Blood Brothers of Gor (56 page)

"Do not lose track of it," I said. "Do not appear to notice it, but do not lose track of it. Your life could depend on this. Note exactly, as well, the location of the opening."

"I know well where it is, Master," she said. "Do not fear."

"The matter must be close," I said. "You understand that?"

"Yes, Master," she said, "yes!"

Our quarry must not be allowed a great deal of time for investigation.

"It sees me!" she moaned.

"Good!" I said. "Do not appear to much notice it."

"It is coming!" she said. "It is coming, very swiftly!"

"Do not appear to much notice it," I said.

"I am frightened!" she said.

"Breathe deeply," I said. "Keep your body ready, a little tense, but not tight."

"It is coming very swiftly," she said.

"do not lose track of it," I said. "Keep in mind clearly, as well, the location of the entrance of the pit."

"I am frightened!" she cried.

Suddenly the tether seemed to jerk from the pit and then, in a moment, it had jerked tight. I heard her cry out with misery. I thrust my head and shoulders from the pit and saw her, on her belly, in the grass, her right leg stretched out, almost straight, behind her, the tether tight on it. She had tried to run.

I hoisted myself out of the pit, screaming and cursin, waving my arms. The quarry, startled at my unexpected appearance, veered away, passing within feet of me, the great shadow suddenly between me and the sun, and then the sun again blazed on the late-summer grass, tumultuous and whipped, twisted, by the passage of the quarry. the sweat on my face felt cold, from the wind which had rushed past.

"On your feet," I said.

Tremblingly, she rose to her feet.

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I looked after the receding figure in the afternoon sky.

"I could have been killed," she said.

"You lost us the quarry," I said.

"I could have been killed," she said, trembling.

"You are only a worthless slave," I told her. "You have lost us the quarry."

"Forgive me, Master," she said, her head down.

"Into the pit, Slave, and be quick about it," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I followed her into the pit. She knelt at one end, near the larger opening, her head down.

"Forgive me, Master," she whispered.

"Another such performance and you shall be well punished," I informed her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"It may return," I said.

She shuddered.

In a few Ehn, as I had hoped, we heard again the two notes, as of the fleer.

"It is perhaps hungry," I speculated.

She lifted her head, her eyes wide with terror.

"I di dnot think he would forget you, my luscious, nude bait," I said. I regarded her. Most women, for some reason, stand in mortal terror of such things. This is particularly true of women who have some familiarity with them, who know something of their swiftness, their savagery and their ferocity, who have some knowledge of what they can accomplish.

"Do not make me go out of the pit again," she begged.

"Out," I told her.

Fearfully, scarcely able to move, she crawled out of the pit.

"It is there," she said, "in the sky. It is ciercling. Isense myself the center of that circle."

"Splendid!" I said.

"Let me hide," she begged. "Let me hide!"

"No," I said.

She suddenly screamed and the tether, length by length, leaped from the pit and then, again, jerked taut.

"Idiot slave!" I cried.

"I'm tied! I'm tied!" she wept.

I stood up, lifting my head and shoulders above the entrance to the pit. She was sitting on the grass, at the end of the tether, weeping hysterically. "I'm tied," she cried, fighting to thrust the tether from her ankle.

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The quarry was still in the sky.

By the tether I pulled her to within a few feet of the entrance.

"Get on your feet," I cried, "Slave!"

Unsteadily, trembling, her head lifted, she rose to her feet, her hands out to help her maintain her balance.

"I'm frightened," she wept.

"Where is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," she wept. "It's gone! It's gone!"

"No," I said. "It will not be gone."

"I can't see it," she cried, joyfully. "I can't see it!"

It is not gone," I said. "It is somewhere. Be alert!" Suddenly the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The quarry had seen the fear responses of the girl. Twice she had tried to run. Now it seemed to have disappeared.

"It is gone," she said.

"It has alighted," I said.

"What am I to do?" she asked.

"Scan in a low circle, about you," I said.

The quarry knew the girl's location. The girl did not know its location.

There is, within normal limits, and assuming the dimension is under surveillance, a direct correlation between height and detectability. It is for such reasons that an upright carriage increases the capacity to detct the appraoch of a predator or the position of game. It is for such a reason that the larl commonly crouches when stalking prey.

"I see nothing," she said.

"Be alert," I said.

I wondered how long it would take, say, a startled tabuk or ground animal, ofa burrowing sort, to regain its composure, to return to its normal activities.

"It is gone," she said.

"Do not relax your vigilance," I cautioned her. "It will presumably be moving with great speed and will be some ten to fifgeen feet in the air. You will not see it, probably, given your height, and the grass, until it is within a few hundred yards of you. Even so, however, this will permit you ample reaction time. You have a great advantage, you see, in that you are expecting it."

"I think it is gone," she said.

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"Perhaps," I said.

"It would have come by now, surely," she said.

"Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps not."

The sky seemed placid, the clouds slowly changing their shapes in the air currents. I watched them for awhile. I supposed that a tubuk, my now, might have returned to grazing.

"It is coming!" she cried, suddenly.

