Tarnsman of Gor

by John Norman

  "We are together again," he said. "We are together again, Tarl of Bristol, my sword brother."

  Kazrak and I sat in his tent, and I recounted my adventures to him, while he listened, shaking his head. "You are one of destiny and luck," he said, "raised by the Priest-Kings to do great deeds."

  "Life is short," I said. "Let us speak of things we know."

  "In a hundred generations, among the thousand chains of fate," said Kazrak, "there is but one strand like yours."

  There was a sound at the entrance of Kazrak's tent. I darted back into the shadows.

  It was one of the trusted strap-masters of Mintar, the man who guided the beasts that carried the merchant's palanquin.

  Without looking around the tent, the man addressed himself directly to Kazrak.

  "Will Kazrak and his guest, Tarl of Bristol, please accompany me to the tent of Mintar, of the Merchant Caste?" asked the man.

  Kazrak and I were stunned, but arose to follow the man. It was now dark, and as I wore my helmet, there was no chance of the casual observer determining my identity. Before I left Kazrak's tent, I placed the ring of red metal, with the crest of Cabot, in my pouch. Hitherto I had worn the ring almost arrogantly, but now it seemed to me that discretion, to alter a saying, was the better part of pride.

  Mintar's tent was enormous and domed, similar in shape to others in his camp; however, not only in size, but in splendor of appointment, it was a palace of silk. We passed through the guards at the entrance. In the center of the great tent, seated alone on cushions before a small fire, were two men, a game board between them. One was Mintar, of the Merchant Caste, his great bulk resting like a sack of meal on the cushions. The other man, a gigantic man, wore the robes of one of the Afflicted, but wore them as a king might. He sat cross-legged, his back straight and his head high, in the fashion of a warrior. Without needing to approach more closely, I knew the other man. It was Marlenus.

  "Do not interrupt the game," commanded Marlenus.

  Kazrak and I stood to one side.

  Mintar was lost in thought, his small eyes fastened to the red and yellow squares of the board. Having recognized our presence, Marlenus, too, turned his attention to the game. A brief, crafty light flickered momentarily in Mintar's small eyes, and his pudgy hand hovered, hesitating an instant, over one of the pieces of the hundred-squared board, a centered Tarnsman. He touched it, committing himself to moving it. A brief exchange followed, like a chain reaction, neither man considering his moves for a moment; First Tarnsman took First Tarnsman, Second Spearman responded by neutralizing First Tarnsman, City neutralized Spearman, Assassin took City, Assassin fell to Second Tarnsman, Tarnsman to Spear Slave, Spear Slave to Spear Slave.

  Mintar relaxed on the cushions. "You have taken the City," he said, "but not the Home Stone." His eyes gleamed with pleasure. "I permitted that, in order that I might capture the Spear Slave. Let us now adjudicate the game. The Spear Slave gives me the point I need, a small point but decisive."

  Marlenus smiled, rather grimly. "But position must figure in any adjudication," he said. Then, with an imperious gesture, Marlenus swept his Ubar into the file opened by the movement of Mintar's capturing Spear Slave. It covered the Home Stone.

  Mintar bowed his head in mock ceremony, a wry smile on his fat face, and with one short finger delicately tipped his own Ubar, causing it to fall.

  "It is a weakness in my game," lamented Mintar. "I am ever too greedy for a profit, however small."

  Marlenus looked at Kazrak and myself. "Mintar," he said, "teaches me patience. He is normally a master of defense."

  Mintar smiled. "And Marlenus invariably of the attack."

  "An absorbing game," said Marlenus, almost absent-mindedly. "To some men this game is music and women. It can give them pleasure. It can help them forget. It is Ka-la-na wine, and the night on which such wine is drunk."

  Neither Kazrak nor myself spoke.

  "Look here," said Marlenus, reconstructing the board. "I have used the Assassin to take the City. Then, the Assassin is felled by a Tarnsman ... an unorthodox, but interesting variation ..."

  "And the Tarnsman is felled by a Spear Slave," I observed.

  "True," said Marlenus, shaking his head, "but thusly did I win."

  "And Pa-Kur," I said, "is the Assassin."

  "Yes," agreed Marlenus, "and Ar is the City."

