including the several men bearing the two large, strange, apparently weighty boxes or crates unloaded from our galley, soon left Tarncamp, and, by a short trail, emerged onto what we learned was a training area of sorts. Here I had my first clear sight of tarns. Before, in the forest, I had known them only as large, frightening shadows overhead, rapid, monstrous darknesses overhead, storms of wings smiting the air, whose passage had torn leaves from the canopy, these then showering downward, scattering about us. Too, I had not forgotten the single wild, streaming, raucous scream I had heard. It had been said that they killed men, and that men flew them. One alighted on the training ground not ten yards from us. Dust scattered about. We crowded together, stripped, our necks in the rope coffle, instinctively. I think I cried out. I know others did. How small the rider was compared to the bird! I think it fair to call it a bird, but it was no form of life with which I was familiar. I wondered on what world such a thing might have emerged from the dark, grisly, unforgiving, demanding games of nature, certainly not on my former world, nor, I suspected, this world. Perhaps it had arisen on some larger world, perhaps a much larger world, a world on which evolution might select for such massive size and power. In this sense, I did not know if such a monster were well thought of as a bird, or not. It was, as far as I could tell, a form of life alien to both the Earth and Gor. Still it was clearly a bird, or very birdlike. It had talons, a beak, long and wicked, and mighty wings. Too, it was crested. I had heard of convergent evolution, as in a shape best fitted to negotiate an aquatic environment, examples of which might be the dolphin, the fish, the ichthyosaur, and such. Too, consider eyes, and how widely spread they are amongst diverse life forms, insects, fish, mammals, birds, and such. Considering the values of given shapes, certain appendages, diverse irritabilities, tactual, auditory, and visual sensors, and such, one would expect them to arise, sooner or later, on any world capable of sustaining complex life forms. Accordingly, I supposed, evolution might provide a place on diverse worlds for birds, or birdlike creatures, creatures of keen eyesight, creatures which might attack, grasp, and tear, creatures not bound to the earth, creatures which might negotiate and traverse the very atmosphere itself.
“Hold your coffle!” called the fellow from the saddle of the tarn, he yards from the ground.
His command was not necessary. We were terrified to move, and were crowded together.
“Burdens down!” called the coffle master. “Stand, align yourselves!” We knew how we were to stand. We stood as slaves, erect and proud, as prize goods.
“Where do you get these tarsks?” called the fellow in the saddle.
“In Brundisium!” responded the coffle master.
We were indignant, as we knew we had been carefully selected. Even a slave has her pride, though it may be no more than the pride of a slave. We must be careful, of course, to give little, or no, sign of our displeasure or annoyance. We did not wish to be cuffed, or put to our bellies and switched in the dirt. Too, we had not been given permission to speak. We could not help it if prices had been low in Brundisium. After all, there had been, I had gathered, serious difficulties in Ar, a large city, in the recent past. Indeed, at least three items in our coffle had been former free women of Ar, two of high caste.
“A copper tarsk for the lot!” said the fellow on the tarn.
“Some sold for silver!” said the coffle master.
I had sold for copper.
“Mat girls,” laughed the tarnsman.
“We must on to Shipcamp,” said the coffle master.
“Hold the coffle,” said the tarnsman, pointing. “See the targets. An exercise is underway. A flight is behind me. I am charged to clear the field.”
We looked to our right, and, in the distance, we saw specks, several specks, moving specks.
The coffle master shaded his eyes.
The specks were far, and, for a bit, it seemed they were arrested, not even moving, and then it was clear they were moving, and were larger, slightly larger. At the distance their speed was not clearly discernible, and yet I was sure, from their passage in the forest, overhead, that it was likely to be considerable.