Explorers of Gor coc-13

by John Norman

  Within the stockade of the Mamba people there was much light and noise. I could hear the sounds of their musical instruments, and the pounding of the drums. Too, we could hear, within, the sounds of chanting and the beatings of the sticks carried in the hands of the dancers.

  It is not so much that the column is guided as it is that it is lured.

  This morning, early, the small men, with their nets and spears, had killed a small tarsk.

  “Look,” had said the leader of the small men this morning, “scouts.”

  He had thrown to the forest floor a portion of the slain tarsk. I watched the black, segmented bodies of some fifteen or twenty ants, some two hundred yards in advance of the column, approach the meat. Their antennae were lifted. They had seemed tense, excited. They were some two inches in length. Their bite, and that of their fellows, is vicious and extremely painful, but it is not poisonous. There is no quick death for those who fail to escape the column. Several of these ants then formed a circle, their heads together, their antennae, quivering, touching one another. Then, almost instantly, the circle broke and they rushed back to the column.

  “Watch,” had said the small man.

  To my horror I had then seen the column turn toward the piece of tarsk flesh.

  We had further encouraged the column during the day with additional blood and flesh, taken from further kills made by the small men with their nets and spears.

  I looked up at the stockade. I remembered it, for it was the same from which we had, earlier, slipped away in the darkness of the night.

  I rubbed tarsk blood on the palings. Behind me I could hear, yards away, a rustling.

  “We will wait for you in the jungle,” said the leader of the little men.

  “Very well,” I said.

  The rustling was now nearer. Those inside the stockade, given their music and dancing, would not hear it. I stepped back. I saw the column, like a narrow black curtain, dark in the moonlight, ascend the palings.

  I waited.

  Inside the stockade, given the feast of the village, the column would widen, spreading to cover in its crowded millions every square inch of earth, scouring each stick, each piece of straw, hunting for each drop of grease, for each flake of flesh, even if it be no more than what might adhere to the shed hair of a hut urt.

  When I heard the first scream I hurled my rope to the top of the stockade, catching one of the palings in its noose.

  I heard a man cry out with pain.

  I scrambled over the stockade wall. A woman, not even seeming to see me, crying out with pain, fled past me. She held a child in her arms.

  There was now a horrified shouting in the camp. I saw torches being thrust to the ground. Men were irrationally thrusting at the ground with spears. Others tore palm leaves from the roofs of huts, striking about them.

  I hoped there were no tethered animals in the camp. Between two huts I saw a man rolling on the ground in frenzied pain.

  I felt a sharp painful bite at my foot. More ants poured over the palings. Now, near the rear wall and spreading toward the center of the village, it seemed there was a growing, lengthening, rustling, living carpet of insects. I slapped my arm and ran toward the hut in which originally, our party had been housed in this village. With my foot I broke through the sticks at its back.

  “Tarl!” cried Kisu, bound. I slashed his bonds. I freed, too, Ayari, and Alice and Tende.

  Men and women, and children, ran past the doorway of the hut.

  There was much screaming.

  “Ants!” cried Ayari.

  Alice cried out with pain.

  We could hear them on the underside of the thatched roof. One fell from the roof and I brushed it from my shoulder.

  Tende screamed, suddenly, bitten.

  “Come this way,” I told them. “Move with swiftness. Do not hesitate!”

  We struck aside more sticks from the rear of the hut and emerged into the rustling darkness behind it.

  People were fleeing the village. The stockade gate had been flung open. One of the huts was burning.

  “Wait, Kisu!” I cried.

  Alice cried out with misery.

  Kisu, like a demented man, ran toward the great campfire in the center of the village, There, in the midst of people who did not even seem to notice him, he wildly overturned two great kettles of boiling water. Villagers screamed, scalded. The water sank into the earth. Kisu’s legs were covered with ants. He buffeted a man and seized a spear from him.

  “Kisu!” I cried. “Come back!” I then ran after him. A domestic tarsk ran past, squealing.

