Hunters of Gor coc-8

by John Norman

  Vinca handed the blade back to me, which I cleaned and replaced in my sheath. Mira, staked out, blindfolded, felt a woman’s strong hand take the blood from her thigh and smear it across her belly and about her body.

  “Please!” wept Mira. “I am a woman!”

  “I, too, “ said Vinca, “ am a woman.”

  “Spare me!” cried Mira. “Keep me as your slave!”

  “I do not want you,” said Vinca.

  “Sell me to a man!” she cried. “I will make him a docile slave, a dutiful, obedient and beautiful slave!” “Are you a natural slave?” asked Vinca.

  “Yes,” cried Mira, “yes! Sell me! Sell me!”

  “Do you beg to be a slave?” she asked.

  “Yes,” wept Mira, “yes!”

  “Untie her,” said Vinca.

  Weeping, still blindfolded, Mira was untied and thrown before me on her knees. “Submit,” said Vinca, sternly.

  Before me Mira performed the gesture of submission. I held her crossed wrists. “I submit myself, Master,” she said.

  She was now my slave.

  I nodded to Vinca.

  Mira was thrown back on the grass.

  “Let the slave,” said Vinca, “be now staked out for sleen.”

  “No!’ cried Mira. “No!”

  Swiftly Mira, blindfolded, found herself bound as before to the stakes, if anything more securely. Only now she lay there a bound slave.

  “Leave her for the sleen,” said Vinca.

  “Command me!’ cried Mira. “I will do anything for you! Anything! A slave begs to be commanded!” “It is too late,” said Vinca.

  “I beg to serve you!” she wept. “I beg to serve you!”

  “It is too late,” said Vinca.

  “No!” cried Mira.

  “Gag her,” said Vinca.

  Again I thrust the heavy wadding of fur deep in Mira’s mouth, and tied it securely in place with the strip, twisted, of panther skin.

  We then withdrew, leaving the slave Mira lashed helplessly between the stakes. We waited.

  As we expected, it did not take long. Soon, prowling about in the brush, some yards away, was a sleen, drawn by the smell of fresh blood, her own, smeared on Mira’s slave body.

  The sleen is a cautious animal. He circled her, several times.

  I could smell the animal. So, too, doubtless could the others, and Mira. She seemed frozen in the lashings.

  Movement will sometimes provoke the animal’s charge, if within a certain critical distance, which, for the sleen, is about four times the length of his body.

  The sleen scratched about in the grass. It made small noises. Tiny hisses and growls. The prey did not move. It came closer. I could hear it sniffing. Then, puzzled, it was beside her. It thrust its snout against her body, and began to lick at the blood.

  I removed a pile from one of the tem-wood arrows and capped the arrow with a wadding of fur.

  Mira, blindfolded, helpless, threw back her head in terror. It would have been the scream of a bound slave, naked, staked out for sleen. But there was no sound for she had been gagged by a warrior. He had not even entitled her to utter a sound when the very jaws would be upon her. Her body pulled back, shuddering like that of a tethered tabuk set out by hunters for larls. First the sleen began to lick the blood from her body. Then it began to grow excited. Then it thrust forth its head and took her entire body, from her waist to the small of her back, in its jaws, and lifted it in the lashings.

  I loosed the padded arrow. It struck the sleen on the side of the snout. Startled, it growled with rage, and leaped back, away from the prey. Then it stood over her, hissing, snarling, defending its find against another predator.

  Then the two paga slaves other than Vinca came forward, dragging the carcass of a tabuk. I had felled it before seeking Mira in her camp. They threw the carcass to one side.

  After much snarling and growling the sleen turned to the side, its snout still stinging, and seized up the tabuk and disappeared in the brush.

  I found the arrow, removed the wadding and replaced the steel pile. Vinca and her girls had now unbound the lashings that fastened Mira. With difficulty they took from her mouth the heavy gag. They let the panther skin then hang about her neck and wound the wadding about it, that it might be soon replaced. They did not remove the blindfold. They put her on her knees and tied her hands behind her back.

