Once again I was carried to the camtah, and once again my clothes were removed. The steadiness of my sleeping furs was a heavenly delight, but they were too warm to have on me. I kicked off the covering one, then held tight to the one beneath me.
“You must remain covered,” the barbarian said, waking me from a light doze. He threw the furs over me with one hand, the other holding a small metal bowl from which steam arose. Behind him, through the leather curtain, I saw that it was full night out, and that he had built a small, shielded fire on the edge of the verandah.
“You will eat this and the fever will be gone in hours,” he said, folding into his usual crouch. “Why did you not say you were ill?”
“I’m just tired,” I mumbled, turning away from him. I wanted to go back to sleep, the only place I could escape to where he couldn’t follow
“This must be eaten first,” he said, pulling me back. “Then you may sleep.”
I needed help to sit up, and I needed help to drink from the bowl. He’d made a broth from some of the meat, but there was an odd, pleasing taste to it that the meat didn’t have. I slowly swallowed it all, then lay down again.
The next time I woke, the barbarian’s hand on my face was a good deal warmer. Blurrily I felt his satisfaction and, through half-closed eyes, saw his smile.
“The fever is gone,” he said softly. “The next sun will find you well again.”
“I don’t want to be well.” I mumbled, still feeling the weight of my fate on me. “I want to die and have done with it. Then I’ll be free again. Free again.”
The sobs came before the tears, and they hurt my chest. But I was too sleepy to cry for long.
The never-ending rain was still there the next morning. I opened my eyes, then decided not to move anymore. If I lay still long enough, it would all be over and done with. I lay there for a few minutes, trying not to notice how hungry I was, and then the barbarian came in.
“Do you now dress,” he said, “then we shall eat and be on our way. The day does not grow longer.”
“I’m not going with you.” I mumbled into the furs. “You said that anyone who didn’t prefer death to slavery deserved to be a slave, and you were right. I’m going to stay here and die now, then I won’t be a slave any longer.”
“So now you feel yourself slave,” he said in annoyance. “Very well. It is against the laws of my people to hold slaves, therefore shall I leave you behind me. I will now pack my furs, camtah, imad and caldin. Do you now remove yourself from them.”
I stared at his broad, stubborn face for a minute, then set my lips. He was taking everything and leaving me nothing, but I shouldn’t have expected anything else. Everything and everyone was his.
I got out of the furs without saying another word, then moved past him to the curtain. I didn’t like the idea of being outside without clothes on, but I would have died rather than ask him for anything. I moved to the end of the verandah, then remembered something and turned back to him.
“If you’re taking everything else,” I said coldly “you can take these chains, too. They do belong to you.”
“I cannot,” he answered, watching me where I’d paused at the end of the veranda. “In honor I may not unband a woman save there be another man there willing to band her himself. The bands you may keep.”
“But I don’t want them!” I insisted, then forced myself to turn away from him. He’d never listen to a thing I said, and there was no sense wasting my breath. I stepped off the veranda, stood straight, then looked around.
The faint light of dawn put everything in half shadows. As I’d known, the rain still fell, but it fell softly and with more warmth than it had yet had. I was quickly soaked, but it didn’t really matter. I went to a tree on the other side of the camp and stood under it.
By the time the barbarian had everything packed, the rain had stopped. He didn’t look at me again until he was in his saddle, then he sat for a moment, as if waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, he turned the seetarr and rode away.
I waited for something to happen, then I got tired of standing up. I squatted down and waited, but still nothing happened, except that I got hungrier. I looked around again, wondering how long it would take to die. I didn’t like just squatting there, wearing not a stitch of clothing, still trapped in those chains. It was embarrassing—and it was boring.
The sun came up, brighter than I had ever seen it. Flying things fluttered around the trees, beasts stretched happily in the woods, and even the mud seemed to settle down quietly. I stood straight and walked out from under the tree, wondering what to do.
The morning wore on and I got thirsty. The waterskins were gone with the barbarian, and the small pools on the ground were too dirty to drink from. I wandered away from the clearing, but didn’t go in the direction the barbarian had gone in. With no clothes on, I didn’t want to be near the road.
I listened to the feelings of the beings around me, annoyed that they could be so happy when I was so miserable. I hadn’t done anything that merited being brought to a strange planet and then abandoned, but I was there just the same, waiting for the one thing that would free me from bondage. Now that I was resigned to dying, how long did it take anyway?
Then I picked up the emotion of a hunting beast, no different from the others in the woods, except that it was closer. I felt its pleasure when it found a scent, and its determination when it began following that scent. I waited a moment to be sure, but there was really no doubt. The scent it had found was mine.
I moved off in the opposite direction, feeling faintly uneasy. How many of the hunting things in the forest would come across me? How many of them would I have to evade? I put together the feelings of being very big, very hungry, and very unbeatable, and projected them at the following animal. I felt it pause, considering what had just come to it, then it continued on, following my scent.
My heart started pounding and I began moving faster, appalled by what had happened. The beast hadn’t believed my projection, or it hadn’t cared. It thought of itself as very big and completely unbeatable, and its hunger was greater than mine. It was determined to eat well, and would fight for the opportunity to do so.
I stumbled through the woods, being scratched by branches, fear filling me as it never had before. I projected peace at the beast, contentment, weariness, and even fear, but nothing stopped it. It came inexorably on, patiently seeking the source of the scent.
Suddenly I stopped dead, feeling the attention of another predator. This one was ahead of me, and it had been attracted by the noise of my passage through the woods. It, too, picked up my scent and came eagerly toward me.
I looked wildly around at the silent and uncaring trees and bushes, not knowing which way to go. They were both so close, and I had no way of defending myself. I grasped the tree I stood near, looking up at the branches that were too far above my head to be reached, then my insides twisted and my eyes were pulled away from the tree. The second predator, the one that had been ahead of me, stepped into sight.
It stood no taller than my waist, but it was lean and muscled all along its five foot length. Its grey and black pelt was wet from the bushes it had passed through, its black eyes gleaming as it opened its fanged muzzle to snarl. I stood petrified, unable to move in any way, and the thing started toward me.
Then a furious roar sounded from the other direction. My head snapped around, knowing that the first predator had arrived, too. It was twice the size of the other, was covered all over with long, silky brown fur, and was absolutely furious that its prey was about to be taken by another beast. The smaller predator hissed and snarled in frustration at the sight of the larger, but it slunk off rather than fight what it knew would be a losing battle.