Hunters of Gor (43 page)

Perhaps Sarus was frightened that the stockade would be stormed.

For whatever reason, Sarus, it seemed, was determined soon, doubtless in the

morning, to take his rafts south. It would be dangerous, and perhaps futile, to

follow them under the cover of the forest. For one thing, I would have to pass

the exchange points. Further, if they kept slaves on the shoreward side of the

rafts, as they would, and did not put into land to make camp, there was little

that could be done. It was not unlikely that I would lose them.

I was bitter. We had missed the rendezvous with the Rhoda and Tesephone by only

a matter of hours.

There was little time to act. I was bitter.

“I am Sarus,” said the long-boned man.

I saw a torch lifted higher, that they might better look upon my face.

I carried only my sword, in its sheath, and a short sleen knife, balanced.

“He is alone,” said a man, reporting back from the beach to the south.

“Keep watch,” said Sarus.

He was not shaved. He looked at me. He seemed a strong man, hard, a leader.

“You were the yellow of Tyros,” he said.

“I am not of Tyros,” I told him.

“Of that I am sure,” said Sarus.

“What are you doing here?” asked one of the men, crowding close.

I looked at Sarus. “I am you enemy,” I said. “I would speak with you.”

“The beach is clear to the north,” said another man, coming up to Sarus.

“I found no one in the forest,” said another. Two other men, too, stood with

him.

The men of Tyros looked at one another.

“Shall we speak?” I asked.

Sarus looked at me. “Let us return to the stockade,” he said.

“Excellent,” I said.

Sarus turned to his men. “Return to the stockade!” he called. He regarded me.

“We shall keep watch from within the stockade,” he said. “We may not be easily

surprised.”

“Excellent,” I said.

I led the way to the stockade, the men of Sarus falling into step beside me.

Before I entered the stockade I heard Sarus speak to two of his men. “Keep the

beacon burning,” he said, “Build it high.”

I entered the stockade and looked about.

“It is not a bad stockade,” I told him, “for having been swiftly built.”

The gate swung shut behind me.

I must wait until the two men who tended the beacon returned to the interior.

“Do not stand close to me,” I told two men of Tyros. They moved back a few feet.

Inside the stockade I was the immediate center of attention. I looked from face

to face, particularly those of the men. Some seemed alert, swift. Other’s hands

seemed well fitted to the hilts of blades. I noted which pommels were worn. Two

carried crossbows. I noted them.

“Do not press me closely,” I told them.

I was the center of a circle. The women, too, of Hura, stood at the edge of the

circle, among the men of Sarus. The women, who had seen me, long ago at the camp

of Marlenus, did not recognize me. But Mira did. She stood there, behind two men

of Tyros.

Her eyes were wide. Her hand was before her mouth. It was I to whom she had

submitted herself in the forest. It was I who had used her, a mere slave,

insolently, before returning her, with the drugged wine, to the camp of Sarus. I

was her master. Had I come for her?

“I think I know him,” said Hura, the tall girl, long-legged, with black hair,

leader of the panther girls. She stood boldly before me, in the brief skins of

the panther girls, in her golden ornaments.

I drew her swiftly to me, and she cried out, frightened. I held her helplessly,

and raped her lips with a kiss, an insolent kiss, such as a master might use to

dismiss a slave girl, and then threw her from me, against the feet of the men of

Tyros. The women of Hura gasped, and cried out with indignation. They screamed

their rage. The men of Tyros were startled.

“Kill him!’ screamed Hura, her dark hair before her eyes, crouching at the edge

of the circle, to which, after my kiss, I had spurned her.

“Be silent, Woman,” said Sarus.

Hura struggled to her feet, and swept her hair back from her face. She regarded

me with rage. Her women, too, cried out with fury.

“Be silent,” said Sarus.

Angrily, the panther girls, breathing heavily, eyes flashing, restrained

themselves.

I gathered that Hura, and her girls, proud panther women, were not popular among

the men.

Moreover, I gathered that they feared the men, as well as hated them.

