Nomads of Gor coc-4

by John Norman

  The sewn, painted boskhides that had covered the domed framework over the vast wagon of Kutaituchik hung slashed and rent from the joined em-wood poles of the framework.

  Where they were not torn I saw that they had been pierced as though a knife had been driven through them again and again, only inches apart.

  There were some fifteen or twenty guards slain, mostly by arrows. They lay tumbled about, several on the dais near the wagon. In one body there were six arrows.

  Kamchak leaped from the back of his kaiila and, seizing a torch from an iron rack, leaped up the stairs and entered the wagon.

  I followed him, but then stopped, startled at what I saw.

  Literally thousands of arrows had been fired through the dome into the wagon. One could not step without breaking and snapping them. Near the centre of the wagon, alone, his head bent over, on the robe of grey boskhide, sat Kutaituchik, perhaps fifteen or twenty arrows imbedded in his body. At his right knee was the golden kanda box. I looked about. The wagon had been looted, the only one that had been as far as I knew.

  Kamchak had gone to the body of Kutaituchik and sat down across from it, cross-legged, and had put his head in his hands.

  I did not disturb him.

  Some others pressed into the wagon behind us, but not many, and those who did remained in the background.

  I heard Kamchak moan. “The bosk are doing as well as might be expected,” he said. “The quivas I will try to keep them sharp. I will see that the axles of the wagons are greased.” Then he bent his head down and sobbed, rocking back and forth.

  Aside from his weeping I could hear only the crackle of I the torch that lit the interior of the rent dome. I saw here and there, among the rugs and polished wood bristling with white arrows, overturned boxes, loose jewels scattered, torn robes and tapestries. I did not see the golden sphere. If it had been there, it was now gone.

  At last Kamchak stood up.

  He turned to face me. I could still see tears in his eyes.

  “He was once a great warrior,” he said.

  I nodded.

  Kamchak looked about himself, and picked up one of the arrows and snapped it.

  “Turians are responsible for this,” he said.

  “Saphrar?” I asked.

  “Surely,” said Kamchak, “for who could hire tarnsmen but Saphrar of Turia or arrange for the diversion that drew fools to the edge of the herds.”

  I was silent.

  “There was a golden sphere,” said Kamchak. “It was that which he wanted.”

  I said nothing.

  “Like yourself, Tarl Cabot,” added Kamchak.

  I was startled.

  “Why else,” asked he, “would you have come to the Wagon Peoples?”

  I did not respond. I could not.

  “Yes,” I said, “it is true I want it for Priest-Kings. It is important to them.”

  “It is worthless,” said Kamchak.

  “Not to Priest-Kings,” I said.

  Kamchak shook his head. “No, Tarl Cabot,” said he, “the golden sphere is worthless.”

  The Tuchuk then looked around himself, sadly, and then again gazed on the sitting, bent-over figure of Kutaituchik.

  Suddenly tears seemed to burst from Kamchak’s eyes and his fists were clenched. “He was a great man!” cried Kamchak. “Once he was a great man.”

  I nodded. I knew Kutaituchik, of course, only as the huge, somnolent mass of man who sat cross-legged on a robe of grey boskhide, his eyes dreaming.

  Suddenly Kamchak cried out in rage and seized up the golden kanda box and hurled it away.

  “There will now have to be a new Ubar of the Tuchuks,” I said, softly.

  Kamchak turned and faced me. “No,” he said.

  “Kutaituchik,” I said, “is dead.”

  Kamchak regarded me evenly. “Kutaituchik,” he said, “divas not Ubar of the Tuchuks.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “He was called Ubar of the Tuchuks,” said Kamchak, “but he was not Ubar.”

  “How can this be?” I asked.

  “We Tuchuks are not such fools as Turians would believe,” said Kamchak. “It was for such a night as this that Kutaituchik waited in the Wagon of the Ubar.”

  I shook my head in wonder.

  “He wanted it this way,” said Kamchak. “He would have it no other.” Kamchak wiped his arm across his eyes. “He said it was now all he was good for, for this and for nothing else.”

  It was a brilliant strategy.

  “Then the true Ubar of the Tuchuks is not slain,” I said.

