'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 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. 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. 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. 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 my 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.
