Captive of Gor

by John Norman

  From a distance it might appear they were merely sitting about the fire, celebrating, two Kajirae at their feet.

  I could see other fires, other wagon clusters about the meadow. From one of them came the sound of singing.

  The men pulled at their bonds.

  I supposed they might not be discovered until morning.

  "Strip her," said Verna to one of her girls. I shook my head, No! My camisk was cut from me. I stood as only a bound slave among them.

  "Burn the camisk and binding fiber," said Verna.

  I watched the garment and fiber thrown on the flames. It would not be used to give my scent to domesticated sleen, trained to hunt slaves.

  "Put more wood on the fire," commanded Verna.

  More logs were thrown on the fire.

  Then Verna turned away from me, and strode before the men.

  How beautiful she was, and proud and fierce, in the brief skins and gold ornaments. She was beautifully figured and she carried herself arrogantly before them, taunting them with her beauty, and spear.

  "I am Verna," she told them, "a panther girl, of the High Forests. I enslave men, when it pleases me. When I tire of them I sell them." She walked back and forth before them. "You are tarsks and beasts," she told them. "We despise you," she said. "We have outwitted you, and captured you. We have bound you. If we wished, we would take you into the forests and teach you what it is to be a slave!" As she spoke she jabbed at them with her spear, and a stain of blood was brought through the fabric of more than one tunic. "Men!" laughed Verna, contemptuously, and turned away from them.

  I saw them struggle, but they could not free themselves. They had been bound by panther girls.

  Then Verna was standing before me. She appraised me, as might have a slaver.

  "Kajira," she said, contemptuously.

  I shook my head, No!

  Without looking back she then strode, spear in hand, from the camp, toward the dark forests in the distance.

  Her girls followed her, leaving the fire, and the bound men, and Ute and Lana, whom they had tied at the feet of two of the guards.

  The choke leash slid shut on my throat and, half strangling, stumbling, stripped and gagged, my hands bound behind my back, I was dragged after them, toward the darkness of the forest.

  9

  The Hut

  I was terrified to enter the forest, but I had no choice.

  The choke leash is a useful device for controlling a bound slave. I must follow perfectly. I could not offer the least resistance without strangling myself.

  The girls moved swiftly, single file, through the brush and small trees at the edge of the forest. I could feel leaves and twigs beneath my feet. They stopped only long enough to lift aside some branches and take up the light spears, and bows and arrows, which they had hidden there. Each girl wore, too, at her waist, a sheathed sleen knife.

  The tall, blond girl, Verna, beautiful and superb, led the file, her bow and a quiver of arrows now on her back, her spear in hand. Sometimes she would stop to listen, or lift her head, as though testing the air, but then she would resume her journey. Bound as I was, and without the protection of skins, I could not protect my body from the lashings of branches. If I should stop in pain, struck, or stumble, the merciless choke leash, closing on my throat, impelled me forward again.

  Then, after perhaps an hour of this torture, Verna lifted her hand, and the girls stopped.

  "We will rest here," she said.

  It had been difficult making our way through the brush and thickset trees. To reach the high trees of the forest, the great Tur trees, would be perhaps better than another hour's trek.

  "Kneel," snapped the girl who held my leash.

  I did so, breathing heavily.

  "As a Pleasure Slave!" snapped the girl.

  Gagged, I shook my head, No!

  "Cut switches and beat her," said Verna.

  I shook my head, begging, eyes wild, no, no!

  I knelt as I had been ordered.

  They laughed.

  The girl who held my leash looped it over my back.

  I pulled at the binding fiber on my wrists.

  The girl bound my ankles cruelly, using the end of the choke leash, making the strap taut between my throat and ankles. My head was strapped back. I could barely breathe.

  One of the girls scrambled up a nearby tree. In a moment, in the moonlight, she was throwing down water gourds and strips of meat.

  Sitting cross-legged on the leaves, the girls passed about the gourds and began to chew on the meat.

