Hunters of Gor

by John Norman

  They came rather boldly. They were fools.

  I had approached the camp of the Tesephone with great caution. I had been one shadow among others, silent. They had had no guards posted.

  One of them carried a bottle.

  They knew little of the forests. It was their misfortune. With them, I noted, grimly, were four girls. They were in throat coffle, their wrists behind them, bound. The girls were laughing and joking with them. They wore yellow silk. They were doubtless the paga slaves from Laura.

  They had been instrumental in the surprise and taking of my camp. Doubtless they had been told to see that all males in the camp partook of the wine which had been sent upriver with them. They would have understood the plot. They would have been partner to it. Now, charmingly, they, bound, teased and jested with the men of Tyros. They were lovely slaves.

  I would meet those men of Tyros. I strode forth to the camp, and stood and faced them.

  They were struck for a moment, seeing me, standing some hundred and fifty yards from them, regarding them.

  The girls were thrust to one side.

  The men drew their blades and rushed forward, charging me. They were fools.

  At point-blank range the temwood shaft can be fired completely through a four-inch beam; at two hundred yards it can pin a man to a wall; at four hundred yards it can kill the huge, shambling bosk; it fires nineteen arrows in a Gorean Ehn, some eighty Earth seconds; a skilled bowman, and not an unusual one, is expected to be able to put these nineteen arrows in an Ehn into a man-sized target, consecutively, each a mortal hit, at some two hundred and fifty yards.

  Shouting the war cry of Tyros, blades drawn, they ran toward me across the sand and pebbles of the northern shore of the Laurius.

  These men knew only the crossbow.

  They ran toward me as I had wanted them to, near the edge of the river, in the shortest line, away from the trees.

  Their cries drifted toward me, their order to surrender. They did not understand who it was who hunted.

  My feet were spread; my heels were aligned with the target; my feet and body were at right angles to the target line; my head was turned sharply to the left; the first sheaf arrow was drawn to its pile; the three half feathers of the vosk gull were at my jawbone.

  "Surrender!" cried their leader, stopping some twenty feet from me. He was under my arrow. He knew I might kill him. "There are too many," he said. "Put down your weapon."

  Instead I drew a bead on his heart.

  "No!" he cried. "Attack!" he cried to his men. "Kill him!"

  He turned again to face me. His face was white. In a line behind him, on the beach, his men were scattered. Only one moved.

  In hunting one often fells the last of the attackers first, and then the second of the attackers, and so on. In this fashion, the easiest hits are saved for last, when there is less danger of losing a kill. Further, the lead animals are then unaware that others have fallen behind them. They are thus less aware of their danger. They regard as misses what may, in actuality, be hits on others, unknown to them.

  The man from Tyros was alone.

  White-faced, he threw down his sword.

  "Charge," I told him.

  "No," he said. "No!"

  "The sword?" I asked.

  "You are Bosk," he whispered, "Bosk of Port Kar!"

  "I am he," I said.

  "No, not the sword," said he. "No."

  "The knife?" I asked.

  "No!" he cried.

  "There is safety for you," I said, gesturing across the Laurius with my head, "if you reach the other side."

  "There are river sharks," he said. "Tharlarion!"

  I regarded him.

  He turned and fled to the water. I watched. Luck was not with him. I saw the distant churning in the water, and saw, far off, the narrow head of a river shark, lifting itself, water falling from it, and the dorsal fins, black and triangular, of four others.

  I turned and looked up the beach. The paga slaves were there. They stood in terror, barefoot in the sand, in the yellow silk, in throat coffle, their wrists bound behind their back, horrified with what they had seen.

  I strode toward them and, with screams, they turned stumbling about, attempting to flee.

  When I passed the one man of Tyros who had yet moved I noted that he now lay still.

  The girls had tangled themselves in the brush not twenty yards into the trees. By the binding fiber on their throat I pulled them loose and led them back to the beach.

  I took them to the point where the leader of the men of Tyros had entered the water.

  Sharks were still moving in the center of the river, feeding.

