The Inlander

Leaving his two bodyguards outside, the tall, handsome askari with the tribal tattoo swirled on his cheek came blinking into the purple tent, out of the strong morning sunshine. The shadowed coolness was welcome after the equatorial Sun's heat against his dark brown perspiring skin.

"Welcome, welcome, o' Worthy to the humble tents of the Dhahabu Market," said the short squat slaver, who ushered the Inlander warrior in with an ingratiating smile.

The slaver gestured to a wide-backed rattan chair, a matching foot stool set before it. There was a table within easy arm's reach on which set vessals of food and drink. "Sit, great sirrah, be at ease. As you can see there are victuals to delight the palate and incense to stir the senses. The musicians in yonder corner will play any tune you fancy. I will send in the girls. Your merest whim is their most passionate pleasure, you may be assured."

Traditionally, the best girls of a slaver house are featured in their purple tents. Absent was the shouted, bawdy bidding of the masses. There, where the rich men shop, a kajira's charms can be intimately sampled by the potential buyer. In the select tents, only after he has tasted what is for sale is the buyer required to make a bid, if any.

The tall man nodded, seeming neither impressed with the slaver's servile mien nor the rich interior decorations of the large tent. He moved in an easy gait to the fan back chair and sat upon it. His deep brown skin, high-cheek boned features, his long-limbed arms and legs made him plainly of Inlander heritage. The folk who inhabit the vast Rainforest of Gor's Equatorial Belt.

He was of the Kirotobo Clan. His name was Moto Kutwa, gifter of fire or fire giver, in the Inlander language. Prometheus in City Gorean.

He was traveling incognito, in the simple guise of an askari, an Inlander warrior. While he had a right to don the askari regalia of leopard skin loincloth, the wicked curved belt knife, feathered headdress with amulets, bracelets and anklets of gold, panther and mamba teeth, in actuality, he was the Mfalme, the Ubar, of the Island of Kailiuak, on the famous trade island by the same name on Lake Ushindi.

He had just endured a week-long secret trade conference with the Schendi Council and he felt he owed himself some recreation before beginning the long journey back up-river to Lake Ushindi. The Dhahabu Slave Mansion of Schendi was well-known for its high-quality slaves throughout the Equatorial Zone of Gor. And so, it was to their purple tents that Prometheus had went. :. He drank Turian brandy and ate river-fish caviar on fresh bread as he watched the first presented girl dance before him.

She's heavy-footed, he thought, dismissively. He was a fan of the Dance, a severe critic, and didn't appreciate dilettantes diluting the ranks. He didn't bother to suppress a yawn a few ehn through the girl's routine. The anxious slaver, sensitive the potential buyer's mood, hurriedly pulled the girl out and brought in another.

The second girl was a songstress. Her voice was light and clear, such as to charm any master. Prometheus could see why she'd been reserved for the purple tents. But, within the walls of his palace, he had many such singers and didn't need another. He gave her a silver tarn when she finished, sparking a wide smile of gratitude from the songbird. More likely than not the valuable coin would be taken from her but it was the gesture the girl would truly treasure.

It was the third girl who got the Mfalme's attention. The moment she thrust aside the flap and strutted into the tent he knew she was of a singular quality.

Her walk was buoyant, agile, the balls-of-her-feet gait of a superbly healthy female. Her natural scent suffused the air, overwhelming the fainter traces of the perfumed sluts before her. Her hair was dark-hued crimson, which fell in cascading waves down her sun-kissed shoulders, framing a face a man usually saw only in his most lust-inspired dreams. Although her height was demure, the slave's breasts were full melons, capped by rose madder aureole. The pinched waist helped to form a classic heart-shaped ass, supported by shapely thighs. Her sex was partially hidden by pube fuzz as fiery as her mane. Her navel was a deep dimple on her belly and a tiny gold ring graced her pierced clit. The nails of her tapered fingers were painted green. She was naked, save for the clit-ring and slave bells at her ankles, and as haughty as any prima ballerina absoluta ever born.

Seemingly indifferent to the wench, who pridefully struck a sensual pose, Prometheus cracked nuts against each other in his big closed fist, then made a business out of judiciously picking the edible nuggets from amongst the shell shards. After a few ihn, he looked up. His dark black-brown gaze met her midnight blue eyes. Although her glance was fleeting, he saw the expressiveness of those almond eyes shaded under long curled sooty lashes.

