by John Norman
"I think there are few such men," he said.
"The red savages are such," I said. I thought of such men as Cuwignaka, Canka, and Hci.
I think he had his head in his hands. "Cos must be in the delta," he whispered.
"Do you pursue your course because you fear, otherwise, court-martial, or disgrace, or shame?"
"No," he said.
"Why then?" I asked.
"Duty," said he. "Can you understand such a thing, a spy?"
"I have heard of it," I said.
He then moved away from me. In a few moments my keeper moved toward me. He regagged and rehooded me. He then thrust me back on the sand and shortened my neck-rope, so that I might be again held closely between the two stakes.
"If it were up to me," he said, "I would clothe you in bright scarlet, and put you at point, manacled, a rope on your neck."
He then left me.
It had again been hot in the delta today, steaming and oppressive.
Columns must by now have attempted to escape from the delta, I thought. The information at the disposal of the captain might have been days old. Perhaps, exiting in force, they had been successful. I was not one to gainsay the expertise of the infantryman of Ar.
Oddly enough, I now again, as I had once long ago, felt uneasy in the heat. I felt again almost as if something lay brooding over the marsh, or within it, something dark, something physical, almost like a presence, something menacing.
It was a strange feeling.
I noticed then, interestingly, that the marsh was unusually quiet. I could no longer hear even the sound of Vosk gulls.
17 Flies
"Hold, draft beast!" called my keeper.
I stopped, grateful enough in the harness.
Lamentations, cries of misery, rang out in the marsh. Intelligence had arrived from the left. It was impossible not to hear the reports as they were carried from man to man. Indeed, the men learned more rapidly than the officer, I think, what had occurred, for it was onto their lines that men would first come, bearing ill tidings, crying out for succor, many of them, I gathered, wounded Oddly enough, it seemed few, if any, had encountered rencers in the marsh. It was as though these mysterious, elusive denizens of the delta had inexplicably withdrawn, suddenly melted away.
"I knew Camillus! I knew him!" wept a man.
"Flavius has fallen?" demanded another.
"I saw him fall," said a man.
The left flank, apparently two days ago, had been struck, in much the same manner as the right, earlier. Until the attack it had been relatively immune from rencer contact. Many had conjectured the rencers were only on the right. If anything the attack on the left, to the south, had been more devastating than that on the right, perhaps because of lesser vigilance on the left, where no village had been encountered in the path of the advance.
"Woe is Ar!" wept a man.
I thought I knew, even though hooded, who now held the key to the manacles. I had heard this morning what I took to be the exchange.
"Woe! Woe!" cried a man.
"Four columns have been destroyed to the south!" cried a fellow.
These must be, I had then supposed, those of the left.
"Speak!" cried a fellow.
I heard men wading near me. One was coughing.
"Do not make him speak," said a fellow.
"Speak, speak!" cried a man.
"I come from the 14th," he said. "We with the 7th, the 9th and 11th sought to make exit from the delta!"
"Desertion!" cried a fellow.
"Cosians were waiting for us," he gasped. "It was a slaughter, a slaughter! We were raked from the air with quarrels. Stones were used to break our ranks. We were trampled with tharlarion! War sleen were set upon us! We had no chance. We could scarcely move. We were too crowded to wield our weapons. Hundreds died in the mire. Many, who could, fled back into the delta!"
"Woe!" said a man.
"We had no chance," wept the fellow. "We were massacred like penned verr!"
"The field was theirs?" said a fellow, disbelievingly.
"Totally," wept the fellow.
It was now clear, of course, given the references to Cosians, tharlarion, sleen and such, that this disaster was not that of the left flank, which had been struck by rencers, but a defeat suffered in the south, by the units attempting to remove themselves there from the delta. It was no wonder the Cosians had been waiting for them. Their every move in the delta, for days, had probably been reported to the Cosian commander, perhaps Policrates himself, said once to have been a pirate, by tarn scouts.
"Surely you made them pay dearly for their victory," said a man.
"We were weak, exhausted," said the man. "We could hardly lift our weapons!"
"How many prisoners did you take?" asked a man.
"I know of none," he said.
"How many prisoners did they take?" asked a fellow.
"What prisoners they took, if any, I do not know," said the man.
I supposed the Cosians would have taken prisoners. Prisoners can be of value, in the quarries, on the rowing benches of galleys, in such places. I wondered if the Cosians would have had chains enough, or cages enough, for the prisoners, assuming they elected to accept them. The prisoner, surrendering, is often ordered to strip himself and lie on the ground, on his stomach, limbs extended, in rows with others. They must then wait to see if it is their limbs which are to be chained or their throats to be cut. Self-stripping, usually unbidden, performed voluntarily, is also common among fair prisoners. The female prisoner is more likely to be spared than the male prisoner. Victors tend to find them of interest. Too, it is easier to handle large numbers of fair prisoners than warriors and such. Fair prisoners tend to herd well. Often a mere cord tied about their necks, fastening them together, the one to the other, is all that is required for their control. Indeed, it is almost, interestingly enough, as though they were made for the coffle, and understood the appropriateness, the rightfulness, of their place within it. Too, of course, they know that Gorean captors do not tend to look leniently on attempts to escape by pretty things such as they, no more than by female slaves, which they may soon be.
