Witness of Gor coc-26

by John Norman

  The larger beast suddenly squealed, hearing these words. It looked eagerly about itself. Men drew back. I and others screamed, shrinking back against the wall of the passage. Swords were loosened in sheaths.

  “You will be dealt with later,” said the leader of the strangers. “You,” he said to the officer of Treve.

  “I do not set sleen on free men,” he said.

  “Do not think your place in this city is so secure,” said the leader of the strangers.

  “Give me the blanket,” said the leader of the strangers.

  It was surrendered by the pit master.

  “It is a simple “Scent-Hunt” command?”

  “Yes,”

  “Back away, to the sides of the passage,” said the leader of the strangers. “We do not know in which direction the trail will lie.”

  My group was thrust to one side of the passage, and the other group to the other side. We were aligned in our groups, close to the wall, side by side, facing outward. I could feel the rock behind me with my bound hands. The others, too, the lieutenant, Gito, the pit master, the officer of Treve, the black-tunicked men, drew to the side, to one side or the other, leaving only the leader of the strangers, clutching the blanket, and the two animals in the center of the passage.

  “Beware,” said the pit master. “Where sleen are concerned, there is always danger.”

  “Do you think I do not know that the pits of Treve are renowned for the reliability of their hunters?” said the leader of the strangers.

  “You cannot always depend upon sleen,” said the pit master.

  “Hi, hi,” said the leader of the strangers, slapping his thigh, calling the animals to him.

  “Be careful,” said the lieutenant.

  “Here,” said the leader of the strangers, crouching down, thrusting the blanket to the snouts of the beasts. “Here, take scent, take scent.”

  The two animals, eagerly, tails lashing, thrust their snouts into the wadded blanket.

  The larger animal then, as had the smaller, earlier, in its excitement, loosed its urine. This is apparently a behavior selected for in the evolution of the sleen. I do not think that it is simply a device to clear the bladder prior to strenuous activity, for example, to avoid discomfort in the chase. I think, rather, it ahs to do, at least in part, with the common prey of the sleen in the wild, which is usually the tabuk, a single-horned antelopelike creature. A filled bladder, gored, releases wastes into the ventral cavity, with considerable danger of infection. If the bladder is cleared prior to the wound the chance of infection is considerably reduced. Over thousands of generations of sleen this behavior has, I suspect, been selected for, as it contributes to the survival of the animal, and its consequent capacity, obviously, thereafter, to replicate itself.

  “Scent! Hunt!” said the leader of the strangers. “Scent! Hunt!”

  the blanket was literally torn from the grasp of the leader of the strangers, who then stood up, watching the sleen. They began to scratch at it, and seized parts of it in their jaws, ripping it. At one point it fluttered, shaken, in the passage, like a flag.

  “Scent! Hunt! Scent! Hunt!” urged the leader of the strangers.

  The two beasts looked up from the blanket, it torn in shreds beneath their paws.

  “They are beauties,” said the leader of the strangers, “beauties.”

  “It is done,” said the officer of Treve angrily. “They have taken the scent.”

  “Watch them!” said a man.

  I had never seen sleen hunt in a situation such as this. I had seen them, in a little demonstration which had been staged for my benefit, one I was never likely to forget, seek out and rip apart particular pieces of meat, pieces of meat which had been given particular names. The smaller of the two sleen was one which had been imprinted with my own scent and name. I knew a given command could set it upon me. Both of these sleen had also been imprinted, I knew, with the scent, and some name, or signal, associated with the peasant, and could be set upon him. On the other hand, the pit master had not volunteered the appropriate signals to the leader of the strangers. This was not surprising, of course, given the pit master’s obvious reservations concerning the intentions of the black-tunicked men. One does not need such signals, of course, when one has at one’s disposal an article of such utility as the quarry’s robes, or tunic, or blanket.

  “Scent! Hunt!” said the leader of the strangers.

  “I do not understand,” said a man.

  “Surely they have the scent now,” said another.

  The sleen had not left the area. The larger one snarled, menacingly.

  “Scent! Hunt!” cried the leader of the strangers.

  The larger sleen turned in a circle, as though confused. Then it ran down the corridor for a few yards.

  “It is hunting!” cried a man.

  But then the animal stopped, and turned about.

  “It is coming back,” said a man.

  The large sleen thrust past the leader of the strangers and ran a few paces down the corridor behind us. In this it was accompanied by the smaller animal. Then they turned about, together, and returned. They went again to the shreds of the blanket. Then they lifted their snouts into the air, and then they put them to the floor of the corridor.

  “What is wrong with them?” asked the lieutenant.

  “They seem confused,” said the pit master.

  “They are stupid animals. Said a man.

  “Scent! Hunt!” said the leader of the strangers.

  The two sleen now turned about, then they crouched down, their bellies no more than an inch or so from the floor. I heard a very low growl from one of them. Their tails moved back and forth. I saw their ears lie back, against their heads.

  “What is wrong with them?” said another.

  The eyes of the first sleen, the larger, the more aggressive, fixed on the leader of the strangers. He stepped back.

  The larger sleen snarled. There was no mistaking the menace in that sound.

