Captive of Gor (32 page)

peripheries of their claims. In the border forts, of course, there is little

provision for the goods of merchants, their wagons, and such. There is usually

room (pg. 220) for little more than their garrisons, and their slaves. I hoped I

would not be a slave girl in a distant border fort. I wanted to reside in a

luxurious city, where there would be many goods, and sights and pleasures. I

wanted to wear my collar in great Ar itself.

Five days out of Ko-ro-ba, we had stopped at one of these Merchant Fortresses.

Inside the interior wall, girls are sometimes permitted to run free. They cannot

escape, and it pleases them.

One wagon at a time, for a given interval, Targo permitted his girls, in wagon

sets, to enjoy freedom of movement. How I ran inside the large fortress.

Then I cried out, “Lana! Lana!”

“What?” she asked.

“Look!” I cried.

Over against one long wall of the stockade was the camp of the huntsmen of

Marlenus. They had left Ko-ro-ba after us, but they had traveled more swiftly.

Lana and I, and some of the other girls, ran to look at the cages of sleen and

panthers, and the trophies. Lana laughed at the cages of male slaves.

She and I went to them, with others, too, to taunt them.

We would come close to the cages, and when they would reach for us, we would

jump back.

“Buy me!” I laughed.

“Buy me! Buy me!” laughed the others.

One of the men reached his hand for Lana. “let me touch you,” he begged.

She looked at him, contemptuously. “I do not permit myself to be touched by

slaves,” she said. She laughed scornfully. “I will belong to a free man, not a

slave.”

Then she walked away from him, as a slave girl, taunting him.

He shook the bars in anger.

“I, too,” I informed him, “will belong to a free man, not a slave.”

Then I, too, walked away from him, showing him the contempt of a slave girl.

I heard him cry out with rage, and I laughed.

(pg. 221) We looked, too, at the sleen and the panthers, and the skins, and the

great, captive hith.

Verna’s girls, the fifteen of them, stripped, were housed, crouching and

kneeling, in small, metal cages. We threw dirt on them, and spat at them.

I was particularly pleased to abuse the blond-haired girl, who had held my leash

in the forest. I found a stick and poked her through the bars.

She snapped and snarled at me, like an animal, and reached, clawing, through the

bars for me, but I was too quick for her.

I poked her again and again, and threw dirt on her, and laughed.

“Look!” said Lana.

I left the blond-haired girl.

We stopped before Verna’s cage.

There were some of the huntsmen about, but neither Lana nor I feared them. They

were not, we noted, much interested in what we did.

That gave us courage.

“Greetings, Verna,” said I, boldly.

She was no longer manacles, but she was, I noted, securely confined in the cage.

The cage itself was now hung from a pole, rather like a high trophy pole. Its

floor was about six inches off the ground.

I looked up at her.

She looked down at me.

I would have preferred to have looked down upon her, but she was a taller woman

than I, and, of course, the cage was suspended somewhat off the ground.

“Perhaps you remember me?” I asked.

She looked at me, saying nothing.

“It was I, incidentally,” I informed her, “who, in Ko-ro-ba, first cried out to

the slave girls to strike you. It was I who instigated their attack.”

She said nothing.

“It is to me,” I informed her, “that you owe that beating.”

(pg. 222) Her face was expressionless.

I still held the stick with which I had poked the blond-haired girl, she who had

held my leash in the forest.

I struck out with it, upsetting the pan of water in her cage, emptying it. The

water ran over the small, circular floor of the cage, and some of it dripped

out, falling to the ground.

Still Verna made no move.

I walked about the cage. Verna could not watch both myself and Lana.

She did not turn to follow me. Behind the cage I reached in and stole the food

she had in the cage, two larma fruit lying, split, on its metal floor. I bit

into one and tossed the other to Lana, who, too, ate it.

When we had finished the fruit, Lana and I discarded the skin and seeds.

Verna still watched us, not moving.

I was angry.

Suddenly I struck at her with the stick, and she flinched, but did not cry out.

Lana threw dirt on her.

Then I seized the cage and, on its chain, spun it about. The chain twisted, and

then the cage turned. Lana and I, laughing, spun the cage back and forth, and

when I could I struck Verna through the bars. We struck her, and spat on her,

and threw dirt on her.

There were huntsmen nearby but they did not restrain us. We had much sport.

Then we let the cage hang still. Verna had her eyes closed. She held the bars.

She swallowed.

After a time she opened her eyes.

We, for some minutes more, continued to abuse her, with sticks and dirt, and our

spittle and our insults. She made no response.

I was not afraid of her. I had never been afraid of her.

Then we heard one of Targo’s guards calling us. It was time for us to be

returned to our wagon, and for another set of girls to be freed, to enjoy the

liberty of the compound.

(pg. 223) I gave Verna another blow with the stick.

“Can’t you say anything?” I screamed. I was infuriated that she had not cried

out, that she had not groveled, that she had not wept for mercy.

We heard the guard call again.

“Hurry,” said Lana, “or we will be beaten!”

I gave Verna one last blow, a stinging stripe across the shoulder, with the

stick.

“Can’t you say anything?” I screamed at her.

“You have pierced ears,” she said.

I cried out in anger, and turned, throwing away the stick, and ran back to the

wagon.

* * *

I threw another berry into the bucket.

“Ute,” I said.

Ute turned again, to regard me.

“Speak to Inge,” I said to her. “Tell her not to be cruel to me.” I did not wish

to address the girls of the chain as Mistress.

“Why do you not speak to her yourself?” asked Ute.

“She doesn’t like me,” I said. “She would beat me.”

Ute shrugged.

“She likes you, Ute,” I pressed. “Speak to her for me. Ask her not to make me

call the other girls Mistress. I do not wish to do so. They are only slaves!”

“We are all slaves,” said Ute.

“Please, Ute,” I begged.

“All right,” said Ute. “I will ask her.”

Ute then turned away, and continued to pick berries. It was now late in the

afternoon. We were perhaps a pasang and a half from the distant wagons. From the

hill on which we now picked berries I could see them. It would be time for the

evening meal soon.

I looked about to see if the guard was watching. He was not.

My bucket was no more than half full.

Ute had put her bucket behind her and was picking berries about a yard ahead of

it. Her back was to me. Ute was such a stupid little thing. I put my finger

under the (pg. 224) wide strap knotted about my throat, which tethered me to

her. Then I crept close and took two handfuls of berries from her bucket and put

them in mine.

I kept some to put in my mouth.

Then, as I put the berries in my mouth, I thought I heard something. I looked

up, and back. Ute, too, and the guard, at the same time, heard it. He cried out

and, angrily, began to run back toward the wagon.

Ute saw them before I did, in the distance. I had heard only sound, vague, from

far off, like a myriad snappings, and shrill, wind-borne screams.

“Look!” cried Ute. “Tarns!”

In the distance, in a set of four, long, narrow, extended “V’s”, there came a

flight of tarnsmen. The first “V” was lowest in altitude, and in advance of the

other three; the second was second lowest, and in advance of the other two, and

similarly for the third and fourth. There were no tarn drums beating. This was

not a military formation.

“Raiders!” cried Ute.

I was stunned. What seemed most clear to me, and most incomprehensible, was that

our guard left us. He had run back toward the wagons. We were alone!

“There must be more than a hundred of them!” cried Ute.

I looked up.

“Down!” she cried, and dragged me by the arms to a kneeling position on the

grass.

We watched them strike the caravan, in waves, and turn and wheel again,

discharging their bolts.

