by John Norman
“We must seek out the purloined fortune,” said Tersius Major. “I do not think that Lurius of Jad will be pleased if it is not recovered.”
The officer turned to the sleenmaster. “Prepare to set your sleen to hunt.”
“No!” cried the spokesman, half rising, but thrust down again.
“I will not do so,” said the sleenmaster. “And no other here knows the signals!”
“You had no sleen in the camp,” said the officer. “Thus these are not your sleen. You have rented them. They will then respond to general signals, common to many such rented animals.”
“No, no!” said the sleenmaster. “Signals pertinent to these beasts were conveyed to me at the kennels. None here know them, save I, and I will not set them to hunt.”
“That is surprising,” said the officer, “but easily tested.” He regarded the sleenmaster. “Remove his clothing, as well,” he said, “and we will see if the sleen may be put afoot.”
“No!” cried the sleenmaster. “No! I will do as you bid!”
“No!” cried the spokesman.
The sleen, perhaps recognizing the name of their kind, had lifted their heads.
“Surely you have something to contribute to the solution of this mystery, the whereabouts of Cosian gold, you who are first here,” speculated the officer.
“I know nothing of it, truly!” cried the spokesman. “The others, those, must know!” He looked about, wildly. He pointed to Portus Canio. “He!” he cried.
“He was in chains, at the festival camp,” sneered Tersius Major.
“The tarnster then!” screamed the spokesman.
“You rendezvoused in the prairie,” said the officer. “You cannot expect us to believe you pursued these men for days seeking no more than a slave.”
“We had to kill her!” cried out the spokesman.
“Why?” asked the officer. “Surely you can think of better things to do with collar sluts than kill them.”
“You do not understand!” wept the spokesman. “There is more afoot here than you understand!”
“What?” asked the officer.
Kardok growled, menacingly.
“The beast is restless,” said a soldier, uneasily.
“Worlds!” wept the spokesman. “The fate of worlds!”
“Prepare to run,” said the officer.
Kardok crouched menacingly. His powerful back legs were tensed beneath him. His forelimbs were on the ground. The claws scratched a little at the grass. Such beasts can move with great rapidity on all fours, faster than a swift man.
“I will speak!” cried the spokesman.
“Sir!” cried one of the soldiers. “The tarn!”
The tarn which had been farthest away, that in whose basket Tersius Major had arrived, was seen ascending into the air. As far as could be determined, it was not in harness. Certainly there was no tarn basket, nor trailing suspension ropes.
Almost at the same time the nearer tarn, that which had supported the closer basket, that which had soared over the camp near the conclusion of the fray, took flight. It was clearly not in harness. The tarn basket remained in the grass, ropes to the side.
“What?” cried Tersius Major. “No!”
“Use the tarn whistles! Get them back!” cried the officer.
“They are too far away!” said one of the strapmasters.
But he, and his fellow, ran to the edge of the camp, blowing piercing blasts on the whistles. If the tarns heard the blasts they did not respond. In moments they were out of sight.
The strapmasters, pale, returned to the side of the wagon.
“What is out there?” asked Tersius Major.
“Wild sleen?” suggested a man.
“Oh, yes,” said the officer, bitterly. “They chew loose the harness and let the meat escape!”
“How will we get back?” asked Tersius Major.
“We will walk, noble ally,” snarled the officer.
“It is dangerous,” said Tersius Major.
“Something is out there,” said Portus Canio.
“I see nothing,” said Fel Doron.
The soldiers looked to the officer, who was looking out, across the grass.
“Investigate!” said the officer, designating subordinates. “Into the fields!”
It was very quiet for a time, after some men, ten, five going toward the location of the first tarn basket, and five toward the second, made their way out into the grass.
“Secure a perimeter,” said the officer.
Guards took up posts. Arrows were set to bows.
After several Ehn some five soldiers returned to the camp, two from one direction, three from the other.
“We found nothing,” said the first soldier returning to the camp. Others, following him, too, signified negativity as the fruits of their endeavor.
“Where are the others?” inquired the officer.
“Surely they preceded us,” said one of the returned men.
The officer went to the perimeter of the camp. “Report!” he called. “Report!” But for an answer there was only the sound of the wind moving in the grass.
“Something is out there,” said Tersius Major.
“Where is our friend?” suddenly asked the officer.
“He fled, in the confusion, before you set your guard,” said Fel Doron.
“He feared the beasts would kill him,” whispered the sleenmaster.
But the beasts seemed somnolent, sitting together.
“They are harmless,” said the officer. “They are trained animals, performing animals.”
“Do they seem harmless to you?” asked Portus Canio.
“Why would they kill him?” asked the officer.
“I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “Perhaps they did not wish him to speak.”
“That is absurd,” said the officer.
Portus Canio shrugged. “I know as little of this as you do,” he said.
“Shall we run the sleen?” asked one of the soldiers, looking down at the garments which had been ripped away by the spokesman.
“That can be done for days,” said the officer.
