Ilene, I a scrap of yellow pleasure silk, a barefoot slave girl, terrified, fled through the bushes, breaking branches, head twisting, hair sometimes caught, breathing heavily, eyes wide, legs and body scratched and cut. She stumbled. She rose again, gasping. Her hands were outstretched, trying to force away the branches that impeded her progress, striking at her face and eyes. She stumbled again, and rose again. Then, gasping, crying our with fear, stumbling, pushing her way through lashing branches, she continued her flight.
Two panther girls were swift on her trail, running easily. They were superb athletes, far superior to the inept, clumsy Earth girl who, terrified, fled before them.
Ilene would soon be taken. She was easy prey. The panther girls ran easily, loops of binding fiber loose in their hands.
Ilene, stumbling, fled on. She would soon be taken.
Panther girls enjoy the capture of escaped female slaves in the forests. They despise them, and hunt them like the animals they are. They find it pleasant and delicious sport to take them. They are so helpless and weak.
Ilene fell, breathing heavily. The sound of pursuit was close behind her. Wild eyed, she leaped up and stumbled on again.
It would not be pleasant for Ilene, should she fall to them.
Panther girls hold slave girls in great contempt, and treat them with great cruelty. Slave girls, many of whom have been forced to yield themselves totally to a man, are an object of hatred to panther girls. They represent what the panther girl most fears and hates, her sex. Many slave girls, particularly if broken to the collar, find men extremely attractive, and are eager to serve intimately those they find most pleasing. Panther girls, whose life is predicated on the hatred of men, are not likely to look leniently on such women. The slave girl, of course, is given no choice but to be feminine, to be a female. Strangely this is not regarded as relevant by panther girls. That a girl may have fought to the last moment with the last ounce of her strength to avoid being conquered is of not interest to the panther girl. That she has been conquered is all that counts to them. That her owner had given her no choice but to yield totally is not considered. The panther girl understands only when it is she herself who has been captured and taught her womanhood, only when it is she herself who finds herself in the strong arms of a man who, with or without her consent, makes her wholly feminine, who forces her to yield to him, who is her conqueror.
In my camp I had read the body and the expressions of Ilene. Though in the paga tavern she had been much used, and doubtless well, I could see that she had never, totally, yielded herself to a man. As I touched her, I had noted a subtle stiffness about her belly and shoulders, not uncommon in an Earth girl. I suspected that the beautiful slave had not been long on Gor. She had not yet been fully conquered.
This, however, would not be of interest to her swift pursuers. To them she was only quarry, helpless, inexperienced, clumsy, despicable quarry. She could not conceal her trail. She ran poorly. She would soon be taken. She could not give them much sport. Soon she would be helpless in their binding fiber. Ilene fell again, breathing heavily.
She, a girl from Earth, was no match for the women of Gor. I found myself not too pleased with the women of Earth. They seemed so inept and helpless. They seemed natural prey to Goreans. Gorean men, familiar with the second knowledge, regard the women of Earth as natural slaves. Perhaps this is true. Surely, when they own them, they treat them as such.
Ilene, helplessly, tried to rise.
Swiftly, lightly, the panther girls sprang into the tiny clearing not five yards from her. The binding fiber, in snare loops, was loose in their hands. Ilene was on her hands and knees. She was in the grass. She wore only the bit of pleasure silk. She was breathing heavily, gasping. She looked at the panther girls.
One of the panther girls, elated, strode to her and tied a length of binding fiber about her throat, tightly. She then backed away from her.
Ilene was on her hand and knees, looking at them, the binding fiber tied on her throat, its free end in the grasp of one of her captors.
“We have caught you, Slave,” said one of the girls.
They laughed.
I dropped down behind them.
With two quick blows I stunned them. I tore away their halters, improvising gags. Then, with binding fiber from their own pouches, I tied their hands behind their backs. Their weapons and accouterments I threw to one dies.
They lay on their stomachs.
“Stay as you are,” I told them. “And spread your legs widely,” I told them. They did so.
“More widely,” I said.
They did so. They could then spread them no more widely. It is very difficult for a captive to rise from this position. Also, psychologically, it induces a feeling of helplessness.
I then went to Ilene, who was now standing. Frightened, and I removed the binding fiber from her throat.
“You were excellent bait,” I told her.
I then took the binding fiber and, looping it several times about the throat of each captive, tied them together by the neck. The fiber which separated them was about eight feet in length, enough to serve as a double leash.
With the fiber I pulled them to their feet. I regarded them, my fist on the leash.
“You have been caught, Slaves,” I told them.
They regarded me with fury.
“Take the slaves to our camp,” I told Ilene.’
