Tribesmen of Gor coc-10

by John Norman

  One of the riders going to the left flank from the Aretai center was tied in his saddle. His body was stiff from pain. I recognized him. I was pleased. I saw that Suleiman, Pasha of Nine Wells, master of a thousand lances, lived. Rising from his couch, his wound, inflicted by Hamid, the would-be assassin not yet healed, he had taken saddle. Beside him, held in the hand of Shakar, captain of the Aretai, was a tall lance, surmounted by the pennon of command.

  Before the Kavar center I saw another figure, robed in white, bearded. Near him a rider held the Kavar pennon of command. Another held the pennon of the, vizier, That man, I knew, must be Baram, a not uncommon name in the Tahari, Sheik of Bezhad, vizier to Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars. Nowhere did I see the pennon of the high pasha himself. I did not know even if there were such a man.

  About my neck, on a leather string, I wore the ring of the Kur, it containing the light-diversion device. I fingered the ring, looking down on the lines.

  There was still much disturbance on the left flank of the Aretai, hundreds of riders angrily Milling about, Tajuks with Zevar and Arani mixed in. Suleiman, with his immediate retinue, was with them, doubtless expostulating.

  I saw motion among the ranks of the Kavars and their vassal tribes. I heard the drums change their beat; I saw the lines of riders ordering themselves; I saw pennons, the pennons of preparation, lifted; I assumed that when they lowered the pennons of the charge would be lifted on their lances, and then that the lances would drop, and with them the lance of every rider in the Kavar host and that, drums rolling, the lines would then, in sweeping, almost regular parallels, charge.

  It seemed a not inopportune time for Baram to commit his forces.

  Thanks to the Tajuks, Suleiman was not in the center, and thanks, too, to them, the Aretai left flank, instead of being ready for action, swarmed and broiled like the Crowds in a bazaar.

  I saw Baram, vizier to Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, extend his arm before his body, and then lift it. I saw the pennons of the charge, with his arm, raised.

  Suleiman, in the midst of the Tajuks, and Zevar and Arani, turned, stricken.

  But the arm of Baram, the vizier, did not strike forward, the lances with it.

  Instead, suddenly, he turned in the saddle, lifting both arms, signaling to the lines “Stop!” The lances of readiness and of the charge slipped to the stirrup boots.

  Slowly, not hurrying, between the lines, came a single rider, in swirling Kavar white. In his right hand he held a high lance, from which fluttered a broad and mighty pennon, scarlet and white, that of Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars.

  Behind him and to the side staggered four stripped wretches, their wrists crossed and bound, each on his own tether to the pommel of the saddle.

  Baram, swiftly, with his guard, rode to meet the rider. The lines, on each side, shifted, but did not move. Suleiman hurried to the Aretai center.

  I saw the lance with its mighty pennon of the rider in white, veiled, dip and circle, and then dip and circle again. Riders, from both sides, moved their kaiila slowly toward the figure, their guards hanging behind them. There came to that parley in the center of the field the pashas of the Ta’Kara and Bakahs, and of the Char and Kashani; and, too, riding deliberately, strapped in the saddle, there came Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai, with him, Shakar, captain of the Aretai, and their guard, and, with them as well, the pashas of the Luraz, Tashid and Raviri, with their guards. Then, I saw the pasha of the Ti, with his guard, join them. Lastly, riding abreast, swiftly across the field, I saw the pashas of the Zevar and the Arani, and the young khan of the Tajuks, join the group, Behind the pashas of the Zevar and Arani, strung out behind each, in single lines, came their guard. No one rode behind the young khan of the Tajuks. He came alone. He disdained a guard.

  I had no one to represent me but myself, and I was curious. I urged my kaiila down the slope. I would mix in with the parleying group. I had little doubt that each there would assume I had business there, and was legitimate party to some group not their own.

  In a few moments, crowding my kaiila in, moving with courtesy but resolution through the guards, I found myself near the center of the parleying group, in the line behind the pashas and the khan.

  “Mighty Haroun,” said Baram, Sheik of Bezhad, “the command is yours! The Kavars await!”

  “The Bakahs, too!” cried the pasha of the Bakahs. “The Ta’Kara!” “The Char!”