"Into the pit!" I cried. "Hurry!" There had been no mistakeing the urgency in her voice.

"I cannot move!" she cried. "I cannot move!"

I threw myself half out of the pit and with my right hand seized her right ankle, and then, with my left, seized her left ankle. She screamed, throwing her hands before her face. Bodily I dragged her down beside me. Almost at the same instant, flashing over the opening, I saw immense, extended talons closing, and therushing passage of a huge, dark shape, the grass leaping up and seeming to almost torn up, almost uprooted, following it.

She clutched me, shuddering.

"You ahve not been pleasing," I told her. I then thrust her from me.

"Is it gone?" She begged, sobbing.

"It will be back," I said. "Stay near the opening."

I unlooped the tether on her left from the hobbling log. She watched me, frightened. Teh other end was still tied tightly on her right ankle. I then went to the other end of the pit, where the smaller opening was, and uncoiled the line which lay there, formerly atop the hobbling log.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Wait," I said.

She lay downin the pit, making herself as low, and small as possible.

We did not wait long.

We heard a sudden, striking, thudding sound. It was almost as though half of a kaiila had been suddenly dropped to the earth. It was a sound which, when one has once heard it, one is not likely to mistake it for another. The vibrations were felt through the walls of the pit.

"It is here," I said.

The girl, looking up, suddenly screamed with fear. A large, bright, round eye peered through the opening in the ceiling of the pit.

A beak, yellowish, some two feet in length, scimitarlike, poked into the pit.

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It withdrew.

We heard a taloned foot cutting at the sod and poles over our head.

"We are safe here!" cried the girl.

"No," I said.

The beak agian entered the pit and pushed downward. It poked against the girl's body. She screamed. It snapped at her and she shrank back, to the opposite end of the pit, covering her head, screaming. This excited the predator. Half of its head thrust into the pit, after her. Then it screamed, too, a shril scream, and, withdrawing its head, it began to cut and tear at the roof of the pit. I saw a talon emerge through the sod roof of the pit. I saw a talon emerge though the sod roof. I saw poles lifting and splintering.

In this moment, its attention fastened on the girl, on tearing away the obstacle which lay between him and her. I thrust through the smaller opening and, with a swirl of rope and two hitches, fastened the hoggling log on its right leg. I then screamed and thrust at it, and it spun about. I fended its beak away with my forearm.

"Well done!" cried Cuwignaka, sprining up from the grass. He interposed himself, and a lance, between me and the predator. The beak snapped the lance off short. Hci, swinging ropes, crying out, emerged, too, from the nearby grass. Cuwignaka and I backed off. The bird, smiting its wings, darted towards us but, screaming, fell short on its belly in the grass, feathers flying about. It only then realized it was impeded. It turned about, wildly, the leg, and rope, turning under him. Cuwignaka struck it on the beak with the shaft of the lance, distracting it. Hci, running up, struck it with the coils of rope in his hand. The bird, then, rising up, wings beating, took flight, jerking the hobbling log from the pit, tearing it up through the sod roof and poles.

"Strong! Strong! Marvelous!" cried Cuwignaka.

He had not understood the strength of such a creature.

Struggling, wings beating, screaming, the bird, lunging and falling, and climbing again, fought the weight. It struggled to perhaps a hundred feet in the air and then, bit by bit, the log swinging, fighting, it began to lose altitude. Cuwignaka and Hci ran beneath it, in the grass. I wiped sweat from my forehead. I was elated.

I returned to the pit, its roof now half torn away. In one end of it the girl crouched. I leaped down into the pit beside her. "On your belly," I told her. I then pulled her right ankle, to which the tether was still tightly attached, high, up behind

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her. With some of the tether, close to the knot on her right ankle, I tied her hands together behind her back. I then looked down upon her, she now on her side, with her wrists tied behind her, fastened to her right ankle, pulled up, closely behind her. She was well secured. I then, with extra ropes taken from the pit, went to aid Cuwignaka and Hci.

Chapter 38

A SLAVE IS PUNISHED

"It is a splendid catch," I said.

Ropes bound the beak of the bird tightly shut. It la on its side. Its two feet, too, were bound together. Ropes, as well, encircled its wings, binding them to its body. Already we ad put a girth rope about it, of the sort beneath which the Kinyanpi, in flight, inserted their knees.

It was now late afternoon.

We had transported the bird to this grove of trees on a travois, drawn by two kaiila. It was only a pasang or so from the pit, which we had rebuilt.

The bird struggled, and then lay still.

"A splendid catch," I said.

"We must try again, tomorrow," said cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

We then turned about, and walked to another part of the grove. It was in this part of the grove that we had our kaiila tethered, and had made our camp.

There, near our things, stood my slave, who had once been the lofty Lady Mira, of Venna, an agent of Kurii.

I looked at her. She lowered her eyes.

"Fetch me a coiled rope," I told her. "And then get on all fours."

She did so.

"You ran twice," I told her.

"Forgive me, Master," she said.

"Then once, frozen with fear, you needed to be dragged, perforce, into the pit."

"Forgive me, Master," she begged.