Hunters of Gor coc-8

by John Norman

  Leading from the open side of the palisade to the great beacon was a column of pairs of fires.

  By means of these, protected by their flames, in case animals should approach too closely, the great beacon could be fed.

  I could not well fire into the palisade without approaching near the water, without leaving the shelter of the forest. Moreover, I was not interested in doing so.

  “Light the beacon!” called Sarus. There was a great cheer as, in the falling darkness, the torch thrust down into the oil-soaked wood.

  I was not much observed, standing in the background, wearing the yellow of Tyros.

  In a moment, like a wind-torn explosion, flame leaped in a breadth of a dozen feet on the still shores, on that lonely beach, of Thassa. The men of Tyros were hundreds of pasangs from civilization, but the flames of that blaze brought pleasure to them. It was their beacon to the Rhoda and Tesephone. The men of Tyros began to sing, standing near it. In the back of the semicircular stockade, miserable, chained, lay Marlenus and Rim and Arn, and the other male slaves. They lay on their stomachs. The manacles on the wrists of slaves, thus, may be easily checked by a guard, with a torch, as he makes his rounds. Further, their heads faced toward the wall of the stockade. The less that a slave can know or see the more easily controlled he is. Lastly, for the night, their ankles were crossed and lashed together with binding fiber. There were quite helpless. Similar precautions were taken with the female slaves. Each now, it being night, was tightly gagged. Further, they were alternated, the ankles of one being crossed and bound, and fastened to the throat of the next. This makes it impossible for the girls to rise to their feet. Their wrists, of course, were still secured, with Gorean perfection, behind their backs. I would have no allies within the stockade.

  Marlenus and the other male slaves lay closest to the back wall of the stockade. Then, on the other side of them, closer to the sea, lay the gagged, helplessly thonged slave girls; then came the blankets and supplies of Hura’s twenty-one women’ them came the equipment of the fifty-five men of Tyros, almost at the margin of the animal fires.

  Again and again the men of Tyros and their fair allies, the women of Hura, cheered.

  I slipped back, unnoticed, into the darkness. I must make rendezvous with the Rhoda and Tesephone before Sarus.

  I would need, however, help for my plan to succeed. I would see that I had such help.

  Now I must be patient. And I would, for some Ahn, sleep.

  I awaken after some two or three Ahn, judging by the flight of the moons. I washed with a bit of water from a stream, ate some tabuk strips from my wallet, and went again to the edge of the forest. The tunic of Tyros, in a tight roll, was tied across my back. I wore green, now black in the darkness, and moved with stealth, as a warrior moves who hunts men, mixing with the shadows, one darkness among others, a movement and a silence.

  To my satisfaction I saw that the great beacon was burning low. It would need replenishment.

  It was not long that I waited in the shadows before I heard, from within the stockade, commands and the piteous remonstrances of pleading slave girls. I then heard, again and again, the fierce, snapping crack of the slave lash. It fell again and again on the vulnerable, secured bodies of girls in bondage. Its searing cruelty would teach them, and swiftly, that no choice was theirs but immediate complete and abject obedience. I heard no screaming. A girl cannot scream under the lash. She can scarcely breathe. She can scarcely whisper, hoarsely, piteously, begging for mercy. In Port Kar I had seem the fingernails of girls torn to the quick as they scratched at stones against which they were tied. If she is bound against a wall her entire body may be injured, wiped with abrasions, as she tried to escape the whip. For this reason a girl to be whipped is often suspended from a ring or a pole.

  In a few minutes as I had expected, I saw some pairs of slave girls, three pairs, each pair tied together by the neck, brutally driven, stumbling, crying out, from the palisade. A man of Tyros, with a whip, followed each pair. I noted that, as I would have supposed, and had been anticipating, that the girls driven forth now to gather wood, and were isolated in the slave line between Sheera and Grenna, both panther girls. The other two pairs, whimpering, were girls from Marlenus’ camp. All of these girls were terrified of the forest. None of hem, presumably, could survive alone in it. It was natural that the pairs had been arranged as they had, particularly that of Cara and Tina, given their location in the coffle. I needed Tina, and I preferred to have Cara, too, though, for my plan, another girl might do as well. If Cara had not been tied with Tina I should still have done what I did. I needed the pair which contained Tina. I had suspected, as long ago as Lydius, that that fantastic little wench might prove of great utility to my enterprises. I had not, however, expected to apply her as I now intended.

  The men of Tyros, following the weeping girls with their whips, did not care to enter the forest.

  “Gather wood, quickly, and return!” cried the fellow guarding Cara and Tina. “Do not drive us into the forest!” begged Cara. She knelt and put her head to his feet.

  “Come with us,” wept Tina. “Please, Master!” she knelt before him, holding his ankle, her lips pressed to his foot.

  For answer the slave lash fell twice.

  Weeping, the two girls sprang to their feet and ran to the edge of the forest and, trying not to enter into its shadows, rapidly, weeping, began to break branches and gather wood.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” called their guard.

  He snapped the whip.

  The two girls in bondage knew well the sound of the whip. They cried out with misery.

