Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt

Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt Page 43

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

  In a bit another one of the tiny boats had come to the walkway and the two

  fellows embarked in it.

  There were then three of us left on the walkway.

  “It is the women and children I feel most sorry for,” said the fellow beside me,

  looking back toward the piers. They were crowded with noncombatants. I suppose

  there must have been somewhere between two thousand and twenty-five hundred

  women and children crowded on the piers. By now there were probably not more

  than two or three hundred able-bodied men. In a few moments another small boat

  arrived.

  “No,” I said. “Go.”

  (pg.336) The two fellows then stepped down, carefully, into the small boat.

  I was then left alone on the walkway.

  I saw a piece of the broken walkway, half submerged, off to the right.

  I looked up, from where I crouched behind the shield. Then I rose up, lifting

  the shield once more.

  A solitary figure, with no shield, but in helmet, and with sheathed sword,

  approached. It seemed a long walk, coming toward me, on the walkway. I could

  hear his steps when he came within a few yards of me. The water lapped about the

  pilings beneath the walkway. There was the cry of a Vosk gull overhead. I could

  see the smoke still lifting from the citadel, then drifting out, toward the

  river.

  “Do not come closer,” I told him.

  “The day belongs to Cos,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “There remains to be accomplished only the slaughter on the piers.”

  I did not respond.

  “Thus what you have done here has gone for naught.”

  I did not respond. What had been done here, however, had been entered into the

  annals of reality. The meaning of history is its own terrain, its own mountains

  and summits, here and there, wherever they be found. It is not all prologue to a

  last act, following which comes nothing.

  “It is speculated that you are not of Ar’s Station,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  He did not attempt to come closer.

  “It is speculated that you are a mercenary,” he said. “Cos has us of such. I

  come on behalf of Aristimines, Commander of Cos in the north. He is pleased with

  your work, through it has been to his own cost. I have here a purse of gold.

  Contract your sword to Cos and it is yours.” He dropped the leather purse, drawn

  shut with strings, to the boards of the walk. He then stepped back. “See?” he

  said. “We do not cut at your neck, as you bend to take it.”

  “I am not taking fee today,” I said.

  “You are then, of Ar’s Station, or Ar herself?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “With the gold,” said he, “comes a command, and women, (pg.337) slaves trained

  to please men in all ways, domestic and lascivious.”

  “Aristimines is generous,” I said.

  “Your answer?” he asked.

  “I am not taking fee today,” I said.

  “But what of the women?” he asked.

  “I will take my own,” I said.

  He approached the gold, bent down and picked it up. He did not even watch me as

  he did this. I accepted this tribute to my honor

  He tucked the gold back in his tunic. “You are not a mercenary, then?” he said.

  “I did not say that,” I said.

  “Choose for Cos,” he said.

  “Not today,” I said.

  “Yet today, I think,” said he, glancing out to the piers, “would be a good day

  to choose for Cos.”

  “Why did not relief come to Ar’s Station?” I asked.

  “It was not the will of Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos,” said he.

  “I see,” I said. How lofty then, I thought, must be the heights of treachery

  within the walls of Ar.

  “And the will of Lurius has not yet been accomplished in the north,” said he.

  I did not understand this.

  “I have brought you the gold of Cos,” he said. “When I return, you understand, I

  must bring her steel.”

  “The walkway is meaningless,” I said to him.

  “Not to Aristimines,” he said.

  “I wish you well,” I said.

  “And I, too, wish you well,” said he. He then turned and walked rapidly back

  toward the landing. He had not taken more than five steps before a number of

  Cosians, who had been waiting on the landing, hurried onto the walkway. He was

  for a moment like a rock in the midst of their stream, and then he turned,

  facing me. At the same time some small craft set out from the landing. Two of

  the fellows hurrying toward me were too eager, separating themselves from their

  fellows. One’s shield, he charging, I struck obliquely to the side, and he, in

  the grip of his own momentum, lost the walkway. I cut (pg.338) at the other

  below the shield, above the knee, and he slipped to the boards. “Hold, fellow,”

  called the officer , behind the men, he who had come with the gold on the

  walkway. “Good,” he said. “Together now, gently fellows, spears down. Look for

  your chance. Forward, carefully. There is only one man there. Swordsmen for

  flanking, behind spearmen. To each side, fellows. Forward.”

  “Help!” cried the fellow in the water, grasping upward. He was trying to climb

  the piling, but slipped on it. He could not reach the surface of the remains of

  the walkway. The piece of broken walkway which had been to the right was now

  back, a few feet from the torn end of he walkway, floating in the inner harbor.

  “Stop!” I ordered the approaching Cosians.

  They, puzzled, stopped.

