Hunters of Gor

08 Hunters of GorHunters of Gor

John Norman

Chronicles of Counter-Earth Volume 8

1
     
Rim

“It is not my wish”, said Samos, looking up from the board, “that you journey to

the northern forests.”

I regarded the board. Carefully, I set the Ubar’s Tarnsman at Ubar’s Scribe Six.

“It is dangerous,” said Samos.

“It is your move,” said I, intent upon the game.

He threatened the Ubar’s Tarnsman with a spearman, thrust to his Ubar Four.

“We do not care to risk you,” said Samos. There was a slight smile about his

lips.

“We?” I asked.

“Priest-Kings and I “ said Samos.

“I no longer serve Priest-Kings,” said I.

“Ah, yes,” said Samos. Then he added, “Guard your tarnsman.”

We played in the hall of Samos, a lofty room, with high, narrow windows. It was

late at night. A torch burned in a rack above and behind me, to my left. The

shadows flickered about the board of one hundred red and yellow squares. The

pieces, weighted, seem tall on the board, casting their shadows away from the

flame, across the flat arena of the game.

We sat cross-legged on the floor, on the tiles, over the large board.

There was a rustle of slave bells to my right, loved on the left ankle of a

girl.

Samos wore the blue and yellow robes of the Slaver. Indeed, he was first slaver

of Port Kar, and first Captain in its Council of Captains, which council, since

the downfall of the four Ubars is sovereign in Port Kar. I, too, was a member of

the Council of Captains, Bosk, of the House of Bosk, if Port Kar. I wore a white

robe, woven of the wool of the Hurt, imported from distant Ar, trimmed with

golden cloth, from Tor, the colors of the Merchant. But beneath my robe I wore a

tunic of red, that color of the warriors.

To one side of the room, unclothed, his wrists manacled behind his body, his

ankles confined in short chains, knelt a large man, a heavy band of iron

hammered about his throat. He was flanked by two guards, standing slightly

behind him, helmeted, Gorean steel at their sides. The man’s head had, some

weeks ago, been shaven, a two-and-one-half-inch stripe, running from the

forehead to the back of his neck. Now, for the strip that had been shaved, his

hair was black, and shaggy. He was powerful. He had not yet been branded. But he

was slave. The collar proclaimed him such.

The girl knelt at the side of the board. She was clad in a brief bit of

diaphanous scarlet silk, slave silk. Her beauty was well betrayed. Her collar, a

lock collar, was yellow, enameled. She was dark eyed, dark haired.

“May I serve, Masters?” she asked,

“Paga,” said Samos, absently, looking at the board.

“Yes,” I said.

With a flash of slave bells, she withdrew. As she left, I noted that she passed

by the kneeling male slave, flanked by his guards. She passed him as a slave

girl, her head in the air, insolently, taunting him with her body.

I saw rage flash in his eyes. I heard his chains move. The guards took no not of

him. He was well secured. The girl laughed, and continued on, to fetch paga for

free men.

“Guard your tarnsman,” said Samos.

Instead I swept my Ubar to Ubar’s Tarnsman One.

I looked into Samos’ eyes.

He turned his attention again to the board.

He had a large, squarish head, short-cropped white hair. His face was dark from

the sun, and wind-burned, and seaburned. There were small, golden rings in his

ears. He was a pirate, a slaver, a master swordsman, a captain of Port Kar. He

studied the board.

He did not take the Ubar’s Tarnsman with his spearman. He looked up at me, and

defended his Home Stone by bringing his Scribe to Ubar One, whence it could

control his Ubar’s Tarnsman Three, controlling as well the killing diagonal.

“Talena, daughter of Marlenus of Ar, I learn, had been taken as slave to the

northern forests,” I said.

“Where did you obtain this information?” he asked. Samos was always suspicious.

“From a female slave, who was in my house,” I said, “a rather lovely wench,

whose name was Elinor.”

“That El-in-or,” he asked, “Who is nor the property of Rask of Treve?”

“Yes,” I said. I smiled. “I got one hundred pieces of gold for her.” I said.

