Nomads of Gor (21 page)

      
laughed. "Run, you little fool," shouted Conrad. The girl had

      
released the stirrup and her feet struck the ground. She was

      
off balance but righted herself and with an angry cry she

      
sped from the circle. By surprising her I had gained perhaps

      
ten or fifteen yards.

      
I took the binding thong from my belt and put it in my

      
teeth.

      
I began to swing the bole.

      
To my amazement, as I swung the hole in ever faster

      
circles, never taking my eyes off her, she broke the straight

      
running pattern only about fifty yards from the whip circle,

      
and began to dodge, moving always, however, toward the

      
lance. This puzzled me. Surely she had not miscounted, not

      
Dina of Turia. As the judge counted aloud I observed the

      
pattern, two left, then a long right to compensate, moving

      
toward the lance; two left, then right; two left, then right.

      
"Fifteen!" called the judge, and I streaked on kailla back

      
from the circle of the boskhide whip.

 
I rode at full speed, for there was not a beat to lose.

 
Even if by good fortune I managed to tie Albrecht, Elizabeth

 
would still belong to the Kassars, for Conrad had a clear win

 
over Kamchak. It is dangerous, of course, to approach any

 
but a naive, straight-running, perhaps terrified, girl at full

 
speed, for should she dodge or move to one side, one will

 
have to slow the kaiila to turn it after her, lest one be carried

 
past her too rapidly, even at the margins of bole range. But I

 
could judge Dina's run, two left, one right, so I set the kaiila

 
running at full speed for what would seem to be the unwilling

 
point of rendezvous between Dina and the leather of the

 
bole. I was surprised at the simplicity of her pattern.- I

 
wondered how it could be that such a girl had never been

 
taken in less than thirty-two beats, that she had reached the

 
lance forty times.

 
I would release the bole in another beat as she took her

 
second sprint to the left.

 
Then I remembered the intelligence of her eyes, her confi-

 
dence, that never had she been taken in less than thirty-two

 
beats, that she had reached the lance forty times. Her skills

 
must be subtle, her timing marvelous.

 
I released the bole, risking all, hurling it not to the expect-

 
ed rendezvous of the second left but to a first right, unex-

 
pected, the first break in the two-left, one-right pattern. I

 
heard her startled cry as the weighted leather straps flashed

 
about her thighs, calves and ankles, in an instant lashing them

 
together as tightly as though by binding fiber. Hardly slack-

 
ening speed I swept past the girl, turned the kaiila to face

 
her, and again kicked it into a full gallop. I briefly saw a look

 
of utter astonishment on her beautiful face. Her hands were

 
out, trying instinctively to maintain her balance; the bole

 
weights were still snapping about her ankles in tiny, angry

 
circles; in an instant she would fall to the grass; racing past I

 
seized her by the hair and threw her over the saddle; scarcely

 
did she comprehend what was happening before she found

 
herself my prisoner, while yet the kaiila did still gallop,

 
bound about the pommel of the saddle. I had not taken even

 
the time to dismount. Only perhaps a beat or two before the

 
kaiila leapt into the circle had I finished the knots that

 
confined her. I threw her to the turf at the judge's feet.

 
The judge, and the crowd, seemed speechless.

 
"Time!" called Kamchak.

 
The judge looked startled, as though he could not believe

 
what he had seen. He took his hand from the side of the

      
"Time!" called Kamchak.

      
The judge looked at him. "Seventeen," he whispered.

      
The crowd was silent, then, suddenly, as unexpectedly as a

      
clap of thunder, they began to roar and cheer

      
Kamchak was thumping a very despondent looking Conrad

      
and Albrecht on the shoulders.

      
I looked down at Dina of Turia. Looking at me in rage,

      
she began to pull and squirm in the thongs, twisting in the

      
grass.

      
The judge allowed her to do so for perhaps a few lien, may-

  
    
be thirty seconds or so,
 
"The wench is secured," he

      
said.

      
There was another great cry and cheer from the crowd.

