Blood Brothers of Gor

by Norman, John;

  "They are not moving," said Cuwignaka. "They are holding in place."

  A tarn then was caught under the ropes. Screaming, it tore its way free, pulling leather and cloth with it. Its rider was held on its back, lifeless, his knees under the girth rope, his body riddled with arrows. Two other birds hung in the netting, one with its neck broken and the other with a wing half torn away. The riders were pulled from their backs and hacked to pieces. The tarn with the useless wing snapped with its great back at its foes and then was killed with lance thrusts. One rider fell from the back of a struck tarn and caught in the netting, hanging head down. His hands were held and his throat was cut. Another perished similarly, lances thrust upward through the ropes and cloth, until, bleeding, wounded again and again, he could be pulled down, falling to the ground, there to die under knives. I saw, looking wildly about, tarns flying erratically, hit with arrows. I saw two fall. One rider I saw fall from the back of a tarn, some few hundred yards to the west and north of the camp. I looked wildly back to the west. The Yellow Knives had not moved.

  "How many were there?" I asked Cuwignaka.

  "Forty, fifty?" speculated Cuwignaka. "I do not know. Not so many as before."

  I did not know, either, how many were in the original attack. Surely those numbers would still be in the vicinity. I would have guessed some two hundred riders would have struck in the first attack, that which had taken the camp by surprise. Cuwignaka's speculations as to the numbers involved in the recent skirmish was congruent with my own estimations. The majority of the Kinyanpi, for some reason, it seemed, had been held back. This puzzled me. The attack, of course, I told myself, might have been primarily an excursionary probe, a venture to determine the nature and strength of our defenses. If that were the case, I thought grimly to myself, its riders would have ample information to report to their superiors.

  "Why do you think so few attacked?" I asked Cuwignaka.

  "I do not know," he said. "Where a smaller number attacks a larger number there is more glory."

  I smiled to myself. Perhaps Cuwignaka was right. While I had busied myself with the prosaic categories of military arithmetic and motivation, I had perhaps neglected the mentality of the enemy, which, in some cases, as in that of red savages, might be eccentric and unusual, at least when viewed from an inadequate or alien perspective. If glory is more important to the enemy than normal military objectives, calculated in costs and units, then one, accordingly, is advised to make certain adjustments in one's thinking about him.

  "But," said Cuwignaka, "that is not really our way. Surviving is more important than glory."

  "Then why did so few attack?" I asked.

  "I do not know," said Cuwignaka.

  I was irritated. Now, my edifice of explanation had tumbled. Now, no more than Cuwignaka, did I understand the nature of the recent attack.

  "Look," said a man.

  "I see," I said.

  A single tarnsman, high in the sky, was flying toward the Yellow Knives. Then he alit, among them.

  "Surely now they will coordinate their forces," said Cuwignaka.

  "I think so," I said.

  28

  Fighting Continues

  "See?" asked Cuwignaka.

  "Yes," I said. Before the lines of the Yellow Knives, some three hundred yards away, to the west, riders rode back and forth, with feathered lances.

  It was now late in the afternoon.

  "They are preparing for an attack," said Cuwignaka. "They are exhorting their warriors to be brave."

  "Yes," I said. I had now, again, taken my place in the Kaiila lines. I had ridden to the perimeter of our rearward lines, there, for the second time, to inspect the deployment of archers, the placement of the stakes, the rigging of the overhead nets. I found all in order. Had I not done so I would have conveyed my suggestions to Cuwignaka who, in turn, would have relayed them to Hci. He, then, would have brought them to the attention of Mahpiyasapa or of Kahintokapa, One-Who-Walks-Before, who was in charge of this sector of our position. Kahintokapa, of the Casmu band, was a member of the prestigious Yellow-Kaiila Riders. This rather roundabout procedure, providing we had the time in which it might function, seemed advisable to both Cuwignaka and myself. We doubted that either Mahpiyasapa or Kahintokapa would much relish receiving direct advice from two fellows as lowly in the camp as ourselves. On the other hand, Hci had been scrupulously honest, somewhat to our surprise, in making it clear to his father and to Kahintokapa the source of his earlier recommendations for defense against the attacks of the Kinyanpi. That he had even considered my counsel, let alone heeded it and conveyed it, and as mine, to Mahpiyasapa and Kahintokapa, had surprised both Cuwignaka and myself. Neither of us had expected this, not of Hci, from whom we looked for little but arrogance and vanity. Too, to our surprise, when we had come to join the warriors they had opened their ranks to permit us to take our place among them. We had not fled. We had not gone to wait with the women and children. We had come with shields and lances. They opened their ranks. We then, one who wore the dress of a woman, and one who was only a slave, took our place amongst them.

