Norman, John - Gor 08 - Hunters of Gor.txt

by Hunters of Gor [lit]

  “For what purpose have you come here?”

  “Primarily,” I said, “to obtain the release of slaves. In particular I am

  interested in obtaining one spoken of as Rim, and another as Arn. I would also

  like the one called Sheera.”

  “Your desires are simple,” said Sarus. “Do you not know whom we hold slave in

  this camp?”

  “Who?’ I asked.

  “Marlenus of Ar,” smiled Sarus.

  “Ah,” I said. “I will take him, too, then, and the others as well.”

  Sarus and his men laughed. I stood with my back to the gate.

  I need have no fear at the moment of the bows of panther girls. They stood

  helpless, bound in coffle. Sarus had been willing to surrender them for the

  safety of himself, his men and those slaves he regarded as important.

  I noted where the two men with crossbows were. I noted the number of feet I

  stood from the fire.

  Both crossbows were set.

  “What is your interest in the men called Rim and Arn?” asked Sarus.

  “They are my men,” I told him.

  “Your men?” he asked, slowly.

  “I know him!” cried Hura. “I know him!”

  I looked at her.

  “He is Bosk of Port Kar!” she cried. “He is Bosk of Port Kar!”

  I heard a stirring among the slaves behind the men of Tyros. The bound girls,

  prone, struggled. They had been bedded for the night, and so were gagged, but

  they could hear. That Bosk of Port Kar was among them resulted in much movement.

  I heard, too, beyond hem, the rattle of chains. Marlenus and the others, their

  ankles not yet tied, were struggling to their knees. I heard a whip crack,

  twice, as a man of Tyros ran amongst them, to force them down again.

  Then there was silence.

  “Yes,” I said, “it is true.”

  “You are insane to come here,” said Sarus.

  “I do not think so,’ I said. There was no catwalk about the interior of the

  palisade. It would take two men to throw the bean, opening the gate.

  “We sought you,’ said Sarus. “We wanted you, as well as Marlenus of Ar.”

  “I am honored,” I said.

  “You are a fool,” cried Sarus. Then he looked at me. “it is our great good

  fortune,” said he, : that you have, of your own free will, delivered yourself to

  us. We did not count on such fortune.”

  “But I am not here,” I said, “to surrender myself.”

  “Your ruse has failed,” said Sarus.

  “How is that?” I asked. “Your allies stand immobilized.”

  “Free us!” begged Hura. “Free us!” begged Mira.

  “Silence the slaves,” said Sarus.

  A slave lash struck again and again. The women, one by one, did not seem to

  understand what was happening, but each, in turn, was struck twice, at an

  interval of a few Ihn, that the pain of the first blow be truly felt and

  understood before the second was delivered. At the first blow, the girls fell to

  their knees, eyes glazed, choking, unable to believe their pain. Then,

  trembling, shuddering, weeping some begging for mercy, they thrust their heads

  to the ground. Then, one by one, the second blow fell. They wept, crying out,

  belief in their eyes. Hura regarded Sarus after the first blow, disbelief in her

  eyes. She had not understood what it was to feel the lash. She shook her head,

  numbly, and fell to her knees. She looked at Sarus “Please Sarus,” she begged,

  “do not have me struck again.”

  “Strike her again,” said Sarus.

  She put down her head and again the blow fell. She wept.

  “Again!” said Sarus.

  “Please, no, Master!” screamed Hura.

  Again the lash fell. Hura was on her knees, head down, a piteous, lashed slave

  girl. “No, Master,” she wept. “Please, no Master.”

  The entire coffle, whipped, was on its knees, heads down, weeping. “Please,

  Masers,” they wept.

  “The men of Tyros,” I said, “are harsh in their disciplining of women.”

  “I have heard,” said Sarus, “that the chains of a slave girl are heaviest in

  Port Kar.”

  I shrugged.

  “Your ruse has failed,” said Sarus.

