Hunters of Gor (37 page)

was patient.

She rolled over on her back, and extended her legs, her head turned from side to

side. Then her head was still. She was now mine.

I knelt across her body, one leg on either side of her, pinning her, confining

her movements.

Her eyes suddenly, startled, opened. She saw me. In terror, a reflex action,

uncontrollable, her mouth, lips wild, opened. I thrust the heavy wadding deep in

her mouth. She could utter not the smallest sound. As my right hand did this the

loop of panther skin, twisted in its center, fell from my hand across her face.

Swiftly, the twisted part deeply between her teeth, I knotted it with a

warrior’s tightness behind the back of her neck. The wadding would not slip. I

then turned her on her stomach and bound her wrists behind her back. Then I bent

to her ankles, crossed them, and tied them together.

“Do not struggle,” I told her.

She felt the blade of the knife at her throat. Her eyes wild over her gag, she

nodded her understanding.

“Do you understand what you are to do?” demanded Vinca.

“I can’t!” wept Mira. “I can’t!” Tears stained her cheeks from beneath the

blindfold. I had fastened on her before bringing her to this predesignated

clearing.

She could not see who it was who spoke to her. She knew only that she knelt,

stripped, blindfolded and bound, before a harsh female interrogator, one whose

uncompromising strictures and imperious tomes could only be interpreted as those

of a leader of a large and important band of panther women.

Also, to her left and right, moving about, from time to time, were the other two

paga slaves, those beside Vinca. Mira could have no way of knowing how many were

present at her interrogation nor if those present were merely a delegation or

smaller group drawn from a larger band. Indeed, she knew little more than that

she was being severely addressed by one woman, and that there were others about.

Ilene I had left with the other prisoners, chaining her, belly to a tree, by

slave bracelets. Mira, kneeling blindfolded, interrogated, did not even know if

I were still present.

Vinca, the red-haired girl, did her job well. From time to time, when not

satisfied with an answer, or, sometimes, for no apparent reason at all, she

would, unexpectedly, strike the blindfolded, bound, cowering Mira with the

switch. Mira never knew when she would be struck. She wept. She would sometimes

flinch from blows that had not even fallen.

“Please do not hit me again,” wept Mira.

“Very well,” said Vinca.

Mira lifter her head and, gasping, straightened her body.

Then suddenly the switch would fall again, with lashing ferocity.

Mira put down her head again, shuddering. I observed the fingers of her small,

crossed, bound hands. I did not think it would take long now from Vinca to break

her.

“Do you understand what you are to do?” demanded Vinca.

“I cannot!” wept Mira. “It is too dangerous! If I were found out, they would

kill me! I cannot do it! I cannot do it!”

I motioned to Vinca. No more blows fell.

“Very well,” said Vinca.

There was a long silence.

Mira lifted her head, unbelievingly. The ordeal was over. “Are you finished with

me?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Vinca.

Mira’s head fell forward on her breast. Then she took a deep breath. She lifted

her head.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

“You will find out,” said Vinca. Then Vinca gestured to the two other paga

slaves, my girls, in the skins of panthers. They unbound Mira’s ankles and

pulled her, still blindfolded, to her feet. One on each arm they conducted her

through the forest until they came to a place we had agreed upon, in which we

had places four stakes. I followed silently.

Mira was put on her back and her two ankles were bound, widely apart, to two

stakes.

Then her wrists were unbound from behind her and they, too, were bound widely

apart, to two stakes.

“What are you doing with me?” begged Mira.

“We are staking you out for sleen,” said Vinca.

“No! No!” cried Mira.

The last knot was fastened, she was secured. “Please no!” cried Mira.

I handed the sleen knife to Vinca. Mira, blindfolded, felt the blade on her

thigh. “No!” she cried.

Vinca handed the blade back to me, which I cleaned and replaced in my sheath.

Mira, staked out, blindfolded, felt a woman’s strong hand take the blood from

her thigh and smear it across her belly and about her body.

