by John Norman
I unsheathed my sword. I supposed it would be the last time I would do so.
"Look!" cried Harold.
"I see," I said, "what does it matter?"
"Look!" he screamed, leaping up and down.
And I looked and saw suddenly and my heart stopped beating and then I uttered a wild cry for from the left, riding with the Thousands sweeping over the hills, I saw the standard of the Yellow Bow, and on the right, flying forward with the hurtling Thousands, its leather streaming behind its pole, I saw the standard of the Three-Weighted Bola.
"Kataii!" screamed Harold, hugging me. "Kassars!"
I stood dumbfounded on the planking and saw the two great wedges of the Kataii and the Kassars close like tongs on the trapped Paravaci, taking them in the unprotected flanks, crushing the ranks before them with the weight of their charge. And even the sky seemed dark for a moment as, from the left and right, thousands upon thousands of arrows fell like dark rain among the startled, stumbling, turning Paravaci.
"We might help," remarked Harold.
"Yes!" I cried.
"Korobans are slow to think of such matters," he remarked.
I turned to the men. "Open the wagons!" I cried. "To your animals!"
And in an instant it seemed the wagon lashings had been cut by quivas and our hundreds of warriors, the pitiful remnant of our two Thousands, swept forth upon the Paravaci, riding as though they had been fresh rested and ready, shouting the wild war cry of the Tuchuks.
It was not until late that afternoon that I met with Hakimba of the Kataii and Conrad of the Kassars. On the field we met and, as comrades in arms, we embraced one another.
"We have our own wagons," said Hakimba, "but yet we are of the Wagon Peoples."
"It is so, too, with us," said Conrad, he of the Kassars.
"I regret only," I said, "that I sent word to Kamchak and even now he has withdrawn his men from Turia and is returning to the wagons."
"No," said Hakimba, "we sent riders to Turia even as we left our own camp. Kamchak knew of our movements long before you."
"And of ours," said Conrad, "for we too sent him word thinking it well to keep him informed in these matters."
"For a Kataii and a Kassar," said Harold, "you two are not bad fellows." And then he added, "See that you do not ride off with any of our bosk or women."
"The Paravaci left their camp largely unguarded," said Hakimba. "Their strength was brought here."
I laughed.
"Yes," said Conrad, "most of the Paravaci bosk are now in the herds of the Kataii and Kassars."
"Reasonably evenly divided I trust," remarked Hakimba.
"I think so," said Conrad. "If not, we can always iron matters out with a bit of bosk raiding."
"That is true," granted Hakimba, the yellow and red scars wrinkling into a grin on his lean, black face.
"When the Paravaci—those who escaped us—return to their wagons," remarked Conrad, "they will find a surprise in store for them."
"Oh?" I inquired.
"We burned most of their wagons—those we could," said Hakimba.
"And their goods and women?" inquired Harold.
"Those that pleased us—both of goods and women," remarked Conrad, "we carried off—of goods that did not please us, we burned them—of women that did not please us, we left them stripped and weeping among the wagons."
"This will mean war," I said, "for many years among the Wagon Peoples."
"No," said Conrad, "the Paravaci will want back their bosk and women—and perhaps they may have them—for a price."
"You are wise," said Harold.
"I do not think they will slay bosk or join with Turians again," said Hakimba.
I supposed he was right. Later in the afternoon the last of the Paravaci had been cleared from the Tuchuk wagons, wherever they might be found. Harold and I sent a rider back to Kamchak with news of the victory. Following him, in a few hours, would be a Thousand each from the Kataii and the Kassars, to lend him what aid they might in his work in Turia.
In the morning the warriors remaining of the two Thousands who had ridden with Harold and I would, with the help of other Tuchuks surviving among the wagons, move the wagons and the bosk from the field. Already the bosk were growing uneasy at the smell of death and already the grass about the camp was rustling with the movements of the tiny brown prairie urts, scavengers, come to feed. Whether, after we had moved the wagons and bosk some pasangs away, we should remain there, or proceed toward the pastures this side of the Ta-Thassa Mountains, or return toward Turia, was not decided. In the thinking of both Harold and myself, that decision was properly Kamchak's. The Kataii main force and the Kassar main force camped separately some pasangs from the Tuchuk camp and the field and would, in the morning, return to their own wagons. Each had exchanged riders who, from time to time, would report to their own camp from that of the other. Each had also, as had the Tuchuks, set their own pickets. Neither wished the other to withdraw secretly and do for them what they together had done for the Paravaci, and what the Paravaci had attempted to do to the Tuchuks. It was not that they, on this night, truly distrusted one another so much as the fact that a lifetime of raiding and war had determined each to be, as a simple matter of course, wary of the other.
I myself was anxious to return to Turia as soon as it could be well managed. Harold, willingly enough, volunteered to remain in the camp until the commander of a Thousand could be sent from Turia to relieve him. I appreciated this very much on his part, for I keenly wished to return to Turia as soon as it would be at all practical—I had pressing and significant business yet unfinished behind its walls.
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, like 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 one of the curved wagon poles. Many of the bottles of wine 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, gray 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 I hoped that she might live, that her beauty if not compassion or justice might have w
on 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.
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—quite possibly the arrival on tarnback of the gray 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, 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 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 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.
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 and other commanders, sometimes merely positioning men, checking outposts and reconnoitering. 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 creeks 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 footfall 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 greater 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 so 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 comparative 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.