Hunters of Gor coc-8

by John Norman

  “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 cross
ed 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. “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!” 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.