Raiders of Gor (42 page)

Generally even tarn goads cannot drive them from the sight of land.

I took the glass of the builders, and its strap, from my shoulder. I handed them

to a seaman.

“Lower a longboat,” I told an officer.

“in this sea?”

“Hurry!” I cried.

The boat was lowered to the water. At one of the oars, as though he belonged

there, was the slave boy Fish. The oar-master took the longboat's tiller.

We approached the first of the round ships on its leeward side.

Soon I stood on the deck of the round ship.

“You are Terence,” I asked, “mercenary captain of Treve?”

The man nodded.

Treve is a bandit city, high among the crags of the lari-prowled Voltai. Most

men do not even know its location. Once the tamsmen of Treve had withstood the

tarn cavalries of even Ar. In Treve they do not grow their own food but, in the

fall, raid the harvests of others. They live by rapine and plunder. The men of

Treve are said to be among the proudest and most ruthless on Gor. They are most

fond of danger and free women, whom they bind and, steal from civilized cities

to carry to their mountain fair as slave girls. It is said the city can be

reached only on tarnback. I had once known a girl from Treve. Her name laad been

Vika.

“You have, in the ten round ships,” I said, “one hundred tarns, with riders.”

“Yes,” said he, “and, as you asked, with each tam a knotted rope and five of the

seamen of Port Kar.”

I looked down into the open hold of the round ship. The wicked, curved,

scimitarlike beak of the unhooded tarn lifted itself. Its eyes blazed. It looked

like a good bird. I regretted that it was not Ubar of the Skies. It was a

reddish brown tam, a fairly common coloring for the great birds. Mine own had

been black-plumaged, a giant tam, glossy, his great talons shod with steel, a

bird bred for speed and war, a bird who had been, in his primitive, wild way, my

friend. I had driven him from the Sardar.

“I will have a hundred stone of gold for the use of these birds and my men,”

said Terence of Treve.

“You shall have it,” I said.

“I wish payment now,” said the captain of Treve.

I whipped my blade from its sheath, angrily, and held it to his throat.

“My pledge is steel,” I said.

Terence smiled. “We of Treve” he said, “understand such a pledge.”

I lowered the blade.

“Of all the tarnsmen in Port Kar,” I said, “and of an the captains, you alone

have accepted the risks of this venture, the use of tams at sea.”

There was one other who had been in Port Kar, whom I thought might, too, have

undertaken the risks, but he, with his thousand men, had not been in the city

for several weeks. I speak of lean, scarred Ha-Keel, who wore about his neck, on

a golden chain, a worn tarn disk, set with diamonds, of the city of Ar. He had

cut a throat for that coin, to buy silks and perfumes for a woman, but one who

fled with another man; Ha-Keel had hunted them, slain in combat the man and sold

the woman into slavery. He had been unable to return to Ar. His forces were now

engaged, I had learned, by the city of Tor, to quail incursions by tarn-riding

desert tribesmen. The services of Ha-Keel and his men were available to the

highest bid- der. I knew he had once, through agents, served the Others, not

Priest-Kings, who contested surreptitiously for this world, and ours. I had met

Ha-Keel at a house in Turia, the house of Saphrar, a Merchant.

“I will want the hundred stone,” said Terence, “regardless of the outcome of

your plan.”

“Of course,” I said. Then I regarded him. “A hundred stone,” I said, “though a

high price, seems small enough considering the risks you will encounter. It is

hard for me to believe that you ride only for a hundred stone of gold. And I

know that the Home Stone of Port Kar is not yours.”

“We are of Treve,” said Terence. “Give me a tarn goad,” I said.

He handed me one of the instruments.

I threw off the robes of the Admiral. I accepted a wind scarf from another man.

It had begun to sleet now.

