by John Norman
"Very well," called the man. He sent one more of the great birds winging from the roof.
"Come here!" cried Harold.
The fellow came running across the roof. "Where is Kuurus?" he asked.
"Below," Harold informed him.
"Who are you?" asked the guard. "What is going on here?"
"I am Harold of the Tuchuks," responded Harold of the Tuchuks.
"What are you doing here?" asked the guard.
"Are you not Ho-bar?" inquired Harold. It was a common name in Ar, whence many of the mercenaries had come.
"I know of no Ho-bar," said the man. "Is he Turian?"
"I had hoped to find Ho-bar," said Harold, "but perhaps you will do."
"I shall try," said the guard.
"Here," said Harold. "Take the wench."
Hereena shook her head violently at the guard, protesting through the muffling folds of the scarf wadded in her mouth.
"What will I do with her?" asked the guard.
"Just hold her," said Harold.
"Very well," said the guard.
I closed my eyes and it was over in a second. Harold once more had Hereena over his shoulder and was boldly approaching the tarns.
There were two of the great birds left on the roof, both fine specimens, huge, vicious, alert.
Harold dropped Hereena to the floor of the roof and strode to the first tarn. I shut my eyes as he vigorously struck it once, authoritatively, across the beak. "I am Harold of the Tuchuks," he said, "I am a skilled tarnsman—I have ridden over a thousand tarns—I have spent more time in the tarn saddle than most men on their feet—I was conceived on tarnback—I was born on tarnback—I eat tarns—fear me! I am Harold of the Tuchuks!"
The bird, if such emotions it could have, was looking at him, askance and baffled. Any instant I expected it to pick Harold from the roof with its beak, bite him in two and eat the pieces. But the bird seemed utterly startled, if possible, dumbfounded.
Harold turned to face me. "How do you ride a tarn?" he asked.
"Get into the saddle," I said.
"Yes!" he said, and climbed up, missing one of the rungs of the rope ladder at the saddle and slipping his leg through it. I then managed to get him to the saddle and made sure he fastened the safety strap. As swiftly as I could I then explained to him the guidance apparatus, the main saddle ring and its six straps.
When I handed Hereena to him the poor girl was shivering and moaning in terror, uncontrollably trembling. She, a girl of the plains, familiar with fierce kaiila, herself a proud, spirited wench, brave and daring, was yet—like many women—utterly for some reason terrified of a tarn. I felt genuine pity for the Tuchuk girl. On the other hand Harold seemed quite pleased that she was beside herself with terror. The slave rings on the tarn saddle are similar to those on the kaiila saddle and in a trice Harold, using the thongs streaming from the slave rings, one on each side of the saddle, had bound the girl on her back across the saddle in front of him. Then, without waiting, uttering a great cry, he hauled on the one-strap. The tarn did not move but, I thought, though it was undoubtedly not the case, turned and regarded him skeptically, reproachfully.
"What is the matter?" asked Harold.
"It is still hobbled," I said.
I bent to the tarn hobble and opened it. Immediately the huge bird's wings began to beat and it sprang skyward. "Aiii!" I heard Harold cry, and could well imagine what had happened to his stomach.
As quickly as I could I then unhobbled the other bird and climbed to the saddle, fastening the broad safety strap. Then I hauled on the one-strap and seeing Harold's bird wheeling about in circles against one of the Gorean moons sped to his side.
"Release the straps!" I called to him. "The bird will follow this one!"
"Very well," I heard him call, cheerily. And in a moment we were speeding high over the city of Turia. I took one long turn, seeing the torches and lights in the House of Saphrar below, and then guided my bird out over the prairie in the direction of the wagons of the Tuchuks.
I was elated that we had managed to escape alive from the House of Saphrar, but I knew that I must return to the city, for I had not obtained the object for which I had come—the golden sphere—which still resided in the merchant stronghold.
I must manage to seize it before the man with whom Saphrar had had dealings—the gray man with eyes like glass—could call for it—and destroy it or carry it away.
As we sped high over the prairie I wondered at how it was that Kamchak was withdrawing the wagons and bosk from Turia—that he would so soon abandon the siege.
