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Tarn

Book 1. (289 results) Tarnsman of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
3	274	It was a tarn whistle, with its own note, which would summon one tarn, and one tarn only, the mount which was intended for me.	10
12	116	I slapped his beak affectionately, as if we were in a tarn cot, and shoved my hands into his neck feathers, the area where the tarn can't preen, as the tarn keepers do when searching for parasites.	10
3	242	The Older Tarl took a tarn whistle, or tarn call, from his tunic and blew a piercing blast.	10
3	280	Almost immediately from somewhere, perhaps from a ledge out of sight, rose a fantastic object, another giant tarn, even larger than the first, a glossy sable tarn which circled the cylinder once and then wheeled toward me, landing a few feet away, his talons striking on the roof with a sound like hu...	10
4	12	It was the wild nature of the tarn, the call of the distant hills, the open sky, against the puny conditioning he had been subjected to, against the will of tiny men with their private objectives, their elementary psychology of stimulus and response, their training wires and tarn-goads.	10
4	57	"By the beards of the Priest-Kings," roared the Older Tarl as he brought his bird to the roof, "that is a tarn of tarns!" The tarns, released, winged their way back to the tarn cots, and the Older Tarl and I descended to my apartment.	10
4	68	The spirit of the tarn must not be broken, not that of a war tarn.	10
4	77	You have mastered a tarn, a war tarn.	10
5	158	He surely would have struck home had not my tarn veered wildly to the left, almost colliding with another tarn and its rider, who fired a bolt that sank deep in the saddle pack with a sound like slapping leather.	10
5	174	Or perhaps I should bless the fighting spirit of that plumed giant, my war tarn, that terrible thing the Older Tarl had called a tarn of tarns.	10
5	178	The other warrior pulled his tarn about as if for another passage at arms, but then, as if suddenly realizing that his duty was to give the alarm, he shouted at me in rage and wheeled his tarn again, streaking for the lights of Ar.	10
6	12	"May your tarn lose its feathers," he roared, slapping his thigh, bringing his tarn to rest on the perch.	10
6	118	I imagined the girl alone on the back of the fierce tarn, unskilled in the mastery of such a mount, without even a tarn-goad to protect herself, if the bird should turn on her.	10
6	222	The tarn had turned wild, all his instincts triumphant over the tarn whistle, the memory of men.	10
12	87	The tarn, a brown tarn with a black crest like most wild tarns, streaked for that vague, distant smudge I knew marked the escarpments of some mountain wilderness.	10
12	128	It was another tarn, a wild tarn.	10
12	160	I wasn't sure I could control the tarn without a tarn-goad.	10
12	163	Whether I could control the tarn or not would probably, at least for a time, depend on whether or not he had been successful in his hunt and on how well the tarn keepers had done their work with the young bird.	10
14	107	A tarnsman mounted one tarn; another tarnsman mounted the other tarn.	10
15	51	I tossed a silver tarn disk to the tarn keeper and ordered him to care for the bird, to groom and feed it and see that it was ready on an instant's notice.	10
17	101	I strode meaningfully to the great tarn cot at the entrance to Mintar's compound and demanded my tarn.	10
17	104	Still, the days in the tarn cot, gigantic though it was, must have been confining for that Ubar of the Skies, my tarn, and I knew he would relish flight, the chance to pit his wings once again against the fierce winds of Gor.	10
17	106	I tossed the tarn keeper a golden tarn disk.	10
18	1	In the Central Cylinder As the tarn climbed, I saw the camp of Pa-Kur, the ditches, the double walls of Ar with siege engines like leeches fastened to the inner wall, and, approaching the city, Pa-Kur's long lines of chanting garrison troops, the morning sun flashing on their metal, their march mea...	10
18	112	In this chamber, though empty of human beings, was a monstrous tarn cot, in which some twenty gigantic, half-starved tarns huddled separately on the tarn perches.	10
18	138	Ripping savagely with his steel-shod talons, slashing with his scimitarlike beak, my sable war tarn in a matter of seconds left the attacking tarn a shuddering heap of feathers.	10
3	1	The Tarn "Ho!" cried Torm, that most improbable member of the Caste of Scribes, throwing his blue robes over his head as though he could not bear to see the light of day.	10
3	221	"A tarn-goad," he replied.	10
3	231	"Be careful of a tarn-goad," said the Older Tarl.	10
3	245	The Goreans believe, incredibly enough, that the capacity to master a tarn is innate and that some men possess this characteristic and that some do not.	10
3	246	One does not learn to master a tarn.	10
3	248	It is said that a tarn knows who is a tarnsman and who is not, and that those who are not die in this first meeting.	10
3	249	My first impression was that of a rush of wind and a great snapping sound, as if a giant might be snapping an enormous towel or scarf; then I was cowering, awe-stricken, in a great winged shadow, and an immense tarn, his talons extended like gigantic steel hooks, his wings sputtering fiercely in the...	10
3	254	The tarn dropped to the roof of the cylinder and regarded us with his bright black eyes.	10
3	255	Though the tarn, like most birds, is surprisingly light for its size, this primarily having to do with the comparative hollowness of the bones, it is an extremely powerful bird, powerful even beyond what one would expect from such a monster.	10
3	256	Whereas large Earth birds, such as the eagle, must, when taking flight from the ground, begin with a running start, the tarn, with its incredible musculature, aided undoubtedly by the somewhat lighter gravity of Gor, can with a spring and a sudden flurry of its giant wings lift both himself and his ...	10
3	260	The most common tarn, however, is greenish brown.	10
3	261	Disregarding the disproportion in size, the Earth bird which the tarn most closely resembles is the hawk, with the exception that it has a crest somewhat of the nature of a jay's.	10
3	263	It is not unknown for a tarn to attack and devour his own rider.	10
3	264	They fear nothing but the tarn-goad.	10
3	265	They are trained by men of the Caste of Tarn Keepers to respond to it while still young, when they can be fastened by wires to the training perches.	10
3	266	Whenever a young bird soars away or refuses obedience in some fashion, he is dragged back to the perch and beaten with the tarn-goad.	10
3	267	Rings, comparable to those which are fastened on the legs of the young birds, are worn by the adult birds to reinforce the memory of the hobbling wire and the tarn-goad.	10
3	269	The tarn is one of the two most common mounts of a Gorean warrior; the other is the high tharlarion, a species of saddle-lizard, used mostly by clans who have never mastered tarns.	10
3	271	The Older Tarl had mounted his tarn, climbing up the five-rung leather mounting ladder which hangs on the left side of the saddle and is pulled up in flight.	10
3	281	His talons were shod with steel—a war tarn.	10
4	5	In that instant I switched the tarn-goad to the "on" position, and when the great beak flashed downward again, I struck it viciously, trying to force it away from me.	10
4	6	The effect was startling: there was the sudden bright flash of yellow glittering light, the splash of sparks, and a scream of pain and rage from the tarn as he immediately beat his wings, lifting himself out of my reach in a rush of air that nearly forced me over the edge of the roof.	10
4	8	The tarn was circling the cylinder, uttering piercing cries; then he began to fly away from the city.	10
4	9	Without knowing why, and thinking I was better off to have the thing in retreat, I seized my tarn whistle and blew its shrill note.	10
4	13	At last, with a wild cry of rage, the tarn returned to the cylinder.	10
4	15	The tarn is guided by virtue of a throat strap, to which are attached, normally, six leather streamers, or reins, which are fixed in a metal ring on the forward portion of the saddle.	10
4	20	For example, to land or lose altitude, one uses the four-strap which exerts pressure on the four-ring, which is located beneath the throat of the tarn.	10
4	21	To rise into flight, or gain altitude, one draws on the one-strap, which exerts pressure on the one-ring, which is located on the back of the tarn's neck.	10
4	23	The tarn-goad also is occasionally used in guiding the bird.	10
4	27	It tends to become less effective if often used, and the rider is then at the mercy of the tarn.	10
4	31	The tarn continued to climb, and I saw the City of Cylinders dropping far below me, like a set of rounded children's blocks set in the gleaming green hills.	10
4	33	I looked below and saw the Older Tarl, mounted on his own tarn, climbing to overtake me.	10
4	36	"Do you seek to climb to the Moons of Gor?" I suddenly realized I felt dizzy, or slightly so, but the magnificent black tarn was still climbing, though now struggling, his wings beating fiercely with frustrated persistence against the thinning, less resistant air.	10
4	39	Fortunately, before losing consciousness, I drew on the four-strap, and the tarn leveled out and then lifted his wings over his back and dropped like a striking hawk, with a speed that left me without breath in my body.	10
4	41	The great tarn snapped his wings out, catching the air under them, and smoothly began to fly a straight course, his wings beating slowly but steadily in a cruising speed that would soon take us far beyond the towers of the city.	10
4	45	"Agreed!" he shouted, wheeling his tarn in the instant he spoke, and turning him to the city.	10
4	50	He was urging his tarn to greater speed by a series of shouts intended to communicate his own excitement to his winged mount.	10
4	51	The thought flashed through my mind that tarns should be trained to respond to voice commands as well as to the numbered straps and the tarn-goad.	10
4	53	I shouted to my tarn, in Gorean and in English.	10
4	54	"Har-ta! Har-ta! Faster! Faster!" The great bird seemed to sense what I intended, or perhaps it was merely his sudden realization that the other tarn was in the lead, but a remarkable transformation swept over my sable, plumed steed.	10
4	59	"What a tarn!" he marveled.	10
4	62	"That tarn," he said, "was bred for you, specially selected from the best broods of the finest of our war tarns.	10
4	65	It seems the tarn keepers do not train their prodigies as well as they might".	10
4	70	You will come to know your tarn and he will come to know you.	10
4	71	You will be as one in the sky, the tarn the body, you the mind and will.	10
4	72	You will live in an armed truce with the tarn.	10
4	92	I caught a glimpse of a black helmet through the port as a warrior, still clutching a crossbow and mounted on his tarn, hauled up on the one-strap and flew from the window.	10
5	1	Lights of the Planting Feast I mounted my tarn, that fierce, black magnificent bird.	10
5	8	I leveled the tarn and drew on the six-strap, setting my course for Ar.	10
5	13	I felt little of the exhilaration I had felt in my first soaring venture on the back of the tarn.	10
5	31	As soon as we had taken flight, I had unfastened the restraining straps on her legs and wrists, leaving only the broad belt which lashed her securely to the back of the tarn.	10
5	34	The Older Tarl had told me that Thentis is a city famed for its tarn flocks and remote in the mountains from which the city takes its name.	10
5	35	Raiders from Ar had struck at the tarn flocks and the outlying cylinders of Thentis, and the girl had been captured.	10
5	64	Abruptly I changed course, drawing on the four-strap, guiding my tarn toward the blue, shimmering wave of a mountain range in the distance.	10
5	69	But she was, of course, a girl of mountainous Thentis, famed for its fierce tarn flocks.	10
5	78	"I mean—about the tarn.	10
5	84	She paused, and the wind whistled past, a steady sound mingling with the rhythmical stroke of the tarn's beating wings.	10
5	85	"You said you were frightened—when you first rode a tarn," she said.	10
5	90	She turned her head away again and looked, unseeing, at the head of the great tarn as he plowed the wind.	10
5	91	"I did ride once before on the back of a tarn," she said bitterly, "to Ar, bound across the saddle, before I was sold in the Street of Brands".	10
5	92	It was not easy to talk on the back of the great tarn, with the wind, and, besides, though I wanted to communicate with the girl, I felt I could not.	10
5	102	I jerked the collar away from her throat and threw it and the key from the tarn's back and watched them fly downward in a long, graceful parabola.	10
5	128	I hauled the tarn aloft, waving back at the small figure still wearing the diagonally striped livery of the slave.	10
5	130	I turned the tarn toward Ar.	10
