Chapter Nineteen: REVOLT IN THE MINES

"No, no!" Ost had screamed.

We found him at the valve which emptied the reservoir of water into the slave dungeon more than two hundred feet below. He now wore the habiliments of the Whip Slave, a reward for his treachery. He threw down the whip and tried to run, scurrying like an urt, but everywhere he turned, the chain of haggard, violent men confined him, and as the chain closed, Ost fell quivering to his knees.

"Do not harm him," I said.

But the bull-like Kron of Tharna" s hand was on the neck of the conspirator. "This is a matter for the men of Tharna," said he. Those blue eyes like steel looked about the unyielding faces of the chained slaves. And the eyes of Ost, too, like those of a terrified urt, looked from face to face, pleading, but Ost found no pity in those eyes that looked upon him as though they might have been composed of stone.

"Is Ost of the chain?" asked Kron.

"No," cried a dozen voices. "He is not of the chain."

"Yes," cried Ost. "I am of the chain." He peered like a rodent into the faces of his captors. "Take me with you. Free me!"

"It is sedition to speak thus," said one of the men.

Ost trembled.

"Tie him and leave him here," I said.

"Yes," begged Ost hysterically, groveling at the feet of Kron. "Do that, Masters!"

Andreas of Tor spoke up. "Do as Tarl of Ko-ro-ba asks," he said. "Do not stain your chains with the blood of this serpent."

"Thank you, Masters," said Ost, snivelling with relief, his face once more resuming that pinched, sly look I knew so well.

But Kron looked down into the face of Ost, and Ost turned white. "You will have a better chance than you gave us," said the bull-like man from Tharna.

Ost shrieked with terror.

I tried to press forward, but the men of the chain held firm. I could not come to the conspirator" s assistance.

He tried to crawl toward me, his hands extended. I put out my hands, but Kron had seized him and pulled him back.

Bodily the small conspirator was thrown from slave to slave down the length of the chain until the last man hurled him, headfirst, screaming for mercy, down that dark narrow channel which we had ascended. We heard his body hit the sides a dozen times, and his frightened scream fading, only to be silenced by the distant, hollow splash in the water far below. _

It was a night like no other in the mines of Tharna.

Leading the chain of slaves in two lines behind me, we swept through the shafts like an eruption from the molten core of the earth. Armed only with ore and the picks that chip the ore from the walls we stormed into the quarters of Whip Slaves and guardsmen, who had scarcely time to seize their weapons. Those not killed in the savage fighting, much of it in the darkness of the shafts, were locked into leg shackles and herded into storage chambers, and the men of the chain did not treat their former oppressors gently.

We has soon come on hammers that would strike our chains from us and, one by one, we filed past the great anvil where Kron of Tharna, of the Caste of Metal Workers, with expert blows, struck them from our wrists and ankles. "To the Central Shaft!" I cried, holding a sword that had been taken from a guardsman now chained in the shafts behind.

A slave who had carried tubs of food to the troughs below was only too pleased to guide us.

At last we stood by the Central Shaft.

Our mine opened on it perhaps a thousand feet below the surface. We could see the great chains dangling down the shaft, outlined by the small lamps in the openings of other mines above us, and, very high above, by the white reflection of moonlight. The men crowded out onto the floor of the shaft, which lay only a foot below the opening of our mine, for our mine was the lowest of all.

The stared upward.

The man who had boasted that he had drink Kal-da three times in the mines of Tharna wept as he gazed upward and caught sight of one of the three hurtling moons of Gor.

I sent several men climbing to the top of the chains, so high above. "You must protect the chains," I said. "They must not be cut." Determined dark shapes, agile with the fury of hope, began to climb the chain toward the moons above.

To my pride none of the men suggested that we follow them, none begged that we might steal our freedom before the general alarm could be given. No! We climbed to the second mine!

How terrible those moments for the guards and Whip Slaves, to suddenly see, unchained and irresistible, the avalanche of wrath and vengaence that broke in upon them! Dice and cards and game boards and drinking goblets scattered to the rocky floors of the guard chambers as Whip Slaves and guardsmen looked up to find at their throats the blades of desperate and condemned men, now drunk with the taste of freedom and determined to free their fellows.

Cell after cell was emptied of its wretched chained occupants, only to be refilled with shackled guardsmen and Whip Slaves, men who knew that the least sign of resistance would bring only a swift and bloody death. Mine after mine was freed, and as each mine was freed, its slaves, forsaking their own best chance of safety, poured into the mines above to liberate their fellows. This was done as if by plan and yet I knew that it was the spontaneous action of men who had come to respect themselves, the men of the mines of Tharna.

I was the last of the slaves to leave the mines. I climbed one of the great chains to the huge windlass set above the shaft and found myself among hundreds of cheering men, their chains struck off, their hands boasting weapons even if only a piece of jagged rock or a pair of shackles. The dark cheering shapes, many of them crooked and wasted with their labours, saluted me in the light of the three rushing moons of Gor. They shouted my name, and without fear, that of my city. I stood upon the brink of the great shaft and felt the wind of the cold night upon me.

I was happy.

And I was proud.

I saw the great valve which I knew would flood the mines of Tharna, and saw that it remained closed.

I was proud when I saw that my slaves had defended the valve, for about it lay the bodies of soldiers who had tried to reach it; but I was most proud when i realised that the slaves had not now opened the valve, when they knew that below, in the confines of those dismal shafts and cells, chained and helpless, were their oppressors and mortal enemies. I could imagine the terror of those poor creatures cringing in those traps beneath the ground waiting to hear the distant rush of water through the tunnels. Yet it would not come.

I wondered if they would understand that such an action was beneath the hand of a truly free man, and that the men who fought them — who had conquered on this windy and cold night, who had fought like larls in the darkness of the tunnels below, who had not sought their own safety bu the liberation of their fellows — were such men.

I leaped to the windlass and raised my arms, the darkness of the central shaft looming beneath me.

There was silence.

"Men of Tharna," I cried, "and of the Cities of Gor, you are free!" There was a great cheer.

"Word of our deeds even now hurries to the Palace of the Tatrix," I cried. "Let her tremble!" cried Kron of Tharna in a terrible voice.

"Think, Kron of Tharna," I cried, "soon tarnsmen will fly from the walls of Tharna and the infantry will move against us."

There was a mutter of apprehensions from the masses of freed slaves. "Speak, Tarl of Ko-ro-ba," said Kron, using the name of my city as easily as he might have said the name of any other.

"We do not have the weapons or the training or the beasts we would need to stand against the soldiers of Tharna," I said. "We would be destroyed, trampled like urts underfoot." I paused. "Therefore we must scatter to the forests and the mountains, taking cover where we can. We must live off the land. We will soon be sought by all the soldiers and guardsmen Tharna can set upon our trail. We will be pursued and ridden down by the lancers who ride the high tharlarions! We will be hunted and slain from the air by the bolts of tarnsmen!"