Blood Brothers of Gor

by Norman, John;

  I saw Mahpiyasapa fell a Yellow Knife with his lance. "Shields overhead!" I cried. A hail of arrows fell amongst us. Then great wings smote the air above us, the air tearing at our clothes, raising dust in affrighted clouds on the field.

  "I am here!" called Cuwignaka.

  "I am going to find Grunt!" I cried, through the dust. To my left I saw a child run through with a soldier's lance. I saw two women running wildly through the dust.

  I struck aside a lance and urged my kaiila toward where Grunt had been tending the wounded.

  The area here was like a charnel house. The grounds were covered with the twisted bodies of the slain and mutilated. I wondered if any had escaped. Lodges, even, though not all of them, had been thrown down and burned.

  "Aiii!" I heard. I lifted my shield but the Yellow Knife, his eyes wild with fright, rode past, his braids flying behind him.

  "Something over there," said Cuwignaka, half a kaiila length behind me, pointing.

  We urged our mounts up a small rise, and then down, partly, over it. Here, too, we found the bodies of men who had been wounded. Too, here, among them, were even bodies of one or two of the women who had been, with Grunt, tending to them.

  "Grunt is alive!" I said.

  Grunt, bodies about his feet, stood on a small rise.

  "Away!" Grunt was crying, waving his arm aversively, at two Yellow Knives, mounted, looking at him. "Away!"

  In the slaughter it seemed that only Grunt, and Wasnapohdi, too, protected by him, crouching behind him, her head down, the jaw rope of a kaiila clutched in her two hands, had not been killed.

  The two Yellow Knives, suddenly, turned about and sped from Grunt.

  I choked back a wave of repulsion.

  I recalled that long ago, even before I had come to Kailiauk, near the Ihanke, or Perimeter, I had questioned a young man, a tharlarion teamster, as to how it was that Grunt, of all white men, at that time, was permitted to travel so far and with such impunity in the Barrens. "Perhaps the savages feel they have nothing further to gain from Grunt," the young man had laughed. "I do not understand," I had said. "You will," he had said. But I had never understood that remark, until now.

  "You see why he is still alive," said Cuwignaka. "It has to do with beliefs about the medicine world."

  "I think so," I said.

  I moved the kaiila down the rest of the shallow slope, toward the small rise on which Grunt, Wasnapohdi behind him, stood. When Grunt had come into the Barrens he had had with him, among his other trade goods, a coffle of slaves. Although these women had been lovely he had not made use, as far as I knew, of any one of them. He had, on the other hand, invited me to content myself, and please myself, and relieve myself, with them as I would, expecting little of me in return other than that I would handle them as what they were, slaves, and prepare them, to some extent, for they were new slaves, for various of their future tasks, in particular those of providing a master with exquisite, uncompromised pleasures and services. He had had me teach even the virgins their first submissions. One such had been the former Miss Millicent Aubrey-Welles, the debutante from Pennsylvania, who was now Winyela, the slave of Canka, of the Isbu Kaiila. At the time I had never dreamed we would one day be owned by the same man. It was now clearer to me, as it had not been before, why Grunt had not performed these tasks himself.

  "Greetings," said Grunt.

  "Greetings," I said.

  "Now you see me as I am," said Grunt. "Do not attempt to conceal your repulsion."

  I shrugged.

  "It has already been done to him," said Cuwignaka. "It is like one cannot be killed or who, killed, has come back from the dead. It is like something from the medicine world."

  "Yes," I said.

  "Occasionally it proves useful," said Grunt.

  It was the first time that I had ever seen Grunt without the familiar, broad-brimmed hat.

  "It was done to me five years ago," he said, "by Yellow Knives. I had been struck unconscious. They thought me dead. I awakened later. I lived."

  "I have heard of such cases," I said.

  "It is hideous," he said.

  "Some of the skin has been restored," I said. In other places I could see little but scar tissue. In places, too, the bone was exposed.

  "More, too, was done," said Grunt, bitterly.

  "It is fortunate that you did not bleed to death," I said.

