by John Norman
I would leave in the morning.
That night I found Kamchak’s old wagon, and though it had been looted, it had not been burned.
There was no sign of either Aphris or Elizabeth, either about the wagon, or in the overturned, broken sleen cage in which, when I had last seen them, Kamchak had confined them. I was told by a Tuchuk woman that they had not been in the cage when the Paravaci had struck but rather that Aphris had been in the wagon and the barbarian, as she referred to Miss Cardwell, had been sent to another wagon, the whereabouts she did not know. Aphris had, according to the woman, fallen into the hands of the Paravaci who had looted Kamchak’s wagon; Elizabeth’s fate she did not know; I gathered, of course, from the fact that Elizabeth had been sent to another wagon that Kamchak had sold her. I wondered who her new master might be and hoped, for her sake, that she would well please him. She might, of course, have also fallen, lice Aphris, into the hands of the Paravaci. I was bitter and sad as I looked about the interior of Kamchak’s wagon. The covering on the framework had been torn in several places and the rugs ripped or carried away. The saddle on the side had been cut and the quivas had been taken from their sheaths. The hangings were torn down, the wood of the wagon scratched and marred. Most of the gold and jewels, and precious plate and cups and goblets, were missing, except where here and there a coin or stone might lie missed at the edge of the wagon hides or at the foot of were gone and those that were not had been shattered against the floor, or against the wagon poles, leaving dark stains on the poles and on the hides behind them. The floor was littered with broken glass. Some things, of little or no worth, but which I remembered fondly, were still about.
There was a brass ladle that Aphris and Elizabeth had used in cooking and a tin box of yellow Turian sugar, dented in now and its contents scattered; and the large, grey leathery object which I had upon occasion seen Kamchak use as a stool, that which he had once kicked across the floor for my inspection; he had been fond of it, that curiosity, and would perhaps be pleased that it had not been, like most of his things, carried away in the leather loot sacks of Paravaci raiders. I wondered on the fate of Aphris of Turia.
Kamchak, I knew, however, cared little for the slave, and would not be much concerned; yet her fate concerned me, and~hoped that she might live, that her beauty if not compassion or justice might have won her life for her, be it only as a Paravaci wagon slave; and then, too, I wondered again on the fate of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, the lovely young New York secretary, so cruelly and so far removed from her own world; and then, exhausted, I lay down on the boards of Kamchak’s looted wagon and fell asleep.
Chapter 24
THE WAGON OF A COMMANDER
Turia was now largely under the control of Tuchuks. For days it had been burning.
The morning after the Battle at the Wagons I had mounted a rested kaiila and set forth for Turia. Some Ahn after departing from the Tuchuk camp I encountered the wagon that carried my tarn, and its guard, still advancing toward the camp. The wagon carrying Harold’s tarn and its guard accompanied it. I-left the kaiila with the Tuchuks and mounted my tarn, and in less than an Ahn, saw the shimmering walls of Turia in the distance, and the veils of smoke rising over the city.
The House of Saphrar still stood, and the tower that had been fortified by Ha-Keel’s tarnsmen. Aside from these there remained few pockets of organized-resistance in the city, though here and there, in alleys and on roof tops, small groups of Turians furtively and sporadically attempted to carry the war to the invaders. I and Kamchak expected Saphrar to flee by tarn at any moment, for it must now be clear to him that the strike of the Paravaci against the Tuchuk wagons and herds had not forced Kamchak to withdraw; indeed, his forces were now supplemented by Kataii and Kassars, a development which must have horrified him.
The only reason that occurred to me why Saphrar had not yet fled was that he was waiting in Turia for an excellent reason possibly the arrival on tarnback of the grey man with whom he had negotiated apparently to secure the golden sphere. I reminded myself, beyond this, that if his house should actually be forced, and himself threatened, he could always flee, with relative safety, at the last moment, At abandoning his men, his servants and slaves to the mercies of ravaging Tuchuks.
