Hunters of Gor

by John Norman

  Perhaps she had already gone her own way. Her women, now slaves, waited in longboats to be carried to the Rhoda, the Tesephone.

  They had made their choice, to surrender to a man. They had yielded to their womanhood.

  Verna would hunt alone in the forests. She would have her freedom. About her neck she wore the signet ring of Ar. She would be swift and free in the dark green glades. She would be alone. I wondered if, at times, she would lie in the darkness, clutching the ring of Marlenus, and twist, and weep. Her pride stood between herself and her womanhood. Yet in the darkness, as she lay on the leaves in her lair, in her ears would glint the gold of earrings. She had not removed them. They had been fastened in her ears upon the order of Marlenus, when he had been her master. She would never forget, in her freedom, nor did she wish to do so, that she had been once his utter slave. Perhaps from time to time she would long for his collar and touch. She had made her choice, for her independence. She had not exchanged that even for the throne of Ar. Her women had, too, made their choice. Verna was free. They were shamed as slaves. I did not know which was happiest. They sat silently in the longboats, obediently. The hands of each were now being fastened behind her back. I saw Rena's wrists secured. They, new slaves, were shy. But they did not seem unhappy. I wondered if any, as her wrists were drawn together behind her back and fastened together, regretted her decision. If she did, it was too late. The binding fiber was upon her. But they did not seem unhappy. They had yielded to their womanhood. They had surrendered themselves to bondage, and love. This gift, this choice, which she had refused for herself, Verna had given them.

  Doubtless now, alone, somewhere within the forest, in freedom and solitude, there was a panther girl. She hunted. Her name was Verna. I wished her well.

  I wondered if she might, sometime, trek to Ar, to call upon its Ubar or if he, attending to his hunting in the northern forests, might once more chance upon her. I did not suppose it likely. "She is only a woman," he had said. But he had given her the signet of Ar. I wondered if Verna knew that she who wore that ring about her neck was the Ubara of Ar.

  "We have set the logs of the palisade in the form of a great beacon," said Thurnock.

  I looked to the stony beach. There, high on the stones, rose the beacon, tier upon tier of crossed logs.

  "Pour oil upon it," I said.

  "Yes, Captain," he said.

  Oil was poured.

  I sat high on the beach, wrapped in blankets, in the captain's chair, cold. I looked at the beacon.

  Its light would be seen more than fifty pasangs at sea.

  I turned back to the beach. My men stood about.

  "Put the slave Rissia before me, she who was of Hura's band," I said.

  I heard Ilene's switch strike Rissia twice across the back. Rissia stripped, her ankles, wrists and throat locked in the graceful chain and rings of the sirik, stumbled forward. She knelt before my chair, on the sand. Twice more fell Ilene's switch, and I saw bloody stripes leap on the girl's exposed back. Her knees were in the sand, her head was down.

  "Withdraw," I said to Ilene, who stood over Rissia in her white woolen slave tunic, herself barefoot, my collar at her throat. Ilene backed away, the switch still in her hand, to stand to one side.

  "This woman," said I to Thurnock, indicating Rissia, "remained behind in the camp of Sarus and Hura, when many of her fellow panther women were drugged."

  Thurnock nodded.

  "She had a bow," I said, "with an arrow to the string. It was her intention to defend her drugged sisters, to protect them."

  "I see, Captain," said Thurnock.

  "She might have slain me," I said.

  Thurnock smiled.

  "What should be her fate?"

  "That," said he, "is for my captain to decide."

  "Her act," I asked, "does it not seem brave?"

  "It does indeed, my captain," said Thurnock.

  "Free her," I told him.

  Grinning, Thurnock bent to the shackles which graced Rissia's fair limbs, removing them one by one.

  Rissia lifted her head, looking at me, dumbfounded.

  "You are free," I told her. "Depart."

  "My gratitude, Captain," she whispered.

  "Depart!" I commanded.

  Rissia turned about and regarded Ilene. The Earth girl took a step backward.

  "May I not remain a moment, Captain?" asked Rissia. She turned to face me.

  "Very well," I said.

  "I ask the rite of knives," she said.

  "Very well," I said.

  One of my men held Ilene by the arms. She was frightened.

  Two daggers were brought. One was given to Rissia. The other was pressed into the unwilling hand of Ilene.

  Ilene was thrust forward to the sand before my chair. Rissia faced her.

  "I—I do not understand," stammered Ilene.

  "You are to fight to the death," I told her.

  She looked at Rissia. "No!" she wept. "No!" Ilene threw away the knife.

  "Kneel," ordered Rissia.

