Vagabonds of Gor

by Norman, John;

  "Take cover!" said another.

  I saw Plenius then left alone on the beach, his sword sheathed, raise his fists and shake them at the marsh.

  I considered the probabilities that I might return and kill him, where he stood alone on the sand. They seemed excellent. Then I saw one of his fellows, Titus, I think, come and take him by the arm. Unwillingly was he then conducted back on the bar, amongst the others.

  Standing in the rence, in the light of the moons, intermittently darkened by the living clouds passing overhead, I removed the rusted manacles, discarding them, with the key, in the marsh.

  I tried to control my hatred for the men of Ar.

  What would it serve me to ascend the sand, to seize a sword, to go amongst them doing slaughter?

  Too, there was one only amongst them whose blood I truly wanted.

  No, I said to myself. Leave them to the marsh.

  I then left the rence and, slowly, smoothly, swam about the island. I emerged on the opposite shore and helped myself to what I wanted, from the packs and stores. I then put these materials in one of the remaining, wretched rence craft, its bottom already half rotted, drew up the mooring rope, and paddled from the island, my knees in the water, back to where I had left the raft. In a few Ehn I then lay, fed on biscuit and meat, armed with blade and dagger, clothed in a tunic of Ar, on the raft. Though it was hot I had covered myself with one of the blankets I had taken. This afforded me protection against the flies. Too, it should prove useful when the chills set in, a predictable consequence of the venom of sting flies, when administered in more than nominal amounts. In an Ahn, under the blanket, sweating, I felt sick. It was only then, I think, that I began to realize the extent to which I must have been stung by the flies. To be sure, of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, which had alighted on my body, probably no more than twenty or thirty had actually stung me. The swelling from such stings usually appears almost immediately, and peaks within an Ahn, and then subsides in anywhere from a few Ahn to two or three days. I was in great pain, and felt nauseous, but, in spite of these things, I was in an excellent humor. Indeed, I felt elated. It would be dangerous leaving the delta, but I did not think it would be excessively difficult, not for one man traveling alone, one familiar with marshcraft, with techniques of evasion and survival. Although I must be on the watch for rencers, for example, I did not much fear them. The rencer population of the delta is extremely small, actually, and they would presumably, if they were still active, be in the vicinity of the remnants of the forces of Ar. The chances of running into rencers in thousands of square pasangs of the delta were not high, particularly if one were concerned to avoid them. Indeed, most rencer villages usually have warning banners set up in the rence, pieces of cloth on prominent rence stems. I had once, long ago, ignored such warnings. I did not intend to do so again. Tarn scouts and patrols of Cosians, in the vicinity of the delta's coasts, might be more troublesome. Still I did not think I would envy fellows who might come into the marsh after me. After a time, sweating profusely, yet, oddly enough, shivering, I pulled down the blanket to look at the moons. They were clear now. The second wave of the flies had passed. I was in no hurry to leave the relative security of the rence. Too, I had supplies, and could, of course, manage to live in the marsh, off its own offerings. Indeed, if I wished, I might stay in the marsh indefinitely. I thought I would stay where I was for two or three days, at least. I could use a rest. It had not been easy, being beaten, drawing the raft, and such. Too, by that time the flies, or most of them, should have left the delta. Too, then I should be in less pain, and the swellings should have subsided. One of the greatest dangers of a fellow in enemy territory, incidentally, is impatience. One must be very, very patient. More than one fellow has been retaken due to carelessness, due to a lack of vigilance, due to haste, within no more than a few hundred yards of safety. Surely one must understand that that last few hundred yards, that last inviting, beckoning pasang or so, may be the most dangerous step in a dangerous journey.

  I lay on the raft, looking up at the moons.

  For the first night in weeks I could stretch and move as I wished. For the first night in weeks I was not tethered, foot and neck, between mooring stakes, my hands chained behind me.

  I was fed. I was clothed. I was armed.

  The moons were beautiful.

