I heard the screams of the women.
They were Hura’s women.
I reach for my sword, but it was gone. My hand closed on nothing.
The grayish face of Pa-Kur, and the expressionless eyes, stared down into mine. I heard the locking in place of the cable of his crossbow.
“You are dead!” I cried to him. “You are dead!”
“Thurnock!” cried Sheera.
Then there was the roar of Thassa but not of Thassa but of the crowd in the Stadium of Tarns, in Ar.
“Gladius of Cos!” I heard cry. “Gladius of Cos!”
“On Ubar of the Skies,” I cried. “On! On!”
“Please, Captain,” said Thurnock. He was weeping.
I turned my head to one side. Lara was very beautiful. And Misk, the great disklike eyes luminous, peered down at me. His antennae, golden, with their fine sensory filaments, surveyed me. I reached up to touch them with the palms of my hands. “Let there be nest trust! Let there be friendship!” But I could not reach them, and Misk had turned, and delicately, on his posterior appendages, had vanished.
“Vella! “ I wept. “Vella!”
I would not open the blue envelope. I would not open it. I must not open it. The earth trembles with the coming of the herds of the Wagon Peoples. “Flee, Stranger, flee!” “They are coming!” “Give him paga,” said Thurnock.
And Sandra, in her vest of jewels, and bells, taunted me in the paga tavern in Port Kar.
I swilled paga.
“All hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!” I rose drunkenly to my feet. Paga spilled from the cup. “All hail Bosk, Admiral of Port Kar!” Where was Midice, to share my triumph? “Vella!” I cried. “Love me!”
“Drink this,” said Arn. I swallowed the liquid, and lay back.
The wind had been cold, too, on the height of Ar’s cylinder of justice. And small Torm, in the blue robes of the scribe, lifted his cup, to salute the beauty of Talena.
“You are denied bread, and fire and salt,” said Marlenus. “By sundown you are not to be within the realm of Ar.” “Victory is ours!” “Let us hunt, tumits,” suggested Kamchak. “I am weary of affairs of state.” Harold was already in his saddle.
I drew on the one-strap of Ubar of the Skies, and the great bird, giant and predator, screamed and together, we thrust higher into the bright, sunlit skies of Gor.
I stood at the edge of the cylinder of justice of Ar and looked down. Pa-Kur had leaped from its height. The sheerness of the fall was broken only by a tarn perch, some feet below.
I could see crowds milling at the foot of the cylinder.
The body of the master of the assassins had never been recovered. Doubtless it had been torn to pieces by the crowd.
In Ar, years earlier, Mip behind me, late at night, I walked out upon a tarn perch, and surveyed the beauties of the lamps of Ar, glorious Ar. I had looked up and seen, several feet above me, the height of the cylinder. It would be possible, though dangerous to leap to the perch.
I had thought little of it.
Pa-Kur was dead.
“Was the body recovered?” asked Kamchak.
“No,” I had told him. “It does not matter.”
I threw back my head and laughed.
Sheera wept.
“Put more furs upon him,” said Arn. “Keep him warm.”
I recalled Elizabeth Caldwell.
He who had examined her on Earth, to determine her fitness for the message collar, had frightened her. His clothes did not seem right upon him. his accent was strange. He was large, strong-handed. She had said his face was grayish, and his eyes like glass.
Saphrar, a merchant of Tyros, resplendent in Turia, had similarly described the man who had enlisted his services in behalf of those who contested worlds with Priest-Kings. He had been a large man. His complexion had not seemed as one of Earth. It had seemed grayish. His eyes had been expressionless, like stones, or orbs of glass.
Pa_Kur stared down upon me. I heard the locking in place of the cable of his crossbow.
“Pa-Kur is alive!” I screamed, rising up, throwing aside the furs. “He is alive! Alive!” I was pressed back.
“Rest, Captain,” said Thurnock.
I opened my eyes and the cabin, blurred, took shape. What had seemed a dim sun, a flame of darkness, became a ship’s lantern, swinging on its iron ring. “Vella?” I asked.
“The fever is broken,” said Sheera, her hand on my forehead.
