Priest-Kings of Gor

I advanced, my spear ready for its cast, my shield ready to be thrown over my body to protect it from the death throes of the thrashing beast should the cast be successful.My life was in my own hands and I was content that this should be so. I would have it no other way.

I smiled to myself.I was First Spear, for there were no others.

In the Voltai Range bands of hunters, usually from Ar, stalk the larl with the mighty Gorean spear.Normally they so this in single file and he who leads the file is called First Spear, for his will be the first spear cast.As soon as he casts his weapon he throws himself to the ground and covers his body with his shield, as does each man successively behind him.This allows each man to have a clean cast at the beast and provides some protection once the spear is thrown.

The most significant reason, however, becomes clear when the role of the last man on the file, who is spoken of as Last Spear, is understood.Once Last Spear casts his weapon he may not throw himself to the ground.If he should, and any of his comrades survive, they will slay him.But this seldom occurs for the Gorean hunters fear cowardice more than the clwas and fangs of larls.Last Spear must remain standing, and if the beast still lives, receive its charge with only his drawn sword.He does not hurl himself to the ground in order that he will remain conspicuously in the larl's field of vision and thus be the object of its wounded, maddened onslaught.It is thus that, should the spears miss their mark, he sacrifices his life for his companions who will, while the larl attacks him, make good their escape.This may seem cruel but in the long run it tends to be conservative of human life; it is better, as the Goreans say, fro one man to die than many.

First Spear is normally the best of the spearmen because if the larl is not slain or seriously wounded with the first strike, the lives of all, and not simply that of Last Spear, stand in considerable jeopardy.Paradoxically, perhaps, Last Spear is normally the weakest of the spearmen, the least skilled.Whether this is because Gorean hunting tradition favours the weak, protecting him with the stronger spears, or tradition scorns the weak, regarding him as the most expendable member of the party, I do not know.The origin of this hunting practice is lost in antiquity, being as old perhaps as men and weapons and larls.

I once asked a Gorean hunter whom I met in Ar why the larl was hunted at all.I have never forgotten his reply. 'Because it is beautiful,' he said, 'and dangerous, and because we are Goreans.'

I had not yet seen the beast whose growl I had heard.The path on which I trod turned a few yards ahead.It was about a yard wide and hugged the side of a cliff, and to my left there was a sheer precipice.The drop to its base must have been at least a full pasang.I remembered that the boulders below were huge but from my present height they looked like grains of black sand.I wished the cliff were on my left rather than my right in order to have a freer cast of my spear.

The path was steep but its ascent, here and there, was lightened by high steps.I have never cared to have an enemy above me, nor did I now, but I told myself that my spear might more easily find a vulnerable spot if the larl leapt downwards toward me than if I were above and had only the base of its neck as my best target.From above I would try to sever the vertebrae.The larl's skull is an even more difficult cast, for its head is almost continually in motion. Moreover, it possesses an unobtrusive bony ridge which runs from its four nasal slits to the beginnings of the backbone. This ridge can be penetrated by the spear but anything less than a perfect cast will result in the weapon's being deflected through the cheek of the animal, inflicting a cruel but unimportant wound.On the other hand if I were under the larl I would have a brief but clean strike at the great, pounding, eight-valved heart that lies in the centre of its breast.

My heart sank for I heard another growl, that of a second beast.

I had but one spear.

I might kill one larl, but then I should almost certainly die under the jaws of its mate.

For some reason I did not fear death but felt only anger that these beasts might prevent me from keeping my rendezvous with the Priest-Kings of Gor.

I wondered how many men might have turned back at this point, and I remembered the innumerable white, frozen bones on the cliff below.It occurred to me that I might retreat, and return when the beasts had gone.It seemed possible that they might not yet have discovered me.I smiled as I thought of the foolishness of this, for these beasts before me must be the larls of Priest-Kings, guardians of the stronghold of Gor's gods.

I loosened my sword in its sheath and continued upwards.

At last I came to the bend in the path and braced myself for the sudden bolt about that corner in which I must cry aloud to startle them and in the same instant cast my spear at the nearest larl and set upon the other with my drawn sword.

I hesitated for a moment and then the fierce war cry of Ko-ro-ba burst from my lips in the clear, chill air of the Sardar and I threw myself into the open, my spear arm back, my shield high.

Chapter Three: PARP

There was a sudden startled rattle of chains and I saw two huge, white larls frozen in the momentary paralysis of registering my presence, and then with but an instant's fleeting passage both beasts turned upon me and hurled themselves enraged to the lengths of their chains.

My spear had not left my hand.

Both animals were jerked up short as mighty chains, fastened to steel and bejeweled collars, terminated their vicious charge.One was thrown on its back, so violent was its rush, and the other stood wildly for a moment towering over me like a rearing giant stallion, its huge claws slashing the air, fighting the collar that held it from me.

