Blood Brothers of Gor

by Norman, John;

  "Lying slut!" he cried.

  Iwoso, shuddering, turned her head away, weeping.

  "Cuwignaka!" called Hci.

  Cuwignaka came over to the post.

  "Kiss him," ordered Hci, "fully upon the lips, as a slave, and declare your love for him."

  Iwoso kissed Cuwignaka. "I love you," she said.

  "Now kiss him," said Hci, indicating me, "similarly, and declare your love for him."

  "I am a free woman!" she cried. "He is a slave!"

  "Do so!" said Hci.

  Iwoso pressed her lips to mine. "I love you," she said.

  "More fervently," said Hci, angrily, "with more meaning!"

  "No!" said Iwoso.

  Hci's knife whipped from its sheath. I feared he was going to disembowel her at the post. There was a spot of blood on her lower abdomen. Indeed, I think he might have done so had her compliance not been instantaneous and perfect.

  "I obey!" she cried.

  She pressed her lips deeply, desperately, frightened, to mine. "I love you!" she said, frightened. "I love you!"

  "Behold the fickle slut," sneered Hci, "kissing and declaring her love upon command, like a slave!"

  I regarded Iwoso. As she was a free woman it would not be necessary to whip her for having hesitated in obeying a command.

  "I hate you!" said Iwoso, weeping, to Hci. "I hate you!"

  Hci sheathed his knife. "Excellent," he said.

  "Sleen! Beast!" she cried to him.

  "Now we see Iwoso as she truly is," said Hci, "the sly, vicious Yellow-Knife slut."

  "Sleen!" she cried, weeping.

  "You look well, Yellow-Knife slut," said he, "roped naked to a Kaiila post."

  "Sleen!" she screamed.

  "Yellow Knives!" we heard men cry about us. "Yellow Knives!" Men were rushing about. Each knew his position and his business. Over the past few days we had rehearsed this many times.

  We looked down to the prairie, to the west. Not a pasang away, across the prairie, all attempt at concealment discarded, waves of Yellow Knives, feathers flying, dust billowing behind them, charged toward Council Rock.

  "You are surprised!" cried Iwoso, wildly. "Now you will all die! Now you are lost! There is no escape for you! You will all be trapped on Council Rock!"

  "It goes as we have planned," said Hci to Cuwignaka.

  "Yes," said Cuwignaka.

  "You cannot escape!" cried Iwoso, elatedly. "Now you are done, Kaiila sleen!"

  At this point I could see only Yellow Knives but I did not doubt but what Alfred, the mercenary captain from Port Olni, with the remnants of his command, probably some three hundred cavalrymen, or so, following the engagement at the summer camp, was not far behind. Certainly, according to our scouts, he had been with the Yellow Knives at the time of the crossing of the Northern Kaiila. He would wish the Yellow Knives to make the first strike, doubtless, absorbing and presumably subduing the brunt of the resistance, thus sparing his own men. Similarly, in this fashion, if such matters entered his mind, there would presumably be fewer, if any, prisoners to be concerned about. I did not think that the Yellow Knives would have disputed this plan. They would have been eager to be the first upon the Kaiila.

  "They will soon be at the foot of the trail!" cried Iwoso. "Your escape is cut off!"

  We saw Mahpiyasapa, civil chief of the Isbu, hurrying past. But a step behind him was the redoubtable Kahintokapa, of the Casmu, of the Yellow-Kaiila Riders.

  "Do you not know how it is that they found you?" cried Iwoso, weeping. "It is my doing! I told them! In my lodge I overheard this foolish slave mention the place and time of the council! I tricked him into loosening my gag! I managed later, before being dragged from the Yellow-Knife camp, to rid myself of it! I then, in Yellow Knife, informed my people of your future whereabouts!"

  "It was by intent and calculation that Tatankasa spoke of the council in your lodge," said Hci.

  "Too," said Cuwignaka, "it was in accord with our plans that your gag be loosened."

  "Do you truly think, woman," asked Hci, "that you would have been permitted a gag the perfection of which you could in the least diminish had it not pleased your captors to have it so?"

  "I cried out to my people," said Iwoso. "I told them about the council!"

  "That, my pretty, naked, roped Yellow-Knife slut," said Hci, "was in accord with our plans."

