Hunters of Gor coc-8

by John Norman

  It might be mentioned too, that their ships hare, in effect a prow on each end. This makes it easier to beach them than would otherwise be the case. This is a valuable property in rough water close to shore, particularly where there is danger of rocks. Also, by changing their position on the thwarts, the rowers, facing the other direction, can, with full power, immediately reverse the direction of the ship. They need not wait for it to turn. There is a limitation her, of course, for the steering oar, on the starboard side of the ship, is most effective when the ship is moving in its standard “forward” direction. Nonetheless, this property to travel in either direction with some facility, is occasionally useful. It is, for example, extremely difficult to ram a ship of Torvaldsland. This is not simply because of their general size, with consequent maneuverability, and speed, a function of oarsmen, weight and lines, but also because of this aforementioned capacity to rapidly reverse direction. It is very difficult to take a ship in the side which, in effect, does not have to lose time in turning.

  Their ships are seen as far to the south as Shendi and Bazi, as far to the north as the great frozen sea, and are known as far to the west as the cliffs of Tyros and the terraces of Cos. The men of Torvaldsland are rovers and fighters, and sometimes they turn their prows to the open sea with no thought in mind other than seeing what might lie beyond the gleaming horizon. In their own legends they think of themselves as poets, and lovers and warriors. They appear otherwise in the legends of others. In the legends of others they appear as blond giants, breathing fire, shattering doors, giants taller than trees, with pointed ears and eyes like fire and hands like great claws and hooks; they are seen as savages, as barbarians, as beasts blood-thirsty and mad with killing, with braided hair, clad in furs and leather, with bare chests, with great axes which, at a single stroke, can fell a tree or cut a man in two. It is said they appear as though from nowhere to pillage, and to burn and rape, and then, among the flames, as quickly, vanish to their swift ships, carrying their booty with them, whether it be bars of silver, or goblets of gold, or silken sheets, knotted and bulging with plate, and coins and gems, or merely women, bound, their clothing torn away, whose bodies they find pleasing.

  In Gorean legends the Priest-Kings are said to have formed man from the mud of the earth and the blood of tarns. In the legends of Torvaldsland, man has a different origin. Gods, meeting in council, decided to form a slave for themselves, for they were all gods, and had no slaves. They took a hoe, an instrument for working the soil, and put it among them. They then sprinkled water upon this implement and rubbed upon it sweat from their bodies. From this hoe was formed most men. On the other hand, that night, one of the gods, curious, or perhaps careless, or perhaps driven from the hall and angry, threw down upon the ground his own great ax, and upon this ax he poured paga and his own blood, and the ax laughed and leaped up, and ran away. The god, and all the gods, could not catch it, and it became, it is said, the father of the men of Torvaldsland.

  There was, of course, another reason why the commander of the Rhoda and Tesephone would keep within sight of the shore.

  He had a signal to observe. He must not miss the beacon, which, somewhere along this lonely, sandy shore, in its hundred of pasangs, would mark the position of Sarus and his men, Hura, and her women, and their captive slaves.

  Even if he lay to, if he held his ships within ten or more pasangs, he would see our marker, that great blaze in the darkness of the night. And, seeing it, he would doubtless take it fore the beacon of Sarus.

  I looked at Tina. One side of her body was red in the reflected light of the great fire.

  “Can you be attractive to men?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Keep the fire high,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” said the exciting little wench.

  “Come with me,” I told Cara.

  I took Cara into the woods, some hundred yards from the forest’s edge. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  I tied her wrists together behind her back, about a small tree. Then I tore off the tatters of her white woolen slave garment, ripping it into strips. I gagged her, tightly.

  She looked at me, her eyes wild over the gag.

  Then I left her.

  I returned to the edge of the forest. Dimly, far off, across the water, I could see two lanterns.

  I was satisfied.

  I called to Tina, softly, from the shadows of the forest. She turned about and, unsuspecting, walked back to me.

  In the darkness I took her, suddenly, by the arms and thrust her rudely up against a tree. She gasped.

