Renegades of Gor by John Norman Read Free Book Online

ago, the Cosians had landed. This suggested that
    either Ar’s Station was to be sacrificed in these harsh games, or that it was
    the thinking of Ar’s commanders that a move to Brundisium would lift the siege
    of Ar’s Station, the Cosians there perhaps then being withdrawn to protect
    Brundisium. Such a move, of course, might isolate the Cosian main forces, both
    depriving them from their fellows at Ar’s Station. I did not doubt,
    incidentally, that the military might which Ar now had in the north, if it were
    what it was said to be, would be sufficient to take Brundisium. The (pg.37)
    objections to this strategy, of course, were obvious. Ar’s bastion on the Vosk,
    Ar’s Station, was being treated as expendable, which it was not, if Ar wished to
    maintain its power in the Vosk Basin. Even if Brundisium should fall, this would
    not be likely to keep open her lines of communication and supply. Similarly, Ar,
    lacking a sizable navy, had no way to follow up the capture of Brundisium,
    either by interdicting the coast or attempting an invasion of Cos.
    The major objection, of course, was that this move exposed Ar herself to the
    main force of Cosians, which was in the vicinity of Torcadino. It was almost as
    though the officers of Ar were content to exchange Ar for a port, and one which,
    strictly, was not even a Cosian port. If this were the case, however, that Ar
    was advancing on Brundisium, I had, interestingly enough, heard nothing of it.
    By now, in the normal course of events, given Ar’s start, and the typical
    marches of armies, she would have had time to reach not only Ar’s Station but
    even Brundisium, much farther away.
    I did not know where the main force of Ar was. In this sense I was confronted
    with a mystery, at least as far as my own limited information went. Perhaps, for
    some reason, the forces of Ar were intending to relieve Ar’s Station from the
    west, thus interposing themselves between the siege forces of Cos and their
    likely routes of escape, either substantially west by southwest to Brundisium or
    more to the southwest, toward Torcadino. If this were the case, however, it
    seemed that we should, by nor, have heard something to this effect. Indeed, if
    this were true, it seems that Ar, by now, should have appeared on the western
    flank of the Cosians.
    “I fear for Ar’s Station,” said the porter.
    “How is that?” I asked.
    “I do not think she can long hold out,” he said. “The attackers are numerous.
    The defenders are thinned. The walls are weakened. New breaches are made daily.
    In places they are being mined. Fires have occurred in the city, from saboteurs,
    from fire javelins, from flame baskets catapulted over the walls. There is
    starvation in the city. If the forces of Ar do not soon raise the siege, I think
    she must succumb.”
    “I see,” I said.
    (pg.38) “Too,” said he, “the fighting, in which civilians have participated, has
    been lengthy and bitter. The men of Cos expected an easier time of it. Their
    losses have been heavy. They will not be pleased.”
    I nodded.
    “I would not care to be there when the gate gives way,” he said.
    “It is late,” I said.
    He then opened the door in the interior gate. “The keeper’s desk, and the paga
    room,” said he, “are in the building to the right.”
    I looked out through the door, into the court of the inn. I was soaked to the
    skin. It was still raining heavily. It was dry, at least, in the covered,
    shedlike entrance way, between the gates. The inn itself, aside from certain
    ancillary buildings, was built of heavy logs, and in two parts, or structures,
    with a common, peaked roof, and an open space, covered from above by the roof,
    between the two parts. Each part, or structure, contained perhaps three or four
    floors, possibly joined by ladders. It was about a hundred feet between the door
    in the interior gateway, where I stood, and, to the right, the covered way
    between the separate parts of the inn.