Assassin of Gor coc-5

by John Norman

  A close-formed military formation is difficult to maintain over rough terrain. Indeed, the Torian Squares, which I have mentioned, common among Gorean infantries, with their superior mobility and regrouping capacities, had, long ago, made the phalanxes of such cities as Ar and, in the south, Turia, obsolete.

  The Gorean phalanx, like its predecessors of Earth, consisted of lines of massed spearmen, carrying spears of different lengths, forming a wall of points; it attacked on the run, preferably on a downgrade, a military avalanche, on its own terrain and under optimum conditions, invincible; the Torian Squares had bested the phalanx by choosing ground for battle in which such a formation would break itself in its advance.

  The invention and perfecting of the Torian Squares and the consequent attempts to refine and improve the phalanx, failures, were developments which had preceded the use of tharlarion and tarn cavalries, which radically changed the face of Gorean warfare. Yet, in the day of the tharlarion and tarn, one still finds, among infantries, the Torian Square; the phalanx, though its impact could be exceeded only by the tharlarion wedge or line, is now unknown, except for a defensive relic known as the Wall, in which massed infantry remains stationary, heroically bracing itself, when flight is impossible, for the devastating charge of tharlarion.

  It seemed to me obvious that the men who faced me intended to do so as a group; already two had been lured from the picket and had died; I did not expect that another of the four would singly rush upon me. I backed among the bodies of the fallen Taurentians. Unevenly, with difficulty, the picket followed, their eyes on me. Then the picket charged but, as I had intended, across the field of their own fallen. I leaped to one side. The end man stumbled in an attempt to turn to me and I passed the side of the blade beneath the helmet and was behind them. Attempting to remain together they wheeled, each in place. One man lunged for me, but stumbled across another fallen Taurentian and his fellow, moving forward, fell across him; rather than attack the men who had fallen, on whom the attack would be expected, I struck the remaining man, he standing, the leader, engaging him singly in the moment and felling him. The remaining two Taurentians who had stumbled scrambled to their feet, scraping awkwardly back through the sand.

  He of the two who was senior told the other, "Withdraw." No longer did they wish to press the battle. No longer could they be as confident of the odds as they had been but a moment before.

  The two men withdrew.

  The crowd was howling with pleasure, well pleased at what spectacle they had witnessed.

  Then they began to scream with anger. Taurentians, perhaps two hundred of them, were filing rapidly to the sand, weapons ready.

  So it is thus I die, I said to myself.

  I heard the leader of the men I had attacked laugh.

  "How does it feel," he asked, "you who are about to die?"

  The laugh died in his throat for through his breast there suddenly flew a heavy Gorean arena spear.

  I spun and saw, standing beside me, on my right, sword drawn, in the heavy helmet of the arena fighter, with the small round shield, the sheathed right arm and shoulder, Murmillius.

  My heart leaped.

  "Charge!" cried the leader of the new Taurentians, those who had rushed down to the arena.

  The crowd began to press against the spears of the Taurentians in the tiers, who, at the edge of the tiers, at the top of the wall overtopping the sand, resolutely held them back.

  The Taurentians rushed upon us and, side by side, with the marvelous and gigantic Murmillius, I fought.

  Steel rang on steel and then we stood back to back, cutting and jabbing. Foe upon foe fell from those two fierce blades.

  And then there stood another with us, in the garb of an arena fighter.

  "Ho-Sorl!" I cried.

  "You were long in coming," commented Murmillius, meeting steel upon steel, dropping a foe.

  Ho-Sorl laughed, lunging here and there, kicking back a Taurentian. "Cernus had planned that I, too, wear the blind helmet," said he. "But Ho-Tu, of his house, did not care for the plan."

  Another stood beside us, and we four fought.

  "Relius!" I exclaimed.

  "I, too," said he, blade flashing, "was destined for the sport of the blind helmet. Fortunately I too encountered Ho-Tu."

  "And," grunted Murmillius, laughing, turning back an attack, "I wager the girls of the Street of Pots."

  "If it must be known," granted Relius, driving his blade between the ribs of a Taurentian.

