Vagabonds of Gor (15 page)
Authors: John Norman
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Action & Adventure, #Adventure
Marcus struggled futilely, angrily, with his bonds.
The leader lifted his hand, his men now mounted.
"We have nothing to fear," Marcus called to me. "We are being taken to Saphronicus!"
"You will not converse," said the leader. He then lowered his hand and his tharlarion strode forth, leading the way.
Marcus's neck chain was attached to the pommel of the second tharlarion. He looked back at me. Then, half pulled, the collar tight against the back of his neck, he stumbled forward, beside the tharlarion.
Six tharlarion then, in single file, that their numbers might be obscured, followed. Then the ninth tharlarion strode forth and I, too, afoot, in chains, accompanied it. The tenth tharlarion brought up the rear.
It was hot, dusty.
Indeed, Marcus and I would not converse, for he was yards ahead. It was natural that male prisoners would be thusly separated. In this fashion, given independent interrogations, they cannot adequately corroborate one another's stories. One does not know what the other has said, or been told, and so on. Similarly the possibility of active collaboration is significantly reduced. Interestingly, on the other hand, captive women are often kept together, that their suspicions, speculations, fears and apprehensions may reinforce one another, bringing them to a state of common ignorance and terror. This is also useful in increasing their sexual arousal and readying them to please.
It was hot, dusty.
Marcus had it somewhat better, I thought. He was almost at the front. There was less dust there. It was natural, I supposed, that he had been placed in this position of precedence. The leader had apparently accepted that he was an officer, and in command of our small party. Surely he had been our spokesman. Too, he was of Ar's Station, and not merely Port Kar. I, I supposed, was understood, naturally enough under the circumstances, to be his subordinate, or man. It might also be mentioned, however, that there was an additional reason for this position of Marcus near the leader, one which puts the matter in a certain perspective. In case of trouble he, Marcus, the presumed leader of the captives, could be quickly dispatched.
We increased our pace. I did not think the trek would be pleasant. Already I was thirsty.
One must distinguish between the slave girl who is put to a stirrup as a discipline, who might be taken into the country like this, even on dirt roads, to gasp and sweat, and struggle, at the stirrup, and the girl who, in a city, or on a smooth stone road, of great fitted blocks, serves primarily, and proudly, considering the honor bestowed upon her, the implicit tribute to her beauty, as a display item in her master's panoply.
It would probably be dark in an Ahn. I wondered where might be the army of Ar.
I looked at the riders.
Doubtless they would have preferred, indeed, that we were females.
Men such as these, of course, who have lived with hardship and danger, when they return to camp, know well how to handle women. In their presence the slaves do not dally. They hurry quickly, frightened, to their chains.
I, too, wanted a woman.
The shadows were growing long now.
A sting fly hummed by. Chained, it would be difficult to defend oneself from such a creature. It was the second I had seen this day. They generally hatch around rivers and marshes, though usually somewhat later in the season. At certain times, in certain areas, they hatch in great numbers.
The dust rose like clouds, stirred by the heavy, clawed paws of the tharlarion.
Marcus had assured me that there was nothing to fear, that we were being taken to Saphronicus.
The chain was on my neck.
I trusted that Marcus was correct, that there was nothing to fear.
I moved my hands in the close-fitting steel circlets which held my hands pinioned so perfectly behind my back.
Yes, there would be nothing to fear.
I hoped, at least, there was nothing to fear.
In any event, we were helpless prisoners. We were totally at the mercy of our captors.
Chapter 4 - THE DELTA
"Through the eye," I screamed, struggling in the ropes, naked, they tight about my upper body, my hands crossed and bound behind me, fastened closely to my ankles, kneeling in the bow of the small craft, of bound rence. "Through the eye!"
Men screamed about me, and cried out with fear, rage.
The fellow had been taken from the rence craft before me, the comparatively small, less than a foot in breadth at its thickest point, triangular-jawed head, on the long, muscular, sinuous neck, lifting suddenly, glistening, dripping water, from the marsh, turning sideways, and seizing the fellow, then lifting him a dozen feet, on that long neck, screaming, writhing into the air.
"Through the eyes!" I begged him.
"He cannot reach the eyes!" cried a man.
A fellow smote at the side of the creature with his paddle. It backed away, propelled by its heavy, diamond-shape, paddle-like appendages, its tail snapping behind it, splashing water.
There was much screaming. Within a hundred yards there was a flotilla of small craft, rence craft, flatboats, barges, scows, fishing boats and rafts, perhaps four or five hundred men.
We heard the snapping of the backbone of the fellow in the air.
If he had been able to get his thumbs to the creature's eyes, he might have been able to utilize those avenues, to reach the brain. But he had been unable to do so.
"He is dead," said a man.
The body hung limp, save for tremors, contractions, the wild stare in the eyes.
"He is not dead!" cried another fellow.
"Kill him!" begged another.
