Nomads of Gor (46 page)

      
silence.

      
I noted, too, the other Tuchuks in the wagon. Suddenly

      
they were not moving.

      
Then I too heard it, the winding of a bask horn in the-

      
distance, and then another.

      
Kamchak leaped to his feet. "The camp is under attack!"

      
he cried.

 
Outside, as Kamchak and I bounded down the steps of the

 
slave wagon, the darkness was filled with hurrying men, some

 
with torches, and running kaiila, already with their riders.

 
War lanterns, green and blue and yellow, were already burn-

 
ing on poles in the darkness, signaling the rallying grounds of

 
the Oralus, the Hundreds, and the Oralus, the Thousands.

 
Each warrior of the Wagon Peoples, and that means each

 
able-bodied man, is a member of an Or, or a Ten; each ten

 
is a member of an Oralus, or Hundred; each Oralus is a member

 
of an Oralus, a Thousand. Those who are unfamiliar with the

 
Wagon Peoples, or who know them only from the swift raid,

 
sometimes think them devoid of organization, sometimes con-

 
ceive of them as mad hordes or aggregates of wild warriors,

 
but such is not the case. Each man knows his position in his

 
Ten, and the position of his Ten in the Hundred, and of the

 
Hundred in the Thousand. During the day the rapid move-

 
meets of these individually maneuverable units are dictated

 
by bask horn and movements of the standards; at night by

 
the bask horns and the war lanterns slung on high poles

 
carried by riders.

 
Kamchak and I mounted the kaiila we had ridden and, as

 
rapidly as we could, pressed through the throngs toward our

 
wagon.

 
When the bask horns sound the women cover the fires and

 
prepare the men's weapons, bringing forth arrows and bows,

 
and lances. The quivas are always in the saddle sheaths. The

      
bosk are hitched up and slaves, who might otherwise take

      
advantage of the tumult, are chained.

      
Then the women climb to the top of the high sides on the

      
wagons and watch the war lanterns in the distance, reading

      
them as well as the men. Seeing if the wagons must move,

      
and in what direction.

      
I heard a child screaming its disgust at being thrust in the

      
wagon.

   
   
In a short time Kamchak and I had reached our wagon.

      
Aphris had had the good sense to hitch up the bask. Kam-

      
chak kicked out the fire at the side of the wagon. "What is it?"

      
she cried.

      
Kamchak took her roughly by the arm and shoved her

      
stumbling toward the sleen cage where, holding the bars,

      
frightened, knelt Elizabeth Cardwell. Kamchak unlocked the

      
cage and thrust Aphris inside with Elizabeth. She was slave

 
     
and would be secured, that she might not seize up a weapon

      
or try to fight or burn wagons. "Please!" she cried, thrusting

      
her hands through the bars. But already Kamchak had

      
slammed shut the door and twisted the key in the lock.

      
"Master!" she cried. It was better, I knew, for her to be

      
secured as she was rather than chained in the wagon, or even

      
to the wheel. The wagons, in Turian raids, are burned.

      
Kamchak threw me a lance, and a quiver with forty

   
   
arrows and a bow. The kaiila I rode already had, on the

      
saddle, the quivas,-the rope and bole. Then he bounded from

      
the top step of the wagon onto the back of his kaiila and

      
sped toward the sound of the bask horns. "Master!" I heard

      
Aphris cry.

      
Of their ranks with a swiftness and precision that was incredi-

 
ble, long, flying columns of warriors flowed like rivers be-

 
tween the beasts.

 
I rode at Kamchak side and in an instant it seemed we had

 
passed through the bellowing, startled herd and had emerged

 
on the plain beyond. In the light of the Gorean moons we

 
saw slaughtered bask, some hundreds of them, and, some two

 
hundred yards away, withdrawing, perhaps a thousand war-

 
riors mounted on tharlarion.

 
Suddenly, instead of giving pursuit, Kamchak drew his

 
mount to a halt and behind him the rushing cavalries of the

 
Tuchuks snarled pawing to a halt, holding their ground. I saw

 
that a yellow lantern was halfway up the pole below the two

 
red lanterns.

