Swordsmen of Gor cog[oc-29

by John Norman

  Cecily said nothing. She had been a slave long enough to appreciate, and relish, and take delight in, the freedom of the tunic. Too, it thrilled her, in her vanity, well aware of her considerable beauty, to be shamelessly exhibited for the delectation of men. She knew herself to be an excellent specimen of the most desirable of all human females, the female slave.

  The slave is not ashamed of her beauty, but proud of it.

  Let the free woman be concerned with her veils, and fear that an ankle might be glimpsed beneath layered robes.

  The slave loves men, and wishes to be found pleasing.

  “It is true,” I said, “that it would be wise to see that the slave is attired, for there are strong men in the camp.”

  A subtle tremor betrayed the slave’s apprehension.

  “Do not fear, Jane,” said Cecily. “After supper I will go to the supply shed and obtain some cloth.”

  “I will come along,” I said.

  “Master?” said Cecily.

  “I have been wondering,” I said to her, “how you would look in a camisk.”

  “A Turian camisk?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, “the common camisk.”

  “Never!” cried Jane.

  “Once you have seen your girl in a common camisk,” I said to Pertinax, “I suspect that you will not permit her to kneel with her knees together.”

  “Oh?” he said, interested.

  His Jane was a shapely brat.

  “Too, I will look into a collar,” I said to Pertinax. “I did not have one prepared, as I did not know how you might want it engraved.”

  “What would you suggest?” he asked, again evincing some interest. I took this as a good sign.

  “Something like ‘I am Jane. I am the property of Pertinax of Tarncamp’.”

  “Excellent,” he said.

  “I do not need to be collared, Master,” said the slave. “I am branded. None will mistake me for a free woman.”

  “No,” he said. “Nor will any be in doubt as to who owns you. You will be collared.”

  She looked at him, angrily.

  He still retained the whip I had tossed to him when I had first brought the slave into the hut.

  “Do you wish to be displeasing?” he asked.

  He shook out the blades of the whip. It was a simple five-stranded slave whip, designed for use on female slaves, designed to punish, and well, but not mark.

  “No, Master,” she said, hastily.

  “Perhaps you should beg to be collared,” I said.

  “Please, Master,” she said, “collar me.”

  “Who begs?” I inquired.

  “Jane,” she said, “Jane, the slave of Pertinax of Tarncamp, begs to be collared.”

  “It will be done,” said Pertinax.

  She sobbed.

  “You may thank your master,” I told her.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said. “Jane, your slave, thanks you for having her collared, for permitting her to wear your collar, for deigning to grant her the honor of wearing your collar.”

  “To his feet,” I said.

  The slave then went to the feet of Pertinax.

  When I thought she had performed sufficiently I freed her of the bracelets and leash.

  She knelt then, naked, but free of bonds, at our feet. She put her arms about herself, and trembled.

  I then reminded Cecily that we might think of supper.

  “Come, Jane,” said Cecily. “I will find you something to wrap about your body. We must gather wood. We must make supper. We have work to do.”

  Soon the girls had exited the hut.

  “Pertinax,” said I, “how do your lessons proceed?”

  He had been studying for some weeks now with the warrior in the forest, a master of the sword, who was known as Nodachi. I had never seen this person. The arrangements had been made through the thoughtful offices of Tajima. I had given Tajima one of the rubies I had retained from the Steel World, that Nodachi might be compensated for his services, but Tajima had returned the stone to me. Food might be brought to the swordsman that he might live, but he was unwilling to set a price on his instruction. “One does not sell life and death,” he had informed Tajima. “No price is to be set on such things.”

  “I do not know,” said Pertinax.

  “How is that?” I asked.

  “How can one see what cannot be seen?” he asked.

  “What do you think is meant by that?” I asked.

  “It is poetry, is it not?” he asked.

  “I suspect,” I said, “it is a poetry which speaks of differences, say that between the living and the dead. One, I suppose, must sense things, infer things, expect things.”

  Sometimes one understands things without understanding how one understands them.

