We faced one another without speaking for a moment.

"Tal, Warrior," she said, softly, her voice emotionless.

Then, for a Gorean woman, she did an incredible thing.

Without speaking, she slowly unwound the veil from her face and dropped it to her shoulders. She stood before me, as it is said, face-stripped, and that by her own hand. She looked at me, openly, directly, not brazenly, but without fear. Her hair was brown and fine, the splendid grey eyes seemed even more clear, and her face, I saw, was beautiful, even more beautiful than I had imagined.

"Do I please you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "You please me very much."

I knew that this might be the first time a man had looked upon her face, except perhaps a member of her own family, if she had such.

"Am I beautiful?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "you are beautiful."

Deliberately, with both hands, she slipped her garment some inches down her shoulders, fully revealing her white throat. It was bare, not encircled by one of the slender, graceful slave collars of Gor. She was free. "Do you wish me to kneel to be collared?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Do you wish to see me fully?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"I have never been owned before," she said. "I do not know how to act, or what to do — save only that I know I must do whatever you wish." "You were free before," I said, "and you are free now."

For the first time she seemed startled. "Are you not one of them?" she asked.

"One of whom?" I asked, now alert, for if there were slavers on the trail of this girl it would mean trouble, perhaps bloodshed.

"The four men who have been following me, men from Tharna," she said. "Tharna?" I asked, genuinely surprised. "I thought the men of Tharna revered women, alone perhaps of the men of Gor."

She laughed bitterly. "They are not in Tharna now," she said.

"They could not take you to Tharna as a slave," I said. "Would the Tatrix not free you?"

"They would not take me to Tharna," she responded. "They would use me and sell me, perhaps to some passing merchant, perhaps in the Street of Brands in Ar."

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Vera," she said. "Of what city?" I asked.

Before she could respond, if respond she would have, her eyes suddenly widened in fear, and I turned. Approaching across the meadow, ankle deep in the wet grass, were four warriors, helmeted and carrying spears and shields. By the shield insignia and blue helmets I knew them to be men of Tharna.

"Run!" she cried, and turned to flee.

I held her arm. She stiffened in hate. "I see!" she hissed. "You will hold me for them, you will claim right of capture and demand a portion of my price!" She spat in my face.

I was pleased at her spirit.

"Stand quiet," I said. "You would not get far."

"I have fled from those men for six days," wept the girl, "living on berries and insects, sleeping in ditches, hiding, running."

She could not have run if she had wished. Her legs seemed to quiver under her. I put my arm about her, lending her my support.

The warriors approached me professionally, fanning out. One, not their officer, approached me directly; another, a few feet behind the first and on their left, followed him. The first, if necessary would engage me, and the second drive in on my right with his spear. The officer was the third man in the formation, and the other warrior hung several yards in the rear. It was his business to observe the entire field, for I might not be alone, and to cover the retreat of his fellows with his spear should the need arise. I admired the simple maneuvre, executed without command, almost a matter of reflex, and sensed why Tharna, in spite of being ruled by a woman, had survived among the hostile cities of Gor.

"We want the woman," said the officer.

I gently disengaged myself from the girl, and shoved her behind me. The meaning of the action was not lost on the warriors.

The eyes of the officer were narrow in the Y-like opening of his helmet. "I am Thorn," he said, "a Captain of Tharna."

"Why do you want the women?" I taunted. "Do not the men of Tharna revere women?"

"This is not the soil of Tharna," said the officer, annoyed.

"Why should I yield her to you?" I asked.

"Because I am a Captain of Tharna," he said.

"But this is not the soil of Tharna," I reminded him.

From behind me the girl whispered, an abject whisper. "Warrior, do not die for my sake. In the end it will all be the same." Then, raising her voice, she spoke to the officer. "Do not kill him," Thorn of Tharna. I will go with you."

She stepped out from behind me, proud but resigned to her fate, ready to give herself over to these wretches to be collared and chained, stripped and sold in the markets of Gor.

I laughed.

"She is mine," I said, "and you may not have her."

The girl gave a gasp of astonishment and looked at me questioningly. "Unless you pay her price," I added.

The girl closed her eyes, crushed.

"And her price?" asked Thorn.

"Her price is steel," I said.

A look of gratitude flashed in the girl" s face.

"Kill him," said Thorn to his men.

With one sound three blades sprang from their sheaths, mine,that of the officer and that of the warrior who would first engage me. The man on the right would not draw his blade but wait until the first warrior had made his attack and would then strike from the side with his spear. The warrior in the rear only lifted his spear, ready to cast it should a clean opening present itself.

But it was I who attacked first.

I suddenly turned on the warrior on my right with the spear and with the swiftness of the mountain larl sprang at him, evaded his clumsy, startled thrust, and drove my blade between his ribs, jerking it free and turning just in time to meet the sword attack of his companion. Our blades had not crossed six times when he, too, lay at my feet, crowded into a knot of pain, clutching at the grass.

The officer had rushed forward but now stopped. He, like his men, had been taken aback. Though they were four and I was one I had carried the battle to them. The officer had been an instant too late. Now my sword stood between him and my body. The other warrior, behind him, his spear poised, had approached to within ten yards. At that distance he would not be likely to miss. Indeed, even if the missile struck and penetrated my shield, I would have to cast the shield away and would find myself at a serious disadvantage. Yet, the odds were more even now.

"Come, Thorn of Tharna," I said, beckoning to him. "Let us try our skill." But Thorn backed away and signaled to the other warrior to lower his spear. He removed his helmet, and sat on his heels in the grass, the warrior behind him.

Thorn, Captain of Tharna, looked at me, and I at him.

He had a new respect for me now, which meant that he would be more dangerous. He had seen the swift engagement with his swordsmen and he was probably considering whether or not he could match my prowess. I felt that he would not cross blades with me unless he were convinced he could win, and that he was not altogether convinced, at least not yet.

"Let us talk," said Thorn of Tharna.

I squatted down on my heels, as he did.

"Let us talk," I agreed.

We resheathed our weapons.

Thorn was a large man, big boned, powerful, now tending to corpulence. His face was heavy and yellowish, but mottled with patches of purple where small veins had burst under the skin. He was not bearded, save for the trace of a tiny wisp of hair that marked each side of his chin, almost like a streak of dirt. His hair was long, and bound in a knot behind his head in Mongol fashion. His eyes, like those of an urt, one of the small horned rodents of Gor, were set obliquely in his skull. They were not clear, their redness and shadows testifying to long nights of indulgence and dissipation. It was obvious that Thorn, unlike my old enemy Pa-Kur, who presumably had perished at the siege of Ar, was not a man above sensual vices, not a man who could with fanatical purity and single-minded devotion sacrifice himself and entire peoples to the ends of his ambition and power. Thorn would never make a Ubar. He would always be a henchman.