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Anango dart. Although the saddle knives are balanced for throwing, most of my men preferred the darts. The points of the darts were clear of poison. One leaves poison to the ost, and the striking pins and daggers of free women. That is one reason many warriors require a captured free woman to strip herself, lest they run afoul of concealed devices, a scratch from which might prove fatal. Sometimes the captor inquires politely if the woman’s garments contain such devices. If she replies affirmatively she is asked to remove the devices and place them before the captor before stripping herself. If she should fail to surrender any such device she is slain instantly. If she responds negatively, and is found to have lied, such a device being found, she is also slain instantly. Once stripped and weaponless she is assessed, to see if she might be of interest, as such women may be of interest to men, as they should be, as a slave. If she is found of interest, the matter is routinely and summarily accomplished; she is enslaved. If she is not found of interest, she is commonly driven away, naked, and shamed, or, sometimes, held for ransom, naked on a chain. In most cities it is a capital offense for a slave to touch a weapon.
    Ho, I thought. What is this? Yes! The beat changes. Now we soar! The bird descends, without instruction. He knows the place. He remembers it, and better than I, in the cold, and darkness. It is so much more familiar to him than his new quarters. He expects to find his cot, warm, dry straw, and raw tabuk on its hook. No, poor fellow, I thought. Such things are gone. Neither of us were here when the Ashigaru of Yamada, with glaives and torches, streamed forth from the mountains. How many, I wondered, might you, in your indignation, have clasped in your talons and torn with your beak, before burned, and struck, you would have foundered, and screamed, and looked one last time at the sky? And I was not here either, dear fellow. I was away, far away, my blade sleeping in its sheath. I was unworthy of my command, for I had survived it.
    My heels hit the stirrups as the bird alit.
    I looked about, from the saddle.
    The ground was covered with a soft snow, which was still, gently, falling.
    I had survived my command.
    Lord Nishida and Lord Okimoto might have considered ritual knives. On continental Gor routed generals, fugitives about, enemy standards advancing, might cast themselves on their sword.
    I descended from the saddle.
    I was reasonably confident that I would find, somewhere about the camp, somewhere in the snow and darkness, probably at its periphery, a contingent of the men of great Yamada, Shogun of the Islands. They would be posted here to guard the desolate encampment, to report lest it be reoccupied, to intercept and deal with possible survivors from the attack, perhaps to provide a shelter and retreat, a headquarters, for the patrols and kill squads before they set again about their work. Then, again, I might be alone. I saw no sign; I heard no sound.
    The snow continued to fall.
    Here, I thought, in a belated moment of honor, I might prolong the battle, and allow the enemy a fit completion of his endeavor. If I had not fought here, at the proper time, I might fall here, at a time of my choosing.
    It would be poor atonement, but might it not do?
    I lifted my head and stood in the falling snow.
    It seemed, for a moment, I heard the cries of rushing men, the clash of blades, the screams of tarns.
    “Ho!” I cried. “Tal, Noble Foes! I greet you! I am Tarl Cabot, commander of the cavalry of Lord Temmu. Did you seek me? Have you forgotten me? Behold! I am here! I greet you! I await you!”
    There was only silence.
    A wind thrust clouds to the west, and the landscape lay a pale yellow about me.
    I could sense the tarn behind me, some feet to my right.
    The snow no longer fell, but its feel remained in the air.
    The sheds and tents had been before me, and there, to the left, the cots, beyond them.
    It seemed