Tribesmen of Gor coc-10

by John Norman

  “One gains a victory’ “ said Ibn Saran, “but one loses an enemy.” He looked at me. He unsheathed his scimitar.

  “No,” I said. “I will march to Klima.”

  “I am prepared to be merciful,” said he, “Comrade.”

  “No,” I said.

  “It is cool here,” be said. “Your death would be swift.”

  “No,” I said.

  “You are of the Warriors,” said he. “You have their stupidity, their grit, their courage.”

  “I will march to Klima,” I said.

  He lifted the scimitar before me, in salute. “March then,” said he, “to Klima.”

  He resheathed the blade, swiftly. He turned his kaiila. He rode down the line, the burnoose swelling behind him.

  Hamid, who was lieutenant to Shaker, captain of the Aretai, now in the red sand veil of the men of the Guard of the Dunes, stood near.

  “I ride with the chain,” he said.

  “I shall enjoy your company,” I said.

  “You will feel my whip, “ he’ said.

  I saw the kneeling kaiila of the guards, the guards now mounted, lifting themselves, to their feet. I surveyed the number of kaiila which bore water.

  “Klima is close,” I said.

  “It is far,” he said.

  “There is not enough water,” I said.

  “There is more than enough,” said he. “Many will not reach Klima.”

  “Am I to reach Klima?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Hamid, “should you be strong enough.”

  “What if difficulties should arise, unanticipated, on the journey,” I asked.

  “Then,” said Hamid, “unfortunately, I shall be forced to slay you in the chain.”

  “Is it important that I reach Klima?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Hamid.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You have given Kurii, and their agents, much trouble,” said he. “You have opposed yourself to their will. Tarl Cabot, thus, will serve at Klima.”

  “Tarl Cabot, thus,” I repeated, “will serve at Klima.”

  “Look,” said Hamid. He pointed to a window, narrow, high in the wall.

  I looked up.

  At the window, veiled in yellow, behind her a slave master, stood a female slave.

  Gracefully the girl, doubtless with the permission of the slave master, removed her veil. It was Vella.

  “You remember, perhaps,” said Hamid, looking up, “the delicious slave, Vella, whom the Kurii found of much use, who testified against you in the court at Nine Wells, who, by her false testimony, attempted to send you to the pits of Klima?”

  “I recall the slave,” I said. “She is the girl-property of Ibn Saran.”

  I recalled her well.

  “It is she,” said Hamid, indicating the girl in the narrow window, the slave master behind her.

  “Yes,” I said. “I see.”

  The girl looked down upon me. She smiled, scornfully. She had begged in Lydius to be freed. I had not known until then that she was true slave. But I would have known it now, seeing the insolence, the petty, collared beauty of her. I stood below her in the chain of salt slaves. Female slaves, cringing and obsequious, fearing free men, often display contempt for male slaves. Sometimes they even flaunt their beauty before them, in their walk and movements, to torture them, knowing that the male slave may he slain for so much as touching their silk. I could see that she was much pleased to see me, helpless and in the chain to Klima. I could see in her smile how she looked upon me, as a female slave upon a male slave, but I could see, too, in her smile, the pleasure of her triumph.

  “A delicious day for the slave,” said Hamid.

  “True,” I said.

  Then the girl, reaching within her silk, withdrew from her bosom a light square of silk, some eighteen inches square, scarlet, clinging, diaphanous.

  She turned to the slave master behind her. She requested of him something. He seemed adamant. Her attitude was one of begging. With a laugh, he acceded to her request. Triumphantly she turned again to the window and dropped the silk from the aperture. Gracefully, it wafted downward, settling on the sand at the foot of the wall near us.

  “Bring it,” said Hamid to a man.

  The man picked it up, smelled it and laughed, and brought it to Hamid.

  Hamid held it. It was laden with slave perfume. It was slave silk.

  “A token,” I said.

  “The token of a slave girl.” said Hamid contemptuously. Hamid thrust and twisted the square of silk in the metal of my collar, and yanked it tight. “Remember her at Klima,” he said.

