Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [168]
Honored Matres!
One of the whores saw them approach. Snarling, she lunged toward the wooden bars of her cage, flying sideways to deliver a devastating kick. Her bare foot slammed into the iron-hard wood. The impact produced a faint but hollow crack, and as the Honored Matre limped away, Sheeana realized the crack had been the fracture of bone, not wood. The women had already battered themselves bloody against the barricade.
Orak Tho’s face constricted as if a thunderstorm were brewing behind it. “Honored Matres came down in a transport ship three months ago, expecting easy prey. We massacred them, but managed to save some for . . . training purposes.” His lips curled back. “It is not the first time they have tried to harass us. They form isolated cells that don’t necessarily know what the others are doing. Thus they repeat the same mistakes.”
Two Futars prowled around the base of the wooden tower, circling and sniffing. Sheeana recognized one of them as Hrrm; the second beast-man had a black stripe in the wiry hair of its chest.
One of the captive Honored Matres called out in a threatening voice. “Free us, or our Sisters will peel strips of meat from your bones while you still live!”
Hrrm snarled and hurled himself at the cage, backing off only at the last moment. Hot spittle from his mouth splattered the captive Honored Matre. Three of the beaten women came forward to the bars, looking as bestial as the Futars.
“As I said,” Orak Tho continued in his calm and confident voice, “Honored Matres are fit for little more than food.”
A Handler came with a wooden bowl of red bones to which clung scraps of meat and fatty skin with patches of fur. A second bowl held slick-looking entrails and purplish organs. He dumped the offal through a slot into the cage. The filthy Honored Matres looked at it in disgust.
“Eat, if you wish to have strength for tomorrow’s hunt.”
“We don’t eat garbage!” said one of the Honored Matres.
“Then you starve. It matters not to me.”
Sheeana could tell the women were ravenous. After a shaky hesitation, they grabbed for the scraps, tearing off raw pieces and eating until their faces and fingers were smeared with grease and covered with old blood. They looked through the bars at their captors with such hateful expressions that they seemed capable of putrefying flesh.
One of the women glowered at Sheeana. “You don’t belong here.”
“Neither do you. However, I am outside the cage, while you are behind the bars.”
The woman slammed the palm of her hand against the wooden barricade with a loud crack, but it was a halfhearted attempt at an attack. Hrrm pounced beside Sheeana as if to protect her, then prowled in front of the cage, his muscles rippling. He seemed very agitated.
Sheeana found it ironic, knowing what the Honored Matres had done to Hrrm and to his companions. The sexual perversions, the whippings and deprivations. It seemed a strikingly odd turnabout to see the women imprisoned, with the Futars prowling free.
She turned to the Chief Handler. “Honored Matres abuse their captive Futars. Your punishments are appropriate.”
“My guests, tomorrow we will put you in our best observation stations, from which you can watch the hunt.” Orak Tho reached over to pat both Futars on their heads. “It will be good for this one to run with his brothers, and get in practice again. It is what he was born to do.”
With his bestial eyes fixed on the Honored Matres, Hrrm bared his teeth in a menacing smile.
Before they all slept, Teg returned to the lighter to transmit an optimistic report back to the Ithaca.
An alliance is often more a work of art than a simple business transaction.
—MOTHER SUPERIOR DARWI ODRADE,
private records, Bene Gesserit Archives
T
he Guild Navigator finally came to Chapterhouse in response to the Mother Commander’s summons. Though she was impatient and frustrated