5	139	During the day I freed my tarn, to allow him to feed as he would.	10
5	149	Sometimes I guided my tarn by the stars, the same fixed stars I had seen from another angle above my head in the mountains of New Hampshire.	10
5	151	I had chosen this area because it is the most uninhabitable area within tarn strike of Ar.	10
5	152	I had seen too many village cooking fires on the last night, and twice I had heard the tarn whistles of nearby patrols—groups of three warriors flying their rounds.	10
5	154	But an hour before midnight, on the day I knew was the Planting Feast of Sa-Tarna, I climbed again to the saddle of my tarn, drew back on the one-strap, and rose above the lush trees of the swamp forest.	10
5	155	Almost simultaneously I heard the raucous cry of a patrol leader of Ar, "We have him!" They had followed my tarn, trailing it back from its feeding in the swamp forest, and now, like the points of a rapidly converging triangle, three warriors of Ar were closing in on me.	10
5	157	Before I had time to gather my senses, a dark winged shape had materialized in front of me, and, in the light of the three moons, I saw a warrior on a tarn passing, thrusting out with his spear.	10
5	160	I turned, raising the tarn-goad, which was looped to my wrist, to ward off the stroke of his blade.	10
5	161	Sword and tarn-goad met in a ringing clash and a shower of glittering yellow sparks.	10
5	163	Both my tarn and that of the attacker withdrew as if by instinct from the flash of the goad, and I had inadvertently purchased a moment of time.	10
5	164	I unslung my longbow and fitted an arrow, yanking my tarn in an abrupt wing-shuddering arc.	10
5	168	I saw him stiffen suddenly in the saddle and was dimly aware of his tarn streaking away, screaming.	10
5	170	They swept toward me, about five yards apart, to close on either side of me, to force the wings of my tarn up and hold it for the moment they would need, trapped motionless between their own mounts.	10
5	171	I had no time to think, but somehow I was aware that my sword was now in my hand and the tarn-goad thrust in my belt.	10
5	172	As we crashed in the air, I sharply jerked back the one-strap, bringing the steel-shod talons of my war tarn into play.	10
5	173	And to this day I bless the tarn keepers of Ko-ro-ba for the painstaking training they had given the great bird.	10
5	175	Beak and talons rending, uttering ear-shattering screams, my tarn slashed at the other two birds.	10
5	179	With his start, he would be confident, but I knew that my tarn could overtake him easily.	10
5	180	I brought my tarn into line with the retreating speck and gave him his rein.	10
5	182	Rather than kill the warrior, I loosed the arrow into the wing of his tarn.	10
5	183	The tarn spun about and began to favor the injured wing.	10
5	184	The warrior could no longer control the mount, and I saw the tarn dropping awkwardly, descending in drunken circles to the darkness below.	10
5	187	When I neared Ar, I crouched low in the saddle and hoped that the speck against a moon which might be seen by the watchmen of the outlying towers would be taken for a wild tarn, flying high over the city.	10
6	4	Boldly I dipped my tarn downward, into the midst of the cylinders, just another of the wild tarnsmen of Ar.	10
6	5	I brought him to rest on one of the steel projections that occasionally jut forth from the cylinders and serve as tarn perches.	10
6	17	I abruptly forced my tarn into flight, streaking for the tower of the Ubar.	10
6	19	I dropped immediately, for no one without good reason rides a tarn in the vicinity of the tower of a Ubar.	10
6	24	As my tarn struck down on the platform and I leaped from its back, I heard a girl's scream.	10
6	35	She struck at me and pursued me to the tarn, which was excitedly shaking his wings, preparing to forsake the tumultuous roof of the cylinder.	10
6	37	In an instant I had attained the saddle of the tarn and drew back savagely on the one-strap.	10
6	39	I cursed as an arrow creased my shoulder, as the tarn's great wings smote the air and the monster took to flight.	10
6	43	She was now clear of the roof, swinging free below the tarn, with the lights of Ar dropping rapidly into the distance below her.	10
6	46	I cursed as the frenzied notes of tarn whistles drifted up from below.	10
6	114	"I was tricked by her I supposed to be the daughter of the Ubar, thrown from my own tarn, and saved from death only by your web.	10
6	117	"How is it that the daughter of the Ubar will return the Home Stone of Ar when you carry in your belt the tarn-goad?" Suddenly I realized the truth of what he had said and was amazed that it had not occurred to me before.	10
6	120	Soon the tarn would be feeding.	10
6	190	"Where is the tarn?" I demanded.	10
6	192	"Where is the tarn?" I repeated, more interested at the moment in the fate of my fierce mount than in the ridiculous piece of rock I had risked my life to obtain.	10
6	207	"I was trying to bring the tarn back to Ar," said the girl.	10
6	208	"I was never on a tarn before.	10
6	211	There was no tarn-goad".	10
6	214	My tarn attacked the leader of the flock".	10
6	215	She shuddered at the memory, and I pitied her for what must have been a horrifying experience, lashed helpless to the saddle of a giant tarn reeling in a death struggle for the mastery of a flock, high over the trees of the swamp forest.	10
6	216	"My tarn killed the other," said the girl, "and followed it to the ground, where he tore it to pieces".	10
6	219	After a few minutes, his beak and talons wet with blood and feathers, your tarn took flight.	10
6	220	I last saw him at the head of the tarn flock".	10
6	225	I had locked the pack when I had placed the Home Stone inside, and the pack is an integral part of the tarn saddle.	10
6	227	So now the tarn was gone, returned to his natural wild state, the Home Stone was in the saddle pack, and I had failed, and the daughter of the Ubar had failed, and we stood facing one another on a green knoll in the swamp forest of Ar.	10
7	4	"It pleased the daughter of Marlenus," she said, "to inform you and your eight-legged brother of the fate of your tarn and of the Home Stone you sought".	10
7	111	The tarn-goad, which had been thrust in the belt, dropped into the water, and I lost it.	10
7	173	A marvelous cascade of hair, as black as the wing of my tarn, loosened behind her, falling to the ground.	10
7	201	"If you had been a true warrior," she said, "you would have taken me on the back of your tarn, above the clouds, even before we had passed the outermost ramparts of Ar, and you would have thrown my robes to the streets below to show my people what had been the fate of the daughter of their Ubar".	10
8	40	She raised her head and said quietly, "The Home Stone was in the saddle pack of his tarn.	10
8	41	The tarn escaped.	10
8	65	My hands were on his throat like the talons of a tarn.	10
9	21	"Your tarn was killed by my father's men, and you are taking me back to your city, to be your slave".	10
10	10	Seated inside on several pillows of tasseled silk was a mammoth toad of a man, whose head was as round as a tarn's egg, the eyes nearly lost in the folds of fat, pocked skin.	10
10	49	He would have had a man killed rather than risk the loss of a tenth of a tarn disk, so well he knew the codes of his caste.	10
10	54	"Twenty tarn disks," Mintar proposed.	10
10	65	His tarn was killed, and he is taking me to—to Bristol—to be his slave".	10
10	85	Before they swept shut, he said, "You will never get forty-five tarn disks".	10
10	113	These gigantic lizards had been bred on Gor for a thousand generations before the first tarn was tamed, and were raised from the leathery shell to carry warriors.	10
10	117	However, their metabolism was slower than that of a tarn, whose mind never seemed far from food and, if it was available, could consume half its weight in a single day.	10
10	122	The tharlarion saddle, unlike the tarn saddle, is constructed to absorb shock.	10
10	129	Kazrak, as he had promised, turned over the balance of his hiring price to me—a very respectable eighty tarn disks.	10
10	136	From his own tarn disks, Kazrak purchased two additional articles which he regarded as essential—a collar, which he had properly engraved, and a slave whip.	10
10	143	Her back straight as a tarn-goad, she disappeared behind the silk hanging.	10
11	4	The flags of a hundred cities flew above the tents, and, against the steady roar of the river, the sound of the great tarn drums reached us, those huge drums whose signals control the complex war formations of Gor's flying cavalries.	10
11	19	His face was sweating, and he fumbled in his heavy wallet, taking out tarn disks and tossing them to the warriors for their work.	10
11	20	I snapped a tarn disk from the air and put it in my pouch.	10
11	26	It amounted to little more than buying a tarn, if I could afford it, or stealing one if I could not, and making a run for Ko-ro-ba.	10
11	27	The venture might be risky, particularly if I had to steal the tarn and elude pursuit, but, all things considered, an escape on tarnback seemed to me far safer than trying to cross the Vosk and make our way on foot or tharlarion through the hills and wilderness to the distant cylinders of Ko-ro-ba.	10
11	52	She seemed to be pleased when her friends were bought by handsome tarnsmen, and laughed delightedly when one girl, to whom she had taken a dislike, was purchased by a fat, odious fellow, of the Caste of Tarn Keepers.	10
11	65	She begged a tenth of a tarn disk from me, and I gave it to her.	10
12	1	In the Tarn's Nest My wrists and ankles were bound to a hollow, floating frame.	10
12	29	It was a tarn disk hurled by one of Pa-Kur's men.	10
12	31	Before the tarn disk could begin its fall, the quarrel pierced it, carrying it, I would judge, some two hundred and fifty yards out into the river.	10
12	63	There was also the chance that a wild tarn might swoop down and feed on the helpless living morsel fastened to that degrading frame.	10
12	81	Perhaps it was my wild, almost demented laughter that attracted the tarn.	10
12	83	Savagely those vast talons struck and closed on my body, forcing the frame for an instant beneath the water, then the tarn was beating the air angrily with his wings, struggling to lift his prey, and suddenly both myself and the heavy frame were pulled free from the water.	10
12	85	Then, mercifully, the ropes, not meant to sustain the weight of the heavy frame, broke loose, and the tarn triumphantly climbed skyward, still clutching me in his wild talons.	10
12	90	Near one of the green stretches I saw what I first thought was a shadow, but as the tarn passed, it scattered into a scampering flock of tiny creatures, probably the small, three-toed mammals called qualae, dun-colored and with a stiff brushy mane of black hair.	10
12	93	And somewhere in that vast array, among the flags and the booming of tarn drums, would have been the girl who had betrayed me.	10
12	95	The flight of the tarn was serene, and I, grateful to be free at last of the painful Frame of Humiliation, found myself, strangely enough, almost reconciled to the savage but swift fate I knew awaited me.	10
12	96	But suddenly the flight of the tarn became much more rapid and then in another minute almost erratic and frenzied.	10
12	98	My hair froze as I heard the shrill, angry cry of another tarn; he was an enormous creature as sable as the helmet of Pa-Kur, his wings beating like whips, bearing down relentlessly on my captor.	10
12	100	Then he attacked again, and my bird swerved again, but the attacking tarn had allowed for the maneuver, compensating for it an instant before my own bird turned, with the result that it met my bird in full collision.	10
12	106	The beak, curved like an instrument of war, slit with its narrow nostrils, closed on my body, and I was once more the prize of a tarn.	10
12	108	High on a sunlit mountain ledge, the sable tarn dropped me to the sticks and brush of its nest and set one steel-shod taloned foot across my body, to hold me steady as the great beak did its work.	10
12	113	And then, fool that I was, half demented with hunger and terror, I only then realized that the tarn was none other than my own! I shoved on the steel-shod foot that pressed me into the sticks of the nest, uttering my command with ringing authority.	10
12	117	I withdrew some of the lice, the size of marbles, which tend to infest wild tarns, and slapped them roughly into the mouth of the tarn, wiping them off on his tongue.	10
12	118	I did this again and again, and the tarn stretched out his neck.	10
12	119	The saddle and reins of the tarn were no longer on the bird and had undoubtedly rotted off or had been rubbed from his back by scraping against the rock escarpment backing its nest ledge.	10
12	120	After a few minutes of my ministrations the tarn, satisfied, spread his wings and took flight, to continue the search for food which had been interrupted.	10
12	123	I cursed because I had lost the tarn-goad in the quicksands of Ar's swamp forest.	10
12	126	My tarn had returned.	10
12	127	I looked up and, to my horror, saw that it was not my tarn.	10
12	130	This time I had none of the careful conditioning of the tarn keepers working in my favor.	10
12	139	I returned to the nest and salvaged what I could of the tarn harness and saddle.	10
12	150	And there on that windy ledge, in that abode of the tarn, I ate the meal that satisfied me as no other had ever done, though it consisted only of some mouthfuls of water, some stale biscuits, and a wrapper of dried meat.	10
12	157	I cursed myself for not having carried an extra tarn-goad somewhere in the saddle gear.	10
12	158	Also, I should have carried an extra tarn whistle.	10
12	159	Mine had been lost when Talena had thrown me from the back of the tarn shortly after we had fled the walls of Ar.	10
12	165	I had no desire to die eventually of starvation in the lonely aerie of my tarn.	10
12	167	In the hours that remained before the tarn returned to his nest, I used the binding fiber and bowstrings to repair, as well as I could, the harness and saddle.	10
12	170	Gripped in the talons of the tarn was the dead body of an antelope, one of the one-horned, yellow antelopes called tabuks that frequent the bright Ka-la-na thickets of Gor.	10
12	171	The antelope's back had been broken, apparently in the tarn's strike, and its neck and head lolled aimlessly to one side.	10
12	172	When the tarn had fed, I walked over to him, speaking familiarly, as if I might be doing the most customary thing on Gor.	10
13	7	I took the tarn high, to bring a circle of some two hundred pasangs or so under my view.	10
13	11	As I was drawing on the two-strap, to guide the tarn to Ko-ro-ba, I saw something I did not expect to see, something directly below, which startled me.	10
13	13	Curious, I dropped the tarn lower, not willing to believe the fires belonged to either a patrol or to hunters.	10
13	16	Perhaps the men of the mysterious camp heard the beating of the tarn's wings, perhaps I had been outlined for an instant against one of Gor's three circling moons, but suddenly the fires disappeared, kicked apart in a flash of sparks, and the glowing embers were smothered almost immediately.	10
13	20	As the tarn wheeled upward, I heard the wild, uncanny hunting cry of the larl, piercing the dusk from somewhere in the peaks below.	10
13	21	Even the tarn seemed to shiver in its flight.	10
13	29	I thought perhaps he had heard the tarn, but he seemed to show no awareness of us.	10
13	45	Without bothering to think, I seized my spear and, dragging harshly on the four-strap, brought the tarn into a sharp, abrupt descent.	10
13	47	Rather than risk casting my spear from the safe but unsteady saddle of the tarn, I leaped to the ground, just as the larl, furious that it had been discovered, uttered the paralyzing hunting roar and charged.	10
13	86	I gestured to the tarn, which was impatiently opening and closing his wings.	10
13	116	The man, who seemed to leap into gigantic stature as he lifted himself into full height, took from under his yellow robes a tarn whistle and blew a long, shrill note.	10
14	1	The Tarn Death Shackled in a kneeling position, my back open and bleeding from the lash, I was thrown before the Ubar.	10
14	101	"Has this warrior not earned his right to the tarn death?" "He has indeed," said one of the tarnsmen, who held a wadded lump of tunic over his slashed rib cage.	10
14	113	"No man can escape the tarn death," said one of the men.	10
14	118	"The tarn death is an ugly death".	10
14	135	For a moment I swung between the birds, and then, perhaps a hundred feet in the air, the tarnsmen, at a prearranged signal—a sharp blast of a tarn whistle from the ground—turned their birds in opposite directions.	10
14	140	I could hear the curses of the tarnsmen above me and saw once or twice the flash of the striking tarn-goad.	10
14	165	I could hear the flight of another tarn above me.	10
14	168	The tarn, my sable giant from Ko-ro-ba, landed and stalked majestically forward.	10
14	173	I had weapons again, and my tarn.	10
14	174	There was even a tarn-goad and saddle gear.	10
14	176	Foolishly perhaps, but with invincible optimism, I lifted the tarn above the Voltai and turned it toward Ar.	10
15	4	Across the city, from the walls to the cylinders and among the cylinders, I could occasionally see the slight flash of sunlight on the swaying tarn wires, literally hundreds of thousands of slender, almost invisible wires stretched in a protective net across the city.	10
15	5	Dropping the tarn through such a maze of wire would be an almost impossible task.	10
15	6	The wings of a striking tarn would be cut from its body by such wires.	10
15	28	Light engines, mostly catapults and ballistae, would be transported over the ditches by harnessed tarn teams.	10
15	40	I brought the tarn down near the far ranges of Pa-Kur's tents, where his camp ended, seven or eight miles from the city.	10
15	42	Leading the tarn, I entered the camp as casually as I might have strolled into a carnival or fair.	10
15	50	At the entrance to the compound was a gigantic, temporary wire cage, a tarn cot.	10
15	52	His grumbling was silenced by an additional tarn disk.	10
15	54	Over the compound, as if it were a small city under siege, was stretched a set of interlaced tarn wires.	10
15	248	"You are the only man who has ever escaped the tarn death," he said, something of wonder in his voice.	10
15	253	Mintar reached into the pouch at his waist and drew forth a golden tarn disk, of double weight.	10
16	24	The men of Ar remained within their walls, under their tarn wire, waiting for the attacks to come, while the Initiates of the city sacrificed to the Priest-Kings.	10
16	25	On the tenth day of the siege small engines, such as covered catapults and ballistae, were flown across the ditches by tarn teams and soon were engaged in artillery duels with the engines mounted on the walls of Ar.	10
16	53	Moreover, the ubiquitous tarn wire heavily netted in the area of the Central Cylinder would ward off any attempts at rescue, unless perhaps by a large force.	10
16	118	Additionally, overhead I could see lines of tarn wire.	10
17	4	But the answer, when I received an answer, whether by virtue of a golden tarn disk or mortal fear, was always the same—that she was kept in the tent of red and yellow silk.	10
17	25	The tiny urt, a common rodent of Gorean cities, was bringing a silver tarn disk in the markets.	10
17	60	Near dawn, to the brave sound of tarn drums, a mighty procession left the camp of Pa-Kur, and as it crossed the main bridge over the first ditch, I saw in the distance the great gate of Ar slowly opening.	10
17	78	The procession resumed to the beat of the tarn drums and Talena, bound in chains of gold, walked, slowly, with dignity, beside the tharlarion of her captor, Pa-Kur, the Assassin.	10
17	102	The tarn was brought into the open.	10
17	109	A golden tarn disk was a small fortune.	10
18	16	But first, as part of my plan, I raced my tarn directly for the walls of Ar, swiftly passing the slow procession on the plains below.	10
18	18	As soldiers scattered madly beneath me, I brought the tarn down.	10
18	22	Without leaving the back of the tarn, I demanded the officer in charge.	10
18	31	"You welcome him," I said scornfully, "by opening the great gate, but you have not retracted the tarn wire.	10
18	39	Soon the great winches were in motion and, foot by foot, the frightful netting of tarn wire began to sag.	10
18	51	"What of the roof of the cylinder," I asked, "when the tarn wire is down?" "Marlenus will not escape," repeated the officer, adding in a surly tone, "unless he can fly".	10
18	63	I took the tarn into the air again.	10
18	64	I had managed to bring down the tarn wire of Ar; I had learned that Marlenus still lived and held a portion of the Central Cylinder, and I had found out when and where the execution of Talena was supposed to take place.	10
18	67	I wondered if Pa-Kur might be curious to know who was the rider of that solitary sable tarn which flashed above his head.	10
18	70	When I came to one, I would bring the tarn lower.	10
18	73	Boldly, giving no thought to the possible danger of lingering infection, I dropped the tarn into the deserted pit.	10
18	83	After I emerged from one of these caves, I was surprised to see my tarn across the pit, his head tilted to one side, as if puzzled.	10
18	88	Nothing was revealed to my eyes or to my touch, but there was the almost imperceptible odor of tarn spoor.	10
18	99	An enormous slab, perhaps fifty feet square, had slid upward and backward, revealing a great, dim, squarish tunnel beyond, a tunnel large enough for a flying tarn.	10
18	100	I seized the tarn reins and drew the beast into the opening.	10
18	105	I mounted the tarn, who was visibly uneasy in this strange environment.	10
18	110	Then, to my pleasure, instead of alighting, the tarn dropped a few feet down from the ceiling and began to streak through the tunnel, the energy bulbs flashing past me to form in my wake a gleaming chain of light.	10
18	114	The floor of the tarn cot was littered with the bones of perhaps two dozen tarns.	10
18	115	I reasoned that the tarns must be those of the men of Marlenus, left in the tarn cot when he entered the city.	10
18	125	At the top of a broad series of stairs I saw the door that must lead to the Central Cylinder and noted with satisfaction that its dimensions were large enough to permit the passage of a tarn.	10
18	126	Fortunately, almost at the foot of the stairs lay one of the gates of the tarn cot.	10
18	127	I took my tarn-goad and dismounted.	10
18	128	I climbed the stairs that led to the portal into the cylinder, turned the valve, and as soon as the portal began to move, raced down to the tarn cot and swung open that barred gate which lay nearest the foot of the stairs.	10
18	134	I struck at him with the tarn-goad, but the instrument seemed to have no effect.	10
18	136	The tarn-goad was torn from my hand.	10
18	137	In that instant a great black shape hurtled into the fray, and the tarn had met his match.	10
18	139	With one of the great steel-shod talons on the body of his fallen foe, my tarn emitted the challenge scream of his kind.	10
18	140	The other tarns, poking out of the tarn cot, seemed to hesitate and then to notice the open door into the cylinder.	10
18	145	Another tarn reached the portal and tried to pull the body from the beak of its possessor.	10
18	151	In two or three minutes I led my own tarn up the stairs and through the opening.	10
18	157	Leaving my tarn below, I climbed the stairs, my sword drawn.	10
18	158	When I reached that portion of the stairwell adjoining the upper floors, devoted to the private use of the Ubar, I saw some twenty or thirty guardsmen, behind them a barricade of tile and tarn wire which they had erected.	10
18	163	They would associate me with the tarn attack.	10
19	2	The great birds, fed, were once again as tractable as such monsters ever are, and with the tarn-goads Marlenus and his men were again in command.	10
19	22	He had brought his tarn to flight and was descending to the streets below to rally the dispirited citizens of Ar, to call them again to arms, to challenge them to renounce the treacherous authority of the self-seeking Initiates, to strike again their blow for freedom, to die rather than yield their ...	10
19	29	I brought the tarn to flight and set its course for the Cylinder of Justice.	10
19	39	I was over the cylinder and dropping the tarn to its center.	10
19	43	The tarn's steel-shod talons struck the marble roof of the cylinder with a flash of sparks.	10
19	47	As the tarn had landed, her executioners, two burly, hooded magistrates, had scrambled to their feet and fled to safety.	10
19	49	Now, helpless, Talena lay almost within the wing span of my tarn, so near to me and yet a world away.	10
19	100	On the back of my tarn, I waited, not knowing if I was to be singled out for the Flame Death, not knowing if I, like the mysterious blue envelope in the mountains of New Hampshire, so long ago, was doomed to explode in a devouring blue flame.	10
19	116	Accordingly, I slid from the saddle of the tarn, unsheathing my weapon.	10
19	142	I remembered the incident of the crossbow and the tarn disk over the Vosk.	10
19	174	Thousands of the great birds, their wings clapping like thunder, were descending on the city, flying onto the bridges and down to the streets, darting among those spires no longer protected with the terrible defense of the tarn wire.	10
19	184	Kazrak's tarn had alighted on the roof of the cylinder, and a moment afterward my father's and perhaps fifty others.	10
19	210	There was only the sheer wall of the cylinder, broken once by a tarn perch some twenty feet below.	10
19	246	She laughed as I swept her from her feet and lifted her to the saddle of my giant tarn.	10
19	250	Then, in accord with the rude bridal customs of Gor, as she furiously but playfully struggled, as she squirmed and protested and pretended to resist, I bound her bodily across the saddle of the tarn.	10