  "And I am the Tarnsman?" I asked.

  "Yes," said Marlenus.

  "And who," I asked, "is the Spear Slave?"

  "Does it matter?" asked Marlenus, sifting several of the Spear Slaves through his fingers, letting them drop, one by one, to the board. "Any of them will do."

  "If the Assassin should take the city," I said, "the rule of the Initiates will be broken, and eventually the horde with its loot will scatter, leaving a garrison."

  Mintar shifted comfortably, settling his great bulk more deeply into the cushions. "The young tarnsman plays the game well," he said.

  "And," I went on, "when Pa-Kur falls, the garrison will be divided, and a revolution may take place—"

  "Led by a Ubar," said Marlenus, looking fixedly at the game piece in his hand. It was a Ubar. He smashed it down on the board, scattering the other pieces to the silken cushions. "By a Ubar!" he exclaimed.

  "You are willing," I asked, "to turn the city over to Pa-Kur—that his horde should swarm into the cylinders, that the city may be looted and burned, the people destroyed or enslaved?" I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of the uncontrolled hordes of Pa-Kur among the spires of Ar, butchering, pillaging, burning, raping—or, as the Goreans will have it, washing the bridges in blood.

  The eyes of Marlenus flashed. "No," he said. "But Ar will fall. The Initiates can only mumble prayers to the Priest-Kings, arrange the details of their meaningless, innumerable sacrifices. They crave political power, but can't understand it or manipulate it. They will never withstand a well-mounted siege. They will never keep the city."

  "Can't you enter the city and take power?" I asked. "You could return the Home Stone. You could gather a following."

  "Yes," said Marlenus. "I could return the Home Stone—and there are those who would follow me—but there are not enough, not enough. How many would rally to the banner of an outlaw? No, the power of the Initiates must first be broken."

  "Do you have a way into the city?" I asked.

  Marlenus looked at me narrowly. "Perhaps," he said.

  "Then I have a counterplan," I said. "Strike for the Home Stones of those cities tributary to Ar—they are kept on the Central Cylinder. If you seize them, you can divide Pa-Kur's horde, give the Home Stones to the contingents of the tributary cities, provided they withdraw their forces. If they do not, destroy the Stones."

  "The soldiers of the Twelve Tributary Cities," he said, "want loot, vengeance, the women of Ar, not just their Stones."

  "Perhaps some of them fight for their freedom—for the right to keep their own Home Stone," I said. "Surely not all of Pa-Kur's horde are adventurers, mercenaries." Noting the Ubar's interest, I went on. "Besides, few of the soldiers of Gor, barbarians though they might be, would risk the destruction of their city's Home Stone—the luck of their birthplace."

  "But," said Marlenus, frowning, "if the siege is lifted, the Initiates will be left in power."

  "And Marlenus will not resume the throne of Ar," I said. "But the city will be safe." I looked at Marlenus, testing the man. "What is it, Ubar, that you hold dearest—your city or your title? Do you seek the welfare of Ar or your private glory?"

  Marlenus leaped to his feet, hurling the yellow robes of the Afflicted from him, drawing his blade from its sheath with a metallic flash. "A Ubar," he cried, "answers such a question only with his sword!" My weapon, too, had flashed from its sheath almost simultaneously. We faced each other for a long, terrible moment; then Marlenus threw back his head and laughed his great lion laugh, slamming his sword back into its sheath. "Your plan is a good one," he said. "My men and I will enter the city tonight."r />
  "And I shall go with you," I said.

  "No," said Marlenus. "The men of Ar need no help from a warrior of Ko-ro-ba."

  "Perhaps," suggested Mintar, "the young tarnsman might attend to the matter of Talena, daughter of Marlenus."

  "Where is she?" I demanded.

  "We are not certain," said Mintar. "But it is presumed that she is kept in the tents of Pa-Kur."

  For the first time Kazrak spoke. "On the day that Ar falls, she will wed Pa-Kur and rule beside him. He hopes this will encourage the survivors of Ar to accept him as their rightful Ubar. He will proclaim himself their liberator, their deliverer from the despotism of the Initiates, the restorer of the old order, the glory of the empire."