‘Yes, Master,” she said. She led them away.
I looked at the two panther girls, being led away. They were the first of our catches.
The men of Tyros, I knew, familiar with islands and the sweeps of gleaming Thassa, were inexperienced in the forest. The panther girls were their guides, their hunters, their scouts, their shields.
If I could make it so that the panther girls feared to leave the camp, and, in the marches, would insist on remaining near the long slave chain, putatively protected by their numbers, the men of Tyros would be, for many practical purposes, deprived of the services of their otherwise dangerously effective allies. Most importantly, I supposed, they would lose the services of their huntresses and guards. If the panther girls were in their camps, or near the slave chain in the march, it would be much simpler for me both to approach and withdraw. If the men of Tyros knew, as they would, that I might come and go as I pleased, this would have an unsettling effect upon them. Too, it should produce dissension between the men of Tyros and their allies, the lovely panther girls of the northern forests.
That day I took nine more panther girls. Five I took with the aid of Ilene. We had good fortune, for the camp had not moved. The men of Tyros, and Hura and Mira, wished to find and destroy the assailant who had struck down the man of Tyros the preceding evening. Their searches and sweeps were widely flung. Five of their parties had failed to return. They were now in my camp, slaves. That night I hunted and felled a tabuk, which kill I brought back to my camp, that my prisoners and the paga slaves, now the keepers of my prisoners, might feed. We could not, of course, risk a fire. I cut pieces of meat from the animal, and gave them to the paga slaves, to thrust into the mouths of the panther girls. If a girl would stop chewing, her gag would be replaced. I examined them. There were eleven of them. They were tied in a line, on their knees. The ankles of each were crossed and tied. One long length of binding fiber, captured from a panther girl, served to tie all their ankles. It had ends free only at the first and last girl. Two other long lengths, similarly captured from fair prisoners, served to lash the crossed wrists of each, bound behind their backs, and their throats. Again, free ends occurred, heavily knotted, only at the last and first girl. It is thus, almost impossible for the interior girls to free themselves, and the first and last girls are tied with exquisite effectiveness.
I left my paga slaves, Ilene included, free. I was their master. They feared the panther girls. The forest itself was their prison.
When it grew late I let the prisoners lie, gagged, on their sides. I kept them tied as they had been.
By sundown of the next day I had added only four to their number.
The camp had not moved, but it was clear to me that the panther girls were now alarmed, and that their ventures from the camp were more conservative and timid. I had heard angry shouts from the men of Tyros, telling them to hunt the forests. There had been, too, angry responses by the panther girls. Not many girls went into the forest, and those that did, did not normally go far. One group, leg by a proud blond girl, scorning the others, did range far. There were four of them. They were brave. They were in my coffle, bound, by nightfall. As the moons were high in the Gorean night of the second day I regarded the prisoners.
“They are slaves,” I said to my paga girls. “Strip them.”
It was done.
I gestured to two of the paga slaves, the first girl, dark-haired, and the second, the blond.
“Put on the skins of panther girls,” I told them.
“Yes, Master,” they said.
They drew on the skins. I looked at the redhead, the paga slave.
“You, too, if you wish,” I said, “may clothe yourself.”
Pleased, she did so.
“Master?’ asked Ilene.
“No,” I told her.
She looked at me.
“You are only prey, and bait,” I told her.
She put down her head. “Yes, Master,” she said. When I was finished with her I would have her sold in Port Kar.
I regarded the other girls, the Gorean girls. “You make lovely panther girls,” I said.
They even stood as panther girls. The effect of raiment is extraordinary. Their heads were high. They looked upon me boldly.
One of the stripped panther girls, furious, struggled in her bonds. She was outraged to see a paga slave clad in the skins of panther girls. The dark-haired girl, the paga slave, in the skins of panther girls, leapt to her and seized her by the hair. She shook her hair violently, and then threw her back. Then she turned to Ilene. “Bring me a switch,” she said, imperiously. Ilene, in her silk, commanded, fled and brought her a switch. I had cut it earlier in the day, but had not used it. If any of the prisoners had been insubordinate, or difficult in any way, the paga slaves had been instructed to use it on them. The switch was stout and supple. The dark-haired girl stood over the panther girl, the switch upraised. “Do you, naked slave, have any objection?’ she asked the panther girl. The panther girl, shaking her head negatively, eyes frightened, shrank back in the coffle. The paga slaves, with the exception of Ilene, who perhaps feared the switch might be used on her, laughed.
I went to the three paga slaves clad in the skins of panther girls. Without speaking I tore the skins at their left thighs to the waist, revealing their brands.
