Swordsmen of Gor

“I understand,” I said.

Surely Kurii were well aware of my ambivalence toward Priest-Kings. With the new dynasty in the Nest had they not turned against me? Had I not been imprisoned in the holding capsule on the Prison Moon, in such a manner as to torture me, and jeopardize my honor?

Might I not, then, of my own will, so treated, have turned from the Sardar to the Steel Worlds?

“Our loyal servitor, Tajima,” said Lord Nishida, “will explain much to you, and will often attend upon you.”

I gathered the interview was then concluded, and I turned and left the pavilion, followed by Tajima.

Outside the pavilion I had turned to Tajima. “You are to spy on me?” I had asked.

“I fear so,” he had said, “Tarl Cabot, tarnsman.”

Tajima and I emerged from the path which led to a great plaza cleared in the forest.

About the edges of this area, which was better than a hundred yards in width, there were several structures. Most of these were rudely timbered, and most were windowless. Some, on the other hand, had an open wall, facing the area. Two seemed to be shops, with an open wall, one for metal workers, the other for leather workers. Some of these structures, it seemed, served as storehouses, for supplies and tack, such as saddles and harnessing, and others as shelters, for trainers and craftsmen, and doubtless, too, for those whom one might think of, in a way, as recruits. There was a larger building, too, which had a plank floor and an open wall. This, I would learn, was a dojo, or training hall. To one side there was a tank for water and there were several racks from which hung meat, probably tabuk, forest tarsk, and forest bosk. The greater forest tarsk, unlike the common tarsk, can be quite large. When I first came to Gor I saw a tapestry depicting the tarn hunting of such beasts, and, from the sizes involved, I had thought the tapestry to be based on some fantasy or myth. Only later did I discover that there were beasts of such a size. The common tarsk, on the other hand, is much smaller. When a slave, or even a free woman, is disparaged as a “she-tarsk,” the smaller animal, the common tarsk, is invariably in mind. Otherwise the metaphor would be unintelligible. Indeed, many Goreans have never seen the forest tarsk, and many do not know of its existence. The forest bosk tends to be territorial, and, as I have already suggested, it can be quite dangerous. Most interestingly to me were the cots in the area, of which there were several. These cots were mostly improvised, walled with rope nets strung between trees, and, too, large, heavy poles, doubtless from local trees, trimmed of bark and branches. Rope netting is used rather than wire to protect the birds. Tarn wire, for example, sometimes used to “roof a city,” to defend it from tarn attack, is almost invisible, and can easily cut the wing from a descending bird. A lighter form of wire is called “slave wire,” and it, too, is dangerous. A slave attempting to escape through such wire is likely to be found suspended within it, piteously begging for help, half cut to pieces. Two of the cots were large and conical. Their framing, formed of light metal tubing, fitted together, was not untypical of a form of cot found in open camps. I supposed it derived from Thentis, and might have been brought to the coast by wagon, and then north by ship, as doubtless was the case with many forms of supplies.

“There are many tarns here,” I said.

“There are more than a hundred and fifty now,” I was told, “and more are due to be delivered.”

“Who are the tarnsmen?” I asked.

“Some are tarnsmen,” he said, “but many of your people, and mine, must learn the tarn.”

Training was going on in the open area.

Between two sets of poles were slung ropes and a saddle, and in each saddle was a fellow who was being flung from side to side, and dropped, and lifted, and spun about, by others, and even, by ropes, on each side, being whirled about a vertical axis. Shortly both had been pitched into the sand some ten feet below. Their place was then taken by others. The two who had fallen were placed on a narrow plank, to the side, and forced to walk its length, while being screamed at, and execrated, from both sides. If one fell from the plank, in dizziness, he was struck with switches.

“The proper tarn saddle,” I said, “has a safety strap. There is no way one can lose the saddle if it is fastened.”

“True,” said Tajima. “But what if the safety strap is cut in battle?”

“One then seizes, as one can, if one is in danger of falling,” I said, “one of the saddle rings.”

“Yes,” said Tajima, “but he who just fell, it seems, missed the ring.”

“True,” I smiled.

“So let him improve his skills,” said Tajima.

“True,” I smiled. It was better to learn this while threatened with a ten-foot fall to the sand rather than a thousand-foot plunge to the ground.”

I saw another fellow, one of the people of Tajima, fall from the plank, and then submit, unprotestingly, to being shouted at and beaten.

“I was not trained like this,” I told Tajima.

“It was not necessary,” said Tajima. “Such training would have dishonored you.”

“How is that?” I asked.

“In your veins,” he said, “flowed the blood of warriors, of tarnsmen.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“No one,” he said, “teaches the tarn to fly, the kaiila to run.”

Elsewhere in the open area, which was, it seems, a training plaza, some tarns were out, some with wings bound, others, farther along in their training, hobbled, a heavy log chained to a taloned foot, and, in each case, held in ropes, so that if the tarn charged one trainer, it could be restrained by three or four others. The ropes were choke ropes.

“I see no tarn goads,” I said.

“No,” said Tajima. “The mechanism might malfunction, the charge might fail. A discipline wand may be used, or even a branch, with a blow to the cheek or beak. Too, the strike of the goad, with its shower of sparks, might attract attention at night.”

In another area I saw a fellow mounted on a bird, the bird prevented from flying, hobbled, as were several others in the area. Its beak was strapped shut, so it could not turn and seize the rider. When it flung its head about, it was struck a terrible blow on the side of the head. Another fellow, further along, had the harnessing in place, with the rings and straps, by which he moved the head of the bird, back, or down, or to the sides.

“I note no slave girls here,” I said. “I thought they might be used, to content the men, to cook, to fill the tank with water, such things.”

“In the vicinity of tarns,” said Tajima, “it is best for women to be hooded and bound.”

“Doubtless on the whole,” I said. It was true that most women were terrified of tarns, and with good reason, particularly the more imaginative, intelligent women, well aware of the danger of the bird and their own slightness, weakness, and vulnerability. Indeed the only experience many women had with tarns was to be slung naked as one of a pair, one on each side, fastened to a saddle ring, or to be, if a single quarry, hauled aloft by a tarnsman’s braided, leather rope and then, their clothing cut from them, to be put on their back across the saddle, before their captor, their wrists crossed and bound to one ring, their ankles crossed and bound to another, their first writhing then, and crying out, to take place on the saddle, under the idle caresses of their captor, on the long flight back to his city or camp. It was less terrifying, of course, to be bound in a tarn basket, slung beneath a tarn, usually a draft tarn. “Some slaves work in the cots, in the cities,” I said. “They grow accustomed to tarns.”

“They are rather like stable sluts?” asked Tajima.

“Yes,” I said. I thought of the former Miss Wentworth. She was now, technically, a stable slut.

“The men,” said Tajima, “are brought food by tharlarion wagon, and, if they wish, they may visit the cook houses in the main camp.”

“Some relief is provided, I trust,” I said, “for the ferocity of other hungers, as well.”

“For slave hunger, of course,” said Tajima. “In the slave houses there are mats aligned, a row on each side, and each mat has its ring and chain, and slave. As the house is dark one carries a taper within, and picks out a slave. When one enters one is given a switch, which may be used, if one is not pleased, the switch being surrendered upon one’s exit.”

I supposed that some of the slaves brought in by Torgus and his fellows, whom I had encountered on the beach, former free women of Ar, might, if not yet disposed of to private masters, be found on the mats of the slave