Raiders of Gor (3 page)

handle the poles gather on the edges of the island, but within the island there

are four deep rectangular wells through which the long poles may gain additional

leverage. These deep center wells, actually holes cut in the island, permit its

movement, though slowly when used alone, without exposing any of its inhabitants

at its edges, where they might fall easier prey to the missile weapons of foes.

In times of emergency the inhabitants of the island gather behind wickerlike

breastworks, woven of rence, in the area of the center wells; in such an

emergency the low-ceilinged rence huts on the island will have been knocked down

to prevent an enemy from using them for cover, and all food and water supplies,

usually brought from the eastern delta where the water is fresh, will be stored

within; the circular wickerlike breastworks then form, in the center of the

island, a more or less defensible stronghold, particularly against the marsh

spears of other growers, and such. Ironically, it is not of much use against an

organized attack of well armed warriors, such as those of Port Kar, and those

against whom it might be fairly adequate, other rence growers, sledom attack

communites like their own. I had heard there had not been general hostilities

among rence growers for more than fifty years; their communities are normally

isolated from one another, and they have enough to worry about contending with

“tax collectors” from Port Kar, without bothering to give much attention to

making life miserable form one another. Incidentally, when the island is to be

moved under siege conditions, divers leave the island by means of the well and,

in groups of two and three, attemp to cut a path in the direction of escape;

such divers, of course, often fall prey to underwater predators and to the

spears of enemies, who thrust down at them from the surface. Sometimes an entire

island is abandoned, the community setting it afire and taking to the marsh in

their marsh skiffs. At a given point, when it is felt safe, several of these

skiffs will be tied together, forming a platform on which rence may be woven,

and a new island will be begun.

“So,” said Ho-Hak, regarding me, “you are on your way to Port Kar?”

He sat upon a giant shell of the Vosk sorp, as on a sort of throne, which, for

these people, I gather it was.

I knelt before him, naked and bound. Two ropes of marsh vine, besides my other

bonds, had been knottend about my neck, each in the hands of a man on either

side of me. My ankles had been unbound only long enough to push me stumbling

from the rush craft, among the shouting women and men and children, to the

throne of Ho-Hak. Then I had been forced to my knees, and my ankles had again

been lashed together.

“Yes,” I said. “It was my intention to go to Port Kar.”

“We are not fond of men of Port Kar,” Ho-Hak said.

There was a rusted, heavy iron collar riveted about the neck of Ho-Hak, with a

bit of chain dangling from it. I gathered that the rence growers did not have

the tools to remove it. Ho-Hak might have worn it for years. He was doubtless a

slave, probably escaped from the galleys of Port Kar, who had fled to the

marshes and been befriended by rence growers. Now, years later, he had come to a

position of authority among them.

“I am not of Port Kar,” I said.

“What is your city?” asked he.

I did not speak.

“Why do you go to Port Kar?” asked Ho-Hak.

Again I did not speak. My identity, that I was Tarl Cabot, and my mission, that

I served the Priest-Kings of Gor, was not for others to know. Coming from the

Sardar, I knew only that I was to travel to Port Kar and there make contact with

Samos, first slaver of Port Kar, scourge of Thassa, said to be trusted of

Priest-Kings.

“You are an outlaw,” said Ho-Hak, as had the girl before him.

I shrugged.

It was true that my shield, and my clothes, now taken from me, bore no insignia.

Ho-Hak loked at the garb of the warrior, the helmet and shield, the sword with

its scabbard, and the leather-wrapped bow of supple Ka-la-na wood, with its roll

of sheaf and flight of arrows. These things lay between us.

Ho-Hak’s right ear twitched. His ears were ususual, very large, and with

extremely long lower lobes, drawn lower still by small, heavy pendants set in

them. He had been a slave, doubtless, and doubtless, judging by the collar, and

the large hands and broad back, had served on the galleys, but he had been an

unusual slave, a bred exotic, doubtless originally intended by the slave maters

for a destiny higher than that of the galley bench.

There are various types of “exotics” bred by Gorean slavers, all of whom are to

be distinguished from more normal varieties of bred slaves, such as a Passion

Slaves and Draft Slaves. Exotics may be bred for almost any purpose, and some of

these purposes, unfortunately, seem to be little more than to produce quaint or

unusual specimens. Ho-Hak may well have been one so bred.

“You are an exotic,” I said to him.

Ho-Hak’s ears leaned forward toward me, but he did not seem angry. He had brown

hair, and brown eyes; the hair, long, was tied behind his head with a string of

rence cloth. He wore a sleeveless tunic of rence cloth, like most of the rence

growers.

“Yes,” said Ho-Hak. “I was bred for a collector.”

“I see,” I said.

“I broke his neck and escaped,” said Ho-Hak. “Later I was recaptured and sent to

the galleys.”

“And you again escpaped,” I said.

“In doing so,” said Ho-Hak, looking at his large hands, heavy and powerful, “I

killed six men.”

“And then you came to the marshes,” said I.

“Yes,” he said, “I then came to the marshes.”

He regarded me, the ears leaning slightly toward me, “And I brought to the

marshes with me,” said he, “the memory of a dozen years on the galleys, and a

hatred for all things of Port Kar.”

There were various rence growers gathered about, the men with their marsh

spears. Almost at my side stood the blondish girl I had first seen, she who had

been primarily effectual in my capture, herself acting as the bait, the lure to

which I had been drawn. She stood proudly beside me, straight, her shoulders

back, her chin high, as does a free woman beside a miserable slave, naked and

kneeling. I was conscious of her thigh at my cheek. Over her shoulder were slung

the four birds she had caught in the marches; their necks were now broken and

they were tied together, two in front and two over her back. There were other

women about as well, and here and there, peering between the adults, I could see

children.

