Witness of Gor (99 page)

"I may not see you again," said the peasant. "It was my desire to wish you well.”

Gito trembled.

"I wish you well," said the peasant.

"I wish you well," whispered Gito.

The peasant smiled, and put his great hands affectionately on Gito's small shoulders. He then rose, turned about, and, soundlessly, left.

Yes, I must be dreaming, I thought.

But, a moment after the peasant had vanished, I would surely in any event have been awakened, for Gito leaped to his feet screaming. "Awake! Awake! He was here! He was here!”

In the room there was consternation instantly. "What? Where?" cried the leader of the strangers. "There! There!" cried Gito, pointing to the portal. "Where is the guard?" cried the leader of the strangers.

"You were dreaming," said a man to Gito.

"No, no!" cried Gito.

"The guards are not at their post," said the lieutenant.

"To arms!" cried the leader of the strangers. "Out into the hail! Run!

Search!”

"The lamps in the hall are out," said a man, drawing back into the room.

"Torches, light lanterns, hurry!" cried the leader of the strangers.

The pit master sat up in his blankets, rubbing his eyes. The officer of Treve, too, bestirred himself.

Gito was jabbering incoherently.

"Bring some slaves!" screamed the leader of the strangers. Five or six of us. including Fina and myself, were quickly freed of our chains and pulled by the hair to our feet, and were thrust toward the portal. We were to be used, I gathered, as shields, or as tests, thrust before the men, of the passages, their possible dangers.

In a moment we were thrust out into the corridor, men, most with drawn swords, some with armed bows, behind us. Lanterns and torches cast light about.

"This way!" cried the leader of the strangers, pushing Fina forward.

THIRTY SIX Fina screamed, drawing back.

It was something like half of an Ahn that we had been hurrying through one adjacent passage after another.

I think only the pit master's skill kept us from becoming lost in what seemed sometimes, in our alarm and haste, an eerie, dreadful, unfathomable subterranean labyrinth.

The leader of the strangers had hoped to follow the dark passages, the extinguished lamps indicating the path taken by the prisoner but, at a joining of several passages, it was seen that the lamps of each were still lit, dimly flickering into the distance, thus giving no indication which, if any, might have been trod.

The pit master pressed forward. He had been almost at the elbow of Fina. She was shaking.

"Lift the torch," said the pit master.

The pit master turned over the body in the corridor.

"It is Emmerich," said a man.

There were coarse marks on the throat. The cartilage of the throat had been crushed.

"He was strangled with chain," said the lieutenant.

There was little doubt as to what had left its savage imprint there.

"He has been dead several Ahn," said the officer of Treve. He was of the scarlet caste.

The men looked about themselves, uneasily.

"Where can he have gone?" asked a man.

"He is here somewhere," said another.

"He must be weak," said a man. "He has had nothing to eat.”

"When was he fed last?" asked the leader of the strangers.

"He was fed yesterday evening," said the pit master.

"By now his reflexes will be slowed, his actions will be erratic, he must grow weaker soon, if he is not already considerably weakened," mused the leader of the strangers.

"If he has not eaten in the meantime," said the pit master. "What is there to eat?" asked the leader of the strangers. The pit master tore back a part of the black tunic.

"Aargh," cried a man, in disgust.

"Peasants are beasts," said a man.

There was no dearth of water in the pits, of course, particularly in the lower corridors.

"We will return to the chamber," said the leader of the strangers.

"Where was the guard?" asked the lieutenant.

"Consider sleen, Captain," urged a man.

Gito pressed closely to the leader of the strangers, looking fearfully about himself. The leader of the strangers angrily brushed him back. Gito retreated, but he remained so close that he might have reached out and seized his sleeve.

In a few minutes we had returned to their headquarters. Within we found two of the blacktunicked men, lying to one side. "Knaves!" cried the lieutenant. "They have slept through the alarm!”

"Kill them," said the leader of the black-tunicked men.

"That will not be necessary," said the officer of Treve. "Their throats have been cut.”

"They are the guard," said the lieutenant.

They had not been noticed at the beginning of the alarm, being taken for men asleep. They had not been noticed in our haste to rush into the corridor, in our pursuit of the prisoner. He must have drawn them earlier within the chamber, and put them like that, to one side, as though they slept. If one were to awaken, and see them thusly, lying there, with others about them, men clearly asleep, breathing deeply, one might not suspect anything was amiss.

"He was truly here," said a man.

More than one of them, I am sure, suspected that the alarm had been a false one, occasioned by the trepidation of Gito, awakening from some terrible dream.

"How is it that he can come and go as he pleases?" asked a man.

"He is like the savages of the Barrens," said a man.

"He is a beast," said the leader of the strangers. "He has the cunning of a beast. He has the stealth of a beast. He has the savagery of the beast.”

One of the men murmured assent.

"He is not human," said the leader of the strangers. "We are hunting something which is not human.”

"Captain," said the lieutenant.

"Yes," said the leader of the strangers.

"Emmerich had a bow, and quarrels. They were not with the body.”

"I know," said the leader of the strangers, irritably.

"I think we may then assume," said the lieutenant, "that the prisoner is in possession of, or has access to, a missile weapon.”

"I think that is a fair assumption," said the leader of the strangers.

The black-tunicked men exchanged glances.

Gito whimpered.

As the two guards had been slain, and the other man, he who had been missing, had been found strangled in the corridor, there were left of the strangers, other than their leader, his lieutenant and Gito, just seven men.

