Savages of Gor (13 page)

"I am glad to hear that," I said.

"But I would not want to own one," said the young man.

"Have you ever owned one?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Then you should not speak so soon," I said.

"That is true," he said, laughing.

I myself thought the young man did not know what he was missing. Earth girls, brought to Gor after years of sexual starvation on Earth, finding themselves suddenly subjected to total domination, finding themselves absolute slaves, even to the market and the whip, the brand and the collar, the touch of an insolent master, finding themselves given no choice but to release and manifest their deepest and most and beautiful, most profound, most hitherto hidden female nature often made the most grateful, rapturous and perfect of slaves.

"Still," said the young man, "they are not good for the market."

"That may be true," I said. It seemed to me not unlikely that an influx of barbarian females, in a given area, at a given time, might depress prices. To be sure, the slavers in league with the Kurii usually distributed these girls through out various markets. This made the females more difficult to trace back to their delivery points and, of course, tended, on the whole, to improve the prices one could receive for them.

"It will soon be time to camp," said the young man.

"The slaves, I trust," I said, jerking my head back toward the lovely, bound inmates of the wagon, "are on their slave wine."

"Yes," laughed the young man.

"Please, Master," begged the girl who had spoken earlier to the young man,

"when we camp, tie my neck to a tree and untie my ankles. "I desire to serve you."

"No, I!" cried another girl. "I!" cried another.

The young man laughed. He saw the girls desired to placate him. But, too, of course, to be honest, he was a handsome fellow, and they were bound female slaves. Carting such freight about does not pay high wages but there are fringe benefits connected with such work. If the girls are not virgins such a teamster commonly has his pick of the load.

"My neck, too, can be tied to a tree, and my ankles, too can be untied, Master," said another of the girls, addressing me. She was a luscious blonde.

I slapped the wood of the wagon box with pleasure.

"Look!" said the young man, suddenly, pointing to our right. "Smoke!"

Almost at the same moment he rose to his feet and cracked his long whip over the backs of the tharlarion. Grunting, they increased their lumbering pace.

Twice more he cracked his whip. The girls, in the back were suddenly quiet. I gripped the edge of the wagon box. To our right, in a long, sloping valley, some two or three pasangs from the road, there were three narrow, slowly ascending columns of smoke.

"Faster! Har-ta!" cried the young man to the tharlarion.

"Surely we must stop," I said. "Perhaps we can render assistance."

"It is too late," he said, "by the time you can see the smoke. Everyone here, by now, would be dead, or taken."

One of the girls in the back cried out in fear. Naked, bound slaves, they were absolutely helpless.

"Nonetheless," I said, "I must make inquiries."

"You will do so then by yourself," said the young man.

"Agreed," I said. "Stop the wagon."

"Riders!" said the young man. Ahead, on the road, there was a rolling cloud of dust. He jerked the tharlarion back. Grunting they scratched at the gravel of the road. They tossed their snouts in the nose straps. The young man looked wildly about. He could not turn the wagon on the narrow road. The girls screamed, squirming in their bonds.

"They are soldiers," I said. I stood on the wagon box, shading my eyes.

"Thank the Priest-Kings!" cried the young man.

In moments a troop of soldiers, lancers and crossbowmen, mounted on kaiila, reined up about us. They wore the colors of Thentis. They were covered with dust. Their uniforms were black with sweat and dirt. The flanks of their prancing kaiila were lathered with foam. They snorted and, throwing back their heads, sucked air into their lungs. Their third lids, the transparent storm membranes, were drawn, giving their wild, round eyes a yellowish cast.

"Dust Legs," said the officer with the men. "The road is closed. Whither are you bound?"

"Fort Haskins," said, the young man.

"You cannot remain here, and it would be dangerous to go back," said the officer. "I think you are best advised to proceed to Fort Haskins as quickly as possible."

"I shall do so," said the young man.

"It is unusual, is it not, for the Dust Legs to be on the rampage?" I asked. I had understood them to be one of the most peaceful of the tribes of the Barrens. Indeed, they often acted as intermediaries between the men of the settlements and the wilder tribes of the interior, such as the Yellow Knives, the Sleen and Kaiila.

"Who are you?" asked the officer.

"A traveler," I said.

"We do not know what has stirred them up," said the officer. "They have taken no life. They have only burned farms and taken kaiila."

"It is perhaps a warning, of some sort," I said.

"It would seem so," said the officer. "They did not, for example, attack at dawn. They came openly, did their work unhurriedly, and withdrew."

"It is very mysterious," I said.

"They are a peaceful folk," said the officer, "but I would be on my way, and with dispatch. Sleen or Kaiila may be behind them."

One of the girls in the back whimpered in terror.

The officer, slowly, rode around the wagon, looking through the wooden bars at our bound cargo. The girls shrank back under his gaze, bound, inspected slaves.

"I would be on my way as soon as possible," said the officer. "I would not expect even Dust Legs to resist this cargo."

"Yes, Captain!" said the young man. The officer took his mount to the side and the soldiers, too, drew their kaiila to one side or the other. The young man then stood up, shaking the reins with one hand and cracking the whip with the other. "Move, move, you beasts!" he cried. The tharlarion lumbered into motion and the slack was taken up in the traces, and the wagon, creaking, lurched ahead. The girls were as quiet as tiny, silken field urts in the presence of forest panthers, being conducted in their cage between the ranks of the soldiers. In a few Ehn we were more than a pasang down the road. It was lonely, and dark. There was whimpering, and sobbing, behind us.