Little love, or respect was lost between them. They were strange allies, the men

of Tyros, the women of Hura.

“I claim vengeance!’ cried Hura.

Again, behind her, her girls shouted.

“Be silent.” Said Sarus, sharply, “or we will put you all in bracelets!”

The girls gasped, and were silent.

The mood of the men of Tyros toward them was not pleasant. They shrank back.

At a word from Sarus they might be enslaved, and would be then no different from

the poor wenches, bound head to foot, lying behind them.

The slaves in the stockade, the twenty-two wenches behind the circle of the men

of Tyros, and the women of Hura, and beyond them, lying on their stomachs,

chained, facing the back wall of the stockade, Marlenus and the twenty others,

could know little or nothing of what was transpiring.

I did, however, as well as I could, note the positions of Sheera and Verna among

the tied, prone slave girls.

I might have need of them.

“Entrance,” called one of the two men who had been outside, adding fuel to the

beacon fire.

The gate was opened and the two men were admitted. All the men of Sarus, then,

were within the stockade.

The gate was shut again.

I was pleased to see the beam slid into place, thrust by two men, securing it.

There was no catwalk about the interior of the stockade.

A man of Tyros threw more wood on a fire inside the stockade, well illuminating

the interior.

“I have heard,” said Sarus, folding his arms, “that you would speak with me.”

“That it true,” I said.

I measured Sarus. He would be quick. He was intelligent. He was hard. His accent

bespoke a low caste. He had doubtless risen through the ranks to a position of

prominence, which, given the aristocracies of Tyros, was unusual. Family was

important on the cliffed island, as, indeed it was, on the terraces of Cos.

Island ubarates, with their relatively stable populations, over a period of

generations, tend to develop concentrations of wealth and power among successful

families, which wealth and power, first producing oligarchy, becomes gradually

invested with the prestige of dynastic tradition, at which point, one supposes,

one may fairly speak of aristocracy. Most Gorean cities are, in effect, governed

by the influence, direct or indirect, of several important families. In the city

of Ar, one of the great families was once the Hinrabians.

But Sarus did not owe his authority, his responsibility, to his family.

He had achieved it against great odds, on the isle of Tyros. He would be quite

dangerous.

He reminded me a bit of Chenbar of Tyros, her Ubar, also of lowly origin.

Perhaps it was to the influence of Chenbar, some years ago, that Sarus had been

advanced. Chenbar, as far as I knew, lay chained in a dungeon of Port Kar. There

had been much warfare in Tyros over the succession to the throne of the Ubar.

Five families, with their followers, had fought for the medallion. I did not

know, now, how things stood in Tyros.

I did know, however, that Sarus and his men had engaged in a well-organized

mission to capture Marlenus of Ar and one called Bosk of Port Kar.

I found that of interest.

It seemed to me unusual that with the succession in doubt such an expedition had

been launched.

Then I knew what must be the case.

“I had not known,” I said, “that Chenbar of Tyros has escaped.”

Sarus looked at me, warily. “Men of Torvaldsland,” he said. “They were not

suspected. Their fees were large. With their axes they broke though to him,

shattered the rings from the stones, and carried him safe to Tyros. Many men

were killed. Hey escaped at night. An hour after his arrival on Tyros, the

Rhoda, under my command, raised mast and dipped oars for Lydius.”

“What was your mission?” I asked.

“It is not of your business,” said Sarus.

“I note,” I said, “that you have taken slaves.”

“Some,” said Sarus.

The escape of Chenbar would have taken place directly shortly after I had left

the city.

“Who, of Torvaldsland,” I asked, “dared to free Chenbar of Tyros?”

“A madman,” laughed Sarus. “Ivar Forkbeard.”

“A madman?” I asked.

“Who else?’ said Sarus. “Who but a madman would have attempted such work? Who

but a madman could have succeeded in it?”

“His fees were large?” I asked.

“To be sure,” said Sarus wryly. “The weight of Chenbar in the sapphires of

Shendi.”

“His price,” I said, “was high for one afflicted with madness.”