  “What is the duty of a slave girl?” I inquired.

  “Absolute obedience,” she said, frightened.

  “What are you?” I inquired.

  “A slave girl,” she said.

  “What is your duty?” I asked.

  “Absolute obedience,” she cried out.

  I looked out to sea. The two lanterns were now closer.

  “Kneel,” I told Tina.

  She did so immediately, frightened, her head to the ground.

  Some four hundred yards away from shore, by my conjecture, the two lanterns stopped. There was then a third lantern, lower that the other two.

  I took the slave whip from my belt and touched Tina on the shoulder with it. She looked up, frightened.

  “Please do not beat me,” she whispered.

  I held the whip before her. “Kiss the whip,” I told her.

  She did so, and looked up at me, pleading.

  “Absolute obedience,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered, terrified. “Absolute obedience.”

  “Here are your instruction,” I said.

  “Ho there,” cried the fellow leaping from the long boar, “it is only a wench.” “Protect me, Masters!” wept Tina. She had torn her tunic away from her left shoulder and ripped it to her waist on the left side.

  She emerged from the darkness, and fell to her knees in the wet sand before the man in yellow who had leaped from the longboat. He held an exposed sword. Others left the boat, too, and looked about. They stood warily. Men remained at alternate pairs of oars. There were, altogether, sixteen men of Tyros, including him who held the tiller.

  “Protect me, Master!” wept Tina. She knelt in the sand, her head down, trembling.

  With the blade of his sword the fellow lifted her head, and turned it from side to side.

  Tina was beautiful.

  He sheathed his sword and, by the hair, pulled her to her feet and faced her to the fire. He rudely read her collar. “A wench of Bosk of Port Kar,” he laughed. He thrust her from him, a yard or so, and examined her. “Bosk of Port Kar,” he said, “had a good eye for slave flesh.” “Stand straight, Girl,” said another man.

  Tina did so, and was examined by them, with the candidness accorded a female slave.

  “I was stolen from Bosk of Port Kar,” wept Tina, “by the terrible Sarus of Tyros.” The men looked at one another, exchanging amusements, glances. Tina did not seem to understand their tacit communication.

  “I fled from him,” she wept. “But there were sleen, panthers, in the forest. I was pursued. I barely escaped with my life.” Again she fell to the sand at their feet, and pressed her lips to the foot of their leader. “I cannot live in the forest,” she wept. “Take a miserable slave with you! Please, Masters!” “Leave her here to die,” laughed one of the men.

  The girl trembled.

  “Did you build this beacon?” asked another.

  “Yes, Maser,” wept the girl.:I wished to attract the attention of any passing ship.” “Better the bracelets of a master than the teeth of a sleen?” asked one of the men of Tyros.

  Tina kept her head down.

  “Protect me!” wept Tina.

  “Perhaps,” said their leader.

  “Only do not return me to the terrible Sarus,” she wept. She raised her head. “You do not know him, do you?” she begged.

&nb
sp; “Who is he?” inquired the leader, himself in the yellow of Tyros. The men behind him smiled.

  “I am fortunate,” breathed Tina, “to have fallen in with you.”

  The men laughed, not pleasantly.

  Tina shook with fright.

  “Shall we take her with us?” asked the leader, laughing, of his men. One of them, without warning, with a single rip that spun her fully about, tore her slave tunic away. She cried out in misery, her beauty revealed to them. “Perhaps,” said one of the men.

  She stood on the sand, shuddering. Her beauty was drenched in the red of the flames.

  “Stand proudly, Wench,” commanded one of the men.

  Tina straightened herself.

  “Protect me,” she begged.

  “Our protection had a cost,” said their leader, “if beauty such as yours were torn to pieces by sleen.” Tina said nothing.

  “I would rather,” said the leader, “tear it to pieces myself.”

  Tina gasped.

  “Lie in the sand before me, Slave,” said the leader. He unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it to the side.

