The girls’ gags and waddings, formed from the slave silk of the garments of two of them, I had set out on the grass to dry.
It had grown dark.
I must soon be to the clearing.
I reinserted the gags in the mouths of the fair captives.
“I am of Earth,” said Ilene, piteously.
“You are a Gorean slave girl,” I told her. I then thrust the large wadding into her mouth, and tied it tightly in place. Her eyes, over the gag, regarded me with horror. She knew then that she could be to me only what she would be to any other Gorean male, a slave. I looked into her eyes. They were those of a Gorean slave girl.
I was not pleased with Ilene. She had not been completely open with me. It was for that reason that she would be sold in Port Kar.
I walked about the girls and checked the knots of the slave star. They were secured, perfectly.
They looked at me, over their gags. If panthers came upon them in the night, or sleen, their cried would not serve to alert my enemies.
I was not much pleased with them. They had aided in the betrayal of my camp. Without them it would not have been possible. I recalled how they had, on the beach, laughed and jested with the men of Tyros. Now they, who had served the men of Tyros, were bound as the helpless slaves of one of Port Kar, one to whom, in the betrayal of his camp, they had done great injury.
I smiled, looking at them, and they shuddered. They had served the men of Tyros. They would serve one of Port Kar even better. I would see to that.
I was displeased particularly with the one called Ilene. She had not been completely open with me. I would have special use for her.
As it grew dark I cut and dragged torn brush about the girls, to form a makeshift defensive perimeter.
I saw gratitude in their eyes.
“Do not be grateful to me, Slaves,” said I. “I am saving you for tomorrow, when, in the performance of my will, you will face dangers greater than those of sleen and panthers.” The gratitude in their eyes was transformed to fear.
I thrust the last bush, spreading and thick, of thorn brush into place. Then, not bidding them farewell, I turned and disappeared among the shadows and trees.
On the branch of the tree, high, in the darkness, crouching, I saw the man of Tyros, with his leather glove, reach to the handle of the slave iron, protruding from the brazier. By this time the moons were high. By this time the men of Tyros, and the panther girls, had all gathered about in the conquest circle. He lifted it up and there was a cry of pleasure. It was white with the ferocity of its heating. It was now ready to brand a slave.
Sarus, the leader of the men of Tyros, waved his men back now, except for the man with the iron. They took their places about the edges of the circle, sitting cross-legged. The panther girls of Hura’s band, more than a hundred of them, entered the circle. The moons were now near the height of the sky. At a sign from Hura the man from Tyros thrust the iron back into the brazier, to draw it forth again at her signal. The man with the hide drum then, for the first time was silent.
I looked down into the circle, with its fires, with its men staked out, with the men of Tyros sitting about its edges, with Marlenus helpless beside the brazier, the man from Tyros, with the leather glove, crouching beside it, with the panther girls, beautiful, numerous, lithe, in their skins and necklaces of claws and ornaments of gold.
There was a long silence, of some Ihn, and then, at a nod from Hura, who threw her long black hair back, and lifted her head to the moons, the drum began again its beat. Mira’s head was down, and shaking. Her right foot was stamping. The panther girls put down their heads. I saw their fists begin to clench and unclench. They stood, scarcely moving, but I could sense the movement of the drum in their blood.
The men of Tyros glanced to one another. It was few free men who had ever looked, unbound, on the rites of panther girls.
Hura’s eyes were on the moons. She lifted her hands, fingers like claws, and screamed her need.
The girls then, following her, began to dance.
I looked upon Marlenus. He struggled, but he could not, of course, free himself. It was he who had, long ago, banished me from the city of Ar, denying me bread, fire and salt.
It was he who had always been so successful. It was he upon whom luck and glory had shone.
I began to grow furious with Marlenus. He had been Ubar, the Ubar of Ubars. He had been fortunate, always fortunate. I had come to the forest to find Talena. I had not done so. I, and my men, had been outwitted by panther girls. We had fallen to them. We would have been raped and sold slave had not Marlenus, with almost casual insolence, rescued us.
Then he had invited us to his camp, and we had come, and dined upon his largesse!
In the game he had devastatingly beaten me.
I looked down to the circle.
It might have been a rite not of women, but of she-panthers! How starved must be the lonely, hating panther women of the forests, so gross is their hostility, so fierce their hatred, and yet need, of men. They twisted, screaming now, clawing at the moons. I would scarcely have guessed at the primitive hungers evident in each movement of those barbaric, feline bodies. They would be masters of men. Proud, magnificent creatures. And yet by biology, by their beauty, by their aroused inwardness, could not, in fact, own but only, in their true fulfillment, belong, be taken, be conquered. It was little wonder such proud, fine women hated men, to whom nature had destined them. Woman is the natural love prey of men. She is natural quarry. She is complete only when caught, only when brought to the joy of her capture and conquest. It was not strange that the proud, intelligent women of the forest, and elsewhere, chose war with men, rather than admit the meaning of his strength and swiftness, the meaning of their own weakness and beauty. Set a woman to run down a man and she cannot do so. Set a man to run down a woman and he will be successful. Nature has not destined her to escape him. It has destined her to be his capture and love.