  “Your allies,” I reminded him, “are immobilized.”

  He looked at me, puzzled. “We do not need them,” he said.

  “It is just as well,’ I said. “I would not car to have to slay them.”

  “Consider yourself, Bosk of Port Kar,” said he, “my prisoner.”

  “I offer you your life, and the lives of your men,” I said, “if you depart now,

  leaving behind all slaves.”

  Sarus looked about at his men, and they laughed, all of them.

  The girls in the coffle looked up, with tears in their eyes.

  “You may surrender your weapons,” I told them.

  They looked at one another. Two laughed, not easily.

  I heard the male slaves in the shadows rising to their feet. No one whipped

  them. No one paid them attention. In the shadows, in the background, by the

  light of the fire, two paces from me, I saw the tall, mighty frame of Marlenus

  of Ar. Standing beside him were Rim, and Arn. I could see the neck chains

  fastening them together, and to the others.

  I met the eyes of Marlenus.

  “Surrender,” said Sarus to me. “Surrender!”

  “I do not think so,” I said.

  “You are outnumbered,” said Sarus. “You have no chance.”

  “He is mad,” whispered one of Sarus’ men.

  “You are a fool to have come here,” whispered Sarus.

  “I do not think so,” I said.

  He looked at me.

  “How many men do you have?” I asked.

  “Fifty-five,” he said.

  “I was not always of the merchants,” I told him.

  “I do not understand,” said Sarus.

  “Once,” I said, “long ago, I was of the warriors.”

  “There are fifty-five of us,” said Sarus.

  “My city,” I said, “was the city of Ko-ro-ba. It is sometimes called the Towers

  of Morning.”

  “Surrender,” whispered Sarus.

  “Long ago,” I said, “I dishonored my caste, my Home Stone, my blade. Long ago, I

  fell from the warriors. Lone ago, I lost my honor.”

  Sarus slowly drew his blade, as did those behind him.

  “But once,” I said, “I was of the city of Ko-ro-ba. Hat must not be forgotten.

  That cannot be taken from me.”

  “He is mad,” said one of the men of Tyros.

  “Yes,” I said, “once long ago, in he delta of the Vosk, I lost my honor. I know

  that never can I find it again. That honor, which was to me my most precious

  possession, was lost. It is gone, and gone forever. It is like a tarn with wings

  of gold, that sits but once upon a warrior’s helm, and when it departs, it

  returns no more. It is gone, and gone forever.” I looked at them, and looked,

  too, upward at the stars of the Gorean night. They were beautiful, like points

  of fire, marking the camps of armies in the night. “Yes,” I said, again

  regarding the men of Tyros. “I have lost my honor, but you must not understand

  by that that I have forgotten it. On some nights, on such a night as this,

  sometimes, I recollect it.”

  “We are fifty-five men!” screamed Sarus.

  “Marlenus!” I called. “Once, on the sands of an arena in Ar,
we fought, as sword

  companions.”

  “It is true!” he called.

  “Silence!” cried Sarus.

  “And once I saw you remove your helm in the stadium of tarns, and claim again

  the throne of Ar.”

  “It is true!” called Marlenus.

  “Let me hear again, now,” said I, “the anthem of Ar.”

  The strains of the great song of Ar’s victories broke from the Ubar’s collared

  throat, and, too, from the throats of the men of Ar beside him.

  “Silence!” cried Sarus.

  He turned to face me, wildly. He saw that my blade was no drawn.

  “You are not of Ar!” he cried.

  “It would be better for you,” said I, “if I were.”

  “You are mad,” he cried. “Mad!”

  “My Home Stone,” I told him, “was once the Home Stone of Ko-ro-ba. Will it be

  you, Sarus, who will come first against me?”

  20 What Occurred in the Stockade of Sarus of Tyros

  I thrust.

  A man reeled away.

  “Kill him!” cried Sarus.

