"Brandish it, wield it," said Genserix to her, sternly.
She tried again to lift the ax, and then again, lowered it, until she held it before her, as she had done before, with difficulty, with both hands, her hands separated well on the handle. "I cannot," she said.
"Then put it down, and leave," said Genserix.
"Yes, my chieftain," she said. She put down the ax, and then hurried away, angrily, into the darkness. I supposed that she, in her upbringing, had felt a little affinity with the Alar women. Certainly it seemed she had not cared to identify with them. Perhaps, too, as she was not an Alar by blood, they never truly accepted her. Yet it seemed she had bee, as is often the case with Alar children, raised with much permissiveness. Not identifying with the women, or being accepted by them, and perhaps coming to bitterly envy the men, their position and status, their nature and power, it seemed she may have turned toward trying to prove herself the same as them, turning then to mannish customs and garb, attempting thusly, desperately, angrily, to find some sort of place for herself among the wagons. As a result, it seemed she would be accepted by neither sex. She seemed to me confused and terribly unhappy. I did not think she knew her own identity. I do not think she knew who she was. Some of the men, perhaps, knew better than she herself did.
"Now," said Genserix, "let us continue the contest."
There were grunts of approval by the men.
Once again Sorath and I squared off against one another. This time, not mocked and taunted by the female, he fought extremely well. As Hurtha had warned me earlier, Sorath well knew the ways of the ax. Now that his temper had cooled he fought with agility and precision. The reckless and sometimes irrational temper of folks like Sorath, and it was a temper not unusual among the proud Alar herders, was something that they would be well advised to guard against. Too often it proves the undoing of such folks. Hundreds of times calculated defenses and responsible tactics have proved their worth in the face of brawn and wrath. The braveries of barbarism are seldom of little avail against a rational, determined, prepared foe. But let those of the cities tremble that among the hordes there might one day arise one who can unify storms and harness lightning. I slipped to the side and, swinging the ax handle inward caught Sorath in the solar plexus, that network of nerves and ganglia high in the abdominal cavity, lying behind the stomach and in front of the upper part of the abdominal aorta. I did not strike deeply enough to injure him, to rupture or tear open his body, slashing the stomach or crushing the aortal tube, only enough to stop him, definitely. For good measure I then, with the left side of the handle, swinging it upward, and then down, brought it down on the back of his neck as he, helpfully, expectantly, grunting, doubled over. I did not strike him hard enough to break the vertebrae. He slipped to his knees, vomiting, and then, stunned, half paralyzed, fell forward. I then stood behind him, the handle grasped at the ready, near its end. From such a position one can, rather with impunity, with an unarmed handle, break the neck to the side or crush the head. Had the handle been armed, of course, one might, from such a position, sever the backbone or remove the head. Sorath was fast. I was faster.
"Do not kill him!" said Genserix.
"Of course not," I said. "He is one of my hosts," I stepped back from Sorath. "You fought very well," said Genserix.
"Sorath is very good, don't you think?" asked Hurtha.
"Yes," I said. "He is quite good."
"Your prowess proves you well worthy to be a guest of the Alars," said Genserix. "Welcome to our camp. Welcome to the light and heat of our fire."
"Thank you," I said, tossing aside the handle.
"Are you still alive?" Parthanx inquired solicitously of Sorath, his friend. "Yes," reported Sorath.
"Do not be so lazy, then" said Parthanx encouragingly. "Get up." Parthanx, like the others, seemed to have enjoyed the fight.
"Let me help you," I said. I gave Sorath a hand, and half pulled him to his place by the fire. He looked up at me, shaking his head. "Well done," he said. "Thank you," I said. "You did splendidly yourself."
"Thank you," he said.
"Yes," said Genserix.
"Yes," said Sorath.
"Yes," said the others.
"Thank you," I said. "I am grateful for your welcome. I thank you, too, for the food and drink I have received here, for the heat and light of your fire, and for your fellowship. I thank you for your hospitality. It is worthy of the best things I have heard of Alars. I would now like, if I may, in my own way, and of my own free will, as it will now be clearly understood, to do something for you, something that will help, in a small way, to express my appreciation."
