Captive of Gor

by John Norman

  Suddenly I struck at her with the stick, and she flinched, but did not cry out.

  Lana threw dirt on her.

  Then I seized the cage and, on its chain, spun it about. The chain twisted, and then the cage turned. Lana and I, laughing, spun the cage back and forth, and, when I could, I struck Verna through the bars. We struck her, and spat on her, and threw dirt on her.

  There were huntsmen nearby but they did not restrain us. We had much sport.

  Then we let the cage hang still. Verna had her eyes closed. She held the bars. She swallowed.

  After a time she opened her eyes.

  We, for some minutes more, continued to abuse her, with sticks, and dirt, and our spittle and our insults. She made no response.

  I was not afraid of her. I had never been afraid of her.

  Then we heard one of Targo's guards calling us. It was time for us to be returned to our wagon, and for another set of girls to be freed, to enjoy the liberty of the compound.

  I gave Verna another blow with the stick.

  "Can't you say anything?" I screamed. I was infuriated that she had not cried out, that she had not groveled, that she had not wept for mercy.

  We heard the guard call again.

  "Hurry," said Lana, "or we will be beaten!"

  I gave Verna one last blow, a stinging stripe across the shoulder, with the stick.

  "Can't you say anything?" I screamed at her.

  "You have pierced ears," she said.

  I cried out in anger, and turned, throwing away the stick, and ran back to the wagon.

  * * * *

  I threw another berry into the bucket.

  "Ute," I said.

  Ute turned again, to regard me.

  "Speak to Inge," I said to her. "Tell her not to be cruel to me." I did not wish to address the girls of the chain as Mistress.

  "Why do you not speak to her yourself?" asked Ute.

  "She doesn't like me," I said. "She would beat me."

  Ute shrugged.

  "She likes you, Ute," I pressed. "Speak to her for me. Ask her not to make me call the other girls Mistress. I do not wish to do so. They are only slaves!"

  "We are all slaves," said Ute.

  "Please, Ute," I begged.

  "All right," said Ute. "I will ask her."

  Ute then turned away, and continued to pick berries. It was now late in the afternoon. We were perhaps a pasang and a half from the distant wagons. From the hill on which we now picked berries I could see them. It would be time for the evening meal soon.

  I looked about to see if the guard was watching. He was not.

  My bucket was no more than half full.

  Ute had put her bucket behind her and was picking berries about a yard ahead of it. Her back was to me. Ute was such a stupid little thing. It would be easy to steal her berries.

  I put my finger under the wide strap knotted about my throat, which tethered me to her.

  Slave girls are often tethered, chained, tied and such. Our major bond, of course, was our condition itself, that we were slaves. That could be told at a glance from the revealing scantiness of our garmenture, the designatory marks burned into our bodies.

  Chains, as is well known, serve not only for purposes of security, but for those of presentation and arousal. Women look well, chained. Men like seeing them, chained. Chains, too, it is no secret, are extremely sexually stimulatory to a woman. Frigidity seldom survives more than a few hours on a chain. In training I, and the others, among many other things, had been accustomed to being secured, fastened, bound, in a variety of fashions. Some of these ties, doubtless by intent, are provocatively erotic. Some of the red-silk girls, finding themselves helpless in some of these binding arrangements, had soon begun to squirm, and lift their bodies plaintively, in supplication, begging use from the guards. Even I, who was white silk, was rendered profoundly uneasy by more than one of these ties. I felt, in more than one such tie, that if a guard had so much as touched me, perhaps as the small man had done, back in New York City, I might have exploded. When I was sure no one was looking, and I lay bound in the rings, together, in a row, with some others, I, too, lifted my body, pleadingly. But who should have seen but Inge, who was waiting her turn, to be bound with her set, at the rings. She smiled. How I flushed scarlet with shame, and tugged to free myself. But I could not, of course, free myself.

  "Poor little slave," said Inge. "Has no master caressed you?"

  "No!" I said.

  "No, what?" she inquired.

  "No, Mistress," I said.

  How I hated Inge!

