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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] me. Please, she begged, trying to turn her head, who is it? I did not answer her, but turned, and left the foredeck, walking back along the gangway between the rowers benches. She heard my footsteps retreating. The slaves at the benches did not stir as I passed between them. I acended the steps of the tiller deck. There I looked down into Telima s eyes. She looked up at me, joy on her face. Thank you, Warrior, she whispered. Bring me binding fiber, I said. She looked at me. I indicated a coil of binding fiber that lay near the foot of the rail, below the tiller deck, on my left. She put down the great bow, with its arrows, on the tiller deck. She brought me the coil of binding fiber. I cut three lengths. Turn and cross your wrists, I told her. With the first length of binding fiber I tied her wrists behind her; I then carried her and placed her, on her knees, on the second of the broad steps leading up to the tiller deck , two steps below that in which I fixed the chair of the oar-master; she now knelt below that chair, and it its left; there, with the second length of fiber, I tied together her ankles; with the third length I ran a leash from her throat to the mooring cleat on the aft larboard side of Page 45 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html the barge, that some five yards forward of the sternpost. I then sat down cross-legged on the tiller deck. I counted the arrows. I now had twenty-five. Several of the warriors struck by the arrows had plunged into the water; others had been thrown overboard by their fellows. Of the twenty-five, eighteen were sheaf arrows and the remaining seven were flight arrows. I put the bow beside me, and laid the arrows out on hte planking of the tiller deck. sixth barge. did not so much as move as I passed among them. I then rose to my feet and began to make my way, barge by barge, to the Again the slaves, chained at their benches, facing the stern of each barge, Give me water, whispered a bound rencer. I continued on my way. As, I walked from barge to barge I passed, at each prow, tied above my head, a bound, nude girl. On the second prow of the six barges, only a few feet from the tiller dec of the first barge, it had been the tall, gray-eyed girl, who had held marsh vine against my arm, she who had danced with such secruciating slowness before me at the pole. On the third prow it had been the shorter, darkhaired girl, she who had carried the net over her left shoulder. I remembered that she, too, had dnaced before me, and, as had the others, spit upon me. Bound as they were to the curved prows of the barges these captives could see only the sky over the marsh. They could hear only my footsteps passing beneath them, and perhaps the small movement of the Gorean blad in its sheath. As I walked back, from barge to barge, I walked as well among bound rencers, heaped and tied like fish among the benches of slaves. I wore the heavy Gorean helmet, concealing my features. None recognized the warrior who walked among them. The helmet bore no insignia. Its crest plate was empty. No one spoke. I heard not even the ratle of a chain. I heard only my footsteps, and the occasional sounds of the morning in the marsh, and the movement of the Gorean blade in my sheath. When I reached the tiller deck of the sixth barge I looked back, surveying the barges. They were mine now. Somewhere I heard a child crying. I went forward to the foredeck of the sixth barge and there freed the rence craft of its tether to the mooring cleat and climbed over the side, dropping into the small craft. I pulled the oar-pole from the mud at its side, and then, standing on the wide, sturdy little craft which Telima had fashioned from the The slaves, those at the benches, and those who lay bound between I refastened the rence craft at the first barge, to the starboard mooring I then climbed aboard and walked back to the tiller deck, where I took my Telima, haltered, bound hand and foot, kneeling on the second broad step rence I had gathered, I poled my way back to the first barge. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |