The Tuchuk Flame of Lydius

(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.