  She had testified against me at Nine Wells. She Had smiled when I had been sentenced there to the pits of Klima.

  I looked up, the silk fastened in my collar.

  She looked down upon me, as a female slave upon a male slave. And, too, more than this, she looked down upon me in triumph. Her face was flushed. It was red with pleasure, transfused with joy. How deliciously sweet did she find her petty feminine vengeance! How foolish I thought her. Did she not know I was Gorean?

  Did she not know I would come back for her?

  But it was said none returned from Klima.

  I looked up at her.

  I resolved that I would return from Klima.

  “Remember her at Klima,” said Hamid.

  “Yes,” I said.

  I would remember her. I would remember her well.

  In the window the girl stiffened. The man behind her Had said something to her.

  She turned to him, agonized. She pleaded with him. This time his face remained impassive. Angrily she turned to the window again. She smiled. She blew a kiss toward me, in the Gorean fashion, brushing it toward me with her fingers. Then, swiftly, she turned and left the window.

  “Is she not,” I asked, “to be permitted to look out, to see us begin the march to Klima?”

  “She is a slave girl,” said Hamid. “It will not be permitted her.”

  “I see,” I said.

  One often denies slave girls small pleasures and gratifications, It teaches them, the more deeply, that they are slaves.

  Some kaiila moved by, laden with various supplies. Some guards rode by.

  I smelled the slave perfume. I recalled it from the palace of Suleiman Pasha, when the girl, with Zaya, the other slave, had served black wine. A rich master will often have individual perfumes specially blended and matched to the slave nature of his various girls. All are slaves, completely, but each girl, collared, imbonded, is deliciously different. Some slave perfumes are right for some slaves, and others not. Vella’s perfume, I thought, doubtless a tribute to the skills of some perfumer, had suited her superbly. It fitted her well, like a measured collar.

  I smiled. Perhaps Vella, even now, had been returned to the quarters for female slaves, where she would wait until commanded by men, perhaps to her exercises or bath, or silks, or cosmetics, to her beautification, or to small, suitable servile tasks, or perhaps to the couch of her master, or to those to whom he saw fit to give her. But it was early. Doubtless her silk had merely been taken from her and she had been commanded to her stomach, head to the wall, in her alcove, and the small, square gate had been locked behind her. These two precautions are common in female seraglios in the Tahari. When the girl lies on her stomach, her head to the wall, she cannot prevent the door from locking behind her.

  Furthermore, the small opening, approximately eighteen inches square, and set some ten inches off the floor, in the bars, with its small, heavy gate, can be easily negotiated only on the hands and knees. A girl cannot dart from a typical Tahari female-slave alcove. That she must enter and leave it on her hands and knees is thought to have a desirable psychological effect on the girl, impressing on even a haughty girl that she is only slave. Too, of course, this posture, on the girl’s part, makes it convenient to leash her upon leaving the alcove.

  I looked up at the window, in which the girl had stood. It was now empty.

&
nbsp; Doubtless Vella, even now, in the quarters for female slaves, lay in her cushioned, barred alcove. Perhaps her small fists were clenched, as she lay nude on the silks, the cushions, on her stomach, head to the wall, behind the ornate bars of her tiny, luxurious kennel. The tiny, iron door, heavy, barred, would shut behind her, locking. She was not to be permitted to watch in triumph my departure for Klima. What she had failed to do at Nine Wells, her master, Ibn Saran, silken, pantherlike and lithe, had well accomplished. The small, delicious owned brunet would not be permitted to watch. She would be denied that gratification, that pleasure. She would be shut instead in her alcove-cell. She was slave, only slave.

  I smiled. I inhaled the perfume. Hamid took from a man nearby a slave hood. I saw the sky, grayish, the descending moons, the desert, and then the hood was pulled over my head, jerked tight, and locked.

  We trudged, climbing, chained, and hooded, half dragged, tortuously, up the long slope. Time seemed measured insteps, the blows of the whip, the slow turning of the sun, over the Ahn, from one shoulder through the heat to the other.

  For twenty days had we marched. Some thought it a hundred. Many had lost count.

