Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “On your feet!” called one of them. He was some forty yards away.

  I struggled to stand upright in the sand, the sand about my ankles. I swayed, unsteadily. I stood looking at them, stupidly. The sun was at my back. I had seen to this in my approach.

  He who was called Baram, the most skillful, would make the first pass.

  “Water!” I cried out to them. “Please, water!”

  He was right-handed. He would pass on my right. I noted the lance. It was long, slim, some eight foot Gorean in length; it was marked with red and yellow swirling stripes; it terminated in an extremely narrow point, razored, steel, some eleven inches in length, lanceolate, as the leaf of the flahdah tree. It was no mistake that I stood where I did. The sand between us was smooth. I wanted the gait of his kaiila to be even. I judged the angle of the lance. His thrust would be to the head; I assumed it would be to the right ear. It would be easy enough to judge that when the point sped toward me. One often feints with the point, dropping it, or lifting it, or moving it to the one side or the other, dropping or lifting, or horizontally, in war; but in sport accuracy and not deception is paramount; I observed the rider; I saw him smile; I saw the kaiila rear up; I saw the lance fall into position; he lanced in sport; I faced him in war.

  He was unwary; his attention was fully focused on his target; did he think I was a slave girl on the plains of the Wagon Peoples, standing, a tospit in my mouth for his lance sport?

  I moved to the side and, with both hands, a yard behind the point, turning, caught the lance; the rider, crying out, was torn from the saddle and fell rolling in the sand as the kaiila sped by; the lance strap broke; I lifted the lance and, as he rolled onto his back, eyes looking up, horrified, thrust it through his body, pinning him to the sand; I jerked the lance from his body, holding it down with my left foot and swirled to meet the charge of the next man. I was startled. He had not charged. He had missed his chance. He was not skillful.

  I motioned him to charge.

  He remained in his position, not moving. There was fear in his face.

  I motioned him again to charge. He lifted his lance; he lowered it; then he did not charge; he backed his kaiila away.

  I turned my back to him and, slowly, insolently, walked to fetch the kaiila with the empty saddle. If he had approached, I would have heard him.

  I caught the rein of the other animal. The pack kaiila were near the other man, untended.

  I put my foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. The other rider turned his kaiila about, and fled. He neglected the pack animals.

  I rode my kaiila to the other animals and brought them back to the slain warrior.

  It would not be difficult to follow the trail of the other man. I would do so at my leisure. I took what I needed, weapons and boots and clothing from the fallen rider. I did not take the shirt but threw it aside, for it was bloodied. Then, on my kaiila, leading the other animals, I returned to the ship, to sort through the packs, and, from them, and the stores of the ship, to choose my supplies.

  It would not be necessary to follow the backtrail of the two riders who had approached the ship. There would be a fresher trail to follow. I would let the fleeing man lead me from the desert. He could not have had more than a one-talu water bag at his saddle.

  I slept during the late afternoon, and then, when it was night, and cool, the kaiila fed from their pack supplies, and watered from the stores at the ship, I set forth. In the light of the moons, the trail was not difficult to follow.

  23

  I Make the Acquaintance of Haroun, High Pasha of the Kavars

  I could hear the drums of war.

  “For whom do you ride?” challenged the man.

  “I ride with the Kavars,” I told him. I moved the kaiila, with the string of pack animals, over the crest of the hill. The wretch, stripped, wrists crossed and bound before his body, a tether running from them to my pommel, stumbled behind me and to the side. I had taken even his boots. He was almost lame; his feet were bloody; his legs were covered with dust and sweat, and marked with blood, where he had followed, tethered, through brush. I had followed him for four days, using his trail, and then, when I had found him in the sand, delirious and weak, trembling, thirsting, unable even to move, I had stripped and bound him, hand and foot. I then revived him with water and salt. I then climbed again to my saddle.

  “Do not leave me!” he wept.

  “I no longer need your trail,” I told him. “I can find Red Rock now,” I told him.