The tarn can scarcely be taken from the sight of land. Even driven by tarn goads

he will rebel. These tarns had been hooded. Whereas their instincts apparently

tend to keep them within the sight of land, I did not know what would be the

case if they were unhooded at sea, and there was no land to be found. Perhaps

they would not leave the ship. Perhaps they would go mad with rage or fear. I

knew tarns had destroyed riders who had attempted to ride them out Over Thassa

from the shore. But I hoped that the tarns, finding themselves out of the sight

of land, might accommodate themselves to the experience. I was hoping, that, in

the strange intelligence of animals, it would be the departure from land, and

not the mere positioning of being out of the sight of land, that would be

counter-instinctual for the great birds.

Doubtless I would soon know.

I leaped down to the saddle of the unhooded tarn. It screamed as I fastened the

broad purple safety strap. The tarn goad was looped about my right wrist. I

wrapped the wind scarf about my face.

“If I can control the bird,” I said , “follow me, and keep the instructions I

have given you.”

“Let me ride first,” said Terence of Treve.

I smiled. Why would one who had been a tamsman of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the

Morning, let one of Treve, a traditional enemy, take the saddle of a tam before

him? it would not do, of course, to tell him this.

“No,” I said.

There was a pair of slave manages wrapped about the pommel of the saddle, also a

length of rope. These things I thrust in my belt.

I gestured and the tam hobble, fastening the right foot of the great bird to a

huge bolt set in the ship's keel, was opened.

I drew on the one-strap.

To my delight the tarn, with a snap of its wings, leaped from the hold. He stood

on the deck of the round ship, opening and closing his wings, looking about

himself, and then threw bark his head and screamed. The other tarns below in the

hold, some ten of them, shifted and rattled their hobbles.

The sleet struck down cutting my face.

I drew again on the one-strap and again the bird's wings snapped, and he was on

the long, sloping yard on the round ship's foremast.

His head was very high and every nerve in his body seemed alert, but puzzled. He

looked about himself.

I did not hurry the bird.

I slapped the side of its neck, and spoke to it, gently, confidently.

I drew on the one-strap. The bird did not move. His talons clutched the sloping

yard.

I did not use the tarn goad.

I waited for some time, stroking it, and talking to it.

And then, suddenly, I gave a cry and jerked on the one-strap and the bird, by

training and instinct, flung itself into the sleeting wind and began to climb

the dark, running sky.

I was again on tamback!

The bird climbed until I released the one-strap and then it began to circle. Its

movements were as sure and as swift as though it might have been over the

familiar crags of the Voltai or the canals of Port Kar.

I tested its responses to the straps. They were im- mediate and eager. And

suddenly I realized that the bird was trembling with excitement and pleasure,

finding itself swift and alive and strong in a new world to his senses.

Already, below me, I saw tarns being unhooded, and the straps that bound their

beaks being unbuckled, and cast aside. Riders were climbing into the saddles. I

saw tarns leaping to the decks of the round ships, and I saw the knotted ropes

being attached to the saddles, and picked seamen, experts with the sword, five

to a rope, taking their positions. And besides these seamen, each tarnsman, tied

to his saddle, carried a shielded, protected ship's lantern, lighted, and, in

the pockets of leather aprons, tied together and thrown across the saddles

numerous clay flasks, corked with rags. These flasks I knew, were filled with

tharlarion oil, and the rags that corked them had been soaked in the same

substance.

Soon, behind me, there were some hundred tarnsmen, and below each, dangling,

hanging to the knotted ropes, were five picked men.

I saw that the fleets of my fifth wave, the two fleets of forty ships apiece,

under the command of Chung and Nigel, were well engaged in their strikes on the

flanks of the great fleet.

At this time, before their numbers could have been well ascertained by the

enemy, before the enemy could be much aware of anything more than the unexpected

flanking attacks, I, followed by the tarnsmen, with the picked seamen, darted

through the sleeting, windy skies over the locked fleets.