  I moved the neck tether out a little from my throat, with my finger. I could not slip it, of course.

  The strap was broad, and a little damp, on the inside. It was well on me. In the sun, it was now hot under the strap. It was well knotted. I was well secured.

  The point of the neck tether, of course, was to keep Ute and I together, certainly as there was only one guard. Else we might have been leashed.

  Men, it seems, enjoy seeing women on neck tethers, and on leashes.

  Speaking of leashes, I might mention that we find them extremely arousing. I am not precisely sure why this is, but I suppose it must have to do with the understanding of ourselves as animals, as properties, and such. It is hard for a woman to understand herself as such and not desire to serve the leash holder. Leashes, too, of course, are useful in walking slaves, in displaying them, in putting them through their paces, and such. In my case, when on a leash, for example in training, on all fours, or upright, struggling to resist the sense of sexual uneasiness which it enforced upon me, I was sometimes afflicted with an irrepressible thought of exquisite irony. More than once I had gathered, on Earth, I had been regarded as a "bitch." Doubtless they would have been amused had they seen the "bitch" on her leash, naked, obeying, needful, aroused against her will, being controlled by a man.

  I crept close and took two handfuls of berries from her bucket and put them in mine.

  I kept some to put in my mouth.

  Then, as I put the berries in my mouth, I thought I heard something. I looked up, and back. Ute, too, and the guard, at the same time, heard it. He cried out and, angrily, began to run back toward the wagon.

  Ute saw them before I did, in the distance. I had heard only the sound, vague, from far off, like a myriad snappings, and shrill, wind-borne screams.

  "Look!" cried Ute. "Tarns!"

  In the distance, in a set of four, long, narrow, extended "V's," there came a flight of tarnsmen. The first "V" was lowest in altitude, and in advance of the other three; the second was second lowest, and in advance of the other two, and similarly for the third and fourth. There were no tarn drums beating. This was not a military formation.

  "Raiders!" cried Ute.

  I was stunned. What seemed most clear to me, and most incomprehensible, was that our guard had left us. He had run back toward the wagons. We were alone!

  "There must be more than a hundred of them!" cried Ute.

  I looked up.

  "Down!" she cried, and dragged me by the arms to a kneeling position on the grass.

  We watched them strike the caravan, in waves, and turn and wheel again, discharging their bolts.

  The bosk were being cut loose and stampeded. There was no effort to turn the wagons in a single defensive perimeter. Such a perimeter has little meaning when the enemy can strike from above. Rather, men, hauling on the wagon tongues and thrusting with their shoulders, were putting the wagons in a dense square, with spaces between them. This formation permits men to conceal themselves under the wagons, the floors of the wagons providing some protection above them. The spaces between the wagons provide opportunity for the defenders to fire their crossbows upward at the attackers, and give some protection against the spreading of fire, wagon to wagon. In many of the wagons there were still girls chained, screaming. Men there tore back the coverings of blue and yellow canvas, that they might be seen.

  "Unchain them!" cried Ute, as though so
meone might hear. "Unchain them!"

  But they would not be unchained, unless the day went badly for the caravan, in which case they would be freed and, like the bosk, stampeded.

  In the meantime their bodies served as partial cover for the defenders under and between the wagons.

  The raiders wanted the girls. Indeed, that was the object of their enterprise.

  Accordingly, unless they wished to destroy the very goods they sought, their attack must be measured, and carefully calculated.

  Swiftly the formation of tarnsmen wheeled and withdrew.

  "The attack is over," I said.

  "They will now use fire," said Ute.

  I watched with horror as, in a few moments, again the sky filled with tarns, and the beating of wings and the screams of the great birds.

  Now, down from the skies rained fiery quarrels, tipped with blazing, tarred cloth wound about the piles.

  Wagons caught fire.

  I saw defenders unchaining screaming girls. One's hair was afire.

  The girls huddled under the wagons, many of them burning.

  I saw a defender forcing the head of the girl whose hair burned into the dirt, extinguishing the flames.

