“I do not wish to be lashed,” she said.
“I am sure you will not be,” I said.
“And afterwards, what is to be done with me, Master?” she inquired.
“You will be chained for the night,” I said, “at my feet.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Chapter Twelve
THE PLAZA OF TRAINING
“You have trainers?” I asked Tajima.
“Several,” he said, “who brought the tarns from Thentis, some from elsewhere.”
Thentis was famed for her tarn flocks.
“I am not a tarn trainer,” I told him.
We were walking within a path, leading from the logging camp deeper into the forest. The path was lined with wands, on each side, and the guard larls, which were occasionally seen, would not intrude within the wands.
“No,” said Tajima, “you are a rider, and a warrior.”
“My role here, I am given to understand, is to form and discipline a tarn cavalry,” I said.
At that moment, from afar off, perhaps two hundred to two hundred and fifty yards to our right and ahead, there was a terrible roar, surely of a larl, followed, a moment later, by a harrowing scream.
Tajima seized my arm. “No!” he said. “Do not depart from the wands!”
“Help is needed!” I said, pulling away.
“No,” said Tajima. “It is no longer needed. The kill has taken place. Do not disturb a larl when it is feeding.”
“Someone was beyond the wands,” I said.
“Now, and again,” said Tajima, “some will flee the camp.”
The roar of the larl commonly startles and freezes the prey. Then the larl is upon it.
“The camp, I gather, is not to be fled?”
“No,” said Tajima, “it is not permitted.”
“Why do men flee the camp?” I asked.
“They are afraid,” said Tajima. “They do not wish to die, and then they flee, and then they die.”
“There are secrets here, too,” I said, “and men might flee, to make them known, to sell them.”
“That, too,” said Tajima.
“A perilous endeavor,” I remarked.
“True,” said Tajima.
Those brought to Tarncamp were, I had gathered from Pertinax, mercenaries, bandits, brigands, thieves, murderers, wanderers, low men, cast-off men, men lost from Home Stones, and such. Many, I understood, had come from the occupational forces now expelled from Ar. The word of such men might be as the rustle of the wind amidst leech plants. Their loyalties would on the whole be to their own hides and purses. They would on the whole be as much for hire as the Assassins, save that the Assassin, once the dagger has been painted on his forehead, signaling he is hunting, is loyal to a fee.
“Why do you and your people wish a tarn cavalry?” I asked.
“For purposes of war, of course,” said Tajima.
“On continental Gor?” I inquired.
“Elsewhere,” said Tajima.
This made sense to me, as whatever might be afoot in the forest would not be likely to be of sufficient size and potency to effect much success against Gorean cities with their own tarn forces, which might number in the hundreds and, as of old, in Ar, in their thousands. Similarly it seemed that formidable island ubarates such as Tyros and Cos would have little to fear from, say, a squadron of bandit tarnsmen. And would one not require the means to reach those sovereignties, which lay hundreds of pasangs to the west? The tarn is a land bird, and will not fly beyond the sight of land. And even if the tarn could do that, no tarn could make that flight, but would fall exhausted into the sea. They are not sea birds which can rest on the wind, aloft for Ahn, wings spread, not moving, and, if they wished, descend, and rest on the sea itself.
“Where?” I asked.
“Elsewhere,” said Tajima, politely.
“Your forces,” I said to Tajima, “seem to have means. Why do you not hire a tarn cavalry from another city, say, Treve, in the Voltai?”
“Such a cavalry,” said Tajima, “would be theirs, not ours. Also, how could such a hiring be concealed?”
“I understand you have lost men,” I said.
“We have lost twenty-two men,” he said, “to the talons and beaks of tarns, some of them trainers.”
“Then you are dealing with wild tarns,” I said. Such losses would not be expected with the training of domestic tarns.
“Yes,” said Tajima, “but from the vicinity of Thentis, from the mountains of Thentis. Any purchase of a considerable number of tarns from the cots would surely attract attention.”
“Doubtless,” I said.
Wild tarns are common in the mountains of Thentis.
“Four of my people,” said Tajima, “fled back from the tarns, and two found they could not approach them.”
“That is understandable,” I said.
“But not acceptable,” said Tajima. “But each has regained his honor.”
“I do not see how honor is involved in this sort of thing,” I said, “courage perhaps, but how honor?”
“For us, honor is involved,” said Tajima. “But do not fear, for they have regained their honor.”
“How?” I asked.
“By the knife,” he said.
We then heard the scream of a tarn, from a hundred or so yards before us.
“We are near the place of training,” said Tajima.
“I would now speak, if I might,” I had said in the pavilion.
“Surely,” had said Lord Nishida.
“I am grateful, great lord,” said I, “for your hospitality. But I understand little of what is going on here. I have been brought to you at what must be considerable time and expense. Agents, or operatives, have colluded in my presence here. I would like to know what I am to do, how it is that I might serve you.”
“You are here,” said the blond fellow to me, “as I suppose you know, in the service of Priest-Kings, the gods of Gor. We will speak their will, and you will obey.”
“You are then,” I said, “the agent of Priest-Kings?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Indeed,” I said, “you must be the agent of Priest-Kings. How could it be otherwise, for I was disembarked on the northern coast according to the exact coordinates of Priest-Kings, secret coordinates doubtless, was there met by two agents, doubtless also in the service of Priest-Kings, though that apparently unknown to them, was conducted to a reserve of Port Kar, and was there contacted by Tajima, servitor to Lord Nishida, and brought hither.”
“Certainly,” said Thrasilicus.
Lord Nishida seemed to smile, slightly.
I doubted that either Thrasilicus or Lord Nishida believed me to suppose they truly labored for Priest-Kings, but it did not seem judicious to them, obviously, to express doubt as to my convictions in this matter, nor did it seem judicious to me to challenge their claim, or, perhaps better, that of Thrasilicus, for Lord Nishida had never proclaimed that thesis, nor, as far as I could tell, did he care what I might believe in this matter.
Both would presumably be aware that the coordinates had been supplied to Kurii on the Steel World, formerly that of “Agamemnon,” later that of “Arcesilaus,” by Priest-Kings, and that, accordingly, some Kurii, at least, perhaps
