Raiders of Gor by John Norman Page A

have been dead before he struck the
    water. The girl bound to the prow, however, startled, hysterical, seeing the
    tumult of the tharlarion below her, each tearing for a part of the unexpected
    prize, began to scream uncontrollably. The slaves in the punt, too, striking
    down with their glaves, shoving away tharlarion, began to cry out. There was
    much shouting. The officer, bearded and tall, with the two golden slashes on the
    temples of his helmet, followed by Henrak, still with the scarf bound about his
    body, ran to the rail. Telima, silently, poled us back further among the rushes,
    skillfully turning the small craft and moving again toward the last barge. As we
    silently moved among the growths of the marsh we heard the wild cries of men,
    and the screaming of the girl bound to the prow, until, by a whi[ slave, she was
    lashed to silence.
    “Cut! Cut! Cut!” I heard the officer cry out to the slaves in the punt and,
    immediately, almost frenzied, they began to hack away at the tangles of marsh
    vine with their bladed poles.
    Throughout the afternoon and evening, unhurried, Telima and I, like a prowling
    sleen, circled the barges, and, when it pleased us, loosed another of the long
    shafts of the great bow.
    I struck first their helmsman, and soon none would ascend to the tiller deck.
    Then warriors climbed down to punt, to help the slaves cut marsh vine and sedge,
    to clear the way, but these warriors, exposed, fell easy prey to the birds of
    the bow. Then more slaves were put in the punt, and ordered to cut, and cut
    more.
    And when some growth had been cleared and an oar-master would dare to take his
    seat to call the time for the rowers he, too, like the helmsmen, would taste in
    his heart the touch of the metal-piled shaft.
    And then none would dare take the place of the oar-master.
    As darkness fell in the marsh the men of Port Kar lit torches on the sides of
    the barges.
    But by the light of these torches the great bow found the enjoyment of various
    victories.
    Then the torches were extinguisehd and, in the darkness, fearing, the men of
    Port kar waited.
    We had struck from various sides, at various times. And Telima had often raised
    the piping cry of the marsh gant. The men of Port Kar knew, as I had not, that
    rencers communicate in the marshes by the means of such signals. The face,
    delightful to me, taht Telima’s skill was such that actuall marsh gants
    frequently responded to her cries was, I expect, less delightful to those of
    Port Kar. In the darkness, peering out, not seeing, they had no way of knowing
    which was a marsh gant and which an enemy. For all they knew, they were
    encirclesd by rencers, somehow masters of the great bow, That the great bow was
    used they understood from the time I struck the second helmsman, pinning him to
    the tiller beam.
    Occassionally they would fire back, and the bolts of crossbows would drop into
    the marshes about us, but harmlessly. Usually they fell far wide of our true
    positon, for, following each of my fired shafts, Telima would pole us to a new
    point of vantage, whence I might again, when ready, pick a target and loose yet
    another of the winged shafts. Sometimes merely the movement of a tharlarion or
    the flutter of a marsh gant, something completely unrelated to us, would summon
    a great falling and hissing of bolts into the marsh.
     
    In the darkness, Telima and I finished some rence cake we had brought from the
    island, and drank some water.
    “How may arrows have you left?” she asked.
    “Ten,” I said.
    “It is not enough,” she said.
    “That is true,” I said, “but now we have the cover of darkness.”
    I had cut some marsh vine and had, from this formed a loop.
    “What can you do?” she asked.
    “Pole me to the fourth barge,” I said.
    We had estimated that there had been more than a hundred warriors on the six
    barges, but not, perhaps, many more. Counting the kills, and other men we had
    seen, the barges’ hulls, there might be some