Explorers of Gor (40 page)

“Let us untie the two slaves,” said Kisu. “They may aid us in paddling.”

I unbound the two white girls and knelt them, frightened, in the canoe. They were bare-breasted. About their throats and left ankles were coils of white, pierced shells. About their thighs, now muddied, were brief, wrap-around skirts of red-and-black-printed rep-cloth, suitable garments for slaves. I thrust a paddle into the hands of each.

“We must make haste,” said Ayari, taking a position forward in the canoe.

The two girls, one behind the other, knelt behind him. I knelt, paddle in hand, behind the second slave, she who had once been Janice Prentiss. She was attractive. I was pleased that I had taken her.

Behind me, also with a paddle, was Kisu. We had placed weapons in the canoe, the shields and stabbing spears from the two askaris, and some spears and another shield, from the raiders.

Tende screamed, and we turned about. We saw the body of one of the raiders, seized in the jaws of a tharlarion, pulled beneath the surface. It had been drawn to the area probably by the smell of blood in the water, or by following other forms of marine life, most likely the bint or blue grunt, who would have been attracted by the same stimulus. It is not unusual for tharlarion to follow bint and grunt. They form a portion of its diet. Also they lead it sometimes to larger feedings.

Kisu and I, the girls following, lowered our paddles into the water, and moved the canoe eastward.

Tende, tethered to the sternpost, stumbled after us. Looking back I saw two more tharlarion nearby.

I then again lowered the paddle into the marsh.

Some forty yards behind I could now hear the water churning. The tharlarion, when it takes large prey, such as tabuk or tarsk, or men, commonly drags the victim beneath the surface, where it drowns. It then tears it to pieces in the bottom mud, engorging it, limb by limb.

“Please, Kisu,” begged Tende, “let me enter the canoe.”

But he did not respond to her. He did not even look at her.

“I cannot wade in these robes!” she wept. “Please, Kisu!”

She stumbled and fell, and was, for a moment, under the surface, but the tether on her wrists pulled her again to the surface and, moaning, she regained her feet and staggered to again follow us.

I looked back again to the vicinity of the mud raft. I saw one body move as though leaping out of the water and then saw that it was caught in the jaws of two rearing tharlarion, who fought for it. Each would keep part of it.

I saw four more tharlarion, low on the surface, eyes and nostrils above the surface, knifing toward the feast.

“Kisu!” wept Tende. “Please, Kisu!”

But he did not look at her.

We continued with our paddling.

“It will be only a matter of time, Kisu,” I said, in Gorean, “until the tharlarion have fed and there is no more there. Some may then follow a scent in the water, that of sweat and fear.”

“Of course,” said Kisu, not looking back.

I glanced back once at Tende. She was looking back over her shoulder.

I then continued with my paddling. We did not set a harsh pace. The girl must be able to keep up. And we must not move so swiftly that the tharlarion might become confused or lose the scent.

“Kisu,” cried the girl. ‘Take me into the canoe!”

But, again, he did not speak to her.

“Kisu!” she cried. “I cannot wade in these robes!”

“Do you wish me to remove them from you?” asked Kisu.

“Were you not once fond of me, Kisu?” she called.

“You are the daughter of my hated enemy, Aibu,” said Kisu, coldly.

“Why will you not take me into the canoe?” she asked.

“You are where the tharlarion can take you, within my sight,” he said.

“No!” she screamed. “No! No!”

“Ah, but, yes, my dear Tende,” he said.

“Please, Kisu!” she begged. “Please!”

“I hear but the voice of the proud free woman, Tende, daughter of my hated enemy, Aibu,” said Kisu.

She began to weep. She tried to approach the canoe more closely but Kisu, as she would approach, would, with a powerful stroke, move the canoe more swiftly forward, keeping her at the length of the tether. Once he let her approach the stern but, as she reached out with her bound hands, he, with the paddle, thrust her back. She stood there in the water. He then again moved the canoe forward. Again she followed at the length of her tether.

“Please, Kisu,” she begged.

But, again, he did not respond to her.

We paddled on, not speaking, for a quarter of an Ahn.

“Look,” said Ayari, after a time, looking back.

“Are they there now?” asked Kisu.

“Yes,” said Ayari, “four of them, tharlarion.”

