Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  Then I heard a startled inarticulate cry of horror, quick cut short. There was a snap, as of gristle.

  There was little sound then, only that of a large tongue, moving in blood, tasting, curious. The man had had smeared about the base of his neck veminium water.

  I heard then the body dropped. I did not hear the sound of feeding. I heard a pawing about the body, and its clothing. Then I sensed, outside, a large body lift itself to its feet, and turn, slowly, toward the door of my cell.

  I sensed then that it stood before the door of my cell. I could not take my eyes from the small window in the door. I saw nothing outside. Yet I sensed that it stood there, and that it was looking through the bars.

  I heard the key move in the lock.

  The door swung open. I saw nothing in the threshold. Beyond, crumpled on the floor, I saw the remains of the guard, the head, awry, lying on its side, strung by torn vessels to the body, the back of the neck bitten through. I saw straw move within the cell. The smell of Kur was strong. I sensed it stood before me.

  The chain at my left wrist was lifted. Twice, it was pulled against the wall ring. Then was it dropped to the stones.

  I sensed that the beast stood.

  In a moment I heard voices, those of several men. They were nearing.

  Among them, imperious, I heard the voice of Ibn Saran. I heard men descending the steps. There was a cry of horror. I could see through the door of my cell, now swung open. Ibn Saran, himself, in black cloak, and white kaffiyeh with black cording, emerged through the threshold.

  Instantly was his scimitar unsheathed, the reflex of a desert warrior. He did not look upon the gruesome sight which lay upon the stones at his feet. Rather did he, with one lightning glance, examine the room.

  “Unsheath your weapons,” cried he to his daunted men. Some of them were unable to take their eyes from what lay on the stones. With the flat of his blade he struck more than one of them. “Back to back,” he said. “Stand ready!” Then he said, “Block the door!”

  He looked within the cell. I saw him, outside. I was chained in a sitting position. I could not pull far against the ring of my ankle irons for my back was against the wall; I could not pull forward, nor to the side, from the wall because of the chains on my collar; my hands were chained down and toward the wall, on each side, back from my body; I could, by the intention of my captors, exert little leverage; I was perfectly chained. Ibn Saran smiled. “Tal,” said he. I was his prisoner. “Tal,” said I. I could see his scimitar.

  “What could have done this horrible thing?” asked one of his men.

  “I was warned of this,” said Ibn Saran.

  “A Djinn?” asked one of the men.

  “Smell it?” said Ibn Saran. “Smell it! It is still here!”

  I heard the Kur breathing, near me.

  “Block the door!” said Ibn Saran.

  The two men by the door, who had been standing there, looked about themselves, brandishing their scimitars, frightened.

  “Do not fear, my fellows,” said Ibn Saran. “This is not a Djinn. It is a creature of flesh and blood. But be wary! Be wary!” He then formed his men into a line, against the far wall of the outer room, that into which the threshold gave access. “I had warning of this possibility,” he said. “It has now occurred. Do not fear. It can be met.”

  The men looked to one another, wild-eyed.

  “Upon my signal,” said Ibn Saran, speaking in swift Gorean, “attacking in a line, slash every inch of this room. He who first makes contact, let him cry out, and the others, then, must converge on that spot, cutting, as it were, the very air into pieces.”

  One of the men looked at him. “There is nothing here,” he whispered.

  Ibn Saran, scimitar poised, smiled. “It is here,” he said. “It is here.” Then suddenly he cried, “Ho!” and leapt forward, the blade, in rapid, diagonal figure-eight strokes, backhand upswept, shallowly curved, blade turning, forehand descending, shallowly curved, tracing its razor pattern. His right, booted foot stamped forward, his body turned to the left, minimizing target, his head to the right, maximizing vision, his rear foot at right angles to the attack line, maximizing leverage, assuring balance. His men, some of them timidly thrusting out, poking, touching, followed him. “There is nothing here, noble master,” said one of them.

  Ibn Saran stood in the threshold of the cell. “It is in the cell,” he said.

