Hunters of Gor

by John Norman

  Thurnock gave a great laugh, and Sheera thrust her head against my side. "Will you have food in your shelter?" he laughed.

  "Yes," I told him, "from time to time."

  He laughed, and turned away.

  Sheera looked at me. She was smiling. "And I?" she asked. "Do I have duties today?"

  "Yes," I told her.

  She laughed.

  I took her again in my arms.

  7

  Grenna

  Softly, stealthily, the long bow of yellow Ka-la-na, from the wine trees of Gor, in my hand, I moved through the brush and trees.

  At my hip was slung the quiver, with sheaf arrows, twenty of them, of black tem wood, piled with steel, winged with the feathers of the Vosk gull.

  I wore a garb of green, mottled, striped irregularly with black. When I did not move, did I stand among the brush and light trees, in the sunlight and shadows, it was difficult to detect my presence, even from a distance of some yards.

  Movement is the danger, but one must move, to eat, to hunt.

  I saw a tiny brush urt scurry past. I was not likely to encounter sleen until darkness. Panthers, too, hunted largely at night, but, unlike the sleen, were not invariably nocturnal. The panther, when hungry, or irritable, hunts.

  Overhead were several birds, bright, chattering, darting, swift among the branches and green leaves. I heard the throaty warbling, so loud for such a small bird, of the tiny horned gim. Somewhere, far off, but carrying through the forest, was the rapid, staccato slap of the sharp beak of the yellow-breasted hermit bird, pounding into the reddish bark of the Tur tree, hunting for larvae.

  There was not much breeze today. The forest, for the trees were more widely spread and the brush thick, was hot. I brushed back an insect from my face.

  I ranged far ahead of my men, scouting beyond them. We had left at the dawn of the preceding day. I took ten with me, including Rim. Thurnock I left behind, at the camp, in command. We had purportedly entered the forest to hunt sleen.

  We had circled far to the east and north.

  We would not approach Verna's camp and dancing circle by means of the blazed trail.

  I did not know if Talena lay slave in Verna's camp or not. If she did not, Verna, and her band, would surely know her whereabouts.

  My men carried sleen nets, as though they might be sleen hunters. Such nets, however, would also be suitable for the snaring of female slaves.

  I had given Verna and her band their chance.

  I brushed back another insect from my face.

  I was pleased that I would soon regain Talena.

  We would make a splendid couple, she and I, the beautiful Talena, daughter of the Ubar of Ar himself, and the great Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar, jewel of gleaming Thassa.

  Who knew how high might be raised the chair of Bosk?

  "Do not go, Master, into the forests," had begged Sheera. "It is dangerous!"

  "Cara," had said I, "set this slave about her duties."

  "Yes, Master," had said Cara. She took Sheera by the arm, to lead her from my presence.

  "When we reach Lydius again," I told Sheera, "I will dispose of you there, in the slave market."

  Her eyes looked at me, with horror. She then well knew herself slave.

  I turned away from her.

  I thought of Talena, the beautiful Talena. We would repledge the companionship. She would take her place at my side. We would make a splendid couple, she and I, the beautiful Talena, daughter of the Ubar of Ar himself, and the great Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar, jewel of gleaming Thassa.

  It would be a desirable and excellent companionship.

  Who knew how high might be raised the chair of Bosk?

  The birds carried on above me, as I passed slowly, carefully beneath them. Sometimes when I first moved below them, they would be silent, but then, seeing in a moment that I was moving away, would begin to cry out again, and dart about from branch to branch. I stopped to wipe my brow on my forearm. Almost instantly they stopped, clutching the branches, the notes of their song for the instant stilled. If I had then sat down, or laid down, or remained standing for some time, but made no threatening move toward them, they would again resume their gatherings of food, their flights and songs.

  I continued on.

