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#Post#: 141--------------------------------------------------
Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:31 am
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"No," admitted the warrior. "I am Kazrak of Port Kar," he said,
"in the service of Mintar, of the Merchant Caste."
I did not need to ask about Port Kar. It is a city in the delta
of the Vosk and as much a den of pirates as anything else.
Tarnsman of Gor Book 1 Page 115
The reason for this is not simply that here is a fine market for
such wares, since men from various cities pass freely to and fro
at the fair, but that each Gorean, whether male or female, is
expected to see the Sardar Mountains, in honor of the
Priest-Kings, at least once in his life, prior to his
twenty-fifth year. Accordingly the pirates and outlaws who beset
the trade routes to ambush and attack the caravans on the way to
the fair, if successful, often have more than inanimate metals
and cloths to reward their vicious labors.
This pilgrimage to the Sardar, enjoined by the Priest-Kings of
Initiates, undoubtedly plays its role in the distribution of
beauty among the hostile cities of Gor. Whereas the males who
accompany a caravan are often killed in its defense or driven
off, this fate, fortunate or not, is seldom that of the
caravan's women. It will be their sad lot to be stripped and
fitted with the collars and chains of slave girls and forced to
follow the wagons on foot to the fair, or if the caravan's
tharlarions have been killed or driven off, they will carry its
goods on their backs. Thus one practical effect of the edict of
the Priest-Kings is that each Gorean girl must, at least once in
her life, leave her walls and take the very serious risk of
becoming a slave girl, perhaps the prize of a pirate or outlaw.
Priest-Kings of Gor Book 3 Pages 12 - 13
To the Goreans it is always, simply, The Language, as though
there were no others, and those who do not speak it are regarded
immediately as barbarians. This sweet, fierce, liquid speech is
the common bond that tends to hold together the Gorean world. It
is the common property of the Administrator of Ar, a herdsman
beside the Vosk, a peasant from Tor, a scribe from Thentis a
metalworker from Tharna, a physician from Cos, a pirate from
Port Kar, a warrior from Ko-ro-ba.
Priest-Kings of Gor Book 3 Page 52
And then, one day, like the pirates of Port Kar in their long
galleys, unannounced, unexpected, Others would cross the seas of
space and bring their craft to rest on the shores and sands of
Gor.
Nomads of Gor Book 4 Page 202
"I am not truly Tuchuk," said Elizabeth. "I am only a girl from
the islands north of Cos, taken by pirates of Port Kar, sold to
a tarnsman, carried to and sold again in the city of Turia, and
hence for twenty boskhides traded to the Tuchuks, where I was
ringed and branded."
Assassin of Gor Book 5 Page 47
She was beautiful, and had been free; she was not trained; she
was of the Scribes, and had been picked up by pirates from Port
Kar.
Assassin of Gor Book 5 Page 294
Port Kar, crowded, squalid, malignant, is sometimes referred to
as the Tarn of the Sea. Her name is a synonym in Gorean for
cruelty and piracy.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 6
I had heard the name of Surbus. It was well known among the
pirate captains of Port Kar, scourge of gleaming Thassa.
I threw down another burning swallow of the Paga.
He was pirate indeed, and slaver, and murderer and thief, a
cruel and worthless man, abominable, truly Port Kar. I felt
little but disgust.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 102
I knew him to be pirate; and I knew him to be slaver, and a
murderer, and thief; I knew him to be a cruel and worthless man,
abominable, truly of Port Kar and, as I looked upon him, the
filth and rottenness, I felt nothing but disgust.
In his arms he held, stripped, the bound body of a slave girl.
It was she who had served me the night before, before Surbus,
and his cutthroats and pirates, had entered the tavern.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Pages 120 - 121
I looked upon him, Surbus, slaver, pirate, thief, murderer.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 122
He was pirate, slaver, thief, murderer. He was evil, totally
evil, and I felt for him only disgust.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 123
Accordingly I, who had been Tarl Cabot, once a warrior of
Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, sat now in the council of
these captains, merchant and pirate princes, the high oligarchs
of squalid, malignant Port Kar, Scourge of Gleaming Thassa.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 126
Twice we had been scouted by pirates from Tyros, in their green
ships, painted to resemble the sea, but neither of them had
chosen to engage us.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 138
"I have less interest in piracy, I gather, than many of my
colleagues," I said. "Since my interests are substantially in
commerce I, for one, would welcome peace with Cos and Tyros. It
seems not unlikely to me that these two powers may well be weary
of war, as Samos informs us he is. If that is true, it seems
they may well accept an honorable peace. Such a peace would, I
note, open the ports of Tyros and Cos, and their allies and
others, to my ships, and, of course, to yours. Peace, my
captains, might well prove profitable." I regarded Samos. "If an
offer of peace is to be made to Cos and Tyros," I said, "it is
my hope that it would be genuine."
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Pages 163 - 164
It was now within the Fifth Passage Hand, some four months after
the unsuccessful coup of Henrius Sevarius in the city of Port
Kar.
By this time, the Fifth Passage Hand, the flag of Bosk, pirate,
had come to be much feared on Thassa.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 174
Green, on Thassa, is the color of pirates. Green hulls, sails,
oars, even ropes. In the bright sun reflecting off the water,
green is a color most difficult to detect on gleaming Thassa.
The green ship, in the bright sun, can be almost invisible.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 190
Meanwhile, while I had been plying the trade of pirate, the
military and political ventures of the Council itself, within
the city, had proceeded well.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 218
I was Bosk, Pirate, Admiral of Port Kar, now perhaps one of the
richest and most powerful men on Gor.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 223
Again I was Bosk, from the marshes, Pirate, Admiral of Port Kar.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 227
I looked from face to face, the great Thurnock, now calm, swift,
strong Clitus, the shrewd oar-master, the others. Many of these
men were cutthroats, killers, pirates. I wondered why they were
in this room.
Raiders of Gor Book 6 Page 249
I knew then we were within the territory of Ar, and must be high
over the Margin of Desolation, a barren area, now recovering
itself, which, years ago, had been cleared and devastated, that
the northern fields of Ar by such a natural barrier, by such a
wall of hunger and thirst, might be protected, presumably from
invasion from the north or, more likely, from the incursions of
Vosk pirates. In the reign of Marlenus, prior to his exile, and
later, after his restoration, the Margin of Desolation had been
deliberately left untended, that it might recover. Marlenus had
set a swift fleet of light, Vosk galleys to clear the river
waters adjoining his Ubarate of pirates. They had been
successful, or muchly so. Seldom did Vosk pirates ply their
trade where the Vosk bordered the regions of Ar.
Captive of Gor Book 7 Page 255
Samos himself was abroad upon Thassa, in ventures of piracy and
enslavement, and it was through a subordinate that I was
purchased.
Captive of Gor Book 7 Page 358
He had a large, squarish head, short-cropped white hair. His
face was dark from the sun, and wind-burned, and sea-burned.
There were small, golden rings in his ears. He was a pirate, a
slaver, a master swordsman, a captain of Port Kar.
Hunters of Gor Book 8 Page 8
Green is the color common to pirates.
Hunters of Gor Book 8 Page 43
The bad blood between Tyros and Ar had primarily to do with
Tyros' financings of Vosk pirates, to harry river shipping and
the northern borders of Ar. Vosk pirates now little bothered the
realm of Ar, but the memories remained. Vosk traffic, to Ar,
which has no sea port, is important. It permits her much wider
trade perimeters than would otherwise be possible. Something
similar is true of the Cartius, far to her south. Unfortunately
for Ar, or perhaps fortunately for the maritime powers of
Thassa, it is almost impossible to bring a large ship or barge
through the Vosk's delta to the sea. Ar remains substantially a
land power, but the river traffic, on the Vosk and, to the
south, on the Cartius, is important to her. Tyros' financing of
Vosk pirates, over the past century, was an attempt to deprive
Ar of the Vosk markets, and make those markets more dependent on
overland shipments of goods, originally debarked at shore ports,
brought to them by the cargo ships of Tyros, and other maritime
powers.
Hunters of Gor Book 8 Pages 80 - 81
He was a pirate, and a cut-throat, but he was not unhappy in his
death; he had died by the sword, which would have been his
choice, and before he had died he had looked again upon the
gleaming Thassa;
Marauders of Gor Book 9 Page 2
I knew this man of Torvaldsland only by reputation. He was a
rover, a great captain, a pirate, a trader, a warrior.
Marauders of Gor Book 9 Page 27
Ivar Forkbeard, the unregenerate, the raider, the pirate, he who
had dared to make the fist of the hammer over his ale, would
come at last, in death if not in life, humbly to the temple of
Priest-Kings.
Marauders of Gor Book 9 Page 34
"Who," I asked myself, "is Hilda, the daughter of a barbarian,
of a rude, uncouth northern pirate, living in a high wooden
fortress, overlooking the sea, to so demean the perfumes of Ar?"
Marauders of Gor Book 9 Pages 113 - 114
I had heard there was fighting between Ar and Cos, it having to
do with the alleged support by Cos accorded to Vosk pirates.
Slave Girl of Gor Book 11 Page 248
I knew the waters of Thassa were plied by many ships, and, among
them, were the ships of pirates. Cos and Ar, I had heard, were
now at war, the matters having to do with the piracy on the Vosk
not having been satisfactorily adjudicated. But Ar had no navy,
though it did have a fleet of river ships that patrolled the
Vosk. The ship might, of course, be of Port Kar, or of one of
the northern ports, or even of Torvaldsland.
I could not free my ankles, wrists and belly of their chains,
which kept me, by their arrangement, on my knees. I was
frightened. If the ship fell to pirates I, and the other girls,
I knew, would fall helplessly to them too, lovely spoils, naked
slave booty, to the victors.
Slave Girl of Gor Book 11 Page 323
I had been brought there, bound and gagged, in a closed sack, in
a lighter from the pirate ship.
Slave Girl of Gor Book 11 Page 324
Port Kar is sometimes spoken of by her citizens as the Jewel of
Thassa. Other men speak of her differently, rather as a den of
thieves and cutthroats, a lair of pirates.
