Blood Brothers of Gor

by Norman, John;

  I looked after the receding figure in the afternoon sky.

  "I could have been killed," she said.

  "You lost us the quarry," I said.

  "I could have been killed," she said, trembling.

  "You are only a worthless slave," I told her. "You have lost us the quarry."

  "Forgive me, Master," she said, her head down.

  "Into the pit, Slave, and be quick about it," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I followed her into the pit. She knelt at one end, near the larger opening, her head down.

  "Forgive me, Master," she whispered.

  "Another such performance and you shall be well punished," I informed her.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "It may return," I said.

  She shuddered.

  In a few Ehn, as I had hoped, we heard again the two notes, as of the fleer.

  "It is perhaps hungry," I speculated.

  She lifted her head, her eyes wide with terror.

  "I did not think he would forget you, my luscious, nude bait," I said. I regarded her. Most women, for some reason, stand in mortal terror of such things. This is particularly true of women who have some familiarity with them, who know something of their swiftness, their savagery and their ferocity, who have some knowledge of what they can accomplish.

  "Do not make me go out of the pit again," she begged.

  "Out," I told her.

  Fearfully, scarcely able to move, she crawled out of the pit.

  "It is there," she said, "in the sky. It is circling. I sense myself the center of that circle."

  "Splendid!" I said.

  "Let me hide," she begged. "Let me hide!"

  "No," I said.

  She suddenly screamed and the tether, length by length, leaped from the pit and then, again, jerked taut.

  "Idiot slave!" I cried.

  "I am tied! I am tied!" she wept.

  I stood up, lifting my head and shoulders above the entrance to the pit. She was sitting in the grass, at the end of the tether, weeping hysterically. "I am tied!" she cried, fighting to thrust the tether from her ankle.

  The quarry was still in the sky.

  By the tether I pulled her to within a few feet of the entrance.

  "Get on your feet," I cried, "Slave!"

  Unsteadily, trembling, her head lifted, she rose to her feet, her hands out to help her maintain her balance.

  "I am frightened," she wept.

  "Where is it?" I asked.

  "I do not know," she wept. "It is gone! It is gone!"

  "No," I said. "It will not be gone."

  The girl's head was lifted, scanning the sky. It seemed empty, save for the high, billowing clouds.

  "Be alert," I said. "It will not be gone."

  "I cannot see it," she cried, joyfully. "I cannot see it!"

  "It is not gone," I said. "It is somewhere. Be alert!" Suddenly the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The quarry had seen the fear responses of the girl. Twice she had tried to run. Now it seemed to have disappeared.

  "It is gone," she said.

  "It has alighted," I said.

  "What am I to do?" she asked.

  "Scan in a low circle, about you," I said.

  The quarry knew the girl's location. The girl did not know its location.

  There is, within normal limits, and assuming the dimension is under surveillance, a direct correlation between height and detectability. It is for such reasons that an upright carriage increases the capacity to detect the approach of a predator or the position of game. It is for such a reason that the larl commonly crouches when stalking prey.

  "I see nothing," she said.

  "Be alert," I said.

  I wondered how long it would take, say, a startled tabuk or ground animal, of a burrowing sort, to regain its composure, to return to its normal activities.

  "It is gone," she said.

  "Do not relax your vigilance," I cautioned her. "It will presumably be moving with great speed and will be some ten to fifteen feet in the air. You will not see it, probably, given your height, and the grass, until it is within a few hundred yards of you. Even so, however, this will permit you ample reaction time. You have a great advantage, you see, in that you are expecting it."

  "I think it is gone," she said.

  "Perhaps," I said.

  "It would have come by now, surely," she said.

  "Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps, not."

  The sky seemed placid, the clouds slowly changing their shapes in the air currents. I watched them for awhile. I supposed that a tabuk, by now, might have returned to grazing.

  "It is coming!" she cried, suddenly.

  "Into the pit!" I cried. "Hurry!" There had been no mistaking the urgency in her voice.

