Mercenaries of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “And one should,” agreed Hurtha, “for otherwise one might not improve one’s fortunes.”

  I looked at him.

  “I am not unaware that men may fight for many reasons,” said Hurtha.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Land, gold, vengeance, women, water, pasturage, tradition, custom, sport,” said Hurtha, “such things.”

  “True,” I said, “and perhaps for other things, as well, sometimes, somewhere.”

  “Other things?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right,” said Hurtha, “if that is what you are interested in, seems to me a very hard thing to understand. I am not sure there is really any such thing, at all. I have never tasted it, nor seen it, nor felt it. If it does exist, it seems likely to me that it would be on both sides, like sunlight and air. Surely no war has been fought in which both sides have not sincerely claimed, and presumably believed, for one reason or another, that they were right. Thus, if right is always on both sides, one cannot help but fight for it. If that then is the case, why should one not be paid as well as possible for the risks he takes?”

  “Have you ever tasted, or seen, or felt honor?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Hurtha. “I have tasted honor, and seen it, and felt it, but it is not like tasting bread, or seeing a rock, or feeling a woman. It is different.”

  “Perhaps right is like that,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” said Hurtha. “But the matter seems very complex and difficult to me.”

  “It seems so to me, too,” I said. “I am often surprised why it seems so easy to so many others.”

  “Yes,” said Hurtha.

  “Perhaps they are more gifted than we in detecting its presence,” I speculated.

  “Perhaps,” said Hurtha, “but why, then, is there so much disagreement among them?”

  “I do not know,” I admitted.

  Rings were then brought, heavy rings of silver and gold, large enough for a wrist or arm, and Genserix distributed these to high retainers. From the same box he then distributed coins among the others. Even I received a silver tarsk. There were treasures among the wagons, it seemed. The tarsk was one of Telnus. In this small detail I suspected there might be found evidence of the possible relationship between the movements of Cos and the coming of the Alar wagons to the Genesian Road.

  “Are there such women as these in the cities?” asked Hurtha, indicating Feiqa.

  “Thousands,” I informed him.

  “Surely we should study siege work,” smiled Hurtha.

  Feiqa shrank back a bit.

  “Such women may be bought in the cities,” I said, “in slave markets, from the houses of slavers, from private dealers. Surely you could have such among the wagons, if you wished. You could have strings brought out to be examined, or accepted, on approval. I see no problem in the matter.” Interestingly, I had noted few, if any, slaves among the wagons. This was quite different from the Wagon Peoples of the far south. There beautiful slaves, in the scandalously revealing chatka and curla, the kalmak and koora, tiny rings in their noses, were common among the wagons. “You mentioned, as I recall, that slavers, among others, came to the wagons.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but usually to buy our captures, picked up generally in raids or fighting.”

  “Why are there so few slaves among the wagons?” I asked.

  “The free women kill them,” said Hurtha.

  Feiqa gasped. I decided that perhaps I had best be soon on my way. She was a beauty, and was extremely sexually exciting, sometimes almost maddeningly so, to men. I had no wish to risk her in this place. She was exactly the sort of female which, in her helplessness and collar, in her vulnerability and brief tunic, tends to inspire jealous hatred, sometimes bordering almost on madness, in free women, particularly homely and sexually frustrated ones.

  “Oh!” said Feiqa, as he called Sorath closed his hand about her upper arm. His grip was tight. There was no mistaking its nature. He had her in mind.

  “Hold,” I said to him, putting my hand on his arm.

  “Hold?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Hold.”

  “You are not an Alar,” he said. “I will take her.”

  “No,” I said.

  “This is our camp,” he said.

  “It is my slave,” I said.

  “Give her to me,” he said. “I will give her back to you happier, and with only a few bruises.”

  “No,” I said.

  “In the camp I do what I wish,” he said.

  “I doubt that that is always the case,” I said.

  He stood up. I, too, stood up. He was a bit shorter than I, but was extremely broad and powerful. It is a not uncommon build among Alars.

