Outlaw of Gor

Chapter Twenty-Five: THE ROOF OF THE PALACE

The war cries of Tharna and Ko-ro-ba mingled as Thorn hurled himself down the stairs toward me and I raced toward him. Both of us cast our spears at the same instant and the two weapons passed one another like tawny blurs of lightning. Both of us had in casting our weapon inclined our shields in such a way as to lessen the impact of a direct hit. Both of us cast well and the jolt of the massive missile thundering on my shield spun me half about.

The bronze head of the spear had cut through the brass loops on the shield and pierced the seven hardened concentric layers of bosk hide which formed it. The shield, so encumbered, was useless. Hardly had my shield been penetrated when my sword leaped from its sheath and slashed through the shoulder straps of the shield, cutting it from my arm.

Only an instant after myself Thorn" s shield too was flung to the stones of the chamber floor. My spear had been driven a yard through it and the head had passed over his left shoulder as he crouched behind it.

His sword too was free of its sheath and we rushed on one another like larls in the Voltai, our weapons meeting with a sharp, free clash of sound, the trembling brilliant ring of well-tempered blades, each tone ringing in the clear, glittering music of swordplay.

Seemingly almost impassive, the golden-robed figure on the throne watched the two warriors moving backward and forward before her, one clad in the blue helmet and grey tunic of Tharna, the other in the universal scarlet of the Gorean Caste of Warriors.

Our reflections fought one another in the shimmering surface of the great golden mask behind the throne.

Our wild shadows like misformed giants locked in combat against the lofty walls of the torchlit chamber.

Then there was but one reflection and but one gigantic, grotesque shadow cast upon the walls of the Chamber of the Golden Mask.

Thorn lay at my feet.

I kicked the sword from the hand and turned over the body with my foot. Its chest shook under the stained tunic; its mouth bit at the air as if trying to catch it as it escaped its throat. The head rolled sideways on the stones.

"You fought well," I said.

"I have won," he said, the words spit out in a sort of whisper, a contorted grin on his face.

I wondered what he might mean.

I stepped back from the body and looked to the woman upon the throne. Slowly, numbly, she descended the throne, step by step, and then to my amazement she fell to her knees beside Thorn and lowered her head to his bloody chest weeping.

I wiped the blade on my tunic and replaced it in the sheath.

"I am sorry," I said.

The figure seemed not to hear me.

I stepped back, to leave her with her grief. I could hear the sounds of approaching men in the corridors. It was the soldiers and rebels, and the halls of the palace echoed the anthem of the ploughing song.

The girl lifted her head and the golden mask faced me.

I had not known that a woman such as Dorna the Proud could have cared for a man.

The voice, for the first time, spoke through the mask.

"Thorn," she said, "has defeated you."

"I think not," I said, wondering, "and you Dorna the Proud are now my prisoner."

A mirthless laugh sounded through the mask and the hands in their gloves of gold took the mask and, to my astonishment, removed it.

At the side of Thorn knelt not Dorna the Proud, but the girl Vera of Ko-ro-ba, who had been his slave.

"You see," she said, "my master has defeated you, as he knew he could, not by the sword but by the purchase of time. Dorna the Proud has made good her eascape."

"Why have you done this!" I challenged. She smiled. "Thorn was kind to me," she said.

"You are now free," I said.

Once again her head fell to the stained chest of the Captain of Tharna and her body shook with sobs.

At that moment into the room burst the soldiers and rebels, Kron and Lara in the lead.

I pointed to the girl on the floor. "Do not harm her!" I commanded. "This is not Dorna the Proud but Vera of Ko-ro- ba, who was the slave of Thorn." "Where is Dorna?" demanded Kron.

"Escaped," I said glumly.

Lara looked at me. "But the palace is surrounded," she said.

"The roof!" I cried, remembering the tarns. "Quick!"

Lara raced ahead of me and I followed as she led the way to the roof of the palace. Through the darkened hallways she sped with the familiarity of long acquaintance. At last we reached a spiral stairwell.

"Here!" she cried.

I thrust her behind me and, my hand on the wall, climbed the dark stairs as rapidly as I could. At the top of the stairs I pressed against a trap and flung it open. Outside I could see the bright blue rectangle of the open sky. The light blinded me for a moment.

