0 comments/ 17948 views/ 3 favorites The Tuchuk Flame of Lydius By: Alii Nui (based on the Gor fiction of John Norman) * First-Captain Black Ox, the most wanted man on Gor, moved unconcerned through a Lydius slave-market. As both a member of the Slaver-caste and a pirate, he held a professional's natural interest in the inventory of slave pens. In addition to making his living at plundering and enslaving, Black Ox had also been born into the influential Dhahabu family of Schendi. He was as habitually interested in slave-flesh as a Merchant was in gold, a Scribe in knowledge. More to the point, the wharf-area market had been a natural place for him to arrange the meeting with his spy. The freeport of Lydius enjoyed the reputation of being a only half-civilized city. Still, half-civilized or not, it did exist under the rule of Gorean law and a simple matter of prudence dictated that the First-Captain shouldn't have been in Lydius. Even if he were incognito as a mere common Slaver. As a member of the secret and nefarious League of Black Slavers, Black Ox was both a pirate and an outlaw and therefore subject to impalement everywhere on Gor but in his home city of Schendi. Lydius was thousands of pasangs north of the sanctuary of that equatorial port. But being a pirate, the Black Slaver sought specific outbound shipping information from up-river cities such as Laura. Information which made the process of plundering merchant ships on the high-seas much more efficent. And the Port of Lydius was rife with eager folk willing to exchange cargo manifests for copper, silver, or gold. The day was hot. It was summer in the Northern Hemisphere of Gor. Just past the tenth ahn, Noon. With the Sun, Lar-Torvis, straight overhead it was as if even the shadows had evaporated in the heat. Insects droned lazily in the still air. Black Ox was seemingly untouched by the temperature. He was a Southerner, the northern clime couldn't begin to compete with the oppressive humidity of his equatorial homeland. Unlike most around him, he hadn't even broken a sweat. His dark eyes, an intense deep brown, scanned the compound of the somewhat dingy slave-mart. He saw bidders standing in the dust before the auction block, kajirae of mundane appearance pranced up on the platform one after the other, their naked feet stirring the sawdust on the block's floor, to be auctioned and bought. There was a handful of scarlet-tuniced city-guardsmen about. Warriors often haunted slave-pens, hoping to rent cheap a comely girl for a quarter-ahn or so. The one person the First-Captain didn't see was the informant he was there to meet. Black Ox frowned, his sense of survival tickling caution to his hindbrain. Easy, Ox, he admonished himself. It's only just after ten, most likely the man was delayed at the baths or a tavern. No need to be jittery just yet. The big Slaver's attention was caught by the appearance of a new slave who ascended the short steps of the block. The girl was gorgeous. She exuded a regal haugthiness as she stepped up on the auction stage. Her eyes, a kuanos the color of the restful Thassa under a clear Sky, held a frank gaze. She looked out over the buyers with a regard which bordered on the disdainful. Her full-bodied hair, a fiery red, fell in thick and silky waves from her head, down graceful white shoulders dusted with freckles and draped over her long back, down past her plump and well-shaped ass. Her breasts only added to her arrogant appearance, full, firm, large rose-madder circles capping the creamy globes which seemed to thrust challengingly from her torso. Her navel was a deep dimple. Her delicate feet led up to long and pretty legs ending with nice fleshy thighs. Between those thighs was a delta of short and curly thatch, shining the same multi-shaded red as her head. Now there's a fine beast, Black Ox thought. At the display of such succulent slave flesh the corners of his generous lips curved upward into an unabashed grin. Inadvertantly, the market's Slaver had rousted the heretofore indifferent assembly of buyers with the proud girl's appearance. She had an immediate effect on the crowd, stirring the men, arousing their passions, their desire to see the redhead humbled. The Gorean male is accustomed to his slave flesh being pretty, compliant, sensual, even a certain amount of fiery spirit, depending on individual taste, is held in esteem. But, a girl sporting the snotty attitude of a Free woman is not what the run-of-the-mill master desires. Black Ox was not, by any measure, an average Gorean. While the bakers and paga shop owners and candle-makers bristled at the slut's insulting attitude, the big Black Slaver looked upon the girl as a man would look upon any thoroughbred, be she tabuk, larl, or kaiila. By law, the kajira with the blushing hair was an animal, a beast, and he judged her fine lines from that perspective, a firm and pleasing rump, high-strung temperment, not quite broken to leash or harness. He discerned that she was of high enough quality that in Ar or Schendi she might fetch five, perhaps ten gold tarn on her beauty alone. But Lydius was not Schendi, it wasn't Ar, it wasn't even Port Kar. Black Ox doubted that the intriguing piece of chain-meat would profit her seller much more than two silver tarn. If that. He began to muscle his way through the crowd, closer to the block and the sleek slavegirl. The men he pushed past grumbled in the captain's wake as they felt themselves being politely but insistently moved aside. Many cast him menacing glances but once they saw the size of the hulking man, the scimitar at his side and the curved knife in his belt, they contented themselves with their mutterings. Black Ox stopped before the auction block. The stage was so low and he was so tall that he could look the girl right in the eyes. She looked back at him, her azure stare as cool as a stone bottle of river-chilled palmwyne. The very brazeness of her bold stare caused him to chuckle a bit. The girl's forehead pinched in a frown, his amused reaction unexpected. She had grown used to men scowling when she openly looked at them, used to suffering a slap in the face or a hair-pull for her impertience. Countless were the times when she'd been forced to her knees to kiss sandaled feet and give thanks the master for his troubles. To beg his pardon. But, their gazes were locked for no more than two or three ihn before the red-haired girl uncharacteristically averted her eyes. The slave found it difficult to hold the pirate's disturbing glance. Again, the Black Slaver chuckled. Black Ox's close-up examination revealed details about the sa-fora unseen at a distance. There was a fine mist of sweat covering her pale