Raiders of Gor

by Norman, John;

  Crossbow bolts flashed about my head.

  I laughed, and leaped down. No more men were trying to climb the wood of the barricade.

  "Can you hold this door?" I asked the captains, and the scribes and pages there.

  "We will," they said.

  I gestured to the side door, through which Lysias and, I assumed, he who had been scribe for Henrius Sevarius, had escaped. Several of the pages, incidentally, and some of the scribes had also fled through that door. "Secure that door," I told four of the captains.

  Immediately they went to the door, calling scribes and pages to help them.

  I myself, taking with me two captains, went to a rear corner of the great chamber, whence, via a spiraling stairwell, the roof of the hall of the council might be attained.

  We soon found ourselves on the sloping roof of the hall of the council, shielded by turrets and decorative embrasures at its edge.

  From there, in the late afternoon sun, we could see smoke from the wharves and arsenal to the west.

  "There are no ships from Cos or Tyros in the harbor," said one of the captains standing near me.

  I had seen this.

  I indicated wharves. "Those wharves," I said, "are those of Chung and Eteocles?"

  "Yes," said one of the captains.

  "And those," I asked, indicating other wharves, farther to the south, "are those of Nigel and Sullius Maximus."

  We could see burning ships.

  "Yes," said the other captain.

  "Doubtless there is fighting there," said the first captain.

  "And along the wharves generally," said the second.

  "It seems," I said, "that the holdings of Henrius Sevarius, patron of the captain Lysias, are untouched."

  "It does indeed," said the first captain, through gritted teeth.

  Below in the streets we heard trumpets. Men were shouting.

  We saw some waving banners, bearing the design of the house of Sevarius.

  They were trying to urge men into the streets to support them.

  "Henrius Sevarius," they were crying, "Ubar of Port Kar."

  "Sevarius is proclaiming himself Ubar," said the first captain.

  "Or Claudius, his regent," said the other.

  We were joined by another captain. "It is quiet now below," he said.

  "Look there," I said. I pointed down to some of the canals, cutting between the buildings. Slowly, moving smoothly, their oars dipping in rhythm, from various sides, we saw tarn ships moving toward the hall of the council.

  "And there!" cried another captain, pointing to the streets.

  There we saw crossbowmen fleeing, in lines along the edges of the buildings. Some men-at-arms were joining them.

  "It appears," said one of the captains at my side, "that Henrius Sevarius is not yet Ubar of Port Kar."

  At the far edge of the piazza, in one of the bordering canals, nosing forward to take a berth between two tiled piers, we saw a ram-ship, medium class. Her mast, with its long yard, was lashed to the deck. Doubtless her sail was stored below. These are the arrangements when a galley moves through the city, or when she enters battle. On a line running from the forward starboard mooring cleat to the stem castle, furnishing cover for archers and spearmen, there flew a flag, snapping in the wind. It was white with vertical green stripes on its field and, over these, in black, the head of a Bosk.

  I could see, even at the distance, leaping from the prow of the ship to the tiles of the piazza, running across the large, oblique-looking, colored squares toward the Hall of the Council of Captains, the great Thurnock, with his yellow bow, followed by Clitus, with his net and trident, and by Tab, with my men.

  "Estimate for me," I said, "the damage to the arsenal."

  "It appears," said one, "to be the lumber sheds and the dry docks."

  "The warehouses of pitch and that of oars, too," said another.

  "Yes," said the first. "I think so."

  "There is little wind," said another.