Samos smiled. “Doubtless, for such a price,” he said, “Rask of Treve will see

that she repays him a thousand times that price in pleasure.”

I smiled. “I do not doubt it.” I returned my attention to the board. “Yet,” said

I, “it is my suspicion that between them there is truly love.”

Samos smiled. “Love,” he asked, “__for a female slave?”

“Paga, Masters?” asked the dark-haired girl, kneeling beside the table.

Samos, not looking at her, held forth his goblet. The girl filled the goblet.

I held forth my goblet, and she, too, filled mine.

“Withdraw,” said Samos.

She withdrew.

I shrugged.

“Love or not,” said Samos, studying the board, “he will keep her in a collar –

for he is of Treve.”

“Doubtless,” I admitted. And, indeed, I had little doubt that what Samos had

said was true. Rask of Treve, though in love with her, and she with him, would

keep her rightless, in the absolute bondage of a Gorean slave girl – for he was

of Treve.

“It is said that those of Treve are worthy enemies,” said Samos.

I said nothing.

“Those of Ko-ro-ba,” he said, “have often found them so.”

“I am Bosk, of Port Kar,” I said.

“Of course,” said Samos.

I moved my Ubar’s Rider f the High Tharlarion to command the file on which the

Home Stone of Samos lay richly protected.

“It is long since you have been the Free Companion of Talena, daughter of

Marlenus,” said Samos. “The Companionship, not renewed annually, is at an end.

And you were once enslaved.”

I looked at the board, angrily. It was true that the Companionship, not renewed,

had been dissolved in the eyes of Gorean law. It was further true that, had it

not been so, the Companionship would have been terminated abruptly when one or

the other of the pledged companions fell slave. I recalled, angrily, with a

burning shame, the delta of the Vosk, when I, though of the warriors, once, on

my knees, begged the ignominy of slavery to the freedom of honorable death. Yes,

I, Bosk of Port Kar, had once been slave.

“It is your move,” I said.

“You have no obligation,” said Samos, “to seek the girl Talena.”

I knew that. “I am unworthy of her,” I said.

I had never forgotten her, the beautiful, olive-skinned, green-eyed Talena, so

stunningly figured, such fantastic lips, the proud blood of Marlenus of Ar, Ubar

of Ar, Ubar of Ubars, in her veins. She had been my first love. It had been

years since we had touched.

“Priest-Kings tore me from her,” I told Samos, hard-eyed.

Samos did not look up from the board. “In the game of worlds, he said, “we are

not important.”

“She was taken to the northern forests, I have learned,” I said, “by the outlaw

girl, Verna, to serve as bait for her capture of Marlenus of Ar, who is presumed

to be concerned for her rescue.” I looked up. “Marlenus on a hunting expedition,

with other animals, captured Verna, and her girls. He caged them and exhibited

them as trophies. They have escaped, and they wish their vengeance.”

“You would do well to stay in Port Kar,” said Samos.

“Talena is held slave in the northern forests,” I told him.

“Do you still love her?” asked Samos, looking at me, directly.

I was startled.

For years Talena, the magnificent Talena, had been in my heart’s deepest dreams,

my first love, my never forgotten love. She had burned in my memory,

unforgettably. I recalled her from the fields near the Swamp Forest south of Ar,

in the caravan of Mintar, at the great camp of Pa-Kur'’ horde, as she had been

upon Ar'’ lofty cylinder of justice, as she had been in lamp-lit Ko-ro-ba, when,

with interlocking arms, we had drunk the wines of Free Companionship.

How could I not love Talena, the deep, and first love, the first beautiful love

of my life?”

“Do you love her?” asked Samos.

“Of course!” I shouted, angrily.

“It has been many years,” said Samos.

“It matters not,” I muttered.

“You are both, perhaps, other than you were.”

“Do you care to dispute these matters with the sword?” I asked.

“I might,” said Samos, “if you could establish the pertinence of the procedure

to the issues involved.”

I looked down, furious.

“It is possible,” said Samos, “that it is an image you love, and not a woman,

that it is not a person, but a memory.”

