Hunters of Gor (17 page)

I was pleased that I would soon regain Talena.

We would make a splendid couple, she and I, the beautiful Talena, daughter of

the Ubar of Ar himself, and the great Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar, jewel of

gleaming Thassa.

Who knew how high might be raised the chair of Bosk?

“Do not go, Master, into the forests,” had begged Sheera. “It is dangerous!”

“Cara,” had said I, :set this slave about her duties.”

“Yes, Master,” had said Cara. She took Sheera by the arm, to lead her from my

presence.

“When we reach Lydius again,” I told Sheera, “I will dispose of you there, in

the slave market.”

Her eyes looked at me, in horror. She then well knew herself slave.

I turned away from her.

I thought of Talena, the beautiful Talena. We would repledge our companionship.

She would take her place at my side. We would make a splendid couple, she and I,

the beautiful Talena, daughter of the Ubar of Ar himself, and the great Bosk,

Admiral of Port Kar, jewel of gleaming Thassa.

It would be a desirable and excellent companionship.

Who knew how high might be raised the chair of Bosk?

The birds carried on above me, as I passed slowly, carefully beneath them.

Sometimes when I first moved below them, they would be silent, but then, seeing

a moment that I was moving away, would begin to cry out again, and dart about

from branch to branch. I stopped to wipe my brow on my forearm. Almost instantly

they stopped, clutching the branches, the notes of their song for the instant

stilled. If I had then sat down, or lain down, or remained standing for some

time, but made no threatening move toward them, they would again resume their

gatherings of food, their flights and songs.

I continued on.

Rim had returned from Laura, the afternoon of the day preceding our departure

from the camp. With him, met in Laura, had come Arn, and four men. Arn had heard

in Lydius that we had acquired little Tina, as I had thought he might. He was

interested in obtaining her, now that she was salve. He had not forgotten that

she, when free, had once in a tavern in Lydius, feigning passion, drugged him

and robbed him of a purse of gold. Arn, and his four men, were now with my

party, following. They were interested in picking up panther girls. I thought

their services might prove valuable. I had given Arn no definite answer on his

request to purchase Tina, his object in coming to my camp. It was not that I had

any particular objection to selling, or giving, her to him. Those objections

were Tina’s, not mine, and they were not of account, for she was slave. But I

knew that one of my men, the young Turus, he with the amethyst-studded wristlet,

had found her not displeasing. That she, too, seemed much excited by him did not

enter into my considerations. She was merely slave. That which would be done

with her would be not that which she pleased, but that which I, her master,

pleased. His concern, however, that of Turus, was important to me, quite

important. He was of my crew. I would decide on the disposition of lovely Tina

later. Perhaps I would give her to him. There were far more important matters to

attend to at the moment.

It was past the tenth hour, past the Gorean noon. I squinted at the sun through

the branches, and then looked down again, into the greenery.

I continued on, through the brush and trees.

I hoped to be able to scout Verna’s camp before nightfall, so that we might

arrange our attack, with nets, for dawn.

I thought of my men back at the camp. They would not fail to appreciate captured

panther girls.

Men of Port Kar know well how to introduce women to slavery.

I smiled.

I wondered what the paga slaves now in the camp would think of such wild

captives. They would doubtless much fear them. The day of my departure from the

camp, at dawn, later in that same day, four paga slaves, in yellow silks,

brought up from Laura, chained in a longboat, would have arrived at my camp. It

had been the main object of Rim’s journey to Laura to arrange for their rentals

and delivery. According to Rim they were beauties. I hoped that he was right,

for their master, Hesius, tavern owner in Laura, had not charged high rentals

nor excessive delivery charges. We would have them for a copper tarn apiece, per

day. Further, Hesius had told Rim that he would send wine with the girls, at no

additional cost. I did not particularly want the wine, but I had no objection to

its inclusion in our order.

I hoped the girls would be beautiful, for the sake of my men.

I, too, of course, would see them upon my return, and make my appraisals.

It is important for a captain to see to the satisfaction of his men.

I trusted Rim. I knew him to have a keen eye for slave beauty. If he spoke

highly of the four paga slaves, they were doubtless splendid specimens of female

slaves.

“Their prices are not high,” I had told Rim.

He had shrugged. “Prices are low in Laura,” he had said.

It was true.

I pushed aside branches, and slipped through.

The paga slaves would doubtless, at first, much fear the captured panther girls,

and, of course, the panther girls would much despise such slaves. I laughed

softly to myself. It would soon be turnabout. My men would swiftly teach the

panther girls their collars. When the paga slaves saw them simply as what they

would then be, new girls, helpless, frightened, intimidated, raw girls, fresh to

the delights and degradations of slavery, they would no longer fear them, but

scorn them, properly, as far inferior to themselves. And the new girls would beg

the paga slaves to impart to them something of their skills, that they might be

more pleasing to men. And then the paga slaves, as the mood struck them, might

do so or not. Some of the panther girls themselves, when sold to new masters,

might find themselves just such paga slaves, girls precisely such as they would

have scorned upon first being brought captive to my camp.

I continued on, through the brush and trees. Leaves, gently, brushed my face.

It was now near the twelfth Ahn.

My plans were proceeding well. I hoped, by nightfall, to have scouted Verna’s

camp.

I could strike before Marlenus of Ar could find it. He was still hunting the

woods in the neighborhood of Laura.

It did not displease me that I should bring his daughter to safety from the

forests before him, or that I should have Verna, and her band, prisoner, tied in

binding fiber, waiting for my iron, while he still, unknowingly, sought them

where they were not.

Marlenus, in Ar, had once banished me, denying me bread, fire and salt.

I had not forgotten that.