Book 2. (95 results) Outlaw of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
2	67	There were two items I had hoped to find in the bundle which were not there, a tarn-goad and a tarn-whistle.	10
6	11	I would have given much for a tarn in my journey, though I knew no tarn would fly into the mountains.	10
8	106	"I can help you obtain not only a tarn," said the man, "but a thousand golden tarn disks and provisions for as lengthy a journey as you might wish".	10
11	238	"He spoke," I said, "of a tarn, a thousand golden tarn disks and provisions for a long journey".	10
14	111	I wondered if it too recalled the thunder of the wind, the clash of arms as tarnsmen dueled in flight, the sight of Gor's tarn cavalries wheeling in formation to the beat of the tarn drums, or the long, steady, lonely soaring flights we had known together over the green fields of Gor.	10
14	152	"The bird is chained! Attack! Kill them both!" In that instant the bolt gave, and the nut spun from the shaft! The tarn, as if it understood it was free, shook the hated metal from its leg and lifted its beak to the skies and uttered such a cry as must have been heard by all in Tharna, a cry seldom ...	10
14	155	What I would have given for a tarn saddle and the broad purple strap that fastens the warrior in the saddle! As soon as it felt my weight, the tarn cried again and with an explosion of its broad wings sprang into the air, climbing in dizzy circles.	10
14	171	I wondered sometimes if that bird, my Ubar of the Skies, that tarn of tarns, of a race of birds spoken of by Goreans as Brothers of the Wind, might have considered himself as above the goad, resented its shocks and sparks, resented that that puny human device would pretend to teach him, he, a tarn o...	10
14	185	When he spots a tabuk in the fields below, or, indeed, any animal in the prey range of the tarn, he may cry "Tabuk!" and this is the signal that the tarn may hunt.	10
14	191	It was truly a tarn of tarns, my Ubar of the Skies! It was a desperate plan I had seized upon, no more than one chance in a million, unless the great tarn could tip the scales in my favor.	10
14	212	And so for an instant stood the tarn, its head and beak extended, its wings snapping, its prey locked in its grasp, and uttered the terrifying capture scream of the tarn, at once a scream of victory, and of challenge.	10
15	2	Beyond this it is all a matter of the tarn-straps and the tarn-goad.	10
18	27	"There was a tarn, wearing the silver hobble, that was to kill him, but he freed the tarn, leaped on its back and made good his escape".	10
23	122	There was no tarn cot at hand in which to enclose him, and, moreover, even if there had been, I would not have trusted him to the tarn-keepers of Tharna.	10
26	32	"And add to the golden tarn disks," she had exclaimed, "tarn disks of silver to be formed from the masks of our women, for henceforth in Tharna no woman may wear a mask of either gold or silver, not even though she be Tatrix of Tharna herself!" And as she had spoken, according to the customs of Thar...	10
26	125	I have seen it in the vanished towers of Ko-ro-ba and in the flight of a tarn, in the movements of a beautiful woman, in the gleam of weaponry, in the sound of tarn drums and the crash of thunder over green fields.	10
2	68	The tarn-goad is a rodlike instrument, about twenty inches long.	10
2	73	The tarn-whistle, as one might expect, is used to summon the bird.	10
2	75	There is nothing surprising in this inasmuch as each bird is trained, by the Caste of Tarn Keepers, to respond to a different note.	10
2	76	When the tarn is presented to a warrior, or sold to one, the whistle accompanies the bird.	10
5	4	Ko-ro-ba was not set as high and remote as, for example, was Thentis in the mountains of Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, but it was not a city of the vast plains either, like the luxurious metropolis of Ar, or of the shore, like the cluttered, crowded, sensuous Port Kar on the Tamber Gulf.	10
6	13	The tharlarions become unmanageable, and, though the tarn will essay the flight, the bird almost immediately becomes disoriented, uncoordinated, and drops screaming back to the plains below.	10
6	37	I wondered if I might be able to secure a tarn in the intriguing city of Tharna.	10
6	39	I had no money with which to purchase a tarn but I reasoned my hiring price as a swordsman might be sufficient to purchase a mount.	10
6	69	When he brings home his captive, bound naked across the saddle of his tarn, he gives her over, rejoicing, to his sisters, to be bathed, perfumed and clothed in the brief slave livery of Gor.	10
8	10	Even men of a caste as low as that of the Tarn-Keepers were intolerably proud of their calling, for who else could raise and train those monstrous birds of prey? I supposed Zosk the Woodsman was proud in the knowledge that he with his great broad-headed ax could fell a tree in one blow, and that per...	10
8	39	The vendor would then hold up a higher number, sometimes bending his fingers at the knuckle to indicate a fraction of the value unit, which would be, presumably, the copper tarn disk.	10
8	64	I determined that I should try to secure a tarn and proceed as quickly as possible to the Sardar Mountains, to keep my appointment with the Priest-Kings.	10
8	79	"I should like to obtain a tarn," I said, "for a journey I have in mind".	10
8	85	"A tarn is expensive," he said.	10
8	89	"How then," he asked, "do you propose to obtain your tarn?" "I am not an outlaw," I said, "though I wear no insignia on my tunic, or shield".	10
8	102	"I want to obtain a tarn," I said.	10
8	115	"But are you not intrigued, Stranger," asked the man, his pale eyes squinting up at me through the folds of the gray robe, "by the offer of a tarn, gold and provisions?" "What must I do to earn this?" I asked.	10
9	13	"You will never get your tarn," hissed the man.	10
9	34	There must, after all, be provision made for entertaining merchants, delegations from other cities, authorized visitors of one sort or another, and, to be frank, the innkeeper is not always scrupulous about the credentials of his guests, asking few questions if he receives his handful of copper tarn...	10
9	83	"And I would like to purchase a tarn to continue my journey.	10
9	97	It was a silver tarn disk.	10
11	225	"I came to Tharna to obtain a tarn.	10
11	239	"Golden tarn disks—unlike those of silver—are scarce in Tharna," said the Tatrix.	10
12	77	The singer was thought to have an unusual skill, but so, too, were the tarn-keeper and the woodsman.	10
13	61	As he examined my yoke and chain, he said, "Dorna the Proud has wagered a hundred golden tarn disks on this block.	10
13	163	"—that he may be fed to the tarn," she added.	10
14	1	The Black Tarn I was unyoked.	10
14	6	Mingled with calls for the tarn, occasional taunts and jibes carried across the sand.	10
14	7	Perhaps the Amusements of Tharna were not spoiled at all; perhaps the best was yet to come? Surely my death beneath the beak and talons of a tarn would provide a gratifying spectacle for the insatiable masks of Tharna, adequate compensation for the disappointments of the afternoon, for the disregard...	10
14	8	Hideous though the death might seem to the silver masks of Tharna, they did not know that I was a tarnsman, and knew these birds, their power, their ferocity; that in my way I loved them; and that as a warrior I would not find a death by tarn ignoble.	10
14	11	Among warriors, the bite of an ost is thought to be one of the most cruel of all gates to the Cities of Dust; far preferable to them are the rending beak, the terrible talons of a tarn.	10
14	31	Slowly as the creaking platform rolled out onto the sand, drawn by its struggling slaves, yoked like oxen, I saw the tarn revealed, a black giant, hooded, its beak belted together, a great bar of silver chained to one of its legs.	10
14	36	I scrutinized the tarn.	10
14	50	It was a War Tarn, bred for courage, for endurance, for combat in the skies of Gor.	10
14	51	My nostrils drank in the wild, strong odor of the tarn, so offensive to some, yet an ambrosia to the nostrils of the tarnsman.	10
14	52	It recalled the tarn cots of Ko-ro-ba and Ar, the Compound of Mintar in Pa-Kur's City of Tents on the Vosk, the outlaw encampment of Marlenus among the crags of the Voltai Range.	10
14	60	Though to most of those who observed it would seem that the tarn was unusually quiet, I sensed that it was trembling, like myself, with excitement.	10
14	84	Warriors with spears rushed forward, forcing me back away from the tarn.	10
14	85	I stood in the sand, away from the platform, and watched the ticklish business of unhooding the tarn.	10
14	89	A nimble slave, wasting no time, and held on the shoulders of a fellow slave, loosened the belts that held the beak of the tarn and the hood that bound its head.	10
14	91	The tarn opened its beak and the belts that bound it loosely flew asunder.	10
14	103	I addressed myself to the giant tarn, as though he had been a warrior, a member of my caste.	10
14	112	Could it remember the Vosk, like a silver ribbon beneath its wings; could it recall fighting the blasts and upwinds of the rugged Voltai Range; could it recall Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, Ko-ro-ba's gleaming towers, or the lights of Ar as they had blazed that night of the Planting Feast of S...	10
14	114	I knew that the warriors of Tharna would have to kill two of us, for the tarn would defend me to the death.	10
14	119	It had not been forged in place inasmuch as it would be removed in the confines of the tarn cot, to allow the bird its perch, its exercise.	10
14	134	It did not take long for them to understand that the tarn, for whatever strange reason, was not going to attack me, and, whatever they considered my chances, it took only a moment longer to determine that it was my intention to free the bird.	10
14	140	The great door through which the tarn had been drawn was also opening, and a line of warriors was hurrying through the opening.	10
14	149	The tarn thrust its head over me and uttered a piercing, fierce scream, a terrible cry of rage that must have shaken the hearts of all within the confines of the arena.	10
14	158	I had no way to guide the tarn proficiently.	10
14	159	Normally the tarn is guided by a harness.	10
14	164	Indeed, I did not even have a tarn-goad, without which most tarnsmen would not even approach their fierce mounts.	10
14	169	He seemed to resent the goad, to fight it, to behave erratically when it was used; when struck with it he might even slow his flight, or deliberately disobey the commands of the tarn straps.	10
14	173	The tarn was but another of the beasts of Gor.	10
14	175	I saw the towers of Tharna, and the glittering oval of its arena, that cruel amphitheater, dropping away beneath the wings of the tarn.	10
14	176	Something of the same exhilaration which I had felt in my first wild flight on a tarn, this very giant, now thrilled in me again.	10
14	183	It is also one of the favorite kills of a tarn.	10
14	187	This was the first time I had called "Tabuk!" but the bird would have been conditioned to the call by the tarn-keepers of Ko-ro-ba years ago, and might still respond.	10
14	189	I thought it well to rest the bird, unsaddle it, and, also, frankly I did not find myself eager to be present at the feeding of a tarn.	10
14	190	The great sable tarn, upon hearing the cry of "Tabuk!", to my joy, began to describe its long, soaring hunting circles, almost as if it might have received its training yesterday.	10
14	210	The tarn struck.	10
14	216	With a storm of wings the tarn smote the air and rose, in the sight of all, above the stands, above the arena, above the towers and walls of Tharna, and sped toward the horizon, the golden-robed body of the Tatrix clutched in its talons.	10
15	1	A Bargain is Struck The tabuk-cry is the only word to which a tarn is trained to react.	10
15	6	When I had borne Talena home from Ar to Ko-ro-ba, I had tried to teach her the reins of the tarn-harness and help her, at least with me at hand, to learn to master the brute.	10
15	8	That was the only association between the voice of man and the arrangements of the strap harness which the tarn had known.	10
15	23	I know of few sensations so splendid, so godlike, as sharing the flight of a tarn.	10
15	54	I leaped from the back of the monster and rushed to the Tatrix, to protect her in case the tarn should begin to feed.	10
15	55	I pulled the locked talons from her body, calling to the tarn, shoving its legs back.	10
15	57	Had I not cried "Tabuk!"? Was this thing it had seized not now to be devoured? Was it not prey? I shoved the tarn back and away from the girl, and gathered her in my arms.	10
15	59	The rocky shelf on which we found ourselves was perhaps twenty feet wide and twenty feet deep, about the size that a tarn chooses for nesting.	10
15	67	Sometimes when the tarn strikes a tabuk, the animal's back is broken.	10
15	87	"I, too," I said, "was once in the talons of a tarn".	10
15	88	"Why did the tarn not kill you in the arena?" she asked.	10
15	89	"It is my tarn," I said simply.	10
15	95	I knew that if there was anything that struck terror into the heart of the Tatrix, it was the tarn.	10
15	104	"If it doesn't find game," she asked, "are you going to give me to the tarn?" "Yes," I said.	10
15	136	"It would buy a tarn," she said.	10
15	190	You would have fed me to the tarn".	10
15	226	In that moment the shadow of the tarn covered the ledge and, with a great beating of wings, the monster rejoined us.	10
15	231	But the tarn did not attack the meat.	10

