Captive of Gor (37 page)

He wore scarlet leather. His helmet, with its “Y”-like aperture, was gray.

Neither his leather nor his helmet were distinguished by insignia. I supposed

then, that he must be a mercenary, or an outlaw.

To have been taken by such a man, I had no idea what my fate would be.

There seemed something familiar about the strong figure, before whom I was

bound.

Somehow he frightened me. I felt I had know him, or met him before.

(pg. 257) Perhaps in Laura, near the compound of Targo!

“Are you,” I asked, trembling, “a hireling of Haakon of Skjern?”

“No,” he said.

“Will you—“ I asked, “will you keep me for yourself?” I shuddered.

“A smelly, dirty little Kajira, with pierced ears, who steals meat from peasant

villages?” he said.

I groaned.

“I would not even put you with my women,” he said.

I closed my eyes.

I realized then that such a warrior had undoubtedly captured many women, that

many beauties, both slave and free, before me, and doubtless after me, would, as

bound prized, helplessly grace his saddle. Among such riches, I, Elinor Brinton,

realized that to such a man, a warrior, a tarnsman among tarnsmen, I was of

little account, only another girl and perhaps a poor sort of one at that. He had

little more interest in me than in a piece of meat, which he had captured and

tied.

“You should be sold to a peddler,” he said. “Or I should have left you in the

peasant village. Peasants know well how to treat thieving wenches.”

“Please sell me in Ar,” I begged. “I am white silk.”

He looked at me, I could see the mouth grinning. I shuddered.

“You are unworthy of being sold in Ar,” he said. “Perhaps you might be sold at a

smaller town, a village, or a border outpost.”

“Please,” I begged.

“I will dispose of you as I wish,” he said. “Now be silent on the matter.”

I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, I saw him regarding me. He was grinning.

“I am white silk!” I cried. “I will bring a higher price if I am sold white

silk!”

“You mistake me, Lady,” said he, courteously, “if you think that I am interested

only in gold.”

(pg. 258) “No!” I cried. “No!”

He bent to undo the lashings at my ankles.

I screamed, helplessly.

Suddenly, before he had even touched the lashings at my ankles, he turned about,

abruptly, in the saddle.

A crossbow bold flashed by, like a swift, hissing needle in the sky.

In one moment, as I screamed, terrified, thrown rudely against my bonds, he had

jerked his shield from the saddle straps, and wheeled the tarn, with a cry of

rage, a strange war cry, to face his foe.

He was met with another war cry, and suddenly, only feet from us, another tarn

streaked past, and I heard the forcible, tearing scrape of a broad, bronze spear

blade, its blow turned, sliding across the metal-bound, layered, bosk-hide

shield of my captor.

The other tarn streaked away, and its rider, standing in his stirrups, braced in

the saddle, held to it by the broad safety strap, was redrawing his crossbow, a

quarrel held in his teeth.

My captor attacked, giving him no instant in which to set again his bow.

When only yards separated us, the other man flung away his bow and quarrel,

seizing up his shield. My captor, standing in his stirrups, flung his own great

spear. it struck the other’s shield, piercing it. If the other man had not been

fastened in his saddle by the great strap the force of my captor’s blow would

have struck him from the saddle. As it was, it spun him, tearing the shield from

his arm.

He cursed. “For Skjern!” he cried.

The two tarns wheeled again, for another passage.

Again the other’s spear struck, and again the blow was countered by my captor’s

shield. I again heard the terrible, startling scrape of the spear blade diverted

by the seven-layered, metal-bound boskhide shield. Twice more the attacker

pressed in, and each time, again, the shield turned the blow, once but inches

from my body. My captor was trying to close with him, to bring him within the

range of his own steel, his now-drawn, swift, unadorned blade.

