Tarnsman of Gor   ::   Норман Джон

In despair I realized I had done nothing more than make clear the fact that someone was desperately interested in the whereaboutsof the girl, and, if anything, this information would make Pa-Kur redouble his precautions for her security and doubtless attempt to apprehend the individual responsible for the inquiries. In these days I did not wear the garb of the Caste of Assassins, but dressed as a nondescript tarnsman, wearing the insignia of no city. Four times I eluded special patrols of Pa-Kur, led by men I had questioned at sword point.

In the tent of Kazrak, ruefully I understood that my efforts had been futile and that the Tarnsman of Marlenus, so to speak, had at last — been neutralized. I considered attempting the destruction of Pa-Kur, but this would not only be unlikely of success but would bring me no nearer my goal of rescuing Talena. Yet nothing but the sight of my beloved would have brought me more satisfaction than driving my sword into the heart of the Assassin.

These were terrible days for me. In addition to my own failures, I received no word from Kazrak, and reports from Ar on the stand of Marlenus in the Central Cylinder became obscure and contradictory. As nearly as I could determine, he and his men had been overcome, and the height of the Central Cylinder was again in the hands of the Initiates. If this had not yet taken place, it was momentarily expected.

The siege was in its fifty-second day, and the forces of Pa-Kur had breached the first wall. It was being methodically razed in seven places, to allow for the passage of the siege towers to the second wall. Moreover, hundreds of light "flying bridges" were being constructed; at the moment of the final assault these would be extended from the first wall to the second, and the men of Pa-Kur would scramble upward toward the looming ramparts of Ar's last defense. Rumor had it that dozens of tunnels, unimpeded, now extended beneath the second wall and could be opened in a matter of hours at various places in the city. The countermining operations of the men of Ar had apparently been desultory or incompetent. It was Ar's misfortune, at this most critical time in its long history, to be in the hands of.the bleakest of all castes of men, the Initiates, skilled only in ritual, mythology, and superstition. Worse, from the reports of deserters, it became clear that the city was starving and that water was running short. Some of the defenders were opening the veins of surviving tarns, to drink the blood. The tiny urt, a common rodent of Gorean cities, was bringing a silver tarn disk in the markets. Disease had broken out. Groups of looters from Ar itself prowled the streets. In the camp of Pa-Kur we expected the city to fall any day, any hour.