  I could now detect a rumble in the throat of the smaller animal. It, too, seemed to regard the leader of the strangers.

  “Something is wrong,” said a man.

  The leader of the strangers too another step back and drew his blade. He held the hilt with two hands.

  Then the larger sleen, scarcely lifting its belly from the floor, crawled quickly forward a foot or two, snarling, and stopped. His companion, to his right, did the same.

  I knew little or nothing of sleen, but the intent, the agitation the excitement of the animals, was evident.

  Again the two sleen, first the larger, then the smaller, approached, and stopped.

  “Draw,” said the leader of the strangers.

  But before blades could leave their sheaths the first animal scrambled forward, snarling, charging, its hind feet scratching and slipping, spattering urine back, just for an instant, on the floor of the passage. The second animal was at its shoulder, scarcely a fang’s breadth behind. The leader of the strangers struck wildly down at the first animal, slashing its jaw and the side of its face, turned to orient its jaws to its pray, cutting into it, with his blade, and the force of its charge struck him back and the beast, shoulders hunched, was on him, he on his back, screaming, the other beast now, too, at his body, seizing it in its jaws, tearing it toward itself in its frenzy. The lieutenant and some five of the black-tunicked men, shouting, kicking, crying out with horror, crowded about the intent animals, cutting down at them with blades, trying to stab into those active, twisting bodies. The larger beast lifted its head from the leader of the strangers, its jaws flooded with blood, part of the body in its grip, it bleeding itself from the stroke of the leader’s blade. The smaller animal continued to feed, being struck with stroke after stroke. Neither animal, in its excitement seemed to be aware of, or even to feel, the attack of the other men. Again and again the blades cut and stabbed at them. One man cried out in pain, wounded, by the thrust of another. Then, suddenly the larger animal, snarling,
turned about with blurring speed, caught another man in its jaws, shaking him. A blade then found its heart, and in its death throes, not releasing its new prey, it rolled and shook, and half of it fell free to the side. The smaller animal continued to feed until its vertebrae, at the base of the skull, had been severed.

  When it became clear that the animals wee dead the men stopped hacking and thrusting at their bodies. Then they drew back, almost as though in shock, their reddened blades lowered. They were breathing heavily, with their exertion. Blood was about, and the parts of two men. I drew back even more, trying not to let it, in its flow, touch me. I understood for the firs time now, clearly, that there was a certain pitch in this part of the passage. This could be determined from the path taken by the blood. Some of it now, tricking, running here and there, was better than twenty yards down the passage. One could see the reflection of the lamps in it. I did not look at the pieces of the leader of the strangers, or of his fellow, caught by the larger beast. The two sleen were masses of blood and hacked fur. Two paws, even, had been cut away, one supposed after the animals had died, the hacking, frenziedly irrationally, prolonged.

  The lieutenant looked at the pit master.

  “Sleen are unpredictable,” he said. “They are erratic beasts.”

  The lieutenant did not lower his gaze.

  “We must sometime find our way out of this place,” said one of the black-tunicked men.

  “The pit guard will be reporting in soon,” said another.

  The lieutenant then wiped his blade on the coat of the nearest sleen, and sheathed it.

  “Where is Gito?” asked a man.

  “He fled,” said another. He pointed down the passage. There were no bloody footprints, so his flight had preceded the flood of blood in the corridor.

  My neck hurt. When the sleen had attacked there had been amongst us terror and confusion. Some of us had tried to flee to the left, others to the right, whichever was closer to us. As a result we had been tangled, hurt, wrenched, confused, held in place. And the squealing and hissing, the snarling, the crying out, the cutting with blades, had been so close to us that we might, had we not been bound, have reached out and touched the men, almost the bleeding, twisting bodies of the sleen. We had screamed, and begged to be freed, but none had attended to us, of course. More important business was at hand and we were only meaningless slaves. We were now again against the wall, put there by the men, backed against it, side by side, hands bound behind us, the cord on our neck holding us together, frightened.

  “Be silent,” said the pit master.

  We tried to obey. I bit my lower lip, attempting to control its movement. My shoulders shook. The side of my neck hurt, where the cord had burned it. The floor was sticky with blood.

  Two of the black-tunicked men had not joined in the attack on the sleen. They had, in those sudden, unexpected, precipitate, grisly moments, stood back, perhaps fearing to act, perhaps unable to do so. The lieutenant slowly turned to regard them.

  “There is no blood on your blades,” he said. The men stepped back a little, looking at one another.

  “Surrender your blades,” said the lieutenant. The men looked at one another, uneasily. “I am now in command,” said the lieutenant.

  “I suggest,” said the officer of Treve, “that you need every man you have.”

  The two blades were surrendered to the lieutenant.

  The lieutenant gestured to the two men who had surrendered their weapons.

  “Hold them,” said the lieutenant.

  The two men were seized, each by the two of their fellows.

  “I do not advise this course of action,” said the officer of Treve.

  “There will be blood on your blades,” said the lieutenant.

  “No!” cried one of the two men, struggling.

  “Let us redeem ourselves!” cried the other.

  ‘You would then be left with only four men,” said the officer of Treve.