  “No,” said Kamchak.

  “Who knows who the Ubar truly is?” I asked.

  “The Warriors know,” said Kamchak. “The warriors.”

  “Who is Ubar of the Tuchuks?” I asked.

  “I am,” said Kamchak.

  Chapter 15

  HAROLD

  Turia, to some extent, now lay under sedge, though the Tuchuks alone could not adequately invest the city. The other Wagon Peoples regarded the problem of the slaying of Kutaituchik and the despoiling of his wagon as one best left to the resources of the people of the four bosk. It did not concern, in their opinion, the Kassars, the Kataii or the Paravaci. There had been Kassars who had wanted to fight and some Kataii, but the calm heads of the Paravaci had convinced them that the difficulty lay between Turia and the Tuchuks, not Turia and the Wagon Peoples generally. Indeed, envoys had flown on tarnback to the Kassars, Kataii and Paravaci, assuring them of Turia’s lack of hostile intentions towards them, envoys accompanied by rich gifts.

  The cavalries of the Tuchuks, however, managed to maintain a reasonably effective blockade of land routes to Turia. Four times masses of tharlarion cavalry had charged forth from the city but each time the Hundreds withdrew before them until the charge had been enveloped in the swirling kaiila, and then its riders were brought down swiftly by the flashing arrows of the Tuchuks, riding in closely, almost to lance range and firing again and again until striking home.

  Several times also, hosts of tharlarion had attempted to protect caravans leaving the city, or advanced to meet scheduled caravans approaching Turia, but each time in spite of this support, the swift, harrying, determined riders of the Tuchuks had forced the caravans to turn back, or man by man, beast by beast, left them scattered across pasangs of prairie.

  The mercenary tarnsmen of Turia were most feared by the Tuchuks, for such could, with relative impunity, fire upon them from the safety of their soaring height, but even this dread weapon of Turia could not, by itself, drive the Tuchuks from the surrounding plains. In the field the Tuchuks would counter the tarnsmen by breaking open the Hundreds into scattered Tens and presenting only erratic, swiftly moving targets; it is difficult to strike a rider or beast at a distance from tarnback when he is well aware of you and ready to evade your missile; did the tarnsman approach too closely, then he himself and his mount were exposed to the return fire of the Tuchuks, in which case of proximity, the Tuchuk could use his small bow to fierce advantage. The archery of tarnsmen, of course, is most effective against massed infantry or clusters of the ponderous tharlarion. Also, perhaps not unimportantly, many of Turia’s mercenary tarnsmen found themselves engaged in the time-consuming, distasteful task of supplying the city from distant points, often bringing food and arrow wood from as far away as the valleys of the eastern Cartius. I presume that the mercenaries, being tarnsmen a proud, headstrong breed of men made the Turians pay highly for the supplies they carried, the indignities of bearing burdens being lessened somewhat by the compensating weight of golden tarn disks.

  There was no problem of water in the city, incidentally, for Turia’s waters are supplied by deep, tile-lined wells, some of them hundreds of feet deep; there are also siege reservoirs, Bled with the melted snows of the winter, the rains of the spring.

  Kamchak, on kaiilaback, would sit in fury regarding the distant, white walls of Turia. He could not prevent the supplying of the city by air. He lack
ed siege engines, and the men, and the skills, of the northern cities. He stood as a nomad, in his way baffled at the walls raised against him.

  “I wonder,” I said, “why the tarnsmen have not struck at the wagons with fire arrows why they do not attack the bosk themselves, slaying them from the air, forcing you to withdraw to protect the beasts.”

  It seemed to be a simple, elementary strategy. There was, after all, no place on the prairies to hide the wagons or the bosk, and tarnsmen could easily reach them anywhere within a radius of several hundred pasangs.

  “They are mercenaries,” growled Kamchak.

  “I do not understand your meaning,” I said.

  “We have paid them not to burn the wagons nor slay the bosk,” said he.

  “They are being paid by both sides?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said Kamchak, irritably.

  For some reason this angered me, though, naturally, I was pleased that the wagons and boss; were yet safe. I suppose I was angered because I myself was a tarnsman, and it seemed somehow improper for warriors astride the mighty tarns to barter their favours indiscriminately for gold to either side.