and naked form. The moisture lent a dewy quality to her white skin, giving her a healthy shine of vitality. He also caught a whiff of the girl's subtle scent. But it wasn't aroused heat, there was no aroma of wet cunt sweating oils. The redhead was not excited by the throng of bidders gathered before her. She had not grown hot at the prospect of causing the men to become turgid for her. Her expression of disdain was no pose. As he finished his inventory, Black Ox saw the kajira glance at him again, or more accurately, her blue-eyed stare flicked toward his belt. And the slaver's grin grew into a full-blown smile. He'd just learned something about the girl which he was sure she didn't know about herself. "Girl sixteen," the auctioneer declared, squinting at the slave papers. The young man was barely literate, as with the majority of Goreans. He was also nervous, having inherited the slave pen from his elder brother, who'd only recently died outside a paga of a mortal sword wound. "Born of the Wagon People, four horn kan-lara, which despite her light skin marks her of the Tuchuk. An enslaved former Free woman." An audible ah rippled through the crowd, an expression of both discovery and pleasure. Whereas only a moment before, the gathering of men had looked upon the slave as an intolerably prideful slut, they now saw her as highly desirable. Slaves, comparatively speaking, are rare on Gor, scarely comprising between two and three percent of the population. Of that number, some are men. And a few, a vanishing thin few, are enslaved Free women. To a man raised in the Gorean culture a former Free woman in kolar is an extremely erotic sight, the fount of countless adolescent fantasies. And for most men it would remain exactly that, a fantasy, because there just weren't enough ensalved former Free sluts to go around. With the cause revealed, the regal, snobbish, and disdainful posture of the girl was forgiven. Now, all present wanted her, wanted to know, not just imagine, how it would feel to thrust into the kajira's red thatch. Their cocks throbbed to know how it felt to have the ko-lar'd prideful Tuchuk woman writhing beneath them, by turns growling and whimpering out her passion. "She stands five feet and eight horts," the auctioneer continued. "A natural redhead, kolar and cuffs, as you can see." The last comment brought a chuckle from the crowd and the seller looked up blinking, surprised and gratified as any public speaker would be to've gotten the unintentional laugh. "Excellent health, including teeth. A falarina, suited for pots as well as the furs. We'll start the bidding at one silver tarn." That got another laugh, this time one of derision. "A silver? Even for an ex-Free that's ridiculous," someone shouted. "Begin with coppers." "Even then, make her kneel like a proper slut," came another shout. "Kiss her," said a third. "Stir her heat, lad. If she has any. Kiss her." "Aye, kiss her," another joined in, until the call went up around the compound. "No!" Black Ox shouted above the din. His deep voice boomed out with the authoritative percussion of a keleustes' drum. The bidders quieted. "I've a better notion," he said, to the autioneer. "If I may." The youthful seller saw Black Ox's blue and yellow-gold sleeveless tunic, marking him as a fellow Slaver. He nodded, happy to shift attention away from himself, being somewhat of a novice at handling an auction by himself. Black Ox stepped up on the block, his hand going to his belt. The kajira's gaze followed the movements of the big man while the captain was showing teeth as he continued to smile. What he had noted in the girl was her glance at the whip hooked to his wide belt. It was only after noting the coiled five-bladed kurt that the kajira's nipples had begun to wrinkle the skin of her areolae as they hardened some. Black Ox had seen such a reaction before, the kajira was a cat-girl, the sort of slut who longed for the lick of the cat-o-five leather tails on her skin. His long, blunt fingers detached the whip from his belt and he let it uncoil until its lashes draped down his against his high boots. Once more the slave's eyes flicked toward the tool of discipline. Black Ox had possessed the kurt nearly all of his life. It'd been given to him on his twelfth birthday by his father, the age when a Gorean male's strength developes past the point of any female's on the planet, the onset of adulthood. It was a fine whip, with a silver cap at the handle's end knob. A wide ring of silver, a hort in width, decorated the middle of the handle, the rest of the slave-tool was of black leather. A handsome thing was the cat. It was his most prized possession and the captain knew how to use it with surgical percision, having practiced much with it down through the decades. He looked at the kajira, her brilliant hair of fire shining in the sunshine, the cheap slave-steel banding her throat. His dark eyes were cold, none of the warmth of his charming smile touching them. "Look at me, slut." She shivered as his bass voice rolled over her and her gaze instantly snapped to his dark attractive face. Sweat began to roll down her own comely face as he lifted his whip hand, letting the slack black tails slide slowly over her white and freckled shoulder. She became flushed. "Turn, facing away from me and pull your hair from your back," Black Ox said. His voice was conversational, there was no need for him to bark or shout orders. He knew the girl would obey. She had no choice. And she did, trembling, girl sixteen swung her head and the heavy silky curtain of hair swept off her back to sling over her right shoulder, hiding her pendulous tit and its now hard and extended berry of a nipple. The sinuous s-curve of her pale back was presented to Black Ox and the crowd. Her perfectly formed ass too was displayed, as were the unmarked backs of her thighs. A single rivulet of her cunt honey ran down her inner left thigh. Her blush deepened, both from fear and anticipation. And the captain could now smell her. He nodded to himself. She was a cat-girl. He raised the whip, judging his angle of attack as he swung his great muscled arm and the lashes curved as the hissed through the air toward the girl's defensless back. The whip came down. The girl screamed. A collective ah spread through the crowd at the slut's reaction. The men gratified at her obvious sufference, pleased by the sight of tears running down her cheeks, gone scarlet with anguish. Her disdainful manner obiterated, excoriated from her very soul by the kiss of the whip. The girl sobbed. At the strike of the cat she had taken a step forward, as if to leave the auction block. As if to run away. But the very agony which now