  I observed the scimitar. It was a wickedly curved blade. On such a blade, I knew, silk dropped, should the blade be moved, would fall parted to the floor. Even a light stroke of such a blade, falling across an arm, would drop through the flesh, leaving its incised record, a quarter of an inch deep, in the bone beneath.

  “It will be most dangerous,” said Ibn Saran, “to enter the cell. You will follow me swiftly, forming yourselves in a line, backs against the near wall.”

  “Let us close the door, and lock it,” said a man, “trapping it within.”

  “It would tear the bars from the window and escape,” said Ibn Saran.

  “How could it do this?” asked the man.

  I gathered that the man did not know the strength of Kurii. I found it of interest that Ibn Saran did.

  “Such a beast,” said he, “must not be found within the cell. Its body must be disposed of.”

  I could understand the reasoning of this. Few on Gor knew of the secret war of Priest-Kings and Others, the Kurii. The carcass of a Kur, lying about, would surely prompt many questions, much curiosity, perhaps shrewd speculations. It might also, of course, attract the vengeance of Kurii on the community or district involved.

  “I will first enter the cell,” said Ibn Saran. “You will then follow me.” There seemed nothing soft or languid about Ibn Saran now. When there is need the men of the desert can move with swift, menacing efficiency. The contrast with their more normal, acculturated, paced form of motion, unhurried, even graceful, is startling. I further decided that Ibn Saran was a brave man.

  With a cry, thrusting through the threshold of the cell, then slashing about, he leaped into the cell. His men, frightened, sped into the cell behind him, and, white-faced, backed themselves against the wall in a line behind him. No longer was the outer threshold, that opening onto the twisting, ascending stairs, guarded. The door to the cell, however, by Ibn Saran, was.

  “There is nothing here, Master!” cried one of the men. “This is madness!”

  “It is gone,” I told Ibn Saran.

  Ibn Saran smiled. “No,” he said. “It is here. It is here somewhere.” Then he said to his men. “Be silent! Listen!”

  I could not even hear men breathing. The light fell from the barred window onto the gray stones of the straw-strewn floor. I looked at the men, the walls, the matted, dried kort rinds on the floor, near the metal dish. On the rinds the spiders continued to hunt vints.

  We did hear a man calling outside, selling melons. We heard two kaiila plod by, their bells.

  “The cell is empty,” said one of the men, whispering.

  Suddenly one of the men of Ibn Saran screamed horribly. I looked up, in the collar, chains pulling at my throat. I jerked at my wrist chains, held. Men shrank back, “Save me!” cried the man. “Help!”

  Abruptly, horribly, had he seemed, from his feet, sideways, to hurtle upward. Ten feet in the air, against the stones of the ceiling, twisting, crying out, screaming, he writhed.

  “Help me!” he cried.

  “Do not break your position,” said Ibn Saran. “Hold position!”

  “Please!” wept the man.

  “Hold position!” said Ibn Saran.

  Then the man, the sleeves of his garments, above his elbows, tight to his body, was slowly lowered.

  “Please!” he said.

  Then he cried out, a short cry, brief; there was a sound, exploding, velvet-soft, like a bubble of air being forced upward through water; the side of his neck had been bitten away; arterial blood, driven by the blind pump of the heart, pulsed.

  �
��Hold position!” cried Ibn Saran.

  I admired his generalship. Had his men charged, initially, the captured man would have been hurled against them. In the breaking of their formation the Kur would have slipped away. Had they now rushed to their comrade, again the formation would be broken, and the Kur, by now, had assuredly changed his position.

  Ibn Saran himself, a brave man, blocked the open door to the cell.

  “Scimitars ready!” he cried. “Ho!”

  Across the floor, now wet with blood, and blood-soaked straw, the men, in their line, Ibn Saran remaining at the door, charged. The blood, between the stones, formed tiny rivers.

  “Aiii!” cried a man, wheeling back, horrified. There was blood on his scimitar. He was terrified. “A Djinn!” he cried.

  In that moment, Ibn Saran, at the door, thrust out, wickedly, deeply.