  "I cannot move!" she cried. "I cannot move!"

  I threw myself half out of the pit and with my right hand seized her right ankle, and then, with my left, seized her left ankle. She screamed, throwing her hands before her face. Bodily I dragged her down beside me. Almost at the same instant, flashing over the opening, I saw immense, extended talons closing, and the rushing passage of a huge, dark shape, the grass leaping up and seeming to be almost torn up, almost uprooted, following it.

  She clutched me, shuddering.

  "You have not been pleasing," I told her. I then thrust her from me.

  "Is it gone?" she begged, sobbing.

  "It will be back," I said. "Stay near the opening."

  I unlooped the tether on her leg from the hobbling log. She watched me, frightened. The other end was still tied tightly on her right ankle. I then went to the other end of the pit, where the smaller opening was, and uncoiled the line which lay there, formerly atop the hobbling log.

  "What do we do now?" she asked.

  "Wait," I said.

  She lay down in the pit, making herself as low, and small, as possible.

  We did not wait long.

  We heard a sudden, striking, thudding sound. It was almost as though half of a kaiila had been suddenly dropped to the earth. It was a sound which, when one has once heard it, one is not likely to mistake it for another. The vibrations were felt through the walls of the pit.

  "It is here," I said.

  The girl, looking up, suddenly screamed with fear. A large, bright, round eye peered through the opening in the ceiling of the pit.

  A beak, yellowish, some two feet in length, scimitarlike, poked into the pit.

  It withdrew.

  We then heard a taloned foot cutting at the sod and poles over our head.

  "We are safe here!" cried the girl.

  "No," I said.

  The beak again entered the pit and pushed downward. It poked against the girl's body. She screamed. It snapped at her and she shrank back, to the opposite end of the pit, covering her head, screaming. This excited the predator. Half of its head thrust into the pit, after her. Then it screamed, too, a shrill scream, and, withdrawing its head, it began to cut and tear at the roof of the pit. I saw a talon emerge through the sod roof. I saw poles lifting and splintering.

  In this moment, its attention fastened on the girl, on tearing away the obstacle which lay between him and her, I thrust through the smaller opening and, with a swirl of rope and two hitches, fastened the hobbling log on its right leg. I then screamed and thrust at it, and it spun about. I fended its beak away with my forearm.

  "Well done!" cried Cuwignaka, springing up from the grass. He interposed himself, and a lance, between me and the predator. The beak snapped the lance off short. Hci, swinging ropes, crying out, emerged, too, from the nearby grass. Cuwignaka and I backed off. The bird, smiting its wings, darted towards us but, screaming, fell short on its belly in the grass, feathers flying about. It only then realized it was impeded. It turned about, wildly, the leg, and rope, turning under him. Cuwignaka struck it on the beak with the shaft of the lance, distracting it. Hci, running up, struck it with the coils of rope in his hand. The bird, then, rising up, wi
ngs beating, took to flight, jerking the hobbling log from the pit, tearing it up through the sod roof and poles.

  "Strong! Strong! Marvelous!" cried Cuwignaka.

  He had not understood the strength of such a creature.

  Struggling, wings beating, screaming, the bird, lunging and falling, and climbing again, fought the weight. It struggled to perhaps a hundred feet in the air and then, bit by bit, the log swinging, fighting, it began to lose altitude. Cuwignaka and Hci ran beneath it, in the grass. I wiped sweat from my forehead. I was elated.

  I returned to the pit, its roof now half torn away. In one end of it the girl crouched. I leaped down into the pit beside her. "On your belly," I told her. I then pulled her right ankle, to which the tether was still tightly attached, high, up behind her. With some of the tether, close to the knot on her right ankle, I tied her hands together behind her back. I then looked down upon her, she now on her side, with her wrists tied behind her, fastened to her right ankle, pulled up, closely behind her. She was well secured. I then, with extra ropes taken from the pit, went to aid Cuwignaka and Hci.