  "I think they will be coming soon," said Cuwignaka.

  "Yes," I said.

  At our rearward lines I had seen Kahintokapa. He had raised his hand to me, palm open, in greeting. I had returned the gesture. It was almost as though I were not a slave. He had his shield again in its cover, as he had had earlier. He would withdraw it from the cover for combat, of course.

  "They are probably waiting for the Kinyanpi," said Cuwignaka.

  "I think so," I said.

  In my return to our lines I had stopped to see Grunt. He was near the area where the women and children were gathered. He, with some of the women, was nursing the wounded. Wasnapohdi was with him. That we had turned the attack of the Kinyanpi had inspirited him. "The camp can be held, I am sure of it!" he had said.

  "I think so," I had said.

  "The Yellow Knives have been quite successful," he had said. "They have obtained numerous kaiila, much loot and many women. Surprise is now no longer with them. I know such men. They will soon withdraw. Obtaining further loot would be too costly to them."

  "They have not yet withdrawn," I had said.

  "I do not understand that," he had said.

  "Nor do I," I had admitted. It had seemed strange to me that the Yellow Knives, after the difficulties of taking the camp had been made clear to them, had not withdrawn. One would have expected that of red savages.

  "They remain in the field?" he had asked.

  "Yes," I had said.

  "Interesting," he had said.

  When I had left Grunt I had ridden a hundred yards or so away, to look at the remains of the council lodge. Little now remained but its poles. It had been the central target of the initial attack of the Kinyanpi, the Flighted Ones. Hundreds of arrows, I had heard, had penetrated its lodge skins. In it, and about it, had been the scene of a massacre. It was little wonder that Watonka had not been eager to attend the council. It was fortunate that Mahpiyasapa, with Grunt, had been outside the camp at the time of this attack. Most of the accumulated leadership, wisdom and experience of the Kaiila people, in all the bands, had perished in a matter of Ehn. One of the few survivors had been Kahintokapa, who had cut his way through the skins and fled. A task force of Yellow Knives had penetrated the camp, too, to that point, and it was they who had killed and mutilated the wounded, and burned the lodge. A similar task force had attacked the dance lodge. These task forces had then withdrawn. Shortly thereafter the resistance had formed, led by Mahpiyasapa and Kahintokapa. I looked into the darkened circle outlined by the long poles. Within it, still, were bodies, and the upright shafts of countless arrows. It had indeed been a dark and bloody day for the Kaiila. Many things, incidentally, puzzled me about this attack, generally. One was the alliance and cooperation of the Yellow Knives and Kinyanpi. These were not traditional allies. It seemed to me unusual that they had acted in this carefully coordinated fashion. All
iances between tribes unfamiliar to one another commonly took place only in resistance to white intrusion into the Barrens. Another peculiarity of the attack lay in the nature of its engineering. It did not follow the normal, rather restrained, small-scale, almost ritualized patterns of conflict common among the red savages. For example, the meretricious proposal of a spurious peace, to lure the leadership of a people into a small area, there to be devastatingly attacked, while not beyond the intelligence or cunning of red savages, did not seem at all typical of their approach to military matters. Certainly it was a surprising kind of generalship to find in the Barrens. It seemed to have little to do with traditions of honor and the meticulous counting of coup. Lastly, it seemed almost incomprehensible, given the nature of the beliefs of the red savages, that the attack had been mounted on a people at the time of the festivals. This, in the Barrens, is something in the nature of blasphemy or sacrilege. It was hard for me to believe that the Yellow Knives, red savages themselves, could have even conceived of such a thing. This, again, I had to observe, suggested, at least, the advent of a new form of generalship, the adoption of novel tactics, in the Barrens. To be sure, I had to admit that this sort of thing, particularly with the collusion of Watonka, apparently slain later by those whose interests he had served, had been quite effective. That was undeniable.

