to Verna and her band, not seemingly so long ago. I smiled. Such an exotically vintaged wine might prove of value. These items, and many others from the baggage abandoned at the old camp, I sorted through. When I had decided what we would and would not take, I, and Ilene and the paga slaves divided up the burdens. Four girls, on their shoulders, would carry the heavy tarpaulin.
I was pleased with the amount of foodstuffs found left behind. It did not seem likely to me that it would have been poisoned, but, even if it were, I and the paga slaves would be in little danger from it. It would be fed first to the prisoners.
The fists of the chained panther girls, sitting chained on the grass, were clenched. They could not believe what they saw before them, boxes, and bundles, the rolled tarpaulin.
“We are panther girls!” cried the blond girl in the ankle ring. “We are not porters of a man!” it was she who was struck first with the switch by the red-haired girl, who leaped among them, striking and slashing with the supple lash.
The blond girl, weeping, seized up her burden, and stood straight in the coffle. She carried the box on her head, in the fashion of the Gorean woman. She balanced it with her right hand. She stood straight. She was, though in tears, very graceful.
I regarded the coffle. Each beauty carried her burden, we would, at least in the beginning, follow a parallel trail to that taken by my fleeing enemies. Later, if their flight became more precipitate and less rational, we might simply make their route ours. In this fashion the trail would be broken and clear and, if anything of value had been discarded in the flight, we might, if we wished, gather it up and, following, bring it with us.
I turned and strode toward the forest.
I heard the slap of the switch twice behind me, and cries of pain from panther girls.
“Hurry, Slaves!” called the red-haired girl.
Ilene walked beside me. She took quick steps. Her head came only to my shoulder. She looked up at me, and then looked down.
I regarded her sternly. Her hand lifted before her mouth. Fear showed suddenly in her eyes. Would I have the red-haired girl beat her? “Forgive me, Master,” she whispered.
She fled back two paces, and put her head down, trembling. The Gorean slave girl does not dare walk beside a free man. She had forgotten. She had not been long on Gor.
I turned away from her, and continued on. I hear her sob, following me. She had not yet, even, fully, yielded to a man. I expected, however, that soon she would be ready to do so. I had sensed in her body, and her head. She was a pretty slave, the Earth girl. I expected some master would be much pleased with her.
Helplessly yielded, she would be exquisite.
She had not been completely open with me. I would have her sold in Port Kar. I continued on.
Behind me I could hear her quick, light steps, and, behind me, farther back, I could hear the chain of the slave coffle. I would hear the chain, and then a silence, and then the chain again. The left leg of each girl moved in unison, the lovely left ankle of each locked in the clasp of the ankle ring, lifting and carrying the chain that bound them.
I looked back. They were beautiful, the panther girls. They walked straight, and they bore their burdens well. They were a splendid set of slaves.
The red-haired girl walked beside them, with her switch.
I stood on the branch of a tree, concealed in foliage. The slave chain of the men of Tyros passed below me.
It was a long chain, containing ninety-six men. Each was double fastened, and the hands of each were manacled behind his back. Each was chained by the left ankle, and each too, by the throat. About the left ankle of each and the neck of each had been hammered a band of iron, each band with two welded rings. At two ends, then, of a given length of chain, links had been hammered shut again. In this fashion, rude but effective, was formed the long slave chain.
Marlenus was first on the chain, followed by his men. Then came Rim, who had been captured at the time of the raid on the Tesephone. Then came Arn, and the other eight men of mine who had been in the camp of Marlenus when it had been attacked.
Following the men came a coffle of twenty-four slave girls. They were tied together by the neck, by binding fiber. Their wrists were bound behind their body by slave bracelets.
Men of Tyros, and panther girls, flanked the lines of slaves.
Many supplies had been tied on the backs and shoulders of the male slaves. Apparently the men of Tyros, and the panther girls, feared to free their hands. I did not blame them in this matter, for the men they guarded were dangerous. Some burdens were carried even by the men of Tyros. Others, lighter burdens, were carried by certain of the panther girls.
Eight of the men of Tyros, with whips, struck the male slaves. Four panther girls, with switches, hurried the lovely, tethered, braceleted bondswomen. I looked down.