  Mintar was idly arranging the pieces on the game board, first in one pattern and then in another. "In large matters, as the pieces are now set," he said, "the girl is unimportant, but only the Priest-Kings can foresee all possible variations. It might be well to remove the girl from the board." So saying, he picked a piece, the Ubar's Consort, or Ubara, from the board and dropped it into the game box.

  Marlenus stared down at the board, his fists clenched. "Yes," he said, "she must be removed from the board, but not simply for reasons of strategy. She has dishonored me." He scowled at me. "She has been alone with a warrior—she has submitted herself—she has even pledged to sit at the side of an assassin."

  "She has not dishonored you," I said.

  "She submitted herself," said Marlenus.

  "Only to save her life," I said.

  "And rumor has it," said Mintar, not looking up from the board, "that she pledged herself to Pa-Kur only that some tarnsman she loved might be given a small chance of life."

  "She would have brought a bride price of a thousand tarns," said Marlenus bitterly, "and now she is of less value than a trained slave girl."

  "She is your daughter," I said, my temper rising.

  "If she were here now," said Marlenus, "I would strangle her."

  "And I would kill you," I said.

  "Well, then," said Marlenus, smiling, "perhaps I would only beat her and throw her naked to my tarnsmen."

  "And I would kill you," I repeated.

  "Indeed," said Marlenus, looking at me narrowly, "one of us would slay the other."

  "Have you no love for her?" I asked.

  Marlenus seemed momentarily puzzled. "I am a Ubar," he said. He drew the robes of the Afflicted once more around his gigantic frame and picked up a gnarled staff he carried. He dropped the hood of the yellow robe about his face, ready to go, then turned to me once more. With the staff he poked me good-naturedly in the chest. "May the Priest-Kings favor you," he said, and, inside the folds of the hood, I knew he was chuckling.

  Marlenus left the tent, seemingly one of the Afflicted, a bent wreck of humanity pathetically scratching at the earth in front of him with the staff.

  Mintar looked up, and he, too, seemed pleased. "You are the only man who has ever escaped the tarn death," he said, something of wonder in his voice. "Perhaps it is true, as they say, that you are that warrior brought every thousand years to Gor—brought by the Priest-Kings to change a world."

  "How did you know I would come to the camp?" I asked.

  "Because of the girl," said Mintar. "And it was logical, was it not, to expect you to enlist the aid of your Kazrak, your sword brother?"

  "Yes," I said.

  Mintar reached into the pouch at his waist and drew forth a golden tarn disk, of double weight. He threw it to Kazrak.

  Kazrak caught it.

  "I understand you are leaving my service," said Mintar.

  "I must," said Kazrak.

  "Of course," said Mintar.

  "Where are the tents of Pa-Kur?" I asked.

  "On the highest ground in camp," said Mintar, "near the second ditch and across from the great gate of Ar. You will see the black banner of the Caste of Assassins."

  "Thank you," I said. "Though you are of the Merchant Caste, you are a brave man."

  "A merchant may be as brave as a warrior, young Tarnsman," smiled Mintar. Then he seemed somewhat embarrassed. "Let us look at it this way. Suppose Marlenus regains Ar—will Mintar not receive the monopolies he wishes?"

  "Yes," I said, "but Pa-Kur will guarantee those monopolies as freely as Marlenus."

  "Even more freely," corrected Mintar, turning his attention again to the board, "but, you see, Pa-Kur does not play the game."

  16

  The Girl in the Cage

  Kazrak and I returned to his tent, and until the early morning we discussed the possibilities of rescuing Talena. We turned over a number of plans, none of which seemed likely to succeed. It would presumably be suicidal to make any direct attempt to cut through to her, and yet, if this was the last resort, I knew I would make the attempt. In the meantime, until the city fell or Pa-Kur altered his plans, she would presumably be safe. It seemed unlikely that Pa-Kur would be so politically naive as to use the girl before she had publicly accepted him as her Free Companion, according to the rites of Ar. Treated as a pleasure slave, she would have negligible political value. On the other hand, the thought of her in the tents of Pa-Kur enraged me, and I knew I would be unable to restrain myself indefinitely. For the time being, however, Kazrak's counsels of patience won me over, convincing me that any precipitous action would be almost surely doomed to failure.

