Nomads of Gor (47 page)

"Surely," said Kamchak, "for who could hire tarnsmen but

Saphrar of Turia or arrange for the diversion that drew

fools to the edge of the herds."

I was silent.

"There was a golden sphere," said Kamchak. "It was that

which he wanted."

I said nothing.

"Like yourself, Tart Cabot," added Kamchak.

I was startled.

"Why else," asked he, "would you have come to the

Wagon Peoples?"

I did not respond. I could not.

"Yes," I said, "it is true I want it for Priest-Kings. It is

important to them."

"It is worthless," said Kamchak.

"Not to Priest-Kings," I said.

Kamchak shook his head. "No, Tart Cabot," said he, "the

golden sphere is worthless."

The Tuchuk then looked around himself, sadly, and then

again gazed on the sitting, bent-over figure of Kutaituchik.

Suddenly tears seemed to burst from Kamchak's eyes and

his fists were clenched. "He was a great man!" cried Kam-

chak. "Once he was a great man."

I nodded. I knew Kutaituchik, of course, only as the huge,

somnolent mass of man who sat cross-legged on a robe of

gray boskhide, his eyes dreaming.

Suddenly Kamchak cried out in rage and seized up the

golden kanda box and hurled it away.

 
"There will now have to be a new Ubar of the Tuchuks," I

said, softly.

Kamchak turned and faced me. "No," he said.

"Kutaituchik," I said, "is dead."

Kamchak regarded me evenly. "Kutaituchik," he said,

b 'divas not Ubar of the Tuchuks."

       
"I don't understand," I said.

       
"He was called Ubar of the Tuchuks," said Kamchak, "but

       
he was not Ubar."

       
"How can this be?" I asked.

       
"We Tuchuks are not such fools as Turians would be-

       
lieve," said Kamchak. "It was for such a night as this that

       
Kutaituchik waited in the Wagon of the Ubar."

       
I shook my head in wonder.

       
"He wanted it this way," said Kamchak. "He would have it

       
no other." Kamchak wiped his arm across his eyes. "He said

       
it was now all he was good for, for this and for nothing

       
else."

       
It was a brilliant strategy.

       
"Then the true Ubar of the Tuchuks is not slain," I said.

       
"No," said Kamchak.

       
"Who knows who the Ubar truly is?" I asked.

       
"The Warriors know," said Kamchak. "The warriors."

       
"Who is Ubar of the Tuchuks?" I asked.

       
"I am," said Kamchak.

 
Turia, to some extent, now lay under sedge, though the

 
Tuchuks alone could not adequately invest the city. The other

 
Wagon Peoples regarded the problem of the slaying of Kutai-

 
tuchik and the despoiling of his wagon as one best left to the

 
resources of the people of the four bask. It did not

 
concern, in their opinion, the Kassars, the Kataii or the

 
Paravaci. There had been Kassars who had wanted to fight

 
and some Kataii, but the calm heads of the Paravaci had

 
convinced them that the difficulty lay between Turia and the

 
Tuchuks, not Turia and the Wagon Peoples generally. In-

 
deed, envoys had flown on tarnback to the Kassars, Kataii

 
and Paravaci, assuring them of Turia's lack of hostile inten-

 
tions towards them, envoys accompanied by rich gifts.

 
The cavalries of the Tuchuks, however, managed to

 
maintain a reasonably effective blockade of land routes to

 
Turia. Four times masses of tharlarion cavalry had charged

 
forth from the city but each time the Hundreds withdrew

 
before them until the charge had been enveloped in the

 
swirling kaiila, and then its riders were brought down swiftly

 
by the flashing arrows of the Tuchuks, riding in closely, al-

 
most to lance range and firing again and again until striking

 
home.

 
Several times also, hosts of tharlarion had attempted to

 
protect caravans leaving the city, or advanced to meet sched-

 
uled caravans approaching Turia, but each time in spite of

 
this support, the swift, harrying, determined riders of the

 
Tuchuks had forced the caravans to turn back, or man by

       
man, beast by beast, left them scattered across pasangs of

       
prairie.

