Savages of Gor by John Norman

tenacity is thus imparted to the scout. Some scouts believe that they become, when donning this pelt, a sleen. This has to do with their beliefs as to the mysterious relationships which are thought to obtain between the world of reality and the medicine world, that, at times, these two worlds impinge on one another, and become one. To be sure, from a practical point of view, the pelt makes an excellent camouflage. It is easy, for example, to mistake a scout, on all fours, spying over a rise, for a wild sleen. Such animals are not uncommon in the Barrens. Their most common prey is tabuk.
    "And this, you see," said Kog, turning the hide, "is what he saw on that bright and thawing morning."
    "It is what he said he saw," said Samos.
    In the declivity below the rise there lay a slain kailiauk, dark in the snow. There could be no mistaking what, alert, huge, catlike, like a larl, crouched behind the kailiauk.
    "You see?" asked Kog.
    "The dark guest," said Samos.
    "Clearly delineated," said Samos.
    "Yes," said Kog, "seen clearly now, in its own form."
    I could not speak.
    "Surely this is only the product of the imagination of the artist," said Samos.
    "Too, there are five riders of the kaiila, with kaiila lances, between the kailiauk and the dark guest, and the man."
    "These are the other hunters, those whose tracks were found, those who had also been following the kailiauk," said Samos.
    "Yes," said Kog.
    The kaiila lance is used in hunting kailiauk as well as in mounted warfare. It is called the kaiila lance because it is designed to be used from kaiilaback. It is to be distinguished in particular from the longer, heavier tharlarion lance, designed for use from tharlarionback, and often used with a lance rest, and the smaller, thicker stabbing lances used by certain groups of pedestrian nomads. The kaiila lance takes, on the whole, two forms, the hunting lance and the war lance. Hunting lances are commonly longer, heavier and thicker than war lances. Too, they are often undecorated, save perhaps for a knot of the feathers of the yellow, long-winged, sharp-billed prairie fleer, or, as it is sometimes called, the maize bird, or corn bird, considered by the red savages to be generally the first bird to find food.
    The point of the hunting lance is usually longer and narrower than that of the war lance, a function of the depth into which one must strike in order to find the heart of the kailliauk. The shafts of the kaiila lances are black, supple and strong; they are made of tem wood, a wood much favored on Gor for this type of purpose. Staves for the lances are cut in the late winter, when the sap is down. Such wood, in the long process of smoking and drying over the lodge fire, which consumes several weeks, seasoning the wood and killing any insects which might remain in it, seldom splits or cracks. Similarly, old- growth wood, or second-growth wood, which is tougher, is preferred over the fresher, less dense first-growth, or new-growth, wood.
    After drying the shafts are rubbed with grease and straightened over the beat of a fire. Detailed trimming and shaping is accomplished with a small knife. A rubbing with sandstone supplies a smooth finish. The head, of metal, or of bone or stone, with sinew or rawhide, and also sometimes with metal trade rivets, is then mounted on the lance. Lastly, grips, and loops, and decorations, if desired, are added. The sinew and rawhide, before being bound on the lance, are soaked with hot water. The heated water releases a natural the water itself, of course, produces a natural shrinking and contraction in drying. The mounting, thus, is extremely solid and secure. The tarn lance, it might be mentioned, as is used by the red savages who have mastered the tarn, is, in size and shape, very similar to the kaiila lance. It differs primarily in being longer and more slender. These lances are used in a great variety of ways, but the most common method is to thrust one's wrist through the wrist loop, grasp