In Gorean legends the Priest-Kings are said to have formed man from the mud of the earth and the blood of tarns. In the legends of Torvaldsland, man has a different origin. Gods, meeting in council, decided to form a slave for themselves, for they were all gods, and had no slaves. They took a hoe, an instrument for working the soil, and put it among them. They then sprinkled water upon this implement and rubbed upon it sweat from their bodies. From this hoe was formed most men. On the other hand, that night, one of the gods, curious, or perhaps careless, or perhaps driven from the hall and angry, threw down upon the ground his own great ax, and upon this ax he poured paga and his own blood, and the ax laughed and leaped up, and ran away. The god, and all the gods, could not catch it, and it became, it is said, the father of the men of Torvaldsland.
There was, of course, another reason why the commander of the Rhoda and Tesephone would keep within sight of the shore.
He had a signal to observe. He must not miss the beacon, which, somewhere along this lonely, sandy shore, in its hundred of pasangs, would mark the position of Sarus and his men, Hura, and her women, and their captive slaves.
Even if he lay to, if he held his ships within ten or more pasangs, he would see our marker, that great blaze in the darkness of the night. And, seeing it, he would doubtless take it fore the beacon of Sarus.
I looked at Tina. One side of her body was red in the reflected light of the great fire.
“Can you be attractive to men?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Keep the fire high,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” said the exciting little wench.
“Come with me,” I told Cara.
I took Cara into the woods, some hundred yards from the forest’s edge. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.
I tied her wrists together behind her back, about a small tree. Then I tore off the tatters of her white woolen slave garment, ripping it into strips. I gagged her, tightly.
She looked at me, her eyes wild over the gag.
Then I left her.
I returned to the edge of the forest. Dimly, far off, across the water, I could see two lanterns.
I was satisfied.
I called to Tina, softly, from the shadows of the forest. She turned about and, unsuspecting, walked back to me.
In the darkness I took her, suddenly, by the arms and thrust her rudely up against a tree. She gasped.
“What is the duty of a slave girl?” I inquired.
“Absolute obedience,” she said, frightened.
“What are you?” I inquired.
“A slave girl,” she said.
“What is your duty?” I asked.
“Absolute obedience,” she cried out.
I looked out to sea. The two lanterns were now closer.
“Kneel,” I told Tina.
She did so immediately, frightened, her head to the ground.
Some four hundred yards away from shore, by my conjecture, the two lanterns stopped. There was then a third lantern, lower that the other two.
I took the slave whip from my belt and touched Tina on the shoulder with it. She looked up, frightened.
“Please do not beat me,” she whispered.
I held the whip before her. “Kiss the whip,” I told her.
She did so, and looked up at me, pleading.
“Absolute obedience,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered, terrified. “Absolute obedience.”
“Here are your instruction,” I said.
“Ho there,” cried the fellow leaping from the long boar, “it is only a wench.” “Protect me, Masters!” wept Tina. She had torn her tunic away from her left shoulder and ripped it to her waist on the left side.
She emerged from the darkness, and fell to her knees in the wet sand before the man in yellow who had leaped from the longboat. He held an exposed sword. Others left the boat, too, and looked about. They stood warily. Men remained at alternate pairs of oars. There were, altogether, sixteen men of Tyros, including him who held the tiller.
“Protect me, Master!” wept Tina. She knelt in the sand, her head down, trembling.
With the blade of his sword the fellow lifted her head, and turned it from side to side.
Tina was beautiful.
He sheathed his sword and, by the hair, pulled her to her feet and faced her to the fire. He rudely read her collar. “A wench of Bosk of Port Kar,” he laughed. He thrust her from him, a yard or so, and examined her. “Bosk of Port Kar,” he said, “had a good eye for slave flesh.” “Stand straight, Girl,” said another man.
Tina did so, and was examined by them, with the candidness accorded a female slave.
“I was stolen from Bosk of Port Kar,” wept Tina, “by the terrible Sarus of Tyros.” The men looked at one another, exchanging amusements, glances. Tina did not seem to understand their tacit communication.
“I fled from him,” she wept. “But there were sleen, panthers, in the forest. I was pursued. I barely escaped with my life.” Again she fell to the sand at their feet, and pressed her lips to the foot of their leader. “I cannot live in the forest,” she wept. “Take a miserable slave with you! Please, Masters!” “Leave her here to die,” laughed one of the men.
The girl trembled.
“Did you build this beacon?” asked another.
“Yes, Maser,” wept the girl.:I wished to attract the attention of any passing ship.” “Better the bracelets of a master than the teeth of a sleen?” asked one of the men of Tyros.
Tina kept her head down.
“Protect me!” wept Tina.
“Perhaps,” said their leader.
“Only do not return me to the terrible Sarus,” she wept. She raised her head. “You do not know him, do you?” she begged.
“Who is he?” inquired the leader, himself in the yellow of Tyros. The men behind him smiled.
“I am fortunate,” breathed Tina, “to have fallen in with you.”
The men laughed, not pleasantly.
Tina shook with fright.
“Shall we take her with us?” asked the leader, laughing, of his men. One of them, without warning, with a single rip that spun her fully about, tore her slave tunic away. She cried out in misery, her beauty revealed to them. “Perhaps,” said one of the men.
She stood on the sand, shuddering. Her beauty was drenched in the red of the flames.
“Stand proudly, Wench,” commanded one of the men.
Tina straightened herself.
“Protect me,” she begged.
“Our protection had a cost,” said their leader, “if beauty such as yours were torn to pieces by sleen.” Tina said nothing.
“I would rather,” said the leader, “tear it to pieces myself.”
Tina gasped.
“Lie in the sand before me, Slave,” said the leader. He unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it to the side.
Tina lay in the sand before him, one knee raised, her head turned to one side. “Each of us,” said their leader, “will try you out, to see if you are any good. Of any of us are dissatisfied, you will be left here for the sleen.” “A girl understands, Master,” she said.
“How will you perform?” he asked.
“Superbly, Master,” she whispered.