'Dust Legs,' said the officer.
'It seems unlikely they would sell one of their own tribe,' I said.
'They are savages,' said the officer.
'You are not a Dust Leg,' I said to the boy.
He did not respond to me.
'You will trust your translations to such a fellow?' I asked.
'Our clearest speech,' said the officer, 'will be with steel.'
'You have many men,' I said. 'Your expedition must be very expensive. Had itbeen mounted by several cities I think I would have heard of it. Whence comesthe gold for these numerous and manifold fees?'
The officer looked at me, angrily.
'We are sustained by the merchant council,' said the woman. 'Our papers are inorder.'
'I see,' I said.
'Seldom,' said the officer, 'have I seen steel move as swiftly, as deceptively,as yours. My offer stands. Rations and a silver tarsk, one for each month ofservice.'
'Rations, and a golden tarsk,' said the woman, looking down at me. Over her veilof light silk her eyes shone. She had made the offer without consulting theofficer. She had obviously much authority and power. I wondered what she wouldlook like, if reduced to helpless bondage,'My thanks, Lady,' I said. 'But I am in my own service.'
'A position might be found for you, even in my intimate retinue,' she said.
'I am in my own service,' I said.
'Move on!' she called, lifting her gloved hand, and sitting angrily back in thecurule chair.
I stepped to the side of the road.
'Forward!' called the officer, lifting his arm. The lady looked at me, angrily,her gloved hands now clutching the arms of the curule chair. Then she lifted herhead and looked directly ahead. 'Ho!' called the officer. His arm fell. Thelines of mercenaries then moved forward, with the wagon in their midst,northward, toward Kailiauk. I withdrew to the side and sat in some shadows,among rocks, to observe the lines. I estimated the number of men, and,carefully, counted the supply wagons. My conjectures were warranted. Consideringthe game presumably available in the Barrens there were several more wagons inthe lines than would have seemed called for.
When the lines and wagons had passed I emerged from the rocks and, at adistance, followed them toward Kailiauk.
The merchants of Port Olni, of course, would not be sustaining the enormousexpense of such an expedition. They were not intimately involved in the hidetraffic and, if they had been, as merchants, their procedures, initially, at anyrate, would have been mercantile and not military. They would surely have tried,at least in the beginning, to work through local traders or, say, Dust Legsthemselves. I had, in my mind, no doubt as to what source on Gor had both themotivation and resources to mount such an expedition. Similarly I had littledoubt as to who were the occupants of certain of closed wagons in the lines.
On the road to Kailiauk I threw back my head and laughed heartily. I, TarlCabot, had been approached by agents of Kurii, and asked to take fee! I hadlittle doubt that Kog and Sardak, and others like them, scratched impatiently,twisted, uncomfortably, anxious to get on with their work, in wagons ahead ofme. Such close confinements, voluntary and self-imposed, would surely be almostintolerable for them. I admired their discipline. I hoped that it would holdout. It was nice to know where they were.
I bent down and picked up a rock, and tossed it ahead of me, down the road. ThenI continued on again, toward Kailiauk.
One additional thing I had noted about the forces ahead of me. There had been noslave wagons in the lines, nor, chained in throat coffle, trudging in the dustbehind the supply wagons, any slave girls. That I took to be the doing, and atribute to the power, of the Lady Mira of Venna. As a free woman she doubtlesshated slave girls, the lascivious, shameless sluts who drove men wild with suchdesire for them. Too, doubtless it pleased her vanity to be the only woman amongso many men. I had seen her features, concealed by only a wisp silk. I wonderedwhat she might look like in dancing silk and a steel collar, perhaps kneelingbefore me, the shadow of my whip falling across her body. I thought then shemight not seem so proud, not as a humbled, owned slave. The Kurii, I grantedthem, almost always chose female agents of incredible beauty. This is so, Igather, that when they have served their serious purposes, there is alwayssomething else that may be done with them.
I spun another rock down the road, after the lines and wagons.
I should not have demonstrated the skill with the sword that I had, I supposed.
Indeed, I had resolved, as a part of a disguise, to pretend to only modest skillwith the weapon, unless it proved necessary to do otherwise. As soon as the twoblades had touched, however, I had seen what could be done, and had done it. Thematter was reflexive as much, or more, than rational. The steel, as is often thecase, had seemed to think for itself. But I did not regret what I had done. Ichuckled. Let them see, said I to myself, the skill of one who had once trainedin the martial courts of Ko-ro-ba. I laughed. I wondered what these agents ofKurii would if they had known that Tarl Cabot had been in their midst. But theywould have no reason to suppose him in the vicinity of the Barrens. They wouldknow only that they had encountered one who, obviously, was not unaccustomed tosteel.
Once again I thought of the Lady Mira of Venna. Yes, I thought, she would lookwell, like any other beautiful woman, stripped and collared, crawling to thefeet of a man.
6 Kailiauk
I looked down into the broad, rounded, shallow pit, leaning over the waist-highwooden railing. In the pit, about five feet below the surface of the ground,there were nineteen girls. They wore wrist and ankle shackles, their wristshaving some six inches of play and their ankles some twelve inches of play. Theywere also chained together by the neck. None of them stood, for such a girl, insuch a pit, is not permitted to stand, unless given an express order to do so.
The pit was muddy, for it had rained in the morning. They looked up, some ofthem who dared to do so, at the men looking down at them, from about thecircular railing, assessing their qualities as females. Did they look into theeyes of their future masters? They had not yet even been branded.
'Barbarians,' said the fellow next to me.
'Clearly,' I said.
'There are two other pits,' said the fellow. 'Did you see them?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I have already perused their contents.' It is pleasant to seenaked, chained women, either slaves or those soon to be slaves.
I had spent a night on the road and had arrived in Kailiauk, hungry and muddy,yesterday, shortly after the tenth Ahn, the Gorean noon. Indeed, I had heard thestriking of the time bar, mounted on the roof of the Administrator's store, as Ihad approached the town's outskirts. In Kailiauk, as is not unusual in the townsof the perimeter, the Administrator is of the Merchants. The major business inKailiauk is the traffic in hides and kaiila. It serves a function as well,however, as do many such towns, as a social and commercial center for manyoutlying farms and ranches. It is a bustling town, but much of its population isitinerant. Among its permanent citizens I doubt that it numbers more than fouror five hundred individuals. As would be expected it has several inns andtaverns aligned along its central street.
Its most notable feature, probably, is its hide sheds. Under the roofs of theseopen sheds, on platforms, tied in bundles, are thousands of hides. Elsewhere,here and there, about town, are great heaps of bone and horn, often thirty ormore feet in height. These deposits represent the results of the thinnings ofkailiauk herds by the red savages. A most common sight in Kailiauk is the comingand going of hide wagons, and wagons for the transport of horn and bones. Thenumber of kailiauk in the Barrens is prodigious, for it affords them a splendidenvironment with almost no natural enemies. Most kailiauk, I am sure, have neverseen a man or a sleen.
The Barrens are traversed by a large number of herds. The four or fivebest-known herds, such as the Boswell herd, he for whom the Boswell Pass isnamed, and the Bento herd and the Hogarthe herd, named after the first white menwho saw them, number, it is estimated, between two and three million beasts. Thetremors in the
