Raiders of Gor (14 page)

short of the warrior codes, I who had dishonored my own Home Stone, and the

blade I bore. It was I who was guilty. Not she. But everything in me cried out

to blame some other for the treacheries and the defections that were my own. And

surely she had most degraded me of all. Surely, of all, she had been the most

cruel, the one before whom I had groveled most slave. It was in my mouth, black

and swollen, that she had put the kiss of the Mistress.

I dismissed her from my mind.

Thurnock, the peasant, and Clitus, the fisherman, approached, holding between

them Ho-Hak, bound hand and foot, the heavy collar of the galley slave, with its

dangling chain, still riveted about his neck.

They placed him on his knees, on the rowing deck, before me.

I removed my helmet.

“I knew it would be you,” he said.

I did not speak.

“There were more than a hundred men,” said Ho-hak.

“You fought well, Ho-hak,” said I, “on the rence island, with only an oar-pole.”

“Not well enough,” said he. He looked up at me, from his bonds. His great ears

leaned a bit forward. “Were you alone?” he asked.

“No,” I said. I nodded to Telima, who, head down, knelt at the foot of the

stairs.

“You did well, Woman,” said Ho-Hak.

She lifted her head, tears in her eyes. She smiled at him.

“Why is it,” asked Ho-Hak, “that she who aided you kneels bound at your feet?”

“I do not trust her,” I said, “nor any of you.”

“What are you going to do with us?” asked Ho-Hak.

“Do you not fear that I will throw you bound to the tharlarion?” I asked.

“No,” said Ho-Hak.

“You are a brave man,” I said. I admired him, so calm and strong, though before

me naked and bound, at my mercy.

Ho-Hak looked up at me. “It is not,” he said, “that I am a particularly brave

man. It is rather that I know you will not throw me to tharlarion.”

“How can you know that?” I asked.

“No man who fights a hundred,” said he, “with only a girl at his side, could act

so.”

“I shall sell you all in Port Kar!” I cried.

“Perhaps,” said Ho-Hak, “but I do not think so.”

“But I have won you and your people, and all these slaves,” I told him, “that I

might have my vengeance on you, for making me slave, and come rich with cargo to

Port Kar!”

“I expect that is not true,” said Ho-Hak.

“He did it for Eechius,” said Telima.

“Eechius was killed on the island,” said Ho-Hak.

“Eechius had given him rence cake when he was bound at the pole,” said Telima.

“Ti was for him that he did this.”

Ho-Hak looked at me. There were tears in his eyes. “I am grateful, Warrior,”

said he.

I did not understand his emotion.

“Take him away!” I ordered Thurnock and Clitus, and they dragged Ho-Hak from my

presence, taking him back somewhere on the second barge, among other bound

slaves.

I was angry.

Ho-Hak had not begged for mercy. He had not demeaned himself. He had shown

himself a dozen times more man than me.

I hated rencers, and all men, saving perhaps the two who served me.

Ho-Hak had been bred a slave, a degraded and distorted exotic, and had served

even in the darkness of the stinking rowing holds of cargo vessels of Port Kar,

and yet, before me, he had shown himself a dozen times more man than me.

I hated him, and rencers.

I looked at the slaves chained at the benches. Any of them, in rags sheared and

shackled, beaten and half-starved, was greater than I.

I was no longer worthy of the love of two women I had know, Talena, who had once

foolishly consented to be the Free Companion of one now proved to be ignoble and

coward, and Vella, Elizabeth Cardwell, once of Earth, who had mistakenly granted

her love to one worthy raother only of her contempt and scorn. And, too, I was

no longer worthy of the respect of my father, Matthew Cabor, Administrator of

Ko-ro-ba, and of my teacher at arms, the Older Tarl, nor of he who had been my

small friend, Torm, the Scribe. I could never again face those I had known, Kron

of Tharna, Andreas of Tor, Kamchak of the Tuchuks, Relius and Ho-Sorl of Ar,

none of them. All would despise me now.