  "Is it?" asked Grunt.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Perhaps," he said.

  "Do many know?" I asked.

  "You did not know," said Grunt. "But it is generally not unknown."

  "I see," I said.

  "Wasnapohdi did not know," he said. "When she first saw she threw up in the grass."

  "She is only a slave," I said. Wasnapohdi kept her head down.

  "Do you wonder," he asked, "why Grunt seeks the Barrens, why he spends so little time with his own people?"

  "The camp is going to fall, imminently," I said. "It is my suggestion that you ride for your lives."

  "I prefer the Barrens," said Grunt, angrily. "They have strong stomachs in the Barrens!"

  "Riders!" said Cuwignaka. "And kaiila!"

  We spun about on our kaiila.

  "They are Kaiila!" said Cuwignaka.

  Some five warriors, of the Napoktan Kaiila, each drawing a string of kaiila, pulled up near us.

  "The women and children," said Cuwignaka, pointing, "are in that direction."

  "Wasnapohdi," cried one of the warriors, "is it you?"

  Wasnapohdi, from her crouching position, fell immediately, seemingly unable to help herself, to her knees in the grass. She looked up, her lower lip trembling, tears suddenly brimming in her eyes. "Yes, Master!" she said.

  "Hurry!" cried the leader of the warriors, and, suddenly, they sped away, in the direction Cuwignaka had indicated.

  I had heard the way in which Wasnapohdi had said the word 'Master' to the young man. It had not been used in the mere fashion in which any slave girl might use the expression 'Master' to any free man, expressing her understood lowliness and deference before him, but rather as though he might be her own master.

  Grunt, I noted, had drawn on his broad-brimmed hat. He had not wished to be seen as he was before the young warriors.

  "That is Waiyeyeca," I said to her.

  "Yes, Master," she said, tears in her eyes. I understood now why she had hidden from him in the camp. She feared her feelings. There was no doubt now in my mind, nor, I think, in hers, that she indeed did love him. In her eyes, and in her voice, and in the way in which she had said 'Master' to him, I saw that she still, in her heart, regarded herself as his slave.

  Grunt, too, a shrewd man, had noticed this.

  Wasnapohdi rose to her feet, looking after the riders. She put out her hand. Tears were in her eyes.

  "Let me follow him, Master," she said to Grunt. "Please!"

  "Have you received permission to rise, Slave?" asked Grunt.

  She looked at him, startled. Then Grunt, with a savage blow of the back of his hand, struck her to the grass at his feet. She looked up at him, disbelievingly. There was blood at the side of her mouth. Her hands were then taken before her body and her wrists, crossed, were, at one end of a long tether, tightly tied. She was then jerked to her feet. "You do not belong to him," said Grunt. "You belong to me."

  "Yes, Master," she said, tears in her eyes.

  Grunt mounted. He looped the free end of her tether three times about the pommel of his saddle. "If we survive," said Grunt, "you will discover that your breach of discipline has earned you a superb lashing."

  "Yes, Master," she wept.

  With all her heart she wished to run after Waiyeyeca, but she would go with Grunt. Her will was nothing. She was slave.

  "I was too much absorbed with myself," said Grunt. "Sometimes I let things bother me too much. I thank you both, my friends, for bringing me to my senses."

  "Ride," said Cuwignaka. "It is nearly dark. Hopefully many will be able to escap
e from the camp, riding or afoot."

  "Surely you will come with us?" said Grunt.

  "No," said Cuwignaka.

  "The fighting is the business of warriors," said Grunt.

  "We are warriors," said Cuwignaka.

  "I wish you well," said Grunt.

  "We wish you well," I said.

  "Oglu waste!" said Cuwignaka.

  "Oglu waste!" said Grunt. "Good luck!"

  He then moved his kaiila away, through the gloom. We saw Wasnapohdi cast an anguished glance over her shoulder, in the direction in which Waiyeyeca had ridden. Then, by the wrists, weeping, stumbling, the tether taut, she was pulled along, by the side of Grunt's kaiila.

  "He is the only man I know who has survived that," said Cuwignaka.