"The slaves are terrified," I said.

"We shall not camp," said the young man. "We shall press on through the night. I shall, stop only, from time to time, to rest the tharlarion."

"That is wise," I said.

"It is not like the Dust Legs," he said.

"That, too, would be my understanding of the matter," I said.

5
     
I Throw Stones on the Road to Kailiauk

I stepped aside, to the side of the road. It had rained early this morning. The road was still muddy. The men, some afoot, some on kaiila, with the clank of weapons and the rattle of accouterments, filed past me. I looked into the eyes of some of them. They were mercenaries. Yet they belonged to no mercenary company I recognized. Doubtless they had been hired here and there.

They wore various uniforms, and parts of uniforms, and carried an assortment of weapons. Some of them, I suspected, might even be men without a Home Stone. They were moving northward, as I was. They, I speculated, were bound for kailiauk. I took it there were about a thousand of them. This was unusually large for a mercenary force. It would require a considerable amount of money to hire and sustain such a force.

In the center of the road, approaching, between, and with, the lines, drawn by two tharlarion, was an ornately carved, two-wheeled cart. An officer, a bearded fellow with plumed cap, perhaps the captain of the mercenary company, beside this cart. On a curule chair, fixed on the high cart, under a silken canopy, proud and graceful, bedecked with finery, garbed in the ornate Robes of Concealment, sat a woman. Chained by the neck to the side of the cart, clad in rags, was a red youth.

"Hold!" said the woman, lifting her small, white-gloved hand as the cart drew near to me.

"Hold!" called the officer, turning his kaiila and lifting his hand.

"Hold! Hold!" called other officers. The lines stopped. The woman lowered her hand.

She regarded me. "Tal," she said.

"Tal, Lady," said I to her.

With one hand, nonchalantly, she freed her outer veil. Her features, then, were concealed but poorly by the second veil, little more thin a wisp of diaphanous silk. She did this, apparently, that she might speak to me more easily. She smiled. I, too, smiled, but inwardly. A master might have given such a veil to a slave as a joke. She was a vain woman. She wished me to see that she was stunningly beautiful. I saw that she might make an acceptable slave.

"I see that you carry a sword," she said.

"Yes, Lady," said I.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"A traveler, a swordsman," I said.

"This is the Lady Mira, of Venna," said the bearded officer. "I am Alfred, captain of this company, mercenary of Port Olni." Venna is a resort town west of the Voltai, north of Ar. Port Olni is located on the north bank of the Olni River. It is a member of the Salerian Confederation.

"Apparently you do not wish to reveal your name," said the woman.

"The name of a lowly fellow, such as myself," I said, "could surely be of no interest to so fine a lady."

"Are you a bandit?" she asked.

"No, Lady," said I.

"Can you use the blade hung at your hip?" she asked.

"After a fashion, Lady," I said.

"We are hiring swords," she, said.

"My thanks, Lady," I said. "I do not wish to take fee."

"Draw your weapon," said the officer.

I drew the blade quickly, smoothly, and stepped back. When a Gorean tells you to draw your blade, it is generally not wise to spend a great deal of time discussing the matter. He may have something in mind.

"Attack him," said the officer to one of the men nearby.

Our blades had not crossed twice before the point of sword was at the fellow's throat.

"Do not kill him," said the officer hastily.

I resheathed my blade and the fellow white-faced, backed away.

"A silver tarsk a month," said the officer. This was a handsome sum. I was sure it was more than most of the men about me were receiving.

"Whither are you bound, Captain," I asked, "and on what business!"

"We are going to Kailiauk, and are then going to enter the Barrens," he said. "There are tribes to be subdued."

"I do not understand," I said.

"Surely you have heard of the depredations which took place yesterday?" he asked.

"Your forces were surely assembled before yesterday," I said.

He laughed. I supposed such forces might indeed enter the Barrens and wreak some havoc, perhaps falling upon some Dust-Leg villages. Too often it seems it is the peaceful and innocent who are slaughtered. In this a lesson may be found that it may not be prudential to be either too peaceful or too innocent. One does not survive with wolves by becoming a sheep. That is only a short cut to destruction.

"There are thousands of savages in the Barrens," I said.

"These men are professionals," he said. "One such mercenary is worth a thousand half-naked savages."

I heard laughter about me.

"They will flee," he said, "at the very sound of our drums."

I said nothing.

"Too long has the perimeter held," he said. "We shall advance it, to the east. The banners of civilization are in our grasp."

I smiled. I wondered if barbarisms were civilizations which were not one's own.

"Are you going to take a woman into the Barrens?" I asked. "Surely you can surmise what the red savages would do with such a woman?"

"I am perfectly safe, I assure you," laughed the Lady Mira. I wondered what she would feel like if she found herself naked and bound with rawhide, lying at the feet of lustful warriors.

"The Lady Mira is of the Merchants," said the officer. "She has been empowered to negotiate hide contracts with the conquered tribes."

"Who is this?" I asked, indicating the red youth, in chained by the neck to the side of the cart.

"Urt, a Dust Leg, a slave," said the officer. "We purchased him in the south. He can speak with Dust Legs, and knows sign."

The boy looked at me, with hatred.

"How long was he a slave?" I asked.

"Two years," said the officer.

"From whom was he originally purchased?" I asked.

"Dust Legs," said the officer.

"It seems unlikely they would sell one of their own tribe," I said.

"They are savages," said the officer.

"You are not a Dust Leg," I said to the boy.

He did not respond to me.