  38

  A Slave Is Punished

  "It is a splendid catch," I said.

  Ropes bound the beak of the bird tightly shut. It lay on its side. Its feet, too, were bound together. Ropes, as well, encircled its wings, binding them to its body. Already we had put a girth rope about it, of the sort beneath which the Kinyanpi, in flight, inserted their knees.

  It was now late afternoon.

  We had transported the bird to this grove of trees on a travois, drawn by two kaiila. It was only a pasang or so from the pit, which we had rebuilt.

  The bird struggled, and then lay still.

  "A splendid catch," I said.

  "We must try again, tomorrow," said Cuwignaka.

  "Yes," I said.

  We then turned about, and walked to another part of the grove. It was in this part of the grove that we had our kaiila tethered, and had made our camp.

  There, near our things, stood my slave, who had once been the lofty Lady Mira, of Venna, an agent of Kurii.

  I looked at her. She lowered her eyes.

  "Fetch me a coiled rope," I told her. "And then get on all fours."

  She did so.

  "You ran twice," I told her.

  "Forgive me, Master," she said.

  "Then once, frozen with fear, you needed to be dragged, perforce, into the pit."

  "Forgive me, Master," she begged.

  "I am not pleased," I said.

  "Forgive me, Master!" she begged.

  Cuwignaka and Hci stood by while the slave was beaten. Then I cast aside the coiled ropes, to a place among my other things. She lay now at my feet, on her belly, shuddering and sobbing, clutching at the grass.

  "Now," I said, "get up and put out our food."

  "Yes, Master," she said, struggling to her feet.

  "And tonight," I said, "after we have eaten, and when we are sitting about, you will serve each of us in turn, and for as many rounds as we wish."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "And furthermore," I said, "you will do so with absolute obedience and in complete silence."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "It will be a pleasant evening," said Cuwignaka.

  "Yes," said Hci, "but there is another whom I would rather have in my thongs."

  "I think I know who she is," laughed Cuwignaka.

  "And is there not one," asked Hci, "whom you, my friend, Cuwignaka, would rather have licking your feet in terror?"

  "Perhaps," smiled Cuwignaka.

  "The pit is slow work, Tatankasa, Mitakola," said Hci. "Even with good fortune we cannot snare enough tarns by winter to combat the Kinyanpi."

  "Using the pit, I hope to catch only two or three," I said.

  "That will not be enough," said Hci.

  "Not in themselves," I admitted.

  "Ah!" said Hci. "But that will be very difficult and dangerous."

  "I do not see another way," I said. "Do you?"

  "No," said Hci.

  "Are you with us?" I asked.

  "Of course," he said.

  We then went and sat down where Mira, on leaves, had set forth our food.

  We chewed the cold pemmican. We would not make a fire in this place.

  From time to time, chewing, we cast a glance at Mira. She knelt to one side, her head down.

  She was very beautiful. It was difficult not to anticipate the pleasures we would later receive from her.

  I threw her a piece of pemmican.

  The three moons, visible through the branches, had risen.

  I looked again at Mira.

  She lifted her head, chewing, and our eyes met. Then she looked down, again, shyly, smiling.

  She was a common slave, who, tonight, would serve as a slave in common.

  39

  The Feather

  "It is exhausted, but it is still dangerous!" I cried. I held one end of the rope about the flopping bird's neck, keeping it taut, and Hci, on the other side, held the other. "Be careful," I called to Cuwignaka.

  Speaking soothingly, he approached the bird.

  We were in the vicinity of the tarn pit. This was the second tarn we had caught. The first one we had caught yesterday.

  Cuwignaka suddenly leaped forward and locked his arms about the bird's beak. He was almost thrown loose as the bird shook his head. Holding the beak with one arm, then, he whipped rope about it and, in moments, had tied it closed. In a few moments we had secured its wings and then, working together, Hci and I, bound its legs together.