Slave Girl of Gor Book 11 Page 377
Above us the hatch was closed. I heard it lock. I looked upward.
I was in Sirik, fastened to a ring, chained in the hold of the
Dorna, the ship of the dreaded pirate and slaver, Bosk of Port
Kar.
Slave Girl of Gor Book 11 Page 380
"Give me the necklace," said Bosk of Port Kar. Samos handed it
to him.
The pirate regarded it. "Note," said he, "That the frequency of
yellow beads. Each third bead is yellow."
Slave Girl of Gor Book 11 Page 382
It had been delayed because of the war between Ar and Cos,
having to do with piracy and competitive commercial claims on
the Vosk.
Beasts of Gor Book 12 Page 34
The situation on the Vosk is further complicated by the presence
of Vosk pirates and the rivalries of the river towns themselves.
Explorers of Gor Book 13 Page 26
They must have known that she would be sailing from Cos to
Schendi. This trip, particularly because of the depredations of
pirates from Port Kar, is a hazardous one.
Explorers of Gor Book 13 Page 86
I took passage for Schendi on the Blossoms of Telnus, a ship of
Cos. We fell to pirates on the high seas. I think they were of
Port Kar. We were boarded. Fighting was fierce but brief. Our
ship was then theirs. I, and other women, placed in a net, were
swung to the deck of the pirate ship.
Explorers of Gor Book 13 Page 147
Ti is farthest from the confluence of the Olni and Vosk;
downriver from Ti is Port Olni; these were the first two cities
to form a league, originally intended for the control of river
pirates and the protection of inland shipping; later, downriver
from Port Olni, Vonda, and Lara, lying at the junction of the
Olni and Vosk, joined the league. The Olni, for practical
purposes, has been freed of river pirates.
Fighting Slave of Gor Book 14 Page 171
It is interesting to note that the control of piracy on the Olni
was largely a function of the incorporation of Lara in the
confederation. This made it difficult for the pirate fleets,
following their raids, to descend the Olni and escape into the
Vosk.
Fighting Slave of Gor Book 14 Page 172
"It is dangerous for merchant caravans," a man was saying. "Many
have been attacked," said another. "It is rumored the river
pirates are the worst," said another. "They grow bold with the
withdrawal of troops from Lara. They have struck even into Lara
herself, then withdrawing to their galleys."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 36
"Who are these people?" I asked one of the fellows near the
cots.
"Mostly merchants," said he. "These are the victims of the
predations of river pirates in Lara."
. . .
"Yes," said he. "They had not realized that the troops of Lara
would be moving east, or that the brigands and pirates would
move so boldly."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 37
Too, here and there in the city, river pirates, with impunity,
sought women and plundered.
. . .
Too, he had been, as I had ascertained, attacked by river
pirates on the south bank of the Olni and, embattled, had
bargained for his life and those of his men by delivering his
goods and slaves to the assailants.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 39
"What do you conjecture," I asked, "to be the fate of your goods
and slaves?"
"They are no longer mine," he said. "They are now the property
of the river pirates, theirs by the rights of sword and power."
"That is true," I said. "But what do you conjecture is to be
their fate?"
"It is not likely they could be sold in Lara, or northward," he
said. "Usually the river pirates sell their goods and captures
somewhere along the river, in one of the numerous river towns."
"What towns?" I asked.
"There are dozens," he said. "Perhaps Ven, Port Cos, Iskander,
Tafa, who knows."
"He who attacked you, the pirate chieftain," I said, "who was
he."
"There are many bands of river pirates," he said.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 40
#Post#: 142--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:34 am
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"I have nowhere to go," she said. "I am safe here. River pirates
may still be within the city. It is not safe for me to be put
out."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 43
"Do not leave the mat," I told her, getting up. I went to one of
the narrow, barred windows in the inn. I saw five armed men
running down the street.
"River pirates," I said. "I think they must be."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 52
Several days ago I had departed from Lara. The troops from Ar,
tarnsmen, had not burned Lara. Indeed, perhaps surprisingly,
they had done little but clear the town of river pirates and,
here and there, gather in a bit of loot and some women, mostly
female refugees from Vonda who fell into their hands.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 60
For several weeks I had moved from one river town to the next,
examining slave markets and attempting to obtain information on
the whereabouts of the pirate, Kliomenes. Understandably I
encountered few willing informants. Many people, I was sure,
knew more of this fellow than they admitted. His name, and that
of his captain, Policrates, were apparently feared on the river.
These river pirates were not, it must be understood, a few
scattered crews of cutthroats.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 62
I knew she had been taken recently, and by Kliomenes, the
pirate.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 64
"It is well known on the river," he said.
"What is well known?" I asked.
"That Victoria is one of the major outlets for the merchandise
of river pirates."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Pages 65 - 66
"You mentioned," I said, "that this necklace had been taken from
a free woman."
"By a pirate," he said.
"You speak of this openly," I observed.
"This is Victoria," said he.
"May I inquire as to what crew it was of which that pirate was a
member?" I asked.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 70
"Are you familiar with a pirate named Kliomenes?" I asked. I
hoped my voice did not betray undue interest.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 71
"He is Kliomenes, the pirate, lieutenant to Policrates," said
Tasdron.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 79
The spring and summer are the busiest seasons, for these are the
seasons of heaviest river traffic and, accordingly, the seasons
when pirates, after their raids, are most likely to bring in
their loot.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 80
Tonight my life had been saved by a dissolute fellow, a man
called Callimachus, perhaps from Port Cos, farther west on the
river, a derelict. Had it not been for him I would doubtless
have been slain by the pirate, Kliomenes.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 91
"Do you recall me?" I asked. "Do you recall I was the fellow who
challenged in this tavern, and who was threatened by Kliomenes,
the pirate, the fellow who was saved, happily, by one called
Callimachus."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 97
"Have you heard of the topaz?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I heard people in the market speaking of it."
"It is a pledge symbol," I said, "apparently used among pirates
on the river, when combining for massive assaults."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 120
"Besides," I said, "obviously you were willing to reveal the
location of the topaz with alacrity, as I had feared. It is
important that it not reach Policrates. If it does, the major
forces of the pirates of the eastern Vosk would achieve
unification, at least for a time, with those of the western
Vosk.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Pages 140 - 141
"In my own tavern," said Tasdron, "he had difficulty with
Kliomenes, the pirate. He could have been killed. That scarcely
seems what one would expect from the courier of Ragnar Voskjard.
Too, he does not seem skilled with the sword."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 149
I was startled to hear this name, for it was the name of he who
had saved me, some weeks ago, from the steel of Kliomenes, the
pirate.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 156
"Stand back," said the pirate.
Two blades, his, and that of a companion, were leveled at my
breast.
"Beverly!" I said. My hand, palm sweating, was poised over the
hilt of my sword.
"Make no unfortunate move," said the pirate, he who had spoken
to me before.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 157
"Be gone, Buffoon," said Kliomenes, not pleasantly. I felt again
the points of the swords of the two pirates at my chest.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 159
"Is it also known how I withdrew from the tavern of Hibron, the
Pirate's Chain, when I sought there the Lady Beverly?" I asked.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 162
"By now she doubtless wears the steel loops of a pirate's
pleasure girl," she said.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 165
"The men of Victoria," I said, "seem adamant in refusing to pay
the tribute to Policrates."
"Yes, Master," she smiled.
I thought this was courageous on their part, but I did not know
if it were wise. It had been the first time in five years that
this had happened. The last time the pirates of the dark
stronghold had carried fire and sword to a dozen wharfed ships.
The tribute, then, had been rapidly forthcoming. To be sure, in
the past years the pirates had become more and more dependent on
the markets of Victoria to dispose of their loot and captures.
In the light of this many in Victoria regarded themselves as
having at last attained a position in which they might succeed
in evading the humiliating burdens of tribute.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 166
"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
crowd. I felt the side of the pole against my belly. I was
jostled by the crowd. The pirate turned away, laughing.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 174
"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 another, bitterly.
I watched the pirates, perhaps some fifty or sixty of them,
unchallenged, moving between warehouses and the wharves, where
two pirate galleys were moored. Some townsfolk, at sword point,
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 cut 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 fifty to one," I said. "Let me rush upon
them. Let us stop them!"
"They are the 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 fellow, 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 nearest 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 outwards, with the small 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
belly, 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 missile
fire from the scene of the pillaging.
The woman was comely. I did not think she would have her throat
cut. Lusty men have better uses to which to put such women. I
did think, however, that they would soon, all the captures, be
marked and put in collars.
"If I were you," said the man near the woman in the crowd, "I
would draw back in the crowd and hide. Then I would flee."
"But I am free," she said.
"So, too, were they," said the man, angrily, gesturing to the
bound woman at the railing of the pirate galley.
She shrank back, suddenly frightened.
I saw Kliomenes, some seventy yards away, directing his
men and the enforced laborers, citizens of Victoria, loading the
galleys.
"You there, Female," called a pirate, his eye roaming the crowd,
"step forth!"
The men holding the ship's pole, frightened, lowered it. "Step
forth!" said the pirate.
The woman shook her head, pressing back against the men.
"Unhood her, face-strip her," ordered the pirate.
"Protect me, save me, please," she begged.
Her hood was thrust back. Her veil was torn away. She was
lovely. The price she would bring would be good. I wondered why
such a woman would come to the wharves in a time of such danger.
Surely she must have understood the peril to which she would be
exposing herself.
"Step forth, Beauty," said the pirate.
Numbly, she approached him. I made to move, but two men
restrained me.
Swiftly, before us all, in the light of the flames, was the
woman stripped by the pirate's blade.
"Lie down," said he.
She hesitated, and looked at him in anguish. "Or do you wish to
be slit like a larma?" he asked. His sword jabbed into the sweet
roundedness of her belly.
Swiftly, then, she lay at his feet, her back on the harsh,
tarred boards.
The pirate then looked at us, and laughed. "Here, at my feet,
supine, stripped, is a free woman of Victoria. Do any of you
dispute her with me?" Two men restrained me. No others moved.
