I heard men running, from both sides toward the place from which came the cries of the slaves.
In the darkness they met one another, shouting, brandishing their weapons. There was much shouting.
Someone was calling for a torch.
Telima poled us backward, away from the hull of the fourth barge.
I picked up the bow and set it its string one of the ten remaining arrows. When the torch first flickered I put the arrow into the heart of the man who held it, and he and the torch, as though struck by a fist, spun and reeled off the far side of the barge. I then heard another man cry out, thrust in the confustion over the side, and his screaming. There was more shouting. There were more cries for torches, but I did not see any lit.
And then I heard the clash of sword steel, wildly, blindly.
And then I heard one cry out 'They are aboard! We are boarded! Fight!' Telima had poled us some thirty yards out into the marsh, and I stood there, arrow to string, in case any should bring another torch.
None did.
I heard men running on the gangway between the rowers' benches.
I heard more cries of pain, the screams of terrified slaves trying to crawl beneath their benches.
There was another splash.
I heard someone crying out, perhaps the officer, ordering more men aft to repell the boarders.
From the other direction I heard another voice ordering me forward, commanding his warriors to take the boarders in the flank.
I whispered to Telima to bring the rence craft in again, and put down my bow, taking out the steel sword. Again at the side of the fourth barge I thrust over the side, driving my blade into one of the milling bodies, then withdrawing. There were more cries and clashings of steel.
Again and again, on the fourth and the third barges, on one side and then the other, we did this, each time returning to the marsh and waiting with bow. When it seemed to me there was enough screaming and cursing on the barges, enough clashing of weapons and cries, I said to Telima, 'It is now time to sleep.'
She seemed startled but, as I told her, poled the rence craft away from the barges.
I unstrung the bow.
When the rence craft was lost, some hundred yards from the barges, among the reeds and sedge, I had her secure the craft. She thrust the oar-pole deep into the mud of the marsh, and fastened the rence craft to this mooring by a length of marsh vine.
In the darkness I felt her kneel on the reeds of the rence craft.
'How can you sleep now?' she said.
We listened to the shouts and cries, the clash of weapons, the screams, carrying to us over the calm waters of the marsh.
'It is time to sleep,' I told her. Then I said to her, 'Approach me.' She hesitated, but then she did. I took a length of marsh vine and bound her wrists behind her back, and then, with another bit of marsh vine, crossed and bound her ankles. Then I placed her lengthwise in the craft, her head at the up-cruved stern end of the vessel. With a last length of marsh vine, doubled and looped about her throat, its free ends tied about the up-curved stern, I secured her in place.
She, an intelligent, and proud girl, understanding the intention of these precautions, neither questioned me nor protested them. She was bound and secured in complete silence.
I myself was bitter.
I, Tarl Cabot, hating myself, no longer respected or trusted human beings. I had done what I had done that day for the sake of a child, one who had once been kind to me, but who no longer existed. I knew myself for one who had chosen ignominious slavery over the freedom of honorable death. I knew myself as coward. I had betrayed my codes. I had tasted humiliation and degradation, and most at my own hands, for I had been most by myself betrayed. I could no longer see myself as I had been. I had been a boy and now I had come to the seeings of manhood, and found within myself, disgusting me, something capable of cowardice, self-indulgence, selfishness, and cruelty. I was no longer worthy of the red of the warrior, no longer worthy of serving the Home Stone of my city, Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning; it seemed to me then that there were only winds and strengths, and the motions of bodies, the falling of rain, the movements of bacilli, the beating of hearts and the stopping of such beatings. I found myself alone.
And then, hearing still the cries, the alarms in the night, I fell asleep. My last thought before the sweet darkness of sleep was the remembrance that I was on who had chosen ignominious slavery to the freedom of honorable death, and that I was alone.
I awakened stiff in the cold of the marsh dawn, hearing the movement of the wind through the dim sedges, the cries of an occasional marsh gant darting among the rushes. Somewhere in the distance I heard the grunting of tharlarion. High overhead, passing, I heard the squeals of four UIs, beating their way eastward on webbed, scaled wings. I lay there for a time, feeling the rence beneath my back, staring up a the gray, empty sky.
Then I crawled to my knees.
Telima was awake, by lay, of cours, where I had left her, bound.
I untied the girl and she, not speaking, painfully stretched, and rubbed her wrists and ankles. I gave her half of the food and water that we had left and, in silence, we ate.
She wiped the last of the crumbs of rence cake from her mouth with the back of her left hand. 'You have only nine arrows left,' she said.
'I do not think it matters,' I said.
She looked at me, puzzled.
'Pole us to the barges,' I said.
She unfastened the rence craft from the oar-pole which had served as a mooring and, slowly, drew up the pole from the mud of the marsh.
Then she poled us to the vicinity of the barges. They seemed lonely and gray in the morning light. Always keeping us shielded by thickets of rush and sedge, she circled the six barges, fastened together.
We waited for an Ahn or so and then I told her to move ot the sixth barge. I restrung the great bow, and put the nine arrows in my belt. In my scabbard was the short sword, carried even at the siege of Ar.
Very slowly we approached, almost drifting, the high, carved sternpost of the sixth barge.
We remained beneath it for several Ehn. Then, silently, I motioned Telima to scraped the oar-pole on the side of the barge, just touching the planks. She did so.
There was no response.
I then took the helmet from my things on the rence craft, that without insignia, with empty crest plate, and lifted it until it cleared the side of the barge. Nothing happened. I heard nothing.
I had Telima pole us back away from the barge and I stood regarding it, for some Ehn, the great bow quarter-drawn, arrow in string.
Then I motioned for her, silently, to move abeam of the prow of the sixth barge. There was a girl, naked, miserable, bound to the prow, but, tied as she was, she could not turn to see us. I do not even think she was aware of our presence. I put the bow back on the reeds of the rence craft, and removed the arrows from my belt.
I did not take up the shield for in climbing in would have encumbered me. I did place over my features the curved helmet, with its 'Y'-like opening, of the Gorean warrior.
Then, slowly, making no sound, I lifted no more than my eyes over the side of the barge, and scanned the interior. Shielding myself from the fifth barge by the back of the prow of the sixth I climbed aboard. I looked about. I was its master.
'Make no sound,' I said to the girl at the prow.
She almost cried out, terrified, and struggled to turn and see who stood behind her, but could not, bound, do so.
She was silent.
Slaves, chained at the benches, haggard, wild-eyed, looked up at me. 'Be silent,' said I to them.
There was only a rustle of chain.
The slaves from the rence islands, lying between the rowers' benches, like fish, bound hand and foot, had their heads to the stern of the vessel.
'Who is there?' asked one.
'Be silent,' I said.
I looked over the side to Telima, and indicated that she should had me my shield, and, with difficulty, she did so.
I looked about more. Then I placed the shield by the rail, and extended my hand for the great bow, with its nine arrows.
Telima gave them to me.
Then I motioned that she should come aboard and, tying the rence craft fast to the small mooring cleat just abaft of the prow, she did so.
She now stood beside me on the foredeck of the sixth barge.
'The punt is gone,' she said.
I did not respond to her. I had seen that the punt had been gone. Why else would I have come as early as I had to the barges?
I unstrung the great bow and handed it, with its arrows, to Telima. I took up my shield. 'Follow me,' I told her.
I knew she could not string the bow. I knew, further, that she could not, even were the weapon strung, draw it to the half, but further I knew that, at the range she might fire, the arrow, drawn even to the quarter, might penetrate my back. Accordingly she would follow me bearing the weapon unstrung.
I looked upon her, evenly and for a long time, but she did not drop her head, but met my gaze fully, and fearlessly.
I turned.
There were no men of Port Kar on the sixh barge, but, as I stepped from the foredeck of the sixth barge to the tiller deck of the fifth, I saw some of their bodies. In some were the arrows of the great bow. But many had apparently died of wounds inflicted with spear and sword. A number of others had doubtless been, in the darkness and confusion thrust overboard.
I indicated those who had met the arrows of the great bow.
'Get the arrows,' I told Telima.
I had used simple-pile arrows, which may be withdrawn from the wound. The simple pile gives greater penetration. Had I used a broad-headed arrow, or the Tuchuk barbed arrow, one would, in removing it, commonly thrust the arrow completely through the wound, drawing it out feathers last. One is, accordingly, in such