  The fellow whose leg I had cut was backing away, towards his fellows, limping.

  Blood flowed down his leg, running among, and over, the thongs of the high,

  bootlike sandal he wore. His retreat could be traced in the trail of blood on

  the walkway.

  I put down my shield on he walkway, and extended my hand down to the fellow in

  the water. There were fewer fish about now, I was sure, but I did not think he

  would be likely to thrash alone for more than a moment or two. I could already

  see two dark shapes beneath him.

  “Do not move,” said the officer to his men.

  The man in the water, frenzied with terror, his eyes bulging, seized my hand and

  I drew him to his stomach, to the walkway. He lay there on the drenched boards,

  trembling. I do not think I could have managed this as little as a quarter of an

  Ahn earlier. I think it likely he would then have been seized in the jaws of

  some fish or other, perhaps one of the visitors from the river, drawn by the

  traces of blood in the water.

  I then stepped back, and faced the Cosians, some yards toward the landing.

  The officer lifted his sword to me, in salute. I returned this salute. The men

  with him smote with their steel on their shields. I acknowledged their tribute

  as well.

  “On my own authority,” called the officer, “and at my (pg.339) own risk, that of

  my life for yours, should t
his not be found meet by Aristimines, I again offer

  you the gold of Cos!”

  I sheathed my sword. “I am not taking fee today,” I said.

  “Lower spears,” said the officer to his men. “Swordsmen, flank.”

  I turned, suddenly, then, and ran to the end of the walkway. There I leapt from

  the walkway out, over the water, to the piece of half-submerged wreckage, cut

  from the walkway. It sank down a foot or two into the water, but then rose up,

  again. A moment or so later a dozen or so Cosians crowded the charred end of the

  walkway. None of them, as I had anticipated, cared to attempt the same leap. I

  had had a running start. I had known where the wreckage was. I had kept it in

  mind. I did not think that one of them, given the crowding on the walkway, would

  attempt the same leap. If he did, and managed to reach the wreckage, I would be

  waiting there, sword drawn. My ankles were under water. The force of my leap had

  thrust the piece of wreckage out further, toward the piers. The men on the

  walkway and I regarded one another. Several lifted their weapons in salute. I

  lifted my hand, too, to them. It was, I suppose, one of the odd moments that

  sometimes occur in war, one of those moments in which the rose of gallantry

  suddenly emerges from the background of danger and blood. A great, long body

  suddenly emerged from the water and lay half on the wreckage. With my foot I

  thrust it back into the water. I saw some small craft from the landing

  approaching, with crossbowmen in them. But then, too, I saw the rowers of these

  small vessels, rest on their oars. About the piece of wreckage on which I stood,

  then, were small boats from the piers. On one of them I saw the young fellow

  with the crossbow. No quarrels were exchanged. I stepped from the wreckage into

  one of the small boats. We then put about, and I was rowed slowly toward the

  piers.

  20 The Piers

  (pg.340) I climbed from the small boat to one of the piers.

  Men lifted their weapons, saluting me.

  “Come with me,” said a fellow.

  I passed among wounded men. I saw there, Marsias, the grizzled fellow, the men

  who had originally stood with me on the walkway, and many others. I passed, too,

  among many women and children.

  I was conducted into the presence of Aemilianus.

  “You did well, to hold the walkway, you and others,” said Aemilianus.

  He was sitting on a pier, propped up against some boxes. Those piers are the

  main harbor piers, between the inner harbor, that between them and the citadel

  landing, and the outer harbor, which leads to the river. the outer harbor, now,

  of course, was blocked, a few hundred yards out, with the chain of rafts and,

  behind them, five ships.

  “These would be dead now,” said he, gesturing about himself, “had you and those

  with you not done so.”

  I looked back to the walkway in the distance, across the inner harbor. “The

  standard of Cos now surmounts it,” I said.

  “You held it for the time that was needed,” said Aemilianus, “the time required

  to seal off the piers.”

  It interested me that Cos would bother setting its standard there, at the end of

  that charred walk, jutting out toward (pg.341) the piers. Apparently we had made

  it mean something to them.

  I looked back, too, to the citadel, and the city. The citadel was afire. Fires,

  too, still, after all these days, burned in the city.

  “You are not Marsias,” said a man to me. “Who are you?”

  “Ar’s Station is gone,” I said to Aemilianus.

  “No,” he said. “Its Home Stone survives.”

  “It was taken from the city?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Weeks ago it was smuggled from the city, and sent south to Ar,

  where, if all went well, it must now be.”

  “So long ago,” I said, “you did not expect relief from Ar?”

  “I was right,” he said, bitterly.

