John Norman - Raiders of Gor

Then, as we milled and ran, here and there among us were men of Port Kar, warriors, some with helmet and shield, sword and spear, others with club and knife, others with whips, some with capture loops, some with capture nets, all with binding fiber. Among them ran slaves, carrying torches, that they might see to their work.

I saw the rencer who had worn the headband of the pearls of the Vosk sorp, who had been uable to bend the bow. He now had the large, white, silken scarft tied over his left shoulder and across his body, fastened at his right hip. With him there stood a tall, bearded helmeted warrior of Port Kar, the golden slash of the officer across the temples of his helmet. The rencer was pointing here and there, and shouting to the men of Port Kar, crying out orders to them. The tall, bearded officer, sword drawn, stood silently near him.

"It is Henrak!" cried Telima. "It is Henrak."

It was the first I had heard the name of the man of the headband.

In Henrak's hand there was clutched a wallet, perhaps of gold.

A man fell near us, his neck cut half through by the thrust of a spear. My arm about Telima's shoulder I moved her away, losing oursleves among the shouting rencers, the running men and women.

Some of the men of the rencers, with their small shields or rence wicker, fought, but their marsh spears were not match for the stell swords and war spears of Gor. When they offered resistance they were cut down. Most, panic-stricken, knowing themselves no mathc for trained warriors, fled like animals, crying out in fear before the hunters of Port Kar.

I saw a girl stumbling, being dragged by the hair toward one of the narrow barges. Her wrists hwere bound behind her back. She had been the girl who, this morning, had carried a net over her left shoulder, one of those who had taunted me at the pole, one of those who had, at festival, danced her contempt of me. She had already been stripped.

I moved back further in the running, buffeting bodies, now again dragging Telima by the wrist. She was screaming, running and stumbling beside me.

I saw the nets on the two sides of the island had now advanced, the spears between their meshes herding terrified rencers before them.

Again we ran back toward the center of the island.

I heard a girl screaming. It was the tall, gray-eyed blond girl, whom I remembered from the morning, who had carried a coil of marsh vine, holding it against my arm, she who had danced, with excruciating slowness, before me at festival, who had, like the others, shown her contempt of me with her spittle. She struggled, snared in two leather capture loops, held by warriors, tight about her waist. Another warrior approached her from behind, with a whip, and with four fierce strokes had cut the rence tunic from her body and she knelt on the rence matting that was the surface of the island, crying out in pain, begging to be bound. I saw her thrown forward on her stomach, one warrior binding her wrists behind her back, another crossing and binding her ankles. A girl bumped into us, screaming. It was the lithe, dark-haired girl, the slender girl, who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. I remembered her well from the pole, and the dance. It was she who had danced before me with her ankles so close together that they might have been chained, who had put her wrists together back to back over her head, palms out, as though she might have worn slave bracelets, and who had then said, "Slave," and spat in my face, then whirling away. After Telima I had found her the most insolent, and desirable, of my tormentors. She turned about wildly, screaming, and fled into the darkness. The rence tunic had been half torn from her right shoulder. My arm about Telima I cast about for some means of escape.

Everywhere about us there were shouting men, screaming women, running, crying children, and everywhere, it seemed, the men of Port Kar, and their slaves, holding torches aloft, burning like the eyes of predators in the marsh night. A boy ran past. It was he who had given me a piece of rence cake in the morning, when I had been bound at the pole, who had been punished by his mohter for so doing.

I heard cries and shouts and, dragging Telima by the hand, ran toward them. There, under the light of the marsh torches, I saw Ho-Hak, crying with rage, shouting, with as oar pole laying about himself wildly. More than one warrior of Port Kar lay sprawled on the matting about him, his head broken or his chest crushed. Now, just outside the circle of his swinging pole, tehre must have been ten or fifteen warriors of Port Kar, there swords drawn, the light of the marsh torches reflecting from them, surrounding him, fencing him in with their weapons. He could not have been more inclosed had he found himself in the jaws of the long-bodied, nine-gilled marsh shark.

"A fighter!" cried one of the men of Port Kar.

Ho-Hak, sweating, breathing deeply, wildly, his great ears flat against the sides of his head, the iron, riveted collar of the galley slave, with its broken, dangling chain, about his neck, clutching his oar pole, stood with his legs planted widely apart on the rence, at bay.

"Tharlarion!" he shouted at the men of Port Kar.

They laughed at him.

Then two capture nets, circular, strongly woven, weighted, dropped over him. I saw warriors of Port Kar rushing forward, clubbing him senseless with the pommels of their swords, the butts of their spears.

Telima screamed and I pulled her away.

We ran again through the torches and the men.

We came to an edge of the island. In the marsh, some yards away, rence craft were burning on the water. There were none on the shore of the island. We saw one rencer screaming in the water, caught in the jaws of a marsh tharlarion. "There are two!" I heard cry.

We turned and saw some four warriors, armed with nets and spears, running toward us.

We fled back toward the light, the torches, the center of the island, the scraming women and men.

Near the oar pole to which I had been bound, some yards from what had been the circle of the dance, a number of rencers, stripped, men and women, lay bound hand and foot. They would later be carried, or forced to walk, to the barges. From time to time a warrior would add further booty to this catch, dragging or throwing his capture rudely among the others. These rencers were guarded by two warriors with drawn swords. A scribe stood by with a tally sheet, marking the number of captures by each warrior. Among these I saw the tall, gray-eyed girl, weeping and pulling at her bonds. She looked at me. "Help," she cried. "Help me!"

I turned away with Telima.

"I don't want to be a slave. I don't want to be a slave!" she cried. I moved my head aside as a torch, in the hands of a slave of the warriors of Port Kar, flashed by.

We were jostled by a bleeding rencer stumbling past.

We heard a girl scream.

Then I saw, under the light of the torches, fleet as the Tabuk, running, the dark-haired, lithe girl, she who was so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. A warrior of Port Kar leapt after her. I saw the swirl of the circular, closely woven, weighted capture net and saw her fall, snared. She screamed, rolling and fighting the mesh. Then the warrior threw her to her stomach, swiftly binding her wrists together behind her back, then binding her ankles. With a slave knife he cut the rence tunic from her and threw her, still partly tangled in the net, over his shoulder, and carried her toward one of the dark, high-prowed barges in hte shadows at the edge of the island. He would take no chances of the loss of such a prize.

I expected that the girl might soon again dance, and perhaps again with ankles in delicious proximity and wrists lifted again together back to back above her head, palms out. But this time I expected that her ankles would not be as though chained, her wrists as though braceleted; rather would they be truely chained and braceleted; she would wear the linked ankle rings, the three-linked slave bracelets of a Gorean master; and I did not think she would then conclude her dance by spitting upon him and whirling away. Rather might she almost die with terror hoping that he would find her pleasing.