Beasts of Gor

by John Norman

  I took her in my arms.

  "Did you see the beasts!" she cried. "What are they?"

  "They are those whom you served," I informed her.

  "No!" she cried.

  "But you will now serve others, pretty slave," I told her.

  She looked at me with horror.

  I threw her over my shoulder and ascended the stairs.

  "Who goes there!" cried a man. Then he spun away from us, roiling and spattering backward.

  "The way is now clear," said Drusus. "Let us hurry."

  Another steel panel slammed down behind us. The siren then began to whine in the steel halls.

  "Perhaps there is no destructive device," said Drusus.

  "I know where it is now," I said. "We have been fools! Fools!"

  "Where?" he asked, puzzled.

  "Beyond the reach of slaves, beyond the scope of the monitoring devices," I cried. "Where no one may reach, where no one may see!"

  "We have journeyed already to the termination of the slave track," he said.

  "Where do all the slave tracks terminate?" I asked.

  "All?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "In the center of the complex," he said.

  "At the chamber of Zarendargar," I said.

  "Yes," he said.

  "I have seen that chamber," I said. "It contains monitors, but it itself is not monitored."

  "Yes," he said. "Yes!"

  "Where but in the chamber of the high Kur would lie that terrifying mechanism?"

  "Where no one may reach, where no one may see," he said.

  "Saving Zarendargar, Half-Ear, himself," I said.

  "Yes," he said.

  "We have failed," said Drusus.

  I nodded in agreement. The strange common project of two men, of diverse and antagonistic, yet strangely similar castes, an Assassin and a Warrior, had failed.

  "What is now to be done?" he asked.

  "We must attempt to reach the chamber of Zarendargar," I said.

  "It is hopeless," he said.

  "Of course," I said. "But I must attempt it. Are you with me?"

  "Of course," he said.

  "But you are of the Assassins," I said.

  "We are tenacious fellows," he smiled.

  "I have heard that," I said.

  "Do you think that only Warriors are men?" he asked.

  "No," I said. "I have never been of that opinion."

  "Let us proceed," he said.

  "I thought you were too weak to be an Assassin," I said.

  "I was once strong enough to defy the dictates of my caste," he said. "I was once strong enough to spare my friend, though I feared that in doing this I would myself be killed."

  "Perhaps you are the strongest of the dark caste," I said.

  He shrugged.

  "Let us see who can fight better," I said.

  "Our training is superior to yours," he said.

  "I doubt that," I said. "But we do not get much training dropping poison into people's drinks."

  "Assassins are not permitted poison," he said proudly.

  "I know," I said.

  "The Assassin," he said, "is like a musician, a surgeon. The Warrior is like a butcher. He is a ravaging, bloodthirsty lout."

  "There is much to what you say," I granted him. "But Assassins are such arid fellows. Warriors are more genial, more enthusiastic."

  "An Assassin goes in and does his job, and comes out quietly," he said. "Warriors storm buildings and burn towers."

  "It is true that I would rather clean up after an Assassin than a Warrior," I said.

  "You are not a bad fellow for a Warrior," he said.

  "I have known worse Assassins than yourself," I said.

  "Let us proceed," he said.

  "Agreed," I said. We, together, I carrying the girl, made our way up another flight of stairs.

  "Wait," I said.

  "Yes," he said.

  "The most obvious approaches to the chamber of Zarendargar," I said, "will probably be heavily guarded. Thus, let us circle about and climb upward. Perhaps we can eventually cut through from the level above."

  "For a warrior," he said, "you are not totally without cunning."

  "We have our flashes of inspiration," I informed him.

  We climbed up two more levels. Then we began to circle about, far to our right. We wanted another stairway, one more remote, to ascend yet higher.

  We had scarcely attained the second level than we heard the cry, "Halt!"

  Drusus spun and fired a dart, swiftly, from the hip. Men scattered. The dart caromed off a wall and exploded near them. We darted about the corner of a wall. Four darts hissed past, exploding in a succession of bursts some fifty yards from us. I threw the girl from my shoulder to my feet. We heard running feet, coming from another direction. We looked wildly about. I took the girl at my feet by the hair and yanked her to her feet. We then ran, I running the girl beside me, at my hip, to the nearest corridor.

