by John Norman
At the end of the wall Imnak wept, seeing the strewn fields of slaughtered tabuk. The fur and hide of the tabuk provides the red hunters not only with clothing, but it can also be used for blankets, sleeping bags and other articles. The hides can serve for harnesses for the snow sleen and their white-skinned, female beasts. Too they may be used for buckets and tents, and for kayaks, the light, narrow hunting canoes of skin from which sea mammals may be sought. Lashings, harpoon lines, cords and threads can he fashioned from its sinews. Carved, the bone and horn of the animal can function as arrow points, needles, thimbles, chisels, wedges and knives. Its fat and bone marrow can be used as fuel. Too, almost all of the animal is edible. Even its eyes may be eaten and, from its stomach, the half-digested mosses on which it has been grazing.
Fluttering jards, covering many of the carcasses like gigantic flies, stirred, swarming upward as Imnak passed them, and then returned to their feasting.
He looked about, at the slaughtered animals. Only one in ten had been skinned.
The sinew had not been taken, nor the meat nor bones. Some hides had been taken, and some horn. But the mission of the hunters had not been to harvest from the herd of Tancred. Their mission had been to desttoy it.
With a sudden cry he fell upon a bound hunter. I prevented him from killing the man.
“We must go,” I said. I vomited. My stomach had been turned by the stench.
I used capture knots on her wrists. There was a great cheer from my men.
“I am your prisoner, Captain,” she said.
I did not speak to her, but handed her, her wrists bound before her body, to one of my men.
“We shall hold you to your word,” said Sorgus, the hide bandit, uneasily.
“It is good,” I told him.
He, with his men, some forty, who had taken refuge in the wooden hail, that serving as the headquarters of the wall commander, filed tensely between the ranks of my men. I had permitted them their weapons. I had little interest in the slaughter of minions.
The men and guardsmen who had been at the wall’s center, in the buildings there, and west along the wall, including the hunters at that termination of the structure, learning the breaking of the wall and the freeing and arming of many laborers, had for the most part fled. Others, however, under the command of Sorgus, had boldly rallied to turn the tides of victory in their favor. They had not at that time, however, realized that nine of our men, peasants, gripped bows of yellow Ka-la-na wood. Behind each of these nine stood men bearing sheafa of arrows. Of the original force of Sorgus, some ninety-five men, fifty had succumbed to the fierce rain of steel-tipped arrows which had struck amongst them. Only five of his men had been able to reach the bowmen. These I slew. Sorgus, with some forty cohorts then, seeing me deploy bowmen to his rear, broke for the hail and barricaded himself within.
“He is waiting,” said Ram, “for the return of the tarnsmen, those on patrol.”
We would have little protection from attack from the air.
The arrow flighted from a diving tarn, allied with gravity and the momentum of the winged beast, can sink a foot into solid wood.
Such an attack would necessitate the scattering of my men, their seeking cover. Defensive archery, directed upward from the ground, fighting against the weights of gravity, is reduced in both range and effectiveness. The dispersal of my men, of course, would provide Sorgus and his men with their opportunity, under the covering fire of their tarnsmen aloft, to escape from the hall.
“When are the tarnsmen due to return from patrol?” I asked.
“I do not know,” said Ram.
“Sorgus!” I had called, to he within the headquarters.
“I hear you,” he responded.
“Surrender!” I called.
“I do not!” he said. Arrows were trained on the door through which he spoke.
“I do not wish to slay either you or your men,” I called to him. “If you surrender now I will permit you to retain your weapons and withdraw in peace.”
“Do you think me a fool?” he called.
“When do you expect your tarnsmen to return?” I asked.
“Soon!” said he.
“It could be days,” said Ram.
“I hope, for your sake, Sorgus,” I called, “that they return within the Ahn.”
I positioned my archers at the openings to the hall, with armed men to defend them. I encircled the hall with my men. They carried stones and clubs.
“What do you mean?” called Sorgus.
“I am going to fire the hall,” I said.
“Wait!” he said.
“You and your men may depart in peace now,” I said, “or die within the Ahn.”
More men joined me, still in their chains. They had come east from the farther portions of the wall. They had been abandoned by their guards. These wore even their chains as yet. We would remove them from them later with tools. These newcomers carried, many of them, the iron bars used for chipping at the permafrost, and picks, and shovels. Two carried axes.
Now there were some three hundred and seventy men encircling the hall, all armed in one way or another, some even with stones. They were not in a pleasant mood.
“Do not fire the hall!” called Sorgus.
I ordered fires lit. Rags, soaked in oil, were set at the tips of arrows.
“How do I know you will let us leave, if we leave now, in peace?” he asked.
“I have pledged it,” I said. “And I am of the warriors.”
“How do we know you are of the warriors?” he asked.
“Send forth your best swordsman,” I said, “that my caste may be made clear to you.”