  When they had drunk and eaten, they sat about in a half circle, looking at me.

  "Untie her ankles," said Verna.

  The girl did. This released the pressure of the choke leash.

  My head fell forward.

  When I lifted it, Verna stood before me, her knife at my face.

  "Scar her," said the girl who had held my leash.

  I looked at Verna in terror.

  "Are you afraid you will not be so pretty?" asked Verna. "That men will not like you?"

  I closed my eyes.

  I felt the blade move between my cheek and the gag, cutting the gag free. I almost fainted. With my tongue I struggled to force the thick, heavy, coiled, effective wad of packing from my mouth. I was given no aid. Then I succeeded. It was out, an ugly, monstrous, heavy, wet, sour wad, on the grass before me. I almost vomited.

  I looked at them, reproachfully. I had been gagged as one might have gagged a mere slave!

  Verna's knife was again in its sheath.

  When I could look at her, I said, as evenly as I could, "I am hungry, and thirsty."

  "Your masters fed you," said Verna.

  "Indeed she was fed!" cried one of the girls. "She was fed by hand, like a beast." The girl snorted. "She even, bound, leaped to catch meat in her teeth."

  "Men must find you very pleasing," said Verna.

  "I am not a slave girl," I told them.

  "You wear a man's brand," said Verna.

  I blushed. It was true that I wore the brand of a man.

  "She even had Ka-la-na wine," sneered one of the girls.

  "Fortunate slave," said Verna.

  I said nothing. I was furious.

  "It is said," said Verna, "that Ka-la-na wine makes any woman a slave, if but for an hour." She looked at me. "Is it true?"

  I said nothing. I recalled with shame how I had, near the fire, placing my guard's hand in my binding fiber, encouraged my own ravishment as a slave girl, and how I had knelt, my hair falling about his face, to kiss him.

  I knew that I had provoked him, and then that I had fought him.

  "I fought him!" I cried.

  The girls laughed.

  "Thank you for saving me," I said.

  They laughed.

  "I am not a slave," I repeated.

  "You wore a camisk," said one of the girls. "You were in the girl cage. You served as a slave!"

  "You wanted them to touch you," cried another.

  "We know the movements of the body of a slave girl," said another, "and your body betrays you! You are a slave!"

  "You want to belong to a man!" cried Verna.

  "No, no, no!" I wept. "I am not a slave! I am not!"

  The girls, and I, were quiet.

  "You saw that I struggled," I whispered, desperately.

  "You struggled prettily," said Verna.

  "I want to join you," I said.

  There was a silence.

  "We do not accept slave girls among the women of the forest," said Verna proudly.

  "I am not a slave girl!" I cried.

  Verna regarded me. "How many of us do you count?" she asked.

  "Fifteen," I told her.

  "My band," said Verna, "consists of fifteen. This, it seems to me, is a suitable number, for protection, for feeding, for concealment in the forest." She looked at me. "Some groups are smaller, some larger, but my band," she said, "as I wish, numbers fifteen."

  I said not
hing.

  "Would you like to be one of us?" she asked.

  "Yes!" I cried. "Yes!"

  "Untie her," said Verna.

  The choke leash was removed from my throat. My wrists were unbound.

  "Stand," said Verna.

  I did so, and so, too, did the other girls. I stood, rubbing my wrists.

  The girls put down their spears, unslung the bows and quivers from their shoulders.

  The light of the three moons filtered through the trees, speckling the glade.

  Verna removed her sleen knife from her belt. She handed it to me.

  I stood there, holding the knife.

  The other girls stood ready, some half crouching. All had removed their knives from their sheaths.

  "The place of which of these," asked Verna, "will you take?"

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "One of these," said Verna, "or myself, you will fight to the death."

  I shook my head, No.

  "I will fight you, if you wish," said Verna, "without my knife."

  "No," I whispered.

  "Fight me, Kajira!" hissed the girl who had held my leash. Her knife was ready.

