regard as misses that way, in actuality, be hits on others, unknown to them.
The man from Tyros was alone.
White-faced, he threw down his sword.
“Charge,” I told him.
“No,” he said. “No!”
“The sword?” I asked.
“You are Bosk,” he whispered, “Bosk of Port Kar!” ‘”I am he,” I said.
“No, not the sword,” said he, “No,”
“The knife?” I asked.
“No!’ he cried.
“There is safety for you,” I said, gesturing across the Laurius with my head, “if you reach the other side.” “There are rive sharks,” he said. “Tharlarion!” I regarded him.
He turned and fled to the water. I watched. Luck was not with him. I saw the distant churning in the water, and saw, far off, the narrow head of a river shark, lifting itself, water falling from it, and the dorsal fins, black and triangular, of four others.
I turned and looked up the beach. The paga slaves were there. They stood in terror, barefoot in the sand, in the yellow silk, in throat coffle, their wrists bound behind their back, horrified with what they had seen.
I strode toward them and, with screams, they turned stumbling about, attempting to flee.
When I passed the one man of Tyros who had yet moved I noted that he now lay still.
The girls had tangled themselves in the brush not twenty yards into the trees. By the binding fiber on their throat I pulled them loose and led them back to the beach.
I took them to the point where the leader of the men of Tyros had entered the water.
Sharks were still moving in the center of the river, feeding.
“Kneel here,” I told them.
They did so.
I went and gathered my arrows from the fallen men of Tyros, and rolled their bodies into the Laurius. They were simple pile arrows and pulled cleanly from the body. I did not need, as with the broad arrow or the Tuchuk barbed arrow, to thrust the point through in order to free it.
I cleaned the arrows and returned to the girls, placing the arrows in my quiver. They looked up at me in terror, captured slaves. They had been instrumental in the taking of my camp. They had been party to the plot. Without them it could not have been successful. Doubtless they knew much.
They would tell me what they knew.
“Speak to me,” I said, “of what took place in this camp, and tell me what you know of the doings and intentions of the men of Tyros.” “We know nothing,” said one of the girls. ”We are only slaves.” In the pouring of paga, I knew, they would have heard much.
“It is my wish,” I said, “that you speak.” My eyes were not pleasant. “We may not speak,” said one of the girls. “We may not speak.” “Do you expect the men of Tyros to protect you?” I asked.
They looked at one another, apprehensively.
Then, as they knelt very straight, I removed the pleasure silks from them. Then, to their astonishment, I unbound their wrists. I did not free them of the tether on their throat.
“Stand,” I told them.
They did so.
I had unstrung the bow. I removed the sword from my sheath. I gestured toward the water with the blade.
They looked at me with horror.
“Into the water,” I told them. “Swim.”
“No! No!” they screamed. They fell before me in the sand, their hair to my sandal.
“We are women!” cried one. “We are women!”
“Be merciful to us,” cried one. “We are women!”
“Please, Master!” wept another. “We are only slaves!”
“Submit,” I told them.
They knelt before me, back on their heels, head down, arms lifted and extended, wrists crossed as though for binding.
“I submit myself,” said each, in turn.
They need not be bound. They need not be collared. They need not eve have spoken. The posture of submission itself, assumed by them before me, constituted them my slaves.
They were now mine.
“Slave,” said I to the first girl, dark-haired, “head to the sand, speak.” “Yes, Master,” she said.
“We were the slaves of Hesius of Laura,” she wept. “We are paga slaves. Our master dealt with Sarus, Captain of the Rhoda, of Tyros. We were to be rented to the camp of Bosk of Port Kar. We were to serve wine. The men of Tyros, when the wine had been drunk, were to storm the camp.” “Be silent,” I told her. I gazed upon the second girl, a blond. “Head to the sand.” I said, “speak.” She plunged her lovely hair to the sand. “The plan went well,” she said. “We served wine to all, and, even, secretly, to the slave girls of the camp. Within the Ahn all were unconscious. The camp was ours.” “Enough,” I said. “You,” I said, to the third girl, a redhead, “speak.” She put her head, too, to the sand, and spoke, rapidly, trembling, the words tumbling forth. “The entire camp was taken,” she said. “All with ease, were locked in slave chains, both men and women. The wall about the camp was thrown down, the camp destroyed.” “Enough,” I said. I did not command the fourth girl to speak as yet. I wished to think. Much now seemed more clear to me, things that the girls had not spoken. It was not difficult to imagine that it was not simply to capture Bosk of Port Kar, or to do injury to those of Port Kar, that the Rhoda of Tyros had come to Lydius, and upriver to Laura. She was a medium-class galley. She had a keel length of about one hundred and ten feet Gorean, and a beam of about twelve foot Gorean. She would carry some ninety oarsmen. These would be free men, for the Rhoda was a ram-ship, a war ship. Her crew, not counting officers, beyond oarsmen, would be some ten men. She was single masted, as are most Gorean war galleys. How many men she would be carrying below decks, concealed, I had no idea. I would speculate, however, judging the business on which I conjectured the Rhoda had come north, that she would have carried more than a hundred below decks, doubtless all skilled warriors.
There was bigger game in the forests.
Tyros and Ar, of long standing, are enemies.
Marlenus, I feared, for once in his life, had miscalculated.
I turned to the fourth girl. She was a black-haired, light-skinned beauty. “Head to the sand,” I told her.
She put her head down. Her shoulders shook.
“You will answer my questions,” I told her, “promptly and exactly.” “Yes, Master,” she whispered.
“How many men do those of Tyros have?” I asked.
She trembled. Her knees moved in the sand. “I do not know exactly,” she wept. “Two hundred?” I conjectured.
“Yes,” she said, “at least two hundred.”
“The ship, the Tesephone, which was here,” I said, “was it taken, by a prize crew, downriver?” “Yes,” she said.
“Of how many men?” I asked.
“Fifty, I think,” she said.
The Tesephone had forty oars. That would have manned each oar. They had men to spare.
“What happened,” I asked, “to my men, and slaves?”
“The men,” she said, “ with the exception of one, whose head wore the swath of panther girls, were chained in the hold of the Tesephone. The women, the four slaves, and he who wore the swath of panther girls, were taken, with the majority of the men of Tyros, into the forest.” “What was the destination of the Tesephone?” I asked.
“Please do not make me speak!” she cried.
I began to unfasten the tether that bound her with the other girls. “Please!” she wept.
I tool her naked in my arms, unbound, and began to carry her into the river. “No!” she wept. “I will speak! I will speak!” I held her, standing behind her, by the arms. We stood in the river. The water was at my hips, and higher on her.
I saw a fin turn in the water and move towards us. The river shark, commonly, does not like to come into water this shallow, but it had been feeding, and it was aroused. It began to circle us. I kept the girl between us.
The girl screamed.
“What is the destination of the Tesephone?” I asked.
The circles were becoming smaller.
“Laura!” she screamed. “Laura!”
“And whither then? ”I asked.
The shark moved toward the girl, smoothly, flowing, liquid in its flawless menace. But its tail did not snap for the swift strike. It was belly down, dorsal fin upright. It thrust its snout against the girl’s thigh, and she screamed, and it turned away.
“It will join the Rhoda at Laura!” she screamed.
The shark moved in again, similarly, and bumped against her leg, and turned away.
The shark thrust twice against us again, once with its snout, another time with its tail and back.
