by John Norman
Bila Huruma was screaming at his men. He himself had discarded his shield, or it had been struck from him. "Single them out," he cried. "Attack in fives, one engage, four strike!"
"He is improvising tactics," said Ayari.
"He is a Ubar," I said.
One askari might fend a committed blow of the panga with the iron blade of his stabbing spear. Four others might then, swarming upon the beast, drive their weapons repeatedly into it. These Kurii were, on the whole, wild Kurii, not ship Kurii. Each would be used to fighting alone, terrible and solitary, hunting its own kills in the ancient manner. They might be in proximity to one another, but each functioned, in effect, as an isolated unit. They were horrifying and ferocious, but were not trained.
"There are too many," I said.
"It is true that we are lost," said Ayari, "but we shall make a good fight of it."
"Well said," said I, "small rogue."
I saw Bila Huruma slip to one knee. A mighty Kur stood over him, his panga raised over his head. Then, from behind Bila Huruma, there was a wild cry of Ukungu, and a raider's spear, in its length, thrust past the Ubar and buried itself in a red wound in the Kur's heart.
"My thanks, Rebel," said Bila Huruma, regaining his feet. Kisu pulled his weapon free, and grinned. "I now owe you nothing," he said.
"True," said Bila Huruma, and then again, side by side, rebel and Ubar, they fought.
One of the Kur leaders, then, marshaling his forces, formed them in loose lines, that they might no longer be singly attacked. I had little doubt but what he was a ship Kur. I admired his ability to control the degenerate, recruited Kurii he commanded. There was perhaps in them the vestige, or memory, perhaps passed on in an oral tradition, of the disciplines and dignities in their past, notably, doubtless, that of ship loyalty.
"We are finished now," I said. "They will fight together."
Bila Huruma now gathered his men about him. Many were covered with blood. There were probably no more than a hundred left then with him.
I saw more Kurii dropping over the wall.
Suddenly, behind us, there was a splintering of lashed poles, and bindings, too, tore loose. Again and again, then, the trunks of small trees struck at the barrier fending us from the main forces of the attacker.
"We must hold them," cried Ayari.
"It cannot be done," I said. The framework of lashed poles, suddenly, broke half apart and Kurii swarmed within, some with pangas, some with clubs and sharpened sticks. We fell back from the stones, literally swept from our rampart by the irruption of the wood and the flood of massive, charging bodies.
The panga then was gone from my hands, wrenched away, lost in the body of the Kur in which I had buried it.
"Form!" I cried. "Get the wall to your backs!"
Men streamed past me to take a stand by the wall. I leaped upon a Kur's chest, holding to him by my left hand, clenched in fur behind its shaggy neck. I drove the dagger, torn from my tunic, again and again into its chest. The Kur had worn rings of gold in its ears. I had little doubt it was a ship Kur. I slipped free as the animal screamed and reeled about, then fell, falling among the stones and wood, scratching at the stone.
I saw Turgus drive a stabbing spear into the chest of a maddened Kur.