I waited.
No one emerged from the hall.
“I shall wait one Ehn,” I said. ‘Then I shall have the hall fired.”
In a few moments I heard her screaming, from within the hall. “No, no,” she cried. “Fight to the death! Fight to the death!”
I knew then I had won.
Sorgus emerged from the hall, his hands raised, his sword slung still at his hip.
I watched Sorgus and his men depart.
“I am a free prisoner,” she said. “I demand all the rights and privileges of such a prisoner.”
“Free these new men of their chains,” I said, indicating those fellows who had recently joined us, from the western portions of the wall.
“Yes, Captain,” said a man.
I turned to the fair captive.
“I am a free prisoner,” she said, “and I-”
“Be silent, I said to her. Her own dagger was at her throat.
“You were once in command here,” I said. “But that is now finished. You are now only a girl on Gor.”
She looked at me, suddenly frightened.
“When are the tarnsmen due?” I asked.
“Soon,” she said.
A man pulled back her head, by the hair. I laid the blade across her throat.
“Four days,” she whispered. “They are due to return on the afternoon of the first day of the passage hand.”
“Put her in the handle tie,” I said. “Yes, Captain,” said the man, grinning.
Her fur boots were pulled off and her ankles were linked by leather thongs; she had good ankles; the leather permitted them a separation of some twelve inches; the tether on her wrists then was taken between her legs and lifted up and behind her, where its loose end was tied about her neck. The linking of the ankles prevents the slipping of the handle tie, and controls the length of her stride when she is put in it. A given pressure on the handle tie, exerted through the strap at the back, permits it to function as a choke leash; a different pressure permits her to be hurried along on her toes. The handle tie is usually, of course, reserved for naked slave girls.
“Oh,” she said.
The man had looped his fist twice in the strap, tightening it.
She looked at me. She was in the control of the man who held the strap.
“If the tarnsmen return before t
he afternoon of the first day of the passage hand,” I said, handing the man, who controlled her her dagger, “cut her throat.”
“Yes, Captain,” he said.
“Oh,” she cried, being hurried from the presence of men. Did she not know she was now only a girl on Gor?
“We have much to do,” I told my men. “The wall is to be destroyed. After that you may divide what supplies and treasures exist here and take your leave. Any who leave before the work is done, trailed and recaptured, are to be staked out among the fallen tabuk.”
The men looked at one another, uneasily. They did not care to become feasting meat for the scavenging jards.
“We are hungry,” said a man.
“Imnak,” said I, “go to the platform. Keep watch. You shall be relieved in two Ahn.”
He grunted and went to the platform.
“We are hungry,” said men.
“I, too,” said I. “Make a feast, but there is to be no drinking of paga. It is late now for commencing our labors. Morning for such work will be soon enough.”
There was a cheer.
In the morning they would work with a hearty will. I did not think it would take long to destroy the wall, surely not more than the days to the first passage hand. We had more than three hundred and fifty men for work. In many places, too, the wall had been weakened by the buffeting tabuk over the past weeks.
I heard the miserable cries of two girls. A man was coming from the cook shack, where Thimble and Thistle had hidden themselves. He now dragged them before us, bent over, a hand in the hair of each.
“What have we here!” cried a man cheerfully.
“Slaves!” cried others.
“Hold,” said I. “We are honest men, and are not thieves. Release them.”
The man loosed the hair of the girls. Swiftly they knelt, frightened.
‘These girls,” said I, “belong to Imnak.”
“He is a red hunter,” said a man.
“He is one with us,” I said.
There was an angry cry.
I drew my blade. “None may use them without his permission,” I said. “I shall maintain discipline, if need be, my comrades, by the blade.”
I looked down at the kneeling girls. “There are many men here,” I said. “Doubtless they are quite hungry. Perhaps you should consider scurrying to the cook shack, to be about your duties.”
“Yes, Master!” they cried.
“Pull down your camisks,” I warned them.
Weeping they fled to the cook shack, trying with their small hands to adjust their garments so that they would reveal less of their beauty. The men roared with laughter. I smiled. The brief, open-sided camisks they wore had not been designed to permit a girl much success in such a project.
“We are now alone,” I told her.
It was early afternoon, on the first day of the passage hand.
“All alone?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Completely?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Where have the men gone?” she asked.
“The work is finished,” I said. ‘The wall, burned and uprooted, has been destroyed. Other buildings, too, with the exception of this hall, have been fired. The laborers, in various groups, laden with goods and gold, have filtered away, scattering, returning to the south.”
“They have taken my gold?” she asked. She was sitting at the side of the hall, her back against its wall of horizontally fitted logs. Her ankles were drawn up. The same thongs which, looped about her stomach and threaded through a ring behind her, holding her to the wall, led to her ankles, drawing them back. The original thongs on her ankles, which had served as leather ankle shackles, I had had removed. She still wore, however, the tether on her wrists, the loose end of which had been taken up behind her and tied about her neck, the handle portion of the handle tie.
