Still blades clashed.
I breathed heavily, standing at the gate, in the darkness.
“Stop!” cried Sarus. “Stop, in the name of Chenbar!”
The men of Tyros, wild-eyed, half crazed with fear, fell back.
I knew then how in Tyros stood the word of Chenbar.
“Stand side by side,” ordered Sarus. “Form a circle!”
“We are weaponless!” cried Hura. “Let us within your circle!”
None knew where within the stockade I stood.
The girls looked about, crouching and cowering. They had no weapons. They were
naked. Their wrist doubtless still bore the deep, red, circular marks of Gorean
binding fiber. About the necks of most, knotted still, was a tight loop of
binding fiber, though it had been cut on both sides, to free them from the
coffle. They were terrified.
“Please!” wept Hura.
They were defenseless. And they knew I stood, somewhere, within the stockade,
unseen, with a steel blade.
Perhaps I stood at their very side.
Would the blade, suddenly, without warning, from the darkness leap forward to
claim them?
“Please let us within your circle!” cried Hura. “Please!”
“Please!” cried Mira. “Please!” cried others.
“Be silent!” snapped Sarus, looking about, peering into the darkness. He had
little concern with the women, particularly inasmuch as their weapons had been
destroyed, or had vanished.
He had freed them, it seemed, for nothing.
“You are men!” cried Hura. “We are only women!” She fell to her knees before
Sarus. “As women,” she cried, “we beg your protection!”
“Proud Hura!” sneered Sarus.
“Please, Sarus!” she wept.
“Into the circle,” he snapped.
Gratefully the women, weaponless and naked, defenseless, crept within the
circle.
“Bosk of Port Kar!” called Sarus. “Bosk of Port Kar!”
I did not, of course, answer him.
I wondered where in the stockade were Sheera and Verna.
“You have done well!” called Sarus. “But now we stand in formation. Soon we
shall rebuild the fire. We shall then be able to see you. You will not then
escape us.”
Only silence answered him.
“No longer do we fear you!” he called. “Yet that there be less bloodshed we are
prepared to be merciful. We are prepared to bargain.”
I did not respond.
“You man have all the women,” said Sarus, “all.”
Within their circle, naked and helpless, crouching, huddled together, the women
of Hura moaned.
“Sleen,” cried Hura.
“And, too,” called Sarus, “you may have all male slaves, including your men,
saving only Marlenus, Ubar of Ar.”
There was silence.
“On him there can be no compromise!” cried Sarus. “Can you hear me? Do you
accept these terms?”
I made no sound.
“He is gone!” cried one of the men. “He has escaped! He has left!”
“hold your formation,” said Sarus. “Keep formation!”
There was only silence.
Sarus called the name of two men. “Gather,” said he, “Wood.”
“No!” cried one of the men. “No!”
He had no wish to leave the circle.
“There is wood within the circle,” said Hura.
“Gather it,” said Sarus.
Within the circle, obediently, the women, in the light of the torch, gathered
wood, mostly the remains of the original fire, which I had destroyed earlier.
In the darkness, silently, I prowled the interior of the stockade. A man from
the circle darted from it, clutched a fallen torch, and retreated to the circle.
This torch was lit from the other.
“He is here!” suddenly cried a voice, that of Rim.
My heart leaped.
“Do not break formation!” cried Sarus.
But already two men, eager, blades ready, had sped toward Rim’s voice.
It was not difficult, accordingly, to follow them.
“He is not here!” cried one of the men.
He was mistaken.
Twice my blade struck.
I heard a woman scream to one side. Then she cried, “He is here!”
“Hold formation!” screamed Sarus.
They should have understood that the slave girls had been bound and gagged, and
that the women of Hura were within their own circle.
Two men again rushed toward the sound. Again they did not find me.
It was they who instead were found.
I moved my blade back from the body of the second. I saw Sheera slip away in the
darkness.
“Keep your formation!” cried Sarus.
“We must escape!” screamed one of the men. “He will kill us all!”
he ran toward the gate. I caught him at the gate and, with my fist, sword in it,
struck him across the face. He spun back, staggering, turning, and fell at the
feet of Sarus.
“He is at the gate,” said one of the men. He lifted the torch.
I stood at the gate, sword drawn.
“More torches,” said Sarus. “More fire.”
In a few moments, two more torches had been lit. and, within the circle, lit by
torches, burned a fire.
The men of Sarus broke their circle and faced me.
There were haggard. They breathed heavily. Some were bloodied.
There were now, standing, seven of them, together with Sarus. The man I had
struck lay unconscious before them. Elsewhere two men moaned, somewhere in the
darkness.
I felt my tunic thick with blood at my left side. There was blood from a cut on
my left arm. I could feel it running to my wrist.
At the line of the men of Tyros the torches were lifted.
“Greetings, Bosk of Port Kar,” said Sarus.
“Greetings,” said I, “Sarus of the island of Tyros.”
“We have searched for you,” he said.
“I am here,” I informed him.
Sarus turned to his men. “Find crossbows,” he said. I leaned back against the
gate. I shook my head.
The fire burned higher now.
Sarus and I looked at one another.
I had slain one man with a crossbow. I did not know what had happened to the
weapon. I had not encountered the other man, the other crossbowman. No quarrels
had sped. No man at the line of men of Tyros carried it.
It had been important. But I had failed to locate it, or its bowsman. I had
failed.
Sarus smiled.
“You know where he is now,” he said to two of his men. “Find the crossbows.”
“They are here,” said a voice at my side, that of a woman. it was Sheera. At my
other side stood Verna, she, too, with a crossbow. The women held the bows
leveled.
“You have lost,” said I to Sarus.
“I found the bow,” said Sheera, “among the bodies.”
“He who held this bow,” said Sheera, “lies now wounded in the darkness, struck
by one of his own fellows. The bow fell to one side and it was I who found it.”
Suddenly Sarus laughed. “I have not lost,” he said. “it is you who have lost!”
His men gave a ragged cheer. Even the women of Hura cried out.
I did not understand.
“Look behind you!” cried Sarus. “Look behind you, Bosk of Port Kar! It is over!
Over!
”
“If one moves,” said I to Sheera and Verna, “fire upon him.”
The men of Sarus were grinning.
I turned. Through the crack in the gate, at the beach, beside the embers of
Sarus’ great beacon, I could see lanterns. Two longboats, filled with men, were
being drawn on the beach. Then, in two long lines, lanterns high, men began to
approach the stockade.
“It is the men of the Rhoda and Tesephone,” said Sarus. “You have lost, Bosk of
Port Kar!”
I turned to the beam which I barred the gate. I sheathed my sword. Slowly, foot
by foot, I thrust back the heavy beam. It fell from its loop and slowly, I swung
open the gate. The men, with lanterns, stood outside.
A large fellow, clad in the yellow of Tyros, entered. He grinned. A tooth was
missing on the upper right side of his mouth.
“Greetings, Captain,” said Thurnock.
21 My Business is Concluded in the Stockade
The men of Sarus, one by one, hurled their blades into the earth.
“Step away from your steel,” ordered Thurnock, gesturing that they should stand
to one side.
They did so, in the yellow tunics of Tyros, sullen, ringed by the blades and
spear points of my men.
Sarus had not surrendered his weapon. He stood facing us, breathing heavily.
I observed him.
Tina slipped within the gate. She was barefoot and my collar, still, was at her
throat, but she wore a fresh tunic of wool, brief and white, and her hair was
bound back with a woolen fillet. Behind her, blade in hand, that she might come
to no harm was the young Turus, he who had worn the amethyst-studded wristlet.
“You have done well,” I told her.
I would, in time, free her.
Turus stood with her, one arm about her.
Hura, and her women, Mira, too, crept miserably to one side, shrinking back
against the palings of the stockade, naked women, ready for the chains and
collars of slave girls. My men eyed them, appreciatively.
Marlenus, Rim, Arn, and the men of Marlenus chained within the stockade, came
forward. They were jubilant in the torch light. Their wrists were still locked
behind their backs. They were still fastened together, chained, by the neck.
Sarus turned from me to face Marlenus.
Marlenus looked at me and grinned, “Well done Tarl Cabot,” said he, “Warrior.”
“I am Bosk of Port Kar,” I said. “I am of the Merchants.”
I felt weak. The side of my tunic, the yellow of Tyros, was thick and stiff with
clotted blood. I could feel the dried blood on my left arm, rough and flaking,
even between the fingers, where it had run over my wrist and hand.
There were now more torches and lanterns in the stockade, carried by my men.
“Give me that crossbow,” said one of my men to Sheera. She surrendered the
weapon.
Slaves are not permitted weapons.
“Kneel,” I told her.
She looked at me and, angrily, did so, at my thigh. She was only slave.
She had been of assistance, but she was only slave. It was the duty of a girl to
be of use to her master.
I recalled that I had told her I would sell her in Lydius.
“They made me do it!” cried Tina, to my surprise. She broke away from Turus and
ran and knelt before Sarus who stood, still, near the fire, haggard, angry, his
blade in he hand. “I had no choice!” she cried. He looked down at her. She
leaped to her feet and put her arms about him, weeping. I did not understand her
behavior.
Sarus, angrily, violently, thrust her aside.
“Surrender your weapon,” I told him.
“Nom” he said. “No,”
“You have failed,” said I, “Sarus.”
He looked at me wildly.
His tunic was torn.
He stood unsteadily. In the very Ahn he had lost his victory, his certain
triumph.
All that he had come to the northern forests to accomplish he had failed to do
so.
He had failed his Ubar, Chenbar of Tyros, called the Sea Sleen.
“No!” cried he suddenly.
“Stop!” I cried.
He spun wildly and ran to Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars, sword high.