 
"Give pursuit!" I cried.

 
"Wait!" he cried. "We are fools! Fools!"

 
I drew back the reins on my kaiila to keep the beast quiet.

 
"Listen!" said Kamchak, agonized.

 
In the distance we heard a sound like a thunder of wings

 
and then, against the three white moons of Gor, to my

 
dismay, we saw tarnsmen pass overhead, striking toward the

 
camp. There were perhaps eight hundred to a thousand of

 
them. I could hear the notes of the tarn drum above control-

 
ling the flight of the formation.

 
"We are fools!" cried Kamchak, wheeling his kaiila

 
In an instant we were hurtling through ranks of men back

 
toward the camp. When we had passed through the ranks,

 
which had remained still, those thousands of warriors simply

 
turned their kaiila, the last of them now first, and followed

 
us.

 
"Each to his own wagon and war!" cried Kamchak.

 
I saw two yellow lanterns and a red lantern on the high

 
pole.

 
I was startled by the appearance of tarnsmen on the south

 
em plains. The nearest tarn cavalries as far as I knew were

 
to be found in distant Ar.

 
Surely great Ar was not at war with the Tuchuks of the

 
southern plains.

 
They must be mercenaries!

 
Kamchak did not return to his own wagon but now raced

 
his kaiila, followed by a hundred men, toward the high

 
ground on which stood the standard of the four bosk horns;

 
on which stood the huge wagon of Kutaituchik, called Ubar

 
of the Tuchuks.

        
Among the wagons the tarnsmen would have found only

        
slaves, women and children, but not a wagon had been

        
burned or looted.,

        
We heard a new thunder of wings and looking overhead

        
saw the tarnsmen, like a black storm, drum beating and tarns

        
screaming, streak by overhead.

        
A few arrows from those who followed us looped weakly

        
up after them, falling then among the wagons.

        
The sewn, painted boskhides that had covered the domed

        
framework over the vast wagon of Kutaituchik hung slashed

        
and rent from the joined "em-wood poles of the framework.

        
Where they were not torn I saw that they had been pierced

        
as though a knife had been driven through them again and

        
again, only inches apart.

        
There were some fifteen or twenty guards slain, mostly by

        
arrows. They lay tumbled about, several on the dais near the

        
wagon. In one body there were six arrows.

        
Kamchak leaped from the back of his kaiila and, seizing a

        
torch from an iron rack, leaped up the stairs and entered the

        
wagon.

        
I followed him, but then stopped, startled at what I saw.

        
Literally thousands of arrows had been fired through the

        
dome into the wagon. One could not step without breaking

        
and snapping them. Near the center of the wagon, alone, his

        
head bent over, on the robe of gray boskhide, sat Kutai-

        
tuchik, perhaps fifteen or twenty arrows imbedded in his

        
body. At his right knee was the golden kanda box. I looked

        
about. The wagon had been looted, the only one that had

        
been as far as I knew.

        
Kamchak had gone to the body of Kutaituchik and sat

        
down across from it, cross-legged, and had put his head in his

        
hands.

        
I did not disturb him.

        
Some others pressed into the wagon behind us, but not

        
many, and those who did remained in the background.

        
I heard Kamchak moan. "The bask are doing as well as

        
might be expected," he said. "The quivas I will try to keep

        
them sharp. I will see that the axles of the wagons are

        
greased." Then he bent his head down and sobbed, rocking

        
back and forth.

        
Aside from his weeping I could hear only the crackle of I

        
the torch that lit the interior of the rent dome. I saw here

        
and there, among the rugs and polished wood bristling with

        
white arrows, overturned boxes, loose jewels scattered, torn

robes and tapestries. I did not see the golden sphere. If it had

been there, it was now gone.

At last Kamchak stood up.

He turned to face me. I could still see tears in his eyes.

"He was once a great warrior," he said.

I nodded.

Kamchak looked about himself, and picked up one of the

arrows and snapped it.

"Turians are responsible for this," he said.

"Saphrar?" I asked.