  I looked again at the bodies, and arrows, within the remains of the council lodge.

  I was not pleased with what I saw. I then turned my kaiila away.

  I had then ridden back toward my place in our forward lines. In this short journey I had passed several kaiila, picketed under the ropes and cloths. There were not enough for all those who would have to ride. I also passed large stocks of meat, gathered from the drying racks by the women and put on robes under the netting. This meat would be important for the Kaiila. It could make the difference between surviving the winter and losing many lives in the cold and snows. I also passed some lines and circles of female slaves. Most were kneeling and stripped, and secured with hair ties. Long hair is enforced on most Gorean slaves by their masters. It is aesthetically beautiful and much, from the point of view of diverse coiffures, revealing new dimensions of the slave's loveliness, may be done with it. Too, as is well known among masters and slaves, its application, in the expression and pursuance of a slave's submission and service, can do much to enhance and deepen a master's pleasures; it is erotically useful. Too, in the absence of more customary restraints, such as, say, binding fiber or graceful, steel shackles, it may serve as a bond.

  The commercial value of long hair might also be mentioned. Aside from the obvious fact that it might improve the price of a girl in her sale or resale, it can also be sheared and sold. Free women sometimes buy hair for wigs or falls, and, although the hair they purchase is always certified as coming only from free women, there is little doubt that it is often taken from female slaves.

  Too, interestingly, female hair is prized for catapult ropes. It is not only stronger and more resilient than hemp but it possesses better properties of weather resistance, being less affected by moisture and temperature changes. When a city is under siege, particularly if the siege is prolonged, even free women will often have their hair shorn, contributing it to the supplies for municipal defense. Considering the usual vanity of Goreans, both male and female, over their appearance, this is a patriotic sacrifice of no little magnitude. It is particularly significant when one understands that the women know very well that if they fall into the hands of the enemy, with their hair shorn, they may expect to be sold into low slaveries, such as agricultural servitudes or those of the mills. Sometimes, as time passes, the foremen in such places come to realize that they have an incredible beauty in their power. They often hide such women from their superiors, keeping them for themselves. An additional advantage of long hair in a female slave, incidentally, is that it gives the master additional power over her, for, as he is the master, it is his decision whether or not she shall be able to keep it. One of the commands a Gorean woman most fears to hear, whether she is a captive or a slave, is "Shear her."

  The kneeling position is, of course, a suitable one for slaves. A slave will normally assume such a position on entering the presence of her master or a free person. She will probably remain in it until permitted to rise. It is a common position, too, for her to assume when she is in attendance on a master, for example, awaiting his notice or commands. Too, she will usually speak to her master from this position, unless, of course, she is lying down, as in making her reports to him, inquiring as to his will, answering questions, and so on. Some masters approve it, too, for purposes of general conversation. Most masters, incidentally, enjoy talking with their slaves, immensely; after all, the slave is not a mere contractual partner, in effect, a business associate; she is a prized possession; she is a treasure, and she is all one's own.

  Some Goreans think of the Free Companionship as being a form of contract slavery; this is not, of course, precisely correct; on the other hand, if more women took that definition seriously, I have little doubt but what free companionships would be far more rewarding than they now are, for many couples. They might then, under that interpretation, and held contractually enforceable on the woman, be that next best thing to her actual slavery. There is no full and adequate substitute, of course, given the dominance/submission ratios and the order of nature, for the uncompromised, and full and total bondage of the female. Once this is institutionalized and legalized, as it is on Gor, we have, then, the union of nature and civilization, a union in which civilization no longer functions as a counterbiological antithesis to nature but rather, perhaps, as an extension and flowering of nature herself, a union in which natural relationships are fulfilled and furthered.