(pg. 259)Again the spear struck, but this time my captor took the point in the

shield. I, bound, saw, suddenly, the bronze point, a foot of it, inches from my

face, explode through the hide. I screamed. My captor then wheeled away, the

other, his blade now drawn, trying to press close. My captor had wished to rid

his enemy of the spear, because of its reach, but, to do so, his own defense was

impaired. With incredible strength, his sword dangling from its wrist strap,

commonly used by tarnsmen in flight, I saw him withdraw the spear from the

shield, but at the same time the other’s tarn struck ours, and his blade,

flashing downwards, struck the heavy shaft of the spear, splintering it, half

severing it. He struck again and the spear shaft, with a scattering of wood,

split apart. My captor now thrust his shield before him, and over my body. I

heard the blade of the other strike twice, ringing on the metal hoops of the

shield that guarded me. Then my captor again had his sword in his grip, but the

other dragged his tarn upward, cursing, and its long, curved talons raked

downwards, clutching for us. I heard the talons tear across the shield. My

captor was thrusting upward, to keep the bird away. Then its talons locked over

the shield and it smote its wings, ripping the shield straps, half tearing my

captor from the saddle, and the tarn was away, the shield then dropping like a

penny, turning, toward the field below.

“Yield her!” I heard the cry.

“Her price is steel!” was the answer that met the attacker.

Bound, I screamed, helplessly.

Then the tarns swooped together again, side by side, saddle to saddle, while

blades flashed over my head, in a swift dialogue of steel, debating my

possession.

I screamed.

The tarns then, rearing up in the sky, facing one another, began to tear at one

another with their beaks and talons, and then, talons locked, they began, beaks

snapping and tearing, to twist and roll, turning, locked together, falling,

climbing, tumbling, wings beating, screaming in rage.

I was thrown one way and the other, violently, helplessly. Sometimes it seemed I

was standing as the tarn would (pg. 260) veer, or hanging head downwards as it

would veer, turning wildly, in another direction. When it spun onto its back,

tearing upwards at its foe, I hung stomach downwards, my full weight on the

lashings, seeing in terror the earth hundreds of feet below.

The men fought to regain control of their mounts.

And then again, saddle to saddle, they fought, and once more steel flashed about

my face and body. My ears, had they been tongues, would have screamed for mercy.

Sparks from the steel stung my body.

Then, suddenly, with a cry of rage, of frustration, the blade of the other

struck downwards towards my face. My captor’s steel interposed itself. I saw the

broad blade of his sword but an inch from my face, for one terrifying instant of

immobility, the other’s blade, edge downward, resting on it, stopped. The blow

would have cut my face in two.

There was blood on my face. I did not know whose it was, even if it might be

mine.

“Sleen!” cried my captor. “I have played with you enough!”

once more, over my head, there was a flash of steel, and I heard a cry of pain,

and then suddenly the other tarn veered sharply away, and I saw its rider,

clutching his shoulder, reeling in the saddle.

His tarn spun crazily, and then, a hundred yards away, to one side and below us,

turned and fled.

My captor did not pursue him.

I looked up at my captor, the tarnsman whose lashings bound me.

I still lay before him, over the saddle, his.

He looked down upon me, and laughed.

I turned my head away.

He turned his tarn and we continued our journey. I had seen that his left arm,

high, above the elbow, about two inches below his shoulder, had been cut. It had

been blood from this cut which had struck my face.

Soon, unable to resist, I turned again, in my bonds, to look upon my captor.

The cut was not serious.

It had already stopped bleeding, the fierce wind having clotted the blood in a

ragged line. On the left side of his arm, running from the wound, there were

several almost horizontal, reddish lines, where, but moments before, tiny

trickles of blood, unable to flow downward, had been whipped backward by the

wind.

He saw me looking at him, and grinned.

I looked up at the sky. It was very blue, and there were white clouds.

“That was your friend,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Haakon of Skjern,” he said.

He looked down upon me.

I was frightened.

“How is it you know of Haakon of Skjern?” he asked.

“I was his preferred slave,” I said. “I fled.”

We flew on, not speaking.