"Well? What are you waiting for, slut? Sing, dance. Surely you can do more than just stand there licking your lips and pouting."

The girl's deep blue eyes narrowed just a bit. The implied criticism of her kajira skills stung her, as it was meant to do. Kajirae are vain of their talents, easy prey to criticism. The slave nodded respectfully to the musicians in their corner, then began to grind her hips.

Quickly, the girl's dance made Prometheus forgetful of the nuts in his hands. He watched as she closed her eyes. Her sinuous body moving with the beat of the drum. The purple satin of the large tent billowed slightly with the wind as the kajira moved seductively in the lamplight. Her expressive eyes held the assurance of a pleasure slut who knew her heat was high, her skills just as rarified. She swung her hips and rolled her ass as if in the arms of an ardent lover, her slim arms entwining over her head of brilliant scarlet hair, long nailed slender fingers moving with serpentine grace.

Prometheus found it pleasing, if curious, that although the red-haired girl was clearly of Northern stock she danced with the uninhibited instincts of a jungle slut. It was obvious to the slaver that the proud girl had caught the Inlander's attention. He did a quiet fade from the tent.

The Inlander lost count of the ehn as he watched the girl and she did her very best to beguile him, ensnare his senses with the slave dance. With her exertions her scent musk completely suffused the tent, adding yet another layer to her seduction. All the while her haughty glance would flick toward his face then away, seeking to ascertain the effect she was having upon him.

The pipes thrilled, the drum throbbed.

The girl's movements took on the pantomime of being first chased, then captured. She skipped upon her toes, causing her fulsome breasts to sway heavily, close to his face. She swirled away, temporarily escaping, only to be caught again. She fell to her knees before him, opening her inviting thighs that her sex was unobscured, crimson thatch unable to hide the plumpness of her wet cuntlips, the smell of the girl now far more heady than the incense on the humid air. She began to thrust and grind her hips, as if in response to an invisible yet violent ravishment, falling to the carpeted floor, breathless, bosom heaving. Sweat beaded over her heated form, running in rivulets down her cheeks, off her breasts, down her thighs.

The music ended. And Prometheus shook himself as if emerging from a spell.

He stood, looking down at the girl, now in her nadu, with the pitiless gaze of a raptor confronting prey. His voice was rough with arousal when he spoke. "A girl must slake the passion her dance excites."

"Yes, Master," breathed the slave slut, breasts beaded with jewels of perspiration, locks of her red hair now plastered to her wet brow. A sultry worldly smile on her plush lips. "If Master so desired so clumsy a beast."

He laughed at that, reaching down, grabbing the dancer by the mane and hauling her up against his body, forcing a kiss upon her panting lips, her sweat slicking against him. It was clear he meant to take her there and then. However, it was at that moment the slaver rushed back in. His ingratiating smile gone, replaced by an expression of near-panic. Both Prometheus and the girl looked at him, not at all pleased by the interruption.

"A thousand pardons, sirruh,' breathed the slaver. "But, a terrible mistake has been made. This girl is already sold, I'm afraid, good worthy. Her master's agent has come to collect her."

Prometheus scowled, it was not a reassuring expression and the slaver took a step back, conscious of the panga in the warriors belt.

"Tell him I'll buy her."

"If only the solution were so simple," the slaver said, wringing his pudgy sausage-fingered hands. One did not lightly frustrate an askari's designs. "The buyer departed Schendi days ago. The girl was left to await the agent who now stands in the compound. I'm afraid she must be given to him, o' worthy one. I beg forgiveness a thousand times. But, she is bought and paid for and was sent in here through an accounting mistake. There are many other girls you may sample," he finished, weakly.

Prometheus hurumped, but his scowl of vexation cleared as he turned to look at the girl caught up in his arms, his nostrils flaring as her aroma drifted into his nose.

"Well, girl, I suppose the dance is over." He caressed her damp, pliant cheek with the side of a rough finger.

"It would seem so, Master." Sincere regret was in her husky voice, as he released her.

But, despite his words of surrender, she could tell from his touch to her cheek, the possessive glint in his dark eyes and the tone of his deep voice that nothing was over between them. Nothing was even close to being over.

