"They are coming up the trail now," said Cuwignaka.
The Yellow Knives, probably some four or five hundred of them, with perhaps some fifty soldiers, were now climbing the trail. They moved slowly, to conserve their strength. Some of them held the screens they had constructed between themselves and our position. Others held them overhead, advancing beneath them. There was little doubt their main party would reach the barricade at the summit in much of its full strength. I looked at the ropes left lying at intervals along the edge of the escarpment. I had little doubt but what their utility was soon to be realized.
"In the distance, to the west," I said, "the prairies seem clear."
"Yes," said Cuwignaka.
"They are passing the first barricade," observed Hci. This, now, was the lower barricade, the first to be met in the ascent. We had lowered it into place yesterday, to make the retreat of kaiila difficult. Undefended, it posed no serious obstacle to men afoot.
Our approximately two hundred men were divided into five groups. Two of these groups, of some forty each, were stationed near the summit barrier. One of these groups, under Mahpiyasapa, was defensive. Given the narrowness of the trail, so few might, for a time, adequately maintain the barricade against much greater numbers, the effective application of these numbers being reduced by the nature of the terrain. The second group near the summit would appear to be being held in reserve, to reinforce as necessary the contingent at the barricade. It was, however, a strike force. There were three other groups, of some forty men each. They would have their diverse deployments.
In a few moments the Yellow Knives and the soldiers with them, shielded by their screens, were passing beneath our position, advancing toward the summit. A few moments later, screaming, crowding forward, they rushed toward the barricade.
"The men of Mahpiyasapa are holding," said Hci.
I nodded. They would certainly be able to do so, at least for a time.
"The enemy seems now to be suitably positioned for our purposes," I said. "Too, as we had anticipated, their attention is much concentrated on the barricade."
"Iwoso may cry out," said Cuwignaka.
"I do not think they would hear her," I said. "There is too much noise. They are too intent upon their business at the barricade."
"Nonetheless," said Hci, "it is a risk I do not choose to take."
"Are you going to cut her throat?" asked Cuwignaka.
Iwoso shrank back against the post.
"Should she be permitted to so easily escape the judgment of the Kaiila?" asked Hci.
"No," said Cuwignaka, his voice hard.
Iwoso, roped, trembled.
"A gag, if noted, might alert perceptive Yellow Knives," said Cuwignaka.
"Open your mouth, Iwoso," said Hci. "Widely."
He then bent down and picked up a small rock, about an inch in diameter, from the surface of our position.
He placed this in Iwoso's mouth. "Close your mouth," he said.
She complied.
"Do you wish to keep your tongue?" he asked.
She nodded, frightened.
"When we return," he said, "if this rock is not still in your mouth, your tongue will be cut out. Do you understand?"
She nodded, terrified.
Hci, Cuwignaka and I then hurried along the edge of the escarpment, about three hundred feet to our left, joining others, already waiting there.
Hci raised and lowered his hand. The forty men in his party, including myself and Cuwignaka, then, on the ropes left along the edge of the escarpment, held by the members of the fourth group, under the command of Kahintokapa, lowered ourselves to the trail below.
We moved swiftly.
Then we fell upon the Yellow Knives.
Eyes, wild, regarded us over their shoulders. Men attempting to escape us pressed forward, forcing their fellows toward the barricade, causing several to lose their footing on the trail. In the press, it was difficult for them to turn and fight. Arrow screens were broken and dropped.
Then Yellow Knives, in sufficient numbers, had managed to turn and face us.
"Back!" called Hci.
Swiftly we withdrew.
Elated, Yellow Knives rushed after us, down the trail. Men withdrew even from the barricade to join the pursuit.