  "This is an outer corridor," said Drusus. "In it are doors to the outside."

  We sped along the corridor. We heard feet behind us, coming down the corridor we had just vacated. Then, ahead of us, some two hundred yards away, we saw some more men.

  We continued to run.

  I looked back. The men behind us now seemed wary. They were not ready, apparently, to pursue us into this corridor. Similarly, the fellows in front of us, apparently trapping us, did not try to approach.

  We slowed our pace, puzzled.

  "Over here, Tarl who hunts with me!" called a familiar voice.

  "Imnak!" I cried.

  We entered a recessed, broad room, which gave access to one of the hatchways that led to the outside of the complex. To one side there was a large wheel, that operated the door. It was cold in the room. Outside was the arctic night. A man turned about. "Ram!" I cried. "Imnak freed me," he said. I saw several of the dart-firing weapons in the room, indeed a crate filled with them, on small wheels. Too, there were several kegs of darts, wrapped in packages of six. "Oh, Master!" cried Arlene, clinging to me. "I so feared for you." I raped her lips as a master, and she yielded, melting to me as a slave. "Master," said she who had been the Lady Constance of Lydius, then Constance, my slave. How beautiful she was, blond, in her wisp of slave silk. I took her in my other arm, and let her lick at my neck. I felt lips at my leg. Audrey knelt there, her head pressed against my calf. Barbara knelt, too, at my feet, putting her head down to my boots. I saw Tina with Ram, and Poalu with Imnak. Besides these there were some fifteen other slave girls in the room, frightened. The only males there were Drusus, myself, Imnak and Ram.

  There were, too, some furs and food. "I took what women, and weapons, and things, I could," said Imnak.

  "But you did not leave the complex," I said.

  "I was waiting for you," he said. "And for Karjuk."

  "Karjuk?" I said. "He is an ally of the Kurii."

  "How can that be?" asked Imnak. "He is of the People."

  "We have failed to find the destructive device," I said to Imnak. "I think it is in the chamber of Zarendargar, the high Kur in the complex, but it does not matter now," I said. "Nothing matters any longer. All is lost."

  "Do not forget Karjuk," said Imnak.

  I looked at him.

  "He is of the People," Imnak reminded me.

  "Where did you find this new slave?" asked Arlene of me, not too pleasantly, regarding the slim, beautiful girl I had brought with me.

  "I am not a slave, Slave," said the pale, aristocratic, black-haired girl.

  Arlene looked at me, frightened.

  "She is not yet a legal slave," I told Arlene, "so treat her with the technical respect due to a free female."

  Arlene fell to her knees before her, her head down, and the girl straightened herself, proudly.

  "Get up," I said to Arlene. She did so. "Though this girl is not yet a legal slave," I told Arlene, "she is actually a true slave." The girl recoiled. "Thus," I said, "she need not b
e treated with particular respect."

  "I understand perfectly, Master," said Arlene. She regarded the pale, aristocratic girl, who shrank back. The other girls, too, regarded her. The Lady Rosa shuddered, not daring to meet their eyes. She knew that there was not one girl in that room who was not assessing her, frankly considering her, and comparing the quality of her flesh to their own. "She will make good slave meat," said Arlene.

  "But not so good as you, Wench," I assured her.

  "Thank you, Master," said Arlene, putting her head down, smiling.

  "Check the prisoner's bonds," I said.

  "Did you tie her, Master?" asked Arlene.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Then she is well secured," said Arlene. But she checked the Lady Rosa's wrist bonds as I had instructed her to do. She did so a bit roughly. "She is perfectly secured," said Arlene to me, smiling innocently. The Lady Rosa tossed her head and looked away.

  "There are furs here," I said to Imnak. "I think it best that you and Ram, and the women, try to leave the compound, and make your way across the ice."

  "What of you?" asked Imnak.

  "I shall remain here," I said.

  "I, too," said Drusus.