In the turmoil below, primarily of tam ships locked in battle, and the great

round ships trying to close with enemy tam ships, I saw, protected by ten tam

ships on each side, and ten before and ten behind, the flagship of Cos and

Tyros. It was a great sNp, painted in the yellow of Tyros, with more than two

hundred oarsmen.

It was the ship of Chenbar. It would carry, besides its oarsmen, who were all

free, fighting men, some one hundred bowmen, and another hundred men, seamen,

artillery men, auxiliary personnel and officers.

I drew on the four-strap. Almost instantly the ship was the center of a great

beating of wings and descending tams.

My own tarn landed on the stern castle itself, and I leaped from its back.

I whipped the sword from its sheath. Startled, Chenbar himself, LJbar of Tyros,

the Sea Sleen, drew his blade.

I tore away the wind scarf from my face. “You!” he cried.

“Bosk,” I told him, “Captain of Port Kar.” Our blades met.

Behind us I could hear shouts and cries, and the sounds of men dropping from

their ropes to the deck, and of weapons meeting weapons. I heard the hiss of

crossbow quarrels.

As one set of birds hovered over the deck and their men dropped to its planks,

the birds darted away, and another set took their place. And then, their

fighters disembarked, the birds with their riders swept away, up into the

'black, vicious sleeting sky, to light the oily rags, one by one, in the clay

flasks of tharlarion oil and hurt them, from the heights of the sky, down onto

the decks of ships of Cos and Tyros. I did not expect a great deal of damage to

be done by these shattering bombs of burning oil, but I was counting on the

confluence of three factors: the psychological effect of such an attack, the

fear of the outflanking fleets, whose numbers could not yet well have been

ascertained, and, in the confusion and, hopefully terror, the unexpected, sudden

loss of their commander.

I slipped on the sleet-iced deck of the stern castle and parried Chenbar's blade

from my throat.

I leaped to my feet and again we engaged.

Then we grappled, the sword wrist of each in the hand of the other.

I threw him against the sternpost and his back and head struck against the post.

I heard someone behind me but whoever it was was met by one of my men. There

were blades clashing at my back. I feared for the instant I might have broken

Chenbar's back. I released the sword hand of the admiral of Tyros and struck him

in the stomach with my left fist. As he sank forward I wrenched free my sword

hand and, holding the sword still in my fist, struck him a heavy blow across the

jaw with my fist. I spun about. My men were engaging those who would try to

climb to the stern castle. Chenbar had sunk to his knees, stunned. I pulled the

slave manacles from my belt and clapped them on Chenbar's wrists. Then, on his

stomach, I dragged him to the talons of the tarn. With the rope, taken from my

belt, I tied the slave manacles to the right foot of the bird.

Chenbar tried, groggily, to get up, but my foot on his neck held him in place.

I looked about.

My men were forcing the defenders of the ship over the side, into the cold

waters. The defenders had not been prepared for such an attack. They had been

taken unawares and resistance had been slight. Moreover, my men outnumbered them

by some hundred swords.

The defenders were swimming across to the other tam ships of Tyros, now swinging

about to close with us and board.

Crossbow bolts from the other ships began to fall into the deck of the flagship.

“Hold the men of Tyros left aboard at the parapetsl” I cried.

I heard a voice from across the water cry out. “Hold your fire!”

Then the first of the tarns returned to the flagship, having cast down its

flaming bombs of burning oil.

Five of my men seized its rope, and, in an instant, they were lifted away from

the ship.

“Fire the ship!” I called to my men.

They rushed below the decks to set fires in the hold.

More tarns returned and more of my men, sometimes six and seven to a rope, were

carried away from the ship.

Smoke began to drift up through the planking of the deck.

One of the ships of Cos grated against the side of our own.

My men fought back boarders and then, with oars thrust away the other ship.

Another ship struck our side, shearing oars. My men rushed to repel boarders

again.

“Look!” one cried.

They gave a cheer. The ship flew the flag of Bosk, with its green stripes on the