  They had already been beaten, too, in the stockade. Their delicate flesh, like that of any slave girl, was terrified of the lash. The only woman, slave or free, who does not cringe before the lash is she who had not felt it. But, too, they feared the forest, the darkness, the animals. There were girls of civilized cities. The forest at night, with its sounds, its perils, the teeth and claws of its predators, was a nightmare of terror for them.

  They carried two armloads of branches, and fell to their knees before the guard. “Let it be enough,” they wept.

  They wished to return, and promptly, to the light of the animal fires. They looked up at him, pleading.

  “Gather more wood, Girls,” said he to them.

  “Yes, Master,” they said.

  “And deeper in the forest,” said he.

  “Please!’ they wept.

  He lifted the whip.

  “I obey!” cried Cara.

  “I obey!” wept Tina.

  From far off, in the forest, came the snarling of a panther.

  The girls looked at one another.

  The man gestured with the whip.

  They fled to the darkness of the trees and began to break and gather wood. In a few minutes, each with an armload of sticks and branches, they emerged. They knelt before the figure in the yellow of Tyros who stood with the whip, waiting for them, on the beach.

  “Is it enough?” begged Cara, looking down.

  “It is quite enough,” I told them.

  They looked up, startled.

  “Be silent!” I warned them.

  “You!” breathed Cara.

  “Master,” whispered Tina, her eyes wide.

  “Where is the guard?” asked Tina.

  “He stumbled and fell,” I told them. “It seems he struck his head upon a stone.” I did not expect he would awaken for several hours.

  “I see,” said Cara, smiling.

  He had not expected danger from the seaward side of the beach. There were many large, flattish, rounded stones on the beach. He had encountered one. “There is great danger here for you, Master,” said Tina.:You had best flee.” I looked across the beach, some two hundred yards, to the palisade. I wiped sand from my right hand on the woolen tunic of Tyros.

  Then I looked down at Tina.

  “There are more than fifty men of Tyros here,” said Tina.

  “There are fifty-five, ex
cluding Sarus of Tyros, their leader,” I told her. She looked at me.

  “It was you who followed us,” said Cara.

  “You must flee,” whispered Tina, “there is danger here for you.”

  “I think,” said Cara, smiling, “there is danger her, too, for those of Tyros.” I looked up at the moons.

  It was near the twentieth hour, the Gorean midnight. I must hurry.

  “Follow me,” I told the two slaves.

  They leaped to their feet and, still tied together by the neck, in their tattered woolen tunics, followed me along the beach.

  Behind us we heard men calling out the name of another man, doubtless that of the guard, his struck unexpectedly by the blow of a stone. Doubtless he would conjecture that the girls had managed to sneak behind him and strike him, thus making good their escape. There would be wonderment at that, of course, for the girls had been only girls of the civilized city, thought to be terrified of the forest night.

  We saw torches far behind us, the search for the guard.

  I lengthened my stride. The girls, tied together, stumbling, struggled to match my pace.

  The wood we left behind us on the beach. The men of Tyros might use it for their fires, and their beacon.

  I did not begrudge them its use. It would do them little good.

  I looked up at the sun. it was near the tenth hour, the Gorean noon. I snapped off a large branch, extending from a fallen tree, with the flat of my foot.

  I then dragged it down to the beach and threw it on the great pile of wood which I, and Cara and Tina, had accumulated.

  I had freed them of the neck tether, and they had worked tirelessly, and with ardor. They had worked as might have free persons. It had not been necessary to use the whip, stolen from the guard, on them.

  Their zeal puzzled me. They were only female slaves.

  “We are ready,” I told them.

  We surveyed the great construction of dried branches and gathered driftwood. We had done well.

  We had trekked during the night and into the morning. Then we had not stopped to rest, but had begun to gather wood.

  I surveyed our great accumulation of driftwood and branches. We had done well. Being slaves they had dared not inquire of me the intention of our efforts. I was not displeased that they had not done so. I had no wish to beat them. It would have cost me time.

  The piles of branches and driftwood was some twenty pasangs south of the camp of the men of Tyros.

  The girls smiled at me, they were weary.

  “To the edge of the forest, Slaves,” I told them.

  At the fringe of the forest, overlooking the sloping beach, covered with its stones, and, lower, with its sand. I found a strong, slender tree, with an outjutting branch some five feet from the ground, the branch facing away from the water.

  “You will have the first watch,” I told Tina. “You are to alert me to the presence of a sail or sails on the horizon.” “Yes, Master,” said Tina.

  I shoved her back against the tree.

  “Put your arms over your head,” I told her. “Now bend your elbows.” I tied each wrist separately, tightly, again the tree, lopping the binding fiber about the tree twice, and twice over the outjutting branch. She stood, thus, facing the sea, her wrists tied back, against each side of the tree. With another length of binding fiber I jerked her belly back against the tree, tying it there, tightly.

  “If you fall asleep,” I told her, “I will cut your throat.”

  She looked at me. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

  I thrust some strips of tabuk meat from my walled into her mouth.

  “Eat,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I also gave her some water from the guard’s canteen.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  I looked at Cara.

  “It will not be necessary to bind me,” said Cara.