Then, after perhaps a quarter of an Ahn, I asked. “May a girl speak?”

“Yes,” he said.

“To be the preferred slave of a man such as Haakon of Skjern, who is rich and

powerful, you must understand that I am unusual, quite beautiful and skilled.”

“I see,” he said.

“Accordingly,” I said, “I should be sold in Ar. And, further, since I am white

silk, I should not be used. My price will be higher if I am sold white silk.”

“It is unusual, I would suppose,” said the man, “for the preferred slave of a

man such as Haakon of Skjern to be white silk.”

I reddened, all of me, before him.

“Say to me the alphabet,” he said.

I did not know the Gorean alphabet. I could not read. Elinor Brinton, on Gor,

was ignorant and illiterate.

“I do not know the alphabet,” I confessed.

“An illiterate slave girl,” said the man. :Further, you accent marks you as

barbarian.”

“But I am trained!” I cried.

(pg. 262) “I know,” he said, “in the pens of Ko-ro-ba.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

“Further,” he said, “you never belonged to Haakon of Skjern.”

“Oh yes!” I cried. “I did!”

His eyes became suddenly hard. “Haakon of Skjern is my enemy,” he said. “If you

were truly his preferred slave, it is your misfortune to have fallen into my

hands. I shall have much sport with you.”

“I lied,” I whispered. “I lied.”

“Now you lie,” he said, sternly, “to save your flesh from the irons and the

whips.”

“No!” I cried.

“On the other hand,” he said, “if you were indeed his preferred slave, doubtless

you would bring a high prove in Ar, and would be much bid for by rich

gentlemen.”

I was in anguish. “Warrior,” I said, “I was truly, I confess, the favored slave

of Haakon of Skjern, but I fled from him, so do not be cruel to me!”

“What is the fate of a slave girl who lies?” he asked me.

“Whatever the master wishes,” I whispered.

“What would you do if one of your slaves lied?” he asked.

“I—I would beat her,” I said.

“Excellent,” he said. Then he looked down at me. His eyes were not pleasant.

“What is the name of the lieutenant of Haakon of Skjern?” he asked.

I writhed in the lashings. “Do not beat me!” I begged. “Do not beat me!”

He laughed.

“You are El-in-or,” he said, “who was the slave of Targo, of the Village of

Clearus, in the realm of Tor. In the pens it was well known that you did not

clean your cage, and that you were a liar and a thief.” He slapped my belly.

“Yes,” he said, “I have quite a catch her. What could it be about you that I

could have found of interest?”

“You have seen me before?’ I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“My beauty?” I asked.

(pg. 263) He laughed. “There are many beautiful women,” he said.

I felt weak before him.

“Then,” I whispered, “it is your intention to put me in your collar?”

“Yes,” he said.

I closed my eyes. I knew then that I, Elinor Brinton, of Earth, would wear the

degrading, locked metal collar of a Gorean slave girl, this man’s, the collar of

this brute who had captured me, and that I, Elinor Brinton, though once a free

human female of Earth, would soon belong to him, totally, by all the rights and

laws of Gor. I would be completely his, to do with as he pleased. I would be his

female slave.

I looked again upon him. How strong he seemed.

“You sought me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. He grinned down upon me. “I have hunted you for days.”

I turned my head to the side in misery. Even when I had thought myself most

free, after the escape from Targo, after betraying Ute, and escaping in the

Ka-la-na thicket, this beast, with his laugh, his leather rope, and his slave

collar, had been upon my trail. He had marked me for his collar, and his

pleasure.

How could I, a mere girl, have hoped to elude him, such a man, such a huntsman?

“You saw me in the pen of Ko-ro-ba?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Do you not know me?” he asked.

“No,” I said, turning to face him.

He, with his two hands, removed his helmet.

“I do not know you,” I whispered.

I was terribly frightened. I had not understood his face could be so strong. He

was powerful. He had a large head. The eyes were darkly fierce, his hair a pelt