  How does one know that one man who smiles is a friend and another is an enemy? Perhaps one sees what cannot be seen.

  “Much makes sense to me,” said Pertinax, “the nature of the ground, the position of the sun, day and night, the season of the year, but much seems mysticism.”

  “There are probably mysticisms and mysticisms,” I said. “Some, I suspect, speak of the world.”

  “One should not die with a weapon undrawn,” said Pertinax.

  “Do not be taken by surprise,” I suggested.

  “One should pay attention to little things,” said Pertinax.

  “They can be important,” I said.

  “From one thing learn ten thousand things,” he said.

  “Things lead to one another,” I suggested. “They are bound together.”

  “One who has faced death at the point of a sword has an elevated understanding,” said Pertinax.

  “I think that is true,” I said. “At least one is different, and one has a better sense of life. For such a one the world is then other than it was.”

  “Step by step walk the thousand-mile road,” he said.

  “Be patient,” I suggested. “Do not give up. Excellence is not easily achieved.”

  “Are there such things in the codes?” asked Pertinax.

  “There are many things in the codes,” I said, “similar, and different. Much of this, I think, is wisdom, doubtless deriving from one teacher or another, in one place or another, perhaps over centuries.”

  “There are many things,” said Pertinax, “many, many things.”

  “Few will understand them all,” I said. “Be humble, learn what you can.”

  “The spirit of fire is fierce,” smiled Pertinax, “whether it is large or small, and the spirit is like fire, and can be large or small.”

  “Master Nodachi, I suspect,” I said, “has a large spirit, and, unseen, it burns fiercely.”

  “I am learning swords,” he said.

  “And what is the purpose of the sword?” I asked.

  “It is to kill,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  There was something much like that in the codes. The purpose of the sword is not to fence, not to match blades, and not to exhibit skill, nor is its purpose to reach the enemy, nor even to cut him. Its purpose is to kill him.

  He shuddered.

  “Are you strong enough for that?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” he said.

  Some who excelled in the dojo were the first to fall in the field.

  “Seek to learn more,” I said.

  “If I would live?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  the exercise; what followed the exercise

  “One-strap!” I called, and Ichiro, who was behind and on my right, blew the blast on the war horn, and two hundred tarns, with riders, ascended, as one, the forest far below, Tarncamp a clearing below in the forest.

  There are six strap positions on the common tarn harness. On the tarn’s collar there are six rings, to which straps are attached, which straps ascend to the saddle, which, too, has six rings, corresponding to the collar rings. The six saddle rings are arranged on a
vertical ring. The one-ring is at the top of the main saddle ring, and the four-ring is at the bottom. The two-ring and three-ring are on the right side of the main saddle ring, and the four-ring and five-ring are on the left side of the main saddle ring. Given the correspondences, drawing on the one-strap exerts pressure at the bottom of the tarn’s throat, to which pressure it responds by ascent, and drawing on the four-ring exerts pressure on the ring at the back of the tarn’s neck, to which pressure it responds by descent. Similarly, it may wheel to the high right and the low right, and to the high left and low left, by drawing on the appropriate straps. If one wishes a lateral motion to the right one draws on both the two and three straps at the same time, and if one wishes a lateral motion to the left one draws on the four and five straps simultaneously. Similar adjustments may be made by drawing on the one and two straps, on the three and four straps, and so on, about the ring. A simple knot in each strap prevents it from slipping back through one of the saddle rings.

  “Three-strap,” I called, and Ichiro blew the signal, and the flock turned downward and to the right.

  “Rings free!” I called to Ichiro, and he blew the appropriate blast, and the flock leveled out in its flight, and continued on the path on which it had been set.

  Of great assistance in such matters is the natural flocking behavior of tarns, which consists of three genetically coded behaviors, two of which deal with spatiality and one with velocity. A tarn flock will tend to cohere, to stay together, and it will also maintain a bird-to-bird distance. These spatial habituations are then linked with a tendency to match velocity. In this fashion a flock of birds, even in the wild, will engage effortlessly in what appear to be astonishingly swift and complex maneuvers.

