Hunters of Gor Read Free Page B

her wrists bound by wrapped and taut leather to heavy rings set
    in the sloping sides, there hung a girl, her full weight on her wrists. Each
    were panther girls, captured. Their heads were down, their blond hair falling
    forward. Their ankles had been tied rather widely apart, each fastened by
    leather to iron rings further down the beams.
    It was an exchange point.
    It is thus that outlaws, to passing ships, display their wares.
    We were fifty pasangs north of Lydius, which port lies at the mouth of the
    Laurius River. Far above the beach we could see the green margins of the great
    northern forests.
    They were very beautiful.
    “Heave to,” said I to Thurnock.
    “Heave to!” cried he to my men.
    Men scrambled on the long yard of the lateen-rigged light galley, a small, swift
    ram-ship of Port Kar. Others, on the deck, hauled on the long brail ropes.
    Slowly, billow by billow, the sails were furled. We would not remove them from
    the yard. The yard itself was then swung about, parallel to the ship and, foot
    by foot, lowered. We did not lower the mast. It remained deep in its placement
    blocks. We were not intending battle. The oars were now inboard, and the galley,
    of its own accord, swung into the wind.
    “There is a man on the beach,” I said.
    He had his hand lifted. He, too, wore skins. His hair was long and shaggy. There
    was a steel sword at his side.
    I handed the glass of the Builders to Rim, who stood by the rail at my side.
    He grinned. “I know him,” he said, “He is Arn.”
    “Of what city?” I asked.
    “Of the forests,” said Rim.
    I laughed.
    Rim, too, laughed.
    Only too obviously the man was outlaw.
    Now, behind him, similarly clad in skins, their hair bound back with tawny
    strips of panther hide, were four or five other men, men doubtless of his band.
    Some carried bows, two carried spears.
    The man whom Rim had identified as Arn, an Outlaw, now came forward, passing
    before the two frames, closer down to the beach’s edge.
    He made the universal gesture for trading, gesturing as though he were taking
    something from us, and then giving us something in return.
    One of the girls in the frame lifted her head, and, miserable, surveyed our
    ship, off shore, on the green waters of Thassa.
    Cara looked at the girls tied helpless in the frames, and at the man coming down
    to the shore, and at the others, high on the beach, behind him, behind the
    frames.
    “Men are beasts,” she said. “I hate them!”
    I returned the trading gesture, and the man on the shore lifted his arms,
    acknowledging my sign, and turned back.
    Cara’s fists were clenched. There were tears in her eyes.
    “If it pleases you, Rim,” I said, “your slave might, from the sand in the lower
    hold, fetch wine.”
    Rim, the Outlaw, grinned.
    He looked upon Cara. “Fetch wine,” he told her.
    “Yes, Master,” she said, and turned away.
    This galley, one of my swiftest, the Tesephone of Port Kar, had forty oars,
    twenty to a side. She was single ruddered, the rudder hung on the starboard
    side. Like others of her class, she is of quite shallow draft. Her first hold is
    scarcely a yard in height. Such ships are not meant for cargo, lest it be
    treasure or choice slaves. They are commonly used for patrols and swift
    communication. The oarsmen, as in most Gorean war galleys, are free men. Slaves
    serve commonly only in cargo galleys. The oarsmen sit their thwarts on the first
    deck, exposed to the weather. Most living, and cooking, takes place here. In
    foul weather, if there is not high wind, or in excessive heat, a canvas
    covering, on poles, is sometimes spread over the thwarts. This provides some
    shelter to the oarsmen. It is not pleasant to sleep below decks, as there is
    little ventilation. The “lower hold” is not actually a hold at all, even of the
    cramped sort of the first hold. It is really only the space between the keel and
    the deck of the first hold. It is approximately an eighteen-inch crawl space,
    unlit