The man began again then to cough. From the sound of it there was blood in his throat.
"Seek new bindings for your wounds," said a man.
I supposed that by now a trophy had been erected by Cos on the site of the battle, such as it had been. Usually the limbs of a tree are muchly hacked off and then, on this scaffolding, captured arms and such are hung. Trophy poles, too, are sometimes erected, similarly decorated.
"Lo! To the north!" called a man. The voice came from above and to the right, probably from the captain's barge. It came probably from a fellow on the lookout platform, or the ladder leading upward to it. In recent days the platform had been improved, primarily by an armoring, so to speak, of heavy planks, this providing some protection for its occupant. Even so lookouts were changed frequently and the duty, I gathered, in spite of the respite it provided from the marsh, the relative coolness and dryness afforded by the platform, and such, was not a coveted one. Even with the planking it seemed one might not be sufficiently protected. Too much it was still, I supposed, like finding oneself set forth for the consideration of unseen archers, as a mark.
"A standard of Ar, raised above the rence!" cried the voice.
"Where?" demanded a man.
"There! There!" called the voice.
"It is a standard of Ar!" confirmed a man, his voice now, too, coming from high on the right.
"It is the standard of the 17th!" said a fellow.
"Coming from the right!" cried another.
"Reinforcements!" cried a man.
"From the right!" cried another.
"They have broken through!" speculated a man.
"They have defeated the rencers," conjectured another.
"We have won a great victory!" conjectured yet another.
There was then much cheering.
Such, of cou
rse, could explain the recent apparent absence, or apparent withdrawal, of rencers. Indeed, if it were not for some such thing, say, a decisive victory on the part of Ar, or perhaps a hasty flight at her approach, the apparent absence, or withdrawal, seemed unaccountable.
"Where are the points, where are the scouts?" asked a voice.
"Why is the standard first?" asked a man.
"It is wavering," cried a fellow.
"Do not let it fall!" cried a man.
"Quickly, to him!" called a fellow, probably a subaltern.
"Beware!" said a man. "There may be rencers there!"
"Is it a trick?" called a fellow.
"He is out of the rence now," called the voice from above and the right, probably that of the lookout.
"He is alone," said a man.
"No," said another. "There are others with him. See?"
"He is wounded!" said a man.
"To him! To him!" said the voice from before, probably that of a subaltern.
"Have we not won a great victory?" asked a fellow.
"If not, where are the rencers?" asked another.
"They are not here," said a fellow.
"Therefore the day was ours," said another.
I heard men wading about. I think several fellows left their lines to go out and meet the standard bearer, if that was what he was, with his fellows.
I tried, in the hood, to keep track of the position, marked by his voice, of the fellow who I thought had the key to my manacles. Then I had lost him.
To be sure, what difference did it make, I asked myself, bitterly, who held the key, for I was helpless? Indeed, most often captors make no secret of who holds the key to a prisoner's chains. What difference can it make to the prisoner? Indeed, some captors delight in letting the prisoner know who holds the key, in effect letting him know whose prisoner he is, in the most direct sense. Often the key is even carried on a ring, on a belt. I might as well have been a pretty slave girl, I thought, in fury, chained down in an alcove, who may turn her head to the side and see the key to her chains hanging on the wall, on its nail, convenient for the use of guests or customers, but perhaps, a frustrating chasm, just inches out of her own reach.
"Woe!" I heard, suddenly. "Woe!" There seemed then a great lamentation in the marsh. I strained to hear, within the darkness of the hood.
I heard hardened men weeping.
"We are lost!" I heard a fellow cry.
In a few moments I had managed to piece together the latest intelligence, this from the north, from the right. Three columns had essayed the edge of the delta. There they had been met, and cut to pieces. The standard bearer for the 17th, or, as it seemed, a fellow who had taken up the standard, and some others, had managed to reach our column. Many were wounded. How many fell at the delta's edge, to the north, I could not learn. If anything, proportionally, the losses may have been heavier there than those incurred in the attempt to exit to the south. It seems men had glimpsed the firm land, grass, and fields, and had rushed weeping, joyfully, toward them, and that it was but Ehn afterward, when the second column had emerged from the delta, that the ambush had been sprung.
"We are trapped!" cried a man.
"There is no escape!" wept another.
"Lead us, Labienus!" called men. "Lead us!"
"We will go no farther westward!" screamed a man.
"That is madness!" said another.
"We cannot go back!" said a man.
"We cannot stay here!" wept another.
I wondered how it was that these fellows from the 17th, and perhaps from the 3rd, and 4th, the two columns associated with the 17th, had managed to reach our column. I did not hear of them having been opposed, or harried, by rencers. I could understand, of course, why the rencers might let some come through, that the spectacle of routed, defeated troops might have its effect on fresh troops, but, as far as I could tell, from what I could overhear, none of these survivors, or fugitives, had had any more contact with rencers, at least recently, than had we.
"Lead us east!" demanded a fellow.
"The east is closed!" wept a man. "We know that!"
