Gor - Witness Of Gor Part 94

"They have been filed from the other side," said another.

The peasant reached down and seized the chain on his right ankle with both his right and left hand. He then crouched down and then began, slowly, to straighten his legs.

"He will break his legs," said a man.

Suddenly the chain snapped from the ring.

"It was rusted in the dampness," said a man.

"We have seen enough of this," said the leader of the black-tunicked men.

"You know he cannot free himself," said the pit master. "You know he cannot do that!"

"Bowmen," said the leader of the strangers.

But the gaze of the bowmen seemed fixed, in awe, on the straining giant. Their bows, the quarrels set, were not elevated to fire, with a vibrating rattle of cable, to the heart. I did not think they even heard their captain.

"Bowmen!" said the leader of the strangers.

His cry shook the bowmen.

"Spare the pit master or die!" cried the officer of Treve.

"Hold your fire," said the leader of the strangers. They had not, however, mindful of the proximity of the officer's blade, raised their weapons, either to the pit master, or to the officer.

One could presumably manage to fire. The other, whichever it was to be, would presumably die.

The lieutenant moved a little to his left.

"Remain where you are," cautioned the officer of Treve. He could be outflanked by a thrust from his right.

"You have one stroke, that is all," said the lieutenant.

"Remain where you are," said the officer of Treve.

The lieutenant stayed where he was. He himself had not been authorized to strike by his captain, and the single stroke which the officer might be expected to initiate might well be intended for him.

"You have no objection, I trust," said the leader of the strangers to the officer of Treve, "to the simple removal of your disobedient subordinate from the line of fire?"

"If he is unharmed," said the officer.

"Stand with me!" said the pit master.

"Stand aside," said the officer. "Their papers are in order. You know that as well as I. Be mindful of your post, its honor, and your duty."

"Honor has many voices, many songs," said the pit master.

"Get him out of the way," said the leader of the strangers.

We suddenly heard a second chain snap, that which had been on the left ankle of the giant.

The end at the ring with the force of the suddenly parting metal struck down at the stone like a snake, jerking and rattling. It had even struck a spark from the stone.

Several of the helmeted men, cautiously, began to approach the pit master. The officer of Treve stepped back.

"Stand aside," said he to the pit master.

"Stand with me," said the pit master.

"No," said the officer of Treve.

The peasant, his legs free, save for the shackles and a length of chain on each, now turned about and grasped, with both hands, the chain on his neck. He put one foot against the wall. He began to tear back on the chain.

One of the black-tunicked men lunged at the pit master. He cried out in pain, twisting, drawing back, his arm slashed. The pit master drew back his arm, but before he could bring it forward again, three of the black-tunicked men had hurled themselves upon him. Then others followed. The officer from Treve observed this, and did not observe the sign that was given by the leader of the black-tunicked men. Then, suddenly, he himself was seized by two of them. A third wrenched open his hand, his blade fell to the floor. Almost at the same time there was a snap of chain and the neck chain which was on the peasant dangled before him, from the ring on his collar, and he had turned about again, to face us, his eyes wild, saliva running at the side of his mouth. His hands were b.l.o.o.d.y. Blood, too, was on the chain. The pit master's grip on the stiletto was like iron. They could not pry it from his fingers. But six men held him, helplessly, to the side. The way was now cleared to the peasant.

"Kill him, kill him, kill him!" cried Gito, back by the door. "Do not wait! Kill him!"

In the commotion even those of the black tunics who had been in the corridor had entered the room.

Indeed, some had set aside their bows, to a.s.sist in the subduing of the pit master.

Two, however, remained at the door. I had noted the anguish with which some of my sisters in bondage had observed this. They could not run past the men. They would remain, as we, the rest of us, slave girls kneeling in a cell, bound, our disposition, our lives, in the hands of men.

And I am certain that they were as alarmed as I to be where we were. I think it required no great perception to understand that we beheld, unwilling though we might be, sensitive matters, matters which might prove delicate, matters which might deal, even, with states.

One of the girls sprang to her feet and ran toward the door, but she was caught there, and held for a moment, and then flung back, forcibly, cruelly, to the stones and straw.

She lay there, her wrists bound tightly behind her back with simple, common cord, sobbing.

And if she were to run, where would she go, nude and bound, in the depths? Would she not be stopped by the first gate? There would be no escape for her, neither here nor elsewhere, no more than for us. We were collared. We were branded. We were slave girls.

We feared, being where we were, seeing what we had seen. We feared the black-tunicked men. We feared that we might be disposed of. Perhaps it would be decided that we had seen too much. Yet we understood, surely, little, if anything, of what we had seen. How absurd, if for so little, not even comprehended, our throats might be cut! No wonder we were so miserable, so frightened!

The peasant stood there now like a beast at bay. From the shackles on his left and right ankles there hung, their links on the stone, broken chains. Another chain dangled from the ring on the collar on his neck. A link had snapped, but the plate behind him on the wall, too, was half pulled out from the stone.