  "But even now I tricked you," she said, "by distracting you from seeing the approaching dust, by pretending to sexual need!"

  "The dust," I said, "was visible long before you noticed it, before you initiated your clever, diversionary stratagem."

  "Knowing that," she said, "you let me behave as I did!"

  "Yes," I said.

  "It was pleasant seeing you pretend to sexual need, pretty Iwoso," said Hci.

  She looked at him, aghast.

  He took her chin and held her head. "You pretend well to sexual need, Iwoso," he said. I saw that she shuddered, Hci's hand controlling her. Then, angrily, he thrust her head, in its neck bonds, to the side.

  "The Yellow Knives approach incautiously, anxiously," said Cuwignaka. "Doubtless they fear some might escape."

  "Yes," I said.

  "Things go well," said Cuwignaka.

  "Yes," I said.

  "They are at the foot of the trail!" sobbed Iwoso, looking down. "You cannot escape! You are lost!"

  The Yellow Knives now, to be sure, swirled about the foot of the trail, that leading to the summit of Council Rock. This trail ranges generally from about five to ten feet in width. Some were even now urging their kaiila upward, doubtless desiring to be the first to count coup. Others, jostling and milling about, in dust and feathers, pressing and gesticulating, fought for a position on the narrow upgrade.

  "It was I who brought them here!" cried Iwoso.

  I did not think it wise that the Yellow Knives were urging their kaiila so speedily upward, and in such numbers, on so narrow a trail. To be sure, they were eager. Also, of course, it is sometimes difficult to separate the red savage from his kaiila. This sometimes renders his strategies somewhat inflexible. The tactical situation, in my opinion, called for an assault on foot. But the Yellow Knife would not be likely to think in such terms, at least not immediately. He, like most of the red savages, seemed to be a born cavalryman. They would learn, swiftly enough, of course, that the trail, here and there, abruptly narrowed. Indeed, in places, usually about blind turns, we had artificially narrowed it.

  "You are finished now, Kaiila sleen!" cried Iwoso.

  "Are you proud of yourself, and of your role in this?" asked Hci.

  "Yes," she cried. "Yes!"

  "Interesting," said Hci.

  "Now you will all be killed!" cried Iwoso. "Now even your women and children will be killed!"

  "There is not one woman or child in this camp," said Hci.

  "What?" she asked.

  "No," said Hci.

  "All the lodges!" she cried.

  "They are mostly empty," said Hci. "The women and children are elsewhere, and safe."

  "I do not understand," said Iwoso.

  "This is a camp of warriors," said Hci.

  "But the council!" cried Iwoso.

  "There was never a council," said Hci.

  "But what are you doing here?" asked Iwoso.

  "Waiting for Yellow Knives," said Hci.

  "We have had them under surveillance for four days," said Cuwignaka.

  "I do not understand!" said Iwoso.

  "You have played your role well," said Hci.

  "My role?" she asked.

  "Yes," said Hci, "your part in our plans."

  "I do not understand," she said.

  "You have been manipulated," said Cuwignaka.

  "You have served our purposes well," said Hci.

  "You have been duped," said Cuwignaka. "You have been tricked."

  "Without understanding it," said Hci, "you have been as obedient and compliant as a slave."

  "No!" cried Iwoso, squ
irming in the ropes.

  "Have you not brought the Yellow Knives here?" asked Hci.

  "Yes," said Iwoso. "Yes!"

  "You have lured them into a trap," said Hci.

  "No!" she cried.

  "Check her bonds," said Hci.

  I did so. "She is well tied, and absolutely helpless," I said.

  She struggled futilely, irrationally. Her eyes were wide, and wild. She was as helpless as a squirming, trussed tarsk. "No!" she cried to Hci. "No, I do not believe you!"

  We heard the scream of a kaiila some two hundred feet below. Two kaiila, with their riders, slipping and scrambling, slid from the trail and then, unsupported, flailing, turning in the air, the riders and their mounts separating, they fell a hundred feet, struck some rocks, bounded out from the escarpment and fell the final two hundred feet to the lower, sloping face of Council Rock, and then, a moment later, struck the prairie below.

  "I do not believe you!" cried Iwoso to Hci. "It cannot be!"

  "Check the bonds of her slave," said Hci.

  "You are a liar!" screamed Iwoso.

  "Why else do you think that you and your miserable slave have been brought forth and roped so prominently to these posts at the edge of the escarpment? That you may, as it amuses us, see what you have brought about!"

  "No!" cried Iwoso.

  "But your presence here serves another purpose, as well," said Hci. "It is to be expected that the Yellow Knives, seeing you, a high lady of their tribe, tied naked, as a slave, with a slave, will be incensed, that they will be outraged at this insult, that they will fight even more desperately, frenziedly and irrationally to free you, and thus, concomitantly, will be more susceptible to errors in judgment and tactics. Too, later, when they come to realize how they must have been tricked, how you brought them into this trap, perhaps they will see fit to riddle your pretty body, and that of your slave, with arrows."

  Iwoso regarded Hci with horror.

  "Oh!" cried Bloketu.

  "This one, too, is now well secured," I said.

  We heard the scream of another kaiila and saw it, and its rider, plunging downward.

  "Neither of you," said Hci, regarding the two women, "roped as you are, will make difficult targets."

  "Please untie me," begged Iwoso.

  "Please untie me, Cuwignaka!" begged Bloketu.

  Cuwignaka, in fury, went to Bloketu and slapped her head, back and forth, in the neck bonds.

  She regarded him, startled, blood at her mouth.

  "How do you dare, without permission, to so put the name of a free man on your slave lips?" asked Cuwignaka.

  Bloketu looked at Cuwignaka, startled, disbelievingly. He was now a man who had punished her.

  "I am sorry," she whispered.

  His eyes were fierce. I think she scarcely understood that it could be Cuwignaka.

  On her throat was the beaded collar of Iwoso.

  The once-haughty Bloketu was now no more than a slave.

  No more was she superior to Cuwignaka.

  She then, Iwoso's animal, the lovely, roped slave, put down her head.

  "—Master," she added.

  On the trail below, only some twenty feet or so below the ledge, charging upward, Yellow Knives, four or five abreast, mounted on painted kaiila, swept toward the top of the trail, some hundred feet or so to our right.

  But a moment before the vanguard of this charging force could attain the summit the high, heavy structure of timbers and sharpened stakes was thrust into place. The stakes, anchored by the timbers, were tied together like fierce wooden stars. Kaiila, screaming, unable to check their forward momentum, plunged onto the stakes. Impaled and torn, pressed from behind, filling the air with hideous noises, they reared and twisted, throwing riders and biting and clawing at one another. More kaiila rushed forward, charging behind them, striking into the bloody, halted mass. Riders slipped down among the animals, screaming. More kaiila, from behind, pressed forward. Dozens of animals and many riders were forced from the trail, sliding and plummeting down the steep face of Council Rock.

  I saw one of the war chiefs of the Yellow Knives, whom I remembered from the summer camp, on his kaiila, slip over the ledge. Still more Yellow Knives, not clear on what was ahead, were trying to force their way upward on the narrow trail. Men fought to escape the edge, cutting at one another even with knives. But those at the edge, often, other Yellow Knives pressing forward, were thrust, even fought, from the trail.

  The air was rent with screaming, that of beasts and men. Bodies, those of kaiila and Yellow Knives, slipped from the edge, plummeting downward. Lances snapped against the stone and the barricade. Men trying to crawl among the paws of the milling, frenzied beasts were trampled. Some riders near the barricade, halted in their charge, seeing the impossibility of advance under the current conditions, were trying to back their beasts from the barricade. This forced other beasts and men from the trail. Others, wildly, fought to turn their beasts. Some of these, successful, began to try to force their way back down the trail.

  There was much shouting as well as screaming. I saw the movement of battle staffs. Their visibility, of course, was minimal, given the twistings of the irregular, tortuous trail. More efficient were the blasts of war whistles. The trail then, long and winding, visible in many of its lengths from the height of the escarpment, seemed choked with Yellow Knives. It was like an odd, upward-moving, arrested river of beasts and men, suddenly stopped, immobilized, in its flow. We could even see many Yellow Knives, puzzled, milling about, near the foot of the trail, hundreds of feet below. The trail, within its narrow boundaries, the rock on one side, the fall on the other, constituted a suitable trap, or slaughter channel, for our paralyzed, bewildered, confined enemies.