The slaver approached, attached a chain-lease to her collar and led the sweat-sheened girl from the tent. She looked back over her shoulder, giving Prometheus a last smoky indigo glance, then tent flap fell between them. :. Part 2

Two days later, the bandit band swept down upon the merchant caravan in the late ahn of the pleasant spring night.

The slave girl, Violet, was awakened abruptly from her dreams by the sound of alarm horns blaring , the harsh shouts of men and the screams of women. She sat up on the thin slavemat allotted her within the locked confines of the slave wagon. The chain secured to her collar rattling in the dark. She could hear other girls moving around as well, disturbed by the sudden noise from without.

There was no lamp in the wagon, nor window so that the slaves had no clear idea of what was transpiring in the camp outside. Yet, it was clear that all was in turmoil from the shouting, screaming and blaring of horns. Perhaps three or four ehn after the beginning of the ruckus, the door of the wagon was suddenly pulled open, squealing on its hinges, and pewter moons' light poured into the interior.

Framed in the low oval doorway stood Prometheus with a huge grin on his dark face. Stripped down to loincloth and sandals, a bush-knife thrust into his belt, his dark eyes searched the shadows in the dim light until he saw the object of his quest. Nimbly, he leaped into the wagon, a master key shining in his blunt fingers. Within ihn the chain holding Violet to the restraining bar was open. He grabbed her by her rich red hair and dragged her over the bodies of the other girls until they were both out of the wagon and standing in the cool night air.

He looked down at her, his handsome features composed in a grin of triumph in the light of Gor's three moons. "I decided I wished to own you after all," he growled, before tossing the wench over his broad shoulder and running out of the circle of caravan wagons and across the broad space of the stone-paved highway, into the shadowed darkness of the Rainforest :. The Administrator of Bazi, Sirius Longfellow, was an ambitious man.

He wished to increase trade to Bazi using the new Bazi-Schendi Highway. To do so, he needed to assure merchants of the safety of the thoroughfare and toward such assurance, he maintained a guard along the road. The Highway Guard was two-fold, aerial and ground troops. Tarn-riders patrolled the road from above during the daylight hours. They communicated by mirror signals and colored banners. Kaiila riders patrolled from saddleback at night as well as day. Guard posts were built every ten pasangs along the highway. They communicated by drum.

At the fort most nearest the site of the caravan attack was a sleen kennel. Using coded drum communication, the commander at the scene of the raid ordered packs of sleen and their trainers to come help search for the local bandit band who had made off with the caravan's goods.

The sleen, a long serpentine yet furred bodied, six legged creature with two rows of sharp teeth in its triangular head, sense of smell is comparable to that of the Terran Polar Bear, which can catch a discrete scent over a ninety-mile distance. The sleen is the very definition of tenacious, once onto its quarry it will not deviate, it will not be distracted until bringing down its prey, unless otherwise ordered to by its trainer. The gray sleen is the most gifted hunter of the various breeds. At the break of dawn a pack of six grays were onto the fresh trail of Prometheus. :. He had decided to travel through the entire night after the raid, reasoning that putting distance between himself and the raided caravan was his greatest safety. His bodyguards had be separated from him during the raid, but that was no concern. He had no qualms of making his way back to Ushindi on his own.

It was only in the ahn of Dawn, the next morning that Prometheus finally carried the slave up a tree and make a rude bed of branches. He tied a leather thong to his wrist and the other end to slave's wrist, then he went soundly to sleep.

Violet trembled against him at the unfamiliar sounds of the jungle. She had a fierce spirit and had proven that time and again during her adventuresome life, but the mad dash through the night time forest had knocked her off-balance. She was a stranger in a strange land and she was utterly dependent upon this new master for her very survival. And with that thought, exhausted, she fell asleep as well.

In his sleep Prometheus heard the distant barking. The yelping blended in with nonsensical dreams of being held captive by giant trees and being smothered by a pile of slave girls. He awoke with a start, the noon-hour Sun shining down through the branches of the tree he'd nested in. The girl he had stolen lie against him, one arm across his face, over his nose. He was about to slap her awake and upbraid her for it when he heard the far away sounds of the barking sleen.

"Shit," he cursed. He shoved the arm from across his face and shook her rudely awake. "Wake up, slut."