At our withdrawal our fifth group, some fifty yards behind us, lowered itself from the escarpment. This was under the command of a Napoktan warrior. His name was Waiyeyeca. They carried lances strapped on their backs. As soon as we were amongst them they unslung these lances, bracing them like pikes on the trail. Pursuing Yellow Knives, thrust from behind, unable to stop, rushed onto the lances. The eighty of us, then, the lancers and Hci's group, held our ground. This was not difficult to do given the narrowness of the trail. War clubs, shields and knives met. Then over the barricade, now deserted by the enemy, passing between Mahpiyasapa's defenders, came our second group, that which, seemingly, had been held in reserve. It now struck the Yellow Knives on the trail itself. Most of the Yellow Knives, of course, hemmed in by their fellows, on the front and in the rear, and on the flanks by the drop and the wall, must remain inactive. Then, into this trapped mass, its arrow screens no longer in position, and many of them scattered and lost, sped hundreds of arrows. These were fired by the men of our fourth group, suddenly appearing at the top of the escarpment, that which had handled our descent ropes, that under the command of Kahintokapa, of the Yellow-Kaiila Riders. In that contingent, it might be mentioned, there served a blond youth, one who had taken the Kaiila name of Wayuhahaka, "One-Who-Possesses-Much," who had once been of the Waniyanpi.
Many of the Yellow Knives and soldiers, rather than face this withering fire, lowered themselves from the trail, slipping and sliding, then, abrasively, down the side of the rock face. Some may have survived. In moments then our groups, that of Hci and Waiyeyeca, and that from the barricade itself, met, Yellow Knives and soldiers slain or forced from the trail. Cuwignaka, in joy, embraced the leader of the group come down from the barricade. The name of the leader of that group was Canka.
I looked over the edge of the trail.
There were many bodies below. Some had caught on rocks. Others had fallen to lower segments of the trail. Some, even, had plunged bounding, and turning and striking, from plane to plane, to the grass.
"Yellow Knives on kaiila approaching the lower barricade!" called Kahintokapa, from above.
Ropes were thrown down to us. Our weapons and shields slung about us we then climbed these ropes to the height of the escarpment. By the time these Yellow Knives had dismounted and cast aside the lower barricade, it tumbling downward, breaking and shattering in its descent, and remounted, we were safe. Some of them rode about a bit on the trail but then, under sporadic arrow fire, they withdrew.
There were many Yellow Knives left on the trail below. I had recognized one of them. It was he who had been the second of the war chiefs from the summer camp. No longer did he sing medicine.
Kaiila warriors, laughing and joking, congratulated one another, exhibiting grisly trophies.
In the Barrens conflict is typically quarterless.
"Open your mouth," said Hci to Iwoso.
She did so, expelling the wet stone into the palm of his hand.
47
The Third Day of War
"I think they will be coming in the neighborhood of noon," said Cuwignaka.
It was now the third day in the siege of Council Rock.
Yesterday afternoon we had seen Kinyanpi. Yesterday night we had lit a great brush beacon which we had prepared. This beacon, whether used for the emission of smoke in daylight hours, or for its flame at night, could be seen for pasangs across the prairie.
"The Yellow Knives, left to their own resources," said Hci, "would have withdrawn after the failure of the first day. It seems to me highly unlikely that the discipline of the soldiers and beasts can long be maintained over them."
"Doubtless they now have the backing of the Kinyanpi," I said. "Flighted scouts
, at any rate, were observed yesterday."
"More than Kinyanpi will be required to bring them again to the barricade," said Hci.
"You expect, then," asked Cuwignaka, "only one more major assault."
"And it will be the most determined of all," said Hci, grimly.
"And who will be its leaders?" asked Cuwignaka.
"The beasts, of course," I said.
"Yes," said Hci.
"It is nearly noon," said Cuwignaka, looking upward.
"I hear drums," I said.
"Medicine drums," said Hci.
"Soldiers are leaving the camp," I said.
"Yes," said Hci.
"They are riding south," I said.
"Interesting," said Hci.
"There is a Kinyanpi rider," said Cuwignaka, pointing upward.
"Doubtless a scout," said Hci.
"There is movement now, in the Yellow-Knife camp," I said.
"They are coming," said Hci.
"Who is in their lead?" asked Cuwignaka.
"The beasts," I said.