The slave girls now passed beneath me. Only Sheera had been stripped. I saw Cara and Tina, still in their white wool slave tunics, save that they were now dirtied and torn. To my surprise, also in a woolen slave tunic, in coffle, was Grenna, whom I had captured in the forest. She had stood high in the band of Hura. But they were keeping her slave. Panther girls have little patience for those of their number who fall slave. Grenna’s neck knot was tied as tightly as that of any of the other girls; her wrists were confined no less securely behind her back. she was as much slave as they. Then there came six panther girls, who had been of Verna’s band, in their skins, and then, still in lipstick and earrings, still in her bit of slave silk, cam Verna, and then, following her, came the other eight girls who had been of her band. I saw the girl behind her, with her heel, kick at the back of Verna’s knee. She fell back, twisting, strangling in the fiber. She struggled to her feet, muchly switched. One of the switches cut the silk on her body. She tried to turn to face the girl who had kicked her, but strangling, was pulled ahead by the girl in front of her. She was then struck more with switches.
“Hurry, Slave,” cried one of the girls of Hura, striking her twice again with a switch.
Verna hurried on, a slave girl under the switch.
It was no accident that Verna, garbed and adorned as she was, as a pleasure slave, had been tied among panther girls. She even still wore slave bells at her ankle. I suspected that, in the eyes of the men of Tyros, and those of the girls of Hura, her position in the slave coffle was regarded as, and intended as, a delicious cruelty. The remaining slave girls, who had been girls in Marlenus’ camp, brought north for the recreation of his men, were safely tied behind the panther girls. They brought up the rear of the coffle.
I had seen, near the front of the march, Sarus, leader of the men of Tyros, and near him, Hura, and her lieutenant, Mira, who had first betrayed Verna, and then Marlenus. I smiled to myself. Mira would betray Hura as well. I would see to that.
The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura had had scouts out, flanking their line of march, panther girls.
Two, whom I had encountered, were nearby. They were bound and gagged. I had tied them to a small Tur tree.
The last of the march passed beneath me. I would wait, for a time. Doubtless, there would be rear points. They were not as far behind the main group as they should have been. They were doubtless apprehensive, nervous. They were separated by some fifty yards. I took them individually. It was not difficult in the heavy brush. I left them bound hand and foot, and gagged, near the trail, where I might get them later.
The rear of the march was now open to me. I would later use the flanks. I carried with me four of the seven quivers of arrows taken from panther girls. Their arrows, their bows being smaller, are not as long as the common sheaf arrow of the long bow, but they would be satisfactory. The bow need not be fully drawn to effect a considerable penetration.
Sixteen men of Tyros, in single file, brought up the rear of the march. One begins with the last man, and then the next to the last, and so on. I expected that men would now hesitate to bring up the rear of the march. I returned and picked up the girls I had taken, the day’s catch. I unbound their ankles, tied them together by the neck, and, with a switch, hurried them to the camp. There the dark-haired girl and the blond girl, two of my paga slaves, stripped the new prisoners and I, with Harl rings, part of the freight carried by the panther girls, not speaking, fastened them in the slave chain. There were twenty-five girls now in the chain.
They fed from bowls of slave meal, mixed with water. Too, I cut each of them a piece of the dried, salted meat taken from the abandoned camp of Tyros and the girls of Hura.
“What if the food is poisoned?” asked the blond girl, in her ankle ring. “Eat,” I told her.
She looked at me.
“Eat, Slave,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Looking at me apprehensive, she chewed and swallowed.
“Quickly,” I told her.
“Yes, Maser,” she said.
Swiftly, frightened, she finished the bowl of slave mean and the piece of salted, dried meat.
I observed her. She suffered no ill effects. The food had not been poisoned. Later, when the moons were high, the paga slaves and I partook of it as well. I was pleased that we had this food, much of it, because I did not wish to be distracted by the need to seek out supplies.
In the forest I was hunting game other than tabuk.
The loose end of the slave chain, attached to the front of the first girl’s ankle ring, I took from her wrist. I fastened it about a small tree, thus tethering the entire chain of girls to the tree.
“Lie down,” I told the girls. “Closely together.”
They did so.
I then, with the aid of the paga slaves, covered them with the tarpaulin and pegged it down.
I lay awake, looking up at the moons.
I turned my head to one side, and saw, some yards away, at the edge of the camp, in her yellow silks, Ilene. She was standing with her back against the trunk of a tree, her hands behind her back. Her head was turned toward me. Her hair was long and dark. She was very lightly complexioned. She was slender.
I rose and went to her.
“You are of Earth,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“The others are asleep,” she said. “I must talk to you.”
“Speak,” I said.