  “But,” said Kamchak, “I think in the end Saphrar of Turia will meet their price and the wagons will be fired and the bosk slain” He gritted his teeth. “He has not yet met it,” said Kamchak, “because we have not yet harmed him nor made him feel our presence.”

  I nodded.

  “We will withdraw,” said Kamchak. He turned to a subordinate. “Let the wagons be gathered,” he said, “and the bosk turned from Turia.”

  “You are giving up?” I asked.

  Kamchak’s eyes briefly gleamed. Then he smiled. “Of course,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  I knew that I myself must somehow enter Turia, for in Turia now lay the golden sphere. I must somehow attempt to seize it and return it to the Sardar. Was it not for this purpose that I had come to the Wagon Peoples? I cursed the fact that I had waited so long even to the time of the Omen Taking for thereby had I lost the opportunity to try for the sphere myself in the wagon of Kutaituchik. Now, to my chagrin, the sphere lay not in a Tuchuk wagon on the open prairie but, presumably, in the House of Saphrar, a merchant stronghold, behind the high, white walls of Turia.

  I did not speak to Kamchak of my intention, for I was confident that he would have, and quite properly, objected to so foolish a mission, and perhaps even have attempted to prevent my leaving the camp.

  Yet I did not know the city. I could not see how I might enter. I did not know how I might even attempt to succeed in so dangerous a task as that which I had set myself.

  The afternoon among the wagons was a busy one, for they were preparing to move. Already the herds had been eased westward, away from Turia toward Thassa, the distant sea.

  There was much grooming of wagon bosk, checking of harness and wagons, cutting of meat to be dried hanging from the sides of the moving wagons in the sun and wind. In the morning the wagons, in their long lines, would follow the slowly moving herds away from Turia. Meanwhile the Omen I Taking, even with the participation of the Tuchuk haruspexes, continued for the haruspexes of the people would remain behind until even the final readings had been completed. I had heard, from a master of hunting sleen, that the Omens were developing predictably, several to one against the choice of a Ubar San. Indeed, the difficulty of the Tuchuks with the Turians had possibly, I guessed, exerted its influence on an omen or two in passing. One could hardly blame the Kassars, the Kataii and Paravaci for not wanting to be led by a Tuchuk against Turia or for not wanting to acquire the Tuchuk troubles by uniting with them in any fashion. The Paravaci were particularly insistent on maintaining the independence of the peoples

  Since the death of Kutaituchik, Kamchak had turned ugly in manner. Now he seldom drank or joked or laughed. I missed his hitherto frequent proposals of contests, races and wagers. He now seemed dour, moody, consumed with hatred for Turia and Turians. He seemed particularly vicious with Aphris. She was Turian. When he returned that night from the wagon of Kutaituchik to his own wagon he strode angrily to the sleen cage where he had confined Aphris with Elizabeth during the putative attack. He unlocked the door and ordered the Turian maiden forth, commanding her to stand before him, head down. Then, without speaking, to her consternation he tore swiftly away the yellow camisk and fastened slave bracelets on her wrists. “I should whip you,” he said. The girl trembled. “But why, Master?” she asked.

  “Because you are Turian,” he said. The girl looked at him with tears in her eyes. Roughly Kamchak took her by the arm and thrust her into the sleen cage beside the miserable Elizabeth Cardwell. He shut the door and locked it. “Master?” questioned Aphris. “Silence, Slave,” he said. The girl dared not speak. “There both of you will wait for the Iron Master,” he snarled, and turned abruptly, and went to the stairs to the wagon. But the Iron Master did not come that night, or the next, or the next. In these days of siege and war there were more important matters to attend to than the branding and collaring of female slaves. “Let him ride with his Hundred,” Kamchak said. “They will not run away let them wait like she-sleep in their cage not knowing on which day the iron will come.” Also, perhaps for no reason better than his suddenly found hatred for Aphris of Turia, he seemed in no hurry to free the girls from their confinement.

  “Let them crawl out,” he snarled, “begging for a brand.”

