Captive of Gor (18 page)

golden ornaments. She put her spear point under my chin and lifted my head.

“What shall we do with the slave?” asked one of the girls.

Verna turned about, to regard Lana and Ute. She gestured to Ute. “Remove that

one’s camisk,” she said. Then she said, “Tie them at the feet of their masters.”

(pg. 120) Ute was stripped of her camisk, and then she and Lana, with a loop of

binding fiber fastened to the ankles of two of the guards, were tied by the

throat at their feet.

Again I felt the point of Verna’s spear under my chin, forcing my head up.

She looked at me for a long time. Then she said, “Kajira.”

I shook my head in denial. No! No!

Some of the girls were rifling in the wagons, gathering food, coins and drink,

cloth, knives, whatever they wished.

They were now ready to depart.

The men were now conscious, and struggled, but they were helpless.

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 only as 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 golden

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. (pg. 121) 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 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

(pg. 122) 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 lashing 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.

(pg. 123) 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 forced the packing from my mouth. I almost

vomited.

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 with her

teeth.”

“Men must find you very pleasing,” said Verna.

“I am not a slave girl,” I told them.

(pg. 124) “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 by 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 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 (pg. 125) 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 nothing.

“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,” said 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.

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

(pg. 126) 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 crumbled 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 knelt.

“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.

(pg. 127) 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.

“Sleen” she said.

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 out 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.

(pg. 128) 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