  "Kneel here," I told them.

  They did so.

  I went and gathered my arrows from the fallen men of Tyros, and rolled their bodies into the Laurius. They were simple pile arrows and pulled cleanly from the body. I did not need, as with the broad arrow or the Tuchuk barbed arrow, to thrust the point through in order to free it.

  I cleaned the arrows and returned to the girls, placing the arrows in my quiver.

  They looked up at me in terror, captured slaves. They had been instrumental in the taking of my camp. They had been party to the plot. Without them it could not have been successful. Doubtless they knew much.

  They would tell me what they knew.

  "Speak to me," I said, "of what took place in this camp, and tell me what you know of the doings and intentions of the men of Tyros."

  "We know nothing," said one of the girls. "We are only slaves."

  In the pouring of paga, I knew, they would have heard much.

  "It is my wish," I said, "that you speak." My eyes were not pleasant.

  "We may not speak," said one of the girls. "We may not speak."

  "Do you expect the men of Tyros to protect you?" I asked.

  They looked at one another, apprehensively.

  Then, as they knelt very straight, I removed the pleasure silk from them. Then, to their astonishment, I unbound their wrists. I did not free them of the tether on their throat.

  "Stand," I told them.

  They did so.

  I had unstrung the bow. I removed the sword from my sheath. I gestured toward the water with the blade.

  They looked at me with horror.

  "Into the water," I told them. "Swim."

  "No! No!" they screamed. They fell before me in the sand, their hair to my sandal.

  "We are women!" cried one. "We are women!"

  "Be merciful to us," cried another. "We are only slaves!"

  "Please, Master!" wept another. "Do not kill us!"

  "We are women, and slaves," wept the fourth. "Keep us as women and slaves! Keep us as women and slaves!"

  "Submit," I told them.

  They knelt before me, back on their heels, head down, arms lifted and extended, wrists crossed as though for binding.

  "I submit myself," said each, in turn.

  They need not be bound. They need not be collared. They need not even have spoken. The posture of submission itself, assumed by them before me, constituted them my slaves.

  They were now mine.

  "Slave," said I to the first girl, dark-haired, "head to the sand, speak."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I looked down upon her, the stripped slave, kneeling, her head and hair pressed down, into the sand.

  "We were the slaves of Hesius of Laura," she wept. "We are paga slaves. Our master dealt with Sarus, Captain of the Rhoda of Tyros. We were to be rented to the camp of Bosk of Port Kar. We were to serve wine. The men of Tyros, when the wine had been drunk, were to storm the camp."

  "Be silent," I told her. I gazed upon the second girl, a blond. "Head to the sand," I said, "speak."

  She plunged her lovely hair to the sand. "The plan went well," she said. "We served wine to all and, even, secretly, to the slave girls of the camp. Within the Ahn all were unconscious. The camp was ours."

  "Enough," I said. "You," I said, to the third
girl, a redhead, "speak."

  She put her head, too, to the sand, and spoke, rapidly, trembling, the words tumbling forth. "The entire camp was taken," she said. "All with ease were locked in slave chains, both men and women. The wall about the camp was thrown down, the camp destroyed."

  "Enough," I said. I did not command the fourth girl to speak as yet. I wished to think. Much now seemed more clear to me, things that the girls had not spoken.

  It was not difficult to imagine that it was not simply to capture Bosk of Port Kar, or to do injury to those of Port Kar, that the Rhoda of Tyros had come to Lydius, and upriver to Laura. She was a medium-class galley. She had a keel length of about one hundred and ten feet Gorean, and a beam of about twelve foot Gorean. She would carry some ninety oarsmen. These would be free men, for the Rhoda was a ram-ship, a war ship. Her crew, not counting officers, beyond oarsmen, would be some ten men. She was single masted, as are most Gorean war galleys. How many men she would be carrying below decks, concealed, I had no idea. I would speculate, however, judging the business on which I conjectured the Rhoda had come north, that she would have carried more than a hundred below decks, doubtless all skilled warriors.