      
They were mostly Tuchuks, and were highly pleased with

      
what they had seen, but I saw, too, that even the Kassars and

      
the one or two Paravaci present and the Kataii were unstint-

      
ing in their acclaim. The crowd had gone mad.

      
Elizabeth Cardwell was leaping up and down clapping her

      
hands.

      
I looked down at Dina, who lay at my feet, now no longer

      
struggling.

      
I removed the bole from her legs.

      
With my quiva I slashed the thong on her ankles, permit-

      
ting her to struggle to her feet.

      
She stood facing me, clad Kajir, her wrists still thonged

 
     
behind her.

      
I refastened the bole at my saddle. "I keep my bole, it

      
seems," I said.

      
She tried to free her wrists, but could not, of course, do

      
so.

      
Helpless she stood waiting for me.

      
I then took Dina of Turia in my arms and, at some length,

      
and with a certain admitted satisfaction, collected my win-

      
nings. Because she had annoyed me the kiss that was hers

      
was that of master to a slave girl; yet was I patient because

      
the kiss itself was not enough; I was not satisfied until,

      
despite herself, I read in my arms her body's sudden, involun-

      
tary admission that I had conquered. "Master," she said, her

      
eyes glazed, too weak to struggle against the thongs that

      
encircled her wrists. With a cheerful slap I sped her back to

      
Albrecht, who, angry, with the tip of his lance, severed the

      
bonds that had confined her. Kamchak was laughing, and

      
Conrad as well. And, too, many in the crowd. Elizabeth

 
Cardwell, however, to my surprise, seemed furious. She had

 
pulled on her furs. When I looked at her, she looked away,

 
angrily.

 
I wondered what was the matter with her.

 
Had I not saved her?

 
Were not the points between Kamchak and I, and Conrad

 
and Albrecht event

 
Was she not safe and the match at an end?

 
"The score is tied," said Kamchak, "and the wager is

 
concluded. There is no winner."

 
"/Agreed," said Conrad.

 
"No," said Albrecht.

 
We looked at him.

 
"Lance and tospit," he said.

 
"The match is at an end," I said.

 
"There is no winner," protested Albrecht.

 
"That is true," said Kamchak.

 
"There must be a winner," said Albrecht.

 
"I have ridden enough for today," said Kamchak.

 
"I, too," said Conrad. "Let us return to our wagons."

 
Albrecht pointed his lance at me. "You are challenged," he

 
said. "Lance and tospit."

 
"We have finished with that," I said.

 
"The living wand!" shouted Albrecht.

 
Kamchak sucked in his breath.

 
Several in the crowd shouted out, "The living wand!"

 
I looked at Kamchak. I saw in his eyes that the challenge

 
must be accepted. In this matter I must be Tuchuk.

 
Save for armed combat, lance and tospit with the living

 
wand is the most dangerous of the sports of the Wagon

 
Peoples.

 
In this sport, as might be expected, one's own slave must

 
stand for one. It is essentially the same sport as lancing the

 
tospit from the wand, save that the fruit is held in the mouth

 
of a girl, who is slain should she move or in any way

 
withdraw from the lance.

 
Needless to say many a slave girl has been injured in this

 
cruel sport.

 
"I do not want to stand for him!" cried out Elizabeth

 
Cardwell.

 
"Stand for him, Slave," snarled Kamchak.

 
Elizabeth Cardwell took her position, standing sideways,

 
the tospit held delicately between her teeth.

 
For some reason she did not seem afraid but rather, to my

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8Q

                      
NOMADS OF GOR

     
mind, incomprehensibly infuriated. She should have been

     
shuddering with terror. Instead she seemed indignant.

     
But she stood like a rock and when I thundered past her

     
the tip of my lance had been thrust through the tospit.

     
The girl who had bitten the neck of the kaiila, and whose

     
leg had been torn by its teeth, stood for Albrecht.

   
  
With almost scornful ease he raced past her lifting the

     
tospit from her mouth with the tip of his lance.