by John Norman
And now Cabot himself was netted, though not in the light toils of a weighted slave net, which he might have torn open and shredded, a net unsuitable for a man but inescapable for a female, but in a mighty net, stoutly woven, thickly stranded, cast by a Kur, a net that might have held a larl.
Another Kur ascended to the ledge on which Cabot lay, enmeshed, trapped, in the toils of the net.
This second Kur carried a spear, which he handed to the net holder, who then, grasping it some four feet behind the blade, lifted it, his hands high over his head, and pointed it downward, toward the heart of Cabot, who lay in the toils of the net, on his back, looking upward.
Chapter, the Nineteenth:
THE INTERVENTION OF THE STEEL LARL
There was suddenly above Cabot a rushing sound and a torrent of fire and Cabot turned his head away, half blinded, and was barely aware of the gigantic, headless trunk above him, the parts of arms, striking about him, and the charred particles of parts of a blackened spear, the metal head of which, half melted, struck softly onto the ledge. The trunk did not bleed as the flame had seared shut the avenues of blood within that large body, and the head, or the parts of it which remained, slid slowly downward, descending from the rock wall behind him.
At the same time he heard the hiss of power weapons below the escarpment. But such weapons were not permitted in the sport world!
There were howls of surprise and fury, some abrogated instantly, as if a machine might have been switched off. He heard Kur sounds, most discordant, some articulate, others half uttered, or blurred. The translators, several of which must have been still on, transmitted sounds in Gorean but the emanations were so disordered as to be largely unintelligible.
Cabot, struggling in the net, rolled to his side, about the large, headless trunk encumbering the ledge, to peer through the strands, down into the clearing at the foot of the small escarpment.
There was another blast of fire below him, which was reflected upward, as though a small sun had exploded, casting an ignited chemical shower against the escarpment, and he saw the residue of one of the sleen smoking below him. In the clearing below there were, too, five steaming bodies, the flesh burned away to darkened bones, and three of the hunters had flung down their weapons, in token of surrender. They were then cut down with streams of fire where they stood. The eight who had hunted Cabot had all been destroyed. About the clearing, armed with weapons outlawed within the sport world, were at least fifty Kurii. Two Kurii, other than the hunters, had been penetrated by spears, with which the hunters had been armed. A heat knife lay on the ground, still blistering and flaming, which one of the Kurii snapped off. The other sleen had its back to the escarpment, snarling, and then it sprang at one of the Kurii, clinging with its jaws to its arm. The arm was torn off, and the sleen shook it angrily. Power weapons were aimed at the beast.
A Kur roar, abrupt, definitive, emanated from the forest, and the power weapons were lowered. On several of the translators of the hunters, almost simultaneously, Cabot heard, “No!"
Through the trees into the clearing emerged a machine, slowly, menacingly, in the form of a gigantic larl.
The larl is known on Gor. It is not known if it was native to Gor or, as many other forms of life, including humans, it was brought to that world by the mysterious Priest-Kings, whoever or whatever they might be. The ecological niche on the planet Earth, which is usually filled with large predators of a feline nature, such as the lion, the tiger, and such, is filled, or mostly, on Gor by the larl, and a diversity of smaller predators, primarily pantherine in form. The adult Gorean larl is usually in the range of seven feet at the shoulder and over a thousand pounds in weight. It is lithe, sinuous, agile, aggressive, ferocious, carnivorous, and, unlike the sleen, quadrupedalian. It has a broad skull, rather triangular in shape, and is fanged, and clawed. But the machine which now emerged, stalking, from the forest, must have been ten to twelve feet at the shoulder. Its weight would be difficult to ascertain without a better sense of its construction, but it was doubtless considerably heavier than a natural larl.
The living Kurii in the clearing, their weapons lowered, stepped aside, to allow the advance of the device.
The sleen, the Kur arm dangling from its jaws, lifted its head and regarded the strange new arrival.
It did not regard it as a living thing, of course, for the signals of sound, and odor, were incorrect. But it did regard it as a foreign object, inexplicable perhaps, but surely not welcome.
The machine, almost catlike, picked its way delicately amongst the bodies of Kurii, both of the hunters and the others.
The sleen crouched down, and began to gnaw at the arm, this appendage held in place by its forefeet.
The Kur who had been attacked by the sleen lay to one side, bleeding. Kurii seldom tender aid to one another in such a situation. This is a cultural matter. The common thought is that if he is Kur he will need no assistance. Rendering assistance is sometimes, as well, thought demeaning to the injured or wounded. It is, so to speak, calling attention to his need, or weakness, which can be regarded as shaming or insulting him. Pity is regarded as belittling both he who is pitied and he who pities. It is not strength. Too, there is commonly another to take the place of such a one.
"Larl,” Cabot heard. He thought this sound came from the interior of the machine.
Immediately the living Kurii raised their power weapons, looking about, alertly.
