conquest circle, had been felled with a pile arrow from the great bow. The
others had fallen to the arrows of panther girls, of which I had acquired a
great number.
Mira had first betrayed Verna. She had been betrayed Marlenus of Ar. Her
treacheries were not yet completed.
I approached her with the stealth of a warrior. She lay in her own small
shelter. Other girls lay about. I did not touch them in my passage.
After I had felled the eight men at the beginning of the column I had withdrawn
to the forest, where I slept for an Ahn. Then, refreshed, I had returned to the
column. It had begun to move again. I felled men much as I pleased, in
particular those who would dare to hold the whips to encourage the slaves in
speed. Soon none would hold the whips.
The men of Ar, led by Marlenus, begin to sing in the coffle, a song of glorious
Ar. They now marched, at their own pace, their heads high, with pride.
Angry the men of Tyros demanded that they stop, but they did not do so.
Even the panther girls in charge of the coffle of captive females struck them
less now with the switch.
Vera now, in the coffle, walked well. Even though she wore slave silk, and
lipstick and earrings, she walked well. There might not even have been slave
bells on her ankle. I marveled at her. Her ears had been pierced. That is
regarded, in Gorean eyes, as an almost ultimate degradation of a female. Yet her
head was high, her gaze proud and fearless. The large, delicate golden rings in
her ears were stunning. How beautiful a woman is in earrings! I could tell that
she was no longer ashamed of them, but proud of them. Not only do earrings
enhance a woman’s beauty, but they speak, openly to all, both men and women,
regardless of social pressures and repercussions, of the pride and pleasure she
takes in her womanhood. Verna was no longer a pretend man, or a pretend nothing.
She was now full and perfect in what she was, in her own right, a human female,
a woman. She walked well. She might have been a tatrix. Indeed, she was, though
braceleted and collared, a tatrix of the forests.
The panther girls with the switches looked about themselves fearfully. They
struck the girls in the coffle less frequently now. They only wished to hurry,
to leave the forest, as soon as possible, to escape. As yet, they knew, none of
the arrows had felled one of their number. Yet they did not seem reassured. They
suspected perhaps, in terror, that another fate might be theirs.
Mira, the lieutenant of Hura, stirred again, turning from her left to her right
side. Her head was on her arms. Her blond hair was unbound. She wore her skins.
Her legs, particularly the right one, was drawn up.
There had been few fires in the camp. The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura had
feared the light. There had been only two guards, and they were quite close to
the camp. I had slipped between them. It was important that they suspect
nothing.
In the day, through the morning and long afternoon, from cover, I had struck,
again and again.
Answering quarrels from crossbows, meaningless, sometimes fell among the
branches and leaves. They had no target.
In desperation, to my pleasure, some fifteen men of Tyros entered the forest.
In all, throughout the day, the great bow had spoken forty-one times, and
forty-one men of Tyros now lay scattered along the trail and in the forest, feed
for prowling sleen.
I lay behind Mira in the darkness. Her back was to me. She lay on her right
side, her head on her right arm. She twisted in her sleep. She was restless. I
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,
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