  I took the hobbling rope from its right ankle, that which had fastened it to the hobbling log. It shuddered, lying on its side. "It is ready for the travois," I said.

  I then turned about and went back to the tarn pit. Its roof was gone, torn away and scattered when the concealed hobbling log had been jerked upward through it.

  I looked down into the pit. The girl lay on her stomach, her hands over her head, shuddering and sobbing below me.

  "Are you all right?" I asked. I had not bothered, this time, to bind her.

  "Did I not please you last night?" she sobbed.

  "Yes," I said, puzzled.

  "But you put me out on the tether," she said.

  "Of course," I said.

  Her body trembled, uncontrollably.

  "It is over now," I told her. "We have it."

  She sobbed, hysterically. I did not think she could control the movements of her body. "You did not do badly," I assured her.

  She whimpered, shuddering.

  "Why are you so upset?" I asked.

  She sobbed, hysterically, shuddering. To be sure, it had been a close thing.

  I slipped into the pit beside her and took her in my arms. "It is over now," I reassured her. "It is all right now."

  She looked at me, her eyes wide, frightened. "What you can make us do," she gasped. I stroked her head, gently. I had once seen a similar hysteria in an urt hunter's girl, in Port Kar. She had barely missed being taken by a giant urt in the canals. But the spear thrust of the hunter had been unerring and turned the urt at the last instant and the second thrust had finished it off. Girls in Port Kar will do almost anything to keep the rope off their neck and keep out of the canals. To be sure it is normally only low girls or girls who may have displeased a master in some respect who are used for such work.

  "Last night," she said, "did I not please you well?"

  "Yes," I said, "you did, and tonight you will please us again, and in the same way."

  She moaned.

  "You did not do badly today," I reassured her, "truly. For example, tonight it will not be necessary to beat you again, with coiled ropes. That should please you."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Indeed," I said, "you did not do badly, at all. Perhaps I will have one, or both, of your ears notched, as our friends, the red savages do, with prize kaiila, trained for the hunt or war, that you may be recognized as a valuable, tra
ined tarn-bait girl."

  She pressed herself against me, sobbing.

  "It is a joke," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I saw that she was not in a mood to appreciate such humor. I myself, however, for what it is worth, had not thought that it was bad at all.

  "Do you, and the others, not care for me?" she asked.

  "You are only a slave," I reminded her.

  "Of course, Master!" she said. "How foolish of me, to think that one might care, in the least, for one who is only a slave!"

  "You are only a property," I told her, "and worthless, except that you might have some small monetary value."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  Surely she knew that slaves were to be despised, and treated with cruelty, and contempt, and that they were to be perfectly and absolutely, and uncompromisingly, controlled and dominated, and mastered.

  But, doubtless, too, paradoxically, she must know that slaves were the most treasured, and loved, of all women.

  How one must sometimes fight one's feelings to keep them in perfect bondage, as abject slaves! And yet, to fulfill them, to complete them, and make their dreams come true, that is precisely how they must be kept, and they must, too, to achieve their true happiness, their fulfillment, and joy, understand that that is precisely how they are going to be kept.

  I did not see any reason to tell her that slaves are the most treasured, despised and loved of all women. Being Gorean she knew this.

  "But cannot a master," she asked, "sometimes feel some small affection for a property, even, say, for a pet sleen?"

  "Perhaps," I said, "but that would not mean, then, that the sleen was other than a sleen."

  "No, Master," she said.

  "Or the slave other than a slave," I said.

  "No, Master," she said.

  I kissed her, gently.

  "You do feel some tenderness for me," she said. "I am a woman. I can tell!"

  "Perhaps it will be necessary, after all, tonight, to whip you," I said.

  "No, Master," she said. "Please, no!"

  "Do not expect affection," I said. "Expect, rather, Slave, only to serve your master with total perfection."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "And even if a master, some master, sometime, should be moved to feel some tenderness, or a bit of affection, doubtlessly foolishly, toward you, remember that it changes nothing, that you remain only what you are, a slave."