Book 5. (27 results) Assassin of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
12	100	Racing tarns are not used by tarnsmen in war because they lack the weight and power of war tarns; meeting a war tarn in flight, a racing tarn would be torn to pieces in moments; further, the racing tarns, though marvelous in their particular ways, lack the stamina of the common tarn or the war tarn;...	10
22	502	My tarn was locked, talon to talon, with a nonfaction bird; each was tearing at the other; the tarn goad of the rider struck me, almost blinding me with pain; for an instant my consciousness seemed nothing but a blinding shower of yellow, fiery needles; his tarn struck for me and I beat its beak awa...	10
22	86	The tarn, the great, fierce saddlebird of Gor, is a savage beast, a monster predator of the high, blue skies of this harsh world; at best it is scarce half domesticated; even tarnsmen seldom approach them without weapons and tarn goad; it is regarded madness to approach one that is feeding; the inst...	10
22	564	I heard a frightful crack and my left arm broke open bloody in two lines; my sword leaped up and the next time the whip knife struck I severed it; Menicius, with a curse, threw the coil of whip at me and it passed overhead; we shot through the first of the final rings, the end rings; his tarn knife ...	10
7	44	If the basket is merely carried, and the tarn cannot be controlled from the basket, then the tarn wears the tarn saddle and is controlled by a tarnsman.	10
12	99	The racing tarn, interestingly, is an extremely light bird; two men can lift one; even its beak is narrower and lighter than the beak of a common tarn or a war tarn; its wings are commonly broader and shorter than those of the other tarns, permitting a swifter takeoff and providing a capacity for ex...	10
16	231	Throughout the stands, startling those multitudes, unsettling the other birds being drawn by the horned tharlarion on the low carts, there was heard the sudden shrill, ringing challenge scream of a tarn, unhooded, a giant tarn, black, a wild mountain cry of one of Gor's fiercest, most beautiful pred...	10
22	555	A tarnsman pressed in with sword upon us and I met the sword with tarn goad, with a bright yellow flash; his tarn veered away and I hurled the tarn goad savagely at another bird dropping toward me, talons opened; the goad struck him with a blinding flash and he, too, veered away; I then drew my swor...	10
22	563	The Red, cursing, tried to force us up, where we might strike the unpadded bar; at our speed we might be cut in two; my tarn struggled to avoid the bar, not turning to do battle, but persisting in his race; I was suddenly aware of the arm of Menicius flying forward and I instinctively threw myself f...	10
5	15	In a girl's collar lock there would be either six pins or six disks, one each, it is said, for each letter in the Gorean word for female slave, Kajira; the male slave, or Kajirus, seldom has a locked collar; normally a band of iron is simply hammered about his neck; often he works in chains, usually...	10
7	42	The tarn basket may or may not have guidance attachments, permitting the tarn to be controlled from the basket.	10
13	226	Mip was a chipper fellow, and a bit dapper considering his caste and his close-cropped hair, for his brown leather was shot with green streaks, and he wore a Tarn Keeper's cap with a greenish tassel; most Tarn Keepers, incidentally, crop their hair short, as do most Metal Workers; work in the tarnco...	10
13	240	Food for the tarns, which is meat, for that is their diet, is thrust on hooks and hauled by chain and windlass to the various perches; it might be of interest to note that, when any of the birds are free, meat is never placed on the hooks or on the floor below; the racing tarn is a valuable bird and...	10
13	305	Mip took his tarn streaking among the cylinders and I, on my tarn, followed him.	10
22	12	I leaped from the back of the tarn I rode and ran through the compound toward the perch of the black tarn.	10
22	14	Near one perch there lay a dead tarn, a small racing tarn, its throat cut.	10
22	24	"Do not fear," I said and grimly strode toward the perch of the great black tarn, the majestic tarn of Ko-ro-ba, my Ubar of the Skies.	10
22	142	Its feathers lacked the fiery sheen of the young tarn; its beak was not the gleaming yellow of the other birds, but a whitish yellow; its breathing was not that of the other birds; but its eyes were those of the unconquerable tarn, wild, black, fierce; gleaming with pride and fury; determined that n...	10
22	165	Menicius of Port Kar, riding for the Yellows, tearing at the control straps of his bird, tarn goad showering sparks to the sand below, tarn screaming, fought his way, birds buffeting, past the Silver trying to regain the center of the rings.	10
22	200	The tarn of the Blues, and then of the Silvers, and then of the Reds flashed past the reeling tarn and its rider.	10
22	338	The strike was made doubtless from the back of a racing tarn, a small swift tarn, maneuverable, darting among the bridges".	10
22	401	Commonly, the tarn responds only to one voice command, that of "Tabuk," which tends, roughly, to mean "Hunt and feed"; further, I would have liked to use the Tuchuk temwood thrusting lance from the saddle of a tarn.	10
22	427	I was certain their riders had had orders from the box of Cernus to see that I did not win; it would be difficult for a single tarn to block a ring, but two together might well manage; further, in not taking the lead immediately, which I believe I could have done, I hoped to postpone the entry into ...	10
22	431	To the crowd's astonishment, but not to mine, he wheeled his tarn, a rare, gloriously plumaged jungle tarn from the tropical reaches of the Cartius, to block the first of the right center rings.	10
22	495	My tarn struck the other two and in a moment, tarn goads flashing, talons clutching, birds screaming and biting, we found ourselves as in a clenched, winged fist of fury, beating and turning before the left center ring.	10
22	513	The man was beating his tarn unmercifully with the tarn goad, the bone talisman on its string flying behind his neck.	10
22	530	Again and again the small bow, swift and vicious, fired, twenty barbed arrows in half an Ehn, tarnsmen struggling to reach me with their swords, thrusting with their heavy spears, and all the time Ubar of the Skies tearing and ripping, his beak and steel-shod talons engines of fierce carnage; I felt...	10