"We do not know how long the day will last," said Hci. "Feed and water Bloketu."
She was roped to her post, just as she had been the first two days.
"Do you beg food and drink?" asked Cuwignaka.
"Yes, Master," she said.
He fed and watered her.
"Thank you for my food and drink, Master," she said.
"I beg food and drink," said Iwoso, suddenly.
"Shall I give her food and water?" asked Cuwignaka.
Iwoso looked at Hci. The decision would obviously be his. Yesterday she had not begged. Accordingly, as is customarily the case when begging is required, she had received neither food nor drink.
"Yes," said Hci.
Iwoso was then fed and watered. Her mouth, her head extended, clung greedily, desperately to the spout of the water bag. Then it was pulled from between her teeth. She tried to lick at the water at the side of her mouth.
"Do you think me weak, Iwoso," asked Hci, "that I have so soon permitted you food and drink?"
She looked at him, puzzled.
"Have you not asked yourself why I might do this, so soon?" he asked.
She looked at him, frightened.
"I am doing it to improve your appearance," he said, "much as one might water an animal before its sale, that you will look your best for the Yellow Knives."
"Again you use me for your purposes, tricking me!" she said.
"You may now thank me for your food and drink," he said.
"Thank you for my food and drink," she said, in fury.
"More humbly, more appropriately," said Hci.
"I thank you for my food and drink," she said. "I thank you for it-humbly," she said.
Hci looked at her.
"—My captor," she added.
Hci put his hand under her chin and held her head up. "Do you think her throat would look well in a collar?" he asked Cuwignaka.
"Yes," said Cuwignaka.
"I will never wear a collar!" said Iwoso, her head held up by Hci's hand.
"My collar?" asked Hci.
"Of course," said Cuwignaka.
"I will never wear your collar!" said Iwoso. "I would die first!"
"The beast in the lead," I said, "is called Sardak. That closest to him is Kog."
"They are fearsome things," said Cuwignaka.
"Surely," said Hci, joining us, "they are of the medicine world."
"Do not be afraid," I said to him.
"They expect all opposition to crumble before them, at their very appearance," said Cuwignaka, bitterly.
"They can bleed and die, like men," I told Hci.
"Things of the medicine world," said Hci, "may sometimes seem to bleed and die, but they do not truly do so."
"They are not of the medicine world," I said.
"I am uneasy," said Hci.
"The Kaiila must hold against them," I said.
"Soldiers," called a man, running along the escarpment, "roped together, are beginning to climb the back face of the mountain!"
"It is to be a coordinated attack," said Cuwignaka.
"Then," I said, looking upward, "I think we may soon expect the Kinyanpi."
"It is the end for you!" cried Iwoso. "You are finished!"
"Look!" cried Hci, suddenly, pointing upward.
We heard the drums on the trail, beaten by medicine men, dancing about the beasts. The Yellow Knives, in lines behind them, advanced.
"Look!" insisted Hci.
In the sky there was a tarn.
My heart leapt.
"We are doomed!" cried Hci.
Men about us screamed, and threw their arms before their faces.
We crouched down, dust and rocks flying past us, that we not be forced from the edge of the escarpment by the turbulent blasts of those mighty, beating wings. Then the monster had alit amongst us.
"It is Wakanglisapa!" cried Hci. "It is Wakanglisapa, the Medicine Tarn!"
I approached the beast slowly. Then I put out my hand and touched its beak. I then, as it lowered its head, took its head in my hands and wept. "Greetings, Ubar of the Skies," I said. "We are together again."
"There is a cloud in the east," said a man, "small, swiftly moving."
"It will be Kinyanpi," I said. "My friend has preceded them."
Men looked at one another.
"Bring a girth rope, and reins," I said. "And throw back the lodge covers and poles which conceal our tarns. We must greet our visitors."
Men hurried away.