  Ilene did.

  Rissia stood behind her.

  "Do not hurt me," begged Ilene.

  "Address me as Mistress," said Rissia.

  "Please do not hurt me, Mistress," begged Ilene.

  "You do not seem so proud now, Slave, without your switch," said Rissia.

  "No, Mistress," whispered Ilene.

  With her knife, from the back, Rissia cut away Ilene's slave tunic, stripping her.

  Rissia picked up the discarded sirik. She reached over Ilene's head and fastened the collar about her throat, the chain dangling before her body. Then, reaching about her, she fastened Ilene's hands in the bracelets attached to the chain, confining them before her body. She then drew the chain between her legs and under her body and fastened the two ankle rings, attached to the chain, on her ankles. Ilene knelt, stripped, in sirik.

  "With your permission, Captain," said Rissia.

  I nodded.

  Picking up the switch from the sand, with which Ilene had often beaten her, she struck her.

  Ilene cried out. "Please do not beat me!" she wept. "Please do not beat me, Mistress!"

  "I do not choose," said Rissia, "to comply with the request of a slave."

  She beat Ilene until Ilene wept and screamed, and then could weep and scream no more.

  Then she threw aside the switch and disappeared into the forest.

  Ilene, tears in her eyes, her head turned to the side, lay on her stomach in the sand, confined in the sirik. The entire back of her body was hot and bright with the scarlet marks of the switch.

  "To your knees," I told her.

  Ilene struggled to her knees, and looked up at me.

  "Take her to the Tesephone," I told two of my men, "and put her in the hold with the other female slaves."

  "Please, Master," wept the girl.

  "And then," said I, "see that she is sold in Port Kar."

  Weeping, Ilene, the Earth-girl slave, was dragged from my presence. She would be sold in Port Kar, a great slave-clearing port. Perhaps she would be sold south to Schendi or Bazi, or north to a jarl of Torvaldsland, Scagnar or Hunjer, or across Thassa to Tabor or Asperiche, or taken up the Vosk in a cage to an inland city, perhaps eventually to find herself in Ko-ro-ba, Thentis or Tharna, or even Ar itself. Perhaps she would be carried south in tarn caravan, or by slave wagon, and would be slave in Turia, or perhaps even in the wagons of the Wagon Peoples, the Tuchuks, the Kassars, the Kataii, the Paravaci. Perhaps she would be, even, the slave of peasants. It was not known where the lovely Ilene would wear her collar; it was known, though, that she would wear it, and wear it well; a Gorean master would see to that.

  I looked to the beacon. I looked, too, to the Tesephone. Rim's men had the Rhoda ready for the tide.

  "Carry my chair," I said, "to the longboat."

  Four crewmen reached to lift the chair.

  "Wait," I said.

  "Captain!" called a voice. "I have caught two women!"
/>   I saw one of my men, one of those set at guard about the beach.

  He approached, pushing two captives before him. They wore the skins of panther girls. Their hands were tied behind their backs. They were fastened together by a single branch, tied behind their necks.

  I did not recognize them.

  "They were spying," said he.

  "No," said one. "We were looking for Verna."

  "Strip them," I said. It is easier to get a woman to talk when she is nude.

  It was done.

  I knew who these two women must be.

  "Speak," I said, addressing the comeliest of the two.

  "We were in the hire of Verna," she said, "but we are not of her band."

  "Your task," I told them, "was to guard a female slave."

  They looked at me, startled. "Yes," she said.

  "This slave," I said, "was the daughter of Marlenus of Ar."

  "Yes," whispered one.

  "Where is she?" I demanded.

  "When Marlenus disowned her," said one, frightened, "and she was no longer of value, Verna, through Mira, instructed us to dispose of her, taking a price on her."

  "For what did she sell?" I asked.

  "For ten pieces of gold," said the comeliest of the two captives.

  "It is a high price for a wench without caste or family," I said.

  "She is very beautiful," said one of the girls.

  The other wench looked at me. "Did the captain wish her?" she asked.

  I smiled. "I might have bought her," I said.

  "We did not know!" cried the comely girl. "Do not punish us, Captain!"

  "Do you still have the money?" I asked.

  "In my pouch," cried the comelier of the two captives.

  I gestured to Thurnock and he gave me the pouch. With my right hand I counted out the ten gold pieces. I held them in the palm of my right hand. It was the closest I had come to Talena in many years. I closed my hand on the coins. I was bitter. I threw them before the captive women.

  "Free them," I told Thurnock. "Let them go."

  They looked at me, startled. Their bonds were removed. They drew on again the skins of panthers.

