Gor 06 - Raiders of Gor by John Norman

Author:John Norman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

I Fish in the Canal

It was late at night, two nights after the unsuccessful coup of Henrius Sevarius.

I was waiting for my ships, and those of the arsenal, to be made ready for my trip, my mission of peace, to Cos and Tyros.

In my role as captain I was often about the city, accompanied by Thurnock, and Clitus, and a squad of my men.

Until the formation of the council guard, the captains and their men would have for their responsiblity the maintaining of watches throughout the city.

Even before the emergency session of the council, the night of the unsuccessful coup, had concluded, slaves, instructed by men of the arsenal, were raising walls about the various holdings of Henrius Sevarius. His wharves, moreover, were, with arsenal ships, almost immediately blockaded by sea.

Now, from the height of one of the investing walls, some hundred yards from the high bleak wall of one of the holdings of Sevarius, said to be his palace, I, with Thurock, Clitus, and others, by the light of Gor’s three moons, observed the opening of a postern gate. At the base of the wall, extending for some twenty yards, tehre was a tiled expanse, which suddenly dropped off, sheer, into a canal, where it might give access to the city or sea, by sea gates. We observed, in the light of the three Gorean moons, some five men emerging from the tiny iron gate. They were carrying something in a large, tied sack.

Slowly they made their way toward the edge of the canal.

“Stop, men of Henrius Sevarius!” I shouted. “Stop, Traitors!”

“Hurry!” cried one of them. I recognized his voice, and his frame. It was Lysias, friend of the regent Claudius, client of the Ubar Henrius Sevarius. I saw another man look up in alarm. It was Henrak, he who had betrayed the rencers.

“Hurry!” I said to my men.

I, followd by Clitus and Thurnock, and others, leaped over the wall and ran toward the edge of the canal.

The men were now hastening forward, to hurl the sack into the dark waters.

Thurnock stopped long enough to draw his great bow. One of the men, hit by the arrow, spun away, rolling across the tiles, snapping the shaft.

The others, now at the edge of the canal, with a heave, flung the sac far out into the water.

A crossbow bolt slipped through the air, passing between myself and Clitus.

The four men now turned and began to run back toward the postern gate.

Before they could reach the gate Thurnock’s great bow had struck twice more.

Lysias and Henrak, and no other, fled back through the gate.

One of the bodies Thurnock had struck lay dark, sprawled on the tiles, some fifteen yards from the gate; the other lay, inert and twisted in the shadows, at the very portal itself.

“Knife!” I said.

I was handed a knife.

“Do not, Captain!” cried Thurnock.

Already I could see the sleek, wet muzzles of urts, eyes like ovals of blazing copper, streaking through the dark waters toward the bag.

I leaped into the cold waters, the knife between my teeth.

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