His wrists were still shackled. He did not know that there was an opened link on the chain that held his right wrist. It might have been simply slipped from its joining link. But he did not know this. And the chain on his left wrist still went back to the metal plate, pulled out, though it was, an inch or so from the wall. It seemed the bolt behind the stone had drawn tight against the stone and it could not move further, not without pulling the very stone itself from the wall.

"Bowmen," said the leader of the strangers. The two bowmen advanced.

Then they stopped, and set, left feet forward, right feet back, crosswise, braced. The peasant hurled himself again against the chains which held him back. The bowmen were no more than a yard from the peasant. The only light in the cell was from the two lanterns, and the tiny lamps. There were several men about. We knelt back, and to the side. Again the peasant, bellowing, threw himself against the chains.

We shrank back, frightened. "He is strong," said a man. Again the peasant hurled himself against the chains. "Kill him," cried Gito. "Kill him, quickly!" "He is chained,"

the leader of the strangers reminded Gito. "Kill him!" urged Gito.

"Prepare to fire," said the leader of the strangers. The bows were lifted. Again the peasant threw himself against the chains. Save for the metal band, the bow, or spring, mounted crosswise, now drawn, and the cable, arched back, the devices, with their triggers and stocks, were not unlike stubby rifles.

They were small enough to be concealed beneath a cloak. "Kill him!"

cried Gito. Again the peasant threw himself against the chains. I saw the one link bend more.

We heard part of the stone sc.r.a.pe outward in the wall. "Kill him," cried Gito. "Kill him, quickly!" "No!"

cried the pit master. Again the peasant threw himself against the chains. There was a sound of tortured metal, a sc.r.a.ping of stone. The entire block of stone in which the plate and ring was fixed on the peasant's left, our right, had inched out. "Kill him, kill him!"

screamed Gito.

"Take aim," said the leader of the strangers quietly.

"No!" cried the pit master.

The two bowmen trained their weapons on the heart of the peasant.

The officer of Treve stood quietly, angrily, to the side, restrained by two men. His blade, his fingers pried from the hilt, one by one, was at his feet. That mound of a human being which was the pit master struggled. Six men clung to him. Fina was sobbing.

The leader of the strangers, stood to one side. He and the lieutenant, now that the pit master was restrained, had sheathed their blades.

"Do not kill him!" said the pit master, moving like a part of the earth beneath those who clung to him.

"Kill him! Kill him quickly!" screamed Gito, from the back.

Again the peasant threw his weight against the chains. There was another sound of metal and rock.

The leader of the strangers smiled. He lifted his hand.

"No!" cried the pit master.

The two bowmen tensed, their fingers on the triggers, their quarrels aligned to the heart of the peasant.

I saw the chains straighten, the rings straighten; the plate on our right, the peasant's left, out from the stone, and the very stone in which it was fastened, too, drawn an inch or more out from the wall, and the other chain, too, I saw, it still fastened to its ring and plate, these tight on the stone, but there, too, the stone itself, the heavy block of stone in which the bolts of the plate were set, was, like the other, with a sc.r.a.ping and a powder of mortar, a rumbling grating, another granular inch or more emergent from the wall.

Again the peasant lunged against his chains, and there was a squeal of metal and there was, as though reluctant, crying out, protesting, another tiny yielding, a grating of stone, another tiny movement, another tiny fearful slippage, of a ponderous block of stone.

"Do not kill him!" screamed the pit master.

"Shoot!" cried Gito. "Shoot!"

The hand of the leader of the strangers raised just a little, preparatory presumably to its sharp descent, doubtless to be consequent upon the issuance of a word of command.

He smiled.

The chains were tight, straight from the wall. The peasant seemed like a crazed animal, gigantic, leaning forward, straining, bulging with muscle and hate.

"Glory to the black caste," said the leader of the strangers.

"Glory to the black caste!" said the black-tunicked men.

The hand of the leader of the black-tunicked men lifted a bit more. His lips parted, to utter the signal that would unleash the quarrels.

"Aargh!" cried one of the bowmen reeling back, his face a ma.s.s of blood within the helmet, the quarrel slas.h.i.+ng into the wall to the right of the prisoner, gouging the wall, showering sparks and the other, too, was buffeted to the side by his fellow, his own quarrel spitting, too, to the side, to the peasant's right, striking the wall, bursting stone from it like a hammer, flas.h.i.+ng sparks in the cell, then turning end over end, sideways, eccentrically, to our left. The block of stone, broken from the wall, torn out of it, still fixed to the plate and bolts, and chain, had burst forth, showering mortar in the room. As it had left the wall it had, with all the violence of the forces imposed upon it, whipped to the peasant's right, striking the nearest bowman on the side of the head. It had split the helmet and, in the instant before it had split, the metal had been flattened, the skull crushed within. The lights were wild in the cell, the two lanterns being jerked back by those who held them, the light of the tiny lamps obscured by moving bodies Wild shadows moved about.

"Blades!" I heard. "Lanterns up!"