"I cannot reach him!" cried a fellow with a sword, standing unsteadily, almost falling, in one of the light rence craft.
"No, he is dead," said another. The man was dead.
The creature then submerged, and turning, struck against one of the barges, lifting it up a yard, from the water, then was under it, the barge sliding off its back, half turned, and was moving away, under water, through the reeds.
A fellow cried out near me. The narrow snout of a fish-like tharlarion thrust up from the water, inches away. Another fellow pushed at it with his paddle. It disappeared under the bound rence.
"Unbind me!" I begged. I was utterly helpless.
"Be silent, spy!" snarled a man.
My knees were wet, from water come up between the bound, shaped bundles of tubular rence.
"Reform!" called an officer, a few yards away. "Reform! Forward!" He was in the bow of a small fishing craft. Men moved it with poles.
"Turn back!" I called to him. "Can you not understand what has been done to you?"
He paid me no attention.
"Forward!" he cried. "Pursue the sleen of Cos! They shall not escape!"
"Help!" we heard, from our left. One of the scows was settling in the water, foundering.
"Break the wood!" cried a fellow. "Form a raft!" Men were in the water, some swimming, Some wading, chest deep.
"Take us aboard!" called men.
Some were assisted to other craft, some of these now dangerously low in the water.
"Forward!" called the officer. "Hurry! They cannot be far ahead now."
"The reeds are broken in two places," said a man.
"We shall divide our forces," said the officer. Another contingent of men was behind us. He could hear their shouts, now.
I squirmed in my bonds.
Saphronicus and Seremides had now had their revenge, I thought. Once, long ago, they had been lieutenants of Cernus of Ar, my enemy, whose machinations, and political and economic manipulations, had been successful in bringing down Minus Tentius Hinrabius from the throne of Ar. Later Cernus himself, though only of the Merchants, ascended the throne.
He was later deposed by the popular Marlenus of Ar who, having returned to the city, was backed by the populace. Cernus had been killed by a Kur, a beast not native to Gor. Saphronicus and Seremides, as traitors, had been put in chains and sold to the galleys whence, I gathered, they had been rescued by some who perhaps might find use for men such as they. Saphronicus had been the former captain of the Taurentians, the palace guard in Ar. Seremides had been leader of the forces of Ar.
I had heard, of course, that a man named Seremides was now high general in Ar, but I had not supposed that this might be the Seremides of the time of Cernus. On Gor, as elsewhere, there are many common names. Many are named "Tarl," for example, particularly in Torvaldsland, and, generally, in the northern latitudes of Gor. The Seremides of the time of Cernus had even been by birth of Tyros. It seemed incredible, then, that such a fellow could have risen again in the services of Ar, except in the absence of Marlenus, and abetted by conspirators.
That this was indeed the same Seremides had been made clear to me, however, by an amused Saphronicus himself, in a midnight interview in his tent. I had been knelt naked and bound before him. This also explained, of course, the matter of the betraying message which I had unwittingly carried at great risk to Ar's Station on behalf of Gnieus Lelius, regent in An, that message which had identified me as a Cosian spy.
I had not seen Saphronicus in Ar, of course. I did not know if Gnieus Lelius was involved in the treason now rampant in Ar or not. I did know, from deciphered documents seized in Brundisium, the name of at least one of the traitors. It was a female. Her name was Talena, and she had once been, until disowned, the daughter of Marlenus of Ar. Her fortunes, I gathered, were now on the rise in Ar. She had been restored to citizenship and some spoke of her, though in hushed voices, as a possible Ubara.
"Are you going to kill me now?" I had asked Saphronicus.
"No," he had laughed. "I am going to send you to the delta."
Chapter 5 - THE UL
"I would speak with your officer," I said to the soldier.
"I have again conveyed your request to him," said the fellow. "Now be silent."
I lay back in the ropes, on the sand.
I gritted my teeth against the insects crawling on my body. I turned, I shifted my position. I could not much use my hands to protect myself. I wanted to cry out in misery. I wondered if such torment could drive a man insane. I was silent. I lay then again on my back, looking up. I could see stars, two of the three moons. I heard a fellow a few feet away cry out in pain, and slap at his body.
There were many men about. The delta is treacherous, and difficult to navigate. Its channels change almost overnight. There is often very little visibility in it, for more than a few feet ahead, for the rence. Its sluggish, muddy waters vary from channels deep enough to float a round ship, to washes of a few inches deep. Its average depth, at this time of year, after the spring thaws upriver, is three to five feet. There are many sand bars in it. On one such bar I and some fifty or sixty men now camped. Their small craft were drawn up about the bar. In the first night, ten nights ago, several of these had been lost.
The number and configuration of the sand bars, in virtue of the currents, is subject to frequent rearrangements, their materials being often swept away and redistributed. After that first night, the small craft had been tied together, some of the ropes fastened ashore, to stakes. My bound ankles were fastened by a short rope to one of these stakes, my neck, by a rope, to another.
"Fellow," I called.