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.Outside Iscanned the skies.They were clear.Sidney Anderson looked about.Buildings were burned.No one was in sight.Thewall had been destroyed.The platform, too, had been pulled down, and had thenbeen burned.Ashes were about, and debris, and turf cut by the feet of manymen.I thrust her before me, toward the whipping platform, which I had orderedremain intact."What are you going to do?" she asked."Tarnsmen," I said, "will soon be here, will they not?""Yes," she said, angrily."What are you going to do?"I thrust her up the steps, onto the platform."You are going to servePriest-Kings, my pretty little charmer," I told her.I removed the tether from her throat and, bringing it between her legs andbefore her, tossed it through the ring on the crossbeam."Oh," she said.I drew her from her feet, and hung her by her bound wrists from the ring.I then crossed her ankles and, with a peice of rope, tied them together, andfastened them to the lower ring, that fastened in the floor of thewhipping-frame platform.I pulled back the hood from the furs she wore.The auburn hair took the sunbeautifully.I scanned the skies again.There was nothing in sight, save clouds."How am I to serve Priest-Kings?" she asked, wincing."As naked bait," I told her."No!" she said.I cut the furs from her."You are quite beautiful," I toldher."No, no!" she wept.I regarded her."You are even beautiful enough to be a Gorean slave girl," Isaid."No!" she cried."Those who brought you to Gor," I said, "doubtless had that fate eventually inmind for you.""That is a lie!" she said."It would have been easy enough to find ugly women," I said."No," she said."No!""You are too beautiful to be long left free," I said."No!" she said."It is my conjecture," I said, "that you were eventually to be given toDrusus.""Given?" she said."Of course," I said, "as a slave."file:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/12%20-%20Beasts%20Of%20Gor.txt (87 of 224)Page 113 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html[1/20/03 3:26:42 AM]file:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/12%20-%20Beasts%20Of%20Gor.txt"No!" she cried."You are indeed naive," I said."Do you think a woman as beautiful as you onGor could long keep out of the collar?"She looked at me with horror.I gagged her, that she might not cry out.The tarnsmen were wary.There were five of them.They circled the area severaltimes.They would have little difficulty, even from their distance aloft, inidentifying the lovely captive suspended from the ring.There were few whitegirls this far north, above Torvaldsland, at the brink of Ax Glacier.Herauburn hair, too, would leave little doubt as to her identity.Such hair, as Ihave noted, is rare on Gor.They would see the girl.They would see the destruction of the wall, and ofthe buildings, except for the hall.Then one would land, to reconnoiter.It was his tarn that would serve me.I fitted an arrow, of black tem-wood, with a pile point, to the string of theyellow bow.The string was of hemp, whipped with silk.The arrow was wingedwith the feathers of the Vosk gull."Beware!" she cried, as soon as the gag was cut from her mouth."One remains!One remains!" But Ido not think he heard her.She screamed, and he spun back, falling from theplatform to the turf.At the same time I, casting the bow aside, began the race for the tarn.Ileaped into the saddle and dragged back fiercely on the one-strap.The wingedmonster screamed with rage and reared upward, wings cracking like whips at theair.I leaned to one side as the raking talons of a second tarn tore downwardfor me.I dragged back again on the one-strap, almost throwing the bird on itsback, bringing its talons high.I almost lost the saddle as my bird, struck bythe next tarn, reeled buffeted, twisting backward, some forty feet in the air.Then, both birds, screaming, talons interlocked, grappled in the air.The boltof a crossbow sped past my head.Another tarn closed in from my left.I torethe shield from its saddle straps and blocked the raking talons that furrowedthe leather.The fourth tarn was below us.I saw the man thrust up with hisspear.It cut my leg.I wheeled the tarn to the left and it spun, still interlockedwith its foe.The tarnsman to my left drew back on the one-strap to avoidfouling straps with his ally.The fellow whose tarn was tearing at mine drewback, too, on his six-strap, and the bird swept upward and away, from myright.A bolt from a crossbow skidded ripping through the saddle to my left.Then he who had fired it swept past behind me.My tarn was then loose.Thefour of them, now grouped, in formation, ascended in an arc some hundred yardsfrom me.I took my tarn higher, swiftly, to be above them.Then the sun wasbehind me and they were below me.They broke apart and began to circle,separately.They had no wish to meet me falling upon them from the tarn'sambush, the sun.I kept them generally below me.I fastened the safety strap now: I examinedthe shield.It was torn deeply but still serviceable.There was a spear at thesaddle.I loosened it in its straps.Acrossbow hung to my right.A sheaf of bolts was behind the saddle.I saw thegirl, suspended from the ring, far below.Suddenly I laughed with elation
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Tematy
IndexJohn Ringo Ghost 01 Ghost
John DeChancie Castle 07 Castle Spellbound
John Dalmas Farside 01 The Lion of Farside
John Betancourt Dawn of Amber 1 Dawn of Amder
Black Elk Speaks Being the Life Story of A Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux as told to John G Neihardt
John Ruston Pagan Anne Orthwood's Bastard, Sex and Law in Early Virginia (2002)
Gribbin John & White Michael W poszukiwaniu kota Schrödingera realizm w fizyce kwantowej
John Connolly Charlie Parker 04 The White Road (com v4.0) (lit)
Roberts John Maddox Nova Roma 01 Operacja Marka Scypiona (2)
Christopher Moore [Love Story You Suck (v5.0) (epub)