“Please!” wept Mira. “I am a woman!”

“I, too, “ said Vinca, “ am a woman.”

“Spare me!” cried Mira. “Keep me as your slave!”

“I do not want you,” said Vinca.

“Sell me to a man!” she cried. “I will make him a docile slave, a dutiful,

obedient and beautiful slave!”

“Are you a natural slave?” asked Vinca.

“Yes,” cried Mira, “yes! Sell me! Sell me!”

“Do you beg to be a slave?” she asked.

“Yes,” wept Mira, “yes!”

“Untie her,” said Vinca.

Weeping, still blindfolded, Mira was untied and thrown before me on her knees.

“Submit,” said Vinca, sternly.

Before me Mira performed the gesture of submission. I held her crossed wrists.

“I submit myself, Master,” she said.

She was now my slave.

I nodded to Vinca.

Mira was thrown back on the grass.

“Let the slave,” said Vinca, “be now staked out for sleen.”

“No!’ cried Mira. “No!”

Swiftly Mira, blindfolded, found herself bound as before to the stakes, if

anything more securely. Only now she lay there a bound slave.

“Leave her for the sleen,” said Vinca.

“Command me!’ cried Mira. “I will do anything for you! Anything! A slave begs to

be commanded!”

“It is too late,” said Vinca.

“I beg to serve you!” she wept. “I beg to serve you!”

“It is too late,” said Vinca.

“No!” cried Mira.

“Gag her,” said Vinca.

Again I thrust the heavy wadding of fur deep in Mira’s mouth, and tied it

securely in place with the strip, twisted, of panther skin.

We then withdrew, leaving the slave Mira lashed helplessly between the stakes.

We waited.

As we expected, it did not take long. Soon, prowling about in the brush, some

yards away, was a sleen, drawn by the smell of fresh blood, her own, smeared on

Mira’s slave body.

The sleen is a cautious animal. He circled her, several times.

I could smell the animal. So, too, doubtless could the others, and Mira.

She seemed frozen in the lashings.

Movement will sometimes provoke the animal’s charge, if within a certain

critical distance, which, for the sleen, is about four times the length of his

body.

The sleen scratched about in the grass. It made small noises. Tiny hisses and

growls. The prey did not move. It came closer. I could hear it sniffing.

Then, puzzled, it was beside her. It thrust its snout against her body, and

began to lick at the blood.

I removed a pile from one of the tem-wood arrows and capped the arrow with a

wadding of fur.

Mira, blindfolded, helpless, threw back her head in terror. It would have been

the scream of a bound slave, naked, staked out for sleen. But there was no sound

for she had been gagged by a warrior. He had not even entitled her to utter a

sound when the very jaws would be upon her. Her body pulled back, shuddering

like that of a tethered tabuk set out by hunters for larls. First the sleen

began to lick the blood from her body. Then it began to grow excited. Then it

thrust forth its head and took her entire body, from her waist to the small of

her back, in its jaws, and lifted it in the lashings.

I loosed the padded arrow. It struck the sleen on the side of the snout.

Startled, it growled with rage, and leaped back, away from the prey.

Then it stood over her, hissing, snarling, defending its find against another

predator.

Then the two paga slaves other than Vinca came forward, dragging the carcass of

a tabuk. I had felled it before seeking Mira in her camp. They threw the carcass

to one side.

After much snarling and growling the sleen turned to the side, its snout still

stinging, and seized up the tabuk and disappeared in the brush.

I found the arrow, removed the wadding and replaced the steel pile.

Vinca and her girls had now unbound the lashings that fastened Mira. With

difficulty they took from her mouth the heavy gag. They let the panther skin

then hang about her neck and wound the wadding about it, that it might be soon

replaced. They did not remove the blindfold. They put her on her knees and tied

her hands behind her back.

“You know what you are to do, Slave?” asked Vinca.