  I nodded. One does not keep secret the siege of a city such as Ar’s Station. It

  was one of the largest of the ports on the Vosk. Too, anyone can read a

  calendar.

  “You maintained a brave front,” I said.

  “And what would you have done, had you been commander in Ar’s Station?”

  I shrugged. “Much the same, I suppose,” I said.

  “So,” said Aemilianus, “though I did continue to hope, I would not risk the Home

  Stone. I sent it south.”

  “By tarnsmen?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Cos controls the skies. I sent it south in the wagon of a

  tradesmen, Septimus Entrates.

  “It may have escaped notice, then,” I said, “among the innumerable wagons, the

  carts, the strings of refugees, and such, fleeing south.”

  “That is my hope,” he said.

  It seemed to me that I might, somewhere, have heard the name, Septimus Entrates.

  But then one hears many names, thousands of names, here and there.

  “Cos,” said a man, “prepares to attack.”

  “From both sides?” asked Aemilianus.

  “It would seem so,” said a fellow. “The chain of rafts has been opened in three

  places. The ships of Cos now enter the harbor. Too, there are other rafts from

  the river. rafts, and boats, too, are now coming out from the landing.”

  (pg.342) “The Cosians will spend time in barrages or fire,” said Aemilianus,

  “from the boars, from the rafts. The sky ill be dark with their metal. Use the

  bodies of the slain, and the wounded, as shields.” He did not tell them to tear

  boards from the piers themselves, to construct makeshift hurdles and barricades.

  Perhaps that could be done later, but now this would, interestingly, have

  dismantled the very platform on which we stood, so crowded they were. Indeed, it

  would be difficult to use weapons here, even in thrusting. “When the Cosians

  ascend the piers themselves,” continued Aemilianus, “we will meet them, with

  what men we still have, and make them pay for every board they cross. Carry me

  now to the side facing the inner harbor.”

  “But you are wounded,” said his aide.

  “Of course, you fool,” said Aemilianus, angrily. “What do you think? Do you

  think I would have given an order I would not be willing, under similar

  circumstances, to obey? My body, as it is wounded, will serve as a shield in the

  fighting. It is all that it is good for now.”

  “We need Aemilianus, our commander,” said a man, “not a body for a shield.”

  Aemilianus tried, angrily, to rise to his feet.

  At the same time, from beneath the bandage bound about his body there emerged a

  bright, fresh stain of crimson.

  Aemilianus sank back to a sitting position. “Surilius,” said he. “The sword, use

  it now. Then there will be no more quibbling about bodies and shields.”

  “No, Commander,” said he.

  “I have never known you to refuse an order,” said Aemilianus, puzzled.

  “If t
here must be a body for a shield, use mine, instead,” he said. He drew his

  own sword.

  “No, old friend,” begged Aemilianus.

  He called Surilius stood ready to pierce his own heart with his sword.

  “You,” said Aemilianus, lifting his hand to me. “Strike me with your sword.”

  “I am weary,” I said.

  “Draw my own sword,” he begged. “Hold it, that I may throw myself upon it.”

  “No,” I said.

  (pg.343) “No?” said Aemilianus.

  “I am not of Ar’s Station,” I said. “Do not presume to command one who has no

  fondness for either Ar or Ar’s Station.”

  “But you have fought for us!” said Aemilianus.

  “I saw things that did not please me,” I said, “and I have fought, but so, too,

  might a tarn fly and a kaiila run.”

  Men shuddered. Warriors, it is said in the codes, have a common Home Stone. Its

  name is battle.

  “Your word, Surilius,” protested Aemilianus, turning again to the aide, his

  friend.

  “My word is sacred to me,” said Surilius, “but so, too, are the terms of my

  word, and they require only that I do not permit you to fall, when you yourself

  could not avoid it, into the hands of Cosians. Then, but then only, am I

  prepared to strike.”

  “You are a good soldier,” said Aemilianus. “I beg your forgiveness, my friend.”

  He then grimaced. Fresh blood appeared again beneath the bandage, running to his

  waist.

  “Let him rest,” I said.

  A fellow lowered Aemilianus to the boards, amidst the feet about him.

  Aemilianus lifted his hand to his friend.

  “I will be at your side,” said Surilius.

  “They are coming,” said a fellow. “There must be a hundred rafts and boats, from

  both sides.”

  “It will not be long now, will it, dear friend,” said Aemilianus.

  “No, dear friend,” said Surilius. “I do not think it will be long now.”

  “Look off there,” said a fellow, pointing toward the harbor. “I did not know

  they had so many ships.”

  “What!” I said.

  “There,” said the man pointing, out toward the river.

  I could see, out beyond the wall of chained rafts, opened now in three places, a

 

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