The door to the hall suddenly burst open with a crash. Helmeted, armed men thrust their way into the room.
"The tarn wire has been cut!" cried a man. Then he reeled, bloody, from a blade.
Borchoff, drunk, staggered to his feet between the tables. The Turian soldiers looked wildly about. The music had stopped. Outside the hall we could hear fighting and shouting.
"To arms!" cried Borchoff. "Ring the alarm bell!"
More men swept into the room. Turian soldiers ran to the walls, to seize at their weapons. Slave girls screamed.
Then the room was in the control of the strangers. They were fierce, swift men, efficient, terrible. They wore gray helmets, with crests of the hair of larls and sleen. Their leather told me they were tarnsmen.
"The key to these chains," demanded the prisoner, rising to his feet.
Blades were set at the throat of Borchoff. His men were throwing down their weapons. The surprise had been complete. For the music we had heard nothing.
The wire had been cut, with bladed hooks, swung on long lines below giant tarns, cut, and torn from its posts. The tarnsmen had approached from the dark quadrant, away from the moons, low, not more than a few feet from the ground, hidden by the shadows of the world, and then had, without warning, little more than a quarter of a pasang from the keep, swept into the air, the first wave striking at the wire, the second, third and fourth waves dropping through the cut, billowing wire to the parapets, roofs and courtyard of the keep. Numbers had fought their way almost instantly to the hall. The plan of the fortress seemed well known to them. They moved with dispatch.
Borchoff, angry, half sober, threw the key to the prisoner's chains to one of the intruders. Swiftly they were unlocked. The man stood proudly, rubbing his wrists.
"Are you the leader of these men?" asked Borchoff.
"Yes," said the man.
"You were apprehended making inquiries," said Borchoff, "into the structure of our fortress and the nature of its defenses."
"The inquiries," said the man, "were completed earlier, and the plans devised. It was then necessary only to let myself fall into your hands."
"You intended your capture?" asked Borchoff.
"Yes," said the man. "I was thus brought into the fortress, where I might make further determinations, of such a nature as to expedite the transactions of my men." He then turned to certain of his lieutenants, issuing orders. The lieutenants, in turn, communicated with their men. Men sped to their work.
"You have been observant," said Borchoff.
"I attempted to improve my time," said the man. He grinned at Borchoff. "And your men, as I anticipated, were most helpful, speaking freely before, and to, one whom they thought destined to the chains of a slave."
Borchoff glared at his men.
The leader of the intruders was handed a pouch, which he slung about his shoulders, and a sword.
"I would continue the conversation, Captain," he said, "But you must understand that we must move with dispatch."
"Of course, Captain," said Borchoff. "We lie within the patrol limits of the tarnsmen of Ar."
"The evening's patrol will be delayed," said the man. "It seems there was a distraction, a burning field some pasangs to the south. It must be investigated and reported."
Borchoff's fists clenched.
"Chain him," said the man, indicating the very chains with which he himself, earlier, had been secured.
The chains were snapped on Borchoff.
"Who are you," demanded Borchoff, in fury, his wrists and ankles confined.
"Is it the nineteenth hour?" asked the man.
"Yes," said Borchoff.
"I am Rask," he said, "of the caste of warriors, of the city of Treve."
The slave girls screamed, and I broke, and fled with them. Behind us we could hear orders being given. The fortress would be sacked.
I fled wildly down a dark passageway. I could hear a man behind me. Then he turned aside, to pursue another girl. The silk was half torn from me.
I tried to tear off the slave bells on my ankle. A girl sped past me, turning into another hallway. I looked wildly about. I saw a steel door. I slipped through. It was not guarded. Beyond the door was a passageway. I ran panting, slave bells jangling on my ankle, down this passageway. Then, opening a door, I saw a new passageway, one in which there burned a lamp, hanging on a chain. I remembered this second passageway. I had been conducted through it on my first day in Stones of Turmus. It was lined with barred gates. I pulled at the barred gates. Then I backed away from them. It would not be wise to hide within, could I even gain admittance. Behind lay treasures. They would be sure to be looted. I must look for the grosser storage places, those in which bulk goods were kept. These places, I remembered, were farther down the passageway, on the other side of a steel door. I fled down the passageway. I came to the heavy steel door. It was not now guarded. I left it ajar. Gate after gate I tried along the passageway below the steel door, those gates giving access to the storage areas for larger, less valuable merchandise, but all were locked. I jerked at the bars. I could not open them. I wept with frustration. I looked wildly back down the passageway, frightened. If anyone should enter the passageway I would be immediately visible, a fleeing, hunted, beautiful, half silked, belled slave girl. I jerked again at the bars of a gate. I could not hide! There was no place to hide! I spun about, miserably, my back to the bars, moaning. I could feel them against my back. I looked again down the passageway. No one was yet in it. I touched the collar I wore. I clutched the bit of silk which still clung, loose, about my hips. I moaned. I was too beautiful, I knew, to be treated gently by Gorean men. I feared their ropes and whips. I was a slave! Who knew what they would do to me, if they would catch me! I saw then, below me, down the hallway, the door to the office of Borchoff. I ran to the door, pulled it open and entered. On the wall I saw the whip with which I had been disciplined, after some strokes of which I had begged, tamed, sobbing, to wear a collar. I touched the collar at my throat. I shrank back from the sight of the whip. Even the sight of a whip strikes terror into the heart of a slave girl. She knows what it can do to her. She has felt it. One of the most frightening things to a girl about the whip is the knowledge that the Gorean male, if he is not pleased with her, will use it, and without hesitation. I heard shouting from the passageway leading to the other door of Borchoff's office. I heard the striking of swords. I heard a girl scream. I heard a girl crying out piteously, pounding and scratching hysterically at the other side of the door. I hesitated. Then I heard her, an instant later, screaming, being pulled away from the door. "Bind her and take her to the parapets," I heard. "She is your tag," said a voice. "I shall take the next." I heard the girl cry out, in sudden pain. Then, a few moments later, I heard her being dragged away. I heard other voices. Then I moved back toward the door through which I had entered. The handle of the other door was being tried. Then I heard men kicking at the panels. I saw wood breaking in, splintering, and an arm reaching through, to unlatch the door. I turned and fled away, back the way I had come.
I heard men coming into the room which I had left.
Gasping, my bare feet hurting on the stones, I ran back down the passageway.
I darted through the steel door. I spun, running my hands along the door, to find a way to lock it. I cried out with misery. Its five bolts could not be shut. They were controlled by a vertical bar, which slid in brackets. The bar was padlocked back.
I ran again.
I did not know if the, men who had entered Borchoff's office were in pursuit of me or not.
I stopped once again, trying to twist the slave bells, one by one, from the five-linked anklet which I wore, with its twenty bells. If I had had a tool to insert in the rings I might have done so. But I had no tool. The task was beyond the strength of my fingers.