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time, picked bits of meat from it and thrust them in her mouth. She sucked her
fingers clean. Over to one side another girl worked on a slave net, reworking
and reknotting the weighted cords.
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Elsewhere two girls, sitting cross-legged, were playing a cat s-cradle game,
matching one another s intricate patterns with the twine. There were skillful.
This game is popular in the north, particularly in the villages. It
is also played frequently in Torvaldsland.
I saw, clearly, no other panther girls in or about the enclosure. I did see,
however, a movement within one of the huts, and I supposed that to be another
girl. I saw no evidence of Talena. She might, of course, lie chained within
one of the dark huts. Perhaps the movement I had seen within the hut had been
she.
I did not know.
One thing, however, seemed quite clear. Not all of Verna s band was now within
the enclosure.
There was probably five or six girls there at the most.
Her band, most reports agreed, consisted of some fifteen women.
I looked at the girls in the enclosure. They did not know I regarded them.
They did not realize their camp had been found. They did not know that soon,
perhaps tomorrow, their camp would be stormed, and they would be captives,
destined for the iron and the slave markets of the south.
But we must move rapidly. I had learned from Grenna, m y prisoner, that an
unusually large band of panther girls, under a woman named Hura, was even now
advancing toward these areas of the forests.
I smiled.
When Hura s band arrived, ready to fight for these pasangs of forest, ready to
drive Verna s band out, they would meet no opposition.
By that time Verna and her band would be my captives.
Hura s band would find only an empty camp, and perhaps some signs of struggle.
But we must move swiftly.
Additional members of panther girls, entering these countries of forests,
might well confuse or complicate my plans.
I must conclude my business before their arrival. It did not seem it would be
difficult to do so. I wondered how it was that Hura had under her command so
many girls. Such bands of girls scarcely ever number more than twenty. Yet, if
Grenna was to be believed, following this Hura were a hundred or more armed
women.
I must not allow them to interfere with my plans.
I looked down into the camp, at the girls. I regarded them as a Gorean.
They had had their chance. They had refused to sell Talena to me. They had not
dealt with me. That had been their mistake. The lesson they would be taught
would be sharp. Let each of them, on the auction block, as the men bid upon
them, consider how their affairs might have been better conducted.
Two more girls arrived at the camp, and untied the gate, entered, and then
retied it.
I thought they would look well in slave chains.
I looked again about the camp. I saw some poles behind the huts, on which,
drying, were stretched the skins of four panthers. There were some boxes, some
kegs, near one of the huts.
There was not much else.
I expected, by nightfall, all, or most, of Verna s band would have returned to
their slender stockade.
I slipped down from my hiding place, and disappeared in the forest.  Take this
captive, I told Rim,  back to the Tesephone.
I thrust Grenna toward him. I had again put her wrists in slave bracelets, and
bound them at her belly. She stumbled and fell to her knees, her head down, at
Rim s feet.
She no longer wore her gag. It was not now necessary.
 I would prefer, said Rim,  to join in the attack on her band, who once
enslaved me.
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 I recall, I said,  and I fear that you might be too precipitate.
Rim smiled.  Perhaps, he said.
It was now almost impossible to detect where the two-inch strip had been
shaved on his head, from the forehead to the back of his neck.
 I will accompany you, said Arn.
 Good, I said.
Arn was eyeing Grenna appreciatively. She saw his eyes, and put down her head
again, swiftly.
I was pleased that Arn liked her. Perhaps I would later give her to him.
 At the Tesephone, I said, indicating Grenna with my foot,  brand her, and
see that she is enslaved. After that, see to the wounds of the slave.
The girl moaned.
 Yes, Captain, said Rim. He reached down and lifted her up, lightly in his
arms.
How beautiful women are, I thought.
Rim carried her from the small fire, and moved into the darkness.
I looked about, at the nine men with me.
 Let us sleep now, I said.  We shall awaken two Ahn before dawn. We will then
march on the camp of Verna.
 Good, said Arn.
I lay down on the leaves, within the ring of sharpened saplings we had set
about our small camp.
I closed my eyes. In the morning I would have Talena back. Who knew how high
might be raised the chair of Bosk?
Things were going well.
I fell asleep.
8 We Wait in the Camp of Verna
There is a Gorean saying that free women, raised gently in the high cylinders,
in their robes of concealment, unarmed, untrained in weapons, may, by the
slaver, be plucked like flowers.
There is no such saying pertaining to panther girls.
Needless to say, there are various techniques for the acquisition of slaves,
male and female. Much depends of course, on the number of slavers, the nature
of their quarry, and the particulars of a given chase or hunt. The fact that
we numbered ten, including myself, and that the girls of
Verna s band numbered some fifteen, and that they were skilled with their
weapons, and dangerous, dictated the nature of our approach.
I had not wished to bring a large number of men through the forest with me,
for they would have been difficult to conceal. Further, I wish to leave a full
garrison at the Tesephone, to protect the ship should here be any danger at
the river. It was my original intention to bring with me merely five, but,
when
Arn and his men arrived at the camp, I permitted them to join us. Outlaws move
well in the forests, moving, like panther girls, with swiftness and stealth, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]