John Norman Gor 08 Hunters of Gor

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my plan of attack, I did not think we would need many men. Five, I had
conjectured, would have been sufficient. I smiled to myself. Perhaps it was an
arrogance of my Gorean blood that had led me to my decision. There is more
glory to take more slaves with fewer men. It redounds to the skill and credit
of the slaver. Too, Verna s band, earlier in the forest, had irritated me. It
would gratify me, and give them a
most humiliating memory to carry with them into their slavery, that they, the
entire band, had been taken by a mere handful of males. They might be panther
girls, but they were only women. We would take them easily.
We had weighed various modes of attack. One of the simplest and least
dangerous we had immediately rejected, because of the time involved. It was to
besiege the girls in their stockade, cutting them off from food and water, and
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merely wait until they, hungering and thirsting, following our orders, threw
down their weapons, stripped themselves and emerged, one by one, as we called
them forth, surrendering to our binding fiber. A similar plan, but swifter,
requires setting fire to the camp and its encircling wall. This forces the
girls into the forest where, theoretically, they maybe separately taken. There
are many dangers here, however. The girls usually emerge armed and dangerous,
rapidly scattering. It can be extremely perilous to attempt to capture such
women.
Further, in the confusion, girls may escape. Perhaps most to be dreaded is the
spread of fire to the forest itself. This is something which, perhaps
surprisingly to the mind of Earth, fills Goreans with great horror. It is not
simply that there is great danger to the slaver themselves, in the shiftings
and blazings of such a conflagration, but rather that the forest, the
sheltering and beautiful forest, is felt as being injured. Goreans care for
their world. They love the sky, the plains, the sea, the rain in the summer,
the snow in the winter. They will sometimes stand and watch clouds. The
movement of grass in the wind is very beautiful to them. More than one Gorean
poet had sung of the leaf of a Tur tree. I have known warriors who cared for
the beauty of small flowers. I personally would not care to be the man
responsible for the destruction of a Gorean forest. It is not unknown for them
to be hunted down and burned alive, their ashes scattered in expiation by
mourning Goreans among the charred wood and blackened stumps.
Sometimes it takes, according to the Goreans, a generation for the forest to
forgive its injury, and return to men, gracious and forgiving, in all its
beauty. No , I said, we will not use fire. A further consideration, of
course, was that we were now in the late summer, and the dangers of fire were
maximized.
Arn and his men agreed.
One of the most delicate modes of enslavement, and requiring great skill, is
to enter the stockade of the panther girls under the cover of darkness and
then, one by one, hut by hut, following the sound of their breathing, to take
them. The slightest sound may of course, alert the entire band. One locates a
sleeping girl and then, swiftly, as she awakens squirming, forces a heavy
wadding into her mouth, fastening it in place with strips of cloth and
leather.
One must then, swiftly, tie her hands behind her back and bind her ankles. One
then moves, stealthily, to the next girl. If all proceeds well, each girl, in
the light of dawn, looks about herself and sees that each of her comrades,
too, is gagged and bound as helplessly as she herself is. In the night they
have been taken slave. This procedure, however, calls for great delicacy and
skill.
We had decided on a simpler mode of attack, that would utilize the first light
of day, taking the girls before they had fully awakened, or could
realize what was happening to them.
We would use sleen nets, casting them over more than one girl at a time,
tieing them together, making it impossible for them to utilize their weapons.
We could then stand over them with knives, preventing them from freeing
themselves. At our leisure, one by one, perhaps after having breakfast in
their camp, we could then remove them from the nets and chain them.
We circled the terrain of the camp with great care.
It is most important to swiftly, silently, dispose of any sentries.
But we found none in the encircling forest. We saw none within the palisade.
They are not wise, whispered Arn, not to have left sentries.
We crawled to the gate, and there, quietly, I studied the knot that held it,
so, if necessary, I could retie it. It was not a difficult know. It was not a
signature knot. Its purpose was only to hold the gate against the pushings and
shoulderings of animals.
I untied the knot and , one by one, we slipped within the palisade.
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We unrolled the sleen nets and loosened the knives in our sheaths.
The ground was wet and damp from the dew. The forest was cool. I could make
out the shape of Arn s head, near me, as he waited.
We heard the throaty warbling of a tiny horned gim.
Then we saw the first sparkle of the morning, the glistening of the dampness
of leaves and grass.
I could now, rather well, make out the features of Arn s face. I nodded to
him, and the others. There were five huts, and ten of us. By twos, sleen nets
slung between us, we moved to the huts.
I nodded to Arn. He gave a high whistle, shrill and sudden, and we, and the
others, thrust through the portals of the hut, casting the sleen nets to
encompass whatever lie within.
I gave a cry of rage.
We caught nothing.
In a moment other men came to our hut. They are gone, said one.
The camp is empty, said another.
We looked at one another.
Arn was furious.
Reconnoiter, I told two men, and swiftly, and well.
The men and Arn, looked at one another, apprehensively. They had only then
realized, with full awareness, that we ourselves were now penned within the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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