“All those of Torvaldsland are mad,” said Sarus. “They have no sense. They fear

only that they will die in war.”

“I trust,” I said, “that you, and men of Tyros, are less mad.”

“It is my hope that that is true,” smiled Sarus. Then his eyes grew hard. “Why

have you come to this stockade? What is it that you wish?”

“Kill him,” cried Hura.

Sarus paid her no attention.

“I had come to negotiate,” I said.

“I do not understand,” said Sarus.

I looked about, noting the position of the men, and the women of Hura, and where

Sheera and Verna, hidden behind the feet of those at the circle, lay bound.

“It is my wish,” I said, “that you surrender to me, without dispute, those whom

you now hold as slave.”

“I see now,” smiled Sarus,” that Ivar Forkbeard, of Torvaldsland, was sane.”

I shrugged.

“Do you understand what these slaves have cost us?’ asked Sarus.

“I am sure their price was high,” I granted.

“Kill him! Hill him!” cried certain of Hura’s women.

“How many men do you have outside the stockade?” asked Sarus.

I did not speak.

“Obviously,” said Sarus, “you would not have approached us without a

considerable force.”

I did not respond to him.

“Doubtless you come as a representative of those who have followed us in the

forest.”

“That is an intelligent supposition of your part,” I said.

“I am not an irrational man,” said Sarus, “but on some matters I cannot

compromise.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Are you a slaver?” he asked.

“I have taken slaves,” I admitted.

“What will satisfy you?” he asked.

“What do you offer?” I queried.

“There are twenty-two female slaves here, lying bound,” said Sarus. “it does not

please me to give them to up, but, if that is your price, we will do so.”

I shrugged.

“Would you like to examine them?” asked Sarus.

“I have seen them,” I said.

“Of course,” said Sarus. “In the forest.”

“Yes,” I said. I did not wish to be seen closely by the slaves, for fear of

reaction among them, which would give my identity away. Sheera, for example, and

Verna, and Grenna, well knew me.

The slave girls lay bound in the shadows, head to foot, behind the men of Tyros,

the women of Hura. They knew little of what was occurring.”

“It is not enough,” I told Sarus, sternly.

“How many men do you have?” he asked, angrily. “let us be reasonable. You cannot

take us without losing men, many men!”

“It is true,” I said, “that you have a defensive stockade.”

“Yes!’ said Sarus. “Take the slave girls and be satisfied.”

I looked at Sarus. My eyes were hard. “I want more,” I told him.

“Kill him! Kill him quickly, you fool!” screamed Hura.

Sarus looked at her. “Strip her,” he said, “and the others, and bind them as

slaves.”

As I looked on, unmoved, Hura, and her women, screaming and struggling, seized

from behind by the men of Tyros, were thrown to their bellies in the dirt. The

men then, in a standard Gorean procedure, knelt across their bodies, pinning the

girl’s arms to their sides, leaving their own hands free. Then cut the skins

from them, and their weapons, and then, tightly, fastened the wrists of each

behind her body. Hura, and the others, struggled to their feet, stripped, wrists

secured behind their backs.

“Kill him!” she wept. “He is your enemy! Not us! Do not give us up! We are your

allies, your allies!”

“You are only females,” said Sarus. “And we are weary of you.”

Hura looked at him, in horror and rage.

Sarus examined her, closely. He was impressed. “You will look well on the block,

my dear,” he said.

“Beast!” screamed Hura. “Beast!”

“Put them in coffle,” I told Sarus.

Hura and her twenty-one girls, including Mira, were tied, neck to neck.

“You fool!” cried Hura to Sarus.

“He has no men!” cried Mira, suddenly. “He has no men!”

“How is this known to you?” inquired Sarus.

“I was captured by him and taken to the forest,” wept Mira. “He and others made

me give drugged wine to our women!”

Hura turned on her, like a she-panther. “She-sleen!” she screamed. “She-sleen!”

“He made me do it!” she cried. “I had no choice!”

“She-sleen!” Screamed Hura. “I will tear out your eyes! I will cut your throat!