Then it seemed Kurii were all about me, yet scarcely aware of me, intent rather on the men at the wall. I drove my dagger into the belly of one which was pressing past me, and in its rush, it hardly understanding that it was wounded, was carried, dragged, holding to the beast and dagger, for fifty feet among the Kurii. I wrenched the dagger free and as another Kur, suddenly seeing me among them, truly seeing me, reached for me I thrust the dagger upward. It is difficult to reach the Kur's brain with so small a weapon. It may be done, however, with the proper angle of elevation, through the socket of the eye. It may also be done through the ear and, where the skull is thinner, the temple. The Kur roared with pain and I lost the dagger, it wrenched away as the Kur threw its claws to its face. It pulled loose the dagger howling. Then it reached for me. I backed away. It died before it reached me. I pressed back and then, on either side of me, was with men. Weapons clashed at the line of war. The golden chain I had received from Bila Huruma, which he had returned to me, retrieving it from our raiders' canoe, was covered with blood. I saw a Kur reaching over the wall, behind our men. I sprang upon the worn stone stairs leading at this point to the wall. I kicked it back over the wall. Another, finding footholds in the ancient stone, clambered upward. I removed the golden chain and lashed it in the face and it fell backwards from the wall, to the stones some twenty feet below. I raced along the wall's top and thrust back one of the tree trunks put against it. Two Kurii leaped from it as it toppled. I then saw a Kur below, within the wall. It was behind our line of men. It drew back the panga. I leaped from the wall's height to its shoulders and looped the golden chain about its neck. It reached for me but could not dislodge me. I kept my head low, and my body away from the panga. I tightened the chain. It flung itself against the wall and I was half crushed. My back felt wet and bits of rock stung in my back. I tightened the chain, tenaciously. I felt the claws of the Kur tearing at my back. I then felt the sudden rupture of the cartilage of its throat. Still it clawed at me. It could make no sound. Its tongue was half bitten through. The panga fell to the ground. It stood unsteadily. My hands were bloody on the golden chain, its links deep, almost unseen, in the throat of the Kur. Then it fell. I leaped free of it and tore loose the chain, looping its bloody links about my own neck. I picked up the fallen panga. To my horror the beast reached for me. I saw its great lungs expand and its eyes looking at me. It sucked air into its body through its ruptured throat, blood emerged from its mouth. It is not easy to kill a Kur. It reached again for me. I struck it with the panga, and then struck it again. "Forgive me, my friend," I said. The blows had not been those of a warrior, but of a butcher. I was unsteady, and weak, my hands had trembled. I hoped that it would not regard itself as dishonored by my clumsiness.
I heard Bila Huruma rallying his men by the wall. Then he cried, "Charge!"
His audacity had taken the Kurii by surprise. But, in moments, viciously, Bila Huruma, Kisu, Turgus, Ayari and the askaris had been forced back again.
The situation was hopeless and yet, I think, the Kurii had been taught respect for men.
I saw a Kur leader, quickly and methodically, aligning his beasts. I doubted but what it would now take more than one charge by the massed forces of the Kurii. No more would be needed, surely. It is over, I thought. The matter is done. To my surprise I saw the Kur leader, a huge, brown Kur, doubtless from one of the far ships, lift his panga in salute to the black Ubar. Bila Huruma, then, breathing heavily, raised his stabbing spear in his dark and bloody fist. "Askari hodari!" he cried. I shook with emotion. It was much honor he had done the beast, not even human, confronting him. The salute of the Kur commander had been acknowledged and returned. The words Bila Huruma had uttered were of course in the native tongue of Ushindi. One might translate them, in the context, I suppose, as 'Brave Soldier'. A better translation, however, I think, especially since there is no other way to say this in the Ushindi tongue, is doubtless the simpler one, 'Warrior.'
"I have it," we heard cry. We looked to the stones at the threshold. There stood Msaliti, an upraised bloody dagger in one hand, and, in the other, held high over his head, on its chain, a dangling ring.
"He has the ring!" I cried.
Msaliti shook the chain over his head. "I have it! I have it!" he cried.
I looked to the couch of Shaba. About it lay dead Kurii and slaughtered askaris. Shaba, coughing, held his chest. The poison ring, the fang ring, had been emptied. Msaliti had awaited his opportunity. He had then fallen upon Shaba. From the wounds I adjudged Shaba had been struck at least four or five times. He had then seized the chain and ring, and run to the threshold. The Kurii were between us and Msaliti.
The Kur commander raised his paw. His lips drew back over his fangs. It was a sign o
f Kur triumph, or pleasure. Then he swiftly communicated commands to his beasts. Msaliti leaped down from the stones and withdrew from the fortresslike enclosure. The Kurii facing us then, snarling, watching us, not turning their backs, began to withdraw. They obeyed their commander. He had won. He would not now risk more of his beasts. Too, he would wish to use them to guarantee the safe passage of the ring to his prearranged rendezvous, from whence it would be eventually returned to the steel worlds, or, on this planet, used devastatingly against men and Priest-Kings.
I, panga clutched in two hands, lunged after the beasts. Kisu seized me, holding me back. Bila Huruma, too, interposed himself between me and our shaggy adversaries. "No!" cried Kisu. "No!" cried Bila Huruma. "It is madness to follow!" "Stay with us, Tarl!" cried Ayari. Turgus, too, seized an arm. I could not free myself from Kisu and Turgus.
