by John Norman
Then, after some Ehn I saw another girl leave the circile of the dance, and she, too, was joined beyond the firelight by a young man and she, too, felt a net dropped over her, and she, too, was led away, his willing prize, to secrecy of his hut.
The dance grew more frenzied.
The girls whirled and writhed, and the crowd clapped and shouted, and the music grew ever more wild, barbaric and fantastic.
And suddenly Telima danced before me.
I cried out, so startled was I by her beauty.
It seemed to me that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and before me, only slave, she danced her insolence and scorn. Her hands were over her hand and, as she danced, she smiled, regarding me. She cut me with her beauty more painfully, more cruelly, than might have the knives of a torturer. It was her scorn, her contempt for me she danced. In me she aroused aginies of desire but in her eyes I read that I was but the object of her amusement and contempt.
And then she unbound me.
"Go to the hut," she said.
I stood there at the pole.
Torrents of barbaric music swept about us, and there was the clapping and the shouting, and the turning, and the twisting and swirling of the rence girls, the passion of the dance burning in their bodies.
"Yes," she said. "I own you."
She spat up in my face.
"Go to the hut," she said.
I stumbled from the pole, making my way through the buffeting circle of dancers, through the laughing circles of rencers, shouting and clapping their hands, and made my way to Telima's hut.
I stood outside in the darkness.
I wiped her spittle from my face.
Then, falling to my hands and knees, lowering my head, I crawed into the hut. I sat there in the darkness, my head in my hands.
Outside I could hear the music, the cries and clapping, the shouts of the rence girls dancing under the moons of Gor.
I sat for a long time in the darkness.
Then Telima entered, as one who owns the hut, as though I was not there. "Light the lamp," she said to me.
I did so, fumbling in the darkness, striking together the flint and steel, sparks falling into the small bowl of dried petals of the rences. In this tiny flame I thrust a bit of rence stem, from a bundle of such, and, with it, lit the tiny tharlarion-oil lamp set in its copper bowl. I put the bit of rence stem back, as I had seen Telima do, in the small bowl of petals, where, with the flaming petals, it was soon extinguished. The tharlarion-oil lamp, now lit, flickering, illuminated the interiour of the hut with a yellowish light. She was eating a rence cake. Her mouth was half full. She looked at me. "I shall not bind you tonight," she said.
Holding half the rence cake in her mouth she unrolled her sleeping mat and then, as she had the night before, she unlaced her tunic and slipped it off over her head. She threw it to a corner of the hut, on her left, near her feet. She sat on the sleeping mat and finished the rence cake. Then she wiped her mouth with her arm, and slapped her hands together, freeing them of crumbs.
Then she unbound her hair, shaking it free.
Then she reclined on the mat, facing me, resting on her right elbow. Her left knee was raised. She looked at me.
"Serve my pleasure," she said.
"No," I said.
Startled, she looked at me.
Just then, from outside, there was the wild, high, terrifed scream of a girl, and suddenly the music stopped. Then I heard shouts, cries of fear, confusion, the clash of arms.
"Slavers!" I heard cry. "Slavers!"
6 Slavers
I was out of the hut.
My response had been instantaneous, that of the trained warrior, startling me. The girl was but a moment behind me.
I saw torches in the night, moving at the periphery of the island.
A child ran past me. The circle of the dance was empty. The barkless pole stood alone. A woman was screaming among the refus of the feast. The marsh torches burned as quietly as they had. There were shouts. I heard the clank of arms, overlapping shields. Two men, rencers, ran past us. I heard what might have been a marsh spear splinger against metal. One man, a rencer, staggered backward drunkenly toward us. Then he wheeled and I saw, protruding from his chest, the fins of a crossbow bolt. He fell almost at our feet, his fingers clutching the fins, his knees drawn to his chin. Somewhere an infant was crying In the light of the moving torches, beyond them, toward the marsh, I saw, dark, the high, curved prows of narrow marsh barges, of the sort rowed by slaves. Telima threw her hands before her face, her eyes wild, and uttered a terrifying scream of fear.