Then, in the dawn, we saw the wagons below us, and the bosk beyond them. Already fires had been lit and there was much activity in the camp of the Tuchuks, the cooking, the checking of wagons, the gathering and hitching up of the wagon bosk. This, I knew, was the morning on which the wagons moved away from Turia, toward distant Thassa, the Sea. Risking arrows, I, followed by Harold, descended to alight among the wagons.
21
Kamchak Enters Turia
I had now been in the city of Turia some four days, having returned on foot in the guise of a peddler of small jewels. I had left the tarn with the wagons. I had spent my last tarn disk to buy a couple of handfuls of tiny stones, many of them of little or no value; yet their weight in my pouch gave me some pretext for being in the city.
I had found Kamchak, as I had been told I would, at the wagon of Kutaituchik, which, drawn up on its hill near the standard of the four bosk horns, had been heaped with what wood was at hand and filled with dry grass. The whole was then drenched in fragrant oils, and that dawn of the retreat, Kamchak, by his own hand, hurled the torch into the wagon. Somewhere in the wagon, fixed in a sitting position, weapons at hand, was Kutaituchik, who had been Kamchak's friend, and who had been called Ubar of the Tuchuks. The smoke of the wagon must easily have been seen from the distant walls of Turia.
Kamchak had not spoken but sat on his kaiila, his face dark with resolve. He was terrible to look upon and I, though his friend, did not dare to speak to him. I had not returned to the wagon I had shared with him, but had come immediately to the wagon of Kutaituchik, where I had been informed he was to be found.
Clustered about the hill, in ranks, on their kaiila, black lances in the stirrup, were several of the Tuchuk Hundreds. Angrily they watched the wagon burn.
I wondered that such men as Kamchak and these others would so willingly abandon the siege of Turia.
At last when the wagon had burned and the wind moved about the blackened beams and scattered ashes across the green prairie, Kamchak raised his right hand. "Let the standard be moved," he cried.
I observed a special wagon, drawn by a dozen bosk, being pulled up the hill, into which the standard, when uprooted, would be set. In a few minutes the great pole of the standard had been mounted on the wagon and was descending the hill, leaving on the summit the burned wood and the black ashes that had been the wagon of Kutaituchik, surrendering them now to the wind and the rain, to time and the snows to come, and to the green grass of the prairie.
"Turn the wagons!" called Kamchak.
Slowly, wagon by wagon, the long columns of the Tuchuk retreat were formed, each wagon in its column, each column in its place, and, covering pasangs of prairie, the march from Turia had begun.
Far beyond the wagons I could see the herds of bosk, and the dust from their hoofs stained the horizon.
Kamchak rose in his stirrups. "The Tuchuks ride from Turia!" he cried.
Rank by rank the warriors on the kaiila, dour, angry, silent, turned their mounts away from the city and slowly went to find their wagons, save for the Hundreds that would flank the withdrawal and form its rear guard.
Kamchak rode his kaiila up the hill until he stood, that cold dawn, at the edge of the burned wood and ashes of Kutaituchik's wagon. He stayed there for some time, and then turned his mount away, and came slowly down the hill.
Seeing me, he stopped. "I am pleased to see you live," he said.
I dropped my head, acknowledging the bond he had acknowledged. My heart felt grateful to the stern, fierce warrior, though he had been in the past days harsh and strange, half drunk with hatred for Turia. I did not know if the Kamchak I had known would ever live again. I feared that part of him—perhaps that part I had loved best—had died the night of the raid, when he had entered the wagon of Kutaituchik.
Standing at his stirrup I looked up. "Will you leave like this?" I asked. "Is it enough?"
He looked at me, but I could read no expression on his face. "The Tuchuks ride from Turia," he said. He then rode away, leaving me standing on the hill.