  "In itself," I said, "it is not likely to be lethal. It is only that it is commonly done only to the dying or dead."

  "You are right, of course," said Cuwignaka.

  "Grunt seems rather sensitive about it," I said.

  "It saved his life today," said Cuwignaka. "He should be pleased."

  "I suppose one could get used to it," I said.

  "It is hideous," said Cuwignaka.

  "To be sure," I granted him, "it is not likely to start a fashion."

  "I do not think so," laughed Cuwignaka.

  "He is a good man," I said.

  "Yes," said Cuwignaka, "and a kindly one."

  "Yes," I said.

  "I wonder if Wasnapohdi will ever realize how Grunt was concerned to save her life."

  "She will doubtless understand sometime," I said. "She is an intelligent woman."

  "Mahpiyasapa knows the camp is lost," said Cuwignaka.

  "Yes," I said. "The young warriors were bringing in kaiila, to help evacuate the women and children."

  "Do you think there will be enough kaiila?" asked Cuwignaka.

  "I do not know," I said.

  "There will not be," said Cuwignaka.

  30

  Sardak

  Thrusting and stabbing we cut through soldiers.

  "Kaiila! Friends!" I cried, lance uplifted.

  "Tatankasa! Cuwignaka!" cried a man.

  The thin, ragged, linear oval of warriors, some hundred yards in length, opened, admitting us. Within it, crowded, were women and children, and kaiila.

  Mahpiyasapa and his lieutenants, with their cries, the movements of battle staffs, the blasts of war whistles, had succeeded in forming fresh lines, constructing a defensive perimeter.

  We wheeled our kaiila about, taking our place in the lines.

  Arrows from soaring Kinyanpi fell amongst us.

  Here and there, at points on our perimeter, Yellow Knives and soldiers, in fierce, brief exchanges, tested our strength.

  "No man is to flee until Mahpiyasapa gives the signal," said a man.

  "We must hold out until darkness," said another.

  "We must then, sheltering the women and the young, try to break through their lines."

  "I understand," I said.

  "The night is overcast," said another. "It will be difficult for the Kinyanpi to follow us."

  "It will soon be dark," said a man.

  "Wait for the signal of Mahpiyasapa," cautioned another.

  Hci drew his kaiila back from the lines, and turning it about, brought it alongside of Cuwignaka's beast.

  "I did not think you would come back," he said.

  "I am Kaiila," said Cuwignaka.

  Hci then returned to his place in the lines.

  "I think we can hold these lines until dark," I said to Cuwignaka.

  "I think so," said Cuwignaka. "Otherwise it will be a slaughter."

  Suddenly we heard the shaking of rattles, the beating of small hand drums. The Yellow Knives opened their lines. The soldiers, too, drew back. In the corridor then formed, in the gloom, their bodies painted, brush tied about their wrists and ankles, chanting, stomping, turning about and shuffling, came dancers. They wore masks.

  "Yellow Knives," said a man, frightened.

  "They are making medicine," whispered another.

  The masks they wore were large, almost as broad as their shoulders. I could see their faces, painted with yellow stripes, through the mouth holes of the masks. The masks themselves were painted. They were made of wood and leather.

  "They are calling on medicine helpers!" said a man, terrified.

  Such masks, to the red savage, are not simply masks. They are themselves objects fearful with power. The visions recorded on such masks might, in the lore of the red savages, derive from the medicine world itself.

  Men shifted uneasily on their kaiila. One or two of the beasts backed from the line.

  "Hold your places!" said Mahpiyasapa. "We do not fear wood and leather!"

  I smiled to myself. The remark of Mahpiyasapa, it seemed to me, smacked of heresy. On the other hand, it was certainly not in the best interests of his position to promote the plausibility of Yellow-Knife medicine.

  "It is false medicine!" called Mahpiyasapa. "Do not fear it! It is only wood and leather!"