My had caught her right wrist and locked on it, like the manacle of a slave. I dragged her stumbling, screaming, toward the opposite side of the island, the darkness.
But we found rencers running toward us, men, and women, and children, their hands outstretched, stumbling, falling. We heard the shouts of men behind them, saw the movement of spears.
We ran with them toward yet another part of the island.
Then, from the darkness before us, we heard a trumpet, and we stopped, confused. Suddenly there fell among us a rain of crossbow bolts. There were screams. A man to the left of us cried out and fell.
We turned and ran again, stumbling in the torchlit darkness, across the woven mat of rence that was the surface of the island.
Behind us we heard trumpets, and the beating of spears on shields, the shouts of men.
The before us a woman screamed, stopping, pointing.
"They have nets!" she cried.
We were being driven toward the nets.
I stopped, holding Telima to me. We were buffeted by the bodies of running rencers, plunging toward the nets.
"Stop!" I cried. "Stop! There are nets! Nets!" But most of those with us, heedless, fleeing the trumpets and beating of spears on shields, ran wildly toward the nets, which suddenly emerged before them, held by slaves. These were not the small capture nets but wall nets, to block a path of escape. Between their interstices, here and there, spears thrust, forcing back those who would tear at them. Then the long, wide net, held by slaves, began to advance. I heard then from another side of the island as well the terrifying cry, "Nets, nets!"
Then, as we milled and ran, here and there among us were men of Port Kar, warriors, some with helmet and shield, sword and spear, others with club and knife, others with whips, some with capture loops, some with capture nets, all with binding fiber. Among them ran slaves, carrying torches, that they might see to their work.
I saw the rencer who had worn the headband of the pearls of the Vosk sorp, who had been uable to bend the bow. He now had the large, white, silken scarft tied over his left shoulder and across his body, fastened at his right hip. With him there stood a tall, bearded helmeted warrior of Port Kar, the golden slash of the officer across the temples of his helmet. The rencer was pointing here and there, and shouting to the men of Port Kar, crying out orders to them. The tall, bearded officer, sword drawn, stood silently near him.
"It is Henrak!" cried Telima. "It is Henrak."
It was the first I had heard the name of the man of the headband.
In Henrak's hand there was clutched a wallet, perhaps of gold.
A man fell near us, his neck cut half through by the thrust of a spear. My arm about Telima's shoulder I moved her away, losing oursleves among the shouting rencers, the running men and women.
Some of the men of the rencers, with their small shields or rence wicker, fought, but their marsh spears were not match for the stell swords and war spears of Gor. When they offered resistance they were cut down. Most, panic-stricken, knowing themselves no mathc for trained warriors, fled like animals, crying out in fear before the hunters of Port Kar.
I saw a girl stumbling, being dragged by the hair toward one of the narrow barges. Her wrists hwere bound behind her back. She had been the girl who, this morning, had carried a net over her left shoulder, one of those who had taunted me at the pole, one of those who had, at festival,
danced her contempt of me. She had already been stripped.
I moved back further in the running, buffeting bodies, now again dragging Telima by the wrist. She was screaming, running and stumbling beside me.
I saw the nets on the two sides of the island had now advanced, the spears between their meshes herding terrified rencers before them.
Again we ran back toward the center of the island.
I heard a girl screaming. It was the tall, gray-eyed blond girl, whom I remembered from the morning, who had carried a coil of marsh vine, holding it against my arm, she who had danced, with excruciating slowness, before me at festival, who had, like the others, shown her contempt of me with her spittle. She struggled, snared in two leather capture loops, held by warriors, tight about her waist. Another warrior approached her from behind, with a whip, and with four fierce strokes had cut the rence tunic from her body and she knelt on the rence matting that was the surface of the island, crying out in pain, begging to be bound. I saw her thrown forward on her stomach, one warrior binding her wrists behind her back, another crossing and binding her ankles. A girl bumped into us, screaming. It was the lithe, dark-haired girl, the slender girl, who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. I remembered her well from the pole, and the dance. It was she who had danced before me with her ankles so close together that they might have been chained, who had put her wrists together back to back over her head, palms out, as though she might have worn slave bracelets, and who had then said, "Slave," and spat in my face, then whirling away. After Telima I had found her the most insolent, and desirable, of my tormentors. She turned about wildly, screaming, and fled into the darkness. The rence tunic had been half torn from her right shoulder. My arm about Telima I cast about for some means of escape.
