I lay on the raft, looking up at the moons.
For the first night in weeks I could stretch and move as I wished. For the first night in weeks I was not tethered, foot and neck, between mooring stakes, my hands chained behind me.
I was fed. I was clothed. I was armed.
The moons were beautiful.
In a few days I thought I would move north. I had friends in Port Cos. Too, I might make my way around the Tamber, to Port Kar herself.
I threw up into the marsh.
I shuddered on the logs.
I wanted to scream with agony, but I was silent. I wanted to tear at my body with my fingernails, but I lay still.
I was pleased.
The moons were beautiful.
19 Ina
I had never been so close to such a thing before. I had not realized they were so large.
It was five days since I had freed myself of the manacles. I had been moving northward, across the sluggish current, for three days.
It opened its wings, suddenly. Their span must have been twenty-five to thirty feet Gorean.
I had left the raft a few yards back, on another bar. The rence craft I had taken from the men of Ar was rotted and treacherous. It had sunk into the water even before I had left the rence in which I had originally taken cover. Its paddle I had retained but it was not of much use, given the weight of the raft. I had, the day before yesterday, however, found an abandoned pole which proved useful in propelling it. The pole's gilding had been muchly burned away. It, itself, however, was serviceable.
I had seen the creature hovering about, then alighting, dropping out of sight, among the rence. Curious I had moved the raft toward the place.
It was then that I had heard a woman's scream, long, terrified and piteous.
I had not hurried toward the source of the sound as circumspection seemed to me appropriate. It was not that I doubted the authenticity of the woman's terror. I did not think that a lure girl, for example, could have managed that particular note of terror in the scream. It might, on the other hand, I supposed, be managed quite easily by a bait girl, tethered, bound, to a stake like a verr, by rencer hunters to attract dangerous prey, usually tharlarion. They do not use their own women for this, of course, but other women, usually slaves. To be sure, there had been in the scream not only unmitigated terror, but a kind of special. pleading helplessness as well. That sound suggested to me that the woman was not merely calling herself to the attention of hunters, desperately alerting them to the presence of the quarry, but that there might be no hunters about, or no one of whom she knew. It suggested that she might be alone. There is quite a difference, you see, between a bait girl who knows that hunters are about, usually concealed in a blind, whose skill will presumably protect her, and a girl with no knowledge of nearby succor. To be sure, it is possible for a hunter to miss, and that is why the rencers do not use their own women, or their own free women, as bait. That she not be put out as tethered tharlarion bait is an additional inducement for the female slaves of rencers to prove particularly pleasing to their masters. Such slaves are abjectly dutiful. But then this is common among all Gorean female slaves. They may be slain if they are not.
I scouted the area. I detected no blind, no evidence of recent occupancy by men, at least within the last several Ahn. The marsh beetle crawls upon the sand at night and its tiny passage can be marked in the sand. Of the footprints I saw several were traversed, like valleys, by the path of the marsh beetle. Accordingly the prints had been made before the preceding night. The crumbling at their edges, too, suggested a passage of several Ahn, perhaps that they had been made as long ago as yesterday morning, or the day before yesterday.
I had then heard a repetition of that piteous, lengthy scream. I had also seen then, as I had come closer, the small head of the creature, small considering the size of its body, and the span of its wings, lift up, above the rence, with its long narrow, toothed jaws, like a long snout or bill, with that long, narrow extension of skin and bone in the back, balancing the weight of the long, narrow jaws, contributing, too, given the creature's weight and general ungainliness in structure, to stability in flight, particularly in soaring.
I had emerged from the rence.
The creature had turned to regard me.
It had opened its wings, suddenly. Their span must have been twenty-five to thirty foot Gorean. Then it closed them, folding them back, against its body.
I was quite impressed with it. Never had I been so close to such a thing before.
It uttered a hissing, grunting sound, expelling air from its lungs. It had a long, snakelike tail, terminating with a Hat, spadelike structure. This tail lashed, the spadelike structure dashing sand about. This tail, with its termination, too, I think, had its role to play in flight, primarily one of increasing stability.
Erected in the sand, there was a stout pole, upright, about four inches in diameter. This pole was about seven feet in height. Toward the bottom of the pole, about a yard from the sand, there was a rounded crosspiece, about a foot in length. This was inserted through, and fastened within, a hole in the pole. Above this crosspiece, something like three and a half feet Gorean above it, also inserted through, and fastened within a hole in the pole, there was another crosspiece, a longer one, about a yard in length. These crosspieces were both about two inches in diameter. Had they been intended for the keeping of a man they would have been thicker, the accommodating pole then being proportionally larger. As it was they were more than sufficient. She was blond. Her feet were on the lower crosspiece, thongs fastening them well in place. Her arms had been hooked over the upper crosspiece and then kept in place by thongs fastening her wrists together, before her body.
She threw her head back wildly, her hair falling back over the top of the pole, about at the base of her neck, looked up at the sky, and again screamed.
This sound attracted the attention of the creature again. It had alighted a few yards before the pole.
She had not seen me.
Wildly she struggled, surging, squirming, against the bonds. The sight of a woman struggling against bonds, as the sight of one in bonds, even in so simple a device as slave bracelets, is sexually stimulatory, of course.
We, the girl, the creature and I, were not alone on the bar. A long-necked, paddle-finned tharlarion was a few yards away, half up on the sand. More dangerous, at least immediately, were two short-legged, long-bodied tharlarion twisting about in the sand near the foot of the pole.
Again the girl struggled. Then, again, she was held as helplessly as ever.
Yes, I thought, she was pretty.
I knew her, of course.
She had been put out for tharlarion. The hatred of the rencers, it seemed, had been such that in spite of her comeliness, the usually most successful defense, and salvation, of the female, they had not sold her off, nor accepted her themselves, as a slave.
I wondered if they had been right.
It was acceptable, of course, what was being done to her, as she was a free person. And had she been a slave, such, of course, might have been done to her at no more than the whim of a master. To be sure, there are much better things to do with a female slave.
Again she screamed and struggled.
Yes, I thought, many better things.
I wondered how she would look in a collar. Well, I thought. Yet I reminded myself, she was a free woman. That made her quite special in a way, an inconvenient way.
The long-jawed creature turned toward the long-necked tharlarion and hissed menacingly. Slowly the long-necked tharlarion, pushing back with its paddlelike appendages, slipped back into the marsh. It turned and withdrew, half submerged.
"Go away! Go away!" screamed the girl to the large creature at the edge of the beach.
Such exclamations, of course, are understandable. They are very natural, I suppose. On the other hand, unless they are being uttered knowingly as mere noise, they do, upon reflection, seem a bit odd. For example, surely one does not expect such a beast to understand Gorean. Too, did she not understand that she had been put out for tharlarion and, considering her elevation from the sand, perhaps for just such a creature? Too, if she were not taken from the perch, so to speak, would she not, in time, perish there of thirst, hunger or exposure? Should she not eagerly welcome the jaws?