  More than one man raved, insane in the chain. We had begun with some two hundred and fifty men. The chain was heavier now. Lengths had been removed from it. But still was it heavier. We did not know how many now carried the chain, or the remaining lengths.

  Normally one does not move on the desert in the day, but the march to Klima is made in the sun, that only the strong will survive. We were given little to eat, but much water. In the desert, without water, even the strong die swiftly.

  “Kill us! Kill us!” one man kept screaming.

  At the crest of the slope we heard a man call “Hold!” The chain stopped.

  I sank to my knees, the crusts about my thighs. The inside of the slave hood seemed bright and granular. Even within it I closed my eyes. I held my hands, my neck, as still as possible, for the least movement would shift the collar, the manacles, the chain at my waist, and stir burning iron in the raw, abraded flesh. I did not wish to lose consciousness. Too many I feared who had lost it had not regained it. The guards of the chain did not see fit to dally overlong with the inert.

  The salt clung to my body.

  The sun was the sun of the late spring in the Tahari. The surface temperature of The crusts would be in the neighborhood of 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The air temperature would range from 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The marches to Klima are not made in the Tahari summer, only in the winter, the spring and fall, that some will survive them.

  I lifted my head to the sun, and shut my eves against the redness, the heat and refulgence that seemed to fill the hood. I put down my head. Even in the hood I sensed the reflected heat radiating from the crusts.

  It pleases Kurii, I thought, that Tart Cabot will serve at Klima. How amusing they would find that. There was a bit of silk, now doubtless bleached by the sun, thrust and wrapped in my collar. Doubtless another, too, would be pleased that I served at Klima.

  A kaiila moved swiftly past me, its paws scattering salt. I felt it in the marks on my back, and in the chain sores.

  “Kill us! Kill us!” the man screamed again, from somewhere in the chain behind me, several collars away.

  Another kaiila moved past me, moving toward the front of the chain. My fists clenched.

  I wondered if I could endure another day. I knew that I could. I had much to live for. There was a bit of silk, wrapped, fastened in the collar I wore.

  “Kill us! Kill us!” screamed the man.

  “There are too many,” I heard one of the guards say.

  “Alternate collars,” said a voice.

  “No!” a voice screamed. “No!”

  The guards knew the water. We did not.

  It seemed a long time we knelt in the crusts. After some Ehn I heard men afoot near me. They were moving down the chain. I tensed in the hood. Suddenly the chain before me, jerked. I heard no sound. Then the chain pulled down. I struggled to my feet, pulling against the chain with my neck, wild, not able to see. “Kneel,” said a voice. I knelt. I tensed. I could not see in the hood. I knelt, a chained captive in the crusts. I could not lift my hands before my body. I was helpless, absolutely. “No,” I heard a voice cry, “No!” The chain at my throat, from behind, shook, and sprang taut. I heard feet, scraping in the crusts, slipping. There was a cry, and I felt, through the chain, a drag, and shudder. Then the men continued on their way.

  “I misjudged the water,” I heard Hamid say.

  “It does not matter,” said someone.

  We knelt in the crusts. Somewhere, a few feet from me, I heard a man singing to himself.

  Another man came down the chain. I heard him open the collars on either side of me.

  I heard, a short time later, wings, the alighting of one or more large birds.

  Such birds, broad-winged, black and white, from afar, follow the marches to Klima; their beaks, yellowish, narrow, are long and slightly hooked at the end, useful for probing and tearing.

  The birds scattered, squawking, as a Kaiila sped past. The birds are called zads.

  “On your feet, Slaves!” I heard. The lash struck me twice. I did not object to it. I could feel it. The blood coursed through my body. The Pain was sharp, rich, and deep, and keen. I did not object to the pain, for I could feel it.