coursed through the five welts decorating her otherwise unmarred back, the agony she sought to evade, was the very pain which had nearly driven her to explosive release. After an ihn, she sobbed again and stepped back into place. "Good girl," caressed Black Ox's voice in her ear. "Good slut." The former Tuchuk Free woman whimpered, then broke out in a louder sob. The bidders applauded, slapping their hands to their shoulders. But the performance was not yet over. The captain prowled around the trembling girl. "This whip, falarina, was made for one purpose, to instruct through amplified pain." As he spoke the last word, the Black Slaver snapped his wrist and the cat leaped, the straps smacking the sweet meat of her bountiful breasts. Both jiggling globes were marked at once, again, the stripe-pattern laid-on as a work of Art. And again, the girl screamed, throwing back her fiery head, tendons standing out in her graceful throat as she hurled the wail into the hot Sky. Then the slut dropped bonelessly to the block, her knees slamming down hard against the wooden boards. If the abrupt nadu hurt her dimpled knees it didn't prevent the sa-fora from immediately spreading her thighs wide, displaying sopping wet red pubic hair, her alabaster thighs gleaming in the noon time Sun. Her massive and welted breasts thrust out and up. One nipple an angry red from the direct bite of the whip. The air was stuffy, stifling in the market compound. But none noticed. The kajira looked up at Black Ox, her cobalt eyes pleading and tears freely streaming down her cheeks. "Master," she exhaled. "Aye?" The captain stood as if nothing extraordianry had occurred. While he knew full well the girl had been whip-captured, brought to heel by the sting of the lashes, his eyes were hard obsidian as he returned the girl's gaze. "Aye?" "Master, girl submits." She thrust out her crossed wrists, head hung down between her arms. "Master, buy me, please." "Only a slave begs for purchase." "This one, this girl, this slut begs. This slave begs for your ko-lar, Master." Her loins reverberated from the effort of barely containing her release. "A slave?" Black Ox chuckled. "Indeed, a scant ehn ago you seemed anything but a slave." The girl brought her head up and locked gaze with the man who loomed over her. Her voice was somewhat hushed, but her words were clear. "Master, this girl will not survive the day without you. Having known the sweet-torment of your kurt, this one will be dead before nightfall if you spurn her. Her heart will burst from grief." And they both knew the words she spoke were sincere, heartfelt. The intensity of her musky scent also lent credence to her words. Now, the warmth of Black Ox's smile came into his eyes. He chuckled again. "Your death, would be a waste. And we can't have that." He turned to the slaver who stood open-mouthed that the rebellious girl had been brought to heel so quickly. "You wished a silver tarn for the slut. I'll pay it." The seller was wont to accept the offer, he hadn't gotten a silver tarn for a girl in more than a month. It'd been his hope that the cold exotic beauty of the Tuchuk slut would bring him as much but he'd been prepared to settle for half that. Before he could strike the deal, however, a bidder shouted out a higher offer. "A silver tarn and two coppers." A slow smile came to the young slaver's face, he sniffed profit on the wind, as he looked up at Black Ox. "The bid is now a silver tarn and two coppers." The captain scowled, an obvious victim of his own success. The girl's great display of combustible pain-heat, her spontaneous and abject submission, had stirred the heat among the bidders as well. "Silver tarn and fifty coppers!" "Silver tarn, sixty coppers!" With compressed lips, Black Ox endured the frenzied bidding. The still air held the body odor of the crowd, the slaves in their cages and those wilting kajirae chained to the forty-foot steel bar which ran down one side of the compounds wood-board fence. It was hot and it was now much past the tenth hour. The captain's searching glance around the compound found no sign of his informant. He decided it was time to leave. "Three silver tarns to end the bidding," he rasped. "Sold!" The exuberient slaver shouted. "Sold to the brother Slaver with the clever whip." Girl-sixteen, on her knees in the sawdust on the auction-block floor, nearly sagged in relief, but she caught herself in time and maintained her spread-thigh nadu. She'd waited a long time for the Master who could control her, release her passion, and she wasn't going to spoil it now. She could feel her heartbeat in her ears, as with downcast gaze, she heard the big dark stranger count out the coins into the greedy urt-faced slaver's grasping hand. She felt her hair, as red as any war-flag, tugged and heard the voice of the man who'd revealed himself as her true Master. "Up girl, on your feet." "Yes, Master." She thought all of the world must hear her heartbeat as she stood, feel the unalloyed Joy which suffused every fiber of her being. She trembled, so close to her Master her achingly hard nipples were almost touching his tunic of blue and gold. She was in bliss. It lasted for all of two or three ihn, before a cry went up in the slave market. "Pirate! League of Black Slaver! Outlaw!" Black Ox reacted quickly, pushing the girl behind him, drawing his sword, a snarl on his face as he turned in the direction of the shout. Much to his surprise, he was not the target of the shouted allegation. The accuser, along the other bidders in the market, were looking away from Black Ox toward his second-Mate, Carlos, who stood with drawn sword against the logwall of the market. From his vantage point of the auction block, the captain also saw the six warriors who'd been loitering at the cage of a flirtatous burnette slave, turn and begin to move toward the commotion surrounding Carlos, their own swords pulling free of their sheaths. "I remember him from three years ago when those cursed pirates held me for ransom!" The somewhat fat merchant ranted, backing away from the snarling Carlos. A massive surge of adrenaline sent Black Ox's system into overdrive and as a result the captain saw the world in pronounced clarity. Colors impinged on his optic nerves in supernormal brightness. His cardio-vascular-neuro system was also hyperactivated so that Time itself seemed to have slowed. However, as ramped up as he'd become, Black Ox didn't panic. Being a Black Slaver shipmaster, emergency situations were routine to him. The captain took a moment to calmly scan the compound again. The Tuchuk Flame of Lydius On the other side of the market he saw the other two of his crew, Hannibar and Phillip, he'd