  Murmillius, with a marvelous thrust, as though weary of sustaining the attack of his man, dropped him. "A likely lot of wenches they are," said he.

  "Perhaps," said Ho-Sorl, "any Taurentians that are left over we can give to the girls of the Street of Pots."

  I turned a blade from my breast, as another four or five Taurentians pressed in upon me.

  "Excellent idea," said Murmillius.

  "If," qualified Ho-Sorl, "any are left over."

  Another dozen Taurentians pressed forward.

  I noted that one Taurentian after another, in a line, approaching, slipped in the sand.

  Ho-Tu, his hook knife dripping, a buckler on his left arm now stood beside us.

  I parried a blade from his heart.

  "I think you will find," said Murmillius, "a sword is more useful here than your small knife."

  Ho-Tu drew his blade and acquitted himself sturdily.

  "Kill them!" I heard Philemon scream.

  More Taurentians, perhaps a hundred, leaped over the wall into the arena and rushed forward.

  We moved through those weary, bloody, felling bodies about us, to their amazement cutting out way to our new foes.

  I heard Relius cry to Ho-Sorl. "I have slain seventeen!"

  "I lost count long ago," responded Ho-Sorl.

  Relius laughed with exasperation and added another to his list.

  "It must be some two or three hundred by now!" surmised Ho-Sorl, breathing heavily.

  Fortunately only a few Taurentians could approach us at one time.

  "Boastful sleen!" cried Relius. Then he shouted, "Nineteen!"

  Ho-Sorl dropped a man. "Four hundred and six!" he cried, lunging at another.

  "Silence!" roared Murmillius and, obediently, we fought in silence, save for the crying of men, our breathing, the sparkling ring of blades tempered by wine and fire.

  "There are too many!" I cried.

  Murmillius did not respond. But he fought.

  I turned in an instant's respite from the attack. I could not see the features of the magnificent fighter who stood beside me.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  "I am Murmillius," he laughed.

  "Why does Murmillius fight at the side of Tarl Cabot?" I asked.

  "Let it be said as truly," said he, "that Tarl Cabot fights at the side of Murmillius."

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "Murmillius," said, proudly, "is at war."

  "I, too," said I, "am at war." Again Taurentians pressed inward and again we met them. "But," said I, "my war is not that of Murmillius."

  "You fight in wars," said Murmillius, "you know nothing of."

  "In what war do you fight?" I demanded.

  "In my own," said Murmillius, meeting an attacker and insolently felling him.

  Then to my surprise I saw, with us, fighting, a common Warrior, not a Taurentian, one whose helmet was no laced with gold nor his shield bound with silver, nor his shoulders covered with the purple of the Ubar's guard.

  I did not question him, but accepted gratefully his presence at our side.

  More Taurentians, perhaps two hundred more, leaped down from the wall.

  I now saw fights in the audience in the tiers, some between Taurentians and citizens, others between citizens themselves. In some places armed Warriors, of common rank, stood against the purple-clad Taurentians.

  Now those Taurentians left in the stands suddenly failed to restrain the crowds and thousands of citizens were leaping into the ar
ena and others were swarming across the tiers toward the box of the Ubar. I saw Hup bounding and skipping on the tiers, crying out, and saw men throwing off cloaks, revealing blades, and rushing to meet Taurentians.

  I saw Philemon, his face white, his eyes wide, turn and flee through the private passage that gives access to the box of the Ubar. He was followed by some seven or eight Taurentians.

  "The people rise!" cried Ho-Sorl.

  "Now," laughed Murmillius, looking to me, "I think you will find there are not too many."

  I saw the Taurentians who had been facing us, perhaps three or four hundred, begin to disperse, fleeing toward the exits leading beneath the stands. The crowds, in their thousands, began to swarm over the walls, dropping to the sand screaming. Among them, shouting orders, were dozens of men, apparently of all castes, each with a scarf of silk, of imperial purple wrapped about his left arm.

  Murmillius and I stepped back and, among the bodies, Relius, Ho-Sorl and Ho-Tu standing to one side, regarded one another.