I looked down on Telima.

“What will you do with us, my Ubar?” she asked.

Did she mock me?

“You have taught me,” I said, “that I am of Port Kar.”

“You have perhaps, my Ubar,” said she, “misunderstood the lesson.”

“Be silent!” I cried.

She put down her head. “If any here,” she said, “is of Port Kar, it is surely

Telima.”

Furious at her mockerly I leaped from the chair of the oar-master and struck her

with the back of my hand, snapping her head to one side.

I felt shamed, agonized, but I would show nothing.

I returned to my seat.

There was a streak of blood across her face where her lip had been cut by her

teeth.

She put down her head again. “If any,” she whispered, “surely Telima.”

“Be silent!” I cried.

She looked up. “Telima,” she whispered, “is at her Ubar’s pleasure.”

I looked at Thurnock and Clitus.

“I am going to Port Kar,” I said.

Thurnock crossed his great arms on his chest, and nodded his head. Clitus, too,

gave assent to this.

“You are free men,” I said. “You need not accompany me.”

“I,” said Thurnock, in a booming voice, “would follow you even to the Cities of

Dust.”

“And I,” said Clitus, “I, too.”

Thurnock was blue-eyed, Clitus gray-eyed. Thurnock was a huge man, with arms

like the oars of the great galleys; Clitus was slighter, but he had been first

oar; he would have great strength, beyond what it might seem.

“Build a raft,” I said, “large enough for food and water, and more than two men,

and what we might find here that we might wish to take with us.”

They set about their work.

I sat, alone, on the great chair of the oar-master. I put my head in my hands.

I was Ubar here, but I found the throne a bitter one. I would have exchanged it

all for Tarl Cabot, the myth, and the dream, that had been taken from me.

When I raised my head from my hands I felt hard and cruel.

I was alone, but I had my arm, and its strength, and the Gorean blade.

Here, on this wooden land lost in the delta marshes, I was Ubar.

I knew now, as I had not before, what men were. I had in misery learned this in

myself. And I now saw myself a fool for having espoused codes, for having set

above myself ideals.

What could there be that could stand above the steel blade?

Was not honor a sham, loyalty and courage a deceit, an illusion of the ignorant,

a dream of fools?

Was not the only wise man he who observed carefully and when he might took what

he could?

The determinants of the wise man could not be such phantoms.

There was only gold, and power, and the bodies of women, and steel.

I was a strong man.

I was such that might make a place for himself in a city such as Port Kar.

“The raft is ready,” said Thurnock, his body gleaming sweat, wiping a great

forearm across his face.

“We found food and water,” said Clitus, “and some weapons, and gold.”

“Good,” I said.

“There is much rence paper,” said Thurnock. “Did you want us to put some on

board?”

“No,” I said. “I do not want rence paper.”

“What of slaves?” asked Thurnock.

I looked to the prow of the first barge, where was bound the lithe, dark-haired

beauty, she who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. Then I

looked to the second prow, and the third, where were tied the large girl, blond

and gray-eyed, who had held marsh vine against my arm, and the shorter girl,

dark-haired, who had carried a net over her left shoulder. These had danced

their insolence, their contempt of me. They had spat upon me, when I had been

bound helpless, and then whirled away laughing into the circle of the dance.

I laughed.

They had earned for themselves the chains and brands of slave girls.

Thurnock and Clitus regarded me.

“Bring the girls at second and third prow,” I told them.

A grin broke across the face of Thurnock. “They are beauties,” he said, shaking

that great shaggy head of yellow hair, sheared at the base of his neck.

“Beauties!”

He and Clitus went to fetch the slaves.

I myself turned and walked slowly down the gangway between the rowers’ benches,

and then climbed the stairs to the foredec of the barge.

The girl, her back bound over the curved prow, facing forward, heard me, but

could not see me. My head, as I stood on the foredeck, was about a foot below

her fastened ankles. Her wrists, facing me, had been bound cruelly behind the

prow.

“Who is it?” she asked.

