Leech

I flicked a salt leach from the side of my light rush craft with the corner of the tem-wood paddle.

Raiders of Gor     Book 6     Page 5

I was not particularly surprised at finding a bit of rep-cloth tied on the rence plant, for the delta is inhabited. Man has not surrendered it entirely to the tharlarion, the Ul and the salt leach.

Raiders of Gor     Book 6     Page 6

"Keep a watch for tharlarion," said Kisu. He reached under the water and pulled a fat, glistening leach, some two inches long, from his leg.

"Destroy it," said Ayari.

Kisu dropped it back in the water. "I do not want my blood, pinched from it, released in the water," he said.

Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 267

"Leech!" I said. "Leech!" I could feel it on my back. It was large. It may have been what had touched me in the water. I could not reach it with my chained hands.

. . .

"On my back," I said, "I can feel it! A leech! Take it off!"

"You can be covered with them, spying sleen," snarled the man, "for all I care."

"I ask that it be removed," I said.

"Do not fear," said the fellow. "They are only hungry. When they have their fill, they will drop off."

"Here is another," said a fellow wading near me, holding up its wet, half-flattened, twisting body in his hand. It was some four inches long, a half inch thick.

"There are probably a great many of them here," said the fellow, dropping it back in the water.

Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Pages 96 - 97

I stood unsteadily in the water. I could feel the leeches on my body, one on my back, another on my leg. Then, shuddering, I felt yet another. It was fastening itself near the first, on my back.

Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 98

"Lie still," said the fellow crouching next to me.

I shuddered, lying in the sand. The reaction was uncontrollable, involuntary, reflexive.

"Still," he said. He held the bit of rence stalk, still smoking from the fire, to one of the creatures on my back. I could feel it pulling out of my skin. He then picked it from my back, dropping it to the side, with others.

I did not know how much blood I had lost, though I suppose, objectively, it was not much. How much can one of those creatures, even given the hideous distention of its digestive cavity, hold? Yet there had been many during the day. Many had released their hold themselves.

"That is the last one," observed the fellow, turning me about.

"My thanks," I said.

He had removed, by my count, eleven of the creatures. He had put them to the side. There are various ways in which they may be encouraged to draw out, not tearing the skin. The two most common are heat and salt. It is not wise, once they have succeeded in catching hold, to apply force to them. In this fashion, too often part of the creature is left in the body, a part, or parts, which must then be removed with a knife or similar tool.

Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Pages 99 - 100

I opened my mouth and he put one of the leeches into it. "Eat," he said.

Later he forced another leech into my mouth and waited until I had eaten it. He then took the remaining leeches and, with a shiver of disgust, with two hands, hurled them out from the bar, into the water.

Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 102

"Such things often attach themselves to rence stems," I said. "Apparently you bent down, to drink. The front of your collar is wet, and the strap, near the throat. Your hair, too, is damp. Perhaps you brushed against rence in doing this. Too, however, such things can float free in the water."

"Please!" she said, shuddering. "Please!"

"It has not had time to affix itself," I said.

It was about four inches long, rubbery, glistening in the moonlight.

"Please!" she whispered.

I picked it off.

"Do you want it?" I asked.

"No!" she said.

"The marsh leech is edible," I said. "At one time I did not know that."

Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 236

"Did you detect the presence of further such creatures upon me?" she asked, frightened.

"No," I said.

"Then I am now free of them?" she said.

"Apparently," I said.

She sobbed with relief.

"It may have been an isolated leech," I said.

"But there are others in the marsh!" she said.

"Of course," I said.

"Let me ride on the raft!" she begged.

"No," I said.

"But it is not just leeches," she said. "There are tharlarion, and other dangers."

"Keep a sharp lookout," I said.

Vagabonds of Gor     Book 24     Page 238

In the boat were two wide, shallow, wooden buckets, each half filled with wet, glistening leeches, taken from the water, often from the stems of water plants, such as rence.

Before being put on her belly in the boat, Ellen's face, she on her knees, was almost thrust into these two buckets, one after the other, filled with twisting, inching, churning leeches, that she might see them. She shrank back, as she could, in terror.

These creatures are utilized in some manner by the caste of physicians, not for indiscriminate bleeding as once on Earth, but for certain allied chemical and decoagulant purposes. Such creatures may also be used, of course, for less benign purposes, for torture, the extraction of information, punishment and, in the extreme, executions. The "leech death" is not a pleasant one. These creatures are not to be confused with the leech plant, which supplements its photosynthetic activities with striking, snakelike, at passing objects.

Prize of Gor     Book 27     Pages 365 - 366

"You are not to utter a sound," said the older lad, "not the least sound, or we will put you on your back, and put a stick between your teeth and tie it there, so that you cannot close your teeth, and then bind leeches in your mouth."

Prize of Gor     Book 27     Page 366

Poling in the trackless delta, the rope on their neck, they are well aware of the wilderness, the vastness, the treacherous byways, the quicksand, the heat, the insects, leeches, delta sharks, winged, predatory uls, and, in particular, marsh tharlarion, which often scout the boats, and accompany them, little but the eyes visible, for pasangs.

Conspirators of Gor     Book 31     Page 487