brought along to watch his back. With hand-signals he gestured for them to intercept the rarii closing in on Carlos. With reinforcements on the way to his second-mate, Black Ox looked around to see what was at hand to increase his and his men odds of leaving the auction compound alive and Free. His dark gaze feel upon three men chained together close to the auction block, their heads shaven with the distinctive two hort wide stripe which ran from hairline to the nape of the neck that Panther-girls put upon their male captives, those they choose to rape and enslave. Each of the slaves had a heavy iron ko-lar hammered around his neck. Black Ox stepped before them. "If I free you, will you fight?" The middle man answered for all three. "From here to the walls of the Cities of Dust and back again, Slaver." "Aye," Black Ox smiled. "I'll take those three," he growled at the seller. "Fifty coppers for the lot of 'em." "A silver tarn," the slaver countered, having sized up the captain's somewhat dire straits. "Thief," Black Ox growled. "No, Brother," he shrugged, matter-of-factly. "Merely a Slaver. Like you." "Aye." He pressed the silver into the outstretched palm. "I'll be needing three swords." A sorrowful expression came into the slaver's face. "I'm loyal to my Home stone, Brother. I can't aid in any unlawful activity." Black Ox's temper had reached its end. His scimitar hissed through the air, flashing in the noon-day Sun and stopping a fraction of a hort from the man's throat. "As far as trouble, I just want to get out of this stinking market in one piece. You've made my purse considerably lighter, in the last ehn. If only out of professional courtesy, I expect you owe me three pieces of fighting steel." "Your argument is persausive," the man said. He ordered his helpers to bring swords as he, himself, unlocked the manacles of the men Black Ox had paid for. He turned to the slave girl. "Climb onto my back, legs around my waist, arms around my neck. Hang on, if you lose your grip and fall off I'll leave you where you land. Do you understand?" "Yes, Master. I won't fall off." "Good girl," he gave her a quick, hard kiss on the lips. "Hop on." The kiss was as stunning in its impact on the girl as had been the strokes from her Master's whip. She felt a bit light-headed as she climbed on the broad back of her new Master. The former slaves' hands had been freed, and gladius pressed into their palms, but the iron around their necks would take too long to unbend, it'd have to wait until later. "Fight well and there's gold in this as well as your freedom," Black Ox growled. "Fight poorly and die." That said, Black Ox lept off the auction block, swinging his great scimitar, forcing the erstwise bidders to hurriedly scramble and dive out of his path. The slavegirl ducked her head and clung on with desperate strength. Her sexual excitement only more aroused by the desperate situation. Across the compound the three shipmates, Carlos, Phillip, and Hannibar had not only fended off the six warriors but had dispatched four of them. The downed rarii twitched in the dust of the compound, their tunics drenched a deeper shade of scarlet by the blood flowing from their mortal wounds. The remaining two stood their ground but it was clear to all who stood witness that they were outmatched. It was not that the Lydius warriors were unskilled. Consider, the Black Slavers were at sea for all but a handful of weeks out of the year. When they weren't violently boarding merchantmen low in the water with cargo they were performing boarding drills, or actually raiding coastal villages and towns. What all of this meant was that the League men got in a lot of swordwork on a regular basis. They were well-practiced and fierce fighters who knew what they were about. They city guard got most of their irregular practice fighting citiizens drunk on paga. The last two rarii went down in a flurry of flashing steel, their purple blood slowly seeping into the gorund. Black Ox meanwhle led his company of freed slaves through the crowd, growling and shoving the bakers, peasants, and shopkeepers out of their way as they beelined toward the market's main-gate. Somewhere beyond the high fence of the slave market an alarm bar began to sound, which meant the city guard would be arriving soon. Finally reaching the open gate, the captain saw that people outside in the street had stopped and begun to mill into a curious crowd. Inside, the bidders had begun to push toward the exit, piling up behind Black Ox's group. Way past time to leave, he thought. He turned and swept his scimitar before him, making the stampeding slave-buyers retreat. "League men," he shouted. "To me!" Within a couple of ihn his three shipmates joined him, their swords dripping red blood and clots of gore. The group emerged onto the street, which was even dustier than the slaver's compound, the gathering mob stared him and his crew. The braver souls in the crowd stepped forward, swords drawn. "Make way," the captain shouted. "You face men of the League of Black Slavers. You face the sword of Black Ox." At the revelation that the big man before them was the infamous Black Ox, the dominant predator of the Thassa's worst depradators, the mob quelled and fell back. However, standing head and shoulders over most of them before him, Black Ox could see a phalanx of crimson tunics running double-time toward his position. He counted at least two dozen of the city-guard. Black Ox knew the wharf and their ship, their only safety, lay two streets over. "Let's go," he growled, scimitar held high, the girl clutched on his back. "Stay together, we make for the pier and our ship." He roared, an inarticulate expression of savage rage and ran forward, into the press of the milling crowd which rapidly divided to give the beserker and his men passage. On the captain's back, the girl still trembling from her unreleased passion, felt the strong body of her Master moving beneath her hands, arms, thighs. Her red hair trailed back behind her, waving in a breeze generated by Black Ox's rapid pregress down the street. She laughed, out of pure exhileration, she laughed. The girl didn't know what her future might bring, but one thing was sure, she was pounding straight toward it at double-speed. # Black Ox and crewmen, with the pack of snarling Lydius rarii fast on their heels, ran down an alley cluttered with small stalls belonging to craftsmen who catered to the needs of sailors and their ships. They reached the mouth of the alley and then they were in the open spaces of the wharf. The sea lapped at the piers. "Get to the ship," Black Ox growled out the order at Carlos. "Relay to the First-Mate to slip her