  I was not dissatisfied. I was confident that the men of the arsenal, in their hundreds, almost to the count of two thousand, would, given the opportunity, control the fire. Fire has always been regarded as the great hazard to the arsenal. Accordingly many of her warehouses, shops and foundries are built of stone, with slated or tinned roofs. Wooden structures, such as her numerous sheds and roofed storage areas tend to be separated from one another. Within the arsenal itself there are numerous basins, providing a plenitude of water. Many of these basins, near which, in red-painted wooden boxes, are stored large numbers of folded leather buckets, are expressly for the purpose of providing a means for fighting fires. Some of the other basins are large enough to float galleys; these large basins connect with the arsenal's canal system, by means of which heavy materials may be conveyed about the arsenal; the arsenal's canal system also gives access, at two points, to the canal system of the city and, at two other points, to the Tamber Gulf, beyond which lies gleaming Thassa. Each of these four points are guarded by great barred gates. The large basins, just mentioned, are of two types: the first, unroofed, is used for the underwater storage and seasoning of Tur wood; the second, roofed, serves for the heavier fittings and upper carpentry of ships, and for repairs that do not necessitate recourse to the roofed dry docks.

  Already it seemed to me there was less smoke, less fire, from the area of the arsenal.

  The wharves of Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus, I conjectured, from the blazings along the waterfront on the west and south, would not fare as well.

  The fires at the arsenal, I supposed, may have been even, primarily, a diversion. They had surely served to draw the captains of Port Kar into the ambush prepared for them outside the hall of the council. I supposed Henrius Sevarius might not have wished to seriously harm the arsenal. Could he come to be the one Ubar of Port Kar, it would constitute a considerable element of his wealth, indeed, the major one.

  I, and the three other captains, stood on the sloping roof of the hall of the council and watched the ships burning at the wharves.

  "I am going to the arsenal," I said. I turned to one of the captains. "Have scribes investigate and prepare reports on the extent of the damage, wherever it exists. Also have captains ascertain the military situation in the city. And have patrols doubled, and extend their perimeters by fifty pasangs."

  "But surely Cos and Tyros—" said one of the Captains.

  "Have the patrols doubled, and extend their perimeters by fifty pasangs," I repeated.

  "It will be done," he said.

  I turned to another man.

  "Tonight," I said, "the council must meet again."

  "It cannot—" he protested.

  "At the twentieth hour," I told him.

  "I will send pages through the city with torches," he said.

  I looked out over the city, at the arsenal, at the burning wharves on the west and south.

  "And summon the four captains," I said, "who are Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus."

  "The Ubars!" cried a captain.

  "The captains," I said. "Send for them only a single page with guard, with his torch. Summon them as captains."

  "But they are Ubars," the man whispered.

  I pointed to the burning wharves.

  "If they do not come," I told him, "tell them they will no longer be captains in the eyes of the council."

  The captains looked at me.

  "It is the council," I said, "that is now the first power in Port Kar."

  The captains looked at one another, and nodded.

  "It is true," said one of them.

  The power of the captains had been little diminished. The coup intended to destroy them, swift as the falling of the assassin's blade, had failed. Escaping into and barricading themselves within the hall of the Council, most had saved themselves. Others, fortunately as it had turned out for them, had not even been in attendance at the meeting. The ships of the captains were usually moored, beyond this, within the city, in the
mooring lakes fronting on their holdings and walled. And those who had used the open wharves did not seem to have suffered damage. The only wharves fired were apparently those of the four Ubars.

  I looked out over the harbor, and over the muddy Tamber to the gleaming vastness beyond, my Thassa.

  At any given time most of the ships of Port Kar are at sea. Five of mine were, at present, at sea. Two were in the city, to be supplied. The ships of the captains, returning, would further guarantee their power in the city, their crews being applicable where the captains might choose. To be sure, many of the ships of the Ubars were similarly at sea, but men pretending to the Ubarate of Port Kar commonly keep a far larger percentage of their power in port than would a common captain. I expected the power of the four Ubars, Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus, might have been, at a stroke, diminished by a half. If so, they might control, among themselves, a force of about one hundred and fifty ships, most of which were still at sea. I did not expect the Ubars would cooperate with one another. Further, if necessary, the Council of Captains, with its power, might intercept and impound their ships, as they returned, one by one. I had long felt that five Ubars in Port Kar, and the attendant anarchy resulting from this division of power, was politically insufferable, with its competition of extortions, taxes and decrees, but, more importantly, I felt that it jeopardized my own interests. I intended, in Port Kar, to accumulate fortunes and power. As my projects developed I had no wish to suffer for not having applied for clienthood to one Ubar or another. I did not wish to have to sue for the protection of a strong man. I preferred to be my own. Accordingly I wished for the council to consolidate its power in the city. It seemed that now, with the failure of the coup of Henrius Sevarius, and the diminishment of the power of the other Ubars, she might well do so. The council, I expected, itself composed of captains, men much like myself, would provide a political structure within which my ambitions and projects might well prosper. Nominally beneath its aegis, I might, for all practical purposes, be free to augment my house as I saw fit, the House of Bosk, of Port Kar.