"No,” Cabot heard, again.
Yes, the sound emanated from within the machine.
Cabot knew that larls could be found in the sport world, as well as sleen. These beasts were hunted by Kurii with primitive weapons, as well as men. Indeed, he had reason to believe that humans not only defended themselves from such beasts, as they could, but occasionally hunted them, as well. Too, occasionally they must have slain a Kur. Archon had worn remnants of a Kur harness.
A larl, thought Cabot, might have been brought to the clearing by the smell of blood.
He then saw it, as must have the Kurii, as well, tawny and sinuous, amongst the trees, half crouching.
It was waiting, thought Cabot. Why is it waiting?
"Sleen,” Cabot heard.
At first he understood this to be a reference to the beast feeding below, but this conjecture was instantly belied by the feeding beast, for it raised its head suddenly and snarled, menacingly, possessively.
On its six legs, belly to the ground, tail lashing, a wild sleen approached the hunting sleen.
It is not only the larl which can smell blood, thought Cabot.
The hunting sleen was a much larger animal, and had been bred through generations not only for its hunting skills, but for size, ferocity, and aggressiveness. Such animals are sometimes used in sleen fights, on which bets are made. There is amongst some species, including Kurii, a common belief that the wild animal is somehow superior to the domestic animal, but this is usually false. The domestic animal has been bred from the wild animal to be its superior. Wild animals are on the whole smaller, lack stamina, are malnourished, infested with parasites, and short-lived. The domestic animal is usually larger, better fed, longer-lived, healthier, and trainable, with respect to virtues ranging from stamina to patience, to restraint, to techniques of stalking, attacking, and killing. For example, the wolf hound of Earth was originally bred to kill wolves.
The hunting sleen growled at the wild sleen.
This growl was returned by the wild sleen, whose ribs could be seen within its snarled, matted fur.
It is starving, thought Cabot.
It will not be warned away.
The hunting sleen then rushed upon its wild fellow, and, in moments, after a brief, squealing, exploding, rolling, tangled bunching of fur, the wild sleen lay, eyes glazed, limp in the dirt, its throat still throbbing, discharging blood into the dirt.
It was at this point that the larl advanced.
It was waiting, I see it now, thought Cabot, for there to be but a single foe, and one perhaps e
xhausted, or weakened, from an earlier contest.
The meat will now be all his.
The larl did not understand of course the menace of the power weapons, and their scope, so unlike single arrows, weapons which might have transformed him in a moment into a little more than a mound of burned meat, like a small mountain, smoking and bubbling, beneath a descending, gentle scattering of drifting, burning hair.
But the machine stood between the winnings of the sleen and he who would lay claim upon them.
The sleen was now burrowing his muzzle into the body of the wild sleen, chewing out the organ meat, delicacies most prized amongst carnivores.
The larl, no more than the sleen, reacted to the machine as a living thing, no more than it might have to a rock or tree.
But the mouth of the machine, and its fangs, raked the flank of the larl as it tried to brush past.
The larl snarled with rage, and turned, and licked at its bloodied flank, and then tried to pass, again.
Again, it was torn.
The larl tried to strike the object from its path with its paw, and there was a raking, scraping sound, but it might as well have struck against a wall of iron, and there was, as a consequence of the blow, which might have struck a man yards from its path, almost no movement in the machine.
The larl, irritated, puzzled, put its muzzle closer to the machine, trying to fathom its nature, and the mouth of the machine, very gently, opened, and took the throat of the larl in its metal jaws. The larl did not understand this, for it sensed nothing alive, but then its eyes widened, and it tried to pull its neck free, but the jaws very gently, continued to close, as might have an electronic vice. Then the larl pulled and snarled, and then blood spurted from its nostrils, and then, as it twisted, ever more weakly, its head was bitten away.
Cabot noted that the Kur who had been attacked by the sleen now lay quietly to the side. The body would be left for the beasts of the forest. This, in such situations, is regarded as cultural. In this way, in Kur belief, one is reconciled with, and returned to, that nature which has spawned one. The gift of life is a loan, as the Kur commonly sees it, a loan for which one is grateful, a loan which, when due, is to be willingly repaid with the coin of death.
The machine seemed to lift its head, and turn it in one direction, and then its head, on the mechanical neck, rotated to another direction, opposite.
"There were only eight, and two sleen,” said one of the Kurii.
"One sleen remains,” said another.
Then the machine lifted its head, further, and Cabot knew himself discerned.
"You know me?” inquired the machine.
"I think so,” said Cabot.
"Are you well?” inquired the machine.
"Yes,” said Cabot.
Something was said to one of the Kurii, and it clambered upward, reached Cabot, and then lifted the net, with its prisoner, Cabot, and carried it down the slope to the level. It placed the net and Cabot at the paws of the machine, which towered above him.