moorings and to disembark on the instant." "But the rarii, Captain." "I'll deal with the cursed rarii. Get to the ship, all of you." "Aye, aye, Captain." Carlos had served under the First-Captain for over eight years, he knew better than to argue with Black Ox. He led his crewmates and the iron ko-lar'd freed slaves down the wharf, while Black Ox looked around him for a way to slow down, if not completely stop the yelling band of rarii stomping toward him. As he turned left and right, he realized the girl was still on his back. He growled, angered at himself for not sending her along with the men to the ship. "Down, girl," he said, flexing his knees so that she could slip from his back to the stone. "Stay out of the way." "Yes, Master." The girl's blue eyes sparkled as she looked at him. Since the onset of his adolescent, Black Ox had been on wharfs. He'd worked the docks, in a warehouse, before being recruited shipboard. He knew there were certain things always to be found on any viable waterfront, piles and bales of trade goods, she-urt prostitutes, wood for ship-repair, along with pitch, paint, and varnishes. And the thing about pitch, paint, and varnish was they caught fire easily and burned very hot. He shoved the girl toward a pile of pressed panther furs bales then grabbed up a roll of sail-cloth, unwinding it from the lip of the wharf to the wall of a warehouse. He then picked up a keg of ship's varnish from a stack of a dozen or so placed alongside a fortified warehouse. He smashed the wooden melons all asunder against the sail-cloth covering the wharf stones. The varnish splashed and spread across the cloth and stones. He picked up another, dashing it and its contents on the ground, picked up another and smashed it, moving from the warehouse wall to the lip of the wharf stone where it hung over the water. Pleased with his work, he reached into his belt-wallet for his firemaker. A seaman moved from behind the stack of tarped and roped fur bales. With Black Ox's back turned, the captain couldn't see the man sneaking up behind him. But the girl saw. The sailor's steathy movements had immediately drawn her attention. Since her forced submission to her brother, all those years ago back on the Plains, all she'd known were incompetent Masters and she wasn't about to lose the only one who'd really, actually, deeply touched her. The man who had awakened her dormant high heat, sent her lava passion erupting from its red-hot magma chamber. "Master," she cried out. She was instantly silenced by the meaty hand of the seaman slapping her across the face, sending her sliding against the stone of the wharf. But Black Ox had heard the warning. He ducked as he turned to face the intruder. Barely avoiding a sword thrust and dropping the firemaker. He flicked a glance to the girl. Although the sailor had every right to discipline the slave for interfering in the business of the Free, the captain didn't like the way she looked, stunned, laying seemingly lifeless on the stones. He didn't like that at all. He drew his scimitar and crouched as he moved around the interloper, his mind screaming at him that he didn't have time to indulge a sword-fight, the rarii were nearly upon him. He could clearly hear the slapping of their sandal leather against the unyielding stone. But he didn't actually have a choice. The attacker's sword swooshed through the air, a bare hort from his ear. He stopped thinking and began fighting. He knelt on one knee, his scimitar swept the air before him, describing a semi-circle before the edge of the broad blade sliced into the seaman's shins, quite literally cutting his legs from under him. His scream was an undiluted exhalation of pain. Black Ox brought his curved sword up two-handed, then brought it slicing down, beheading his opponent, the severed jugular jetted, adding blood to the slaver's varnished splattered tunic. The girl recovered, pushing up on her hands and shaking her head to clear it. She saw the gang of warriors nearly on her Master. And she saw his firemaker on the stone near her feet. "Master," she cried, again. And threw it to him. Black Ox grinned as he caught the instrument and ripped off his tunic, the smell of varnish harsh on the fabric. He activated the firemaker and lit the combustible material before hurling it into the flammable liquid spread out across the sail-cloth. Flames leapt up immediately, providing a fiery wall between him and the yelling rarii, who skidded to a halt before the blaze. Two could not stop and momentum carried them into the conflagaration. One man died screaming in the flames. The other emerged on fire, from his crisping sandals to his burning hair. He ran blindly off a pier and splashed sizzling and smoking into the green sea. With the wall of fire and greasy gray smoke between him and his pursuers, Black Ox had some renewed hope of escape. Then a scowl crossed his handsome face. More warriors were pouring onto the wharf from a connecting street. Still, he reckoned he just had a chance of making it to the ship before them, or right as the rarii got there. But what of the girl? He asked himself. Certainly she was nothing more than a piece of property, albeit a relatively expensive piece. Still, he was a wealthy man and could well afford the monetary loss. However, there was something about her, above and beyond her intense slave-heat. And, she had saved his life after all, by screaming a warning and throwing him the firemaker. His mind made up, Black Ox scooped her up as he ran past and tossed girl sixteen over his broad shoulder. The kajira's fiery mane flailed wildly as Black Ox sprinted down the wharf, his teeth clenched with the effort of beating the rarii to the ship. Sweat flew off his face as he exerted himself full out, racing down the huge square stones of the wharf. It seemed a bit counter-intuitive that his only remaining avenue of escape lay in running full-out toward a snarling company of city-guardsmen determined to capture, torture, and impale him. Yet there he was sprinting toward the crimson-tunic, sword-waving gang of rarii. He reached the merchant vessal that he and his crew had captured at sea and repainted, the better to slip into Lydius unnoticed. The ruse had worked, until the slave-market visit. He saw the roundship had slipped her moorings, the gangplank pulled back, sail unfurling. Crewmen at the railing looked over the side down at him. "Catch her," he shouted. And with a great heave, he tossed the red-haired girl up into the air. She reached her stomach-flipping apex and descended to be caught by two sailors, whose enthusiastic hands roamed her petite form as they lowered her to the deck. The gang of rarii were