by John Norman
Then, with a cry of rage, it leapt toward the sleen. The two animals locked in combat. The sleen came through the window, scrambling through, biting and tearing. The beast seized it about the throat, its great jaws biting at the throat and vertebrae. The two animals rolled in the small hut, twisting, squealing, hissing, scattering the benches and table. Then, with a horrifying snap of bone and tearing of flesh, and fur the jaws of the beast bit through the back of the sleen's neck. It stood there then, holding the body of the sleen in its claws, its mouth dropping fur and blood. The body of the sleen twisted compulsively. The beast turned to regard us.
"It's dead," cried the man. "Put it down."
The beast looked at him, uncomprehendingly, and I was suddenly terrified. The man, too, seemed terrified.
Then the beast threw back its head and uttered a wild horrifying scream, and fell to feeding on the sleen's carcass.
"No! No!" cried the man. "Do not feed! Do not feed!"
The beast raised its head, half buried in the sleen's body, meat hanging from its jaws.
"Do not feed!" whispered the man.
I was terrified.
The beast was in its feeding frenzy. I suspected it could not then be controlled. Surely the man, who knew more than I of such matters, was almost beside himself with terror.
"Stop! cried the man.
The beast looked at him, eyes blazing, its face drenched in blood.
"Obey your master!" I cried. "Obey your master!"
The beast looked at me. I shall never forget the horror I felt. "I am the master," it said.
The man cried out and fled from the hut. I, forgotten by the beast in its feeding, inched toward the door, and then, hearing the feeding of the beast behind me, fled, naked and bound, into the darkness.
11 Soron of Ar
I knelt on the low wooden platform, while one of the leather workers, with a long needle, approached my face.
"See," said Targo, to the other girls, "El-in-or is brave."
Many of them were whimpering.
I closed my eyes. No anesthetic was used, for I was a slave, but it was not particularly painful.
It was said to be a Turian custom, from the far south, which was spreading north.
The leather worker then went to the other side of the platform.
There were tears in my eyes, for my eyes smarted.
I felt the second pain, sharp, followed by an unpleasant burning sensation. The leather worker stood up.
My ears had been pierced.
The girls, in line, kneeling, cried out, whimpering and shuddering. Guards stood on either side of the line.
"See how brave El-in-or is," said Targo.
The leather worker wiped away the bit of blood with a cloth.
He then fixed two tiny steel rods, with threaded ends, through the wounds. To each end of each of the rods he threaded a tiny steel disk, that the tiny rods might be held in the wounds. The disks and rods would be removed in 4 days. "Next," he said.
None of the girls moved.
I left the platform. Ute, biting her lip, tears in her eyes, said, "I will go next." The other girls gasped, and shuddered.
Ute knelt on the platform.
I stood to one side. My hand went to my right ear. "Do not touch your ear, Slave," snapped the leather worker.
"No, Master," I said.
"Stand against the wall, El-in-or," said Targo.
"Yes, Master," I said, and went to the side of the large slave room in the public pens of Ko-ro-ba.
"I, too, am of the leather workers," Ute told the leather worked, with the needle.
"No," he said, "you are only a slave."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I saw her kneel, very straight, on the wood, and watched the needle pass through her right ear lobe. She did not cry out. Perhaps she wished to show courage before one who was of the leather workers.
The lady Rena of Lydius flung herself naked, on her knees, before Targo. She lifted her hands to him.
"You took me on contract," she said. "You captured me for another! Surely you will not do this to me! My master would surely object! Do not do this cruel thing to me! My master would not wish it!"
"Your master," said Targo, "he who arranged for your capture and delivery, instructed that you be delivered to him with the pierced ears of a slave girl." "No," she wept. "No!"
A guard dragged the distraught Lady Rena of Lydius, a slave girl, back to her place in the line.
Inge then knelt before Targo. "I am of the scribes," she said, "of high caste. Do not permit this to be done to me!"
"Your ears will be pierced," said Targo.
She wept, and was dragged back to her place in line.
Lana then approached Targo.
I hated her.
She knelt before him, ingratiatingly, and put her head down. "Please, Master," she wheedled. "Let it be done to the other girls, if you wish, but not Lana. Lana would not like it. It would make Lana sad. Lana would be happy if master would not have it done to her."
I stood against the wall, in fury.
"Your ears will be pierced," said Targo.
I smiled.
"It will lower my price!" cried Lana.
"I do not think so," smiled Targo.
Ute had now had her left, as well as her right, ear lobe pierced, and had had the tiny steel rods and disks fixed in her ears. She was trying not to cry. She came and stood next to me.
She looked at me. "You are so brave, El-in-or," she said.
I did not answer her.
I was watching Lana and Targo.
"Please!" wept Lana, now genuinely frightened, and distressed, fearing that Targo would not yield to her entreaties. "Please!"