  “The Kashani!” Each of the pashas lifted their lances.

  The veiled figure, robed in white, with the lance and pennon, nodded his head, accepting the command of these thousands of fierce warriors.

  Haroun then turned in his robes. “Greetings, Suleiman,” said he.

  “Greetings, Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars,” said Suleiman.

  “I heard your wound was grievous,” said Haroun to Suleiman. “Why have you taken to the saddle?”

  “Why of course to do war with you,” said Suleiman.

  “On grounds, or for sport?” asked Haroun.

  “On grounds,” said Suleiman, angrily. “Kavar raids on Aretai communities, the breaking of wells!”

  “Remember Red Rock!” cried a Tashid guard.

  “Remember Two Scimitars!” cried a man in the retinue of the pasha of the Bakahs.

  “No mercy is shown to he who destroys water!” cried a man, one of the Luraz.

  Scimitars were loosened. I shifted my wind veil about my face. There were Aretai present. They paid the little attention. I saw Shakar look once at me, and then look troubled, then look away.

  “Look!” said Haroun. He pointed to the nude, tethered wretches, bound to his pommel. “Lift your arms, Sleen,” he said to them.

  The men lifted their arms, their wrists crossed, bound, over their heads.

  “See?” asked Haroun.

  “Kavars!” cried one of the Raviri.

  “No!” cried Suleiman. “The scimitar on the forearm! The point does not face out from the body!” He looked at Haroun. “These men are not Kavars,” he said.

  “No,” said Haroun.

  “Aretai raided Kavar oases,” cried a man, a guard among the Ta`Kara. “They broke wells!”

  Suleiman’s hand clenched on the hilt of his scimitar. “No!” he cried. “That is not true!”

  There was angry shouting among the Kavars and their cohorts.

  Haroun held up his hand. “Suleiman speaks the truth,” said he. “No Aretai raided in this season, and had they done so, they would not destroy wells. They are of the Tahari.”

  It was the highest compliment one tribesman could pay to another.

  “The Kavars, too,” said Suleiman, slowly, clearly, “are of the Tahari.”

  The men subsided.

  “We have a common enemy, who would put us at one another’s throats,” said Haroun.

  “Who?” asked Suleiman.

  Haroun turned to the tethered wretches. They lowered their arms and fell to their knees in the gravel and sand of the field. They put down their heads.

  “For whom do you ride?” demanded Haroun.

  One of the men, miserable, lifted his head. “For Tarna,” he said.

  “And whose minion is she?” asked Haroun.

  “The minion of Abdul, the Salt Ubar,” said the man. Then he put down his head.

  “I understand little of this,” said the young khan of the Tajuks. He carried a leather, black, lacquered buckler on his left arm, a slim, black, tem-wood lance in his right hand. At his side hung a scimitar, He wore a turban, and a burnoose, with the hood thrown back over his shoulders. His eyes, sharp and black, bore the epicanthic fold. At his saddle hung a conical steel helmet, oddly fashioned with a rim of fur encircling it, bespeaking a tradition in armory whose origin did not seem likely to be the Tahari. The young khan looked about, from face to face. He was angry. “I have come for a war,” he said. “Is there to be no war?”

  Haroun regarded him. “You shall have your war,” he said. Haroun looked at Suleiman. “I speak in good fai
th,” he said. “The Kavars, and all their vassal tribes, are yours to command.”

  “I am weak,” said Suleiman. “I am not yet recovered from my wound. Command the Aretai, and those who ride with them.”

  Haroun looked at the young Tajuk khan. “And you?” he asked.

  “Do you lead me to war?” asked the Tajuk.

  “Yes,” said Haroun.

  “Then I will follow you,” he said. The young khan spun his kaiila about. Then he turned again, and looked over his shoulder. “Who holds your left flank?” he asked.

  “The Tajuks.” said Haroun.

  “Aiiii!” cried the young khan, rising in his stirrups, lifting big lance. Then he sped upon his kaiila to his men.

  “Should you not return to Nine Wells?” asked Haroun of Suleiman.

  “No,” said Suleiman. Then be said, “I go to marshal my men.”

  The pashas and their guards who bad surrounded us returned to their forces.

  Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, handed the lance and pennon of his office to one of the men with Baram, his vizier.

  “Shall we kill these sleen?” asked Baram, indicating the kneeling, groveling wretches tethered to the pommel of Haroun’s saddle. They put their heads to the gravel and sand, trembling.

  “No,” said Haroun. “Take them to the tents and chain them there as slaves. There will be more later. They will bring a high price in Tor.”

  The tethers of the wretches were given to a rider. They were taken from the field.

  Orders were given. In a short time, great lines, strung out, began to move across the desert. In the center were the Kavars and the Aretai. On the right flank, riding together, were the Ta`Kara and the Luraz, the Bakahs and the Tashid, the Char, the Kashani and the Raviri. On the left were the Ti’ the Arani and the Zevar, and, holding the extremity of the flank, forty deep, the Tajuks.

  Behind us, behind Haroun and myself, who rode alone, we leading, strung out, were the long lines of riders, the gathered tribesmen of the Tahari.

  “How did things go in the dune country?” asked Haroun.

  “Well,” I told him.

  He dropped the wind veil about his shoulders. “I see you still wear about your left wrist a bit of silk,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You must, in the march, inform me of what occurred in the dune country,” he said.

  “I shall be pleased to do so,” I said. “By what name should I address you?”

  “By the name, by which you know me best,” he said.

  “Excellent,” said I, “Hassan.”

  24 I Bind a Girl, Reserving Her for Myself, I Then Address Myself to the Duties of Steel

  The outcome of the battle, some twenty pasangs from the kasbah of the Salt Ubar, had never been in doubt. That Ibn Saran met us at all, with the twenty-five hundred mercenaries be could muster does him much credit.

  He was swiftly enveloped. Many of his men, I believe, did not understand the nature of the forces they faced until we swept over the hills upon them. We outnumbered them four or five to one. Many of the mercenaries, unable to escape, discarded their bucklers and dismounted, thrusting their lances and scimitars into the ground. There was hard fighting, however, in the vicinity of Ibn Saran’s own men, those of the Salt Ubar and his allies, those who had fought with Tarna. I came once within one hundred and fifty yards of Ibn Saran; Hassan, or Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, came within twenty yards of him, fighting like a wild animal, but was turned back at last by a wall of bucklers, a hedge of lances. I did not see Tarna in the battle. I did see her men, but they fought under Ibn Saran. I gathered she had been relieved of her command.

  Late in the afternoon, Ibn Saran, with four hundred riders, broke through our lines and fled northwest.

  We did not pursue him but consolidated our victory.

  “He will take refuge in his kasbah,” said Hassan. “It will be difficult to take the kasbah.”

  That was true. If it could not be taken swiftly, it might not be possible to take it at all. We did not have enough water to maintain our men in the field.

  At best we might be able, failing to take the kasbah, to invest it with a smaller force that it would be practical to supply with water from Red Rock.

  Such a siege might last for months. Our extended, thinned lines would invite attack; it would be difficult, too, even if our investing lines were not broken in force, to prevent the escape of small parties at night.

  “Ibn Saran,” I said, “may slip through your fingers.”

  “We must take the kasbah.” said Hassan.

  “Perhaps I can help you,” I said. I fingered the ring of the Kurii, which hung about my neck on its leather string.

  The girl knelt before the low vanity with the natural, insolent grace of the trained slave. She combed, with a broad, curved comb of kailiauk horn, her long, dark hair. The comb was yellow. She wore a bit of yellow slave silk, her collar.

  She was beautiful in the mirror. How like a fool I felt that I had ever surrendered her. She knelt on broad, smooth scarlet tiles. About her left ankle, looped, were several golden slave bangles. The light in the room was from two tharlarion-oil lamps, one on each side of the mirror.

  She had not yet noticed the bit of silk I had left to the side.