  Kisu suddenly seized a man and hurled him about, striking him repeatedly with the butt of his spear, beating him as though he might be an animal. He then kicked him and drove him against the fence. It was the chieftain of the Mamba people. He drove the butt of the spear into the man’s face, breaking his teeth loose. Then he thrust the blade of his spear into his belly and threw him on his face beside the wall. Again and again Kisu, as though beside himself with rage, drove the spear blade down into the man’s legs until the tendons behind the knees were severed. He then, almost black with ants himself, shrieking, bit from the man’s arm a mouthful of flesh which he then spat out. The chief, bleeding, cried out with misery. He lifted his hand to Kisu. Kisu turned about then and left him by the wall. “Hurry, Kisu!” I cried. “Hurry!” He then followed me. We looked back once. The chieftain of the Mamba people rolled screaming at the wall, and then, scratching and screaming, tried to drag himself toward the gate. The villagers, however, in their departure, had closed it, hoping thereby to contain the ants.

  48. We Acquire Three New Members For Our Party, Two Of Whom Are Slave Girls

  I kicked her. “I will take this one,” I said.

  The leader of the small people then untied the ankles of the blond girl and unbound the fastening that held her, by her vine collar, to the loop tied about the log.

  “Stand up,” he told her. She stood up. She still wore her gag. It had been removed only to feed and water her.

  The leader of the talunas stood before me, a vine collar on her throat, her hands tied behind her back.

  “Put your head down,” I told her. She lowered her head.

  I then went to the white male, who had been the captive of the talunas, released by the small people from his prison hut before they burned the taluna village.

  He knelt in the clearing, in the chain of the talunas, shackles on his ankles and wrists, connected to a common chain depending from a heavy iron collar.

  “You were with Shaba,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, “an oarsman.”

  “Do I not know you?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said he. “I am Turgus, who was of Port Kar. It was because of you I was banished from the city.”

  “The fault,” I smiled, “seems rather yours, for it seems it was your design to do robbery upon me.”

  It had been he, with his confederate, Sasi, who had attempted to attack me in Port Kar, along the side of the canal leading to the pier of the Red Urt.

  He shrugged. “I did not know you were of the Warriors,” he said.

  “How came you upon the river?” I asked.

  “When banished from Port Kar,” he said, “I must leave the city before sundown. I took passage on a ship to Bazi, as an oarsman. From Bazi I went to Schendi. In Schendi I was contacted by an agent of Shaba, who was secretly recruiting oarsmen for a venture in the interior. The pay promised to be good. I joined his expedition.”

  “Where now is Shaba?” I asked.

  “Doubtless, by now,” said he, “he had been destroyed. Our ships were subjected to almost constant attack and ambush. There were accidents, a wreck, and several capsizings. We lost supplies. We were attacked from the jungles. There was sickness.”

  “Shaba did not turn back?” I asked.

  “He is dauntless,” said the man. “He is a great leader.”

  I nodded. It was a judgment in which it was necessary to co
ncur.

  “How came you to be separated from him?’ I asked.

  “Shaba, lying ill in a camp,” he said, “gave permission that all who wished to leave might be free to do so.”

  “You left?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said. “It was madness to continue further on the river. I, and others, making rafts, set out to return to Ngao and Ushindi.”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “We were attacked the first night,” he said. “All in my party were killed save myself, who escaped. I wandered westward, paralleling the river.” He cast a glance at the talunas, trussed kneeling by the log, their heads down, fastened to it, their necks helpless to the blow of the panga, should it descend. “I fell to these women,” he said. He lifted his chained wrists. “They made me their work slave,” he said.

  “Surely they forced you to serve their pleasure, as well,” I said.

  “Sometimes they would beat me and mount me,” he said.

  “Unchain him. He is a male,” I said.

  Ayari, with a key taken from a pouch found in the hut of the taluna leader, unlocked the chains of Turgus, who had been from Port Kar.

  “You are freeing me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “you are free to go.”

  “I would choose to remain,” he said.

  “Fight,” I told him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Strike at me,” I said.

  “But you have freed me,” he said.

  “Strike,” I told. him.

  He struck out at me and I blocked the blow and, striking him in the stomach and then across the side of the face, sent him grunting and sprawling to the debris of the jungle floor.

