Kur of Gor

Chapter, the Seventeenth: HOW THE HUNT TURNED OUT

There were ten of them, as expected.

One, he was sure, was Arcesilaus, the blonde's owner.

Seeing only Cabot and the blonde before them, the Kurii, startled, stopped. They looked about for humans. Surely they had expected to find humans, doubtless fleeing, to be rapidly pursued. They had not understood that the defile was closed beyond the opening, that there was no exit opposite the opening. Had there been humans they would have been trapped in the defile. This doubtless puzzled the Kurii, for it was uncharacteristic of cunning prey animals to allow themselves to be trapped in such a manner. It did not even occur to them that it might be they who stood in some jeopardy.

Cabot lifted his hand to them in Gorean greeting. “Tal,” he said.

At that point the first large stone, hurled from above, struck one of the Kurii on the shoulder, and he spun about, howling, holding his arm, which now seemed to dangle uselessly from his shoulder. Kurii looked up, wildly, astonished, and met a rain of stones, large and small. Two were struck about the head, and one fell to the ground. They tried to fend away the stones and more than one limb was shattered. Then several boulders, rolled to the edge of the height by more than one man, were tumbled down the steep sides of the defile, and bounded into the defile. Two Kurii were struck by these objects, one squarely in the chest, and he staggered back and lost his footing, and fell against the wall, and then, scratching at the wall, and turning, he regained his feet, and, in fury, raised his arms and sought to roar, but the sound was odd, half choked, air and blood rushing from the fanged jaws. Then he seemed dazed, and disoriented, and staggered again, and then fell, and then spat blood into the dirt. And about the top of the defile were now better than two dozen humans again hurling stones downward, stones easily the size of a man's head. The Kurii were disconcerted, and surely taken unawares. Then, in the confusion, several humans, screaming, and carrying their pointed sticks, slid into the defile, and others rushed forward, through the opening. The Kurii had not encountered humans in this manner before, for humans had always fled from them. But the humans were not now fleeing, but attacking, and relentlessly, and viciously, and, moreover, the Kurii were considerably outnumbered. When one tried to defend itself from a sharpened stick three or four other humans, like sleen hanging on the flanks of a larl, drove their points deep into hairy bodies. In moments, four Kurii were dead, and there was not one other that was not bloodied, and the six remaining Kurii, snarling, and tearing and biting, and sweeping about them with their spears, broke through the opening, and the massed humans, to the forest beyond. Cabot signaled that the humans should follow them and continue to attack them. They must not be allowed an opportunity to regroup, or even, clearly, to grasp what had occurred.

It is not unusual that the hunted may become the hunter. The larl, for example, will commonly circle, or double back, and stalk its hunters.

But this was the first time that this had occurred with humans.

That night humans fed on Kur. Cabot did not join them, for he was reluctant to feed on rational animals.

He did return two slaves, Tula and Lana, to Archon, and take his leave of the humans.

He took with him the blonde, leashed and bound, and gagged, but now relieved of her bells.