The tall girl, the blond girl, their leader, called Verna, lithe in the skins of forest panthers, in her golden ornaments, with her spear, strode to where Lana lay on the grass, on her side, bound and gagged. With her spear, Verna rolled Lana onto her back. Lana looked up at her in terror. Verna's spear was at her throat.
'You danced well,' said Verna.
Lana trembled.
Verna looked at her with contempt, and then drew aside the spear. She kicked Lana savagely in the side. 'Kajira!' she scorned.
The tall girl then went to Ute and kicked her as well, again saying, 'Kajira!' Lana whimpered, but Ute made no sound. There were tears in her eyes over the gag.
'Tie the men in sitting positions about the fire,' ordered Verna.
Her girls, perhaps fifteen of them, complied. They used a heavy chest, and a wagon tongue, to do so.
From a distance it would appear that they sat about the fire.
Verna approached me.
She frightened me. She seemed tall, and strong. There was a feline arrogance in the barbarian beauty. She seemed magnificent and fierce in the brief skins and 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.' 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. 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
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. 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. '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.