  “Five-strap!” I called. “Rings free!” The horn gave forth this command, and the flock descended to the left and leveled in its flight.

  I personally preferred solitary tarnflight, and I supposed most tarnsmen would, as there is a wild sense of freedom on tarnback, sometimes almost of exaltation, as one seems one with the bird. One is muchly alive. One becomes almost another form of life, one with the bird, and one with the wind, the clouds, and sky. I suspect this is something which is missed in most mechanistic flight, but was probably hinted at, or suggested, by the small, responsive, single-engine aircraft which were used, say, in the first quarter of the twentieth century on Earth.

  To my left was Tajima.

  He was armed, as the others, with the small bow, and broad quivers on each side of the saddle. Too, mounted there, were six Anangan darts, three on each side. In the side-slung saddle boot, on the right, horizontal with the flight, was the black, temwood lance. On the left, at hand, was the small, edged buckler, suitable for turning a spear thrust. Behind the saddle, folded, was the weighted net.

  I communicated with Ichiro by hand signals as well as voice, and I indicated that we were now to return to Tarncamp, and that bows were to be freed. This was conveyed by notes to our tarnsmen. Dozens of targets had been set up in the training area. On the ground, in extensive training, I had practiced the men with their weapons, the arrow, the dart, the lance, the edged buckler, the net.

  I thought we were now no more than an Ehn or two from Tarncamp.

  The cavalry was not, of course, a simple flock, or pride. The two hundred riders might be thought of, I suppose, as the cavalry, or group, to take an analogy. The group then was divided into, say, two “centuries,” of one hundred riders each, each century into five squadrons, so to speak, of twenty riders each, each squadron into, say, two flights, of ten riders each, and each flight into two “prides,” of five riders each. There were in short, then, in the group as a whole, two centuries, ten squadrons, twenty flights, and forty prides. As is often the case there is no really satisfactory correspondences between certain Gorean terms and English. I have, on the whole, taken roughly equivalent expressions. One might think, if one wishes, of the cavalry, then the hundreds, then the twenties, then the tens, and then the fives. In any event these arrangements allowed for considerable differentiation and flexibility, in attack, in reconnaissance, in foraging, and so on. I was captain, or high captain, and each subdivision had its clearly understood leader, down to the smallest units, which I have referred to, for convenience, as “prides.” Groups of tarnsmen are often referred to as prides, so, in a sense, any of the divisions, including the cavalry as a whole, might be accounted a “pride.” For convenience, as noted, I have referred to the smallest units by that designation. One might mention, in passing, that all the groupings had either appellations or numbers. This facilitates planning, distribution of supplies, the clear and expeditious issuance of orders, and so on. Also, this tends to produce a sense of unit, and pride in unit, which is good for responsibility, camaraderie, mutual support, and morale. Along these lines, as well, the larger divisions had their own banners or standards. These devices may be used for a variety of purposes, identification of location, often important in the confusion of battle, signaling charges, retreats, maneuvers, rallying scattered troops, and so on. Too, after a time they tend to acquire something of the charisma or potency often associated with certain images, or symbolic devices, such as flags. Needless to say, various insignia were developed, too, to mark ranks and units. Also important was what was, in effect, a uniform. This tends to effect cohesion, solidarity, self-image, and so on. It also has its role to play, particularly in tumult, in distinguishing one’s fellows from the enemy. Also, it can intimidate a less organized, less disciplined enemy. They have the sense that something unified, purposeful, and dangerous is coming against them. I had chosen gray, as being difficult to discern in poor light. In flight this would make little difference, but if my men were to function on the ground, in, say, commando activity, or such, I thought it might be helpful. A braver, more pronounced color might have been better for parade purposes, but I had not designed the cavalry for parades. Cos, incidentally, is usually identified by blue, and Ar’s infantry, at least, by red. Scarves are often used in Gorean warfare, particularly by mercenaries, because uniforms are by no means universal. One advantage of the scarf, it seems, is that it might be removed, or changed, depending on the fortunes of war. One expects the mercenary to fight for coin, not a Home Stone. To be sure, some mercenaries will die for a given commander. Some command such loyalty, such as Dietrich of Tarnburg, Pietro Vachi, Raymond Rive-de-Bois, and certain others.

