by John Norman
In the meantime their bodies served as partial cover for the defenders under and between the wagons.
The raiders wanted the girls. Indeed, that was the object of their enterprise. Accordingly, unless they wished to destroy the very goods they sought, their attack must be measured, and carefully calculated.
Swiftly the formation of tarnsmen wheeled and withdrew.
"The attack is over," I said.
"They will now use fire," said Ute.
I watched with horror as, in a few moments, again the sky filled with tarns, and the beating of wings and the screams of the great birds.
Now, down from the skies rained fiery quarrels, tipped with blazing, tarred cloth wound about the piles.
Wagons caught fire.
I saw defenders unchaining screaming girls. One's hair was afire.
The girls huddled under the wagons, many of them burning.
I saw a defender forcing the head of the girl whose hair burned into the dirt, extinguishing the flames.
I saw two girls now fleeing across the grass, away from the wagons. Tarnsmen now struck the earth, leaping from their birds, to the east of the wagon square and, swords drawn, rushed among the burning wagons.
The clash of steel carried dimly to the hill, where Ute and I watched. "Unbind me!" cried Ute. The straps we wore about our throats were broad, and the strap, too, that joined us. But, about the throat, the broad strap, for each of us, was perforated in two places, and it was by means of narrow binding fiber, passed several times through the performations and knotted, that it was fastened to our throats. The guard had knotted the binding fiber, tightly.
My fingers fought at the knot, futilely, picking at it. I was upset. I could not loosen it.
"I cannot see to untie the knot," cried Ute. "Untie it!"
"I can't!" I wept. "I can't!"
Ute pushed me away and began to chew at the leather strap, desperately, holding it with her hands.
I wept.
Not all the tarnsmen had dismounted. Some still rode astride the great birds, though the birds stood now on the grass.
I saw men fighting between the wagons, some falling.
I saw one of the tarnsmen, yet mounted on his tarn, remove his helmet and wipe his forehead, and then replace the helmet. He was their leader. I could not fail to recognize him, even at this distance.
"It is Haakon!" I cried. "It is Haakon of Skjern!"
"Of course, it is Haakon of Skjern!" said Ute, biting at the strap, tearing at it with her fingers.
Now Haakon of Skjern stood in the stirrups of the tarn saddle, and waved his sword toward the wagons. More warriors dismounted now and rushed among the wagons.
Several of the wagons were now flaming. I saw men rushing about. Two girls fled from the wagons, across the fields.
There must have been more than a hundred tarnsmen with Haakon. When he had come to Ko-ro-ba, he had had little more than forty men, if that many. Others, mercenaries, he must have recruited in the city.
His men outnumbered those of Targo, considerably.
The sounds of blades carried to where we knelt. I was terrified. Ute was savagely tearing at the strap with her teeth.
Then, suddenly, from under the burning wagons, across the fields, there fled dozens of girls, running in all directions.
"He's driven the girls out," cried Ute, furiously. She jerked at the strap. She had not been able to chew it through. She looked at me, savagely. "They had not see us," she said, "We must escape!"
I shook my head. I was afraid. What would I do? Where would I go?
"You will come with me or I will kill you!" screamed Ute.
"I'll come, Ute!" I cried. "I'll come!"
I now saw the tarnsmen returning from the burning wagons, racing to their tarns. They had no interest, or little interest, in the wagons or the supplies. In Targo's gold they might have had interest but they would have to spend men to obtain it. Meanwhile the real treasure was escaping.
Targo, a rational man, and a brilliant slaver, had chosen to purchase his own life, and that of his men, and the safely of his gold, by the flight of the slave girls.
It had been a desperate measure, and one not willingly adopted by a merchant. It was clear evidence that Targo had recognized the seriousness of his predicament, and the odds by which he was outnumbered and the probable result of continuing the engagement.
"Come, El-in-or!" screamed Ute. "Come!"
Ute pulled with both her hands on the strap that bound us together and I, choking, stumbling, fled after her.