"Kneel," he ordered the woman. She did so.
He then placed the point of his blade against her fair throat.
Numbly, slowly, lifting her arms, the blade between her arms,
her fingers trembling, she tied the bondage knot in her own
hair. She looked at him. "Please, spare me, Master," she said.
For a long moment or two the point of the blade remained at her
throat, as the pirate considered the girl's plea. I saw his eye
roam her now-imbonded curves.
He laughed. He thrust his blade back in its sheath. She almost
fainted with relief.
"On your feet!" he said. "Run to the nearest galley! Beg to be
displayed there, as the loot you are!"
"Yes, Master!" she cried and, leaping up, fled toward the
galley, a commanded slave.
"We do what we wish with Victoria," said the pirate. "Do any of
you gainsay me?" None spoke. He then laughed again, and, turning
about, went back toward the galleys.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Pages 174 - 177
I had seen a free woman of Victoria stripped with no more mercy
than would have been shown to a slave. I had seen her kneel
naked before a pirate and, his blade at her throat, with her own
hands, tie the knot of bondage in her hair, in full view of
hundreds of her fellow citizens.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 178
"At the wharves," I said, "there were pirates, few more than
half a hundred of such men, under the command of Kliomenes,
lieutenant to Policrates."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 179
"I have seen Glyco, a merchant, a high merchant, of Port Cos,
these several days in earnest converse with you. I think,
surely, that he, fearing the union of the pirates of the east
and west, was entreating you to lend support to some scheme of
resistance."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 180
"It is said," I said, "that the pirates own Victoria."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 182
There was then silence in the hall. The pirates, feasting at the
low tables, stopped eating, and watched.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 189
"Grapes, Master?" said a soft, feminine voice near to me. I
looked about, but I did not react. It was the free woman, or the
woman who had been free, who had been ordered from the crowd on
the wharves of Victoria. I recalled her having been stripped by
the pirate, and his blade at her throat.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 193
"Kliomenes fell in with her at the tavern of Hibron, the
Pirate's Chain, in Victoria," he said.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 195
There was more applause. Then the brute looked to Policrates,
who indicated a table. He then pulled the girl to her feet and,
running her over the tiles, and then releasing the coils from
her neck, threw her stumbling into the arms of waiting pirates
who, with a cry of pleasure, seized her and began to work their
lusty wills upon her. There was more applause, and laughter.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 196
I picked up my things at the door. I slung them about me. I
donned my mask. There was a knock on the door, and I opened it.
A pirate stood there, he who had brought Beverly to me last
night, who had now come to fetch me to breakfast. I must soon
leave the holding of Policrates, theoretically to journey
downriver to the holding of Ragnar Voskjard, that his fleet
might be soon launched, that the two fleets, in fierce force,
might overwhelm the garrisons of Ar's Station, and then of Port
Cos, that the river, for hundreds of pasangs, would then become
theirs, subject to their predations or levied tributes as they
saw fit.
I nodded to the pirate, indicating my readiness to accompany
him.
He looked beyond me, to the slave ring. The girl now knelt
there, cuffed to the ring. He seemed startled. "Is it Beverly?"
he asked. The girl, suddenly, shrank back against the stone of
the couch, a slave's movement. Curious, the pirate brushed past
me, going to the girl. He crouched down beside her. "It is
Beverly," he said. She trembled. He put forth his hand, touching
her at the shoulder. She shuddered beneath his touch, putting
down her head. "What have you done to her?" he asked, grinning.
"Last night she was an enslaved female. This morning she is a
female slave." He put forth his hand and held her, with one
hand, his fingers about her chin and throat. She shuddered. "I
would say," he grinned, "that she is now more truly aware of her
condition, that you have much improved her." He did not remove
his hand from her throat and chin. "Were you much improved last
night, Beverly?" he asked.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 223
#Post#: 143--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:35 am
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We looked back upon her. It was a superb slave who knelt there.
Miss Henderson, in the night, I saw, now clearly, remembering
her from the evening before, had been brought to a new dimension
in her slavery.
The pirate laughed.
The girl shrank back against the stone of the couch. The snaps
on the cuffs rubbed against the slave ring.
The pirate then walked slowly towards her. She cowered back,
fearing to be struck.
He stopped, standing before her.
She lifted her head to him but was, of course, unable to see
him, prevented with perfection from doing so by the efficiency
of the Gorean blindfold. She squirmed in the cuffs, unable to
see, in a slave's fear.
The pirate stood looking at her, his hands on his hips.
Every inch of her was beautiful, and enslaved. She would now be
a dream of pleasure for any man.
"Who owns you?" he asked.
"Policrates," she said.
"And more generally," he said, "who owns you?"
"Men," she said.
The pirate then turned about and rejoined me, by the door. He
then went through the door, and I was to follow him. I did turn
about, once, to look again upon the girl. "Master!" she cried
out to me, piteously, in the darkness of the blindfold,
stretching her small cuffed hands, as she could, entreatingly,
toward me. "Master! Master!"
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Pages 224 - 225
"Glyco, to whom I have spoken, being a merchant of Port Cos, can
meet openly with Callisthenes without arousing suspicion. There
will be no difficulty, thus, in bringing Callisthenes to our
meeting. The matter, however, will be otherwise with Aemilianus.
It is unlikely that he can be subtly contacted. Here there is
danger. He, like Callisthenes, is doubtless under surveillance
by spies of pirates."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 230
"It is now dangerous to travel on the river," I said. "River
pirates are now bold and active."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 241
Perhaps they knew, too, of my outspoken displeasure at the
wharves when the pirates had looted and burned there, punishing
Victoria for having at that time refused their demands for
tribute. With some of these fellows I had drunk, and worked.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 243
"I cannot gainsay it," I said. I had learned in the stronghold
of Policrates, the pirate, that the beautiful Miss Henderson
was, in her heart, a slave among slaves. It was not
inappropriate, thus, but quite appropriate, that she had been
subjected to merciless slave rape.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 247
"With all due respect," I said, "pirates, and those in league
with them, are not noted for their honor."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 248
She was, after all, a woman of Earth. Later, of course, she had
been captured by Kliomenes, the lieutenant to Policrates, the
pirate, and taken to the stronghold of Policrates.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 255
"It was forged in Cos, in a thousand lengths," said Glyco, "and
brought overland, around the delta, and on galleys east from
Turmus. Its mountings and pylons were mostly done at night. It
lies west of Port Cos, that we may be protected from the
pirates."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 265
"Surely Port Cos will find some benefits in being spared the
predations of pirates," said Callisthenes.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 266
"It is a foolish plan," said Callisthenes. "You would surely be
discovered. Spies abound. The pirates are well informed, I am
certain."
"Only we in this room know of this possibility," I said.
"Discuss your plan with Aemilianus," suggested Callisthenes.
"The pirates of the eastern Vosk are more your concern than
mine. The chain will keep the pirates of the western Vosk out of
the waters of Port Cos."
"I do not wish to risk several ships and hundreds of men in such
an unusual venture," said Aemilianus. "Besides, how do I know
this is not a pirate trick to lure the fleet of Ar's Station
into an ambush in cramped waters?"
"You have my word on it," said Callimachus, "the word of a
warrior."
"Perhaps you, too, have been fooled," said Aemilianus. "I must
think of the security of my men and my ships." Aemilianus looked
at me. "Are you of Ar?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Are you of the Warriors?" he asked.
"No," I said.
Aemilianus spread his hands. "How then," he asked the others,
"in so great a matter, can I trust him?"
"You must do so," urged Tasdron.
"Do so," urged Glyco.
"Why should you undertake such risks?" Aemilianus asked me.
"There is a girl, a slave, I want in the stronghold of
Policrates," I said.
"You would undergo these risks, these dangers," he asked, "for a
girl?"
"I desire her," I said. "I want to own her."
"Is that all?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Too," I said, "I have scores to settle with
pirates."
Twice I had been demeaned by pirates, once in the tavern of
Tasdron, and once in the Pirate's Chain, the tavern of Hibron.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Pages 267 - 268
"The plan is not only dangerous," said Callisthenes, "and I
would not risk men or ships of Port Cos in such a rash scheme,
but it is, at least as far as preventing the gathering of the
river pirates goes, unnecessary. The chain will keep the pirates
of the west to the west of Port Cos."
"The chain will be ineffective," reiterated Glyco, miserably.
"It will be quite effective," said Callisthenes.
"A chain can be forged, a chain can be cut," I said.
"The chain is patrolled, of course," said Callisthenes. "Too,
should there be any massing of pirate ships, we can meet them
with the fleet of Port Cos."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 268
"Captain, Callisthenes," said I, "surely the pirates, as you
yourself have suggested, are well informed."
"It seems they know anything that occurs on the river," he
admitted.
"If that be the case," I said, "surely the forging of the chain,
or at least its transport to Turmus, and later to Port Cos, and
the time and effort spent in preparing its mountings, joining
the lengths, and setting the chain in place, must have been
known to the pirates."
"Supposedly this was done in secrecy," said Callisthenes, "but I
think there is little doubt they must have understood what was
being done. Indeed, I have heard that there are rumors of the
work in various of the western towns, in Turmus and Ven, in
Tetrapoli and Tala."
"Indeed," smiled Glyco. "We have even received a protest from
Ven in the council."
"On the assumption that the pirates understood what was
occurring," I said to Callisthenes, "does it not seem strange to
you that they made no effort to interfere with the placing of
the chain?"
"It was guarded, of course," said Callisthenes.
"But no effort, even a small one, or one in force or
desperation, by steel or by guile, was made to prevent its
placing?"
"None, at least to my knowledge," said Callisthenes.
"You yourself are presumably well informed," I said.
"I trust so," said Callisthenes.
"Does this lack of opposition or interference on the part of
pirates as powerful and well organized as those of Ragnar
Voskjard not seem puzzling to you?"
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 269
She, nude, kneeling, the blade of the pirate at her throat, had
tied the knot of bondage in her own hair. She had been ordered
then to the galley, to be bound there as an exposed slave, to be
taken to the stronghold of her masters. The bit of yellow silk
lay partly on one stair and, descending gracefully, partly on
another. It took the edge of the stair beautifully, for such
silk is very fine. It reveals even the subtlest lineaments of
that to which it clings. It is slave silk. I could see the
graining of the marble through the silk. The girl now began to
kiss at my left foot and leg. She kissed well. I saw that she
belonged in a collar. It was too bad, I thought, that that
discovery had first been made by pirates and not by strong free
men, before whom pirates might quail. But free men, I knew, were
often too simple or ignorant to gather up the unclaimed booty
which might lie about them, even though such booty might beg
piteously to serve, and to be taken into their homes, to be
treasured. It is not easy always, of course, to recognize a
slave who wears the robes and veils of concealment; the
identification becomes simple, of course, once she has been put
in a collar and slave tunic. It is said on Gor that the garments
of a free woman are designed to conceal a woman's slavery,
whereas the accouterments and garments of a slave, such as the
brand and collar, the tunic or Ta-Teera, are made to reveal it.
"You are Jason, of Victoria, are you not?" inquired Policrates.
"Yes," I said. Kliomenes stood beside the curule chair of
Policrates. He was smiling. Four or five of Policrates'
cutthroats stood about, with their arms folded. About the curule
chair of Policrates, nestling about his feet, and on the stairs
about the chair, were several of his girls. Most were nude, but
some were silked, or clad otherwise revealingly, as befitted the
wenches of pirates. Some wore threads of leather, another a bit
of rope, another only her chains. Some of these wenches I
remembered from the feast. There were dark-haired Relia and
blond Tela, who was still kept in white silk, as a joke, though
she must have served the pleasure of pirates a thousand times;
and the blond sisters from Cos, Mira and Tala; short,
dark-haired Bikkie; the girls who had danced at the feast, and
had been thrown to the aroused men at the conclusion of their
performances; and certain others. Most, however, I did not know,
or recognize. Men such as Policrates are rich in women, as well
as in gold.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Pages 276 - 277
It could have been done with simplicity in the privacy, in the
secrecy, of an alcove, her head to a pirate's feet.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 278
"Yes, my Master," said the pirate's slave. "He is Jason, from
Victoria. Once he was of Earth, as I, your slave."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 283
"Cease your lying!" cried the pirate. "Put your back into it!"
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 290
"Push!" cried the pirate.
. . .
"Push, push! Move!" called the pirate. The lash struck amongst
us.
. . .
"Work, work!" called the pirate. "Work!" But he did not strike
us again. The weights were now in motion.
There is little to amuse one in the chamber of the windlass,
save, I suppose, eating and drinking, and dreams. There is a
shallow trough for water, cut in the stone, near one wall, where
we would be chained when not working. This is filled twice
daily. Too, at the wall, we would be thrown crusts of bread, and
scraps of meat and fruit, usually the garbage of the feasts of
pirates, our captors.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 291
"Do not slack, you Sleen," said the pirate, snapping his whip.
"Work! Work!"
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 293
"Keep moving," caned the pirate.
. . .
"Hold!" called the pirate.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 294
"The gate is soon to be closed," said the pirate.
. . .
"Liar!" screamed the pirate. "I have warned you about your
lies!"
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 295
"Lower the gate!" we heard a man call. "Lower the gate!" Then,
far above us, and to the right of the windlass chamber, angry,
entering out onto a small balcony extending into the chamber, a
balcony reached through a guardroom, we saw a pirate. "What is
going on down there?" he called.
"Nothing!" called the pirate who had been striking me.
"Did you not hear the signal?" called the man on the balcony.
The pirate with us glared at me, in fury. He loosened the
holding pawl. Immediately we felt the stress in the windlass
poles.
"Pay attention, you fool," called the man on the balcony.
"Listen! Get the gate down!"
"Lower the gate!" cried the pirate with us, angrily. "Hurry, you
fools!"
We felt the bars pulling against our arms and, slowly, with
effort, as the weights ascended, permitted the descent of the
gate.
Then the gate was down.
I met the eyes of the pirate. He looked at me, in fury. I looked
down, as though frightened.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 296
"Why have I been brought here, Captain?" I asked the pirate at
my side, who had conducted me to the tiles of the hall. It was
he who was commonly in charge of the workers at the windlass.
"Please, no, Captain," I said.
"Be silent," he said, grinning.
"Yes, Captain," I said. The collar and chain which had fastened
me to the windlass pole had been removed from my neck, but I
wore still, on my wrists and ankles, the other chains from the
room of the windlass.
"What is next?" inquired Kliomenes.
"The disposition of loot," said a pirate.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 298
#Post#: 144--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:36 am
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Arrows lanced into the heavy wicker but, though several pierced
it by a foot, they did little damage. The shafts were caught in
the heavy wicker. Too, now, from the pirates' galleys,
protecting their longboats, there sped a fierce counter-fire.
The wicker shields of our own archers were now bristling with
feathers and wood.
A heavy stone broke away the railing of the stern castle of the
Tina.
"Closer! Closer!" called Callimachus.
I heard the hiss and snap of our catapults, the twisted ropes
snapping loose. When the largest one fired I could feel the
reaction in the deck boards beneath my feet.
Flaming pitch was flung at close quarters. Arrows traversed the
air in swift menace.
An arm suddenly appeared over the bulwark. Then a man, wet,
scrambled aboard. I met him with the sword and, grappling,
kicking, I forced him back overboard.
Burning pitch spattering and exploding out of a clay vessel
skidded across the deck.
I could hear battle horns to port and starboard.
Not more than a dozen feet away I could see a pirate longboat
behind the chain, protected by wicker shields.
Stones and pitch, at point-blank range, pounded and exploded
between ships.
I could see, clearly, the eyes of pirates, no more than a few
feet away, we separated from them by the chain, and a few feet
of water.
A man rose from behind the bulwarks of the enemy vessel, bow in
hand.
Then he was reeling back, an arrow in his chest.
I heard the chain scraping at the side of the Tina, then the
shearing blade on our starboard side, swinging to starboard,
struck the wood of a longboat. We slid along the chain, then,
the oars on our starboard side striking loose the wicker
shielding of another longboat, too close to the chain, and
spilling men into the water.
I saw pirates, on the galley opposite, shaking their fists at
us.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Pages 11 - 12
The pirate vessels, too, had withdrawn from the chain. It was
near the tenth Ahn, the Gorean noon.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 13
"Do you not wonder, sometimes," asked he, "why honest men,
honest folk, such as ourselves, permit pirates, and such, to
exist?"
"Why?" I asked.
"That we may have someone to kill," he said.
"Are we so different from them, then?" I asked.
"I do not think so," said Callimachus. "We have much in common
with them."
"What?" I asked.
"That we are men," said Callimachus.
"It is not the killing," I said, "for executions would not
suffice."
"No," said Callimachus, "it is the sport, and the risk, and the
killing."
"One must fight for causes," I said.
"Causes exist," said Callimachus, "that men may fight."
"I am troubled," I said.
"Extinguish the lanterns," said Callimachus to a fellow. "The
pirates may still be about."
"Let us put down the longboat," I said to Callimachus. "With
muffled oars we may patrol our sector of the chain."
"Why would you do this?" he asked.
"Our vessel, even with the lanterns extinguished, cannot
approach the chain as silently as a longboat. The pirate boats,
at the chain, need only draw back."
"The longboat," said Callimachus, "should be west of the chain,
that it may approach the pirate boats less suspiciously."
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 16
"Ready," I said to the men with me, softly. We approached the
chain from the west. The longboat had been put down across the
chain, the Tina abeam of it, a quarter of an Ahn ago. We had
actually passed within a few yards of pirate vessels, anchored
in the river.
"Who is there?" called the voice.
"Now!" I said. Five men, behind the gunnels, suddenly rose up,
bows in hand. The arrows were discharged at almost point-blank
range into the other boat, as we struck against it. I heard men
scream, tools cast down. I and five others, swords drawn,
boarded the other craft, hacking and slashing about us. We did
not speak. The cries, the screams, were those of the pirates.
More than one saved himself by leaping into the water. I thrust
the body of another over a thwart, and then rolled it,
sprawling, over the gunnel into the water.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 17
I saw no point in attacking. The element of surprise was no
longer with us. We had taken three longboats in the night. That
there was danger at the chain was now well understood by the
pirates. They had thought to work with impunity, and had found
that we had not chosen to permit it.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 18
"If the Voskjard should join with Policrates," said another man,
"and the forces of Port Cos and Ar's Station are divided, no
town on the river will be safe."
"Pirates will own the Vosk," said another man.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 20
We were hailed by men in pirate vessels, as we passed near them,
but we did not respond.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 21
As we came about a pirate galley knifed towards us.
"To starboard!" cried Callimachus. Then he cried, "Oars
inboard!"
Her ram missed us. Her port shearing blade tore at our strakes.
"Oars outboard!" called Callimachus. "Come about!"
The two ships had slid past one another. As the ships passed I
had looked into the eyes of a pirate. He had not been more than
five feet from me.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 24
Here and there, at the chain, again and again, pirate galleys
were striking at the great links, and then backing away, and
then again, patiently, renewing their attack.
"Doubtless they are hammering at points where they know the
chain was weakened in the night," said a man near me.
He had been with me in the longboat last night.
"Yes," I said. "Look there!"
I pointed to one of the truncated pylons rising out of the
river. It had been splashed with yellow paint.
"Catapults!" called Callimachus.
Two stones looped into the air and then, gracefully, began their
descent toward one of the pirate ships.
Huge spumes of water rose into the air as the great rocks
plunged into the Vosk.
"Bowmen!" called Callimachus.
We neared the first of the galleys and flighted arrows toward
her.
She drew back.
"There are others," said a man.
We moved along the chain. We came upon the wreckage of a pirate
galley, broken in two, deserted. It had broken, attempting to
ride over the chain.