  “You have taken food here,” said Sorath.

  “And I have been pleased to have done so,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “You are a guest here,” said Sorath.

  “And I expect to receive the respect and courtesy due a guest,” I said.

  “Let him have her for a few Ehn,” suggested Hurtha.

  “He has not asked,” I said.

  “Ask,” suggested a fellow to Sorath.

  “No,” said Sorath.

  I shrugged.

  “Let axes be brought,” said Sorath.

  “He will not know the ax,” said Hurtha. “He is not of the wagons.”

  “Let them then be blades!” roared Sorath.

  “The ax will be fine,” I said. I had learned its use in Torvaldsland. I had little doubt that the Torvaldslanders could stand up to any folk in the use of the ax.

  “Let the axes be headless,” said Genserix. This proposal surprised me somewhat, but I welcomed it. It seemed a decent and generous gesture on the part of Genserix. Not every chieftain of the Alars, I supposed, would have been so thoughtful. In this fashion the worse that was likely to happen was that the loser would have his head broken open. The men about the fire grunted their agreement. They all seemed rather decent fellows. Sorath, too, I was pleased to see, nodded. Apparently he, at least after a moment of choler, upon a more sober reflection, had no special wish to kill me. He would probably be satisfied to beat me unconscious. In the morning then I might awaken naked, tied to a stake outside the wagons. In a few days, then, which I might have spent ruminating on my ingratitude, while living on water poured into a hole near me, and on vegetables thrown to me, like a tarsk, when the wagons moved, I might have been freed, a well-used Feiqa then returned to me, perhaps with a fresh Alar brand in her hide, that I might be reminded, from time to time, of the incident.

  Two of the long heavy handles were brought.

  I hefted one. It had good weight and balance.

  “Beware, friend,” said Hurtha. “Sorath well knows the ways of the ax.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Feiqa whimpered.

  “Prepare yourself for the future,” I said.

  “Master?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Shall the female be held?” asked a fellow.

  “That will not be necessary,” I said. “Stay, Feiqa.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said. She would now keep her place, kneeling, as she was, until a free person might permit her to move.

  Sorath spit upon his hands and gripped the handle. He cut the air with a stroke or two.

  I went to an open place near the fire.

  “See?” said one of the fellows. “He takes a position with the fire at his back.” Some of the others nodded, too, seemingly having noted this.

  When possible, of course, given considerations of the land, warriors like to have both the sun and the wind at their back. The glare from the sun, even if it is not blinding, can be wearing upon an enemy, particularly if the battle persists for Ahn. The advantages of having the wind at one’s back are obvious. It flights one’s arrows, increasing their range; it gives additional impetus to one’s movements and charges; and whatever dust or debris it might carry is more likely to affect the enemy than oneself.

&n
bsp; Sorath struck fiercely down at me with the handle and I blocked the blow, smartly. His blow had been a simple, obvious one, and unless he had intended to use it in wearing down my strength or perhaps breaking the handle I carried, it made little sense. He stood back, considering matters.

  “Surely you would not have struck at an Alar like that,” I said. He must be clear that I had not brought my handle back, under the blow, slashing upward to his neck, a blow that can, with the Torvaldsland ax, at least, cut the head from a man.

  “True, Stranger,” said a woman’s voice. I stepped back a little, sensing that there was momentary truce between Sorath and myself, but also keeping track of him. He could not change position without my detecting it. “I have seen tharlarion who could handle an ax better than that,” she said. Sorath reddened, angrily. It was apparently a free woman of the Alars, only she was not dressed as were the other women of the camp, in their coarse, heavy, ankle-length woolen dresses. She wore rather the garmenture of a male, the furs and leather. At her belt there was even a knife. She was strikingly lovely, though, I supposed, given her mien and attitude, she would not have taken such an observation as a compliment. She was about the same size as Feiqa, though perhaps a tiny bit shorter, and, like Feiqa, was dark-haired and dark-eyed. I thought they might look well together, as a brace of slaves.