Violet came awake instantly, so trained was she to the command tone of a master. "Master?" Then she tensed in surprise, realizing she was high up in a tree and clung desperately to him.

He scowled impatiently. "No time for kijakazi stupidity. The sleens have been set on me. Time to get going." He untried the thong about his wrist, tossed the girl unceremoniously over his shoulder once more and descended nimbly down the branches of the mango tree. :. For three days the sleens relentlessly pursued them. But, Violet noticed her kidnapper seemed to be enjoying the chase, as if it were a game. Although a superb dancer and highly fit, she'd lost her wind within the first day of constant running through the Jungle. Prometheus, seeing she couldn't be smacked into going further on her own had once more thrown her over one shoulder and simply continued his pasang eating trot, mindless of the girl's weight. They traveled thusly for sixteen ahn out of the twenty ahn day, stopping only after the Sun had been long down, then up and running again long before it rose.

"There is a margin of safety," he'd told her, on the second day. They'd stopped by a stream to drink and eat bananas from a nearby grove.

"It isn't the sleen who must be outdistanced but the men who hold their leashes. Men must stop to eat, they must stop to sleep. The trainers are no doubt city men and not used to the deep Jungle, not on intimate terms with her ways. I can keep ahead of them easily enough. The only true danger is if their animals are released, but there is not much chance of that. Tracking sleens are expensive animals, both in gold and in time spent training, the men won't risk losing their pack. But, I don't relish having to run all the way back to Ushindi, eventually the sleen must be neutralized."

How he planned to do so, if he had a plan to do so, he didn't bother to tell her.

On the third day Violet noticed the barking of the sleens seemed closer. "We've entered more open country," he told her when she mentioned her observation. "The men are able to cover more pasangs during the day and I have been slowing down to keep it more interesting. Still, I suppose its time to end this little game," he said, with clear wistful regret.

Violet, however, felt only relief. Although she knew the trackers meant to retrieve her, not kill her, she'd been having nightmares of being tore apart by the sleen pack. :. Part 3

"But, Master, why must I be left tied to a tree?"

Prometheus checked the knot of the thong he'd used to secure her wrists around the sinuous trunk of tall date palm before answering. "You must be restrained because I don't trust you not to run back to the sleen men."

"But, I promise not to, Master. If you leave me tied here the wild animals will get me."

"There is that possibility," he nodded, beginning to turn away. "Most likely, it'll be a hith that'll chose you for its dinner."

"Master," Violet squeaked, in real terror. "But, I promise not to run away."

"So I heard you the first time, girl. But, as I've had to save my energies to stay ahead of the pack, I haven't yet properly breed you, raped you into kolar. I am not yet your true master and therefore cannot trust your word. No, best you be tied until I return. Pray for me to have a successful and swift hunt."

"But--"

Violet was not able to form the rest of her sentence before Prometheus had faded silently into the greenery and black shadows of the Jungle. Finding herself alone, she started at every little sound, the flat plunk of moisture droplets talking down through the leaves and fronds. The brittle snapping of twigs as a stray branch fell from a tree. The stealthy rustle of tiny paws in the underbrush. The natural beauty of her surroundings was lost to the slave as she imagined predators behind every curved trunk, crouched in back of every rotting log on the forest floor.

Time passed and Prometheus seemed to be gone forever. A new anxiety began to assail her. What if he had an accident and could not return to her? What if whatever animal he had gone off to hunt instead killed him? She jerked at her bonds but it was no use, her captor was obviously a man who knew how to tie good knots. It would take hours if not days for her to get loose. And what of the hiths?

Something brushed her leg and Violet cried out. Hopping away on one foot. Her fears came to full realization when she looked down into the black compound eyes of a spider whose ugly hairy body was more than a foot wide.

The spider, alarmed at her sudden motion had backed off a few feet but it stared at her boldly with its glittering stygian eyes as it squatted on its eight hairy brown legs and pinched its manables open and closed. Violet hated and feared spiders. Better to be thrown to the sleen than fall victim to an arachnid. A thousand times better. A million. She screamed again and moved around the circle of the palm's trunk. The spider scuttled around as well, taking a tentative step closer to her.

"Shoo," she moaned, kicking at the debris of the forest floor, scattering wet leaves at the spider. It backed off but just a bit. "Shoo. Go away, you nasty thing."