Carrying Telima in my arms I sped about the periphery of the rence island, meeting no one. The area had been cleared earlier by the sweep of the great nets, carried by slaves. There were no rencers there and, doubtless because of that, none of Port Kar, though I did see many torches going to the place on the island where we had shortly stood; then the torches there divided, half going left, half coming to the right, our direction.
Somewhere I heard the voice of Henrak crying out. "Get the girl! I want the girl!"
I came to one of the raft bridges I had helped to fasten in place that morning, shortly after dawn. I placed Telima in the center of the raft. Then I began to tear loose the rence-rope fastenings, fixed to stakes thrust through the rence. The torches were moving towards us, coming from the right, around the periphery of the island.
There were eight fastenings, four on a side. I had torn loose six when I heard the shout, "Stop!"
The nearby island was now burning ever more rapidly and wildly in the night and soon the entire area would be illuminated.
It was only one man who had called out, a guard perhaps, one patrolling this supposedly cleared area.
His spear fell near me, dropping through the rence of the raft. The he was running forward, sword at the ready. It was his own spear that met him. It passed well through his body.
I turned madly about. No one else, it seemed, had yet seen us.
My leg slipped from the island into the water and suddenly a tiny tharlarion struck it, seizing his bit of flesh and backing, tail whipping, away. My leg was out of the water, but now the water seemed yelow with hte flashing bodies of tiny tharlarion, and beyond them, I heard the hoarse grunting of the great marsh tharlarion, some of which grow to be more than thirty fieet in length, weighin gmore than half a hundred men. Beyond them would be the almost eel-like, long-bodied, nine-gilled Gorean marsh sharks.
I jerked loose the last two fastenings, and tore rence from the edge of the island, heaping it on the raft, covering Telima.
The torches were nearer now.
I heaped more rence on the craft and then, with one foot, thrust off from the islands between which the raft had been fastened. I slipped beneath the rence on the raft, next to the girl. I put my hand over her mouth, tightly, that she might be unable to cry out. She struggled slightly, pulling against the bonds that constrained her. I saw her eyes looking at me, frightened, over my hand. The torches passed.
Unnoticed, the raft, with it's heaped rence, drifted away from between the islands.
7 I Will Hunt
Lost among the rushes and sedge, out in the darkness of the marsh, some hundred yards from the rence islands, two of which were burning, Telima, bound, and I, a garland of rence flowers bloodied in my hair, watched the movement of torches, listened to the shouts of men, the screams of women, the cries of children. The men of Port Kar had set fire to the two islands, beginning at the farther edges, to drive any who might be concealed on them, perhaps having cut burrowns ino the rence or hiding in the cneter oar wells, across the bridges toward the central island, on which had been the pole of the dance, Telima's hut. Those who had so concealed themselves must then choose between the fire, the marsh, and the nets of slavers. We saw several running across the bridges, crying out, being whipped toward the torches by those of Port Kar. Then the tetherings on the two burning islands were cut away with swords and they floated away, free, afire into the marsh.
Later, about an Ahn before dawn, the two other rence islands, tethered to the central island, were similarly set afire, their fugitives, too, being driven to the nets and binding fiber of the men of Port Kar. Then these two islands, too were cut free and floated burning into the marsh.
By the time that dawn's gray knife had touched the waters of the marsh the work of the men of Port Kar was mostly done.
Their slaves, their torches extinguished, were loading the narrow, high-prowed barges, treading long, narrow planks extending from the barges to the matting of the island. Some of them carried rolls of rence paper, tied together by marsh vine, others the human booty of the raid. I gathered that much rence paper had been taken from the four islands, before they had been set afire. Surely there was more being loaded than could have been on the central island alone. The rence paper was loaded forward, carefully, in stacks, like corded wood, that it not be damaged. The slaves, like fish, were thrown between the rowers benches, and aft, forward of the tiller deck, three or four deep. There were six ships. One beautiful girl was tied to the prow of each ship that, in returning to Port Kar, others might see that the raid had been successful. I was not surprised to see that it was the dark-haired, lithe girl, who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic, that was bound to the prow of the flagship of that small barge fleet. I supposed that had Telima been taken, that place might have been hers. At the prows of the second and third ships I saw two others of my tormentors, the blond, gray-eyed girl, who had carried marsh vine, and the shorter, dark-haired girl, who had carried a net over her left shoulder. As the barges, loading, sand deeper in the water, I looked on Telima. She sat beside me, bound, my arm about her shoulders. She stared at the distant barges. Her eyes seemed vacant, empty. She was mine now.
On the island now, in its center, near the pole, there stood, packed together, a miserable crowd of prisoners. The two wall nets, tied together and passed twice around the group, pressed in on them, holding them together, standing. Many of them had their fingers in the meshes, staring outward. Guards, with spears, stood about the net, occasionally jabbing here and there, keeping the prisoners quiet. Within the net there were men, and women and children. Some guards, with crossbows, stood off a bit. Near the net I saw Henrak, still with the white scarf tied across his body, still clutching the heavy wallet, filled perhaps with gold. He was conversing with the bearded officer, tall and with the golden slashes on the temples of his helmet. Within the net the rencers were clothed. They were the last of the catch. There was perhaps a hundred of them. One by one they were being taken from the net, the net being tightened again by the slaves, and stripped and bound, hand and foot. The slaves who were loading the barges would then gather up each new slave, carrying him to the barges, adding him to the others.
Two wild gants alighted on the island, away from the men and their prisoners, and began pecking about the ruins of one of the rence huts, probably after seeds or bits of rence cake.
A small domesticated tarsk, grunting and snuffling, pattered across rence matting that was the surface of the island. One of the slavers, a man with a conical helmet, called the animal to him. He scratched it behind the ears and then threw it squealing out into the marsh. There was a rapid movement in the water and it was gone.
I sawa an UI, the winged tharlarion, high overhead, beating its lonely way eastward over the marsh.
Then, after a time, the last of the slaves had been secured and placed on the barges. The slaves of the men of Port Kar then separated the nets, rolling them, then folding them, then placing them on the barges. They then drew up the planks and took their seats at the rowers' benches, to which, uprotesting, one by one, they were shackled. The last two aboard had been Henrak, with his white scarf, and the tall, bearded officer, he with the golden slashes on the temples of his helmet. Henrak, I gathered, would be a rich man in Port Kar. The slavers of Port Kar, being in their way wise men, seldom betray and enslave those such as Henrak, who have served them so well. Did they so, they would find fewer Henraks in the marshes.