  In a few days I thought I would move north. I had friends in Port Cos. Too, I might make my way around the Tamber, to Port Kar herself.

  I threw up into the marsh.

  I shuddered on the logs.

  I wanted to scream with agony, but I was silent. I wanted to tear at my body with my fingernails, but I lay still.

  I was pleased.

  The moons were beautiful.

  19

  Ina

  I had never been so close to such a thing before. I had not realized they were so large.

  It was five days since I had freed myself of the manacles. I had been moving northward, across the sluggish current, for three days.

  It opened its wings, suddenly. Their span must have been twenty-five to thirty feet Gorean.

  I had left the raft a few yards back, on another bar. The rence craft I had taken from the men of Ar was rotted and treacherous. It had sunk into the water even before I had left the rence in which I had originally taken cover. Its paddle I had retained but it was not of much use, given the weight of the raft. I had, the day before yesterday, however, found an abandoned pole which proved useful in propelling it. The pole's gilding had been muchly burned away. It, itself, however, was serviceable.

  I had seen the creature hovering about, then alighting, dropping out of sight, amongst the rence. Curious I had moved the raft toward the place.

  It was then that I had heard a woman's scream, long, terrified and piteous.

  I had not hurried toward the source of the sound as circumspection seemed to me appropriate. It was not that I doubted the authenticity of the woman's terror. I did not think that a lure girl, for example, could have managed that particular note of terror in the scream. It might, on the other hand, I supposed, be managed quite easily by a bait girl, tethered, bound, to a stake like a verr, by rencer hunters to attract dangerous prey, usually tharlarion. They do not use their own women for this, of course, but other women, usually slaves. To be sure, there had been in the scream not only unmitigated terror, but a kind of special, pleading helplessness as well. That sound suggested to me that the woman was not merely calling herself to the attention of hunters, desperately alerting them to the presence of the quarry, but that there might be no hunters about, or no one of whom she knew. It suggested that she might be alone. There is quite a difference, you see, between a bait girl who knows that hunters are about, usually concealed in a blind, whose skill will presumably protect her, and a girl with no knowledge of nearby succor. To be sure, it is possible for a hunter to miss, and that is why the rencers do not use their own women, or their own free women, as bait. That she not be put out as tethered tharlarion bait is an additional inducement for the female slaves of rencers to prove particularly pleasing to their masters. Such slaves are abjectly dutiful. But then this is common among all Gorean female slaves. They may be slain if they are not.

  I scouted the area. I detected no blind, no evidence of recent occupancy by men, at least within the last several Ahn. The marsh beetle crawls upon the sand at night and its tiny passage can be marked in the sand. Of the footprints I saw several were traversed, like valleys, by the path of the marsh beetle. Accordingly the prints had been made before the preceding night. The crumbling at their edges, too, suggested a passage of several Ahn, perhaps that they had been made as long ago as yesterday morning, or the day before yesterday.

  I had then heard a repetition of that piteous, lengthy scream. I had also seen then, as I had come closer, the small head of the creature, small considering the size of its body, and the span of its wings, lift up, above the rence, with its long narrow, toothed jaws, like a long snout or bill, with that long,
narrow extension of skin and bone in the back, balancing the weight of the long, narrow jaws, contributing, too, given the creature's weight and general ungainliness in structure, to stability in flight, particularly in soaring.

  I had emerged from the rence.

  The creature had turned to regard me.

  It had opened its wings, suddenly. Their span must have been twenty-five to thirty foot Gorean. Then it closed them, folding them back, against its body.

  I was quite impressed with it. Never had I been so close to such a thing before.

  It uttered a hissing, grunting sound, expelling air from its lungs. It had a long, snakelike tail, terminating with a flat, spadelike structure. This tail lashed, the spadelike structure dashing sand about. This tail, with its termination, too, I think, had its role to play in flight, primarily one of increasing stability.

