and had withdrawn, to roll to one side, to sleep.

  “I hate you,” she whispered. “I hate you. I hate you!”

  Then she had resolved to resist more mightily than ever, to yield never to such a beast, or to others like him. “I will never permit them to rob me of my dignity,” she told herself. But she was afraid, for she recalled the beginning of the strange sensation. It kept recurring to her, even as she followed him on her tether, and it made her belly and inwardness grow warm, and excited. Once he stopped and turned and regarded her. She stopped, and looked down, blushing. She had seen his eyes, and the slight flaring of his nostrils. She knew in the heart of her that this strange man, whose very life in this fierce time might depend on the sharpness of his senses, had literally smelled her desire, the secretions that acknowledged her body’s receptivity, its readiness. He had walked toward her. “No,” she had said, turning away. “Go away. Go away!” She felt his hand on her, and she shuddered. “Go away!” she cried.

  He had turned from her and again taken his way through the trees, she, leashed, following.

  “I will resist you!” she cried.

  She was furious with him.

  Now, outside the tiny village, the trail encampment, Tree, with his caught female, stopped.

  He was downwind of the camp, that he might approach it sensing, rather than being sensed. If anything was amiss in the camp, in particular, if there were the odors of strange men, it would be well to know. The Weasel People were enemies of the Men. They and the Men did not sell women or salt to one another. Antelope had originally been of the Bear People. But Wolf and Runner had stolen her from the Weasel People, who had taken her, with others, in a raid. The Men and the Bear People and the Horse Hunters did not steal from one another. They would sell women, or flint or salt to one another. But Antelope was not returned to the Bear People. They had not taken her from the Weasel People. The Men had done this. Besides she was comely. The Men kept her. Antelope did not mind. The Men were fine hunters. She and her friend, Cloud, were often fed by Tree. Both of them were good females, good kickers. The white-skinned slave girl, the girl he had taken in the forest, was a cold fish. But she would learn to kick, if she would eat. Antelope was not kept as a slave. That was because she was of the Bear People, who were friends of the Men. But she was not permitted to return to the Bear People. She belonged, now, to the Men. Though not a slave, the Men kept her as they did the others, as a woman. Ugly Girl was kept as a slave, which was like being the woman of a woman; she was not of the group, or of a friendly group; she was simply slave; the white-skinned female, Tree’s catch from the forest, too, was not of the group; she, too, thus, like Ugly Girl, or a girl of the Weasel People, would be kept as a simple slave; she must take orders from anyone in the group; she would be much beaten; she would have no rights, not even the life right, that accorded to members of the group; if she did not work well, or was not pleasing, she might be killed. Tree tested the odors, and found that all was well in the camp.

  He would now circle the camp and approach from upwind, that they would know his approach, and that he brought with him a female. That would give the camp time to gather, and greet him. It would please Tree’s vanity to bring her in, presenting her as a new slave to the men.

  They would be much pleased to see the new acquisition.

  In Tree’s opinion she was more beautiful than the other women of the camp, with the possible exception of Flower. Tree smiled to himself. He did not think this would make the life of the new slave any easier.

  Tree circled about the camp, for what reason Brenda Hamilton did not understand. She thought that perhaps it was customary to enter it from a given direction. But if that were so why had he approached it from the opposite direction? It did not occur to her at that time that the difference was an important one for Tree, and other. Hunters, the direction of the wind.

  Soon she heard shouts in the camp, the cries of children and women.

  Then, to her surprise, Tree took her in his arms and lowered her to the ground. Then, from his pouch, he took a length of rawhide, similar to that which now so tightly confined her wrists, some eighteen inches in length, and crossed and tied her ankles, tightly. She looked up at him. He then removed his rope from her neck, and, carefully, looped it about his body.

  He looked down at her.

  His pouch was slung at his side, the rope was looped about his body, some four times, from the right shoulder to the left hip. His spear, hafted, the flint point bound in the shaft with rawhide, lay beside him on the grass.

  His legs were long and powerful and bronzed. He wore a brief skin about his waist. His belly was fiat and hard, his chest large, his shoulders broad, his arms long and muscular. He had a large head. About his neck there was a tangle of leather and claws. His dark hair, black, jagged, was cut back from his eyes, and cut, too, roughly, at the base of his neck.

  Brenda Hamilton looked up at her master.

  Then, lightly, he picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder.

  He bent down and picked up his spear, and turned toward the camp.

  The shouting, and the cries, were much louder now.

  Brenda Hamilton would not be permitted to enter the camp on her own feet, even wrists bound, and tethered.

  She would be carried, trussed, over the threshold of the camp, as meat or game.

  She would be thrown to its ground at the feet of the skinning poles.

  She was slave.