“He is either of Port Kar,” she said, shifting the gants on her shoulder, “or he

was intending to be of Port Kar, for what other reason would one go to Port

Kar.”

For a long time Ho-Hak said nothing. He had a broad head, with a heave, calm

face.

I heard the squealing of a domestic tarsk running nearby, its feet scuttling in

the woven rence of the island, as on a mat. A child was crying out, chasing it.

I heard some domestic marsh gants making their piping call. The wandered freely

on the island, leaving it to feed, then returning later. Wild marsh gants,

captured, even as young as gantlings, cannot be domesticated; on the other had,

eggs, at the hatching point, gathered from floating gant nests, are sometimes

brought to the island; the hatchlings, interestingly, if not permitted to see an

adult gant for the first week of their life, then adopt the rence island as

their home, and show no fear of human beings; they will come and go in the wild

as they please, feeding and flying, but will always, and frequently, return to

the rence island, their hatching place; if the rence island, however, should be

destroyed, they revert entirely to the wild; in the domesticated state, it will

invariably permit themselves to be picked up and handled.

There were several reasonably important looking individuals gathered about, and,

as it turned out, these were headmen from various other rence islands in the

vicinity. A given rence island usually holds about fifty or sixty persons. The

men from several of these islands had cooperated in my pursuit and capture.

Normally, as I may have mentioned, these communities are isolated from one

another, but it was now near the Autumnal Equinox, and the month of Se’Kara was

shortly to begin. For rence growers, the first of Se’Kara, the date of the

Autumnal Equinox, is a time of festival. By that time most of the year’s rence

will have been cut, and great stocks of rence paper, gathered in rolls like cord

wood and covered with woven rence mats, will have been prepared.

Between Se’Kara and the winter solstice, which occurs on the first of Se’Var,

the rence will be sold or bartered, sometimes by taking it to the edge of the

delta, sometimes by being contacted by rence merchants, who enter the delta in

narrow barges, rowed by slaves, in order to have first pick of the product.

The first of Se’Var is also a date of festival, it might be mentioned, but this

time the festival is limited to individual, isolated rence islands. With the

year’s rence sold, the communities do not care to lie too closely to one

another; the primary reason is that, in doing so, they would present too

inviting a target for the “tax collectors” of Port Kar. Indeed, I surmised,

there was risk enough, and great risk, coming together even in Se’Kara. The

unsold stores of rence paper on the islands at this time would, in themselves,

be a treasure, though, to be sure, a bulky one.

But I felt there was something strange going on, for there must have been five

or six headmen on the island with Ho-Hak at this time. It is seldom, even in

Se’Kara, that so many rence islands would gather for festival. Usually it would

be two or three. At such times there is drinking of rence beer, steeped, boiled

and fremented from crushed seeds and the whitish pith of the plant; singing;

games; contests and courtship, for the young people of the rence islands too

seldom meet those of the other communities. Why should there be so many rence

islands in the same vicinity, even though it was near the first of Se’Kara?

Surely the capture of one traveler in the delta did not warrant this attention,

and, of course, the islands must have been gathered together even before I had

entered the area.

“He is a spy,” said one of the other men present, who stood beside Ho-Hak. This

man was tall, and strong looking. He carried a marsh spear. On his forehead

there was tied a headband formed of the pearls of the Vosk sorp.

I wondered what in particular there might be to spy about on a rence island.

Ho-Hak still did not speak, but sat on the shell of the Vosk sorp, looking down

at the weapons, mine, before him.

I squirmed a bit in the marsh vine that contained me.

“Do not move, Slave,” snapped the girl, who stooo beside me.

Immediately the two loops of marsh vine knotted about my neck tightened, each

taunt, pulling against the other.

The girl’s hands were in my hair and she yanked my head back.

“He is of Port Kar,” she said, her hands in my hair, “or intended to be of Port

Kar!” She glared at Ho-Hak, as though demanding that he speak.

But Ho-Hak did not speak, nor did he seem particularly to notice the girl.

Angrily she removed her hands from my hair, thrusting my head to one side.

Ho-Hak seemed intent on regarding the leather-wrapped bow of supple Ka-la-na

wood.

The women of rence growers, when in their own marshes, do no veil themselves, as

is common among Gorean women, particularly of the cities. Moreover, they are

quite capable of cutting rence, preparing it, hunting for their own food and, on

the whole, of existing, if they wish it, by themselves. There are few tasks of

the rence communities which they cannot perform as well as men. Their

intelligence, and the work of their hands, is needed by the small communities.

Accordingly they suffer little inhibitiion in the matters of speaking out and

expressing themselves.

Ho-Hak reached down and unwrapped the leather from the yellow bow of supple

Ka-la-na. The roll of sheaf and flight arrows spilled out to the woven mat that

was the surface of the rence island.

There were gasps from two or three of the men present. I gathered they had seen

small straight bows, but that this was the first long bow they had seen.

Ho-Hak stood up. The bow was taller than several of the men present.

He handed the bow to the blondish girl, she with blue eyes, who had been

instrumental in my capture.

“String it,” said he to her.

Angrily she threw the marsh gants from her shoulder and took the bow.

She seized the bow in her left had and braced the bottom of it against the

instep of her left foot, taking the hemp cord whipped in silk, the string, in

her right hand. she struggled.

At last, angrily, she thrust the bow back into the hands of Ho-Hak.

Ho-Hak looked dow at me, the large ears inclining toward me lightly. “This is

the peasant bow, is it not?” he asked. “Called the great bow, the long bow?”

“It is,” I said.

“Long ago,” said he, “in a village once, on the lower slopes of the Thentis