I knew that Kamchak was in constant touch, by means of riders, with the wagons of the Tuchuks, and so I did not speak with him of the looting of his wagon, nor of the fate of Aphris of Turia, nor did I deem it well to speak to him of Elizabeth Cardwell, for it seemed evident that he had sold her, and that my inquiry, to a Tuchuk mind, might thus appear prying or impertinent; I would discover, if possible, her master and his whereabouts independently; indeed, for all I knew, perhaps she had been abducted by raiding Paravaci, and none among the Tuchuks would even know.
I did ask Kamchak why, considering the probabilities that If the Kataii and the Kassars would not have come to the aid of the Tuchuks, he had not abandoned Turia and returned with his main forces to the wagons. “It was a wager,” said he, “which I had made with myself.”
“A dangerous wager,” I had remarked.
“Perhaps,” he said, “but I think I know the Kataii and the Kassars.”
“The stakes were high,” I said.
“They are higher than you know,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“The wager is not yet done,” he said, but would speak no dusk more.
On the day following my arrival in Turia, Harold, on tarnback, relieved at his request of the command of the wagons and herds joined me in the palace of Phanius Turmus must.
During the day and night, taking hours of sleep where we could, sometimes on the rugs of the palace of Phanius Turmus, sometimes on the stones of the streets by watch fires, Harold and I, at Kamchak’s orders, performed a variety of tasks, sometimes joining in the fighting, sometimes acting as liaison between him nod other commanders, sometimes merely positioning men, checking outposts and reconnoitring.
Kamchak’s forces, on the whole, were so disposed as to push the Turians toward two gates which he had left open and undefended, thus providing a route of escape for civilians and soldiers who would make use of it. From certain positions on the walls we could see the stream of refugees fleeing the burning city. They carried food and what possessions they could. The time of the year was the late spring and the prairie’s climate was not unkind, though occasionally long rains must have made the lot of the refugees fleeing toward other cities miserable. There were occasional small creek, across the paths of the refugees and water was available.
Also, Kamchak, to my pleasure but surprise, had had his men drive verr flocks and some Turian bosk after the refugees I asked him about this, for Tuchuk warfare, as I understood it, was complete, leaving no living thing in its wake, killing even domestic animals and poisoning wells. Certain cities, burned by the Wagon Peoples more than a hundred years ago, were still said to be desolate ruins between their broken walls, silent save for the wind and the occasional foot-fall of a prowling sleen hunting for urts.
“The Wagon Peoples need Turia,” said Kamchak, simply.
I was thunderstruck. Yet it seemed to me true, for Turia was the main avenue of contact between the Wagon Peoples and the other cities of Gor, the gate through which trade-goods flowed to the wilderness of grasses that was the land of the riders of the kaiila and the herders of bosk. Without Turia, to be sure, the Wagon Peoples would undoubtedly be the poorer.
“And,” said Kamchak, “the Wagon Peoples need an enemy.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Without an enemy,” said Kamchak, “they will never stand together and if they fail to stand together, someday they will fall.”
“Has this something to do with the ‘wager’ you spoke of?”
I asked.
“Perhaps,” said Kamchak.
-Still I was not altogether satisfied, for, on the whole, it seemed to me that Turia might yet have survived even had Kamchak’s forces wrought much greate
r destruction than they had for example, opening but a single gate and permitting only a few hundred, rather than thousands to escape the city. “is that all?” I asked. “Is that the only reason that Be many of Turia yet live beyond the city?”
He looked at me, without expression. “Surely, Commander,” he said, “you have duties elsewhere.”
I nodded curtly and turned and left the room, dismissed.