  Brenda Hamilton, bound hand and foot, was carried lightly, helplessly, into the camp, over the shoulder of Tree, the Hunter.

  She became aware of men, and women and children, crowding about her.

  She was aware of huts, and smells.

  She was aware of two sets of poles, one set consisting of two upright poles and several small, slender poles, lashed horizontally between them, from which hung strips of drying meat; the other set consisting of two crossed poles at each end, bound together at the top, with a lateral pole set in the joinings of the end poles; from this lateral pole, on the one set of poles, there hung, upside down, hind feet stretched and bound to the pole, a small deer, its
head dangling peculiarly, its throat opened. There was dried blood matted in the white fur at the bottom of its head, beneath its mouth.

  Tree stopped with his prize before this latter set of poles, from which hung the deer, which had had its throat cut, that the hunters might have the blood.

  Brenda Hamilton was conscious of the ease with which she was carried, that she was so slight a burden for his strength, and of his arm, bronzed and muscular, holding her on his shoulder.

  Tree stood with his prize before the skinning rack, to which is brought meat, and game, and slaves.

  Over his shoulder, head down, Brenda Hamilton felt the inhabitants of the encampment press about her, eager, excited, talking, curious, commenting, speculating, some feeling her body and hair. Then she felt Tree’s body stiffen. And the crowd of women, children and men, fell back, and was silent.

  Someone, she knew, had approached.

  She heard voices.

  “Where have you been?” asked Spear.

  “I have been hunting,” said Tree.

  “What have you caught?” asked Spear.

  “This,” said Tree.

  Rudely Brenda Hamilton, bound hand and foot, was thrown to the dirt of the camp, at the foot of the skinning rack.

  She lay on her side, as she had been thrown. Her shoulder hurt.

  She was conscious of the feet, and knees and legs, of those about. Some of the women wore strings of shells about their left ankles. They made a sound when they moved. She wondered at how far they might be from the sea.

  She would learn later that these shells had been obtained in trade, exchanged for flints at the shelters, in barter with traders who had come from the world’s edge, scions of the Far Peoples.

  She heard a man’s voice, harsh, direct.

  “String her on the rack, that we may look at her,” said Spear.

  Brenda Hamilton felt her hands being untied, and then, by two men, she was lifted into the air, and, by two others, with rawhide thongs, was bound, wrists apart, hands over head, to the lateral pole set in the joinings of the crossed end poles. Her feet did not touch the ground. She hung suspended, in rawhide thongs. Her ankles were untied. To her left, tied upside down, bound by its spread hind legs to the same horizontal pole, hung the carcass of the bloodied deer.

  Spear, and the others, regarded the slave.

  Brenda Hamilton saw women and children standing behind and among the men. Most of the women were bare breasted. Almost all of the women wore necklaces of leather, claws and shells.

  Tree did not think Spear would order her slain. She was comely. If he did order her killed, he would fight Spear. But Spear would not want her killed. He would keep her for working and kicking.

  Brenda Hamilton looked into the large, stolid face that regarded her. She looked away, terrified. The face frightened her, more than had that of her captor. The eyes, particularly, frightened her. They seemed at odds with the face, and the largeness of the man. They were narrow and shrewd, cunning, sharp. The body and the face, together seemed only large, and slow, heavily muscled, thick, heavy, particularly the jaw, but the eyes were bright, seeing, observant. The man moved his head slowly, and his body, but she sensed in this a deception, one belied by the eyes. This creature, seemingly dull, shambling, she sensed, could, if need arose, move with the swiftness of a snake, the purposiveness of a panther.

  She sensed this was the leader.

  She would learn later his name was Spear.

  Closely behind him she saw a younger man. She saw clearly that he was the son of the other, from the narrowness of the eyes, the heaviness of the jaw, but there were two differences; the younger man’s body was more alert, more supple, less heavily muscled; but his eyes, though cruel, were simpler, more arrogant, less cunning. She sensed greater intelligence in the older one, and, too, quickness, that he might, if he wished, strike before the younger could move.

  Spear’s hands felt her body, the firmness of her breasts, the curvatures of her ass.

  “She is pretty,” said Spear to Tree.

  She felt Spear’s hand at her delta. She closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth.

  “She does not kick well,” said Tree.

  Spear stepped back and regarded her. He shrugged. “She is pretty,” he said. “We will keep her.” Then he said, “She can carry flint.”

  She saw Tree’s body relax.

  She understood very little of what was going on.

  Tree was pleased. He did not now have to fight Spear.

  She did not even understand that Spear had decided that she would be, at least for the time, permitted to live.

  A woman with a limp, and a scar beneath the left cheekbone began screaming.