  “Lie on your stomach,” I told her, “and cross your wrists, behind your back, and your ankles.” “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I also secured her by the neck, by means of a thong, to a nearby tree. I turned her over. “Open your mouth,” I told her.

  She did so.

  I thrust some strips of tabuk meat into her mouth.

  “Eat,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  When she was finished, I lifted her in my left arm, giving her to drink from the canteen.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

  I recalled how she had looked in the compartments of Samos, so long ago, when he and I had addressed our attentions to the board of the game, and while Rim, then a slave, chained, had watched.

  I looked at Tina, tied, back against the tree, my slave. How long ago it seemed she had cut my purse in a street along the wharves of Lydius.

  Both had been swept up, helpless slaves, both beautiful, in the harsh games of men.

  But it was unimportant. They were only slaves.

  I fed from the tabuk strips in my wallet, looking out to sea, and then drank from the canteen of the guard.

  I was weary.

  I returned to where Cara lay bound. She was helpless, and beautiful. She was slave. Already she was asleep.

  I lay down on the leaves to rest.

  I looked up at the branches, and the leaves and then I, too, almost immediately fell asleep.

  I awakened only once before nightfall, to change the position of Tina and Cara. I wished Tina to be fresh. She was asleep even before I had thonged her neck to the tree.

  At nightfall I arose. I freed both Cara and Tina. I looked up at the moons. They rubbed their wrists, where my binding fiber had bitten into them.

  I looked out to sea, across the vast, placid waters of Thassa, now bright with oblique moonlight. We three stood together on the beach, on the sands, among the stones, and observed Thassa, the murmuring, gleaming, elemental vastness, Thassa the Sea, said in the myths to be without a farther shore.

  It seemed to me not unlikely that this would be the night.

  “How beautiful it is,” said Cara.

  I saw no sails on the horizon, against the fast-graying sky.

  I took water from the canteen, and ate strips of tabuk meat from my wallet. The girls regarded me. They, too, were hungry and thirsty.

  “Kneel,” I told them.

  When I had satisfied my thirst, there was little left in the canteen. I threw it to Cara. She and Tina then finished the bit of water remaining. When I had satisfied my hunger on the tabuk strips, there was but one left. I tore it in two and threw half to each of the girls.

  They were Gorean girls, and slaves. They did not complain. They knew that they had been fed earlier in the day. They knew that, if it were not my will, they would not be fed at all.

  Access to food and water is a means of controlling and training slaves, as it is of any animal.

  I looked upward. The moonlight would not last for more than an Ahn. I was pleased.

  Clouds, like tarns from the north, swept in some stratospheric wind, were moving southward. Their flight was black and silent, concealing the stars, darkening the sky.

  On the beach it was quiet, a calm night, in early summer.

  What turbulence there was, was remote, seemingly far removed from us, a matter only of clouds, silently whipped in distant, unfelt winds, like rivers, invisible in the sky, breaking their banks, hurling and flooding in the night, carrying the intangible debris of darkness before them, soon to extinguish the fires of the stars, the swift lamps of the three Gorean moons.

  The night was calm, a still evening in early summer, rather warm. Somewhere, abroad the Thassa, concealed by the bending of a world, moved the Rhoda and Tesephone.

  But they must be near. They had a rendezvous to keep.

  I looked out to sea.

  Thassa seemed now an unbroken vastness, where a black sky met a blacker sea. We could hear her, restless.

  “It is time,” I told the slaves.

  Together
we picked our way down the beach, across the stones, across the soft sands, until we came to the side of the great accumulation of branches and driftwood which we had earlier prepared.

  From my wallet I took a small, smooth stone and a tiny, flat metal disk. I lighted a brand.

  This brand I then thrust into the great pile of branches and driftwood. Gorean galleys do not commonly sail at night, and, often put into shore during darkness.

  I expected, however, because of the dangers of the shores of Thassa, and the importance of their mission, the Rhoda and Tesephone, though they might like at anchor, would not make a beach camp. Had I been the commander of the two ships I would have laid to offshore, coming in only when necessary for water or game. I would also, however, following common Gorean naval custom, have remained within sight of, or in clear relation to, the shore. The Gorean galley, carvel built, long and of shallow draft, built for war and speed, is not built to withstand the frenzies of Thassa. The much smaller craft of the men of Torvaldsland, clinker built, with overlapping, bending planking, are more seaworthy. They must be, to survive in the bleak, fierce northern waters, wind-whipped and skerry-studded. They ship a great deal more water than the southern carvel-built ships, but they are stronger, in the sense that they are more elastic. They must be baled, frequently, and are, accordingly, not well suited for cargo. The men of Torsvaldland, however, do not find this limitation with respect to cargo a significant one, as they do not, generally, regard themselves as merchants or traders. They have other pursuits, in particular the seizure of riches and the enslavement of beautiful women.

  Their sails, incidentally, are square, rather than triangular, like the lateen-rigged ships of the south. They cannot said as close to the wind as the southern ships with lateen rigging, but, on the other hand, the square sails makes it possible to do with a single sail, taking in and letting out canvas, as opposed to several sails, which are attached to and removed from the yard, which is raised and lowered, depending on weather conditions.