"He is not human," said the leader of the strangers. "He is a beast, a mad and dangerous beast.”

"Let him then be hunted as a beast," said the lieutenant.

"You have changed your position on the matter then?" said the leader.

"Yes, Captain.”

"You have two sleen available?" asked the captain of the pit master.

"Yes.”

"Hunters?”

"Yes.”

"They are similar beasts, similarly agile and aggressive?”

"Yes," said the pit master. "It is unlikely that one could far outdistance the other.”

There would be then time only for one shot with the bow.

"Have them here in the morning, ready to hunt," said the leader of the strangers.

"As you wish," said the pit master.

"Set a double guard, four men, in two pairs," said the leader of the strangers.

"Yes, Captain," said the lieutenant.

"It seems he was indeed here," said a man to Gito.

"Yes," said Gito, looking about himself, "yes.”

"Why did he come here?”

"He came to bid me farewell," said Gito.

"Why?" asked the man.

"I am his friend," said Gito.

"I see," said the man.

"Secure the slaves," said the leader of the strangers.

"Slaves, prepare to be secured," said a man.

We, those of us who had been freed earlier in the alarm to accompany the men, there were six of us, quickly hurried to the wall and knelt there, close to it, facing it. We were aligned now, spatially, with the others, as we had been before the alarm. I felt my bound wrists pulled up and inspected. They were still well tied. I then, in a moment, felt the ankle ring snapped shut about my ankle. I was then again fastened to the wall. When we were all secured, the men left us, and we lay down, or reclined, frightened, as we might.

"The sleen will finish him, in the morning," said a man.

"Yes," said another.

I saw Gito across the way. I did not think he would sleep. I did not think I would sleep either. But, in a few moments, despite my fear, my aching arms, the hardness of the stone, I had lost consciousness.

THIRTY SEVEN I did not want to be touched by the animals. I feared them terribly.

One must have been fifteen feet in length, and the other close to twenty. I could not have begun to put my arms about one.

The leg just above the paw in the larger animal must have been some six inches in thickness.

They were leashed, the leashes going to rings on huge leather collars, four to five inches in width, an inch or two in thickness. I dreaded even that they might rub against me, those huge bodies, with their glossy, oily fur. It was easy to see how men might not be able to control such beasts. Their tongues lolled out now. They seemed passive enough, at the moment. Their breathing was heavy, a sort of panting, as they padded along with us, but it was regular, and showed no signs of particular excitement. Perhaps they were merely being exercised. Their heads, broad at the back, tended to taper toward the snout, rather like those of vipers. The length of their body, too, with its six legs, tended to suggest a furred serpent, or reptile. Such things are mammalian or mammalianlike, however, in the sense of giving live birth and suckling the young.

Two of the black-tunicked men clung to each leash. Again the blacktunicked men did not wish pit guards present. Once again they had been dismissed. Even with two men on a leash I did not think they would be able to hold the animals if they should be determined to go their own way. But, to be sure, these were hunting sleen, and not intended to hunt on the leash, but rather only when unleashed.

I cried out a little as one of the beasts brushed past me. I had felt its ribs, like iron bands beneath the smooth, rippling muscles, sheathed in the oily pelt. Even in that brief, smooth touch I had sensed a considerable force, like a wave in the sea. But such beasts are not only powerful. They are extremely agile as well, and can easily top a thirty-foot wall. Over a short distance they can outrun fleet game. Their front claws used in burrowing, can tear through heavy doors. Sometimes it takes ten spears to kill one.

"We will loose them here," said the leader of the strangers.

We stopped.

We were at the intersection of several passages, at a point we had reached last night, and a point we were sure the prisoner had occupied at least once, for it was here that the extinguished lamps had ended.

The beasts looked about, puzzled.

This was surely not their pen.

In our group were the leader of the strangers, his lieutenant, Gito, his seven men, the pit master, the officer of Treve, and ten slaves, in two groups of five each. The members of each group were tied together by the neck, presumably not merely to control us, as a coffle chain might, but to keep us together. making our disposition as a shield, or wall, more effective. The two groups might precede the men, forming a double wall in the passage, or, if the men wished, one group might precede and the other follow, in this fashion providing protection for both the front and rear. I was in the second group as I had been seventh in the slave line, my position there determined by my height. Both groups, however, at this point, were muchly together. As before, we were unclothed. Our hands, too, as before, were tied behind our backs.

"Bring the sack forward," said the leader of the strangers.

This was done.

This was the sack which contained the blanket which had been taken from the prisoner's cell yesterday morning. It was sealed, and the seal, with its dangling string, had not been broken.

"Loose the sleen," said the leader of the strangers.

The heavy collars were removed from the throats of the two sleen. There is a difference in custom here with various sorts of sleen, which might be remarked. War sleen, watch sleen, fighting sleen, and such, when freed, would normally retain the collars, which are often plated and spiked, for the protection of the throat. With hunting sleen, on the other hand, the collars are usually removed. There are two views on this matter. One view is that the collar might jeopardize the hunt, for example, that it might be caught in a branch, or be somehow utilized to restrain the animal before it has located its quarry. The other is that the removal of the collar returns the beast to its state of natural savagery, that it removes from it any inhibitions which might have resulted from its familiarity with human beings. Certainly it is difficult to recollar a hunting sleen until it has made its kill, until it has been pacified, sated with the predesignated blood and meat. The two views, of course, are not mutually exclusive.