"Your ears will be pierced," said Targo.
"No," cried Lana, terrified, weeping. "Please!"
"Take this slave away," said Targo.
I smiled as Lana was dragged, weeping, by a guard to her place in line. The Lady Rena of Lydius now left the platform, the rods fixed in her ear wounds. She could scarcely walk. A guard, holding her by the arm, half carried her to the wall, where he left her. She fell to her knees, and covered her face with her hands, weeping.
"I am a slave girl," she wept. "I am a slave girl."
Inge, terrified, was now thrust onto the wooden platform.
I had no impulse to comfort the Lady Rena of Lydius. She was a fool. So, too, were Ute, and Inge, and the others.
It was interesting to me that the girls so objected to the piercing of their ears. What fools they were. I had never had my ears pierced on Earth, of course, but I had contemplated having it done. I might have had it done, if I had remained on Earth. Surely a great many of the girls and women I knew on Earth had had their ears pierced. How else would one wear the finest earrings? What fools these girls were. Inge shrieked, more with humiliation than pain, as the needle thrust through her right ear lobe.
"Be quiet, Slave," said the leather worker.
Inge stifled her sobs.
"Do not move," he cautioned her.
"Yes, Master," she whimpered.
The piercing of the ears of women, only of slave girls, of course, was a custom of distant Turia, famed for its wealth and its nine great gates. It lay on the southern plains of Gor, far below the equator, the hub of an intricate pattern of trade routes. Some two or three years ago it had fallen to barbarians, nomadic warriors, and many of its citizens, in flight from the city, had escaped north. With then had come certain articles, techniques and customs. One could tell a Turian because he insisted on celebrating the New Year at the summer solstice, for instance. They also used very sweet, syrupy wines, which were now, in many cities, available. The Turian collar, too, a looser ring of steel, large enough for a man's fist to grasp on the girl's throat, was occasionally seen now in the northern cities. The piercing of the ears of slave girls, that they might have earrings fastened in them, was another Turian custom. It has been known on Gor before, but it was only with the flight of the escapin
g Turians that it had become more widespread recently.
The Turian camisk was also now occasionally see. It is rather like an inverted «T», the bar of the «T» having beveled edges. It passes from the girl's throat, in front of her body, between her legs, and is then lifted, pulled tight, and wrapped about the thighs. Its single cord fastens the garment behind the girl's neck, behind her back and then, after passing about her body once or twice, ties in front. It conceals her brand but exposes her back. The cord makes it possible to adjust the garment to a given girl. Tightening the cord accentuates her figure. The Turian camisk is worn tightly. Turians are barbarians. In private pens of Ko-ro-ba, where we were taken daily for training, we were taught to wear the garment. A master might require it of us. It is said that only a man knows how to tie a Turian camisk on a girl properly. There are many such saying on Gor. Inge was thrown, forcibly, against the wall, weeping. In her ears were the tiny metal rods. She tried to pull them from her ears and the guard, angrily, cuffed her, and, with a foot of binding fiber, lashed her wrists behind her body.
Inge was such a fool.
She knelt against the wall, the side of her face thrust against the boards, staining them with tears, her entire body shaking.
Ute was kneeling beside the Lady Rena of Lydius, who seemed uncontrollable. She had her arms about her shoulders, trying to soothe her.
Ute looked up at me. "You are so brave, El-in-or," she whispered.
"You are a fool," I told her.
Lana crept to the wall and knelt there, her face in her hands.
"I hate Turians," screamed the Lady Rena of Lydius.
Ute held her more closely. She kissed her. The Lady Rena put down her head, weeping.
Turia, I had heard, had not been destroyed. Indeed, I had heard that it now stood once again, much as before, the sovereign city of the southern plains, and that much of its wealth, by exchanges and trading, had been regained. It was fortunate, I gathered, for the economy of Gor, particularly the south, that the city had not been destroyed. Much of the hides, the horn and leather which found its way northward came from Turia, obtained from the Wagon Peoples of the treeless, southern plains, and many of the manufactured goods, and goods of price, which found their way to the far south, and even to the Wagon Peoples, were produced in, or passed through Turia. Perhaps the Tuchuks, one of the fierce Wagon Peoples, traditional enemies of Turia, her conquerors, had spared her for such reasons that they might have outlet for their goods and a source of goods they could not well manufacture, or acquire, for themselves. For whatever reasons, Turia, though once conquered, had been spared. It was the best known of the Gorean cities below the equator, sometimes called Ar of the south. "I hate Turians!" screamed the Lady Rena of Lydius. "I hate them!" "Be silent, Slave," I told her.
"Do not scold her, El-in-or," chided Ute. "She is sad." Do not cry so, Lady Rena," said Ute to the girl. She again held her and kissed her.