I caught the scent of a large furred animal and the odour of tarn spoor. I emerged onto the roof, my eyes half shut against the intense light. There were three men on the roof, two guardsmen and the man with the wrist straps, who had served as the master of the dungeons of Tharna. He held, leashed, the large, sleek white urt which I had encountered in the pit inside the palace door.

The two guardsmen were fixing a carrying basket to the harness of a large brown-plumaged tarn. The reins of the tarn were fixed to a ring in the front of the basket. Inside the basket was a woman whose carriage and figure I knew to be that of Dorna the Proud, though she now wore only a simple silver mask of Tharna.

"Stop!" I cried, rushing forward.

"Kill!" cried the man in wrist straps, pointing the whip in my direction, and unleashing the urt, which charged viciously toward me.

Its ratlike scamper was incomprehensibly swift and almost before I could set myself for its charge it had crossed the cylinder roof in two or three bounds and pounced to seize me in its bared fangs.

My blade enetered the roof of its mouth pushing its head up and away from my throat. The squeal must have carried to the walls of Tharna. Its neck twisted and the blade was wrenched from my grasp. My arms encircled its neck and my face was pressed into its glossy white fur. The blade was shaken from its mouth and clattered on the roof. I clung to the neck to avoid the snapping jaws, those three rows of sharp, frenzied white lacerating teeth that sought to bury themselves in my flesh.

It rolled on the roof trying to tear me from its neck; it leaped and bounded, and twisted and shook itself. The man with wrist straps had picked up the sword and with this, and his whip, circled us, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

I tried to turn the animal as well as I could to keep its scrambling body between myself and the man with wrist straps. Blood from the animal" s mouth ran down its fur and my arm. I could feel it splattered on the side of my face and in my hair.

Then I turned so that it was my body that was exposed to the blow of the sword carried by the man in wrist straps. I heard his grunt of satisfaction as he rushed forward. An instant before I knew the blade must fall I released my grip on the animal" s neck and slipped under its belly. It reached for me with a whiplike motion of its furred neck and I felt the long sharp white teeth rake my arm but at the same time I heard another squeal of pain and the grunt of horror from the man in wrist straps. I rolled from under the animal and turned to see it facing the man with wrist straps. One ear had been slashed away from its head and the fur on its left side was soaked with spurting blood. It now had its eyes fixed on the man with the sword, he who had struck this new blow.

I heard his terrified command, the feeble cracking of that whip held in an arm almost paralysed with fear, his abrupt almost noiseless scream. The urt was over him, its haunches high, its shoulders almost level with the roof, gnawing.

I shook the sight from my eyes and turned to the others on the roof. The carrying basket had been attached and the woman stood in the basket, the reins in her hands.

The impassive silver mask was fastened on me and I sensed that the dark eyes behind it blazed with indescribable hatred.

Her voice spoke to the two guardsmen. "Destroy him."

I had no weapons.

To my surprise the men did not raise their arms against me. One of them responded to her.

"You choose to abandon your city," he said. "Henceforth you have no city, for you have chosen to forsake it."

"Insolent beast!" she screamed at him. Then she ordered the other warrior to slay the first.

"You no longer rule in Tharna," said the other warrior simply. "Beasts!" she screamed.

"Were you to stay and die at the foot of your throne we would follow you and die by your side," said the first warrior.

"That is true," said the second. "Stay as a Tatrix, and our swords are bound in your service. Flee as a slave and you give up your right to command our metal."

"Fools!" she cried.

The Dorna the Proud looked at me those yards across the roof.

The hatred she bore me, her cruelty, her pride, were as tangible as some physical phenomenon, like waves of heat or the forming of ice. "Thorn died for you," I said.

She laughed. "He too was a fool, like all beasts."

I wondered how it was that Thorn had given his life for this woman. It did not seem it could have been a matter of caste obligation for this obligation had been owed not to Dorna but to Lara. He had broken the codes of his caste to support the treachery of Dorna the Proud.