  I, for one, would champion the council.

  I expected that there would be support for this position, both from men like myself, self-seeking men, wise in political realities, and from the inevitable and useful fools, abundant even in Port Kar, hoping simply for a saner and more efficient governance of their city. It seemed the interests of wise men and fools lay for once conjoined.

  I turned and faced the captains.

  "Until the twentieth hour, Captains," said I.

  Dismissed, they left the roof.

  I stood alone on the roof, and watched the fires. A man such as I, I thought, might rise high in a city such as this, squalid, malignant Port Kar.

  I then left the roof to go to the arsenal, to see for myself what might be the case there.

  * * * *

  It was now the nineteenth hour.

  Above us, in the chamber of the Council of Captains, I could hear feet moving about on the wooden floor, chairs scraping.

  Each captain in Port Kar had come to the meeting, saving some of those most closely associated with the house of Sevarius.

  It was said, even, that the four Ubars, Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus, sat now, or would soon sit, upon their thrones.

  The man on the rack near me screamed in agony.

  He was one of those who had been captured.

  "We have the reports on the damage to the wharves of Chung," said a scribe, pressing into my hands the documents. I knew that the fires on the wharves of Chung still blazed, and that they had spread northward to the free wharves south of the arsenal. The reports, accordingly, would be incomplete.

  I looked at the scribe.

  "We will bring you further reports as soon as they arrive," he said.

  I nodded, and he sped away.

  The fires were now substantially out in the properties of Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus, though a warehouse of the latter, in which was stored tharlarion oil, still blazed. The city was heavy with the smell and smoke of it. As nearly as I could gather, Chung had been the most afflicted by the fire, losing perhaps thirty ships. The Ubars, it seemed, had not had their power halved, but it had been considerably reduced. The damage to the arsenal, which I had seen with my own eyes, and had taken statistical reports on from scribes, had not been particularly serious. It amounted to the destruction of one roofed area where Ka-la-na wood was stored, and the partial destruction of another; one small warehouse for the storage of pitch, one of several, had been destroyed; two dry docks had been lost, and the shop of the oar-makers, near the warehouse for oars, had been damaged; the warehouse itself, as it turned out, had escaped the fire.

  Some of those who had started these fires, who had been apprehended, now, under the torches, screamed on the racks beneath the chamber of the Council of Captains. Most, however, their retreat covered by crossbowmen, had escaped and fled to the holding of Henrius Sevarius.

  The two slaves near me bent to the rack windlass. There was a creak of wood, the sound of the pawl, locking, dropping into a new notch on the ratchet, a hideous scream.

  "Have the patrols been doubled?" I asked a captain nearby.

  "Yes," he said, "and their perimeters extended by fifty pasangs."

  The man on the rack screamed again.

  "What," I asked a captain, "is the military situation?"

  "The men of Henrius Sevarius," said he, "have withdrawn into his holdings. His ships and wharves are well defended. Men of the captains maintain their watch. Others are in reserve. Should the forces of Sevarius emerge from his holdings we shall meet them with steel."

  "What of the city?" I asked.

  "It has not rallied to Sevarius," said the captain. "In the streets men cry 'Power to the Council!'"

  "Excellent," I commented.

  A scribe came to my side. "An envoy from the House of Sevarius demands to speak before the council," he said.

  "Is he a captain?" I asked.

  "Yes," said the scribe. "Lysias."

