John Norman - Vagabonds of Gor

I was a few yards from him when he strode to the back of the sales area and, one by one, began to fling back the curtains there. In the fourth place, out of five such places, there was a terrified, crouching girl.

"I have her!" be cried elatedly.

She cowered.

He raised his blade to strike.

"Hold!" I cried.

He turned about, the blade lifted. Ina screamed. She was naked, as she had discarded her slave tunic. This was intelligent on her part, as it would make it easier for her to blend in with most of the other slaves in the camp, such for the most part being kept stripped. He assessed my distance and made his judgment. He turned back to Ina, to cut down at her. But she, taking advantage of this moment of distraction, had crawled behind the side curtain of the next booth. He tore that curtain away. She was gone! He then advanced, slashing, through the curtains, after her. Then he fell, tangled in the curtains. "No!" he cried, looking up at me. There had been nothing wrong with his assessment of my distance, my speed and the time he had. He had miscounted on Ina, however, who had sped from him. Too, he had not counted on losing time moving between the booths. Too, he had not counted on falling. I drove the blade into him.

"Here! Over here!" I heard a man cry.

"Hurry!" I heard another, farther off, cry.

"What of my curtains? What of my shop!" wailed the merchant.

I ducked under a rope of tiny rep-cloth slave tunics, of various solid colors, and was again outside in the main aisles. I then, and two or three other fellows, they keeping their distance, all of us moving purposefully, and as rapidly as was practical, began to examine the cages, the kennels, the fair prisoners of the numerous stakes and posts, of the slave bars, and the chains in our immediate vicinity. Ina must surely be within a few yards of us.

I looked at one woman after another, and some looked out at me, frightened, from behind the bars of their cages and kennels, others shrinking back against their posts and stakes, or cowering with their sisters on their neck chains. I then strode quickly to a slave bar, a rounded, metal bar, about six inches above the surface of the dirt, inserted through, supported by and locked within, at each end, two low, trunklike posts. Girls may be attached to this sort of bar, often anchored in concrete or bolted to a wooden floor, in various fashions. Most of its current prisoners lay close to it, their wrists shackled about it. I reached a given female there before two other fellows. I kicked her in the side with the side of my foot. "Stay with me," I told her.

"Don't kill me!" she wept.

"Then stay with me," I said.

"I am collared, I am branded, I am only a slave!" she said. "Why do they want to kill me?"

"Get up!" I said.

"There she is," said a fellow a few yards away.

"Yes," said one of the closer fellows.

"Octantius is in the camp now," said another, "with the others."

"Splendid!" said a fellow.

"Just keep in contact," said a fellow.

"Let us charge together!" said another.

"Wait," said a fellow.

"There is no hurry," said another.

The word must have spread about rather quickly, because there were now some ten or twelve fellows about, some I had not seen before.

"Why do they want to kill me?" asked Ina.

"My speculation," I said, "is that Ar demands accountability for the disaster in the delta. I suspect that your fellow conspirators have selected you, and perhaps some others, to be identified and repudiated, as having duped others, and so on. In this way the more powerful conspirators may satisfy Ar's call for accounting and at the same time direct attention away from themselves. On the other hand, your more powerful fellows, I suppose, would not wish to risk the results of your testimony being taken in court."

"But I am only a slave," she said.

"But one who perhaps knows too much for her own good," I said.

"I could promise not to speak!" she said.

"You would speak," I said.

She looked at me, frightened.

"As you know," I said, "the testimony of slaves is taken under torture."

"Give her to us, and we will let you go," said a fellow.

I regarded them.

"Let us take her now," said one of them, "and share the reward only among ourselves!"

"Yes!" said another.

The eager fellow, perhaps too agreeable to the suggestion of the first, rushed forward. I kicked him back, off the sword, and whirled to face the second fellow who stopped, slipped to one knee, and scrambled back. I had no time to cut at him, he helpless there, as I whirled back in time to warn a third fellow away from Ina, who was crouching behind me.

"Give her to us," said one of the fellows, "and we will share the reward with you!"

"We will give you ten pieces of gold, tarn disks of Ar," proposed another, "full weight!"

"That is more than she would bring on the block," said another.

I glanced down at Ina. Yes, I thought, that would be considerably more than she would bring on the block.

"Accept the offer," said the fellow who had proposed the ten pieces of gold.

"Stay back," I warned him.

"Octantius will be here soon," said another, looking back. "The reward will then be too much divided."

"Deal with us," said another.

"Octantius will have bowmen with him," said another. "Resistance will then be useless."

"Deal with us," repeated the former fellow.

"Stay back," I said.

"There is nothing to be gained," wept Ina "Give me to them!"

I lashed back at her with the back of my hand, and struck her to the dirt aisle. "You were not given permission to speak, slave girl," I said.

"Yes, Master!" she cried joyfully. "Forgive me, Master!"

"Come along," I said.

Ina, creeping at my side, I, moving through the aisle, looking about me, moved between the hunters, who fell back, on both sides, to let me pass. But then, as soon as I had passed them, they fell in behind me, and about me, as closely as they dared. I would move toward one or another, and that fellow would give way, but the cloud, like a pack of sleen scouting a larl, waiting for it to tire, or make a mistake, stayed with us.

"Where are you going?" asked one of them.

I did not respond to him.

I was moving in the direction in which the one fellow had looked back, when he had feared Octantius, with his men, might too soon arrive, thereby minimizing the shares in the projected reward.

"There are no tarns in camp," said one of the men. "There are no tharlarion within the wire."

I did not respond to him.

I had two plans, concerning the prospects of neither of which was I sanguine. In both of these plans I wished to encounter Octantius, in the first, by a bold ruse, if he did not have the gold with him, to convince him of the dubiousness of his receiving it, thereby hopefully at least buying time; and in the second, if he had the gold with him, perhaps to lure or shame him into personal combat, following which, if I were successful, I might be able to seize the gold and distribute it among the others, thereby hopefully disbanding them.

It was now past noon and, the animals having been for the most part fed and watered, and groomed, and the camp now open, there were several visitors, onlookers, guests, dealers, customers, and such, about. To be sure, as it was only the beginning of the business day, which would last until the 20th Ahn, the Gorean midnight, the crowds were not yet heavy. I was now making my way toward the main gate.

"There is Octantius!" said a fellow.

I stopped, and found myself then in the center of a large ring of men, some one hundred feet or so in diameter, waiting in the first concourse, near the main gate, surely at least seventy or eighty of them.

"Tal," said Octantius, rising from a chair, beneath an awning, handing his beverage to a subordinate. Such chairs, awnings, and such, as well as food and drink, are available in the camp. Conveniences, facilities, refreshments, and such, are commonly available in large camps, as they are, for example, at games, tharlarion races, and Kaissa matches.