Tende looked back over her shoulder.

At first I could not discern them. Then, because of the subtle movement of the water, I saw them. Their bodies, except for their eyes and nostrils, and some ridges on their backs, as they swam, were submerged.

They were about eighty yards away. They did not hurry, but moved with the fluid menace of their kind.

We stopped the canoe.

Tende, lower in the water than we, then saw them.

“Kisu!” she screamed. “Take me into the canoe!”

“You are where I want you,” he said, “where the tharlarion may take you, within my sight.”

“No!” she screamed. “No! No, please! No, please!”

“I hear the voice of the proud free woman, Tende,” said Kisu, “who is the daughter of my hated enemy, Aibu.”

“No,” she wept, “no!”

“Then what voice is it that I hear?” inquired Kisu.

“The voice of a helpless female slave,” cried Tende, “who begs her master to spare her life!”

“You are pretending to be a slave,” said Kisu.

“No,” she cried, “no! I am a true slave!”

The four tharlarion were now some twenty yards away. They, sensing the static position of their prey, slowed their approach.

“In your heart?” asked Kisu.

“Yes, yes, Master!” she cried.

“A natural and rightful slave?” he asked.

“Yes, I am a natural and rightful slave!” she cried.

The tharlarion stopped swimming now; they drifted toward her. This has the effect of minimizing the pressure waves projected before their bodies, an effect that might otherwise alert a wary, but unsuspecting prey. With tiny backward movements of their short legs they then became motionless, watching her.

“What is your name?” asked Kisu.

“Whatever Master pleases,” she wept. The answer was suitable.

“Do you beg slavery?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, Master!” she cried.

“Perhaps I shall consider it, Girl,” said he.

“Please, Master!” she cried.

With a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, the tiniest motion of their short legs, the four tharlarion, almost ringing the girl, seemed to drift again toward her, like half-submerged, meaningless logs, save for the methodicality of their convergence. There would then be a sudden lunge, and the snapping of the great jaws, the fighting for the prey.

“Master!” cried Tende.

Kisu, suddenly, reached out and, seizing the girl by the bound wrists, she screaming, wrenched her bodily in a shower of water across the thwart of the canoe.

At the same time, sensing the sudden movement of the prey, the four tharlarion, lashing the water with their tails, cut toward her. Two of them struck toward the stern of the canoe. Another uttered an explosive cry, half grunt, half bellow, which, in rage and frustration, sounded across the marsh. The fourth, jaws distended, more than a yard in width, attacked the side of the canoe. I beat it back with the paddle.

The canoe began to tip backward as another tharlarion clambered, half out of the water, onto its stern. Kisu thrust at it with his paddle. It bit the paddle in two. The girls, clinging to the thwarts, screamed. Ayari moved toward the bow of the canoe, half standing, to try to balance the weight. With the splintered handle of the paddle Kisu jabbed at the tharlarion. It slipped back off the stern. The canoe struck with a clash in the water, nearly capsizing. Another tharlarion struck at the side of the canoe with its snout. I heard wood crack, but not break. It turned, to use its tail. Another tharlarion slipped beneath the canoe.

“Move the canoe!” cried Kisu. “Do not let them under it!”

I thrust at the water with the paddle, and then, as the tharlarion began to surface under the slender vessel, pushed down at it. The canoe slipped off its back, and righted itself. Ayari, seizing one of the paddles, and I, then moved the canoe forward.

The tharlarion were quick to follow, snapping and bellowing. Kisu, with the splintered paddle handle, thrust back one of them.

Then I saw a handful of dried fish fly into the maw of one of the beasts. Ayari, his paddle discarded, was reaching into the cylindrical basket of dried fish, torn open, which had been among the supplies of the canoe. He hurled more fish to another tharlarion, which, with a snapping, popping noise, clamped shut its jaws on the salty provender. He similarly threw fish to the other two beasts.

“Hand me another paddle,” I said to the first girl in the canoe. She was crouching, trembling, head down, in the bottom of the canoe.