"Release me!" I said.
"You can do nothing now," said Kisu.
"They will destroy the bridge," I said. "We will be prisoners here!"
"Tonight is the full moon," said Ayari. 'Tonight, if you wish, you may wade through the fish unharmed. Tomorrow they will have returned to the lake."
"Release me!" I cried.
"You can do nothing now," said Kisu.
I, held, watched the departure of the Kurii. They, obedient to their orders, withdrew. I admired the Kur commander, that he had been able to instill in his fierce beasts such discipline. As they withdrew some dragged with them the fallen bodies of askaris.
Bila Huruma hurried to the side of Shaba.
I shook loose of Turgus and Kisu and ran to the stones at the threshold. As I ascended to their height I saw the floating bridge cut free at our end. It was then dragged to the opposite side and hauled onto the level. Between myself and the beasts there lay the broad, uneasy moat, some forty feet across, stirring with the movements of the crowded fish.
I descended from the stones which had been piled in the threshold by Shaba's men, the better to fortify the walled area.
I looked across the moat at the Kurii. Kisu and Turgus, and Ayari, stood behind me.
On the other side of the moat Msaliti lifted the chain and ring over his head. "I have won!" he cried.
The Kur commander took the chain from him and looped it over his head.
"I have won!" cried Msaliti.
The Kur commander than gave orders to one of his beasts. Msaliti screamed with misery as the animal lifted him high over his head and then threw him into the moat.
Almost instantly Msaliti was on his feet and then he screamed, and fell, and again regained his feet, and fell again. There was a thrashing about him, a churning in the water, and it seemed the water exploded with blood and bubbles. Msaliti, as though moving through mud, howling, waded through the packed, slippery, voracious bodies. I tore the raider's spear from Kisu and extended it to Msaliti who, screaming, grasped it. We drew him from the water. His feet and legs were gone. We struck tenacious fish from his body. He then lay on the level and we, with strips of cloth, tried to stanch his bleeding.
The Kurii, on the other side of the moat, single file, then padded away.
We fought to save Msaliti. Finally, with tourniquets, we managed to slow, and then stop, the bleeding.
Bila Huruma then stood beside me, on the level near the moat. "Shaba is dead," he said.
Msaliti lifted his hand to the Ubar. "My Ubar," he said.
Bila Huruma looked down at Msaliti sadly. Then he said to his askaris, "Throw him to the fish."
"My Ubar!" cried Msaliti, and then he was lost in the moat, the fish swarming about him.
I suddenly felt Janice clinging to my arm weeping. There was leather on her throat, and, on her wrists and ankles were the deep marks of freshly slashed binding fiber. She and the other girls, during the action, had, one by one, been caught by Kurii and put in throat coffle. The coffle had then been dragged to a corner of the fortresslike enclosure. There the girls, without being removed from the coffle, had been thrown on their bellies and bound hand and foot. They had then been left there, left for later, squirming and helpless, tied as fresh meat. An askari, after the withdrawal of the Kurii, had freed them.
"Oh, my master," wept Janice, holding me. "We are alive, my master!"
I looked bitterly across the moat. I had failed. Then I held the girl's head to my shoulder and, as she wept, I considered the fortunes of war.
I saw the narrow column of Kurii disappear among the distant buildings.
I clasped the slave closely to me. "Do not cry, sweet slave," I told her. Then I, too, but in bitterness and misery, shed tears.
54
We will Leave the Ancient City
"I have examined the maps and notebooks," I said to Bila Huruma.
"Were all recovered?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
We stood now on a broad level. To it led the several flights of broad stairs, ascending from that vast marble landing, with its marble mooring posts, which lies at the western edge of the ancient city, that landing to which we had first come, days ago, after our crossing of the lake. The great building, with its tall columns, some broken, fallen aside, in its ruins, lay behind us. Flanking it, on each side, were the towering figures of stone warriors, their stern gaze facing westward. Shaba's galley, and the three galleys and canoes of Bila Huruma, and our raiders' canoe, which had served us so long and faithfully, could be seen far below us, where they were moored at the landing.
