It would not attempt to fly while hooded; indeed, I doubted that the bird would attempt to fly while it dragged its bar of silver. If it was the bird I thought it to be it would not futilely contest the weight of the degrading hobble, would not provide a spectacle of its helplessness for its captors. I know this sounds strange, but I believe some animals have pride, and if any did, I knew that this monster was one of them.
"Stand back," cried one of the men with a whip.
I jerked the whip from his hand, and with my arm struck him aside. He flew tumbling into the sand. I threw the whip scornfully after him. I stood near the platform now. I wanted to see the ankle ring the bird wore. I noted with satisfaction that its talons were shod with steel. It was a War Tarn, bred for courage, for endurance, for combat in the skies of Gor. My nostrils drank in the wild, strong odour of the tarn, so offensive to some, yet an ambrosia to the nostrils of the tarnsman. It recalled the tarn cots of Ko-ro-ba and Ar, the Compound of Mintar in Pa-Kur" s City of Tents on the Vosk, the outlaw encampment of Marlenus among the crags of the Voltai Range.
As I stood beside the bird, I felt happy, though I knew it was intended to be my executioner. It was perhaps the foolish affection which a tarnsman feels for these dangerous, fierce mounts, almost as much a threat to him as to anyone else. Yet it was perhaps more, for as I stood by the bird, I felt almost as though I had come home to Ko-ro-ba, as though I stood here now with something in this grey, hostile city that knew me and mine, that had looked upon the Towers of the Morning, and had spread its wings above the glistening cylinders of Glorious Ar, that had carried me in battle and had borne Talena, my love, and me back from the siege of Ar to the Feast of our Free Companionship at Ko-ro-ba. I seized the ankle ring, and noted as I had expected that the name of its city had been filed away.
"This bird," I said to one of the yoked slaves, "is from Ko- ro-ba." The slave shook in his yoke at the mention of this name. He turned away, eager to be unchained and led like a beast to the safety of the dungeons. Though to most of those who observed it would seem that the tarn was unusually quiet, I sensed that it was trembling, like myself, with excitement. It seemed uncertain. Its head was high, alert in the leather darkness of its hood. Almost inaudibly it sucked in air through the slits in its beak. I wondered if it had caught my scent. Then the great yellow beak, hooked for rending prey, now belted shut, turned curiously, slowly toward me.
The man in wrist straps, the burly fellow who had so delighted in striking me, he with the band of grey cloth wound about his forehead, approached me, his whip lifted.
"Get away from there," he cried.
I turned to face him. "I am not now a yoked slave," I said. "You confront a warrior."
His hand tightened on the whip.
I laughed in his face. "Strike me now," I said, "and I will kill you." "I am not afraid of you," he said, his face white, backing away. His arm with the whip lowered. It trembled.
I laughed again.
"You will be dead soon enough," he said, stammering on the words. "A hundred tarnsmen have tried to mount this beast, and one hundred tarnsmen have died. The Tatrix decreed it os only to be used in the Amusements, to feed on sleen like you."
"Unhood it," I commanded. "Free it!"
The man looked at me as though I might have been insane. To be sure, my exuberance astonished even me. Warriors with spears rushed forward, forcing me back, away from the tarn. I stood in the sand, away from the platform, and watched the ticklish business of unhooding the tarn.
No sound came from the sands.
I wondered what thoughts passed behind the golden mask of Lara, Tatrix of the city of Tharna.
I wondered if the bird would recognise me.
A nimble slave, wasting no time, and held on the shoulders of a fellow slave, loosened the belts that held the beak of the tarn and the hood that bound its head. He did not remove them but only loosened them, and as soon as he had, he and his fellow scurried for the safety of the open section of wall, which then slid noiselessly shut.
The tarn opened its beak and the belts that bound it loosely flew asunder. It shook its head, as if to throw water from its feathers and the leather hood was thrown far into the air and behind the bird. Now it spread its wings and smote the air, and lifted its beak and uttered the terrifying challenge scream of its kind. Its black crest, now unconfined by the hood, sprang erect with a sound like fire, and the wind seemed to lift and preen each feather.
I found him beautiful.
I knew that I gazed upon one of the great and terrible predators of Gor. But I found him beautiful.
The bright round eyes, the pupils like black stars, gleamed at me. "Ho! Ubar of the Skies!" I cried, holding my arms extended. My eyes glistened with tears. "Do you not know me? I am Tarl! Tarl of Ko-ro-ba!" I cried. I know not what effect this cry may have had on the stands of the arena, for I had forgotten them. I addressed myself to the giant tarn, as though he had been a warrior, a member of my caste. "You at least," I said, "do not fear the accents of my city."
Regardless of the danger I ran to the bird. I leaped to the heavy wooden platform on which it stood. I flung my arms around its neck, weeping. The great beak questioningly touched me. There could be no emotion, of course, in such a beast. Yet as its great round eyes regarded me I wondered what thoughts might course through its avian brain. I wondered if it too recalled the thunder of the wind, the clash of arms as tarnsmen dueled in flight, the sight of Gor" s tarn cavalries wheeling in formation to the beat of the tarn drums, or the long, steady, lonely soaring flights we had known together over the green fields of Gor. Could it remember the Vosk, like a silver ribbon beneath its wings; could it recall fighting the blasts and upwinds of the rugged Voltai Range; could it recall Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, ko-ro-ba" s gleaming towers, or the lights of Ar as they had blazed that night of the Planting Feast of Sa-Tarna, when we two had dared to strike for the Home Stone of the greatest city of all known Gor? No, I suppose that none of these memories, so dear to me, could find their place in the simple brain of this plumed giant. Gently the bird thrust its beak beneath my arm.
I knew that the warriors of Tharna would have to kill two of us, for the huge tarn would defend me to the death.
It lifted its huge, terrible head, scrutinizing the stands. It shook the leg which was chained to the great silver bar. It would be able to move, dragging that weight, but it could not fly.
I knelt to examine the hobble. It had not been forged in place inasmuch as it would be removed in the confines of the tarn cot, to allow the bird its perch, its exercise. Luckily it had not been locked in place. It had, however, been bolted, fastened with a heavy, square-headed bolt, much like an oversized machine bolt, the shaft of which was perhaps an inch and a half in diameter.
My hands tried the bolt. It was tight. It had been affixed with a wrench. My hands locked on it, trying to twist it open. It held. I struggled with it. I cursed it. Inwardly I screamed for it to open. It would not. I was now aware of cries from the stands. They were not simply cries of impatience but of consternation. The silver masks were not simply cheated of a spectacle, but dumbfounded, confused. It did not take long for them to understand that the tarn, for whatever strange reason, was not going to attack me, and, whatever they considered my chances, it took only a moment longer to determine that it was my intention to free the bird. The voice of the Tatrix drifted across the sands. "Kill him," she cried. I heard, too, the voice of Dorna the Proud urging the warriors to the task. Soon the spearmen of Tharna would be upon us. Already one or two had leapt over the wall from the stands and were approaching. The great door through which the tarn had been drawn was also opening, and a line of warriors was hurrying through the opening.