Book 6. (9 results) Raiders of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
14	23	The sternpost is high, and fanlike; it is carved to represent feathers; the actual tail feathers of a tarn, however, would be horizontal to the plane, not vertical; the prow of the tarn ship resembles the ram and shield, though it is made of painted wood; it is designed and painted to resemble the h...	10
17	365	In the turmoil below, primarily of tarn ships locked in battle, and the great round ships trying to close with enemy tarn ships, I saw, protected by ten tarn ships on each side, and ten before and ten behind, the flagship of Cos and Tyros.	10
10	159	The wages of a sail-maker, incidentally, are four copper tarn disks per day, those of a fine shipwright, hired by the Council of Captains, as much as a golden tarn disk per day.	10
17	40	With their lines cut in fifty places, for no extended handful of tarn ships, part of a great line, could resist a close-set formation of sixteen tarn ships, I hoped that many of the ships would turn to face the attackers, now in their rear.	10
17	41	Each of my fifty sets of attacking tarn ships would be followed, by some half of an Ahn, by another pair of my tarn ships, which, hopefully, would be able to take a number of these come-about ships of Cos and Tyros from the rear.	10
17	49	The first two waves of my attack consisted, thus, of fifty task forces of sixteen tarn ships apiece and, following each of the task forces, at an interval of half an Ahn, another pair of tarn ships.	10
17	78	Accordingly I hoped the tarn ships of Cos and Tyros, seeing the sails, would think their new enemies were single-masted round ships, of which there are some types, and either misjudge their speeds or rush on them unwarily, finding out, too late, that they were plunging headlong toward swift, maneuve...	10
17	222	I saw now that the tarn ships of Cos and Tyros were, where possible, not engaging the round ships, but concentrating their superior numbers on my tarn ships.	10
17	227	He would use his superior numbers on my tarn ships, leaving the round ships for later, when they might be struck by as many as four or five tarn ships simultaneously.	10

