Assassin of Gor Read Free

somberly, he lifted it to his lips and drank.
     
    Putting the bowl down he wiped his mouth on his forearm and looked at the Musicians. "Play," he said.
     
    The three Musicians bent to their instruments, and, in a moment, there were again sounds of a paga tavern, the sounds of talk, of barbaric music, of pouring paga, the clink of bowls, the rustle of bells on the ankles of slave girls.
     
    Scarcely a quarter of an Ahn had passed and the men who drank in that room had forgotten, as is the way of men, that a dark one sat with them in that room, one who wore the black tunic of the Caste of Assassins, who silently drank with them. It was enough for them that he who sat with them did not this time wear for them the mark of the black dagger on his forehead, that it was not they whom he sought.
     
    Kuurus drank, watching them, his face showing no emotion.
     
    Suddenly a small figure burst through the door of the tavern, stumbling and rolling down the stairs, crying out. It bounded to its feet, like a small, hunched animal, with a large head and wild brown hair. One eye was larger than the other. It could stand, even if it straightened, no higher than a man's waist. "Do not hurt Hup!" it cried. "Do not hurt Hup!"
     
    "It is Hup the Fool," said someone.
     
    The little thing, misshapen with its large head, scrambled limping and leaping like a broken-legged urt to the counter behind which stood the man in the grimy tunic, who was wiping out a paga bowl. "Hide Hup!" cried the thing. "Hide Hup! Please hide Hup!"
     
    "Be off with you, Hup the Fool!" cried the man slapping at him with the back of his hand.
     
    "No!" screamed Hup. "They want to kill Hup!"
     
    "There is no place for beggars in Glorious Ar," growled one of the men at the tables.
     
    Hup's rag might once have been of the Caste of Potters, but it was difficult to tell. His hands looked as though they might have been broken. Clearly one leg was shorter than the other. Hup wrung his tiny, misshapen hands, looking about. He tried foolishly to hide behind a group of men but they threw him to the center of the pit of sand in the tavern. He tried, like a frantic animal, to crawl under one of the low tables but he only spilled the paga and the men pulled him out from under the table and belabored his back with blows of their fists. He kept whimpering and screaming, and running one place or the other. Then, in spite of the angry shout of the proprietor, he scrambled over the counter, taking refuge behind it.
     
    The men in the tavern, with the exception of Kuurus, laughed.
     
    Then, a moment later, four men, armed, brawny men, with a streamer of blue and yellow silk sewn diagonally into their garments, burst through the door and entered the room.
     
    "Where is Hup the Fool?" cried their leader, a large fellow with missing teeth and a scar over his right eye.
     
    The men began to hunt about the room, angrily.
     
    "Where is Hup the Fool?" demanded the leader of the four men of the proprietor.
     
    "I shall have to look around for him," said the proprietor, winking at the fellow with missing teeth, who grinned. "No," said the proprietor, apparently looking about with great care behind the counter, "Hup the Fool does not seem to be here."
     
    "It looks like we must search elsewhere," said the leader of the four men, attempting to sound disappointed.
     
    "It appears so," said the proprietor. Then, after a cruel pause, the proprietor suddenly cried out. "No! Wait! Here is something!" And, reaching down to his feet behind the counter, picked up the small animal mass that was Hup the Fool, which shrieked with fear, and hurled it into the arms of the man with missing teeth, who laughed.
     
    "Why," cried the man with missing teeth, "it is he! It is Hup the Fool!"
     
    "Mercy, Masters!" cried Hup, squealing, struggling in the grasp of his captor.
     
    The other three men, hired swords, perhaps once of the Caste of Warriors, laughed at the frantic efforts of the tiny, sniveling