       
The mercenary tarnsmen of Turia were most feared by the

       
Tuchuks, for such could, with relative impunity, fire upon

       
them from the safety of their soaring height, but even this

       
dread weapon of Turia could not, by itself, drive the Tuchuks

    
   
from the surrounding plains. In the field the Tuchuks would

       
counter the tarnsmen by breaking open the Hundreds into

       
scattered Tens and presenting only erratic, swiftly moving

       
targets; it is difficult to strike a rider or beast at a distance

       
from tarnback when he is well aware of you and ready to

       
evade your missile; did the tarnsman ap-

       
proach too closely, then he himself and his mount were

       
exposed to the return fire of the Tuchuks, in which case of

       
proximity, the Tuchuk could use his small bow to fierce

       
advantage. The archery of tarnsmen, of course, is most

       
effective against massed infantry or clusters of the ponderous

       
tharlarion. Also, perhaps not unimportantly, many of Turia's

       
mercenary tarnsmen found themselves engaged in the time-

       
consuming, distasteful task of supplying the city from distant

       
points, often bringing food and arrow wood from as far away

       
as the valleys of the eastern Cartius. I presume that the

       
mercenaries, being tarnsmen a proud, headstrong breed of

       
men made the Turians pay highly for the supplies they

       
carried, the indignities of bearing burdens being lessened

       
somewhat by the compensating weight of golden tarn disks.

       
There was no problem of water in the city, incidentally, for

       
Turia's waters are supplied by deep, tile-lined wells, some of

       
them hundreds of feet deep; there are also siege reservoirs,

       
Bled with the melted snows of the winter, the rains of the

       
spring.

       
Kamchak, on kaiilaback, would sit in fury regarding the

       
distant, white walls of Turia. He could not prevent the

       
supplying of the city by air. He lacked siege engines, and the

       
men, and the skills, of the northern cities. He stood as a

       
nomad, in his way baffled at the walls raised against him.

       
"I wonder," I said, "why the tarnsmen have not struck at

       
the wagons with fire arrows why they do not attack the

       
bask themselves, slaying them from the air, forcing you to

       
withdraw to protect the beasts."

       
It seemed to be a simple, elementary strategy. There was,

       
after all, no place on the prairies to hide the wagons or the

       
bask, and tarnsmen could easily reach them anywhere within

       
a radius of several hundred pasangs.

 
'`They are mercenaries," growled Kamchak.

 
"I do not understand your meaning," I said.

 
"We have paid them not to burn the wagons nor slay the

 
bosk," said he.

 
`'They are being paid by both sides?" I asked.

 
"Of course," said Kamchak, irritably.

 
For some reason this angered me, though, naturally, I was

 
pleased that the wagons and boss; were yet safe. I suppose I

 
was angered because I myself was a tarnsman, and it seemed

 
somehow improper for warriors astride the mighty tarns to

 
barter their favors indiscriminately for gold to either side.

 
"But," said Kamchak, "I think in the end Saphrar of Turia

 
will meet their price and the wagons will be fired and the

 
bask slain" He gritted his teeth. "He has not yet met it,"

 
said Kamchak, "because we have not yet harmed him nor

 
made him feel our presence."

 
I nodded.

 
"We will withdraw," said Kamchak. He turned to a subor-

 
dinate. "Let the wagons be gathered," he said, "and the bosk

 
turned from Turia."

 
"You are giving up?" I asked.

 
Kamchak's eyes briefly gleamed. Then he smiled. "Of

 
course," he said.

 
I shrugged.

 
I knew that I myself must somehow enter Turia, for in

 
Turia now lay the golden sphere. I must somehow attempt to

 
seize it and return it to the Sardar. Was it not for this

 
purpose that I had come to the Wagon Peoples? I cursed the

 
fact that I had waited so long even to the time of the Omen

 
Taking for thereby had I lost the opportunity to try for the

 
sphere myself in the wagon of Kutaituchik. Now, to my

 
chagrin, the sphere lay not in a Tuchuk wagon on the open

 
prairie but, presumably, in the House of Saphrar, a merchant

 
stronghold, behind the high, white walls of Turia.

 
I did not speak to Kamchak of my intention, for I was

 
confident that he would have, and quite properly, objected to

 
so foolish a mission, and perhaps even have attempted to

 
prevent my leaving the camp.

 
Yet l did not know the city. I could not see how I might

 
enter. I did not know how I might even attempt to succeed in

 
so dangerous a task as that which I had set myself.

 
The afternoon among the wagons was a busy one, for they