  He sprang to his feet, angrily, and I struck him down again. He was strong. Four more times he rose to do combat, but then he could not again climb to his feet. He tried to do so, but fell back.

  I then pulled him to his feet. “It is our intention to go upriver,” I told him.

  “That is madness,” he said.

  “You are free to go,” I told him.

  “I choose to remain,” he said.

  “Kisu and I,” I said, indicating the former Mfalme of Ukungu, “are before you. You will take your orders from us. You will do what we tell you, and well.”

  Kisu lifted a spear, and shook it.

  Turgus rubbed his jaw, and grinned. “You are before me, both of you,” he said. “Have no fear. I will take my orders. and well.”

  “Insubordination,” I said, “will be punished with death.”

  “I understand,” said Turgus.

  “We are not gentlemen like Shaba,” I said.

  Turgus smiled. “On the river,” said he, “Shaba is not a gentleman either.” On the river, he knew, and all knew, there must be strict discipline.

  “We now well understand one another, do we not?” I asked.

  “That we do,” said he, “—Captain.”

  “Examine these women,” I said, indicating the line of kneeling, trussed talunas. “Which among them pleases you most?”

  ‘That one,” said he, indicating the slender-legged, dark-haired girl who had been, as we had determined, second in command among the talunas. There was a menace in his voice.

  “Perhaps you remember her well from your enslavement?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I do well remember her.”

  “She is yours,” I said.

  The girl began to involuntarily shudder. “No,” she begged, “please, do not give me to him!”

  “You are his,” I told her.

  “He will kill me,” she cried.

  “If he wishes,” I said.

  “Please do not kill me,” she cried to Turgus. “I will try to please you totally, and in all ways!”

  He did not speak.

  “I will be the most loving and lowly slave a man could ask,” she wept. “Please, let me try to earn my life!”

  He untied her ankles and freed her vine collar from the loop on the trunk of the tree. He threw her to her feet and pushed her head down, submissively. She then stood, hands tied behind her, beside the blond girl, the leader of the talunas.

  I took two pair of slave bracelets from the foot of the taluna camp. Girls such as talunas keep such things about in case slave girls should fall into their hands. They are extremely cruel to slave girls, whom they regard as having betrayed their sex by surrendering as slaves to men. Actually, of course, it seems likely that their hatred of slave girls, which tends to be unreasoning and vicious, is due less to lofty sentiments than to their own intense jealousy of the joy and fulfillment of their imbonded sisters. The joyful slave girl, obedient to her master’s wishes, is an affront and, more frighteningly, an unanswerable and dreadful threat to their most cherished illusions. Perhaps they wish to be themselves slaves. Why else should they hate them so?

  I slipped the straps on the wrists of the blond girl a bit higher on her wrists. I then, below the straps, snapped her wrists into one of the pairs of slave bracelets from the loot of the taluna camp. I then untied the straps which had, hitherto, confined her wrists. Her hands, then, were still fastened behind her, but now in slave bracelets.

  I loosened the gag from the mouth of the blond girl and let it fall, its wadding looped about it, before her throat.

  She threw up on the jungle floor. The wadding smelled. She threw back her head, gasping for air. I cleaned her mouth with a handful of leaves.

  “Do you wish to be a slave girl?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said. “No!”

  “Very well,” I said. I threw the other pair of slave bracelets to Turgus. He snapped them on the dark-haired girl and then, as I had, freed her wrists of the earlier binding, which had been, in her case, a length of vine rope from the small people.

  She looked at him, puzzled.

  “Do you wish to be a slave girl?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “no, no!”

  “Very well,” he said.

  I grasped the hand of the leader of the small people in friendship. “I wish you well,” I said. “I wish you well,” he said.

  Then I and Kisu, followed by Turgus, and by Janice, Alice and Tende, turned about to leave the clearing. We would return to our hidden canoe, beached near the river, near which we had concealed many of our supplies.

  “What shall we do with these?” called the leader of the small people. We turned about He indicated the line of miserable, trussed talunas.

  “Whatever you wish,” I told him, “they are yours.”