  Sorath then, stung by her remark, flung himself wildly toward me and fought frenziedly, but rashly. I blocked blows, not wishing to take advantage of his recklessness. I refrained from striking him. Had we been using real axes, the handles armed with iron, I might have finished him several times. I do not know if he was fully aware of this, but I am sure some of the others were. Hurtha and Genserix, for example, judging from the alarm which I noted in their expressions, seemed to be under no misapprehensions in the matter. To be sure, had the handles been armed perhaps he would have addressed himself to our match with much greater circumspection. Panting, Sorath backed away.

  “Fight, Sorath,” taunted the woman. “He is an outsider. Are you not an Alar?”

  “Be silent, woman,” said Genserix, angrily.

  “I am a free woman,” she said. “I may speak as I please.”

  “Do not seek to interfere in the affairs of men,” said Genserix.

  She faced the group, standing on the other side of the fire. Her feet were spread. On her feet were boots of fur. Her arms were crossed insolently upon her chest. “Are there men here?” she asked. “I wonder.”

  There was a rumble of angry sounds from the gathered warriors. But none did anything to discipline the girl. She was, of course, free. Free women, among the Alars, have high standing.

  “Do you think you are a man?” inquired one of the warriors.

  “I am a female,” she said, “but I am not different from you, not in the least.”

  There were angry murmurs from the men.

  “Indeed,” she said, “I am probably more a man than any of you here.”

  “Give her an ax,” said Genserix.

  An ax, a typical Alar ax, long-handled, armed with its heavy iron blade, was handed to the girl. She took it, holding it with difficulty. It was clear it was too heavy for her. She could scarcely lift it, let alone wield it.

  “You could not use that blade, even for chopping wood,” said Genserix.

  “What is your name?” I asked her.

  “Tenseric,” she said.

  “That is a male’s name,” I said.

  “I chose it myself,” she said. “I wear it proudly.”

  “Have you always been called that?” I asked.

  “I was called Boabissia,” she said, “until I came of age, and chose my own name.”

  “You are still Boabissia,” said one of the warriors.

  “No!” she said. “I am Tenseric.”

  “You are a female, are you not?” I asked.

  “I suppose so,” she said, angrily. “But what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Does it mean nothing?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “It means nothing.”

  “Are you the same as a man?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she said.

  There was laughter from the warriors about the fire.

  “It takes more than fur and leather, and a dagger worn pretentiously at one’s belt, to make a man,” I said.

  She looked at me with fury.

  “You are a female,” called one of the men. “Be one!”

  “No!” she cried.

  “Put on a dress!” called another of the men.

  “Never!” she cried. “I do not want to be one of those pathetic creatures who must wait on you and serve you!”

  “Are you an Alar?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she said.

  “No,” said Genserix. “She is not an Alar. We found her, years ago, when she was an infant, beside the road, abandoned in blankets, amidst the wreckage of a burnt, raided caravan.”

  “One which had fallen to the Alars?” I inquired.

  “No,” said a fellow, chuckling.

  “I wished it had fallen to us,” said another. “From the size of the caravan, we conjecture the loot must have been considerable.”

  “There was little left when we arrived,” commented another.

  “Do not be misled,” said Hurtha, smiling. “We do not really do much raiding. It does not make for good relations with the city dwellers.”

  His remark made sense to me. The Alars, and such folk, can be aggressive and warlike in seeking their grazing grounds, but, if left alone, they are seldom practitioners of unrestricted or wholesale raiding.

  “We took the child in, and raised it,” said Genserix. “We named it ‘Boabissia’, a good Alar name.”

  “You are not then really of the wagons,” I said to the girl. “Indeed, you are quite possibly a female of the cities.”

  “No!” said the girl. “I am truly of the wagons! I have lived among them all my life!”

  “She is not of the wagons, by blood,” said a man.

  She looked at him angrily.

  “Slash my face!” she cried.