within knife-throwing range. Black Ox backed up a few steps, discarding his sword then unhooking and uncoiling his whip. He ran toward the end of the wharf, the big muscles of his powerful thighs bulging within his leathers as he brought up his knees. Just at the edge of the wharf he leaped into empty space, his long arms stretched. The slashing sword of a rarius nicked the heel of his right boot as he left the ground. Every gleaming muscle straining, Black Ox flung himself toward the ship as it pulled away from its dock. His body was deeply bowed as he flew. In mid-air, he drew back his left arm and snapped it forward, sending the lashes of the kurt slashing outward. It was a close thing. To onlookers, it seemed as he would miss the ship's railing and fall, to splash into the sea below. But he made it, although just barely, thanks to the five tails of the cat which caught the wood of the railing, wrapping twice around. His body swung against the timber of the ship and Black Ox absorbed the shock with his meaty shoulder and the side of his hip. The impact was severe enough to stun him, briefly. But the thud of a thrown knife biting into the wood a fraction of a hort from the tip of his nose brought him to his senses. He began to climb hand over hand up the whip, his blunt fingers scrabbled at the railing before digging at the wood. His right hand slipped. But not his left. His First Mate, Ahne, standing close to the stern-castle railing, reached out to grab the captain by the left wrist. Black Ox was quickly dragged over the railing and onto the deck of the roundship. He came up grinning. "My thanks, First Mate," he huffed from the exertion, and retrieved his whip. "Now, if you please, dip oars. And once clear of this charming little harbor head due north, establish and maintain a pasang distance between us and the shore." "Aye, Captain." Black Ox then strode to the bow of the ship, inwardly pleased that his gait was steady, where Carlos stood with three vials, one each of oil, salt, and wine. "Ta-Sardar-Gor," intoned the captian, his deep voice spreading out over the sea as he spoke the traditional prayer for a good sailing. "Ta-Thassa." The ship-master then took the wyne from Carlos and poured in over the side, into the waters. Then the oil was upended next, and finally salt was sprinkled into the sea. The disembarkment ritual done, Black Ox turned to the three men he had freed from the slave-mart. "First-mate." "Aye, Captain." "Strike the ko-lars from these men, see that they get food and wyne, and rest. Then work them into the oar rotatiton." "Aye, aye, Captain." The men thanked their benefactor. Black Ox nodded and returned astern, looking back at the dwindling wharf. The fire had already spread. It'd set one ship aflame and threatened three more. A cache of pitch buckets had ignited, producing oily black smoke which billowed up and cast a gray and offensive smelling pall over the piers. The growing conflagaration added to the stifling heat of the day. He nodded in satisfaction. The fire should serve to stall any pursuit for the few crucial ehns it'd take to get the roundship clear of Lydius and beating north over the waves. Rarii stood at the end of the roundship's vacated pier, livid, hopping mad. Black Ox smiled broadly and gave them a friendly wave of his arm, which elicited shouts of colorful if inaccurate speculation on his mother's heritage and sexual habits. Black Ox grinned all the more and pumped his fist, the universal gesture of success. "Aye. And thine mother as well," he shouted back. The berserk rarii screamed back in impotent rage. His ship and crew safe, for the moment, Black Ox turned his attention to the kajira who stood close by shivering in sick excitement. She was naked but for the common shipping ko-lar about her throat. Sunlight graced her pale and flawless skin, making her seem luminous. Her eyes were wide with uncertainty, the top row of her even white teeth bit into the plumpness of her bottom lip. The sea-breeze caught her hair and set the long dramatic tresses dancing about her head. Black Ox caught her by her slender freckled shoulders, turning her, inspecting her for injury. Her body showed only minor abrasions where her right hip and elbow had slid across the wharf stones. A pink spot bloomed on her cheek where the sailor had slapped her. "A fine piece of chain-meat," the captain grunted. The girl blushed and lowered her head, but a smile tugged the corners of her sensuous mouth, encouraging her dimples. The captain was quite fond of dimples, be they in a girl's cheeks, the small of her back, or at her knees. "Carlos," called out Black Ox. "Aye, Captain." "Get me a ko-lar from stores. And an unworn ta-teera." "Right away, Captain." "Bring them to my cabin. And have someone pry that knife from the hull. I wish to keep it, as a reminder of how transitory life can be." Carlos laughed. "Aye, aye, Sir." "Come girl," Black Ox said. And he lead her around the deck to the stern castle's door, then into his small cabin. "Nadu," he barked, after shutting the door. The girl immediately melted to her knees, spreading her firm yet fleshy thighs, presenting her bushy cunt for his viewing. Black Ox let his gaze move over the sa-fora again, still amazed that such a treasure could turn up at a low-grade slaver mart in such an unrefined town like Lydius. He held the pommel of the whip down before the girl's pretty face, so that the bulbous silver cap was before her mouth. "Kiss it, slut." Girl sixteen imediately pursed her lips and pressured a passionate kiss to the whip. "Enough." Her mouth retreated as she moved her rump back against her heels. What is your name, girl?" "If it pleases Ubar, this girl has no name, but that which you might choose to grace her with." "I'm of the League of Black Slavers, girl. The League has no ubar. You will continue to address me as Master." "Aye, Master." "Aye," Black Ox echoed. "Your flaming hair bespeaks your fiery slave-heat. In that light, I name you after a female of barbarian legend, Pele, spirit-woman of fire. "Pele, aye, Master." And the girl dimpled again, happy to no longer be nameless, a wretched falarina with only a number. "Thank you for my name, Master." The Tuchuk Flame of Lydius "Suck." Pele leaned forward, opening her pink lips and bobbing her head down, engulping the fat whip handle knob. It was a sight not disagreeable to the slaver captain. His nostrils twitched, detecting the scent of the kajira in the close confines of the small cabin. The smell of her, too, was not disagreeable. There was a knock at the door. He opened it to reveal Carlos with the ko-lar, slave tunic, and the knife thrown by the rarius. The second-mate saw the