I suddenly knew the answer, that Thorn somehow had loved this cruel woman, that his warrior" s heart had been turned to her though he had never looked upon her face, though she had never given him a smile or the touch of her hand. And I knew then that Thorn, henchman though he might have been, dissolute and savage antagonist, had yet been greater than she sho had been the object of his hopeless, tragic affection. It had been his doom to care for a silver mask.

"Surrender," I called to Dorna the Proud.

"Never," she responded haughtily.

"Where will you go and what will you do?" I asked.

I knew that Dorna would have little chance alone on Gor. Resourceful as she was, even carrying riches as she must be, she was still only a woman and, on Gor, even a silver mask needs the sword of a man to protect her. She might fall prey to beasts, perhaps even to her own tarn, or be captured by a roving tarnsman or a band of slavers.

"Stay to face the justice of Tharna," I said.

Dorna threw back her head and laughed.

"You too," she said, "are a fool."

Her hand was wrapped in the one-strap. The tarn was moving uneasily. I looked behind me and I could see that Lara now stood near, watching Dorna, and that behind her Kron and Andreas, followed by Linna, and rebels and soldiers, had ascended to the roof.

The silver mask of Dorna the Proud turned to Lara, who wore no mask, no veil. "Shameless animal," she sneered, "you are no better than they — beasts!"

"Yes," said Lara, "that is true." "I sensed this in you," said Dorna. "You were never worthy to be Tatrix of Tharna. I alone was worthy to be true Tatrix of Tharna."

"The Tharna of which you speak," said Lara, "no longer exists." Then as if with one voice soldiers, guardsmen and rebels lifted their weapons and saluted Lara as true Tatrix of Tharna.

"Hail Lara, true Tatrix of Tharna!" they cried, and as was the custom of the city, five times were those weapons brandished and five times did that glad shout ring out.

The body of Dorna the Proud recoiled as if struck by five blows. Her silver-gloved hands clenched in fury upon the one-strap and beneath those shimmering gauntlets I knew the knuckles, drained of blood, were white with rage.

She looked once more at the rebels and soldiers and guardmen and Lara with a loathing I could sense behind the impassive mask, and then that metal image turned once more upon me.

"Farewell, Tarl of Ko-ro-ba," she said. "Do not forget Dorna the Proud for we have an account to settle!"

The hands in their gloves of silver jerked back savagely on the one-strap and the wings of the tarn burst into flight. The carrying basket remained a moment on the roof and then, attached by its long ropes, interwoven with wire, it slid for a pace or two and lurched upward in the wake of the tarn. I watched the basket swinging below the bird as it winged its way from the city.

Once the sun flashed upon that silver mask.

The the bird was only a speck in the blue sky over the free city of Tharna. Dorna the Proud, thanks to the sacrifice of Thorn, her captain, had made good her escape, though to what fate I dared not conjecture.

She had spoken of settling an account with me.

I smiled to myself, reasoning that she would have little opportunity for such matters. Indeed, if she managed to survive at all, she would be fortunate not to find herself wearing an ankle ring on some slaver" s chain. Perhaps she would find herself confined within the walls of some warrior" s Pleasure Gardens, to be dressed in silk of his choosing, to have bells locked on her ankles and to know no will other than his; perhaps she would be purchased by the master of a Paga Tavern, or even of a lowly Kal-da shop, to dance for, and to serve and please his customers.

Perhaps she might be purchased for the scullery in a Gorean cylinder and discover her life to be bounded by the tile walls and the steam and soap of the cleaning tubs. She would be given a mat of damp straw and a camisk, leavings from the tables of the dining rooms above, and lashings if she should dare to leave the room or shirk her work.

Perhaps a peasant would buy her to help with the ploughing. I wondered, if this happened, if she would bitterly recall the Amusements of Tharna. If this miserable fate were to be hers, the imperious Dorna the Proud, stripped and sweating, her back exposed to the ox whip, would learn in harness that a peasant was a hard master.

But I put from my mind these thoughts as to what might be the fate of Dorna the Proud.

I had other things with which to occupy my mind.

Indeed, I myself had business to attend to — an account to settle — only my affairs would lead me to the Sardar Mountains, for the business to which I must attend was with the Priest-Kings of Gor.