John Norman - Marauders of Gor

"It is we who are victorious," said he.

She opened her eyes. "It is you who are victorious, Master," she said.

Already her hips were moving. "I am only a slave girl," she wept. With a roaring laugh he fell upon her.

"Ivar! Ivar!" cried a voice.

We heard the slave girl cry out with pleasure.

"Ivar!" cried a voice.

Ivar Forkbeard looked up, to see Ottar up the slope of the valley, waving to him.

We made our way toward Ottar, who stood near the burned, fallen tents of Thorgard of Scagnar.

"Here are prisoners and much loot," said Ottar. He gestured at some eleven men of Thorgard of Scagnar. They were stripped of their helmets, belts and weapons. They stood, chained by the neck, their wrists shackled before them.

"I see only loot," said the Forkbeard.

"Kneel!" ordered Ottar.

"Sell them as slaves in Lydius," said the Forkbeard. He turned away from the men.

"Heads down!" commanded Ottar.

They knelt, their heads to the muddied dirt.

The Forkbeard looked at many of the boxes and chests and sacks, of wealth. I had seen this, or much of it, earlier in the morning, when I had pursued the Kur to the tent of Thorgard of Scagnar.

To one side knelt the silken girls I had seen in the tent. There were seventeen of them. Under the dark sky, kneeling in the mud, they looked much different than they had in the tent. Their silks were soiled, their legs and the bottom of their feet stained with mire. Their hands were tied behind their backs. They were fastened to one another by binding fiber in throat coffle. Those that had been wearing chains had had the locks unfastened, the keys found in one of the chests in a nearby tent. Over them, proud and regal, a switch in her hand, stood Olga. She waved the switch at them.

"I took them all for you, my Jarl!" she elated. "I simply ordered them, with confidence and authority, to kneel in a line, facing away from me, to be bound. They did so!"

The Forkbeard laughed at the lovely chattels. "They are slaves," he said.

None of the girls even dared to lift her eyes to him. We saw too, to one side, the former Miss Peggy Stevens of Earth, now Honey Cake. Her eyes were joyous, seeing the Forkbeard, seeing that he lived. She ran to the Forkbeard, kneeling, putting her head to his feet. She, too, like Pretty Ankle had severed binding fiber knotted about her belly. By the ring of the Kur collar which she wore, Ivar Forkbeard jerked her to her feet, so that she stood on her tiptoes, looking up at him. He grinned. "To the pen with you, Slave," he said. She looked at him, adoringly. "Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Wait," said Olga. "Do not permit her to go alone."

"How is this?" asked Ivar.

"Recollect you, my Jarl," asked Olga, "the golden girl, she with ringed ears, from the south, who lost in the assessments of beauty to Gunnhild?"

"Well do I do so," responded Ivar, licking his lips.

"Behold," laughed Olga. She went to a piece of tent canvas, which, casually, loosely, was thrown over some object. She threw it back. Lying in the dirt, her legs drawn up, her wrists tied behind her back, was the deliciously bodied little wench, dark-haired, in gold silk, now dirtied and torn, in golden collar, and gold earrings, who had exchanged words with Ivar's wool-kirtled wenches at the thing. She was the trained girl, the southern silk girl. In fury, she squirmed to her feet.

"I am not a Kur girl," she cried. Indeed, she did not wear the heavy leather collar, with ring and lock, which Kurii fastened on their female cattle. She wore a collar of gold, and earrings, and, torn and muddied, a slip of golden silk, of the sort with which masters sometimes display their girl slaves. It was incredibly brief. "I have a human master," she said, angrily, "to whom I demand to be immediately returned."

"We took her, Honey Cake and I," said Olga.

"Your master," said Ivar, thinking, recollecting the captain behind whom he had seen her heeling at the thing, "is Rolf of Red Fjord." Rolf of Red Fjord, I knew, was a minor captain. He, and his men, had participated in the fighting.

"No!" laughed the girl. "After the contest of beauty, in which, through the cheating of the judges, I lost, I was sold to the agent of another, a much greater one than a mere Rolf of Red Fjord. My master is truly powerful! Release me this instant! Fear him!"

Olga, to the girl's outrage, tore away her golden silk, revealing her to the Forkbeard. "Oh!" she cried, in fury. Gunnhild had won the contest, and won it fairly. But I was forced to admit that the wench now before us, struggling to free her wrists, now revealed to us, luscious, sensuous, short, squirming, infuriated, was incredibly desirable; we considered her body, her face, her obvious intelligence; she would bring a high price; she would make a delicious armful in the furs.

"How is it that you have dared to strip me!" demanded the girl.

"Who is your master?" inquired Ivar Forkbeard.

She drew herself up proudly. She threw back her shoulders. In her eyes, hot with fury, was the arrogance of the high-owned slave. She smiled insolently, contemptuously. Then she said, "Thorgard of Scagnar."

"Thorgard of Scagnar!" called a voice, that of Gorm. We turned. Thorgard of Scagnar, raiment torn, bloodied, a broken spear shaft bound behind his back and before his arms, his wrists pulled forward, held at the sides of his rib cage, fastened by a rope across his belly, herded by men with spears, stumbled forward. A length of simple, coarse tent rope, some seven feet in length, had been knotted about his neck. By this tether Gorm dragged him before Ivar Forkbeard.

The golden girl regarded Thorgard of Scagnar with horror. Then, eyes terrified, she regarded Ivar Forkbeard, of Forkbeard's Landfall. "You are mine now," said the Forkbeard. Then he said to Honey Cake, "Take my new slave to the pen."

"Yes, Master," she laughed. Then she took the golden girl, the southern girl, by the hair. "Come, Slave," she said. She dragged the bound silk girl, bent over, behind her. "I think," said Ivar Forkbeard, "I will give her for a month to Gunnhild, and my other wenches. They will enjoy having their own slave. Then, when the month is done, I will turn her over to the crew, and she will be, then, as my other bond-maids, no more or less."

Ivar turned to regard Thorgard of Scagnar. He stood proudly, bound, feet spread.

Hilda, naked, in her collar, knelt to one side and behind the Forkbeard. She covered herself with her hands as best she could, her head down.

The Forkbeard gestured to the several captive slave girls, loot from Thorgard's tent, kneeling, wrists bound behind their backs, in their brief, mired silk, in throat coffle, those girls Olga, light-heartedly, had secured for him. "Take them to the pen," he said to Olga. Olga slapped her switch in the palm of her hand. "On your feet, Slaves," she said. The girls struggled to their feet. "To the pen, hurry!" she snapped. "You will be given to men!" The girls began to run. As each one passed Olga, she, below the small of the back, was expedited with a sharp stroke of the switch. Then Olga, much pleased, laughing, trotting beside them, herded the running, weeping, stumbling coffle toward the pen.

Now the Forkbeard returned his attention to Thorgard of Scagnar, who regarded him evenly.

"Some of his men escaped," said Gorm. Then Gorm said, "Shall we strip him?"

"No," said the Forkbeard.

"Kneel," said Gorm to Thorgard of Scagnar, roughly. He prodded him with the butt of a spear.

"No," said the Forkbeard.

The two men faced one another. Then the Forkbeard said, "Cut him loose."

It was done.

"Give him a sword,"said the Forkbeard.

This, too, was done, and the men, and the girl, too, Hilda, stepped back, clearing a circle for the two men. Thorgard gripped the hilt of the sword. It was cloudy. "You were always a fool," said Thorgard to the Forkbeard.