The bosk were being cut loose and stampeded. There was no effort to turn the

wagons in a single defensive perimeter. Such a perimeter had little meaning when

the enemy can strike from above. Rather, men, hauling on the wagon tongues and

thrusting with their shoulders, were putting the wagons in a dense square, with

spaces between them. This formation permits men to conceal themselves under the

wagons, the floors of the wagons providing some protection above them. The

spaces between the wagons provides opportunity at the attackers, and gives some

protection (pg 225) against the spreading of fire, wagon to wagon. In many of

the wagons there were still girls chained, screaming. Men there tore back the

covering of blue and yellow canvas, that they might be seen.

“Unchain them!” cried Ute, as though someone might here. “Unchain them!”

But they would not be unchained, unless the day went badly for the caravan, in

which case they would be freed and, like the bosk, stampeded.

In the meantime their bodies served as partial cover for the defenders under and

between the wagons.

The raiders wanted the girls. Indeed, that was the object of their enterprise.

Accordingly, unless they wished to destroy the very goods they sought, their

attack must be measured, and carefully calculated.

Swiftly the formation of tarnsmen wheeled and withdrew.

“The attack is over,” I said.

“They will now use fire,” said Ute.

I watched with horror as, in a few moments, again the sky filled with tarns, and

the beating of wings and the screams of the great birds.

Now, down from the skies rained fiery quarrels, tipped with blazing, tarred

cloth wound about the piles.

Wagons caught fire.

I saw defenders unchaining screaming girls. One’s hair was afire.

The girls huddled under the wagons, many of them burning.

I saw a defender forcing the head of the girl whose hair burned into the dirt,

extinguishing the flames.

I saw two girls now fleeing across the grass, away from the wagons.

Tarnsmen now struck the earth, leaping from their birds, to the east of the

wagon square and, swords drawn, rushed among the burning wagons.

The clash of steel carried dimly to the hill, where Ute and I watched.

“Unbind me!” cried Ute.

(pg 226) The straps we wore about our throats were broad, and the strap, too,

that joined us. But, about the throat, the broad strap, for each of us, was

perforated in two places, and it was by means of narrow binding fiber, passed

several times through the performations and knotted, that it was fastened to our

throats. The guard had knotted the binding fiber, tightly.

My fingers fought at the knot, futilely, picking at it. I was upset. I could not

loosen it.

“I cannot see to untie the knot,” cried Ute. “Untie it!”

“I can’t!” I wept. “I can’t!”

Ute pushed me away and began to chew at the leather strap, desperately, holding

it with her hands.

I wept.

Not all the tarnsmen had dismounted. Some still rode astride the great birds,

though the birds stood now on the grass.

I saw men fighting between the wagons, some falling.

I saw one of the tarnsmen, yet mounted on his tarn, remove his helmet and wipe

his forehead, and then replace the helmet. He was their leader. I could not fail

to recognize him, even at this distance.

“It is Haakon!” I cried. “It is Haakon of Skjern!”

“Of course, it is Haakon of Skjern!” said Ute, biting at the strap, tearing at

it with her fingers.

Now Haakon of Skjern stood in the stirrups of the tarn saddle, and waved his

sword toward the wagons. More warriors dismounted now and rushed among the

wagons.

Several of the wagons were now flaming. I saw men rushing about. Two girls fled

from the wagons, across the fields.

There must have been more than a hundred tarnsmen with Haakon. When he had come

to Ko-ro-ba, he had had little more than forty men, if that many. Others,

mercenaries, he must have recruited in the city.

His men outnumbered those of Targo, considerably.

The sounds of blades carried to where we knelt. I was terrified. Ute was

savagely tearing at the strap with her teeth.

Then, suddenly, from under the burning wagons, across (pg 227) the fields, there

fled dozens of girls, running in all directions.

“He’s driven the girls out,” cried Ute, furiously. She jerked at the strap. She

had not been able to chew it through. She looked at me, savagely. “They had not

see us,” she said, “We must escape!”

I shook my head. I was afraid. What would I do? Where would I go?

“You will come with me or I will kill you!” screamed Ute.