  “You know what you are to do, Slave?” asked Vinca.

  Numbly, half in shock, Mira nodded her head.

  She was to betray the panther girls of Hura’s band, in my camp, there were several bottles of wine, which had been taken originally from Verna’s camp by Marlenus, and then from his camp by the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura. It had been abandoned at their first campsite by the conquest circle. I had had my slaves, captured panther girls, bring it along, carrying it in our slave caravan. I had thought it might prove useful. I did not expect it would be drunk by all of the panther girls, but if I could deprive the men of Tyros of more of their dangerous, beautiful allies, it would be to my advantage.

  “Tomorrow night,” said Vinca, “you are to give the wine to as many of the panther girls as is possible.” Mira, blindfolded, kneeling before the harshly spoken Vinca, put down her head. “Yes, Mistress,” she whispered.

  Vinca put her hands in her hair and shook it. “We can pick you up again when we want you,” she said. “Do you understand?” Mira nodded, miserably.

  “Are you a docile, obedient slave?” asked Verna.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Mira. “Yes!”

  “Bring skins,” said Vinca, “that we may now disguise this slave as a panther girl.” Mira was unbound and helped into skins. They were the same which had been taken before from her.

  Her wrists were then bound again behind her back and I regagged her. The bottles of wine, brought by one of the paga slaves, were slung, knotted, about her neck.

  When we were close to her camp I removed the blindfold from her eyes. She looked at me, piteously. In her eyes there was still the fear of the sleen. “I shall show you where your guards are placed,” I said.

  “Then, with your skills, you should be able to return undetected to your place in the camp.” She nodded, tears in her eyes.

  I took her by the arm and, nearing the camp, by gesture, showed her the placement of the two guards. She nodded. We then went to a place from which, with care, she should have no difficulty in re-entering the camp.

  We knelt together in the foliage. The wine was still tied about her neck. I knelt behind her. I unbound her hands. I removed from her mouth the heavy gag. I threw it into the brush.

  She did not turn to look at me. “Was it to you,” she asked, “that I submitted in the forest? Is it you whose slave I am?” “Yes,” I said.

  She turned to face me.

  I suddenly removed her skins from her.

  I took her in my arms, a slave girl.

  I did not untie the wine from about her neck.

  “Can you hear me?” cried the man of Tyros. “Can you hear me?”

  I, of course, made no answer.

  “If any man of Tyros falls,” he cried, “ten slaves will die!”

  Scarcely had his words been uttered when he, himself, fell, an arrow from the great bow lost in the yellow of his tunic.

  I had not accepted their terms.

  “Then, Slaves,” cried a man, blade uplifted, “die!”

  But he struck no one. The great bow did not permit him. When the chain moved again it took its way over his body. No longer was there the threat of slaying slaves. No man was willing to strike the first blow. Sarus, leader of the men of Tyros, ordered several but none would strike, not wishing themselves to fall. “Then strike them yourself!” shouted one of his insubordinate men.

  Sarus slew the man himself, with his sword, but he, Sarus, did not then move to strike the slaves. Rather he looked angrily, anxiously, into the forest, and then turned away. “Faster!’ he cried. “March then faster!” The sl
ave chain again moved.

  Once more the men from Ar, led by Marlenus himself, their Ubar took up their song. It rang through the forests.

  After the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, I slew no more, for I wished their confidence and their hope, to mount. Before the tenth hour I had felled fourteen. That morning, given the history of their march, was perhaps, by them, felt to be their darkest, their most helpless. That afternoon would be for them, by contrast, by my intention, one of gradually increasing elation, of growing, leaping hope, for that afternoon, and that evening, too, no more arrows strode forth, telling, from the green concealments of the leafed branches. Perhaps I was no longer with them. Perhaps their stalker had tired. Perhaps he had give up the chase, the hunt.

  They marched long that day. It was late when they made their camp.

  They were buoyant, and the mood was one of celebration. I watched my slave, Mira, smiling, jesting and pouring wine for many of the panther girls of Hura’s band.