  Accordingly, for the next few days, I remained with Kazrak and bided my time. I dyed my hair black and acquired the helmet and gear of an Assassin. Across the left temple of the black helmet I fixed the golden slash of the messenger. In this disguise I freely wandered about the camp, observing the siege operations, the appointment of the compounds, the marshaling of troops. Occasionally I would climb halfway up one of the siege towers under construction and observe the city of Ar and the skirmishes that took place between it and the first ditch.

  Periodically the shrill notes of alarm bugles would pierce the air, as forces from Ar emerged to do battle on the plains before the city. When this occurred, inevitably the spearmen and lancers of Pa-Kur, following the lead of siege slaves through the maze of stakes and traps, would engage the men from Ar. Sometimes the forces of Pa-Kur drove the warriors of Ar back to the very walls of the city, forcing them through the gates. Sometimes the forces of Ar would drive the men of Pa-Kur back against the defensive stakes, and once they drove them to take refuge across the now constructed siege bridges spanning the great ditch.

  Still, there was little doubt that Pa-Kur's men had the best of things. The human resources on which Pa-Kur could draw seemed inexhaustible, and, as important, he had at his command a considerable force of tharlarion cavalry, an arm almost lacking to the men of Ar.

  In these battles the skies would be filled with tarnsmen, from Ar and from the camp, firing into the massed warriors below, engaging one another in savage duels hundreds of feet in the air. But gradually the tarnsmen of Ar were diminished, overwhelmed by the superior forces which Pa-Kur could, with ruthless liberality, throw against them. On the ninth day of the siege the sky belonged to Pa-Kur, and the forces of Ar no longer emerged from the great gate. All hope of lifting the siege by battle was gone. The men of Ar remained within their walls, under their tarn wire, waiting for the attacks to come, while the Initiates of the city sacrificed to the Priest-Kings.

  On the tenth day of the siege small engines, such as covered catapults and ballistae, were flown across the ditches by tarn teams and soon were engaged in artillery duels with the engines mounted on the walls of Ar. Simultaneously, exposed chains of siege slaves began to move the stake lines forward. After some four days of bombardment, which probably had small effect, if any, the first assault was mounted.

  It began several hours before dawn, as the giant siege towers, covered now with plates of steel to counter the effect of fire arrows and burning tar, were slowly rolled across the ditch bridges. By noon they were within crossbow range of the walls. After dark, in the light of torches, the first tower reached the wal
ls. Within the hour three others had touched the first wall. Around these towers and on top of them warriors swarmed. Above them, tarnsman met tarnsman in battles to the death. Rope ladders from Ar brought defenders two hundred feet down the wall to the level of the towers. Through small postern gates other defenders rushed against the towers on the ground, only to be met by Pa-Kur's clustered support troops. From the height of the walls, some two hundred feet above the towers, missiles would be fired and stones cast. Within the towers, sweating, naked siege slaves, under the frenzied whips of their overseers, hauled on the great chains that swung the mighty steel rams into the wall and back.

  One of Pa-Kur's towers was undermined, and it tilted crazily and they crashed into the dust, amidst the screaming of its doomed occupants. Another was captured and burned. But five more towers rolled slowly toward the walls of Ar. These towers were fortresses in themselves and would be maintained at all costs; hour in and hour out, they would continue their work, gnawing at the walls.

  Meanwhile, at several points in the city and at randomly selected times, picked tarnsmen of Pa-Kur, each of whose tarns carried a dangling, knotted rope of nine spearmen, dropped to the wires and the tops of cylinders, landing their small task forces of raiders. These task forces seldom managed to return, but sometimes they were outstandingly successful.

  On the twentieth day of the siege there was great rejoicing in the camp of Pa-Kur, because in one place the wires had been cut and a squad of spearmen had reached the main siege reservoir, emptying their barrels of toxic kanda, a lethal poison extracted from one of Gor's desert shrubs. The city would now have to depend primarily on its private wells and the hope of rain. It seemed probable that food and water would soon be scarce in the city and that the Initiates, whose resistance had been unimaginative and who were apparently unable to protect the city, would be forced to face a hungry and desperate population.