  I thrust again, slipping to one side. He who had thrust at me fell, slipping to

  his hands and knees, startled, red swift in the firelit yellow of his tunic. He

  did not know his wound was mortal. He had challenged one of Ko-ro-ba. I turned.

  I thrust twice more. Two more men fell. I turned. Twice more I thrust, shallow

  thrust, swift, delicate, like the biting of the ost, that the blade not be

  ensnared. The heart lies but the width of a hand within the body, the jugular

  but the width of a finger.

  “Kill him!’ screamed Sarus.

  I moved, as an eyes moves, no longer where I had stood before. Twice again I

  thrust. I felt a blade cut my tunic, and felt blood at my waist. Again I moved.

  I heard the swift snap of the leaves of a crossbow, the leaping his of the

  quarrel. There was a scream behind me. I must move to the fire. Twice more I

  thrust. There was another loaded crossbow I knew. I thought I knew its location.

  I moved so to place a man of Tyros between me and the quarrel.

  “Stand aside!” screamed a man.

  I fended the blade of the man of Tyros from my heart. I did not fell him.

  I felt another blade cut down and my left sleeve leaped away from my arm. I felt

  blood course down my arm.

  The war cry of Ko-ro-ba, wild, roared from my throat. Twice more I thrust, and

  then, kicking, broke the fire into a scattering of brands, plunging the stockade

  into darkness. The women of Hura, bound, naked, among the men and blades,

  screamed.

  “Kill him!” I heard Sarus cry.

  “Free us!” begged Hura. “Free us!”

  “Fire! Torches!” cried Sarus.

  I had not worn the yellow of Tyros for nothing. I moved among them, as one of

  them. And where I moved, men fell.

  “Where is he?” cried one of my enemies.

  “Lift torches!” cried Sarus.

  Holding his mouth, I thrust my blade into the body of the man who carried the

  second crossbow. He should have realized he was important. He should have

  changed his position in the darkness. Did he not know I would come for him?

  In the darkness, amidst the shouting, I went swiftly to the slave girls, prone

  and bound, near the rear of the stockade.

  Sheera, I knew, lay at one end of the line. In an instant with my blade, I cut

  her free. I quickly moved down the line of bound women, tightly thonged slave

  girls. They were tied alternately, in a common manner for securing slave girls,

  the lashed ankles of one tied to the throat of the next. I counted, placing my

  hand swiftly on the head of one, gagged, the crossed ankles, bound, of the next.

  Cara and Tina were no longer in the coffle. I was looking for the girl who would

  now be ninth. I felt the squirming, tied ankles of the eighth girl, heard her

  muffled, gagged whimper, sensed her body rearing in its bonds. Then my hand was

  on the head of the ninth girl. I felt beneath my fingers a woman’s head and

  hair, and, in her ear, a large ring of gold. She struggled. I cut Verna loose.

  I felt myself, briefly, illuminated in the glare of a torch, nor more than a

  yard from me.

  “He is here!” I heard cry.

  The torch fell in the darkness. My blade whipped back, freed of the body.

  “Torches!” cried Sarus. “Rebuild the fire!”

  I moved again. Another man fell. And another.

  “I have him!” cried a man. “I have slain him!”

  But it was not I whom he had struck.

  I thrust again. Another man of Tyros, reeled away from me, stumbling, falling

  against the chained slaves.

  Then I struck another.

  Two torches were raised.

  In their light I could see the men of Tyros, blades drawn, back to back, eyes

  wild.

  Behind them, tied, on their knees, were Hura and her women. Some were screaming.

  “Free us!” cried Hura. “Free us!”

  “Free the women!” suddenly, cried Sarus. “Free them!”

  He had need of them.

  I saw two men of Tyros running, breaking suddenly for the gate.

  They began to thrust back the beam.

  “Stop!” cried Sarus.

  The men paid Sarus, their leader, no heed. Four other men, too, broke, running

  to the gate.

  A yellow-clad man of Tyros suddenly thrust at me with a spear. I did not know if

  her knew me for the enemy or not.