  “Do not leave me!” he cried out. He knelt naked in the hot sand, his ankles bound, his wrists tied behind his back.

  I moved the kaiila, and the pack animals, slowly from him. When I had gone a few yards, I turned in the saddle.

  “There is to be war,” I said. “The Kavars, and the Aretai, and their attendant vassal tribes, gather.”

  “Do not leave me!” cried the man. He could not rise to his feet.

  “Do you know where will be the field of their war?” I asked him.

  “Yes! Yes!” he cried.

  I regarded him.

  “Yes,” he said, “—Master.”

  “Can you lead me there?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master!” he cried. “Yes, Master!”

  His own kaiila was gone, wandered away. The pack kaiila were tied together, the long, lead rein of the first animal looped about my pommel. I redistributed the burdens of the animals. I untied the ankles of the man and put him, hands still tied together behind his back, on the lead animal. His ankles I then tied together beneath the belly of the animal.

  “Lead me,” I told him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  I unsheathed the scimitar I carried.

  He tensed himself. “Yes, Master!” he said.

  I resheathed the scimitar.

  Two days later we arrived in the vicinity of the field. Some five hours from the field, I slashed the ropes that tied his ankles beneath the kaiila and, thrusting up on his left foot, sprawled him in the gravel, turning him then to his stomach.

  “Do not kill me now!” he wept.

  I tied together his ankles. I redistributed the burdens again on the pack animals.

  “Do you wish to fight me to the death?” I asked him.

  “No! No, Master!” he said.

  I then crossed and tied his hands together before his body, and ran a tether from his hands to the pommel of my saddle.

  * * * *

  I could hear the drums of war.

  “For whom do you ride?” challenged the man.

  “I ride with the Kavars,” I told him. I moved the kaiila to the crest of the hill.

  It was a splendid sight.

  In the field below, or the plain, there might have been some ten thousand riders. They were stretched out for pasangs, several deep. I could hear the drums. I saw the pennons, the standards. They were separated by some four hundred yards. Lances bristled in the ranks. Behind each of the arrangements of lines were hundreds of tents, striped in different colors.

  My kaiila shifted on the crest of the hill. The blood of the warrior in me raced.

  “Are you Kavar, come late to the formations?” asked the man.

  “No,” I said.

  “Of what vassal tribe are you?” asked the man.

  “Of no vassal tribe,” I said. “But it is with the Kavars that I choose to ride.”

  “Welcome,” said the man, delightedly, lifting his lance. The others, too, behind him, lifted their lances. “It should be a magnificent battle,” said the man.

  I stood in the stirrups. I could see the Kavar center, white. On the left flank were the pennons of the Ta’Kara and the purple of the Bakahs. On the right flank were the golden Char and the diverse reds and bright yellows of the Kashani.

  “By what name are you known?” asked the man.

  “Hakim of Tor,” I said.

  “Will you ride to battle leading pack kaiila?” asked the man.

  “I think not,” I said. “I give them t
o you.”

  The man gestured and one of those with him led away the kaiila, making a great circuit that would lead him behind the Kavar lines, to the tents. There were hundreds of pack kaiila in evidence among the tents.

  “Who is this?” asked the man, pointing to the wretch tethered at my pommel.

  I addressed myself to the wretch. “Do you wish to fight me to the death?” I asked.

  He put down his head. “No, Master,” he said.

  “He is a slave,” I said to the man. “I have no further use for him. I give him to you.”

  “We can use him,” said the man. “Such are useful in hoeing vegetables at remote oases.”

  I threw the wretch’s tether to one of the riders, one indicated by the man with whom I spoke.

  “Come, Slave,” said the rider, he who now held the tether.

  “Yes, Master!” said the man. Only too pleased was he that his tether no longer was looped about my pommel. The rider moved his kaiila away. He did not spare the wretch, who struggled to keep his pace. Behind the Kavar lines, among the tents, with the kaiila and other goods, the man would be chained, to await his disposition among masters.