He stood before the Ubar, his sword raised to strike. But between Sarus and
Marlenus of Ar, there stood another, Verna, the crossbow she carried leveled at
the heart of Sarus.
He could not strike for she stood in his way, and did his arm over, her finger,
even were she struck, would jerk on the trigger of the weapon, flinging its
iron-headed quarrel through his body, perhaps even to the palings behind.
I removed the sword from Sarus’ uplifted hand.
Thurnock took him and thrust him, stumbling, and weeping, to stand by his men.
“Well done, Slave!” congratulated Marlenus of Ar.
Verna did not respond to him.
Instead she turned, and faced him. There was a gasp, and silence.
The crossbow, now, stood leveled at the heart of Marlenus of Ar.
The Ubar faced her. He was helpless in his chains.
I heard the fire of the torches crackling.
Marlenus did not flinch. “Fire,” he said.
She did not speak to him.
“I do not grant you freedom,” he said. “I am Marlenus of Ar.”
Verna handed the crossbow to a man who stood nearby. He took it, quickly.
She turned to face Marlenus of Ar. “I have no wish to kill you,” she said.
Then she walked to one side.
Marlenus stood for a moment in the light of the torches, and then he threw back
his head, with his long hair, and laughed. His head had not had the stripe of
degradation shaven in it, as had my head, and those of my men. He would leave
the forest as he had entered it, with his glory. He had lost nothing.
Are you always victorious, Marlenus of Ar, I asked myself. I had freed him, he
whom I envied, he who had denied me bread, and fire and salt in Ar. He whom in
some respects I hated I had risked my life to liberate.
He would leave the forest as he had entered it, in glory. I wore in my head the
stripe of degradation. In my venture into the forest I had failed.
Both Sarus and I had failed. Only Marlenus of Ar would be victorious.
But he and his men might be mine. They stood in chains. I had ships at my
disposal. I might, rather than Sarus, take them as prizes to Tyros. I might thus
have my vengeance.
“Unchain me!” roared Marlenus of Ar, laughing.
I hated him, he, always victorious.
“Sarus,” said I,” the key to the chains of the Ubar and the others.
Sarus reached to his wallet, slung to his belt. “It is gone,” he said. He seemed
stunned.
“I have it,” said Tina. There was much laughter in the stockade. We recalled how
she had, for a brief moment, before being thrust away, clung to the dazed Sarus.
She had, in that instant, taken the key. She brought it to me.
“Similarly,” said Thurnock, “took she the key from the mate of the Rhoda and,
when the ships were tied together, and the men of the Rhoda and Tesephone were
drunk with her body and the vessels of paga she poured them, she brought it to
us. We freed ourselves, and put those who had been our captors in chains.”
“Well done,” said I, “Thurnock.”
“
We put them in the hold of the Rhoda,” grinned Thurnock. “In the morning
doubtless they will be surprised to find themselves in chains. Their heads, too,
sore from the paga, will most likely cause them some displeasure.”
There was again much laughter. Marlenus, too, joined in the laughter.
I was furious.
“Unchain me,” said Marlenus.
Our eyes met.
I handed the key to Sheera, who knelt beside me. She rose to her feet, to
unchain the Ubar.
“No,” said Marlenus. His voice was quiet, and very hard.
Frightened Sheera stepped back. I took the key from her.
I handed the key to Thurnock. :Unchain the Ubar,” I said to him.
Thurnock hastened to unlock the manacles and heavy throat collar which bound the
great Ubar.
Marlenus did not take his eyes from me. He was not pleased.
I took the key from Thurnock, and, with it, unlocked the steel which confined
Rim and Arn.
I then gave the key to Arn, that he might free the men of Marlenus.
The eyes of Marlenus and I met again. “Do not come to Ar,” he said.
“I shall come to Ar if it pleases me,” said I.
“Bring clothing for the Ubar,” cried one of his men, as swiftly as he was
released.
Another of the men of Marlenus went to the belongings of the men of Tyros, to
seize garments.
“The women!” suddenly cried a man. “They flee!”
Hura and her women, and Mira, too, who had, supreptitiously, the attention of
those within the stockade being distracted, been nearing the gate of the
stockade, suddenly had broken into flight, like a bevy of tabuk, rushing into
the darkness.
“After them!” cried Thurnock.
But scarcely had the peasant giant cried out than, from the darkness about the
stockade, and toward the forest, we heard the surprised cries, and screams, of
startled, unexpectedly caught females. We heard, too, the laughter of me.
“Weapons ready!” cried Marlenus.
I placed my blade in its sheath.
We heard the sound of scuffling outside and more laughter.
In a moment, men, those of Marlenus’ men and mine, who had been chained in the
forest, appeared at the gate of the stockade. Several held, by the arms, or
hair, a stripped, squirming panther girl.
The girls, attempting to escape, had run into their arms.
The men threw their catches, terrified, before the fire. There they huddled,
kneeling, holding one another.
“Bind them hand and foot,” I told my men.
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