  “What of those?” he asked. He indicated the blond girl who had been the leader of the talunas and the dark-haired girl, who had been her second in command. They stood, their hands braceleted behind them, confused, in the clearing.

  “They were ours,” I said. “We let them go. Let them go.”

  “Very well,” he said.

  Kisu and I, and Turgus, and our girls, Alice, Janice and Tende, then left the clearing.

  “Unlock our bracelets,” begged the blond girl. She and the dark-haired girl had followed us to the edge of the river.

  Kisu and I, and Ayari, were sliding our canoe, from which we had removed its camouflage, toward the water. The girls, Janice, Alice and Tende, with the paddles and supplies, accompanied us.

  Then we were at the edge of the water.

  “Please,” begged the blond girl. She turned, that her wrists, enclosed snugly in the linked, steel bracelets, might be exposed to me. “Please unlock our bracelets,” she begged. “Please, please!” begged, too, the dark-haired girl.

  Kisu and Ayari thrust the canoe into the water. Janice, Alice and Tende, wading, placed the paddles and supplies in the canoe, and then, entering the narrow vessel, assumed their places.

  “Please free us,” begged the blond girl.

  “They are only slave bracelets,” I said. “Free yourselves.”

  “We cannot do so,” said the blond girl. “We are women, and have only women’s strength.”

  I
shrugged.

  “Please,” she begged again.

  “Did you think, noble free women,” I asked, “that you might do fully as you wished, that no penalties would be inflicted upon you?”

  “You cannot leave us here!” she wept. She looked behind her, fearfully, at the jungle.

  Turgus and I waded to the canoe, which Kisu and Ayari held steady in the water.

  “Please,” begged the blond girl. “You cannot leave us here!”

  I turned to face her. “You have lost,” I told her. I turned away.

  ‘There is another penalty which may be inflicted upon free women,” cried the blond.

  I turned again to face her. “Do not even speak of it,” I said. “It is too degrading and horrifying. Surely death is a thousand times more preferable.”

  “I beg that other penalty,” said the blond, kneeling in the mud on the shore. “I, too,” cried the dark-haired girl, kneeling. too, in the mud. “I, too!”

  “Speak clearly,” I said.

  “We beg enslavement,” said the blond, “Enslave us, we beg of you!”

  “Enslave yourselves,” I said.

  “I declare myself a slave,” said the blond, “and I submit myself to you as my master.” She put her head down to the mud. “I declare myself a slave,” said the dark-haired girl, and then she turned to face Turgus, “and I submit myself to you as my master.” She then put her head down, like the blond, to the mud.

  “Lift your head,” I said to the blond. “Lift your head,” said Turgus to the other girl. The two girls lifted their heads, anxiously.

  “You are now only two slaves,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” mid the blond. “Yes. Master,” said the dark-haired girl. They had declared themselves slaves. The slave herself, of course, once the declaration has been made, cannot revoke it. That would be impossible, for she is then only a slave. The slave can be freed only by one who owns her, only by one who is at the time her master or, if it should be the case, her mistress. The legal point, I think, is interesting. Sometimes, in the fall of a city, girls who have been enslaved, girls formerly of the now victorious city, will be freed. Technically, according to Merchant Law, which serves as the arbiter in such intermunicipal matters, the girls become briefly the property of their rescuers, else how could they be freed? Further, according to Merchant Law, the rescuer has no obligation to free the girl. In having been enslaved she has lost all claim to her former Home Stone. She has become an animal. If, too, she is sufficiently desirable, it is almost certain she will not be freed. As the Goreans have it, such women are too beautiful to be free. Too, as often as not, city pride enters into such matters. Such girls, with other slave girls, both of various cities and with the former free women of the conquered city, now collared slaves, too, will often be marched naked in chains in the loot processions of the conquering cities. It is claimed they have shamed their former city by having fallen slave, and if they were good enough to be only slaves in the conquered city then surely they should be no more within the walls of the victorious city. Such girls usually are marched in a special position in the loot processions, behind and before banners which proclaim their shame. The people much abuse them and lash them as they pass. Such girls usually beg piteously to be sold to transient slavers. It is hard for them to wear their collars in their own city.