Hunters of Gor

by John Norman

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

  I took the gag, from where I had pulled it down about her throat, and refixed it, securely.

  I then unknotted the binding fiber from where it was fastened, behind the small of her back, and also unknotted it, in front, from the chain of the slave bracelets. I put the binding fiber in my belt. I then unlocked the left slave bracelet.

  "Climb," I told her, indicating a nearby tree.

  She stood, unsteadily. She shook her head. She was weak. She had lost blood.

  "Climb," I told her, "or I shall bracelet you on the ground."

  Slowly she climbed, branch by branch, I following her.

  "Keep climbing," I told her.

  At last she was more than thirty feet from the ground. She was frightened.

  "Edge out on the limb," I told her, "and lie down upon it, on your back, your head to the trunk of the tree."

  She hesitated.

  "Do so!" I told her.

  She lay, her back on the limb.

  "Farther out," I told her.

  She edged, on her back, along the limb. Then she was more than five feet from the trunk.

  She shuddered.

  "Let your arms hang free," I said.

  She did. The slave bracelets, one locked on her right wrist, dangled.

  I then relocked her left wrist in the slave bracelets. Her wrists were now locked under the branch and behind her. I then crossed her ankles and bound them to the branch. Then, with another length of binding fiber, taken from my own pouch, I bound her by the belly, tightly, to the branch.

  She looked back at me, over her shoulder, fear in her eyes.

  I climbed downward. The sleen is a burrowing animal. It seldom climbs. The panther can climb, but it is accustomed to take its hunting scents from the ground.

  I expected the girl would be safe. If she were not, I remembered, as a Gorean, that she had tried to kill me. If ought befell me, of course, it would not be well for her. She was gagged, braceleted and bound. I was confident that she would wish me well in whatever enterprise I might be engaged. Though she was my enemy and prisoner, her desires would be most fervid for my success.

  The girl taken care of, I resumed my journey.

  An Ahn before darkness I found the camp.

  It was situated back from the bank of a small stream, one of the many tiny tributaries to the Laurius which interlace the forest.

  I eased myself upward into the branches of a tree, whence I might command a better view.

  It consisted of five huts, conical, of woven saplings and thatched, and was surrounded by a small palisade of sharpened saplings. A rough gate, fastened with vines, gave entrance to the camp. In the center of the camp there was a cooking hole, banked with a circle of flat stones. On a wooden spit, set on sticks, grease dropping into the fire and flaming, was a thigh of tabuk.

  It smelled good. The smoke, in a thin line, trickled upward into the sky.

  The thigh of tabuk was tended by a squatting panther girl, who, from time to time, picked bits of meat from it and thrust them in her mouth. She sucked her fingers clean. Over to one side another girl worked on a slave net, reworking and reknotting the weighted cords.

  Elsewhere two girls, sitting cross-legged, were playing a cat's-cradle game, matching one another's intricate patterns with the twine. They were skillful. This game is popular in the north, particularly in the villages. It is also played frequently in Torvaldsland.

  I saw, clearly, no other panther girls in or about the enclosure. I did see, however, a movement within one of the huts, and I supposed that to be another girl.

  I saw no evidence of Talena. She might, of course, lie chained within one of the dark huts. Perhaps the movement I had seen within the hut had been she. I did not know.

  One thing, however, seemed quite clear. Not all of Verna's band was now within the enclosure.

  There were probably five or six girls there at the most.

  Her band, most reports agreed, consisted of some fifteen women.

  I looked at the girls in the enclosure. They did not know I regarded them. They did not realize their camp had been found. They did not know that soon, perhaps tomorrow, their camp would be stormed, and they would be captives, destined for the iron and the slave markets of the south.

  But we must move with rapidity. I had learned from Grenna, my prisoner, that an unusually large band of panther girls, under a woman named Hura, was even now advancing toward these areas of the forests.

  I smiled.

  When Hura's band arrived, ready to fight for these pasangs of forest, ready to drive Verna's band out, they would meet no opposition.

  By that time Verna and her band would be my captives.

  Hura's band would find only an empty camp, and perhaps some signs of struggle.

  But we must move swiftly.

  Additional numbers of panther girls, entering these countries of forests, might well confuse or complicate my plans.

  I must conclude my business before their arrival. It did not seem it would be difficult to do so. I wondered how it was that Hura had under her command so many girls. Such bands of girls scarcely ever number more than twenty. Yet, if Grenna was to be believed, following this Hura were a hundred or more armed women.

  I must not allow them to interfere with my plans.

  I looked down into the camp, at the girls. I regarded them as a Gorean. They had had their chance. They had refused to sell Talena to me. They had not dealt with me. That had been their mistake. The lesson they would be taught would be sharp. Let each of them, on the auction block, as the men bid upon them, consider how their affairs might have been better conducted.

  Two more girls arrived at the camp, and untied the gate, entered, and then retied it.

  I thought they would look well in slave chains.

  I looked again about the camp. I saw some poles behind the huts, on which, drying, were stretched the skins of four panthers. There were some boxes, some kegs, near one of the huts.

  There was not much else.

  I expected, by nightfall, all, or most, of Verna's band would have returned to their small stockade.