"Close your eyes,” said the machine, and Cabot obeyed. Even through his closed lids Cabot could sense the blast of light and heat, moving about him. Then it was shut off and Cabot opened his eyes, and stood up, unsteadily, free, the severed, burned shreds of the net about his feet.
Cabot looked up. The head of the machine, as it sat, like a larl, was several feet above his head.
"It was doubtless with this that the sleen were set upon him,” said a Kur, lifting Cabot's tunic, taken from a pouch attached to the harness of one of the fallen hunters.
"Let us see,” said the machine.
The Kur who held the wadded tunic threw it before the feeding sleen, who looked upon it, and then crawled toward it, and then, suddenly, as though recovering from some distraction, perhaps its experiences at the ledge, its attack on the Kur, its fight with its wild fellow, the satisfying of its hunger, looked at Cabot, and snarled. Cabot crouched down. He did not have even his pointed stick with which to defend himself. The tail of the sleen began to lash. It gathered its four hind feet beneath it. It growled.
"It is going to attack,” came from one of the translators.
"I will attack,” came dispassionately from the machine.
There was a flash of metal plating and joints as the device leapt past Cabot, pouncing on the startled, suddenly rearing sleen, its weight striking against it, then half crushing it, and then the machine, rising up slowly, pinned the sleen in place with its left forefoot and the right forefoot of the device began to descend, slowly, a timing reminiscent of the closure of its jaws on the throat of the larl, the sleen squirming beneath it, and Cabot heard a shriek of the animal, the splintering crack of its backbone, like the snapping of a stick, and then the rupture of ribs, one after the other, and then witnessed the flattening of the body, organs and lungs half protruded, as though disgorged, through the jaws.
The machine then, as Cabot backed away, went to the bodies of each of the hunters, and, taking the head of each in the massive metal jaws, bit it away. It went lastly to the largest of the hunters, he who had commanded the others, and he who had assured Cabot as to the lack of animosity resident in his dark mission, and bit off his head, as well.
The machine then, standing over the headless body of the large Kur, regarded Cabot.
"This,” it said, stirring the body with its broad, metal-clawed foot, “was Kalonicus, cousin to Pyrrhus."
Cabot nodded.
"Pyrrhus, enemy of the world,” said the machine.
"I would know little of that,” said Cabot.
The machine then took up the huge body of the Kur in its jaws, held it dangling for a moment, while looking about itself, and then it shook it as though it might have been no more than a handful of rags, shook it viciously, and then flung it away, until it struck against trees, and fell to their feet, better than a hundred paces far.
The machine then turned to the Kurii about, and sat back on its metal haunches, catlike, blood on the steel of its jaws, its head up.
"Hail Agamemnon, Eleventh Face of the Nameless One, Theocrat of the World,” came from a translator, and the Kurii knelt, each on a single knee.
Cabot did not kneel.
One of the Kurii noticed this and growled.
Cabot did not kneel.
The Kur raised his power weapon.
"How is Tarl Cabot, my friend?” came from the machine.
The Kur lowered his power weapon. He then, and the others, at a nod from the great machine, rose to their hind feet.
"I am well, Lord Agamemnon,” said Cabot.
"How is it,” inquired the machine, “that you came to the sport world?"
"May I ask,” said Cabot, “how is it that you came hence?"
The machine was silent.
One of the Kurii growled, softly.
"It is to your timely intervention that I doubtless owe my life,” said Cabot. “I am grateful. It seems I was mistook as a prey human by noble hunters."
"That would have been tragic,” said the machine.
"A lamentable misunderstanding,” said Cabot.
"We came to the forest,” said the machine, “upon being apprised of your possible danger by Peisistratus, human."
"Then I must be grateful to him, as well."
"Lord Pyrrhus, it seems,” said the machine, “erred in taking a human into his confidence."
"I fear I fail to understand,” said Cabot.
"Do you think it is wise to trust a human?” asked the machine.
"It is hard to tell,” said Cabot. “Much might depend upon the human."
"He was betrayed by Peisistratus,” said the machine. “He thought Peisistratus was his human."
"I see,” said Cabot.
"But he is my human."
"I see,” said Cabot.
"So how came you here, my friend?” asked the machine.
"I was curious,” said Cabot. “I wandered off. It was unwise of me."
"I see,” said the machine.
; "How is Lord Pyrrhus?” asked Cabot.
"He has been deprived of his rank, his goods, and chattels,” said the machine. “He is in chains. You need no longer fear him."
"I know little of these matters,” said Cabot.
"We will expect you to be present, and testify, at his trial, his trail for high treason."
"He will receive a trial?” said Cabot.
"Certainly,” said the machine. “Do you think we are barbarians?"
Cabot looked about, at the sleen, the larl, the blood-soaked ground, the headless bodies. “Certainly not,” he said.
"Lord Pyrrhus is not above the law,” said the machine.
"No one is above the law,” speculated Cabot.