"North! North! Lead us north!" cried a man.
"Fool," cried another. "Look upon your brethren of the 17th, of the 3rd, the 4th!"
"Lead us south, Labienus!" cried men.
"We will not go further west!" said another.
"Mutiny!" cried a voice, that, I think, of a subaltern.
I heard swords drawn.
I could not understand the absence of the rencers. This seemed to me utterly inexplicable. Why should they not, now, fall upon the vanguard, milling, tormented, confused, mutinous, helpless, exhausted in the marsh?
"Speak to us, Labienus!" cried men.
"Glory to Ar!" called a man.
"Glory to Ar!" called others.
"Lead us south, oh Labienus!" called a man.
"There lies Ar!" cried another.
"South! South!" called men.
"Would you share the fate of the 7th, the 9th, the 11th, the 14th?" called a fellow. "We have remnants of them here. Ask them if we should march south!"
"No, not south!" cried a man.
"Not south!" cried another.
"Labienus has brought us here!" called a fellow, angrily. "He is to blame! He is to fault! Kill him! Kill him! He is Cosian spy."
"Cosian spy!" cried others.
"Your words are treason!" cried a voice. "Defend yourself!"
I heard the clash of metal.
"Hold!" cried men. I think the two were forced apart by blades.
"It is Labienus!" called a voice.
"Traitor, Labienus!" screamed a man.
"Be silent!" said another.
"What shall we do, Labienus?" asked a man.
"Lead us, Captain!" cried others.
"Look out!" cried a man, suddenly. I heard a humming nearby. It was the sound of large wings, moving rapidly.
"It is only a zarlit fly," said another.
The zarlit fly is very large, about two feet long, with four large, translucent wings, with a span of about a yard. It has large, padlike feet on which, when it alights, it can rest on the water, or pick its way delicately across the surface. Most of them are purple. Their appearance is rather formidable, and can give one a nasty turn in the delta, but, happily, one soon learns they are harmless, at least to humans. Some of the fellows of Ar were still uneasy when they were in the vicinity. The zarlit fly preys on small insects, usually taken in flight.
"There is another," said a fellow.
I thought it odd that there should be two, so close together.
"Speak to us, oh Labienus!" called a man.
"Speak!" cried another.
I heard the humming passage of another fly.
"They are going east," said a man. "Labienus!" called a man.
I heard two more zarlit flies hum past.
"Look to the west!" called a man. "They are clouds," said a fellow. "Such dark clouds," said a man.
"Seldom have I seen clouds so dark," said another.
"It is a storm," said another. I suddenly felt sick.
"Labienus will speak to us," said a man.
"What is that sound?" asked a man, frightened.
If Labienus was prepared to address the men, he did not then begin to speak.
I suspect that the men, on the barges, on the craft, the scows and rafts, those in the marsh itself, had now turned their eyes westward.
I had never been in the delta at this particular time.
I now, I was sure, understood the absence of the rencers.
"Listen," said a man.
"I hear it," said another.
I myself had never heard the sound before, but I had heard of it.
"Such vast clouds, so black," said a man.
"They cover the entire horizon," said another, wonderingly.
"The sound comes from the clouds," said a man. "I am sure of it."
"I do not understand," said a man.
At suc
h a time, which occurs every summer in the delta, the rencers withdraw to their huts, taking inside with them food and water, and then, with rence, weave shut the openings to the huts. Two or three days later they emerge from the huts.
"Ai!" cried a fellow, suddenly, in pain.
"It is a needle fly," said a fellow.
"There is another," said a man.
"And another," said another.
Most sting flies, or needle flies, as the men from the south call them, originate in the delta, and similar places, estuaries and such, as their eggs are laid on the stems of rence plants. As a result of the regularity of breeding and incubation times there tends, also, to be peak times for hatching. These peak times are also in part, it is thought, a function of a combination of natural factors, having to do with conditions in the delta, such as temperature and humidity, and, in particular, the relative stability of such conditions. Such hatching times, as might be supposed, are carefully monitored by rencers. Once outside the delta the sting flies, which spend most of their adult lives as solitary insects, tend to disperse. Of the millions of sting flies hatched in the delta each summer, usually over a period of four or five days, a few return each fall, to begin the cycle again.
"Ai!" cried another fellow, stung.
Then I heard others cry out in pain, and begin to strike about them.
"The clouds come closer!" cried a fellow.
There could now be no mistaking the steadily increasing volume of sound approaching from the west. It seemed to fill the delta, it is produced by the movement of wings, the intense, almost unimaginably rapid beating of millions upon millions of small wings.
"Needle flies are about!" cried a man. "Beware!"
"The clouds approach more closely!" cried a man.
"But what are the clouds?" cried a fellow.
"They are needle flies!" cried a man.
I heard shrieks of pain. I pulled my head back, even in the hood. I felt a small body strike against my face, even through the leather of the hood.
I recoiled, suddenly, uttering a small noise of pain, it stifled by the gag. I had been stung on the shoulder. I lowered my body, so that only my head, hooded, was raised above the water. I heard men leaping into the water. The buzzing was now deafening.