"There is a pirate galley behind us, a pasang back, lying to!"
called out a man, aft on the stern castle.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 25
We would be divided, handicapped in our attempts to reinforce
and support one another. Divided, hunted, we could be herded,
and surrounded. We might then make good sport for the pirates.
The Voskjard had been held at the chain in the south. I did not
think that this would have pleased him. I did not expect that
prisoners would be taken.
"Now!" cried Callimachus.
There are three poles which, customarily, with Gorean ships are
used in casting off, in thrusting away from the wharves. There
were, of course, three such poles on the Tina and on the Mira.
Our oars were inboard.
Suddenly, as the enemy galley veered to knife between us, and
the Mira men with poles, and, too, with oars, on our ship, and
on the Mira, thrust the ships apart. There was a shattering and
a scraping but the enemy galley, which had thought with force to
press us apart, meeting little resistance was, by her momentum,
almost immediately astern of us. Almost simultaneously other
men, on the Tina and Mira, with ropes and grappling irons, drew
the ships more closely together. The two ships following the
first galley had intended to follow her into our line,
exploiting the breach. But now there was no breach. The point of
the wedge, harmlessly, save for splinters and paint torn from
our hull, was behind us. The two supporting ships ground their
hulls together. Burning pitch and arrows rained upon their
decks. I heard rams clash to port and starboard. Then one of the
supporting galleys was struck in the stern by a following ship,
unable to check its momentum. The pirate galleys began to back
oars, frantically to extricate themselves, but, clumsily, half
swung about, they must accept our fire.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 32
I saw a pirate galley slip under the water, near the chain.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 36
#Post#: 145--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:37 am
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"Is this," he asked, "truly an equal division of the spoils of
the Flower of Siba?"
"We have something of the better of it, in my opinion," said the
pirate before the dais.
"I see," said Kliomenes.
"Not much of great value is currently moving on the river," said
the pirate. "Men are frightened. Most of the loot is being kept
in the towns."
"Once joined with the Voskjard," said Kliomenes, "we can fetch
it forth from the towns, as it pleases us."
"True, Captain," said the pirate.
Kliomenes smiled, addressed as Captain, though within the
holding of Policrates.
"Put the coins, the jewelry, the pearls in the general coffers,"
said Kliomenes.
The pirate before the dais signaled to some men and they removed
the coins, the jewelry and pearls from before the dais.
"And what of this?" asked the pirate before the dais, taking the
girl by the hair and forcing her head up and back, bending then
her body back, so as to reveal the bow of her enslaved beauty.
Kliomenes regarded the girl, musingly. "The values of many
things," he said, "seem patent, but not the value of a slave."
He gestated that the pirate should release her, and he did so.
The girl then knelt, looking at him. "Are you only beautiful, my
dear?" he asked.
She put down her head, sobbing.
"Keep her in the holding," said Kliomenes. "I myself shall
assess her tonight."
The girl, then, in her chains, was dragged sobbing from his
presence.
Kliomenes then looked at me, and I was thrust forward,
stumbling, toward the dais. Unbidden, I knelt. There was
laughter from the pirates in the room. I was the last item on
his agenda for the morning. He had saved me for last.
"I should have slain you long ago, in the tavern of Tasdron, in
Victoria," said Kliomenes.
"Forgive me, Captain," I said, head down.
"I understand that you are a braggart, and a liar," said
Kliomenes.
"No, no, Captain," I said, hastily.
"He maintains," said the pirate who had conducted me to the
room, he normally in charge of the crews of the windlass, "that
he deceived both you and Policrates, and us all, by posing as
the courier of Ragnar Voskjard."
"Are you so desperate for status among your fellow sleen," asked
Kliomenes, "that you will risk such lies in this place?"
I kept my head down. I seemed to tremble.
"You warned him, did you not?" inquired Kliomenes, of my guard.
"Many times, Kliomenes," said the man. "But even this morning he
persisted in these assertions, thinking I was not within that
distance wherein I might detect his boasts."
"I see," said Kliomenes.
"Too, yesterday," said the man, "he spoke disparagingly of you."
"What did he say?" inquired Kliomenes, amused.
"He spoke of you - as a dolt," said the pirate.
There was laughter from among the men present. Now, I noted,
lifting my head, that Kliomenes did not seem amused. There was
resentment of Kliomenes, and jealousy, and fear, I suspected, in
the holding. There were perhaps others present who would not
have minded usurping his lieutenancy to Policrates. Kliomenes
looked about the room, and the laughter instantly faded. "That
is indeed amusing," said Kliomenes, returning his attention to
me.
"Forgive me, Captain," I begged.
"The courier, or he who posed as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard,
though not my equal, was not unskilled with the sword," said
Kliomenes.
"Forgive me, Captain," I begged.
"Do not slay him, Kliomenes," said one of the men near the
curule chair, "for he might be of use in bargaining for the
freedom of the true courier of Ragnar Voskjard, who must have
been captured by our enemies in Victoria."
"They would not exchange so valuable a man for this worthless
fellow, a dock worker," said Kliomenes.
"Wait for Policrates," said the man, "Let him make decision on
this matter."
"In the absence of Policrates," said Kliomenes, "I am first in
the holding."
"I do not contest that," said the man, stepping back, angrily.
Kliomenes again looked at me. "Thus," said he, "if you are truly
he who posed as the courier of the Voskjard, you, too, must be
not unskilled with the sword."
"Forgive me, Captain," I begged.
"Put a sword in his hand," said Kliomenes.
The fellow near me, who had brought me to the room, withdrew his
blade from its sheath. He held it to me, hilt first.
"No," I said, "no!"
"Take it," said Kliomenes, evenly.
I took the blade by the hilt, in one chained wrist. I took care
to hold it improperly. I held it as though it might have been a
hammer, and too close to its guard, which would, of course, in
actual swordplay, impair its mobility considerably.
Two or three of the men laughed. Kliomenes then rested back in
his curule chair. He had been watching closely. He was a vain
and arrogant man, but he was no fool. He had not won his way to
the lieutenancy of Policrates by being stupid.
"Can you not kill me as I am, in my chains?" I asked. "Must you
mock me?"
"Take him outside," said Kliomenes, rising, and stretching.
"Please, Captain, one favor," I begged, "one favor."
"What?" asked Kliomenes, puzzled.
"Do not let those of the windlass room know what was done to
me," I begged.
"Bring them, in their chains, outside," said Kliomenes, to my
guard, "that they may observe what is done to this fellow."
"No, Captain, please!" I begged.
But, already, two men were pulling me by the arms from the room.
I blinked against the light of the sun.
I felt the chains on my wrists and ankles being removed. Armed
men surrounded me. In one hand I still clutched, with apparent
ineptness, and as though in fear, the sword which I had been
commanded to take from the pirate.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Pages 301 - 303
"Lucky parry," said one of the pirates.
"There is no Callimachus to rescue you now, Dolt," said
Kliomenes, measuring me, the point of his blade moving subtly, a
yard or so from my chest.
Then, again, the blade struck, swift as an ost, toward me.
"The dock worker is fortunate," said one of the pirates.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 305
"He is afraid," said one of the pirates.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 306
"Release him," said one of the pirates. "You cannot escape."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 306
My steel was then to the back of Kliomenes. "Precede me to the
parapets," I told him. "Do not follow," I warned the pirates.
. . .
"That will not be necessary!" he said. He turned, then, and
preceded me about the walkway bordering the lakelike courtyard.
I looked back and saw the group of pirates. They did not follow.
They stood near the iron door, the entry into the inner holding.
Their steel lay still about their feet.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 307
"Glyco," I pointed out, "has enlisted your aid against the
pirates."
"He is not with the fleet," said Callimachus.
"He is now east on the river, trying to raise support for our
cause," I said.
"Perhaps," said Callimachus. "But no ships have been
forthcoming."
"I do not think Glyco will be successful," I said. "There is too
much distrust among the towns, and they fear the pirates too
much. Too, the fleet of Policrates is now east of Victoria, to
prevent such ships from reinforcing us. I have told you this."
Callimachus was silent.
"Why is it not obvious to you that the traitor was the slave,
Peggy?" I asked.
"She could not have heard," said Callimachus, uncertainly,
angrily.
"She was in the room," I said. "She must have heard. She is not
stupid, though she is a slave. She could have understood much of
what we planned. Doubtless she revealed our plans to the courier
of Ragnar Voskjard, or to a pirate in Tasdron's tavern, perhaps
while moaning with pleasure in his arms, hoping to win her
freedom by her treachery."
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 311
Callimachus was silent.
"Why is it not obvious to you that the traitor was the slave,
Peggy?" I asked.
"She could not have heard," said Callimachus, uncertainly,
angrily.
"She was in the room," I said. "She must have heard. She is not
stupid, though she is a slave. She could have understood much of
what we planned. Doubtless she revealed our plans to the courier
of Ragnar Voskjard, or to a pirate in Tasdron's tavern, perhaps
while moaning with pleasure in his arms, hoping to win her
freedom by her treachery."
There was a cheer behind me. At the chain, settling back, its
concave bow lifted fully from the water, its stern awash, was a
pirate galley. Men were in the water. Beyond this ship, too,
there was another pirate galley, crippled, listing.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 8
I could see, even as he spoke, several of the pirate vessels
drawing back, abeam of the chain, but far enough behind it to
prevent our ram from reaching them. Off our port bow we saw one
of the pirate vessels slip beneath the muddy waters of the Vosk,
a kill of the Mira.
Small boats again approached the chain.
We edged forward again. A raking of arrows hailed upon our deck,
many bristling then, too, in the stem castle.
"Bowmen!" called Callimachus.
We spent a shower of arrows at the nearest longboat. Two men
fell from the boat into the water. Other men dove free into the
river, swimming back about the bow of the nearest pirate vessel.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 10
#Post#: 146--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:37 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Aemilianus, followed by men, moved swiftly, past startled
pirates, toward the iron door.
"Hold, hold there!" cried Kliomenes, suddenly. He had seen
Callimachus and myself. "There are spies among you!" he cried.