  I saw two girls now fleeing across the grass, away from the wagons.

  Tarnsmen now struck the earth, leaping from their birds, to the east of the wagon square and, swords drawn, rushed among the burning wagons.

  The clash of steel carried dimly to the hill, where Ute and I watched.

  "Unbind me!" cried Ute.

  The straps we wore about our throats were broad, and the strap, too, that joined us. But, about the throat, the broad strap, for each of us, was perforated in two places, and it was by means of narrow binding fiber, passed several times through the perforations and knotted, that it was fastened on our throats. The guard had knotted the binding fiber, tightly.

  My fingers fought at the knot, futilely, picking at it. I was upset. I could not loosen it.

  "I cannot see to untie the knot," cried Ute. "Untie it!"

  "I can't!" I wept. "I can't!"

  Ute pushed me away and began to chew at the leather strap, desperately, holding it with her hands.

  I wept.

  Not all the tarnsmen had dismounted. Some were still astride the great birds, though the birds stood now on the grass.

  I saw men fighting between the wagons, some falling.

  I saw one of the tarnsmen, yet mounted on his tarn, remove his helmet and wipe his forehead, and then replace the helmet. He was their leader. I could not fail to recognize him, even at the distance.

  "It is Haakon!" I cried. "It is Haakon of Skjern!"

  "Of course it is Haakon of Skjern!" said Ute, biting at the strap, tearing at it with her fingers.

  Now Haakon of Skjern stood in the stirrups of the tarn saddle, and waved his sword toward the wagons. More warriors dismounted now and rushed among the wagons.

  Several of the wagons were now flaming. I saw men rushing about. Two more girls fled from the wagons, across the fields.

  There must have been more than a hundred tarnsmen with Haakon. When he had come to Ko-ro-ba, he had had little more than forty men, if that many. Others, mercenaries, he must have recruited in the city.

  His men outnumbered those of Targo, considerably.

  The sounds of blades carried to where we knelt. I was terrified. Ute was savagely tearing at the strap with her teeth.

  Then, suddenly, from under the burning wagons, across the fields, there fled dozens of girls, running in all directions.

  "He's driven the girls out," cried Ute, furiously. She jerked at the strap. She had not been able to chew it through. She looked at me, savagely. "They have not seen us," she said. "We must escape!"

  I shook my head. I was afraid. What would I do? Where would I go?

  "You will come with me or I will kill you!" screamed Ute.

  "I'll come, Ute!" I cried. "I'll come!"

  I now saw the tarnsmen returning from the burning wagons, racing to their tarns. They had no interest, or little interest, in the wagons or the supplies. In Targo's gold they might have had interest but they would have to spend men to obtain it. Meanwhile the real treasure was escaping.

  Targo, a rational man, and a brilliant slaver, had chosen to purchase his own life, and that of his men, and the safety of his gold, by the flight of the slave girls.

  It had been a desperate measure, and one not willingly adopted by a merchant. It was clear evidence that Targo had recognized the seriousness of his predicament, and the odds by which he was outnumbered and the probable result of continuing the engagement.

  "Come, El-in-or!" screamed Ute. "Come!"

  Ute pulled with both her hands on the strap that bound us together and I, stumbling, fled after her.

  We turned once.

  We saw tarnsmen, in flight, riding down running girls, the tarns no more than a few feet from the grass, beating their wings, screaming.

  Often a tarn would clutch the girl in its talons and alight. The tarnsman would then leap from the saddle and force the bird's talons from its prey, binding the hysterical girl's wrists and fastening her to a saddle ring, then remounting and hunting another. One man had four girls bound to his saddle. Another would fly low and to the side of the running girl, and a beat of the tarn's great wings would send her rolling and sprawling for a dozen yards across the grass. Before she could arise, the tarnsman would be upon her, binding her. Another would strike the victim in the small of her back with the butt of his spear, felling her, numbing her, for the binding fiber. Others, flying low and to the side, roped the girls as they ran, using their slender ropes of braided leather, familiar to all tarnsmen. Such warriors do not even deign to dismount to bind their fair prisoners. They haul them to the saddle, in flight, there securing them, stripping them and fastening them to the binding rings.

