Blood Brothers of Gor Read Free

duties to track and protect the kailiauk. Do not think of it as a personal thing. He is a Sleen Soldier, doing his work. In his place you would doubtless do much the same."
    Cuwignaka nodded, recognizing the justice of this view. It was not Hci, so to speak, who was being obeyed, but rather a duly constituted authority, an officer, a constable or warden in such matters.
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    We turned our kaiila about, to take our way from the place.
    "Women, slaves, and white men are not to ride forth to look upon the Pte," called Hci after us.
    Cuwignaka wheeled his kaiila about, angrily. I, wheeling aoubt, too, caught his arm.
    "I am not a woman," said Cuwignaka.
    "You are a woman," said Hci. "You sould please warriors."
    "I am not a woman," said Cuwignaka.
    "You do not wear the breechclout," said Hci, "You did not take the warpath."
    "I am not a woman," said Cuwingaka.
    "You wear the dress of a woman." said Hci. "YOu do the work of a woman. I think I will give you the name of a woman. I think I will call you Sipotopto."
    Cuwignaka's fists clenched on the reins of his kaiila. The expression 'Siptopto' is a common expression for beads.
    "You should please warriors," said Hci.
    "I had not quarrel with Fleer," said Cuwignaka.
    "You are not welcome among the Isbu," said Hci. "You shame them. You cannot mate among us. Why do you not go away?"
    "I am Isbu," said Cuwignaka. "I am Isbu Kaiila!"
    My hand on his arm restrained Cuwignala from charging Hci. Had he attempted to do so he would have been, without a saddle, dragged literally from the back of the kaiila.
    "You should have been left staked out," said Hci. "It would have been better for the Kaiila."
    Cuwignaka shrugged. "Perhaps," he said. "I do not know."
    Cuwignaka, on the back of his kaiila, wore the remains of a white dress, a portion of the loot of a destroyed wagon train. He had been a slave of soldiers traveling with the train. Originally he had been Isbu Kaiila. He had twice refused to go on the warpath against the Fleer, hereditary enemies of the Kaiila. The first time he had been put in a dress of a woman and forced to live as a woman, perfoming the work of a woman and being referred to in the feminine gender. It was from that time that he had been called Cuwignaka, which means "Woman's Dress." It is, moreover, the word for
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    the dress of a white woman and, in this, given the contempt in which the proud red savages hold white females, commonly reducing them to fearful, groveling slaves, utilizing them as little more than beasts of burden and ministrants to their will, in all respects, it possesses to the Kailla an additional subtle and delicious irony.
    The second time Cuwignaka had refused to go on the warpath he had been bound in his dress and traded to Dust Legs, from whom, eventually, he was purchased as a slave by whites, in the vicinity of the Ihanke, the border between they lands of farmers and rancers and the lands of the red savages. Near the perimeter, as a slave, he had learned to speak Gorean. Later he was acquired by soldiers and brought again into the Barrens, thier intention being to use him as an interpreter. When the wagon train had been destroyed, that with which the soldiers were then traveling, he had fallen into the hands of the victors. He had returned to the Barrens. He had been the slave of the hated enemy. He was staked out, to die. A lance, unbroken, had been placed by him, butt down, in the earth, in token of respect, at least, by Canka, Fire-Steel, his brother. Canak had also taken the dress which Hci had thrown contemptuously beside him, taken from the loot of one of the wagons, and wrapped it about the lance. In this fashion Canka had conspicuously marked the place, as though with a flag.
    It has been my considered judgment that Canka, in doing this, had hoped to draw attention to the location, that he hoped by this device to attract