  Erected in the sand, there was a stout pole, upright, about four inches in diameter. This pole was about seven feet in height. Toward the bottom of the pole, about a yard from the sand, there was a rounded crosspiece, about a foot in length. This was inserted through, and fastened within, a hole in the pole. Above this crosspiece, something like three and a half feet Gorean above it, also inserted through, and fastened within a hole in the pole, there was another crosspiece, a longer one, about a yard in length. These crosspieces were both about two inches in diameter. Had they been intended for the keeping of a man they would have been thicker, the accommodating pole then being proportionally larger. As it was they were more than sufficient. She was blond. Her feet were on the lower crosspiece, thongs fastening them well in place. Her arms had been hooked over the upper crosspiece and then kept in place by thongs fastening her wrists together, before her body.

  She threw her head back wildly, her hair falling back over the top of the pole, about at the base of her neck, looked up at the sky, and again screamed.

  This sound attracted the attention of the creature again. It had alighted a few yards before the pole.

  She had not seen me.

  Wildly she struggled, surging, squirming, against the bonds. The sight of a woman struggling against bonds, as the sight of one in bonds, even in so simple a device as slave bracelets, is sexually stimulatory, of course.

  We, the girl, the creature and I, were not alone on the bar. A long-necked, paddle-finned tharlarion was a few yards away, half up on the sand. More dangerous, at least immediately, were two short-legged, long-bodied tharlarion twisting about in the sand near the foot of the pole.

  Again the girl struggled. Then, again, she was held as helplessly as ever.

  Yes, I thought, she was pretty.

  I knew her, of course.

  She had been put out for tharlarion. The hatred of the rencers, it seemed, had been such that in spite of her comeliness, the usually most successful defense, and salvation, of the female, they had not sold her off, nor accepted her themselves, as a slave.

  I wondered if they had been right.

  It was acceptable, of course, what was being done to her, as she was a free person. And had she been a slave, such, of course, might have been done to her at no more than the whim of a master. To be sure, there are much better things to do with a female slave.

  Again she screamed and struggled.

  Yes, I thought, many better things.

  I wondered how she would look in a collar. Well, I thought. Yet I reminded myself, she was a free woman. That made her quite special in a way, an inconvenient way.

  The long-jawed creature turned toward the long-necked tharlarion and hissed menacingly. Slowly the long-necked tharlarion, pushing back with its paddlelike appendages, slipped back into the marsh. It turned and withdrew, half submerged.

  "Go away! Go away!" screamed the girl to the large creature at the edge of the beach.

  Such exclamations, of course, are understandable. They are very natural, I suppose. On the other hand, unless they are being uttered knowingly as mere noise, they do, upon reflection, seem a bit odd. For example, surely one does not expect such a beast to understand Gorean. Too, did she not understand that she had been put out for tharlarion and, considering her elevation from the sand, perhaps for just such a creature? Too, if she were not taken from the perch, so to speak, would she not, in time, perish there of thirst, hunger or exposure? Should she not eagerly welcome the jaws?

  "Go away!" she screamed.

  Apparently not.

  I suppose a certain amount of hysteria, or temporary irrationality, is to be allowed to a woman in such a situation. Had I been in a similar plight I might have behaved similarly. It is easier for one in my position to be critical, I supposed, than for one in hers. Also, who knows, perhaps the creature is a pet, or might respond to certain words in Gorean, or, if one is desperate enough, clutching at whatever straws might present themselves, English, or Italian, or Finnish.

  The creature stalked forward four or five yards. It was now a few feet from her. Its head was some twelve feet from the ground.

  "Go away!" she wept. "Go away!"

  Again it opened its wings. These are of skin and stretch from the jointed, hind legs, clawed, of the creature to an extremely long, fourth digit on its clawed hand. It hissed at the tharlarion near the pole. One moved away. The other stood its ground, opening its own jaws, hissing.