Then the sword of Miles of Vonda was at his throat. "Order your
men to throw down their arms!" said Miles of Vonda. My sword
then, too, threatened him, at his belly. The arms of Kliomenes
were pinned behind him by two men. Slave girls screamed. Baskets
of petals fell to the walk. They shrank back against the wall,
armed men moving past them. "Throw down your arms," called Miles
of Vonda to the pirates on the walk, "or you are dead men."
"Throw down your arms!" called Kliomenes, hoarsely. We saw
Aemilianus, followed by a file of men, thrust through the iron
door. Beyond it, almost instantly, we heard shouts, and then
some swordplay, and running feet. Callimachus, followed by his
file of men, raced up the steps toward the walls. I saw two
pirates, cut from the steps, fall twisting and striking against
stone to the sea yard below. A pirate leapt past me and fled
down the walk. I pursued him. Then ahead of him another ship was
at the walk's edge.
"The Tais!" cried the pirate. Men leapt from her rail, ahead of
him. He threw down his sword. I moved past him, through the men
of the Tais, toward the wall. No pirates must escape. I raced
toward the wall's height. Swordplay there was sharp. I cut one
man from the wall. I thrust a man through who was climbing
through an opening in the parapet. I cut my way through men and
swords.
I saw, to my alarm, pirates in the water, in the sea yard,
swimming toward the gate. I forced my way into the west gate
tower. I struck the sword from the hand of the pirate within and
spun him about, seizing him by the neck. I thrust him toward the
interior balcony, that opening into the chamber of the windlass.
"Order the lowering of the gate, the plunging lowering of the
gate!" I said. "Lower the gate," he cried. "Loose the gate!
Loose the gate!" Cries of dismay rose from the water below,
within the sea yard. With a rattling thunder of chain and iron
the huge gate splashed downward into the water, its bars
entering and anchoring themselves in their deep, subsurface
sockets.
"We surrender!" called the pirates on the wall. Swords were
flung down. I put my prisoner with the rest. From the wall's
height I could see the walk near the holding crowded with our
men, emerged from the holds of the Tuka and Tina. The fleet of
Policrates, as I knew, some forty ships, was abroad, to prevent
reinforcements from the eastern towns, should they appear, from
proceeding westward to assist at the defense of the chain.
Accordingly, within the fortress, under the command of
Kliomenes, only a small force had been left, some two hundred to
two hundred and fifty men. These would have been sufficient to
hold the fortress against a significant attack, but, once the
enemy, in numbers, as we were, were within, the defense of the
holding would be a lost cause.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Pages 99 - 100
It is not common on the part of pirates to pamper their slaves.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 103
"Pirates have excellent taste in slave flesh," I said.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 104
Some, however, had been put in little more than twists of torn
rags, such as those on the body of the auburn-haired beauty in
which Miles of Vonda had seemed to take an interest and on the
body of the small, exquisite brunet of whom I had deigned to
take note. I gathered that the pirates had enjoyed setting off
their beauty in this fashion.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 105
"Yes, Jason," said the man, hurrying downward from the wall.
Kliomenes had spent a good part of yesterday, and the night,
with certain other pirates, chained, in rags, at the windlass.
His appearance on the wall, Callimachus and I had speculated,
might allay suspicions in the advancing fleet.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 110
"The pits in the fortress have been prepared?" inquired
Callimachus of one of his officers.
"Yes, Captain," said the man. More than one hundred captured
pirates had been drafted to this work, after which, in chains,
they had been thrust, packed, with others, into cells, below the
holding.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Pages 110 - 111
I had, indeed, earlier speculated from pirate strategies, that
the fleet had been under the command not of the Voskjard, but of
a lesser man.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 112
We gave orders and the great gate began to rise. This time, in
the room of the windlass, however, it was pirates who labored to
lift that mighty weight.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Pages 112 - 113
She, Lola, with another of my slaves, Shirley, I was keeping,
for my convenience, in the central room of the slave quarters,
with the captured beauties of the pirates. These latter girls,
such as the auburn-haired beauty in whom Miles of Vonda was
interested, and the small brunet in whom I had some interest,
were in ignorance as to what their disposition would be. This
was appropriate. They were slaves.
I saw the lead galley drawing alongside the walk near the
fortress wall, across the sea yard. Mooring lines were made
fast. Pirates disembarked.
"You will never be successful," snarled Kliomenes.
"Stand back on the ramparts," I said, "that the stern
impediments locked upon your ankles not be visible."
He stepped back a foot.
"Smile, and wave," I encouraged him, "unless you wish to die."
He smiled and waved.
I saw Reginald and Alcibron wave to him, from the walk across
the sea yard. He who had been the courier of Ragnar Voskjard
looked about himself, suspiciously, and then, with the others,
entered the holding. Inside, in a previously prepared room, on a
great table, were aligned two hundred goblets of wine. Each
contained Tassa powder. When the pirates, unsuspecting, were
within, and giving themselves to the wine, the door would be
locked. Other vessels, too, were now being moored at the walk,
and others, following them, were being tied up alongside the
first. In a short time the sea yard, if all went well, would be
almost filled with vessels. In such close harborage it would be
possible to walk across the sea yard, moving from deck to deck.
More than two hundred pirates had now been welcomed and
encouraged within the holding. Later crews, now, in smaller
groups, in single file, would be conducted deeply within the
holding. There, by larger numbers, the smaller groups would be
disarmed, beaten and hurled into waiting, smooth-sided capture
pits, prepared earlier by the captured pirates of Kliomenes.
Narrow corridors, too, and blind passages, suddenly shut off by
barred barricades, through which arrows might be fired by our
men, served a similar purpose. Caught within, as helpless as
penned vulos, subject vulnerably to the pleasure of our archers,
pirates would surrender, stripping themselves and submitting
themselves, one by one, to our chains.
"There must be twenty ships in the yard," I said.
"It goes well," said Callimachus.
Suddenly, reeling, his sword bloody, I saw he who had been the
courier of Ragnar Voskjard, his clothing torn, emerge wildly
from the interior of the holding.
"Go back! Go back!" he screamed. "It is a trap!"
Pirates looked at him; puzzled.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Pages 113 - 114
The pirate behind the girl, who had thrust her forward,
un-knotted the cord from her throat, that which held the cloth
over her head and kept it fixed, too, upon her body. She could
probably see somewhat through the cloth, but not well. There
seemed something familiar about her. The pirate drew the cloth
away from the slave. He dropped it behind her. She knelt. I
stepped back. It was she who had once been the Lady Florence of
Vonda. I knew her now, of course, as Florence, who was, or had
been, the slave of Miles of Vonda. To be sure, she was delicious
loot.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 299
"She is pretty," said Kliomenes.
"Yes," said the pirate.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 299
"You were to escort the Tamira back to the vicinity of the
chain," said Kliomenes, regarding the pirate who had presented
the loot before him. "How is it that you dallied enroute to
engage in more prosaic transactions?"
"It was gold lying on the sand, fruit ripe to be plucked,"
shrugged the pirate.
"The Tamira is carrying the signs and countersigns, as you
know," said Kliomenes.
"They are safe," the pirate assured him.
"What is the Tamira?" I asked the pirate next to me.
"The scout ship of Ragnar Voskjard," said he. I had assumed this
must be the case. I myself, in my unsuccessful ruse, betrayed,
presumably by the Earth-girl slave, Peggy, had posed as a
commander of scout ships, supposedly sent ahead by the fleet of
Ragnar Voskjard. Now, it seemed, so soon, the actual ship, or
ships, though it now seemed there was only one, had appeared,
conducted its business, and was now returning westward on the
river, presumably to rendezvous with the Voskjard. That a single
ship had been involved suggested a certain complacency on the
part of the western pirates. Had they truly so little to fear?
"The chain has not yet been cut?" I asked. I gathered that it
had not been cut from the nature of the conversation I had
heard. On the other hand, it seemed puzzling to me how the
Voskjard's scout ship could have appeared in these waters if the
chain had not been cut.
"No," said the pirate next to me.
"How could she have crossed the chain?" I asked.
"A single ship, posing as a merchantman, not inspected, it was
not difficult," he said.
"The chain was opened for her?" I asked.
"As it is for honest ships," said the man. He grinned.
"She experienced no difficulties?" I asked.
"We have friends at the chain," said the pirate.
Rogue of Gor Book 15 Page 300
#Post#: 147--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:39 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I was convinced that they, still active, pennons still flying on
their stem-castle lines, could hold out until nightfall. Yet I
did not think they could withstand the concerted attacks of the
pirate fleets for another day. How nobly, and well, they had
fought. I was bitter. I looked back to the berth. There, tied
upon it, helpless, was she who had been the woman of a pirate
captain, she who had been the woman of one of my enemies. I then
looked again out the window. In the water, among the larger
ships, were small boats, manned by pirates. Considering them I
became furious. These were being used to hunt for survivors,
luckless fellows, struggling in the water, fishing for them with
attentive leisure, with arrows, and with spear and knife. They
would also make it difficult to return to the Tina. I glanced to
the table, to the packet, now in its oilcloth envelope, which
lay there. It had immense value, if only it could be exploited.
I looked again, out the window, at the ships of the pirate
fleet, and at the defenders, and then I returned to the table,
and sat before it.
"Master," said the girl.
I did not respond to her.
"Forgive me, Master," she whispered.