  The lieutenant’s eyes were cold. The blade was leveled for its thrust.

  I closed my eyes that I might not see the blade, his own, pass between the ribs of the first of the two held me.

  Then the lieutenant said, “Release them.”

  Their fellows stepped away from them.

  I expected the two men to turn about then, and run.

  But they did not.

  Rather they stood where they were. I then gathered something of the discipline of the black caste.

  The blade was motionless, steadied on the left forearm of the lieutenant, leveled with the first man’s heart.

  “Masters!” we heard. “Masters!” It was Gito’s voice. He was running toward us, coming from down the corridor. He was distraught, gasping. He ran though the blood, spattering it about. “He is ahead!” he cried. “I saw him! He is ahead!”

  “In this passage?” asked a man.

  “Yes, yes!” cried Gito, pointing backward.

  “Why did he not kill you?” asked a man.

  “He is my friend,” said Gito. “He is ahead! Hurry! You can kill him!”

  The lieutenant did not lower his poised blade. He had not even looked back at Gito.

  “Where does this passage lead?” asked the lieutenant.

  “To the urt pool,” said the pit master, reluctantly.

  “And there is an interposed gate?”

  “Yes,” said the pit master.

  “Then we have him!” cried a man.

  The lieutenant did not take his eyes from the fellow before him.

  The fellow, he at whose heart the steel was poised, trembled, but he did not break and run.

  “If you would take him, I suggest dispatch,” said the officer of Treve.

  The lieutenant then turned to one side and thrust the blade deeply into the body of one of the dead sleen, that closest to him, the larger of the two animals. He then returned the blade to the black-tunicked man. The lieutenant then took the other man’s blade, which he had held in his left hand, and did the same, returning it also to its owner.

  “Your blades are bloodied,” said the lieutenant.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” urged Gito.

  Again the lieutenant regarded the pit master.

  “Sleen are erratic beasts,” said the pit master.

  “Form the sluts in front,” said the lieutenant. “Set your bows.”

  We were thrust a little down the passageway, the first group, that “cord” of five in front, the second group, the second “cord” of five, in which I was one, behind, and in the interstices of the first group. In a moment the bows were set, six of them.

  “May I have the first shot?” inquired one of the black-tunicked men.

  “Granted,” said the lieutenant.

  “When the command ‘Down!’ is heard,” said a man to us, “you will fling yourselves to your belly instantly. When the command ‘Up!’ is heard, you will stand, instantly, arranging yourselves as you are now.”

  “Yes, Master,” we said.

  There is a common command, familiar to all female slaves, “Belly,” which brings us instantly to our bellies before he who commands us. This particular command expression, however, was not used in this context. I speculate that this was because the context of the two commands, and certainly their connotations, was so different. It is one thing, for example, to aesthetically and beautifully signify submission by bellying, perhaps on the furs at the foot of the couch, we being permitted upon them, and quite another to fling oneself down so that quarrels may be suddenly fired from behind one. Too, normally in the “belly command” one orients oneself toward he who commands, not away from him.

  Gito hung back.

  The lieutenant took him by the scruff of the neck and threw him some feet down the passageway, before us.

  “Proceed,” he said.

  Gito hurried a few feet down the passageway. The blood was now viscous in places, half dried. In some places, where he had stepped, it was pulled up, like syrup, clinging to his sandals, exposing the floor
of the passageway.

  Gito turned about, and looked back.

  He went a few feet further down the passageway.

  He turned back, again.

  “This way,” he said. Then he said, “Let me behind the wall!”

  “You are in no danger,” said the lieutenant. “You are his friend.”

  Gito moaned, and, looking over his shoulder frequently, reassuring himself of our continued presence, made his way down the passageway, staying close to the wall.

  “We will pin him against the gate,” said the man who had requested the first opportunity for fire.

  Suddenly, from down the passageway, we saw, blazing in the reflected light of a lamp, two eyes.

  “Sleen!” cried a man, alarmed.

  We screamed, and tried to draw back, but were held in place.

  “No,” said the pit master. “It is an urt.”

  It was crouched down, before us.

  It was large, but not large for those I had seen in the pits. It probably weighed no more than twenty or thirty pounds. Most species of urts are small, weighing less than a pound. Some are tinier than mice.

  Gito had fled back. He now hid behind us.

  “What is it doing in the passage?” asked the lieutenant.

  “Someone must have left the panels open,” said the pit master.

  “Look,” said a man. “There is another behind it.”

  “There seems much carelessness in the management of the pits,” said the lieutenant.

  “You have had us dismiss the guards,” said the pit master.

  “The prisoner must have opened the panels,” said a man.

  “But the beasts are here, beyond the gate,” said a man.

  “The gate, it seems, was not locked,” said the pit master.

  “that would seem an unfortunate oversight,” said the lieutenant.

  “Yes,” said the pit master, “it would seem so.”

  “Doubtless it was lifted by the prisoner,” said a man.

  “Doubtless,” said another.

  “Will the urt charge?” asked the lieutenant.

  “I do not know,” said the pit master. “I would not approach it too closely.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “Quite.”