Somewhat to my surprise I had no difficulty the next morning, after the withdrawal of the wagons, in entering the city. Before leaving the wagons I had joined them briefly on their march, long enough to purchase my peddler's disguise and the pound or so of stones which was to complete it. I purchased these things from the man from whom Kamchak had, on a happier afternoon, obtained a new saddle and set of quivas. I had seen many things in the man's wagon and I had gathered, correctly it seems, that he was himself a peddler of sorts. I then, on foot, following for a time the tracks of the departing wagons, then departing from them, returned to the vicinity of Turia. I spent the night on the prairie and then, on what would have been the second day of the retreat, entered the city at the eighth hour. My hair was concealed in the hood of a thin, ankle-length rep-cloth garment, a dirty white through which ran flecks of golden thread, a fit garment, in my opinion, for an insignificant merchant. Beneath my garment, concealed, I carried sword and quiva.
I was hardly questioned by guards at the gates of Turia, for the city is a commercial oasis in the plains and during a year hundreds of caravans, not to mention thousands of small merchants, on foot or with a single tharlarion wagon, enter her gates. To my great surprise the gates of Turia stood open after the withdrawal of the wagons and the lifting of the siege. Peasants streamed through them returning to their fields and also hundreds of townsfolk for an outing, some of them to walk even as far as the remains of the old Tuchuk camp, hunting for souvenirs. As I entered I regarded the lofty double gates, and wondered how long it would take to close them.
As I hobbled through the city of Turia, one eye half shut, staring at the street as though I hoped to find a lost copper tarn disk among the stones, I made my way toward the compound of Saphrar of Turia. I was jostled in the crowds, and twice nearly knocked down by officers in the guard of Phanius Turmus, Ubar of Turia.
I was vaguely conscious, from time to time, that I might be followed. I dismissed this possibility, however, for, glancing about, I could find no one I might fear. The only person I saw more than once was a slip of a girl in Robes of Concealment and veil, a market basket on her arm, who, the second time, passed me, not noticing me. I breathed a sigh of relief. It is a nerve-wracking business, the negotiation of an enemy city, knowing that discovery might bring torture or sudden death, at best perhaps an impalement by sundown on the city's walls, a warning to any other who might be similarly tempted to transgress the hospitality of a Gorean city.
I came to the ring of flat, cleared ground, some hundred feet or so wide, which separates the walled compound of buildings which constitutes the House of Saphrar of Turia from all the surrounding structures. I soon learned, to my irritation, that one could not approach the high compound wall more closely than ten spear lengths.
"Get away you!" cried a guard from the wall, with a crossbow. "There is no loitering here!"
"But master!" I cried. "I have gems and jewels to show the noble Saphrar!"
"Approach then the nearer gate!" he called. "And state your business."
I found a rather small gate in the wall, heavily barred, and begged admittance to show my wares to Saphrar. I hoped to be ushered into his presence and then, on the threat of slaying him, secure the golden sphere and a tarn for escape.
To my chagrin I was not admitted into the compound, but my pitiful stock of almost worthless stones was examined outside the gate by a steward in the company of two armed warriors. It took him only a few moments to discover the value of the stones and, when he did, with a cry of disgust, he hurled them away from the gate into the dust, and the two warriors, while I pretended fright and pain, belabored me with the hilts of their weapons. "Be gone, Fool!" they snarled.
I hobbled after the stones, and fell to my knees in the dust, scrabbling after them, moaning and crying aloud.
I heard the guards laugh.
I had just picked up the last stone and tucked it back in my pouch and was about to rise from my knees when I found myself staring at the high, heavy sandals, almost boots, of a warrior.
"Mercy, Master," I whined.
"Why are you carrying a sword beneath your robe?" he asked.
I knew the voice. It was that of Kamras of Turia, Champion of the City, whom Kamchak had so sorely bested in the games of Love War.
I lunged forward seizing him by the legs and upended him in the dust and then leaped to my feet and ran, the hood flying off behind me.
I heard him cry. "Stop that man! Stop him! I know him! He is Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba! Stop him!"
I stumbled in the long robe of the merchant and cursed and leaped up and ran again. The bolt of a crossbow splattered into a brick wall on my right, gouging a cupful of masonry loose in chips and dust.