  It is a favorite sport of tarnsmen to streak their tarn over an enemy city and, in such a fashion, capture an enemy girl from one of the city's high bridges, carrying her off, while the citizens of the city scream in fury, shaking their fists at the bold one. In moments her garments flutter down among the towers and she is his, bound on her back across the saddle before him, his prize. If he is a young tarnsman, and she is his first girl, he will take her back to his own city, and display her for his family and friends, and she will dance for him, and serve him, at the Collaring Feast. If he is a brutal tarnsman, he may take her rudely, should he wish, above the clouds, above her own city, before even his tarn has left its walls. If he should be even more brutal, but more subtly so, more to be feared by a woman, he will, in the long flight back to his city, caress her into submission, until she has no choice but to yield herself to him, wholly, as a surrendered slave girl. When he then unbinds her from the saddle rings, she, so devastatingly subdued, well knows herself his.

  I saw Rena of Lydius running, frantic, from the wagons, in her camisk.

  I saw a tarnsman wheel his tarn after her.

  She fled.

  Rena of Lydius was being hunted!

  I put my hand before my mouth.

  The wide, swiftly closing loop of braided leather fell about her running body. The tarn streaked past her, only a few feet overhead. The rope jerked tight. She screamed. She was jerked from her feet into the air, screaming, a dozen feet above the rushing grasses beneath her, and then was dragged to the saddle. I saw her clutching the tarnsman, terrified. With a small knife he cut the binding fiber that belted her camisk. The camisk now flew behind her, like a cape, about her neck, whipped by the wind. He resheathed his knife. He then threw the camisk from her. He gestured that she should lie on her back across the saddle in front of him, crossing her wrists and legs. She, terrified, did so immediately. He then secured her.

  I screamed.

  The strap that bound me to Ute jerked on my neck, and I fell.

  "Hurry!" cried Ute. "Hurry!"

  I scrambled to my feet and, following Ute, fled.

  13

&
nbsp; I Feel the Capture Loop

  I stood in the swift stream, the water coming to somewhat above my knees. I had tied the camisk up about my waist, with the binding fiber.

  Hands poised, I scrutinized the silver form turning in the clear water.

  It swam near the fence of small wands which Ute had thrust into the bottom of the stream, and turned back, as though puzzled.

  My hands dove for it, clutching. I touched it. There was a churning of water. I drew back my hands, with a cry of disgust. With a spattering of water and a flurry of pebbles the swift, squirming body twisted away.

  I stood up again.

  It was not likely to escape.

  I stood within Ute's structure of wands. It consisted of two parts. The first, a few feet upstream, was in the form of a "V," which had an open bottom, which pointed downstream. This formed a funnel of wands, such that a small swimming creature could easily enter it, but would not so easily find again the opening to escape. The second part of the structure was a simple, curved fence of wands a few feet downstream of the first, forming the downstream wall of the trap.

  Ute was hunting. She had also set snares. She had used the pieces of binding fiber which had, by means of the perforations, fastened our throat straps on us.

  I again began to stalk the silver body in the trap.

  Ute and I, to our astonishment, had escaped. Separated as we had been from the wagons, and doubtless, too, in virtue of the confusion, it had been our fortune not to have been noticed in our flight.

  I had shaken my head. I had been afraid. What could we do? Where would we go?

  "You will come with me or I will kill you!" had screamed Ute.

  "I'll come, Ute!" I had cried. "I'll come!"

  Dismayed, terrified, bound to her by the throat strap, I had stumbled after her.

  We had run for perhaps an Ahn, when, gasping, exhausted, scarcely able to move, we had reached the edge of a large Ka-la-na thicket.

  In this thicket, still tethered one to the other, we had thrown ourselves down on the grass.

  "Ute, I am afraid," I had whispered to her. "I am afraid!"

  "Do you not understand," she whispered, her eyes filled with joy, "we are free! We are free!"