slave on her knees before his captain, enthusiastically sucking at the whip. He grinned and exchanged a look with Black Ox. No Gorean male could but be moved by a slut at his feet paying homage to the double-symbol of both her bondage and the phallus of her Master. After taking the items from him, the captain gave Carlos a wink before shutting the door. "Enough," he growled, sliding the knife into a sheath inside his boot. Pele ceased her sucking, widening her jaw to release the knob from her mouth. "Stand," he ordered, coiling the whip and tossing it over into his sail-cloth hammock. Pele ascended gracefully to her dainty feet. She automatically shifted her right foot slightly forward of her left, placing her left hand on her hip. Right arm draping down the side of her body, breasts thrust out, chin up. Glance averted, of course. Still, there was that proud wagon-girl air about her. Black Ox noted the fluidity of her motion and the skill it implied. He handed her the yellow rep cloth slave tunic. "Dress." "Thank you, Master." The dimples showed again, as Pele slipped on the garment. The dress was short, barely covering her sex in front and just as scarely covering her ass in back. The open neckline plunged from throat to navel. The curves of her big breasts were plain. The hard nipples poked at the clingy fabric. The slave looked radiant in it. Black Ox took a step forward and pressed his sweaty chest and abs against her. His large hands lifted to her breasts, slipping under the dress. His thumbs rubbed and circled her tender nipples. "Master." The word came out breathy, stuttering. The captain's hands hefted, squeezed, claimed the tit-flesh which he now owned. He felt the vitality of the girl, her extraordinary slaveheat a tangible thing, her natural musk nearly irresistable. He released her breasts, taking a step back from the sa-fora. "Nadu." The panting girl sank gracefully into her kneel, thighs sliding open. "Submit." She extended her shapely arms straight out, crossing them at the wrists, head hanging down. Black Ox took a key from his belt-wallet, moved Pele's hair aside, and unlocked the shipping ko-lar, tossing it aside on the cabin deck. He then placed the new, uninscribed band ko-lar around the girl's pale throat. "You are now BlackOx's slut." "Yes, Master. Thank you Master." "Nadu." She lowered her arms, placing her hands on her thighs, palms down and raised her head, although careful to keep her glance averted. As she knelt there, the captain began to unlace the rawhide string of his leathers. He took his time, knowing the slow depanting would only stir the girl's heat all the more. Unlaced, he shoved the trousers down his muscular hips, allowing his big cock to spring out. The uncovered glans, swollen to an angry purple, dashed precum across the kajira's cleavage as it bobbed before Pele's face. "Suck." She leaned forward, her startling blue eyes rounding as she saw the fearsome cock jutted before her. She whimpered a bit, as she felt her sex gush hot with refreshed oils. Her thighs quickly drenched as her grateful lips slid over then engulfed the vast cock knob. Black Ox grunted as her clever mouth encircled his manhood. He reached out and grabbed a fistful of her red hair, tugging, forcing several horts of the long fat cock into her mouth and making the snout of his cock thud the back of her throat. The girl moaned and he felt it reverberate up the thick column of his dark dick. Another tug of her silken tresses and he plowed down her throat. It was tight, moist, and hot. He began to fuck her beautiful face in earnest. She gagged a few times, until her throat adjusted to the unusual size of her new Master, but Pele quickly relaxed and accepted the outsized pole chugging down her narrow windpipe. She endured the brutal skull-fuck for over an ehn, holding her breath for all that time, before she felt the massive cock withdraw, saw the myriad spiderweb strings of precum and spit snap between her trembling lips and his shining cockhead. "Get on your hands and knees, girl," Black Ox rasped, releasing her hair. He was highly, dangerously aroused now by pele's worshipping mouth and throat. The slave quickly complied, scrambling to her knees, lowering her upper body, jutting up her nicely rounded ass. The slave rag wisped up from over her pretty bottom. Her Master positioned himself behind her. There was no foreplay, no soft cooing words of a lover. Black Ox simply smacked his great cock into his palm, stroked it a few times to bring his foreskin completely off the head, then forced the prow of the glans to the deep slit between the puffy fruit of her cuntlips. He plowed hard into her, grabbing her hair again as he entered. Pele, her head snatched back, back deeply bowed, screamed as she felt herself penetrated by the Black southerner. Her cry of possession was clearly heard around the ship as she was taken by their captain for the first time. He took her in one stroke, battering aside her exquisitely tight walls, feeling the tremors, ripples against his hypersensitive knob as he speared her, not stopping until her cuntlips smashed down around the wide root of his tremendous cock, until his heavily swinging balls sac slapped against her. She screamed again, then huffed and sobbed, feeling the overfilling cock throbbing deep in her core. "What are you?" His bass voice was a growl as he tugged her hair again. "A slave, Master. A slut. Master Black Ox's slut." "Aye," he chuckled, and ground his hips, flexing his mammoth cock within her. "Fuck back on Master's cock, slut. Impale yourself on it." "Oooo, yes, Master," she gave a shuddering groan, and rolled her own hips. Her ass rotated against his abs. Black Ox began to pull out, the girl's cuntlips distending, clutching desperately to the vein-ridged shaft as he withdrew. Tears sprang to her thassa-blue eyes as she felt the huge darkmeat leaving her. The big head cleared her gaping pussy-mouth, dripping the slut's juices, before the captain growled and slashed back into his beast. He slammed all the way back in, thumping, bruising her backwall in his passion. Again, Pele screamed. And the pattern repeated, she endured a series of being impaled, fully, brutally, only to feel the behemoth cock pull out. Then, the re-entry, violent, stretching her to her limit. But, oh so satisfying. The huge cock stimulated her in ways she's never imagined she could be stirred. Her cunt courted the overwhelming cock, paid homage to it as she twisted, humped, milked it. For long ehns all she knew was the hard deck beneath her knees and hands, the harsh breathing of herself and her Master, the intrusive, pain/pleasure of the astonishing phallus which claimed her, used