  Rim had returned from Laura, the afternoon of the day preceding our departure from the camp. With him, met in Laura, had come Arn, and four men. Arn had heard in Lydius that we had acquired little Tina, as I had thought he might. He was interested in obtaining her, now that she was slave. He had not forgotten that she, when free, had once in a tavern in Lydius, feigning passion, drugged him and robbed him of a purse of gold. Arn, and his four men, were now with my party, following. They were interested in picking up panther girls. I thought their services might prove valuable. I had given Arn no definite answer on his request to purchase Tina, his object in coming to my camp. It was not that I had any particular objection to selling, or giving, her to him. Those objections were Tina's, not mine, and they were not of account, for she was slave. But I knew that one of my men, the young Turus, he with the amethyst-studded wristlet, had found her not displeasing. That she, too, seemed much excited by him did not enter into my considerations. She was merely slave. That which would be done with her would be not that which she pleased, unless by some hazard of coincidence, but that which I, her master, pleased. His concern, however, that of Turus, was important to me, quite important. He was of my crew. I would decide on the disposition of lovely Tina later. Perhaps I would give her to him. There were far more important matters to attend to at the moment.

  It was past the tenth hour, past the Gorean noon. I squinted at the sun through the branches, and then looked down again, into the greenery.

  I continued on, through the brush and trees.

  I hoped to be able to scout Verna's camp before nightfall, so that we might arrange our attack, with nets, for dawn.

  I thought of my men back at the camp. They would not fail to appreciate captured panther girls.

  Men of Port Kar know well how to introduce women to slavery.

  I smiled.

  I wondered what the paga slaves now in the camp would think of such wild captives. They would doubtless much fear them. The day of my departure from the camp, at dawn, later in that same day, four paga slaves, in yellow silks, brought up from Laura, chained in a longboat, would have arrived in my camp. It had been the main object of Rim's journey to Laura to arrange for their rentals and delivery. According to Rim they were beauties. I hoped that he was right, for their master, Hesius, tavern owner in Laura, had not charged high rentals nor excessive delivery charges. We would have them for a copper tarn disk apiece, per day. Further, Hesius had told Rim that he would send wine with the girls, at no additional cost. I did not particularly want the wine, but I had no objection to its inclusion in our order.

  I hoped the girls would be beautiful, for the sake of my men.

  I, too, of course, would see them upon my return, and make my appraisals.

  It is important for a captain to see to the satisfactions of his men.

  I trusted Rim. I knew him to have a keen eye for female beauty. If he spoke highly of the four paga slaves, they were doubtless splendid specimens of female slaves.

  "Their prices are not high," I had told Rim.

  He had shrugged. "Prices are low in Laura," he had said.

  It was true.

  I pushed aside branches, and slipped through.

  The paga slaves would doubtless, at first, much fear the captured panther girls, and, of course, the panther girls would much despise such slaves. I laughed softly to myself. It would soon be turnabout. My men would swiftly teach the panther girls their collars. When the paga slaves saw them simply as what they would then be, new girls, helpless, frightened, intimidated, raw girls, fresh to the delights and degradations of slavery, they would no longer fear them, but scorn them, properly, as far inferior to themselves. And the new girls would beg the paga slaves to impart to t
hem something of their skills, that they might be more pleasing to men. And then the paga slaves, as the mood struck them, might do so or not. Some of the panther girls themselves, when sold to new masters, might find themselves just such paga slaves, girls precisely such as they would have scorned upon first being brought captive to my camp.

  I continued on, through the brush and trees. Leaves, gently, brushed my face.

  It was now near the twelfth Ahn.

  My plans were proceeding well. I hoped, by nightfall, to have scouted Verna's camp.

  I could strike before Marlenus of Ar could find it. He was still hunting the woods in the neighborhood of Laura.

  It did not displease me that I should bring his daughter to safety from the forests before him, or that I should have Verna, and her band, prisoner, well trussed in tight binding fiber, waiting for my iron, while he still, unknowingly, sought them where they were not.

  Marlenus, in Ar, had once banished me, denying me bread, fire and salt.

  I had not forgotten that.

