Hunters of Gor (47 page)

There was more screaming. I did not envy them.

“Come, Captain,” said Thurnock.

With Thurnock and eight of my men I thrust the longboat back in the water and

then, wading, swung it about.

Thurnock climbed into the boat, and leaning toward me, helped me to follow him.

My eight men took their oars.

“Lie in the boat, Captain,” said Thurnock.

“No,” I told him. I took the tiller.

“Stroke,” called Thurnock.

The oars cut the water. I leaned on the tiller. The moons broke from the cover

of the clouds. Thassa, suddenly, shone with a billion whispering diamonds. Dark,

ahead, were the hulls of the Rhoda, a ship of Tyros, and the Tesephone, a light

galley of Port Kar.

“Captain?” asked Thurnock.

Behind me I heard from the stockade, the song of Ar’s glories, led in the great

voice of Marlenus of Ar, Ubar of Ubars.

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

I was wet from the salt water, thrusting the longboat into Thassa. My side and

my left arm stung with the salt, and felt stiff with the cold, and then, too,

suddenly, I felt a warmth, slow and spreading. It seemed welcome. I did not much

care. But I knew that it was my own blood.

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