  I gave the signal for putting arrows to the string, and drew my tarn up, over the cavalry, to better observe the outcome of the exercise.

  Lord Nishida, I had been informed, too, on the ground, would be on hand to observe the results of the exercise.

  I trusted that he would be pleased.

  I had gathered from several executions, outside my own command, that the Pani tended not to be tolerant of failure.

  Too, there were rumors there were spies in the camp.

  Certainly the recruitments of the Pani here and there, the several landings on the northern beaches, the numbers of men involved, the securing and importing of supplies, would be difficult to conceal.

  Much tenseness roved Tarncamp.

  Far below, and to the front, I could see an observation platform set up at one end of the plaza of training. Some individuals were there, and among them, I supposed, would be Lord Nishida. A figure in white was toward the center of the group, and I supposed that must be he.

  The war horn’s blast burst out from beneath me and I saw the cavalry, in its diving, wedgelike, suddenly widening, formation, to allow for a broad front of arrow fire, rank behind rank, deploy.

  I suppose, to many, certain things might seem dreadful, the blast of the war horn, the thunder of tarn drums, the soaring descent to the attack, the scream of the tarn, the music of the bowstring, blood’s lyre, with its song of death, but, too, to some, there is little which so speaks of life as these musics of intent, of risk, and peril, little else which seems to speak so avidly and preciously of life.

  Whereas I have spoken of two h
undred tarns and riders, and this seems to me acceptable, it must be understood that, like any military unit, it might, from time to time, be above or below its official strength. Similarly, I have not included in the two hundred myself, certain subofficers, adjuncts, liaison personnel, and so on. Also, of great importance, but not included in the figure of two hundred, would be various forces on the ground, responsible for support, such as metal and leather workers, fletchers, tarnkeepers, suppliers of various sorts, and so on.

  I pulled the tarn up, further, and then, briefly, held it almost stationary in the air, drawing back on all the straps simultaneously, the bird then hovering, wings beating fiercely.

  The first wave loosed its missiles, and would then circle, to renew its attack, in turn. The attack was a simple one, a continual frontal assault, with each wave attacking thrice.

  Needless to say, one of the great advantages of tarn attack is that one can get behind parapets, and such, and rake from the inside of fortifications, as well as from the outside. This possibility is neutralized in some fortifications by roofing the parapets, but this, of course, exposes the roofing to fire arrows, fire bombs, and such. In such a case the defenders will usually protect the roofing with wet hides, or slates. Similar considerations pertain to an attack on vessels. Tarn attack is often effective against ground troops, as they mass in formation, might march in columns, might be exposed in open camps, be discommoded in traversing marshy ground, be struck while fording bodies of water, and so on. Tarn attack is also useful in discouraging foraging by an enemy on the march. The harassments of tarn attack can do much to fatigue and alarm ground troops. Such troops should possess their own tarnsmen, to clear the skies as they can. Spies are often resorted to in Gorean warfare. But one of the most effective and inaccessible of spies is the distant, reconnoitering tarnsman. One might also note, in passing, the rapidity of communication by tarn, the timely reporting of developments, the swift conveyance of messages, and such. Supplies, too, in tarn basket, may be transported by tarn, usually by draft tarns, a breed of the tarn which is bred less for speed and agility than strength and stamina. Too, obviously, small numbers of raiders or infiltrators may be conveyed by tarn, and disembarked behind enemy lines or within enemy walls. For this purpose tarn baskets are sometimes used, but, if the journey is short, the tarn, even a common tarn, may carry a number of warriors, clinging to a knotted rope, some seven or so, to their destination. This tactic is not uncommon.