“Tal,” said Tyrtaios, pleasantly, and plunged his dagger into the beast’s chest.
I leaped back, and the large body fell at our feet. The blow had been unhesitant, efficient, unwavering, swift, clean, firm, deep, to the hilt, exact, powerful, a blow worthy of the dark caste itself.
I did not speak my suspicions.
Tyrtaios wiped his blade clean on the beast’s fur.
“You killed it,” I said. “Why?”
“It was necessary,” said Tyrtaios.
“What of the others?” I said.
“They are dead,” said Tyrtaios.
“The beverage?” I said.
“Precisely,” said Tyrtaios.
“And this one did not drink,” I said.
“Precisely,” said Tyrtaios.
So, I thought, there are now three fewer who know the nature of the cargo I had helped to put aboard the great ship.
“Let us return to Shipcamp,” I said.
“No,” said Tyrtaios. “We return to the camp of our friends.”
“Why?” I asked.
“On Gor,” said he, “such things are not likely to travel with an empty purse.”
“I see,” I said.
I accompanied Tyrtaios back to the clearing. We rekindled the fire, and he, on his knees, rummaged the packs of the beasts.
“Good,” he said, from time to time.
I gathered his trip was not without profit.
I regarded the bottle, fallen to the ground, in the center of the clearing. Two large bodies, contorted, lay near it.
“Do not touch it,” he said.
“I will not do so,” I said.
I recalled that he had placed the tarn disks within his tunic, not within his wallet, and that later, on the trail, he had cast the wallet away. The bottle, I recalled, had been carried in the wallet. The substance must be very powerful, I thought, so little of it, yet enough to slay two such beasts, even three. Tyrtaios, who was not a timid man, had been unwilling to keep even the wallet in which the vessel, closed as it was, had been carried.
Tyrtaios cut the golden rings from the ears of the first beast. He did not concern himself with the rings on the left wrist of either beast. They were of base metal.
Tyrtaios then stood up, shouldering a large leather sack, in which he had placed a number of articles, coins, belts, buckles, accouterments, and such.
“No forbidden weapons?” I asked.
“No,” said Tyrtaios, “and I would not touch them did I find them.”
“Nor I,” I said, looking about myself, uneasily.
He then kicked dirt over the fire, and we stood in the darkness of the forest.
“What was done here?” I asked.
“What was commanded,” he said.
“Should the cargo reach the World’s End,” I said, “who will know to whom it is to be delivered?”
“My superior,” said Tyrtaios.
“It is hard for me to think of one such as you having a superior,” I said.
“For a time,” said Tyrtaios. “For a time.”
“Someone is waiting at the World’s End to receive the cargo?” I said.
“Someone, or something,” he said. “One gathers so.”
“This has to do with worlds?” I said.
“I think so,” he said. “Would you like a ubarate, or a country?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said.
He then went to the edge of the clearing. I sensed his position in the darkness from the sound.
“What of these bodies?” I asked.
“We will leave them,” he said, “for the forest, for the winter, for rain, for snow, for wind, for urts, for sleen, for panthers.”
“I see,” I said.
“Have no fear,” he said. “I have removed the harnessing, the accouterments. I have discarded the speaking device.”
“They will be taken as beasts,” I said.
“They are beasts,” he said.
“Much as men,” I said.
“In their way,” he said.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Surely you know,” he said.
“I think so,” I said.
“Kurii,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Master,” said Asperiche, “what is the punishment for an escaped slave?”
“Why do you ask?” I said.
“No reason,” she said.
“Are you thinking of escaping?” I asked.
“To where?” she said.
“Anywhere, I suppose,” I said.
“I am branded,” she said, “and collared.”
“So?” I said.
“No,” she said. “I am not a complete fool, like some.”
“Do you have anyone in mind?” I said.
“No,” she said.
“Good,” I said.
“I suppose the chances of escape are slight,” she said.
“I gather so,” I said.
“I suppose one might escape to the teeth of beasts, or to a new master,” she said.
“It is dangerous to keep an escaped slave,” I said, “and, having fled, she would almost certainly be kept in a far harsher bondage.”
“I fear so,” she said.
“It is a matter of honor to return an escaped slave to her master,” I said.
“If a Home Stone is shared, or such,” she said.
“Of course,” I said. Slave raids, naturally, were a separate matter. But then the slave does not escape. She is simply stolen, as