Hunters of Gor (5 page)

captives on board the ship. I smiled to myself. They would talk. Afterwards,

when I had learned what I wished to know, I would sell them in Lydius.

“A steel knife for each,” I proposed to Sheera, “and twenty arrow points, of

steel, for each.”

“Forty arrow points for each, and the knives,” said Sheera, cutting at the sand.

I could see she did not much want to conduct these negotiations. Her heart was

not in the bargaining. She was angry.

“Very well,” I said.

“And a stone of candies,” she said, looking up, suddenly.

“Very well,” I said.

“For each!” she demanded.

“Very well,” I said.

She slapped her knees and laughed. The girls seemed delighted.

There was little sugar in the forest, save naturally in certain berries, and

simple hard candies, such as a child might buy in shops in Ar, of Ko-ro-ba,

were, among the panther girls in the remote forests, prized.

It was not unknown that among the bands in the forests, a male might be sold for

as little as a handful of such candies. When dealing with men, however, the

girls usually demanded, and received, goods of greater value to them, usually

knives, arrow points, small spear points; sometimes armlets, and bracelets and

necklaces, and mirrors; sometimes slave nets and slave traps, to aid in their

hunting’ sometimes slave chains, and manacles, to secure their catches.

I had the goods brought from the ship, with scales to weigh out the candies.

Sheera, and her girls, watched carefully, not trusting men, and counted the

arrow points twice.

Satisfied, Sheera stood up. “Take the slaves,” she said.

The nude male wretches were, by men from the Tesephone, cut down.

They fell to the sand, and could not stand. I had them placed in slave chains.

“Carry them to the ship,” said I to my men.

The girls, as the slaves were carried toward the water, swarmed around them,

spitting on them, and striking them, jeering and mocking them.

“This one”, said one of the girls, “will look well chained at the bench of a

galley.”

“This one,” said Sheera, poking the other in the shoulder with her knife, “is

not bad.” She laughed. “Sell him to a rich woman.”

He turned his head away from her, his eyes closed, a male slave.

Male slaves, on Gor, are not particularly valuable, and do not command high

prices. Most labor is performed by free men. Most commonly, male slaves are

utilized on the cargo galleys, and in the mines, and on the great farms. They

also serve, frequently, as porters at the wharves. Still, perhaps they are

fortunate to have their lives, even at such a price. Males captured in war, or

in the seizure of cylinders or villages, or in the pillaging of caravans, are

commonly slain. The female is the prize commodity in the Gorean slave market. A

high price for a male is a silver tarsk, but even a plain wench, of low caste,

provided she moves well to the touch of the auctioneer’s coiled whip, will bring

as much, or more. An exception to the low prices for males generally is that

paid for a certified woman’s slave, a handsome male, silken clad, who has been

trained to tend a woman’s compartments. Some of such bring a price comparable to

that brought by a girl, of average loveliness. Prices, of course, tend to

fluctuate with given markets and seasons. Of there are few such on the market at

a given time, their prices will tend to be proportionately higher. Such men tend

to be sold in women’s auctions, closed to free men, with the exception, of

course, of the auctioneer and such personnel.

“To Lydius,” I told Thurnock.

“Out oars!” he called.

The oars slid outboard.

With a creak of ropes and pullies, seamen were hauling the long, sloping yard up

the mast, its sail still secured in the brail ropes.

I saw Sheera, standing knee deep in the water, near the beach. She had now

thrust her sleen knife into its belt sheath. She was a strongly bodied girl. The

sun made the chains and claws at her throat gleam.

“Return again,” she called. “Perhaps we will have more men to sell you!”

I lifted my hand to her, acknowledging her cry.

She laughed, and turned about, and waded up to the sand.

The two male slaves I had purchased lay on their sides on the deck, their feet

and legs pulled up, their wrists together, in their chains.

“To Lydius!” he repeated.

“Half beat,” said I to Thurnock.

“Oars ready!” he called. “Half beat! Stroke!”