  "No!" screamed Iwoso. "No!"

  Lodges, with their poles, were thrown back and men emerged, dragging at the ropes of small travois, heavily laden with stones. Others, with their hands, and levers, began to roll larger stones, even boulders, toward the edge of the escarpment.

  "No!" cried Iwoso.

  "Shall we gag her?" asked Cuwignaka.

  "No," I said. "Let her cries, if they will, distract our attackers."

  To this point we had struck not a blow. Yet I think that more than a hundred and fifty Yellow Knives might already have perished, victims of that steep, dreadful trail, crowded from it, driven from it, trampled upon it, and some even falling under the weapons of their own fellows, fighting for space on the rugged ascent. Then began the lethal hail of stones, hundreds flung from above, dozens rolled and toppled over the edge. These stones, striking down, could not fail to find marks. They plunged into the seething mass at different points on the trail. Some of the larger stones even did their work more than once, striking men or kaiila from the trail at one point and then, bounding downward, striking the face of the rock here and there, to shatter into yet more men at a lower point in the ascendant trail. Some finally plunged, rolling and bouncing downward, into the Yellow Knives far below on the grass.

  Yellow Knives raised their shields but this did little good for the potency of the stones lay primarily not in their capacity to cut or penetrate but to transmit their considerable force, bluntly, crushingly, suddenly, to the target surface. Arms were broken in the shield straps. Men were struck from the backs of kaiila. Animals, maddened, screaming, hissing, snorting, squealing, reared and bolted. Dozens of men and animals, buffeted, losing their footing, crowded from the edge, slipped, scratching and screaming, down the rock's steep face.

  Iwoso regarded the scene of carnage with horror.

  Frenzied blasts on war whistles, relayed to the bottom of the trail, finally had their effect. Slowly, with difficulty on the narrow trail, some backing down, some turning, some falling, the Yellow Knives on the lower lengths of the trail, pressing back among their fellows at the foot of Council Rock, freed the lower ascents, enabling their trapped fellows on the upper reaches of the trail, those so exposed to our pleasure, to begin their own laborious, tortuous desc
ent. Their retreat was harried by the further flinging of stones and rolling boulders.

  The barricade at the summit of the trail, with its sharpened wooden stakes, with their bloodied points, was even temporarily removed, to permit the rolling down the trail of a great boulder. This the rear guard of the Yellow Knives, packed against their retreating fellows, the rock on one side, the drop on the other, their eyes wide with horror, must watch bounding inexorably toward them. Then it struck amongst them. It took perhaps a dozen men from the trail and then bounded down the rock face and, a few Ihn later, skipping and leaping almost like a pebble, possessing such terrible forces, yet seeming so small from this height, it caromed off the foot of the rock face and then landed, rolling and bounding, among scattering Yellow Knives on the grass below.

  Iwoso looked at Hci. She was helpless in her ropes. He did not speak to her.

  The stones had been gathered over a period of days and brought to the height of Council Rock. The girls, of course, would not have known this, for they had been in their bonds and hoods in the prison lodge.

  "The trail is clearing," said Cuwignaka. "Do you think they will go away?"

  "No," I said.

  "Where are the soldiers?" asked Cuwignaka.

  "They must be somewhere about," I said.

  "Look," said Hci, pointing downward.

  A single rider, a Yellow Knife, in breechclout and paint, and with a full bonnet of Herlit feathers, was urging his kaiila up the trail. In some places the upgrade on this trail was some forty-five degrees and the kaiila, scratching and scrambling, lunged and fought his way upward.

  "That is a brave man," said Cuwignaka.

  "He is probably looking for a coup," said Hci.

  The rider, tall on the kaiila, singing medicine, disdaining to lift his shield, rode past, below us.

  "I recognized him," said Cuwignaka. "He is one of the war chiefs who dealt with Watonka."

  "You are right," I said. There were three such chiefs. One had perished in the first attack.

  Mahpiyasapa did not give the order to fire on the man. It was not merely that he respected his bravery. It was also that he was permitting the man to scout the position. A certain form of assault, it might seem, would be effective.

  The man halted his kaiila only yards from the barricade, with its terrible, bloody points.