A dozen blades must have left sheaths.

We screamed. We shrank back. We huddled together, back against the wall.

We then saw, in the light of the swinging lanterns, in the light of the small lamps, the men drawn back, the peasant, standing where he had been, but now bent over, his eyes wild, like something that had tasted blood, a long-forgotten taste, but one which induced a wild intoxication. He was still held to the wall by the right wrist. I doubted that chain could hold him longer now. He jerked back the stone on the chain still clinging to his left wrist. Men leaped back, not to be caught in the trajectory of that jagged, ponderous weight. The one bowman had crawled to the side. "Cut him down!" said the leader of the black-tunicked men. A man advanced, but leaped back as the block of stone on its chain whirled again through the air.

It might have been a meteor on a chain. The peasant gave another great cry and with his right arm he lunged against the chain that still held him. The weakened link, that which could have been slipped earlier, it having been opened, but that not known to him, now parted so that the chain was broken.

"He is free," said a man, in awe.

"The chains were tampered with," said another.

Even the pit master seemed in awe. He no longer struggled. Those who were with him seemed scarcely now to restrain him.

The officer of Treve, too, seemed staggered by what he had seen. His sword, which had been pried from his hand, lay at his feet.

"He cannot escape," said the leader of the strangers, calmly. "Kill him."

The peasant, now that his hands were free from the wall, took, with both hands, the chain which was on his left wrist, that to which the block of stone was still bolted.

He lifted the stone easily from the floor. It swung on the chain, about six inches from the floor. He was bent over. He was breathing heavily.

None of the men cared to advance.

Gito crept behind the men to our left, and crouched down, by the wall.

The peasant suddenly swung the great stone on its chain about his head in a wicked whirling circle. He stepped out a yard from the wall. The men drew back. Some went to the side. Then the peasant retreated to the wall. His eyes, wolflike, looked to the left and right He would not permit them behind him. If he should strike a man, of course, that might stop the stone, or even tangle the chain, providing the others with the opportunity they needed, blades ready, to close. But none cared, it seemed, to be the first to tread within the orbit of that fierce satellite, that primitive, improvised weapon.

"You, you," said the leader of the strangers to two of his men. "Sheath your swords, set your bows."

The two men, protected behind their brethren, unslung their bows. Some such weapons are set by a windla.s.s, but those these men carried were more swiftly prepared for fire. They could be drawn with two hands, the bow held down, a foot in the stirrup. It would take a moment, of course, to free the bow, to draw it, to set it, to extract a quarrel from the quiver, to arm it. The long bow, naturally, has a much greater rapidity of fire. This bow, on the other hand, once set, like a firearm, remains ready for fire. It is useful in cramped s.p.a.ces, in close quarters, in roomtoroom fighting. It is an alert weapon, responsive to the trigger; its opportunity need not be more prolonged than the movement of the target across a pa.s.sageway; it is a patient weapon; it can wait quietly, motionlessly, for a long time, for its target to appear. The two new bowmen set their feet in the bow stirrup, grasping the cable with two hands, one on each side of the guide.

Suddenly, crying out, realizing somehow, in some dark part of that simple brain, in some instinctive fas.h.i.+on, that he had not a moment to spare, risking all, heedless of his back, swinging the stone about his head, the peasant, chains flying about his ankles, charged toward the bowmen. His action, as sudden as it was, took the black-tunicked men by surprise. They fell back before him. The one bowman, his foot locked in the stirrup, looked up only in time to see the great stone whipping toward him; the other was protected by his fellow who received the blow, but, he, too, his foot in the stirrup, fell awkwardly to the side. He cried out in pain.

"Blades! Close with him! Close with him!" cried the leader of the strangers. But the stone on its chain, the peasant whirling with it, spun about and about. I saw flesh fly from the thigh of one of the men. He staggered back. Blood splashed on the man to the right of the officer of Treve, he holding his right arm.

The sword lay still at the officer's feet. The pit master suddenly, again, began to struggle. The six men about him tightened their grip, clinging to him tenaciously.

They clung to him like dogs to a bull. He struggled to throw them from him. The bowman who had been struck lay to one side, his head awry, too far back, still in the helmet, half torn from the body. Swords darted at the peasant but none reached him, he protected in the whirling s.h.i.+eld of chain and stone. And then the stone struck against the side of the portal and the stone burst from the portal, a cubic foot of wall there broken from its place, but the stone, too, on the chain, shattered, splitting at the bolts, and fell in two halves away.

The chain on his wrists flew about. That to which the ring and plate was attached, bolts still on the plate, struck a fellow across the face, las.h.i.+ng him back. And then the peasant was back again, at bay, against the wall. We cried out, we sobbed with fear. Gito was hiding himself in straw to the left of the portal as one would enter.

"The stone is done now," said the leader of the black-tunicked men, himself now straightening up, lowering the sword he had held before his face, two hands on the hilt. "The chains are nothing."

The peasant was breathing heavily. The door was in front of him, but men with blades blocked his pa.s.sage.