  "Me!" cried another.

  "Me!" cried yet another.

  "Whose place will you take?" asked Verna.

  One of the girls cried out and leaped toward me, the knife flashing in her hand.

  I screamed and threw the knife from me, and fell to my knees, my head in my hands.

  "No, no!" I cried.

  "Bind her," said Verna.

  I felt my hands pulled again behind my back. The girl who had held my leash lashed them together, mercilessly. I felt again the snap of the choke collar on my throat.

  "We have rested," said Verna. "Let us continue our journey."

  The girl, clad like the others in the skins of forest panthers, who had held my leash, and now again held it, she who had bound me, her sleen knife again in its sheath, thrust her face toward mine. It was she who had leaped at me with her knife. She twisted her hand in the metal and leather choke collar. "Kajira!" she said, with contempt. I gasped, choking. I was terrified of her.

  Verna regarded me. She wiped the dirt and tumbled leaves from her sleen knife, which I had thrown from me, on the skins of her brief garments, and then replaced it in her sheath. She slung again about her shoulders her bow and quiver, and took up again her light spear. The other girls similarly armed themselves, preparing to depart. Some gathered up the water gourds and what meat was left from their meal.

  Verna approached me.

  I was as I had been when bound, kneeling.

  "What are you?" she asked.

  "Kajira, Mistress," I whispered.

  I looked up at her.

  "May I speak?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  I knew I was not as these other women. I was not as they were.

  "Why," I asked, "was I taken?"

  Verna looked at me, for a long time. And then she said, "There is a man."

  I looked up at her, helplessly.

  "He has bought you."

  The girls, led by Verna, again began to make their way through the dark, moonlit forest.

  Again the metal and leather collar slid shut on my throat, and, with a gasp of anguish, wrists bound behind my back, not permitted clothing, I followed at my tether, not as they, the proud women of the forest, but only as I could be among them, Kajira.

  * * * *

  We continued on, for perhaps another hour. Once Verna lifted her hand, and we stopped.

  We stood silently.

  "Sleen," said Verna.

  The girls looked about.

  She had smelled the animal, somewhere.

  One of the other girls said, "Yes."

  Most of them merely looked about, their spears ready. I gathered few could smell the animal. I could not. The wind was moving softly from my right.

  After a time the girl who had said, "Yes," said, "It is gone now." She looked at Verna.

  Verna nodded.

  We again continued on our way.

  I had sensed nothing, and I gathered that most of the other girls had not either.

  * * * *

  As we continued our journey, we could see the bright moons above.

  The girls seemed restless, short-tempered, irritable. I saw more than one looking at the moons.

  "Verna," said one of them.

  "Quiet," said Verna.

  The file continued its journey through the trees and brush, threading its way through the darkness and branches.

  "We have seen men," said one of the girls, insistently.

  "Be silent," said Verna.

  "We should have taken slaves," said another, irritably.

  "No," said Verna.

  "The circle," said another. "We must go to the circle!"

  Verna stopped and turned.

  "It is on our way," said another.

  "Please, Verna," said another, her voice pleading.

  Verna regarded the girls. "Very well," she said, "we shall stop at the circle."

  The girls relaxed visibly.

  Irritably, Verna turned, and again we continued on our way.

  I understood nothing of this.

  I was miserable. I cried out, suddenly, when a branch, unexpectedly, struck me across the belly. With a cry of rage the girl who held my leash expertly, with a twist of her wrist, threw me choking from my feet. Then her foot was on the leash a few inches from my neck, pinning me, choking, to the ground. With the free end of the leash she struck me five times across the back.

  "Silence, Kajira!" she hissed.

  Then I was pulled again to my feet, and we continued our journey. Again branches struck me, but I did not cry out. My feet and legs were bleeding; my body was lashed, and scratched.