  I regarded the slave, as she combed her hair. She, in a dungeon, in a holding somewhere of agents of Kurii, had betrayed Priest-Kings. Chained nude in a dungeon, in the darkness, among the urts, she had screamed for mercy. She had revealed all she knew of the Sardar, the plans of Priest-Kings, their practices and devices, the weakness of the Nest. If she fell into the hands of Samos I had little doubt he would have her bound and thrown to the urts, among the garbage, in the canals of Port Kar. Emptied of information she had been brought by Ibn Saran to the Tahari. Here she had, for him, identified me, when I entered the Tahari. I remembered her as one of the slaves who, bangled, in the high, tight vest of red silk, the sashed, diaphanous chalwar, had served wine in the palace of Suleiman at Nine Wells. She had been in the audience chamber when Suleiman had been struck. She had testified that it bad been I who had attacked him, I had seen her smile, when taken from the rack, after her testimony. Once she had served Priest-Kings; then, later, she had well served others, the Kurii and their agents; I watched her comb her hair, now I suspected she was for most practical purposes useless in the politics of planets; but she had been spared; I watched her movements; I smiled; I, too, would have spared her; surely she was not now completely without use; she retained. I noted, doubtless the reason for which she had been spared, the general utilities of my charming, pretty slave girl. Her flesh would bring a high price. To see her was to wish to own her.

  Pretty Vella. She put down the comb and reached for a tiny bottle of perfume.

  She touched her neck, below the ears, and her body, about the shoulders, with the scent. I knew the scent.

  I had carried it with me to Klima. I had not forgotten it.

  Her eye, as she put aside the tiny bottle of perfume, was caught by the bit of silk, lying to one side on the vanity.

  She looked at it, puzzled, curious.

  I recalled the morning I had, in chains, waited to be herded with other wretches to Klima. I had looked up. In a narrow window in the wall of the kasbah, high over my head, there had stood a woman, a slave girl, veiled and robed in yellow, a slave master behind her. With the permission of the slave master she had removed her veil. With what contempt, and scorn, and triumph she bad looked upon me, a mere male slave, chained and bound for Klima, below her. She had thrown me a token, a square of silk, slave silk, red, some eighteen inches square, redolent with the perfume fitted by some perfumer, on the order of her master, to her slave personality, her slave nature and slave body. It was something by which I might remember her at Klima, I had vowed to return from Klima. She had wished to see me hooded and led away. This treat, as useful discipline, despite her pleas, had been denied her by the slave master. She had thrown me a kiss, and then, before the
slave master, hurried from the window.

  I stood back in the room. I flicked the switch on the ring I wore, that I might be visible to her.

  She picked up the bit of silk. She opened it. It was tattered, faded, almost white. She held it open before her, looking at it. She took it in her hands and held it to her face, inhaling it. Suddenly she cried out in joy “Tarl!” She turned, springing to her feet. “Tarl!” she cried. “Tarl!” She ran to me, with a clash of bangles, and took me in her arms, her head at my chest, weeping. Tarl!” she wept. “Tarl! Tarl! I love you! I love you!”

  I took her wrists, and forced them, slowly, from my body. I held them. She struggled to reach me, to press her lips to my body. I did not permit this. She threw her head, in frustration, from side to side. Her face was stained with tears. She wept. “Let me touch you,” she cried. “Let me hold you! I love you! I love you!”

  I held her, by the upper arms, from me. She looked up into my eyes. “Oh, Tarl,” she wept. “Can you ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Kneel,” I told her.

  Slowly, numbly, the beauty slipped to her knees before me. “Tarl?” she said.

  I drew from my garment a rag. It was thin, brief, tattered, much torn; it was cheap rep-cloth, brown and coarse; it was stained with dirt, with grease. I had found it in the kitchens of Ibn Saran.

  I threw it against her body. “Put it on,” I told her.

  “I am a high slave,” she said.

  “Put it on,” I told her.

  She parted the bit of yellow silk she wore, dropping it to one side. She reached for the bit of rep-cloth.

  “Remove first the bangles,” I told her. She sat on the tiles and, one by one, slipped the bangles from her left ankle. Then she stood up, and pulled the rag over her head. Her body involuntarily shuddered as the grease-thick rag slipped over her beauty and clung snug, revealingly, about it; I examined her, walking about her; I tore the neckline down, to better expose the beauty of her breasts; I ripped away a strip from the garment’s hem, shortening it; she must now walk with exquisite care; I ripped the left side of the garment a bit more, to better reveal the delicious line from her left breast to her left hip.