  I smiled again to myself. Mahpiyasapa had made a suitable adjustment, implicitly drawing a distinction between true and false medicines, the medicine of the Kaiila presumably being true medicine, and that of the Yellow Knives false. A more typical distinction would have been not between true and false medicines, but between weaker and stronger medicines. The red savage is usually quite willing to grant that the enemy has medicine; it is his hope, however, of course, that his medicine will prove stronger. On the other hand, if the medicine of the enemy was false medicine altogether, then what had he to fear?

  The test for the stronger medicine, incidentally, implicitly, appears to be victory or success. The matter is perhaps rather similar to the claim that the will always acts on the stronger motive, the stronger motive being implicitly defined as that motive on which the will acts. In a creature priding itself on its rationality this penchant for irrefutable fables is, at least at first glance, somewhat remarkable; scrutinized more closely, however, it appears that such fables, in many cases, play psychologically significant roles; this perhaps explains their prevalence in all, or most, cultures, and their appearance in all, or most, human beings; allegiance to such fables, for example, it is clear, can be conducive to tribality; tribality, in turn, is often conducive to group survival. It is thus possible, interestingly, that a readiness to subscribe to ideologies, with no particular regard for their nature, has been selected for. Clearly, however, these belief systems must be at least of certain general sorts; for example, a belief that individuals could drink sand would not be likely to achieve an impressive longevity; it might last approximately seventy-two hours.

  The most successful belief systems normally have two significant properties in common; first, they have nothing to do with the real world and, secondly, they claim to have a great deal to do with it. The second property seems to be important in encouraging people to take it seriously and the first in assuring that it need never collapse in the face of facts, regardless of what the facts turn out to be. The real role of such belief systems, thus, is not to tell people about the world, for they are actually irrelevant to the world, but to supply them with psychological and social benefits. To simply see such belief systems as false or meaningless is perhaps to fail to understand what one is dealing with. They are not libraries but fortresses. It is an interesting question whether or not such competitive belief systems can be replaced with truth; truth, like the belief systems, is irrefutable, but its irrefutability is not a function of emptiness, of cognitive vacuity, but of its rectitude.

  Truth, you see, has reality on its side. Truth's problems do not derive primarily from the complexity of nature but from the simplicity of people. It is always more convenient to adopt a slogan than conduct an inquiry. Too, the often cold and flinty nature of truth may, to many people, understandably, constitute a poor substitute for the comforts of self-deception. Harmless lies, perhaps, improve the quality of human life. They do not, o
f course, improve its nobility or grandeur. I suppose a choice, as in many matters, must be made. Some will sleep late. Others will seek the stars.

  "Fear nothing," cried Mahpiyasapa. "The medicine of the Yellow Knives is false medicine!"

  "What manner of medicine beasts are they, those portrayed on the masks?" asked a man.

  "I do not know," said another, uneasily.

  "I have never seen such things," said a man.

  "Surely such things could exist only in the medicine world," said a man.

  "Such things would surely be fearful and invincible medicine helpers," said a man, shuddering.

  "The medicine of the Yellow Knives is false medicine," said a man. "Mahpiyasapa is right."

  "Suppose it is not," said another man.

  "Such things do not exist," said another man. "They do not exist even in the medicine world."

  "Whence, then, came the visions for such masks?" asked another, uneasily.

  "If they did exist in the medicine world," said the first man, "they would not favor the Yellow Knives."

  "True," said another man.

  "What if they did?" asked another.

  "Then," said the first man, "we would be doomed."

  I leaned forward on the kaiila. I could now see, reasonably well, the visages portrayed on the masks. The hair on the back of my neck rose. The visages, clearly, were those of Kurii.

  "Hold your lines," I begged the men about me. "Hold your lines, no matter what happens!"

  "Your medicine is false," cried Mahpiyasapa to the Yellow Knives, though doubtless they could not understand him. "We do not fear it. It is only wood and leather!"

  A horrifying sound came then from the ranks of the Yellow Knives and soldiers. It was a long, howling cry. It must have struck terror, too, into the hearts of the Yellow Knives and soldiers. The sound was unmistakable. I had heard it on the rocky slopes of Torvaldsland, on the sands of the Tahari, in the jungles of the Ua.