John Norman - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.pdf

(857 KB) Pobierz
23 Renegades of Gor
23 Renegades of Gor
Renegades of Gor
John Norman
Chronicles of Counter-Earth Volume 23
1 The Road; The Slave
(pg.7) In a sudden flash of lightning, showing the driving rain, the wagons, the
crowd on the road, I saw ahead, above me, and to my left, about a half of a pasang
forward, on its stony plateau, the inn of the Crooked Tarn.
“There is less than a pasang to go,” said a man near me.
“They will have no places left,” said another.
“You could not afford them, if they did,” said the first man.
“We will camp on the lee side,” said another, “and water the beasts in the moat.”
“Wagons will already be circled there,” said another.
When groups are traveling together the wagons are often arranged in a circle, end
to end, tongues inward, narrowing gaps between the “sections” of the improvised
rampart, and chained together, the front axle of the next, the camp, and the draft
animals, and any accompanying livestock, within the circle. This forms a wagon
fort or laager. The circle contains more interior space than any other geometrical
figure, so the camp is thus as large as possible, given the number of wagons. Too,
as every point on the circumference is normally visible from, and equidistant
from, the center, this facilitates defense, for example, the prompt and pertinent
deployment of reserves. This arrangement, incidentally, is not common with the
southern wagon peoples, such as Tuchuks, if only because of the vast numbers
(pg. 8) of wagons. There the wagons congregate almost to form wagon cities. It is
fairly typical, however, with some of the less numerous wagon peoples of the
north, such as the tribes of the Alars, particularly when separated from one
another on the march, though there one might note the circle is often very large
and as many as four or five wagons deep.
There was another flash of lightning, and an earsplitting crash of thunder.
Ahead, and on the plateau of the inn, I saw the large wooden sign, on its chains,
jerked in the wind, striking about, pelted with rain. It was in the form of a
malformed tarn, its neck crooked, almost vulturelike, the right leg, with its talons,
much larger than the left, and outstretched, grasping. Such signs are not untypical
file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm...%20Gor%2023%20-%20Renegades%20of%20Gor.html (1 of 399) [1/21/03 7:54:41 PM]
23 Renegades of Gor
of Gorean hostelries, as many Goreans, particularly those of the lower castes,
cannot read.
Then again it seemed the world was plunged into darkness and there was little
except driving rain and the creaking of wagons.
I had put my cloak over my head. The wagon I was walking beside was to my left.
It kept to the left side of the road, as it was moving north on what, in this latitude,
was usually called the Vosk Road, but farther south was generally knows as the
Vitkel Aria. My cloak hung down from my head about my shoulders, and thence
fell to my waist. I had shortened the straps of the sword sheath, hitching it high,
the hilt now before my left shoulder, under the cloak. I kept one hand, from
beneath my cloak, on the side of the wagon. In this way I was less likely to
stumble in the darkness, and the cold, driving rain. The other hand, my right, held
my cloak about my neck. My pack was in the wagon.
To my right, in the line of traffic moving south, I suddenly heard cursing and the
startled, protesting bellowing of a tharlarion. There were shouts. There was a
creaking of wood, and the slick squeak of an engaged, leather-lined brake shoe
pressing against the iron rim of a wheel. “Jump!” cried someone. There was then a
sound of sliding, and then, after a moment, that of a wagon tipping heavily into
mud. The tharlarion, probably thrown from its feet, was squealing in its harness.
I pulled my pack from the wagon I was trekking beside (pg.9) and, feeling about,
locating the side of the next wagon moving south, felt around it, and went to the
side of the road. Another tharlarion moved past me. I reached out and felt its wet
scales. In another flash of lightning I saw the wagon in the ditch, tipped on its
side, its canvas-covered, roped-down load bulging against the restraining cover,
the tharlarion also in its side, lying tangled in its harness, its feet flailing, its long
neck craning about.
A man thrust past me, holding an unshuttered dark lantern beneath his cloak. Rain
was pouring over the brim of his felt hat. Two others were behind him. They
slipped down the side of the ditch. “The axle is broken,” said one of the men to
the driver. The driver had another fellow with him, too. I stood on the road, at its
edge. I felt about with my foot. There were missing stones there. That was
probably where the wheel had missed the road. There, I supposed, had loosened,
given the heavy traffic and the storm. The wagon, it seemed, had slipped down the
embankment, dragging the beast after it. I stayed where I was for a moment. It
file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm...%20Gor%2023%20-%20Renegades%20of%20Gor.html (2 of 399) [1/21/03 7:54:41 PM]
23 Renegades of Gor
seemed to me odd that three men, one with a dark lantern, should be so quickly
upon the scene.
“Beware,” cried the driver through the rain to the men below me, beside the
wagon. “I carry a Home Stone in this wagon.”
The three men looked at one another, and then backed away. They would not
choose to do business with one who carried a Home Stone, even though they were
three to two. It was as I had speculated. There were road pirates. Possibly the
stones had been deliberately loosened.
“Gentlemen,” I called down to them. “Lift your lantern.”
They looked upward. I let my cloak fall to the sides so that they could see the
scarlet of my tunic.
“Hold your places!” I called.
They stood where they were. I might pursue one. None of them cared to risk being
that one.
I slipped down the embankment to join them.
I tossed my pack to the side of the slope.
I took the lantern from the fellow in the broad-brimmed felt hat, and handed it to
the fellow of the driver. I did not draw my sword. It was not necessary.
(pg.10) “Unharness the tharlarion,” I said to the driver. “Get it on its feet.”
He went around to the front of the wagon.
I took the leader of the three men in hand. “You have a wagon nearby,” I said to
him. “You two fetch it.”
“It is not on the road,” said one of the fellows.
I flung the leader to his belly in the mud and put my foot on his back.
“Get the wagon!” he said.
They hurried away.
“Do you think they will return?” I asked.
He was silent.
I moved my foot to the back of his neck and pressed his face down into the muddy
water. He pulled up, sputtering. “Yes!” he said. “Yes!”
He was correct. In a few Ehn the two fellows returned, leading a tharlarion
drawing another wagon. As I had anticipated, it had not been far away.
“Empty your wagon out,” I told the two. “And place the cargo of this wagon in
what was once yours.”
file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm...%20Gor%2023%20-%20Renegades%20of%20Gor.html (3 of 399) [1/21/03 7:54:41 PM]
23 Renegades of Gor
They did so. As I had anticipated the contents of their wagon was a miscellany of
cheap loot, taken from other wagons, and from refugees moving south on the
Viktel Aria, from the vicinity of Ar’s Station, on the Vosk.
The driver, his tharlarion freed, and on its feet, hitched it before the other beast, in
tandem. It knew his voice, and would respond more readily as the lead beast.
“Give your purses to the driver,” I said.
They did so.
I myself took the contents of a metal coin box removed from their wagon and
emptied it into my wallet. It contained several coins, the loot, probably, of better
than several days’ work. To be sure, most of the coins there were small, such as
would be likely to weight only a threadbare purse. The number, however, more
than compensated for the generally unimpressive denominations. There must have
been the equivalent there of seventeen or eighteen silver tarsks.
I located the stones which were missing from the edge of the road. They were in
the ditch below their place, half sunk in the mud. Apparently they had been
removed deliberately from the road, and might be replaced, thence to be removed
again, at will, to (pg.11) again jeopardize the integrity of the road, their absence in
the darkness in effect, constituting a trap. The three fellows, with my
encouragement, in the rain, replaced them.
I again took them to the bottom of the ditch, by the overturned wagon.
“Kneel there,” I told the three of them, “between the wheels, with your backs to
the bottom of the wagon.”
They complied, kneeling with the bottom of the overturned wagon behind them.
From this position it would be difficult for them to bolt.
“Take everything, but let us go!” begged the leader.
“I am thinking,” I told him, “of tying you naked on your back, over the tongue of
the wagon, and fastening your two fellows, on their backs, stripped, over the
wheels. It might be amusing to spin them about.”
They regarded one another, frightened.
“But you are not female slaves,” I mused.
“Men would find us with the loot about, and impale us!” said the leader.
That was not improbable. Thieves are often dealt with harshly on Gor.
“Do not condemn us to death!” begged the leader.
“Strip,” I ordered them.
file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm...%20Gor%2023%20-%20Renegades%20of%20Gor.html (4 of 399) [1/21/03 7:54:41 PM]
23 Renegades of Gor
I then tied their hands behind their backs. Ropes were found in the wagon and we
tied them by the necks to the back of the wagon. Verr, too, and female slaves, and
such, are often tethered to the back of wagons.
“In the south,” said the driver, from the wagon box, “there are work gangs. We
can probably get something for them there.”
“Stay the traffic on the road, as you can, for an Ehn,” I said to the fellow of the
driver. “We will get the wagon back on the road.
“I doubt two tharlarion can pull this grade from the ditch, with this weight, with
the footing,” said the driver.
“Hurry to it,” I said to the fellow of the driver. “We shall try it.”
He scrambled up the embankment, the lantern in one hand, clutching at knots of
wet grass with the other, slipping, sliding back, then regaining his feet, then
reaching the surface. (pg.12) In the ditch we were ankle deep in water. The rain
continued to pour down in torrents. It ran from the pitched surface of the road
downward, in tiny rivers; it struck into the swirling ditch water, lashing it into
foam, dashing it upwards, its impact registered in thousands of overlapping circles
and leaping crowns of water. We saw the lantern, in the fellow’s hand, at the
surface, swinging. “Hold! Hold!” he cried in the storm. I think he then literally
seized the harness of the next tharlarion. “Hold!” he cried.
“We will never make it,” said the driver.
“Try,” I said. “Besides we have three stout fellows here who can turn about and
put their backs into it.”
“If the wagon slips,” said the leader of the brigands, “we could be crushed,
mangled beneath the wheels!”
“See it does not slip,” I said.
There were angry shouts now from the delayed line, moving south.
“Hurry!” I said to the driver.
He moved about the wagon and climbed to the wagon box. I heard, in a moment,
his shouting to the lead beast, and the crack of the tharlarion whip. The whip,
incidentally, seldom falls on the beast. Its proximity, and noise, are usually more
than sufficient. Too, it often functions as an attention-garnering device, a signal,
so to speak, preparing the beast for the sequent issuance of verbal commands, to
which it is trained to respond. Too, of course, like a staff of office, a rod, a baton,
or scepter, it is an authority device. To be sure, the device has its authority largely
file:///F|/My%20Shared%20Folder/John%20Norm...%20Gor%2023%20-%20Renegades%20of%20Gor.html (5 of 399) [1/21/03 7:54:41 PM]

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin