"John Norman - Counter-Earth 08 - Hunters of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

08 Hunters of Gor
John Norman
Chronicles of Counter-Earth Volume 8


1 Rim
УIt is not my wishФ, said Samos, looking up from the board, Уthat you journey to
the northern forests.Ф
I regarded the board. Carefully, I set the UbarТs Tarnsman at UbarТs Scribe Six.
УIt is dangerous,Ф said Samos.
УIt is your move,Ф said I, intent upon the game.
He threatened the UbarТs Tarnsman with a spearman, thrust to his Ubar Four.
УWe do not care to risk you,Ф said Samos. There was a slight smile about his
lips.
УWe?Ф I asked.
УPriest-Kings and I У said Samos.
УI no longer serve Priest-Kings,Ф said I.
УAh, yes,Ф said Samos. Then he added, УGuard your tarnsman.Ф
We played in the hall of Samos, a lofty room, with high, narrow windows. It was
late at night. A torch burned in a rack above and behind me, to my left. The
shadows flickered about the board of one hundred red and yellow squares. The
pieces, weighted, seem tall on the board, casting their shadows away from the
flame, across the flat arena of the game.
We sat cross-legged on the floor, on the tiles, over the large board.
There was a rustle of slave bells to my right, loved on the left ankle of a
girl.
Samos wore the blue and yellow robes of the Slaver. Indeed, he was first slaver
of Port Kar, and first Captain in its Council of Captains, which council, since
the downfall of the four Ubars is sovereign in Port Kar. I, too, was a member of
the Council of Captains, Bosk, of the House of Bosk, if Port Kar. I wore a white
robe, woven of the wool of the Hurt, imported from distant Ar, trimmed with
golden cloth, from Tor, the colors of the Merchant. But beneath my robe I wore a
tunic of red, that color of the warriors.
To one side of the room, unclothed, his wrists manacled behind his body, his
ankles confined in short chains, knelt a large man, a heavy band of iron
hammered about his throat. He was flanked by two guards, standing slightly
behind him, helmeted, Gorean steel at their sides. The manТs head had, some
weeks ago, been shaven, a two-and-one-half-inch stripe, running from the
forehead to the back of his neck. Now, for the strip that had been shaved, his
hair was black, and shaggy. He was powerful. He had not yet been branded. But he
was slave. The collar proclaimed him such.
The girl knelt at the side of the board. She was clad in a brief bit of
diaphanous scarlet silk, slave silk. Her beauty was well betrayed. Her collar, a
lock collar, was yellow, enameled. She was dark eyed, dark haired.
УMay I serve, Masters?Ф she asked,
УPaga,Ф said Samos, absently, looking at the board.
УYes,Ф I said.
With a flash of slave bells, she withdrew. As she left, I noted that she passed
by the kneeling male slave, flanked by his guards. She passed him as a slave
girl, her head in the air, insolently, taunting him with her body.