  That most of the kneeling women were stripped did not mean that most of them were from the outlying herds. For the most part those herds had probably, by now, fallen to Yellow Knives. Rather the stripping of these women, most of whom would presumably be slaves from the inner parts of the camp, was, in large measure, a security precaution, the camp being under attack. It is difficult for a naked woman to conceal weapons. That most of the women wore bonds was also a security precaution. It is common for Goreans, in times of crisis or danger, to secure their slaves. At such times slaves, like other animals, must be strictly controlled. It would not do, for example, to have them running about, adding to the confusion. Similarly, slaves are to be absolutely unable, even if they wish, to interfere with the defense or abet the attackers, in any way; similarly, they are to be precluded from attempting to take advantage of the confusion, perhaps in order, foolishly, to attempt to escape. They are the prizes of the action, not participants in it. Helpless, they must abide its outcome. It will be time enough later for them to learn their fate.

  They were fastened, for the most part, in two different forms of hair ties. In one, the wrists of one woman were bound before her body, lifted and raised, in the hair of the woman before her. Another woman's wrists, then, would be bound in her hair, and so on. Some of these women were coffled in lines, and others in circles, the last woman's hair serving to bind the wrists of the first woman. The other form of hair tie had the hands of a woman tied behind her back to the hair of the woman who, her head lowered, knelt behind her.

  Once again, some were secured in lines, and others in circles, the hands of the last woman being tied in the hair of the first. This second form of hair tie, done in lines, incidentally, resembles a common coffle arrangement, achieved with a set of relatively short thongs, each about five feet in length. The first woman's hands are bound behind her back with one end of such a thong and then the other end is taken up and knotted about the neck of the woman behind her; this woman's hands are then bound behind her with another thong, its free end then being taken up and bound about the neck of the woman behind her, and so on. An advantage of this coffle arrangement is that women may be easily taken from it, and added to it.

  A similar arrangement, of course, may be achieved with ch
ains, each length of chain terminating at one end with a pair of slave bracelets and, at the other end, with a closable, lockable neck ring. The last woman on the coffle, of course, has the neck ring attached to her own bracelets and chain locked about her own neck. An advantage of the chains over the thongs, of course, is that the chain cannot be chewed through. Some of the other girls under the ropes and cloths were tied in more conventional fashions. Some were not even tied at all. An example was Oiputake, or Kiss, whom I well knew. It was she whom I had taken from a herd earlier, and improved. Too, it was she who had alerted us to the fact, thinking little of it at the time, that the Yellow-Knife chieftains in camp were not civil chieftains but war chiefs.

  "Master!" she had cried out to me, extending her hand to me.

  "Be silent, Slave," I had told her.

  "Yes, Master," she had said. I had then ridden on. I did not wish to converse with her at the time. She could not follow me. She stood within a small dirt circle, probably drawn with the heel of a moccasin about her. It was a confinement circle. She could not leave it without the permission of a free person. I did stop my kaiila briefly beside a blond girl, lying on her belly in the dirt. She trembled, knowing I had stopped near her.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  "I am a nameless slave of Cotanka, of the Wismahi," she said.

  She was the slave who, earlier, had been used by Yellow-Knives as, in effect, a lure girl, one used to distract or, say, entrap a warrior. Cotanka had been fortunate. He had not been killed. He now owned her. I did not think her lot would be an easy one. She wore the "bonds of the master's will." Grunt had put her in them. She lay on her stomach. Her wrists were crossed behind her. Her ankles, too, were crossed. She was "bound." She could not rise to her feet. Yet there was not a rope or a strap on her body. She was "bound by the master's will." She could not move from this position unless, at the word of a free person, she was freed from it. To break the position otherwise is to be instantly slain.