Everywhere about us there were shouting men, screaming women, running, crying children, and everywhere, it seemed, the men of Port Kar, and their slaves, holding torches aloft, burning like the eyes of predators in the marsh night. A boy ran past. It was he who had given me a piece of rence cake in the morning, when I had been bound at the pole, who had been punished by his mohter for so doing.
I heard cries and shouts and, dragging Telima by the hand, ran toward them. There, under the light of the marsh torches, I saw Ho-Hak, crying with rage, shouting, with as oar pole laying about himself wildly. More than one warrior of Port Kar lay sprawled on the matting about him, his head broken or his chest crushed. Now, just outside the circle of his swinging pole, tehre must have been ten or fifteen warriors of Port Kar, there swords drawn, the light of the marsh torches reflecting from them, surrounding him, fencing him in with their weapons. He could not have been more inclosed had he found himself in the jaws of the long-bodied, nine-gilled marsh shark.
"A fighter!" cried one of the men of Port Kar.
Ho-Hak, sweating, breathing deeply, wildly, his great ears flat against the sides of his head, the iron, riveted collar of the galley slave, with its broken, dangling chain, about his neck, clutching his oar pole, stood with his legs planted widely apart on the rence, at bay.
"Tharlarion!" he shouted at the men of Port Kar.
They laughed at him.
Then two capture nets, circular, strongly woven, weighted, dropped over him. I saw warriors of Port Kar rushing forward, clubbing him senseless with the pommels of their swords, the butts of their spears.
Telima screamed and I pulled her away.
We ran again through the torches and the men.
We came to an edge of the island. In the marsh, some yards away, rence craft were burning on the water. There were none on the shore of the island. We saw one rencer screaming in the water, caught in the jaws of a marsh tharlarion. "There are two!" I heard cry.
We turned and saw some four warriors, armed with nets and spears, running toward us.
We fled back toward the light, the torches, the center of the island, the scraming women and men.
Near the oar pole to which I had been bound, some yards from what had been the circle of the dance, a number of rencers, stripped, men and women, lay bound hand and foot. They would later be carried, or forced to walk, to the barges. From time to time a warrior would add further booty to this catch, dragging or throwing his capture rudely among the others. These rencers were guarded by two warriors with drawn swords. A scribe stood by with a tally sheet, marking the number of captures by each warrior. Among these I saw the tall, gray-eyed girl, weeping and pulling at her bonds. She looked at me. "Help," she cried. "Help me!"
I turned away with Telima.
"I don't want to be a slave. I don't want to be a slave!" she cried. I moved my head aside as a torch, in the hands of a slave of the warriors of Port Kar, flashed by.
We were jostled by a bleeding rencer stumbling past.
We heard a girl scream.
Then I saw, under the light of the torches, fleet as the Tabuk, running, the dark-haired, lithe girl, she who was so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. A warrior of Port Kar leapt after her. I saw the swirl of the circular, closely woven, weighted capture net and saw her fall, snared. She screamed, rolling and fighting the mesh. Then the warrior threw her to her stomach, swiftly binding her wrists together behind her back, then binding her ankles. With a slave knife he cut the rence tunic from her and threw her, still partly tangled in the net, over his shoulder, and carried her toward one of the dark, high-prowed barges in hte shadows at the edge of the island. He would take no chances of the loss of such a prize.
