respond. I myself had always freed the bird to feed. I thought it well to rest the bird, unsaddle it, and, also, frankly I did not find myself eager to be present at the feeding of a tarn.
The great sable tarn, upon hearing the cry of 'Tabuk!', to my joy, began to describe its long, soaring hunting circles, almost as if it might have received its training yesterday. It was truly a tarn of tarns, my Ubar of the Skies!
It was a desparate plan I had seized upon, no more than one chance in a million, unless the great tarn could tip the scales in my favour. Its wicked eyes gleamed, scanning the ground, its head and beak thrust forward, its wings still, gliding silently in great sweeps, lower and lower, over the grey towers of Tharna.
Now we passed over the arena of Tharna, still boiling with its throbbing, angry multitudes. The awnings had been struck, but the stands were still filled, as the thousands of silver masks of Tharna waited for the golden Tatrix herself to be the first to leave that scene of the macabre amusements of the grey city.
Far below in the midst of the crowd I caught sight of the golden robes of the Tatrix.
'Tabuk!' I cried. 'Tabuk!'
The great predator wheeled in the sky, turning as smoothly as a knife on wire. It hovered, the sun at its back. Its talons, shod with steel, dropped like great hooks; it seemed to tremble almost motionless in the air; and then its wings, parallel, lifted, almost enfolding me, and were still. The descent was as smooth and silent as the falling of a rock, the opening of a hand. I clung fiercely to the bird. My stomach leaped to my throat. The stands of the arena, filled with its robes and masks, seemed to fly upward.
There were shrill screams of terror from below. On every hand, robes and regalia flying, the silver masks of Tharna which had so insolently screamed but moments before for blood fled now for their lives in panic-stricken rout, trampling one another, scratching and tearing at one another, scrambling over the benches, thrusting one another even over the wall into the sands below.
In one instant that must have been the most terrifying in her life the Tatrix stood alone, looking up, deserted by all, on the steps before her golden throne in the midst of tumbled cushions and trays of candies and sweetmeats. A wild scream issued from behind that placid, expressionless golden mask. The golden arms of her robe, the hands gloved in gold, were flung across her face. The eyes behind the mask, which I saw in that split second, were hysterical with fear.
The tarn struck.
Its steel-shod pinioning talons closed like great hooks on the body of the screaming Tatrix. And so for an instant stood the tarn, its head and beak extended, its wings snapping, its prey locked in its grasp, and uttered the terrifying capture scream of the tarn, at once a scream of victory, and of challenge.
In those titanic, merciless talons the body of the Tatrix was helpless. It trembled in terror, quivering uncontrollably like that of a graceful, captured tabuk, waiting to be borne to the nest. The Tatrix could no longer even scream.
With a storm of wings the tarn smote the air and rose, in the sight of all, above the stands, above the arena, above the towers and walls of Tharna, and sped toward the horizon, the golden-robed body of the Tatrix clutched in its talons.
Chapter Fifteen: A BARGAIN IS STRUCK
The tabuk-cry is the only word to which a tarn is trained to react. Beyond this it is all a matter of the tarn- straps and the tarn goad. I bitterly criticised myself for not having conditioned the bird to respond to voice commands. Now, of all times, without a harness and saddle, such a training would have been invaluable.
A wild thought occurred to me. When I had borne Talena home from Ar to ko-ro-ba I had tried to teach her the reins of the tarn-harness and help her, at least with me at hand, to learn to master the brute.
In the whistling wind, as the need arose, I had called the straps to her, 'One-strap!', 'Six-strap!' and so on, and she would draw the strap. That was the only association between the voice of a man and the arrangements of the strap harness which the tarn had known. The bird, of course, could not have been conditioned in so short a time, nor for that matter had it even been my intention to condition the bird — for I had spoken only for the benefit of Talena. Moreover, even if it had been the case that the bird had been inadvertantly conditioned in that short a time, it was not possible that it would still retain the memory of that casual imprinting, which had taken place more than six years ago.
'Six-strap!' I cried.
The great bird veered to the left and began to climb slightly. 'Two-strap!' I called, and the bird now veered to the right, still climbing at the same angle.
'Four-strap!' I called, and the bird began to drop toward the earth, preparing to land.
'One-strap!' I laughed, delighted, bursting with pleasure, and the plumed giant, that titan of Gor, began to climb steeply.
I said no more and the bird leveled off, its wings striking the air in great rhythmical beats, alternating occasionally with a long, soaring, shallow glide. I watched the pasangs flow by below, and saw Tharna disappear in the distance.
Spontaneously, without thinking, I threw my arms around the neck of the great creature and hugged it. Its wings smote on, unresponsive, paying me no attention. I laughed, and slapped it twice on the neck. It was, of course, only another of the beasts of Gor, but I cared for it. Forgive me if I say that I was happy, as I should not have been in the circumstances, but my feelings are those that a tarnsman would understand. I know of few sensations so splendid, so godlike, as sharing the flight of a tarn.
I was one of those men, a tarnsman, who would prefer the saddle of one of those fierce, predatory titans to the throne of a Ubar.
Once one has been a tarnsman, it is said, one must return again and again to the giant, savage birds. I think that this is a true saying. One knows that one must master them or be devoured. One knows that they are not dependable, that they are vicious. A tarnsman knows that they may turn upon him without warning. Yet the tarnsman chooses no other life. He continues to mount the birds, to climb to their saddle with a heart filled with joy, to draw the monster aloft. More than the gold of a hundred merchants, more than the countless cylinders of Ar, he treasures those sublime, lonely moments, high over the earth, cut by the wind, he and the bird as one creature, alone, lofty, swift, free. Let it be said simply I was pleased, for I was on tarnback again.
From beneath the bird there came a long, shivering moan, a helpless, uncontrolled sound from the golden prey seized in its talons.
I cursed myself for a thoughtless fool, for in the exhilaration of the flight, incomprehensible though it seems to me now, I had forgotten the Tatrix. How frightful for her must have been those few minutes of flight, grasped in the talons, hundreds of feet above the plains of Tharna, not knowing if she might be dropped at any instant, or carried to some ledge to be ripped to pieces by that monstrous beak, those hideous steel-shod talons.
I looked behind me to see if there was pursuit. It would surely come, on foot and on tarnback. Tharna did not maintain large cavalries of tarns, but it would surely be able to launch at least some squadrons of tarnsmen to rescue and avenge its Tatrix. The man of Tharna, taught from birth to regard himself as an unworthy, ignoble and inferior creature, at best a dull-witted beast of burden, did not, on the whole, make a good tarnsman. Yet I knew there would be tarnsmen in Tharna, and good ones, for her name was respected among the martial, hostile cities of Gor. Her tarnsmen might be mercenaries, or perhaps men like Thorn, Captain of Tharna, who in spite of their city thought well of themselves and maintained at least the shreds of caste pride.
Though I scrutinised the sky behind me, looking for those tiny specks that would be distant tarns in flight, I saw nothing. It was blue and empty. By now every tarnsman in Tharna should be flying. Yet I saw nothing. Another moan escaped the golden captive.
In the distance, perhaps some forty pasangs away, I saw a set of ridges, lofty and steep, rearing out of a broad, yellow meadow of talenders, a delicate, yellow-petaled flower, often woven into garlands by Gorean maidens. In their own quarters, unveiled Gorean women, with their family or lovers, might fix talenders in their hair. A crown of talender was often worn by the girl at the feast celebrating her Free Companionship. In perhaps ten minutes the ridges were almost below us.
'Four-strap!' I shouted.