  Aphris, in particular, seemed utterly distraught by Kamchak’s unreasoning cruelty, his callous treatment of herself and Elizabeth perhaps most by his sudden, seeming indifference to her. I suspected, though the girl would not have dreamed of making the admission, that her heart as well as her body might nova rightfully have been claimed as his by the cruel Ubar of the Tuchuks. Elizabeth Cardwell refused to meet my eyes, and would not so much as speak to me. “Go away!” she would cry. “Leave me!” Kamchak, once a day, at night, the hour in which sleen are fed, would throw the girls bits of bosk meat and fill a pan of water kept in the cage. I remonstrated with him frequently in private but he was adamant. He would look at Aphris and then return to the wagon and sit cross-legged, not speaking, for hours, staring at the side of the wagon. Once he pounded the rug on the polished floor in front of him and cried out angrily, as though to remind himself of some significant and inalterable fact, “She is Turian! Turian!” The work of the wagon was done by Tuka and another girl, whom Kamchak hired for the purpose. When the wagons were to move, Tuka was to walk beside the cart of the sleen cage, drawn by a single bosk, and with a bosk stick guide the animal. I once spoke harshly to her when I saw her cruelly poke Elizabeth Cardwell through the bars with the bosk stick. Never did she do so again when I was nearby. She seemed to leave the distressed, red-eyed Aphris of Turia alone, perhaps because she was Turian, perhaps because she had no grievance against her. “Where now is the pelt of the red larl, Slave?” Tuka would taunt Elizabeth, threatening her with the bosk stick. “You will look pretty with a ring in your nose!” she would cry. “You will like your collar! Wait until you feel the iron, Slave like Tuka!” Kamchak never reproved Tuka, but I would silence her when I was present. Elizabeth endured the insults as though paying no attention, but sometimes at night I could hear her sobbing.

  I searched among the wagons long before I found, sitting cross-legged beneath a wagon, wrapped in a worn bosk robe, his weapons at hand folded in leathers the young man whose name was Harold, the blond-haired, blue-eyed fellow who had been so victimized by Hereena, she of the First Wagon, who had fallen spoils to Turia in the games of Love War.

  He was eating a piece of bosk meat in the Tuchuk fashion, holding He meat in his left hand and between his teeth, and cutting pieces from it with a quiva scarcely a quarter inch from his lips, then chewing the severed bite and then again holding the meat in his hand and teeth and cutting again.

  Without speaking I sat down near him and watched him eat. He eyed me warily, and neither did he speak. After a time I said to him, “How are the bosk?”

/>   “They are doing as well as night be expected,” he said.

  “Are the quivas sharp?” I inquired.

  “We try to keep them that way,” he said.

  “It is important,” I observed, “to keep the axles of wagons greased.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I think so.”

  He handed me a piece of meat and I chewed on it.

  “You are Tarl Cabot, the Koroban,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, “and you are Harold the Tuchuk.”

  He looked at me and smiled. “Yes,” he said, “I am Harold the Tuchuk.”

  “I am going to Turia,” I said.

  “That is interesting,” said Harold, “I, too, am going to Turia.”

  “On an important matter?” I inquired.

  “No,” he said.

  “What is it you think to do?” I asked.

  “Acquire a girl,” he said.

  “Ah,” I said.

  “What is it you wish in Turia?” inquired Harold.

  “Nothing important,” I remarked.

  “A woman?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, “a golden sphere.”

  “I know of it,” said Harold, “it was stolen from the wagon of Kutaituchik.” He looked at me. “It is shill to lie worthless.”

  “Perhaps,” I admitted, “but I think I shall go to Turia and look about for it. Should I chance to see it I might pick it up and bring it back with me.”

  “Where do you think this golden sphere will be lying about?” asked Harold.

  “I expect,” I said “it might be found here or there in the House of Saphrar, a merchant of Turia.”

  “That is interesting,” said Harold, “for I had thought I might try chain luck in the Pleasure Gardens of a Turian merchant named Saphrar.”

  “That is interesting indeed,” I said, “perhaps it is the same.”

  “It is possible,” granted Harold. “Is he the smallish fellow, rather fat, with two yellow teeth.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then I shall attempt not to he hitter,” I said.

  “I think that is a good idea,” granted Harold.