  I am sure that the capture of Bosk was one of the objectives of the Rhoda's northern expedition, but I suspected that the acquisition of an admiral of Port Kar, one whom they had good cause to remember, was not their single, nor prime, objective.

  There was bigger game in the forests.

  Tyros and Ar, of long standing, are enemies.

  Marlenus, I feared, for once in his life, had miscalculated.

  I turned to the fourth girl. She was a black-haired, light-skinned beauty.

  "Head to the sand," I told her.

  She put her head down. Her shoulders shook.

  "You will answer my questions," I told her, "promptly and exactly."

  "Yes, Master," she whispered.

  "How many men do those of Tyros have?" I asked.

  She trembled. Her knees moved in the sand. "I do not know exactly," she wept.

  "Two hundred?" I conjectured.

  "Yes," she said, "at least two hundred."

  "The ship, the Tesephone, which was here," I said, "was it taken, by a prize crew, downriver?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "Of how many men?" I asked.

  "Fifty, I think," she said.

  The Tesephone had forty oars. They would have manned each oar. They had men to spare.

  "What happened," I asked, "to my men, and slaves?"

  "The men," she said, "with the exception of one, whose head wore the swath of panther girls, were chained in the hold of the Tesephone. The women, the four slaves, and he who wore the swath of panther girls, were taken, with the majority of the men of Tyros, into the forest."

  "What was the destination of the Tesephone?" I asked.

  "Please do not make me speak!" she cried.

  I began to unfasten the tether that bound her with the other girls.

  "Please!" she wept.

  I took her naked in my arms, unbound, and began to carry her into the river.

  "No!" she wept. "I will speak! I will speak!"

  I held her, standing behind her, by the arms. We stood in the river. The water was at my hips, and higher on her.

  I saw a fin turn in the water and move towards us. The river shark, commonly, does not like to come into water this shallow, but it had been feeding, and it was aroused. It began to circle us. I kept the girl between us.

  The girl screamed.

  "What is the destination of the Tesephone?" I asked.

  The circles were becoming smaller.

  "Laura!" she screamed. "Laura!"

  "And whither then?" I asked.

  The shark moved toward the girl, smoothly, flowing, liquid in its flawless menace. But its tail did not snap for the swift strike. It was belly down, dorsal fin upright. It thrust its snout against the girl's thigh, and she screamed, and it turned away.

  "It will join the Rhoda at Laura!" she screamed.

  The shark moved in again, similarly, and bumped against her leg, and turned away.

  The shark thrust twice against us again, once with its snout, another time with its tail and back.

  "The next time, I expect," I said, "it will make its strike."

  "Your ship and the Rhoda will go to Lydius, and thence north, to an exchange point!" she cried. "Have mercy on a slave!" she shrieked.

  I saw the shark turn again, this time from some fifteen yards away. I saw it roll onto its back, its dorsal fin down.

  "For what purpose do they proceed to the exchange point?" I asked.

  "For slaves!" she cried.

  "What slaves!" I cried, holding her by the arms. "Speak swiftly! It makes its strike!"

  "Marlenus of Ar, and his retinue!" she cried.

  I threw the girl behind me, and, with the heel of my sandal, as the shark thrust towards us, with great force, stopped it.

  It turned, thrashing about in fury.

  I took the girl by the hair and, holding her bent over, as one holds a female slave by the hair, waded up the beach.

  Her entire body was trembling. She was shuddering, and moaning.

  I threw her to the sand with the other girls, and again fastened her, with them, in throat coffle.

  "Stand," I told them. "Stand straight, heads high. Place your wrists behind your back."

  I then picked up the slave silk they had worn and, under the throat tether of each, thrust the silk. Then, with the binding fiber I had earlier removed, I fastened their wrists behind their backs.