Then at the length of their chains they crouched, snarling, regarding me balefully, occasionally lashing out with a clawed paw as if to sweep me into range of their fearsome jaws.

I was struck with wonder, though I was careful to keep beyond the range of their chains, for I had never seen white larls before.

They were gigantic beasts, superb specimens, perhaps eight feet at the shoulder.

Their upper canine fangs, like daggers mounted in their jaws, must have been at least a foot in length and extended well below their jaws in the manner of ancient sabre-toothed tigers.The four nostril slits of each animal were flared and their great chests lifted and fell with the intensity of their excitement.Their tails, long and tufted at the end, lashed back and forth.

The larger of them unaccountably seemed to lose interest in me.He rose to his feet and sniffed the air, turning his side to me, and seemed ready to abandon any intentions of doing me harm.Only an instant later did I understand what was happening for suddenly turning he threw himself on his side and his head facing in the other direction hurled his hind legs at me.I lifted the shield for to my horror in reversing his position on the chain he had suddenly added some twenty feet to the fearful perimeter of the space alotted to him by that hated impediment.Two great clawed paws smote my shield and hurled me twenty feet against the cliff.I rolled and scrambled back further for the stroke of the larl had dashed me into the radius of its mate.My cloak and garments were torn from my back by the stroke of the second larl's claws.

I struggled to my feet.

'Well done,' I said to the larl.

I had barely escaped with my life.

Now the two beasts were filled with a rage which dwarfed their previous fury, for they sensed that I would not again approach closely enough to permit them a repetition of their primitive stratagem.I admired the larls, for they seemed to me intelligent beasts.Yes, I said to myself, it was well done.

I examined my shield and saw ten wide furrows torn across its brassbound hide surface.My back felt wet with the blood from the second larl's claws.It should have felt warm, but it felt cold. I knew it was freezing on my back.There was no choice now but to go on, somehow, if I could.Without the small homely necessities of a needle and thread I should probably freeze.There was no wood in the Sardar with which to build a fire.

Yes, I repeated grimly to myself, glaring at the larls, though smiling, it was well done, too well done.

Then I heard the movement of chains and I saw that the two chains which fastened the larls were not hooked to rings in the stone but vanished within circular apertures.Now the chains were being slowly drawn in, much to the obvious frustration of the beasts.

The place in which I found myself was considerably wider than the path on which I had trod, for the path had given suddenly onto a fairly large circular area in which I had found the chained larls.One side of this area was formed by the sheer cliff which had been on my right and now curved about making a sort of cup of stone; the other side, on my left, lay partly open to the frightful drop below, but was partly enclosed by another cliff, the side of a second mountain, which impinged on the one I had been climbing.The circular apertures into which the larls' chains were being drawn were located in these two cliffs.As the chains were drawn back, the protesting larls were dragged to different sides.Thus a passage of sorts was cleared between them, but the passage led only, as far as I could see, to a blank wall of stone. Yet I supposed this seemingly impervious wall must house the portal of the Hall of Priest-Kings.

As the beasts had felt the tug of the chains they had slunk snarling back against the cliffs, and now they crouched down, their chains little more than massive leashes.I thought the snowy whiteness of their pelts was beautiful.Throaty growls menaced me, and an occasional paw, the claws extended, was lifted, but the beasts made no effort now to pull against the grim, jewel-set collars which bound them.

I had not long to wait for only a few moments later, perhaps no more than ten Gorean Ihn, a section of stone rolled silently back and upward revealing a rock passage beyond of perhaps some eight feet square.

I hesitated, for how did I know but that the chains of the larls might be loosed once I was between them.How did I know what might lie before me in that dark, quiet passage? As I hesitated that moment, I became aware of a motion inside the passage, which gradually became a white-clad rather short, rotund figure.

To my amazement a man stepped from the passage, blinking in the sun.He was clad in a white robe, somewhat resembling those of the Initiates.He wore sandals.His cheeks were red and his head bald.He had long whiskery sideburns which flared merrily from his muffinlike face.Small bright eyes twinkled under heavy white eyebrows.Most was I surprised to find him holding a tiny, round pipe from which curled a bright wisp of smoke.Tobacco is unknown on Gor, though there are certain vices or habits to take its place, in particular the stimulation afforded by chewing on the leaves of the Kanda plant, the roots of which, oddly enough, when ground and dried, constitute an extremely deadly poison.

I carefully regarded the small, rotund gentleman who stood framed so incongruously in the massive stone portal.I found it impossible to believe that he could be dangerous, that he could in any way be associated with the dreaded Priest-Kings of Gor.He was simply too cheerful, too open and ingenious, too frank, and only too obviously pleased to see and welcome me.It was impossible not to be drawn to him; I found that I liked him, though I had just met him; and that I wanted him to like me, and that I felt he did, and that this pleased me.

If I had seen this man in my own world, this small, rotund, merry gentleman with his florid colouring and cheerful manner I would have thought him necessarily