  Tina lay in the sand before him, one knee raised, her head turned to one side. “Each of us,” said their leader, “will try you out, to see if you are any good. Of any of us are dissatisfied, you will be left here for the sleen.” “A girl understands, Master,” she said.

  “How will you perform?” he asked.

  “Superbly, Master,” she whispered.

  He pressed his lips to hers. And I saw her arms, as though eagerly, encircle his back.

  The men laughed.

  Few of them noticed, a log, some yards out in the water, move against the tide, out toward the dark shapes off shore.

  My business on the Rhoda would not take long.

  Within half of an Ahn I had left her again, lowering myself over the side. Again the men of Tyros on the beach, did not notice the log, perhaps from some island or jutting point, washing into shore, some yards from them.

  Tina was now kneeling at the side of the leader of the men of Tyros. She was holding his leg with her hands, breathing deeply, her dark hair loosed over her shoulders, pressing her cheek against his thigh. She was looking up at him. “Did Tina please you?” she asked.

  “How did you find her?” asked the leader of his men.

  There were shouts of pleasure. Again Tina looked up, piteously, at the leader. “We shall take you with us, Slave,” said the leader.

  Tina’s eyes shone. “Thank you, Maser!” she breathed.

  “Your duties will be heavy,” he told her. “You will please us when it is our wish, and when it is not our wish, you will prepare food for slaves, which you will serve to them.” “Very well, Master,” said Tina.

  “Do you regard yourself as fortunate?” asked the leader.

  “Of course, Master,” said Tina.

  “You served us with great zeal,” he said.

  “Yes, Maser,” she said.

  “We would have taken you with us,” said he, “even if you had not served us as pleasantly as you did.” “You tricked me!” she cried.

  “Do you know who my captain is?” he inquired.

  “No,” she said, apprehensively.

  “It is Sarus of Tyros,” he said.

  “No!’ she cried out in horror.

  “Yes,” he laughed. “And you will be returned to him in one or two days.” She tried to leap to her feet and flee, but he caught her by the hair, and threw her to one of his men.

  “Bind the slave,” he said.

  Tina was thrown to her stomach in the sand, and bound hand and foot. She was then held by the arms before their leader.

  “You are a runaway slave,” he said. “I do not envy you.”

  She shuddered.

  “Is this the first time you have attempted to escape?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,’ she whispered.

  “Perhaps, then,” said he, “ you will not be hamstrung. Perhaps they you will be only lashed.” Tina moaned.

  “Look forward to your lashing,” he said.

  Tina regarded him with horror.

  “Throw her in the boat,” he said.

  The bound slave was thrown rudely into the boat.

  “To the ship,” said the leader.

  Several of the men thrust the longboat back out into the water. Then they, with the leader, lifted themselves into the boat.

  As the longboat pulled away, moving back toward the Rhoda and Tesephone, it passed a log, floating in the water, drifting back to shore.

  I saw the single lantern on the longboat growing smaller in the distance. I was not dissatisfied.

  I slipped ashore, thrusting the log onto the sand, some two hundred yards away, among large rocks, concealed from the light of the beacon.

  Tina had one night, perhaps two, to do her work.

  From the shadows of the forest I observed the lanterns. The longboat reached the Rhoda. Its lantern was then extinguished. Then the two lanterns, too, both on the Rhoda, the Tesephone, dark, lying off her starboard bow, were extinguished. Tonight both ships would withdraw a pasang or two from shore. There they would lie to until morning. It would not be wise to coast a strange shore at night. Further I had heard they did not expect to make contact with Sarus for another day or two. Accordingly they were not hurried. Besides, I expect tonight there would be some cause for celebrating on the two ships, and that they might be drawn together by lines. They had been long at sea, not putting into land, save for supplies and water, and that in lonely places. It was long that the men of the Rhoda and Tesephone had been at sea. How long was it since they had held the naked, perfumed, collared, responding body of a female slave in their arms? Since the rough port of Laura? Since semi-civilized Lydius, at the mouth of the Laurius? How long would it have been since they had witnessed the swaying body of a chained girl in a paga tavern, perhaps even Ilene in the tavern of Hesius in Laura, or, say, one of the luscious, collared slaves of culturally mixed Lydius, at the mouth of the Laurius, perhaps one of the beauties of the Lydian tavern keeper, Sarpedon, perhaps the wench called Tana, once Elizabeth Caldwell of Earth, now only a belled paga slave. The men would be desperate to hold the softness of a naked woman in their arms, to feel her touch, the caress of her lips and tongue, to hear her cry out their manhood and her femaleness in a single wild cry of pleasure. The men had been long at sea. I had thrown Tina among them.

