John Norman - Beasts of Gor

“I am going to fire the hall,” I said.

“Wait!” he said.

“You and your men may depart in peace now,” I said, “or die within the Ahn.”

More men joined me, still in their chains. They had come east from the farther portions of the wall. They had been abandoned by their guards. These wore even their chains as yet. We would remove them from them later with tools. These newcomers carried, many of them, the iron bars used for chipping at the permafrost, and picks, and shovels. Two carried axes.

Now there were some three hundred and seventy men encircling the hall, all armed in one way or another, some even with stones. They were not in a pleasant mood.

“Do not fire the hall!” called Sorgus.

I ordered fires lit. Rags, soaked in oil, were set at the tips of arrows.

“How do I know you will let us leave, if we leave now, in peace?” he asked.

“I have pledged it,” I said. “And I am of the warriors.”

“How do we know you are of the warriors?” he asked.

“Send forth your best swordsman,” I said, “that my caste may be made clear to you.”

I waited.

No one emerged from the hall.

“I shall wait one Ehn,” I said. ‘Then I shall have the hall fired.”

In a few moments I heard her screaming, from within the hall. “No, no,” she cried. “Fight to the death! Fight to the death!”

I knew then I had won.

Sorgus emerged from the hall, his hands raised, his sword slung still at his hip.

I watched Sorgus and his men depart.

“I am a free prisoner,” she said. “I demand all the rights and privileges of such a prisoner.”

“Free these new men of their chains,” I said, indicating those fellows who had recently joined us, from the western portions of the wall.

“Yes, Captain,” said a man.

I turned to the fair captive.

“I am a free prisoner,” she said, “and I-”

“Be silent, I said to her. Her own dagger was at her throat.

“You were once in command here,” I said. “But that is now finished. You are now only a girl on Gor.”

She looked at me, suddenly frightened.

“When are the tarnsmen due?” I asked.

“Soon,” she said.

A man pulled back her head, by the hair. I laid the blade across her throat.

“Four days,” she whispered. “They are due to return on the afternoon of the first day of the passage hand.”

“Put her in the handle tie,” I said. “Yes, Captain,” said the man, grinning.

Her fur boots were pulled off and her ankles were linked by leather thongs; she had good ankles; the leather permitted them a separation of some twelve inches; the tether on her wrists then was taken between her legs and lifted up and behind her, where its loose end was tied about her neck. The linking of the ankles prevents the slipping of the handle tie, and controls the length of her stride when she is put in it. A given pressure on the handle tie, exerted through the strap at the back, permits it to function as a choke leash; a different pressure permits her to be hurried along on her toes. The handle tie is usually, of course, reserved for naked slave girls.

“Oh,” she said.

The man had looped his fist twice in the strap, tightening it.

She looked at me. She was in the control of the man who held the strap.

“If the tarnsmen return before the afternoon of the first day of the passage hand,” I said, handing the man, who controlled her her dagger, “cut her throat.”

“Yes, Captain,” he said.

“Oh,” she cried, being hurried from the presence of men. Did she not know she was now only a girl on Gor?

“We have much to do,” I told my men. “The wall is to be destroyed. After that you may divide what supplies and treasures exist here and take your leave. Any who leave before the work is done, trailed and recaptured, are to be staked out among the fallen tabuk.”

The men looked at one another, uneasily. They did not care to become feasting meat for the scavenging jards.

“We are hungry,” said a man.

“Imnak,” said I, “go to the platform. Keep watch. You shall be relieved in two Ahn.”

He grunted and went to the platform.

“We are hungry,” said men.

“I, too,” said I. “Make a feast, but there is to be no drinking of paga. It is late now for commencing our labors. Morning for such work will be soon enough.”

There was a cheer.

In the morning they would work with a hearty will. I did not think it would take long to destroy the wall, surely not more than the days to the first passage hand. We had more than three hundred and fifty men for work. In many places, too, the wall had been weakened by the buffeting tabuk over the past weeks.

I heard the miserable cries of two girls. A man was coming from the cook shack, where Thimble and Thistle had hidden themselves. He now dragged them before us, bent over, a hand in the hair of each.

“What have we here!” cried a man cheerfully.

“Slaves!” cried others.

“Hold,” said I. “We are honest men, and are not thieves. Release them.”

The man loosed the hair of the girls. Swiftly they knelt, frightened.

‘These girls,” said I, “belong to Imnak.”

“He is a red hunter,” said a man.

“He is one with us,” I said.

There was an angry cry.

I drew my blade. “None may use them without his permission,” I said. “I shall maintain discipline, if need be, my comrades, by the blade.”

I looked down at the kneeling girls. “There are many men here,” I said. “Doubtless they are quite hungry. Perhaps you should consider scurrying to the cook shack, to be about your duties.”

“Yes, Master!” they cried.

“Pull down your camisks,” I warned them.

Weeping they fled to the cook shack, trying with their small hands to adjust their garments so that they would reveal less of their beauty. The men roared with laughter. I smiled. The brief, open-sided camisks they wore had not been designed to permit a girl much success in such a project.

“We are now alone,” I told her.

It was early afternoon, on the first day of the passage hand.

“All alone?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Completely?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Where have the men gone?” she asked.

“The work is finished,” I said. ‘The wall, burned and uprooted, has been destroyed. Other buildings, too, with the exception of this hall, have been fired. The laborers, in various groups, laden with goods and gold, have filtered away, scattering, returning to the south.”

“They have taken my gold?” she asked. She was sitting at the side of the hall, her back against its wall of horizontally fitted logs. Her ankles were drawn up. The same thongs which, looped about her stomach and threaded through a ring behind her, holding her to the wall, led to her ankles, drawing them back. The original thongs on her ankles, which had served as leather ankle shackles, I had had removed. She still wore, however, the tether on her wrists, the loose end of which had been taken up behind her and tied about her neck, the handle portion of the handle tie.

“Ten strongboxes were found,” I said, “and forced open. Their contents were divided. Few men are discontent to have earned fees so rich for their services.”

“I am now without economic resources,” she said.

“You are pretty,” I said, “perhaps men might be persuaded to let you live.”

“You are a beast!” she said.

“Captured guardsmen and hunters,” I said, “released, given supplies, have also taken their way south.”

“You are generous,” she said.

“Sometimes,” I said. “—with men.”

She shrank back in her bonds.

“They labored well with the others to destroy the wall,” I said.