I said nothing.

“Please,” she begged. “Who is it?”

“Be silent,” said I, “Slave.”

A small cry of anguish escaped her.

With a movement of the Gorean blade I cut the fiber at her ankles.

Then, standing on the rail of the foredeck, my left had on the prow, I cut first

the fiber binding her at the throat, and then that binding her at the waist.

Then, resheathing my sword, I eased her, wrists bound, down the prow, until her

feet at last stood on the rail, on which, beside her, I stood.

I turned her about.

She saw me, the black, swollen mouth, the eyes, and screamed helplessly.

“Yes,” I said, “it is I.”

Then, cruelly, I took her head in my hands and pressed my lips upon hers.

Never had I seen a woman so overcome with utter terror.

I laughed at her misery.

Then, contempuously, I removed my blade from the sheath. I put the point under

her chin, lifting her head. Once, when I had been bound at the pole, she had

pushed up my head, that she might better assess the features of a slave. “You

are a beauty, aren’t you?” I commented.

Her eyes looked at me with terror.

I dropped the point to her throat, and she turned away her head, shutting her

eyes. For a moment I let her feel the point in hte delicacy of her throat, then

I dropped the blade and slashed the binding fiber that fastened her wrists

together about the prow.

She fell to the foredeck, on her hands and knees.

She struggled to her feet, half crouching, half mad with fear, and the pain of

being bound at the prow.

With the point of my blade I pointed to the deck.

She shook her head, and turned, and ran to the rail, and held it, looking over.

A huge tharlarion, seeing the image on the water, half rose from the marsh, jaws

clashingin, and then dropped back into the water. Two or three more tharlarion

then churned there beneath her.

She threw back her head and screamed.

She turned to face me, shaking her head.

The tip of my blade still pointed inexorably to a place on the deck.

“Please!” she wept.

The blade did not move.

She came and stood before me, and then dropped ot her knees, resting back on her

heels. She lowered her head and extended her arms, wrists crossed, the

submission of the Gorean female. I did not immediately bind her, but walked

about her, examining her as prize. I had not hitherto understood her as so

beautiful, and desirable. At last, after I had well stisfied myself as to her

quality, I took a bit of binding fiber that had fastened her ankles at the prow,

and lashed her wrists together.

She raised her head and looked up at me, her eyes searching mine, pleading.

I spat down in her face, and she lowered her head, shoulders shaking, sobbing.

I turned away and descended the foredeck, and returned between the slaves to the

steps below the tiller deck.

The girl followed me, unbidded.

Once I turned, and saw that she wiped, with the back of her right wrist, my

spittal from her face. She lowered her bound hands and stood on the planking,

head down.

I took again my chair, that of the oar-master, in this domain.

The large, blond, gray-eyed girl and the shorter girl, dark-haired, who had

carried the net, knelt before the chair on the rowing deck.

My girl then knelt to one side, head down.

I surveyed the two girls, the blond one and the shorter one, and looked to

Thurnock and Clitus.

“Do you like them?” I asked.

“Beauties!” said Thurnock. “Beauties!”

The girls trembled.

“Yes,” said Clitus, “though they are rence girls, they would bring a high

price.”

“Please!” said the blond girl.

I looked at Thurnock and Clitus. “They are yours.” I said.

“Ha!” cried Turnock. And then he seized up a length of binding fiber. “Submit!”

she boomed at the large, blond girl and, terrified, almost leaping, she lowered

her head, thrusting forward her hands, wrists crossed. In an instant, with

peasant knots, Thurnock had lashed them together. Clitus bent easily to pick up

a length of binding fiber. He looked at the shorter girl, who looked up at him

with hate. “Submit,” he said to her, quietly. Sullenly, she did so. Then,

startled, she looked up at him, her wrists bound, having felt the strength of

his hands. I smiled to myself. I had seen that look in the eyes of girls before.

Clitus, I expected, would have little difficulty with his short rence girl.

“What will masters do with us?” asked the lithe girl, lifting her head.