Marauders of Gor Read Online Free Page B

service of those whose names we shall not now speak."
                "I could never care for a cripple," said Talena.
                "It remained yet my hope," said Samos, " to recall you to a lofty service, one dignified and of desperate importance."
                I laughed.
                Samos shrugged. " I did know until too late the consequences of your wounds. I am sorry."
                "Now," said I, "Samos, I cannot even serve myself."
                "I am sorry," said Samos.
                "Coward! Traitor to your codes! Sllen!" cried talena.
                "All that you say is true," I told her.
                "You did well, I understand," said Samos," in the stockade of Sarus of Tyros."
                "I wish to be returned to my father," said Talena.
                I drew forth five pieces of gold. "This money," said I to Samos, " is for safe passage for Ar, by guard and tarn, for this woman."
                Talena drew about her face her veil, refastening it. "I shall have the monies returned to you," she said.
                "No," I said, "take it rather as a gift, as a token of a former affection, once borne to you by one who was honoured to be your companion."
                "She is a she-sleen," said samos, "vicious and ignoble."
                "My father would avenge that insult," she said, coldly, " with the tarn cavalries of Ar."
                "You have been disowned," said samos, and turned and left. I still held the five coins in my hand.
                "Give me the coinsd," said talena. I held them in my hand, in the palm. She came to me and snatched them away, as loath to touch me. Then she stood and faced me, the coins in her hand. "How ugly you are," she said. " How hideous in your chair!"
                I did not speak.
                She turned and strode toward the door of the hall. At the portal she stopped, and turned. "In my veins," she said, "flows the blood of Marlenus of Ar. How revolting and incredible that one such as you, a coward and betrayer of codes, should have aspired to touch me."   She lifted the coins in her hand. It was gloved. "My gratitude," said she, "Sir," and turned away.
                "Talena!" I cried.
                She turned to face me once more.
                "It is nothing," I said.
                "And you will let me go," she said. She smiled contemptuously. " You were never a man," she said. "Always you were a boy, a weakling."   She lifted the coins again in her hand. "Farewell, Weakling," said she, and left the room.
                I now sat in my own hall, in the darkness, thinking on many things.
                I wondered how to live.
                "within the circle od each man's sword," says the codes of the warrior, "therein is each man a Ubar."
                "Steel is the coinage of the warrior," says the codes. " With it he purchases what pleases him."
                Once I had been among the finest swordsmen on the planet Gor. Now I was a cripple.
                Talena would now be in Ar.   How startled, how crushed would she have been, to learn at last, incontrovertibly, that her disownment was true. She had beeged to be purchased, a slave's act. Marlenus protecting his honor, on his sword and upon the medallion of Ar, had sworn her from him. No longer had she caste, no longer a   HomeStone.   The meanest peasant wench, secure in her caste right, would be more than Talena.   Even a slave giorl had her collar. I knew that Marlenus would keep her sequestered in the central cylinder, that her shame not reflect upon his glory.   She would be in Ar, in effect, a prisoner. She was no longer entitled   even to call its HomeStone her own. Such an act, by one such as she, was subject to public