“Those who have never loved,” I told him bitterly, “must not speak of what they

cannot know,”

Samos did not seem angry. “Perhaps,” he said.

“It is your move,” I told him.”

I glanced across the room. A few yards away, on the tiles, in her brief silk,

the two-handled, bronze paga vessel beside her, knelt the slave girl, waiting to

be summoned. She was dark-haired, and beautiful. She glanced at the chained male

slave, and threw back her head, and smoother her long, dark hair over her back.

In his manacles, kneeling, between his guards, he regarded her. She observed

him, and smiled contemptuously, and then loftily looked away, bored. Behind his

back, in the irons he wore, I sensed his fists were clenched.

“What of Talena?” asked Samos.

“She will understand,” I told Samos.

“I have information,” said he, “that this evening, following your departure from

your hours, she returned to the marshes.”

I leaped to my feet.

I was staggered. The room reeled.

“What did you expect her to do?” asked Samos.

“Why did you not tell me this?” I cried.

“What would you do, if I did?” he asked. “Would you chain her to the slave ring

at your couch?”

I looked at him, enraged.

“She is a proud, and noble woman,” said Samos.

“I love her – “ I said.

“Then go to the marshes and search her out,” said Samos.

“I – I must go to the northern forests,” I stammered.

“Builder of Ubara’s Scribe Six,” said Samos, moving a tall wooden piece toward

me on the board.

I looked down. I must defend my Home Stone.

“You must choose,” said Samos, “between them.”

How furious I was! I strode in the torchlit hall, my robes swirling. I pounded

on the stones of the wall. Could Talena not understand? Could she not understand

what I must do? I had labored in Port Kar to build the house of Bosk. I stood

high in this city. The curule chair at my high table was among the most honored

and envied of Gor! What honor it was to be the woman of Bosk, merchant, admiral!

And yet she had turned her back on this! She had displeased me! She had dared to

displease me! Bosk! The marshes had nothing to offer her. Would she refuse the

gold, the gems, the silks and silvers, and spilling coins, the choice of wines,

the servants and slaves, the security of the house of Bosk for the lonely

freedoms and silences of the salt marshes of the Vosk’s vast delta?

Did she expect me to hasten after her, piteously begging her return, while

Talena, once my companion, lay chained slave in the cruel green forests of the

north! Her trick would not work!

Let her stay in the marshes until she had had her pretty fill, and then let her

crawl whimpering back to the portals of the house of Bosk, whining and

scratching like a tiny domestic sleen for admittance, to be taken back!

But I knew Telima would not come back.

I wept.

“What are you going to do?” asked Samos. He did not lift his eyes from the

board.

“In the morning,” I said, “I leave for the northern forests.”

“Tersites,” said Samos, not looking up, “builds a ship, fit to sail beyond the

world’s end.”

“I no longer serve Priest-Kings,” I said.

I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of the woolen robe. I returned to stand above the

board.

My Home Stone was threatened.

Yet I felt hard and strong. I wore steel at my side. I was Bosk. I was once of

the warriors.

“Home Stone of Ubar’s Tarnsman One,” I said.

Samos made the move for me.

I nodded my head to the chained, nude male slave, flanked by his guards, to one

side.

“Is this the slave?” I asked Samos.

“Bring him forward,” said Samos.

The two guards, helmeted, threw him to his feet, and half dragging him, half

carrying him, their hands on his arms, brought him before us. Then they forced

him again to his knees, and thrust his dark, shaggy head down to the tiles

before our sandals.

The slave girl laughed.

When the guard removed his hand from the slave’s hair, he straightened his back,

and regarded us.

He seemed proud. I liked this.

“You have an unusual barber,” said Samos.

The slave girl laughed again, delightedly.

The strip which had been shaven on his head, from the forehead tot he back of

the neck, signified that he had been captured, and sold, by the panther girls of

the northern forests. It is among the greatest shames that a man can know, that

he had been enslaved by women, who had then, when weary of him, sold him, taking

their profit on him.

“It is said, “ said Samos, “that only weaklings, and fools, and men who deserve