  “Kill her! Kill her!” cried Short Leg. She was first among the women of the Men, dominant among the females. She was, too, the first fed of Spear’s five women. Indeed, so high she stood with Spear that, for more than two years; none of the other hunters had used her. Some of the hunters wondered why she should stand so high with Spear. Only Spear knew. She was shrewd, and highly intelligent. She gave him many good ideas. She knew much. And, in the camp, she was an extra pair of eyes and ears for Spear. She made him more powerful.

  But still she was only a female.

  Spear’s left hand flew back, cuffing the screaming female back.

  Brenda Hamilton saw blood leap from the face of the struck woman, who reeled back.

  “Throw the sticks!” cried Short Leg. “Throw the sticks!”

  “I have decided,” said Spear.

  Brenda Hamilton saw hostility in the eyes of the women, as they regarded her.

  “Throw the sticks!” screamed Short Leg.

  Spear’s eyes met those of a small man with a twisted spine, with narrow ferret eyes, whose head was turned to one side. “Get the sticks,” he said.

  Hyena sped from the group and went to one of the huts. He returned with a leather wrapper and, when he unfolded it, within it, Brenda Hamilton saw more than a dozen sticks, painted in different colors, some in rings. The colors were mostly yellows and reddish browns, the rubbings of ochers into the peeled wood.

  The group fell back and, with another stick in the wrapper, a larger stick, with a feather tied to it, Hyena, to one side, drew a circle in the dirt. He then brought five rocks, and put them in the circle, too. Then with his stick, he drew lines from one rock to another. Two of the women gasped. Where before there had been only rocks there was now a star, and the rocks were its points.

  Hyena gestured for silence.

  He looked at Short Leg, and the women. He seemed nervous. “Throw the sticks,” said Short Leg.

  He looked at the men. They did not look upon him pleasantly. He began to sweat.

  He went to Brenda Hamilton and, head twisted, bent over, looked up at her.

  Then he went back to the circle and picked up the sticks.

  He looked at Knife.

  He looked at Spear, and at Stone, and Tree, and the others.

  “Throw the sticks,” said Spear.

  More than ten times Hyena lifted and dropped the sticks, watching carefully, studying carefully, sometimes on his hands and knees, the way they had fallen, their angles, their relationships to one another.

  Then he stood up. “The meaning is clear,” he said. “It is always the same.”

  “What do the sticks say?” demanded Short Leg.

  “They say Spear is right,” said Hyena.

  Spear’s face did not change expression. Short Leg turned about in disgust, and left the group.

  The women, other than Short Leg, seemed satisfied. The men seemed pleased.

  The sticks had confirmed the decision of Spear. The female strung on the skinning pole would be permitted, at least for the time, to live.

  She looked from face to face. There was the leader, narrow-eyed, heavy jawed, who was Spear; there was, near him, the one she recognized as his son; who was Knife; to one side stood a large man, heavy faced and dour, Stone; then there was a spare man, l
ean and large handed, Arrow Maker; and a smaller man, heavy chested, short-legged, long armed, Runner; standing together were two men, a small, quick man, grinning, furtive, who was Fox, and a larger fellow, slower witted, secretive, who would not look into her eyes, Wolf; then she almost cried out in fear, as her eyes fell upon Tooth, so ugly, so large jawed, with the extended upper right canine tooth; he approached her; “Do not be afraid,” he said to her, in the language of the Men; then he turned away, followed by two children; the small man, with the twisted back, who had thrown the sticks had taken his sticks back to the hut; before he had done this he had erased his circle and lines, and thrown the stones into the brush; he was Hyena. Then, too, there was the tall, black-haired fellow, bronzed, in the brief skins, who had taken her captive, and muchly raped her, and brought her to the camp, as his bound prize; his name, she would learn, was Tree.

  She gasped.

  Two women stood beside him, a shorter woman, blond, and a taller woman, darkhaired. She saw the shorter blond women slip to her knees beside him, on his right side. There, kneeling by his right thigh, she took his leg in her hands, and, softly, began putting her lips to his leg. The darker woman rubbed her body against his, and began pressing her lips to his body. Then, too, she sank to her knees beside him, docile and delicate, holding his legs, kissing at him.

  Brenda Hamilton, suspended by her wrists from the pole, could scarcely believe her eyes. How shameless they were!

  Yet there was something so open, so frank, so organic, so honest, so uninhibited, so ingenuously sensual and vital in their behavior that she found herself, in spite of herself, and her shock, indescribably thrilled. And then she was furious. She hated them! How shameless they were! And she knew that she, too, wanted to kneel beside him, as they did, competing for his attention.

  “Get away from him,” she wanted to cry. “I am his prize, not you!”

  She had never seen a man such as he.

  But she said nothing. She was silent.

  To her fury, Tree turned away from her and went back among the huts, followed closely by the two females, holding to him, pressing themselves against him.