“Ten strongboxes were found,” I said, “and forced open. Their contents were divided. Few men are discontent to have earned fees so rich for their services.”
“I am now without economic resources,” she said.
“You are pretty,” I said, “perhaps men might be persuaded to let you live.”
“You are a beast!” she said.
“Captured guardsmen and hunters,” I said, “released, given supplies, have also taken their way south.”
“You are generous,” she said.
“Sometimes,” I said. “—with men.”
She shrank back in her bonds.
“They labored well with the others to destroy the wall,” I said.
“What of the red hunter?” she asked.
“He alone, of all who worked at the wall,” I said, “treks northward.”
“What of the two girls?’ she asked.
“He drives his pretty beasts before him,” I said. Imnak had fashioned a sled, which would be of use in crossing Ax Glacier. Thimble and Thistle drew it now across the tundra toward the snows. Before he had left he had had them sew northern garments for themselves, under his instruction. From the furs and hides among the spoils at the wall they had cut and sewn for themselves stockings of lart skin, and shirts of hide, and a light and heavy parka, each hooded and rimmed with lart fur. Too, they had made the high fur boots of the northern woman and the brief panties of fur, to which the boots, extending to the crotch, reach. On the hide shirts and parkas he had made them sew a looped design of stitching at the left shoulder, which represented binding fiber. This designated the garments as those of beast. A similar design appeared on each of the other garments. About their throats now, too, they wore again the four looped strings, each differently knotted, by means of which a red hunter might, upon inspection, determine that their owner was Imnak. This morning Imnak, walking behind and to one side of the sled, had left the camp’s area. Because it was warm he had not permitted the girls to wear their hide shirts or parkas. Northern women often do not do so in warm weather. When he had cracked his whip they had put their shoulders to the traces. The sled was heavily laden, but with little gold. More significant to Imnak had been sugars and Bazi tea, and furs and tools. Interestingly he had also placed much wood on the sled, both boards and poles, for it is of great value in the north. Wood can be used for sleds, and tent frames and the frames of kayaks and umiaks, the large, broad vessels which can hold several individuals, sometimes used in whaling. Trees do not flourish in the land of Imnak and their needs for wood must largely be satisfied by occasional finds at the shore, driftwood, from hundreds of pasangs south, dragged from the chilled water. Imnak’s whip cracked and she who had been Barbara Benson. a middle-class girl, and she who had been the rich, upper-class Audrey Brewster, now Thimble and Thistle, cried out and began to draw their master’s sled. I watched them leave. Both were now leveled women. Both would now have to compete in absolute equality, beginning at the same point, neither with an advantage, as pure females, and as slaves, for the favor of men. I did not know which might be more pleasing. In time I thought both might prove superb.
Sidney Anderson, tied sitting at the wall, looked up at me. “You, too,” she said, “had better flee.”
“The laborers,” I said, “have not fled. They are simply returning to their homes.”
“You have remained behind,” she said.
“Of course,” I said.
“I do not understand,” she said. Then she said, “Do not touch me!”
I released her from the wall and removed the thongs, too, which had held her ankles. I pulled her to her feet. I slipped my fist into the handle of the tie she wore and, looping it about my fist twice, tightening it, thrust her before me toward the door of the hall.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
I tightened the tie more. “Oh!” she said. Then she was quiet. She bit her trembling lip. Outside I scanned the skies. They were clear.
Sidney Anderson looked about. Buildings were burned. No one was in sight. The wall had been destroyed. The platform, too, had been pulled down
, and had then been burned. Ashes were about, and debris, and turf cut by the feet of many men.
I thrust her before me, toward the whipping platform, which I had ordered remain intact.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Tarnsmen,” I said, “will soon be here, will they not?”
“Yes,” she said, angrily. “What are you going to do?”
I thrust her up the steps, onto the platform. “You are going to serve Priest-Kings, my pretty little charmer,” I told her.
I removed the tether from her throat and, bringing it between her legs and before her, tossed it through the ring on the crossbeam.
“Oh,” she said.
I drew her from her feet, and hung her by her bound wrists from the ring.
I then crossed her ankles and, with a peice of rope, tied them together, and fastened them to the lower ring, that fastened in the floor of the whipping-frame platform.
I pulled back the hood from the furs she wore. The auburn hair took the sun beautifully.
I scanned the skies again. There was nothing in sight, save clouds.
“How am I to serve Priest-Kings?” she asked, wincing.
“As naked bait,” I told her.
“No!” she said. I cut the furs from her. “You are quite beautiful,” I told her.
“No, no!” she wept.
I regarded her. “You are even beautiful enough to be a Gorean slave girl,” I said.