Rouge of Gor (coc-1) by John Norman

Author:John Norman [Norman, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy
Published: 1981-03-19T05:00:00+00:00

22. What Occurred at the Wharves; What Occurred in the vicinity of the Tavern of Tasdron

"Stand back, lest you be hurt!" cried a man.

I was seized by two men, citizens, and dragged back into the encircling crowd. I was bleeding. My tunic was cut. The sword of the pirate, in a drunken swing, had grazed my chest. Other citizens, with ship poles, of the sort used on Gorean galleys in casting off and thrusting from the wharves, pressed back the crown. I felt the side of the pole against my belly. I was jostled by the crowd. The priate turned away, laughing.

"Where are the guardsmen of Port Cos?" I asked. "Where are the guardsmen of Ar's Station?" There were several guardsmen from each of these towns in Victoria. There was smoke in the air. Five warehouses and some ancillary buildings were afire.

"They maintain their posts," said a man grimly. "They protect their own headquarters."Victoria is not their concern," said a man bitterly.

I watched the pirates, perhaps some 50 or 60 of them, unchallenged, moving between the warehouses and the sharves, where two pirate galleys were moored. Some townfolk at swordpoint, were loading goods onto the galleys. Some of the pirates bore torches."The tribute will be paid by morning," said one of the men near me.

I saw several of the pirates with bottles of paga, swilling from them, as they strutted about, sometimes pausing to cu into a bale of goods or overturn a barrel kicking it open, permitting its contents to run out over the boards.The alarm bar continued to ring futilely. The pirates made no effort to stop the desperate fellow who meaninglessly continued to strike it.

"We outnumber them 50 to 1," I said. "Let me rush upon them. Let us stop them!" They are Masters in Victoria," said a man, "Do nothing rash."

I heard a woman scream and saw her, thrown over the shoulder of a laughing pirate, a brawny fellowk being carried to one of the galleys. "What will be done with her?" whispered a woman, near me, terrified. "If she is beautiful," said a man near us, "perhaps she will be kept to serve in the stronghold of Policrates. If she is not, perhaps her throat will be cut."The woman gasped, her hand at her veil.

The pirate threw the woman to his feet near the neareset galley and there stripped her and handed her to a comrade who stood on board the galley. He put her on the outside of the railing, facing outward, with thesmall of her back tightly against it, her arms hooked over it and behind it, as with the others. He then, with a length of binding fiber, running tight across her body, fastened her wrists together, as he had similarly those of the others. All were well displayed. too the exposition of captures in this way tends to discourage retaliatory missle fire from the scene of the pillaging.

The woman was comely, I did not think she would hae her throat cut. Lusty men have better uses to which to put such women.

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