Free Swordsmen of Gor by John Norman

think you are of the warriors,” he said.
    “Perhaps of the assassins,” I said.
    “You do not have the eyes of an assassin,” he said.
    “What sort of eyes are those?” I asked.
    “Those of a fee killer, an assassin,” he said.
    “I see,” I said.
    “You are a tarnsman, are you not?” asked Pertinax.
    “I have not said so,” I said.
    “But you are, are you not?”
    “I have ridden,” I said.
    “Those who know the tarn are not as other men,” he said.
    “They are as other men,” I said. “It is merely that they have learned the tarn.”
    “Then they are different afterwards,” he said.
    “Perhaps,” I said.
    “If they have survived,” he said.
    “Yes,” I said.
    Many have died learning the tarn. The tarn is a dangerous bird, aggressive, carnivorous, often treacherous. The wingspan of many tarns is in the neighborhood of forty feet. Humans are small beside them. Many human beings will not approach them. It, like many wild beasts, can sense fear, and that stimulates its aggression. In facing a tarn a human being has little but will to place between himself and the beak and talons. To be sure many tarns are domesticated, so to speak, raised from the egg in the vicinity of humans, taught to expect their food from them, accustomed to harnessing from the age of the chick, and so on. In the past domestic tarns were sometimes freed, to hunt in the wild, and later to return to their cots, sometimes to the blasts of the tarn whistle. That is seldom done now. A hungry tarn is quite dangerous, you see, and the reed of its domesticity is fragile. There is no assurance that its strike will be directed on a tabuk or wild tarsk, or verr. Too, it is not unknown for such tarns to revert, so to speak. I think no tarn is that far from the wild. In their blood, it is said, are the wind and the sky.
    I thought of a tarn once known, a sable monster, whose challenge scream could be heard for pasangs, Ubar of the Skies.
    There had been a woman, Elizabeth Cardwell, whom I, for her own good, had hoped to rescue from the perils of Gor, and return to Earth, but she had fled with the tarn, to escape that fate. When the tarn returned I drove him away in a foolish rage. I had encountered the tarn again, years later, in the Barrens, and we had again been one, but at the end of local wars I had freed him again, that he might again take his place as the master of a mighty flock, that he might be again awing in broad, lonely skies, be again a prince amongst clouds, a lord amongst winds, that he might be again regent and king ruling over the vast grasslands he surveyed.
    The woman, predictably, had fallen slave.
    Encountering her I had left her slave.
    I had encountered her again, later, in the Tahari.
    Once, I would have given her the gift of Earth, returning her to the liberties, such as they are, of her native world, but she had fled. She had chosen Gor. It had been her choice.
    Where was she now?
    She was now in a collar, where she belonged.
    I supposed I should sell her, perhaps to the mercy of Cosians, or into the beaded leather collars of the Barrens, or perhaps south to Schendi. Those of the Barrens and Schendi know well what to do with white female slaves.
    She had made her choice.
    She had wagered. She had lost.
    She looked well, as other women, in her collar.
    “But you are a tarnsman, are you not?” persisted Pertinax.
    “I have ridden,” I said. I was not clear why this might be important to him.
    “I think the tabuk strips, the suls and turpah, the soup, all, must be ready,” said Pertinax. “Let us have supper.”
    The hut was now redolent with the odors of which, for a forester, at least, must have seemed a feast.
    “There is paga,” said Pertinax.
    “Of the brewery of Temus of Ar?” I asked.
    “Yes,” said Pertinax.
    “It must be rare in the forests,” I said.
    “Yes,” said Pertinax.
    “It is my favorite,” I said.
    “I am glad to hear it,” said Pertinax.
    “Serve the men, slave,” said