Hunters of Gor (39 page)

smell, the water flowed back from him, leaving him on the smooth wet sand. He

pressed the palms of his hands into the sand and pressed his lips to the wet

sand. Then, as the water moved again, in the stirrings of Thassa, the sea, in

its broad swirling sweep touching the beach, he lifted his head and stood

upright, the water about his ankles.

He turned to face the Sardar, thousands of pasangs away. He did not see me,

among the darkness of the trees. He lifted his hands to the Sardar, to the

Priest-Kings of Gor. Then he fell again to his knees in the water and, lifting

it with his hands, hurled it upward about him, and I saw the sun flash on the

droplets.

He was laughing, haggard. And then he turned about, and, slowly, step by step,

marking the drier sand with his wet sandals, made his way again back up the

beach.

“The sea!” he cried into the forest. “The sea!”

He was a brave man, Sarus of Tyros, Captain of the Rhoda. He had himself

advanced, alone, before his men.

And it had been he who had first glimpsed Thassa. The days and the nights of

their terrible dream, he surmised, were now behind him.

They had come through to the sea.

I had permitted them to do so.

I scanned the breadth of the western horizon. Beyond the breakers, and the white

caps, there was only the calm placid lines of gleaming Thassa, its vastness

untroubled, meeting the bright, hard blue sky in a lonely plane, as unbroken and

simples as the mark of a geometer’s straight edge.

There were no sails, no distant particles of yellow canvas, bespeaking the ships

of Tyros, that cluttered that incredible vast margin, the meeting place of the

great elements of the sky and the sea.

The horizon was empty.

Somewhere men strained at oars. Somewhere, how far away I knew not, the strike

of the hammer of the keuleustes governed the stroke of those great sweeping

levers, the oars of the Rhoda, and doubtless, not more than fifty yards abeam,

those, too, of the light galley, the Tesephone, she of Port Kar.

These two ships would have rendezvous with Sarus and his men.

Yet on the trackless beaches, lining the western edge of the great northern

forests for hundreds of pasangs, below the bleakness of Torvaldsland, it would

not be easy to make rendezvous. There would have to be, I knew, a signal.

“The sea!” cried others, now stumbling from the forests.

Sarus stood to one side, worn.

His men, fifty-five men of Tyros, some falling, made their way down the beach,

across the stones, to the edge of the water.

They had not thought, many of them, to again see the sea.

They had come through the forest.

I had permitted them to do so.

I, too, had a rendezvous with the Rhoda and the Tesephone.

The Rhoda had been instrumental in my affairs, in ways that had not pleased me.

And in the hold of the Tesephone were numbers of my men, captured at the camp on

the Laurius River, due to the treachery of a tavern keeper of Laura, by name,

Hesius, and four paga slaves. I recalled the girls, with momentary irritation,

red-haired Vinca, the two other girls, and the slim, light-skinned, dark0haired

Earth girl, she of Denver, Colorado, to whom I had given the slave name, Ilene.

U was not pleased with her. She had not been completely open with me. Too, she

was a lovely weakling, petty, timid and selfish, fir only to be the slave of men

of Gor. I would have her sold in Port Kar.

Now, sullen, angry, at the edge of the forest, I saw a slave chain of twenty-one

men. There were fastened together by the neck, and the hands of each were

manacles behind his back. the neck chains and wrist manacles, now, however, had

been changed to lock chains, that they might be separated, rechained, and

regrouped in a matter of seconds, depending on what contingencies were

encountered by their masters.

Seventy-five men had been abandoned in the forest, still wearing the chains that

had been hammered about their necks and wrists. Sarus had not had them slain.

Doubtless he had feared the great bow. His earlier attempt to slay slaves had

been unsuccessful. No one, after I had felled the first who had dared to lift

his sword to such a purpose, had dared to threaten a slave. On the other hand,

on the orders of Sarus, the seventy-five men had been chained in a large circle,

about some ten large trees. When I had come upon them, thought I had not made my

presence known to them, I had seen that each still wore his neck chain, and that

the hands of each were still manacled behind his back. the long set of chains

and collars, securing them, had been fastened about several trees, in a great

circle,. They no longer wore ankle chains, of course. There had been struck off

earlier in the march, that the entire column might move more quickly. They could

not be freed, save by tools, for they did not wear lock bonds.

It was intelligently done by Sarus.

Abandoned in the forest they would die of thirst, or hunger, or of exposure or

the attacks of beasts. To protect them, would, of course divert the forces of

the enemy; to free them, should the enemy not possess heavy tools, which I did

not, would be almost impossible. Either the chains must be broken or the trees

cut. It was an excellent plan.

Sarus was not a fool.

Then, of course, after having laid this impediment in the path of his pursuer or

pursuers, he, with his choice male prisoners, Marlenus chief among them, and the

twenty-four captured slave girls, including Cara, Grenna and Tina, continued

their flight to the shores of gleaming Thassa and their projected rendezvous

with the Rhoda and the Tesephone.

After having taken the majority of Hura’s girls, drugged at the camp, slave, I

had not struck further at Sarus, and his me, or Hura, and her minions. She, with

twenty-one girls left, including Mira, had come with Sarus to the sea. The men

of Sarus had controlled the slave chain of prize male slaves; the girls of Hura

had controlled the coffle of beauties , each with her wrists still in binding

fiber confined behind her body, each still fastened to her sisters in bondage by

the strong, supple linking of the binding fiber knotted about her throat.

How easy it is, I thought, to control women. How simply they may be secured.

Each, incidentally, following a standard Gorean slave-keeping procedure, under

such circumstances, was tightly gagged at night. That way, of course, they may

not chew through the biding fiber in the darkness.