  I slipped down from my hiding place, and disappeared in the forest.

  * * * *

  "Take this captive," I told Rim, "back to the Tesephone."

  I thrust Grenna toward him. I had again put her wrists in slave bracelets, and bound them at her belly. She stumbled and fell to her knees, her head down, at Rim's feet.

  She no longer wore her gag. It was not now necessary.

  "I would prefer," said Rim, "to join in the attack on Verna's encampment. You perhaps recall that it was she, and her band, who once enslaved me."

  "I recall," I said, "and I fear that you might be too precipitate."

  Rim smiled. "Perhaps," he said.

  It was now almost impossible to detect where the two-inch strip had been shaved on his head, from the forehead to the back of his neck.

  "I will accompany you," said Arn.

  "Good," I said.

  Arn was eyeing Grenna appreciatively. She saw his eyes, and put down her head again, swiftly.

  I was pleased that Arn liked her. Perhaps I would later give her to him.

  "At the Tesephone," I said, indicating Grenna with my foot, "brand her, and fit her with a collar. After that, you may see to the wounds of a slave."

  The girl moaned.

  "Yes, Captain," said Rim. He reached down and lifted her up, lightly in his arms.

  How beautiful women are, I thought.

  Rim carried her from the small fire, and moved into the darkness.

  I looked about, at the nine men with me.

  "Let us sleep now," I said. "We shall awaken two Ahn before dawn. We will then march on the camp of Verna."

  "Good," said Arn.

  I lay down on the leaves, within the ring of sharpened saplings we had set about our small camp.

  I closed my eyes. In the morning I would have Talena back. Who
knew how high might be raised the chair of Bosk?

  Things were going well.

  I fell asleep.

  8

  We Wait in the Camp of Verna

  There is a Gorean saying that free women, raised gently in the high cylinders, in their robes of concealment, unarmed, untrained in weapons, may, by the slaver, be plucked like flowers.

  There is no such saying pertaining to panther girls.

  Needless to say, there are various techniques for the acquisition of slaves, male and female. Much depends, of course, on the number of slavers, the nature of the quarry, and the particulars of a given chase or hunt.

  The fact that we numbered ten, including myself, and that the girls of Verna's band numbered some fifteen, and that they were skilled with their weapons, and dangerous, dictated the nature of our approach.

  I had not wished to bring a large number of men through the forest with me, for they would have been difficult to conceal. Further, I wished to leave a full garrison at the Tesephone, to protect the ship should there be any danger at the river. It was my original intention to bring with me merely five, but, when Arn and his men arrived at the camp, I permitted them to join us. Outlaws move well in the forests, moving, like panther girls, with swiftness and stealth, and leaving little trace of their passage. With the element of surprise, and my plan of attack, I did not think we would need many men. Five, I had conjectured, would have been sufficient. I smiled to myself. Perhaps it was an arrogance of my Gorean blood that had led me to my decision. There is more glory to take more slaves with fewer men. It redounds to the skill and credit of the slaver. Too, Verna's band, earlier in the forest, had irritated me. It would gratify me, and give them a most humiliating memory to carry with them into their slavery, that they, the entire band, had been taken by a mere handful of males. They might be panther girls, but they were only women. We would take them easily.

  We had weighed various modes of attack. One of the simplest and least dangerous we had immediately rejected, because of the time involved. It was to besiege the girls in their stockade, cutting them off from food and water, and merely wait until they, hungering and thirsting, following our orders, threw down their weapons, stripped themselves and emerged, backing toward us, their wrists crossed behind their backs, one by one, at intervals, as we called them forth. In this way they cannot well see us and we can see the position of their hands the wrists of which, crossed, are readied for binding fiber. A similar plan, but swifter, requires setting fire to the camp and its encircling wall. This forces the girls into the forest where, theoretically, they may be separately taken. There are many dangers here, however. The girls usually emerge armed and dangerous, rapidly scattering. It can be extremely perilous to attempt to capture such women. Further, in the confusion, girls may escape. Perhaps most to be dreaded is the spread of fire to the forest itself. This is something which, perhaps surprisingly to the mind of Earth, fills Goreans with great horror. It is not simply that there is great danger to the slavers themselves, in the shiftings and blazings of such a conflagration, but rather that the forest, the sheltering and beautiful forest, is felt as being injured. Goreans care for their world. They love the sky, the plains, the sea, the rain in the summer, the snow in winter. They will sometimes stand and watch clouds. The movement of grass in the wind is very beautiful to them. More than one Gorean poet has sung of the leaf of a Tur tree. I have known warriors who cared for the beauty of small flowers. I personally would not care to be the man responsible for the destruction of a Gorean forest. It is not unknown for them to be hunted down and burned alive, their ashes scattered in expiation by mourning Goreans among the charred wood and blackened stumps. Sometimes it takes, according to the Goreans, a generation for the forest to forgive its injury, and return to men, gracious and forgiving, in all its beauty.

  "No," I said, "we will not use fire." A further consideration, of course, was that we were now in the late summer, and the dangers of fire were maximized.

  Arn and his men agreed.