  To my right were the lines of the Aretai. The Aretai themselves, of course, with black kaffiyeh and white agal cording, held their center. Their right flank was held by the Luraz and the Tashid. Their left flank was held by the Raviri, and four minor tribes, the Ti, the Zevar, the Arani and the Tajuks. The Tajuks are not actually a vassal tribe of the Aretai, though they ride with them. More than two hundred years ago a wandering Tajuk had been rescued in the desert by Aretai riders, who had treated him well, and had given him water and a kaiila. The man had found his way back to his own tents. Since that time the Tajuks had, whenever they heard the Aretai were gathering, and summoning tribes, come to ride with them. They had never been summoned by the Aretai, who had no right to do this, but they had never failed to come. Usually an Aretai merchant, selling small goods, would visit the tents of the Khan of the Tajuks, the black kaffiyeh and white agal cording guaranteeing him safe passage, and, at the campfire of the Khan, after his trading, while drinking tea, would say, “I have heard that the Aretai are gathering for war.”

  “At what place,” would inquire the Tajuk Khan, as had his father, and his father before him.

  The Khan would then be told the place.

  “We will be there,” the Khan would then say.

  I could see that there was trouble on the left flank of the Aretai. The Tajuk riders were forcing their way to the front of the lines, between the Zevar and the Arani. Tajuks were accustomed to this position. They had held the front lines of the Aretai left flank for two hundred years. The left flank, incidentally, is the critical flank in this form of warfare. The reason for this is interesting and simple. The primary engagement weapons are lance and scimitar, and the primary defense is a small round buckler. There is a tendency, after the lines are engaged for each force to drift to its right. In a Gorean engagement on foot, incidentally, assuming uniform lines, this drift is almost inevitable, because each man, in fighting, tends to shelter himself partially, as he can, behind the shield of the man on his right. This causes the infantry lines to drift. A result of this is that it is common for each left flank to be outflanked by the opponent’s right flank. There are various ways to counter this. One might deepen ranks in the left flank, if one has the men to do this. One might use tharlarion on the left flank. One might, if one has the men, use clouds of archers and slingers to hold back the enemy. One might choose his terrain in such a way as to impede the advancement of the enemy’s right flank. One might abandon uniform lines, etc. This drift is much less pronounced, but still exists, in cavalry engagements. It probably has to do with the tendency of the fighters to move the buckler to the right, in shielding themselves. These considerations, of course, presuppose that some semblance of lines is maintained. This is much more difficult to do in a cavalry engagement than in a foot engagement. Tahari battles, at some time or another, almost always, the forces deeply interpenetrating one another, turn into a melee of individual combats. The left flank of the Aretai, in two hundred years, it was said, had not been turned. It had been held by the fierce Tajuks, a culturally united but mixed-race people, many of whom were characterized by the epicanthic fold. Now, I gathered, the Zevar and Arani had prevailed upon the Aretai command to defend the front lines of the left flank, or perhaps the Tajuks had merely come late, to discover their position occupied by others. There was not good feeling between the Tajuks and the Zevar and Arani. “They are not even vassal to the Aretai,” it had been charged. “Yet they are given prominence in the left flank!”

  I could see a small group of riders hurrying from the Aretai center to their left flank.

  It would scarcely do for the Tajuks and the Zevar and Arani to begin fighting among themselves. I realized, however, as must have the hurrying riders, that this was not at all impossible. The Tajuks had come for a war; at a word from their Khan they would, without a second thought, with good cheer, initiate this enterprise against the Zevar and Arani tribesmen. The Tajuks were a touchy people, arrogant, proud, generous, capricious. If offended, and not deeming it honorable to attack the allies of the Aretai, they might simply withdraw their forces and return to their own land, more than a thousand pasangs away. It was not impossible, in order to demonstrate their displeasure, that they would choose to go over to the Kavar side, assuming that they would be given prominence in the Kavar left flank. I respected the Tajuks, but I, like most others, did not profess to understand them.

  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 whit
e. 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, that 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.