  The Tesephone, most of my men aboard, chained in her hold, was to make rendezvous with the Rhoda at Laura. The two ships would then proceed to Lydius, and thence to an exchange point on the shore of Thassa, north of Lydius. The bulk of the attackers had proceeded through the forest, to surprise the camp of Marlenus. They had taken with them Rim and the four girls. They had doubtless taken Rim, knowing him from Laura as an officer of mine. My men would not have revealed to them who else might be officer. Thurnock, as a common seaman, was doubtless chained in the hold of the Tesephone. That might be desirable. My men there were thus provided with an officer. It is a reasonably common practice to separate officers and men, in order that prisoners have less unity and direction than might otherwise be the case. Rim had been taken northward because he was an officer. The girls had been taken northward because they were lovely. The trip to the exchange point through the forests would be long. Rim, Grenna, Sheera, Tina and Cara were thus with the attacking force. The others, including Thurnock, had been incarcerated in the hold of the Tesephone.

  I stood on the beach, and looked at the ruins of my camp. I saw the long mark in the sand, where the keel of the Tesephone had been dragged down to the water.

  I, Bosk of Port Kar, was not pleased.

  There were some fifty men of Tyros, as a prize crew, with the Tesephone. The crew of the Rhoda herself, though I expected not all of her oars would now be manned, would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred. The slave girl whom I had questioned on these matters had conjectured that the attacking force had numbered in the neighborhood of two hundred men. I suspected that some one hundred and fifty, or more, men were now moving towards the camp of Marlenus. They had left eleven men behind at my camp, to pick up any of my men who, unknowingly, might return to the camp. They had not expected any, really, apparently, for their security had been poor. It had cost them. These eleven men I did not leave behind me. It is a Tuchuk custom, not to leave an enemy behind one.

  I regarded the slave girls, standing in the sand, in coffle, their wrists behind their backs, bound. They stood very still. They stood very straight. Their heads were very high. I had commanded them to stand so.

  I regarded the silks, thrust through the tethers on their necks.

  I walked about them. They were beautiful.

  "You were party," I told them, "to a plot in which my camp fell and my men, and certain slaves, were taken. I am not plea
sed. You were instrumental in the success of the plans of my enemies. Without you, their plans could not have been successful."

  "Have mercy on us, Master," whispered one of the girls.

  "Posture," I snapped.

  The girls stood, perfectly.

  "How many of you," I asked, "are forest girls?"

  "We are of the cities," said the redhead.

  I went to her and put my hand at her waist. "The sleen," I said, "has sharp fangs."

  "Do not take us into the forest!" begged one.

  "You will be taken into the forest," I told them. "If you do precisely as I say, you may possibly survive. If you do not do precisely as I say, you will not survive."

  "We will be obedient," said the first girl.

  I smiled. I might be able to use these slaves.

  I took the second girl by the hair. "When did the men of Tyros leave for the camp of Marlenus?" I asked.

  "Yesterday morning," she said.

  I thought it might be so, from the crumbling of the sand beside the keel track of the Tesephone. I could not then, in all probability, arrive at the camp of Marlenus in time to warn him. I had not expected to be able to do so.

  Yet Marlenus kept guards posted. He was a shrewd huntsman, and a great Ubar and warrior. Further, he had some one hundred men with him. It puzzled me, somewhat, that the men of Tyros had dared to approach the camp, with only some one hundred and fifty men. The men of Marlenus are, usually, exceptional in intelligence and the use of weapons. This would be particularly so in the case of a picked retinue. The warriors of Ar were among the best on Gor. The warriors and huntsmen of Marlenus' retinue, picked men, each of them, would doubtless be among the finest of Ar's finest. Picked men, each of them, they would doubtless constitute an incredibly dangerous set of foes.

  I wondered if Marlenus required warning, even had I the chance to deliver it.

  Even granting the men of Tyros the element of surprise and a superiority in number of some fifty or sixty men, their enterprise was not without considerable hazard.

  They risked much. They risked much, unless there was more to be considered, more than I had understood.

  There must be more.

  Then I realized what more there was.

  The men of Tyros had planned carefully. I admired them. Their effort would be a concerted one. But where might they find allies in the forests?