  I twisted.

  The head of the spear stabbed past me. His thrust had brought him within range

  of my blade.

  He fell from the spear, leaving it in my hand.

  Now there stood a man with a torch at the gate. “Open it!” he cried.

  Four men thrust on the beam, lifting it, shoving it, in its looped, leather

  brackets.

  “Hurry!” cried the man with the torch.

  “Stop. Cowards!” screamed Sarus. “Stop!”

  They paid him no heed. Rather, other men ran, too, to the gate.

  I thrust my sword into the dirt at my feet, and held the spear.

  The beam began to slide free of the leather brackets. The spear, a Gorean war

  spear, its head tapered of bronze, some eighteen inches long, its shaft more

  than an inch and a half in thickness, more than six feet in length, sped from my

  grasp.

  I seized again my sword, and moved again, to one side, mixing in the shadows.

  The men fell back from the gate. One of them, through the back, was pinned to

  the beam, fastening it in place. It could no longer slip through the leather

  bracket.

  “Sarus has slain his own men!” cried the fellow with the torch.

  The men at the gate turned wildly. Several of them stood with blades drawn.

  “Not I, fool!” screamed Sarus. “The enemy! The enemy!”

  “Attack!” cried the man with the torch.

  Four of the men at the gate, thinking to protect themselves, ran against other

  men of Tyros.

  I saw Hura darting free, cut loose by a man of Tyros.

  I moved about the inside of the stockade wall. I encountered a man of Tyros,

  back against the wall. He struck out wildly. I left him at the foot of the wall.

  I must hold the gate.

  Some six men of Tyros, near the center of the stockade, some fifteen yards from

  the gate, were engaged with blades, striking at one another. I saw two fall.

&nbs
p; “Do not fight!” screamed Sarus. “Locate the enemy! The enemy!”

  The men fought. Now some eight or ten were engaged. They were half crazed in

  fear.

  “Do not fight!” screamed Sarus.

  I saw two more fall.

  I saw Mira, free, leap to one side. Other panther women, too, were being cut

  free.

  One of them, I saw, found her weapons.

  A shape leaped from the darkness, tumbling her to the dirt, rolling with her. It

  was Sheera.

  At the gate two men, frenzied, worked at the spear that fastened their fellow to

  the beam. Four others crowded about. The man who held the torch at the gate was

  facing the fighting in the center of the stockade.

  Four times my blade thrust, and four men of Tyros slipped back, stumbling from

  the gate.

  The two men working at the spear jerked it free of the wood and the body,

  impaled, was rudely thrown aside.

  They turned and saw me.

  Twice more my blade struck.

  The man, then, with the torch, turned to face the gate. The torch fell.

  The gate was again in darkness.

  “Get your weapons!” screamed Hura.

  In the center of the stockade, two torches were lifted. I placed my sword in the

  dirt before the gate and, turning the impaled body on its back, drew free the

  great war spear, pulling the shaft through the body, holding the body beneath my

  foot to free the shaft.

  “Our bowstrings have been cut!” wailed a panther woman. Others, too, cried out.

  I heard, from one side, the laughter of Verna, and saw her briefly, a sleen

  knife in her hand.

  Then she disappeared in the shadows.

  “We must escape!” cried one of the panther girls. “Escape!” cried others.

  “Stand where you are!” cried Hura, her voice shrill. ”We do not know where he

  is!”

  “Take knives!” cried another girl.

  They scrambled among their discarded skins and accouterments.

  “They are gone!” cried one of the girls.

  “Our spears, too, are gone!” cried another.

  I saw, in the light of two torches, men fighting, still in the center of the

  stockade. I saw two more men of Tyros fall, one with Sarus, one with those who

  had attempted to flee.

  Then there was the light of only one torch, for the Gorean war spear had left my

  hand.

  Another man of Tyros fell, at the hands of one of his fellows, and then another.

  “Stop fighting!” cried Sarus. “Stop fighting!”