Book 7. (2 results) Captive of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
13	588	The grass rushed swiftly past below me, and I could not touch it with my feet, and then it fled from me, dropping away, and then suddenly, in the rushing air, as I twisted and turned, buffeted in the blasts of wind, a prisoner of the forces, the physics, of the braided leather rope and the accelerat...	10
16	123	Far off, in the tarn compound, a tarn screamed, and then there was only the silence, except for the sounds of the insects.	10

Book 8. (1 results) Hunters of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
2	542	Her sails were, first, the fair-weather sail, which is quite large, and is used in gentle winds; secondly, the tarn sail, which is the common sail most often found on the yard of a tarn ship, and taking its name from the ship; third, a sail of the same type as the tarn sail, and, in a sense, a small...	10

Book 10. (1 results) Tribesmen of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
2	171	The tarn I had sold in Kasra, for four golden tarn disks.	10

Book 11. (2 results) Slave Girl of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
12	863	The man who had placed me in the basket, and then tied it shut, climbed swiftly to the saddle of his tarn; our trail lines, those attached to the basket in which we were confined, ran to the tarn's stirrups.	10
26	516	I did not know if the tarn would be waiting on the roof, or would be summoned from the roof, by tarn whistle.	10

Book 12. (3 results) Beasts of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
4	523	I was making my way toward the tarn cot where I had housed the tarn on which I had come to the fair, a brown tarn, from the mountains of Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks.	10
2	542	A golden tarn disk would purchase a trained war tarn, or several women.	10
3	970	A stout fellow, in the garb of the tarn keepers, smelling of the tarn cots, stood looking at her.	10

Book 15. (1 results) Rogue of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
19	74	Other generally respected coins tend to be the silver tarsk of Tharna, the golden tarn disk of Ko-ro-ba, and the golden tarn of Port Kar, the latter particularly on the western Vosk, in the Tamber Gulf region, and a few hundred pasangs north and south of the Vosk's delta.	10

Book 16. (1 results) Guardsman of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
8	467	"A golden tarn disk! A golden tarn disk!" "No female is worth that much," I said.	10

Book 17. (2 results) Savages of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
1	197	The complex consisted of a tarn cot, now muchly open to the sky, with an anterior building to house supplies and tarn keepers.	10
1	1032	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.	10

Book 18. (7 results) Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
42	150	"Counting your tarn, Hci," I said, "and not counting my tarn or the tarn of Cuwignaka, we have sixteen tarns.	10
39	530	"Why would a tarn, if it was a tarn, have attacked a rider in flight.	10
42	57	The leader of the Kinyanpi, when some fifty yards from my tarn, suddenly drew back on the reins of his tarn, and held it in a hovering position.	10
47	176	It caught the second tarn about the neck, as it swerved madly, by the grasping talons of its left foot, and I was thrown about, upside down, the ground seeming to be over my head, and the two birds spun in the air and then my tarn disengaged itself, the neck of the other bird flopping to the side, b...	10
47	256	Tarn to tarn we grappled for the lance.	10
47	260	I cut the girth rope on his tarn and drew him across to the back of my own tarn.	10
56	43	I did not take with me the tarn I had captured in the tarn country.	10

Book 20. (2 results) Players of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
3	128	We could not have come this far from Port Kar in so short a time, presumably, if we had not been brought most of the way by tarn, probably in tarn baskets.	10
6	41	Carrying a tarn goad and moving about the stage in a certain manner suggests that one is riding a tarn; a kaiila crop, or kaiila goad, and a change of gait suggests that one is riding a kaiila; a branch on the stage can stand for a forest or a bit of a wall for a city; standing on a box or small tab...	10

Book 22. (1 results) Dancer of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
10	308	And, I would later learn, it was not even a warrior's mount, bred for swiftness and aggressiveness, a war tarn, but a mere draft tarn.	10

Book 23. (7 results) Renegades of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
1	508	This signifies not only the location of the inn, and its amenities, but also a safe approach, one unimpeded by tarn wire, for a tarnsman, or a tarnsman with tarn basket.	10
6	529	"Did I not yield?" The chain, its loose ends, the padlock, the small metal tarn tag, indicating she was in debt to the Crooked Tarn, clinked on her neck.	10
8	51	The sloping ramp, of course, makes it easy to take the tarn basket, on its leather runners, no longer harnessed to the tarn, down to the yard.	10
8	61	The construction at the Crooked Tarn, incidentally, was more typical of a military installation, in that it permitted the more rapid deployment and return of tarnsmen, coupled with the capacity to open and close the tarn gate in a matter of Ihn.	10
8	62	The tarn gate's construction here suggested that the Crooked Tarn might not always have served as an inn.	10
8	752	I had now returned the tarn to the vicinity of the Crooked Tarn.	10
8	753	I then made three passes near the Crooked Tarn, two over the palisade, over the tarn wire, and a third near its bridge and gate.	10

