"You mistake me, Lady," said he, courteously, "if you think that I am interested only in gold." "No!" I cried. "No!"
He bent to undo the lashings at my ankles.
I screamed, helplessly.
Suddenly, before he had even touched the lashings at my ankles, he turned about, abruptly, in the saddle.
A crossbow bold flashed by, like a swift, hissing needle in the sky. In one moment, as I screamed, terrified, thrown rudely against my bonds, he had jerked his shield from the saddle straps, and wheeled the tarn, with a cry of rage, a strange war cry, to face his foe.
He was met with another war cry, and suddenly, only feet from us, another tarn streaked past, and I heard the forcible, tearing scrape of a broad, bronze spear blade, its blow turned, sliding across the metal-bound, layered, bosk-hide shield of my captor.
The other tarn streaked away, and its rider, standing in his stirrups, braced in the saddle, held to it by the broad safety strap, was redrawing his crossbow, a quarrel held in his teeth.
My captor attacked, giving him no instant in which to set again his bow. When only yards separated us, the other man flung away his bow and quarrel, seizing up his shield. My captor, standing in his stirrups, flung his own great spear. it struck the other's shield, piercing it. If the other man had not been fastened in his saddle by the great strap the force of my captor's blow would have struck him from the saddle. As it was, it spun him, tearing the shield from his arm.
He cursed. "For Skjern!" he cried.
The two tarns wheeled again, for another passage.
Again the other's spear struck, and again the blow was countered by my captor's shield. I again heard the terrible, startling scrape of the spear blade diverted by the seven-layered, metal-bound boskhide shield. Twice more the attacker pressed in, and each time, again, the shield turned the blow, once but inches from my body. My captor was trying to close with him, to bring him within the range of his own steel, his now-drawn, swift, unadorned blade. Again the spear struck, but this time my captor took the point in the shield. I, bound, saw, suddenly, the bronze point, a foot of it, inches from my face, explode through the hide. I screamed. My captor then wheeled away, the other, his blade now drawn, trying to press close. My captor had wished to rid his enemy of the spear, because of its reach, but, to do so, his own defense was impaired. With incredible strength, his sword dangling from its wrist strap, commonly used by tarnsmen in flight, I saw him withdraw the spear from the shield, but at the same time the other's tarn struck ours, and his blade, flashing downwards, struck the heavy shaft of the spear, splintering it, half severing it. He struck again and the spear shaft, with a scattering of wood, split apart. My captor now thrust his shield before him, and over my body. I heard the blade of the other strike twice, ringing on the metal hoops of the shield that guarded me. Then my captor again had his sword in his grip, but the other dragged his tarn upward, cursing, and its long, curved talons raked downwards, clutching for us. I heard the talons tear across the shield. My captor was thrusting upward, to keep the bird away. Then its talons locked over the shield and it smote its wings, ripping the shield straps, half tearing my captor from the saddle, and the tarn was away, the shield then dropping like a penny, turning, toward the field below.
"Yield her!" I heard the cry.
"Her price is steel!" was the answer that met the attacker.
Bound, I screamed, helplessly.
Then the tarns swooped together again, side by side, saddle to saddle, while blades flashed over my head, in a swift dialogue of steel, debating my possession.
I screamed.
The tarns then, rearing up in the sky, facing one another, began to tear at one another with their beaks and talons, and then, talons locked, they began, beaks snapping and tearing, to twist and roll, turning, locked together, falling, climbing, tumbling, wings beating, screaming in rage.
I was thrown one way and the other, violently, helplessly. Sometimes it seemed I was standing as the tarn would veer, or hanging head downwards as it would veer, turning wildly, in another direction. When it spun onto its back, tearing upwards at its foe, I hung stomach downwards, my full weight on the lashings, seeing in terror the earth hundreds of feet below.
The men fought to regain control of their mounts.
And then again, saddle to saddle, they fought, and once more steel flashed about my face and body. My ears, had they been tongues, would have screamed for mercy. Sparks from the steel stung my body.
Then, suddenly, with a cry of rage, of frustration, the blade of the other struck downwards towards my face. My captor's steel interposed itself. I saw the broad blade of his sword but an inch from my face, for one terrifying instant of immobility, the other's blade, edge downward, resting on it, stopped. The blow would have cut my face in two.
There was blood on my face. I did not know whose it was, even if it might be mine.
"Sleen!" cried my captor. "I have played with you enough!" once more, over my head, there was a flash of steel, and I heard a cry of pain, and then suddenly the other tarn veered sharply away, and I saw its rider, clutching his shoulder, reeling in the saddle.
His tarn spun crazily, and then, a hundred yards away, to one side and below us, turned and fled.
My captor did not pursue him.
I looked up at my captor, the tarnsman whose lashings bound me.
I still lay before him, over the saddle, his.
He looked down upon me, and laughed.
I turned my head away.
He turned his tarn and we continued our journey. I had seen that his left arm, high, above the elbow, about two inches below his shoulder, had been cut. It had been blood from this cut which had struck my face.
Soon, unable to resist, I turned again, in my bonds, to look upon my captor. The cut was not serious.
It had already stopped bleeding, the fierce wind having clotted the blood in a ragged line. On the left side of his arm, running from the wound, there were several almost horizontal, reddish lines, where, but moments before, tiny trickles of blood, unable to flow downward, had been whipped backward by the wind.
He saw me looking at him, and grinned.
I looked up at the sky. It was very blue, and there were white clouds. "That was your friend," he said.
I looked at him.
"Haakon of Skjern," he said.
He looked down upon me.
I was frightened.
"How is it you know of Haakon of Skjern?" he asked.
"I was his preferred slave," I said. "I fled."
We flew on, not speaking.
Then, after perhaps a quarter of an Ahn, I asked. "May a girl speak?" "Yes," he said.
"To be the preferred slave of a man such as Haakon of Skjern, who is rich and powerful, you must understand that I am unusual, quite beautiful and skilled." "I see," he said.
"Accordingly," I said, "I should be sold in Ar. And, further, since I am white silk, I should not be used. My price will be higher if I am sold white silk." "It is unusual, I would suppose," said the man, "for the preferred slave of a man such as Haakon of Skjern to be white silk."
I reddened, all of me, before him.
"Say to me the alphabet," he said.
I did not know the Gorean alphabet. I could not read. Elinor Brinton, on Gor, was ignorant and illiterate.
"I do not know the alphabet," I confessed.
"An illiterate slave girl," said the man.:Further, you accent marks you as barbarian."
"But I am trained!" I cried. "I know," he said, "in the pens of Ko-ro-ba."
I looked at him, dumbfounded.
"Further," he said, "you never belonged to Haakon of Skjern."
"Oh yes!" I cried. "I did!"
His eyes became suddenly hard. "Haakon of Skjern is my enemy," he said. "If you were truly his preferred slave, it is your misfortune to have fallen into my hands. I shall have much sport with you."
"I lied," I whispered. "I lied."