  She knew what she must do.

  19 The Stockade of Sarus of Tyros

  “Who goes there?” challenged the guard.

  I stood in the darkness, on the beach, clad in the yellow of Tyros. His spear, held in two hands, faced me.

  “I am your enemy,” I told him. “Summon Sarus. I would speak with him.” “Do not move!’ he said.

  “If I move,” I told him, “it will be to kill you. Summon Sarus. I would speak with him.” The guard took a step backward.

  “Sarus!” he cried. “Sarus!”

  We stood some hundred yards from the palisade erected by the men of Tyros, south of it, on the beach.

  From where I stood I could feel the heat of Sarus’ great beacon.

  It was now the night following that on which I had, by my will, forced Tina to deliver herself to the men of the Rhoda and Tesephone.

  I saw men of Tyros pouring from the palisade, and, too, some of the women of Hura.

  Many of them took up positions about the palisade; others scouted the beach to the north, and the nearby forest edges. They were wary. It was wise for them to be so.

  I could see a group of five men, one with a torch, making their way toward me across the beach.

  The palisade was no longer a rude semicircle, fronted by animal fires. It had now, in the preceding day, been closed. There was even a rough gate, hung on rope hinges, which was now open.

  The group of five men picked their way across the stones toward me. They carried weapons. Sarus was among them. Men now streamed past me, to scout the beach to the south.

&n
bsp; Today, concealed in the forest, I had seen men cutting more logs. These they trimmed, and dragged to the sand between the stockade and the shore. Obviously Sarus was growing impatient for the Rhoda and Tesephone. Perhaps he thought them overdue. As the men had worked on these logs, fastening them into rafts, slaves, Marlenus and the others, male and female, had been forced to stand between the rafts and the forests.

  There was little opportunity to use the great bow, either against the stockade or to prevent the building of the rafts. I could have slain some men cutting in the forest, but little would have been accomplished. I would have informed them that they again stood in danger, which I did not wish them to know. Further, they might then have shielded their work with slaves, or, perhaps, used selected wood from the front of the palisade. The sea and the beach, with their openness, gave them protection. They could shield themselves, either with wood or slaves, from the forest. The most of them, though I could have made some kills, were now substantially safe from the great bow. I could not pin them inside the stockade without exposing myself, and doing so from the beach or shore, and then, of course, they might depart from the stockade secretly from the rear. I did not wish to expose myself on the beach, permitting them the cover of the forest. It would be too easy for them, after a time, to bring me within the range of their steel-leaved crossbows.

  It had been my intention to permit Sarus to reach the sea.

  I had anticipated, however, that he would make camp and wait for the appointed rendezvous with the Rhoda and Tesephone.

  I had not anticipated that he might not choose to keep this scheduled rendezvous.

  I had apparently miscalculated.

  Perhaps I had not understood the degree of terror which I had apparently, unwittingly, induced in my enemies.

  Perhaps Sarus, was unnerved, too, by the escape, the day before yesterday, of Cara and Tina.

  This may have precipitated his decision.

  Perhaps, too, Mira had informed him that he was stalked by hundreds of panther girls, claiming to have seen evidences of this in the trek. She would dare not reveal her role in the affair of the wine, but she might well convince him of what she believed mistakenly having inferred this from her experiences in the forest, while blindfolded, while being interrogated by Vinca. She need only have claimed to have glimpsed such women, following them, hunting them.