  “We do not slash the faces of our females,” said a man.

  “Slash mine!” she said.

  “No,” said Genserix.

  “Then I shall do it myself!” she said.

  “Do not,” said Genserix, sternly.

  “Very well,” she said. “I shall not. I shall do as my chieftain asks.”

  I saw that she did not wish, truly, to disfigure herself in the mode of the Alar warriors. I found that of interest. From the point of view of the men, too, of course, they did not desire this. For one thing she was not of the warriors and was thus not entitled to this badge of station; indeed, her wearing it, as she was a mere female, would be a joke to outsiders and an embarrassment to the men; it would belittle its significance for them, making it shameful and meaningless. The insignia of men, like male garments, become empty mockeries when permitted to women. This type of thing leads eventually both to the demasculinization of men and the defeminization of females, a perversion of nature disapproved of generally, correctly or incorrectly, by Goreans. For another thing she was a beautiful woman and they had no desire to see her disfigured in this fashion.

  “Your chieftain is grateful,” said Genserix, ironically.

  “Thank you, my chieftain,” she said, reddening, inclining her head. She had little alternative, it seemed, in her anger, other than to pretend to accept his remark at face value. I wondered why Genserix did not strip her and have her tied under a wagon for a few days. She looked at me, in fury. “I am an Alar,” she said.

  Some of the warriors laughed.

  “It seems more probable to me that you are a woman of the cities,” I said.

  “No!” she said. “No!”

  “Consider your coloring,” I said, “and your shortness, and the darkness of your hair and eyes. Consider, too, the suggestion of interesting female curvatures beneath your leather and fur.” Most the Alar women are rather large, pla
in, cold, blond, blue-eyed women. “You remind me of many women I have seen chained naked in slave markets.”

  There was much laughter from the men.

  “No!” she cried to them. “No!” she cried to me.

  “It is true,” I said.

  “No!” she cried.

  There was more laughter.

  “I am an Alar!” she cried.

  “No,” said more than one man.

  “Are you a man?” asked a fellow.

  “I am the same as a man!” she cried.

  “Are you a man?” asked a fellow.

  “No,” she said. “I am a woman!”

  “It is true,” laughed a man.

  “But I am a free woman!” she cried, with a look of hatred cast at Feiqa, who shrank back, trembling, beneath her fierce gaze.

  “Lift up the ax you carry,” said Genserix, “high, over your head, as though to strike one with it. Hold it near the end of the handle.”

  She, standing across from us, on the other side of the fire, tried to do this. But in a moment, struggling, unable to manage the weight, she twisted her body and the ax fell. Its head struck the dirt. The warriors were not pleased with this. Some murmured in anger. “I cannot,” she said. I myself would have had her kneel down and clean the blade with her hair. It can be a capital offense on Gor, incidentally, for a slave to so much as touch a weapon.

  “Brandish it, wield it,” said Genserix to her, sternly.

  She tried again to lift the ax, and then, again, lowered it, until she held it before her, as she had before, with difficulty, with both hands, her hands separated well on the handle. “I cannot,” she said.

  “Then put it down, and leave,” said Genserix.

  “Yes, my chieftain,” she said. She put down the ax, and then hurried away, angrily, into the darkness. I supposed that she, in her upbringing, had felt little affinity with the Alar women. Certainly it seemed she had not cared to identify with them. Perhaps, too, as she was not an Alar by blood, they had never truly accepted her. Yet it seemed she had been, as is often the case with Alar children, raised with much permissiveness. Not identifying with the women, or being accepted by them, and perhaps coming to bitterly envy the men, their position and status, their nature and power, it seemed she may have turned toward trying to prove herself the same as them, turning then to mannish customs and garb, attempting thusly, desperately, angrily, to find some sort of place for herself among the wagons. As a result, it seemed she would be accepted by neither sex. She seemed to me confused and terribly unhappy. I did not think she knew her own identity. I do not think she knew who she was. Some of the men, perhaps, knew better than she herself did.