Long ago I had learned not to press the Tuchuk when he did not wish to speak. But as I left I wondered at his compare five lenience. He professed a cruel hatred of Turia and Turians, and yet he had, considering the normal practices of the Wagon Peoples, not noted for their mercy to helpless foes, treated the unarmed citizens of the city with unique indulgence, permitting them, on the whole, to keep their lives and freedom, though only as refugees beyond the walls. The clearest exception to this, of course, lay in the case of the more beautiful of the city’s women, who were treated by Gorean custom, as portions of the booty.
I spent what free time I could in the vicinity of Saphrar’s compound. The structures about the compound had been fortified by Tuchuks, and walls of stone and wood had been thrown into the streets and openings between the buildings, thus enclosing the compound. I had been training some hundred Tuchuks in the use of the crossbow, dozens of which had now fallen into our hands. Each warrior had at his disposal five crossbows and four Turian slaves, for winding and loading the bows. These warriors I stationed on roofs of buildings encircling the compound, as close to the walls as possible. The crossbow, though its rate of fire is much slower than the Tuchuk bow, has a much greater range. With the crossbow in our hands, the business of bringing tarns in and out of the compound became proportionately more hazardous, which, of course, was what I intended. In fact, to my elation, some of my fledgling crossbowmen, on the first day, brought down four tarns attempting to enter the compound, though, to be sure, several escaped them. If we could get the crossbows into the compound itself, perhaps even to the outside walls, we could for most practical purposes close the compound to entrance and escape by air. I feared, of course, that this addition to our armament might hasten Saphrar’s departure, but, as it turned out, it did not, perhaps because the first word Saphrar had of our intentions was the tumbling of dying tarns behind the walls of the compound.
Harold and I chewed on some bosk meat roasted over a fire built on the marble floor of the palace of Phanius Turmus. Nearby our tethered kaiila crouched, their paws on the bodies of slain verrs, devouring them.
“Most of the people,” Harold was saying, “are out of the city now.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“Kamchak will close the gates soon,” said Harold, “and then we shall get to work on Saphrar’s house and that tarn roost of Ha-Keel’s.”
I nodded. The city now largely clear of defenders, and closed to the outside, Kamchak could bring his forces to bear on Saphrar’s house, that fort within a fort, and on the tower of Ha-Keel, taking them, if necessary, by storm. Ha-Keel had, we estimated, most of a thousand tarnsmen still with him, plus many Turian guardsmen. Saphrar probably had, behind his walls, more than three thousand defenders, plus a comparable number of servants and slaves, who might be of some service to him, particularly in such matters as reinforcing gates, raising the height of walls, loading crossbows, gathering arrows from within the compound, cooking and distributing food and, in the case of the women, or some of them, pleasing his warriors.
After I had finished the bosk meat I lay back on the floor, a cushion beneath my head, and stared at the ceiling. I could see stains from our cooking fire on the vaulted dome.
“Are you going to spend the night here?” asked Harold.
“I suppose so,” I said.
“But some thousand bosk came today from the wagons,” he said.
I turned to look at him. I knew Kamchak had brought, over the past few days, several hundred bosk to graze near Turia, to use in-feeding his troops.
“What has that to do with where I sleep?” I asked. “You are perhaps going to sleep on the back of a bosk because you are a Tuchuk or something?” I thought that a rather good one, at any rate for me.
But Harold did not seem particularly shattered, and I sighed.
“A Tuchuk,” he informed me loftily, “may if he wishes rest comfortably on even the horns of a bosk, but only a Koroban is likely to recline on a marble floor when he might just as well sleep upon the pelt of a larl in the wagon of a commander.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I suppose not,” said Harold.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“But you still do not understand?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Poor Koroban,” he muttered. Then he got up, wiped his quiva on his left sleeve, and thrust it in his belt.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To my wagon,” he said. “It arrived with the bosk along with better than two hundred other wagons today including yours.”
I propped myself up on one elbow. “I do not have a-wagon,” I said.
“But of course you do,” he said. “And so do I.”
I merely looked at him, wondering if it were merely Harold the Tuchuk at work again.