  I was nothing with these proud, free, dangerous, brave women, these independent, superb, unfearing, resourceful, fierce felines, panther girls of the northern forests of Gor. They were swift, and beautiful and arrogant, like Verna. They were armed, and could protect themselves, and did not need men. They could make men slaves, if they wished, and sell them later, if they were displeased with them or wearied of them. And they could fight with knives and knew the trails and trees of the vast forests. They feared nothing, and needed nothing.

  They were so different from myself.

  They were strong, and unfearing. I was weak, and frightened.

  It seemed they were of a sex, or breed, other than, and superior to my own.

  Among such women I could be but the object of their scorn, what they despised most, only Kajira.

  And among them I felt myself to be only Kajira, one fit to be tethered and led, scorned as an insult to the beauty and magnificence of their sex.

  I was other than, and less than, they.

  "Hurry, Kajira!" snapped the girl who dragged on my leash.

  "Yes, Mistress," I whispered.

  She laughed.

  I was being taken at night through the forest, a bound slave. Verna had told me that there was a man. I had been told that I had been bought. I was being delivered by women, another woman, but a weakling, one who was only a piece of merchandise, one who, on this harsh world, could be only merchandise, to my master.

  I wept.

  * * * *

  Then, after perhaps another hour, we came, almost abruptly, suddenly, to a stand of the high trees, the Tur trees, of the northern forests.

  It was breathtakingly beautiful.

  The girls stopped.

  I looked about myself. The forests of the northern temperate latitudes of Gor are countries in themselves, covering hundreds of thousands of square pasangs of area. They contain great numbers of various species of trees, and different portions of the forests may differ considerably among themselves. The most typical and famous tree of these forests is the lofty, reddish Tur tree, some varieties of which grow more than two hundred feet high. It is not known how far these forests extend. It is not impossible that they belt the land s
urfaces of the planet. They begin near the shores of Thassa, the Sea, in the west. How far they extend to the east is not known. They do extend beyond the most northern ridges of the Thentis Mountains.

  We found ourselves now in a stand of the lofty Tur trees. I could see broadly spreading branches some two hundred feet or more above my head. The trunks of the trees were almost bare of branches until, so far above, branches seemed to explode in an interlacing blanket of foliage, almost obliterating the sky. I could see glimpses of the three moons high above. The floor of the forest was almost bare. Between the lofty, widely spaced trees there was little but a carpeting of leaves. I saw two of the girls looking up at the moons. Their lips were parted, their fists clenched. There seemed to be pain in their eyes.

  "Verna," said one of them.

  "Silence," said their leader.

  It was no accident that we had stopped at this place.

  One of the girls whimpered.

  "All right," said Verna, "go to the circle."

  The girl turned and sped across the carpeting of leaves.

  "Me, Verna!" cried another.

  "To the circle," said Verna, irritably.

  The girl turned and sped after the first.

  One by one, with her eyes, Verna released the girls, and each ran lightly, eagerly, through the trees.

  Then Verna came to me and took my leash from the hand of the girl who had held it. "Go to the circle," she told the girl.

  Swiftly, not speaking, the girl ran after the others.

  Verna looked after them.

  We stood alone, she in her skins, I unclothed, she free, I bound, my leash in her grasp.

  Verna regarded me, for some time, in the moonlight.

  I could not meet her eyes. I dropped my head.

  "Yes," said Verna. "You would be pleasing to men. You are a pretty little Kajira."

  I could not lift my head.

  "I despise you," she said.

  I said nothing.

  "Are you a docile slave?" she asked.

  "Yes, Mistress," I whispered, "I am docile."

  Then, to my amazement, Verna unsnapped the choke leash from my throat and then unbound my wrists.

  She looked at me, and still I could not meet her eyes.

  "Follow the others," she said. "You will come to a clearing. At the edge of the clearing, you will find a post. Wait there to be bound."

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  Verna laughed, and stood behind me. I could imagine her, straight in her skins and golden ornaments, with her spear and weapons, watching me.