Yesterday night the great beacon of brush had been lit on the summit of Council Rock. It had been the first in a line of ten such beacons. Each, in turn, as soon as the light of the preceding beacon had been visible, had been lit. Before morning, some singly, some in groups of two or three, under the cover of darkness, our tarns had been brought to Council Rock, there to be concealed within specially prepared lodges. There were eighteen of these beasts, that which had been a Kinyanpi mount which had come to us on the prairie, the two wild tarns we had captured by means of the tarn pits, and the fifteen tarns we had managed to secure in our subsequent raid. These tarns we had brought from Two Feathers to the Waniyanpi compound commanded by Seibar. There, concealed by day and trained by night, and housed within striking distance of Council Rock, they had waited for our signal.
I put the girth rope on the great black tarn. I fixed the reins upon it.
I heard the approach of the drums on the trail ascending to the summit.
"The soldiers on the back face near the top," said a man.
"Repel them as you can," I said.
Lodges were thrown back, with the poles and skins. Tarns were revealed.
I leaped to the back of Ubar of the Skies. My weapons were handed to me.
Canka, Hci and Cuwignaka hurried to mount their tarns.
Eagerly, awaiting no command or signal, his neck outstretched, Ubar of the Skies took to the air.
"Ko-ro-ba!" I cried, the name of the city to which I had first been brought on Gor, Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning.
The tarn screamed.
Blasts of air tore through my hair. The feathers on my tem-wood lance lashed backwards, like flags snapping in the wind.
I heard other tarns, too, screaming behind me, and heard the beatings of wings.
Council Rock fell away beneath me.
Like a dark streak, vengeful and fearful, the great black tarn clove the skies.
Suddenly bodies and tarns seemed to be exploding about me as we entered, penetrating, the startled formations of the Kinyanpi. No resistance in the air had they expected, nor none this soon. I saw eyes, wild, about me.
My lance took a rider from his mount, tearing him back out of the girth rope, and then he was spinning, wildly flailing, screaming and turning, growing smaller, journeying with terrible, accelerative force, seemingly eccentrically, to the turf below, it seeming to rock and shift with my movements, like liquid in a bowl.
U
bar of the Skies reared back, talons raking, screaming. I saw tangles of intestines torn from the body of a tarn. I turned the stroke of a lance with my small shield. I heard a man scream, his arm gone. The disemboweled tarn fell away from us, fluttering, spinning downward. With a shake of its mighty head my tarn flung the shield from its beak, a hundred feet away, the arm still inserted in the shield straps. Then the tarn was climbing, climbing. Tarns swirled about us, below us. Some struck one another. I gave the tarn his rein. Four tarns began to follow us. Still did my tarn climb. Through clouds, such bright, lofty fogs, did we ascend. Below us, like birds springing wondrously from the snow, tarns and their riders emerged from the clouds, following us.
"Will you seek the sun?" I laughed.
Could it be that, after all these years, the tactics of combat on tarnback remained so fresh, so vivid, in the eager, dark brain of my mighty mount? Could they be retained so perfectly, with such exactness, seemingly as terrible and sharp as in the days when they were first imprinted, high above grassy fields, the walls of Ko-ro-ba in the distance?
I fought for breath.
The mighty lungs of the tarn expanded. I could feel their motion between my knees. It drew the thin air deeply into those moist, widened cavities. Still we climbed.
Then we turned, the sun at our back.
The other tarns, strung out now, struggling, wings beating painfully, sporadically, against the thin air, hung below us. They were exhausted. They could climb no further. They began to turn back.
Out of the sun struck the great tarn. As I had been trained to do I drew as deep a breath as possible before the dive began. It is not impossible to breathe during such a descent, particularly after the first moments, even in the rushing wind, but it is generally recommended that one do not do so. It is thought that breathing may effect the concentration, perhaps altering or complicating the relationship with the target. The bird and the rider, in effect, are the projectile. The tarn itself, it might be noted, does not draw another breath until the impact or the vicinity of the impact, if the strike fails to find its mark. The descent velocities in a strike of this sort are incredible, and have never been precisely calculated. They are estimated, however, at something in the neighborhood of four hundred pasangs per Ahn.*
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