“He is a barbarian, ignorant, soft, weak, naked, unarmed,” said a soldier. “He will not last long in the prairie.”
“There is no food, no water,” said another.
“He will last little longer than a stripped, collared, barbarian slave girl,” said another.
Ellen, kneeling, bound, shuddered.
“Take your eyes from the slave,” snapped the officer.
The soldier looked away.
“Sleen will take him,” said another soldier. “Prairie sleen.”
“We saw the spoor of such,” said the sleenmaster, fearfully.
“They may have been drifting with you, unseen,” said the officer.
“What of the freed tarns?” asked one of the soldiers.
“Who has freed them?” asked another, uneasily.
“Send the sleen out to scout?” suggested one of the soldiers.
“Do you expect them to come back and report?” asked the officer. “We have no scent to put them on. I doubt they would leave the camp.”
“They are hunting sleen, not war sleen,” said a soldier.
Ellen, frightened, shuddered, considering the uses to which trained sleen might be put, such as tracking, hunting, herding, guarding, killing.
She knew they were sometimes sent after runaway slaves, usually with the kill command after an escaped male slave, commonly with the herding command for a female runaway, that she may be returned, stumbling, gasping, exhausted, helpless and driven, bleeding, scratched, lacerated, back to the feet of her master, where she might clutch his ankles and beg weepingly that she not be now fed to those tyrannical, inexorable beasts who have ushered her so swiftly and unerringly back to her fate, the mercies of her master.
“If I were you,” said Portus Canio to the officer, “I would kill, or secure, the beasts.”
Kardok yawned.
; “Do not be foolish,” said the officer.
Kardok’s large head turned slowly toward Ellen. She shrank back a little, on her knees, an inch or so farther from the beast, an inch or so farther from the sandals of Selius Arconious.
He growled softly, or it seemed a growl, but yet it seemed also somehow articulate. It did not resemble Gorean.
“He is communicating with his fellows,” said Portus Canio.
“Do not be foolish,” said the officer.
“Climb to the wagon bed,” said the officer to one of his soldiers. “See if you can see anything of our men.”
“I do not see them,” said the soldier.
“They are not coming back,” said Portus Canio.
“You claimed to be first here,” said the officer. “What do you know of the robbery of the paymaster’s trove, the fee to be disbursed to regulars and mercenaries in Ar?”
“Very little,” said Portus Canio.
“He knows nothing,” said Tersius Major. “It was his fool’s plan to strike at it himself.”
“Perhaps the tarnster,” said the officer.
“Yes, the tarnster,” said Tersius Major.
“I do know,” said Portus Canio, “that you will not now be able to recover the gold.”
“Why is that?” cried Tersius Major.
“Because the location of the cache has been revealed to patriots of Ar, who will, by now, have removed it.”
“To patriots of Ar?” asked Tersius Major.
“Yes,” said Portus Canio.
“What a fool you are,” said Tersius Major.
“Why?” asked Portus Canio.
“They will make away with it,” said Tersius Major.
“No,” said Portus Canio.
“How do you know?” asked Tersius Major.
“Because of honor,” said Portus Canio.
“I do not understand,” said Tersius Major.
“That does not surprise me,” said Portus Canio.
“Who is out there?” demanded Tersius Major.
“Who knows?” said Portus Canio.
“How many?” asked the officer.
“Who knows?” said Portus Canio.
“Many, doubtless many,” said Tersius Major.
We have sixteen men,” said the officer, looking about.
“If I were you I would withdraw,” said Portus Canio. “You might be permitted to live.”
“Where is the lightning?” said Tersius Major. “There is some left!”
“Supposedly a single bolt,” said the officer, “in the nearest device, over there.”
“With that, we are invincible,” said Tersius Major. He went to the pile of discarded weapons.
“Do not touch them,” warned the officer. “They are forbidden weapons, surely.”
“If so,” said Tersius Major, “that is because they would make us the equals of Priest-Kings! Surely it is the secret of their power.”
“I would not touch them,” said the officer.
“They are like small crossbows, surely,” said Tersius Major. “See? See the housing of this small lever? It is like the trigger of the crossbow. You point it, and press this and the lightning leaps out.” He swung the weapon around and pointed it at the officer.
“Put it down,” said the officer.
“I am now the equal of a Priest-King,” said Tersius Major.
“Put it down!” begged the officer.
“I am now in command,” said Tersius Major.
“You are mad!” said the officer.
Tersius Major went to the edge of the camp. He called out, to the fields. “I have lightning!” he cried. “Run! Go away! I have lightning!”
One of the sleen rose up, stretching.
“Do not agitate the sleen,” said the sleenmaster, uneasily.
“There were six such weapons,” said Portus Canio. “It seems we have accounted for only five.”
Tersius Major returned to the wagon. “Send another patrol into the fields,” he said.
“Lead it yourself,” said the officer.
“There may be a hundred men out there,” said Tersius Major.