I laughed to myself. Let the great Ubar rage, I thought. Let him learn that one

of Port Kar, one whom he once banished from his city, has swiftly, arrogantly,

bettered him at his work.

The glory that was to have been Marlenus’ would now be mine.

I considered my return in triumph to Port Kar, the flowers in the canals, the

cheerings throngs in the windows and on the rooftops.

At my side, in robes worthy of a Ubara, would stand Talena.

Let official word then be sent to Ar that his daughter now sat safe at my side,

consort of Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar, jewel of gleaming Thassa.

We would make a splendid couple. The companionship would be an excellent one, a

superb one.

Who knew, in time, how high might be raised the chair of Bosk?

I pushed aside more branches, and leaves, slipping between them.

I thought of Sheera, as she had leaped to me, her lips to mine. Then I dismissed

her from my mind. I would dispose of her in the slave market at Lydius. She was

merely slave.

Suddenly I stopped.

The birds had stopped singing.

I lowered my head swiftly.

The arrow struck the trunk of a tree not inches from my face.

It hit with a solid, hard sound, and I saw the shaft, feathered, quiver in the

wood.

Some seventy-five yards through the trees I thought I saw a movement, furtive,

the flash of a thigh.

Then there was only silence.

I was furious. I had been discovered. If the attacker reached her camp, all

hopes of a surprise attack would be lost. The girls, alerted, might abandon the

camp and flee deeply into the forests, taking Talena with them. My most careful

plans would be undone.

I swiftly leaped in pursuit.

In moments I had come to the place whence the arrow had been loosed. I saw the

marks on the leaves and grass where the attacker had stood.

I scanned the woods.

A bent leaf, a dislodged stone, guided me.

The attacker kept well ahead of me, for more than an Ahn. Yet there was little

time to adequately conceal a trail. My pursuit was quick, and hot, and I was

close. The attacker, much of the time, fled. It was not them difficult to

follow. Crushed leaves, broken twigs, turned stones, bent grass, footprints, all

spelled the trail clearly to the detecting eye.

Twice more arrows sped from the underbrush, passing beside me, losing themselves

in the greenery behind me.

Often I heard the running from me.

I followed swiftly, not rapidly closing the ground between us.

My bow was strung. At the hemp string, whipped with silk, was a temwood arrow,

piled with steel, fletched with the feathers of the Vosk gull.

The attacker, at all costs, must not be permitted to make contact with others.

Another arrow struck near me, with a quick, hard sound, followed by the tight

vibrating of the arrow.

I lowered my head, bending over. I no longer heard running.

There was no movement in the brush ahead.

I smiled. The attacker was at bay. The attacker was concealed in the thicket

ahead, waiting.

Excellent, I thought, excellent.

But it was now the most dangerous portion of the chase. The attacker waited,

invisible in the greenery, not moving, bow ready.

I listened, not moving, to the birds, intently.

I lifted my head to the trees in the thicket ahead, the tangles of brush and

undergrowth. I noted where the birds moved, and where they did not.

I did not draw my bow. I would not immediately enter the thicket. I would wait.

I studied the shadows for a quarter of an Ahn.

I surmised that the attacker, aware of my hot pursuit, would have turned within

the thicket, and would have waited, bow drawn.

It is very painful to hold a bow drawn for more than an Ehn or two.

But to ease the bow is to move, and it is to be unready to fire.

Birds moved about, above me.

I listened, patient, to the drone of insects. I continued to study the shadows,

and parts of shadows.

Perhaps I had gone ahead, perhaps I had evaded the thicker, perhaps I had turned

back.

I waited, as a Gorean warrior waits.

Then, at last, I saw the slight movement, almost imperceptible, for which I had

been waiting.

I smiled.

I carefully fitted the black, steel-piled temwood shaft to the string. I lifted

the great bow of yellow Ka-la-na, from the wine trees of Gor.

There was a sudden cry of pain from the green and the sunlight and shadows.

I had her!

I sped forward.

In almost an instant I was on her.

She had been pinned to a tree by the shoulder. Her eyes were glazed. She had her

hand at her shoulder. When she saw me, she clutched, with her right hand, at the

sleen knife in her belt. She was blond, blue-eyed. There was blood on her hair.

I knocked the sleen knife from her hand and rudely jerked her hands together

before her body, securing them there with slave bracelets. She was gasping. Some

six inches of the arrow, five inches feathered, protruded from her shoulder. I

cut away the halter she wore and improvised a gag, that she might not cry out.

With a length of binding fiber, taken from her own pouch, I tied the slave

bracelets tight against her belly. I stepped back. This panther girl would warn

no others. She would not interfere with the plans of Bosk, of Port Kar.

She faced me, in pain, gagged, her fists in slave bracelets, held at her belly.

I stripped her of her skins, and pouch and weapons. She was mine. I noted that

she was comely.

I strode to her and, as her eyes cried out with pain, snapped off the arrow.

I lifted her from the cruel pinion. She fell to her knees. Now, the arrow gone,

her two wounds began to bleed. She shuddered. I would permit some blood to wash

from the wound, cleaning it.

I snapped of the rest of the arrow, and, with a knife, shaved it to the tree,

that it might not attract attention. The girl’s pouch, its contents, and her

weapons, I threw into the brush.

Then I knelt beside her and, with those skins I had taken from her, bound her

wound.

With my foot I skuffed dirt over the stains on the ground, where she had bled.

I then lifter her lightly in my arms and carried her, gagged and bound, down our

back trail, for some quarter of an Ahn.

When I was satisfied that I had carried her sufficiently far, so far that I was

confident that she would not be within earshot of any to whom she might wish to

call, I set her down on the ground, leaning her against a tree.