I expected that the girl might soon again dance, and perhaps again with ankles in delicious proximity and wrists lifted again together back to back above her head, palms out. But this time I expected that her ankles would not be as though chained, her wrists as though braceleted; rather would they be truely chained and braceleted; she would wear the linked ankle rings, the three-linked slave bracelets of a Gorean master; and I did not think she would then conclude her dance by spitting upon him and whirling away. Rather might she almost die with terror hoping that he would find her pleasing.
"There!" cried Henrak, with the white scarf tied about his body, pointing toward us. "Get the girl! I want her!"
Telima looked at him with horror, shaking her head.
A warrior leapt toward us.
We were buffeted apart by some five or six rencers. Telima, buffeted, turned and began to run toward the darkness. I stumbled and fell, and regained my feet. I looked wildly about. I had lost her. Then something, probably a club or the butt of a spear, struck the side of my head and I fell to the matting of rence that was the island surface. I rose to my hands and knees, and shook my head. There was blood on its side. A warrior of Port Kar, in the light of a torch held by a slave, was binding a girl near me. It was not Telima. More men rean past. Then a child. Then another warrior of Port Kar, followed by his slave with the torch. A man to my right was suddenly caught in a capture net, crying out, and two warriors were on him, pounding him, beginning to bind him.
I ran in the direction Telima had taken.
I heard a scream.
Suddenly in the darkness before me there reared up a warrior of Port Kar. He struck down at me with the double-edged sword. Had he known I was a warrior he might not have used his blade improperly. I caught his wrist, breaking it. He howled in pain. I seized up his sword. Another man thrust at me with a spear. I took it in my left hand and jerked him forward, at the same time moving my blade in a swift, easy arc, transversely and slightly upward, towards him. It passed through his throat, returning me to the on-guard position. He fell to the matting, his helmet rolling, lost in his own blood. It is an elementary stroke, one if the first taught a warrior.
The slave who held his torch looked at me, and stepped back away.
Suddenly I was aware of a net in the air. I crouched slashing upward in a wide circle and caught it before it could fall about me. I heard a man curse. Then he was running on me, knife high. My blade had partially cut the net but was tangled in it. I caught his wrist with my left hand
and, with the right, thrust my blade, tangled in the net, through his body. A spear flashed towards me but tangled in the net in which my sword had been enmeshed. I immediately abandoned the weapon. Before the man who had thrust with the spear had his sword half from its sheath I was on him. I broke his neck.
I turned and again ran toward the darkness, toward which I had seen Telima run, from whence I had heard a girl's scream.
"Free me!" I heard.
In the darkness I found a girl, stripped, bound hand and foot.
"Free me!" she cried. "Free me!"
I lifted her to a sitting position. It was not Telima. I threw her weeping back to the rence.
Then, some twenty yards to my left, and ahead of me, I saw a single torch. I ran toward it.
It was Telima!
She had been thrown to her stomach. Already, with a binding fiber, her wrists had been tied tightly behind her. A warrior now crouched at her ankles. With a few swift motions he fastened them together.
I seized him and spun him about, breaking in his face with a blow. Spitting teeth, his face a mask of blood, he tried to draw his sword. I lifted him over my head and threw him screaming into the jaws of the tharlarion churning the marsh at the edge of the island. They had feasted much that night, and would more.
The slave who had carried his torch ran back toward the light, crying out. Telima had turned on her side and was watching me. "I don't want to be a slave," she wept.
In a moment warriors would be upon us.
I picked her up in my arms.
"I don't want to be a slave," she said. "I don't want to be a slave!" "Be silent," I told her.
I looked about. For the instant we were alone. Then the night began to burn to my left. One of the rence islands, tied in the group, had begun to burn. I cast madly about, looking for some possibility of escape.
On one side there was the marsh, with its marsh sharks and its tharlarion. Here and there, on the water, apart from the flaming rence island, I could see the flat, black keels of rence craft, which had earlier been cast off and burned to the water, to prevent them from being used for escape.