  He made no move.

  I gave Ho-Tu the key to the helmet I wore, which Phais had thrust in my belt. Ho-Tu removed the helmet.

  The air felt good. The crowd pressed about. I could make nothing of what they were saying.

  "May I not now look upon the face of Murmillius?" asked I.

  "It is not time," said Murmillius, regarding me.

  "In this war of yours," said I, "what is the next step?"

  "It is your step," said he, "Tarl Cabot, Warrior of Ko-ro-ba."

  I looked at him.

  He pointed to the top of the tiers. There I saw a man with a brown tarn, holding its reins.

  "Surely," said he, "Gladius of Cos races this afternoon in the Stadium of Tarns?"

  "You know of him?" I stammered.

  "Hurry!" commanded Murmillius. "The Steels must have victory!"

  "What of you?" I asked.

  Murmillius spread his hand over the crowds on the sand and in the tiers.

  "Through the streets," said he, "we march to the Stadium of Tarns."

  I raced from the sand to the wall and, seizing a cloak lowered by one who wore the armband of imperial purple, scrambled upward. In an instant I was racing up the long tiers. When I reached the top there stood there a man with a purple scarf of silk, that armband indicating the imperial party. He held the reins of a common saddle tarn. I looked back down the long valley of stone tiers to the sands far below, seeing there in the circle of the arena, seeming small, Murmillius, Ho-Sorl, Relius, Ho-Tu, the milling, stirring crowd. Murmillius lifted his blade to me. It was the salute of a Warrior. A Warrior, I thought to myself, he is of the Warriors. I returned the salute.

  "Hurry!" said the man who held the reins of the tarn.

  I seized the reins of the tarn and leaped to the saddle. I hauled upon the one-strap and took the bird from the heights of the Stadium of Blades, streaking in a moment through the cylinders of Ar, leaving behind me men with whom I had fought, stained sand, and whatever we had together begun there.

  22 — THE STADIUM OF TARNS

  I brought the tarn down behind the tiers in the Stadium of Tarns, in the Readying Compound of the Steels.

  I heard the warning bar for a race about to begin.

  As my bird, with a flash of wings, struck the sand of the compound, four men armed with crossbows rushed forward.

  "Hold!" I cried. "I am of the Steels!"

  Each of those who charged wore upon his shoulder the grayish patch that betokened the faction.

  I found myself covered by their weapons.

  "Who are you!" cried one.

  "Gladius of Cos," I told them.

  "It may be," said one, "for he is of the size and build."

  The crossbows were not lowered.

  "The tarn will know me," I said.

  I leaped from the back of the tarn I rode and ran through the compound toward the perch of the black tarn.

  Midway I stopped. Near one perch there lay a dead tarn, a small racing tarn, its throat cut. Near it, being tended for wounds, lay its intended rider, groaning. I knew the man. His name was Callius.

  "What is this?" I cried.

  "We enjoyed a visit by the Yellows," said one of the men grimly. "This tarn was slain and the rider direly wounded. We beat them off."

  Another of the men gestured with his crossbow menacingly. "If you be not Gladius of Cos," said he, "you will die."

  "Do not fear," I said and grimly strode toward the perch where I knew there would be the great black tarn, the majestic tarn of Ko-ro-ba, my Ubar of the Skies.

  Approaching him we heard a wild tarn scream, of hate and challenge, and we stopped.

  I beheld, in its compound, strewn about its perch, more than five men, or the remains of such.

  "Yellows," said one of the men with the crossbow, "who tried to slay the bird."

  "It is a War Tarn," said another.

  I saw blood on the beak of the bird, its round black eyes, gleaming, wild.

  "Beware," said one of the men, "even if you be Gladius of Cos, for the tarn has tasted blood."

  I saw that even the steel-shod talons of the bird were bloodied.

  Watching us warily it stood with one set of talons hooked over the body of a yellow. Then, not taking its eyes from us, it put down its beak and tore an arm from the thing beneath its talons.

  "Do not approach," said one of the men.

  I stood back. It is not wise to interfere with the feeding of a tarn.