her, reduced her to a sodden mess. "Sail ho!" From far away it seemed, Black Ox heard the cry of the ship's lookout. Then, a few ihn later the rap on the cabin door. "Sail spotted, Captain," came the voice of his First-mate. "Aye, Ahne. I'll be there directly." "Aye, Captain," came the reply through the door panel. Black Ox licked sweat from his upper-lip, as his intense dark eyes looked down at the girl cock-captured around his big dick. He would've liked to have dallied longer with the kajira. But the ship came first. He raised his big, hard hand and brought it down flat against the wiggling bottom of the slut. "Release," he commanded. "Cum around Master's cock." The girl answered with a whimpering cry. Her cunt walls clenched adamantly around his chugging cock and he felt another scalding gush of slave oil drench his buried pole. The girl shuddered violently, grunting like an animal, inarticulate in her climax. In answer to her primal call, Black Ox felt his cock leap inside her, then spit, splashing her cunt with boiling cum, his seed and scent now indelibly marking her, as sure as the band of steel about her lovely neck. He tugged her hair hard as he came and his creamy cum quickly filled her spasming chamber, backwashing as his sac rose tight to his body and he emptied his balls. The smacks of him spanking the girl's sweaty bottom were loud in the small cabin. Eventually, the girl and her Master ceased to shudder in their mutual orgasm and Black Ox pulled from her for a final time. Her gaping cunt spilt pearlescent cum into a puddle beneath her. "Thank you, Master," she panted. The captain stood, pulling up his leathers, tucking his slowly melting erection inside before relacing. He felt his blood singing through his veins. He was light-headed and his cock was numb from the relentless pressure of the girl's tight pussy. He wiped sweat from his eyes as he looked upon the magnificent girl, the slave-tunic wrinkled up around her indented waist, wetted dark with her sweat, her shining red hair cast over her shoulders and the deckboards. "Master is pleased," he growled down at her and gave her one last smack on the ass. He opened the cabin door and went back out on deck. Just as had been reported, a sail had appeared aft. The shoreline and Lydius were small and hazy in the distance as the Sun lit the unfurled canvas of the pursuing vessel. "A tarnship, by the looks of her, Captain," Ahne said. "Aye," agreed Black Ox, squinting into the distance. Ahne handed him a Builder's glass and the ship-master brought the telescope up to one eye. "She's gaining quick. Have the oars increase speed. Double-time." "Aye, Sir." And the First-Mate relayed the order. The bow-spirit became more frothy as the oarsmen bent to their task and the roundship gained speed. But the slower merchant vessael could not hope to outrun the gaining tarnship. The tarn was constructed for speed and battle. The roundship was made to ferry cargo. Sooner or later, no matter how hardy the rowers, the chasers would sail down on Black Ox's ship. He left the stern and walked to the bow. He saw nothing but Sky and Thassa through the glass. "Lookout!" "Aye, Captain?" "What see you before us?" "Nay, but the Mother Thassa, Captain." "Aye. Keep a sharp eye out." "Aye, Captain." Not having been forbidden to do so, Pele stepped out on deck. She had wiped herself as best she could with a dampened cloth she'd found beside the cabin's wash basin, but she could still feel a tickle run down her inner-thigh. She knew she stank of sex, from her own musk and pheromones and also of the seed of her Master and his sweat. However, not only did she reek of being just fucked, but she'd been scent-marked as well. She stank of the ship's Alpha male. He'd indelibly marked his property. Her cunt ached from the pounding her powerful Master had visited upon her and her heart was full to bursting from the experience. She longed to go to Black Ox, to touch him, to entice him back into the cabin and back into her. But there was Free men business afoot and she stayed out of the way, standing by an empty shipping cage close to the railing. Several ahn passed and the sail to stern grew larger, sunlight glinting off the wet wood of the driving oars could be seen. Pele bite into her lip. And the fear that had visited her on the wharf came again to chill her heart. What irony it would be for her to've finally found her true Master, only to be killed at sea. It was a dire thought, not worthy a kajira, but she could see no way a battle could be avoided and she knew enough about ships to know that the tarnship had a ram at its keel which could splinter the roundship to pieces. She took a deep breath and determined to die like a Tuchuk, proud and unrepentent. She was brought out of her reverie by a shout. "Sail ho!" Cried the lookout. "Where away?" Questioned Black Ox. "Directly off our bow, Captain." Black Ox serched with the glass for a moment, then a smile came to his perspiring face. "Ah." The green sail in the distant shimmered at the edge of his vision, nearly making his eye water as he sighted through the spyglass. The color of the sail tended to blend with the green sea, renedering it into a mirage. But the ship was no product of fancy. It was real. Such was the logic behind dyeing the sail-cloth green, of painting the entire ship green, pirate ships were meant to blend in with the waters of Thassa, both for purposes of evasion and stalking. Pele could not understand the smile, surely the sighting of a second sail only soured their situation all the more. "It's the Rage," the lookout shouted down. Black Ox nodded, his pirate's smile toothy. He lowered the glass and saw the confused look on his new girl's pretty face. "All is well, kajira. The tarnship before us is mine, the Rage of Thassa. We'll renedevouz with her, after which I'll board her and pursue the ship that now chases us. This will be remembered as an unfortunate day indeed for the forces of Lydius." He threw back his head and laughed. Implusively, he grabbed the slave by the throat and pulled her in for a resounding kiss. He drew back, still smiling, leaving Pele short of breath with his hand yet at her throat under the ko-lar. "You'll stay on this ship, as its luck-girl. It'll see you safe to Schendi." "Aye, Master." "Aye, indeed. And in Schendi, you will learn what it truly means to be in the possession of Black Ox. What it means to be under the sway of my caressing whip." Pele's azure gaze met his and she felt more moisture on her thighs. Secure and reassured in the big-handed grip at her throat. "Aye, Master," she said. And a delicious thrill ran throughout her body that she was owned by such a man. -end-