We looked out over the placid, vast lake.
On the level, to one side, we had built a great pyre. Bila Huruma himself, with his own hands, had cast the ashes of Shaba high into the air where the wind would catch them and carry them over the city, and to the jungles beyond. A part of Shaba, thus, would continue his geographer's trek, a bit of white ash blown on the wind, evanescent but obdurate, brief but eternal, something irrevocably implicated in the realities of history and eternity.
"This lake, forming the source of the Ua," I said, "he named Lake Bila Huruma."
"Cross that out," said Bila Huruma. "Write there, instead, Lake Shaba."
"I will do so," I said.
For a time Bila Huruma and I watched the galleys and canoes being readied for casting off. Hunting had been done. Supplies had been gathered. Of his forces Bila Huruma retained some ninety askaris. Of Shaba's men some seventeen survived.
"I am a lonely man," said Bila Huruma. "Shaba was my friend."
"Yet you pursued him," I said, "that you might overtake and slay him, doing robbery upon him."
Bila Huruma looked at me, puzzled. "No," he said. "I followed him to protect him. He was my friend. In our plans he was to take one hundred galleys and five thousand men. But he fled with three galleys and perhaps not even two hundred followers. I wished to lend him the support and defense of ships and numbers."
"You were not to accompany him on the originally projected expedition," I said.
"Of course not," he said. "I am a Ubar."
"Then why did you follow him?" I asked.
"I wanted the forces to get through," he said. "Shaba might have brought them through. I might have brought them through. I was not certain others could do so."
"But you are a Ubar," I said.
"I was also his friend," said Bila Huruma. "To a Ubar a friend is precious," he said. "We have so few."
"Shaba told me," I said, "that he had wronged you."
Bila Huruma smiled. "He regretted bringing me out upon the river by subterfuge," he said. "Yet he may have saved my life by fleeing the palace. One attempt already had been made upon my life. He thought that if he had fled I would no longer be in any immediate danger."
I nodded. Msaliti, needing the protection of the Ubar and his men on the river, would surely desist, at least temporarily in plotting against his life. To be sure, Msaliti had no interest in slaying the Ubar for its own sake. Such a murder was to be only a method for removing an obstacle in the path to the Tahari ring.
"Did Msaliti not encourage you to venture in pursu
it of Shaba?" I asked. "Did he not inform you of something of great value which lay in the possession of Shaba?"
"No," said Bila Huruma. "An effort of such a nature was not necessary of his part. I was determined. He only begged to accompany me, which permission I, of course, granted."
"It seems," I said, "that Shaba expected me, or another, to follow him upon the river."
"Yes," said Bila Huruma. "He did not expect to survive, for some reason. He wanted you to follow, or another, perhaps, that his maps and notebooks might be returned safely to civilization."
"It seems so," I said.
"Why did he not expect to survive?" asked Bila Huruma.
"The river, the dangers, illness," I speculated.
"The beasts, surely," said Bila Huruma.
"Yes," I said, "the beasts, too."
"And you, too," said Bila Huruma. "Surely you would have killed him to obtain whatever it was you sought."
"Yes," I said. "Had it been necessary, I would have killed for what I sought."
"It must be very precious," said Bila Huruma.
I nodded. "It was," I said.
"Was?" he asked.
"The Kurii took it," I said, "those who attacked us, the beasts."
"I see," he said.
"Shaba," I said, "told me that he had used you for his purposes. I think it was in that sense, rather than in simply having brought you upon the river, that he felt he had wronged you."
"Of this he spoke to me before he died," said Bila Huruma.
"I do not understand," I said, "how you were used for his purposes."
"Is it not now clear?" he asked, smiling.
"No," I said.
"I was to protect you," he said, "on your return downriver, that the maps and notebooks might safely reach the environs of civilization."
I stood on the landing, stunned. Kisu climbed the stairs to where we stood. "The galleys, the vessels, are ready," he said.
"Very well," said Bila Huruma.
"We will join you momentarily," I said.
Kisu nodded and returned down the stairs to where the galleys and canoes were moored.