John Norman - Beasts of Gor

“Work well, Tarl Cabot,” cailed my lovely captor from the height of the platform.

“Move,” said a guardsman.

We strode forth, moving in unison, on the left foot. Our right ankles, chained in coffle, followed.

The log was heavy.

“It is like stone,” said Ram. He drove the iron bar, which he gripped in fur, downward. It struck the layer of permafrost, and rang.

I, too, drove the bar into the hole. A bit of frozen dirt was chipped away.

We made our hole at a diagonal, for the logs we were to set now were bracing logs, which would help support the wall at this place. It was some half a pasang from the platform. It was weakened at this point. I had heard of this yesterday, be-fore I had been conducted by my fair captor from her headquarters. Some work had been done yesterday, with logs and stone. More remained to be done now. This weakness was to the left of the platform, looking out toward the tabuk. The center of the wall had been built across the main run of the tabuk migration. The animals, frustrated, sometimes tended to press against the wall. Sometimes, too, animals at the wall were forced against it, pinned against it, by the weight of animals behind them. Sometimes, in open places, huge, massive bucks, heads down, would charge and strike the wall with their horns. The animals did not understand this obstruction in their path. It was incomprehensible to them, and, to many, maddening. Why did it not yield?

Two or three times, at certain points, I learned, the wall had buckled, but, each time, men managed to repair it in time.

“Put stone here,” said a guardsman.

Men, carrying stone, placed it against the wall. Such support, however, would not be as effective as the log braces which we were laboring to set in place.

On the other side of the wall there were thousands of tabuk. New thousands arrived each day, from the paths east of Torvaldsland.

“With the permafrost,” I said to Ram, “the logs of the wall cannot be too deeply fixed.”

“They are deeply enough fixed,” he said. “They could not be withdrawn without sufficient labor.”

“Surely we have sufficient labor,” I said.

“Perhaps you could discuss the matter with the guards,” he said.

“They might not be agreeable,” I pointed out.

“What is your plan?” he asked.

We two were chained together, but apart from the others, to facilitate our labors. Several other pairs, too, were so chained. The coffle, in virtue of the arrangements of chains and ankle rings, could be broken up into smaller work units.

“Imnak,” I said, “would you like to go home?”

“I have not seen the performance of a drum dance in four moons,” he said.

“Tasdron,” said I, “would you like a new ship?”

“I would fit it to fight tarnsmen,” said he. “Let them then try to take her.”

“Do not be foolish,” said a man. “Escape is hopeless. We are chained. Guards, if not here, are many.”

“You have no allies,” said another man.

“You are mistaken,” I said, “our allies number in the thousands.”

“Yes!” said Ram. “Yes!”

The keys to our ankle rings were in the keeping of the chief guard, the master of our coffle.

“Speak less,” said a guard. “You are here to reinforce the wall, not spend your time in talk like silly slave girls.”

“I fear the wall is going to buckle here,” I said, indicating a place at the wall..

“Where?” he asked, going to the wall, examining it with his hands.

I did not think it wise on his part to turn his back on prisoners.

I thrust his head, from behind, into the logs. It struck them with considerable force. I gestured to the men about, that they join me at the wall. The fallen guard could not be seen amongst us. His sword I now held in my hand.

“What is going on there?” called the chief guard.

“You will get us all killed,” said a man.

He pushed his way amongst us, striking to the left and right. Then he saw his fallen fellow. He turned, white-faced, his hand at the hilt of his sword. But the sword I carried was at his breast.

Ram relieved him swiftly of the keys he bore. He released me, and then himself, and then gave the keys to Tasdron.

“There is no escape for you,” said the chief guard. “You are pinned with the wall on one side, the guardsmen who may be swiftly marshaled on the other.”

“Call your fellow guards to your side,” I said.

“I do not choose to do so,” he said.

“The choice is yours,” I granted him. I drew back the blade.

“Wait,” he said. Then he called out, “Jason! Ho-Sim! To the wall!”

They hurried over. We had then four swords, and two spears. They did not carry shields, for their duties had only involved the supervision of a work crew.

“Captain!” called another guard, from some forty yards away. “Are you all right?”

“Yes!” he called.

But the man had apparently seen the movement of a spear among the workers.

He turned suddenly and, bolting, fled toward the platform and main buildings.

“A spear!” I said.

But by the time it was in my grasp the man was well out of its range.

“He will give the alarm,” said the chief guard. “You are finished. Return to me my weapons and place yourselves again in chains. I will petition that your lives be spared.”

“Well, Lads,” said I, “let us now to work with a good heart. I do not think we will have a great deal of time to spare.”

With a will, then, they set themselves to the opening of the wall.

“You are insane!” said the chief guard. “You will all be trampled.”

As soon as one log was tortured out of the earth and lifted away Imnak slipped through the opening, out among the tabuk.

“He at least will escape,” said one of the men.

“He will be killed out there,” said another.

I was disappointed that Imnak had fled. I had thought him made of sterner stuff.

“Quickly, Lads,” I said. “Quickly!”

Another log was pulled out of the earth, levered up by bars and, by many hands, heaved to the side.

We could hear the alarm bar ringing now. Its sound carried clearly in the clear, cold air north of Torvaldsland.

“Quickly, Lads!” I encouraged them.

“You, too,” I said, gesturing to the three guards who were conscious. “Work well and I may spare your lives.”

Angrily, then, they, too, set themselves to the work of drawing logs out of that cruel turf.

Suddenly a tabuk, better than eleven hands at the shoulder, thrust through the opening, buffeting men aside.

“Hurry!” I said. “Back to work!”

“We will be killed!” cried the chief guard. “You do not know these beasts!”

“Guards are coming,” moaned a man.

Hurrying toward us we could now see some forty or fifty guardsmen, weapons at the ready.

“Surrender!” said the chief guard.

“Work,” I warned him.

He saw that I was ready to make an example of him. Earnestly he then bent sweating to his work.

“I surrender! I surrender!” cried a man, running toward the guards.

We saw him cut down.

I took again the spear which had earlier been pressed into my grasp.

I hurled it into the guards, some fifty yards now away. I saw a man fall.

The guards stopped, suddenly. They did not have shields. I took the other spear.

“Work!” I called to the men behind me.

“Heave!” I heard Ram call.

Two more tabuk bounded through the rupture in the wall. There would not be enough. They did not know the wall was open. Some four more tabuk, as though sensing freedom, trotted past.

There would not be enough.

I threatened the guards with the spear. They fanned out, now, wisely, warily.

Another log was rolled aside.