Hunters of Gor coc-8

by John Norman

  I heard the screams of women behind me, the laughter of men.

  Then again I heard the strains of Ar’s song of glories, led by Marlenus, Ubar of Ubars.

  There was a feast. The stockade would be ablaze with light.

  I shook my head.

  Ahead, dark, were the hulls of the Rhoda, she of Tyros, and he Tesephone, a light galley of Port Kar.

  I had recollected my honor. I laughed bitterly. Little good had it done me. Marlenus’s was the victory, not mine. I had only grievous wounds, and cold. My left leg, too, began to feel stiff. I could not move it.

  I looked down into Thassa. The glittering surface of the water, broken by the stroke of the oars, seemed to swirl.

  I had nothing.

  “Captain?” asked Thurnock.

  I slumped over the tiller.

  22 There is a Fair Wind for Port Kar

  The wind was cold that swept along the stony beach. The men stood, their cloaks gathered about them. I sat, in blankets, in a captain’s chair, brought from the Tesephone. Thassa was green, and cold. The sky was gray. At their anchors, fore and aft, some quarter of a pasang from shore, swung the Rhoda, in her yellow, now dim in the grayness of the morning, and the Tesephone, on her flag line, snapping, an ensign bearing the following device, the head of a bosk, in black, over a field of white, marked with broad stripes of green, a flag not unknown on Thassa, that of Bosk from the Marches, a captain of Port Kar.

  From the blankets I looked across the beach, to the stockade, which had been that of Sarus. The gate opened, and emerging, came Marlenus, followed by his men, eighty-five warriors of Ar. They were clad in skins, and in garments of Tyros. Several were armed well, with weapons taken from those of Tyros. Others carried merely knives, or light spears, taken from Hura’s panther girls. With them, coming slowly, too, across the sand, to where we waited for them, were Sarus and his men, chained, and bound and in throat coffle, stripped, shivering, Hura’s women. Near them, similarly bound and in throat coffle, though still in the skins of panther girls, were Verna’s women, who had been captured long ago by Sarus in Marlenus’ camp. Grenna, too, who had once been Hura’s lieutenant, whom I had captured in the forest, was bound in the same coffle. She wore the tatters of her white, woolen slave garment. Among the men, clad, too, like Verna’s women, in skins, were Marlenus’ own slave girls, those who had been brought to the forest by him, who, like the others, had been captured at his camp. Their limbs were not bound. About their throats, however, they wore the collar of their master.

  Today the camp would be broken, the stockade destroyed.

  I observed the retinue approaching me.

  It would then be forgotten, what had taken place on this beach.

  I could not move the left side of my body.

  I watched Marlenus and his men, and the slaves, and captives, make their way toward me.

  It was four days since the night of the stockade.

  I had lain, in pain and fever, in my cabin, in the small stern castle of the Tesephone.

  It had seemed that Sheera had cared for me, and that, in fitful wakings, I had seen her face, intent above mine, and felt her hand, and a warmth, and sponging at my side.

  And I had cried out, and tried to rise, but strong hands, those of Rim and Arn, had pressed me back, holding me.

  “Vella!” I had cried.

  And they had pressed me back.

  I should have a hiking trip, into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I would wish to be alone.

  Not in the arena of Tharna! I blocked the heavy yoke locked on Kron, the iron horns tearing at me. The shock coursed through my body, as might have the blow of a mountain on a mountain.

  I heard the screams of the women.

  They were Hura’s women.

  I reach for my sword, but it was gone. My hand closed on nothing.

  The grayish face of Pa-Kur, and the expressionless eyes, stared down into mine. I heard the locking in place of the cable of his crossbow.

  “You are dead!” I cried to him. “You are dead!”

  “Thurnock!” cried Sheera.

  Then there was the roar of Thassa but not of Thassa but of the crowd in the Stadium of Tarns, in Ar.

  “Gladius of Cos!” I heard cry. “Gladius of Cos!”

  “On Ubar of the Skies,” I cried. “On! On!”

  “Please, Captain,” said Thurnock. He was weeping.