I smiled to myself at those who regarded the needs of women as inferior to those of men. The woman, I realized, looking down upon the panther girls, has an imperative, enormous need. It is as great as that of the male, I expected, perhaps greater, for she is less satiable, and the tissues of her womanhood are widely spread, and intricate and deep. Her entire body, is seems, is alive to feeling, and yielding and touching, is a need. Her beauty is she, and its meaning, from the turn of an ankle to the delicacy of her deft, sweet fingers, from the turn of a calf to her belly and the beauties of her breasts, to those of her shoulders and throat and the marvelousness of her head and hair, is a need. How tragic it is, I thought, that such incredible human beings should be so belittled, frustrated and abused. I do not refer to the cruelties of Gorean slavery, which celebrate women and, in their rude fashion, often uncompromisingly, force the helpless, total surrender she yearns in the heart of her to give, but the subtler, crueler slaveries of Earth, pretending to respect her and then, by education and acculturation, depriving her not only of status and independence, but of love.
The Gorean slave girl, if nothing else, is commonly no stranger to love. She is not permitted to be. She is at man’s beck and call and, accordingly, willingly or not, will be taught love. If necessary she will learn it under the whip, writhing in chains.
The Gorean slave girl, in my opinion, is the most desirable of women. What man, I wonder, fully aroused, does not wish to own his woman. What woman, I wonder, fully aroused, helpless, is not, in fact, in the arms of her lover, owned. The drum was now very heady, swift. The dance of the panther girls became more wild, more frenzied. Vicious, sinuous, clawing, lithe, these savage beauties, in their skins and gold, with their knives, their light spears, weapons darting, danced. They were terrible and beautiful, in the streaming, flooding light of the looming, primitive moons, their eyes blazing. The hair of all was unbound. Several had already, oblivious of the presence of the men of Tyros, torn away their skins to the waist, others completely. On some I could hear the movement of the necklaces of sleen teeth tied about their necks, the shivering and ringing of slender golden bangles on their tanned ankles. In their dance they danced among the staked-out bodies of the men of Marlenus, and about the great Ubar himself. Their weapons leapt at the bound men, but never did the blows fall.
The coals in the brazier formed a blazing cylinder in the firelit darkness of the circle. I could see, dark, the handle of the slave iron.
The dance would soon strike its climax. It could continue little longer. The women would go mad with their need to strike and rape.
Suddenly the drum stopped and Hura stopped, her body bent backward, her head back, her long black hair falling to the back of her knees.
She was breathing deeply, very deeply. Her body was covered with a sheen of sweat.
The girls not put down their weapons and crowded about the bound figure of Marlenus, looking at him, inching closer, breathing heavily, not speaking. “Brand him,” said Hura.
Marlenus had once denied me bread, and fire and salt. He had once banished me from Ar.
My hatred of Marlenus, and my envy of his glory and success, raged within me. He had made me seem a fool, and had devastatingly bested me in the game. I smiled.
I owed him nothing, except perhaps a vengeance for a thousand slights and diminishments, for a thousand unintended, subtle defeats at his hands. He would be branded, and taken to the coast as slave, for transportation to Tyros, island of his enemies. He would march in their triumph, branded, naked, chained to the back of a tharlarion wagon, amid blossoms cast by white-silk maidens dancing beside him. There would be jeering throngs. Then, with music and ceremony, he would be presented before them as he had marched, naked and in the chains of a slave, Sarus, leader of the men of Tyros in the forest, his captor, would them give him to the council. He would then be pronounced, by the council, slave of Tyros… he might then be given a name more fitting a slave then Marlenus. He would then be disposed of as they saw fit. It would be a fit end for Marlenus, Ubar of Ar.
I smiled.
“Brand him!” called Hura. “Brand him!”
Several panther girls, their skins torn away in the dance, held the thigh of Marlenus.
The man of Tyros, grinning, brought the iron forward, in an instant the white-hot marking surface would be pressed deeply into, and held in, for some seconds, the flesh of Marlenus of Ar.
But the iron did not make its strike. It fell to the grass, setting it afire. Hura cried out with rage. The panther girls looked up from where they knelt beside Marlenus. The man of Tyros was bent over, and then, slowly, very slowly, he straightened. He seemed puzzled. Then he turned slowly and fell to the grass. The steel-piled arrow, winged with the feathers of the vosk gull, had pierced his heart.
There was consternation below, screams, men of Tyros leaping to their feet, dirt being cast on fires.
I slipped from the branch on which I had stood, and disappeared in the night.
15 Hunting is Done in the Forest