Numbly, half in shock, Mira nodded her head.

She was to betray the panther girls of Hura’s band, in my camp, there were

several bottles of wine, which had been taken originally from Verna’s camp by

Marlenus, and then from his camp by the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura. It

had been abandoned at their first campsite by the conquest circle. I had had my

slaves, captured panther girls, bring it along, carrying it in our slave

caravan. I had thought it might prove useful. I did not expect it would be drunk

by all of the panther girls, but if I could deprive the men of Tyros of more of

their dangerous, beautiful allies, it would be to my advantage.

“Tomorrow night,” said Vinca, “you are to give the wine to as many of the

panther girls as is possible.”

Mira, blindfolded, kneeling before the harshly spoken Vinca, put down her head.

“Yes, Mistress,” she whispered.

Vinca put her hands in her hair and shook it. “We can pick you up again when we

want you,” she said. “Do you understand?”

Mira nodded, miserably.

“Are you a docile, obedient slave?” asked Verna.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Mira. “Yes!”

“Bring skins,” said Vinca, “that we may now disguise this slave as a panther

girl.”

Mira was unbound and helped into skins. They were the same which had been taken

before from her.

Her wrists were then bound again behind her back and I regagged her.

The bottles of wine, brought by one of the paga slaves, were slung, knotted,

about her neck.

When we were close to her camp I removed the blindfold from her eyes.

She looked at me, piteously. In her eyes there was still the fear of the sleen.

“I shall show you where your guards are placed,” I said.

“Then, with your skills, you should be able to return undetected to your place

in the camp.”

She nodded, tears in her eyes.

I took her by the arm and, nearing the camp, by gesture, showed her the

placement of the two guards. She nodded. We then went to a place from which,

with care, she should have no difficulty in re-entering the camp.

We knelt together in the foliage. The wine was still tied about her neck. I

knelt behind her. I unbound her hands. I removed from her mouth the heavy gag. I

threw it into the brush.

She did not turn to look at me. “Was it to you,” she asked, “that I submitted in

the forest? Is it you whose slave I am?”

“Yes,” I said.

She turned to face me.

I suddenly removed her skins from her.

I took her in my arms, a slave girl.

I did not untie the wine from about her neck.

“Can you hear me?” cried the man of Tyros. “Can you hear me?”

I, of course, made no answer.

“If any man of Tyros falls,” he cried, “ten slaves will die!”

Scarcely had his words been uttered when he, himself, fell, an arrow from the

great bow lost in the yellow of his tunic.

I had not accepted their terms.

“Then, Slaves,” cried a man, blade uplifted, “die!”

But he struck no one. The great bow did not permit him. When the chain moved

again it took its way over his body. No longer was there the threat of slaying

slaves. No man was willing to strike the first blow. Sarus, leader of the men of

Tyros, ordered several but none would strike, not wishing themselves to fall.

“Then strike them yourself!” shouted one of his insubordinate men.

Sarus slew the man himself, with his sword, but he, Sarus, did not then move to

strike the slaves. Rather he looked angrily, anxiously, into the forest, and

then turned away. “Faster!’ he cried. “March then faster!”

The slave chain again moved.

Once more the men from Ar, led by Marlenus himself, their Ubar took up their

song. It rang through the forests.

After the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, I slew no more, for I wished their

confidence and their hope, to mount. Before the tenth hour I had felled

fourteen. That morning, given the history of their march, was perhaps, by them,

felt to be their darkest, their most helpless. That afternoon would be for them,

by contrast, by my intention, one of gradually increasing elation, of growing,

leaping hope, for that afternoon, and that evening, too, no more arrows strode

forth, telling, from the green concealments of the leafed branches.

Perhaps I was no longer with them. Perhaps their stalker had tired. Perhaps he

had give up the chase, the hunt.

They marched long that day. It was late when they made their camp.

They were buoyant, and the mood was one of celebration. I watched my slave,