  I turned my head to one side. Lara was very beautiful. And Misk, the great disklike eyes luminous, peered down at me. His antennae, golden, with their fine sensory filaments, surveyed me. I reached up to touch them with the palms of my hands. “Let there be nest trust! Let there be friendship!” But I could not reach them, and Misk had turned, and delicately, on his posterior appendages, had vanished.

  “Vella! “ I wept. “Vella!”

  I would not open the blue envelope. I would not open it. I must not open it. The earth trembles with the coming of the herds of the Wagon Peoples. “Flee, Stranger, flee!” “They are coming!” “Give him paga,” said Thurnock.

  And Sandra, in her vest of jewels, and bells, taunted me in the paga tavern in Port Kar.

  I swilled paga.

  “All hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!” I rose drunkenly to my feet. Paga spilled from the cup. “All hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!” Where was Midice, to share my triumph? “Vella!” I cried. “Love me!”

  “Drink this,” said Arn. I swallowed the liquid, and lay back.

  The wind had been cold, too, on the height of Ar’s cylinder of justice. And small Torm, in the blue robes of the scribe, lifted his cup, to salute the beauty of Talena.

  “You are denied bread, and fire and salt,” said Marlenus. “By sundown you are not to be within the realm of Ar.” “Victory is ours!” “Let us hunt, tumits,” suggested Kamchak. “I am weary of affairs of state.” Harold was already in his saddle.

  I drew on the one-strap of Ubar of the Skies, and the great bird, giant and predator, screamed and together, we thrust higher into the bright, sunlit skies of Gor.

  I stood at the edge of the cylinder of justice of Ar and looked down. Pa-Kur had leaped from its height. The sheerness of the fall was broken only by a tarn perch, some feet below.

  I could see crowds milling at the foot of the cylinder.

  The body of the master of the assassins had never been recovered. Doubtless it had been torn to pieces by the crowd.

  In Ar, years earlier, Mip behind me, late at night, I walked out upon a tarn perch, and surveyed the beauties of the lamps of Ar, glorious Ar. I had looked up and seen, several feet above me, the height of the cylinder. It would be possible, though dangerous to leap to the perch.

  I had thought little of it.

  Pa-Kur was dead.

  “Was the body recovered?” asked Kamchak.

  “No,” I had told him. “It does not matter.”

  I threw back my head and laughed.

  Sheera wept.

  “Put more furs upon him,” said Arn. “Keep him warm.”

  I recalled Elizabeth Caldwell.

  He who had examined her on Earth, to determine her fitness for the message collar, had frightened her. His clothes did not seem right upon him. his accent was strange. He was large, strong-handed. She had said his face was grayish, and his eyes like glass.

  Saphrar, a merchant of Tyros, resplendent in Turia, had similarly described the man who had enlisted his services in behalf of those who contested worlds with Priest-Kings. He had been a large man. His complexion had not seemed as one of Earth. It had seemed grayish. His eyes had been expressionless, like stones, or orbs of glass.

  Pa_Kur stared down upon me. I heard the locking in place of the cable of his crossbow.

  “Pa-Kur is alive!” I screamed, rising up, throwing aside the furs. “He is alive! Alive!” I was pressed back.

  “Rest, Captain,” said Thurnock.

  I opened my eyes and the cabin, blurred, took shape. What had seemed a dim sun, a flame of darkness, became a ship’s
lantern, swinging on its iron ring. “Vella?” I asked.

  “The fever is broken,” said Sheera, her hand on my forehead.

  I felt the furs drawn about me. There were tears in Sheera’s eyes. I had thought she had escaped. My collar still encircled her throat. She wore a tunic of white wool, clean.

  “Rest, sweet Bosk of Port Kar,” said she.

  “Rest, Captain,” whispered Thurnock.

  I closed my eyes, and fell asleep.

  “Greetings, Bosk of Port Kar,” said Marlenus of Ar.

  He stood before me, his men behind him. he wore the yellow of Tyros, and, about his shoulders, a cloak, formed of panther skins. About his throat was a tangle of leather and claws, taken from panther women, with which he had adorned himself. His head was bare.

  “Greetings, Marlenus,” said I, “Ubar of Ar.”

  Together we turned to face the forest, and waited. In a moment, from the trees, emerged Hura.