  "Find Verna in the forest," I told them. "Give her the coins."

  "Will you not keep us as slave girls?" asked one.

  "No," I told them. "Find Verna. Give her the coins. They are hers. Tell her that the woman brought a good price because, though she had neither caste nor family, she is very beautiful."

  "We will do so, Captain," said the comelier of the two.

  They prepared to depart.

  "To whom," I asked, "did you sell the slave?"

  "To the first ship which chanced by," said the comelier of the girls.

  "Who was its captain?" I asked.

  She looked at me. "Samos," she said. "Samos of Port Kar."

  I gestured that they might leave.

  "Lift my chair," said I to the crewmen. "I would return to the Tesephone."

  * * * *

  That night, sitting on the stern castle of the Tesephone, I looked north and eastward.

  The sky to the north and east was bright. On the western coast of Thassa, high above Lydius, on a remote, stony beach, a beacon burned, marking a place on the coast where there had once stood a stockade, where men had fought, where deeds had transpired.

  We had poured oil, and wine and salt into the sea. We were enroute to Port Kar.

  Before we had left the shore we had set the beacon afire. I could still see its light.

  I did not think I would ever forget it. I sat on the stern castle, wrapped in blankets, looking back.

  I recalled Arn, and Rim and Thurnock, and Hura and Mira, and Verna and Grenna and Sheera. I recalled Marlenus of Ar and Sarus of Tyros. I recalled Ilene. I recalled Rissia. I recalled them all. We had come to Lydius and Laura, and the northern forests.

  Bosk of Port Kar, so wise, so bold and arrogant, had come mightily to the northern forests. Now, like a maimed larl, heavy, bitter, weighty with pain, he returned to his lair. He looked back, noting in the sky the light of a beacon, one which burned on a deserted shore.

  Few would see the beacon. Few would know why it burned. I myself did not know.

  In time there would be only ashes, and they would be swept away in the rain and the wind. The tracks of sea birds might, like the thief's brand, be found in the sand, but they too, in time, would be washed away.

  I would not see Talena in Port Kar. I would have her returned to Marlenus of Ar.

  I was cold. I could not feel the left side of my body.

  "A good wind, Captain," said Thurnock.

  "Yes, Thurnock," I said. "It is a fair wind."

  I could hear the snapping of the tarn sail of the Tesephone.

  I heard Thurnock's steps going down to the deck from the stern castle.

  I wondered if Pa-Kur, Master of the Assassins, yet lived. I thought it not impossible.

  I heard the creak of the rudder.

  I had, in my fever and delirium, cried the name of Vella. I did not understand this, for I no longer cared for her. She had once resisted my will.

  She had fled from the Sardar, when I, in her own best interest, would have returned her safe to Earth.

  It had been a brave act.

  But she had fallen slave.

  She had gambled. She had lost. I had left her slave. "You do not know what it is to be a paga slave!" she had cried. I had left her in the collar of Sarpedon, only another wench, slave in a paga tavern in Lydius.

  She had begged for me to buy her. She had begged as a slave.

  I laughed.

  She was a slave. She would stay a slave.

  I do not know why I had cried her name. As a free man I had no interest in slave girls, save for the brief use of their bodies.

  On the arm of the captain's chair, my fist clenched.

  In the distance I could see light in the sky, the illumination from the beacon which I had ordered set on a remote, deserted beach, high above Lydius on the coast of Thassa.

  I myself did not know why it burned. Perhaps it served simply to mark a place on the beach, which, for a time, the flames might remember.

  I had, for an Ahn, at that place, recollected my honor. Let that be commemorated by the flames.

  Let the fire, if not men, remember what had once there occurred.

  "Thurnock!" I cried. "I am cold! Bring crewmen! Carry me to my cabin!"

  "Yes, Captain," called Thurnock.

  In the morning there would be only ashes, and they would be swept away in the rain and the wind. The tracks of sea birds might, too, like the thief's brand, be found in the sand. Too, in time, they would wash away.

  "Thurnock!" I cried.

  As the chair was lifted, I looked once more to the northeast. The sky still glowed. I was not dissatisfied that I had set the beacon. It did not matter to me that few would see it. It did not matter to me that none would understand it.

  I myself did not know, truly, why it burned but it had seemed important to me to set it.

  "Carry me to my cabin," I said.

  "Yes, Captain," said Thurnock.

  "It is a fair wind," said one of the crewmen, as the door to my cabin shut.

  "That it is," said Thurnock. "That it is."

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1974 by John Norman

  Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

  ISBN 978-1-4976-0036-2

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.


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