  The hour was late. It would be dawn in four Ahn. The drug was a strong one. It had been intended for the bodies of men, not the smaller bodies of women. I did not know the duration of its effect in a woman. Mira had, under Vinca’s strict questioning, told us that it would render a man unconscious for several Ahn, usually a half a day.

  My own slave coffle, unknown to the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura, was camped not more than two pasangs away.

  It might be necessary to waken some of Hura’s girls forcibly from the drug. We did not wish to lose too many hours.

  I decided I would need sleep, and so left the vicinity of the camp of the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura.

  In examining baggage discarded along the trail, abandoned in flight, I had found little of interest. It was mostly furs and clothing. Three furs I had brought back to Vinca and the other two paga slaves, that they might be comforted from the hard ground and protected from the cold forest nights. I brought no furs for Ilene or the other slaves. The panther girls, chained together, had one another for warmth, and the tarpaulin. Ilene had nothing. When she grew too miserable she would creep to my side for warmth. I would then use her. Her responses were becoming rapid, deep and organic, almost spontaneous. A slave girl is best either when she is often used, or when she has been deliberately, for some time, deprived. A free woman may go days or weeks without the touch of her companion. For a slave girl, who has learned her collar, this would be almost unspeakable misery. Two nights without a master’s touch would be agony for her. Slave pens are often filled with girls, second and third collar girls, begging to be sold. Sometimes their sales are even postponed that their desperation, piteous and supplicatory, their longing to surrender their small bodies, their softness, and beauty, to the hard, strong arms of a master, may be more evident on the block. It is interesting to note a woman, in the process of her vending, who attempts, out of self-hatred, or hatred of men, or pride, to conceal this deprivation, this need. In the hands of a skilled auctioneer she is forced to reveal, incontrovertibly, her passionate latencies, the suppressed pleadings of her womanhood for a master’s touch. Before the auctioneer closes his hand on a price for her, it will be clear to all in the market, including the woman, that her beauty is truly for sale, and fully. Also among the discarded baggage I had found some tunics of Tyros. I had selected one and taken it to my camp. I thought that perhaps, at some time, it might prove useful.

  17 I Add Jewels to the Slaver’s Necklace

  I strode among the unconscious bodies of panther girls. They slept late. I would not, in the future, allow them that luxury.

  “Add them to the slave chain,” I told Vinca.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  From our coffle we had separated eight girls and chained them in pairs, left ankle to right ankle, running the Harl ring chained of one to the second welded ring on the Harl ring of the other. They were thus double chained and separated by about a yard. Each pair was under the command of one of my slaves. Even Ilene in her slave silk, had a switch, and was given her pair of girls to command. She struck them with the switch. “Hurry, Slavs!” she told them.

  The chained work slaves, under their switches, began to gather up the unconscious panther girls and carry them and place them on the grass in a line, their feet at, and vertical to, what would have been an extension of the coffle line.

  “I am glad there are more slaves,” said the blond girl, in her ankle ring. “That way there will be less for us to carry.” I had thoroughly scouted out the camp and surrounding area.

  I looked about. Once more there was the sign of a rout. This morning the men of Tyros had doubtless awakened pleased and confident, eager to be again on their way to the sea. Then, to their horror, and that of the girls of Hura, it had been impossible to rouse many of the panther girls, indeed, all who had last night drunk of Mira’s proffered wine.

  The girls would have been deeply unconscious. They would have responded to nothing, save perhaps with a twist of their bodies and an almost fevered moan. The men of Tyros, as I had expected, had not elected to remain at the camp, to protect and defend the girls until they had regained consciousness. They did not know but what this event had been the prelude to a full attack. They did not know the number nor nature of their enemies. They desired to preserve their own lives. Further, they did not elect to impede themselves and their chain by carrying them. Some, I expected, perhaps high girls in Hura’s band, had been carried by their sisters of the forests. Most, however, had been abandoned, left behind with the tenting and baggage.

  I saw two slaves dragging another girl by, under the supervision of the dark-haired paga slave.