  Her hands were tied, by her long black hair, behind the back of her neck. Her hair had been twisted about her throat, knotted, and then, with the two loose strands, thick, themselves twisted, looped about her wrists, her hands had been secured. She was stripped. She wore a branch shackle, a thick, rounded branch, some eighteen inches in length, notched toward each end, with supple tendrils, fitting into the notches and about her fair ankles, tied across the back of her legs.

  She stumbled once on the stones, struggled to her feet and again approached us. Behind her, nude, proud, erect, golden rings in her ears, carrying a pointed stick, an improvised spear, came blond Verna, tall and beautiful.

  Hura fell to her knees, between Marlenus and me, her head down. The proud leader of the panther girls had not escaped.

  “I found this slave in the forest,” said Verna. About her own neck she still wore Marlenus’ collar.

  He looked at her. She looked at him fearlessly. As an unveiled free woman, not as a slave.

  Verna had caught Hura yesterday, but she had refused to bring her to the stockade. She had kept her prisoner in the forest.

  Now, like a third, equal among us, though she wore a collar, she brought Hura forward to our meeting.

  I looked at Hura. The once-proud panther woman, the now-trembling slave dared not raise her head.

  “So,” inquired Marlenus, “this slave attempted to escape?”

  “Please do not lash me, Masters,” whispered Hura. She had in the stockade, at the hands of Sarus’ men, once felt the whip. No woman ever forgets it. Marlenus pulled her to her feet, and bent her backwards. He examined her. He passed his right hand over her beauty from her knee to her throat. “The slave pleases me,” he said. Then he said to her, harshly, “Kneel.” Hura knelt, trembling.

  “Where is the other escaped slave?” asked Marlenus.

  Mira, stripped, her hands tied behind her back, was thrown between us. She was terrified.

  Sheera, in her white woolen tunic, stood at my side. She put her cheek against my right shoulder.

  She and Verna, like Hura and Mira, had disappeared from the stockade. Within the Ahn Sheera had taken Mira, and, in the darkness, bent over, hand in her hair, she had returned Mira to my men. Mira had then been chained in the hold of the Tesephone. This morning, hands tied behind her back, in a longboat, I had had her brought to the beach to be disposed of.

  Marlenus looked down at Hura and Mira. Mira looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. “Remember, Master,” she wept, “I am your slave. It was to you that I submitted in the forest!” I looked out across Thassa, to where the Rhoda and Tesephone rocked at anchor. It was cold in the blankets. I could not move my left hand or arm, or leg. I was bitter. It was all for nothing. I looked at Sarus, miserable in his chains, and his men. There were ten, but two were sorely wounded, and should not have been chained. They lay on their sides in the sand. Out on the Rhoda, chained in its hold, were the crews of Tyros who had manned the Rhoda and Tesephone. On the Tesephone, chained in its first hold, were, with one exception, those women whom I had placed in my slave chain. The exception was the woman of Hura, named Rissia, who had remained behind to defend her fallen sisters, whom I had captured at the trail camp of Sarus. She stood to one side, fastened in a sirik. I saw the graceful metal at her throat, and on her wrists and ankles, the long, light chain dangling from the collar, to which the slave bracelets and ankles rings were attached. She was in the care of Ilene, who now wore not slave silk, but a tunic of white wool, like that of Sheera. “Stand straight!” cried Ilene, and struck Rissia with a switch. Rissia lifted her head proudly, tears in her eyes.

  I saw Cara, in Rim’s arms, to one side. She still wore a tunic of white wool, but no longer was there a collar at her throat. The lovely slave had been freed. There was no companionship in Port Kar, but she would accompany him to the city. He gently kissed her on the shoulder, and she turned, gently, to him. “I am not a slave,” said Verna to Marlenus of Ar, though she wore his collar. They looked at one another for a long time. she had saved his life in the stockade, interposing her body and weapon, the crossbow, between him and the maddened, desperate attack of Sarus. He had not struck her, a woman. I had taken his sword from him, and given it to one of my men. Then, she had turned, and leveled her crossbow at the heart of Marlenus. We could not have stopped her, did she then fire. The Ubar, in chains, stood at her mercy. “Fire,” he had challenged her, but she had not fired. She had given the crossbow to one of the men of Ar. “I have no wish to kill you,” she had said. Then she had turned away. Yesterday, she had returned of her own free will to the beach, and in her power, a captive panther woman, whose name was Hura.