“Then it would be well to establish that fact,” said the officer, irritably.
“Go!” cried Tersius Major, turning the weapon on the officer.
“If our vanished friend, who claimed to be first here, who fled the camp, was correct, that device contains but one more bolt of lightning,” said the officer.
“I am the equal of Priest-Kings!” cried Tersius Major.
“Until you loose the bolt, perhaps, but then you are no more than another man, and, I think, less than one.” Then the officer turned to his men. “If he should kill me, see then that he dies a lengthy, unpleasant death.”
“Yes,” said more than one, almost eagerly. As with most Goreans, they did not much care for traitors.
Tersius Major arrogantly, angrily, pointed the pistol here and there, jabbing it in this direction and that, threatening each man in view, Cosian or otherwise, in turn, reminding each in turn of its menace.
“If I were you,” said the officer to Tersius Major, “I would rather face such a device than touch it.”
“It is a forbidden weapon,” said one of the soldiers, uneasily.
“I am not afraid,” said Tersius Major. “With this,” said he, brandishing the weapon, “Priest-Kings fear me!”
“Abandon it while you have time,” said the officer.
“Priest-Kings do not exist,” said Mirus, irritably. “You are all foolish barbarians.”
There was suddenly a sound, a striking, as of a fist struck quickly, sharply, yet softly, into a chest, and the soldier atop the tharlarion wagon, he surveying the prairie, stiffened, stood unnaturally still for a moment, and then, half turning, knees buckling, tumbled from the surface of his post, from the wagon bed, falling into the grass.
Soldiers cried out in consternation.
“Be vigilant!” cried the officer to the guards at the perimeter. Almost at the same time he himself leapt to the surface of the wagon, stood up and looked about the camp. He scanned swiftly, turning about, describing a full circle. Then he descended, his brief reconnaissance completed. He did not care to remain in that location, perhaps from some vantages outlined even against the sky, for more than a moment, for longer than it took to complete his reconnaissance. He shook his head, angrily, negatively. Apparently he had seen nothing, the grass moving in the wind, the sky.
“You are a brave man,” said Portus Canio.
Portus Canio was kneeling beside the soldier who had tumbled from the wagon. “He is dead,” said Portus Canio.
“See the arrow,” said one of the soldiers.
Ellen had never seen such an arrow. It was quite different from the crossbow quarrels, of course, but, too, it seemed so much longer, and more slender, and lengthily feathered, than the arrows she had seen in the war quivers of Cosian archers.
“The peasant bow,” said one of the soldiers.
“So it is peasants out there,” said another soldier.
“I do not understand,” said a soldier. “Peasants are commonly placid, even hospitable, until aroused.”
“Surely we have done nothing to arouse them, not here,” said a soldier. “We have purloined no stores, taken no women from the villages.”
“There are no villages in the vicinity,” said the officer. “The land here is dry most of the year. There is no river, no stream, no moving water.”
“Then it is not peasants,” said a soldier.
“The arrow has pierced the heart,” said Fel Doron.
“An excellent shot, surely,” said the officer.
“Consider the penetration,” said Portus Canio.
“Flighted from more than a hundred paces?” speculated the officer.
“I think so,” said Portus Canio.
“Perhaps the shot was a lucky hit?” said the officer.
“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.
“Or we might be dealing with a m
aster of the peasant bow,” said the officer.
“Perhaps,” said Portus Canio.
“You know who is out there, don’t you?” said the officer.
“Now, yes,” said Portus Canio.
“How many are there?” asked the officer.
“That I do not know,” said Portus Canio. “It would be my recommendation that you sue for peace, and bargain for your lives.”
“If there were a large number out there, they would charge and force the camp,” said the officer.
Portus Canio looked out, over the grasslands, noncommittally.
“We will rope you and the others and take you to Brundisium for interrogation,” said the officer.
“Afoot?” inquired Portus Canio. “Do you think you will reach Brundisium?”
“It is growing dark,” said one of the soldiers, apprehensively.
“Darkness will protect us,” said the officer. “Unharness and hobble the tharlarion. No fires. Double the perimeter guard and halve the watches. Invert the wagon. We will stake it down and use it as a cage for the prisoners. If any would attempt to dig his way free, kill him.” He then turned to Portus Canio. “We will trek in the morning.”
Portus Canio shrugged.
“Lie down there, closely, huddle, the lot of you,” said the officer, indicating a place on the grass beside the wagon.
“We are not slaves!” said the fellow of Portus Canio, Loquatus, only he left of the original nine, other than Portus Canio himself, Selius Arconious and Fel Doron.
Then he was struck, heavily, at the back of the neck with a spear butt, and he sank, numbed, helpless to the ground. Such a blow can snap the vertebrae.
The officer then gestured, too, to Mirus, the sleenmaster and their wounded fellow.
“No,” said the sleenmaster. “Such a proximity would be demeaning to us. They are low fellows, of low caste.”
“What is your caste?” inquired the officer.