  The creature then snapped its wings, again and again. I had not realized the blast that might be created from that, and was thrown back, stumbling, into the rence. I fought my way forward, again, then, against the gusts, as though through a storm in the Tahari. I held my arm before my face. I heard the short-legged tharlarion make a strange noise and saw it lifted from the sand and shaken. I heard its back snap. With a beating of the giant wings the creature ascended, struggling with the weight of the tharlarion, and then, after a moment, perhaps from a height of a hundred feet or so, dropped it into the marsh. I did not see it hit the water, for the rence, but I saw, two or three hundred feet away, the splash. Its shadow was then over the water, rapidly approaching, and, in a moment, its clawed feet striking down into the sand, it alit on the beach, much where it had been before. The whole thing had taken no more than a few Ihn. I had not realized the power of the creature, or that it could lift that much weight. The weight of a man, then, or a woman, would have been nothing to it. There is little wonder, I thought, that many take the predatory ul, the winged tharlarion, to be the monarch of the delta.

  It now, again, stalked toward the girl.

  She threw her head back, her hair back over the top of the pole, screaming.

  She struggled, wildly.

  Again she could not escape, of course. She had been excellently tied.

  Gorean men, incidentally, are skilled in the tying of women. Such things are taught even to their sons, as part of their growing up. This is to be expected in a culture in which female slaves are numerous and the capture and mastery of women is a commonplace. Female slaves serve, of course, as models for this tutelage. Being bound, perhaps being tied helplessly hand and foot, is nothing unfamiliar for most female slaves. All, to one degree or another, will have had this experience. They are, after all, slaves. Sometimes young men play "slave capture" and the prize goes to the young fellow who, within an enclosure, manages in the least time to catch and secure, in utter helplessness, his quarry. Another version of the game involves a hunt, and the winner is the first fellow who manages to bring back his quarry, usually leashed and bound, to the starting point. Sometimes this is done as a team sport, with a rivalry between villages, say, twenty young men of one village pursuing twenty slave girls of another village, and the other village's young men pursuing twenty girls from the first village, and so on. There are many variations. This form of play, of course, has its more serious purpose, as well, given the culture. On Gor, women are relished as goods and prizes, and are understood as a familiar form of loot and wealth. They are familiar spoils of brigandage, raids, and war. Even the free women of Gor have some understanding of these things. They know that they are special
, and desirable, and culturally significant, in a way that, say, the women of Earth do not. Perhaps this accounts for their arrogance. To be sure, that may be taken from them. When a Gorean woman meets a Gorean man she is probably well aware that he likely to be familiar, and from his very youth, with various skills, such as the tetherings of such as she, those of her sex. One supposes this gives their relationship a certain ambiance. Perhaps she is somewhat uneasy; perhaps she is curious; perhaps she wonders, if he is attractive, what it might be like to be at his feet, unclothed and bound, his, his by all the rules and law of capture. But let us hope they share a Home Stone. Such should surely protect her. But what if they do not share a Home Stone? And what if another, such as he, from elsewhere—? Well, let her guard herself, lest she find herself in a distant place, one unfamiliar to her, on a large, rounded block, stripped, ankle deep in sawdust, being vended to the highest bidder. She is, after all, a female.

  She had been put there for tharlarion, I thought. That is what it is all about. Why should I interfere?

  She began to sob.

  The ul, the winged tharlarion, was now before her. She was within its reach.

  She struggled. Yes, she was pretty. Unfortunately she was a free woman. Yet, I supposed, that such an absurdity, such an oversight of law, and civilization, was not irremediable.

  I saw the jaws of the ul, the winged tharlarion, open.

  Why should I interfere, I asked myself.

  I had little doubt, from what I had seen, that it could pull the girl from the pole, or even, by means of the girl and her bonds, the pole from the sand.

  I saw her press back against the pole, even more tightly against it than she was held by her unslippable bonds.

  Why should I interfere, I asked myself.

  She threw her head to the side, crying out with misery.

  The ul stretched forth its neck to remove her from the pole.

  "Ho!" I cried. "Ho!"

  The beast turned to regard me. The female made some startled, helpless, wild hysterical noise.