  “Take from the throat of this woman,” said Marlenus, “the collar of a slave.” He looked about. “This woman,” he said hoarsely, “is no slave.” From the belongings of the camp of Marlenus, which had been carried to the stockade, was taken the key to the collar. It was removed from the throat of Verna, panther girl of the northern forests.

  She faced the Ubar, whose slave she had been.

  “Free now, my women,” she said.

  Marlenus turned about. “Free them,” he ordered.

  Verna’s women, startled, were freed of their bonds. They stood on the beach, among the stones, rubbing their wrists. One by one, collars were taken from their throats. They looked at Verna.

  “I am not pleased with you,” said Verna to them. “You much mocked me when I knelt slave, and wore garments imposed upon me by men.” She then pointed to her ears. “You mocked me, too,” said she, “when rings were fastened in my ears.” She regarded them.:are there any among you,” she said, “who wish to fight me to the death?” They shook their heads.

  Verna turned to me. “Pierce their ears,” she said, “and put them all in slave silk.” “Verna,” protested one of the women.

  “Do you wish to fight me to the death?” demanded Verna.

  “No, Verna,” she said.

  “Let it be done as Verna has said,” said I to Thurnock. Orders were given. In an Ahn, the girls of Verna knelt before her on the beach. Each wore only clinging, diaphanous slave silk. In their eyes were tears. In the ears of each, fastened through the lobes of each, were earrings, of a sort attractive in each woman.

  The skins of the women who had protested “Verna!” were now worn by Verna herself.

  She strode before them on the beach, looking at them. “You would make beautiful slave girls,” she told them.

  I saw that the woman called Rena, whom I had used in Marlenus’ camp, before departing it, was especially beautiful.

  I sat in the captain’s chair, in authority, but cripples, huddled in blankets, bitter. I knew that I was an important man, but I could not move the left side of my body.

  It was all for nothing.

  “You,” challenged Verna to the girl who had protested, “how do you like the feel of slave silk?” She looked down.

  “Speak!” ordered Verna.

  “It makes me feel naked before a man,” she said.

  “Do you wish
to feel his hands, and his mouth, on your body?” she asked. “Yes!” she cried, miserably, kneeling.

  Verna turned and pointed out one of my men, an oarsmen. “Go to him and serve his pleasure,” ordered Verna.

  “Verna!” cried the girl, miserably.

  “Go!” ordered Verna.

  The panther girl fled to the arms of the oarsmen. He threw her over his shoulder and walked to the sand at the foot of the beach.

  “You will learn, all of you,” said Verna, “as I learned what it is to be a woman.” One by one, she ordered the girls to serve the pleasure of oarsmen. The girl, Rena, fled instead to me, and pressed her lips to my hand.

  “Do as Verna tells you,” I told her.

  She kissed my hand again, and fled to him whom Verna had indicated she must serve.

  Their cries of pleasure carried to me.

  Marlenus regarded Verna. “Will you, too,” he asked, “not serve?”

  “I know already what it is to be a woman,” she said. “You have taught me.” He reached out his hand, to touch her. I had not seen so tender a gesture in the Ubar. I had not thought such a movement to be within him.

  “No,” she said, stepping back. “No.”

  He withdrew his hand.

  “I fear your touch, Marlenus,” she said. “I now what you can do to me.” He regarded her.

  “I am not your slave,” she said.

  “The throne of the Ubara of Ar,” he said, “is empty.

  They looked at one another.

  “Thank you,” she said, “Ubar.”

  “I will have all arrangements made,” he said, “for your investiture as Ubara of Ar.” “But,” she said, “Marlenus, I do not wish to be Ubara of Ar.” His men gasped. My men could not speak. I, too, was struck with silence. To be Ubara of Ar was the most glorious thing to which a woman might aspire. It meant that she would be the richest and most powerful woman on Gor, that armies and navies, and tarn cavalries, could move upon her very word, that the taxes of an empire the wealthiest on Gor could be laid at her feet, that the most precious of gems and jewelries might be hers, that she would be the most envied woman on the planet.