We turned once.
We saw tarnsmen, in flight, riding down running girls, the tarns no more than a few feet from the grass, beating their wings, screaming.
Often a tarn would clutch the girl in its talons and alight. The tarnsmen would then leap from the saddle and force the bird's talons from its prey, binding the hysterical girl's wrists and fastening her to a saddle ring, then remounting and hunting another. One man had four girls bound to his saddle. Another would fly low and to the side of the running girl, and a beat of the tarn's great wings would send her rolling and sprawling for a dozen yards across the grass. Before she could arise, the tarnsman would be upon her, binding her. Another would strike the victim in the small of her back with the butt of his spear, felling her, numbing her, for the binding fiber. Others, flying low and to the side, roped the girls as they ran, using their slender ropes of braided leather, familiar to tarnsmen. Such warriors do not even deign to dismount to bind their fair prisoners. They haul them to the saddle, in flight, there securing them, stripping them and fastening them to the binding rings.
It is a favorite sport of tarnsmen to streak their tarns over an enemy city and, in such a fashion, capture an enemy girl from one of the city's high bridges, carrying her off, while the citizens of the city scream in fury, shaking their fists at the bold one. In moments her garments flutter down among the towers and she is his, bound on her back across the saddle before him, his prize. If he is a young tarnsman, and she is his first girl, he will take her back to his own city, and display her for his family and friends, and she will dance for him, and serve him, at the Collaring Feast. If he is a brutal tarnsman, he may take her rudely, should he wish, above the clouds, above her own city, before even his tarn had left its walls. If he should be even more brutal, but more subtly so, more to be feared by a woman, he will, in the long flight back to his city, caress her into submission, until she has no choice but to yield herself to him, wholly, as a surrendered slave girl. When he then unbinds her from the saddle rings, she, so devastatingly subdued, well knows herself his.
I saw Rena of Lydius running, frantic, from the wagons, in her camisk. I saw a tarnsman wheel his tarn after her.
She fled.
Rena of Lydius was being hunted!
I put my hand before my mouth.
The wide, swiftly closing loop of braided leather fell about her running body. The tarn streaked past her, only a few feet overhead. The rope jerked tight. She screamed. She was jerked from her feet into the air, screaming, a dozen feet above the rushing grasses beneath her, and then was dragged to the saddle. I saw her clutching the tarnsman, terrified. With a small knife he cut the binding fiber that belted her camisk. The camisk now flew behind her, like a cape, about her neck, whipped by the wind. He resheathed his knife. He then threw the camisk from her. He gestured that she should lie on her back across the saddle in front of him, crossing her wrists and legs. She, terrified, did so immediately. He then secured her.
I screamed.
The strap that bound me to Ute jerked on my neck, and I fell.
"Hurry!" cried Ute. "Hurry!"
I scrambled to my feet and, following Ute, fled.
13 I Feel the Capture Loop
I stood in the swift stream, the water coming to somewhat above my knees. I had tied the camisk up about my waist, with the binding fiber. Hands poised, I scrutinized the silver form turning in the clear water. It swam near the fence of small wands which U
te had thrust into the bottom of the stream, and turned back, as though puzzled.
My hands dove for it, clutching. I touched it. There was a churning of water. I drew back my hands, with a cry of disgust. With a spattering of water and a flurry of pebbles the swift, squirming body twisted away.
I stood up again.
It was not likely to escape.
I stood within Ute's structure of wands. It consisted of two parts. The first, a few feet upstream, was in the form of a "V," which had an open bottom, which pointed downstream. This formed a funnel of wands, such that a small swimming creature could easily enter it, but would not so easily find again the opening to escape. The second part of the structure was a simple, curved fence of wands a few feet downstream of the first, forming the downstream wall of the trap. Ute was hunting. She had also set snares. She had used the pieces of binding fiber which had, by means of the perforations, fastened our throat straps on us. I again began to stalk the silver body in the trap.