  One of the most delicate modes of enslavement, and requiring great skill, is to enter the stockade of the panther girls under the cover of darkness and then, one by one, hut by hut, following the sound of their breathing, to take them. The slightest sound may, of course, alert the entire band. One locates a sleeping girl and then, swiftly, as she awakens squirming, forces a heavy wadding into her mouth, fastening it in place with strips of cloth and leather. One must then, swiftly, tie her hands behind her back and bind her ankles. One then moves, stealthily, to the next girl. If all proceeds well, each girl, in the light of dawn, looks about herself and sees that each of her comrades, too, is gagged and bound as helplessly as she herself is. In the night they have been taken slave. This procedure, however, calls for great delicacy and skill.

  We had decided on a simpler mode of attack, that would utilize the first light of day, taking the girls before they had fully awakened, or could realize what was happening to them.

  We would use sleen nets, casting them over more than one girl at a time, tying them together, making it impossible for them to utilize their weapons. We could then stand over them with knives, preventing them from freeing themselves. At our leisure, one by one, perhaps after having had breakfast in their camp, we could then remove them from the nets and chain them.

  We circled the terrain of the camp with great care.

  It is most important to swiftly, silently, dispose of any sentries.

  But we found none in the encircling forest. We saw none within the palisade.

  "They are not wise," whispered Arn, "not to have left sentries."

  We crawled to the gate, and there, quietly, I studied the knot that held it, so, if necessary, I could retie it. It was not a difficult knot. It was not a signature knot. Its purpose was only to hold the gate against the pushings and shoulderings of animals.

  I untied the knot and, one by one, we slipped within the palisade.

  We unrolled the sleen nets and loosened the knives in our sheaths.

  The ground was wet and damp from the dew. The forest was cool. I could make out the shape of Arn's head, near me, as he waited.

  We heard the throaty warbling of a tiny horned gim.

  Then we saw the first sparkle of the morning, the glistening on the dampness of leaves and grass.

  I could now, rather well, make out the features of Arn's face. I nodded to him, and the others. There were five huts, and ten of us. By twos, sleen nets slung between us, we moved to the huts.

  I nodded to Arn.

  He gave a high whistle, shrill and sudden, and we, and the others, thrust through the portals of the hut, casting the sleen nets to encompass whatever might lie within.

  I gave a cry of rage.

  We caught nothing.

  Our hut was empty.

  In a moment other men came to our hut. "They are gone," said one.

  "The camp is empty," said another.

  We looked at one another.

  Arn was furious.

  "Reconnoiter," I told two men, "and swiftly, and well."

  The men, and Arn, looked at one another, apprehensively. They had only then realized, with full awareness, that we ourselves were now penned within the stockade, which might now serve as the same trap for us as it might have served before for panther girls.

  The two men swiftly went out to scan the surrounding forest.

  I did not think that panther girls laid in wait outside, for we had made a careful examination of the area before we had entered the stockade. Still, I did not wish to take the chance that we might have missed them, or, even, that they might have withdrawn before our examination of the area, intending to return when we might be within the stockade. The most likely hypothesis was that they, unaware of our presence in the vicinity, had, on business of their own, left the stockade before dawn. They might have attacks, or hunts, of their own to attend to. Perhaps they had learned of the advance of the girls of Hura toward their territory and had gone out to make reconnais
sance, or oppose them. Perhaps they were lying in ambush, pasangs away, for a party of the men of Marlenus. Perhaps they, because of Hura or Marlenus, or for other reasons, had decided to abandon their camp?

  I looked about. No, there was too much left. And there was no indication of hurried flight.

  I saw spears about, and bundles of arrows.

  Panther girls would not have left them. They would return.

  One of the two men I had sent out to reconnoiter re-entered the hut. "There is no sign of panther girls," he said.

  Arn and his men breathed with relief.

  "They will return," I said.

  "What shall we do now?" asked Arn.

  "Do not yet roll the sleen nets," I smiled.

  He looked at me.

  "Let us sit down and take council," I suggested.

  Two men posted as sentries in the forest, we sat down in one of the huts.

  "They will probably return before dark," said Arn.

  "Perhaps sooner," said one of his men.

  "We do not know from what direction they will come," said another.

  "We do know," said Arn, "that they will return to this place."

  The men grunted their agreement.

  One of the men, glancing about the hut, said, "Ka-la-na!" He pointed to a side of the hut.

  There, tied together by the necks, were some six bottles of Ka-la-na.

  He went to them and looked at them, lifting them. They were in dark bottles. He turned them about. "From the vineyards of Ar," he whistled. It was choice Ka-la-na.

  "The panther girls were fortunate in their spoils," said one of Arn's men.

  "Put them down," I said. Reluctantly the man did so.

  "Shall we return at dawn tomorrow?" asked one of my men of me.

  "Perhaps," I said. I did not care, however, to lose the time. I did not know how long it would take for Hura, and her band, to reach our area of the forests. Besides, what if Verna and her band returned tonight, and then, again, departed before dawn tomorrow?

  "I have a better suggestion," said Arn.

  "You wish to remain in the camp," I said, "concealed, and surprise them upon their return."