"Yes," she said, angrily. "What are you going to do?"
I thrust her up the steps, onto the platform. "You are going to serve Priest-Kings, my pretty little charmer," I told her.
I removed the tether from her throat and, bringing it between her legs and before her, tossed it through the ring on the crossbeam.
"Oh," she said.
I drew her from her feet, and hung her by her bound wrists from the ring.
I then crossed her ankles and, with a peice of rope, tied them together, and fastened them to the lower ring, that fastened in the floor of the whipping-frame platform.
I pulled back the hood from the furs she wore. The auburn hair took the sun beautifully.
I scanned the skies again. There was nothing in sight, save clouds.
"How am I to serve Priest-Kings?" she asked, wincing.
"As naked bait," I told her.
"No!" she said. I cut the furs from her. "You are quite beautiful," I told her.
"No, no!" she wept.
I regarded her. "You are even beautiful enough to be a Gorean slave girl," I said.
"No!" she cried.
"Those who brought you to Gor," I said, "doubtless had that fate eventually in mind for you."
"That is a lie!" she said.
"It would have been easy enough to find ugly women," I said.
"No," she said. "No!"
"You are too beautiful to be long left free," I said.
"No!" she said.
"It is my conjecture," I said, "that you were eventually to be given to Drusus."
"Given?" she said.
"Of course," I said, "as a slave."
"No!" she cried.
"You are indeed naive," I said. "Do you think a woman as beautiful as you on Gor could long keep out of the collar?"
She looked at me with horror. I gagged her, that she might not cry out.
The tarnsmen were wary. There were five of them. They circled the area several times.
They would have little difficulty, even from their distance aloft, in identifying the lovely captive suspended from the ring. There were few white girls this far north, above Torvaldsland, at the brink of Ax Glacier. Her auburn hair, too, would leave little doubt as to her identity. Such hair, as I have noted, is rare on Gor.
They would see the girl. They would see the destruction of the wall, and of the buildings, except for the hall.
Then one would land, to reconnoiter.
It was his tarn that would serve me.
I fitted an arrow, of black tem-wood, with a pile point, to the string of the yellow bow. The string was of hemp, whipped with silk. The arrow was winged with the feathers of the Vosk gull.
"Beware!" she cried, as soon as the gag was cut from her mouth. "One remains! One remains!" But I do not think he heard her. She screamed, and he spun back, falling from the platform to the turf. At the same time I, casting the bow aside, began the race for the tarn. I leaped into the saddle and dragged back fiercely on the one-strap. The winged monster screamed with rage and reared upward, wings cracking like whips at the air. I leaned to one side as the raking talons of a second tarn tore downward for me. I dragged back again on the one-strap, almost throwing the bird on its back, bringing its talons high. I almost lost the saddle as my bird, struck by the next tarn, reeled buffeted, twisting backward, some forty feet in the air. Then, both birds, screaming, talons interlocked, grappled in the air. The bolt of a crossbow sped past my head. Another tarn closed in from my left. I tore the shield from its saddle straps and blocked the raking talons that furrowed the leather. The fourth tarn was below us. I saw the man thrust up with his spear. It cut my leg. I wheeled the tarn to the left and it spun, still interlocked with its foe. The tarnsman to my left drew back on the one-strap to avoid fouling straps with his ally. The fellow whose tarn was tearing at mine drew back, too, on his six-strap, and the bird swept upward and away, from my right. A bolt from a crossbow skidded ripping through the saddle to my left. Then he who had fired it swept past behind me. My tarn was then loose. The four of them, now grouped, in formation, ascended in an arc some hundred yards from me. I took my tarn higher, swiftly, to be above them. Then the sun was behind me and they were below me. They broke apart and began to circle, separately. They had no wish to meet me falling upon them from the tarn's ambush, the sun. I kept them generally below me. I fastened the safety strap now: I examined the shield. It was torn deeply but still serviceable. There was a spear at the saddle. I loosened it in its straps. A crossbow hung to my right. A sheaf of bolts was behind the saddle. I saw the girl, suspended from the ring, far below. Suddenly I laughed with elation. I pulled back on the one-strap again. I would wait for them in the clouds.
The moons of Gor were high when I returned to the sturdy platform.
The hunt had been long. It had carried for several pasangs. Two had been foolish enough to follow me into the clouds. The other two had fled. I had not managed to overtake them until late afternoon. They had fought desperately, and well.
"You have escaped," she said, in wonder. "There were four of them."
My tarn, now, was weak and bloodied. I did not know if it would live.
In the end they had struck at the bird. It was shortly after that that I had finished the hunt.
"You had best flee," she said, "before they return."
"Do you think they will rescue you?" I asked.
"Surely." she said.
I was weary. I put my hand on her body. It was the first time that I had touched her. She was really quite beautifuL.
"Do not touch me!" she hissed.
"Do you still hope for succor?" I asked.
"Of course!" she said. Then she screamed as I threw the four heads to the turf. I was weary then, and I had lost blood, from the wound in my leg, so I turned away, descended the steps of the whipping platform, and made my way to the hall, where I would sleep.
"You are a barbarian! A barbarian!" she screamed.
I did not answer her but entered the hall, to rest, for I was weary.
In the morning I was much refreshed.
The sun was high and bright, and I had fed well, and had rigged a backpack, in which I had placed supplies and my things, when I again climbed the steps to the whipping platform.
The girl was unconscious. I slapped her awake.
"I am leaving now," I told her.
She looked at me, dully. I looked away from her, out over the tundra, the loneliness, the blackened remains of the scattered logs which had been the wall, the ruined buildings. I would fire the hail, too, before I left. There is a bleakness to the north which, in its harsh way, can be very beautiful. It was chilly: A dust of snow had fallen in the night. I saw a group of five tabuk, stragglers, cross the line that had been the wall. They would follow the herd north. They would be unaware that there had ever been an impediment to their journey. I watched them pick their way through burned logs and, in their characteristic gait, turn northward. One stopped to nuzzle at the turf, pushing back snow with its nose, to bite at moss.
"Are you going to leave me here, to die?" she asked.
I cut her down, and cut the bonds on her wrists and ankles. She sank to the wood of the platform. It was coated with crystals of snow. She clutched the furs there to her. I had yesterday cut them from her.
I then descended the steps of the platform. In a few moments I had set fire to the hall.
As I stood before the burning edifice I turned once to look at the platform. She knelt there, small, the furs clutched to her.
She was an enemy.
I turned away, northward. I, too, would follow the herd.
I did not look back.
Toward noon I stopped to make a camp. I ate dried meat. I watched the small figure some two hundred yards behind me slowly approach.
When she was some three or four yards from me she stopped. I regarded her.
She knelt. "Please," she said.