Chapter Four
Ivory threaded the pubic hair through her front teeth where it had lodged and then buried her face back into the rich aroma of Glade's vulva. Above their naked bodies the Sun shone high in the sky, but not as high, Ivory knew now, as the Sun climbed in Glade's homelands far to the South. She huddled up against her lover's warm body, hoping that this would compensate for the biting chill of the wind.
Every day these days, Glade and Ivory would leave the village just before dawn and tramp across the steppes to another patch of woodland that the shaman knew was good for foraging. They wouldn't return to the village until the Sun had dropped, which at this time of the year wasn't long before the sun rose again.
There was a similar rhythm, Ivory learnt, to Glade's procession when she and her tribe were marched out of the forest by their captors, although in the southern lands the night was always almost exactly as long as the day. Their daily trek, however, was always accompanied by distress and pain. None of those being herded along had any notion when it might end and those slaves who spoke the language of the Forest People were never allowed near enough to tell them. The black warriors striding ahead were in high spirits. They laughed and sang gaily, followed behind by a column of despondent captives watched over by slaves whose duty was to prevent them from escaping. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that an attempt at escape would be dealt with swiftly and bloodily.
Although Glade much preferred the shelter and familiarity of the forest, particularly as the Sun rose higher and higher into the sky, there was much to admire in the savannah. There were many unfamiliar beasts and some of these were much larger than she'd believed an animal could ever be. There were giraffes, elephants and rhinoceroses. There were vast herds of gnu, zebra, antelope and oxen. Scattered amongst the savannah were predators such as lions and leopards of which Glade was already familiar, but there were also ones new to her and the more terrifying for that, such as cheetahs, running dogs and hyenas. Huge vultures flew above their heads. The predators rested from the Sun in the shade of the few trees but, as much as the grazing animals, they avoided the sullen procession of captured slaves that was winding through the plain.
Ivory was astonished to discover that there were beasts taller than even a mammoth and wanted to hear more about the giraffes. Glade was happy to tell her about them and the other strange animals she'd seen. "There are elephants on the shores of the salt plains bigger and taller than mammoths. Their tusks are straight rather than curved. But the giraffe is the tallest animal I've ever seen. It's taller than four men in height!"
As her pate and crotch blistered in the direct sun, Glade wondered why the black warriors chose to be closely shaven. She would welcome back her hair as much as defence against the harshness of the Sun as to restore the beauty she associated with it. It must be worse, she thought, for the men whose beards had been shaved and whose faces were now blistering under the Sun's unforgiving glare.
The pattern of each day's trek was established from the first day of captivity. The procession would pause at a waterhole or stream when the Sun was at its zenith almost exactly above their heads and their shadows were most short. These breaks were not really a time for rest, although the captives were able to sip the dark brown water under the trees' shade, wary of the unwelcome presence of crocodiles and hippopotami. They were also thrown scraps of the least choice cuts of meat from the animals the black warriors had slaughtered on the trail. Glade had eaten antelope and deer before, but never gnu or zebra. If there was anything to admire about the black warriors, it was the efficiency with which they brought down their prey.
"Did they also hunt elephant and rhinoceros?" asked Ivory.
"No," said Glade. "Although these people were much better at hunting than the Forest People, their hunting skills weren't as expert as yours. They never hunted animals any larger than an ox. But why would they want to kill such large animals? They had no need of the fur or hide. It was only the meat they wanted."
The black warriors also took advantage of these respites to ravish a selection of the prisoners. With such a large number they had as wide a choice as they liked but Glade was guiltily relieved to note that it was the men, particularly the younger ones, that they preferred. The women were mostly left alone, although some of the younger girls did not escape. Perhaps they'd been mistaken for boys.
If anything, the trauma of rape was worse for the men than it was for the women. Although the Forest People's main sexual preference was not for anal sex, it was common enough that all women, except the very young, would have had some experience of it. In an earlier life, Glade had been proud of her adventurousness in that capacity as it added to her kudos as the sluttiest and most sexually promiscuous girl of her clan. However, only a few of the men had previously had sex with one another and fewer still had experienced anal penetration. Now they were being violated with exactly the same relish as the black warriors took in buggering each other.
"They seem to have been a peculiar lot!" said Ivory with a shudder as she clambered through a thicket of trees.
"It may seem strange to you as your tribe associates manhood with virility and fatherhood, but as I was later to discover the black warriors associated manhood with close intimacy. For them, the physical companionship of other men, in whatever activity, was preferable to any with women."
"Was that true of all the black warriors?" wondered Ivory who thought the intimacy she shared with Glade was peculiar enough and still believed that the same between men was a perversion.
"Not really, but the pressure of custom was such that it was a brave man who would express any other preference. Amongst my tribe we just followed our desires and for most of us this led to intimacy with the other sex."
"Are there other such perverted tribes in the world?"
"I'm sure there are. The world goes on for ever and ever, bound only by the snowy wastes, and there must be others just the same. But I've never seen it so prevalent elsewhere. Perhaps if homosexuality was practised more widely, there would be no children and all humanity would soon become extinct."
At the time, Glade knew nothing more of her captors than what she'd witnessed and endured. The wounds from her violation gradually eased and she could walk more easily. The soles of her feet were toughening from the abrasive savannah soil she walked on, but her ankles, wrists and neck smarted from the cords that bound her to her companions.
"Why have we been taken?" Glade whispered to the man ahead of her to whom she was bound and from whose anus still trickled the evidence of recent violation.
"Perhaps they'll eat us," he said bitterly. "They've violated us in every other way. They have dealt worse with us than anyone in our tribe would treat an animal. Perhaps they'll sate their vicious appetite on our flesh."
Glade shivered as did Ivory on being told this tale.