Ute and I, to our astonishment, had escaped. Separated as we had been from the wagons, and doubtless, too, in virtue of the confusion, it had been our fortune not to have been noticed in our flight.
I had shaken my head. I had been afraid. What could we do? Where would we go? "You will come with me, or I will kill you! had screamed Ute.
"I'll come, Ute!" I had cried. "I'll come!"
Dismayed, terrified, bound to her by the throat strap, I had stumbled after her. We had run for perhaps an Ahn, when, gasping, exhausted, scarcely able to move, we had reached the edge of a large Ka-la-na thicket.
In this thicket, still tethered one to the other, we had thrown ourselves down on the grass.
"Ute, I am afraid," I had whispered to her. "I am afraid!"
"Do you not understand," she whispered, her eyes filled with joy, "we are free! We are free!"
"But what will we do?" I asked.
Ute crawled over to me, and began to work, with her small strong fingers, at the knot that bound the collar on my throat. "We will need this binding fiber," she said.
After a time, she managed to undo the knot. "Now," she said, "unbind me." "I cannot," I told her. I had tried before, and could not do it.
"Do it," said Ute, her eyes hard.
I again tried. I could not, with my small fingers, loosen it.
"Bring me a tiny stick," said Ute.
I did so.
She then chewed at the end of the tiny stick, sharpening it, putting a point on it.
She handed it to me.
With this tool, wedging it between the strands, I managed, after a time, to loosed them, and removed Ute's throat strap.
"Good," she said.
"What will we do, Ute?" I begged.
She coiled the heavy strap and put it about her shoulder. The two smaller pieces of binding fiber she thrust in the belt of her camisk, itself of binding fiber.
She then stood up.
"Come along," she said. "We must go deeper into the thicket."
"I cannot move," I told her. "I am too tired."
Ute looked at me.
"If you wish to leave now," I told her, "you must go on without me." "All right," said Ute. "Farewell, El-in-or," said she. She then turned and began to move away.
"Ute!" I had cried.
She did not turn.
I had leaped to my feet, running after her. "Ute!" I had wept. "Ute, take me with you!"
My hands now poised themselves over the silverish body in the water before me. I clutched again. This time I caught the thing, squirming, horned, scaly. It thrashed about. I could not hold it. It was too terrible to feel! With a slap of its tail it slithered free and darted away, downstream, but then, halted by the barrier of wands, turned and, under the water, motionless, faced me. I backed away, toward the open end of the «V», which pointed downstream. I could keep the thing in the trap. Ute would be back soon.
We had been free for five days. We had stayed in Ka-la-na thickets by day, and had moved across the fields at night. Ute was heading south and westward. The tiny village, Rarir, in which she had been born, lay south of the Vosk, and near the shores of Thassa.
"Why do you wish to go there?" I had asked Ute.
She had stolen from that village as a little girl. Her parents, the year before, had been slain by roving larls. Ute was of the leather workers. Her father had been of that caste.
"I do not much wish to go there," said Ute. "But where is one to go?" She smiled. "In my own village," she said, "they will not make me a slave." Sometimes, at night, Ute would moan the name of Barus, whom she had once loved. At the age of twelve, Ute had been purchased by a leather worker, who dwelt on the exchange island, administered by the Merchants, of Teletus. He, and his companion, had cared for her, and had freed her. They had adopted her as their daughter, and had seen that she was trained well in the work of the leather workers, that caste, which, under any circumstances, had been hers by right of birth.
On her nineteenth birthday, members of the Caste of Initiates had appeared at the door of the leather worker's hut.
It had been decided that she should now undertake the journey to the Sardar, which, according to the teachings of the Caste of Initiates, is enjoined on every Gorean by the Priest-Kings, an obligation which is to be fulfilled prior to their attaining their twenty-fifth year.
If a city does not see that her youth undertake this journey then, according to the teachings of the Initiates, misfortunes may befall the city.