  I laughed to myself. Let the great Ubar rage, I thought. Let him learn that one of Port Kar, one whom he once banished from his city, has swiftly, arrogantly, bettered him at his work.

  The glory that was to have been Marlenus' would now be mine.

  I considered my return in triumph to Port Kar, the flowers in the canals, the cheering throngs in the windows and on the rooftops.

  At my side, in robes worthy of a Ubara, would stand Talena.

  Let official word then be sent to Ar that his daughter now sat safe at my side, consort of Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar, jewel of gleaming Thassa.

  We would make a splendid couple. The companionship would be an excellent one, a superb one.

  Who knew, in time, how high might be raised the chair of Bosk?

  I pushed aside more branches, and leaves, slipping between them.

  I thought of Sheera, as she had leaped to me, her lips to mine. Then I dismissed her from my mind. I would dispose of her in the slave market at Lydius. She was merely slave.

  Suddenly I stopped.

  The birds had stopped singing.

  I lowered my head swiftly.

  The arrow struck the trunk of a tree not inches from my face.

  It hit with a solid, hard sound, and I saw the shaft, feathered, quiver in the wood.

  Some seventy-five yards through the trees I thought I saw a movement, furtive, the flash of a thigh.

  Then there was only silence.

  I was furious. I had been discovered. If the attacker reached her camp, all hopes of a surprise attack would be lost. The girls, alerted, might abandon the camp and flee deeply into the forests, taking Talena with them. My most careful plans would be undone.

  I swiftly leaped in pursuit.

  In moments I had come to the place whence the arrow had been loosed. I saw the marks on the leaves and grass where the attacker had stood.

  I scanned the woods.

  A bent leaf, a dislodged stone, guided me.

  The attacker kept well ahead of me, for more than an Ahn. Yet there was little time to adequately conceal a trail. My pursuit was quick, and hot, and I was close. The attacker, much of the time, fled. It was not then difficult to follow. Crushed leaves, broken twigs, turned stones, bent grass, footprints, all spelled the trail clearly to the detecting eye.

  Twice more arrows sped from the underbrush, passing beside me, losing themselves in the greenery behind me.

  Twice I saw a motion in the green and shadows, in the dappled sunlight, swift, furtive.

  Often I heard the running from me.

  I followed swiftly, now rapidly closing the ground between us.

  My bow was strung. At the hemp string, whipped with silk, was a temwood arrow, piled with steel, fletched with the feathers of the Vosk gull.

  The attacker, at all costs, must not be permitted to make contact with others.

  Another arrow struck near me, with a quick, hard sound, followed by the tight vibrating of the arrow.

  I lowered my head, bending over. I no longer heard running.

  There was no movement in the brush ahead.

  I smiled. The attacker was at bay. The attacker was concealed in the thicket ahead, waiting.

  Excellent, I thought, excellent.

  But it was now the most dangerous portion of the chase. The attacker waited, invisible in the greenery, not moving, bow ready.

  I listened, not moving, to the birds, intently.

  I lifted my head to the trees in the thicket ahead, the tangles of brush and undergrowth. I noted where the birds moved, and where they did not.

  I did not draw my bow. I would not immediately enter the thicket. I would wait.

  I studied the shadows for a quarter of an Ahn.

  I surmised that the attacker, aware of my hot pursuit, would have turned within the thicket, and would have waited, bow drawn.

  It is very painful to hold a bow drawn for more than an Ehn or two.

  But to ease the bow is to move, and it is to be unready to fire.

  Birds moved about, above me.

  I listened, patient, to the drone of insects. I continued to study the shadows, and parts of shadows.

  Perhaps I had gone ahead, perhaps I had evaded the thicket, perhaps I had turned back.

  I waited, as a Gorean warrior waits.

  Then, at last, I saw the slight movement, almost imperceptible, for which I had been waiting.

  I smiled.

  I carefully fitted the black, steel-piled temwood shaft to the string. I lifted the great bow of yellow Ka-la-na, from the wine trees of Gor.