“Perform, Slave,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered. She handed the paddle back to the blond-haired barbarian who, half in shock, numb, handed it back to me. She looked at me, frightened, and then looked away. I think she knew that she again belonged to me. I pulled the paddle from her fingers and passed it back to Kisu, who took it calmly. Kisu and I then began to propel the canoe eastward. Tende, wrists bound beneath her body, lay shuddering between Kisu and myself, in the bottom of the canoe. Ayari then threw bits of fish into the water, where the tharlarion must swim to them, to obtain them. He threw successive tidbits further and further away, behind the canoe. Then he scattered several scraps of fish at one time, in an arc behind the tharlarion. Kisu and I continued to propel the canoe from the vicinity. The tharlarion, distracted and feeding, did not follow.

After a quarter of an Ann Kisu laid aside his paddle. He put Tende to her back, crouching beside her. He untied her hands.

She looked up at him.

“It is right, is it not,” he asked, “to enslave a rightful and natural slave?”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

He then, gently, removed her clothing.

“You are beautiful,” he said.

“A girl is pleased, if Master is pleased,” she said.

“It is too bad you are only a slave,” he said.

“Yes Master,” she said.

I then removed the white shells and cord from the throat and left ankle of the blond-haired barbarian, and snapped the two cords in half. I then retied shells on her throat and left ankle. The two remaining pieces of cord, with their shells, I gave to Kisu. He then tied them on the throat and left ankle of Tende.

“You have ornamented me as a slave, Master,” said Tende.

“It is fitting, Slave,” said Kisu.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

She then saw her clothing, with the exception of a silken strip, a foot in width and some five feet in length, ripped from an undergarment, dropped overboard into the marsh. Kisu carefully folded the silken strip into small squares and slipped it between his waist and his loincloth’s twisted-cloth belt. It could serve her as a brief, wrap-around skirt, similar to those of the other girls, if he later saw fit to clothe her.

“Your slave lies naked before you, Master,” said Tende.

“I have always desired you, Tende,” he said.

She lifted her arms to him.

“You are a slave, aren’t you, Tende?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said. She put her arms down. She looked up at him.

“Since I was a little girl,” she said, “I wanted to be your slave. But I never thought you would be strong enough to make me your slave.”

“In Ukungu,” he said, “it was not possible.” He looked down at her, his hands hard on her arms. “Here,” he said, “it is possible.”

“Here,” she said, “it is reality.” Then she winced, for his hands, in his desire, tightened more upon her anus. “oh,” she said, “you’re hurting me.”

“Be silent, Slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

He looked at her, fiercely. She could not meet his eyes. I think she had not known before that a man could so desire her. She had not before been a slave.

“I name you Tende,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said, now wearing that name like a collar, it having been put upon her as a slave name.

“To whom do you belong?” he asked.

“You, Master,” she said.

“Do you think you will have an easy slavery with me?” he asked.

“No, Master,” she said.

“You are right,” he said. “Your slavery will be a full slavery.

“I desire no other,” she said, turning her head to face him. I could smell the heat of her. “Are you now going to claim me, as your slave?” she asked. They seemed oblivious of the others in the canoe. Yet had they not been, it would have made no difference, for the girl was only a slave.

“I claim you, Tende,” said he, “as my slave.”

“Are you going to take the rights of the Master?” she asked.

“When, and as I please,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Oh!” she said, forced down, roughly, in the canoe.

“I claim you, Tende, daughter of my hated enemy, Aibu,” he said, “as my slave, and now, for the first time, I assert over you the full and uncompromising rights of my mastery.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Yes, Master.”

Ayari and I, and the two bare-breasted, lovely white slaves, property girls, each of us now with a paddle, not speaking, propelled the long canoe quietly eastward.

25

We Reach The Sill; I Am Not Pleased With A Slave

“Look,” said Ayari, in the bow of the long canoe, pointing forward.

“At last,” said Kisu, in the stern, resting his paddle.

The two white slaves, kneeling one behind the other, before me, lifted their paddles from the water, laying them across the sides of our narrow vessel.

Behind me, directly, before Kisu, Tende withdrew her paddle, too, from the water. Kisu kept her in the canoe immediately before him. He wanted her within his reach. She knew herself constantly under his scrutiny. She dared not shirk, no more than the other slaves, in the heavy work set her. More than once Kisu had struck her across the shoulders with his broad-bladed, ornately carved paddle when she, weary, arms aching, had faltered in the rhythm of the stroke.