  I heard a switch fall twice. Ilene had beaten her girls. They were dragging another fair prisoner. “Hurry!” scolded Ilene. They did not fear her. They feared Vinca. Accordingly they obeyed Ilene perfectly. She exulted in her absolute control of two other girls. She struck then again. “Hurry!’ she cried. I looked down at two of the unconscious girls. They had gone to sleep after the wine, warmed and drowsy. They would not have known it was drugged. When they awakened they would expect it would be morning and they would resume their march. They doubtless would be startled, upon awakening, to find themselves stripped, members of a slave chain, their fair ankles locked in Harl rings. Suddenly I was alert. I detected in one of the small, narrow, open tents, abandoned, a movement.

  Giving no sign I continued as before, looking about the camp. Then, when my presence was concealed by the side of the tent, I slipped into the brush. In a few moments I discovered, kneeling in the tent, her back to me, with drawn bow, a panther girl. She had been pretending to be drugged, but had not been. she had had as yet no opportunity for a clean, favorable shot. She could not risk a miss. Other tents, and moving women, had been between us. I admired her, muchly. What a fine, marvelous, brave woman she was. Others had fled. She had stayed behind, to defend her fallen sisters of the forest.

  It, of course, had been her mistake.

  From behind I took her by the arms. She cried out with misery.

  I bound her hand and foot.

  “What is your name?” I asked, as I fastened he knots on her wrists, behind her back.

  “Rissia,” she said.

  I carried her to where the other girls lay and put her on the grass among them. I then looked again about the camp. I found a girl over whom a blanket had been thrown. I had her, too, carried to a place in the line.

  “Return the work slaves to the coffle,” I said.

  The paga slaves and Ilene brought their work slaves back to the coffle. “Stand there to be chained!” said Ilene.

  “Yes, Mistress,” they said. Ilene laughed.

  I fastened them again in the coffle, and moved the coffle forward, so that its last girl now stood where the first of the unconscious girls, lying on the grass, might now be conveniently shackled to her.

  Vinca came toward the line. She was leading, by the arm, a stumbling, half-conscious panther girl.

  “Where am I? Who are you?” the
girl was asking.

  “You are at your camp,” said Vinca. “And I am Vinca.”

  “Where are you taking me?” asked the girl.

  “To be enslaved,” said Vinca.

  “Lie here,” said Vinca.

  The girl lay on the grass, tried to get up, and then fell unconscious. “Remove their clothing,” I told Vinca and her girls. Their clothing, weapons, pouches, everything was removed from the panther girls. It was thrown to one side and burned. It is customary on Gor to strip a woman before shackling her. Why I do not know.

  I then, Harl ring by Harl ring, ankle by ankle, began to fasten the girls in the slave coffle. There were not, however, enough Harl rings. With a long length of slave chain, however, and several sets of slave bracelets I completed the coffle. I snapped one bracelet on the left wrist of the last girl and snapped its matching bracelet through one of the heavy links in the slave chain. The remaining girls, eleven of them, I had placed on their stomachs, head toward the chain and their left arms extended, their wrists lying over the chain. Then, snapping one bracelet through a convenient link of the chain, I fastened them in the coffle. One of the girls began to stir, moaning. Another twisted, uttering a tiny noise.

  I took the uninscribed slave collars and, girl by girl, collared them. When I cam to Rissia our eyes met. Then she dropped her head. I thrust her hair to one side. I collared her. Then I smoothed her hair over the collar. She was lovely. Her ankle was already locked in a Harl ring. Then I cut the binding fiber with which I had fastened her hands and feet.

  When I came to one girl she opened her eyes and looked at me, lost in her stupor, not comprehending. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I am putting you in a slave collar,” I told her.

  “No,” she said, “weakly, and then put her head to one side, and was again unconscious.

  I surveyed the entire line.

  Mira had done her work superbly. She had then, apparently, fled with the others. It was possible they had not understood her part in the treachery. Perhaps she had not known the wine was drugged? Perhaps it had not been the wine, but other food with which someone had tampered?