I felt the furs drawn about me. There were tears in Sheera’s eyes. I had thought she had escaped. My collar still encircled her throat. She wore a tunic of white wool, clean.
“Rest, sweet Bosk of Port Kar,” said she.
“Rest, Captain,” whispered Thurnock.
I closed my eyes, and fell asleep.
“Greetings, Bosk of Port Kar,” said Marlenus of Ar.
He stood before me, his men behind him. he wore the yellow of Tyros, and, about his shoulders, a cloak, formed of panther skins. About his throat was a tangle of leather and claws, taken from panther women, with which he had adorned himself. His head was bare.
“Greetings, Marlenus,” said I, “Ubar of Ar.”
Together we turned to face the forest, and waited. In a moment, from the trees, emerged Hura.
Her hands were tied, by her long black hair, behind the back of her neck. Her hair had been twisted about her throat, knotted, and then, with the two loose strands, thick, themselves twisted, looped about her wrists, her hands had been secured. She was stripped. She wore a branch shackle, a thick, rounded branch, some eighteen inches in length, notched toward each end, with supple tendrils, fitting into the notches and about her fair ankles, tied across the back of her legs.
She stumbled once on the stones, struggled to her feet and again approached us. Behind her, nude, proud, erect, golden rings in her ears, carrying a pointed stick, an improvised spear, came blond Verna, tall and beautiful.
Hura fell to her knees, between Marlenus and me, her head down. The proud leader of the panther girls had not escaped.
“I found this slave in the forest,” said Verna. About her own neck she still wore Marlenus’ collar.
He looked at her. She looked at him fearlessly. As an unveiled free woman, not as a slave.
Verna had caught Hura yesterday, but she had refused to bring her to the stockade. She had kept her prisoner in the forest.
Now, like a third, equal among us, though she wore a collar, she brought Hura forward to our meeting.
I looked at Hura. The once-proud panther woman, the now-trembling slave dared not raise her head.
“So,” inquired Marlenus, “this slave attempted to escape?”
“Please do not lash me, Masters,” whispered Hura. She had in the stockade, at the hands of Sarus’ men, once felt the whip. No woman ever forgets it. Marlenus pulled her to her feet, and bent her backwards. He examined her. He passed his right hand over her beauty from her knee to her throat. “The slave pleases me,” he said. Then he said to her, harshly, “Kneel.” Hura knelt, trembling.
“Where is the other escaped slave?” asked Marlenus.
Mira, stripped, her hands tied behind her back, was thrown between us. She was terrified.
Sheera, in her white woolen tunic, stood at my side. She put her cheek against my right shoulder.
She and Verna, like Hura and Mira, had disappeared from the stockade. Within the Ahn Sheera had taken Mira, and, in the darkness, bent over, hand in her hair, she had returned Mira to my men. Mira had then been chained in the hold of the Tesephone. This morning, hands tied behind her back, in a longboat, I had had her brought to the beach to be disposed of.
Marlenus looked down at Hura and Mira. Mira looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. “Remember, Master,” she wept, “I am your slave. It was to you that I submitted in the forest!” I looked out across Thassa, to where the Rhoda and Tesephone rocked at anchor. It was cold in the blankets. I could not move my left hand or arm, or leg. I was bitter. It was all for nothing. I looked at Sarus, miserable in his chains, and his men. There were ten, but two were sorely wounded, and should not have been chained. They lay on their sides in the sand. Out on the Rhoda, chained in its hold, were the crews of Tyros who had manned the Rhoda and Tesephone. On the Tesephone, chained in its first hold, were, with one exception, those women whom I had placed in my slave chain. The exception was the woman of Hura, named Rissia, who had remained behind to defend her fallen sisters, whom I had captured at the trail camp of Sarus. She stood to one side, fastened in a sirik. I saw the graceful metal at her throat, and on her wrists and ankles, the long, light chain dangling from the collar, to which the slave bracelets and ankles rings were attached. She was in the care of Ilene, who now wore not slave silk, but a tunic of white wool, like that of Sheera. “Stand straight!” cried Ilene, and struck Rissia with a switch. Rissia lifted her head proudly, tears in her eyes.