In the morning, they are still as well secured as ever.

I heard the cries of gladness of Hura’s girls as they emerged through the trees

and came to the beach.

In the brief skins of panther girls, they ran to the water and waded in it, the

cold salt water coming to their calves.

They were laughing and crying out.

Now, behind them, led by bound, stripped Sheera, her body marked with scarlet

stripes from the switch, came the coffle of enslaved women. I saw Cara behind

her, in the bit of white wool still left her, and behind her, Tina, in the

shreds of her simple garment of wool. Behind Tina was Grenna, also in the

branch-lashed, white-woolen tatters of a slave garment, for she had been

enslaved in my camp before her capture by the men of Tyros. Behind Grenna came

the first of Verna’s women, still in their skins of panthers. The panther skins,

of course, had stood well the strikings of branches and the tearing of the

closely set thickets of their flight. In the midst of the panther girls, now

futilely fighting her bonds, was Verna. The only remainder of the luscious slave

silk in which she had been marched was a yellow tatter about her neck, caught in

Marlenus’ collar, which still she wore. I recalled how superbly she had

responded, a helpless female slave, to the masterful touch of the great Marlenus

of Ar, the incredible Ubar of Ubars. Now, unable to free herself, she stood

disconsolately in the coffle, fastened as helplessly in it as any other woman

would be. She still wore large, golden earrings. Behind her came the balance of

her girls, in panther skins, and behind them, concluding the coffle, slave girls

who had belonged to Marlenus and had served him, and his men, in his camp. They

belonged in the coffle simply as captured property.

It interested me that none of the twenty-four girls had been abandoned. But I

was not surprised. The female slave, celebrated on Gore for her beauty, her

skills and her delights is prize booty. Female slaves are almost never abandoned

by Gorean men. He does not care to release such a prize. He keeps it.

Mira went to the coffle of slave beauties and, about in its center, before

Verna, seized the throat leather and pulled the girls in a “V” toward the shore.

“Come, Slaves!” she ordered.

I gathered that Mira still stood high among the girls of Hura, that her part, or

her knowing part, in the drugging of the large number of panther girls in the

former camp was not understood.

I recalled that she had submitted herself to me as a slave girl. I saw her

dragging the girls down the beach toward the water. I smiled. She belonged to

me. Doubtless she hoped to escape. She would not.

“To the water,” ordered Sarus.

Marlenus straightened and, proudly, naked, a chain on his neck, his wrist

manacled behind him, took his way down the beach toward the water. The other

twenty men, Rim behind him, and then Arn, and then men of Marlenus, chained,

followed him.

They no longer wore the chain which had been on their left ankle. It has been

removed, that they might move more rapidly through the forest, eluding those who

pursued the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura.

Further, that they might be more easily managed, and individuals removed from

the chain, and perhaps abandoned, they were now fastened in lock chains. If

necessary, all might have been, in a moment, abandoned, secured perhaps about

trees or rocks, save Marlenus, their chief prize, the central object of their

endeavors, their expedition of abduction. Sarus, was wise in the ways of slave

control. No longer could I count on the slaves constituting for my enemy an

impediment to his motions and strategies.

In the last two days, following the night of the drugging of many of Hura’s

girls, I had not struck further at the men of Tyros with the swift arrows of the

great bow.

I had not done so, and had deliberately not done so.

I wished them, once again, to grow confident.

They had not known the numbers or nature of the enemy that pursued them.

Perhaps the enemy had been a group of slavers. There was reason for them to be

of this opinion. None of the arrows had felled a woman. only men. And women, one

by one, or in groups of twos and threes, had disappeared, quite possibly to find

their fair limbs in the sudden, inflexible clasp of slave steel. The pattern of

strikes had not been unlike that which might have distinguished the predations

of slavers.

They probably believed their unseen antagonists to be slavers.

Mira, of course, knew better, but she could not speak without revealing her

knowing role in the drugging of Hura’s women.

Her mouth was sealed. She wished to live.

Even Mira, by my intent, did not know the number of their stalkers.

Doubtless she believed I worked with a band, perhaps a large one, of panther

girls.

I watched my enemies from the thicket.

There were no signs of sails on the breadth of gleaming Thassa. The great circle

of the horizon was empty. There were swift, white clouds in the sky. I heard the

cry of sea birds, broad-winged gulls and the small, stick-legged tibits, pecking

in the sand for tiny mollusks. There was a salt smell in the air, swift and

bright in the wind. Thassa was beautiful.

Sarus and his men, pressed by my relentless pursuit, had moved much more swiftly

to the sea than doubtless he had intended. I counted, accordingly, on his being

early for his rendezvous with the Rhoda and Tesephone.

Doubtless Sarus and his men, not attacked since the night of the girl’s

druggings, were convinced that the “slavers” who had harried them at last were

satisfied. Surely they had left behind, scattered, sprawled in helpless stupor,

enough beauty to satisfy the Harl rings of almost any slaver’s chain. What would

it matter to Sarus that more than eighty of his fair allies might even now, in

chains, in a slaver’s camp, be screaming to the iron’s kiss. He, with his men,

and Marlenus of Ar, had escaped. Indeed, doubtless even Hura was not

dissatisfied with the bargain. What did she care if most, or all, of her girls

fell slave, as long as it was not she who found the bracelets locked on her

wrists, as long as it was not she who must now live cowering as a collared girl

subject to a man’s pleasure, to his touch, and to the steel of his chains and

the leather of his whip.

Sarus and Hura had come safely to the sea.

And it the “slavers” who had pursued them wished more plunder, they had left

them seventy-five strong male slaves, helpless for their harvesting to their own

chains.

Surely that would be enough to satisfy any slaver.