It is one of the tasks of the Initiates to keep rolls, and determine that each youth, if capable, discharge this putative obligation to the mysterious Priest-Kings.
"I will go," had said Ute.
"Do you wish the piece of gold?" asked the chief of the delegation of Initiates, of the Leather Workers and his Companion.
"No," they had said.
"Yes," said Ute. "We will take it."
It is a custom of the Initiates of Teletus, and of certain other islands and cities, it the youth agrees to go to the Sardar when they request it, then his, or her, family or guardians, if they wish it, will receive one tarn disk of gold.
Ute knew that the leather worker, and his companion, could well use this piece of gold. Besides, she knew will that, some year, prior to her twenty-fifth year, such a journey must be undertaken by her. The Merchants of Teletus, controlling the city, would demand it of her, fearing the effects of the possible displeasure of the Priest-Kings on their trade. If she did not undertake the journey then, she would be simply, prior to her twenty-fifth birthday, removed from the domain of their authority, placed alone outside their jurisdiction, beyond the protection of their soldiers. Such an exile, commonly for a Gorean, is equivalent to enslavement or death. For a girl as beautiful as Ute it would doubtless have meant prompt reduction to shameful bondage, chains and the collar. Further, on other years, there would be no piece of gold to encourage her to undertake this admittedly dangerous journey.
"I will go," she had said.
She agreed to participate in the group then being organized by the Initiates. The leather worker and his companion, reluctantly, yielding to her entreaties, accepted the piece of gold.
Ute did indeed get to see the Sardar.
But she saw it in the chains of a naked slave girl.
Her ship fell to those of the black slaves of Schendi. She, and the others, were sold to merchants, who met the slaves at a secret cove, buying from them their catch. They were then transported overland in slave wagons to the Sardar, where they were sold at he great spring fair of En'Kara. When she was sold, from the block, over the palisade, she could see the peaks of the Sardar.
For four years, Ute, then a beauty, passed from one master to another, taken from city to city.
The she was taken by a master, with others of his slaves, again to the Sardar, again to be sold, to defray business debts resulting from the loss of a caravan of salt wagons.
It was there that she had been purchased by Barus, of the Leather Workers. She had had many m
asters, but it was only the name of Barus, which she moaned in her sleep.
She had much fallen in love with him, but she had, as she had told me, once attempted to bend him to her will.
To her horror, he had sold her.
She would never speak of him to me, but in her sleep, as I have said, she would cry his name.
"Why do you not go back to Teletus?" I asked Ute.
I did not much favor the idea of living in a village. And it was in Teletus that she had been freed, and adopted. Her foster parents might still be on the island.
"Oh," had said Ute, casually, "I cannot swim Thassa. I do not think I could very well purchase passage, either. And might not the Captain enslave me?" There seemed sense in what Ute had said.
"Besides," had sniffed Ute, "my foster parents might not even be on the island, still."
This seemed possible, for the population of an exchange island, like Teletus, tends to be somewhat more transient than that of an established city, with a tradition of perhaps a thousand or more years.
"But," I had pressed, "perhaps you could find your way back somehow, and perhaps, your foster parents still reside on Teletus."
If I were to go with Ute, I would surely prefer to go to an exchange island, with some of the amenities of civilization, rather than to a rude village south of the Vosk.
"Look at me!" had cried Ute, suddenly, to my astonishment, furious. I was startled.
"My ears have been pierced!" she screamed.
I shrank back.
"They were kind to me!" she cried. "How could I go back and shame them? Should I present myself to them, as their daughter, with pierced ears?" she cried. I could not understand Ute. She was Gorean.
She put down her head. "My ears have been pierced!" she wept. "My ears have been pierced!" She lifted her head to me. "I will hide myself in Rarir," she said. I did not respond to her.
At any rate, Ute was adamant. She would seek the village of Rarir. I kicked at the pebbles in the stream, from where I stood, in front of the ingress to the trap.