  There was a roar of pain, a howl of rage, and I saw that his scimitar, to six inches, was splashed with the bright blood of the Kur, clearly visible.

  “We have it!” cried Ibn Saran. “Strike! Strike!” The men looked about. “There!” cried Ibn Saran. “The blood! The blood!” I saw a stain of blood on the floor, and then a bloody print, of a heavy, clawed foot. Then drops of blood, as if from nowhere, dropping, one after the other, to the stones. “Attack at the blood!” cried Ibn Saran. The men converged at the blood, striking. I heard two more howls of rage, for twice more had they struck the beast. Then a man reeled back, turning. His face was gone.

  The men now circled where the blood fell, which marked the path of the beast.

  Suddenly there was a scrambling sound and I saw the bars in the small window shake and scrape, one wrenching loose, with a shower of stone and dust from the wall.

  “To the window!” cried Ibn Saran. “It will escape!” He leaped to the barred window, striking madly about, against the stone. His men followed, striking, crying out.

  I smiled, seeing, in the confusion, the blood, drop by drop, slip to the door of the cell, move across the stones, out into the hall, and through the threshold, then up the twisting, narrow, concave stairs.

  It had been an excellent diversion on the part of the Kur. It would have known it would not have had the time to wrench loose the bars and slip through the narrow window before being hacked to pieces. But the ruse had drawn Ibn Saran from the door.

  Ibn Saran spun from the wall, his blade battered, nicked and dull, from pounding on the stone. He saw the blood. He cried out with rage and, turning, fled from the cell.

  On the kort rinds the spiders continued to hunt vints.

  * * * *

  “We have killed it,” said Ibn Saran. “It is dead.”

  I surmised that they had had little difficulty in following the trail of blood. The animal, at least four times, had been struck, and with the razor-sharp scimitars of the Tahari. Once, by Ibn Saran, it had been wounded to a depth of some six inches. I had adjudged this by the blood rain on the scimitar, in its rivulets. So struck, four times, I found it not difficult to believe that the animal, even if unfound, would have sought a dark place, and there, in silence, bled to death.

  “We have disposed of the body,” said Ibn Saran.

  I shrugged.

  “It threatened your life,” he said. “We have saved your life.”

  “My gratitude,” I said.

  * * * *

  It was midnight, in the cell. Outside, the three moons were full.

  The cell had been cleaned, straw and wastes removed, rinsed down; most of the blood had been scrubbed from the stones; behind remained, here and there, only some stubborn, darkish stains; new straw had been spread; the kort rinds had been taken. Little remained to give evidence of the conflict which had earlier transpired in the chamber. Even the barred window had been repaired. The scrubbing, and cleaning, to my interest, had been done by jailers. I would have expected such work to be done by nude female slaves, in work collar, chain and ankle ring, to keep them on their knees with their brushes, but it had not been; one of the administrative penalties of he who is sent to the brine pits of Klima is commonly to be deprived of the sight of female bodies; there are no women at Klima; there is little but the salt, the heat, the slave masters and the sun; sometimes men go mad, trudging into the desert, trying to escape; but there is no water within a thousand pasangs of Klima; I would have liked to have seen a female slave, before being chained for the march to Klima; but I was not permitted this.

  Often I had to force from my mind the look on the face of the second slave, she called Vella, of triumph, as she, small and lovely, luscious, freed of the rack ropes, had sat up on the knotted ropes, after her testimony had confirmed that of others, of Zaya, the other girl, and Ibn Saran, sending me to the brine pits of Klima. She had been pleased. I would go to Klima. The slave girl had had her vengeance. She, with her lie, confirming those of others, had determined the matter well. Then, her testimony done, she, as the other wench had been, was put to the side, out of the way, near the racks, chained there by the neck to a ring, her hands bound behind her. Neither was any longer of interest to the court. They would wait there, thusly secured, slaves, until the court had finished its business, after which they would be returned to the custody of their master, Ibn Saran, or his factors or agents.

  I recalled her smile, and that I, though innocent, was to go to Klima.

  I was not pleased with the female slave.

  I looked up. With Ibn Saran were four men. One of them held up a tharlarion-oil lamp.