  There was a sudden cry of pain from the green and the sunlight and shadows.

  I had her!

  I sped forward.

  In almost an instant I was on her.

  She had been pinned to a tree by the shoulder. Her eyes were glazed. She had her hand at her shoulder. When she saw me, she clutched, with her right hand, at the sleen knife in her belt. She was blond, blue-eyed. There was blood on her hair. I knocked the sleen knife from her hand and rudely jerked her hands together before her body, securing them there with slave bracelets. She was gasping. Some six inches of the arrow, five inches feathered, protruded from her shoulder. I cut away the halter she wore and improvised a gag, that she might not cry out. With a length of binding fiber, taken from her own pouch, I tied the slave bracelets tight against her belly. I stepped back. This panther girl would warn no others. She would not interfere with the plans of Bosk, of Port Kar.

  She faced me, in pain, gagged, her fists in slave bracelets, held at her belly.

  I stripped her of her skins, and pouch and weapons. She was mine. I noted that she was comely.

  I strode to her and, as her eyes cried out with pain, snapped off the arrow.

  I lifted her from the cruel pinion. She fell to her knees. Now, the arrow gone, her two wounds began to bleed. She shuddered. I would permit some blood to wash from the wound, cleaning it.

  I snapped off the rest of the arrow, and, with a knife, shaved it to the tree, that it might not attract attention. The girl's pouch, its contents, and her weapons, I threw into the brush.

  Then I knelt beside her and, with those skins I had taken from her, bound her wounds.

  With my foot I scuffed dirt over the stains on the ground, where she had bled.

  I then lifted her lightly in my arms and carried her, gagged and bound, down our back trail, for some quarter of an Ahn.

  When I was satisfied that I had carried her sufficiently far, so far that I was confident that she would not be within earshot of any to whom she might wish to call, I set her down on the ground, leaning her against a tree.

  She was sick from her wound and loss of blood. She had fainted as I had carried her. Now she was conscious, and sat, leaning against the tree, her eyes glazed, regarding me.

  I pulled down her gag, letting it hang about her neck.

  "What is your name?" I asked.

  "Grenna," she said.

 
; "Where is the camp and dancing circle of Verna, the panther girl?" I asked.

  She looked at me, sick, puzzled. "I do not know," she whispered.

  Something in the girl's manner convinced me that she spoke the truth.

  I was not much pleased.

  This portion of the forest was supposedly the territory of Verna, and her band.

  I gave the girl some food from my pouch. I gave her a swallow of water from the flask at my belt.

  "Are you not of Verna's band?" I asked.

  "No," she said.

  "Of whose band are you?" I asked.

  "Of Hura's," said she.

  "This portion of the forest," I told her, "is the territory of Verna and her band."

  "It will be ours," she said.

  I withheld the water flask.

  "We have more than a hundred girls," she said. "It will be ours."

  I gave her another swallow of water.

  "It will be ours," she said.

  I was puzzled. Normally panther girls move and hunt in small bands. That there should be more than a hundred of them in a single band, under a single leader, seemed incredible.

  I did not much understand this.

  "You are a scout?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  "How far are you in advance of your band?" I asked.

  "Pasangs," she said.

  "What will be thought when you do not return to your band?" I asked.

  "Who knows what to think?" she asked. "Sometimes a girl does not come back."

  Her lips formed the word. I gave her more water. She had lost blood.

  "What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

  "Be silent," I said.

  It now seemed to me even more important to locate, as swiftly as possible, Verna's camp or its dancing circle.

  Soon, perhaps within two or three days, more panther girls might be entering this portion of the forests.

  We must act quickly.

  I looked at the sun. It was low now, sunk among the trees.

  In another Ahn or two it would be dark.

  I wished to find Verna's camp, if possible, before nightfall.

  There was no time to carry this prisoner back to where Rim, and my men, and Arn, and his men, waited for me. It would be dark before I could do so, and return.