Fluttering jards, covering many of the carcasses like gigantic flies, stirred, swarming upward as Imnak passed them, and then returned to their feasting.
He looked about, at the slaughtered animals. Only one in ten had been skinned.
The sinew had not been taken, nor the meat nor bones. Some hides had been taken, and some horn. But the mission of the hunters had not been to harvest from the herd of Tancred. Their mission had been to desttoy it.
With a sudden cry he fell upon a bound hunter. I prevented him from killing the man.
"We must go," I said. I vomited. My stomach had been turned by the stench.
I used capture knots on her wrists. There was a great cheer from my men.
"I am your prisoner, Captain," she said.
I did not speak to her, but handed her, her wrists bound before her body, to one of my men.
"We shall hold you to your word," said Sorgus, the hide bandit, uneasily.
"It is good," I told him.
He, with his men, some forty, who had taken refuge in the wooden hail, that serving as the headquarters of the wall commander, filed tensely between the ranks of my men. I had permitted them their weapons. I had little interest in the slaughter of minions.
The men and guardsmen who had been at the wall's center, in the buildings there, and west along the wall, including the hunters at that termination of the structure, learning the breaking of the wall and the freeing and arming of many laborers, had for the most part fled. Others, however, under the command of Sorgus, had boldly rallied to turn the tides of victory in their favor. They had not at that time, however, realized that nine of our men, peasants, gripped bows of yellow Ka-la-na wood. Behind each of these nine stood men bearing sheafa of arrows. Of the original force of Sorgus, some ninety-five men, fifty had succumbed to the fierce rain of steel-tipped arrows which had struck amongst them. Only five of his men had been able to reach the bowmen. These I slew. Sorgus, with some forty cohorts then, seeing me deploy bowmen to his rear, broke for the hail and barricaded himself within.
"He is waiting," said Ram, "for the return of the tarnsmen, those on patrol."
We would have little protection from attack from the air.
The arrow flighted from a diving tarn, allied with gravity and the momentum of the winged beast, can sink a foot into solid wood.
Such an attack would necessitate the scattering of my men, their seeking cover. Defensive archery, directed upward from the ground, fighting against the weights of gravity, is reduced in both range and effectiveness. The dispersal of my men, of course, would provide Sorgus and his men with their opportunity, under the covering fire of their tarnsmen aloft, to escape from the hall.
"When are the tarnsmen due to return from patrol?" I asked.
"I do not know," said Ram.
"Sorgus!" I had called, to he within the headquarters.
"I hear you," he responded.
"Surrender!" I called.
"I do not!" he said. Arrows were trained on the door through which he spoke.
"I do not wish to slay either you or your men," I called to him. "If you surrender now I will permit you to retain your weapons and withdraw in peace."
"Do you think me a fool?" he called.
"When do you expect your tarnsmen to return?" I asked.
"Soon!" said he.
"It could be days," said Ram.
"I hope, for your sake, Sorgus," I called, "that they return within the Ahn."
I positioned my archers at the openings to the hall, with armed men to defend them. I encircled the hall with my men. They carried stones and clubs.
"What do you mean?" called Sorgus.
"I am going to fire the hall," I said.
"Wait!" he said.
"You and your men may depart in peace now," I said, "or die within the Ahn."
More men joined me, still in their chains. They had come east from the farther portions of the wall. They had been abandoned by their guards. These wore even their chains as yet. We would remove them from them later with tools. These newcomers carried, many of them, the iron bars used for chipping at the permafrost, and picks, and shovels. Two carried axes.
Now there were some three hundred and seventy men encircling the hall, all armed in one way or another, some even with stones. They were not in a pleasant mood.
"Do not fire the hall!" called Sorgus.
I ordered fires lit. Rags, soaked in oil, were set at the tips of arrows.
"How do I know you will let us leave, if we leave now, in peace?" he asked.
"I have pledged it," I said. "And I am of the warriors."
"How do we know you are of the warriors?" he asked.
"Send forth your best swordsman," I said, "that my caste may be made clear to you."
I waited.
No one emerged from the hall.
"I shall wait one Ehn," I said. 'Then I shall have the hall fired."
In a few moments I heard her screaming, from within the hall. "No, no," she cried. "Fight to the death! Fight to the death!"
I knew then I had won.
Sorgus emerged from the hall, his hands raised, his sword slung still at his hip.
I watched Sorgus and his men depart.
"I am a free prisoner," she said. "I demand all the rights and privileges of such a prisoner."
"Free these new men of their chains," I said, indicating those fellows who had recently joined us, from the western portions of the wall.
"Yes, Captain," said a man.
I turned to the fair captive.
"I am a free prisoner," she said, "and I-"
"Be silent, I said to her. Her own dagger was at her throat.
"You were once in command here," I said. "But that is now finished. You are now only a girl on Gor."
She looked at me, suddenly frightened.
"When are the tarnsmen due?" I asked.
"Soon," she said.
A man pulled back her head, by the hair. I laid the blade across her throat.
"Four days," she whispered. "They are due to return on the afternoon of the first day of the passage hand."
"Put her in the handle tie," I said. "Yes, Captain," said the man, grinning.
Her fur boots were pulled off and her ankles were linked by leather thongs; she had good ankles; the leather permitted them a separation of some twelve inches; the tether on her wrists then was taken between her legs and lifted up and behind her, where its loose end was tied about her neck. The linking of the ankles prevents the slipping of the handle tie, and controls the length of her stride when she is put in it. A given pressure on the handle tie, exerted through the strap at the back, permits it to function as a choke leash; a different pressure permits her to be hurried along on her toes. The handle tie is usually, of course, reserved for naked slave girls.
"Oh," she said.
The man had looped his fist twice in the strap, tightening it.
She looked at me. She was in the control of the man who held the strap.
"If the tarnsmen return before the afternoon of the first day of the passage hand," I said, handing the man, who controlled her her dagger, "cut her throat."
"Yes, Captain," he said.
"Oh," she cried, being hurried from the presence of men. Did she not know she was now only a girl on Gor?