Free Vagabonds of Gor by John Norman Page A

passed a guardpost.
     
    "Where?" I asked.
     
    "There," he said.
     
    I could see the light of torches, could hear, distantly, shouts of men.
     
    "I think you are right," I said.
     
    "What is it?" he asked a fellow approaching.
     
    "They are looking for a spy," he said.
     
    "Do they know what he looks like?" I asked.
     
    "They say he is a big fellow, with red hair," said the man.
     
    "I have red hair," I said.
     
    "If I were you, then," said the man next to me, "I think I would remain inconspicuous for a time."
     
    "That is probably a good idea," I said.
     
    "It would be too bad to be mistaken for the spy," said a fellow, "and be riddled with bolts or chopped to pieces."
     
    "I agree," I said.
     
    "Be careful," said the first fellow, solicitously.
     
    "I shall," I assured him.
     
    "They will have him before morning," said the other fellow.
     
    "Yes," said the first. "The camp will be turned upside down. There will be no place to hide. They will look everywhere."
     
    "Everywhere?" I asked.
     
    "Everywhere," he assured me.
     
    "They will have him before morning," repeated the second man.
     
    "I wish you well," I said, bidding them farewell.
     
    "I wish you well," said the first man.
     
    "I wish you well," said the second.
     
    When men search they normally do so, naturally enough, I suppose, as if their quarry were going to remain stationary, obstinately ensconced in a given situation. It is then necessary only to examine the available situations thoroughly, and your job is finished. On the other hand, whereas it is clearly understood by most searchers that the quarry may be in B while they are in A, it seldom seems to occur to them that the quarry may now be in A while they are in B. In this fashion it is possible to both "search everywhere" and find nothing. In this sense, locating men, or larls, or sleen, which tend to double back, often to attack their pursuers, is not like locating buttons.
     
    To be sure, many of the men in this camp, both regulars and mercenaries, were skilled warriors, perhaps even trained to hunt men. The tracking of routed enemies, now fugitives, after a battle, for example, is an art in itself. The hunting of slaves is another. Such men may think with the quarry; they may bring up the rear; they may depart from the main search parties; they may conduct random searches, impossible to anticipate, and so on. Many are those taken by such men, including female slaves, to be brought helplessly in chains to their masters.
     
    There is one place, however, that even such skilled fellows are not likely to look, and that is with the search parties themselves. Whereas it is not easy to blend in with such a party if one is a female slave, given her sex, her nudity or paucity of garmenture, perhaps even slave garb, her collar, and such, a man has less difficulty. It can be risky, of course. My hope, then, was to wait until searches were taking place outside the camp, particularly toward the south, as they might in the morning.
     
    Marcus, with whom I had come to the camp, an orderly fellow, had made very specific contingency plans, and had insisted emphatically they be complied with, in case either of us were apprehended or detained, plans which he might be putting into effect like lightning at this very moment. If possible, we were to meet on the road to Holmesk, to the south, in the vicinity of the village of Teslit. If this meeting proved impractical, the fellow near Teslit, whoever it might be, was to hurry south to Holmesk, there to contact the men of Ar. He was a very serious young man, and was very serious about these plans.
     
    For my part, of course, if he were apprehended, or such, I would probably have dallied about at least long enough to determine whether I might be of any assistance or not. If one has been impaled, of course, the amount of assistance one can render is negligible. He himself, however, had insisted that he must be discounted, sacrificed without a murmur, and