Vagabonds of Gor

"He is dead," said a fellow from the deck of the captain's barge, where the lookout had fallen, the fins of a quarrel protruding from his breast. It had not been a difficult shot, it might have been a stationary target, a practice run on the training range.

"Those are not your eyes," I said to a fellow looking up at me. "Those are the eyes of Cos." The tam had returned southward. That was as I would have expected.

Men stood about, numb.

"Where are our tarnsmen?" asked a fellow.

"Cos controls the skies," I said. "You are alone in the delta.

"Kill him," said a man.

"Surely," I said, "you do not think the paucity of your tarn support in an area such as this, and even hitherto in the north, in the vicinity of Holmesk, is an accident?"

"Kill him!" said another.

"Kill him!" said yet another.

"What shall we do, Captain?" asked a man.

"We have our orders," said the officer. "We shall proceed west."

"Surely, Captain," said a man, "we must daily, to punish the rencers!"

"Then Cos would escape!" said a fellow.

"Our priority," said a man, "is not rencers. It is Cosians."

"True," affirmed a man.

"And we must be now close upon their heels," said a man.

"Yes!" said another.

"I would recommend the swiftest possible withdrawal from the delta," I said.

"Excellent advice, from a spy!" laughed a fellow.

"Yes," laughed another, "now that we are nearly upon our quarry!"

"It is you who are the quarry," I said.

"Cosian sleen," said another.

"We shall continue west," said the officer.

"To be sure," I said, bitterly, "you will encounter the least resistance from the rencers to such a march, for it takes you deeper into the delta, and puts you all the more at their mercy."

"Prepare to march," said the officer to a subordinate.

"The rencers are not done with you," I said.

"We do not fear rencers," said a man.

"They will hang on your flanks like sleen," I said. "They will press you in upon yourselves. They will crowd you. They will herd you. Then when you are in close quarters, when you are huddled together, when you are weak, exhausted and helpless, they will rain arrows upon you. If you break and scatter they will hunt you down, one by one, in the marsh. Perhaps if some of you strip yourselves and raise your arms you might be spared, to be put in chains, to be taken, beaten, to trading points, thence to be sold as slaves, thence to be chained to benches, rowing the round ships of Cos."

"Sleen!" hissed a man.

"To be sure," I said, "perhaps some will serve in the quarries of Tyros."

"Kill him!" cried a fellow.

"You must withdraw from the delta, in force, immediately," I said.

"There are many columns in the delta," said the officer.

"This column," I said, "is in your keeping."

"We have our orders," he said.

"I urge you to withdraw," I said.

"We have no orders to that effect," he said.

"Seek them!" I urged.

"The columns are independent," he said.

"Do you think it an accident that you are in this place without a centralized chain of command?" I asked.

He looked at me, angrily.

"Ar does not retreat," said a fellow.

"You are in command," I said to the officer. "Make your decision."

"We did not come to the delta to return without Cosian blood on our blades!" said a fellow.

"Make your decision!" I said.

"I have," he said. "We continue west."

There was a cheer from the men about.

"Saphronicus is not even in the delta!" I said.

"If that were true," said the officer, "it could be known only by a spy."

"And I had it from a spy!" I said.

"Then you, too, are a spy," said a fellow.

"Spy!" said another.

"Gag him," said the officer.

I was again gagged. This was done by my keeper.

"Let me kill him," said a man, his knife drawn, but the officer had turned away, consulting with his fellows.

"He tried to warn Aurelian of the tarnsman," said a man.

"He feared only for his own skin," said my keeper.

"And let him fear even more, now," said the other fellow. I felt the point of the knife in my belly, low on the left side. Its blade was up. It could be thrust in, and drawn across, in one motion, a disemboweling stroke.

I stood very still.

Angrily the fellow with the knife drew it back, and sheathed it. "Cosian sleen," he said. He then, with others, turned away.

My keeper then, pushing on the back of the yoke, thrust me over the rail of the barge, and I fell heavily, yoked, into the water and mud. I struggled to my feet, slipping in the mud. I tried to clear my eyes of water. "Precede me," he said. In a moment I was stumbling forward, before him, returning to the raft, the rope on my neck over the yoke, ru

For several Ehn I was able to keep to the thickest of the rence. In such places, one could see no more than a few feet ahead. Sometimes I heard soldiers about. Twice they passed within feet of me. The raft tangled sometimes in the vegetation. Once I had to draw it over a bar. Once, to my dismay, I had to move the raft through an open expanse of water. Then, to my elation, I was again in the high rence.

"Hold," said a fellow.

I stopped.

I felt the point of a sword in my belly.

Another fellow was at the side.

These were of course pickets, pickets of the defense perimeter. It had been in accord with my own recommendation I realized, in fury, that this perimeter had been so promptly set, that it was so carefully ma