  I smiled. "Very well," I said, "send a page, and a man with a torch, to conduct him hither, and give him guard, that he may not be torn to pieces in the streets."

  The scribe grinned. "Yes, Captain," said he.

  A captain near me shook his head. "But Sevarius is a Ubar," he said.

  "The council," I said, "will adjudicate his claims."

  The captain looked at me, and smiled. "Good," he said. "Good."

  I gestured for the two slaves at the rack windlass to again rotate the heavy wooden wheels, moving the heavy wooden pawl another notch in the beam ratchet. Again there was a creak of wood and the sound of the pawl, locking, dropping into its new notch. The thing fastened on the rack threw back its head on the cords, screaming only with his eyes. Another notch and the bones of its arms and legs would be torn from their sockets.

  "What have you learned?" I asked the Scribe, who stood with his tablet and stylus beside the rack.

  "It is the same as the others," he said. "They were hired by the men of Henrius Sevarius, some to slay captains, some to fire the wharves and arsenal." The scribe looked up at me. "Tonight," he said, "Sevarius was to be Ubar in Port Kar, and each was to have a stone of gold."

  "What of Cos and Tyros?" I asked.

  The scribe looked at me, puzzled. "None have spoken of Cos and Tyros," he said.

  This angered me, for I felt that there must be more in the coup than the work of one of Port Kar's five Ubars. I had expected, that very day, or this night, to receive word that the fleets of Cos and Tyros were approaching. Could it be, I asked myself, that Cos and Tyros were not implicated in the attempted coup?

  "What of Cos and Tyros!" I demanded of the wretch fastened on the rack. He had been one who had, with his crossbow, fired on the captains as they had run from the council. His eyes had moved from his head; a large vein was livid on his forehead; his feet and hands were white; his wrists and ankles were bleeding; his body was little more th
an drawn suet; he was stained with his own excrement.

  "Sevarius!" he whispered. "Sevarius!"

  "Are not Cos and Tyros to attack?" I demanded.

  "Yes! Yes!" he cried. "Yes!"

  "And," I said, "what of Ar, and Ko-ro-ba, and Treve, and Thentis, and Turia, and Tharna and Tor!"

  "Yes, yes, yes!" he whimpered.

  "And," I said, "Teletus, Tabor, Scagnar!"

  "Yes, yes!" he cried.

  "And," I said, "Farnacium, and Hulneth and Asperiche! And Anango and Ianda, and Hunjer and Skjern and Torvaldsland. And Lydius and Helmutsport, and Schendi and Bazi!"

  "Yes," he cried. "All are going to attack."

  "And Port Kar!" I cried.

  "Yes," he raved, "Port Kar, too! Port Kar, too!"

  With disgust I gestured for the slaves to pull the pins releasing the windlasses.

  With a rattle of cord and chain the wheels spun back and the thing on the rack began to jabber and whimper and laugh.

  By the time the slaves had unfastened him he had lost consciousness.

  "There was little more to be learned from that one," said a voice near me. It might have been a larl that had spoken.

  I turned.

  There, facing me, his face expressionless, was one who was well known in Port Kar.

  "You were not at the meeting of the council this afternoon," I said to him.

  "No," he said.

  The somnolent beast of a man regarded me.

  He was a large man. About his left shoulder there were the two ropes of Port Kar. These are commonly worn only outside the city. His garment was closely woven, and had a hood, now thrown back. His face was wide, and heavy, and muchly lined; it, like many of those of Port Kar, showed the marks of Thassa, burned into it by wind and salt; he had gray eyes; his hair was white, and short-cropped; in his ears there were two small golden rings.

  If a larl might have been transformed into a man and yet retain its instincts, its heart and its cunning, I think it might look much like Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar.

  "Greetings, noble Samos," I said.

  "Greetings," said he.

  It then occurred to me that this man could not serve Priest-Kings. It occurred to me then, with a shudder which I did not betray, that such a man could serve only the Others, not Priest-Kings, those Others, in the distant steel worlds, who surreptitiously and cruelly fought to gain this world and Earth for their own ends.