I darted down a narrow street. I could hear someone, probably Kamras, and then one or two others running after me. Then I heard a girl cry out, and scream, and two men curse. I glanced behind me to see that the girl who carried the market basket had inadvertently fallen in front of the warriors. She was crying angrily at them and waving her broken basket. They pushed her rudely to one side and hurried on. By that time I had rounded a corner and leaped to a window, pulled myself up to the next window, and hauled myself up again and onto the flat roof of a shop. I heard the running feet of the two warriors, and then of six more men, pass in the street below. Then some children, screaming, ran after the soldiers. I heard some speculative conversation in the street below, between two or three passersby, then it seemed quiet.
I lay there scarcely daring to breathe. The sun on the flat roof was hot. I counted five Gorean Ehn, or minutes. Then I decided I had better move across the roofs in the opposite direction, find a sheltered roof, stay there until nightfall and then perhaps try to leave the city. I might go after the wagons, which would be moving slowly, obtain the tarn I had left with them, and then return on tarnback to Saphrar's house. It would be extremely dangerous, of course, to leave the city in the near future. Certainly word would soon be at the gates to watch for me. I had entered Turia easily. I did not expect I would leave as easily as I had entered. But how could I stay in the city until vigilance at the gates might be relaxed, perhaps three or four days from now? Every guardsman in Turia would be on the lookout for Tarl Cabot, who unfortunately, was not difficult to recognize.
About this time I heard someone coming along the street whistling a tune. I had heard it. Then I realized that I had heard it among the wagons of the Tuchuks. It was a Tuchuk tune, a wagon tune, sometimes sung by the girls with the bosk sticks.
I picked up the melody and whistled a few bars, and then the person below joined me and we finished the tune together.
Cautiously I poked my head over the edge of the roof. The street was deserted save for a girl, who was standing below, looking up toward the roof. She was dressed in veil and Robes of Concealment. It was she whom I had seen before, when I had thought I might be followed. It was she who had inadvertently detained my pursuers. She carried a broken market basket.
"You make a very poor spy, Tarl Cabot," she said.
"Dina of Turia!" I cried.
* * * *
I stayed four days in the rooms above the shop of Dina of Turia. There I dyed my hair black and exchanged the robes of the merchant for the yellow and brown tunic of the Bakers, to which caste her father and two brothers had belonged.
Downstairs the w
ooden screens that had separated the shop from the street had been splintered apart; the counter had been broken and the ovens ruined, their oval domes shattered, their iron doors twisted from their hinges; even the top stones on the two grain mills had been thrown to the floor and broken.
At one time, I gathered from Dina, her father's shop had been the most famed of the baking shops of Turia, most of which are owned by Saphrar of Turia, whose interests range widely, though operated naturally, as Gorean custom would require, by members of the Caste of Bakers. Her father had refused to sell the shop to Saphrar's agents, and take his employment under the merchant. Shortly thereafter some seven or eight ruffians, armed with clubs and iron bars, had attacked the shop, destroying its equipment. In attempting to defend against this attack both her father and her two older brothers had been beaten to death. Her mother had died shortly thereafter of shock. Dina had lived for a time on the savings of the family, but had then taken them, sewn in the lining of her robes, and purchased a place on a caravan wagon bound for Ar, which caravan had been ambushed by Kassars, in which raid she herself, of course, had fallen into their hands.
"Would you not like to hire men and reopen the shop?" I asked.
"I have no money," she said.
"I have very little," I said, taking the pouch and spilling the stones in a glittering if not very valuable heap on the small table in her central room.
She laughed and poked through them with her fingers. "I learned something of jewels," she said, "in the wagons of Albrecht and Kamchak—and there is scarcely a silver tarn disk's worth here."
"I paid a golden tarn disk for them," I asserted.
"But to a Tuchuk—" she said.
"Yes," I admitted.
"My dear Tarl Cabot," she said, "my sweet, dear Tarl Cabot." Then she looked at me and her eyes saddened. "But," said she, "even had I the money to reopen the shop—it would mean only that the men of Saphrar would come again."
I was silent. I supposed what she said was true.
"Is there enough there to buy passage to Ar?" I asked.