Genserix and his warriors looked at one another, puzzled.
I turned to Feiqa. "Strip," I said.
"Master?" she asked.
"Must a command be repeated?" I inquired.
"No, Master!" she cried. In an instant she was bared.
"Stand," I said. "Lift your arms over your head." Instantly she complied. She was then very beautiful, standing thusly in the light of the fire, before the barbaric warriors of Genserix, in the Alar camp.
"Such women," I said, "may be purchased in the cities." There were appreciative murmurs as the men drank in the fire-illuminated beauty of the naked slave. "Dance," I told Feiqa.
"I do not know how to dance, Master," she moaned.
"In every female there is a dancer," I said.
"Master," she protested.
"I know you are not trained," I said.
"Master," she said.
"There are many forms of dance," I said. "Music is not even necessary. It need not even be more than beautiful movement. Move before the men, and about them, Move as seductively and beautifully as you can, and as a slave, saying, crawling, kneeling, rolling, supine, prone, begging, pleading, piteous, caressing, kissing, licking, rubbing against them."
"Do I have a choice, Master?" she asked.
"No," I said, "absolutely not."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Would you prefer your pretty flesh to be lashed from your bones?" I asked. "No, Master!" she said.
"And as the evening progresses, and as men might desire you," I said, "you will please them, and fully." "Yes, Master," she said.
"You are a slave, an absolute and total slave," I reminded her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
One of the fellows, then, began to sing, "Hei, Hei," and clap his hands. Feiqa danced.
The men cried out with pleasure, many of them joining in the song, and keeping time with their hands. I was incredibly proud of her. How joyful it is to own females and have absolute power over them! Seldom, indeed, I imagined, did the rude herders of the Alars have such a vision of imbonded loveliness in their camp, and in their arms. Such delicious females were not allowed in their camps, I gathered. The free women did not permit them. They probably had them hidden in wagons, until they could be sold off, or killed. How beautiful Feiqa was! What incredible power she exercised, though only a helpless slave, over men! How she pleased them and made them scream with pleasure! How incredibly basic, how fundamental, how real she was! I then felt a sudden, poignant sorrow for the women of Earth. How different Feiqa was from them. How far removed delicious, exquisite Feiqa was from the motivated artifices, the lies and fabrications, the propaganda, the demeaning, sterile, unsatisfying, reductive, negative superficialities of antibiological roles, the prescriptions of an unnatural and pathological politics, the manipulative instrumentations of monsters and freaks. I wondered how many of the women of Earth wished they might find themselves in a collar, dancing naked in the firelight before warriors in an Alar camp.
"Disgusting! Disgusting!" cried the free woman, Boabissia, in her leather and furs, having returned to the fire, and she rushed forward, a stout, thick, short, supple, single-bladed quirtlike whip in her hand. She began to lash Feiqa, who fell to her knees, howling with misery, a whipped slave. "We do not allow such as you in an Alar camp!" cried the free woman. Feiqa put her head down. Again the lash fell on her. I leaped to the free woman and tore the whip from her hand, hurling it angrily to the side. She looked at me, wildly, in fury, not believing I had dared to interfere. "What right have you to interfere?" she demanded. "The right of a man who is not pleased with your behavior, female," I said. "Female!" she cried, in fury. "Yes," I said. Her hand darted to the hilt of the dagger she wore at her belt. I regarded her evenly. She, frightened, quickly removed her hand from the hilt of the dagger, crying out in frustration, in rage. Then she lifted her fists and, with the sides of them, together, struck towards me. "Oh!" she cried, in misery, in frustration. I had caught both her small wrists. She could not begin to free them. "Oh!" she cried in misery, in protest, as, inexorably, slowly, I forced her down. Then she was kneeling before me, her wrists in my grip. I turned her about and flung her to her belly, and then knelt across her thighs. I removed her dagger from its sheath. "No!" she cried. I then, with her own dagger, cut her clothing from her body.