“I am serious,” he averred. “The night that you and I to departed for Turia, Kamchak ordered a wagon prepared for each of us to reward us.”
I remembered that night the long swim against the underground current, the well, our capture, the Yellow Pool of Turia, the Pleasure Gardens, the tarns and escape.
“At that time, of course,” said Harold, “our wagons were not painted red, nor filled with booty and rich things, for we were not then commanders.”
“But to reward us for what?” I asked.
“For courage,” said he.
“Just that?” I asked.
“But for what else?” asked Harold.
“For success,” I said. “You were successful. You did what you set out to do. I did not. I failed. I did not obtain the golden sphere.”
“But the golden sphere is worthless,” said Harold. “Kamchak has said so.”
“He does not know its value,” I said.
Harold shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said.
“So you see,” I said, “I was not successful.”
“But you were successful,” insisted Harold.
“How is that?” I asked.
“To a Tuchuk,” said Harold, “success is courage that is the important thing courage itself even if all else fails that is success.”
“I see,” I said.
“There is something here I think you do not realize,” said Harold.
“What is that?” I asked.
He paused. “That in entering Turia and escaping as we did even bringing tarns to the camp we the two of us won the Courage Scar.”
I was silent. Then I looked at him. “But,” I said, “you do not wear the scar.”
“It would have been rather difficult to get near the gates of Turia for a fellow wearing the Courage Scar, would it not?”
“Indeed it would,” I laughed.
“When I have time,” said Harold, “I will call one from the clan of Scarers and have the scar affixed. It will make me look even more handsome.”
I smiled.
“Perhaps you would like me to call him for you as well?” inquired Harold.
“No,” I said.
“It might take attention away from your hair,” he mentioned.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“All right,” said Harold, “it is well known you are only a, Koroban, and not a Tuchuk.” But then he added, soldierly. “But you wear the Courage Scar for what you did not all men who wear the Courage Scar do so visibly.”
I did not speak.
“Well,” said Harold, “I am tired and I am going to my wagon, I have a little slave there I am anxious to put to work.”
“I did not know of my wagon,” I said.
“I gathered not,” said Ha
rold, “seeing that you apparently spent the night after the battle comfortably resting on the floor-of Kamchak’s wagon, I looked around for you that night but didn’t find you.” He added, “Your own wagon, you will be pleased to hear, was among the wagons, untouched by the Paravaci as was mine.”
I laughed. “It is strange,” I said, “I did not even know of the wagon.”
“You would have found out long ago,” said Harold, “had you not rushed off to Turia again immediately after our return when the wagons were moving toward Ta-Thassa.
You did not even stop by Kamchak’s wagon that day. Had you done so Aphris, or someone, might have told you.”
“From the sleen cage?” I asked.
“She was not in the sleen cage the morning of our return from Turia with the tarns,” said Harold.
“Oh,” I said, “I am glad to hear it.”
“Nor was the little barbarian,” said Harold.
“What became of her?” I asked.
“Kamchak gave her to a warrior,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. I was not glad to hear it. “Why didn’t you tell me of my wagon?” I asked.
“It did not seem important,” he said.
I frowned.
“I suppose, however,” he said, “Korobans are impressed with such things having wagons and such.”
I smiled. “Harold the Tuchuk,” I said, “I am tired.”
“Are you not going to your wagon tonight?” he asked.
“I think not,” I said.
“As you wish,” said he, “but I have had it well stocked with Paga and Ka-la-na wines from Ar and such.”
In Turia, even though we had much of the riches of the city at our disposal, there had not been much Paga or Ka-la-na wine. As I may have mentioned the Turians, on the whole, favour thick, sweet wines. I had taken, as a share of battle loot, a hundred and ten bottles of Paga and forty bottles of Ka-la-na wine from Tyros, Cos and Ar, but these I had distributed to my crossbowmen, with the exception of one bottle of Paga which Harold and I had split some two nights ago. I decided I might spend the night in my wagon.