I looked away. I was hungry. The last of the girls, her ears pierced, fled from the low, wooden platform, running to crouch among us, weeping, at the wall. I hoped that we would have a good lunch. The food was better in the private pens, where we were trained, than in the public pens of Ko-ro-ba, areas of which were available for rent to passing slavers, where we were housed at night. In the public pens, state slaves are kept as well as the merchandise of slave caravans passing through the city. A master of the city, of course, who might be leaving the city temporarily, could also rent space in the public pens, to board his slaves, there. Most masters, however, if inclined to board their slaves, would do so at the private pens, where the food and facilities were better. Another reason for a master to board a slave at the private pens, of course, is that she might, while there, be given training, or further training, that she might be more delicious slave to him upon his return. Indeed, even if a master does not leave the city, it is not unknown for him to send a girl to the private pens, that her value to him, and to others, if she be sold, might be improved. Girls, incidentally, do not care to be boarded. Life in the pens, intentionally, is made hard. When released from the pens, a girl is almost always desperately eager to please her master, that she not be returned to them, for further training.
We trained during the day, commonly in private facilities, under the tutelage of pleasure slaves, but in the evening we would be returned to the long tiers of cages in the public pens. These cages are heavily barred, and the bars are rather, irritatingly, widely set, but we cannot squeeze between them. The cages are strong enough to hold men, which, doubtless, sometimes they do. Straw is spread on the metal plating which is the floor. There are four girls to a cage. I shared mine with Ute, Inge and Lana. We are supposed to keep our own cage clean, but Lana and I let Inge and Ute do this work. We are too valuable to do such work.
I did not care particularly for the wooden bowls of stew and bread we commonly had at the public pens, but I was hungry and ready to eat even such, and with enthusiasm. In vegetables and fruits, and, if our group had trained, acceptably, after the evening meal, before being returned, hooded, to the public pens, we would be given candies or pastries, or, sometimes, a swallow of Ka-la-na wine. Once Inge had broken down in training, and wept, and we had been denied our little delicacies. When we reached the cage at the public pens Lana and I had beaten her, preventing Ute from interfering.
"El-in-or" snapped Targo.
I gathered he must have called once before, and I had not heard.
I ran to him and knelt before him.
"To the platform," he said.
I looked up at him. "Why?" I asked.
He looked at me.
Quickly I leaped up and ran to the low wooden platform, and knelt again upon it. I did not understand.
The leather worker had not left the room. He was reaching into his leather bag. I was puzzled. Then it occurred to me that he must want to check the rods in my ears, to see that they were fixed properly.
I knelt quite straight, but impatiently. I wanted my lunch.
I wished that he would hurry.
"Put your head back," he said.
I looked at him with sudden apprehension. In his hand he held something which looked like a pair of plies, except that the claws were extremely slender, and bent in such a way as to touch one another, at the tips scarcely more than a needle's width.
"What is that?" I asked. "A punch," said Targo.
"Put your head back," said the leather worker.
"No," I whispered. "What are you going to do?"
"Do not be afraid, El-in-or," called Ute. "It is nothing."
I wished she would be quiet.
"What are you going to do?" I asked, frightened.
"Someday a master may wish to put a nose ring on you," explained Targo. "This way you will be ready."
"No!" I screamed. "No! No!"
The other girls looked up, from their own misery, puzzled, watching me. "No! I wept. "Please! Please!"
"Put your head back," repeated the leather worker, irritated.
Targo looked at me puzzled. He seemed genuinely disappointed. "But you are brave," he said. "You are the brave one."
Suddenly I went to pieces, horrified, hysterical. "No!" I screamed. I tried to scramble from the platform. The leather worker seized me. "Hold her!" he said. "Bind her," said Targo.
I, held by the leather worker, cast wild eyes on Targo, "No, Master!" I implored. "Please!" but already my ankles were being tied together. Another guard pulled my hands behind my back and my wrists were lashed together. "No!" I screamed. "No!"
Two guards held me by the arms on the platform. Another guard put his left arm about my throat, from behind, and with his right hand in my hair, pulled my head back, holding it still.
I could not scream. The guard's arm on my throat was tight.
"Do not move," commanded the leather worker.
I felt the back of the claws of the punch enter my nostrils, distending them. There was a tiny, sharp click. Tears burst into my eyes. I felt acute pain for an
instant, and then a prolonged, burning, stinging sensation.
Everything went black, but I did not faint, held in position by the guards. When I opened my eyes, blinded with tears, I saw the leather worker approaching my face with a tiny, steel ring, partly opened, and a pair of pliers.
As I was held he inserted the ring in my nose. It was painful. Then, with the pliers, he closed the ring, and turned it, so that its opening, where the closed edges met, was concealed within, at the side of the septum.
I began sobbing with pain, with misery and degradation.
The guards released me. One untied my ankles.