  "I, too, will remain!" cried Arlene.

  "You will obey, Slave," I said to her.

  "Yes, Master," she said, tears in her eyes.

  We then heard pounding on the outside of the broad hatch. "Surrender! Open! Open!" called a voice.

  "We are surrounded," I said.

  "There is no escape," said Drusus.

  "Stand back from the hatch," I said, "lest they blow it in towards us."

  We stood back, dart-firing weapons ready.

  Suddenly we heard a scream from the other side of the hatch. Then a cry of rage. Then we heard pounding, frightened, on the other side of the steel. "Help! Help!" we heard. "Let us in! Let us in!" There was more frenzied pounding. "We surrender!" we heard. "Please! Please!" There were more screams. We heard something sharp strike against the steel. We heard a dart-firing weapon discharge its bolt. "We surrender! We surrender!" we heard. "Let us in!"

  "It is a trick," said Drusus.

  "It is certainly a convincing one," I averred.

  We heard another man scream with pain.

  Then, from the other side of the steel, we heard a voice call out. It spoke in the language of the People. I could understand very little of it.

  Imnak beamed, and ran to the wheel. I did not stop him. He turned the wheel. The large, circular hatch, some ten feet in diameter, studded with bolts, swung open.

  Ram let forth a cheer.

  Outside, on the dim, polar ice, many on sleds, drawn by sleen, were hundreds of the People, men, and women and children. More were arriving, visible in the reflection from the moons on the ice. Karjuk stood near the entranceway, his strung bow of layered horn in his hand, an arrow at the string. Other hunters stood about. Men from the complex lay scattered on the ice. From the backs and chests of several protruded arrows. Red hunters stood about. Some of the men from the complex had been downed by lances. A few cowered, their weapons discarded, herded together by domesticated snow sleen, ravening and vicious, on the leashes of their red masters. Some men of the complex were thrown to their stomachs on the ice. Their hands were jerked behind them and were being tied with rawhide. Then their suits were being slit with bone knives. "We will freeze!" cried one of them. The red hunters were putting their enemies completely at their mercy, and that of the winter night.

  Karjuk called out orders. Red hunters streamed in, past me. Imnak handed the dart-firing weapons to some of them, hastily explaining their use. But most simply hurried past him, more content to rely on their tools of wood and bone. The men with the domesticated snow sleen passed me. I did not envy those on whom such animals would be set. Drusus, with a dart-firing weapon, joined one contingent of hunters, in their vanguard, to cover them and match fire with whatever resistance they might encounter; Ram, seizing up a weapon, joined another contingent. I looked outside the hatch, or port. Even more of the People, women and children as well as hunters, were making their way across the ice to the complex. They were detaching many of the snow sleen from the sleds, to be used as attack sleen.

  Karjuk continued to stand by the port and issue orders, in the tongue of the red hunters.

  "There must be more than fifteen hundred of the hunters," I said.

  "They are from all the camps," said Imnak. "There are more, before they have finished coming, than twenty-five hundred."

  "Then it is all the People," I said.

  "Yes," said Imnak, "it is all the People." He grinned at me. "Sometimes the guard cannot do everything," he said.

  I looked at Karjuk. "I thought you an ally of the beasts," I said.

  "I am the guard," he said. "And I am of the People."

  "Forgive me," I said, "that I doubted you."

  "It is done," he said.

  More red hunters streamed past us.

  I saw two men from the complex being prodded through the halls, toward a room. Their hands were bound with rawhide, behind them. A woman was being dragged along by the hair. Her clothing had been removed. Already her captor had put bondage strings on her throat.

  "I would alter the garments you wear, if I were you," said Imnak, "for you might be mistaken for one of the men of the complex."

  I removed the suit I had worn. I donned boots and fur trousers. I did not wish to wear a shirt or parka in the complex, because of its heat.

  More hunters came past us. Imnak explained to some of them the nature of the dart-firing weapons.

  The prisoners, captured outside, shuddering, half-frozen, were herded within the complex, bound.

  "Go to where it is warmer," I told the girls shivering in the recessed room.