Book 24. (2 results) Vagabonds of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
1	1090	The last time I had seen him, before this evening, I aflight, astride his tarn, hovering the bird, preparing shortly to make away, he had been in the yard of the Crooked Tarn, chained naked there, still soaked wet from the bath, to a sleen ring.	10
14	65	You do not have tarn cover, or tarn scouts.	10

Book 25. (4 results) Magicians of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
10	450	It is like vulos legislating for tarns, the end of which legislation is the death of the tarn, or its transformation into something new, something reduced, pathological and sick, celebrated then as the true tarn".	10
22	713	How exciting she had been on Tarn Court! How beautiful she had been on Tarn Court! I had been tempted to rush forth and seize her, putting her to my pleasure, I owning her.	10
26	587	If we have a tarn waiting, you could be a hundred pasangs from here by nightfall, in any direction, and by morning, with a new tarn, five hundred pasangs from there, in any direction, and in another day, who knows?" She lifted her head with difficulty in the net, to look at him.	10
27	345	For example, a "double tarn" is twice the weight of a "tarn".	10

Book 27. (11 results) Prize of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
19	481	Tersius Major would come third, with the third basket, but, from his tarn's harness, a long line extended to the fourth tarn and basket, and from the harness of that tarn, with its basket, there ran another line to the fifth tarn, and so, too, to the sixth and seventh tarn, this forming a string of ...	10
18	82	Occasionally a tarn must be isolated, particularly a male tarn, from its fellows.	10
19	395	Portus, taking his concealed tarn goad from its hiding place to one side, behind the loose board, entered the tarn cage in which he had placed the oblong, mysterious package before the arrival of the Cosian soldiers, and retrieved it from under the straw.	10
20	270	How then could he signal them? Then, to her amazement, she sensed that something was very different in the tarn train, and realized, with a start, that the line connecting the tarn and basket of Tersius Major and the following tarns and baskets was free, perhaps cut.	10
20	340	It was a tarn, a wild tarn.	10
20	442	The third tarn, whose wing had been entangled in the line, turned by the motion of the second tarn had had the wing freed, the loop drawn forward and away, not without the loss of several feathers.	10
27	5	Initially there had been a tarn pursuit of the trussed, gagged Tersius Major, he tied upright in a tarn saddle, clad as had been Selius Arconious.	10
27	1052	A great bird, a tarn, lay thrashing in the grass fifty yards away, amidst the debris of a tarn basket.	10
27	1703	The tarn and tarn basket which had recently soared over the camp had now landed, some fifty yards away.	10
27	1731	Far off, in the grass, some two hundred yards away, or so, the second tarn and tarn basket had now landed.	10
27	1933	"The tarn!" The tarn which had been farthest away, that in whose basket Tersius Major had arrived, was seen ascending into the air.	10

Book 29. (13 results) Swordsmen of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
12	239	It was less terrifying, of course, to be bound in a tarn basket, slung beneath a tarn, usually a draft tarn.	10
16	96	Supplies, too, in tarn basket, may be transported by tarn, usually by draft tarns, a breed of the tarn which is bred less for speed and agility than strength and stamina.	10
16	98	For this purpose tarn baskets are sometimes used, but, if the journey is short, the tarn, even a common tarn, may carry a number of warriors, clinging to a knotted rope, some seven or so, to their destination.	10
12	41	And even if the tarn could do that, no tarn could make that flight, but would fall exhausted into the sea.	10
12	189	Tarn wire, for example, sometimes used to "roof a city," to defend it from tarn attack, is almost invisible, and can easily cut the wing from a descending bird.	10
12	277	It is hard not to show fear in the presence of the tarn, but it is extremely dangerous to do so, for the tarn, as many animals, can sense fear, and this stimulates its aggression.	10
14	104	I designed it also for aerial combat, tarnsman to tarnsman, tarn to tarn.	10
16	7	Given the correspondences, drawing on the one-strap exerts pressure at the bottom of the tarn's throat, to which pressure it responds by ascent, and drawing on the four-ring exerts pressure on the ring at the back of the tarn's neck, to which pressure it responds by descent.	10
16	78	I suppose, to many, certain things might seem dreadful, the blast of the war horn, the thunder of tarn drums, the soaring descent to the attack, the scream of the tarn, the music of the bowstring, blood's lyre, with its song of death, but, too, to some, there is little which so speaks of life as the...	10
16	111	I had neglected to avail myself of Lord Nishida's suggestion for tarn-to-tarn archery practice, in which bound prisoners, aflight on leashed tarns, would serve as targets.	10
20	218	"I will need a tarn," he said, "a swift tarn, and none are to follow.	10
26	299	The slave that was now she was wanted by the high justice of Ar, and might bring a bounty price of ten thousand golden tarn disks, tarn disks of Ar, and of double weight.	10
38	29	The shield roof in an infantry is usually proof enough against even the arrows and missiles of tarn attack, but the tarn attack is commonly coordinated with an infantry advance.	10

Book 30. (4 results) Mariners of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
3	1144	At that point, we heard the hovering beating of a tarn's wings, and, looking up, I saw a tarn, with tarn basket, preparing to alight in the stable yard.	10
9	332	Mutineers, I later learned, had been killing one another to attain the saddle of a tarn, many presumably having hoped to buy that place with steel, when, unfortunately for them, the ship's loyalist forces, Pani and others, rallied and came to the first tarn hold.	10
16	316	Within a handful of Ehn forty riders of the tarn cavalry were at the rail, each armed with the small Tuchuk bow, used by the tarn cavalry, a weapon of considerable power, which may be swept easily from one side of a saddle to the other.	10
27	109	Whatever might be the initial psychological impact of the tarn on those unfamiliar with its form of life, it would be only a matter of time before it became clear to the enemy that the tarn, however formidable, was a natural creature, limited, and mortal, nothing dreadfully mysterious, no unnatural ...	10

Book 31. (1 results) Conspirators of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
25	23	"If I had heard it described as a ship, I suppose I would see it as a ship; if I had heard it called the Tarn of the Voltai, or such, I would probably see it as a tarn".	10

Book 33. (10 results) Rebels of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
1	76	As a tarn force it was superbly trained and uniquely equipped for aerial combat, far more so than the usual tarn forces of known Gor, which usually consisted, in effect, of mounted infantry, spear bearing, and armed with a saddle-clearing crossbow.	10
9	86	In moments the remnants of the tarn cavalry, limited now to fifty-one mounts, was streaking through the clouds over the holding, making its way, in formation, though without tarn drum, to the encampment of Yamada, to fire as many tents as possible.	10
10	17	Whereas a human being is not the common prey of a wild tarn, the usual objects of its interests being verr and tabuk, the tarn can be dangerous to humans, particularly if a nest is approached.	10
10	22	A tarnster commonly controls the tarn with reins from the basket, unless there is a line of tarns, tied together, which commonly follows a lead tarn, with its own tarnster and basket.	10
16	57	All in all then, it seemed to be most likely, despite the time involved, that I had been placed on my own tarn and that that tarn, by a lead, would have been conducted by Tyrtaios to whatever point General Yamada might have designated.	10
17	28	"It seems likely," I said, "your noble ally, the barbarian, Tyrtaios, reached the castle of Lord Temmu astride a tarn, secretly, by night, and likely, as well, that my tarn, for such beasts are of great worth, if it were practical, would have been acquired.	10
21	372	One tarn was aflight, and then a second, and I heard the cry 'One-strap,' and saw a figure dangling from a saddle ring, clinging to it, the third tarn, as that bird, too, now amidst a casting of glaives and a flight of arrows, rose into the sky.	10
22	68	This suggested that the tarn of Tyrtaios was the third tarn.	10
43	53	"There is likely to be at least two in the scouting party," said Tajima, "each with his own tarn, and perhaps each with an accompanying tarn".	10
61	177	Who would not investigate such an anomaly? The great wings snapped over my head, dust pelting me, flames roaring to the sides, as though driven by the wind, the tarn hovering, and I grasped the flung, uncoiling, knotted rope, and, in a moment, was swinging wildly beneath the climbing tarn, the camp ...	10

Book 34. (4 results) Plunder of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
24	6	Certainly a common laborer would not be likely to be able to hire a tarn rider and tarn, and tarn basket, for a journey as far as Brundisium.	10
36	37	A gold tarsk is usually valued at ten silver tarsks, and a gold tarn, in today's market, might well purchase two draft tarns, a racing tarn or a war tarn".	10
54	66	Do not judge the tarn by the larl, or the larl by the tarn.	10
54	67	The tarn is not a failed larl, nor the larl a tarn gone awry.	10

Book 35. (1 results) Quarry of Gor

Chapter #	Sentence #	Quote	Confidence
3	241	Many cities in the northern hemisphere, even cities hostile to Ar, supposedly, privately, use Ar's "Gold Tarn," the single Tarn, to rank, standardize, and value their own currency.	10