That the defenders had lasted this long was a function largely
of two factors, first, of the crowding of the pirate fleet which
made it difficult for them to bring their rams and shearing
blades into play, and, secondly, the unusually large numbers,
and skill, of the soldiers of Ar who had been transported in the
holds of the ships of Ar's Station, making boarding hazardous
and costly.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 71
It was at this time that I heard the signal horns of the pirate
fleet. The orders, I thought, had been too long delayed. I
looked out the window. As I had thought the pirate fleet was now
drawing back. The self-frustrating futility of their attack,
obstinate and unimaginative, had, at long last, apparently been
brought home to its commander. The pirate ships now, sent
forward judiciously, singly or doubly, supported as need be, no
longer crowded together in useless attempts at boarding, could
now bring their rams and shearing blades into play against the
cornered, pathetically outnumbered barks of the defenders. But
it was now quite late in the afternoon. Doubtless this attack
would be postponed until morning, that the slaughter might lose
nothing of its effect, some survivors perhaps being enabled, in
small boats or in the water, to slip away under the cover of
darkness.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 72
We could hear the shouting, as though of a pirate victory,
coming from over the water.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 81
"He was left here to kill those, not of the pirates, who might
seek refuge in the hulk of the Tuka," she said. "He killed
five," she said.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 84
I remembered, then, the ship I had heard of, shortly before
entering the hold of the Tuka, that which had been identified as
a derelict, one presumably drifting downriver, lost from the
confusion of the night, illuminated by our diversion of the
burning Olivia, a pasang or so to the east. She had perhaps been
struck by one of the pirate ships, or perhaps, earlier, a
casualty from a previous day, had come loose from one of the
bars in the river.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 88
Free women are not often found in the vicinity of pirates. After
a free woman has once been at the prow, there is nothing to do
with her later, of course, but to make her a slave.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 92
On the Tuka the rowers were singing, lustily. They wore an odd
assortment of garbs. Insignia had been torn from clothing.
Crests had been ripped from helmets, identificatory devices
pried from the convex surfaces of shields. It was not a song of
Ar they sang, but a river song, a song of pirates and brawlers,
"The Ten Maids of Hammerfest," in which is recounted the fates
which befell these lovely lasses.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 93
On the night of our escape from our encirclement on the river,
we had set afire the Olivia, our slowest and clumsiest ship, and
directed her eastward against the enemy's shifting lines, opened
and disarranged by the departure of the Tamira from her
position. This, we had hoped, would create a diversion, and lead
the pirates, in the confusion and darkness, to assume that we
were moving eastward, and that the Olivia had been set aflame by
their own forces. We had then lain to, in the movement of ships,
pennons of the Voskjard on our lines, should we fall within the
light of passing lanterns. We had then withdrawn west to the
chain, where we had salvaged the Tuka. At this point the Tamira,
which had tenaciously kept with us, and despairing of support,
desperately attacked. She had fallen prey to the swift Tais.
Twice struck, she had soon sunk.
I had managed to rescue Miles of Vonda and Krondar, his slave,
from the dark, wreckage-strewn water. Following the Tuka and the
Tais, by prearranged plan, we in the Tina had then rowed
southward along the chain until we came to the point where the
northward-moving portion of the Voskjard's fleet, that which we
had once mistaken for the support Vessels of Callisthenes, had
cut the chain. We did not think that the pirate vessels had been
brought on rollers about the beach south of the chain's terminal
pylons to the south.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 94
Our speculations in this matter proved correct and we used this
break in the chain to move to its western side. Before we had
left the vicinity of the encounter between the Tais and the
Tamira, I had called loudly, as though to Callimachus, "We have
made good our immediate escape! Let us hasten now to Tetrapoli,
where our safety most securely may be sought!" There had been an
answering cheer from the crew of the Tina, to which cheer the
men, upon our signal, gave vent. This ruse, of course, was for
the benefit of survivors of the Tamira, still in the water
about, clinging to wreckage. When picked up by the vessels of
the pirate fleet, turning westward, having discovered the ruse
of the Olivia, they would report what they had heard.
To be sure, I did not think this small, second ruse was truly
necessary. It would be assumed by those of the pirate fleet that
we, if we could make it west of the chain, would surely fly to
one of the western towns for refuge. Tetrapoli is the first
major town west of the chain. It would never occur to them, nor
probably even to Reginald, captain of the Tamira, if he had
survived the clash with the Tais, what might be the true nature
of our intentions. At the least we would wish to garner a large
force, one sufficient to exploit any possible advantage which
might accrue to us in virtue of our possession of the documents
stolen from the Tamira. By the time such a force might be raised
in the river towns, of course, the fleet of the Voskjard would
have reached the holding of Policrates, reinforced it, and
participated in the development of new security arrangements.
Too, I did not think Reginald would be eager to report that the
documents had been stolen from his own ship, before its loss to
the Tais. Now, if he had survived the clash with the Tais, he
could always maintain that the documents had been lost with the
ship, in his bold and ill-fated attempt to prevent our escape. I
had little doubt that he would find it preferable to be
commended for gallantry than cut to pieces for an inadvertent
lapse or negligence.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 95
We had little doubt that we would be pursued first, mistakenly,
northwestward toward Tetrapoli. While vessels followed our
putative course, and the balance of the pirate fleet, regrouping
and repairing injuries, waited upon their return, we sped, in
alternating shifts, day and night, toward the holding of
Policrates.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 96
There was a cheer from the pirates on the walls. Kliomenes spoke
to someone beside him. That man signaled another man, near the
west gate tower. He, in turn, called out to another, apparently
within the tower. Kliomenes stepped back from the wall.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 96
#Post#: 148--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:40 am
---------------------------------------------------------
On the other hand, many, it is said, "court the collar," and it
seems to be the case that "free captures," in their hundreds or
thousands, as in the wars, the raids of slavers, the seizures of
caravans, the depredations of pirates, the fall of cities, and
such, once collared, once owned, find fulfillments until then no
more than suspected.
Smugglers of Gor Book 32 Page 172
Ships sent to the mouth of the Alexandra had discovered nothing,
and some apparently had fallen to pirates.
Smugglers of Gor Book 32 Page 317
"There is peace now in the local waters," said Captain Nakamura,
"save for occasional pirates."
Rebels of Gor Book 33 Page 595
On Gor, on this world, you are known to the bandit and pirate,
Tarl Cabot, and doubtless others, and might, in our interest,
well exploit and utilize the bonds of friendship and trust.
Plunder of Gor Book 34 Page 412
"We will be carried there, and, stripped, shackled, and lashed,
sold in her markets!" wailed another.
"To pirates and cutthroats!" cried another.
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Page 57
"Surely we must then attempt to outrun the other ship," I said.
"We have oarsmen, and a sail. The other ship, if it has a mast
and sail, it has not yet raised them. We can thus gain time. I
do not understand why the captain has not yet committed the
oarsmen. Too, I do not understand why there is so little fear on
board. Surely pirates, corsairs, are dangerous."
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Page 105
Port Kar is sometimes referred to as the "Scourge of Thassa." I
think this epithet was generated in an earlier time when Port
Kar had no Home Stone, when it may have been, indeed, little
more than a "a den of pirates, thieves, and cutthroats," as
dangerous to its own citizens as to its enemies, in particular,
the great maritime Ubarates of Cos and Tyros.
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Pages 134 - 135
I did not know if I would ever see Addison Steele again. And I
hated the woman who had been with him though I had never even
seen her, the Lady Dorna. The name had been familiar. I had
heard it on the voyage to Port Kar. It had been the name of the
ship of the fearsome Bosk of Port Kar, said to be a slaver,
trader, and pirate. It was, perhaps, a common female name in
civilized Gor.
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Page 189
Rencers had raised the shelter price for river pirates seeking
asylum in the delta, when fleeing from ships of the Vosk League;
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Page 190
"From four cities, and three towns," said the man, "from the
darkness of forests and the caves of mountains, from dismal
alleys and crowded insulae, from the camps of bandits and the
lairs of pirates."
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Page 295
I wondered if this were a heritage from the days when there was
no Home Stone in Port Kar, when she was known broadly as the
"Scourge of Thassa," a den of thieves, pirates, and cutthroats,
rather than as she now chose to speak of herself, as the "Jewel
of Gleaming Thassa."
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Page 325
It was also speculated he might be "fishing," namely, doing the
business of piracy, scouring the seas for shipping to seize and
loot.
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Page 344
It was ten days since the repelled attack on the holding of Bosk
of Port Kar, who was apparently still at sea, supposedly in the
vicinity of the Farther Islands, intent on investigating
depredation and carnage wrought in his name. But, for all I
knew, he was himself a pirate and marauder.
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Pages 418 - 419
"Captain Bosk is still at sea," I said.
"In fury," he said, "investigating piracy wrought in his name."
Quarry of Gor Book 35 Page 455
The raid which had wrought this destruction was untypical of the
work of common corsairs, pirates, and thieves.
Avengers of Gor Book 36 Page 5
"Yes," said he, "where lies a citadel of ruthless cunning, of
envy, violence, wrath, murder, and greed, of arrant ambition, a
lawless, bestial port, feared from Torvaldsland to Schendi, a
port the scourge of turbulent Thassa, a den of thieves and
cutthroats, a lair of pirates, near whose walls fish dare not
swim, over which birds refuse to fly."
Avengers of Gor Book 36 Page 11
I kicked back, screaming, the face that thrust itself over the
gunnels. With the blade I slashed down, cutting the rope taut on
the grappling hook caught over the wood. I thrust twice, driving
back pirates. One of my feet was on the Tina. The other was on
the railing of the pirate vessel. Others, too, stood between the
ships. Others stood on the decks of their own vessels, thrusting
and cutting, stabbing, over the bulwarks. Men on the Tina, using
loose oars as levers, were trying to pry the ships apart. There
was a screaming of metal as shearing blades, locked together,
protested the stresses imposed upon them by the shifting ships.
The port shearing blade of the pirate vessel was torn,
splintering strakes, from its hull. Our starboard shearing
blade, that great crescent of iron, some seven feet in height,
some five inches in width, was bent oddly askew. It had been
turned like tin. A man next to me fell, reaching out, clutching,
grasping, between the ships. He screamed. Then he was lost among
the splinters of oars and the grinding of the hulls. The bowman,
below me on the deck, and to my left, unleashed an arrow, at
point-blank range across the gunnels. I could not follow its
flight. Only the blood at the pirate's throat marked its
passage. The shaft itself was lost somewhere behind, among the
screaming men.