  Arlene, Audrey, Barbara, Constance, and the others, hurried to a place of greater shelter.

  Karjuk went then to direct the operations within the complex. He was accompanied by Imnak.

  I stepped outside, into the arctic night, though bare-chested, to survey the rear of our position.

  I checked the ice cliffs, the ice about, to see if any organized sortie might be obvious. I saw nothing. If men of the complex fled the complex I did not think they would last long in the arctic night. The power units in their suits would eventually be exhausted, and they would then be at the mercy of the snow and ice.

  I looked about, and, suddenly, saw that the port to the complex was being slowly closed. Swiftly I re-entered. The Lady Rosa, startled, turned toward me, from the wheel which controlled the panel. She backed away, shaking her head. Her mouth had been on the wheel.

  Not speaking I went to her and put her to her knees. With my knife I cut a length of her hair, about a foot in length, and crossed and tied together her ankles. I then dragged her by the arm across the steel, out through the portal, and onto the ice. "No," she screamed, "No!" I left her on her side on the ice. "No!" she screamed.

  I returned within the complex and, with the wheel, closed the heavy, sliding hatch.

  I heard her screaming on the other side of the steel. "Let me in!" she cried. "I demand to be let in!" Her cries could be heard with some clarity. She had doubtless twisted and squirmed frenziedly, until she must be, on her knees, just outside of the steel.

  "I am a free woman!" she cried. "You cannot do this to me!"

  I did not think she would last long outside in the arctic night, silked as she was.

  She had tried to kill me.

  "I will be your slave," she cried.

  She did not know if I were still on the other side of the door or not.

  "I am your slave!" she cried. "Master, Master, I am your slave! Please spare your slave, Master!" She wailed with misery and cold. "Please spare your slave, Master!" she wept.

  I turned the wheel, opening the hatch.

  She fell inward, across the threshold, shivering. I drew her within the room, and spun shut the hatch.

  I looked down at her, shuddering at my feet.
She looked up at me, terrorized. "What manner of man are you, my Master?" she asked. I looked down at her. She struggled to her knees and put her head down, to my feet. She began to kiss them, desperately, in an effort to placate me. "Look up," I said to her. She did so. "You will be whipped severely," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. "I tried to kill you."

  "You did that when you were a free woman," I told her. "I discount it."

  "But then why would you have me whipped?" she asked.

  "You kiss poorly," I told her.

  "I beg instruction," she said.

  "I will have a girl try to teach you some things," I told her. Experienced slave girls are often useful in teaching a new girl, fresh to her condition, how to please men.

  "I will try to learn my lessons well," she said.

  I threw her to my shoulder, to carry her within the complex to a holding area. "You will learn your lessons well," I told her, "or you will be thrown to sleen for feed."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  * * * *

  "The complex is secure," said Ram, "save for the chamber of Zarendargar, Half-Ear. None has entered there."

  "I shall go in," I said.

  "We can blast our way in," said Ram. "Let us do that," said Drusus.

  I walked down the long hall toward the chamber of Zarendargar. Behind me, some hundred yards or so, were Ram, and Drusus, and Karjuk and Imnak, and numerous red hunters.

  I carried a dart-firing weapon in my hand. It seemed a long way down the hall. I had not remembered it as being that far. The overhead track system stopped some forty feet or so from Zarendargar's chamber. I looked at the monitor lens in the ceiling. Doubtless my approach had been observed on it. The interior of the chamber, though it contained monitors, was not itself monitored.

  At the door to Zarendargar's chamber I paused, and lifted the dart-firing weapon. But the door seemed ajar.

  The fighting in the complex had been sharp and bloody. Men of the complex, and red hunters, had fallen. The resistance had been led by the giant Kur, whose left ear had been half torn away. But there had been too many red hunters, and too many weapons. He had, when the battle had turned against him, freed his Kurii and his men to flee or surrender as they would. No Kur had surrendered. Most had been slain, fighting to the last. Some had departed from the complex, hobbling wounded away into the arctic night. Zarendargar himself had withdrawn to his chamber.