Weeping, still blindfolded, Mira was untied and thrown before me on her knees. “Submit,” said Vinca, sternly.
Before me Mira performed the gesture of submission. I held her crossed wrists. “I submit myself, Master,” she said.
She was now my slave.
I nodded to Vinca.
Mira was thrown back on the grass.
“Let the slave,” said Vinca, “be now staked out for sleen.”
“No!’ cried Mira. “No!”
Swiftly Mira, blindfolded, found herself bound as before to the stakes, if anything more securely. Only now she lay there a bound slave.
“Leave her for the sleen,” said Vinca.
“Command me!’ cried Mira. “I will do anything for you! Anything! A slave begs to be commanded!” “It is too late,” said Vinca.
“I beg to serve you!” she wept. “I beg to serve you!”
“It is too late,” said Vinca.
“No!” cried Mira.
“Gag her,” said Vinca.
Again I thrust the heavy wadding of fur deep in Mira’s mouth, and tied it securely in place with the strip, twisted, of panther skin.
We then withdrew, leaving the slave Mira lashed helplessly between the stakes. We waited.
As we expected, it did not take long. Soon, prowling about in the brush, some yards away, was a sleen, drawn by the smell of fresh blood, her own, smeared on Mira’s slave body.
The sleen is a cautious animal. He circled her, several times.
I could smell the animal. So, too, doubtless could the others, and Mira. She seemed frozen in the lashings.
Movement will sometimes provoke the animal’s charge, if within a certain critical distance, which, for the sleen, is about four times the length of his body.
The sleen scratched about in the grass. It made small noises. Tiny hisses and growls. The prey did not move. It came closer. I could hear it sniffing. Then, puzzled, it was beside her. It thrust its snout against her body, and began to lick at the blood.
I removed a pile from one of the tem-wood arrows and capped the arrow with a wadding of fur.
Mira, blindfolded, helpless, threw back her head in terror. It would have been the scream of a bound slave, naked, staked out for sleen. But there was no sound for she had been gagged by a warrior. He had not even entitled her to utter a sound when the very jaws would be upon her. Her body pulled back, shuddering like that of a tethered tabuk set out by hunters for larls. First the sleen began to lick the blood from her body. Then it began to grow excited. Then it thrust forth its head and took her entire body, from her waist to the small of her back, in its jaws, and lifted it in the lashings.
I loosed the padded arrow. It struck the sleen on the side of the snout. Startled, it growled with rage, and leaped back, away from the prey. Then it stood over her, hissing, snarling, defending its find against another predator.
Then the two paga slaves other than Vinca came forward, dragging the carcass of a tabuk. I had felled it before seeking Mira in her camp. They threw the carcass to one side.
After much snarling and growling the sleen turned to the side, its snout still stinging, and seized up the tabuk and disappeared in the brush.
I found the arrow, removed the wadding and replaced the steel pile. Vinca and her girls had now unbound the lashings that fastened Mira. With difficulty they took from her mouth the heavy gag. They let the panther skin then hang about her neck and wound the wadding about it, that it might be soon replaced. They did not remove the blindfold. They put her on her knees and tied her hands behind her back.
“You know what you are to do, Slave?” asked Vinca.
Numbly, half in shock, Mira nodded her head.
She was to betray the panther girls of Hura’s band, in my camp, there were several bottles of wine, which had been taken originally from Verna’s camp by Marlenus, and then from his camp by the men of Tyros and the girls of Hura. It had been abandoned at their first campsite by the conquest circle. I had had my slaves, captured panther girls, bring it along, carrying it in our slave caravan. I had thought it might prove useful. I did not expect it would be drunk by all of the panther girls, but if I could deprive the men of Tyros of more of their dangerous, beautiful allies, it would be to my advantage.
“Tomorrow night,” said Vinca, “you are to give the wine to as many of the panther girls as is possible.” Mira, blindfolded, kneeling before the harshly spoken Vinca, put down her head. “Yes, Mistress,” she whispered.
Vinca put her hands in her hair and shook it. “We can pick you up again when we want you,” she said. “Do you understand?” Mira nodded, miserably.
“Are you a docile, obedient slave?” asked Verna.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Mira. “Yes!”
“Bring skins,” said Vinca, “that we may now disguise this slave as a panther girl.” Mira was unbound and helped into skins. They were the same which had been taken before from her.
Her wrists were then bound again behind her back and I regagged her. The bottles of wine, brought by one of the paga slaves, were slung, knotted, about her neck.
When we were close to her camp I removed the blindfold from her eyes. She looked at me, piteously. In her eyes there was still the fear of the sleen. “I shall show you where your guards are placed,” I said.
“Then, with your skills, you should be able to return undetected to your place in the camp.” She nodded, tears in her eyes.
I took her by the arm and, nearing the camp, by gesture, showed her the placement of the two guards. She nodded. We then went to a place from which, with care, she should have no difficulty in re-entering the camp.
We knelt together in the foliage. The wine was still tied about her neck. I knelt behind her. I unbound her hands. I removed from her mouth the heavy gag. I threw it into the brush.
She did not turn to look at me. “Was it to you,” she asked, “that I submitted in the forest? Is it you whose slave I am?” “Yes,” I said.
She turned to face me.
I suddenly removed her skins from her.
I took her in my arms, a slave girl.
I did not untie the wine from about her neck.
“Can you hear me?” cried the man of Tyros. “Can you hear me?”
I, of course, made no answer.
“If any man of Tyros falls,” he cried, “ten slaves will die!”
Scarcely had his words been uttered when he, himself, fell, an arrow from the great bow lost in the yellow of his tunic.
I had not accepted their terms.
“Then, Slaves,” cried a man, blade uplifted, “die!”
But he struck no one. The great bow did not permit him. When the chain moved again it took its way over his body. No longer was there the threat of slaying slaves. No man was willing to strike the first blow. Sarus, leader of the men of Tyros, ordered several but none would strike, not wishing themselves to fall. “Then strike them yourself!” shouted one of his insubordinate men.
Sarus slew the man himself, with his sword, but he, Sarus, did not then move to strike the slaves. Rather he looked angrily, anxiously, into the forest, and then turned away. “Faster!’ he cried. “March then faster!” The slave chain again moved.
Once more the men from Ar, led by Marlenus himself, their Ubar took up their song. It rang through the forests.
After the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, I slew no more, for I wished their confidence and their hope, to mount. Before the tenth hour I had felled fourteen. That morning, given the history of their march, was perhaps, by them, felt to be their darkest, their most helpless. That afternoon would be for them, by contrast, by my intention, one of gradually increasing elation, of growing, leaping hope, for that afternoon, and that evening, too, no more arrows strode forth, telling, from the green concealments of the leafed branches. Perhaps I was no longer with them. Perhaps their stalker had tired. Perhaps he had give up the chase, the hunt.
They marched long that day. It was late when they made their camp.