  I heard the judge's bar ringing three times signaling tarns to the starting perches. I heard the crowd roar.

  "Which race is it?" I asked, suddenly afraid that I might be too late.

  "The eighth," said one of the men, "that before the Ubar's Race."

  "Callius was to have ridden this race," I said.

  But Callius lay wounded. His tarn was dead.

  "We stand one race behind at the beginning of the eighth," said one of the men.

  My heart sank. With Callius wounded and tarns at, or near, their perches, the Steels would have no rider. My own tarn, if it could be readied at all, could not be brought to the starting perches before the ninth race, that of the Ubar. The Steels could not, thus, even did they win the Ubar's race, carry the day.

  "The Steels are done," said I.

  "But one rides for the Steels," said one of the crossbowmen.

  I looked at him suddenly.

  "Mip," said he.

  "The little Tarn Keeper?" I asked skeptically.

  "He," said the man.

  "But what mount?" I queried.

  "His own," said the man. "Green Ubar."

  I was stunned. "The bird is old," I said. "It has not raced for years." I looked at them. "And Mip," I said, "though he knows much of racing is but a Tarn Keeper."

  One of the men looked at me and smiled.

  Another lifted his crossbow, leveling the weapon at my breast. "He is perhaps a spy of the Yellows," said he.

  "Perhaps," agreed the leader of the crossbowmen.

  "How do we know you be Gladius of Cos?" asked another.

  I smiled. "The tarn will know me," I said.

  "The tarn has tasted blood," said the leader. "It has killed. It feeds. Do not approach the tarn now or it will mean your death."

  "We have little time to waste," I said.

  "Wait!" cried the leader of the crossbowmen.

  I stepped toward the great black tarn. It was at the foot of its perch. It was chained by one foot. The run of the chain was perhaps twenty-five feet. I approached slowly, holding my hands open, saying nothing. It eyed me.

  "The bird does not know him," said one of the men, he who had suggested I might be a spy of the yellows.

  "Be still," whispered the leader of the group.

  "He is a fool," whispered another.

  "That," agreed the leader, "or Gladius of Cos."

  The tarn, the great, fierce saddlebird of Gor, is a savage beast, a monster predator of the high, blue skies of this harsh world; at best it
is scarce half domesticated; even tarnsmen seldom approach them without weapons and tarn goad; it is regarded madness to approach one that is feeding; the instincts of the tarn, like those of many predators, are to protect and defend a kill, to the death; Tarn Keepers, with their goads and training wires, have lost their lives with even young birds, trying to alter or correct this covetousness of its quarry; the winged majestic carnivores of Gor, her tarns, do not care to share their kills, until perhaps they have gorged their fill and carry then remnants of their repast to the encliffed nests of the Thentis or Voltai Ranges, there to drop meat into the gaping beats of white tarnlings, the size of ponies.

  "Stand back!" warned the leader of the men.

  I stepped forward, until I stood within the am bit of the tarn's chain.

  I spoke softly. "My Ubar of the Skies," I said, "you know me." I approached more closely, holding my hands open, not hurrying.

  The bird regarded me. In its beak there hung the body of a Yellow.

  "Come back!" cried one of the crossbowmen, and I was pleased that it was he who had thought I might be a spy for the Yellows. Even he did not care for what might now occur.

  "We must ride, Ubar of the Skies," said I, approaching the bird.

  I took the body of the man from its beak and laid it to one side.

  The bird did not attempt to strike me.

  I heard the men behind me gasp with wonder.

  "You fought well," said I to the bird. I caressed its bloodied, scimitar-like beak. "And I am pleased to see you live."

  The bird gently touched me with its beak.

  "Ready the platform," said I, "for the next race."

  "Yes," said the leader of the men, "Gladius of Cos!" His three companions, putting aside their bows, rushed to prepare the wheeled platform.

  I turned to face the man and he tossed me a leather mask, that which Gladius of Cos wore, that which had, for so many races this fantastic summer, concealed his features. "Mip," said the man, "told me this was for you."

  "My gratitude," I said, drawing the mask over my head.