  Elation coursed through me, fierce, uncontrollable, for I was alive. The lash struck again. I laughed, struggling to my feet. I stood straight. “March, Slaves!” I heard, and I began again the march, moving first with the left foot, then the right, that the march be uniform, that the chain be carried evenly. It was heavier than before, but I carried it lightly, for I was alive. No longer did I object to the salt in my flesh, the heat. It was enough that I lived. How foolish it seemed then, suddenly, that one should want more. How should one want more, save perhaps health and honor, and a woman, slave at one’s feet? I marched onward again, brushing through feeding zads, once more toward Klima. I hummed to myself a simple tune, a tune I had never forgotten, a warrior tune from the northern city of Ko-ro-ba.

  Four days later, on a crest, the voice again called “Hold!” and the chain held.

  “Do not kill us! Do not kill us!” screamed a voice. I recognized it. It was the voice of the man who, through much of the march, had cried for us to be killed.

  He had been silent since the noon halt of four days ago. I had not known whether he had survived or not.

  Kaiila moved past us.

  I heard collars being opened. For the hood I could not see. The silk, which was tied in my collar, was removed. It was tied, by order of Hamid, who rode near, about my left wrist, under the manacle. I felt the silk in the circular wrist sore. A heavy key was then thrust in the lock of my collar. The lock contained sand and salt. In the heat the metal was expanded. The lock resisted. Then the key, forced, with a heavy snap, turned, freeing the lock bolt. The collar was opened. The collar was jerked from my throat, and dropped, with the chain, in the crusts. The man then moved to the next prisoner.

  No man fled from the chain.

  “We may not take kaiila in,” said a man.

  We stood for some minutes. I felt the blood and salt in the split shreds of the leather wrappings on my legs. I took care not to move the manacles and chain.

  I felt a key inserted in the lock of the slave hood. To my surprise it was thrust up, and jerked from my head. I cried out in sudden pain, the unbelievable white light, hot, fierce, universal, merciless, shuddering in the scalding air of the encircling, blazing crusts, from horizon to horizon, exploding, stabbing, searing like irons at my face and eyes. “I’m blind,” cried a man. “I’m blind!”

  Kaiila moved along the line. It would be long minutes before we could see.

  We heard chains being looped and gathered. More kaiila passed me.

  My limbs felt weak, and ached. I was dizzy. I could scarcely move. I could scarcely stand.

  “Take salt,” said a
voice. It was Hassan! “You live!” I cried.

  “Take salt,” he said.

  He fell to his knees, and thrust his face into the salt. He bit at the crusts.

  He licked crystals from them.

  I followed his example. We had not had salt in four days.

  “Look,” cried one of the guards. We lifted our heads. We struggled to our feet.

  We gritted our eyelids, to shut out the heat, the blinding light.

  “Water!” cried a voice. “Water!”

  It was a man, come from the desert about. He had not been in the chain. He wore no manacles.

  “Water!” he cried. He staggered toward us. He wore a bit of cloth. His body moved awkwardly. His fingernails were gone. His mouth and face seemed split, like dried crust.

  “It is an escaped slave from the desert,” said Hamid. He unsheathed his scimitar, and loped toward the man. He bent down easily from the saddle, the blade loose, but he did not strike, but returned to the other guards, The man stood in the crusts, looking after the rider, stupidly. “Water…” he said.

  “Please, water.”

  “Shall we have sport?” asked Hamid of two of his fellows.

  “The trek has been long,” grinned one, “and there has been little diversion.”

  “The head?” asked one. “The left car?”

  “Agreed,” said the other. They loosened their lances.

  “Water,” said the man. “Water.”

  The first man, kicking the kaiila forward, missed his thrust. The gait of the kaii1a in the crusts was not even. The mark, too, was not an easy one. To strike it would require considerable skill.

  The haggard man stood in the crusts, stupidly.

  “The right ear,” said the next man, grasping the long, slim lance, eight feet Gorean in length, marked with red and yellow swirling stripes, terminating in an extremely narrow point, razored, steel, some eleven inches in length, and lanceolate, as the leaf of the flahdah tree.

  All the time he had not taken his eyes from the target.

  “Water!” cried the man. Then he screamed as the lance struck him, turning him about.

  The second rider had been skillful. The blade had penetrated below the helix and opened the ear, lifting and parting, in its upward movement, the helix.