As one, the oars dipped cleanly into the water, and drew against gleaming

Thassa, and the Tesephone, lightly, began to turn in the water, her prow seeking

the south, and Lydius.

I turned to a seaman. “Take the two male slaves below, to the first hold,” I

said. “Keep them chained, but dress their wounds, and feed them. Let them rest.”

“Yes, Captain,” said he.

I looked to the shore. Already Sheera, and her girls, had disappeared from the

beach, slipping as invisibly, as naturally, as she-panthers into the darkness of

the forests.

The frames to which the male slaves had been tied were now empty. They stood

high on the beach, where they might be easily seen from the sea.

“Bring up from the first hold the two panther girls,” said I to a seaman.

“Remove their slave hoods, and gags. Chain them as they were before, to the

deck.”

“Yes, Captain,” said the seaman. “Shall I feed them?”

“No,” I said.

Seamen now climbed to the high yard, loosening the brail ropes, to drop the

sail.

It was the tarn sail.

Gorean galleys commonly carry several sails, usually falling into three main

types, fair-weather, “tarn” and storm. Within each type, depending on the ship,

there may be varieties. The Tesephone carried four sails, one said of the first

type; two of the second, and one of the third. Her sails were, first, the

fair-weather sail, which is quite large, and is used in gentle winds; secondly,

the tarn sail, which is the common sail most often found on the yard of a tarn

ship, and taking its name from the ship; third, a sail of the same type as the

tarn sail, and, in a sense, a smaller “tarn” sail, the “tharlarion” sail; this

smaller “tarn” sail, or “tharlarion” sail, as it is commonly called, to

distinguish it from the larger sail of the same type, is more manageable than

the standard, larger tarn sail; it is used most often in swift, brutal, shifting

winds, providing a useful sail between the standard tarn sail and the storm

sail; fourthly, of course, the Tesephone carried her storm sail; if, upon

occasion, a ship could not run before a heavy sea, it would be broken in the

crashing of the waves. Gorean galleys, in particular the ram-ships, are built

for speed and war. They are long, narrow, shallow-drafted, carvel-built craft.

They are not made to lift and fall, to crash among fifty-foot waves, caught in

the fists of the sea’s violence. In such a sea literally, in spite of their

beams and chains, they can break in tow, snapping like the spines of tabuk in

the jaws of frenzied larls. In changing a sail, the yard is lowered, and then

raised again. In the usual Gorean galley, lateen rigged, there is no practical

way to take in, or shorten, sail, as with many types of square-rigged craft. In

consequence, the different sails. The brail ropes serve little more, in the

lateen-rigged galley, with its triangular sail on the long, sloping yard, has

marvelous maneuvering capabilities, and can sail incredibly close to the wind.

Its efficiency in tacking more than compensates for the convenience of a single,

multipurposed sail. And, too, perhaps it should be mentioned, the lateen rigging

is very beautiful.

The two girls were brought up from the first hold. Their faces were red, and

broken out. Their hair was soaked with perspiration. It is not pleasant to wear

a Gorean slave hood. They gasped for air. A seaman, a hand in the hair of each,

holding them bent over, pulled them past me.

The brail ropes loosened, the tarn sail dropped, opening into the wind.

It was very beautiful.

In the stern quarter, behind the open kitchen, the girls were chained by the

neck to the deck, to iron rings set in the heavy sanded wood. Each was given a

yard of chain.

I smelled roast bosk cooking and fried vulo. It would be delicious. I thought no

more of the girls.

I must attend to matters of the ship.

I held the leg of fried vulo toward one of the girls.

I sat before them, on a stool, between them and the open kitchen. They knelt.

There were still chained by the neck to the iron rings. But now, too, I had had

their hands tied behind then, with binding fiber.

Some men stood about, Rim and Thurnock among them. There was still a good wind,

tight and sweet in the tarn sail. The three Gorean moons gleamed in the black,

starlit sky. The two girls were beautiful in the shifting yellow light of the

ship’s lantern, illuminating them.