  “Do you understand what it is,” asked Ibn Saran, “to be sent to Klima—to be a salt slave?”

  “I think so,” I told him.

  “There is the march to Klima,” said he, “through the dune country, on foot, chained, on which many die.”

  I said nothing.

  “And should you be so unfortunate,” said he, “as to reach the vicinity of Klima, your feet must be bound with leather to your knees, for you will sink through the salt crusts to your knees, and, unprotected, your flesh, by the millions of tiny, heated crystals, would be grated and burned from your bones.”

  I looked away, in the chains.

  “In the pits,” he said, “you pump water through underground deposits, to wash salt, with the water, to the surface, and repump again the same water. Men die at the pumps, in the heat. Others, the carriers, in the brine, must fill their yoke buckets with the erupted sludge, and carry it from the pits to the drying tables; others must gather the salt and mold it into cylinders.” He smiled. “Sometimes men kill one another for the lighter assignments.”

  I did not look at him.

  “But you,” said he, “who attempted to assassinate our noble Suleiman Pasha, will not be given light assignments.”

  I pulled at the chains.

  “It is the steel of Ar,” he said. “It is excellent, brought in by caravan.”

  I fought the manacles.

  “It will hold you quite well,” said he, “—Tarl Cabot.”

  I looked at him.

  “It will amuse me,” he said, “to think of Tarl Cabot, laboring in the brine pits. As I rest in my palace, in the cool of the rooms, on cushions, relishing custards and berries, sipping beverages, delighted by my slave girls, among them your pretty Vella, I shall think of you, often, Tarl Cabot.”

  I tore at the chains.

  “The famed agent of Priest-Kings, Tarl Cabot,” he said, “in the brine pits! Excellent! Superb!” He laughed. “You cannot free yourself,” he said, “You cannot win.”

  I subsided in the chains, helpless.

  “The day at Klima,” he said, “begins at dawn, and only ends at darkness. Food may be fried on the stones at Klima. The crusts are white. The glare from them can blind men. There are no kaiila at Klima. The desert, waterless, surrounds Klima, for more than a thousand pasangs on all sides. Never has a slave escaped from Klima. Among the less pleasant aspects of Klima is that you will not see females. You will note that, following your sentencing, the sight of such flesh has been denied you. But
then you can always think of your pretty Vella.”

  In the manacles, my fists clenched.

  “When I make her serve me,” he said, “I will think of you.”

  “Where did you find her?” I asked.

  “She has a very lively body, hasn’t she?” asked Ibn Saran.

  “She is a female,” I said. “Where did you find her?”

  “In a tavern in Lydius,” he said. “It is interesting. We bought her, originally, simply as a slave. We keep our eyes open for good female flesh. It is useful to our purposes, in infiltrating houses, in obtaining secrets, in seducing officers and important men, and, of course, to reward our followers and, naturally, as a simple item for exchange, a form of currency; the slave girl is usually in demand, particularly if beautiful and trained; at our wish, such women are conveniently marketable; there is little trouble in selling them; furthermore, they attract little undue commercial attention, for they are a familiar type of merchandise; thus, the slave girl, for us, if beautiful, and particularly if trained, constitutes a reliable, safe, readily negotiable form of wealth.”

  “For anyone,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And Vella?” I asked.

  “The former Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of New York City, of the planet Earth?” he asked.

  “You seem to have learned much,” I said.

  “The Earth slave girl has taught us much,” he said. “She was a lucky catch. We were fortunate to get our chain on her collar.”

  “What has she told you?” I asked.

  “Whatever we wished to know,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said, “I see.”

  “Torture was not required,” said Ibn Saran. “Its threat was sufficient. She is only a woman. We chained her nude in a dungeon, with urts. In an hour, weeping, hysterical, she begged to speak. She was interrogated for Ahn, all through the night. We learned all she knew. We learned much.”

  “Surely you then freed her?” I asked, smiling. “For such aid?”

  “It seems we promised to do so,” said he, “but, later, as I recall, it slipped our mind. We keep her slave.”