I leaped onto the deck of the pirate vessel, slashing about
myself. A spear thrust from behind tore through the side of my
tunic. I twisted away, hacking passage. Then pirates thrust
forward and I felt them sweeping about me. They pressed toward
the rail. I turned. They did not even realize, in the heat of
battle, in the confusion, that I was not of their number. I
nearly struck, by accident, an oarsman from the Tina, too on the
pirate's vessel. As pirates swarmed toward our ship we cut at
the backs of their necks. I saw the fellow I had nearly struck
board the Tina, literally with the pirates. He struck a
defender's pike away from himself. Then he cut at the pirates to
his left and right. Then he was again on the deck of the Tina.
Then he had turned and was fighting the pirates. I heard timbers
creak. Pirates were at the stern castle of the Tina. We had ten
or more men fighting on the pirate vessel in the vicinity of her
stern castle. I cut two more of the ropes attached to grappling
hooks. "Rogue!" cried a fellow. I turned to face him. We crossed
swords five times. His blood was on me. With two hands,
grunting, I jerked the sword from his body. Ribbing snapped. It
had been a clumsy stroke. Callimachus would not have been
pleased. I lifted my head, wildly. The ships were now drifting
apart. They were held close only at the sterns. I smelled fire.
I saw a man on the Tina plunge backward, his hands clutching at
an arrow protruding from his forehead. In two steps I climbed
the archer's platform and leaped behind the blind. I passed my
blade into the fellow's body, and he fell, turning, from the
platform, arrows spilling, like rattling sticks, to the deck. A
pirate leaped toward me and I cut him from the platform. Arrows
sped toward me, two of them, and caught, tearing, in the wicker.
Behind me I could see another pirate vessel looming. Near the
stern castle I saw some of my fellows cutting through pirates.
Burning pitch flamed upon the deck. "This way, Lads!" I called,
leaping down from the archer's platform. An arrow struck into
the deck at my feet.
We sped down the deck. The ship shuddered as the great catapult
loosed a stone which shattered into the rowing frame on the port
side of the Tina.
In moments I and the others, now some seven men, cutting at
pirates, severing ropes, separated the two vessels and, as they
slipped loose of one another, leaped onto the stern of the Tina,
falling upon the pirates who had boarded her there.
The pirates, pressed by our defenders, and attacked now from
their own vessel, fought for their lives. We forced them to the
railing, and over it, those who were not cut down, into the
Vosk.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Pages 40 - 42
Pirates crowded to the rails of their ships. I saw grappling
irons, on their lines, hurled over the bulwarks of the Portia.
But almost at the same time the planked constructions, on their
platforms, were pulled downward by ropes. These constructions,
some twenty-five feet in length, and some seven feet in width,
as the pirates mattered back in their path, crashed downward,
their great bent spikes shattering into the decking of the
pirate ships, anchoring the ships together, yet holding them
some seven or eight feet apart.
At the same time battle horns of Ar sounded from the galley and
hatches were thrown open.
The pirates, startled, unable to reach the ship, stood confused
along their railings.
"Infantrymen of Ar!" cried a man on the Tina.
Out of the opened hatches poured warriors of Ar, grimly
helmeted, bearing great, rounded shields and mighty spears,
bronze-headed and tapering.
Pirates rushed to the planked road bearing ingress to their
ship, but a dozen spears, and then another dozen, hurled by
running men devastated resistance, and then, on the run, swords
drawn, their shields struck by arrows, buffeting, slashing,
driving men into the water, the soldiers of Ar rushed over the
bridges linking the ships. Half turned toward the stem of the
vessel and half to the stern. The pirates' lines, thin, strung
out for boarding, were instantly cut. Vicious and swift, clean,
exact, merciless, was the steel of professional warriors. In
moments had the decks of both pirate vessels been cleared. And
still soldiers emerged from the hold. In all, I had little doubt
that they outnumbered the pirates eleven or twelve to one. The
spacious hold of the Portia had been crammed with men.
"It was an infantry battle," said a man beside me, in awe.
"But it was fought at sea," said another.
We watched the great planked constructions being pried up from
the decks of the pirate ships. We saw flags of Ar's Station
being run out upon their stem-castle lines.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Pages 46 - 47
I clung to a piece of wreckage. A man clung, too, to the other
end of the section of plank. I did not know if he were a pirate
or not.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 56
Through a gap in the pirate fleet, I could see that the
beleaguered, desperate ships of the defenders fought on,
stoutly.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 70
#Post#: 149--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: trealia
Date: August 2, 2023, 7:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
"I have never really thought about it," I said. "Some of us, of
course, are jolly fellows, at least upon occasion." To be sure
the general reputation of Port Kar was that of a den of thieves,
a lair of cutthroats and pirates. On the other hand, there was
now a Home Stone in the city. Some folks might not even know
that.
Vagabonds of Gor Book 24 Page 489
"No," I said. "I am of Port Kar."
"It is a lair of pirates," said a fellow, "a den of cutthroats."
Magicians of Gor Book 25 Page 235
For example, I am not of the slavers, but in Port Kar I am known
as Bosk, and he known as many things, among them pirate and
slaver.
Magicians of Gor Book 25 Page 315
"One I met long ago, when I was mercenary tarnsman," said
Terence. "I was in Port Kar."
"A den of thieves, a lair of pirates," said the pit master.
Witness of Gor Book 26 Page 637
The men clasped hands, and embraced, and then Bosk of Port Kar,
Port Kar a port on the Tamber Gulf, rumored to be a den of
cutthroats and pirates, and Marcus, of Ar's Station, once an
outpost of Ar on the distant Vosk, took their leave.
Prize of Gor Book 27 Page 669
Had she not been so, in one way or another, in her dreams, on
the smooth, scarlet tiles of a conqueror's palace, on the
deep-piled rug within the tent of a desert chieftain, on the
deck of a pirate's vessel?
Swordsmen of Gor Book 29 Page 14
To be sure, brigands, pirates, enemies, and such, are not likely
to concern themselves with challenges, but are rather the more
likely, as they see fit, to attack, and kill.
Swordsmen of Gor Book 29 Page 27
I now suspected the meaning of the signal smoke near the bow of
the round ship, and why she had recalled her longboat, had swung
about and unfurled her sail. Presumably, her lookout had espied,
far to her starboard, another sail. Gorean ships seldom approach
one another, and when they do, it is likely that one or both
have piracy or war on their mind.
Swordsmen of Gor Book 29 Pages 107 - 108
"The ribbons will tell," I said. They were green. That suggested
Port Kar. Thassa, the sea, is generally green. Indeed, pirates
commonly painted their ships green, to make them less
discernible at sea, certainly while under oars, with the masts
lowered.
Swordsmen of Gor Book 29 Pages 145 - 146
Larger galleys, rogues from the coastal ports, not signatory to
the imposed treaties, or, more dangerously, pirates or
merchantmen from Port Kar, our enemy, detected, would be
reported to Telnus, in theory to be intercepted, if possible, on
their return to their home ports.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 26
Odd that a Cosian long ship, another Cosian long ship, would be
in these waters. The ship, reassuringly, was not green, for
pirates often paint their ships green, that they be the less
seen on mighty, rolling Thassa. Many of the vessels of Port Kar,
that den of thieves and cutthroats, that scourge of Thassa, were
green, almost invisible, under oars, low in the water, the mast
down.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 31
Also, they might be launched, if one wished, to dispose of
witnesses, a practice favored by some pirates, or, as noted, to
pick up survivors, following an action.
. . .
I was thus, I supposed, the captive of pirates, for pirate crews
are often diversely origined, often recruited from a medley of
cast-offs, fugitives, ruffians, murderers, brigands, and such.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 34
"I fear the islands," she said.
"There are pirates," I said.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 61
It was a pirate crew, mixed, without Home Stones, and such, I
had speculated earlier.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 83
"Do you think we are pirates?" asked Lord Nishida.
"Yes," I said.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 96
This confirmed my suspicion that I was in the midst of pirates.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 101
"Five days ago," said Seremides, addressing himself to the
seeming rabble about, "without provocation, we were attacked by
Cosian pirates, who attempted to burn our ship. We fought. We
resisted. We conquered. Then we punished. Those who did not
drown were executed, with but one exception, the sleen before
you who was mistakenly spared, who should have been bloodied and
given to Thassa's hungry children, an offering to her justice,
that he not soil our ship with his unclean, impenitent, criminal
presence."
"My name is Callias," I said. "My Home Stone is that of Jad, on
Cos. Perhaps some of you share her Home Stone with me. I was an
oarsman on the Cosian patrol ship, the Metioche, out of Telnus.
We are not pirates. You were in Cosian waters. We pursued you,
investigating. We fired on you in self-defense. If any have been
wronged here it is surely we, and not you. I think a mountain
has little to fear from a pebble, a draft tharlarion from a
stable urt."
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 103
But amongst them as well were landless men, younger sons, men
without Home Stones, bandits, pirates, adventurers, soldiers of
fortune, thieves, fugitives, wanted men, cutthroats, fugitives
from Ar, such as Seremides, and others.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Page 173
Had these lines of skilled, hardened men, selected with care by
the Pani, veterans, mercenaries, killers, bandits, brigands, and
pirates, from enlisted crews, rural gangs, disbanded cohorts,
and scattered free companies, not checked the enemy, few if any
of our forces would have escaped death.
Mariners of Gor Book 30 Pages 349 - 350 ;)
#Post#: 150--------------------------------------------------
Re: Argh!
DIR By: High Captain Song
Date: August 2, 2023, 10:29 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Oh better far to Live or Die
Under the brave black flag I fly,
Than play a sanctimonious part,
With a pirate head and a pirate heart.
Away to the cheating world go you,
Where pirates all are well-to-do;
But I’ll be true to the song I sing,
And live and die a Pirate King.
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
You are! Hurrah for our Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
It is! Hurrah for our Pirate King!
Hurrah for the/our Pirate King!
When I sally forth to seek my prey
I help myself in a royal way.
I sink a few more ships, it’s true,
Than a well-bred monarch ought to do;
But many a king on a first-class throne,
If he wants to call his crown his own,
Must manage somehow to get through
More dirty work than ever I do,
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
You are! Hurrah for the Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
It is! Hurrah for our Pirate King!
Hurrah for the/our Pirate King
*****************************************************
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