John Norman - Mariners of Gor

“‘Here, kajira , here!’ called a mercenary. I fled gratefully to his side. At last I had a man to defend me. I had a champion. I realized then, as I had never before, when I had been sheltered within the arrangements, laws, and customs of a civil order, which I had taken so much for granted, how thin, and possibly transitory, such things were, and what might lie at their elbow, or nigh, on the other side of that lovely curtain, separating comfort and security from the cruelties and hazards of a perilous nature.

“Some think the jungle is faraway, that it is east of Schendi, as distant as the valley of the Ua, but it is not. It is here. It is with us, patient, and waiting. It is as close as the hearts of men.

“‘Stop!’ I heard, and spun about. A fellow, from Ar, I supposed, had called out. He had not been at the perimeter. I doubt that he thought me free. I think, merely, he wanted to pick up a slave. How fearful, I thought, to be a slave, to be an object, a property, a possession, an animal, something which might be bought and sold, or given away, or, as here, something which might be simply gathered in, simply acquired. Put a rope on her neck and she is yours! But I must not be brought back to Ar! As soon as I was stripped, as I would be, as a slave, my lack of a brand would be obvious, and then there would be inquiries, and the proscription lists would be certain to be examined. I must not be returned to Ar!

“‘Begone,’ said the mercenary, stepping between me and the fellow. The fellow looked at the mercenary, in his helmet, with his shield, and a spear whose reddened blade had recently drunk the blood of a foe, and then backed away. In a few moments he had disappeared.”

I said nothing, but I supposed that the mercenary, before approaching the fellow, would have examined the sky behind him. The woman would not have been aware of this, as she would have been facing her pursuer. Occasionally a warrior on foot and a tarnsman collaborate on a kill. The warrior on foot engages the target, and the tarnsman, unseen, glides in, silently, placing a bolt in the adversary’s unprotected back. This act is scorned in the codes, of course, but it is not without precedent in the field. It is common amongst outlaws and rogue tarnsmen.

“‘Should you not have killed him?’ I asked, frightened. ‘I am not a butcher,’ he said.

“‘Continue to protect me,’ I said. ‘Turn about,’ he said, ‘and put your wrists behind you.’ ‘Master?’ I said. ‘You are to be braceleted,’ he said. ‘But then, here, outside the city, in the fields, I would be utterly helpless,’ I said. ‘Such as you, pretty kajira ,’ he said, ‘are to be utterly helpless.’ I trembled, to think myself so much in the power of men, as much as a kajira .”

I smiled.

“I turned and fled away from him, and I discovered, some hundred yards away, gasping, turning about, my feet now raw, that he had not pursued me. Were such as I so common that we were not worth our pursuit? I was elated to be free of him, but frightened, as well, for who would now protect me? And, oddly, my vanity was offended. Surely I was the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld, and yet he did not pursue me, throw me to the ground and fasten my wrists behind me! Standing in the gentle, green, wind-moved grass, alone, looking about, I saw, here and there, in the fields, small groups, moving away from the city. I could see her towers in the distance. Some of these groups had small strings of stripped, neck-roped women with them. Here and there I saw a tarnsman in the sky, almost certainly one of Ar. I saw no pursuits from the city. I did not know where to go or what to do, and I was suddenly aware that I was hungry. I felt the hem of my tunic, reassuring me of the jewels sewn there, and the small key ensconced in its tiny sleeve.”

“You were fortunate to escape Ar,” I said.

“I set out in the direction others were moving,” she said. “I could not go back to Ar. I thought I might reach Torcadino, from whence I might purchase wagon passage to Brundisium, Besnit, Harfax, or Market of Semris. I would avoid Ko-ro-ba and Thentis as they did not favor those of Ar. Too, one would not seek Port Kar, as it is a den of thieves and cutthroats, and Tharna was out of the question. There is only one free woman in Tharna, Lara, her Tatrix. All others are held in the most severe of bondages. No free woman may even enter the gates of Tharna without being temporarily licensed and placed in the custody of a male. Those of Tharna wear in their belt the two yellow cords, each eighteen inches in length, suitable for binding females, hand and foot.”

I knew little of Tharna, but I did know it was a city muchly feared by free women. And yet, interestingly, free women not unoften underwent considerable hardship and peril to enter her gates.

“And I feared, too,” she said, “to seek the major islands, for during the occupation many of the women of Ar had been collected and sent there on slave ships.”

That was true. In my time in Ar I had seen several coffles of the women of Ar leave the city, to be marched overland to Brundisium, there to be disembarked for Cos or Tyros.

“Perhaps Teletus, Tabor, or Chios, of the farther islands,” I suggested.

“I fear the islands,” she said.

“There are pirates,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

It was not unheard of for women to be seized at sea, to be later disposed of in the markets, sometimes, eventually, as far south as Schendi or Turia.

“Brundisium,” she said, “seemed an optimum choice.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

Brundisium, as many merchant ports, large and small, was in theory neutral. To be sure, it had been the port at which the invasion fleets of Cos and Tyros, unopposed, even welcomed, had made their landfall on the continent, thence to rendezvous with numerous companies of mercenaries, for the march to Ar.

“But I was alone,” she said, “a woman, ill-clad, half crippled, and hungry, unfamiliar with the stars, without guidance, only vaguely aware of where Brundisium might be, or how far away she might be.”

“Presumably you would need assistance,” I said.

“I was well prepared to pay for it,” she said. “Night fell. I hobbled on, in the moonlight. Once I stopped, in terror, frozen, for I noted the sinuous passage of a prairie sleen. It passed within a dozen yards of me, rapidly, its snout to the ground.”

“It was not on your scent,” I said. Sleen can be terribly dangerous to humans, but the human is not its familiar prey. The sleen, in the wild a burrowing, largely nocturnal animal, is a tenacious, obsessive, single-minded hunter, a supreme tracker. On one scent it will often pass by, even ignore, more ample or superior prey.

“When it passed,” she said, “I was overjoyed, for I was still alive, but I was then, almost immediately, sick with fear, for such a beast or beasts, I thought, might even now be following my tracks, from Ar, having been given my scent from my discarded robes.”

Her apprehension was well-warranted. Indeed, it is not unknown for sleen to have discovered and followed tracks which are several days old.

“I walked much of the night,” she said, “keeping to the direction others had taken. The terrain seemed to change, and there were now trees here and there, sometimes groves. Toward morning I could go no further and lay down in the grass, and fell asleep. I awakened late in the afternoon, weak, and starving. I staggered to my feet, and stumbled on. I went almost blindly, putting one foot before the other. As it grew dark I felt a sudden piercing, a fierce, doubled puncturing, in the calf of my right leg and I screamed in pain. I thought ‘ost,’ but it was the twin, hollow thorns of a leech plant which had struck me. I heard the hideous noise of the pulsating pods sucking blood, pumping it to the roots, and, screaming, I tore the fangs from my leg and fled away, and then stopped, afraid to move, lest there be more such things about, lest I stumble and fall into a writhing patch of such plants. Entangled amongst them, they swarming about me, enwrapping me with their vines and tendrils, it was possible I would not have been able to rise to my feet. I could hear them rustling about, on the sides, like whispers. Then, step by step, with great care, I moved away from the stirring, agitated growths, and continued my journey. My throat, too, was parched. I had been raised in luxury and power. I had wanted for nothing. Never had I been hungry and thirsty like this. Even as a child I had had serving slaves. Now I was alone, my beauty briefly and shamefully garbed, my feet bleeding, blood drying on my right calf, weary, without food or water, without protection, with little idea as to where I might be, what I should do, or where I might go.”