I had not had then fed all day.

Indeed, I had not had them fed since their acquisition, the morning of the

preceding day, though I had seen that they had had enough water. Further, I

expected that Arn, and his men, had not been overly generous in feeding their

fair enemies. Both girls must be half starved.

One of the girls, she toward whom I held the leg of fried vulo, reached her head

toward me, opening her delicate, white teeth to bite at it.

I drew it away.

She straightened herself again, proudly. I rather admired them.

“I would know,” I said to them, “the whereabouts of the camp of an outlaw girl,

and its dancing circle.”

“We know nothing,” said one of the girls.

“The name of the outlaw girl,” I said, “is Verna.”

I saw recognition leap into their eyes, briefly, before they could conceal their

response.

“We know nothing,” said the second girl.

“You know, or know well enough,” I said, “the location or approximate location,

of her camp and dancing circle.”

“We know nothing,” said the first girl again.

“You will tell me,” I informed them.

“We are panther girls,” said the first girl.” “We will tell you nothing.”

I held the leg of fried vulo again toward the first girl. For a time, she

ignored it, her head to one side. Then, looking at me with hatred, unable to

restrain herself, she bent forward again. Her teeth, closed on the meat and she

cried out in her throat, a gasp, a tiny cry, glad, inarticulate, uncontrollable,

and began to bite at the leg, swiftly, tearing at it, her head to one side, the

blond hair falling over my wrist. With my eyes I indicated that Rim should,

similarly, feed the other.

He did so.

In moments the girls had torn the meat from the bones, and Rim and I threw the

bones into the sea.

They were sill half starving, of course. They had had but a taste of meat.

I could see the anxiety in their eyes, lest they not be fed more.

“Feed us!” cried the first girl. “We will tell you what you wish to know.”

“Agreed,” said I to them, regarding them, waiting for them to speak.

The two girls exchanged glances, “Feed us first,” said the first girl. “We will

then speak.”

“Speak first,” said I, “and then, should it please us, we may give you food.”

The two girls exchanged glances again.

The first, then, put her head down. She choked, as though attempting to stifle a

sob. She looked at me, agonized. She was quite a good actress.

“Very well,” she said, haltingly, as though her will, only that of a girl, had

been broken.

She was superb.

“The camp of Verna,” she said, “and her dancing circle, lies one hundred pasangs

north of Lydius, and twenty pasangs inland from the shore of Thassa.”

She then put her head down, with a choking sob. “Please feed me,” she wept.

“You have lied,” I told her.

She looked at me, angrily.

“I will tell,” wept the second girl.

“Do not!” cried the second girl. She was quite a good actress. Yes.

“I must,” wept the second. The second was not bad either.

“Speak,” I said.

The second girl, while the first feigned fury, put her head down. “The camp of

Verna,” she said, “lies ten pasangs upriver from Lydius, and fifty pasangs

north, inland from the Laurius.”

“You, too, are lying,” I informed her.

The two girls regarded me, furiously. They struggled in their bonds.

“You are a man!” hissed the first. “We are panther girls! Do you think we would

tell you anything?”

“Release their hands,” I said to a seaman, “and feed them.”

The girls looked at one another, wonderingly. The seaman unbound their wrists

from behind their backs, and filled two trenchers, steaming now with bosk and

vulo, which he thrust in their hands.

I watched them while, with fingers and teeth, they devoured the food.

When they had finished, I regarded them. “What are your names?” I asked.

They looked at one another. “Tana,” said the first. “Ela,” said the second.

“I wish to learn,” I said, “the location of the camp and dancing circle of the

outlaw girl, Verna.”

Tana sucked her fingers. She laughed. “We will never tell you,” she said.

“No,” said Ela, finishing the last bit of roast bosk, her eyes closed.

Tana looked at me angrily. “We don not fear the whip,” she said. “We don not