Then, slowly, making no sound, I lifted no more than my eyes over the side of the barge, and scanned the interior. Shielding myself from the fifth barge by the back of the prow of the sixth I climbed aboard. I looked about. I was its master.

"Make no sound," I said to the girl at the prow.

She almost cried out, terrified, and struggled to turn and see who stood behind her, but could not, bound, do so.

She was silent.

Slaves, chained at the benches, haggard, wild-eyed, looked up at me. "Be silent," said I to them.

There was only a rustle of chain.

The slaves from the rence islands, lying between the rowers' benches, like fish, bound hand and foot, had their heads to the stern of the vessel.

"Who is there?" asked one.

"Be silent," I said.

I looked over the side to Telima, and indicated that she should had me my shield, and, with difficulty, she did so.

I looked about more. Then I placed the shield by the rail, and extended my hand for the great bow, with its nine arrows.

Telima gave them to me.

Then I motioned that she should come aboard and, tying the rence craft fast to the small mooring cleat just abaft of the prow, she did so.

She now stood beside me on the foredeck of the sixth barge.

"The punt is gone," she said.

I did not respond to her. I had seen that the punt had been gone. Why else would I have come as early as I had to the barges?

I unstrung the great bow and handed it, with its arrows, to Telima. I took up my shield. "Follow me," I told her.

I knew she could not string the bow. I knew, further, that she could not, even were the weapon strung, draw it to the half, but further I knew that, at the range she might fire, the arrow, drawn even to the quarter, might penetrate my back. Accordingly she would follow me bearing the weapon unstrung.

I looked upon her, evenly and for a long time, but she did not drop her head, but met my gaze fully, and fearlessly.

I turned.

There were no men of Port Kar on the sixh barge, but, as I stepped from the foredeck of the sixth barge to the tiller deck of the fifth, I saw some of their bodies. In some were the arrows of the great bow. But many had apparently died of wounds inflicted with spear and sword. A number of others had doubtless been, in the darkness and confusion thrust overboard.

I indicated those who had met the arrows of the great bow.

"Get the arrows," I told Telima.

I had used simple-pile arrows, which may be withdrawn from the wound. The simple pile gives greater penetration. Had I used a broad-headed arrow, or the Tuchuk barbed arrow, one would, in removing it, commonly thrust the arrow completely through the wound, drawing it out feathers last. One is, accordingly, in such cases, less likely to lose the point in the body.

Telima, one by one, as we passed those that had fallen to the great bow, drew from their bodies the arrows, adding them to those she carried.

And so I, with my shield and sword, helmeted, followed by Telima, a rence girl, carrying the great bow, with its arrows, may of them now bloodied, taken from the bodies on those of Port Kar, moved from barge to barge.

On none of them did we find a living man of Port Kar.

Those that had lived had doubtless fled in the punt. In the darkness, presumably, they had seixed upon it and, either amidst the shouting and the blind fighting, or perhaps afterwards, in a terrifying quiet, the prelude perhaps to yet another putative attack, had climbed over the side and, poling away desperately, had made their escape, It was also possible that they had eventually realized that boarders were not among them or, if they had been, were no longer, but they did not wish to remain trapped in the marsh, to fall victim to thirts, or the string-flung arrows of the yellow bow. I supposed the punt could not carry many men, perhaps eight or ten, if dangerously crowded. I was not much concerned with how those of Port kar had determined who would passenger on the fugitive vessel. I expected that some of those dead on the barges had been, by their own kind, denied such a place.

We now stood on the foredeck of the first barge.

"They are all dead," said Telima, her voice almost breaking. "They are all dead!"

"Go to the tiller deck," I told her.

She went, carrying the great bow, with its arrows.

I stood on the foredeck, looking out over the marsh.

Above me, her back to the front of the curved prow of the barge, was bound the lithe, dark-haired girl, who I well remembered, she who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic. She was curved over the prow nude, her wrists cruelly bound behind it, and was further held tightly in place by binding fiber at her ankles, her stomach and throat. I recalled I had been bound rather similarly at the pole, when she had danced her contempt of me.

"Please," she begged, trying to turn her head, "who is it?"

I did not answer her, but turned, and left the foredeck, walking back along the gangway between the rowers' benches. She heard my footsteps retreating. The slaves at the benches did not stir as I passed between them.

I acended the steps of the tiller deck.

There I looked down into Telima's eyes.

She looked up at me, joy on her face. "Thank you, Warrior," she whispered. "Bring me binding fiber," I said.

She looked at me.

I indicated a coil of binding fiber that lay near the foot of the rail, below the tiller deck, on my left.

She put down the great bow, with its arrows, on the tiller deck. She brought me the coil of binding fiber.

I cut three lengths.

"Turn and cross your wrists," I told her.

With the first length of binding fiber I tied her wrists behind her; I then carried her and placed her, on her knees, on the second of the broad steps leading up to the tiller deck, two steps below that in which I fixed the chair of the oar-master; she now knelt below that chair, and it its left; there, with the second length of fiber, I tied together her ankles; with the third length I ran a leash from her throat to the mooring cleat on the aft larboard side of the barge, that some five yards forward of the sternpost.

I then sat down cross-legged on the tiller deck. I counted the arrows. I now had twenty-five. Several of the warriors struck by the arrows had plunged into the water; others had been thrown overboard by their fellows. Of the twenty-five, eighteen were sheaf arrows and the remaining seven were flight arrows. I put the bow beside me, and laid the arrows out on hte planking of the tiller deck. I then rose to my feet and began to make my way, barge by barge, to the sixth barge.

Again the slaves, chained at their benches, facing the stern of each barge, did not so much as move as I passed among them.

"Give me water," whispered a bound rencer.

I continued on my way.

As, I walked from barge to barge I passed, at each prow, tied above my head, a bound, nude girl. On the second prow of the six barges, only a few feet from the tiller dec of the first barge, it had been the tall, gray-eyed girl, who had held marsh vine against my arm, she who had danced with such secruciating slowness before me at the pole. On the third prow it had been the shorter, dark-haired girl, she who had carried the net over her left shoulder. I remembered that she, too, had dnaced before me, and, as had the others, spit upon me.

Bound as they were to the curved prows of the barges these captives could see only the sky over the marsh. They could hear only my footsteps passing beneath them, and perhaps the small movement of the Gorean blad in its sheath. As I walked back, from barge to barge, I walked as well among bound rencers, heaped and tied like fish among the benches of slaves.

I wore the heavy Gorean helmet, concealing my features. None recognized the warrior who walked among them. The helmet bore no insignia. Its crest plate was empty.