Post by Daubee on Dec 10, 2012 17:15:26 GMT -5
Already, below me, I saw tarns being unhooded, and the straps that bound their beaks being unbuckled, and cast aside. Riders were climbing into the saddles. I saw tarns leaping to the decks of the round ships, and I saw the knotted ropes being attached to the saddles, and picked seamen, experts with the sword, five to a rope, taking their positions. And besides these seamen, each tarnsman, tied to his saddle, carried a shielded, protected ship's lantern, lighted, and, in the pockets of leather aprons, tied together and thrown across the saddles numerous clay flasks, corked with rags. These flasks I knew, were filled with tharlarion oil, and the rags that corked them had been soaked in the same substance.
Soon, behind me, there were some hundred tarnsmen, and below each, dangling, hanging to the knotted ropes, were five picked men. "
Raiders of Gor, page 275
As one set of birds hovered over the deck and their men dropped to its planks, the birds darted away, and another set took their place. And then, their fighters disembarked, the birds with their riders swept away, up into the black, vicious sleeting sky, to light the oily rags, one by one, in the clay flasks of tharlarion oil and hurt them, from the heights of the sky, down onto the decks of ships of Cos and Tyros. I did not expect a great deal of damage to be done by these shattering bombs of burning oil, but I was counting on the confluence of three factors: the psychological effect of such an attack, the fear of the outflanking fleets, whose numbers could not yet well have been ascertained, and, in the confusion and, hopefully terror, the unexpected, sudden loss of their commander."
Raiders of Gor, page 276
Soon, behind me, there were some hundred tarnsmen, and below each, dangling, hanging to the knotted ropes, were five picked men. "
Raiders of Gor, page 275
As one set of birds hovered over the deck and their men dropped to its planks, the birds darted away, and another set took their place. And then, their fighters disembarked, the birds with their riders swept away, up into the black, vicious sleeting sky, to light the oily rags, one by one, in the clay flasks of tharlarion oil and hurt them, from the heights of the sky, down onto the decks of ships of Cos and Tyros. I did not expect a great deal of damage to be done by these shattering bombs of burning oil, but I was counting on the confluence of three factors: the psychological effect of such an attack, the fear of the outflanking fleets, whose numbers could not yet well have been ascertained, and, in the confusion and, hopefully terror, the unexpected, sudden loss of their commander."
Raiders of Gor, page 276